[Peace-discuss] News notes, 1/13/02 (Part 2 of 2)

[C. G. Estabrook]

[continued from part one]

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 09, 2002

About 60 members of New Hampshire Peace Action marched outside the hall
where Bush spoke in Durham. One student in the hand-picked audience
interrupted the president's speech about education reform. "What about the
dead Afghani children, President Bush?" Rob Wolff shouted before being
shoved back into his seat. Following Bush's remarks, Wolff said he opposes
the war because it will make a difficult situation worse. "It's only going
to increase anti-American sentiment across the world," the 22-year-old
sophomore said. "It's killing thousands of innocent Afghani civilians.
It's not ultimately going to make us any safer really." Outside,
protesters said the U.S. attacks haven't made Americans feel any safer and
have caused high civilian casualties. "The message we want to get to
President Bush is to stop bombing in Afghanistan and don't start bombing
anywhere else," said Tom Jackson, the group's chairman. "We've managed to
kill a whole bunch of civilians who had nothing to do with the September
11 attacks, and Osama bin Laden is still out there." The group's
literature cites an estimate by UNH economics professor Marc Herold that
between 4,000 and 5,000 Afghan civilians have died since the United States
began the bombing Oct. 7. The estimate is based on news accounts, Herold
said in a telephone interview Tuesday. Pentagon spokesman Maj. James
Cassella said civilian casualties are inevitable in war, but the U.S.
military had not tracked them in the Afghan campaign ... Herold's study
placed the death count at 3,767 as of Dec. 6, and he said it is closer to
4,050 now. Even that number is low, he said, citing the difficulties of
gathering data. He estimated the actual count is closer to 5,000 ... "The
critical element remains the very low value put upon Afghan civilian lives
by U.S. military planners and the political elite, as clearly revealed by
U.S. willingness to bomb heavily populated regions." [AP]

THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 2002

A federal judge said Wednesday she has the authority to freeze hundreds of
millions of dollars in assets that Enron Corp. insiders earned through
selling their stock, but declined to do so. U.S. District Court Judge Lee
Rosenthal cited a 1999 Supreme Court opinion for her authority to freeze
the assets of the 29 Enron executives and board members named in a lawsuit
filed on behalf of a number of worker retirement funds. But she ruled
there were insufficient grounds for issuing such an order based on the
evidence and arguments she has heard so far ... The lawsuit, filed by New
York-based Amalgamated Bank in November, alleges that Enron executives and
board members sold $1.1 billion in Enron stock over the past three years
while not disclosing that the stock price was overvalued. Amalgamated Bank
manages pension funds that hold Enron stock ... In November 2001, Enron
reported it was adjusting its earnings for the past 4 1/2 years because of
bookkeeping errors related to investment partnerships it had formed. That
included a $586 million reduction in net income, adding $2.5 billion in
debt to its books and a 77-cent reduction in earnings per share.
Amalgamated's attorney Bill Lerach in a Dec. 7 hearing asked the judge to
freeze the assets of the Enron insiders, including Chairman and CEO Ken
Lay and former Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling ... Lay netted $16.1
million in stock sales for the first nine months of 2001, according to
data compiled by Thomson Financial/First Call, while Skilling collected
$15.5 million. [HOUSTON CHRONICLE]

A just-released report from the Center for Public Integrity finds that 24
of the 29 Enron executives made political contributions totalling nearly
$800,000 from 1999 to 2001. See the long list of Bush administration
officials who held Enron stock. Bob Herbert calls Enron a case study in
what happens when "unrestrained corporate greed is joined at the hip with
the legalized bribery and influence-peddling that passes for government
these days." [CURSOR.ORG]

M. WEISBROT. The private sector has lost over a million jobs in just the
last three months. In a recession, tax revenues also fall, while
government spending typically increases. This is normal and helps
stabilize the economy. The federal government ran a budget deficit
amounting to 4.7 percent of our economy (or GDP) coming out of the last
recession. In 1983, at the end of a more serious downturn, the deficit was
6 percent of GDP. This year's projected deficit, at less than one percent
of GDP, is really very small ... We're losing jobs at the fastest rate in
20 years, and the House Republicans in October passed an "economic
stimulus" bill that contained very little to boost the economy. Instead
they loaded it with more tax breaks for the rich, and tens of billions of
dollars in refunds for America's largest corporations ... For nearly three
decades we have lived through one of the most massive, un-equalizing
redistributions of income in American history. The majority of the labor
force has literally been excluded from the gains produced through economic
growth. Now that the economy has ground to a halt, the public's tolerance
for increasing inequality may finally reach its limits. Why not ask them:
do you want to go without health insurance or prescription drugs so the
rich can get even richer? It's a simpler appeal, and a lot more honest and
believable than the phony fiscal conservatism that the Democratic
leadership has chosen to embrace. [COMMON DREAMS]

The United States' new special envoy to Kabul once lobbied for the Taliban
and worked for an American oil company that sought concessions for
pipelines in Afghanistan. Zalmay Khalilzad, who was born in Afghanistan,
has arrived in Kabul amid much publicity as the representative of the
country that put the new government in power... [INDEPENDENT UK]

In a push to attract Jews from France, South Africa and crisis-hit
Argentina, Israel has injected a monetary boost into immigration efforts
as its own economy drags, Jewish Agency chairman Sallai Meridor said
Wednesday. "We've enhanced our efforts in absorption. The government and
the Jewish Agency have agreed to provide special assistance to Jews coming
from those communities," Meridor told reporters. In the past year, 1,300
Jews have immigrated from Argentina, which has declared the biggest
default in history on its 132-billion-dollar foreign debt, he said. [AFP]

FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2002

Twenty prisoners--photographed with hoods over their heads and shackles on
their arms and feet--were flown from a U.S. Marine Corps base in southern
Afghanistan Thursday via a C-17 transport plane, the first of hundreds of
prisoners expected to make the trip over coming days and weeks. U.S.
military forces currently have 371 suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda soldiers
in custody, although the Guantanamo base is being readied to house as many
as 2,000 prisoners, some of whom may be subject to prosecution by
specially created military tribunals. In a statement released Thursday,
Amnesty International said statements by senior U.S. military officials
about plans for drugging, holding, and shackling the prisoners during the
flights were "worrying ... sedating prisoners for other than medical
purposes would be in breach of international standards," warned Amnesty, a
point echoed by Kenneth Roth, the executive director of New York-based
Human Rights Watch after Pentagon officials ordered several news
organizations not to transmit pictures of the hooded detainees boarding
planes. "We are particularly concerned about reports that the prisoners
may have been drugged," Roth told the British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC). According to Principle 5 of the United Nations Principles of
Medical Ethics, sedative drugs should be administered only if there is a
medical necessity ... Amnesty's latest statement follows a letter it sent
to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Monday in which it expressed
specific concerns about recent photographs of hooded prisoners which have
appeared in the media. "Amnesty International considers that the hooding
of suspects in detention generally may constitute cruel treatment," wrote
Amnesty's secretary-general Irene Khan, citing recent rulings by the UN
Committee Against Torture in cases concerning Turkey and Israel that the
hooding or blindfolding of suspects during interrogation violated the UN
Convention against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. She also noted that
keeping prisoners hooded prevents them from identifying guards who may
commit abuses. Once they have arrived at the Guantanamo base, according to
the Pentagon, they will be held in 6-by-8-foot cages made of concrete and
chain-link fencing. Officials said they will be subject to more intensive
interrogation and possible removal or repatriation to other countries.
Some of the prisoners may also be tried by military tribunals whose
creation has been authorized by President George W. Bush. The proposed
tribunals have been attacked by human and civil rights groups that claim
they lack elementary due-process safeguards, including the right to appeal
their conviction or to challenge the lawfulness of their detention before
an independent court. The prisoners are sent to the Guantanamo base in
part because it is not on U.S. territory which would automatically provide
detainees with certain basic constitutional rights. At the same time, base
operations at Guantanamo Bay are not affected by an agreement with the
host government that also might provide detainees with more rights.
[ONEWORLD.NET]

WOT WATCH: President Bush warned Iran not to meddle in Afghanistan. Iran,
meanwhile, denied anonymous Pentagon claims that it has harbored al-Qaida
troops. The NYT says that investigators are increasingly convinced that
Richard Reid, the thwarted shoe bomber, was connected to al-Qaida.
Meanwhile, one French official claims he knows the origin of the shoe-bomb
concept. "The CIA first trained fighters in how to make these bombs during
the war with the Soviets in Afghanistan," he said. The papers note that
the Pentagon is sending about 100 U.S. troops to advise soldiers in the
Philippines who are fighting a Muslim separatist group that apparently has
some connection to al-Qaida. The Pentagon said the U.S. troops are going
to support Filipino soldiers, but said there is the chance they could be
involved in combat. [NY TIMES]

SATURDAY JANUARY 12, 2001

A first plane-load of prisoners from Afghanistan arrived for indefinite
detention as "unlawful combatants," a status that the Pentagon says gives
them no rights under the Geneva Convention. Chained and hooded when they
boarded a military transport plane aircraft in Kandahar Thursday, the 20
Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners were flown to this isolated US military
outpost in the Caribbean under extraordinary security precautions prompted
by fears of mutiny or suicide. "These are people that would gnaw through
hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down," said Air Force
General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in
Washington. "So these are very, very dangerous people, and that's how
they're being treated." One prisoner was sedated during the flight, US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. He
dismissed any suggestion that the restraints used had violated their civil
rights ... "They will be handled not as prisoners of war, because they're
not, but as unlawful combatants," US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
told reporters in Washington ... Rumsfeld, however, has indicated that the
prisoners may face long periods in detention, telling reporters Thursday
that "you don't hurry through this" ... The prisoners will be kept in
1.8m-by-2.4m (six-by-eight foot) outdoor cells made of chain-link fencing
with concrete floors and wooden roofs ... The camp now holds about 100
detainees and when completed will have room for about 220. Over the next
few months, permanent facilities capable of holding 2,000 captives from
the war in Afghanistan will be built. [AFP] ... the International Red
Cross (ICRC) said it regards the men - thought to number about 20 out of
more than 350 in US custody - as prisoners of war who therefore have all
the rights and privileges of POWs under the Geneva Convention. [BBC]

Israeli bulldozers backed by tanks returned to Gaza airport and started to
demolish more installations, in the second such operation in less than 24
hours, a Palestinian security official said ... In a pre-dawn raid earlier
the same day, a dozen tanks and five bulldozers tore up parts of the
runway at Gaza international airport, Palestinian security sources and
witnesses said. The initial attack on a main symbol of Palestinian power
caused extensive damage to the facility but no injuries. The runway had
been under repair after a similar raid in December. [AFP]

Ford Motor Company said it would close five plants, axe 35,000 jobs
globally, and sell off one billion dollars worth of assets in order to
return to profitability by the middle of the decade. The world's number
two automaker, expected to post its first full year loss since 1982 next
week, is also working on cutting material costs by three billion dollars
by the middle of the decade. [AFP]

SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 2002

AMERICAN military chiefs believe that the global war against terrorism
will last at least six years. Pentagon officials are being advised to draw
up budgets and plans to buy new equipment on the assumption that the
struggle against al-Qa'eda and other international terrorist groups will
endure until 2008, and perhaps even longer. Donald Rumsfeld, the defence
secretary, has won President Bush's backing for a sharp increase in
military spending. [TELEGRAPH UK]

Israeli Labour ministers and the European Union criticised the Israeli
army's destruction of Palestinian houses which left 500 people homeless,
as US remarks that Israel's military latest operations were "defensive"
sparked an angry response in the Arab world. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
and Science and Culture Minister Matan Vilnai both voiced concern at the
army's destruction of some 50 Palestinian houses in the Gaza town of Rafah
on Thursday, which left up to 600 people homeless, according to the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) ... US Secretary of State
Colin Powell said the Israeli operations were "defensive" and in response
to arms smuggling which Israel said was linked to its arch-enemy, Iran ...
Vilnai also expressed concern at the damage to Israel's image by the worst
destruction of Palestinian houses by the military in one day since the
Palestinian uprising broke out more than 15 months ago. Peres for his part
demanded "clear explanations" on the operation, which the army claimed had
destroyed 22 uninhabited buildings. Witnesses said around 50 were
flattened, leaving hundreds without shelter in the middle of winter ...
Zeev Schiff, military analyst for the daily Haaretz, lashed out at "an act
of undisguised ruthlessness, a military act devoid of humanitarian and
diplomatic logic, based on simplistic and over-generalized operational
considerations." It reflected shamefully on the Israeli army and on all
Israelis, he said. Other commentators in the daily said the operation was
almost certainly illegal and could be classed as a war crime. The latest
Israeli actions also drew criticism from the European Union's new acting
presidency, Spain. Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique told the Arabic
daily Al-Hayat before heading off on a Middle East tour Monday: "These
acts cannot be justified in any way and cannot be included in the
anti-terror struggle."

US planes launched fresh air raids on a suspected al-Qaeda base in eastern
Afghanistan's Khost region overnight ... The region has been the target of
almost daily air strikes since January 3 ... terrorist suspects are
continuing to be rounded up with close to 400 being detained at a
provisional detention centre at Kandahar airport. [AFP]

A lawsuit brought by Amalgamated Bank of New York, which turned its union
members on to Enron stock, tells of execs who managed to sell their shares
before the company went south. Enron President Kenneth Lay sold his stock
almost daily, bit-by-bit, to the tune of over $100 million. (He got up to
$86 per share; Enron is now down to under 70 cents.) The suit alleges that
the higher-ups were privy to insider information that was kept from
outside investors, who continued to buy while Enron execs were selling.
[NY TIMES]

	* * *

	Forbidden Truths?
	By Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair

Conspiracy is going mainstream. On the morning of January 8 Paula Zahn of
CNN went into wide-eyed mode as she parleyed with Richard Butler, former
head of the UN inspection team in Iraq, latterly part of the
wipe-out-Saddam lobby and now on the CNN payroll. They were discussing the
hot book of the hour, ''Bin Laden, la verite interdite'' (''Bin Laden, the
forbidden truth''), by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. It's
just appeared in Paris.

ZAHN: Start off with what your understanding is of what is in this book --
the most explosive charge.

BUTLER: The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration
-- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI
investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a
deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan.

ZAHN: And this book points out that the FBI's deputy director, John
O'Neill, actually resigned because he felt the U.S. administration was
obstructing...

BUTLER: A proper...

ZAHN: ... the prosecution of terrorism.

And that's only the tip of the iceberg. From the American Patriot Friends
Network, through BuzzFlash (which seems to have an umbilical cord to the
Democratic National Committee) to ultra-left sites there's a menu of
conspiracy charges that would sate the most indefatigable gourmand. To
cite a by-no-means complete list, we have the charges noted above; we also
have foreknowledge by the Bush administration of the 9/11 attacks, with a
deliberate decision to do nothing to thwart the onslaughts.

What else? We have the accusation that members of the US intelligence
community, posibly in league with Bush-related business operatives, used
their advance knowledge of the attacks to invest large sums in "put
options", gambling on the likelihood that the stock value of United
Airlines and American Airlines would plummet in the wake of the suicide
attacks.

Don't stop there! The internet boils with accusations that US fighter
planes were ordered to stand down on September 11, although there was a
possibility these planes could have intercepted and downed the suicide
planes.

Then there's the role of oil. Quite properly, Americans always relish
charges that Big Oil is up to no good, and this appetite is being
assiduously catered to. There are plenty of columns imparting the news
that the war in Afghanistan is "all about oil". From this premise flow
torrents of speculation of the sort made by the two Frenchman cited above.

The trouble with many conspiracy theories is that they strain excessively
to avoid the obvious. Namely:

Both under Bush's and Clinton's presidencies the US has been eager since
the fall of the Soviet Union to find some way to assist the hopes of US
oil companies and pipeline companies to exploit the oil resources of the
Asian republics, most notably reserves in western Kazakhstan. Similarly
consistent has been the US's desire not to have oil from Kazakhstan pass
through Russia. Until US-Iranian relations are restored that has left the
option of a pipeline from Kazakhstan westward through Azerbaijan to
Cheyhan on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey or a pipeline south through
Afghanistan to a Pakistani port.

In tandem with these hopes to ship out Kazakh oil has been the desire to
get a regime in Afghanistan sufficiently stable to allow Unocal to build
its line, and sufficiently deferential to the US to arrest or at least
boot out Osama bin Laden. US relations with the Saudis were as always
predicated on the paramount necessity of ensuring the stability of the
regime without burdening it with unpalatable demands. If history is any
guide a lot of this diplomacy was doubtless clumsily done, in alternations
between proffers of carrots and threats of the stick.

But does this mean that the US went to war in Afghanistan "for oil"?
Surely not. If stability was the goal, then war was a foolish option.
Indeed, both the Clintonoids and the Bushies saw the strongmen of the
Taliban as the best hope. The Bush regime hastened into war because
America had sustained the greatest massacre on its soil since Pearl
Harbor, and Bush and his advisers faced the political imperative of
finding an enemy at top speed on which to exact dramatic vengeance.

This isn't to say there weren't hawks inside the Bush administration who
were lobbying for plans to overthrow the Taliban in early summer, plans of
which the Taliban became aware, possibly conniving at the September 11
attacks in consequence.

As for all those mad theories about permitting the September 11 attacks to
occur, or about remote control planes: they seem to add up to the notion
that America's foes are too incompetent to mount operations unaided by US
agencies, or that agencies aren't vast, bumbling bureaucracies quite
capable of ignoring or discounting warnings of an attack.

But there is considerable wheat among the chaff. It's true that someone
gambled on those put options, that the profits from that gamble have
remained uncollected and that "Buzzy" Krongard is an interesting character
who did go from the post of vice-chairman of Banker's Trust/A.B.Brown (now
owned by DeutscheBank) which handled many of the put option bets, to the
CIA of which he is now executive director.

It is true that the CIA ushered bin Laden into Afghanistan and it is true
that the CIA was complicit in Afghanistan's emergence in the 1980s as the
West's leading supplier of opium and morphine, just as the Agency helped
construct the cave redoubts of Tora Bora. The US taxpayers underwrote that
construction, just as they're underwriting the destruction.

That's not conspiracy-mongering. That's true

	*	*	*