[Newspoetry] FW: [Peace] [Sdas] Fwd: The war on dissent widens - AlterNet

[Robert Porter]

I know some of you have already seen this, but I found it chilling enough to
risk annoying the list.  This AVOT group may not be engaged in creative
writing, but they're certainly putting their own unique spin on the truth.
Don't worry about reading the whole thing.  Two or three paragraphs ought to
be enough to get the gist.

-- Bob (Why is William Bennett always involved in the really scary stuff?)
Porter
----------
From: parenti susan rose <sparenti at ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 09:30:19 -0600 (CST)
To: <peace at lists.groogroo.com>
Subject: [Peace] [Sdas] Fwd: The war on dissent widens - AlterNet (fwd)



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 06:09:59 GMT
From: manni at snafu.de
To: sdas at onthejob.net
Subject: [Sdas] Fwd: The war on dissent widens - AlterNet (fwd)

Forwarded Message:
> To: Ann Singleton <a.singleton at wsel.lu>
> From: Andre Gunder Frank <franka at fiu.edu>
> Subject: The war on dissent widens - AlterNet (fwd)
> Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 22:10:29 -0500 (EST)
> >
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 17:27:15 PST
> From: shniad at SFU.CA
> Reply-To: Discussions on the Socialist Register and its articles
>     <SOCIALIST-REGISTER at YorkU.CA>
> To: SOCIALIST-REGISTER at YORKU.CA
> Subject: The war on dissent widens - AlterNet
>
> http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12612
>
> AlterNet                                          March 12, 2002
>
> The war on dissent widens
>
>      By Jim Lobe
>
> A powerful group of neo-conservatives is launching a new public
relations
> campaign in support of President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.
>
> At a Tuesday gathering of the National Press Club, members of the new
> Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT) declared their intention to
> "take to task those groups and individuals who fundamentally
misunderstand
> the nature of the war we are facing."
>
> Those groups and individuals, AVOT claims, need to be resisted both
-here and
> abroad. A full-page AVOT advertisement carried in the March 10 Sunday
New
> York Times pointed to radical Islam as "an enemy no less dangerous
and no
> less determined than the twin menaces of fascism and communism we
faced in
> the 20th century." At the same time, the $128,000 ad lambasted those at
home
> "who are attempting to use this opportunity to promulgate their agenda
of
> 'blame America first.'"
>
> "Both [internal and external] threats," the ad continues, "stem from either
> a hatred for the American ideals of freedom and equality or a
> misunderstanding of those ideals and their practice."
>
> To expose the internal "threats," AVOT has compiled a sample list of
> statements by professors, legislators, authors and columnists that it
finds
> objectionable. The strategy appears similar to an earlier, much-criticized
> effort to monitor war dissidents by the American Council of Trustees and
> Alumni (ACTA), a group founded by Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice
President
> Dick Cheney, and neo-conservative Democratic Senator Joseph
Lieberman.
>
> AVOT's list of speakers it considers threatening include:
>
> - Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who said, "Some of us, maybe
foolishly, gave
> this president the authority to go after terrorists. We didn't know that he,
> too, was going to go crazy with it."
>
> - President Jimmy Carter, who assailed Bush's use of the phrase "axis
of
> evil," arguing that it was "overly simplistic and counter-productive."
>
> - Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who accused the president of
"canceling, in
> effect, the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments" and called
> the war "the patriot games, the lying games, the war games of an
unelected
> president."
>
> - American Prospect editor Robert Kuttner criticizing "Bush's dismal
> domestic policies" and his "dubious notion of a permanent war."
>
> - Lewis Lapham, the editor of "Harper's Magazine," who in a recent
editorial
> said that Washington itself has used terrorist tactics during the 1990s,
> including the bombing of civilian targets in Baghdad and the Balkans.
>
> Who exactly is behind AVOT's efforts? The newly-formed organization is
> headed by a formidable array of right-wing luminaries. At the top of the
> list is former Secretary of Education and drug czar William Bennett,
AVOT's
> chairman. The group's Senior Advisors include former CIA director R.
James
> Woolsey; former Reagan Pentagon official Frank Gaffney; William P.
Barr,
> attorney general under George Bush, Sr; and mega-political donor
Lawrence
> Kadish. AVOT is a project of Empower America -- also co-chaired by
Bennett
> -- whose principal members include conservative political operatives
Jeane
> Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp, Vin Weber and William Cohen.
>
> During the press conference, Bennett insisted that, "We do not wish to
> silence people," adding that for now, AVOT plans to hold teach-ins and
> public education events, particularly on college campuses.
>
> In response to AVOT's criticism, Harper's Lewis Lapham said Bennett is
a
> "wrong-headed jingo and an intolerant scold." He added that AVOT
appeared to
> be a new "front organization for the hard neo-con (neo-conservative)
right,"
> which has gained unprecedented influence in the Bush administration,
> particularly among the top political appointees in the Pentagon and Dick
> Cheney's office. "This is the war-monger crowd," he said.
>
> Indeed, AVOT is being initially funded primarily by Lawrence Kadish,
> chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and a top donor to
the
> Republican Party. Kadish, a real estate investor in New York and
Florida,
> was cited by Mother Jones Magazine as one of the country's top
individual
> donors, having given $532,000 to the GOP. His RJC has long tried to
build
> links between the Republican Party, including its Christian Right
component,
> and American Jews.
>
> Bennett, Gaffney, and Woolsey are all veteran members of a
neo-conservative
> network of groups with overlapping boards of directors that have long
> championed rightwing governments in Israel and, among other things,
urged
> strong U.S. action against both Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the
Islamic
> government in Iran, as well as Palestine Authority President Yasser
Arafat.
>
>
> Both Gaffney and Bennett, for example, were two of about three dozen
mainly
> neo-conservative signers of an open letter sent to Bush in the name of
the
> "Project for a New American Century" nine days after the Sept. 11
attacks.
> It called not only for the destruction of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda
> network, but also to extend the war to Iraq, and possibly to Iran, Syria,
> Lebanon and the Palestine Authority unless those nations ceased their
> alleged support of terrorist groups opposed to Israel.
>
> Woolsey, meanwhile, was sent by the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board
to
> Britain in late September to gather evidence that could link Iraq to the
> Sept. 11. He and has since become one of the most visible
commentators in
> the media in favor of extending the war to Baghdad. Woolsey is also on
the
> board of the Jewish Institute for National Security, a hawkish pro-Israel
> group.
>
> AVOT is also linked through many channels to Richard Perle, chair of
the
> Pentagon's Defense Policy Board (which sent Woolsey on his Iraqi
quest).
> Perle, like Jeane Kirkpatrick, perches full time at the American
Enterprise
> Institute (AEI), a neo-con think-tank that has emerged as the hub of an
> "axis of incitement" -- a small but potent network of like-minded,
> ultra-hawkish officials, analysts and opinion-makers. It appears that
AVOT
> is the latest institutional offspring of that network, which is united by a
> passionate belief in the inherent goodness and redemptive mission of
the
> United States; the moral cowardice of liberals and European elites; the
> existential necessity of supporting Israel in the shadow of the Holocaust
> and in the face of Arab hostility; and the primacy of military power.
>
> These beliefs came through clearly at Tuesday's press conference.
Woolsey,
> for example, told reporters he agreed with those who are "calling the
war
> we're in now World War IV." But Gaffney was the most strident of the
> speakers at the event, saying that we should be skeptical of our
"new-found
> friends" in the war on terror.
>
> "[We must] pay special attention to friends like Saudi Arabia and Egypt
> whose ongoing use of media are creating problems for our allies,"
(implying
> Israel), Gaffney said. Any criticism of the administration's conduct of the
> war, he added, could be "interpreted in such a way as to hurt national
> resolve...(and) embolden the enemy."
>
> Jim Lobe writes on international affairs for Inter Press Service,
> Oneworld.net, Foreign Policy in Focus and AlterNet.org.
>



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