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News :: International Relations |
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AWARE News Notes |
Current rating: 0 |
by CARL ESTABROOK
Email: cge (nospam) shout.net (unverified!) |
04 Aug 2003
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Notes on this week's "War on Terrorism" --
for the AWARE meting, Sunday, August 3, 2003 |
IT WOULD BE EMBARRASSING NOT TO BE ON IT. After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports ... It is impossible to know for sure who might be on the list, or why. The ACLU says a list kept by security personnel at Oakland airport ran to 88 pages. [INDEPENDENT UK 0803]
NEOCON AGENDA. Undersecretary of State John Bolton in a speech in South Korea this week, described North Korea as a "hellish nightmare" and appeared to make the case for regime change in the country several times over. Bolton is a close ally of Vice President Dick Cheney and the Pentagon. [WP 0802] NK replied by saying they didn't want Bolton to be part of the US delegation to multilateral talks.
YEAH, SURE. The WP notices the Bush administration is now using a "different rationale" for the war in Iraq. Instead of focusing on weapons of mass destruction, Bushies are now citing the bigger goal of bringing peace to the Middle East, which they contend would reduce the terror threat against America. [WP 0802]
THE STRANGEST PEOPLE DON'T BELIEVE IT. A British parliamentary committee concludes that the Bush wars and the killing of thousands of people has not weakened Al-Quaeda and may have strengthened it. "The war in Iraq might have impeded the fight against terrorism rather than helped it, the Commons foreign affairs committee warned yesterday. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime had not diminished the threat to Britain from either international terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, it said." [GUARDIAN UK 0801]
LAND GRABS BRING PEACE? Israel's Separation Barrier, dubbed the "Apartheid Wall" or "Berlin Wall" by Palestinians, is planned to be four times as long and in places twice as high as the Berlin Wall, which was 96 miles long. Israel's barrier, still under construction, is expected to reach at least 403 miles in length; the average height of the Berlin Wall was 11.8 feet, compared with the maximum current height of Israel's Wall -- 25 feet.
RACIST LAWS BRING PEACE? Israel's parliament on Thursday passed a new law that would force Palestinians who marry Israelis to live separate lives or move out of Israel ... The law would prevent Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who marry Israeli Arabs from obtaining residency permits in Israel [AP 0731]
CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS BRING PEACE? House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told the Knesset members that Israel is in a pitched battle pitting good against evil that will "cost money and blood, but we're willing to pay." As for the compromises that President Bush is [supposedly] seeking, the Texan said, "There is no middle ground, no moderate position worth taking ... We fight humbly and proudly together" ... "the American people stand with you." [LAT 0801]
A GOOD WAR FOR SOME. Defense spending in the United States increased at the fastest rate in the past 50 years during the three-month period following the start of the Iraq invasion. The Wall Street Journal reports this increase -- the largest since the Korean War -- was the main reason the nation's gross domestic product jumped a robust 2.4 percent last quarter. The Pentagon is spending about $4 billion per month on the Iraq occupation not including the costs of reconstructing the country. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that the oil services giant Halliburton's revenue jumped 11 percent last quarter largely due to its work in Iraq. Halliburton is the company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. He still receives a check from them. The Pittsburg Post Gazette reports the national passenger train system Amtrak may largely cease to exist if Congress approves a new plan by the Bush administration to shift operating expenses of Amtrak from the federal government to individual states. [DN 0801]
BUT NOT FOR OTHERS. Nevertheless, the employment report for July was surprisingly weak, as it showed the economy losing another 44,000 jobs in the month; the overall number of jobs reported for June was revised downward by 48,000. Over the last three months, the economy has lost 192,000 jobs -- close to 3 million for the 36 months of job decline. The tax cuts, combined with the boost from high defense spending was suppose to jump start the economy; instead, the collapse of the mortgage refinancing boom will be a strong counteracting force in the near future. [CEPR 0801]
BUT WAIT, THE TREASURY HAS A PLAN FOR RAISING MONEY. The Treasury Department notified the humanitarian group Voices in the Wilderness three days ago that they have twenty days to pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines for violating sanctions against Iraq. Since its founding in 1996, Voices in the Wilderness has campaigned to end economic and military warfare against the Iraqi people. They have done this mostly by organizing delegations to Iraq in deliberate violation of U.N. economic sanctions and U.S. law, to publicly deliver small amounts of medical supplies to children and families in need. Many of the group's members refuse to pay taxes for war. Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, will be AWARE's guest in C-U in September.
SOME PEOPLE NOTICE THE US'S LONG-TERM PLAN. China and Russia, with the United States clearly in their sights, said Thursday "Star Wars" dangers were growing and called for a quick start to talks on a treaty to ban weapons in space. The two powers delivered their plea at a session of the United Nations-backed Conference on Disarmament just over a year after tabling proposals for a pact, to be known as PAROS, that have met with a cold reception from Washington. [REUTERS 0731]
USG TRIES TO STOP SOME PEOPLE FROM NOTICING. The Guardian of London is reporting that the Bush administration has quietly disbanded an independent panel that reviews the development of the US nuclear arsenal. The decision to disband the national nuclear security administration advisory committee comes at a time when the Bush administration is seeking to develop a new generation of mini nukes and bunker buster bombs. Democrat Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts said "The Bush administration is considering policy changes that will alter the role of nuclear weapons in national defence. Markey went on to say, "Given the importance and sheer complexity of the issues raised ... why was the only independent contemplative body studying nuclear weapons disbanded - and disbanded in such a surreptitious fashion?" [DN 0731]
YOU HAVE TO READ IT TO BELIEVE IT. What the NYT amazingly calls "a bold and entirely plausible theory that may account for the mystery over Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction: Saddam Hussein, the theory holds, ordered the destruction of his weapon stocks well before the war to deprive the United States of a rationale to attack his regime and to hasten the eventual lifting of the United Nations sanctions. But the Iraqi dictator retained the scientists and technical capacity to resume the production of chemical and biological weapons and eventually develop nuclear arms." [NYT 0801]
WHY INCOHERENCE IS NECESSARY. Bush held a news conference on Wednesday in which, according to the NYT, he gave "vague and sometimes nearly incoherent answers." [NYT 0731] He said he was confident that the U.S. would find evidence of an Iraqi "weapons program." That continues a recent trend in which the president has been referring to "programs" and not the weapons themselves. [SLATE 0731] Iraqi scientists continue to deny that Saddam had any active chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons. That includes scientists who have been detained by the U.S. for months and one who has talked outside Iraq. [WP 0731] A number of the scientists have been "held incommunicado." Last week Post columnist David Ignatius wrote of two scientists who the U.S seems to have detained and who haven't been heard from. Ignatius wrote that he suspects the forced silence is "evidence that the Pentagon and the White House have concluded that any public release of [the scientists'] testimony would undercut" the administration's position. [SLATE 0731]
MILLIONS FOR BLOOD-MONEY, BUT NONE TO STOP BLOOD-LETTING. SOS Colin Powell has approved the payment of $30 million in reward money to the tipster who supplied the critical information that led U.S. troops to the hideout of Saddam Hussein's two sons, slain two weeks ago, a U.S. official said Thursday ... The brothers were killed by TOW missiles fired into the villa in the northern city of Mosul where they had been hiding. [ap 0731] Meanwhile, Nigeria has said it has 1,500 soldiers set up to go into Liberia but needs $10 million more in aid from the U.S. The Bush administration has so far refused to provide the extra money. In response, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked the U.N. Security Council yesterday to divert funds from a peacekeeping mission in neighboring Sierra Leone to sustain the Nigerian troops. [DN 0730]
THEY'LL NOTICE IF YOU READ THE BILL OF RIGHTS. The American Civil Liberties Union and Arab American groups have filed a lawsuit challenging parts of the USA Patriot Act, specifically against Section 215, that lets the FBI monitor books people read and carry out secret searches. [AP 0730]
OUR RULERS KNOW HOW TO HANDLE DANGEROUS GROUPS. A new Justice Department report finds that the U.S. prison population jumped by almost four percent last year meaning an increase of about 700 inmates every week. The rapid increase comes at a time when crime is decreasing and state budget deficits are soaring. The total U.S. prison and jail population is just over 2 million. One out of every 143 residents is behind bars. African American men between the ages of 20 and 39 accounted for about a third of all sentenced inmates. Some experts say mandatory sentences, especially for nonviolent drug offenders, are a major reason inmate populations have risen for 30 years. [DN 0730]
OUR RULERS KNOW HOW TO HANDLE DANGEROUS GROUPS (II). Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson predicts the situation in Iraq will deteriorate so much over the next year Bush may resort to start another war in order to win the 2004 election. Wilson is the retired diplomat who visited Niger in a CIA-sponsored trip last year during which he determined the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal was bogus. His conclusion was ignored by the Bush White House. [DN 0730]
AN OFFICIAL SMART GUY GETS IT RIGHT. The 2001 Nobel Prize winner for economics is calling the Bush administration the worst ever in American history. George Akerlof told the German paper Der Spiegel "I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy." [DN 0730]
REMEMBER HOW WE HAD TO DESTROY AFGHANISTAN IN ORDER TO SAVE IT? A new Human Rights Watch report documents abuses in Afghanistan that are being "committed by gunmen and warlords who were propelled into power by the United States and its coalition partners after the Taliban fell in 2001. These men and others have essentially hijacked the country outside of Kabul. With less than a year to go before national elections, Afghanistan's human rights situation appears to be worsening." [NYT 0729]
DEPUTY "DEFENCE" SECRETARY WOLFOWITZ IS STILL AT LARGE. He said this week (really), "I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq." [WP 0729] He claimed Al-Jazeera was "inciting violence" and "endangering the lives of American troops" in Iraq. The station's chief in Baghdad says that his staff has been "subject to strafing by gunfire, death threats, confiscation of news material, and multiple detentions and arrests, all carried out by US soldiers". [DN 0730] Meanwhile, U.S. authorities in Iraq ask a Bahraini firm to stop running Baghdad's first mobile phone service, over concerns that it could muck up the bidding for spectrum licenses. [BBC 0728] Last Sunday Wolfowitz put new emphasis on the current fighting in Iraq, calling it the "central battle" in the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11, 2001, war on terrorism. [WP 0728]
SO IS "SECURITY" ADVISER RICE. Congress' 9/11 report calls into question statements made by Condoleezza Rice during a May 2002 press conference, in which she said an August 2001 presidential briefing contained only a general warning of al-Qaeda threats and historical information, not specific plots. In a January 23, 2003 New York Times op-ed, headlined "Why We Know Iraq is Lying," Rice wrote that "Iraq has filed a false declaration to the United Nations that amounts to a 12,200-page lie. For example, the declaration fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad..." [AP 0728]
BUT POINDEXTER HAS SLUNK AWAY TO A THINK-TANK (AGAIN). The Pentagon has abandoned plans to set up a 'terror stock market' in which investors could bag cash by successfully predicting terrorist attacks, assassinations, etc. [SKY UK 0729] According to its Web site, the Policy Analysis Market was to be a joint program of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, and two private companies: Net Exchange, a market technologies company, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, the business information arm of the publisher of The Economist magazine.
TALES OF THE FECKLESS DEMOCRATS. Howard Dean is on the cover of both Time and Newsweek this week, and page one of Sundays' WP carries an article about the supposed anti-war candidate. His positon on the occupations: "We need more troops in Afghanistan. We need more troops in Iraq now. I supported the president's invasion of Afghanistan ..., But I do not support what the president's doing there now. We need more people there. We cannot be making alliances with warlords in the hope that we're one day going to have the democracy in Afghanistan. And what I would do in Iraq now is bring in NATO and bring in the United Nations, because our troops on the ground deserve better support than they're getting." [MEET THE PRESS 0622]. His defenders' website summarizes his position by quoting a local paper: "But now in Iraq, the U.S. is stuck there and must prevent a fundamentalist regime from taking power and harboring al-Qaeda or other such organizations, Dean said." (On Israel, Dean supports the US/Israeli lobby, AIPAC.)
ENFORCING THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO KNOW WHAT THE MILITARY WANTS. A Japanese reporter was manhandled and temporarily detained by U.S. soldiers last Sunday for filming without their permission in an area of Baghdad where they were conducting raids. "By obstructing our legitimate news gathering activities, I suppose they had something to hide from us, such as bodies of civilians," the reporter said. [JAPAN TODAY 0728]
ANTI-WAR = ANTI-CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION. Over 200 WTO protesters arrested in Montreal. Among the arrested was Canadian activist Jaggi Singh, who was giving interviews to the mainstream media around when police handcuffed him and charged him with unlawful assembly. The mini-ministerial meeting in Montreal is a prelude to a much bigger WTO gathering this September where all 146 members will meet in Cancun, Mexico. [DN 0730]
MEANWHILE, INVESTORS ORGANIZE THE WORLD TO THEIR LIKING. Two more countries have "free trade" agreements with the US -- Chile and Singapore. They join Mexico, Canada, Israel and Jordan.
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C. G. Estabrook
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [MC-190]
109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue
Urbana IL 61801 USA
<www.carlforcongress.org>
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