[Peace-discuss] News notes 021201

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Notes on the week's news
	from the "War on Terrorism"
	for the AWARE meeting,
	Sunday, December 1, 2002

1. THE WAR AT HOME. The NY City Council yesterday overwhelmingly approved
a 18.5 percent property-tax hike that some members dubbed a "wartime tax."
The 41-6 vote came as a new Manhattan Institute study warned the wham-bam
tax increase will result in the loss of 62,000 private-sector jobs. "We
have been bombed," Council Speaker Gifford Miller said, referring to the
9/11 attacks. [NYT 1126]

2. WHERE THE $ GOES. Although the president's budget calls for boosting
national defense outlays to $442 billion by 2007 -- up by nearly 50
percent from 2000 -- the Pentagon is seeking an extra $10 billion a year
for the next five years to fight terrorism. [NYT 1127]

3. AGED FOXES WATCH THE CHICKENS HOME TO ROOST. A well-known war criminal,
Henry Kissinger ["a man with a long, proven record of concealing evidence
and of lying to Congress, the press, and the public"], was yesterday
appointed by George Bush to head the investigation into the September 11
attacks. The vice-chairman, chosen by Congressional Democrats, will be
another former Secretary of State, George Mitchell. [NYT 1128] [WP take on
criticism: "Both Kissinger and Mitchell were seen as polarizing figures at
times in their careers but now command broad respect as wise men in their
parties."]

4. WRONG MESSAGE. Just as British Mideast correspondent predicted last
week, complaints from former weapons inspectors that the current Hans
Blix-led team isn't up to snuff, and discreditable accounts of his staff,
began turning up in the WP this week. [DN]

5. WRONG MESSAGE, II. "While we know America wants to attack us no matter
what, we hope that our attitude toward the inspections will convince the
world that war is the wrong option," says an Iraqi professor and member of
Parliament. Iraq's declaration of its weapons programs is also due on Dec.
8. [NYT 1130]

6. UNDERLYING CONDITIONS. In 1990, India and China were neck-and-neck in
GDP per capita; a decade later, China has almost double the GDP per head
of its rival. [NYT 1129]

7. AND THEY AVOID THE BAD COP. Ariel Sharon, who became prime minister two
years ago on a promise of peace and security, was overwhelmingly
re-elected on Thursday -- over his opponent on the Right, former PM Bibi
Netanyahu -- to lead his party in the January national election. [NYT
1129]

8. W-O-T WORLDWIDE. Thursday's car bombing in Kenya -- death toll has
risen to 16 (including the three bombers), with another 18 seriously
wounded. [NYT 1130] Mossad, the Israeli spy agency, has taken over the
investigation of the bomb site from Kenyan authorities. [LAT 1130] The LAT
story, after quoting a Kenyan Muslim leader who fears retaliation, reminds
us that after Palestinians killed Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in
Germany, "Mossad agents tracked down and killed every alleged participant
except one, even when it meant killing bystanders in the process."

9. "ISRAELI" MEANS "AMERICAN."  Two Israeli helicopters have fired
missiles at a passenger car northeast of Gaza City, Palestinian witnesses
said. [BBC 1201] Two Palestinians killed in Gaza, one buried by tanks [CNN
1201].  At least 1,000 more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed
since September 2000.

10. INCOMING. UN experts visited a crop-spraying facility and factories
for missile casings and aircraft engines on a fourth day of arms
inspections overshadowed by a Western air raid that killed at least eight
Iraqis. Twenty more people were injured when war-planes bombed the premises
of the Southern Oil Company in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.  [BBC
1201]

11. THE ARAB FAÇADE. The NYT Sunday lead reports that tiny but wealthy
Qatar already spent over $1 billion to construct an air base for U.S.
forces. Officials tell the paper that they expect Qatar to permit the U.S.
to use the base to attack Iraq, provided the United Nations and other
countries give it "the necessary political cover." [NYT 1201]

12. "CONSTITUTION IS NOT A SUICIDE PACT."  A front-page article in the WP
says the Bush administration is developing "a parallel legal system" for
suspects in the war on terror. As the piece notes, Bush has asserted the
right to designate Americans as "enemy combatants," a status which in the
past had been reserved for non-citizens during wartime. The label allows
terror suspects to be held without trial and interrogated without an
attorney. "The notion that the executive branch can decide by itself that
an American citizen can be put in a military camp, incommunicado, is
frightening," says a critic of the administration. [WP 1201]

	On the twelfth day of fascism
	John Ashcroft gave to me
	Twelve digital implants
	Eleven years protesting
	Ten less amendments
	Nine internment camps
	Eight surveillance cameras
	Seven TIPsters tipping
	Six snoops a-sniffing
	Five Carnivores
	Four airport friskings
	Three wiretappings
	Two detained Muslims
	And a Department of Homeland Security
	- Author unknown

[From a September 25, 2002 column.] Are your ready for WW IV?

Neoconservatives are preparing the groundwork for far-reaching and
interminable U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Neoconservative leader
Norman Podhoretz makes the case in the current issue of Commentary, the
influential magazine of the American Jewish Committee, that it is not
enough for the United States to attack only Afghanistan and Iraq.
Podhoretz argues that "changes of regime are the sine qua non throughout
the region."

The challenge that President Bush faces, says Podhoretz, is "to fight
World War IV -- the war against militant Islam." He identifies the
enemies: "The regimes that richly deserve to be overthrown and replaced
are not confined to the three singled-out members of the axis of evil"
(Iraq, Iran, North Korea). At a minimum, the axis should extend to Syria
and Lebanon and Libya, as well as 'friends' of America like the Saudi
royal family and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, along with the Palestinian
Authority."

Unlike the Bush administration, Podhoretz realizes that to overthrow the
Taliban and Saddam Hussein is merely to stir a hornets' nest, while
leaving in place multitudes of anti-Israeli and anti-American militants.
Bush must own up to the true task, says Podhoretz, and find "the stomach
to impose a new political culture on the defeated" Middle East, just as we
did unapologetically to Germany and Japan.

  ==============================================================
  C. G. Estabrook
  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
  <www.carlforcongress.org>
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