[Peace-discuss] News notes, 10/28

[C. G. Estabrook]

NOTES ON THE WEEK'S NEWS, FOR AWARE MEETING 10/28 

[N.B.--this list is highly selective, consisting only of some things that
seemed important to me this week.  --CGE] 

Sources:
	[AFP] = Agence France-Presse
	[ALL] = major papers
	[AP] = Associated Press
	[BBC] = British Broadcasting Corporation
	[CNN] = Cable News Network
	[CP] = CounterPunch
	[FR2] = France 2 (TV)
	[FT] = Financial Times (London)
	[GL] = Guardian (London)
	[HI] = Hindu (India)
	[IHT] = International Herald Tribune
	[IL] = The Independent (London)
	[LAT] = Los Angeles Times
	[LM] = Le Monde
	[NWK] = Newsweek
	[NYT] = New York Times
	[OL] = Observer (London)
	[OS] = Orlando Sentinel
	[PR] = Progressive Review
	[PV] = Pravda
	[RT] = Reuters
	[SC] = The Scotsman
	[SJM] = San Jose Mercury News
	[TI] = Times of India
	[TEL] = Telegraph (London)
	[TL] = Times (London)
	[UK] = British media
	[UPI] = United Press International
	[UST] = USA Today
	[WP] = Washington Post
	[WSJ] = Wall Street Journal
	[WT] = Washington Times

*SUNDAY 10/21. [WP] Just when you think the news can't get worse -- the
FBI floats a trail balloon about torturing the prisoners in holds it
illegal preventive detention!  The conduit is a WP reporter and CIA
"asset," Walter Pincus.  The FBI is frustrated (that's what they said
before they burnt to death those families in Waco) and are trying to (1)
scare the detainees; (2) gauge public reaction to Israeli-style torture in
the US; and (3) possibly forestall the emergence of stories about what
they've already done. On NPR's Diane Rehm Show, her pet media analysts
joked about the possibility that the FBI might send suspects to Israel or
Arab counties to be tortured.
	[SJM] Pentagon has hired a well-known Washington public-relations
firm to help it explain US military strikes in Afghanistan to global
audiences, US officials confirmed Thursday. The firm, the Rendon Group,
has worked in the past for US government agencies, including the CIA,
which paid it to boost the image of the Iraqi National Congress, a
US-backed group of Iraqis opposed to the rule of President Saddam Hussein.
That effort in the mid-'90s ended with an investigation by the CIA's
inspector general over how a reported $23 million was spent on behalf of
the Iraqi National Congress and its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, current and
former intelligence officials said. The officials spoke on condition of
anonymity.

*MONDAY 10/22. [ALL] Gen. Richard Myers, CJCS: "This is going to be a
very, very long campaign."  [Cf. Vietnam 40 years ago, when some in the
military were saying, "It's a dirty little war, but it's the only war
we've got."] SOS Powell: "It would be in our interest and the interest of
the coalition to see this matter resolved before winter strikes."
	[LAT] Indonesia (world's largest Muslim country): the consequences
of carrying the war through Ramadan would be "explosive"
	[AP] More than 3,000 people rallied behind US Rep. Barbara Lee,
the only member of Congress to oppose a resolution granting President Bush
authority to use force against terrorists. Danny Glover called Lee a hero.
Alice Walker, the writer, called her inspiring. Former state
Assembly-woman [and former Green] Audie Bock announced she would run
against Lee in the March Democratic primary, and already had geared up a
patriotic-themed campaign called it's "OK to love America."
	[AP] US demanded the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces Monday
from Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank and deplored their
killing of "numerous" Palestinian civilians during the weekend.  US
Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer was directed to convey the pointed message to
the Israeli Foreign Ministry. But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
stood firm, saying Israeli troops would not pull out of six West Bank
towns until the Palestinians turned over the assassins of an Israeli
Cabinet minister.
	[AP] The Taliban claimed Monday that US and British planes struck
a hospital in the western Afghan city of Herat, killing more than 100
people. They also claimed they shot down two US helicopters over the
weekend, both in southern Kandahar. One crippled helicopter landed in
neighboring Pakistan and the other in Afghanistan, they said.
	[TEL] David Podvin, an investigative journalist who runs an
independent Web page, Make Them Accountable, said he had been tipped off
that the newspaper consortium was covering up the results of their study
of the Florida election.  He refused to disclose his source other than to
describe him as a former media executive whom he knew "as an accurate
conduit of information" and who claimed that the consortium "is
deliberately hiding the results of its recount because Gore was the
indisputable winner". He also claims that a NYT journalist involved in the
recount project had told "a former companion" that the Gore victory margin
was big enough to create "major trouble for the Bush presidency if this
ever gets out".
	[ALL] APEC meeting in Shanghai (US and 20 Asian countries) ended
lukewarmly for US: a statement denouncing terrorism but no supporting for
bombing.

*TUESDAY 10/23. US admits another "bomb missed its target" [note how it's
always the bombs that make this mistake] and hit an "home for the elderly"
[probably a hospital]; Afghans claim 100 dead.
	[AP] The United Nations confirmed Tuesday that a US bomb had
struck a military hospital in the western Afghan city of Herat but said it
had no information regarding casualties.
	[AP] US jets have shifted from attacking fixed targets to hunting
down Taliban troops, the commander of the US Theodore Roosevelt battle
group said Saturday. Rear Adm. Mark Fitzgerald
	[WT] Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is considering creation
of a global command to fight a lengthy war on terrorism, a sure sign that
the Pentagon is contemplating covert combat in countries other than
Afghanistan. Gen. Charles R. Holland, who heads US Special Operations
Command, may center the anti-terrorism effort at the general's
headquarters at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. Giving Gen. Holland,
or another four-star officer, command of the anti-terror war would avoid
shifting responsibility from commander to commander as anti-terror
operations move from region to region. The principal war-fighting
commanders, known as commanders in chief, or cincs, are assigned their own
turf, such as Pacific or European command.
	[OS] Thousands of salaried workers at Walt Disney World were asked
Monday to cut their work week to 32 hours as the company stepped up
cost-cutting efforts. The move will mean 20 percent less in their
paychecks for 7,400 workers at Disney's parks.
	[PV] The house of lone terrorist, Fayed El-Khutari, who is
believed to have been behind the explosion at the Dolfo discotheque in
Tel-Aviv on June 1st, was razed to the ground today in the town of
Kalkilia by Israeli soldiers using bulldozers and tanks
	[AL] On the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House Medical
Office dispensed Cipro to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as
he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David, and told them it was "a
precaution," according to one person directly involved
	[AP] FTC blocked the sale of Seagram's spirits and wine brands to
a pair of European companies Tuesday, saying the sale could reduce
competition and result in higher prices for rum. [Perfectly OK in oil,
books, and telecommunications, of course - but not rum.]

*WEDNESDAY 10/24. Palestinian reports say, "Israel's assault on the
Palestinian population continues unabated for the fifth consecutive day in
the districts of Bethlehem, Ramallah, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, and Nablus.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, 160 Palestinians have been
injured and 26 killed in the current Israeli assault between 18 - 21
October. The refugee camps of Aida and Beit Jibrin/Azza remain besieged by
army tanks.  UNRWA has been prevented access, and food supplies are
running short.  King Hussein Hospital in Beit Jala was attacked by heavy
tank shelling twice on Sunday night, resulting in the death of one person
and the injury of one of its physicians.  All Palestinian institutions in
the area have been unable to operate, as movement in the streets has
become extremely dangerous."  (Source: Al-Awda, The Palestinian Right to
Return Coalition, 22 October 2001)"
	[PR] "I wish you to burn and kill; the more you burn and kill, the
better it will please me." -- Brigadier General "Hell-roaring Jake" Smith
to his US Marines as they land in the Philippines on this day exactly 100
years ago.
	[AFP] The House narrowly approved HR 3090, a $100-billion plan to
"stimulate the economy." The measure, approved on a 216-214 vote mostly
along party lines, includes (a) $12.8 billion speed-up of income tax rate
reductions for the best-off 30% of taxpayers; (b) $40.2 billion tax cut
for accelerated depreciation; (c) $6.3 billion in rebates of their
Alternative Minimum Tax payments back to 1986 (!) for 14 profitable
corporations such as IBM and General Motors. (Total AMT rebates would cost
$25 billion, more than the total value of the rebates the bill gives to
the 39% of American households who didn't get a full rebate this summer.)
	[NYT] $54 billion in accelerated tax cuts with every penny going
to the top 30% of taxpayers and half going to the top 5%. 80% of the
benefits from the capital gains tax cuts would go to the top 2% of
households, and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, only $2.3
billion of the $100 billion stimulus for 2002 would be spent on benefits
for unemployed workers who would be the most likely to spend it to
stimulate the economy.
	[CP] For the past decade or so, the increasing income disparity
between the wealthy and the poor and working class has been unprecedented
in US history. If the average pay for production workers had risen at the
level as CEO pay, the annual workers salary would be $120,491 - not
$24,668. The wealthiest 1% of Americans control about 38% of America's
wealth. The bottom 80% control 17% of America's wealth. The top 1% of
stock owners have 48% of stock holdings.
	[NYT] senior Pentagon officials have stated for the first time
that an object of the bombing campaign in Afghanistan is to eliminate
stores of fuel, food, and other supplies.
	[NYT] Pentagon officials confirmed that 2 US helicopters came
under small-arms fire from an unknown source within Pakistan while
recovering the helicopter that crashed.
	[UK] IRA's decision to put some of its weapons beyond use -
apparently by pouring cement into bunkers full of weaponry - follows "32
years of tears" punctuated by Bloody Sunday in 1972, the bombing of the
Grand Hotel in Brighton in 1984, the Enniskillen blast in 1987 and the
destruction of Bishopsgate in the City of London eight years ago.
	[IL] the IRA's arsenal, thought to be buried in County Monaghan
and County Louth, includes three tons of Semtex, six flamethrowers, 500
pistols and 700 assault rifles. Britain's response to the concessions
announced yesterday will be to demolish some of the watchtowers lining the
South Armagh border.
	[GL] John de Chastelain, the head of the independent international
decommissioning body praised for the Canadian general's patience , honesty
and lack of bias since he took over the job from George Mitchell in 1997.

*THURSDAY 10/25. US bombs Red Cross warehouses by mistake -- three more
times after first mistake two weeks ago!  (Actually, one attack on the Red
Cross warehouse missed and hit a residential area -- "bomb
malfunctioned.")
	[SC] Correspondent in Ramallah: The village of Beit Rima, where
the Israeli operation was under way, remained sealed off last night amid
Palestinian accusations, denied by Israel, that a massacre had taken place
there. Israeli forces prevented Palestinian ambulances from entering the
village, with an army spokesman explaining that they would have got in the
way of the operation and that the army had brought its own doctors.
	[AFP] The United Nations said that US bombs had struck a mosque in
a military compound and a nearby village during raids on the western city
of Herat this week, adding to a growing catalogue of bombing blunders.
Scores of civilians have been killed.
	[AP] Cheney said Thursday that homeland security is not a
temporary measure for the current crisis, but ``will become permanent in
American life. I think of it as the new normalcy."  The vice president
spoke to a Republican Governors Association fund-raiser, which said it
raised about $1 million.
	[UST] Iranian ambassador to the UN visited Washington last week
and went out to dinner with some members of Congress (cf. Iran's interest
in Afghanistan and oil).

*FRIDAY 10/26. The Bills Comes Due:
	[ALL] Bush signs TERRORISM BILL ("The Patriot Act") to give police
new search powers, ostensibly in response to last month's terrorist
attacks, including black bag jobs and detaining immigrants; it provides
penalties for support of terrorism through expert advice or assistance;
and the FBI can make any Internet provider or telephone company turn over
customer records, including addresses contacted, with no court order
required; the company contacted may not "disclose to any person" what the
FBI has done (and the same is true for credit firms).  The vote was 357-66
in the House;
	[ALL] DOD picks Lockheed Martin Corp. over Boeing Co. to build its
next-generation fighter jet in a program that could be worth well over
$200 billion, the richest contract in military history.  The Joint Strike
Fighter (JSF) is to be a family of high-performance, low-cost "stealth"
aircraft, designed to evade radar and to replace Lockheed's F-16, the
world's best-selling fighter, and a host of other aging warplanes.  The
United States and Britain, which has committed $2 billion of its own to
development, plan to buy a combined total of 3,002 planes -- purchases
valued at more than $200 billion by the US Congressional Budget Office. In
addition, as many as 3,000 more might be sold to other allies, adding
another $200 billion or so to contract's worth over the next 30 years.
"All the airplanes on the planet are getting old," program director,
Marine Maj. Gen. Michael Hough said at the Paris Air Show in June. "We're
very optimistic we're going to sell roughly another 3,000 airplanes
abroad."
	[IL] The much-hyped first American ground attack on Afghanistan
ran into unexpectedly fierce resistance and almost ended in disaster,
senior defense sources have disclosed.  The attack was meant to be a
purely cosmetic exercise for the benefit of the media and the public
against a relatively safe and poorly defended target.  But there had been
a failure of intelligence, and the troops from the elite 75th Rangers
Regiment ran into such heavy fire on the ground near Kandahar that they
had to beat a hasty retreat. A Chinook helicopter airlifting them out lost
its undercarriage and had to make a forced landing.
	[WSJ] Sen. John McCain, who used to kill civilians form the air
but was less good as a pilot, writes that the war should be fought without
much concern for civilians and no pause for winter supplies - accepting
starvation of several millions.
	[NYT] "The Saudi family of Osama bin Laden is severing its
financial ties with the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm known for
its connections to influential Washington political figures, executives
who have been briefed on the decision said. The decision, reached late
last week, was by mutual agreement, a senior executive with the investment
firm said. It came largely as a result of public controversy about the
family's stake in a Carlyle fund that invests in buyouts of military and
aerospace companies, the executive said . . .  [SEVEN GRAFS LATER] In
recent years, Frank C. Carlucci, the chairman of Carlyle and a former
secretary of defense, has visited the family's headquarters in Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia, as have former President George Bush and James A. Baker III,
the former secretary of state. Mr. Bush works as an adviser to Carlyle,
and Mr. Baker is a partner in the firm."
	[PR] TEXAS GOP LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR candidate David Dehurst put out
a campaign ad featuring a uniformed soldier and an American flag. Only
problem was that it was a German soldier. Says Rob Johnson, Dewhurst's
campaign manager, "It was clearly a mistake in graphics, and the graphics
consultant has been dealt with appropriately,"

*SATURDAY 10/27. An earthquake at 1:42 a.m., centered in midtown Manhattan
just south of Central Park, measured 2.6 on the Richter scale, making it
one of the more powerful to strike New York City.
	[NPR]Israel kills 40 and injures hundreds in PA areas: NPR's
Daniel Shore - "a game without surcease" (!).
	[WP] FBI and CIA officials believe that the anthrax attacks on
Washington, New York and Florida are likely the work of one or more
extremists in the United States who are probably not connected to Osama
bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization,
	[NYT] Surrounded by Taliban forces on a mountain road, Abdul Haq
used a cell phone to reach Robert McFarlane, Reagan's NSA, who alerted the
CIA, who asked the military to call in an airstrike to try to save Haq, to
no avail.  [What was going on here?]
	[WP] Musharraf: unless the U.S. reigns in the bombs and embraces
political strategies, people's sympathies will increasingly be directed
against America.
	[NYT] Reward for Pakistan's cooperation includes debt
rescheduling, grants of several billions, and trade benefits; Pakistan
becomes the third-biggest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel and Egypt,
displacing Turkey and Colombia.
	[NYT] Czech Republic confirms, without giving details, that a
meeting did take place between hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi
intelligence officer in Prague last spring.

*SUNDAY 10/28. Quake swarm in LA: computer reporting 25 quakes in hour,
Biggest: 3.7 mag; 3.0 mag aftershock...
	[WP] Bush believes the president can allow the CIA to conduct
clandestine assassinations (as Clinton said in 1998).  For the reported
fourth time in 7 days, a misguided American bomb hit a Northern
Alliance-controlled village; this one killed 10 people.  Pakistani
arrested and turned over to US without a formal extradition hearing a
Yemeni student suspected of being involved in attack on the USS Cole; US
and Pakistani secret police conducted a sweep of Pakistan's college
students, searching for al-Qaida members and other militants.
	[LAT] 8,000 Pakistani volunteers armed with rifles and rocket
launchers have massed near Pakistan's northwestern border and plan to join
Taliban forces; their leader is Sofi Mohammedi.
	[NYT] NSA Rice claims that the Russians have warmed to U.S. plans
to test its missile defense system.
	[NWK] SOD Rumsfeld wants more creative war plans from Central
Command (the Florida-based US headquarters for Afghan war); they suggest a
"roll-the-dice"  raid against the Taliban leadership; but Pentagon
officials tell Newsweek that, contrary to earlier public reports, the
initial paratroops assault by US Special Forces on 10/21 met surprisingly
swift and well-organized resistance.
	[NYT] Thousands of words from American officials, it appears, have
proved no match for the last week's news [and] a barrage of pictures of
wounded Afghan children and of Israeli tanks rolling into Palestinian
villages.

[AND FINALLY newspaperman and playwright Ben Hecht (1894-1964) wrote,
"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers
is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock."]

	==============================================================
	C. G. Estabrook
	Visiting Professor of Sociology
	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [MC-190]
	109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana IL 61801 USA
	office 217.244.4105 / mobile 217.369.5471 / home 217.359.9466  
        <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>