[Peace-discuss] News notes, 1/27/02 (Part 2 of 2)

[C. G. Estabrook]

[continued from part 1]

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2002

A day after Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli forces duelled across the
Lebanon border, Beirut accused Israel of trying to cover up its role in
the massacre of Palestinian refugees 20 years ago by assassinating a
former pro-Israeli militia leader. Israel rejected tacit accusations by
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was
defence minister at the time of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres, was
trying to erase all traces of his involvement in the events. Relatives of
victims killed by the Lebanese Forces Christian militia, of which the
slain Elie Hobeika held was intelligence chief, are trying to sue Sharon
for war crimes in a Belgian court. Hobeika was killed in a car bomb attack
in Beirut Thursday. Israel said Lebanese charges against it were
"ridiculous." "Israel has nothing to do with this event," said foreign
ministry spokeswoman Yaffa Ben-Ari. A high-ranking Israeli official
suggested Syria was behind the killing, saying Damascus wanted to stop
Hobeika talking about attacks on US forces who intervened briefly in
Lebanon, and about other assassinations. Lahoud, without naming Israel,
said in a statement that Hobeika's killers wanted "to prevent the deceased
from testifying before the court in Belgium". A presidential statement
also said the killers "wanted to divert the attention of Arab and world
public opinion from the crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian
territories." Hobeika had said he was ready to testify in Belgium in the
case came to court. A Belgian court is to rule in six weeks whether the
case can go ahead. Meanwhile, the United Nations voiced alarm over a
border skirmish in southern Lebanon between Shiite Muslim Hezbollah
guerrillas and the Israeli military on Wednesday. "I have expressed the
grave concerns of (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan following yesterday's
events," said the UN's representative to Lebanon, Staffan de Mistura,
after meeting Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammud. "I also reminded
him (Hammud) that the regional situation is tense and volatile, and we
find it a very dangerous turning point. We cannot have incidents like
those yesterday," he said. Hezbollah on Wednesday shattered a calm that
had ruled in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area with Israel since
October, firing rockets and mortars on Israeli positions. The bombardment
sparked Israeli air raids on southern Lebanon, raising fears of greater
violence in a region already plagued by the 16-month Palestinian uprising
against Israeli occupation. The Shebaa Farms region was seized by Israel
from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and is now claimed by Beirut with
Syrian consent. Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer accused Iran
and Syria, which back Hezbollah, of trying to stir up trouble at a time of
mounting unrest in the Palestinian territories. The spat with Lebanon
overshadowed mounting tensions in the Palestinian territories, where two
Jewish settlements came under attack from Palestinian militant groups. The
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which paid Israel
back for the August killing of its leader with the assassination of an
Israeli minister in October, said two men killed in a blast near Kfar
Darom in the souther were suicide bombers trying to attack the settlement.
There were no other casualties, as the device apparently detonated
prematurely. Hours later, a convoy of Israeli civilian vehicles escorted
by the army was ambushed with anti-tank and rifle fire at the gates of
Netzarim settlement in the central Gaza Strip, without causing any
injuries, an army spokesman said. When soldiers rushed out to pursue the
attackers a bomb was set off in the area, although that also failed to
cause any casualties or damage, the spokesman said, describing the initial
fire on the convoy as "serious." And in Ramallah, where Israeli tanks have
taken over large parts of the town and surrounded Yasser Arafat's West
Bank headquarters, a member of the Palestinian security forces was shot
dead in an overnight exchange of fire. Palestinian information minister
Yasser Abed Rabbo said the leader would attend the Arab summit in Beirut
in March, despite Israel's seven-week blockade of Arafat in Ramallah,
preventing him from leaving until he arrest the PFLP men who killed
minister Rehavam Zeevi. "Arafat sincerely wants to participate in the
summit, especially because it will be held in Beirut, the symbol of
victory and resistance against the occupation," Abed Rabbo said. [AFP] 

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) issued the first
comprehensive review of the California energy crisis today, exactly one
year after the first rolling blackouts hit California. Using government
and industry data, the 58 page report, entitled "Hoax: How Deregulation
Let the Power Industry Steal $71 Billion From California," shows that the
California electricity system did not fail according to the laws of supply
and demand, as it has been widely portrayed. The California energy crisis,
instead, was a hoax -- orchestrated by a power industry freed from price
regulation -- that will cost $2,200 for every Californian. For nearly a
year, the energy industry, state officials and President Bush claimed
there was a shortage of energy in California. But the crisis suddenly
disappeared late last spring after Governor Gray Davis committed the state
to spending at least $43 billion for energy over the next twenty years.
The report shows that the power industry manufactured blackouts and
threatened more of them as tools to gain unprecedented profits and
overpriced, long-term contracts during the crisis. The report also warns
that unless the state of California regains control of its electricity
supply, and makes it publicly accountable, additional artificially-created
crises will occur in the immediate future.

The GAO, suspecting that Enron had a big say in the administration's
energy policy, is demanding the records from Dick Cheney's energy task
force--and may sue to get them. David Walker, the US Comptroller General
and the head of the GAO, Congress' investigational arm, has been asking
politely for nine months, according to the Post lead. Now he may have to
go to court to gain access to Cheney's energy task force get-togethers.
"I'm not going to sit on this much longer," he says. Enron gave mightily
to the Bush campaign and company execs got to meet six times with Dick's
task force. Walker wants to know if they had undue influence. [SLATE]

Karl Rove, a longtime Bush advisor and a relatively fresh face on the
scandal sheet, makes both the WP and NYT leads. Yesterday's NYT reported
that Rove secured an Enron consulting contract for Ralph Reed, a
Republican strategist, rather than paying him from campaign funds. Now the
DNC says it will file a complaint with the FEC over the matter. [SLATE]

The bulk of the NYT lead details George W,'s continued attempts to
distance himself from that big multicolored 'E'. He wants government
agencies to reconsider their contracts with both Enron and Arthur
Anderson, reported to be worth about $60 million. What does Enron do for
the government? It has 42 contracts to "supply chemicals to the Pentagon,
help the Treasury Department with electrical services and help the Justice
Department with its gas and electric needs," according to the NYT.

Everybody fronts the apparent suicide of J. Clifford Baxter, a former
Enron exec who raised concerns about the company's fuzzy accounting last
spring. Baxter was found in his Mercedes less than a mile from his home
near Houston with a single gunshot wound to the head, the NYT reports. He
left a note. Sherron Watkins, in her now-infamous memo, named Baxter as a
fellow malcontent and, on that basis, he had been subpoenaed to testify
before Congress.  John "Cliff " Baxter. Chairman and CEO of Enron North
America prior to being named chief strategy officer for Enron Corp. in
June 2000 and vice chairman in October 2000. Resigned in May 2001 after
clearing out the last of his stock in the company (other than a few
thousand shares) for more than 20 million dollars in January 2001 alone
(see below from http://biz.yahoo.com/t/in/e/ene.html). A defendant in the
big class action suits, and a major contributor to the Republicans.
Probably knew everything about everyone - but someone had something pretty
serious on him to keep him from talking - no?

SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2002

Secretary of State Colin Powell has asked President Bush to reverse the
president's position on al Qaeda and Taliban detainees and declare them
prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. A four-page internal White
House memorandum obtained yesterday by The Washington Times shows that Mr.
Powell made the request and that the president's National Security Council
plans to meet on the matter Monday morning ... White House Counsel Alberto
Gonzales wrote yesterday in a memo to Mr. Bush: "[Powell] has asked that
you conclude that GPW [Geneva Convention II on the Treatment of Prisoners
of War] does apply to both al Qaeda and the Taliban" ... Administration
sources last night ... said that if Mr. Bush heeds his secretary of
state's advice, the US will have to provide detained terrorists with all
sorts of amenities, including exercise rooms and canteens. The four-page
Gonzales memo to Mr. Bush comes with a signed cover sheet from Condoleezza
Rice, the president's national security adviser. The cover page asks Vice
President Richard Cheney; Mr. Powell; Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld; Attorney General John Ashcroft; CIA Director George Tenet; and
Gen. Richard Myers, Joint Chiefs Chairman, to read Mr. Gonzales' memo and
have responses to her by today at 11 a.m. "After receiving your comments,
we will prepare a final memorandum for presentation to the president
Saturday afternoon," Miss Rice writes. In his memo to the president, Mr.
Gonzales lays out his and the Justice Department's reasons for
recommending that Taliban and al Qaeda are not Geneva Convention prisoners
of war. The White House counsel then lists what appear to be the State
Department's arguments for reversal. Mr. Gonzales then writes, "On
balance, I believe that the arguments for reconsideration and reversal are
unpersuasive" ... Gonzales writes that the Justice department's Office of
Legal Counsel "has opined that, as a matter of international law and
domestic law, GPW does not apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda. OLC has
further opined that you have the authority to determine that GPW does not
apply to the Taliban. As I discussed with you, the grounds for such a
determination may include ... a determination that the Taliban and its
forces were, in fact, not a government, but a militant, terrorist-like
group ... I note that our adversaries in several recent conflicts have not
been deterred by GPW in their mistreatment of captured US personnel, and
terrorists will not follow GPW rules in any event." [THEREFORE WE
SHOULDN'T?] Mr. Gonzales also argues that invoking the Geneva Convention
would make it easier for adversaries to try to charge American servicemen
with war crimes. [!] Noting that the president has called the war on
terrorism "a new kind of war," Mr. Gonzales wrote, "In my judgment, this
new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning
of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring
that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges,
script (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms, and scientific
instruments." [BECAUSE BUSH HAS SAID THAT THIS IS A NEW KIND OF WAR,
INTERNATIONAL LAW MAY BE DISMISSED AS 'QUAINT'?!] Placing the detainees
under the Geneva Convention would give them legal protections and new
creature comforts. The United States would be restricted from conducting
open-ended interrogations [A DELICATE PHRASE -- AND PERHAPS THE REAL
ISSUE], for example, some of which have given the FBI new insights into
how the al Qaeda terror network operates. Yesterday at Guantanamo,
Republican Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma said many of the detainees
held there are likely to be returned to their homelands after
investigators complete interrogations that began Wednesday. Officials
would not say how long the interrogations of the al Qaeda and Taliban
fighters might last. It also was not clear whether the United States would
demand that detainees be returned on the condition they be put on trial at
home. "I believe after the interrogation process there's going to be a
distinction made as to whether, No. 1, these people should be sent to
their country and, No. 2, be subjected to a military tribunal [at home]
and, No. 3, whether there should be US military justice or, in some rare
occasions, the same as in what John Walker [Lindh] is receiving," Mr.
Inhofe told the Associated Press ... Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy
director of operations for the Joint Staff, said the total number of
detainees from Afghanistan is now 460 - 302 in Afghanistan and 158 in
Cuba. [WASH TIMES]

Next week, the World Economic Forum will hold its annual meeting in New
York, from January 31st to Feb 4th. At the meeting, 1,000 of the world's
top business leaders, and hundreds of political and media leaders will
come together to shape the global agenda. This year the WEF says their
meeting will focus on finding ways to "reverse the global economic
downturn, eradicate poverty, promote security and enhance cultural
understanding." Those who oppose the global financial spread say this
means rescuing failing corporate giants and clamping down on dissent. Many
say that the WEF has chosen to meet in New York because the city's recent
trauma has made it a difficult climate to protest in. Last year when the
WEF met in Davos, Switzerland, thousands came from across Europe to show
their opposition to the meeting of corporate chiefs. Richard Esposito's
piece in the Village Voice this week begins: "Seen through the eyes of New
York cops, the anti-globalization movement looks like one bloody line of
terror and mayhem, stretching back to the Seattle riots of 1999 and
heading right at them. If the protesters pouring into the city for the
World Economic Forum at month's end have plans for creating more scenes of
violence and destruction, the NYPD says they can just think again." After
the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia the summer of 2000,
Philadelphia police commissioner John Timoney was widely hailed in the
media as having won the battle of the streets. But what was the cost, and
what does it mean for New York next week? Timoney is now CEO of a private
security firm that's been brought in to help with the protests in New
York. During the RNC, the police made mass pre-emptive detentions and
arrests in order to keep the streets clean of demonstrations. But even as
the major media wallowed in accounts of Timoney's "deft" and "restrained"
policing, reports of serious civil rights violations and abuse by police
mounted. Over 400 protesters were arrested or detained, along with
innocent bystanders, bike messengers, and a photographer for US News and
World Report. According to the legal team R2K, the umbrella group that
organized the Philadelphia protests, most of those arrested were held for
over 60 hours before being arraigned on misdemeanor charges that normally
would warrant no more than a desk-appearance ticket. Almost all the
charges against the arrested protesters were dropped. In what seems a
systematic campaign by the police and city officials to lock up suspected
"ringleaders" until after the Democratic convention in Los Angeles,
Philadelphia prosecutors obtained unprecedented bail of $1 million for two
prominent organizers. One of them is John Sellers, a former Greenpeace
activist who is now the director of the Berkeley-based Ruckus Society,
which has trained thousands in nonviolent protest tactics. Sellers' bail
was later reduced to $100,000. Sellers now has a lawsuit pending against
the Philadelphia police department. [DEMOCRACY NOW]

SUNDAY JANUARY 27, 2002

Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday he will not give congressional
investigators a list of business leaders he met with while formulating the
administration's energy policy.  Cheney said providing such a list would
harm his ability to receive advice in the future - a stand that could
prompt a congressional lawsuit seeking to force disclosure ... At issue
are meetings Cheney or members of his energy task force held with
officials of energy firms, including the now-collapsed Enron Corp. while
the energy policy was being formed last year.  Cheney spoke on the same
day a New York Times/CBS News Poll showed a majority of Americans believe
the administration is hiding something or lying about its dealings with
Enron.  Cheney said his office already has given investigators numerous
financial and other records.

A poll shows that folks think the Bush camp is "hiding something or lying
about its own dealings" with Enron. Other interesting numbers: The economy
beats out terror (by a nose) as the number one concern. Six in 10 say Bush
should postpone further tax cuts. He still has an 82 percent approval
rating.  [NT TIMES]

The Israeli daily Maariv said Sunday that US envoy Anthony Zinni dubbed
the Palestinian Authority "the mafia" and its leader Yasser Arafat "the
Godfather" at a private dinner in Washington over the weekend.  The
mediator reportedly said that in his view there was no chance of reaching
a political settlement with Arafat, whom another daily, Yediot Aharonot,
said Zinni had branded an "incorrigible liar."  According to the
Hebrew-language Maariv, Zinni, an Italian American, called Arafat the
"capo di tutti capi", Italian for the head of all mafia leaders, in
remarks to the AIPAC Israeli lobby in Washington ... By contrast, Zinni
did not stint on compliments for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a
former general like the US envoy, whom he affectionately termed "daddy
bear".  "The whole world is on guard against Sharon, but when I got to
know him, I discovered a sort of 'daddy bear', always positive towards me,
ready to help me immediately and alway proposing constructive solutions,"
Zinni said, according to Maariv. [AFP]

MARK BRUZONSKY: Ariel Sharon is coming to Washington in a few days
essentially to coordinate with the Pentagon and CIA for the bloodshed that
is yet to come, including a possibly regional war of considerable
dimensions and destiny.  This is Sharon's moment of greatest triumph and
"opportunity", one he has worked strenuously to achieve all his life.
Sharon is now scheduled to meet with George W and team at the White House
on 7 February.  This could well be the meeting that will decide just how
the "new world order" will be enforced in the new Middle East, and just
who in the region can expect to find themselves under bombs and missiles
and sniper/assassin scopes [MER]

Lord Wakeham, the former Tory Energy Secretary who now chairs of the Press
Complaints Commission, faces the humiliating prospect of a British inquiry
into his role in the Enron scandal.  This could result in him being
heavily fined and stripped of his professional qualifications. He could
also lose lucrative directorships with four other companies.  Wakeham, who
was an Enron director, has already been summoned to appear before a Senate
committee to explain his role in the £55 billion collapse, the largest in
US corporate history, which has threatened to engulf the Bush
administration. Wakeham was a key member of Enron's board audit committee,
which was supposed to prevent any financial wrongdoing and protect
shareholders' interests ... Wakeham was known as Thatcher's 'Mr Fix-It' .
As Energy Secretary in 1990 he helped privatise the UK electricity
industry and gave consent for Enron to build Britain's largest private
power plant on Teesside.  Since 1994 Wakeham has been a non-executive
board director of Enron, earning more than £80,000 a year from the
company. As well as his director's salary he was paid an additional fee
for consultancy work and owned thousands of shares in the corporation.
Most crucially, Wakeham was a member of Enron's audit and compliance
committee, which was supposed to scrutinise the complex transactions
between the giant energy trading company and two partnerships set up by
its chief financial officer

Rainforest plundered by Murdoch's ex son-in-law.  Fortune-hunting
businessman has struck lucrative deal with Mugabe ... the ambitious
son-in-law of media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Elkin Pianim's marriage to
Elisabeth Murdoch helped him to establish contacts with businessmen and
politicians worldwide.  When he separated from his wife in 1998, Pianim
continued to build his business empire, having made money from selling two
American TV stations. He launched Britain's New Nation newspaper, aimed at
black readers, which failed to achieve financial success.  Now Pianim has
struck up a highly controversial partnership with President Robert
Mugabe's Zimbabwean regime in which both sides stand to make millions
selling precious tropical hardwoods plundered from rain forest in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). [OBSERVER]

	***

	OPEN LETTER FROM AN AMERICAN TO THE WORLD: HELP --by Jeremy
Brecher

The Bush Administration is blundering into a global conflagration. There
is currently no force within the US likely to stop it. It is up to the
rest of the world, and especially America's friends and allies -- both
governments and their citizens -- to constrain its rush to disaster.

The Bush administration was warned by its European and Arab allies and its
friends around the world to avoid:

--A long bombing campaign with significant civilian casualties in
Afghanistan.

--Seizure of Kabul by the Northern Alliance.

--Bombing Afghanistan during Ramadan.

--Failure to reestablish the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

--Withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

Each of these warnings was ignored. And the emerging result of these and
similar Bush Administration policies is a vast global destabilization that
is acquiring a momentum going far beyond the responses to September 11. As
The New York Times reports, "new battlegrounds" have opened up "from the
Palestinian territories to Kashmir."

Whether or not the war in Afghanistan was justified, the issue is no
longer about destroying Al Qaeda, or removing the repressive Taliban
regime, or even whether the US will attack Iraq.

The issue is now an emerging world crisis provoked by a superpower
administration that is acting without rational consideration of the
effects of its actions. The number of additional civil and international
wars it may stir up is simply incalculable -- and certainly is not being
rationally calculated by the Bush administration.

This represents a new stage in testing what it means to be the world's
only superpower. As a German official put it in The New York Times, in the
past Washington determined its national interest in shaping international
rules, behavior, and institutions.

"Now Washington seems to want to pursue its national interest in a more
narrowly defined way, doing what it wants and forcing others to adapt."

The Bush Administration has a list of dozens of countries for possible
intervention, and it is presently debating who's next. "Pentagon officials
have openly agitated to finish off Mr. [Saddam] Hussein.... Recently an
American delegation from the State Department was in northern Iraq,
discussing activities in that part of Iraq with Kurdish leaders... [S]ome
administration officials say that Pakistan may be where the next phase of
the war must unfold."

Somalia, the Sudan, the Philippines -- the shopping list goes on and on.

The Bush administration's global destabilization is not limited to the war
on terrorism. US withdrawal from the ABM treaty is initiating a new
nuclear arms race.

Joseph Biden, Jr., the chairman of the US Senate's Foreign Relations
Committee, cites widely reported US intelligence community conclusions
that "pulling out of ABM would prompt the Chinese to increase their
nuclear arsenal tenfold, beyond the modernization they are doing
anyway.... And when they build up, so will the Indians, and when the
Indians do, so will the Pakistanis. And for what? A system no one is
convinced will work."

It is an illusion to believe that the US is in any way in control of
events. Consider the mid-East peace process. Just as Bush and Powell were
rolling out a major peace initiative, the combination of war parties in
Israel and Palestine sabotaged it completely.

The US then tilted wildly toward the very forces in Israel that had
sabotaged the US initiative. The attack on the Indian parliament --
believed by our new friend India to have been organized with the
connivance of our old friend Pakistan -- threatens to provoke a war that
the US will now be in the middle of.

The US justification for its attack on Afghanistan as "harboring
terrorists" has already been echoed almost word for word by India, Israel,
Russia, and China for their own purposes. The use of the "right of
self-defense" as a justification for a unilateral decision to attack any
country one accuses of harboring terrorists provides a pretext that any
national leader can now use to make war against anyone it chooses in
complete disregard of international law.

Internal constraints?

There is something that peoples and governments around the world need to
understand: There are currently no effective internal constraints on what
the Bush Administration can or will do. Because of popular response to the
September 11 attacks, the Administration feels --correctly, at least for a
time -- that it can do anything without having to fear dissent or
opposition.

It withdrew from the AMB treaty with barely a ripple of public
questioning. Its endorsement of Sharon's attacks on the Palestinian
Authority wins overwhelming Congressional support. Open advocacy of a
military attack and occupation of Iraq causes no stir.

The peace movement that has challenged Bush administration policies may
become a significant restraint in the future, but it isn't now.

Nor is there any effective institutional constraint. The US Congress has
almost unanimously given the Administration a blank check to conduct any
military operations it chooses.

Practical concerns of senior military officers at the Pentagon are
apparently ignored by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his ubiquitous
supporters. Secretary of State Colin Powell, looked to by many as a source
of reason and restraint, has been unable to make the Administration heed
any of the warnings listed above. It is hard to detect any indication of a
business or foreign policy "Establishment" putting any constraints on the
unleashing of US power.

Most serious of all is a lack of constraint based on rational evaluation
of long-term consequences. As an "exuberant senior aide" put it recently,
the Bush administration is "on a roll"; its "biggest concern" is "how to
make maximum use of the military as well as the diplomatic momentum he has
built up abroad and the political capital he has accumulated at home."

As an article in The Guardian entitled "Washington hawks get power boost:
Rumsfeld is winning the debate" puts it, "For the time being, at least,
there is little in Washington to stop Mr. Rumsfeld chasing America's foes
all the way to Baghdad."

A time for friends to help friends

The US in the Cold War era at least purported to be protecting its allies.
But today, as the US projects its power unilaterally, it friends and
allies are the ones most likely to feel the blowback from destabilization
in the form of terrorism, refugees, recession, and war.

It is up to governments and civil society outside the US to put
constraints on what it does -- both for their own sake and for America's.

In the Suez Crisis of 1956, the armies of Britain, France, and Israel
invaded Egypt and began advancing on the Suez Canal. The US under
President Eisenhower intervened -- not to support the invaders but to
restrain them. It is time for the world to return the favor. For example:

* A "coalition" in which the US Goliath cuts a separate deal with each
"coalition partner" is a formula for US dictation. US coalition partners
must insist that the US spell out its intentions for open world discussion
before they agree to provide any support.

* US coalition partners with few exceptions oppose US attacks on Iraq,
Somalia, the Sudan, or anywhere else. Yet it is no secret that planning
for such attacks is under way in Washington. Coalition partners must move
from private grumbling to a concerted public united front against such
actions.

* The UN can serve as an arena for challenging and providing alternatives
to superpower supremacy. At the least, the US can be forced to isolate
itself by vetoing resolutions that run counter to its unilateralism.

(The Security Council recently voted 12 to 1, with Britain and Norway
abstaining, for a resolution calling for international monitors in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The US vetoed the resolution -- thereby
isolating itself from many of its own "coalition partners.")

Strong, unified, public endorsement of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's
campaign against an attack on Iraq would have a big impact in the US at
this point.

* It has been widely reported in the US that foreign critics of the war in
Afghanistan have now concluded that they were wrong because the war was
short and because it freed Afghans, especially women, from the tyranny of
the Taliban.

This is being used in Washington to argue that popular opinion abroad need
not be regarded as an impediment to further US attacks elsewhere.
Washington needs to hear a clear message that that is not the case.

* There are concrete ways in which people and governments can begin
putting the brakes on Washington. The refusal of European countries to
extradite suspects who may be subject to military tribunals or the death
penalty provides an excellent example.

This is going to be a long struggle, not just about one policy, but about
a basic historical tendency of the world's only superpower. It is sad but
true that the rest of the world may not have enough leverage in the short
run to stop the US from attacking whomever it chooses to target next. But
it is time to begin laying the groundwork for a long-term strategy of
containment.

Such international pressure can serve as a deterrent to the craziest
actions the Bush administration is considering. For example, press reports
suggest that opposition from Russia, Europe, and Arab countries may be
leading Bush's advisors at least to delay an attack on Iraq on the grounds
that "there is insufficient international backing."

If US friends and coalition partners toll the alarm bell, it will begin to
evoke different responses in Congress, the Pentagon, corporate elites, and
the American public as well, especially as the untoward consequences of
the Bush administration juggernaut become apparent.

Without an outside wake-up call, these forces are currently prepared to
plunge into the abyss in an empty-minded trance.

Restraining the Bush Administration is anything but anti-American. It is
the best thing America's friends can do for us right now.

We have a slogan here: "Friends don't let friends drive drunk."

PLEASE: America's friends need to take the car keys away until this
power-drunk superpower sobers up.

[Jeremy Brecher is an historian and the author of twelve books, including
GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW, and producer of the video documentary GLOBAL
VILLAGE OR GLOBAL PILLAGE? (Website: www.villageorpillage.org )]

	--30--