[Dryerase] Alarm!--War Notes

[Alarm!Wires]

War Notes
a bi-monthly column following the developments of our new permanent war, 
the war on terrorism

by Sasha k
The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor

Bombs and cover-ups:  A preliminary UN investigation has uncovered more 
ugly details about the US bombing earlier this month of a wedding party 
in Afghanistan.  A couple of days after the incident, the Pentagon 
announced that it would take some time to investigate and that they 
didn’t even know if anyone had indeed died.  But according to the Times 
of London, the UN investigation found that US soldiers arrived on the 
scene within hours and that they filmed damaged buildings and the bodies 
of around fifty dead Afghanis.  The soldiers went much further than 
that, however.  Apparently they tied up the women of the village and 
cleaned up shrapnel, bullets and bloodstains.  The UN investigation also 
found “no corroboration” on the ground that the US plane had been fired 
upon.  The Pentagon denied there was a cover-up and still claims it is 
too early to draw any conclusions.  The UN was to make its full report 
public on Wednesday, but after the US denial, the UN gave the report to 
the US and Afghan governments and did not make it public.  The cover-up 
is being covered up.

Bombing peace:  The US, of course, isn’t the only one with a “collateral 
damage” problem.  Israel bombed a tightly packed Gaza neighborhood last 
week, killing a Hamas leader and fifteen civilians and wounding around 
150.  The attack is sure to set off many revenge bombings of Israeli 
civilian and military targets.  Even the US weakly condemned the attack, 
saying that “this heavy-handed action does not contribute to peace.”  
But was that really the goal of dropping a one-ton bomb on a crowded 
residential neighborhood?  Ariel Sharon, Bush’s “man of peace,” seems to 
have had other aims for the attack, which he personally approved.On the 
days leading up to the July 23 bombing, there were several significant 
moves towards peace.  First, Abdul Razek Yahyia, the Palestinians’ 
interior minister, announced a new security plan to reduce violence.  
Shimon Peres, Israel’s foreign minister, was pleased with the plan.  At 
the same time, the EU, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were in the midst 
of brokering a peace plan that, as a first step, would have groups 
linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement--such as the al-Aqsa 
Brigades--end the use of suicide bombing within Israel.  Finally, on 
July 22, Hamas’ spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said that Hamas 
would stop killing Israeli civilians if Israel pulled out of the 
Palestinian cities it recently reoccupied, freed prisoners and stopped 
the assassination of Palestinian leaders.  These moves towards peace 
were troubling to Sharon, whose continued hold on power is based on an 
Israeli fear of terrorism.  Additionally, if peace began to break out, 
Sharon would have no excuse for reoccupying Palestinian controlled 
areas, or for the removal of Arafat.  But the bombing quickly took care 
of Sharon’s mounting problems, and it looks as if peace is again safely 
a long way off.

Suicide bombing and landmines:  If terrorism is defined as the targeting 
of civilians, is the use of landmines an act of terrorism?  Landmines 
are much more likely to kill civilians than military personel.  This 
fact has been the driving force behind the Ottawa Convention, the 
five-year-old global treaty banning the use of landmines.  Hamid Karzai, 
the president of Afghanistan, announced Sunday that Afghanistan would 
become the 126th country to sign the treaty.  Afghanistan has been badly 
affected by landmines: according to the International Committee of the 
Red Cross, 200,000 Afghanis have been killed or wounded by mines in the 
last twenty-three years of war.  But there are still a few prominent 
nations supporting the continued use of landmines; the US, China and 
Russia have not signed the treaty.  It is also estimated that around 
2,000 of the bombs the US dropped on Afghanistan in the recent war lie 
unexploded around the country, ready to randomly kill and wound.

A chorus of doubt:  As US talk of a war on Iraq reaches a high point, a 
chorus of statements against the war by leaders vital to any war 
coalition is weakening Bush’s opportunity for a prompt attack.  Arab 
League chief Amr Musa warned that any attack on Iraq would threaten 
regional security.  French President Jacques Chirac and German 
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made a joint statement that they would not 
support an attack on Iraq without a UN mandate.  The Kuwaiti government 
called on Iraq to let in inspectors and avoid the war.  King Abdullah of 
Jordan, meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said that 
Britain should not go along with the US drive towards war.  King 
Abdullah, who will meet with President Bush this week, said, “in the 
light of the failure to move the Israeli-Palestinian process forward, 
military action against Iraq would really open a Pandora’s box.”  The 
Egyptian and Saudi governments have also made statements against the 
war.  Iraq’s neighbour, Turkey, a key NATO ally, stated its concerns 
over the war.  But it also quietly asked the US to write off $4 billion 
of debt if the US does go to war.  And even in Britain, America’s 
strongest supporter, a series of letters and op-eds in newspapers by 
retired, high-ranking military personnel have denounced the war plans.

War and human rights:  Last Friday, Mary Robinson, the UN human rights 
chief who is to lose her job due to US pressure, said the US “war on 
terror” was encouraging countries to roll back human rights.  She said 
that countries have been using the crackdowns in the US and Europe as an 
excuse to step up repression in their own countries.  Robinson didn’t 
name any nation, but this week Egypt arrested sixteen members of the 
Muslim Brotherhood (which has renounced violence) along with a prominent 
human rights activist and sociology professor, Saadeddin Ibrahim.  
Ibrahim is being prosecuted bythe Egyptian government for monitoring 
Egyptian elections.  In China, the government is increasing its 
repression of ethnic Uyghurs, a Turkish minority that lives in the 
western province of Xinjiang.  The Chinese government--attempting to 
present itself as a US partner in the “war on terrorism”--now 
legitimates the repression by claiming, without any evidence, that 
Uyghur separatists are supported by Osama bin Laden.

All content Copyleft © 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted 
otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole 
or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by 
government agencies.
-----
The Alarm! Newspaper
a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace

http://www.the-alarm.com/
info at the-alarm.com
P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061
(831) 429-NEWS - office
(831) 420-1498 - fax