[Peace-discuss] News notes 030323

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Notes on the week's news
	from the "War on Terrorism"
	for the AWARE meeting,
	Sunday, March 23, 2003

[1] Summary.  Time magazine, out this week, purports to give us an account
of the careful analysis and devotion to principle [irony alert] that has
led our government to launch a war against an all but defenseless country.
It reads as follows:

	--"'Fuck Saddam.  We're taking him out,' said President George W.
Bush in March 2002 [yes, 2002, not 2003], after poking his head into the
office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice." [TIME 3/23]

	--TIME's story focuses on Paul Wolfowitz, a senior advisor to
President Bush, a neoconservative.  Neoconservatives, reports TIME,
believe that the U.S. is endowed by Providence with the power to make the
world better if only it will take the risks of leadership to do so.  In
January 1998, Wolfowitz joined other neo-conservatives in signing a letter
to President Clinton arguing that "containment" of Saddam had failed and
asserting that "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power
needs to
become the aim of American foreign policy."

	--Vice President Dick Cheney, another high-ranking
neoconservative, agreed Cheney was outraged by Hussein's attempted
assassination of former President George Bush.  [TIME] [The attack on Iraq
began this week with an attempted assassination of current President
Saddam Hussein.  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard
Myers, defended the action by saying, "Regime leadership is a legitimate
target"; does he think that was true in November of 1963?]

	--Cheney was also, as Wolfowitz put it, "transformed by Sept. 11, 
by the recognition of the danger posed by the connection between
terrorists and WMDS and by the growing evidence of links between Iraq and
al-Qaeda" [evidence that the USG was struggling to manufacture]. As one
former senior Administration official puts it: "The eureka moment was that
realization by the President that were a WMD to fall into [terrorists']
hands, their willingness to use it would be unquestioned [and so he
announced that his willingness to use them should be unquestioned]. [TIME]

	--"So we must act pre-emptively to ensure that those that have the
capability aren't allowed to proliferate it." One advisor to the
president, report Elliott and Carney, went as far as to say that Bush
thinks Saddam is insane [double self-referentiality alert]. [TIME]

[2] THE WEEK BEGAN WITH BUSH RETURNING FROM AZORES and announcing that
Iraq has a last chance to disarm (see above) with as usual no way of
telling that that's happened, except the US say-so.  "A visibly angry Bush
said France had made [UN] support impossible by vowing 'to veto anything
that held Saddam Hussein to account.'" [USAT] Meanwhile, VP Cheney
announces on Meet the Press that even if Iraq disarms, the war will go
ahead, because the point is to remove SH. ["As Bush Pursued Diplomacy
[sic], Vice President Made Sure Invasion Remained on Table" WSJ 3/17]

[3] GALLUP POLL published Monday and taken 3/14-15: "If the United States
decides not to offer any new resolutions on Iraq and goes forward with
military action without a new UN vote at all, half of Americans would
oppose an invasion of Iraq, while 47% would be in favor." [GALLUP]

[4] "A MARCH 15 AP NEWS STORY [appeared] with the following headline:
'Poll: Bush Has Solid Support for War.' Many readers, of course, will read
only that headline, taking with it the message that the U.S. public
overwhelmingly supports the Bush Administration's drive to war in Iraq.
However, after wading through reporter Will Lester's spin to actually read
the poll results, one finds the exact opposite to be true.  Buried in
paragraph six, we find the relevant numbers: 'The poll found that about
half of adults, 47 percent, say they support military action to remove
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power and disarm Iraq, even without
the support of the United Nations Security Council. Almost four in 10, 37
percent, said the United States should do that only with full support of
the Security Council; 13 percent said the United States should not take
military action even if the Security Council agrees.' President Bush has
resolutely stated he will prosecute a war against Iraq without the 'full
support of the [UN] Security Council' -- and appears poised to do so. This
means that fully 50% (37% + 13%) of those polled OPPOSE the Bush
Administration policy on Iraq, as compared to 47% in favor. Why is the
Associated Press afraid to honestly report the poll's findings? What can
justify such an astonishingly misleading headline, followed by reporting
from Mr. Lester with a similarly suspect message -- when the actual facts
presented in the article point to precisely the opposite conclusion
"
[CHRIS KROMM, DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR SOUTHERN STUDIES]

[5] ON MONDAY MORNING, THE US HAS THE UK (!) announce that it will not
proceed with UN resolution.  They knew they'd lose, and UK AG says that a
vetoed resolution would make war illegal.  [Fox news UN correspondent:
"They ran out of patience with the prevarication here."] The night before,
the United States advised the UN to start withdrawing its inspectors from
Iraq.  [MSNBC 3/17].  United Nations inspectors and civilian staff have
been ordered to evacuate Iraq, according to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.  
[MSNBC]

[6] WHY DO SOME AMERICANS SUPPORT AGGRESSION AGAINST IRAQ?  "Fear of
terrorism!" answered promptly Cokie Roberts on NPR on Monday.  No one else
in the world - including countries neighboring Iraq - fear SH, but the USG
and the US media have Americans convinced that the only way to protect
themselves against terrorism is to attack Iraq (in spite of the CIA's
saying that's the best way to spread terrorism).

[7] IN A REMARKABLE ADMISSION that the war is about oil and Israel, Bush
hastily announces a "roadmap" for a settlement with Palestinians, mainly
to try to save Tony Blair's ass, who immediately rushes before the cameras
to say that's what he meant all along.

[8] MEANWHILE, ISRAEL CARRIES OUT DEADLY RAIDS in Gaza on Monday.  At
least nine Palestinians are reported killed and 12 wounded after Israeli
troops entered a refugee camp in central Gaza. Palestinian medical staff
said the dead included a four-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy as well
as a man wanted by Israel.  The Israeli operation lasted several hours and
saw the demolition of a house.  In a separate incursion, Israeli forces
entered parts of the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza and killed two
members of the Palestinian naval police at a checkpoint, according to
Palestinian security officials.

[9] ON SUNDAY, AN AMERICAN PEACE ACTIVIST WAS RUN OVER AND KILLED by an
Israeli bulldozer in the southern Gaza Strip.  Witnesses said Rachel
Corrie, aged 23, from Olympia, Washington, had been trying to stop the
demolition of a Palestinian building in the Rafah refugee camp. There were
eight international protesters at the site - four American and four
British - all members of a group called International Solidarity Movement
... The Israeli army accused the group of acting irresponsibly by
intentionally placing themselves in a combat zone ... The death occurred
as the Israeli army reinforced its closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
amid fears of attacks during a forthcoming Jewish holiday. Palestinians
will be prevented from entering Israel during the festival of Purim, which
runs from Monday to Wednesday, a military statement said. Israeli radio
said the order came from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence Minister
Shaul Mofaz ... Palestinian sources said that more than 10,000 workers
from Gaza had been prevented from going to work in Israel on Sunday
morning. On Wednesday, Israeli forces fired teargas and stun grenades in
an attempt to break up a memorial service for Rachel Corrie; they also
drove the Caterpillar bulldozer by the service. [GUARDIAN/UK 3/19]

[10] BUSH GAVE A SPEECH ON ST. PATRICK'S DAY, Monday 3/17.  He still can't
say "nuclear," but the speech was a triumph of the will: the war he said,
was not a "Not a question of authority [i.e., whether we have a right to
do it] but a question of will."  There were some positive moments, though:
"War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished," he said,
so he can look forward to a cell adjacent to those of Cheney, Powell, Rice
and Rumsfeld in The Hague.  He also had some uplifting moral exhortation
for us: "We must not be intimidated by thugs and killers."  [The
self-referentiality alarm went off.]  Finally, in an act of remarkable
candor, U.S. officials raised the terror threat assessment level to high
("orange") about the time of President Bush's speech.

[11] OTHER THAN THAT, THE SPEECH WAS A REMARKABLE TISSUE OF LIES.  "When
Bush proclaimed that 'The Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal
some of the most lethal weapons ever devised,' that was a lie.  ... Bush
asserted that Iraq 'has aided, trained, and harbored terrorists, including
operatives of Al Qaeda.'  The last part of that was a lie.  ... By
asserting the United States' right to invade whomever it likes whenever it
likes, Bush's speech brought the world to the most dangerous moment in its
history since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962."  [D. IRELAND]

[12] IN A MORE LITERATE BUT NO LESS MENDACIOUS SPEECH to the House of
Commons, UK PM Tony Blair astoundingly blamed the French for making a
diplomatic solution impossible.  More reasonably, the French government
said, "This unilateral decision is contrary to the wishes of the Security
Council and of the international community, who wish to pursue the
disarmament of Iraq in accordance with (UN) resolution 1441," the Elysee
presidential palace said.  "Whatever the objective pursued, France recalls
that only the Security Council has the authority to justify the use of
force," it added.  "Shirking the legitimacy of the United Nations,
privileging force over justice, that would be taking on a heavy
responsibility," the statement said. 

[13] EUROPEAN UNION OFFICIALS HAVE LAUNCHED AN INVESTIGATION after bugging
devices were found at offices used by several delegations - including
those of France, Germany and the UK 
 The discovery of the telephone
tapping systems was first reported on Wednesday by France's Le Figaro
newspaper, which blamed the US. [BBC 3/19]

[14] IN THE US THE LOYAL OPPOSITION PROVED ITS LOYALTY. "It's time to come
together and support our great American men and women in uniform and their
commander-in-chief," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman.  

[15] BUT THERE WERE SOME EXCEPTIONS IN THE NAUSEATING SPECTACLE of
Democrats' abasing themselves.  California Rep. Pete Stark said President
Bush would be responsible for "an act of terror" by launching a massive
bombing campaign to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. "I think unleashing
3,000 smart bombs against the city of Baghdad in the first several days of
the war . . . to me, if those were unleashed against the San Francisco Bay
Area, I would call that an act of extreme terrorism," said Stark, a
Democrat from Fremont ... He told the Oakland Tribune Monday that if the
president initiates the war, "it's blood on Bush's hands" ...

[16] BUT THE "LEADERS" LED TRUE TO FORM. Senate Minority Leader Tom
Daschle sai in a speech Monday that he was "saddened that this president
failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war." House
Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Daschle's remarks "may not give
comfort to our adversaries, but they come mighty close." [SFC 3/19]  By
Thursday, Dschle responded to the threat and got safely on board Bush's
killing machine, saying, "We may have differences of opinion about what
brought us to this point, but the president is the commander-in-chief, and
today we unite behind him." A 99-0 vote in the Senate "commends" US
troops. 

[17] IN THE HOUSE, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said, "May
God bless our courageous forces and their brave families. May God bless
the president of the United States." [NYP 3/21] on Friday a resolution
"Expressing the Support and Appreciation of the Nation for the President
and the Members of the Armed Forces Who are Participating in Operation
Iraqi Freedom" passed 392-11, with 22 voting present and 10 not voting.
Conyers McDermott Towns Honda Rangel Waters Jones (OH) Scott (VA) Watson
Lee Stark were noes.  Momentary hero of the anti-war movement, Ohio Rep.
Dennis Kucinich voted "present."

[18] MILITARY INTERVENTION AGAINST IRAQ would be a crime against peace
demanding vengeance before God, the head of the Vatican's Pontifical
Council for Justice and Peace has said. "War is a crime against peace
which cries for vengeance before God," said Archbishop Renato Raffaele
Martino, speaking on Vatican Radio. He stressed the deeply unjust and
immoral nature of war, saying it was condemned by God because civilians
were the worst sufferers. Martino, formerly Vatican permanent
representative to the United Nations, strongly denounced the determination
of the United States and its allies to disarm Iraq by force. "Do not reply
with a stone to the child who asks for bread," he said. "They are
preparing to reply with thousands of bombs to a people that has been
asking for bread for the last 12 years." [AUSTRALIAN 3/18]}

[19] AN UNLIKELY IPHIGENIA (= the daughter of the Greek leader Agamemnon,
sacrificed to insure fair winds for the war against Troy).  To secure
favorable omens for this war, the federal government executed a Gulf War
veteran on Tuesday. He claimed his exposure to Iraqi nerve gas caused him
to rape and kill a female soldier was executed by injection Tuesday. Louis
Jones Jr., 53, died by injection at the U.S. Penitentiary near Terre Haute
after President Bush and the U.S. Supreme Court refused his two final
requests that they intervene. His attorneys said exposure to the gas
caused severe brain damage that led him to kill. The issue was not raised
at Jones' trial because he became aware of the exposure only afterward.
Jones was the third person put to death by the federal government since it
resumed executions in 2001 after a 38-year suspension. The White House and
the high court refused Monday to block the execution after reviewing
Jones' nerve gas claims. White House officials declined to explain Bush's
decision, and the court did not comment. [BBC]

[20] ON WEDNESDAY USA TODAY SAYS THAT SOLDIERS FROM THE MILITARY'S DELTA
FORCE are about to be dropped into Baghdad where they will be tasked with
locating and (unofficially) killing Saddam, his sons, and his top lackeys.
[USAT 3/19] That night the US tried an Israeli-style assassination against
SH "The attacks involved about three dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles
launched from Navy ships in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, as well as
bombs dropped from a handful of F-117A Nighthawk stealth jets 
 A Pentagon
news conference said 300-400 precision-guided weapons were dropped on the
first day of the 1991 air war and suggested at least 3,000 would be used
on the first day this time.

[21] ISRAEL SAYS THE US HAS OFFERED THE COUNTRY $10BN to bail it out of
the worst economic crisis in its history.  Israel's Finance Ministry said
the package consisted of $1bn in direct military aid and $9bn in loan
guarantees ... Israel is going into its third year of recession. The
country is the biggest recipient of US aid worldwide and initially asked
for $4bn (£2.5bn) in military aid and $8bn in loan guarantees ... "Rice
told Netanyahu that the (Bush) administration decided to raise the amount
of the guarantees by $1bn over what had been planned because the Americans
were impressed by the economic plan that has been presented to the
government," Israel's finance ministry said in a statement. Israel's
economy contracted by 1% in 2002 after a 0.9% fall in 2001 and the budget
deficit is running at 6%, twice the forecast for 2003. Mr Netanyahu on
Monday announced government spending cuts and reductions in the public
sector wage to rein in the budget deficit. Israel already receives $3bn a
year from the US, mostly as military aid. [BBC 3/20]

[22] ON FRIDAY A CHILLY EU SUMMIT papers over war rifts, mulls gloomy
economy.  EU leaders resumed talks at a two-day summit in Brussels hoping
to keep a lid on differences over war on Iraq, and concentrate on boosting
reform of the 15-member bloc's embattled economy.  It ended with a joint
declaration papering over cracks by pledging to provide humanitarian
assistance and reaffirming the central post-war role of the UN. [AFP 3/21]

[23] THE U.S MILITARY PLANNERS KNOW THAT, as we used to say in the 1960s,
"the whole world is watching," and the sight of a bloody house-to-house
battle is not something the War Party is looking forward to. If it can be
at all avoided, the administration is willing to take its time in the
hopes of having the Iraqi prize fall into their lap, like an overripe
apple. U.S. troops are moving into southern Iraq, and what they are
counting on is a triumphant entry into the city of Basra: they are
reportedly rushing news media to the scene to witness the anticipated
cheering crowds who are supposed to greet them as "liberators."  Those
pictures of Iraqis hailing their American conquerors is all the ammunition
the War Party thinks it needs to silence its critics, at least for the
moment. I suppose any number of frightened Iraqis could be made to cheer
anything, especially the prospect of a square meal and some measure of
security. [ANTIWAR.COM 3/21]

[24] THE INITIAL PHRASE OF THE "ALLIED" MILITARY OPERATION resembles the
U.S. invasion of Panama, but the latter phases may remind us more of
Somalia. Street-fighting, house-to-house combat with Republican Guard
units holed up in the Iraqi capital, won't be a pretty sight. It may, of
course, provide some psychological pleasure for people like Max Boot - the
Wall Street Journal laptop bombardier who bemoaned the lack of American
casualties in the Afghan campaign - but the rest of us are bound to find
these images disturbing, to say the least. The war in Iraq is, so far,
like a carefully staged morality play, with special effects, from which we
are all supposed to learn the same lesson: the Empire is omnipotent.
Resistance is futile. Accept the inevitable - or suffer the consequences.
This message is directed as much at an international audience as at the
Iraqis. [ANTIWAR.COM 3/21]

[25] THE "FOG OF WAR" IS THICK IN THE AIR, and it is hard to tell reality
from the official fantasies, which is why the sudden appearance on our
television screens of a new Mohammed Atta, one Adnan G. El Shukrijumah,
seems awfully suspicious. Yet another Saudi who trained as a pilot in the
U.S. and is depicted as affiliated with Al Qaeda? And in South Florida,
yet! It's just a coincidence, of course, that the ghost of 9/11 is being
invoked on Day One of Gulf War II. Why, after all, would the U.S.
government be interested in scaring people half out of their wits at this
particular moment? [ANTIWAR.COM 3/21]

[26] MEANWHILE, THE RUSH TO GRAB THE SPOILS of war has already begun, with
Turkey massing up to 70,000 troops on the border with northern Iraq. The
Turks are fearful that the Kurds will seize this opportunity to declare
their independence. While the Turkish action is being justified on the
grounds that they fear a "refugee problem," there are reportedly no
refugees trying to cross over into Turkey from Kurd-controlled areas. But
the real reason is apparent enough. The oil fields around Kirkuk are a
prize that Ankara is not going to let slip through its fingers without a
fight. [ANTIWAR.COM 3/21]

[27] DISGUSTINGLY, THE AMERICAN MEDIA SEEMS DOWNRIGHT DISAPPOINTED that
the "shock and awe" air show they had been promised has, so far, failed to
materialize, and the psychological war against Iraq's ruling Baath party
continues. Clearly, the administration is reluctant to fire up the big
guns, eager to avoid casualties and determined to win the political battle
on the home front and the world stage. [ANTIWAR.COM 3/21]

[28] ON SATURDAY THE NYT'S JOHN BURNS writes of the "almost biblical
power" of the American strikes on Baghdad.  Meanwhile, there is a
"fragging" incident at Camp Pennsylvania, the base of the 101st US
Airborne Division, kills one and wounds 12 US officers. [BBC]

[29] DON'T TAKE THOSE CLAIMS of surrenders at face value, former CIA
analyst and advocate of attacking Iraq, Kenneth Pollack, warns the WP.
U.S. officials' emphasis on expected Iraqi defections may be a "gigantic
disinformation campaign" to convince Iraqis, including Saddam, that their
command structures are falling apart. [SLATE]

[30] TURKEY HAS SENT 1,000-1,500 TROOPS OVER THE BORDER, despite U.S.
insistence [GENUINE?] that it not do so, the papers say. Bush officials
say they never gave Turkey the go-ahead to send in troops, says the WP,
but Turkey says Powell told them it was OK. The WP wonders if the move is
a routine maneuver, since Turkey already maintains up to 5,000 troops in
northern Iraq, or something bigger, and the LAT bets that it's the
beginning of a full-scale deployment because the Turkish government said a
much larger force was headed in. [SLATE]

[31] THE DOW HAS HIGH HOPES FOR THE IRAQ CONFLICT and posted its biggest
weekly gain in 20 years, up 8.4 percent. [ALL]

[32] THE SENATE VOTED TO PASS BUSH'S TAX CUT but knocked $100 billion off
the $726 billion cut proposal. The House had already passed the
president's tax cut and now it goes to conference. [WP]

[33] THE GREATEST THREAT TO BRITISH SOLDIERS seem to be American soldiers,
reminding us that even during Vietnam some 40% of American casualties were
caused by so-called "friendly fire."  An RAF Tornado and its crew were
shot down by a US Patriot missile close to the Kuwaiti border.  The
Patriots, which despite US claims, hit nothing in GW1, have apparently
gotten better.  Also, two helicopter crashes within the last three days
led to the deaths of 19 coalition troops, including 14 Britons.  Three ITV
news crew are also missing and feared dead, after coming under what their
injured colleague claims was "friendly fire."  [BBC 3/23]  The splendid
Glenda Jackson, actor become MP, said in a debate in the House of Commons
that these deaths were needless" and was pilloried for it. 

[34] SUNDAY MORNING TELEVISION STATIONS are shocked at the death and
capture of American soldiers, and apparently even more at the fact that
they were shown on television.  "That's a violation of the Geneva
Convention,' says SOD Rumsfeld, reaching new heights of hypocrisy.  Bush
on "Those who mistreat prisoners will be treated as war criminals."  Those
who run the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, illegal under domestic
and international law; those responsible for the mass murders by
suffocation of prisoners in Afghanistan; and the torturers of Khalid Sheik
Mohammad.

[35] THE UNITED STATES BELIEVES RUSSIAN TECHNICIANS are helping Iraq jam
crucial satellite signals needed to guide bombs and military aircraft as
US, British and Australian troops advance on Baghdad, a senior US official
said. [ABC 3/24]

[36] A PECULIAR ITEM FROM THE ECHO OF MOSCOW RADIO REPORT for Saturday 22
March: "The daughter of US Vice-President Dick Cheney, Elizabeth, has
arrived in the capital of Jordan, Amman. It is not conclusive, that the
next goal of her trip is war-engulfed Baghdad. According to certain
intelligence[*], Elizabeth intends to join up with the members of the
"Human Shield" movement, who are distributed around vitally important
objects in Iraq. " No attribution for the story is given. [*] "Po
nekotorym cvedeniyam" According to certain intelligence. "Certain" here
means "some", not "assured, definite". This may be a bit of boiler-plate
Russian journalese, "unnamed sources".
www.echo.msk.ru/7news/index.html#det_4 [Ekho Moskvy is a relatively
highbrow liberal radio channel catering to the intelligentsia. Pretty
reliable in general.]

	Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, US prosecutor at the
	Nuremberg trials, wrote, "We must make clear to the Germans that
	the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that
	they lost the war, but that they started it.  And we must not
	allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war,
	for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify
	resort to aggressive war.  It is utterly renounced and condemned
	as an instrument of policy."

  ==============================================================
  Carl Estabrook
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [MC-190]
  109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana IL 61801 USA
  office: 217.244.4105 mobile: 217.369.5471 home: 217.359.9466  
  academic: <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> 
  business: <cge at shout.net>
  ===============================================================