[Peace-discuss] News notes for Mar. 3 (part 1 of 2)

[C. G. Estabrook]

	NOTES ON THIS WEEK'S "WAR ON TERRORISM" 
	FOR AWARE MEETING 2002.03.03

[I've appended (a) a comment on the Milosevic trial from a year ago, and
(b) the statement of the dissident members of the Israeli military, which
now has over 300 signatures. Throughout, comments in caps are mine. --CGE]

"People ask me all the time, 'What can I do in the fight against terror?' 
and my answer is, 'Do something good.'" --G. W. Bush, Feb. 26, 2002

***Monday, February 25, 2002***

POLICE THE WRONG SORT OF PEOPLE SO THE RIGHT SORT CAN FLY. The
administration has promised to keep tabs on millions of foreign students
and visitors with a new computer database, but Immigration and
Naturalization Service officials say they don't have enough agents to
track down people the computers say have overstayed their visas. Homeland
Security Director Tom Ridge said the country needs a "trusted fliers"
program to streamline security at airports, so that a falloff in travel
will not prevent economic recovery. [SLATE]

WHAT?! YOU TOLD THEM WHAT WE WERE GOING TO DO?! The Pentagon may eliminate
the new Office of Strategic Influence, after a wave of protest last week
over the office's plans to disseminate disinformation in the foreign
media. The New York Times reported the plans last Tuesday, and White House
aides were furious at the release, according to the Washington Post.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the disclosure may have ruined
the office's credibility. [SLATE]

GONNA TAKE MY CLUSTER BOMBS 'N' GO HOME... National Review Online's Victor
Davis Hanson argues that Europeans, by dramatically misunderstanding
America's global role, are poisoning our good feeling toward Europe.
"After the European reaction to the aftermath of Sept. 11, I doubt
seriously whether America would wish to intervene as we did in 1999 in
Kosovo." [SLATE]

TOO BIG FOR THE LAW? Three human rights organizations filed a petition
Monday challenging the detention of al-Qaida and Taliban suspects without
charges or "prisoner of war" protections. The Center for Constitutional
Rights, the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School and the Center for
Justice and International Law called the detentions illegal in a petition
filed with the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights. "Although the United States has an obligation and right
to arrest and try the perpetrators of the horrendous crimes of Sept. 11,
it must do so in compliance with fundamental principles of national, human
rights and humanitarian law," the New York City-based rights groups said
in a statement. "It has not done so." The petition asks the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights to demand that the detainees be given official
prisoner-of-war status, which would give them protections under the Geneva
Convention ... The United States now has the power to try the detainees in
closed military tribunals where can be sentenced to death with just a
two-thirds vote from a military commission, said Jennie Green, an attorney
with the Center for Constitutional Rights. The detainees at Guantanamo
"don't know what they're charged with. They have no access to attorneys,"
she said. "When faced with a possible death penalty, that's a serious
violation of human rights" ... The rights groups say the United States is
a signatory to the OAS American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of
Man, which protects prisoners from arbitrary or prolonged detention and
from being held without access to friends, families, governments or legal
counsel. "Either they were picked up on the battlefield, in which case
they're POWs, or they did something criminal, in which case they should be
charged," said Michael Ratner, vice president of the Center for
Constitutional Rights. "There is no legal limbo status." [AP]

WE GAVE THEM AN UNLIMITED BUDGET, AND THEY EXCEEDED IT. The war in
Afghanistan and Pentagon efforts to bolster security at home will cost a
projected $30 billion this year, far more than Congress has provided,
according to Defense Department documents obtained by The Associated
Press. President Bush and Congress have given the Pentagon $17.4 billion
for the war and the domestic fight against terrorism this fiscal year,
which runs through Sept. 30. Other federal agencies have gotten billions
more ... According to the paper, of the $17.4 billion provided to the
Pentagon, $11.9 billion had been spent or committed to contracts as of
Jan. 31. That includes about $5.3 billion for Enduring Freedom, the
military's name for the Afghanistan operation. Another $5 billion has been
spent for Pentagon activities at home, including $1.9 billion to mobilize
thousands of National Guard and Reserve troops and $503 million for combat
air patrols over some major U.S. cities. Through Jan. 25, the report says,
other costs include $61 million for humanitarian supplies; $19 million for
the costs of holding al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners at the U.S. military
base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and $100 million for a murky category called
"additional security assistance and defense cooperation expenses." Not
included in the estimates is the cost of replacing the 18,000 bombs and
missiles that have been used to date in the war. Replacing munitions used
in the first six months of fighting in Afghanistan will cost an estimated
$1.1 billion, said a Defense Department official speaking on condition of
anonymity. Bush has requested a $379 billion Pentagon budget for the
coming fiscal year, $48 billion more than it is receiving this year. [AP]

WHY, THIS COULD BE A SIT-COM! "West Wing's" Aaron Sorkin ... mocked
President's Bush courage and ripped his own network's news anchor in an
interview set for release on Monday in the NEW YORKER: "It's absolutely
right that at this time we're all laying off the [Bush] bubblehead jokes.
But that's a far cry from what the Times and CNN and others on whom we
rely for unvarnished objectivity are telling us, which is that 'My God! On
September 12th he woke up as Teddy Roosevelt! He became the Rough Rider!'"
Of NBC's own look at a day in the life of the Presidency, 'The Bush White
House: Inside the Real West Wing,' which aired as the lead-in to a WEST
WING repeat a few weeks ago, Sorkin charges: "The White House pumped up
the President's schedule to show him being much busier and more engaged
than he is, and Tom Brokaw let it happen ... The show was a valentine to
Bush. That illusion may be what we need right now, but the truth is we're
simply pretending to believe that Bush exhibited unspeakable courage at
the World Series by throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium, or
that he, by God, showed those terrorists by going to Salt Lake City and
jumbling the first line of the Olympic opening ceremony ... The media is
waving pom-poms, and the entire country is being polite ... I just began
reading Frank Bruni's campaign book AMBLING INTO HISTORY: THE UNLIKELY
ODYSSEY OF GEORGE W. BUSH which begins with Candidate Bush at a service in
Texas for seven people who were killed in a church by a crazy gunman.
Bruni describes Bush making goofy faces at the press, and it reminds you
of a junior high schooler on a museum field trip." [DRUDGE]

BLOWBACK INDEED. Indian officials have a signed confession from an
al-Qaida operative who says he helped train Somali gunmen to fight U.S.
troops [in the early 1990s] ... [in regard to the events behind Balck Hawk
Down] "Afghan fighters learned from U.S. and British military advisors in
the 1980s that a helicopter's weak spot is the tail rotor." [LA TIMES]

***Tuesday, February 26, 2002***

IF ONLY THE DEMOCRATS WERE IN. President Bush is asking Congress to renew
the 1996 law overhauling welfare but to strengthen its work requirements.
He also wants to include measures that encourage marriage and sexual
abstinence. Bush's plan would require states to have at least 70 percent
of their welfare recipients working 40 hours a week within five years.
Right now, the requirement is 50 percent. Federal welfare reform measures
have already made public health care less accessible to undocumented
immigrants, telling them to take "Personal Responsibility" for their
medical costs. Now community health advocates, doctors, and hospital
administrators worry that many immigrants are putting off getting health
care until their ailments degrade into emergencies. [FSRN]

WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THAT? Israeli President Moshe Katsav invited Saudi
Crown Prince Abdullah to come to Jerusalem to present his plan for peace
in the Middle East. The plan would have all Arab states in the region
recognize Israel. In exchange, Israel would withdraw from the Palestinian
territories back to the borders that existed before the SixDay War in
1967. Last week, US diplomacy became the focus of the Middle East dispute.
Europeans pressed for effective action after the worst sustained bout of
Israel- Palestinian violence since the start of the intifada. For weeks,
the US tried to concentrate efforts on pressuring Arafat to stop
Palestinian violence and allowed Sharon to trap him in his compound. But
faint signs of change emerged on Monday when Israeli government officials
said they "tentatively agreed" to a Palestinian request not to initiate
attacks for seven days, unless provoked. [FSRN]

THEY COULD CALL IT "THE BASE." Last weekend in Stockholm, Sweden, twelve
heads of state met as part of the Network for Progressive Governance. The
talks in Stockholm were intended to link participants from a common
progressive political perspective. [FSRN]

***Wednesday, February 27, 2002***

GEORGIA ON SOMEONE'S MIND. The Georgian defence ministry confirmed the
imminent arrival in Georgia of US military experts to "advise" Georgian
forces in the fight against terrorism ... CBS News reported Tuesday that
US Special Forces will head to the former Soviet republic of Georgia later
this week to open the newest front in the war on terrorism. The deployment
comes in the wake of reports that al-Qaeda fighters -- some from as far as
Afghanistan and some from neighboring Chechnya -- have taken refuge in a
remote mountain gorge in the country. The US troops will provide Georgian
soldiers with the kind of training, advice and equipment the US military
is currently giving the Philippine army in its war against the Abu Sayaff
group, the report said. According to CBS News, the US soldiers plan
eventually to accompany Georgian troops on operations into the Pankisi
Gorge where the al-Qaeda fighters are hiding. [AFP]

WHO'S RUNNING THIS ARMY? President Hugo Chavez named a fifth general to
his cabinet after playing down the most recent in a series of public calls
by a military official for him to step down. Chavez appointed General
Francisco Uson Ramirez as his new finance minister, a day after Air Force
General Roman Gomez Ruiz became the fourth military officer in less than a
month to demand Chavez's resignation ... And as public criticism of Chavez
showed no let up, an executive with state oil company PDVSA led a chorus
of criticism that the Venezuelan leader was seeking to "politicize" the
petroleum industry ... Late Monday, Air Force General Roman Gomez Ruiz's
called for Chavez's resignation: "My message would be that we should
return to our essential role, to our barracks, our naval bases .. and get
busy with the work for which we have been trained," he told Globovision
TV, hinting at military unease with Chavez's use of troops in joint
civilian-military social work corps. The program has been unpopular with
troops, some of whom have charged they are being used to further Chavez's
political agenda. "Our country is being affected by an escalating conflict
in Colombia, which may directly affect us," Gomez warned in addition. In a
separate development Tuesday, Chavez also said he had taken steps to try
to get Colombia's largest insurgency to free Colombian presidential
candidate Ingrid Betancourt, whom the group is holding hostage. In
addition, Chavez, a former paratrooper, has put many military colleagues
in key government posts. The most recent addition to his cabinet was Uson,
appointed two weeks after Venezuela launched an adjustment plan including
a free float for the country's currency ... And Chavez himself later
dismissed the rebel officer's call, saying there was absolutely no chance
of a military coup. On February 7, Air Force Colonel Pedro Soto led a
march of a few thousand people to the presidential palace, demanding
Chavez step down. Since then, a National Guard captain and a Navy rear
admiral have publicly requested Chavez's resignation. Two more massive
demonstrations -- for and against Chavez -- are planned for Wednesday, the
13th anniversary of three days of bloody street protests against austerity
measures adopted by former president Carlos Andres Perez (1989-93). [AFP]

WHY CIVIL LIBERTIES ARE UNDERMINED. The National Labor Relations Board's
New York City regional office advised today that it is issuing a complaint
charging New York University with illegally firing professor Joel
Westheimer, in retaliation for Westheimer's testimony in support of
graduate student unionization ... In September 1999, Westheimer was the
only untenured faculty member at NYU to testify before the Labor Board in
support of the right of NYU graduate student workers to form a union ...
"A university is supposed to be a place where people can speak their
conscience -- even if they don't always agree with the administration,"
said Dean Hubbard, Westheimer's attorney. "What NYU did violates the most
basic principles of academic freedom." The NLRB Complaint comes only weeks
after UAW-GSOC successfully negotiated a collective bargaining contract
with NYU, the first-ever such agreement between a union of graduate
student workers certified by an NLRB election and a private University.
(For more information and documents about Dr. Westheimer's case, go to
http://www.eisner-hubbard.com/westheimer.) [UAW REGION 9A NEWS RELEASE]

"NOW OUR SANDS ARE ALMOST RUN; / MORE A LITTLE, AND THEN DUMB." Today, the
Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the
minute hand of the Doomsday clock from nine minutes to midnight to seven
minutes to midnight. In their announcement, the Board cited "too little
progress on global nuclear disarmament; growing concerns about the
security of nuclear weapons materials worldwide; the continuing U.S.
preference for unilateral action rather than cooperative international
diplomacy; U.S. abandonment of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and
U.S. efforts to thwart the enactment of international agreements designed
to constrain proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons;
the crisis between India and Pakistan; terrorist efforts to acquire and
use nuclear and biological weapons; and the growing inequality between
rich and poor around the world that increases the potential for violence
and war." Among the "troubling trends" noted by the Board is the failure
of the Bush administration to take steps "to significantly alter nuclear
targeting doctrine or reduce the day-to-day alert status of U.S. nuclear
forces." They asked, "If Russia is no longer an adversary, what is the
rationale for retaining the ability to incinerate more than 2,000 Russian
targets in as little as 30 minutes (or at all)?" The Board also identified
as problematic the efforts of U.S. weapons laboratories, with the support
of some in Congress, to develop new nuclear weapons capable of destroying
hardened and deeply buried targets, such as underground bunkers. The U.S.
efforts to resume testing for such weapons will encourage other countries
to resume testing of nuclear weapons ... The Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists was founded in 1945 by a group of World War II-era Manhattan
Project scientists who sought to warn the world of nuclear dangers. In
1947, the Doomsday Clock made its debut, with a setting of seven minutes
to midnight, the same as it is today. Over the past 55 years, the minute
hand of the clock has moved to as close as two minutes to midnight (1953,
when the United States and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear devices
within nine months of one another) to as far as seventeen minutes to
midnight (1991 when the United States and the Soviet Union signed the
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START, and announced further unilateral
cuts in tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.) Today marks the third
time since the end of the Cold War in 1991 that the minute hand has been
moved forward. [FCNL]

"WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' BADGES." Since September 11th, more than a
thousand Arab and south-Asian nationals have been detained indefinitely
without trial, charge, or legal rights. The Justice Department
acknowledged the arrest of 1,200 people before it stopped releasing
numbers in November; human rights groups believe the total number could be
as high as 2,000. Among the disappeared is Rabih Haddad, a widely
respected religious leader and founding member of one of the largest
Muslim charities in the US. The Immigration and Naturalization Service
came for Haddad at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan more than two months
ago. Since then Haddad has been held in solitary confinement for 23 hours
a day. And yet Haddad, a Lebanese citizen who was educated in the United
States, has been charged with no crime. According to the Treasury
Department ­ the only branch of government to give any explanation
whatsoever ­ he and his charity, the Global Relief foundation, are
suspected of links to the al-Qa'ida organization. Global Relief, which
disburses about $5 million a year in emergency relief across the Islamic
world, is the third major US-based Islamic charity to be caught up in
President Bush's anti-terrorist dragnet in the wake of September 11th. On
the day Haddad was arrested, its assets were frozen and the FBI raided its
Illinois headquarters. The charity's field offices in Albania and Kosovo
were also raided by NATO troops and two of their operatives hauled off
into custody for several weeks. [DN]

WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THAT? (II) The New York Times leads with President
Bush praising the Saudi plan for peace in the Middle East, which calls for
Israel to pull out of the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for normalized
relations with all Arab countries. [SLATE]

THE WAR AGAINST WHOEVER. The Wall Street Journal tops its world-wide
newsbox with, and the Washington Post leads with, U.S. plans to send
military advisors and equipment to the former Soviet republic of Georgia
in order to fight what the government says are Islamic extremists linked
to al-Qaida. The plan is similar to the current operation in the
Philippines and, at least at this point, doesn't call for U.S. combat
troops. Unlike the WSJ, the WP reports that the United States has already
begun supplying combat helicopters to Georgia. The Post also reports that
the White House is now saying that rebels in Chechnya have connections to
al-Qaida, a link long asserted by Russia, and long doubted by the United
States. [SLATE]

***Thursday, February 28, 2002,***

DID THE ISRAELIS LET HIM SAY THAT? The New York Times leads with
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's enthusiasm for the Saudi plan for peace
in the Middle East. Arafat urged the United States to get behind the
proposal-and push hard. "There must be a very important, and very strong,
and very quick push from outside," he explained. [SLATE]

OH, BOY, WE'RE REALLY GONNA GET YA. USA Today leads with signs that the
United States is "stepping up its efforts to destabilize" Saddam Hussein's
regime. Among the evidence, the paper cites a former CIA official who says
that his former employer is preparing "to arm Kurdish forces in northern
Iraq and to train and arm Shiite Muslims in the south." [SLATE]

EVEN WHEN THEY DO WHAT WE TELL 'EM. The Wall Street Journal tops its
world-wide newsbox with the White House's plan to "tell Congress that U.N.
war-crimes tribunals should be reined in and put on a strict timetable due
to allegations of mismanagement, and future prosecutions should be handled
by individual nations. Allies disagree." [SLATE]

WAR AGAINST SOMEBODY (II) The WP off-leads news of General Tommy Franks'
testimony before a congressional committee in which he said that the
United States is in talks with Yemen about providing military aid to fight
al-Qaida elements in that country. Franks said it was still undecided
exactly what that aid might consist of. But a Yemeni diplomat told the
Post what his country's looking for: "You name it, we want it." The 11th
paragraph of that WP article appears to break a bit of news: "Pentagon
officials had expected to escalate the U.S. military efforts in Colombia,
but the expansion of the counterterrorism war there was rejected, at least
temporarily, in a White House meeting on Tuesday night, administration
officials said." [SLATE]

PUBLIC BUSINESS MUST BE PRIVATE (OR THE REVERSE). The Washington Post and
Los Angeles Times leads with word that a federal court ordered the Energy
Department to release thousands of documents related to Vice President
Cheney's energy task force. The Post says, "The decision would make public
for the first time detailed information about the influence of industry
executives and others over the administration's energy policy." As the
papers note, the ruling comes as a result of a suit brought by an
environmental group and is unrelated to the one brought by Congress'
investigative arm, the General Accounting Office. Still, this decision
means that the administration will have to hand over nearly all the
documents that the GAO requested, which as the Post says will probably
"defuse" the GAO v. White House battle. [SLATE]

[continued in part 2]