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Saturday, December 18, 2004

BAUAW NEWSLETTER-SATURDAY, DEC. 18, 2004

posted 1:46 PM 0 comments

Friday, December 17, 2004

BAUAW NEWSLETTER-THURSDAY-FRIDAY, DEC. 16-17, 2004

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STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!
ALL OUT JANUARY 20TH, 5:00 P.M., CIVIC CENTER, S.F.

************BREAKING NEWS**************

According to the A.N.S.W.E.R. Washington, DC news conference
covered live on CSPAN this morning, the U.S. government is not
allowing antiwar/anti-Bush protestors onto Pennsylvania Ave.
along the inauguration route.

A.N.S.W.E.R. reported, there are three types of tickets available
for the inauguration, Group A, is for personally invited guests;
Group B, is for contributors to the Bush campaign (for both of
these groups a list is carefully checked before tickets are sold;)
tickets for Group C, for the general public, are not available.
None. They are simply not sold.

The Government, in a stalling move, has not denied permits to
ANSWER for space for counter demonstrators, rather they are
delaying as long as possible with the knowledge that the longer
the permits are denied, the harder it will be for people to make
arrangements to come to DC to protest. If and when permits
are officially denied, A.N.S.W.E.R. declared they would challenge
the government legally as they did in the last presidential
inauguration "celebration."

We have a constitutional right to protest the inauguration.
BAUAW encourages all to show up in DC and come to Pennsylvania
Avenue with your signs and banners and express your opposition
to Bush and to the War.

We demand, along with A.N.S.W.E.R., equal access along the rout
for all. We have a right to protest our government or any of its
official representatives. Nothing gives the government the right
to disallow legal and peaceful protest. We say all out to
Washington, DC if you can make it.

If you can't go to DC, come out Jan. 20, 5pm, Civic Center, SF. in
solidarity with all protestors in Washington and everywhere who
oppose this war.

We are encouraging everyone to participate somehow by wearing
buttons and signs at work, at school and on the bus; hold banners
at freeway entrances, and crowded shopping areas etc. on
Jan. 20. Students should hold rallies and march to the Civic Center.

Come to our next meeting and pick a place to flyer or table
for Jan. 20 or hold a sign during the day, on Jan. 20 if you can.

NEXT BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR MEETING:

SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 11AM
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(NEAR 16TH STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO)

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The only moral virtue of war is that it compels the capitalist system
to look itself in the face and admit it is a fraud.
HELEN KELLER, "The Menace of Militarism."

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Where you can still see the "must-see" film, WMD: Weapons of
Mass Deception.

This film is being downplayed by the mass media. It must have
something to do with the searing criticism of that very media that
is the content of the film. Go and see it.

WMD will play in the following theatres in the
Bay Area on FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2004:

San Francisco, CA
Landmark Opera Plaza Cinema
601 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 267-4893

Berkeley, CA (currently playing)
The Oaks Theater
1875 Solano Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94707
(510) 526-1836

Orinda, CA
Orinda Theater
2 Orinda Theater Square
Orinda, CA 94563
(925) 254-906

Richard Castro
Outreach & Special Distribution
Cinema Libre Studio
818.349.8822 Ph.
818.349.9922 Fax
www.cinemalibrestudio.com

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Hey Peace Activists...
Sorry for the massive crossposting, but I had to share this with you.
In case anyone needed a reminder as to why we are doing this,
please take a moment to watch Ian Rhett'"(Didn't know I was) UnAmerican"
http://unamerican.haightfreetv.com/unamerican.56m041011.swf

It's wonderful.
Charles Shaw

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

Newtopia Magazine

www.newtopiamagazine.net

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1) Holiday Benefit Sale
at the Middle East Children's Alliance
Saturday, December 18th, 10 AM to 6 PM at
901 Parker Street, Berkeley (corner of 7th and Parker)

2) HUMOR: Iraqi leader to be announced at Jan. 16 Golden Globe Awards

3) Cuba, Venezuela Defy U.S. and Announce
Their Own Plan To Create A FairTrade
Alternative to FTAA!
----- Original Message -----
From: < nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com >
" Castro, Chavez Defy US Trade Pact "

4) New Gallup Poll Raises Questions About Media Focus on 'Values'
By E&P Staff
NEW YORK
Published: December 14, 2004 10:00 AM ET
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content
_id=1000736658

5) War Funding Request May Hit $100 Billion
By Bryan Bender
WASHINGTON
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Boston Globe
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1215-03.htm

6) Details of Marines Mistreating
Prisoners in Iraq Are Revealed
By Richard A. Serrano
WASHINGTON
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1215-01.htm

7) Eskimos Seek to Recast Global Warming
as a Rights Issue
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
December 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/international/americas/15climate.html?oref
=login&oref=login

8) The Thought Police - Cops Investigate Anti-American Statements
of 11-Year-Old
The Washington Post reports two police officers recently
visited the home of an 11-year-old and questioned his parents
for three hours about anti-American comments their son made in
school The student had refused to participate in a Veterans Day
exercise and criticized the Marines. The school claimed he had
said, "I wish all Americans were dead and that American soldiers
should die." The Police questioned his parents about their views
on Sept. 11, the military and if they knew any foreigners who
criticized US policy. They also inquired whether the parents might
be teaching "anti-American values" at home. The mother, Pamela
Allbaugh, told the Washington Post "It was intimidating.
I told them it's like a George Orwell novel, that it felt like
they were the thought police." She went on to say "If someone
would have asked me five years ago if this was something my
government would do, I would have said never."
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/16/1444215

9) World War 3 Report, issue 93, December 2003
http://www.ww3report.com/93.html#palestine6
Remote-control Machine Guns to Be Mounted on the Wall

10) Mark your calendar: Saturday, December 18, 6:00-8:00
(18th & CASTRO)

11) Chuck D keynotes "State of the Black Youth" convention
By Diane Bukowski
DETROIT
The Michigan Citizen
http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=73&twindow=Defaul
t&mad=No&sdetail=1308&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restat
us=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=

12) Israeli Army Raid Into Gaza Kills 5 Palestinians
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters)
Fri Dec 17, 2004 08:29 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7125113&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

13) Hungry and homeless ranks swell in US cities
By Rick Kelly
World Socialist Web Site
www.wsws.org
17 December 2004
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/dec2004/hung-d17.shtml

14) Joma Sison issued this statement in the wake of the deaths
of over 1000 people due to typhoon-related mudslides and
the government's request for 600 U.S. Marines to engage
in "relief operations" near areas controlled by the NPA
and National Democratic Front of the Philippines. --dp
PS. CARHRIHL is an important human rights declaration signed
by the Philippine government and the NDFP.
Press Statement
16 December 2004
CARHRIHL DOES NOT ALLOW US COMBAT TROOPS TO INTRUDE
INTO PHILIPPINE--GRP OR NDFP--TERRITORY
UNDER PRETEXT OF RELIEF OPERATIONS
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines

15) On Sunday December, 12, 2004, an Israeli sniper in Khan
Younis refugee camp killed Rana Syiam, 7 years old, while
she was sitting at home, eating supper with her family.
The Israeli army gave no explanation for the attack.

16) COMMUNITY SPEAK OUT FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
Sat, Dec. 18th, 1:00 pm
24th & Mission St. (24th St. BART), San Francisco
Call to Action for Immigrant Rights:

17) NEWS & COMMENTARY: Soldier has himself shot to avoid
returning to Iraq

18) Days of Protest Jan. 20 Inauguration Day and
Jan.22, 32nd Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade:

19) Guard Reports Serious Drop in Enlistment
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
December 17, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/politics/17reserves.html?oref=login

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1) Holiday Benefit Sale
at the Middle East Children's Alliance
Saturday, December 18th, 10 AM to 6 PM at
901 Parker Street, Berkeley (corner of 7th and Parker)

The subject of this email is Project Censored's #1 story for 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1118425,00.html

In reality, every very "tax reform" since President Kennedy, federal,
state, and local governments have been transfering taxes from the
rich and to the poor, the working class, and small businesses. This
process has been bipartisan and even occurred during the last
Presidential Election. The overwhelming majority of us are being
robbed by the government and deprived of essential services at
the same time.

FYI: The following is from the "PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION"
to the Media Monopoly: With a New Preface on the Internet and
Telecommunications Cartels, by Ben H. Bagdikian. (2000) Beacon
Press, 25 Beacon St., Boston Mass 02108-2892:

"AS THE UNITED STATES ENTERS the twenty-first century, power
over the American mass media is flowing to the top with such
devouring speed that it exceeds even the accelerated consolidations
of the last twenty years. For the first time in U.S. history, the country's
most widespread news, commentary, and daily entertainment
are controlled by six firms that are among the world's largest
corporations, two of them foreign.

"Even with the dramatic entry of the Internet and the cyber world
with their uncounted hundreds of new firms, the controlling handful
of American and foreign corporations now exceed in their size and
communications power anything the world has seen before. Their
intricate global interlocks create the force of an international cartel.

"There are pernicious consequences. While excessive bigness itself
is cause for economic anxieties, the worst problems are political
and social. The country's largest media giants have achieved alarming
success in writing the media laws and regulations in favor of their
own corporations and against the interests of the general public.
Their concentrated power permits them to become a larger factor
than ever before in socializing each generation with entertainment
models of behavior and personal values.

"The impact on the national political agenda has been devastating,
For years, the mainstream news has over dramatized its reporting
of congressional and White House debate on the national debt and
deficit beyond their intrinsic importance. Politicians raised the issue,
but it was seized upon and overblown by the major media--
media that politicians use as a bellwether on what issues will
get them the most public attention and partisan advantage.
During these crucial years, the American economy was undergoing
an astonishing phenomenon that the mainstream news left largely
unreported or actually glamorized in its infrequent references: the
largest transfer of the national wealth in American history from
a majority of the population to a small percentage of the country's
wealthiest families."

http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/1.html
Wealth Inequality in 21st Century Threatens Economy and
Democracy

MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, May 2003, Vol. 24, No. 5
Title: "The Wealth Divide" (An interview with Edward Wolff)
Author: Robert Weissman
BUZZFLASH, March 26 and 29, 2004
Title: "A Buzzflash Interview, Parts I & II" (with David Cay Johnston)
Author: Buzzflash Staff
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/1.html
LONDON GUARDIAN, October 4, 2003
Title: "Every third person will be a slum dweller within 30 years, UN agency
warns"
Author: John Vidal
MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, July/August, 2003
Title: "Grotesque Inequality"
Author: Robert Weissman
Faculty Evaluators: Greg Storino, Phil Beard Ph.D.
Student Researchers: Caitlyn Pardue, David Sonnenberg, Sita Khalsa

THE DOMESTIC TREND
In the late 1700s, issues of fairness and
equality were topics of great debate-
equality under the law, equality of opportunity,
etc. Considered by the framers of the
Constitution to be one of the most
important aspects of a democratic
system, the word "equality" is featured
prominently throughout the document.
In the 200+ years since, most
industrialized nations have succeeded
in decreasing the gap between rich and poor.

However, since the late 1970s wealth
inequality, while stabilizing or increasing
slightly in other industrialized nations,
has increased sharply and dramatically
in the United States. While it is no secret
that such a trend is taking place, it is rare
to see a TV news program announce that
the top 1% of the U.S. population now owns
about a third of the wealth in the country.
Discussion of this trend takes place, for
the most part, behind closed doors.

During the short boom of the late 1990s,
conservative analysts asserted that, yes,
the gap between rich and poor was growing,
but that incomes for the poor were still
increasing over previous levels. Today most
economists, regardless of their political
persuasion, agree that the data over the
last 25 to 30 years is unequivocal. The
top 5% is capturing an increasingly greater
portion of the pie while the bottom 95% is
clearly losing ground, and the highly touted
American middle class is fast disappearing.
According to economic journalist, David
Cay Johnston, author of "Perfectly Legal,"
this trend is not the result of some naturally
occurring, social Darwinist "survival of the
fittest." It is the product of legislative policies
carefully crafted and lobbied for by
corporations and the super-rich over
the past 25 years.

New tax shelters in the 1980s shifted
the tax burden off capital and onto labor.
As tax shelters rose, the amount of federal
revenue coming from corporations fell
(from 35% during the Eisenhower years
to 10% in 2002). During the deregulation
wave of the '80s and the '90s, members
of Congress passed legislation (often
without reading it) that deregulated
much of the financial industry. These
laws took away, for example, the powerful
incentives for accountants to behave with
integrity or for companies to put away
a reasonable amount in pension plans
for their employees-resulting in the well
-publicized (too late) scandals involving
Enron, Global Crossing, and others.

THE GLOBAL IMPACT

As always, America's economic trends
have a global footprint-and this time,
it is a crater. Today the top 400 income
earners in the U.S. make as much in
a year as the entire population of the
20 poorest countries in Africa (over
300 million people). But in America,
national leaders and mainstream media
tell us that the only way out of our own
economic hole is through increasing
and endless growth-fueled by the
resources of other countries.

A series of reports released in 2003 by
the UN and other global economy
analysis groups warn that further increases
in the imbalance in wealth throughout the
world will have catastrophic effects if left
unchecked. UN-habitat reports that unless
governments work to control the current
unprecedented spread in urban growth,
a third of the world's population will be
slum dwellers within 30 years. Currently,
almost one-sixth of the world's population
lives in slum-like conditions. The UN warns
that unplanned, unsanitary settlements
threaten both political and fiscal stability
within third world countries, where urban
slums are growing faster than expected. The
balance of poverty is shifting quickly from
rural to urban areas as the world's population
moves from the countryside to the city.

As rich countries, strip poorer countries of
their natural resources in an attempt to re-
stabilize their own, the people of poor countries
become increasingly desperate. This deteriorating
situation, besides pressuring rich countries
to allow increased immigration, further
exacerbates already stretched political
tensions and threatens global political
and economic security.

UN economists blame "free-trade" practices
and the neo-liberal policies of international
lending institutions like the IMF and WTO,
and the industrialized countries that lead
them, for much of the damage caused to
Third World countries over the past 20 years.
Many of these policies are now being
implemented in the U.S., allowing for an
acceleration of wealth consolidation. And
even the IMF has issued a report warning
the U.S. about the consequences for its
appetite for excess and overspending.

In developing countries, the concentration
of key industries profitable to foreign investors
requires that people move to cities while forced
privatization of public services strip them of the
ability to become stable or move up financially
once they arrive. Meanwhile, the strict repayment
schedules mandated by the global institutions
make it virtually impossible for poor countries
to move out from under their burden of debt.
"In a form of colonialisation that is probably
more stringent than the original, many developing
countries have become suppliers of raw commodities
to the world, and fall further and further behind,"
says one UN analyst. World economists conclude
that if enough of the world's nations reach
a point of economic failure, such a situation
could collapse the entire global economy.

For further information on this story, please
check out the following excellent websites:
www.inequality.org

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/income.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1118425,00.html
David Cay Johnston interview also found on
Democracy Now!, May 18, 2004.

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2) HUMOR: Iraqi leader to be announced at Jan. 16 Golden Globe Awards

[The Borowitz Report scooped other
media sources Wednesday with its
announcement that the new president
of Iraq will be chosen by the Hollywood
Foreign Press Association and announced
Jan. 16 at the 62nd annual awards
ceremony. -- Secretary of State Donald
Rumsfeld said he foresaw criticism,
but commented: "You choose a new Iraqi
president with the awards ceremony you
have, not the awards ceremony you might
want." -- Thanks to Karen Havnaer
for sending this piece. --Mark]

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/1913/

The Borowitz Report

HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION TO
CHOOSE NEW IRAQI PRESIDENT

** Awards Ceremony to Replace January Elections **

Borowitz Report
December 15, 2004

http://www.borowitzreport.com/default.asp

With prospects for IraqÂs January 30
elections appearing increasingly dim, the
White House announced today that the
new president of Iraq would be chosen by
the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,
best known for organizing the
star-studded Golden Globe Awards.

Under an unorthodox arrangement, the
new Iraqi leader will be announced two
weeks earlier than scheduled, on January
16, at the 62nd Annual Golden Globe
Awards in Hollywood.

ÂBy allowing the Hollywood Foreign
Press Association to choose IraqÂs new
leader, we will accomplish the most
important thing: sticking to our
arbitrary January deadline,Â said
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Mr. Rumsfeld added that handing over
authority to the Hollywood Foreign Press
Association was the most practical way
to choose a new Iraqi president in a
timely fashion, since the security
situation in Hollywood is Âconsiderably
betterÂ than that in Iraq.

And while the credibility of the Golden
Globes has come into question in
recent years, Mr. Rumsfeld argued, Â
You choose a new Iraqi president with the
awards ceremony you have, not the
awards ceremony you might want.

The Golden Globes decision could
spell trouble for interim Iraqi president
Ghazi al-Yawar, who now faces a
crowded field of Hollywood favorites including
Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Buddy Schlantz, a veteran Hollywood
talent agent, said that Mr. al-Yawar must
begin aggressively courting the members
of the Hollywood Foreign Press
Association if he expects to prevail: Â
If I were al-Yawar, IÂd start ordering
the fruit baskets now.

Elsewhere, Bernard KerikÂs nanny resigned
today, saying that she wanted to
spend less time with his family.

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3) Cuba, Venezuela Defy U.S. and Announce
Their Own Plan To Create A FairTrade
Alternative to FTAA!
----- Original Message -----
From: < nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com >
" Castro, Chavez Defy US Trade Pact "

Agencia Cubana de Noticias (AIN)
http://www.ain.cubaweb.cu

Cuba and Venezuela will Support
Alternative Initiative to the FTAA

Havana, Dec 14 (AIN) Presidents Fidel Castro Ruz,
of Cuba, and Hugo Chavez FrÃas, of Venezuela,
signed a joint declaration and an accord on Tuesday
in Havana to implement the Bolivarian Alternative
of the Americas.

The joint declaration strongly rejects the content
and intentions of the Free Trade Zone of the
Americas (FTAA), considered the clearest
_expression of the imperialist desires to dominate
the Latin American region.

With the recent accord both governments expand
and modify their Comprehensive Bilateral
Cooperation Agreement, signed on October 30,
2000.

They also take concrete steps towards integration
of the Bolivarian Initiative for The Americas,
known as ALBA by its Spanish acronyms and
which is an alternative project to the FTAA.

The document stipulates that both nations will
draw up a strategic plan that guarantees the most
beneficial productive complementation on the
basis of rationality, the optimum use of advantages
existing in both countries, the saving of resources,
and others. Both nations will also exchange
locally-developed integral technology packages
for mutual benefit.

Presidents Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez also
agreed to subscribing a Reciprocal Credit
Accord, the development of a two-way balanced
trade and joint cultural initiatives. According to
the document, Venezuela and Cuba are
committed to undertake a series of actions
including the immediate lifting of any kind of
non-tariff barrier on all imports in both ways.

In the context of Tuesday's agreement, Havana
offers 2,000 scholarships annually to
Venezuelan youths to take higher education
courses in the fields of interest of Caracas,
which will transfer technology in the energy
sector.

AFP via al Jazeera - Dec 15, 2004
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/70FAE354-7832-4AC8-A714-604F65F6C78E.
htm

Castro, Chavez Defy US Trade
Pact

Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez have announced an
alternative trade bloc to the one proposed by
the US for a free-trade area of the Americas.

The alternative was conceived as "a battle
fought with the same rules and regulations as
those imposed by the [US] empire to divide
the people," Castro said on Tuesday.

Naming the new pact the Bolivarian Alternative
for the Americas (ALBA), the presidents said it
would eliminate trade barriers and tax obstacles,
provide incentives for investment, increase
banking relations and tourism cooperation.

Venezuela promised financing for Cuban
industrial and infrastructure projects, while
Cuba agreed to pay a minimum price of $27
per barrel of Venezuelan oil, as part of the
accord "to apply the Bolivarian Alternative
for the Americas".

FTAA dead

Before the signing of the agreement, Castro
and Chavez addressed a rally in Havana
where both presidents declared the
US-proposed Latin American Free Trade
Zone dead.

"It is an alternative to the perverse FTAA,
which they have been trying to impose on
us for years," Chavez said. "FTAA is dead."

Chavez also accused Washington of pursuing
imperialist intentions in free trade talks with
Andean countries.

Venezuela is one of the biggest suppliers
of crude oil to the US, but their relations
have been strained by disputes between
Chavez and the White House.

Washington has expressed concern over
Chavez's close ties to Castro since Chavez
won the presidency in 1998. And US
President George Bush says the FTAA is
the solution to the region's deepening
poverty.

Chavez visit

Chavez is on a two-day visit to
commemorate his first encounter in Havana
with Castro 10 years ago when he was an
army officer recently released from prison
for leading a failed coup.

At the time, Castro proclaimed him
Venezuela's future leader.

Venezuela currently provides Cuba with
53,000 barrels of oil a day at preferential
prices, while Cuba has 13,000 doctors in
Venezuela, is helping the country stamp
out illiteracy and has treated thousands
of Venezuelans in its hospitals. -AFP

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Carlos Rovira - "Carlito"

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4) New Gallup Poll Raises Questions About Media Focus on 'Values'
By E&P Staff
NEW YORK
Published: December 14, 2004 10:00 AM ET
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content
_id=1000736658

NEW YORK In the aftermath of the Nov. 2 election, the press and
various political partisans jumped on exit polls that seemed to
suggest "moral values" was the top issue in voters' minds as they
re-elected President George W. Bush. Some analysts have questioned
that notion, but a new nationwide Gallup Poll, released Tuesday
morning, could deal a death blow to the whole idea.

Asked what they consider "the most important problem facing this
country today" the issue of values was tied for fourth place with
unemployment/jobs, with only one in ten of the Gallup sample
choosing it. Far ahead, with 23%, was the war in Iraq, followed by
terrorism and the economy in general, both at 12%, only then
followed by unemployment and values.

The modest vote for values is all the more surprising because it
was broadly define to include a wide range of concerns including
"ethics," "moral," "religious/family decline," "dishonesty," and
"lack of integrity."

This 10% total could also be compared to the 29% who named
some aspect of the economy as the top issue, along with the
35% who mentioned Iraq or terrorism.

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

5) War Funding Request May Hit $100 Billion
By Bryan Bender
WASHINGTON
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Boston Globe
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1215-03.htm

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration plans to ask for between
$80 billion and $100 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan next year, rather than the $70 billion to $75 billion
the White House privately told members of Congress before the
election, according to Pentagon and White House officials.

Administration officials said yesterday they have not concluded
how much money they will request in a "supplemental" spending
package that is scheduled to go to Congress in January.

"There's work going on inside the department to understand
what's needed, and there's work going on with the Office of
Management and Budget," the Defense Department's chief
spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, told reporters yesterday.

But some analysts and government officials said the request is
expected to run as high as $100 billion, bringing the total cost
of operations in Iraq alone to well over $200 billion since the
March 2003 invasion.

Earlier this fall, members of Congress said the Defense Department
told them in private briefings the supplemental package would be
between $70 billion and $75 billion. The budget request will be
higher, sources said, because of the greater number of soldiers --
temporarily boosted to 150,000 -- needed to provide security
around the time of the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections, and the loss of
equipment due to the vigorous insurgency there.

In June, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated
that the 2005 supplemental to be submitted this January for
Iraq and Afghanistan would be between $55 billion and $60 billion.

The January supplemental will be the third special budget request
to cover the military costs of Iraq. The administration asked for
$55.8 billion in April 2003 and $71.8 billion in November 2003.
In May of this year, Congress added $25 billion in war costs to
the fiscal 2005 defense budget. In total, $152.6 billion in military
funding for Iraq has been provided through the end of this year.

Those statistics do not include emergency money to support the
20,000 US troops in Afghanistan, which brings the total bill to
$162.3 billion.

In addition, the military has been spending more than was
approved for 2004, in anticipation of a fresh infusion of funds
in early 2005.

"They ran out of the 2004 budget a month early [and] had to
borrow [from] 2005," said John Pike, a defense specialist at the
military think tank GlobalSecurity.org, a military think tank in
Alexandria, Va. "They're already starting to suggest that the
2005 budget is going to be $100 billion for one year alone."

The Iraq operation, he said, has "been running over a billion
a week thus far. I think we're probably getting up to $2 billion
a week fairly soon."

Few analysts expect the Iraq mission to be wrapped up in
a year, and many question why the Bush administration is
continuing to budget its war costs through supplementals
-- usually reserved for one-time, emergency expenses --
rather than include them in the annual budget request that
is sent to Capitol Hill every February.

Democrats and some fiscally conservative Republicans
believe the administration is trying to hide the effects of
rising war costs on the federal deficit, thereby justifying
President Bush's calls for making some tax cuts permanent
and spending more on education and other domestic priorities.

Although war costs ultimately get added to the deficit, keeping
them off the annual budget creates a false picture of the
government's commitments at a time when Congress is making
funding decisions, critics said.

Brian Reidl, an economist with the conservative-leaning Heritage
Foundation, said the Iraq funding should be put in the defense
budget, because the Pentagon knows it will need money to pay
for the operation. Leaving it out masks the true size of the
deficit, he said.

"There's an argument to be made that [early in the year] you
don't know what you'll need" for Iraq funding, Reidl said. But
"there's no reason why you can't put in a place-holder to at
least estimate the cost."

The administration separates the Iraq funding because "it's
easier to sell the budget resolution with a smaller deficit and
a smaller spending total because Iraq is excluded," Reidl said.

Steve Kosiak, a defense budget specialist at the Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, added
that "the idea is [supplementals] are supposed to be used
when there is a surprise. This is no longer a surprise that we
are in Iraq."

The actual cost of the military operations in Iraq is higher
than any of the supplementals suggest, analysts said, because
the wartime wear and tear on people and equipment will
require expenditures long after the war ends.

A soon-to-be-completed classified study by the Government
Accountability Office requested by Democrats on the Senate
Budget Committee concludes that the cost of "resetting" the
worn-out armed forces for peacetime will require billions
more than the money needed simply to maintain combat
operations, according to congressional officials.

"They will need new training and the sense is that the longer
this thing goes on the deeper the problems get," said
a congressional staff member who has been briefed on
the GAO study.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon yesterday alerted more units to
be ready for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tens of thousands of Army soldiers from Alaska, Florida,
Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, New York, and Texas -- including
a brigade of the Army's 10th Mountain Division based at Fort
Drum in New York -- will prepare to deploy overseas by the
middle of 2005. The planned rotations, and others to be
announced in the coming weeks, would maintain a force
of 138,000 US troops in Iraq well into 2006.

However, Di Rita called the notifications "prudent planning"
and cautioned that it does not necessarily mean the United
States will need all those forces.

"It would be wrong to say that, as far as the eye can see, this
is the number," Di Rita said. "It may very well be less than this.
It may be the same amount. It may be more."

Copyright (c) 2004 the Boston Globe

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

6) Details of Marines Mistreating
Prisoners in Iraq Are Revealed
By Richard A. Serrano
WASHINGTON
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Los
Angeles Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1215-01.htm

WASHINGTON - Marines in Iraq conducted mock executions of
juvenile prisoners last year, burned and tortured other detainees
with electrical shocks, and warned a Navy corpsman they would
kill him if he treated any injured Iraqis, according to military
documents made public Tuesday.

The latest revelations of prisoner abuse cases, obtained by the
American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit against the government,
involved previously unknown incidents in which 11 Marines were
punished for abusing detainees. Military officials indicated that
they had investigated 13 other cases, but deemed them
unsubstantiated. Four investigations are pending.

Military superiors handed down sentences of up to a year in
confinement after finding Marines guilty of offenses ranging
from assault to "cruelty and mistreatment," the documents show.

The new documents are the latest in a series of reports, e-mails
and other records that the ACLU has obtained to bolster its
contention that the abuse of prisoners goes far beyond the
handful of soldiers charged with abusing detainees at the Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The photographs of naked Iraqi prisoners being tortured by
American troops at the prison shocked the world in April. The
scandal involved abuse by reservists and members of the Army
and National Guard; the latest cases elaborated for the first time
on numerous allegations of abuse by Marines.

The mistreatment occurred as early as May 2003, months before
the first allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib were recorded. And
the most recent case involving prisoner abuse by the Marines
occurred in June, two months after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU in New York,
placed responsibility for the abuse on the Pentagon. "This kind of
widespread abuse could not have taken place without a leadership
failure of the highest order," he said.

Lawrence Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said he could
not comment on the latest cases because he was unfamiliar with them.

The documents described Navy criminal investigators scrambling
to keep pace in June with an "exploding" number of abuse cases.

"Heads up," an assistant special agent in charge of the Navy's
investigative field office in the Middle East wrote to his superiors
in a 6 a.m. e-mail June 14, pleading for more investigators. "Case
load is exploding, high visibility cases are on the rise," he warned.
"We have scrubbed all of our personnel and have no other trained
personnel available to deploy."

Cases involving prisoner abuse continue to tarnish the U.S. military's
involvement in Iraq. Since the Abu Ghraib scandal, revelations have
surfaced of other detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the
prison for terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.

Authorities have charged eight prison guards for beating and
sexually humiliating prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near
Baghdad last fall. At least two prisoners at Abu Ghraib died in
custody.

In all, about three dozen prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan are
believed to have died in U.S. custody.

The cases are in various stages of investigation or prosecution.
The Pentagon confirmed this week that four soldiers were accused
of killing a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002, but charges against
three of them were dropped.

In the case that drew the stiffest punishment, a one-year prison
sentence for the Marine, a detainee at Mahmoudiya was shocked
with an electric transformer. Wires were held against his shoulders,
and "the detainee danced as he was shocked," the documents state.

The new records - which blacked out the names of soldiers - also
show that a Marine was convicted of ordering four juvenile Iraqi
looters to kneel down beside two shallow holes in Diwaniya. Then,
"a pistol was discharged to conduct a mock execution." The
Marine was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment with hard labor.

Other Marines were punished for physically abusing prisoners.
In Karbala, a Marine held a 9-millimeter pistol to the back of
a detainee's head while another Marine snapped a picture. A glass
of water then was poured on the prisoner's head, and he was
photographed with an American flag draped over his body.

Navy investigators found other allegations unsubstantiated,
including sexual abuse cases alleging that a detainee's testicles
had been squeezed and another prisoner had been sodomized
with a rifle muzzle.

Navy investigators also interviewed a group of corpsmen from
Washington state who were dispatched to Iraq last year. Two of
them spoke about being intimidated by Marines there.

One corpsman said he was cautioned not to talk to others about
prisoner abuse. "There was a lot of peer pressure to keep one's
mouth shut," he said.

Another corpsman said, "We were told not to exhaust our resources
on the Iraqis. Several Marines told me that if I provided medical
services to any Iraqi military or civilian personnel, that they
[the Marines] would kill me."

However, the corpsman later said that "there was a wounded
Iraqi POW who needed his dressings changed" and that some
Marines "actually called my attention to him to make sure he
received treatment."

He also recalled seeing Marines force detainees' heads into
the dirt, "which was a cultural insult to them," and said that
he saw a Marine striking a prisoner with an empty, 5-gallon
plastic water jug.

The records discuss the deaths of several detainees, but they
do not identify them or say how the cases were resolved.

One prisoner, who had attempted 20 escapes, reportedly died
after breaking free of his restraints and jumping from a window,
"landing on his head," the documents state. The examining Marine
officer "surmised that the detainee died from internal cranial
bleeding from the fall that was slow to kill him."

Another prisoner was "ziplocked" - a military term for being
handcuffed - and then died in custody. "Preliminary information
is that the detainee died from an apparent heart attack," the
reports state.

In other cases, there was spirited debate, in reports and e-mails,
about the corpses of prisoners. One dead Iraqi could not be found,
and an e-mail ordered, "Try to find that body; we'll exhume
if possible."

In another e-mail exchange, military officials discussed whether
autopsies should be conducted in Iraq, at military bases in
Germany or in the United States.

"Personally," responded one military officer, "I suspect that remains
should probably NOT be brought to the U.S. for legal reasons."
He did not elaborate.

Two Marines were disciplined for claiming to have done things
they didn't do. One was convicted of lying to a Las Vegas
newspaper that he "personally executed two Iraqis." He forfeited
a month's pay.

The other Marine told a military surgeon that he broke his hand
"punching an EPW [enemy prisoner of war] in the face" and told an
officer that he broke it "punching an EPW in the back of the head."
Back in the U.S., "he recanted, stating he punched the ground,"
the reports said. He lost two months' pay.

Times staff writer Mark Mazzetti contributed to this report.

(c) Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

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

7) Eskimos Seek to Recast Global Warming
as a Rights Issue
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
December 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/international/americas/15climate.html?oref
=login&oref=login

The Eskimos, or Inuit, about 155,000 seal-hunting peoples scattered
around the Arctic, plan to seek a ruling from the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights that the United States, by contributing
substantially to global warming, is threatening their existence.

The Inuit plan is part of a broader shift in the debate over human-
caused climate change evident among participants in the 10th round
of international talks taking place in Buenos Aires aimed at averting
dangerous human interference with the climate system.

Inuit leaders said they planned to announce the effort at the
climate meeting today.

Representatives of poor countries and communities - from the
Arctic fringes to the atolls of the tropics to the flanks of the Himalayas
- say they are imperiled by rising temperatures and seas through
no fault of their own. They are casting the issue as no longer simply
an environmental problem but as an assault on their basic human
rights.

The commission, an investigative arm of the Organization of
American States, has no enforcement powers. But a declaration
that the United States has violated the Inuit's rights could create
the foundation for an eventual lawsuit, either against the United
States in an international court or against American companies in
federal court, said a number of legal experts, including some
aligned with industry.

Such a petition could have decent prospects now that industrial
countries, including the United States, have concluded in recent
reports and studies that warming linked to heat-trapping
smokestack and tailpipe emissions is contributing to big
environmental changes in the Arctic, a number of experts said.

Last month, an assessment of Arctic climate change by 300
scientists for the eight countries with Arctic territory, including
the United States, concluded that "human influences" are now the
dominant factor.

Inuit representatives attending the conference said in telephone
interviews that after studying the matter for several years with
the help of environmental lawyers they would this spring begin
the lengthy process of filing a petition by collecting videotaped
statements from elders and hunters about the effects they were
experiencing from the shrinking northern icescape.

The lawyers, at EarthJustice, a nonprofit San Francisco law firm,
and the Center for International Environmental Law, in Washington,
said the Inter-American Commission, which has a record of treating
environmental degradation as a human rights matter, provides the
best chance of success. The Inuit have standing in the Organization
of American States through Canada.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the elected chairwoman of the Inuit
Circumpolar Conference, the quasi-governmental group recognized
by the United Nations as representing the Inuit, said the biggest
fear was not that warming would kill individuals but that it would
be the final blow to a sturdy but suffering culture.

"We've had to struggle as a people to keep afloat, to keep our
indigenous wisdom and traditions," she said. "We're an adaptable
people, but adaptability has its limits.

"Something is bound to give, and it's starting to give in the Arctic,
and we're giving that early warning signal to the rest of the world."

If the Inuit effort succeeds, it could lead to an eventual stream of
litigation, somewhat akin to lawsuits against tobacco companies,
legal experts said.

The two-week convention, which ends Friday, is the latest session
on two climate treaties: the 1992 framework convention on climate
change and the Kyoto Protocol, an addendum that takes effect in
February and for the first time requires most industrialized countries
to curb such emissions.

The United States has signed both pacts and is bound by the
1992 treaty, which requires no emissions cuts. But the Bush
administration opposes the mandatory Kyoto treaty, saying it
could harm the economy and unfairly excuses big developing
countries from obligations.

That situation makes the United States particularly vulnerable
to such suits, environmental lawyers said.

By embracing the first treaty and signing the second, it has
acknowledged that climate change is a problem to be avoided; but
by subsequently rejecting the Kyoto pact, the lawyers said, it has
not shown a commitment to stemming its emissions, which constitute
a fourth of the global total.

The American delegation at the Buenos Aires conference declined to
comment on Tuesday on the petition or the arguments behind it.
"Until the Inuit have presented a complaint, we are not responding
to that issue," a State Department official said. "When they do, we
will look at what they have to say, consider it and then respond."

Christopher C. Horner, a lawyer for the Cooler Heads Coalition,
an industry-financed group opposed to cutting the emissions,
said the chances of success of such lawsuits had risen lately.

From his standpoint, he said, "The planets are aligned very poorly."

Delegates who flew to the conference from the Arctic's far-flung
communities, where retreating sea ice imperils traditional seal
hunts, said they planned to meet in Buenos Aires with representatives
from small-island nations that could eventually be swamped by rising
seas, swelled by meltwater from shrinking glaciers and Arctic ice sheets.

Enele S. Sopoaga, the ambassador to the United Nations from Tuvalu,
a 15-foot-high nation of wave-pounded atolls halfway between
Australia and Hawaii, said he still saw legal efforts as a last resort.

Tuvalu had threatened to sue the United States two years ago in the
International Court of Justice, but held off for a variety of reasons.

Larry Rohter contributed reporting from Buenos Aires for this article.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

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

8) The Thought Police - Cops Investigate Anti-American Statements
of 11-Year-Old
The Washington Post reports two police officers recently
visited the home of an 11-year-old and questioned his parents
for three hours about anti-American comments their son made in
school The student had refused to participate in a Veterans Day
exercise and criticized the Marines. The school claimed he had
said, "I wish all Americans were dead and that American soldiers
should die." The Police questioned his parents about their views
on Sept. 11, the military and if they knew any foreigners who
criticized US policy. They also inquired whether the parents might
be teaching "anti-American values" at home. The mother, Pamela
Allbaugh, told the Washington Post "It was intimidating.
I told them it's like a George Orwell novel, that it felt like
they were the thought police." She went on to say "If someone
would have asked me five years ago if this was something my
government would do, I would have said never."
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/16/1444215

Va. Boy's Defiant Words Draw Police Response
Investigators Visit Home After Student Allegedly Wishes
Harm on Americans
By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 15, 2004; Page B01
Original Washington Post story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64726-2004Dec14.html?sub=AR

When the two plainclothes Loudoun County sheriff's investigators
showed up on her Leesburg doorstep, Pamela Albaugh got nervous.
But when they told her why they were there, she got angry:
A complaint had been filed alleging that her 11-year old son
had made "anti-American and violent" statements in school.

She was aware of an incident at Belmont Ridge Middle School in
which her son, Yishai Asido, was assigned to write a letter to U.S.
Marines and responded, according to his teacher, by saying, "I wish
all Americans were dead and that American soldiers should die."
Yishai and Albaugh deny that the boy wished his countrymen dead.

Albaugh, a U.S. citizen, and her husband, an Israeli citizen who
manages a Leesburg moving company, say the investigators' visit
and the school's response were a paranoid overreaction in
a charged post-9/11 environment. But law enforcement officials
say the terrorist attacks and the Columbine school shootings
require them to consider whether children who make threats
might post a danger to their classmates. The case illustrates the
balancing act that schools and law enforcement must find between
the free speech of minors and community safety.

Albaugh described her son as a rambunctious student who has long
opposed armies of any kind. He refused the Veterans Day assignment
and told his teacher that the Marines "might as well die, as much
as I care." Whatever was said, the words had been the source of anguished
conferences, phone calls and, ultimately, a day of in-school suspension.

Albaugh thought the whole thing was resolved in school until
Investigators Robert LeBlanc and Kelly Poland showed up last
week. What followed, she said, was two hours of polite but intense
and personal questioning.

They asked how she felt about 9/11 and the military. They asked
whether she knows any foreigners who have trouble with American
policy. They mentioned a German friend who had been staying with
the family and asked whether the friend sympathized with the Taliban.
They also inquired whether she might be teaching her children "anti-
American values," she said.

Toward the end of the conversation, Albaugh's husband, Alon Asido,
arrived home. Asido said the pair then spent another hour talking
to him, mostly about his life in Israel and his more than four years
in an elite combat unit there.

Before the investigators left, one deputy said their "concerns had
been put to rest," Albaugh said.

"It was intimidating," she said. "I told them it's like a George Orwell
novel, that it felt like they were the thought police. If someone
would have asked me five years ago if this was something my
government would do, I would have said never."

Loudoun County Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson confirmed that
investigators visited the house. "Whenever there is a complaint
that a child in a school is using language that is threatening or with
violent overtones, we have an obligation to look into it," he said.
"We can't ignore something like that and have something tragic
happen down the road that we could have prevented."

Simpson declined to comment on details of the complaint or the
kinds of questions investigators asked. "If you're looking at what
[the school] said he said, I have to think you'd see where we came
up with those questions," he said.

A schools spokesman declined to comment, other than to release,
at Albaugh's request, a one-page letter from Yishai's file that
explained his suspension.

His parents said the boy's words were those of a confused adolescent,
whose views of the world are still being formed. They believe that
authorities were called partly because he has a foreign-sounding
name and accented English from years of living abroad. The family
lived in India, Europe and Israel before moving to the United States
in 2000. The couple have four children, with both U.S. and Israeli
citizenship, enrolled in Loudoun schools.

Albaugh said that Yishai is not violent and that the school could
have used the classroom incident as a "teachable moment," helping
him learn to say what he was feeling in a less offensive manner.

Instead, Yishai said he has learned that it is not worth challenging
authority. "At the end of the day, you lose," he said, adding: "All
of these freedoms and things they're supposed to uphold, they
bash them."

The Columbine shootings, in which a teacher and 12 students
were killed by two other students in Colorado in 1999, has
changed the way schools view violent words uttered by their
students, said Ronald D. Stephens, executive director of the
National School Safety Center. In this case, he noted, no one
was arrested, no charges were filed and the case was closed.

"Sometimes the questions might be somewhat uncomfortable.
But the final outcome was that [the investigators] got there and
realized there was no 'there' there," he said. "We should give
credit where credit is due."

Georgetown law professor David Cole said Yishai's statement
in class is protected by the Constitution.

"There's no indication from the student making an anti-American
statement that violence to the school would follow," he said.
"The FBI and government officials should be investigating real
terrorists, not children who criticize the United States."

Charles Shaw
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
Newtopia Magazine
www.newtopiamagazine.net

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9) World War 3 Report, issue 93, December 2003
http://www.ww3report.com/93.html#palestine6
Remote-control Machine Guns to Be Mounted on the Wall

According to Haaretz reporter Amira Hass, a Sept. 21 [2003] article
on the Israeli paper Yediot Ahronoth's Web site, Ynet, states that
"the separation fence to be built in the Gilboa region will include
remote-control machine guns that will be operated by female
soldiers from their command posts and will shoot at those
suspected of being terrorists." According to Ynet's reporter, the
system is be installed in the coming months in the mountainous
Gilboa region, along the path of the "Separation Wall." The army's
purpose in installing the system is to compensate for the small
amount of troops and the difficulties of moving in the area--"and
to shoot at terrorists who try to cross the fence." In a concession
to humanitarian considerations, rather than making the guns fire
automatically at anything that moves they will be fired "by the
female soldier who manages the lookout post and has been
trained for this."

Hass adds: "The report did not say how she would be trained to
tell whether the figure who appears on her video screen is
a terrorist or an innocent man." (Ha'aretz, Sept. 24) There is
no explanation why the soldiers used will be female, but perhaps
the Israeli army considers it a combat role that would be safe
enough for a woman soldier. (Ha'aretz, Sept. 24) (David Bloom)

7. Remote-control Helicopter Stolen
Industrial espionage is believed to be the explanation for the
theft of a state-of-the-art remote-control pilotless helicoter
under developoment by an Israeli company. The unit was stolen
from Steadicopter's Kefar Maccabi plant, after it had finished
it's final test flights. The BBC notes that Israel has "long been
a world leader in developing pilotless reconnaissance aircraft
and its Pioneer drone is currently in service with US forces in
Iraq." (BBC, Nov. 12) (David Bloom)

8. Next: Remote-control Bulldozers
The fearsome armor-plated D-9 Israeli army bulldozer, used
to demolish Palestinian buildings and orchards as well as
international activists, is being modified to be operated by
remote control, a move the army insists will "save lives." An
unnamed Israeli officer was quoted by the Israel Technion I
nstitute of Technology, which designed the remote-control
version, as saying, "today the bulldozer drivers are exposed
to great danger when they knock down buildings that have
militants hiding in them." Palestinian spokesmen Saeb Erakat
denounced the move. "The whole idea is despicable," said Erekat.
"If an unmanned bulldozer is used, human life is in much
greater danger." As of the Oct. 31 press time of this BBC
report, the robot dozer was to go "into service in the next
few weeks. " (BBC, Oct. 31)

According to the Israeli Committee of Housing Demolitions
(ICAHD), 8,000 Palestinian houses have been destroyed by
the Israeli occupation forces since 1967. (ICHAD:figure as
of Spring, 2002)

The D-9 bulldozer is a product of the US-based Catepillar
Corporation. (See also:
http://www.sustaincampaign.org/cat_actionkit.html) (David Bloom)

- Modern "war" is state terrorism directed against civilians.

- The purpose of u.s. actions toward Iraq over the last
14 years (2 horrific illegal bombing invasions, and 12
years of illegal, immoral sanctions) is to destroy Iraq as
a nation, the fulfillment of the neo-con dream of "ending
nations" that defy usrael. Forget what bush, klinton and
others say, forget stated intentions, just look at what they
do, and what they have done.

- If my men could think, they would not fight.
- Napoleon

- The most outlandish conspiracy theory of them all (and
the most widely accepted): 19 hijackers from a third world
terrorist group armed with boxcutters forced 3 planes into
3 of the nation's most important and symbolic structures
with no assistance from US government / intelligence insiders.
-http://www.oilempire.us/conspiracy.html

- It's too late for religions to fight over market share.
Adopting a particular religion is not the way. It's no good
for us to "become" Jews, or Christians, or Buddhists. Rather,
we must be like Jesus, without necessarily being a Christian,
be like Buddha, without necessarily being a Buddhist. In order
to do this, we need to study these religions a little, not use
them for political ends..

- paraphrase of Robert Thurman (author of Anger) being
interviewed by Chris Welch
on Living Room, KPFA-FM Radio, 11-18-04

Daniel Stone
justice_freedom@earthlink.net

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

10) Mark your calendar: Saturday, December 18, 6:00-8:00
(18th & CASTRO)

As anyone with a pulse knows, BADlands owner Les Natali has
been veeeeery NAUGHTY this year. (THE CITY HUMAN RIGHTS
COMMISSION HAS RECEIVED A TON OF COMPLAINTS ABOUT
HIS BAD BEHAVIOR.)

SO, this Saturday at 6PM, 18th & And Castro for All are TAKING
ACTION FOR KINDNESS! After all, it's not very *nice* to violate
city and state civil rights laws, ignore human rights investigations, etc.

It is very nice, though, that on Saturday along with Grinch-spotting,
And Castro For All will launch its new anti-discrimination hotline .
We hope it's one gift that keeps on giving.

Wear your Santa Hat, your favorite red outfit or elf shoes, and bring
along your ho-ho-hos.

Meet at Harvey Milk Plaza at 6:00 PM -Call 415.850.8580 if you're
late and need to find us.

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11) Chuck D keynotes "State of the Black Youth" convention
By Diane Bukowski
DETROIT
The Michigan Citizen
http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=73&twindow=Defaul
t&mad=No&sdetail=1308&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restat
us=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=

DETROIT - Chuck D of the seminal rap group Public Enemy blasted
the U.S. entertainment industry for perverting hip-hop music and
culture during his keynote address Nov. 19 at the Third Annual
State of the Black Youth in the New Millennium convention.

Held at Wayne State University's General Lectures auditorium by
the National Black Operations Business Association, the convention
drew hundreds of high-school and college youth.

"Hip hop is not drug culture, gun culture, thug culture or dumb culture,"
Chuck D said. "It comes out of the legacy and musicianship of Black
people. It's an expression of our soul in vocalization. But the industry
has substituted the style of a people for the soul of a people."

The musician noted that the hip-hop phenomenon has established
roots worldwide, including a thriving community in Brazil that has
remained true to the original purpose of the genre. He said that
community refused to have Snoop Dog and Ja Rule perform there,
because they did not "represent the people."

Chuck D also condemned the Bush administration and the prison-
industrial complex in the United States.

"The only gangsters that get away with anything are the gangsters
in government," he said. "There are no Black gangsters."

Noting that the same corporations are purchasing prisons and
cemeteries, he said the only options being given Black youth are
to go to prison or to war.

"If they cared about rehabilitation in prison, they would make
computers available there. Let three brothers in prison have
laptops, and they'll be running their lives and the world," he said.

Rico Hoye, ranked the number one light heavyweight boxer in
the country, struck a similar chord, talking about the 10 years
he spent in Michigan prisons after being sentenced at 16 for
second-degree murder.

"I watched the cells in adult prison filling up with our youth,"
Hoye said, "and they were getting younger and younger, 13
and 14 years old, going in and never going home, or going
home and coming back again."

Hoye said he got the opportunity to rewrite his life from the
political education he received from the "positive brothers" he
met while incarcerated. He called on the community to address
conditions inside the prison, including the need to reinstitute
college-level education there, and to provide support, including
jobs for ex-prisoners coming home.

"It's hard to get a job," he said. "I'm on TV, but I'm still putting
in job applications and still getting turned down."

Karinda Washington, a candidate for the Detroit City Council,
called on young Black women to develop themselves, and to
allow themselves the opportunity to develop deep, mutually
respectful relationships rather than engaging in casual sex.

"If you're not whole within yourself, Black woman, he cannot
make you whole," she said. "Create opportunities for courtship.
There are some good, qualified Black men available here in
the city of Detroit."

NBOBA president Mohammed Luwemba echoed Washington's
plea for wholesome relationships.

"The state of the women is the state of the race," he said.
"If women are not respected and protected, then the men
cannot be respected and protected."

He announced a new NBOBA initiative, Operation Race
Restoration, aimed at creating positive, dedicated young
men and women who will devote themselves to confronting
and overthrowing the Bush regime.

"They get up every morning at the crack of dawn with one
thing on their mind, 100-percent world domination," Luwemba
said. "But we will get up every single morning with nothing but
overthrowing these people on our minds."

E-mail: dbukowski@michigancitizen.com

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

12) Israeli Army Raid Into Gaza Kills 5 Palestinians
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters)
Fri Dec 17, 2004 08:29 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7125113&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli tanks and troops raided southern Gaza on
Friday in response to increasing Palestinian mortar attacks, killing
at least five Palestinians and prompting hundreds to flee their homes,
witnesses and medics said.

At least five other Palestinians were trapped in an arms- smuggling
tunnel that collapsed as it was being dug under an army-controlled
security strip between the Gaza town of Rafah and nearby Egypt,
witnesses from Rafah said.

Palestinian ambulances and rescue crews given clearance by Israeli
forces rushed to the scene. Palestinian officials said earlier accounts
that two men had been extracted from the tunnel were incorrect,
citing poor communications in the area.

"We are still digging, we cannot yet determine their fate," a security
official said by telephone from Rafah.

Israeli troops have raided Rafah many times to battle militants waging
a four-year-old revolt, killing hundreds of Palestinians and leaving
thousands homeless from demolitions of homes suspected of hiding
tunnels.

At least five Palestinians were killed and 22 wounded in Friday's army
raid into Khan Younis, Gaza's second largest city and a hotbed of
militants who frequently pepper nearby Jewish settlements with
mortar and rocket fire.

Four of the dead were militants and the other a civilian, local medics
and witnesses said.

NEW CHANCE FOR PEACE?

The incursion unfolded hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
told a high-profile security conference that there was a unique chance
for Middle East peacemaking with new Palestinian leaders following
the death of Yasser Arafat.

Sharon said he was ready to coordinate a planned pullout from Gaza
with a moderate post-Arafat leader, likely to be Mahmoud Abbas.
He is favored to win a Jan. 9 presidential election and advocates
a halt to violence and fresh talks.

About 600 people, many carrying small children in freezing pre-dawn
darkness, fled homes in neighborhoods bearing the brunt of the raid
and were given shelter in a U.N.-run school.

They said a number of homes were demolished.

"What peace and what pullout? We only feel fear and cold. I do not
know even if my house was still standing or if it was demolished,"
Kamilia Attobji, 36, a mother of 10, told Reuters.

Israeli forces say buildings they raze in such raids are used as cover
for militants targeting settlements. Residents uprooted by demolitions
complain of collective punishment.

An Israeli army commander in the Khan Younis area told Reuters that
the raid would continue as long as was required.

"We will carry on and I can say we will do all we can to reduce the
threat to the local communities who should not have to live like this,
" Lieutenant Colonel Dotan, who declined to give his surname, said in
reference to mortar barrages.

The incursion was only the second serious army sweep into
Palestinian territory since a short period of calm following
Arafat's death on Nov. 11.

Rocket and mortar fire by militants has since restarted with some
30 attacks this month. A Thai farm labourer was killed and 17
settlers wounded in one attack.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis)

(c) Reuters 2004

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

13) Hungry and homeless ranks swell in US cities
By Rick Kelly
World Socialist Web Site
www.wsws.org
17 December 2004
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/dec2004/hung-d17.shtml

The demand for emergency shelter and food in US cities has risen
significantly over the past year, straining a tattered social safety net
beyond the breaking point, according to a report released Tuesday
by the US Conference of Mayors. The "Hunger and Homeless Survey"
covering America's 27 largest cities showed that requests for food
aid increased by 14 percent in 2004, while the demand for shelter
rose by 6 percent.

The most striking conclusion of the survey was that working families
now constitute one of the largest groups in need of regular emergency
assistance. Contrary to the image portrayed by the mass media, those
going homeless and hungry in America are not just the "down and
out," the alcohol or drug-dependent, mentally ill or people otherwise
unable to earn a living. They include many people who are working,
but earn so little that they cannot make ends meet.

Chronic poverty afflicts wide sections of the working class,
particularly those employed in the predominantly low-paid and
casual service industry. Of all adults requesting food assistance,
34 percent were employed. Children and their parents accounted
for fifty-six percent of all recipients of food aid. Families now make
up 40 percent of the total homeless population in the United States.

These stark figures are another indication of the economic and
social catastrophe confronting millions of Americans. While Bush
boasted of an economic recovery during the presidential campaign,
the reality is that only a small layer at the top has seen significant
income gains in 2004. For millions of Americans, mass layoffs and
the spiraling cost of living-particularly food, housing and fuel
expenses-have made it increasingly difficult to get by.

"Working poor, unemployed, multi-generational, single and traditional
parent families have to make difficult decisions as whether to pay for
utilities, rent, medicine, gas, health or car insurance," city authorities
in Louisville reported. "Food is being pushed further down the list
of priorities."

"The time when households used food assistance facilities primarily
for emergency situations is long over," noted officials in Philadelphia.
"At least 86 percent of the people receiving assistance from the food
cupboards return every month. The network is used to sustain families
every month so they can use their limited resources on rent, heat,
medical bills, and transportation."

The report included a number of case studies. In Phoenix, the
Robertsons, a married couple and their three children, became
homeless after the father lost his job at a telemarketing company.
He struggled to develop his own landscaping business, while his
wife worked day labor jobs. "The family has no money and is having
trouble accessing services because they do not have appropriate
documentation, and do not have the money to pay for new birth
certificates... Currently the Robertsons are on a waiting list of
a large family shelter, but will need appropriate identification to
enter the program."

In St. Paul, a 24-year-old woman, Tara, her husband Martin, and
their three young children became homeless after she lost her job
as a home healthcare worker, which paid $6.20 per hour. The family
was forced to move into a shelter run by the local Catholic church.

Assistance for the poor remains grossly inadequate. Charity
organizations are overwhelmed by the demand, and both the
federal and state governments have gutted the budgets for social
programs over a number of years.

The survey reported that in the past 12 months, one in five requests
for food assistance went unmet-nearly a 50-percent increase over
the previous year. Twenty-three percent of requests for emergency
shelter were turned down, and this rejection rate rose to 32 percent
for homeless families.

In many cities, the shortfalls are far higher than these averages. In
New Orleans, 66 percent of food requests were rejected, and in San
Francisco 50 percent. In Los Angeles, 66 percent of all shelter requests
made by families were turned down, and in Boston 50 percent.

The report provides a glimpse into some of the innumerable
hardships and indignities suffered by those who seek assistance.
More than half of the responding cities routinely forced homeless
families to be broken up in order to be accommodated in emergency
shelter.

Food pantries forced to cut portions

Two-thirds of all cities surveyed reported that emergency food
assistance facilities, in a desperate attempt to meet demand, were
forced to cut back on the quantity of food they provided. Restrictions
are also enforced on the number of times people are permitted to
receive food.

Punitive government welfare cutbacks and restrictions, introduced
by both the Clinton and Bush administrations, have only added to
the hardship. "According to the Boston Medical Center Pediatric
Emergency Department," the report noted, "25 percent of homeless
families interviewed in their clinic had been cut off of welfare benefits
within the past year (compared to 11 percent of non-homeless families)
due to failure to comply with behavioral or procedural requirements,
such as not being able to provide a mailing address to the welfare office."

The swelling of the ranks of the working poor has seen a parallel
increase in the demand for subsidized housing. Requests for such
housing by low-income families and individuals increased in 68
percent in the surveyed cities. Applicants for public housing now
wait an average of 20 months before they receive any assistance.
Fifty-nine percent of the surveyed cities are refusing to accept any
new applications because they already have long waiting lists.

City authorities reported that they expect no improvement in hunger
and homelessness in 2005. Eighty-eight percent said that they
anticipate another increase in the demand for food assistance, and
92 percent expect a rise in requests for emergency shelter.

The Conference of Mayors made a somewhat bizarre attempt to put
a positive spin on the survey's findings. Bill Purcell, mayor of Nashville
and chair of the conference's task force on hunger and homelessness,
admitted that the "bad news is that the increased demand [for
assistance] is all over the country." He then added: "The good news
here is that the increase in demand overall has slowed somewhat."

In other words, the "good news" is that things are getting worse but-
at least for the moment- at a slower rate. Every year the survey, first
conducted 20 years ago, has registered an increase in the demand
food and shelter assistance.

Over the last year, the demand for food aid increased 17 percent,
while requests for emergency shelter rose by 13 percent. In 2003,
the demand for both food and shelter increased by 19 percent. As
the survey demonstrates, the continued growth in the numbers of
working people who are unable to earn enough to house and feed
themselves has already overwhelmed the limited assistance programs
that exist in America.

To focus on a decline in the rate at which hunger and homelessness
is growing only confirms that the government and the corporate-
controlled two-party system are unwilling and unable to take any
action to alleviate the suffering.

What emerges from the survey is a devastating portrait of the human
cost of American society's unprecedented level of social inequality.
While the wealthiest strata are anticipating a lucrative new year (see
"America's super-rich look forward to a merry Christmas" ), millions
of people will spend the holiday season in desperation and destitution.

Copyright 1998-2004
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved

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

14) Joma Sison issued this statement in the wake of the deaths
of over 1000 people due to typhoon-related mudslides and
the government's request for 600 U.S. Marines to engage
in "relief operations" near areas controlled by the NPA
and National Democratic Front of the Philippines. --dp
PS. CARHRIHL is an important human rights declaration signed
by the Philippine government and the NDFP.
Press Statement
16 December 2004
CARHRIHL DOES NOT ALLOW US COMBAT TROOPS TO INTRUDE
INTO PHILIPPINE--GRP OR NDFP--TERRITORY
UNDER PRETEXT OF RELIEF OPERATIONS
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines

The entire Filipino people must condemn all pronouncements and actions of
the US government and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines
(GRP) to justify and push the entry of US combat troops in the Philippines
under such pretexts as joint military exercises, training, civic action, and
relief operations. All these are violative of the national sovereignty of
the Filipino people and territorial integrity of the Philippines.

In this regard, the GRP and Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo are betraying
the national sovereignty of the Filipino people and territorial integrity of
the Philippines by allowing US combat troops to enter the country under the
pretext of relief operations.

Civilian agencies of foreign governments can offer civilian relief personnel
and aid very properly and easily. There are also more than enough Filipinos
who can do the relief work. Why should the GRP and Romulo allow US combat
troops to enter the country under the pretext of relief operations,
provocatively show off their military weapons and vehicles and conduct
psywar and intelligence operations on Philippine territory? Is relief work
really the objective or is it to make the escalation of US military
intervention in the Philippines acceptable to the public?

According to the CPP Information Department, the New People's Army is
magnanimously not targeting the intrusive and marauding US combat troops
and is giving them the chance to get out of the country as quickly as
possible. But such magnanimity should not be linked to the wrong notion that
the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International
Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) permits US combat troops to enter the
Philippines under the pretext of relief operations.

The GRP and the US government are in the first place condemnable for
violating the national sovereignty of the Filipino people and the
territorial integrity of the Philippines. It is erroneous for anyone to
claim that CARHRIHL permits US combat troops to enter Philippine, GRP or
NDFP territory for any length of time under the guise of relief operations
and that the GRP can decide unilaterally the scope of operations and types
of arms and equipment which the US combat troops can bring for their
supposed security.

1. CARHRIHL does not allow the entry of US combat troops into the
Philippines but allows only timely limited agreements between the GRP and
NDFP as co-belligerents in a civil war to grant safe passage on certain
humanitarian grounds to the Filipino troops of one side or the other or the
International Committee of the Red Cross and other permitted civilian
agencies.

2. Under CARHRIHL, the GRP and NDFP are contracting parties on an equal
footing, with their respective political integrity. The GRP cannot
unilaterally decide the scope of operations and types of arms and
equipment of even GRP troops and police when they seek on certain
humanitarian grounds to enter the territory of the NDFP or people's
revolutionary government or contested areas.

As NDFP chief political consultant, I advice all forces and personnel of the
CPP, NDFP and NPA to study carefully the CARHRIHL and other agreements
entered into by the NDFP with the GRP and appreciate how the NDFP has
upheld revolutionary principles and made policy agreements, without leaving
any ground for capitulation or submission to GRP authority by any
revolutionary force or element. ###

THE MACAPAGAL-ARROYO REGIME SPEWS OUT LIES LIKE GOEBBELS DID

Vainly believing that by spewing out and repeating even the most outrageous
lies it can deceive the people, the Macapagal-Arroyo regime has declared the
New People's Army as the worst human rights violator and accused it of
illegal logging and causing the death of many hundreds. The same tactic was
used by Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief, who claimed that by
continuously repeating lies, the lies would ultimately be accepted as truth.

But the people cannot be deceived by the regime's lies. The experience of
the people in the countrysides and in the cities proves that it is the
regime's military and police that kill, maim and injure the people, destroy
their properties, and violate their basic human and democratic rights in
order to serve the interests of the foreign mining companies, the logging
companies, the rest of the big comprador bourgeoisie, big landlords and
bureaucrat capitalists.

The brutal massacre at Hacienda Luisita on November 16, 2004 and the summary
execution of the key witness of the massacre, Marcelino Beltran, on December
8, 2004 are stark examples of such atrocities against the people. The
Arroyo regime, including the President herself as Commander-in-Chief of the
Armed Forces of the Philippines, Secretary of Labor Patricia Sto. Tomas, the
Cojuangcos and Aquinos, the military and police officers who carried out the
massacre, these are the worst human rights violators. The killers of the
regime, such as General Jovito Palparan, are the big violators of human
rights. No amount of spewing out lies that the NPA are the worst human
rights violators can erase the truth of the bitter experience of the
people.

The records prove that the Macapagal-Arroyo regime, as did its predecessors,
approved and allowed foreign and local logging firms to denude our forests
as to cause the massive floods and landslides that have resulted in so many
deaths. This is true not only in the areas of the latest catastrophe. It
is true of so many other areas in our country. This regime and the cronies
whose logging concessions it has approved are criminally liable for all the
death and destruction they cause.

On the other hand, it is also the experience of the people in the rural
areas, wherever the New People's Army is active, that the NPA and other
revolutionary forces protect the people against logging companies, foreign
mining companies and other destroyers of the environment.

On a related matter, President Macapagal-Arroyo has hailed the recent
Supreme Court reversal of its earlier decision to declare unconstitutional
the Mining Act of 1995. This means that Financial and Technical Assistance
agreements (FTAAs) allowing foreign mining companies to plunder up to
100,000 hectares of land are to be promoted, causing not only the
displacement of numerous indigenous people but further destruction of the
environment and even more disastrous floods and landslides. This regime is
surrendering our country's economic sovereignty, promoting the unbridled
plunder of our country and in effect agreeing to the death and destruction
that results from these. It is indeed a deceitful and murderous regime. It
must be militantly opposed and isolated.

Luis G. Jalandoni
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel

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

15) On Sunday December, 12, 2004, an Israeli sniper in Khan
Younis refugee camp killed Rana Syiam, 7 years old, while
she was sitting at home, eating supper with her family.
The Israeli army gave no explanation for the attack.

[This week in Palestine: a service of the International Middle East
Media Center imemc.org, for the week of December 10 - 17, 2004]

Rana is just one of 231 Palestinians, mostly children and women,
killed in the Khan Younis refugee camp over the four years of the
current intifada.

Khan Younis camp, one of the most crowded places on earth, shares a
border with the illegal Israeli settlement of Gush Katif -- the
largest Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip. Population density in
Gaza averages 65,800 persons per square mile, compared with 1,700
people per square mile in the illegal Israeli settlements that now
control over 20% of Gaza.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, 3,478 Palestinians
have been killed since September 2000, and 28,248 have been injured.
(During the same time period, 694 Israeli civilians have been killed)
The Health and Development Information Policy Center (HDIP) reports
that 82% of the Palestinians killed by the army were civilians, 18.5%
of them under the age of 18.

84% (699) of the Palestinians killed were shot in the head and neck,
like Rana.

Rana Syiam was one of six Palestinians killed this past week. Twenty
four Palestinians were wounded, including a three year old child in
Rafah.

64 palestinians were arrested this week, 26 homes were demolished,
major checkpoints were closed at least six times, and Palestinian
towns and villages were invaded at least 38 times by the Israeli
military.

Some examples of this week's violence:

Nine Palestinian schoolchildren aged 8-12 were wounded as an army tank
shell landed close to their classroom at Tareq Ben Ziad School in Khan
Yunis on Sunday morning.

In Nablus on Sunday, armed settlers barred residents from picking
their olives, hurled stones at the residents and their cars, and
forced them out of their fields. The Israeli army did not intervene
in the settler's unprovoked attacks on the Palestinian farmers.

Ateyya Mustafa Yassin, 15, was hospitalized Wednesday after being
severely beaten by Israeli soldiers in Nablus. Soldiers claim that
Yassin was among a group of youth who were throwing stones at armored
military vehicles.

In the West Bank town of Jayyous, 117 olive trees were uprooted on
Saturday December 11. Residents of the town managed to obtain, with
the help of their lawyer, a plan by Israeli contractors to build a new
Israeli settlement on their land -- in violation of the "road map to
peace", in which Israel pledged 'disengagement' from the Palestinian
territories. All Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land are
against the Geneva Convention, which Israel agreed to in 1951.

Sharif Omar of Jayyous village is one of those whose homes are
scheduled to be demolished and land confiscated for the building of
this new settlement:

If the wall is completed as planned by Israel, Palestinians will be
left with ten percent of their original land, divided into a number of
isolated islands with complete Israeli control of entrance and exit.
This week the Wall's construction continued throughout the West Bank.
On Tuesday a non-violent protest against the Wall in Bil'in, northwest
of Jerusalem met with a violent military reaction. Four people were
wounded, and Seven peace activists were arrested, including 4
Israelis, when they tried to intervene in the beating of a child by
Israeli soldiers.

in southern gaza on sunday, 4 israeli soldiers and 2 palestinian
resistance fighters were killed in an attack on an israeli army base.

Hamas and a group known as the Fatah Hawks claimed responsibility for
Sunday's attack. The Fatah group said it was avenging the
assassination" of Yasir Arafat, referring to rumours widespread among
Palestinians that their veteran leader was poisoned.

Fuad Kokali, a local secretary general of the fatah party, comments on
the attack:
<20>

The Israeli army responded to Sunday's bombing by firing six missiles
into various populated areas in Gaza and conducting daily incursions
throughout the week with Apache helicopters, tanks and armored
vehicles, killing at least four people.

The attack came just two days after the Israeli army attempted to
assassinate a Palestinian resistance leader by shooting a missile at
his car.

Abu Samhadana, who survived the attack, stated that, "Assassination
attempts, even if they succeed, won't weaken the resistance, but
will only strengthen it. We will continue fighting until we liberate
all Palestinian land,".

Meanwhile, on the Palestinian presidential campaign, jailed Fatah
leader Marwan Barghouti, the leading candidate, has dropped out of the
race.

Five candidates for the municipal elections, scheduled for December
23, have been arrested by Israeli forces and remain in jail.

Palestinian Local governing minister Jamal Shubaki this week urged the
international community to immediately intervene to end Israeli
actions that hinder the ability of Palestinians to run free and
democratic elections, including the release of these five candidates.

And palestinian administrative detainees reported that they will
boycott Israeli courts starting from December 19, until the Israeli
authorities releases all detainees whose detention period has ended.
Palestinians are routinely held without charges in administrative
detention -- the boycotting prisoners demand that they either be
charged, or released. At least 760 palestinians are currently held in
administrative detention, according to the israeli organization
b'tselem. they are among the over 5000 palestinians currently
imprisoned in Israel.

And finally, 24-year-old peace activist Brian Avery from Albuquerque,
New Mexico, petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice for a police
investigation of his shooting. Avery was shot in the face last year
by a tank mounted machine gun in Jenin while volunteering with the
International Solidarity Movement. The petition challenges the
Israeli army's account of events, which contradict the accounts of
numerous eyewitnesses, and states "the duty to investigate is part
of the rule of law."

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

16) COMMUNITY SPEAK OUT FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
Sat, Dec. 18th, 1:00 pm
24th & Mission St. (24th St. BART), San Francisco
Call to Action for Immigrant Rights:

The immigrant community has become one of the main targets inside
the country as part of the well-known Âwar at home,Â which is no
different from the war against Iraq. After the result of the elections,
immigrant communities face critical moments and should be ready
for the next four years. The racism, discrimination, hostility,
harassment, police brutality, the raids, among others, keep on growing.

Today, more than ever, all immigrant communities are ONE COMMUNITY,
that includes Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Philippines, and others, because
we all are part of the same struggle and face the same problems. LetÂs
be out on the street once more to talk about issues that concern us
and only we can solve.

Changes, historically, have not been gained because of the mercy or
sympathy of any politician, whether he or she was a Democrat or a
Republican, but because of the hard struggle people fought to gain
their rights.

Only a peopleÂs movement is capable of stopping this brutal war
against our communities.

ThatÂs why this Saturday December 18th we will be in the streets.
We will utilize one of our basic rights, the right to speak, and gather
in the streets to listen to each other and take action.

EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO FIGHT FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, JOIN
US ON SATURDAY! For Unity, Peace and Justice!

Sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism)
For more information or flyers to distribute please call: Silvia or
Alicia at (415) 821-6545 or Jess at the Arab-American Anti
Discrimination Committee at (415) 726-3951.

Sat, Dec. 18th, 11 am
POSTERING FOR JANUARY 20th PROTEST
Meet at ANSWER office Â 2489 Mission St,
Rm. 24 (near 21st), San Francisco

Before going to the Immigrant Rights Speak-Out, join other
activists going out in teams around San Francisco to get the
word out about the upcoming Counter-Inaugural protest on
January 20. Or come by and pick up posters and leaflets for later.

There will be no ANSWER Activist Meeting this Tuesday, Dec. 21st.
Please join us throughout the week for postering, flyering and
phonebanking to build the January 20 Counter-Inaugural Protest.
Call 415-821-6545 for more details.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR: On Tuesday, December 28, we will have
a mass mailing for Jan. 20th a potluck dinner at the ANSWER office
at 2489 Mission St, Rm 30 in San Franciso. The mailing will start at
1pm; we will eat at 6pm and continue the mailing through the evening.

To subscribe to the list, send a message to:

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

17) NEWS & COMMENTARY: Soldier has himself shot to avoid
returning to Iraq

[Marquise Roberts of the Cedarbrook section of North Philadelphia didn't
want
to go back to Iraq. -- He'd already conquered Baghdad once, and thought
that
ought to be enough. -- So he had his cousin shoot him in the leg, and then
drive him to Philadelphia's Albert Einstein Medical Center. -- But the two
men's stories didn't jibe, and when the police found out he was due to
report
back to Fort Stewart, Georgia, the next day, they grew suspicious... --
Jay
Ruskin of UFPPC looks beyond the headlines and asks: what does Marquise
Roberts's act really mean?

SOLDIER HAS HIMSELF SHOT TO AVOID RETURNING TO IRAQ
By Jay Ruskin

United for Peace of Pierce County (WA)
December 17, 2004

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/1931/

Marquise Roberts thought that seven months in the Middle East were enough
for
him.

The supply specialist's two-week leave was about to end, and he was supposed
to be back the next day at Fort Stewart, Georgia, to rejoin the Army's 3rd
Infantry Division. With the 3rd Roberts had fought his way to Baghdad in
the
2003 invasion of Iraq, and then returned to the U.S. in the summer of 2003.
Now he was scheduled to be redeployed to Iraq once again.

It seemed to Marquise Roberts that conquering Iraq once ought to suffice.
So
around 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, a cloudy day with temperatures hovering in the
low 30s, police say he had his wife's cousin shoot him in the leg with a
.22-caliber pistol, then headed for the Albert Einstein Medical Center not
far
away.

Unfortunately, the two men didn't get their stories straight. The four news
reports below tell the sorry tale. Roberts has now been charged by police
with filing a false report, and the cousin has been charged with aggravated
assault, the Associated Press reported.[1]

Local press gave more details. The *Philadelphia Daily News* identified the
place where the incident was supposed to have occurred: Somerville Avenue
near
15th in Olney.[2] The *Philadelphia Inquirer*, which gave the most
detailed
account of the plan, said that Marquise Roberts lived on Williams Ave. in
the
Cedarbrook section of Philadelphia.[3]

Williams Avenue is near the City of Brotherly Love's northern border --
"heavily black North Philadelphia" near "the neighborhood where the various
*Rockys* were filmed and the original Philadelphia cheesesteaks are sold,"
and
where about one quarter of the population lives in poverty (*Almanac of
American Politics 2004*, pp. 1363-66).

None of the news reports really raised the issue of why Marquise Roberts was
in the army in the first place. But critics like Charles Rangel (D-NY 15th)
see people like Roberts as victims of an "economic draft," whereby
low-income
people with few job prospects sign up for military service.

Activist Sam Anderson puts it this way: "For Black, Latino, Native
American,
Asian and poor white youth, there is a powerful economic draft that forces
our
children into the military with promises of discounted higher education,
benefits, job skills development and traveling the world. The shrinking
civilian job market with sweatshop labor conditions helps create this
economic
draft." (http://www.sfbayview.com/092904/draftingeveryone092904.shtml)

Roberts's act also comes at a time of growing restiveness and resistance
within the ranks of the military.

The *Los Angeles Times* summarized the other forms of resistance and made
clear the fact that Robert's self-inflicted wound is the expression of a
widespread sentiment:

"More than 5,000 soldiers have been charged with desertion from bases in the
U.S. and overseas since the invasion of Iraq in early 2003. . . . Two
soldiers
have received publicity for resisting their return to duty in Iraq while on
home leave. . . . More than 800 former soldiers have failed to comply with
orders to report for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army reported in
October. Those ex-soldiers [were] called back to duty under the military's
Individual Ready Reserve program."[4]

As for Marquise Roberts, at least his plan was not a total failure, since he
won't be returning to Iraq. The *L.A. Times* reported he's sitting in a
Philadelphia jail, "held under $50,000 bail pending a court hearing."

1.

Nation/World

SOLDIER CHARGED WITH HAVING HIMSELF SHOT
By Randy Pennell

Associated Press
December 17, 2004

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Sol
dier%20Charged

PHILADELPHIA -- A soldier who allegedly had a relative shoot him so he
wouldn't have to return to Iraq could face military discipline.

Army Spc. Marquise J. Roberts, of Hinesville, Ga., suffered a minor wound
Tuesday to his left leg from a .22-caliber pistol, police said. He was
treated at a hospital, then arrested after he and a relative allegedly
admitted making up a story about the shooting.

After giving differing accounts, "they just broke down and confessed that
they
concocted the whole story so he didn't have to go back to the war," police
Lt.
James Clark said Thursday.

Police charged Roberts with filing a false report and charged a cousin,
Roland
Fuller, with aggravated assault and other charges.

Roberts could face military discipline if the charges prove true, said Lt.
Col. Cliff Kent, a spokesman for the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, but the
civilian case probably would proceed first.

Roberts, who was visiting family in Philadelphia, initially claimed he was
shot during an attempted robbery, but Fuller had said the incident occurred
at
another location during an argument, according to Clark.

Roberts, 23, was on a two-week leave from the 3rd Infantry Division, which
led
the assault on Baghdad in 2003. He had been scheduled to return this week
to
Fort Stewart, Ga., and to return to Iraq within the next few months. The
division has been home since the summer of 2003.

Police said Roberts, a supply specialist who had spent seven months in Iraq,
was distraught about having to return to combat duty and wanted to stay with
his family.

2.

City and Local News

COPS: SOLDIER HAD PAL SHOOT HIM TO AVOID IRAQ
By Gloria Campisi

Philadelphia Daily News
December 17, 2004

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/10437106.htm

A soldier who police said was distraught at having to return to Iraq
allegedly
had another man shoot him in the leg so he wouldn't have to go back.

Army Spc. Marquise J. Roberts, 23, stationed at Fort Stewart, Ga., was in
Philadelphia on a two-week leave from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division,
which
led the assault on Baghdad in 2003, according to an Army spokesman.

Lt. Col. Cliff Kent, a 3rd Infantry spokesman, said Roberts had been
scheduled
to return from leave this week. The 3rd Infantry is scheduled to return to
Iraq within the next few months.

Lt. James Clark of the Northwest Detective Division said Roberts, of
Hinesville, Ga., admitted under questioning that "he did seven months there
[Iraq] and he didn't want to go back."

Clark said Roberts and Ronald Fuller, who police identified as Roberts'
cousin, "concocted the whole story" that Roberts was shot in the left leg
when
two men tried to rob them Tuesday on Somerville Avenue near 15th in Olney.
He
was treated at Einstein Medical Center for a wound described as minor.

A woman who answered the phone at a Cedarbrook address listed to Roberts
said
Fuller was not Roberts' cousin, but that the family didn't want to make any
immediate statement. Fuller was identified as Roberts' cousin by marriage
in
a televised report.

Clark said the deception was uncovered when the two men gave different
accounts of the shooting.

Roberts was charged with filing a false police report and obstruction of
justice and Fuller with aggravated and simple assault.

--campisg@phillynews.com

3.

Local & Regional

FACING IRAQ, SOLDIER GOT HIMSELF SHOT, POLICE SAY
By Thomas J. Gibbons Jr.

** Rather than be redeployed, Marquise Roberts plotted with relatives to be
hurt in a bogus robbery, officials said. **

Philadelphia Inquirer
December 17, 2004

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/10435471.h
tm

Marquise Roberts absolutely did not want to return to Iraq, where he
previously served a seven-month Army tour, police said yesterday.

So Roberts, they said, who lives on Williams Avenue in the Cedarbrook
section
of Philadelphia, concocted a plan to have a relative shoot him during a
purported robbery.

But detectives said they unraveled the plot after Roberts, 23, went to a
city
hospital for treatment of a bullet wound to one of his legs. Now, Roberts
and
his wife's cousin are charged with a series of offenses.

In addition, Roberts missed his date Wednesday to return to Fort Stewart,
Ga.,
where he probably will be extradited to face further action.

"They are extremely interested," Philadelphia Police Lt. James Clark said
yesterday, referring to inquiries from military officials. "He didn't want
to
go back."

Police said Roberts' plan to desert the Army came to their attention about 2
p.m. Tuesday, when officers were notified that Roberts had arrived at Albert
Einstein Medical Center with a gunshot wound. Roberts told police he was
shot
while walking in the 1500 block of Somerville Avenue in Logan.

Roberts said he was walking with his wife's cousin, Roland Fuller, 28, when
they passed two men arguing.

Suddenly, Roberts said, shots rang out and he was shot in the back of the
leg.

Roberts went to the hospital for treatment and was released.

However, detectives from the Special Investigations Unit of the Northwest
Detective Division weren't through with Roberts.

They drove him to the spot where Roberts said the shooting had occurred. No
evidence of gunfire was found.

Other investigators tracked down Fuller, whose account contradicted
Roberts',
police said. Fuller told investigators the shooting occurred in the 1500
block of Duncannon Avenue, several blocks from Somerville Avenue.

Investigators later tracked down Roberts' wife, Donna Roberts, who gave yet
a
third version of events. Clark said the conflicting versions piqued
detectives' interest.

The victim and his two family members were kept separated and questioned at
length. During that time, Fuller tried to escape but was caught, police
said.

Later, a different story began to emerge.

Detectives said they discovered that Roberts was in the Army, assigned to
Fort
Stewart, and due to return there the next day.

They said they found that Roberts, his wife, and Fuller concocted a plan in
which Fuller would shoot Roberts, and all three family members would report
that that the shooting was committed by two men during a robbery.

The motive was to prevent Roberts from being redeployed to Iraq, detectives
said.

Roberts later told police he had served seven months in the war zone and did
not want to return.

Police said they recovered the gun used to shoot Roberts, who also lists an
address in Hinesville, Ga.

Fuller was charged with aggravated assault, weapons offenses, and filing a
false police report. Roberts was charged with recklessly endangering
another
person and filing a false police report.

Detectives said they were not ruling out charges against Donna Roberts.

--Contact staff writer Thomas J. Gibbons Jr. at 215-854-2642 or
tgibbons@phillynews.com.

4.

The Nation

SHOOTING ALLEGEDLY STAGED TO AVOID RETURNING TO IRAQ
By David Zucchino

** Philadelphia police say a soldier whose unit has been ordered back to the
war had his wife's cousin wound him in the leg as part of the scheme. **

Los Angeles Times
December 17, 2004

PHILADELPHIA -- A U.S. Army combat veteran on leave from a unit headed back
to
Iraq arranged for a friend to shoot him in the leg in an attempt to avoid
returning to the war zone, Philadelphia police said Thursday.

Spc. Marquise Roberts, 23, told police he had been shot Tuesday afternoon as
he walked past two men arguing on a North Philadelphia street. But police
said their investigation found that Roberts actually was shot once in the
leg
by a friend as part of a scheme to avoid returning to Iraq.

Roberts, who served seven months in Iraq during the U.S. invasion in 2003,
was
due to report back to Ft. Stewart, Ga., on Wednesday, police said. He is a
supply specialist with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized),
according to commanders at Ft. Stewart. They said Roberts, who has been in
the Army since 2001, was on a two-week holiday leave to his home in
Philadelphia.

The division, which helped topple the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad in
April 2003, has been ordered to begin heading back to Iraq next month.
Roberts had returned from Iraq in midsummer 2003.

Philadelphia Police Inspector William Colarulo said Roberts was shot by his
wife's cousin, Roland Fuller, 28, in North Philadelphia on Tuesday
afternoon.
Hospital officials called police after Roberts sought medical treatment --
standard policy for gunshot wounds, Colarulo said.

Roberts told police he heard a gunshot as he walked past the men arguing in
the street and realized he had been shot in the leg. But Fuller told
detectives that Roberts had been shot during an attempted robbery, Colarulo
said.

Detectives who searched the scene where Roberts said he was shot found no
bullet casings, blood or witnesses who recalled seeing or hearing gunshots.

"The investigation determined that he didn't want to go back to Iraq and
staged the shooting to avoid having to return," Colarulo said.

Police Lt. James Clark, who directed the investigation, said Roberts "said
he
had done seven months there and he didn't want to go back. He wanted to
stay
with his family."

Roberts was treated for the wound and handed over to police Wednesday.
Roberts and Fuller were charged with conspiracy, recklessly endangering
another person and filing a false police report. Fuller also was charged
with
aggravated assault and weapons offenses.

Roberts was shot with a handgun, police said.

Pentagon officials said they could recall no other instance in which a
soldier
on leave from Iraq or Afghanistan had been accused of deliberately harming
himself or herself to avoid returning to duty.

Of the 136,000 soldiers and Army civilians who took home leaves as of early
November, they said, only one soldier had been classified as AWOL. An Army
program entitles soldiers to two weeks at home midway through their
deployment.

More than 5,000 soldiers have been charged with desertion from bases in the
U.S. and overseas since the invasion of Iraq in early 2003, according to
Pentagon statistics.

But the number of desertions in the fiscal year that ended in September was
half the number for the fiscal year that ended the month of the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks, before troops were sent to fight in Afghanistan and
Iraq.

The military defines desertion as more than 30 consecutive days absent
without
leave.

Two soldiers have received publicity for resisting their return to duty in
Iraq while on home leave.

Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, 28, a National Guardsman from Florida, refused to
return to Iraq after home leave in October 2003. He asked to be declared a
conscientious objector.

This month, Spc. David Qualls filed a lawsuit challenging the Army's
authority
to extend his service and threatened not to return to Iraq from home leave
in
Arkansas. A federal judge denied Qualls' request to remain in the U.S.
until
his case was heard, and his lawyer said he would return to Iraq.

More than 800 former soldiers have failed to comply with orders to report
for
duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army reported in October. Those
ex-soldiers,
called back to duty under the military's Individual Ready Reserve program,
were not charged with desertion. Most had requested delays or exemptions
for
school, medical emergencies or family hardships.

In Roberts' case, his return to duty is delayed indefinitely. He was being
held under $50,000 bail pending a court hearing, police said.

Army officials said Roberts also could face punishment under the military
justice system. They said the Army normally waited until civilian courts
had
ruled before deciding whether to charge soldiers in military court.

UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545

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

18) Days of Protest Jan. 20 Inauguration Day and
Jan.22, 32nd Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade:

OK We all know at this point that January 20 is going
to be a national day of protest against the
re-crowning of the Emperor thief. Yes.
ANSWER will be having a permitted march at 5pm that
evening. It's a Thursday, unfortunately. The NLG
will prepare for break-aways, as they tend to follow
ANSWER or NION marches.

Interestingly enough, the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade
(turning 32 Jan. 22, 2004) occurs Sat. A group called
Walk for Life West Coast will be having a permitted
march through the embarcadero etc. that day. They are
pro-life. There has been a call for action for
counter protests that day. And so Jan. 21 has been
called a day of teach-ins and awareness of issues
related to abortion rights. Check out more on
Indymedia: http://sfbay.indymedia.org/womyn/
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/12/1708701.php Time to take to the streets
my friends.
In resistance,
carey

"Art begins with resistance-at the point where resistance is overcome.
No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor."-Andre
Gide

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

19) Guard Reports Serious Drop in Enlistment
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
December 17, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/politics/17reserves.html?oref=login

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - In the latest signs of strains on the military
from the war in Iraq, the Army National Guard announced on Thursday
that it had fallen 30 percent below its recruiting goals in the last two
months and would offer new incentives, including enlistment bonuses
of up to $15,000.

In addition, the head of the National Guard Bureau, Lt. Gen. H Steven
Blum, said on Thursday that he needed $20 billion to replace arms and
equipment destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan or left there for other Army
and Air Guard units to use, so that returning reservists will have enough
equipment to deal with emergencies at home.

The sharp decline in recruiting is significant because National Guard
and Army Reserve soldiers now make up nearly 40 percent of the
148,000 troops in Iraq, and are a vital source for filling the ranks,
particularly those who perform essential support tasks, like truck drivers
and military police.

General Blum said the main reason for the Army National Guard's
recruiting shortfall was a sharp reduction in the number of recruits
joining the Guard and Reserve when they leave active duty. In
peacetime the commitment means maintaining their ties to the
military with a weekend of service a month and two weeks in the
summer.

Over the last 30 years, General Blum said, the Guard has counted
on these soldiers with prior military service for about half of its
recruits. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, many of these soldiers
have been hesitant to join the Guard because of the increasing
likelihood that America's citizen-soldiers will be activated and sent
to Iraq or Afghanistan for up to 12 months. Indeed, many of the
active-duty soldiers the Army would like to enlist in the Reserves
have recently fought in Afghanistan or Iraq, and some have no
inclination to do so again.

In an effort to halt the slide, the Army National Guard this week
approved recruiting incentives that triple the enlistment bonuses
to $15,000 for soldiers with prior military experience who sign up
for six years (tax-free if soldiers enlist overseas), Guard officials
said. Bonuses for new enlistees will increased to $10,000 from
$6,000.

The Guard has already said it intends to increase the number of
recruiters to 4,100 from 2,700 over the next three months, the
first large increase since 1989.

"We're in a more difficult recruiting environment, period," General
Blum told reporters in disclosing the new figures and the new
incentives. "There's no question that when you have a sustained
ground combat operation going that the Guard's participating in,
that makes recruiting more difficult."

There are 42,000 Army National Guard soldiers serving in Iraq and
Kuwait, and 8,200 serving in Afghanistan. Since Sept. 11, General
Blum said, there have been about 100,000 Army National Guard
troops activated for duty at home or abroad at any given time.

General Blum's remarks come just a few days after the chief of the
Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, told The Dallas Morning
News that the Army Reserve recruiting was in a "precipitous decline"
that if unchecked could inspire renewed debate over the draft. General
Helmly told the newspaper that he personally opposed reviving the draft.

For the first two months of the fiscal year 2005, which started
Oct. 1, the Army Reserve has also stumbled, falling 315 recruits
short of its goal of 3,170 soldiers, a drop of 10 percent.

In November, the Guard recruited 2,902 enlistees, about 26 percent
below its target of 3,925 recruits. In October and November combined,
the Guard recruited 5,448 enlistees, nearly 30 percent below its goal
of 7,600. At full strength, the Guard has 350,000 soldiers.

In the 2004 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the Guard missed its
overall recruiting target of 56,000 soldiers by more than 5,000, the
first time it had missed its yearly goal since 1994. The active-duty
branches of the armed services all met their recruiting goals last year.

As a result, General Blum said, the Guard has lowered its reliance on
recruits with military experience to just 35 percent of its overall total
and will seek a much larger pool of recruits with no military experience.

"We are correcting, frankly, some of our recruiting themes and slogans
to reflect a reality of today," he said. "We're not talking about one
weekend a month and two weeks a year and college tuition. We're
talking about service to the nation."

General Blum expressed confidence that the nearly $300 million in
recruiting bonuses in this year's budget and the increase in the number
of recruiters would propel the Guard to meet its yearly goal but said
that probably would not happen until August or so. "I think we'll
recover," he said.

Some military personnel specialists offered a much more pessimistic
forecast and said the lower recruiting numbers were the harbingers
of tougher times to come.

"I don't think this is an aberration," said David R. Segal, a military
sociologist who directs the Center for Research on Military
Organization at the University of Maryland. "I think we're going
to see significant shortfalls in recruitment, and I think we're to
begin to see retention problems. We're also going to see increasing
concerns at the state level about how the Guard will man itself and
perform its state missions."

The Guard's woes do not end with recruiting. General Blum said the
Army National Guard needed $20 billion over the next three years
to buy additional radios, trucks, aircraft, engineering equipment
and other materiel that have been wrecked or left behind in Iraq
or Afghanistan..

"Otherwise, the Guard will be broken and not ready for the next
time it's needed, either here at home or for war," General Blum said.

A spokesman for the Florida National Guard, Lt. Col. Ron Tittle,
said Guard units in the state, which mobilized some 5,000 troops
to deal with the three hurricanes in August and September, were
already experiencing some shortages.

"It could hinder us to some degree," Colonel Tittle said. "But we
adapt and make do. We'll accomplish the mission."

Soldier Accused of Asking to Be Shot

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 16 (AP) - A soldier on leave has been accused
of having his cousin shoot him so he would not have to return to
Iraq, the police say.

The soldier, Specialist Marquise J. Roberts, 23, of Hinesville, Ga.,
suffered a minor wound to his left leg from a .22-caliber pistol on
Tuesday, the police said. Specialist Roberts was treated at a hospital,
then arrested after he and his cousin admitted having made up
a story about the shooting, the authorities said.

After giving differing accounts of the incident, "they just broke
down and confessed that they concocted the whole story so he
didn't have to go back to the war," Lt. James Clark of the Philadelphia
police department said on Thursday.

Specialist Roberts, who was visiting family members in Philadelphia,
was charged with filing a false report. His cousin, Ronald Fuller, was
charged with aggravated assault and other charges.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

posted 2:52 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

BAUAW NEWSLETTER-WEDNESDAY, DEC. 15, 2004

posted 1:05 PM 1 comments

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

BAUAW NEWSLETTER-TUESDAY, DEC. 14, 2004

posted 1:51 PM 0 comments

Monday, December 13, 2004

BAUAW NEWSLETTER-MONDAY, DEC. 13, 2004

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

STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!
ALL OUT JANUARY 20TH, 5:00 P.M., CIVIC CENTER, S.F.

NEXT BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR MEETING:

SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 11AM
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(NEAR 16TH STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO)

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

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you. Then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi

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

THIS ISSUE IS EXTRA LONG DUE TO THE SUMMARY OF THE PATRIOT
ACT II (#10) AND AN ESSAY BY BY ARUNDHATI ROY, "People vs. Empire
Only global resistance from below can counter repressive states."
(#13)

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

1) DEAD AND BURIED
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
The Sunday Herald
12 December 2004
http://www.sundayherald.com/46543

2) U.S. Military Obstructing Medical Care
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail
BAGHDAD
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
December 13, 2004

3) Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
December 13, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/politics/13info.html?oref=login

4) First Inauguration Since 9/11 Spurs Tightest Security
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
WASHINGTON
December 13, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/politics/13security.html

5) Suicide Car Bombing Kills 13 in Baghdad
By KATARINA KRATOVAC
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)
Dec 13, 11:42 AM EST
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=MSCLE&SECTION=HOME

6) Bush Regime Put On Notice - 'Cuba Is No Iraq!'
Several Million Cubans In Defense Exercise
Issue Invasion Warning To Washington.
From: Mart
VSCampaign@yahoogroups.com
http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=041212194641.rbeqjbr4.xml

7) Illness linked to area ZIP codes
SUNY Albany professor's study maps health risks and pollutants.
Corydon Ireland
Staff writer
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041209/NEWS
01/412090334/1002/NEWS

8) EMERGENCY! SPREAD THE WORD: STOP LENNAR'S BULLDOZERS!
NO DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUNTERS POINT SHIPYARD UNTIL IT'S CLEAN!
ATTEND TUESDAY'S BOARD OF SUPERVISORS MEETING! BRING A CROWD!

9) Army Doctors Scrambling, Report Says
The military medical system has been overwhelmed by the
scope and severity of injuries among troops,
a health expert writes.
By Esther Schrader
Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
December 9, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-casualties9dec09,1,72875
22.story

10) Subject: Fw: Secret Patriot Act II to give Hitler's
Powers to Bush
This Act will mean that our founding fathers will get
their wish --a constitution without the Bill of Rights!
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 09:26:08 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
From: "Bob Nichols" View Contact
Details
To: "Bob Nichols"

11) Unicef laments state of world's children
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041209.wunicef1209/BNStory/Int
ernational/
"It said Millennium Development Goals, which aim to improve
the world through human development by 2015 and were
agreed to by the UN's 191 member states in 2000, could be
achieved at an annual cost of $40-billion to $70 billion. In
comparison, world spending on military in 2003 was $956-billion."

12) U.S. Soldiers' Grilling Fields
By Tim Harper
The Toronto Star
More talk heard of desertion, disgruntlement.
`Backdoor draft' adding to worries for some troops.
Sunday 12 December 2004
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121304X.shtml

13) People vs. Empire
Only global resistance from below can counter
repressive states
By Arundhati Roy
December 7, 2004
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/print/1740/

14) Subject: HE COMMITTED SUICIDE? YEAH. RIGHT.
gary hicks wrote:
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 08:08:40 -0800 (PST)
From: gary hicks
To: newmajority announce
THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

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

1) DEAD AND BURIED
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
The Sunday Herald
12 December 2004
http://www.sundayherald.com/46543

*EYEWITNESS: Iraq's civilian body count may go officially undocumented
but the widows and the orphans know the true extent of the toll
By Dahr Jamail in Sadr City, Baghdad*

The Sadr City area of Baghdad is a sprawling slum of nearly three
million people. Predominantly Shia and the most poverty stricken area of
the capital, most residents here celebrated the fall of Saddam Hussein
and his Sunni dominated Ba'athist regime.

For it was the Shia people of Sadr, perhaps more than any other group in
Baghdad, that suffered the most under his brutal regime.

In a small, one-room house in Sadr City lives Sua'ad, a widow with eight
young children. "I can do nothing but look at my children and cry," she
says, weeping throughout our conversation. "What are children to do
without their father? No matter what I do, things will never be the same
again."

Three months ago Sua'ad's 30-year-old husband, Abdullah Rahman, was
killed after being caught in crossfire between US forces and the Mahdi
Army of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

In Sadr City - renamed from Saddam City - the economy is in ruins.
Electricity supplies are erratic and the water is so dirty that there
are constant outbreaks of cholera, Hepatitis-E and diarrhoea.

Like many neighborhoods across Iraq, Sadr has seen more than its fair
share of suffering. This the sort of place where civilian casualty
figures, while difficult to monitor, are undoubtedly high.

Last month The Lancet, the leading British medical journal, published a
report that estimated there had been some 98,000 civilian casualties in
Iraq as a result of the US-led invasion and occupation.

The report which came in the wake of another assessment carried out by
the non-governmental group Iraq Body Count (IBC) has resulted in calls
to Tony Blair from a number of former diplomats, military men and
academics to hold an inquiry into civilian deaths in Iraq. They say the
UK like the US has a duty enshrined in international law to record the
deaths - a claim Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has refuted.

"This is an estimate relying on media reports, and which we do not
regard as reliable. It includes civilian deaths at the hands of
terrorists as well as of the coalition forces," insisted Straw in a
written statement to the Commons in November.

Whatever the real truth of the figures, they do little to convey the
grief and economic impact on families like that of Sua'ad Rahman who
lose a father, husband or child.

"His last day he worked his job selling used clothing," Sua'ad said
quietly. Abdullah had come home for his break to eat with his family. He
played with his seven-year-old son, then went outside to see what was
happening when fighting broke out.

He returned shortly thereafter to tell Sua'ad he needed to go to close
his small shop. Fighter jets thundered overhead dropping bombs, and
small arms fire was audible across the streets.

"His shop is all we have," explained Sua'ad, "I asked him not to go, but
he said he would be right back."

But her husband never came back. Sua'ad's oldest child, Ahmed, is 14.
Their small house is nearly empty. Aside from infrequent hand-outs from
neighbours, they have no income.

"He was our father, and we are needing him so much," she explains
holding her arms out while a small child sits in her lap, "He was
everything in my life."

She pauses to catch her breath, but never stops weeping.

"We are living alone now. I have four children with asthma. Sometimes
they can't breathe and I can do nothing for them. All I do is stand with
them and cry. He was helping me by taking them to the hospital and
bringing the medicines, but now I am knocking on the doors of the
neighbours."

She looks outside as tears run down her cheeks.

"God will revenge the Americans for me. Now I have eight orphans, and I
am the ninth. As they make us orphans, God is going to kick them out of
our country. My husband did nothing."

Sua'ad lives in the northern section of Sadr City, an area which saw the
fiercest clashes last summer. While the US military does not keep a
count of Iraqi casualties, the office of Muqtada al-Sadr estimates that
800 people were killed in the fighting in this area last summer before a
ceasefire was reached.

The area was frequently bombed by US warplanes and helicopters. People
are still wounded from unexploded cluster bombs found in small alleys
between the cramped houses.

Across the street from Sua'ad, where crowded markets selling used
clothing and shoes on old wooden stalls clutter the sidewalks, is the
home of the Haider family.

Fifty-year-old mother, Um Haider lives with 21 other family members and
relatives in an old, three-room house which does not have a toilet.
Pools of raw sewage stand near the outer walls of the ramshackle building.

Her husband was killed in the Iran war, and her 20-year-old son, Ahmed,
was killed during recent fighting in their area. His widow is pregnant
and expecting a baby in the next month.

"He was so polite and religious, but he was not a fighter," said Um
Haider, crying as she spoke of her dead son.

The day Ahmed was killed a tank had been destroyed by the Mahdi Army.
She went outside with him to see what happened, and he was struck in the
head by shrapnel from a rocket fired at fighters from a US helicopter.

"His blood was all over me while he prayed for God to save us," she said.

While her oldest son, Ali, and his two uncles work as labourers to
support the family, Um Haider goes to her son's grave each day.

Abu Khadim, sitting nearby sipping tea, spoke of his nephew's death.
"The Americans were taking everyone from the hospital in Sadr City if
they were wounded, because they thought they were all Mahdi Army," he said.

"So we took him out of Sadr City. But the next day, he died anyway."

Ali, Ahmed's 22-year-old brother, expressed the rage held by so many
Iraqis who have lost loved ones to coalition forces. "When I grow older
I will buy a Kalashnikov and I'm going to use it to shoot the
Americans," he said.

In another small home in the area, Salam Mussa lives with the six
daughters, two sons and wife left behind by his brother Naim who was killed.

Thirty-two year-old Naim was at the nearby market when fighting broke
out between the Mahdi Army and occupation forces. He was shot by US troops.

"I make $110 per month, but it is not enough," said Salam while telling
of how the family gets by. "When the kids hear tanks outside they say
these are the people who killed their father."

Naim's mother Kussir wept as her husband recalled their dead son.

"This is the third of my kids to be killed. The Americans are savages.
They do nothing but bring injustice."

Rheem, Naim's widow, cannot stop crying either. "My children keep
looking at the pictures and remembering him too much. Zenab is the
worst. Every day she is looking at the pictures and asking me when he'll
come home."

Zenab, a four-year-old girl wearing rumpled clothes, sat nearby close to
tears. "I don't love the Americans because they shot my father. They
frighten me with their helicopters every day. I want my dad to come back
and have lunch with us again. That's all I want."

More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

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(c)2004 Dahr Jamail.
All images and text are protected by United States and international
copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the
web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link
to the DahrJamailIraq.com website. Any other use of images and
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2) U.S. Military Obstructing Medical Care
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail
BAGHDAD
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
December 13, 2004

BAGHDAD, Dec 13 (IPS) - The U.S. military has been preventing delivery
of medical care in several instances, medical staff say.

Iraqi doctors at many hospitals have reported raids by coalition forces.
Some of the more recent raids have been in Amiriyat al-Fallujah, about
10km to the east of Fallujah, the town to which U.S. forces have laid
bloody siege. Amiriyat al-Fallujah has been the source of several
reported resistance attacks on U.S. forces.

The main hospital in Amiriyat al-Fallujah was raided twice recently by
U.S. soldiers and members of the Iraqi National Guard, doctors say. "The
first time was November 29 at 5:40am, and the second time was the
following day," said a doctor at the hospital who did not want to give
his real name for fear of U.S. reprisals.

In the first raid about 150 U.S. soldiers and at least 40 members of the
Iraqi National Guard stormed the small hospital, he said.

"They were yelling loudly at everyone, both doctors and patients alike,"
the young doctor said. "They divided into groups and were all over the
hospital. They broke the gates outside, they broke the doors of the
garage, and they raided our supply room where our food and supplies are.
They broke all the interior doors of the hospital, as well as every
exterior door."

He was then interrogated about resistance fighters, he said. "The
Americans threatened to do here what they did in Fallujah if I didn't
cooperate with them," he said.

Another doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that all of the
doors of the clinics inside the hospital were kicked in. All of the
doctors, along with the security guard were handcuffed and interrogated
for several hours, he said.

The two doctors pointed to an ambulance with a shattered back window.
"When the Americans raided our hospital again last Tuesday at 7pm, they
smashed one of our ambulances," the first doctor said.

His colleague pointed to other bullet-riddled ambulances. "The Americans
have snipers all along the road between here and Fallujah," he said.
"They are shooting our ambulances if they try to go to Fallujah."

In nearby Saqlawiyah, Dr Abdulla Aziz told IPS that occupation forces
had blocked any medical supplies from entering or leaving the city.
"They won't let any of our ambulances go to help Fallujah," he said. "We
are out of supplies and they won't let anyone bring us more."

The pattern of military interference in medical work has apparently
persisted for many months. During the April siege of Fallujah, doctors
there reported similar difficulties.

"The marines have said they didn't close the hospital, but essentially
they did," said Dr. Abdul Jabbar, orthopedic surgeon at Fallujah General
Hospital. "They closed the bridge which connects us to the city, and
closed our road. The area in front of our hospital was full of their
soldiers and vehicles."

This prevented medical care reaching countless patients in desperate
need, he said. "Who knows how many of them died that we could have saved."

He too said the military had fired on civilian ambulances. They had also
fired at the clinic he had been working in since April, he said. "Some
days we couldn't leave, or even go near the door because of the snipers.
They were shooting at the front door of the clinic."

Dr. Jabbar said U.S. snipers shot and killed one of the ambulance
drivers of the clinic where he worked during the fighting.

"We were tied up and beaten despite being unarmed and having only our
medical instruments," Asma Khamis al-Muhannadi, a doctor who was present
during the U.S. and Iraqi National Guard raid on Fallujah General
Hospital told reporters later.

She said troops dragged patients from their beds and pushed them against
the wall.. "I was with a woman in labour, the umbilical cord had not yet
been cut," she said. "At that time, a U.S. soldier shouted at one of the
(Iraqi) national guards to arrest me and tie my hands while I was
helping the mother to deliver."

Other doctors spoke of their experience of the raid. "The Americans shot
out the lights in the front of our hospital, they prevented doctors from
reaching the emergency unit at the hospital, and we quickly began to run
out of supplies and much needed medication," said Dr. Ahmed, who gave
only a first name. U.S. troops prevented doctors from entering the
hospital on several occasions, he said.

Targeting hospitals or ambulances is in direct contravention of the
Fourth Geneva Convention, which strictly forbids attacks on emergency
vehicles and the impeding of medical operations during war.

At several places doctors said U.S. troops had demanded information from
medical staff about resistance fighters. "They are always coming here
and asking us if we have injured fighters," a doctor at a hospital said.

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad told IPS that routine searches of
hospitals are carried out to look for insurgents. He said it has never
been the policy of coalition forces to impede medical services in Iraq.

More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/ to subscribe
or unsubscribe to the email list.

Or, you can unsubscribe by sending an email to
iraq_dispatches-request@dahrjamailiraq.com and write unsubscribe in the
subject
or the body of the email.

(c)2004 Dahr Jamail.
All images and text are protected by United States and international
copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the
web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link
to the DahrJamailIraq.com website. Any other use of images and text
including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another website,
copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course,
feel free to forward Dahr's dispatches via email.

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3) Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
December 13, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/politics/13info.html?oref=login

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - The Pentagon is engaged in bitter, high-level
debate over how far it can and should go in managing or manipulating
information to influence opinion abroad, senior Defense Department
civilians and military officers say.

Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive techniques endorsed
for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert
propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations.

Critics of the proposals say such deceptive missions could shatter the
Pentagon's credibility, leaving the American public and a world audience
skeptical of anything the Defense Department and military say -
a repeat of the credibility gap that roiled America during the Vietnam War.

The efforts under consideration risk blurring the traditional lines
between public affairs programs in the Pentagon and military branches
- whose charters call for giving truthful information to the media and
the public - and the world of combat information campaigns or
psychological operations.

The question is whether the Pentagon and military should undertake
an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions
abroad. But in a modern world wired by satellite television and the
Internet, any misleading information and falsehoods could easily be
repeated by American news outlets.

The military has faced these tough issues before. Nearly three years
ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, under intense criticism,
closed the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, a short-lived
operation to provide news items, possibly including false ones, to
foreign journalists in an effort to influence overseas opinion.

Now, critics say, some of the proposals of that discredited office
are quietly being resurrected elsewhere in the military and in the
Pentagon.

Pentagon and military officials directly involved in the debate say
that such a secret propaganda program, for example, could include
planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents
and Web sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and
undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that
preach anti-American principles.

Some of those are in the Middle Eastern and South Asian countries
like Pakistan, still considered a haven for operatives of Al Qaeda. But
such a campaign could reach even to allied countries like Germany,
for example, where some mosques have become crucibles for Islamic
militancy and anti-Americanism.

Before the invasion of Iraq, the military's vast electronic-warfare arsenal
was used to single out certain members of Saddam Hussein's inner
circle with e-mail messages and cellphone calls in an effort to sway
them to the American cause. Arguments have been made for similar
efforts to be mounted at leadership circles in other nations where the
United States is not at war.

During the cold war, American intelligence agencies had journalists
on their payrolls or operatives posing as journalists, particularly in
Western Europe, with the aim of producing pro-American articles to
influence the populations of those countries. But officials say that no
one is considering using such tactics now.

Suspicions about disinformation programs also arose in the 1980's
when the White House was accused of using such a campaign to
destabilize Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya.

In the current debate, it is unclear how far along the other programs
are or to what extent they are being carried out because of their
largely classified nature.

Within the Pentagon, some of the military's most powerful figures
have expressed concerns at some of the steps taken that risk blurring
the traditional lines between public affairs and the world of combat
information operations.

These tensions were cast into stark relief this summer in Iraq when
Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, approved the
combining of the command's day-to-day public affairs operations
with combat psychological and information operations into a single
"strategic communications office."

In a rare expression of senior-level questions about such decisions,
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued
a memorandum warning the military's regional combat commanders
about the risks of mingling the military public affairs too closely
with information operations.

"While organizations may be inclined to create physically integrated
P.A./I.O. offices, such organizational constructs have the potential
to compromise the commander's credibility with the media and the
public," it said.

But General Myers's memorandum is not being followed, according
to officers in Iraq, largely because commanders there believe they
are safely separating the two operations and say they need all the
flexibility possible to combat the insurgency.

Indeed, senior military officials in Washington say public affairs
officers in war zones might, by choice or under pressure, issue
statements to world news media that, while having elements of truth,
are clearly devised primarily to provoke a response from the enemy.

Administration officials say they are increasingly troubled that
a nation that can so successfully market its cars and colas around
the world, even to foreigners hostile to American policies, is failing
to sell its democratic ideals, even as the insurgents they are battling
are spreading falsehoods over mass media outlets like the Arab news
satellite channel Al Jazeera.

"In the battle of perception management, where the enemy is clearly
using the media to help manage perceptions of the general public,
our job is not perception management but to counter the enemy's
perception management," said the chief Pentagon spokesman,
Lawrence Di Rita.

The battle lines in this debate have been drawn in a flurry of classified
studies, secret operational guidance statements and internal requests
from Mr. Rumsfeld. Some go to the concepts of information warfare,
and some complain about how the government's communications
are organized.

The fervent debate today is focused most directly on a secret order
signed by Mr. Rumsfeld late last year and called "Information Operations
Roadmap." The 74-page directive, which remains classified but was
described by officials who had read it, accelerated "a plan to advance
the goal of information operations as a core military competency."

Noting the complexities and risks, Mr. Rumsfeld ordered studies to
clarify the appropriate relationship between Pentagon and military
public affairs - whose job is to educate and inform the public with
accurate and timely information - and the practitioners of secret
psychological operations and information campaigns to influence,
deter or confuse adversaries.

In response, one far-reaching study conducted at the request of the
strategic plans and policy branch of the military's Joint Staff recently
produced a proposal to create a "director of central information."
The director would have responsibility for budgeting and
"authoritative control of messages" - whether public or covert -
across all the government operations that deal with national
security and foreign policy.

The study, conducted by the National Defense University, was
presented Oct. 20 to a panel of senior Pentagon officials and
military officers, including Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary
of defense for policy, whose organization set up the original
Office of Strategic Influence.

No senior officer today better represents the debate over
a changing world of military information than Brig. Gen. Mark
Kimmitt, an operational commander chosen to be the military's
senior spokesman in Iraq after major combat operations shifted
to counterinsurgency operations in the spring of 2003.

His role rankled many in the military's public affairs community
who contend that the job should have gone to someone trained
in the doctrine of Army communications and public affairs, rather
than to an officer who had spent his career in combat arms.

"This is tough business," said General Kimmitt, who now serves
as deputy director of plans for the American military command
in the Middle East. "Are we trying to inform? Yes. Do we offer
perspective? Yes. Do we offer military judgment? Yes. Must we
tell the truth to stay credible? Yes. Is there a battlefield value
in deceiving the enemy? Yes. Do we intentionally deceive the
American people? No."

The rub, General Kimmitt said, is operating among those
sometimes conflicting principles.

"There is a gray area," he said. "Tactical and operational deception
are proper and legal on the battlefield." But "in a worldwide media
environment," he asked, "how do you prevent that deception from
spilling out from the battlefield and inadvertently deceiving the
American people?"

Mr. Di Rita said the scope of the issue had changed in recent years.
"We have a unique challenge in this department," he said, "because
four-star military officers are the face of the United States abroad
in ways that are almost unprecedented since the end of World War II."

He added, "Communication is becoming a capability that combatant
commanders have to factor in to the kinds of operations they are
doing."

Much of the Pentagon's work in this new area falls under a relatively
unknown field called Defense Support for Public Diplomacy. This
new phrase is used to describe the Pentagon's work in government-wide
efforts to communicate with foreign audiences but that is separate
from support for generals in the field.

At the Pentagon, that effort is managed by Ryan Henry, Mr. Feith's
principal deputy for policy.

"With the pace of technology and such, and with the nature of the
global war on terrorism, information has become much more a part
of strategic victory, and to a certain extent tactical victory, than it
ever was in the past," Mr. Henry said.

However, a senior military officer said that without clear guidance
from the Pentagon, the military's psychological operations, information
operations and public affairs programs are "coming together on the
battlefield like never before, and as such, the lines are blurred." This
has led to a situation where "proponents of these elements jockey
for position to lead the overall communication effort," the officer said.

Debate also continues over proposed amendments to a classified
Defense Department directive, titled "3600.1: Information Operations,"
which would lay down Pentagon policy in coming years. Previous
versions of the directive allow aggressive information campaigns
to affect enemy leaders, but not those of allies or even neutral states.
The current debate is over proposed revisions that would widen the
target audience for such missions.

Mr. Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman, says that even though the
government is wrestling with these issues, the standard is still to
tell to the truth.

"Our job is to put out information to the public that is accurate,"
he said, "and to put it out as quickly as we can."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

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

4) First Inauguration Since 9/11 Spurs Tightest Security
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
WASHINGTON
December 13, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/politics/13security.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - For nearly a year, the Secret Service and
other law enforcement agencies have been developing what they
regard as the most comprehensive security plan ever devised for
the inauguration of an American president.

From the swearing-in ceremony for President Bush at the Capitol
on Jan. 20 to the presidential parade review at the White House to
the evening galas, the inaugural events will be the first in decades
to be held in wartime and the first since the terrorist attacks of 2001.
They will take place at buildings that symbolize American democracy,
and hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend,
including the highest-ranking government officials, other prominent
Americans and dignitaries from around the world. It is hard to
imagine, say security experts, a bigger target for terrorists.

"This is a very, very serious event," said James J. Varey, a retired
Secret Service officer and former chief of the United States Capitol
Police who worked on security plans for every inauguration from
1973 to 2001. "The public has every right to be concerned if we've
done enough and covered all of our bases."

Since President Ronald Reagan's second inauguration, in 1985,
nearly four years after he was shot in an assassination attempt,
security efforts have steadily intensified.

In January 2001, when the country was divided over a disputed
presidential election, the newest development was security
checkpoints along the parade route on Pennsylvania Avenue,
from the Capitol to the White House, to minimize the ability of
protesters to disrupt the procession. None did, although several
people threw eggs and debris at Mr. Bush's limousine as it left
the Capitol grounds.

But Mr. Bush's second inauguration is vastly different from his
first, with many Americans fearful of another terrorist attack.
The atmosphere has prompted officials to devise a detailed
security plan that they are reluctant to discuss. Security personnel
involved with planning the events, in agencies like the Secret
Service, the F.B.I. and the Joint Forces Headquarters for the
National Capital Region, declined to disclose any details.

But all promised that the efforts would surpass those of the past,
building on tactics used at the 2001 inauguration and taking into
account the symbolic importance of the day as well as its potential
as a target for terrorists.

"We're mindful of world events, and we adapt as necessary,"
said Lorie Lewis, a spokeswoman for the Secret Service, the
lead agency in developing the security plan. "We are prepared
to handle any potential situation that may arise during this.
We're also prepared to respond tactically to any situation."

Many of the resources that will protect the inauguration have
been in place since the Sept. 11 attacks and the discovery of
anthrax in Congressional offices weeks later. Anti-aircraft
weapons sit atop a federal building near the White House.
Monitors have been installed around the city to measure for
airborne radiological, chemical or biological substances. The
Capitol Police force has grown by several hundred officers to
more than 1,500, a record number, and many of them now
carry M-16 rifles.

But security officials said safeguards for next month's events
would involve more equipment and people than in 2001,
including larger numbers of troops and uniformed and
plainclothes officers. Besides the armed soldiers who will
be deployed around the city, 4,000 others who routinely
serve the capital region will be on call.

"It's not like we're going from zero to full blast," said Chief
Terrance W. Gainer of the Capitol Police. "This reflects
a continual, gradual buildup with substantially more
coordination, more personnel, more technology and
greater sharing of intelligence."

Not all involved with security efforts will have specialized
assignments, like standing on rooftops along the parade
route with binoculars and high-powered rifles. Many will
draw more routine duties, such as operating pedestrian
checkpoints on streets leading to Pennsylvania Avenue
and mingling in crowds to watch for potential disruptions.

Beyond increasing personnel, said Mr. Varey, who was part
of President Reagan's security detail on the day he was shot
in 1981, inauguration planners are also using public
awareness as a tool.

"This time," he said of planners, "they have made an appeal
to the public to be the eyes and ears of security to get the
public involved in security on a greater scale than I've ever seen."

While terrorist activities are the prime concern, protests are
also being addressed in security plans. Several groups say
they intend to stage peaceful demonstrations, but political
protests sometimes grow violent, as they did at world trade
meetings in recent years in Seattle, Miami and Washington.

Brian Becker, national coordinator for the Answer Coalition,
an antiwar and antiracism group, said he expected thousands
of protesters to line the parade route "in a legal, spirited,
peaceful demonstration," carrying signs calling for the
withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq and for
Mr. Bush's impeachment.

Another group is planning a protest in which participants
would turn their backs to Mr. Bush's limousine as his motorcade
passes. Jim McDonald, an organizer, said the action's effectiveness
would depend on how close to the barricades the protesters
could get.

Both organizers worried that security would be so intense and
access so difficult that their groups' messages would be muffled.

The Bush administration, Mr. McDonald said, "is using national
security as a pretext to stifle dissent and to marginalize dissenters."

"They're not dissuading Osama bin Laden," he added. "They're
dissuading protesters from coming out by creating a climate of fear."

Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and the
District of Columbia's delegate to Congress, is working closely
with the agencies planning the inauguration and said she was
satisfied that security would be strong enough to discourage
a terrorist attack. "And terrorists know it," Ms. Norton said.
"Besides, they like the element of surprise."

She said she worried more about the permanent changes on
Capitol Hill and elsewhere, giving the city a militaristic feel that
is amplified by the expanded presence of security personnel at
important events like an inauguration.

"Surveillance cameras are everywhere. You have to do everything
you can, and I am willing to abide a lot of extra security for the
inauguration. But I just don't think President Bush wants the city
to look more like a military show than a celebration."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

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

5) Suicide Car Bombing Kills 13 in Baghdad
By KATARINA KRATOVAC
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)
Dec 13, 11:42 AM EST
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=MSCLE&SECTION=HOME

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A suicide car bomber linked to al-Qaida killed
13 people in Baghdad on Monday, the first anniversary of Saddam
Hussein's capture, and clashes resumed in Fallujah, a one-time
insurgent stronghold that American forces believed they had
conquered. Seven Marines died in combat in western Iraq.

The violence underlines the difficulties U.S.-led forces have
encountered in the year and a half since Saddam's ouster in trying
to end a rampant insurgency and bring the country under control.
U.S. military commanders acknowledge they initially underestimated
the strength of the insurgent backlash and admit coalition-trained
Iraqi security forces are not yet up to securing their own country.

The fighting in Anbar, a vast province including Fallujah and
Ramadi, was the deadliest for U.S. forces since eight Marines
were killed by a car bomb outside Fallujah on Oct. 30. The
deaths brought to nearly 1,300 the number of American
troops killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

In Baghdad, a militant in an explosives-laden car waiting in
line to enter the western Harthiyah gate of the heavily fortified
Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and Iraq's interim
government, detonated the vehicle as he drove toward the
checkpoint, police said.

Dr. Mohammed Abdel Satar of Baghdad's Yarmouk Hospital
said 13 people were killed and 15 wounded in the suicide
blast. The U.S. military said there were no injuries to its troops.

Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq
group claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement
posted on an Islamic web site regularly used by militants.

"On this blessed day, a lion from the (group's) Martyrs' Brigade
has gone out to strike at a gathering of apostates and Americans
in the Green Zone," the group said in a statement, the authenticity
of which could not be immediately verified.

The international zone has been the scene of frequent insurgent
attacks in the past 18 months, killing and wounding dozens of
people in car bombings or mortar barrages.

In Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded and
wrecked two U.S. Humvees, wounding three U.S. soldiers and
an Iraqi civilian, Lt. Col. James Hutton said.

Jubilant Iraqi men were seen holding up pieces of the Humvees
and dancing around their charred hulks, with a large crater
blown into the road.

In Mishahda, 25 miles north of Baghdad, gunmen attacked an
Iraqi National Guard patrol, killing three soldiers and wounding
three others. The attackers fled, witnesses said.

Iraq's interim President Ghazi al-Yawer said in an interview
broadcast Monday that the U.S.-led coalition was wrong to
dismantle the Iraqi security forces after last year's invasion.

"Definitely dissolving the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry
of Interior was a big mistake at that time," al-Yawer told British
Broadcasting Corp. radio.

It would have been more effective to screen out former regime
loyalists than to rebuild from scratch, he added.

"As soon as we have efficient security forces that we can depend
on we can see the beginning of the withdrawal of forces from
our friends and partners and I think it doesn't take years, it will
take months," he said.

U.S. forces retook Fallujah from insurgents in a bloody battle last
month in which hundreds died, including at least 54 Americans.
The city had fallen under the rule of radical clerics and their
mujahedeen fighters after Marines lifted a three-week siege
of the city in April.

After the latest campaign, U.S. commanders claimed they had
broken the back of the insurgency in the mainly Sunni Muslim
areas of western Iraq and that Iraqi security forces would start
being phased in to take over, but fighting in the region has
continued.

"We have come light years from April when they (Iraqi security
forces) refused to even come out to Fallujah," Marine Lt. Col.
Dan Wilson said. "We are in the process of phasing more ISF
into Fallujah ... (and) are better equipped to intuitively know
who belongs in the city, and who does not."

On Sunday, American jets dropped 10 precision-guided missiles
on insurgents' positions in Fallujah after militants fought running
battles with coalition forces. It was unclear if there were any
insurgent casualties.

"We are still running into some of these die-hard insurgents
that have either come back into the city or have been laying
low," spokesman Lt. Lyle Gilbert said. "As we are bringing in
contractors to help with the reconstruction of Fallujah, this
(fighting) slows the process down."

It also was unclear whether the latest Marine deaths were
connected with those clashes. The military said only that seven
Marines died in two incidents while conducting "security and
stabilization operations" in Anbar province.

In nearby Ramadi, 30 miles west of Fallujah, at least 10
explosions were heard early Monday, but no details were
immediately available on their source nor whether there
were any casualties.

Insurgents had shelled U.S. forces in the city on Sunday
resulting in retaliatory artillery fire by American troops.

In the central Iraqi city of Samarra, insurgents attacked patrolling
U.S. soldiers with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
One missed the troops and detonated near a group of children,
killing a 9-year-old boy and injuring another child, U.S. military
spokesman Maj. Neal O'Brien said.

On Sunday, eight of Saddam's 11 top lieutenants went on a hunger
strike to demand visits in jail from the International Committee
of the Red Cross, military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said.

The eight had resumed eating by Monday, he said. Saddam
had not joined in the protest and remained in good health,
Johnson said.

(c) 2004 The Associated Press.

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

6) Bush Regime Put On Notice - 'Cuba Is No Iraq!'
Several Million Cubans In Defense Exercise
Issue Invasion Warning To Washington.
From: Mart
VSCampaign@yahoogroups.com
http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=041212194641.rbeqjbr4.xml

Several Million Cubans In
Defense Exercise In Warning
To Washington

Cuba put US on notice with Monday's
massive war games

Adalberto Roque
Agence France-Presse
December 12, 2004

[ "The determination of the US administration
to destroy the (Cuban) revolution however
they can, including militarily, determines
the necessity of conducting these exercises"]

["Raul Castro said last week the exercises
had been planned in part so Washington 'does
not commit the errors it committed in Vietnam
and that it is now committing in Iraq. So that
they (Washington) do not underestimate our
people, who are united and more powerful
than those in Iraq', he added"]

HAVANA - Cuba's armed forces are gearing up
for their biggest military exercises in
almost 20 years, with hundreds of thousands
of troops and millions of civilians expected
to take part, officials here said.

General Leonardo Andollo told reporters on
Sunday that MiG-29 jets, anti-aircraft batteries
were to be deployed during the weeklong
exercises meant to be a warning to Washington
that Cuba would vigorously defend itself against
US aggression.

The mass war games start Monday and are due
to run through to December 19.

Senior military and Communist government
officials here warned that the administration
of US President George W. Bush should take
note of the island's war footing.

"The determination of the US administration
to destroy the (Cuban) revolution however
they can, including militarily, determines
the necessity of conducting these exercises,"
Andollo, the deputy chief of Cuba's Armed
Revolutionary Forces (FAR), said.

His comments come days after President Fidel
Castro's brother, Raul, warned Washington
should closely observe Cuba's military prowess
and civil defenses during the manoeuvres.
Raul Castro is the head of the Caribbean
island's armed forces.

Operation "Bastion 2004" will involve about
100,000 soldiers, sailors and air force
personnel as well as some 400,000 reservists.

Air force MiG-29s, anti-aircraft units and elite
troops will also support the operation, billed as
Cuba's biggest military exercises since 1986.

Officials said the exercises would also involve
several million civilians who will participate
in two days of civil defense exercises, including
a simulated aerial assault.

Raul Castro said last week the exercises had been
planned in part so Washington "does not commit the
errors it committed in Vietnam and that it is now
committing in Iraq.

"So that they (Washington) do not underestimate
our people, who are united and more powerful
than those in Iraq," he added.

=====
Carlos Rovira - "Carlito"

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

7) Illness linked to area ZIP codes
SUNY Albany professor's study maps health risks and pollutants.
Corydon Ireland
Staff writer
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041209/NEWS
01/412090334/1002/NEWS

New York state residents who live near certain hazardous waste
sites - including some in the Rochester area - are up to 20 percent
more likely to be hospitalized for respiratory diseases than those
who don't.

That's according to a study by researchers at the State University
of New York at Albany, to be published this month in Environmental
Toxicology and Pharmacology .

Researchers blame the higher disease risk on pesticides,
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other types of persistent
organic pollutants (POPs). Buried in landfills or trapped in polluted
rivers and lakes, these chemicals can be released into the air and
breathed in.

The study, using state and federal health and waste site data,
identifies 213 ZIP codes statewide that are near or contain waste
sites with persistent organic pollutants. Living in these ZIP codes
are more than 2.8 million New Yorkers, or about a sixth of the
state's population.

Included are 13 ZIP codes in the Rochester area, from Brockport,
Spencerport and Greece on the west side to Irondequoit, Webster
and Clyde, Wayne County on the east.

Statewide, 1,382 ZIP codes contained no waste sites, the
researchers said; another 244 ZIP codes had or abutted waste
sites, but none with persistent organic pollutants. New York
City was excluded.

Among the hazardous waste sites used in the study's database
is the Rochester Embayment, a polluted area comprised of the
last six miles of the Genesee River and 35 square miles of Lake
Ontario that the river pollutes. Embayment sediments and water
contain traces of PCBs, pesticides and dioxins, which are all
persistent organic pollutants.

It's one of 46 "areas of concern," or toxic hot spots, in the Great
Lakes region identified by the International Joint Commission,
a binational advisory group. There are six such areas in New York.

Linking real estate to disease "is obviously a politically charged
thing," said chief study investigator David O. Carpenter, professor
of environmental health and toxicology at SUNY Albany. But he
said the paper, based on eight years of hospitalization data, has
"high statistical power."

Looking at it another way, the study "is another reason for citizens
to demand action from their government," said Jeff Jones, spokesman for
Environmental Advocates of New York, an activist group in Albany.

Carpenter's study design was based on studies published in 1999
by Health Canada, which investigated health outcomes for those
living near each of Canada's 17 areas of concern.

Results showed some elevated risk of immune system, metabolic
and thyroid disorders, as well as early or threatened labor. But the
studies were not intended "to show cause and effect" between the
waste sites and disease rates, a Health Canada spokeswoman said.

Carpenter, on the IJC's science advisory board, was asked by the IJC
to do a parallel study in the United States. Among the eight Great
Lakes states, he said, only New York had data complete enough for
investigation.

Researchers looked at diagnoses recorded for 2.5 million
hospitalizations a year between 1993 and 2000. They also mapped
the locations of waste sites in New York. The sites include the six
areas of concern, 89 federal Superfund sites in New York listed by the
Environmental Protection Agency and 864 state Superfund sites
registered by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The researchers found that near toxic waste sites with PCBs and
pesticides there were more cases of acute respiratory infections,
pneumonia, bronchitis and influenza.

They used a more intensive study of ZIP codes along PCB-polluted
(and wealthy) areas of the Hudson River, concluding that higher
risk of hospitalization was not likely related to smoking rates,
diet and exercise habits or socioeconomic status.

Carpenter's study also supports an unusual hypothesis: that harm
from PCBs and other persistent toxics is from breathing in affected air.

Traditionally, exposure to these chemicals has been linked to
eating, he said, especially the consumption of fish and other
animal products.

Nationally, there are attempts to explore the potential links
between disease and environmental hazards, an emerging art
that some call "medical geography."

The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry,
an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has
for 14 years been using geographic information system (GIS)
technology and health data to assess potential risk to
populations living near hazardous waste sites, said
spokeswoman Paula Stephens.

The New York state Department of Health has mapped some
adult cancers by ZIP code statewide, but a spokesman said the
department has not yet executed another part of the original
project design: an overlay that would match environmental
hazards such as landfills and waste sites with each ZIP code.

That overlay "is a step that would go far in preventing
cancers," said Dr. Leo Trasande, assistant director of the
Center for Children's Health and the Environment at the
Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Research
that links health outcomes to environmental factors is rare,
he said.

But Carpenter, a nationally known public health researcher
who once studied the link between electromagnetic fields
and childhood cancers, has done his part. In 2000, he
published a study that said children in ZIP code areas with
persistent organic pollutant waste sites had a 30 percent
greater chance of being hospitalized for five infectious
diseases, compared with children in "clean" ZIP codes.

In 2001, a study by Carpenter on ZIP codes in the Niagara
Falls area associated with three areas of concern showed
higher rates of hospitalization for thyroid and genital disease
in women. Last year, a similar study linked persistent organic
pollutant waste sites with low birth weight in newborns.

And a student of Carpenter's this year wrote a paper that
showed increased rates of hypertension in residents living
in ZIP codes within 15 miles of the Rochester Embayment.

The paper, by SUNY Albany graduate student Pamela Kruger,
has not yet been published.

CIRELAND@DemocratandChronicle.com
Copyright 2004 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

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

8) EMERGENCY! SPREAD THE WORD: STOP LENNAR'S BULLDOZERS!
NO DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUNTERS POINT SHIPYARD UNTIL IT'S CLEAN!
ATTEND TUESDAY'S BOARD OF SUPERVISORS MEETING! BRING A CROWD!

The message below was forwarded to
us. It's an excerpt of an update from
Sophie's office. It shows that this week's
Bay View editorial contains a big
mistake.

We'd been told that the Board of
Supervisors had voted to postpone final
action until January on this package of
legislation that gives the green light to
Shipyard development.

NOT TRUE!!! The final vote is coming at
this Tuesday's meeting of the Board
of Supervisors. And at this point, we have
ONLY TWO VOTES against it, Daly and
Gonzalez.

So it looks like we have two things to do
- in a hurry! Lobby the rest of the
Supes, especially Ammiano 554-5144,
Peskin 554-7450, Sandoval 554-6975 and
McGoldrick 554-7410. And we need bodies
at the meeting. These items are second
on the regular agenda, so people need to
be there shortly after 2:00.

Spread the word for all supporters of
environmental and economic justice to
be there:

- SF Board of Supervisors Regular Meeting
- Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2pm
- Legislative Chamber, 2nd Floor, City Hall

For folks who need more information about
the crisis at the Shipyard, the
12/8 Bay View editorial, despite the error
on the date of the vote, should be a
big help. It's at
http://www.sfbayview.com/120804/lennarbuyssupport120804.shtml
.

Remind the Supes that at least one of the
sponsors of this legislative
package, Mayor Gavin Newsom, should
recuse himself due to egregious conflicts of
interest! That alone should STOP LENNAR'S
BULLDOZERS!

Willie & Mary Ratcliff
SF Bay View
(415) 671-0789

From Supervisor Sophie Maxwell:

LEGISLATION PENDING AT THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

2. A package of legislation co-sponsored
by Supervisor Maxwell and Mayor
Gavin Newsom that would enable the
first phase of development to proceed at the
Hunters Point Shipyard passed the Board
of Supervisors on Tuesday on a 9-2
vote. The legislation will be heard again
for second reading this coming Tuesday,
December 14, along with a few additional
pieces of companion legislation,
resolutions that require one vote for approval.

Should this package of legislation pass,
we anticipate demolition and
grading activities at the Shipyard, closed
by the Navy in 1974, will begin this
February. Phase I of development will
create 1,600 new units of housing,
including at least 32% (and possibly 44%)
of all units to be affordable based upon a
Bayview-specific income standard. In
addition, other benefits include: 30% of
all development is set aside for community
-based developers (with an additional
6 acres of land set aside for community
development of community facilities),
an estimated $35-40 million in net
revenue from land sales will be reinvested
in the Bayview Hunters Point community,
and 35 acres of new open space and
parks will be provided.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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

9) Army Doctors Scrambling, Report Says
The military medical system has been overwhelmed by the
scope and severity of injuries among troops,
a health expert writes.
By Esther Schrader
Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
December 9, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-casualties9dec09,1,72875
22.story

WASHINGTON - A shortage of surgeons to treat the wounded in
Iraq has left Army medical teams in the country scrambling to
handle the largest number of military casualties since the Vietnam
War, the New England Journal of Medicine reports today.

The Army has fewer than 50 general surgeons and 15 orthopedic
surgeons in Iraq at any one time to serve more than 138,000 troops.
Despite the numbers, advances in battlefield surgical techniques
and care mean a greater percentage of soldiers wounded in Iraq
are surviving than in any previous American conflict.

The article describes a military medical system that has undergone
fundamental changes since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but that
nonetheless has been overwhelmed by the scope and severity
of injuries occurring among troops in Iraq. It was written by Atul
Gawande, an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public
Health and a former senior health advisor to the Clinton White
House.

Since March 2003, 1,276 U.S. military personnel have died
in the Iraq war, with an additional 9,765 wounded, according
to Pentagon figures. The number of deaths directly related to
combat passed 1,000 this week, the Pentagon said.

"Just as the rest of the military structure was unprepared for
the length of the war and the evolution in the nature of the war,
so has the military medical establishment been understandably
unprepared for that," Gawande said in an interview.

"What is striking is that they have been able to adapt in ways
that allow them to keep a high rate of survival for the soldiers,"
he said. "But there are costs, and what you see is a potential
problem on the horizon."

Gawande did not specify the number of surgeons he thought
the military should have in Iraq. He said there were several
indications, though, that the current level was insufficient.

With just 120 general surgeons on active duty, the Army has
been forced to use urologists, plastic surgeons and
cardiothoracic surgeons to perform general surgery on
soldiers in Iraq.

Many surgeons have been deployed for more than two years
in the Iraq campaign, and military planners are contemplating
pressing some to return, Gawande writes.

The physicians are working under difficult circumstances. In
many cases, the military has taken over Iraqi hospitals, and
the facilities are flooded with civilian patients whom the
Americans are unable to treat. With no clear directive from
the Pentagon on treating civilians, some physicians refuse
to help even pediatric patients out of fear the children could
be booby-trapped with bombs, Gawande writes.

Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of deployment health
support with the Pentagon's Office of Health Affairs,
acknowledged that Army surgeons working in Iraq had
had to improvise in some cases and had been forced to work
outside their specialties in others. But he said the relatively
low number of deaths proved the system was working.

"There are certainly going to be times in any location where
the workload is going to exceed the personnel present,"
Kilpatrick said. "There are going to be some extremely long
hours at times."

But, he added, "the fact that they have responded as well as
they have speaks to the fact that they were well prepared.
You can't anticipate every eventuality. I think the training
and preparation that people had has stood them in good stead."

Detailing the nature of combat injuries and their
complications, Gawande says that blast injuries from
suicide bombs and land mines are up substantially in
recent months and have proved particularly difficult to
treat without risking infection. Eye injuries have caused
blindness among a "dismaying" number of soldiers, he
says.

Soldiers who survive the initial blasts and field treatment
are suffering at high rates from later complications, including
pulmonary embolisms (when a blood clot travels to the lungs)
and deep venous thrombosis (blood clots in the legs). Some
of those soldiers have died of the complications.

Army medical teams are also worried about what Gawande
calls an epidemic of multi-drug resistant bacterial infection
in military hospitals. Among 442 medical evacuees seen at
Walter Reed, 8.4% tested positive, a far higher rate than
previously seen among wounded troops.

Despite the challenges, Gawande credits nurses, anesthetists,
helicopter pilots, other transport staffers and a rethinking of
the combat medicine system for improvements in soldiers'
survival rates.

The system now focuses on damage control, not definitive
repair, Gawande writes. Field doctors carry "mini-hospitals"
in Humvees and field operating kits in backpacks so they
can move with troops and undertake surgery on the spot.

They limit surgery to two hours or less, often leaving temporary
closures and even plastic bags over wounds, and send soldiers
to one of several combat support hospitals in Iraq.

The strategy seems to be working, Gawande finds. Although
at least as many U.S. troops have been wounded in combat in
the Iraq war as in the first five years of Vietnam, 90% are
surviving, compared with 76% in Vietnam.

Other experts also have credited superior body armor and
equipment for improving combat injury survival. But the
survivors often have injuries so severe that their future
prospects are uncertain, Gawande writes.

One airman lost both legs, his right hand and part of his
face. "How he and others like him will be able to live and
function remains an open question," Gawande said.

Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

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

10) Subject: Fw: Secret Patriot Act II to give Hitler's
Powers to Bush
This Act will mean that our founding fathers will get
their wish --a constitution without the Bill of Rights!
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 09:26:08 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
From: "Bob Nichols" View Contact
Details
To: "Bob Nichols"

Notice this interesting provision of the Intelligence Act they passed
yesterday.

"SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their
activities with toxic biological, chemical or
radiological materials." [Emphasis added.]

in case you are thinking of investigating Halliburton
or Carlyle, here's this jem:

"SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all
their financial dealings secret, and anyone
investigating them can be considered a terrorist. This
should be very useful for Dick Cheney to stop anyone
investigating Haliburton."

The act also included the so-called PATRIOT Act II.
Many would say we are now under Martial Law. The old
COINTEL-PRO is alive and well.

Bob

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=192635;article=4719;show_parent=1

Indybay
http://www.indybay.org/

Secret Patriot Act II to give Hitler's Powers to Bush
Wed Dec 8, 2004 2:11pm

Secret Patriot Act II to give Hitler's Powers to Bush

Indybay | November 17, 2004

Secret Patriot Act II to give Hitler's Powers to Bush that even
some Republicans are scared about:

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times
that no member of Congress was allowed to read the
first Patriot Act that was passed by the House on
October 27, 2001. The first Patriot Act was
universally decried by civil libertarians and
Constitutional SECRET PATscholars from across the
political spectrum. William Safire, while writing for
the New York Times, described the first Patriot Act's
powers by saying that President Bush was seizing
dictatorial control.

On February 7, 2003 the Center for Public Integrity, a
non-partisan public interest think-tank in DC,
revealed the full text of the Domestic Security
Enhancement Act of 2003. The classified document had
been leaked to them by an unnamed source inside the
Federal government. The document consisted of a
33-page section by section analysis of the
accompanying 87-page bill.

The Patriot Act II bill itself is stamped
"Confidential -Not for Distribution." Upon reading the
analysis and bill, I was stunned by the scientifically
crafted tyranny contained in the legislation. The
Justice Department Office of Legislative Affairs
admits that they had indeed covertly transmitted a
copy of the legislation to Speaker of the House Dennis
Hastert, (R-Il) and the Vice President of the United
States, Dick Cheney as well as the executive heads of
federal law enforcement agencies.

It is important to note that no member of Congress was
allowed to see the first Patriot Act before its
passage, and that no debate was tolerated by the House
and Senate leadership. The intentions of the White
House and Speaker Hastert concerning Patriot Act II
appear to be a carbon copy replay of the events that
led to the unprecedented passage of the first Patriot
Act.

There are two glaring areas that need to be looked at
concerning this new legislation:

1. The secretive tactics being used by the White House
and Speaker Hastert to keep even the existence of this
legislation secret would be more at home in Communist
China than in the United States. The fact that Dick
Cheney publicly managed the steamroller passage of the
first Patriot Act, insuring that no one was allowed to
read it and publicly threatening members of Congress
that if they didn?t vote in favor of it that they
would be blamed for the next terrorist attack, is by
the White House?' own definition terrorism. The move
to clandestinely craft and then bully passage of any
legislation by the Executive Branch is clearly an
impeachable offence.

2. The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers
that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves.
Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First,
Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously
damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot
Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well
as many areas of state government under the
dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the
Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM
military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement
Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by
its very structure the definition of dictatorship.

I challenge all Americans to study the new Patriot Act
and to compare it to the Constitution, Bill of Rights
and Declaration of Independence. Ninety percent of the
act has nothing to do with terrorism and is instead a
giant Federal power-grab with tentacles reaching into
every facet of our society. It strips American
citizens of all of their rights and grants the
government and its private agents total immunity.

Here is a quick thumbnail sketch of just some of the
draconian measures encapsulated within this tyrannical
legislation:

SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the
Bush administration'?s enemy combatant definition to
all American citizens who may have violated any
provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act.
(Section 802 is the new definition of domestic
terrorism, and the definition is any action that
endangers human life that is a violation of any
Federal or State law. ) Section 501 of the second
Patriot Act directly connects to Section 125 of the
same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that
the incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA
Patriot Act isn?t broad enough and that a new,
unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.

Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful
activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown
into a van never to be seen again. The Justice
Department states that they can do this because the
person had inferred from conduct that they were not a
US citizen. Remember Section 802 of the First USA
Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or
State law can result in the enemy combatant terrorist
designation.

SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a
criminal act for any member of the government or any
citizen to release any information concerning the
incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also
states that law enforcement does not even have to tell
the press who they have arrested and they never have
to release the names.

SECTION 301 and 306 (Terrorist Identification
Database) set up a national database of suspected
terrorists and radically expand the database to
include anyone associated with suspected terrorist
groups and anyone involved in crimes or having
supported any group designated as terrorist. These
sections also set up a national DNA database for
anyone on probation or who has been on probation for
any crime, and orders State governments to collect the
DNA for the Federal government.

SECTION 312 gives immunity to law enforcement engaging
in spying operations against the American people and
would place substantial restrictions on court
injunctions against Federal violations of civil rights
across the board.

SECTION 101 will designate individual terrorists as
foreign powers and again strip them of all rights
under the enemy combatant designation.

SECTION 102 states clearly that any information
gathering, regardless of whether or not those
activities are illegal, can be considered to be
clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign
power. This makes news gathering illegal.

SECTION 103 allows the Federal government to use
wartime martial law powers domestically and
internationally without Congress declaring that a
state of war exists.

SECTION 106 is bone-chilling in its
straightforwardness. It states that broad general
warrants by the secret FSIA court (a panel of secret
judges set up in a star chamber system that convenes
in an undisclosed location) granted under the first
Patriot Act are not good enough. It states that
government agents must be given immunity for carrying
out searches with no prior court approval. This
section throws out the entire Fourth Amendment against
unreasonable searches and seizures.

SECTION 109 allows secret star chamber courts to issue
contempt charges against any individual or corporation
who refuses to incriminate themselves or others. This
sections annihilate the last vestiges of the Fifth
Amendment.

SECTION 110 restates that key police state clauses in
the first Patriot Act were not sunsetted and removes
the five year sunset clause from other subsections of
the first Patriot Act. After all, the media has told
us: this is the New America. Get used to it. This is
forever.

SECTION 111 expands the definition of the enemy
combatant designation.

SECTION 122 restates the government?s newly announced
power of surveillance without a court order.

SECTION 123 restates that the government no longer
needs warrants and that the investigations can be a
giant dragnet-style sweep described in press reports
about the Total Information Awareness Network. One
passage reads, thus the focus of domestic surveillance
may be less precise than that directed against more
conventional types of crime.

SECTION 126 grants the government the right to mine
the entire spectrum of public and private sector
information from bank records to educational and
medical records. This is the enacting law to allow
ECHELON and the Total Information Awareness Network to
totally break down any and all walls of privacy.

The government states that they must look at
everything to determine if individuals or groups might
have a connection to terrorist groups. As you can now
see, you are guilty until proven innocent.

SECTION 127 allows the government to takeover
coroners? and medical examiners operations whenever
they see fit.

SECTION 128 allows the Federal government to place gag
orders on Federal and State Grand Juries and to take
over the proceedings. It also disallows individuals or
organizations to even try to quash a Federal subpoena.
So now defending yourself will be a terrorist action.

SECTION 129 destroys any remaining whistleblower
protection for Federal agents.

SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their
activities with toxic biological, chemical or
radiological materials.

SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all
their financial dealings secret, and anyone
investigating them can be considered a terrorist. This
should be very useful for Dick Cheney to stop anyone
investigating Haliburton.

SECTION 303 sets up national DNA database of suspected
terrorists. The database will also be used to stop
other unlawful activities. It will share the
information with state, local and foreign agencies for
the same purposes.

SECTION 311 federalizes your local police department
in the area of information sharing.

SECTION 313 provides liability protection for
businesses, especially big businesses that spy on
their customers for Homeland Security, violating their
privacy agreements. It goes on to say that these are
all preventative measures Ã¢?? has anyone seen Minority
Report? This is the access hub for the Total
Information Awareness Network.

SECTION 321 authorizes foreign governments to spy on
the American people and to share information with
foreign governments.

SECTION 322 removes Congress from the extradition
process and allows officers of the Homeland Security
complex to extradite American citizens anywhere they
wish. It also allows Homeland Security to secretly
take individuals out of foreign countries.

SECTION 402 is titled Providing Material Support to
Terrorism. The section reads that there is no
requirement to show that the individual even had the
intent to aid terrorists.

SECTION 403 expands the definition of weapons of mass
destruction to include any activity that affects
interstate or foreign commerce.

SECTION 404 makes it a crime for a terrorist or other
criminals to use encryption in the commission of a
crime.

SECTION 408 creates lifetime parole (basically,
slavery) for a whole host of crimes.

SECTION 410 creates no statute of limitations for
anyone that engages in terrorist actions or supports
terrorists. Remember: any crime is now considered
terrorism under the first Patriot Act.

SECTION 411 expands crimes that are punishable by
death. Again, they point to Section 802 of the first
Patriot Act and state that any terrorist act or
support of terrorist act can result in the death
penalty.

SECTION 421 increases penalties for terrorist
financing. This section states that any type of
financial activity connected to terrorism will result
to time in prison and $10-50,000 fines per violation.

SECTIONS 427 sets up asset forfeiture provisions for
anyone engaging in terrorist activities.

There are many other sections that I did not cover in
the interest of time. The American people were shocked
by the despotic nature of the first Patriot Act. The
second Patriot Act dwarfs all police state legislation
in modern world history.

Usually, corrupt governments allow their citizens lots
of wonderful rights on paper, while carrying out their
jackbooted oppression covertly. From snatch and grab
operations to warantless searches, Patriot Act II is
an Adolf Hitler wish list.

You can understand why President Bush, Dick Cheney and
Dennis Hastert want to keep this legislation secret
not just from Congress, but the American people as
well. Bill Allison, Managing Editor of the Center for
Public Integrity, the group that broke this story,
stated on my radio show that it was obvious that they
were just waiting for another terrorist attack to
opportunistically get this new bill through. He then
shocked me with an insightful comment about how the
Federal government was crafting this so that they
could go after the American people in general. He also
agreed that the FBI has been quietly demonizing
patriots and Christians and those who carry around
pocket Constitutions.

I have produced two documentary films and written a
book about what really happened on September 11th. The
bottom line is this: the military-industrial complex
carried the attacks out as a pretext for control.
Anyone who doubts this just hasn?t looked at the
mountains of hard evidence.

Of course, the current group of white collar criminals
in the White House might not care that we?'re finding
out the details of their next phase. Because, after
all, when smallpox gets released, or more buildings
start blowing up, the President can stand up there at
his lectern suppressing a smirk, squeeze out a tear or
two, and tell us that See I was right. I had to take
away your rights to keep you safe. And now it?s your
fault that all of these children are dead. From that
point on, anyone who criticizes tyranny will be
shouted down by the paid talking head government
mouthpieces in the mainstream media.

You have to admit, it?s a beautiful script.
Unfortunately, it?s being played out in the real
world. If we don?t get the word out that government is
using terror to control our lives while doing nothing
to stop the terrorists, we will deserve what we get -
tyranny. But our children won?t deserve it.

HOW THE PATRIOT ACT COMPARES TO HITLER?S
ERMÃCHTIGUNGSGESETZ (ENABLING ACT):

At http://www.furnitureforthepeople.com/actpat.htm
you can read the following 4 Articles:

1) How the Patriot Act Compares to Hitler's
ErmÃ¤chtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act)
2) A 21st Century Comparison of The Enabling Act and
The Patriot Act
3) Ten Key Dangers of The Patriot Act that Every
American Should Know
4) Bill Moyers' NOW Comments on the Patriot Act

~~Please tell your congress and senators to repeal the
Patriot Act and to throw out current legislation
advocating a second act.

Thank You, for your support!~~

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

11) Unicef laments state of world's children
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041209.wunicef1209/BNStory/Int
ernational/
"It said Millennium Development Goals, which aim to improve
the world through human development by 2015 and were
agreed to by the UN's 191 member states in 2000, could be
achieved at an annual cost of $40-billion to $70 billion. In
comparison, world spending on military in 2003 was $956-billion."

One can judge a society on how it treats its children. More wealth
is created today, than at any time in history, and yet half of the world
children live in poverty. How can anybody defend the capitalist system
with its wars upon humanity? The following poem was written during
the capitalism's "rise" during the "industrial revolution" in England.

"The golf links lie so near the mill
that almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And watch the men at play."

-- Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn

In the present world starving children watch the rich eat.
Or as the Beatles Sang:
" You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon."
During this Christmas Season there wtll be no peace for
the world's masses.

Associated Press

POSTED AT 8:35 AM EST Thursday, Dec 9, 2004

London - More than half the world's children are suffering the
effects of poverty, war and HIV/AIDS, denying them a healthy
and safe childhood, Unicef's annual report said Thursday.

The United Nations children's fund report on The State of the
World's Children found more than one billion children are
growing up hungry and unhealthy, schools have become targets
for warring parties and whole villages are being killed off by AIDS.

A failure by governments around the world to live up to standards
outlined in 1989's Convention on the Rights of the Child caused
permanent damage to children and blocked progress toward
human rights and economic advancement, the report said.

"Too many governments are making informed, deliberate choices
that actually hurt childhood," Unicef executive director Carol
Bellamy said.

A day before the report's release, an editorial published in The
Lancet, the respected British medical journal, accused Ms. Bellamy
of neglecting issues of child survival while emphasizing the rights
of children.

"A preoccupation with rights ignores the fact that children will have
no opportunity for development at all unless they survive," said the
journal's editor, Richard Horton. "Child survival must sit at the core
of Unicef's advocacy and country work. Currently, and shamefully,
it does not."

Unicef spokesman Alfred Ironside said Mr. Horton ignored progress
made on child survival rates.

"Globally child deaths have fallen by 18 per cent since 1990," Ironside
said in London.

In his foreword to the report, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said
poverty denied children dignity and endangered their lives, conflict
robbed them of a secure family life and HIV/AIDS killed parents,
teachers, doctors and children themselves.

Compiled by Unicef and researchers at the London School of
Economics and Bristol University, the report found more than
half the children in developing countries lived in poverty without
access to basic goods and services.

It also said:
- One in six children was severely hungry.
- One in seven had no access to health care.
- One in five had no safe water.
- One in three had no toilet or sanitation facilities at home.

The report found 640 million children did not have adequate
shelter; 300 million had no access to information such as TV,
radio or newspapers and 140 million children, the majority of
them girls, had never been to school.

Poverty was not confined to developing countries, the report
said, as the proportion of children living in low-income
households in 11 of 15 industrialized nations rose in the
past decade.

More than 10 million child deaths were recorded in 2003,
with an estimated 29,158 children under 5 dying from
mostly preventable causes everyday.

Unicef reported that conflict round the world has seriously
injured or permanently disabled millions of children, while
millions more endure sexual violence, trauma, hunger and
disease caused by wars.

Nearly half of the 3.6 million people killed in conflict during
the 1990s were children and around 20 million children were
forced from their homes and communities by fighting.
Unicef said almost half a million children under 15 died of
AIDS in 2003, while another 630,000 children are infected
with HIV.

By 2003 some 2.1 million children under 15 were living with
HIV/AIDS, most of whom were infected during pregnancy, birth
or through breast-feeding.

From 2001 to 2003, the number of children who had lost one or
both parents to AIDS rose to 15 million from 11.5 million, and
about 80 per cent of those were living in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Unicef report said the world had the capacity to reduce
poverty, conflict and HIV/AIDS and improve the plight of the
world's children.

It said Millennium Development Goals, which aim to improve
the world through human development by 2015 and were
agreed to by the UN's 191 member states in 2000, could be
achieved at an annual cost of $40-billion to $70 billion. In
comparison, world spending on military in 2003 was $956-billion.

Ms. Bellamy said the quality of a child's life depends on decisions
made by the global community and the world's governments.

"We must make those decisions wisely and with children's best
interests in mind. If we fail to secure childhood, we fail to reach
our larger, global goals for human rights and economic
development," she said.

(c) 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.marxist.com/Globalisation/unicef_report_billion.htm
One billion children in extreme poverty: a holocaust on a world-scale
By Maarten Vanheuverswyn

UNICEF has just released its annual report, which reveals most
shocking figures. Almost one billion children all over the world
are denied at least one of seven commodities deemed essential:
shelter, water, sanitation, schooling, information, healthcare and
food. At least 640 million children lack adequate shelter, while
140 million have never been to school. Safe water is something
that 400 million children are denied while 500 million live without
basic sanitation. No less than 90 million starved.

As pointed out by UNICEF itself, these conditions in effect deny
them a childhood. More than one in six children are severely
hungry. One in seven has no access to healthcare at all.

"Too many governments are making informed, deliberate
choices that actually hurt childhood," said Carol Bellamy,
UNICEF director at the report launch in London. "When half
the world's children are growing up hungry and unhealthy,
when schools have become targets and whole villages are
being emptied by Aids, we've failed to deliver on the promise
of childhood."

War on the people

From the heart of Africa, where sectarian conflicts are raging
through one nation after another, to Latin America, where
hurricanes have ruined countless families, and Asia, where
floods and landslides have swept whole towns away, it is clear
that one group of people pays more than any other - the young
and the weak. Half a million children under 15 died of Aids last
year and 2.1 million children across the world live with HIV.
Fifteen million children have lost a parent to Aids - no less than
80 per cent of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Perhaps the most shocking figure in the whole report is not on
the terrible conditions half of the world's children have to suffer.
It is the simple solution to this horror. Goals set by the UN in
2000 to lift poverty across the globe could be achieved at a cost
of just Â£52 billion. That may seem a big amount of money but it
could be raised in a matter of minutes. Last year, globally Â£712
billion was spent on weapons. Precisely these guns, mortars, mines
and shells are maintaining the present catastrophe, with dirty wars
all over the globe.

Indeed, the major factor that keeps more than a billion children in
a state of poverty is war. And as usual in our "best of possible
worlds", these wars are fought over material interests, i.e. natural
resources such as diamonds, oil and coltan. Ever heard of coltan?
It is a mineral used in mobile phones, mined in Africa and exported
to the West. According to the UNICEF report, about half of the 3.6
million people killed in wars since 1990 were children. Millions
more have been displaced by wars and forced to become child
soldiers.

Incidentally, today it was also reported that six years of conflict
in the Congo have claimed 3.8 million lives - half of them children
- with most victims killed by disease and famine. More than 31,000
civilians die each month as a result of the conflict, the International
Rescue Committee reported, citing mortality surveys prepared with
the aid of on-site medical teams.

As Carol Bellamy from UNICEF pointed out, "Poverty doesn't come
from nowhere; war doesn't emerge from nothing; Aids doesn't
spread by its own choice. These are our choices... What we are
saying in this report is that choices made by political leaders in
many cases are very often negative when it comes to children."

The report further stated that, "bridging the gap between the 'ideal
childhood' and 'reality' experienced by half the world's children is
possible by adopting a human rights based-approach to social and
economic development with special emphasis on reaching out to
the most vulnerable." The questions remains, of course, what the
vague "human rights based-approach" is supposed to mean. What
is certain is that it won't be the approach of the Bushes and Blairs
of this world. They were caught in a scandal involving torture in Iraq
and Guantanamo Bay. They are the ones who hypocritically talk about
combating Aids while squeezing the African continent and the Middle
East with their divide and rule policies. Darfur is only one of the latest
examples of this game.

As a side note, "The State of the World's Children 2005" also stated
that even children in better off countries were victims of rising poverty
rates. In 11 of 15 industrialized nations, the proportion of children
living in low-income households over the last decade has risen.
This list includes Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and
Poland, where children living in poverty rose to 16.6 percent of all
children in the late 1990s and early 2000s from the 14.0 percent
it had been a decade earlier. The crisis does not only affect the ex
-colonial world - it is a global problem.
Charity or structural solutions?

Today's Independent reports that 21,297 pounds were raised by
its readers to help the sick and the poor in the Third World. Similar
campaigns are being held all over the world, raising considerable
amounts of money. This shows that a great lot of people do care
about the current state of affairs in the world. It proves that all the
talk about "inherently evil human beings" is nonsense. Human
beings don't live in a vacuum but are social beings. They are
embedded in a social context and will act accordingly. Workers
may go on strike in solidarity with a sacked workmate; people
appalled by the news they see on their TV screens every day
may give something to a charity; and most of the people will
simply try to survive and "get on with life" thinking it is not in
their power to do anything.

On the other hand, terrible living conditions will create atrocious
reactions. That is why next to generous donations on the part of
well-meaning people (apart from those like Bill Gates who give
a tiny fraction of their wealth to brush up their image) and solidarity
in general, we see the other side of the coin, i.e. that humans in
certain conditions are indeed capable of committing horrible
atrocities, not in the least in the proxy wars in the so-called
Third World. There we see the ugly face of barbarism that is
threatening the whole of the planet.

In that sense, giving money to a particular cause should be seen
as a will to change society. Having said that, we must point out
that while charity may temporarily alleviate some suffering, in
reality this relief is nothing compared to the big needs of the sick
and the poor on this planet. It is not enough to do something
"concretely here and now". For every child that is put into a charity
programme, many others are dying at the same time from starvation.
The tasks are far bigger. For example, can charity prevent the
butchery in the Congo? No, it cannot. At most it can alleviate
a small part of the mess that has been created after the damage
has been done. Rwanda, where a million people were killed in
1994, is a tragic case in point.
Capitalism is the name of the game

First of all we need to start from a clear analysis of the situation.
Why is it that 1.2 billion people are living on 1 dollar a day and
3 billion on 2 dollars a day? (World Bank figures) Utter reactionaries
claim African people are inherently incapable of developing their
countries. This racist argument is just not serious. Other people
claim that the poor in the world should be patient and simply
need to follow the example of the West. In the West itself, the
argument goes, it also took a hundred years to achieve
reasonable wages, social security and the welfare state in general.

What they don't explain is that in the last century for each of
these achievements a bitter struggle had to be waged. These
reforms were achieved only through class struggle. It was also
achieved in a period of world economic boom. The pressure of
the revolutionary waves that followed the First and Second World
War were decisive factors in this progress. After the First World
War there were revolutions in Russia, Germany and other countries,
which terrified the capitalists. They were afraid of a general revolt
against their oppressive regimes, in which they risked losing
everything. With their backs against the wall, they were forced
to give concessions to the working class in the industrialised
countries.

However, that was not the end of the story. As a compensation
for these reforms, the exploitation of the colonies was intensified.
After the Second World War this trend was pushed through even
more in order to avoid revolution in the West. The capitalist
system can only survive by maintaining exploitation, oppression
and inequality in a great part of the world. Within the so-called
"free market" system Africa cannot reach the living standards
of the West. It is clear that the way forward is not the capitalist
road. We need to look further than the narrow perspective
offered by most Third World organisations.

The tactics of most NGOs and charity organisations won't ever
solve the fundamental contradictions in society. For example,
while in Latin America one revolution after another sweeps the
continent, most NGOs propose to create yet another small
cooperative or install an extra well. While the people try to
overthrow the present regimes, they propose to set up Western
style trade unions or to "democratise" their governments.

They forget that these governments only serve the rich and survive
thanks to the big landowners and American imperialism in particular.
They forget that most Western trade unions have long abandoned
the struggle for a better world and only adopt policies of softening
serious conflicts with the bosses or government. Thereby they
neglect the fact that bourgeois democracies and the state are
not neutral but are there to serve capital.

The bleak picture in the whole ex-colonial world contrasts
sharply with the promises on children's rights about a healthy
and protected life, as laid out in the 1989 UN Convention on
the Rights of the Child. This latest report on these terrible
conditions is only one more condemnation of the present system.
It shows how futile the empty words of all bourgeois politicians
are. In spite of their hollow promises (Kyoto, Aids, world poverty),
they are not interested in solving these burning questions.
Instead they continue their imperialist wars under the fig leaf
of democracy and the "war on terror". But what about this war
on the people? In a world with an abundance of resources,
tens of thousands of people are dying on a daily basis. What
else is this than a new, permanent holocaust?

It is important to understand that there is a method in the
madness. These kinds of problems won't simply go away by
adding another drop in the ocean. Structural problems demand
structural solutions. They require a radical change in the present
economic system.

We cannot solve these fundamental problems by adopting
temporary, superficial remedies. We can have a charitable
approach, but then a new war breaks out. More people are
killed, more basic infrastructure is destroyed. The work of a
hundred charities can be undone by one small war.

Wars take place under capitalism because they are terribly
profitable. To put an end to this nightmare it is necessary to
destroy the very system that causes the wars, the hunger, the
poverty. That system is called capitalism. It must be overthrown.
That is what Marxists fight for systematically in every corner of
the labour movement nationally and internationally.

Join us!

December 10, 2004.
used to be a fact'ry hand

when things were movin' slow

When children worked in cotton mills;

each mornin' had to go.

Ev'ry mornin' just at five

the whistle blew on time

To get those babies out of bed

at the age of eight or nine.

Get out of bed little sleepy head and get
your bite to eat.

The fact'ry whistle's callin' you;

There's no more time to sleep.

The children all grew up unlearned;

they never went to school.

They never learned to read or write;

they learned to spin and spool.

Every time I close my eyes
I see before me still.

What textile work was carried out
by Babies in the Mill.
-Lyrics to "Babies in the Mill"
by Dorsey Dixon

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

12) U.S. Soldiers' Grilling Fields
By Tim Harper
The Toronto Star
More talk heard of desertion, disgruntlement.
`Backdoor draft' adding to worries for some troops.
Sunday 12 December 2004
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121304X.shtml

WASHINGTON - David Qualls reluctantly
returned to Iraq yesterday, but not
before he made a louder statement
about the state of U.S. troop morale than
any of the pointed questions from
soldiers to Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld this week.

Qualls, an army specialist from Morrilton,
Ark., and seven other soldiers who
have remained nameless, have sued the
Pentagon, claiming they are improperly
being kept in Iraq beyond their agreed tour of duty.

It is a burgeoning problem for Rumsfeld
and the Bush administration because
more and more soldiers in Iraq are
questioning the rationale for their mission,
the way in which they have been equipped
and how long they've been deployed.

In so doing, they are shining new light on
the price being paid for what is
widely seen as inadequate war planning
and piecemeal responses as U.S. troops
battle an insurgency better armed and
more determined than any scenario drawn
up.

As the U.S. death toll in Iraq tops 1,270
and the looming Christmas season
only magnifies the frustration of families
at home, stories of desertions and
disgruntled troops began dominating the airwaves.

There was the now-famous grilling of
Rumsfeld by troops stationed in Kuwait,
who challenged him on a lack of armoured
vehicles, lengthened deployments, antiquated
equipment and unpaid benefits.

The Toronto case of Jeremy Hinzman,
a 26-year-old South Dakotan who said he
fled to Canada instead of deploying to Iraq
after realizing he could not kill
another human being, was given
prominence in many U.S. media outlets.

A navy petty officer is at large and been
declared a deserter after refusing
to board a troop transport ship in
San Diego, bound for Iraq.

"I just couldn't sleep at night knowing
that I took 3,000 people to a
place where 100 of them might die,"
23-year-old Pablo Paredes told National
Public Radio.

The U.S. Army wants to prosecute First
Lt. Julian P. Goodrum of Knoxville,
Tenn., for being away without leave
(AWOL) after the 34-year-old, 16-year military
veteran checked himself into a civilian
psychiatric hospital, claiming he was
suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The mysterious case of Cpl. Wassef Ali
Hassoun, a 24-year-old Lebanese-born
U.S. Marine who disappeared from his
camp near Falluja last summer, led to a
charge of desertion this week.

Dan Felushko, a 24-year-old marine,
told the CBS program 60 Minutes this week
that he left Camp Pendleton, Calif., and came
to Canada rather than Kuwait,
because he felt it would have been
wrong to fight.

"I didn't want, you know, `died
deluded in Iraq' over my gravestone,"
he said.

According to the CBS program, some
5,000 American men and women have deserted
the military since the war began. They are largely accused of
cowardice back home, but they say they are acting
out of conscience.

Some say they saw no link between the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq
war, others lost faith when it became
clear there were no weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq.

Many who remain are clearly becoming disillusioned.

Erik Leaver, of the liberal Institute
for Policy Studies, said this week's
confrontation in Kuwait show many
soldiers believe Washington is not
being straight with them.

"This is not a well-articulated mission,"
Leaver said. "More
and more we are hearing from military
families that their sons or daughters
are coming home on leave and saying,
`Mom, I don't know what I'm doing over
there.' The soldiers on the front lines there
understand U.S. policy is not
working."

Leaver said the shortage of armoured
vehicles, coming on the heels of last
year's controversy over a lack of body
armour, is particularly distressing because
this a war of choice for the Bush administration,
which determined its timing
and still did not prepare properly.

The Qualls case focused attention again
on a program known officially as
"stop-loss,"but is more popularly
known on the home front as a "backdoor
draft."

Many believe the program, which
allows the Pentagon to extend
voluntary deployments in time
of war or national emergency, is
the single most morale-damaging
program in place.

The Pentagon is not forthcoming on
how many soldiers will have their stays
extended, but many estimate it could
affect 40,000 to 47,000 soldiers, both
regular service and reservists - about
a third of the 150,000 Americans
who will be in Iraq for the run-up
to scheduled Jan. 30 elections.

Republican Senator John McCain of
Arizona, who appears to be mulling another
presidential run in 2008, this week
called the stop-loss program the single
most damaging morale issue for the
military and pointed the finger of blame
at an ill-prepared Pentagon.

"It just adds another layer of stress to
families left at home who are
not able to plan moves, or enrol kids
in school," says Michelle Joyner
of the National Military Families
Association, a support group for those with
loved ones in Iraq.

Joyner, whose brother, Adam Smith,
is serving in Iraq, said her group has fielded
calls from families who lost college tuition
deposits or are having difficulty
getting straight answers from units as to
when their family members could be
expected to return.

"It forces some families to live day to
day without being able to plan
for the future," she said. "If you
can't get clear answers,
it just feeds gossip and increases
stress. So when we get some calls from families,
we simply have to tell them there are some
questions for which we have no answer."

Many of those raising questions, like
Qualls, are older and more experienced.

About 45 per cent of the 138,000 troops
now on the ground in Iraq are drawn
from the U.S. Reserve and National Guard
and tend to be less deferential to
authority than younger active duty troops.

The 35-year-old Qualls failed in his
attempt to win a court injunction keeping
him in the U.S. until his lawsuit could be heard.

He left Camp Taji about 24 kilometres
north of Baghdad last month and returned
to Arkansas for U.S. Thanksgiving.

He first enlisted in the army in 1986.
He was on active duty until 1990 and
then was a member of the Individual Ready
Reserves before leaving the military in 1994.

In July 2003, Qualls entered the service
again, under an Army National Guard
policy known as Try One, which allows
veterans to serve for only one year on
a trial basis before committing to a full
enlistment, according to the lawsuit.

Qualls was deployed to Iraq in March but
has been told his stay will be extended.

The news for those who have come home
is equally bleak.

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans
reported this week that Iraqi war veterans
are beginning to show up at shelters in California,
raising fears of a repeat of the generation of homeless Vietnam vets.

And another study released in the New
England Journal of Medicine this week
showed medical advances have saved the
lives of many soldiers in Iraq who would
have died in previous wars. However, many
of the 10,300 soldiers wounded so
far are attempting to re-integrate into
their country with much more horrific
and debilitating injuries than veterans of
any other previous war.

Meanwhile, the death toll mounts. Death
dropped in this reporter's in-box three
times during the writing of this story.

The Pentagon confirmed the deaths of
Sgt. Arthur C. Williams, IV, 31, of Edgewater,
Fla.; Capt. Mark N. Stubenhofer, 30, of
Springfield, Va.; and Sgt. 1st Class
Todd C. Gibbs, 37, of Angelina, Texas.

They came by way of separate e-mails
that drop with such numbing regularity,
they are often treated as spam - unless
you remind yourself that three
more families have paid the ultimate price.

(c) Copyright 2004 by TruthOut.org

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

13) People vs. Empire
Only global resistance from below can counter
repressive states
By Arundhati Roy
December 7, 2004
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/print/1740/

In India, the word public is now a Hindi word. It means people.
In Hindi, we have sarkar and public , the government and the
people. Inherent in this use is the underlying assumption that
the government is quite separate from "the people." However,
as you make your way up India's complex social ladder, the
distinction between sarkar and public gets blurred. The Indian
elite, like the elite anywhere in the world, finds it hard to
separate itself from the state.

In the United States, on the other hand, the blurring of this
distinction between sarkar and public has penetrated far
deeper into society. This could be a sign of robust democracy,
but unfortunately it's a little more complicated and less pretty
than that. Among other things, it has to do with the elaborate
web of paranoia generated by the U.S. sarkar and spun out by
the corporate media and Hollywood. Ordinary people in the
United States have been manipulated into imagining they are
a people under siege whose sole refuge and protector is their
government. If it isn't the Communists, it's al Qaeda. If it isn't
Cuba, it's Nicaragua. As a result, the most powerful nation in
the world is peopled by a terrified citizenry jumping at shadows.
A people bonded to the state not by social services, or public
health care, or employment guarantees, but by fear.

This synthetically manufactured fear is used to gain public
sanction for further acts of aggression. And so it goes,
building into a spiral of self-fulfilling hysteria, now formally
calibrated by the U.S government's Amazing Technicolored
Terror Alerts: fuchsia, turquoise, salmon pink.

To outside observers, this merging of sarkar and public in
the United States sometimes makes it hard to separate the
actions of the government from the people. Such confusion
fuels anti-Americanism in the world-anti-Americanism that
is seized upon and amplified by the U.S. government and its
faithful media outlets. You know the routine: "Why do they
hate us? They hate our freedoms," et cetera. This enhances
the U.S. people's sense of isolation, making the embrace
between sarkar and public even more intimate.

Over the last few years, the "war on terrorism" has mutated into
the more generic "war on terror." Using the threat of an external
enemy to rally people behind you is a tired old horse that politicians
have ridden into power for centuries. But could it be that ordinary
people, fed up with that poor old horse, are looking for something
different? Before Washington's illegal invasion of Iraq, a Gallup
International poll showed that in no European country was support
for a unilateral war higher than 11 percent. On February 15, 2003,
weeks before the invasion, more than 10 million people marched
against the war on different continents, including North America.
And yet the governments of many supposedly democratic
countries still went to war.

We must question then: Is "democracy" still democratic? Are
democratic governments accountable to the people who elected
them? And, critically, is the public in democratic countries
responsible for the actions of its sarkar?

If you think about it, the logic that underlies the war on terror
and the logic that underlies terrorism are exactly the same. Both
make ordinary citizens pay for the actions of their government.
Al Qaeda made the people of the United States pay with their lives
for the actions of their government in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq
and Afghanistan. The U.S. government has made the people of
Afghanistan pay in the thousands for the actions of the Taliban
and the people of Iraq pay in the hundreds of thousands for the
actions of Saddam Hussein. Whose God decides which is a "just
war" and which isn't? George Bush senior once said: "I will never
apologize for the United States. I don't care what the facts are."
When the president of the most powerful country in the world
doesn't need to care what the facts are, then we can be sure we
have entered the Age of Empire.

Real choices

So what does public power mean in the Age of Empire? Does it
mean anything at all? Does it actually exist? In these allegedly
democratic times, conventional political thought holds that public
power is exercised through the ballot. People in scores of countries
around the world will go to the polls this year. Most (not all) of
them will get the governments they vote for. But will they get
the governments they want?

In India this year, we voted the Hindu nationalists of the BJP out
of office. But even as we celebrated, we knew that on nuclear bombs,
neoliberalism, privatization, censorship, big dams-on every major
issue other than overt Hindu nationalism-the Congress and the BJP
have no major ideological differences. We know that it is the 50-year
legacy of the Congress Party that prepared the ground culturally
and politically for the far right.

And what of the U.S. elections? Did U.S. voters have a real choice?
The U.S. political system has been carefully crafted to ensure that
no one who questions the natural goodness of the military-industrial
corporate structure will be allowed through the portals of power.
Given this, it's no surprise that in this election you had two Yale
University graduates, both members of Skull and Bones, the same
secret society, both millionaires, both playing at soldier-solider,
both talking up war, and arguing almost childishly about who would
lead the war on terror more effectively. It's not a real choice. It's an
apparent choice. Like choosing a brand of detergent. Whether you
buy Ivory Snow or Tide, they're both owned by Procter & Gamble.
The fact is that electoral democracy has become a process of
cynical manipulation. It offers us a very reduced political space
today. To believe that this space constitutes real choice would be
naive. The crisis of modern democracy is a profound one. Free
elections, a free press and an independent judiciary mean little
when the free market has reduced them to commodities available
on sale to the highest bidder.

On the global stage, beyond the jurisdiction of sovereign governments,
international instruments of trade and finance oversee a complex web
of multilateral laws and agreements that have entrenched a system
of appropriation that puts colonialism to shame. This system allows
the unrestricted entry and exit of massive amounts of speculative
capital into and out of Third World countries, which then effectively
dictates their economic policy. Using the threat of capital flight as
a lever, international capital insinuates itself deeper and deeper into
these economies. Giant transnational corporations are taking control
of their essential infrastructure and natural resources, their minerals,
their water, their electricity. The World Trade Organization, the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions,
like the Asian Development Bank, virtually write economic policy and
parliamentary legislation. With a deadly combination of arrogance and
ruthlessness, they take their sledgehammers to fragile, interdependent,
historically complex societies, and devastate them, all under the
fluttering banner of "reform." As a consequence of such reform,
thousands of small enterprises and industries have closed; millions
of workers and farmers have lost their jobs and land.

Once the free market controls the economies of the Third World they
become enmeshed in an elaborate, carefully calibrated system of
economic inequality. Western countries flood the markets of poorer
nations with their subsidized agricultural goods and other products
with which local producers cannot possibly compete. Countries that
have been plundered by colonizing regimes are steeped in debt to
these same powers, and have to repay them at the rate of about
$382 billion a year. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer-
not accidentally, but by design .

To put a vulgar point on all of this, the combined wealth of the
world's billionaires in 2004 (587 "individuals and family units"),
according to Forbes magazine, is $1.9 trillion-more than the
gross domestic product of the world's 135 poorest countries
combined. The good news is that there are 111 more billionaires
this year than there were in 2003.

Modern democracy is safely premised on an almost religious
acceptance of the nation state. But corporate globalization is not.
Liquid capital is not. So even though capital needs the coercive
powers of the nation state to put down revolts in the servants'
quarters, this setup ensures that no individual nation can oppose
corporate globalization on its own.

Public power

Radical change cannot and will not be negotiated by governments;
it can only be enforced by people. By the public . A public that can
link hands across national borders. A public that disagrees with the
very concept of empire. A public that has set itself against the
governments and institutions that support and service Empire.

Empire has a range of calling cards. It uses different weapons to
break open different markets. There's no country on God's earth
that isn't caught in the crosshairs of the U.S. cruise missile and the
IMF checkbook. For poor people in many countries, Empire does
not always appear in the form of cruise missiles and tanks, as it
has in Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam. It appears in their lives in
very local avatars-losing their jobs, being sent unpayable electricity
bills, having their water supply cut, being evicted from their homes
and uprooted from their land. It is a process of relentless
impoverishment with which the poor are historically familiar.
What Empire does is further entrench and exacerbate already
existing inequalities.

Until quite recently, it was sometimes difficult for people to see
themselves as victims of Empire. But now, local struggles have
begun to see their role with increasing clarity. However grand it
might sound, the fact is, they are confronting Empire in their
own, very different ways. Differently in Iraq, in South Africa, in
India, in Argentina, and differently, for that matter, on the
streets of Europe and the United States.

Mass resistance movements, individual activists, journalists,
artists and film makers have come together to strip Empire of its
sheen. They have connected the dots, turned cash-flow charts
and boardroom speeches into real stories about real people and
real despair. They have shown how the neoliberal project has cost
people their homes, their land, their jobs, their liberty, their
dignity. they have made the intangible tangible. The once
seemingly incorporeal enemy is now corporeal.

This is a huge victory. It was forged by the coming together of
disparate political groups, with a variety of stratigies. But they
all recognized that the target of their anger, their activism and
their doggedness is the same. This was the beginning of real
globalization. The globalization of dissent.

Meanwhile, the rift between rich and poor is being driven deeper
and the battle to control the world's resources intensifies.
Economic colonialism through formal military aggression is
staging a comeback.

Iraq today is a tragic illustration of this process. The illegal
invasion. The brutal occupat