[Peace-discuss] News notes 030810

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Notes from the week's "war on terrorism" --
	for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, August 10, 2003

BARBARIC BEHAVIOR IN OCCUPATIONS BY THE US AND ITS CHIEF CLIENT:
	[1] On Friday the commander of ground forces in Iraq said that US
soldiers would remain in Iraq for an "absolute minimum" of two years and
"probably longer." [NYT 0808] On Thursday the U.S. military said that they
will limit the scope of their raids in Iraq after warnings from leaders
there that they are alienating the Iraqi public. [NYT 0807] What that
meant in practice became apparent immediately: On Friday morning, the US
surrounded the market place at Tikrit with snipers and opened fire on arms
sellers.  The head of the local hospital said five Iraqi men and a child
were shot dead when a US military patrol sprayed bullets at people holding
guns in the street market. The US army called them "suspected former
regime loyalists trafficking illegal arms"; a US army spokesman said that
people in the market had "material that can make up improvised explosive
devices, such as wires and switches". [AFP 0808]
	[2] The Israelis military raided in the northern West Bank city of
Nablus, despite the six-week old cease-fire. The Israeli army dynamited
and destroyed a building, fired an anti-tank rocket (there are no
Palestinian tanks), conducted house-to-house searches, placed the area
under curfew and barred access to ambulances.  Four Palestinians and a
20-year-old Israeli marine commando died during the attack in Nablus's
Askar camp. Hamas political leaders said they were still committed to a
three-month truce but the group's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam
Brigades, swore that Israel would "pay a commensurate price" for the
killings. Israel says the truce is unilateral and that the Jewish state is
not bound by its terms. There was another Israeli attack on Friday in the
northern West Bank town of Jenin. Meanwhile, Israeli war-planes bombed the
outskirts of villages in south Lebanon after militiamen of the Shiite
Muslim group Hezbollah attacked Israeli army positions in the disputed
Shebaa Farms border district, Lebanese police said. Hezbollah commanders
said their first attack on the Shebaa Farms area in seven months was in
retaliation for the death of one of their members in a Beirut car bomb
blast last week, for which they held Israeli agents responsible. [AFP
0809] [ALL OF THESE ATTACKS WERE REPORTED IN THE MOST OBLIQUE AND
ONE-SIDED FASHION IN THE US MEDIA.]

ABSURD PLEA FOR VICTIM-HOOD BY (AN INCREASINGLY DESPERATE) BUSH
ADMINISTRATION.  National security adviser Rice likened Iraq's "halting
steps toward self-government" to black Americans' struggle for civil
rights. She spoke Thursday to 1,200 people at the National Association of
Black Journalists convention and told them "to reject arguments that some
people are incapable of democracy." [THAT OF COURSE IS THE US POSITION IN
REGARD TO THOSE WHO WANT AN ISLAMIC REPUBLIC.] "The view was wrong in 1963
in Birmingham, and it is wrong in 2003 in Baghdad and in the rest of the
Middle East," she said. The Iraqi governing council [QUITE
UNDEMOCRATICALLY ESTABLISHED BY THE OCCUPYING POWER] "puts Iraq on the
road toward democracy, she said" ...  After WW II former SS officers in
Germany known as "werewolves" persisted in attacking allied military
convoys after the war ended, just as guerrillas are attacking American
soldiers in Iraq, she said. And she said, "the president of the United
States did not go to war over whether Saddam Hussein tried to get
yellowcake from Africa," she said. [AP 0808]

PREPARATION FOR THE WAR TO GET BUSH ELECTED IN 2004 -- THE DANGEROUS
RESULT OF THEIR DESPERATION. A senior Pentagon adviser has given details
of a war strategy for invading North Korea and toppling its regime within
30 to 60 days [as part of] a lobbying campaign by U.S. hawks urging a
pre-emptive military strike against Pyongyang's nuclear facilities ... A
growing number of influential U.S. leaders are talking openly of military
action against North Korea to destroy its nuclear-weapons program ... Some
analysts predict that North Korea could test a nuclear warhead by the end
of this year — an event that would provoke a U.S. Attack ... 11,000
North Korean artillery weapons along the border that could inflict death
and destruction on millions of people in the South Korean capital, Seoul,
which is within artillery range of the North's guns. Former CIA director
James Woolsey, a Pentagon adviser and close ally of Defence Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, gave the most explicit glimpse into the thinking of U.S.
military planners this week when he revealed the details of a possible
plan of attack against North Korea. The plan would include 4,000 daily air
strikes against North Korean targets, the deployment of cruise missiles
and stealth aircraft to destroy the Yongbyon nuclear plant and other
nuclear facilities, the stationing of U.S. Marine forces off the coasts of
North Korea to threaten a land attack on Pyongyang, the deployment of two
additional U.S. Army divisions to bolster South Korean troops in a land
offensive against North Korea, and the call-up of National Guard and
Reserve units to replace U.S. combat forces currently in Iraq and
Afghanistan. "Massive air power is the key to being able both to destroy
Yongbyon and to protect South Korea from attack by missile or artillery,"
Mr. Woolsey wrote this week in the Wall Street Journal in an article
co-written by retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant-General Thomas McInerney.
"We believe the use of air power in such a war would be swifter and more
devastating than it was in Iraq," the article said. "We judge that the
U.S. and South Korea could defeat North Korea decisively in 30 to 60 days
with such a strategy." Mr. Woolsey and Lt.-Gen. McInerney said the U.S.
should already be preparing "to assess realistically what it would take to
conduct a successful military operation to change the North Korean
regime." They acknowledged the risk that U.S. military strikes could
trigger an explosion of radiation from North Korean nuclear plants, along
with massive artillery attacks against Seoul by the North Korean heavy
guns that are hidden in hardened underground bunkers on the border. But
U.S. cruise missiles and stealth aircraft could launch precision bombing
attacks that would "minimize radiation leakage" at Yongbyon, while also
sealing shut the underground bunkers where the artillery pieces are
hidden, they said. They warned that a war could soon become necessary to
prevent North Korea from selling weapons-grade plutonium to "rogue states"
and terrorist organizations. "The world has weeks to months, at most, to
deal with this issue, not months to years," Mr. Woolsey and Lt.-Gen.
McInerney wrote. [G&M 0807] A Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial asks not
only why is John Bolton, another neocon, representing the U.S. in talks
with North Korea, but "why is Bolton representing the United States
anywhere on any issue? The man is a walking diplomatic disaster."

NUCLEAR NEWS: NO LIMITS:
	[1] On Wednesday, the mayor of Hiroshima lashed out at the United
States' nuclear weapons policy during ceremonies marking the 58th
anniversary of the city's atomic bombing, which caused the deaths of over
230,000 people ... "The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the central
international agreement guiding the elimination of nuclear weapons, is on
the verge of collapse," mayor Tadatoshi Akiba said. "The chief cause is US
nuclear policy that, by openly declaring the possibility of a pre-emptive
nuclear first strike and calling for resumed research into mini-nukes and
other so-called 'useable nuclear weapons,' appears to worship nuclear
weapons as God."  The mayor also slammed as unjust the US-led war on Iraq,
which he blamed for killing innocent civilians. The Hiroshima bombing was
followed by the dropping of a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki
on August 9, 1945, which killed another estimated 74,000 people.
	[2] In the week that marked the anniversaries of the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 150 top U.S. officials and defense
contractors met unannounced in Omaha to develop plans for the U.S. to
expand its nuclear arsenal ... To protest the government’s return to
nuclear-friendly policies, over the weekend hundreds gathered outside the
gates of the U.S. Strategic Command center ("Stratcom"). Four survivors
from the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in
attendance. Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich addressed the crowd.
And a handful of attendees attempted to conduct citizens weapons
inspections at Stratcom. [DN 0805]
	[3] Israel is developing three new satellites for military
intelligence gathering, the Ha'aretz newspaper reported Sunday. Israel
relies heavily on military satellites to monitor activities in Arab
countries. Its Ofek-5 satellite, launched in 2002, overflies Iran, Iraq,
and Syria. Another Israeli newspaper reported that Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon took an Ofek-5 photo of an Iranian nuclear reactor site with
him to Washington last week to show it to US President George W Bush. Haim
Eshed, head of the space programme said that the war in Iraq spawned an
"understanding that there is no substitute for space and that it is one of
the important elements in conduct of the war".

OTHER NEWS FROM THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ:
	[1] The NYT leads today with American attempts to fragment the
Iraqi military long before the official war began. Deals were struck with
Iraqi commanders, who agreed not to fight -- perhaps explaining in part
why advancing U.S. troops faced little resistance.  The Iraqi turncoats
included Gen. Sultan Hashem Ahmed al-Tai, the defense minister, who the
NYT says, "went on Iraqi television and (in coded messages) urged Iraqi
troops not to fight." (He may be dead -- though Times sources say the
funeral his family threw was a hoax.) [SLATE 0810]
	[2] Marine Corps fighter pilots and commanders say they used
firebombs similar to napalm ... In March, U.S. warplanes dropped dozens of
incendiary bombs near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris River
in central Iraq ... Col. Randolph Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11,
told the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Unfortunately, there were people there
because you could see them in the (cockpit) video ... The firebombs were
used again in April against Iraqis near a key Tigris River bridge, north
of Numaniyah, the Marines said. There were reports of another attack on
the first day of the war. During the war, Pentagon spokesmen denied that
napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed
two years ago. They were apparently drawing a distinction between the
terms firebomb and napalm. The Marines dropped "Mark 77 firebombs," which
use kerosene-based jet fuel and a smaller concentration of benzene. Marine
spokesman Col. Michael Daily acknowledged the incendiary devices were
"remarkably similar" to napalm weapons, but said they had less of an
impact on the environment. "You can call it something other than napalm,
but it's napalm," said John Pike, defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org,
a nonpartisan research group in Alexandria, Va ... The United States has
not agreed to a ban against possible civilian targets ...  the last time
U.S. forces had used napalm in combat was the Persian Gulf War, again by
Marines. [AP 0805]
	[3] On Thursday a car bomb blast outside Jordan's embassy killed
13 people; and at least three US soldiers were wounded Friday when a
roadside blast hit two US Humvees by al-Amariya, just south of Fallujah, a
centre of anti-US sentiment.

BUSINESS NEWS: THIEVES FALL OUT WITH ONE ANOTHER
	[1] Rival companies say that Halliburton, the company once headed
by Vice President Dick Cheney, has benefited from favoritism in the
awarding of contracts for oil work in Iraq. This spring, the Army Corps of
Engineers quietly hired Halliburton to do immediate repairs to the
country's oil infrastructure, but under pressure from the company's
competitors, the corps promised a more traditional bidding process for the
next contract. Last month, however, the corps specified a timetable so
short that no company except Halliburton could realistically do most of
the work. [SLATE 0808]
	[2] An executive order signed by President Bush two months ago
that may give U.S. oil companies blanket immunity from lawsuits and
criminal prosecution over the sale of Iraqi oil. "As written, the
executive order cancels the rule of law for oil companies," a lawyer for
the nonprofit Government Accountability Project says. According to the
group, the measure cancels out liability -- even if it's proved that the
companies committed human rights violations or caused environmental damage
in the course of their Iraqi-related business. [LAT 0807] The Institute
for Policy Studies and Government Accountability Project are calling on
Congress to investigate and repeal Executive Order 13303, which Bush
signed May 22. If ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco touch Iraqi oil, it will be
immune from legal proceedings in the US. Anything that could go, and
elsewhere has gone, awry with U.S. corporate oil operations will be immune
to judgment: a massive tanker accident; an explosion at an oil refinery;
the employment of slave labor to build a pipeline; murder of locals by
corporate security; the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere. The President, with a stroke of the pen, signed away the
rights of Saddam's victims, creditors and of the next true Iraqi
government to be compensated through legal action. Bush's order
unilaterally declares Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province of U.S.
corporations," write IPS researchers Steve Kretzmann and Jim Vallette in
their recent article "Operation Oily Immunity." [DN 0804]
	[3] Two banks funded by US taxpayer dollars are hesitating ove
continuing financing of the Camisea Gas Project in Peru. Indigenous groups
and environmental activists call the project destructive and financially
unstable. The Inter-American Development Bank and the US Export Import
Bank could provide 300 million dollars in loans to pave the way for
financing the 1.6 billion dollar project. The main beneficiaries of the
project are two Texas oil companies, Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary
of Dick Cheney's Halliburton and Hunt Oil Company, whose vice president
was a top energy advisor to George W. Bush.  Construction of the pipeline
is causing forest erosion, landslides, spreading non-indigenous diseases,
and creating a shortage of food supplies in the region. Halliburton is
lined up to get the billion-dollar contract for a coastline processing
facility and Hunt Oil is a primary partner in the consortium of oil
companies building the pipeline. Two major investors in the Camisea
Project, Citigroup and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, have
already pulled out citing environmental and financial concerns. A
consultant's report for the Export Import Bank, obtained through a Freedom
of Information request, reveals that the project violates the bank's
standards and that the environmental assessments are "woefully
inadequate." The US Agency for International Development issued a
statement opposing the project, and more than a dozen senators, led by
Patrick Leahy of Vermont, wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow
urging that the project be put on hold unless fundamental changes are made
and environmental damage is reversed. With the pipeline 60-70% complete, a
report out from Amazon Watch says there is already significant damage to
ecosystems and local indigenous populations. Construction of the pipeline
is causing forest erosion, landslides, spreading non-indigenous diseases,
and creating a shortage of food supplies in the region. Key pristine
rainforests are affected, and an export terminal on the coast would damage
the vital Paracas Marine Reserve. A coalition of indigenous, conservation,
and other organizations in Peru are organizing against the Camisea
Project. [DN 0805]

KEEPING THE POPULATION QUIET:
	[1] After several troops made some highly publicized negative
comments to the media about the war effort in Iraq, the Pentagon has taken
steps to censor comments by both soldiers and their families. According to
a story in the July 25 edition of Stars and Stripes, the 3rd Infantry
Division, the source of many complaints, has expelled many of its embedded
reporters, and its troops are no longer allowed to talk to the media
outside of pre-approved news features ... And after being told that 3rd ID
soldiers would be staying in Iraq longer than expected, families received
an e-mail message warning against contacting the press "in a negative
manner regarding the military and this deployment." [PR WEEK]
	[2] A federal judge sentenced a man to a year in prison Monday for
creating an anarchist Web site with links to sites on how to build bombs.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson sentenced Sherman Austin to more than
the prosecutor had recommended under a plea bargain. Austin, 20, pleaded
guilty in February to distributing information related to explosives ...
Austin must also pay a $2,000 fine and is barred for three years from
using a computer without approval. Wilson said he also may not associate
with anyone from a group that ``espouses physical force as a means of
change'' ... Austin said he took a plea bargain because he feared his case
was eligible for a terrorism enhancement, which could have added 20 years
to his sentence. The plea deal had called for him to serve four months.
[AP 0805]
	[3] The USG plans to indict Uzhair Paracha, a 23-year-old
Pakistani who worked for his father's textile import business in New York.
Detained in March, Paracha is accused of using that business to smuggle
al-Qaida operatives or weapons into the U.S. -- information that officials
got from detained terror operative, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. (How?) [WP
0806]

	[3] On Tuesday a suicide bombing at a Marriott Hotel in Jakarta,
Indonesia, killed at least 10 and wounded more than 150.  Jemaah Islamiah,
a group supposedly connected to al-Qaida, has claimed responsibility.
Abubakar Baasyir, identified by intelligence agencies as Jemaah Islamyah's
spiritual leader, was on trial in Jakarta his several bombings on
Christmas Eve 2000 that killed 19 people; a verdict wass also due in the
trial of two suspected Jemaah Islamiyah members accused of carrying out
last October's nightclub bombings in Bali. [SLATE 0806]

THE FECKLESS ADMINISTRATION.
	[1] In an article gauging Democrats' disdain for the president and
his policies, the New York Times notes that in the past two and a half
years, "a fairly consistent 38 percent of respondents in the New York
Times/CBS News poll have said that Mr. Bush was not legitimately elected
president."
	[2] Time follows up on last week's NBC article about how the U.S.
shifted resources from the hunt for al-Qaeda to Iraq, reporting that by
last December, "many of the 800 special-forces personnel who had been
chasing al-Qaeda for a year were quietly brought back home, given a few
weeks' rest and then shipped out to Iraq." Â 
	[3] American Action Market to offer futures contracts on such
things as "the next White House lie to break into the news...the next
country the White House will threaten," and "the first White House staffer
to resign in disgrace." [ALL CURSOR 0804]

MORE MUSH FROM THE WIMP.
	[1] David Corn says that during last week's press conference,
President Bush "dodged a straightforward question... engaged in
transparent revisionism ...and claimed to have conducted an extensive
review of intelligence, though his aides say he did not fully read the
major document on the matter." [NATION]
	[2] Last Friday, President Bush again blamed TV coverage of the
"march to war" for contributing to economic uncertainty: "As I mentioned
in my press conference the other day, on our TV screens there was a -- on
some TV screens -- there was a constant reminder for the American people,
'march to war.' War is not a very pleasant subject in people's minds, it's
not conducive for the investment of capital."

MORE TALES FORM THE OCCUPATIONS.
	[1] The Guardian of London is reporting that over 800 U.S.
soldiers have now been injured since the U.S. invaded Iraq in March. The
total number of soldiers officially killed or wounded tops 1,000. But the
Guardian estimates the total number of troops unofficially injured could
be four or more times larger. [DN 0804]
	[2] In a Los Angeles Times article on compensation guidelines for
Iraqi civilians killed or injured by U.S. forces, in which an unnamed
officials says "The value of a life in Iraq is probably a lot less than it
would be in the U.S. or Britain," the Times reports that "At least 5,000
civilians have been killed during the invasion and occupation of Iraq,
according to ... Iraq Body Count." But the group's Web site says that at
least 6,000 civilians have been killed. The Guardian reports that the
number of American's wounded in Iraq may be much greater than the
Pentagon's official count of 827, and officials at Walter Reed Army
Medical Center tell the Washington Times that they're dealing with the
casualty overflow by putting up outpatients in local hotels. Reuters
reports on a study by Iraq Body Count -- "Adding Indifference to Injury"
-- that puts the minimum number of civilians injured in the Iraq war at
more than 16,000, or, about 20 times the number of U.S. soldiers that the
Pentagon says were "wounded in action." [CURSOR]
	[3] Israel several hundred Palestinian prisoners, less than 5% of
those they hold, and many of whom were already scheduled for release.
Israelis were given a two-day period to review the list and can ask that
certain Palestinians not be freed.  [DN 0804]

WHERE, OH WHERE ARE MY WMDIES?
	[1] An article in the London Independent by Andrew Buncombe titled
"Blair and Bush Join Forces to Spin Away Weapons Issue" begins, "The
British and US governments are drawing up a controversial new strategy to
convince the public that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction
-- an admission that they have so far failed to make a convincing case.
The "big impact" plan is designed to overwhelm and silence critics who
have sought to put pressure on Tony Blair and George Bush. At the same
time both men are working to lower the burden of proof -- from finding
weapons to finding evidence that there were programs to develop them, even
if they lay dormant since the 1980s. [DN 0804]
	[2] Classified findings of engineering experts in the Defense
Intelligence Agency discredit the Bush administration's claims that two
mysterious trailers found in Iraq in April and May were mobile biological
weapons labs. The team of engineers has come to believe that the trailers
were instead most likely used to produce hydrogen for weather balloons,
just as several Iraqi scientists had said. [NYT 0809]
	[3] The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has compiled
the ultimate list of WMD statements by senior Bush administration
officials, covering the period from August 2002 to July 2003. FAIR has its
media counterpart. [CURSOR]

TALES OF THE RESISTENCE.
	[1] More than 100,000 people attended an "anti-globalisation
Woodstock" in southern France this weekend, with eco-warrior Jose Bove
leading the mass opposition to World Trade Organisation scheduled for next
month in Cancun, Mexico. Organisers from a coalition of anti-globalisation
groups said their aim was to draw attention to the dangers to democracy
posed by the WTO, trade liberalisation and multinational corporations. The
three-day Larzac 2003 festival included speeches, debates, street theatre,
films, and a rock concert. For 30 years the stunning Larzac plateau has
been an emblematic location for the French left, after veterans of the
1968 student movement successfully joined forces with local farmers to
resist government attempts to turn it into an army shooting range. Bove
himself works as a sheep farmer on the plateau. [AFP 0810]
	[2] Traveling teen arrested at Boston's Logan airport and charged
with a felony for having a profane note placed on top of clothes in a gym
bag: "[Expletive] you. Stay the [expletive] out of my bag you [expletive]
sucker. Have you found a [expletive] bomb yet? No, just clothes. Am I
right? Yea, so [expletive] you." [CURSOR]

  ======================================================================
  [AWARE -- Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort -- is a group of people from C-U
  and environs who are opposed to the policies of the US government --
  neo-imperialism and favoritism of the rich.  We hold open meetings 
  every Sunday 5-7pm at the IMC (218 West Main Street, Urbana) 
  to discuss the situation and plan a variety of repsonses.]
  ======================================================================