[Peace-discuss] News notes 031019

[C. G. Estabrook]

        Notes from last week's 'war on terrorism' -- prepared
        for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, October 19, 2003.

THE NEXT WAR AGAINST TERRORISM? "Israel is prepared to launch an attack on
Iran's nuclear sites in order to prevent them from being operational, the
German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday. Meanwhile, the Los
Angeles Times reported Saturday that Israel has the capability to fire
nuclear warheads from submarines." [HAARETZ 1012] "Former [Israeli] Deputy
Defense Minister Efraim Sneh called the assertion that Israel had made the
Harpoon nuclear impossible ... Ted Hooton, editor of Jane's Naval Weapon
Systems in London, echoed Sneh's assessment, saying problems with payload
weight would put the Harpoon out of balance, limiting its range and
accuracy ... While Israel has never acknowledged it has nuclear weapons of
its own, Israeli and foreign experts believe it possesses 100-200 nuclear
devices and has the capability to deliver them via American-made F-15 and
F-16 warplanes and the Jericho II missile, based on a prototype Israel
developed with France in the 1960s. The ability to deliver nuclear weapons
from submarines would significantly enhance Israel's reported nuclear
deterrent, by shielding the launch platform from all but the most
sophisticated countermeasures. According to the Times story, Israel would
use Dolphin class diesel-powered submarines acquired from Germany to
launch the nuclear-armed Harpoon missiles. Israel has three such
submarines in its arsenal." [AP 1013]

CRIMES OF THIS WAR. "Amnesty International condemns in the strongest terms
the large-scale destruction by the Israeli army of Palestinian homes in a
refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, which made homeless
hundreds of people, including many children and elderly people. Wanton
destruction constitutes a war crime." [AMNESTY.ORG 1013]

HONOR AMONG THIEVES. "U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said
on Tuesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld remained in charge of
Iraq's rebuilding despite a White House reorganization seen as diluting
his power ... Administration officials also said on Tuesday the Pentagon
was planning a new office for Iraq to oversee tens of billions of dollars
in contracts, taking away some power held by the U.S. Agency for
International Development. USAID, which falls under the auspices of the
State Department, has been responsible for handing out many of the
lucrative reconstruction projects in Iraq along with the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers." [REUTERS 1014]

WE'RE ALL ON THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER. G. Monbiot: "...from June last year ...
Bush has made 41 major speeches to live audiences. Of these, 14 - just
over a third - were delivered to military personnel or veterans ... this
commander-in-chief goes far beyond the patriotic blandishments of previous
leaders. He sometimes dresses up in the uniform of the troops he is
meeting. He quotes their mottoes and songs, retells their internal jokes,
mimics their slang. He informs the 'dog-faced soldiers' that they are 'the
rock of Marne', or asks naval cadets whether they gave 'the left-handed
salute to Tecumseh, the God of 2.0'. The television audience is mystified,
but the men love him for it. He is, or so his speeches suggest, one of
them. He starts by leading them in chants of 'Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah!', then
plasters them with praise and reminds them that their pay, healthcare and
housing (unlike those of any other workers in America) are being upgraded.
After this, they will cheer everything he says. So he uses these occasions
to attack his opponents and announce new and often controversial policies.
The marines were the first to be told about his interstate electricity
grid; he instructed the American Legion about the reform of the Medicare
program; last week he explained his plans for the taxation of small
businesses to the national guard. The troops may not have the faintest
idea what he's talking about, but they cheer him to the rafters anyway."
[GUARDIAN 1014]

TERRORIST STATE. "Israeli tanks and bulldozers moved back into the Rafah
refugee camp in the Gaza Strip Tuesday, just days after the Israeli army
destroyed about 100 houses, leaving some 2,000 people homeless and eight,
including two children, dead. At the same time, the Israeli army ordered
15 Palestinians being held without trial to be permanently deported from
the West Bank to Gaza - a move denounced by Israeli and international
human rights groups as illegal." [INDEPENDENT 1015]

MR. SHARON, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL. "The United States has vetoed a United
Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel's controversial West
Bank barrier. The draft, introduced by Arab states, declared that the
structure was illegal under international law and that construction must
be halted." [BBC 1015] "Palestinian U.N. envoy Nasser al-Kidwa said Arab
states  would now take his draft resolution to the 191-nation U.N.
General Assembly, where the United States, Israel's closest  ally, has no
veto and the Palestinians enjoy strong support." [REUTERS 1015] David
Landau: "David Landau: This kind of fence, now being planned by the
government, will not create a separation between Israel and the
Palestinians. It will separate between Israelis and Israelis, and between
Palestinians and Palestinians. Hopefully, it will block terrorism, but it
will also block the creation of a viable and territorially contiguous
Palestinian state. Thus, it will prevent the implementation of the
two-state solution - the only option that can preserve Israel's character
as a Jewish, democratic state. [HAARETZ 1017]

WHY DO THEY HATE US? "The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams,
Wednesday urged America to recognise that terrorists can 'have serious
moral goals'. He said that while terrorism must always be condemned, it
was wrong to assume its perpetrators were devoid of political rationality.
'It is possible to use unspeakably wicked means to pursue an aim that is
shared by those who would not dream of acting in the same way, an aim that
is intelligible or desirable.' He said that in ignoring this, in its
criticism of al-Qa'eda, America 'loses the power of self-criticism and
becomes trapped in a self-referential morality.'" [TELEGRAPH 1015]

NOW THEY TELL US. "The person responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons
threat for Colin Powell says the Secretary of State misinformed Americans
during his speech at the U.N. last winter. Greg Thielmann tells [CBS] that
at the time of Powell's speech, Iraq didn't pose an imminent threat to
anyone -- not even its own neighbors [on 60 Minutes II] ... he believes
the decision to go to war was made first and then the intelligence was
interpreted to fit that conclusion. "The main problem was that the senior
administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence," says
Thielmann. "They knew what they wanted the intelligence to show. They were
really blind and deaf to any kind of countervailing information the
intelligence community would produce" ... Steve Allinson and a dozen other
U.N. inspectors in Iraq also watched Powell's speech. "Various people
would laugh at various times [during Powell's speech] because the
information he was presenting was just, you know, didn't mean anything --
had no meaning," says Allinson. [CBS 1015]

WHERE DO TERRORISTS COME FROM? "War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al
Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant group's will, the International
Institute for Strategic Studies said on Wednesday in its annual report.
The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank's annual bible for
defense analysts, The Military Balance, said Washington's assertions after
the Iraq conflict that it had turned the corner in the war on terror were
'over-confident.' The report, widely considered an authoritative text on
the military capabilities of states and militant groups worldwide, could
prove fodder for critics of the U.S.-British invasion and of the
reconstruction effort that has followed in Iraq." [REUTERS 1015]

CAN'T KEEP THE POODLE ON THE PORCH. "Tony Blair, UK prime minister, has
dismayed the Bush administration, which believes he has embraced European
Union efforts to set up an independent military structure outside Nato.
The US has received mixed signals from London despite assurances from UK
diplomats that Britain would seek to scupper such moves." [FT 1015]

NOW THEY TELL US (II). "Halliburton, the Houston company with a no-bid
contract to restore Iraq's oil industry, is charging U.S. taxpayers
exorbitant prices to import gasoline into Iraq, two Democratic congressmen
said Wednesday. Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and John Dingell, D-Mich.,
wrote the Bush administration that the company's KBR subsidiary is billing
the Army between $1.62 and $1.70 per gallon, while Iraqis are charged
between 4 cents and 15 cents at the pump ... In a further move against
Halliburton, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., announced Wednesday he would
propose barring the government from awarding Iraq reconstruction contracts
to companies that maintain close financial ties to the president, vice
president or members of the president's Cabinet. Lautenberg wants the
measure added to an $87 billion reconstruction bill for Iraq and
Afghanistan. Cheney receives deferred payments from Halliburton and also
has stock options." [AP 1015]

WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS. P. Cockburn: "New babies are being named Saddam
by their parents in this oil refinery town [Baiji] 160 miles north of
Baghdad, such is the hostility to the US occupation, an official at the
local births and deaths registration office said. Iraqis queued yesterday
for new dinar banknotes with pictures of Babylonian rulers and a 10th
century Iraqi mathematician in place of a smiling Saddam Hussein. But in
Baiji, 'Long live Saddam' slogans are scrawled everywhere. The mayor's
office and a building which housed a pro-American opposition party are
burned out, having been set on fire by demonstrators who brandished
pictures of the former Iraqi leader. A local sheikh said: 'The people have
decided that the disasters they suffer under the Americans are worse than
those they suffered under Saddam Hussein.' He pointed to a small pit in
the concrete in the courtyard of his house where a grenade had exploded,
thrown by someone who thought him too close to the Americans."
[INDEPENDENT 1016]

HOW DARE THEY ATTACK US? "The ambush on a US 'diplomatic convoy' in Gaza
on Wednesday threatens to turn another page in the long war known as
Israel-Palestine. The roadside bomb wrecked one car and killed three US
officials while traveling into Gaza under a Palestinian Authority police
escort just south of the Strip's main Eretz crossing into Israel. Among
the dead were junior diplomats and CIA agents, said Israeli and
Palestinian media sources. Yasser Arafat denounced the attack as a
'crime', aware that it could harden even further American attitudes toward
his leadership and/or precipitate the US-administration's already
'disengaged' posture toward the Israel-Palestinian conflict into an
all-out flight. Palestinian Prime Minister, Ahmed Qurei (better known as
Abu Ala) vowed to open an investigation into those responsible for the
ambush. He too needs all the American help he can get. Israel said it
underscored its demand that the PA 'dismantle the terrorist
infrastructure' in the PA areas." [AHRAM 1016]

MERCHANTS OF DEATH. "The United States sells more arms than any other
country, and Saudi Arabia leads the world for buying arms among developing
countries while India spent 900 million dollars on weapons, a report from
the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) said on Wednesday.
The United States holds a 40.3 per cent market share in arms sales, raking
in $10.241 billion from sales in 2002, according to the IISS annual report
The Military Balance 2003-2004, on arms around the world. Saudi Arabia
spent an estimated $5.2 billion in 2002 buying weapons, despite having
reduced arms purchases from the 1995-1998 period, the report said.India
and the United Arab Emirates each spent $900 million on weapons. Britain,
the world's second-largest arms seller, sold $4.7 billion worth of weapons
in 2002 and has a 18.5 per cent market share. It is followed by Russia
($3.1 billion and 12.2 per cent market share) and France ($1.8 billion and
7.1 per cent market share). China comes fifth down the list selling $800
million worth of arms in 2002 (3.1 per cent market share), followed by
Ukraine at $600 million, Germany at $500 million (two per cent market
share) and Italy at $400 million (1.6 per cent market share). Israel, the
world's ninth-largest arms seller, brought in $300 million from sales in
2002, followed by Brazil at $200 million." [AFP 1016]

THE NEXT WAR AGAINST TERRORISM? (II) "Tens of thousands of poor indigenous
Bolivians marched into the capital on Thursday as their leaders rejected
President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada's attempt to defuse a deadly revolt,
declaring they would protest until the 'butcher' quit. The demonstrators
filed downhill from the poor outskirts of La Paz, exploding dynamite
sticks and shouting slogans such as 'Goni (a nickname for the president)
is a murderer.' Indigenous leaders said his offer to change some of his
hated U.S.-backed, free-market policies was too little, too late."
[REUTERS 1017] "Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada stepped down
Friday amid intensifying protests by indigenous groups over his proposal
to route a natural-gas pipeline to the U.S. and Mexico through Chile."
[SLATE 1019]

FRAGGING FRAGMENTS. "It weighs more than a thousand pounds, so carting it
away could present a few logistical problems for the average looter. But
the fact remains that there is a very nice 15-foot-long missile, in mint
condition, there for the taking, at one of Saddam Hussein's defense
factories a few miles west of here. The missile, along with a dozen
ready-to-fire 107-millimeter antitank rounds, just a few feet away, is
part of a problem that the American military has only begun to grapple
with: as much as one  million tons of ammunition is scattered around Iraq,
much of it unguarded -- like the armaments  here -- simply because the
United States does not have the personnel to keep watch." [NYT 1017]

WE'LL MAKE A 'CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS.' "Three U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi
police officers were killed in an overnight firefight with Shiite Muslims
in the holy city of Karbala, as religious tensions there continue to
rise." [PBS 1017] "Four MPs were killed in separate incidents in Iraq --
three in a firefight in the holy city of Karbala, and another by a
roadside bomb in Baghdad. [In Karbala] soldiers were engaged by bodyguards
of Mahmoud Hassani, a minor Shiite cleric 'neither well thought of nor
well known.' The paper regards the incident as evidence that anti-American
sentiment is rising among the up-till-now relatively peaceful Shiite
majority. Counting these most recent deaths, 101 U.S. soldiers have been
killed in combat in Iraq since President Bush declared an end to major
hostilities May 1." [WP 1018 via SLATE] "Three weeks ago Hamas' spiritual
leader said American policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine meant
that the Bush administration had 'declared war on Islam'." [AHRAM 1017]

WHY DON'T WE HEAR THE ALTERNATIVES? Patrick Seale: "Sharon's main worry
... and the reason for his haste [in the building of a 'Greater Israel' on
the ruins of Palestinian nationalism], is that George W. Bush could be
thrown out of office at next year's US presidential election -- and with
him the whole band of pro-Israeli neoconservatives which have set the
administration's agenda since Sept. 11, 2001. These are the men who
pressed for war against Iraq as a first step toward reshaping the
geopolitics of the entire Middle East. But the sluggish US economy, the
mess in Iraq, and the anti-American anger sweeping the Arab and Muslim
world are now making Bush look vulnerable. A Democrat in the White House
may not be so tolerant of Israel's foolhardy ambitions or so ready to
endorse the neocons' aggressive policies. Sharon has other worries closer
to home. The political fallout from the current police investigations of
his two sons, Omri and Gilad, for alleged sharp practice and bribe-taking
could drive Sharon himself from office in 2004. And to compound his fears,
the Israeli left which for the past two years has seemed terminally ill
and politically irrelevant is showing faint signs of revival. Leading
opposition figures such as Yossi Beilin, Amram Mitzna and Avraham Burg
have joined with Palestinian moderates, led by Yasser Abed Rabbo, in
drafting a detailed peace plan for a two-state solution -- the so-called
Geneva Accords. The plan, the result of two years of secret negotiations
funded by the Swiss government, is due to be signed formally in Geneva
next month, putting flesh on the bones of the tentative agreements reached
at Taba in January 2001. It represents everything that Sharon and his
friends detest and which he has spent his life seeking to destroy. It
provides for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders (with some marginal
modifications) to allow for the emergence of a viable Palestinian state;
some major settlements close to the Green Line to be annexed to Israel but
those deep inside Palestinian territory to be evacuated; Jerusalem as a
shared capital; Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif (Temple
Mount); Israeli sovereignty over the Wailing Wall and the Jewish quarter
of the Old City; and -- a major Palestinian concession -- the abandonment
of the 'right of return' to towns and villages lost in 1948. An
international force would monitor implementation of the plan while radical
Palestinian groups would be tamed and shut down ... [Sharon] has reacted
to the Geneva Accords with barely suppressed rage. 'By what right,' he
snorted, 'are left-wing people proposing moves that Israel can never do,
nor will ever do!'" [DAILY STAR (LB) 1017]

HERETICAL AND STUPID. "The general leading the hunt for Osama bin Laden
and Saddam Hussein has publicly declared that the Christian God is
'bigger' than Allah, who is a false 'idol', and believes the war on
terrorism is a fight with Satan, it emerged yesterday.Investigative
reporters from the Los Angeles Times and NBC television have dug up two
years' worth of seemingly incendiary comments from Lt Gen William 'Jerry'
Boykin, the newly promoted deputy undersecretary of state of defence for
intelligence.Gen Boykin has repeatedly told Christian groups and prayer
meetings that President George W Bush was chosen by God to lead the global
fight against Satan. He told one gathering: 'Why is this man in the White
House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. He's in the White
House because God put him there for a time such as this.'In January, he
told Baptists in Florida about a victory over a Muslim warlord in Somalia,
who had boasted that Allah would protect him from American capture. 'I
knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real god and his
was an idol,' Gen Boykin said. He also emerged from the conflict with a
photograph of the Somalian capital Mogadishu bearing a strange dark mark.
He has said this showed 'the principalities of darkness. . . a demonic
presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy'.On the Middle
East, Gen Boykin told an Oregon church in June that America could not
ignore its Judaeo-Christian roots. 'Our religion came from Judaism and
therefore [Islamic] radicals will hate us forever.' In the same month, Gen
Boykin told an Oklahoma congregation that Osama bin Laden and Saddam
Hussein were not the enemy. 'Our enemy is a spiritual enemy because we are
a nation of believers. . . His name is Satan.'  The disclosures will
doubtless be seized on by Muslim critics as proof that the US-led war on
terrorism is a crusade against Islam. It is a charge that Mr Bush has
worked hard to refute. Though careful to respect minority religions within
its ranks, the US military is strikingly devout from top to bottom. Mr
Bush and several key figures in his administration are staunch Christian
conservatives. Few outside the Pentagon noticed when Gen Boykin, a 13-year
member of Delta Force, the top-secret commando unit modelled on the SAS,
was promoted this summer, with responsibility for speeding the flow of
top-secret intelligence to commandos hunting bin Laden and other
high-value targets. At a routine press conference yesterday, Donald
Rumsfeld, the normally confident defence secretary, appeared wrong-footed
by the controversy. He hailed the general's 'outstanding record' and said
his comments were made 'in his private capacity'." [TELEGRAPH UK 1017] 

UH, RIGHT. Howard Dean, 10/13/03: "The fact is that we wouldn't be (in
Iraq) if it weren't for Democrats like Senator Kerry."

AND FROM THE OFFICIAL DEMOCRAT. "...the 1993 siege of David Koresh's Mount
Carmel commune in Waco, Texas, where four law-enforcement officers were
killed and nearly 90 civilians - men, women and children - massacred by
being shot and/or burned alive. Those seeking an investigation of his part
in the Waco outrage say that Clark not only played a hidden role in the
military-style assault on the Branch Davidians, but easily could have
refused to participate in what was a clear violation of the Posse
Comitatus Act that bars use of the U.S. military for civilian
law-enforcement activities. Although Clark never publicly has discussed
his role in the attack on the Branch Davidians and did not respond to
Insight's requests for an interview to discuss his role at Waco, there are
indisputable facts that confirm he had knowledge of the grim plans to
bring the standoff to an end. Between August 1992 and April 1994, Clark
was commander of the 1st Cavalry Division of the Army's III Corps at Fort
Hood, Texas. According to a report by the U.S. Department of the Treasury,
the list of military personnel and equipment used at Waco included: 15
active-duty military personnel, 13 Texas National Guard personnel, nine
Bradley fighting vehicles, five combat-engineer vehicles, one
tank-retrieval vehicle and two M1A1 Abrams tanks. Additionally, Fort Hood
reportedly was used for much of the training for the bloody attack on the
Davidians and their children." [INSIGHT 1015]

DOESN'T MEAN A THING. "Santa Cruz Mayor Emily Reilly is warning her
constituents in this liberal beach town not to jump to conspiracy theories
about several unusual events involving her bakery in the days since the
city council decided to challenge President Bush. It was Reilly who, after
a Santa Cruz City Council vote on Sept. 9, sent a letter to Washington
asking the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to consider impeaching President
Bush Four days later, a sophisticated burglar pried moulding off a window
at Emily's Good Things to Eat bakery, evaded a motion detector and stole
an old computer hard drive and the hard-drive backup. Then, on Sept. 17,
Emily's Good Things To Eat bakery was visited by an agent of the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration, who introduced himself, showed his
identification, and looked around. He asked if they used artificial
coloring (heavens no!) or if they transported anything across the state
lines (they've been known to mail cookie-grams) ...  June Hoffmann, who
co-owns the downtown Hoffman's Bakery Cafe, said that in almost two
decades of shaping marzipan and kneading breads, she's never been visited
by the FDA. Bakers were baffled as well at the House of Bread. 'Not one of
our ten House of Breads has ever been visited by the FDA,' said Sheila
McCann. 'I'd say this sounds a little bit suspect.' Late Wednesday night,
the city of Arcata followed in Santa Cruz's footsteps, unanimously
adopting a letter urging the Judiciary Committee to investigate whether
the Bush administration violated the constitution by exaggerating the
threat posed by Iraq before the war. Arcata council member Dave Meserve
was in Washington on Thursday, hoping to hand-deliver Arcata's letter on
Capitol Hill while attending a conference of representatives of the 188
cities and three states that have publicly opposed the U.S. Patriot Act."
[AP 1016]

GET HIM OUT. "A new ABC/Washington Post poll has found that only 46
percent of voters in the U.S. would now vote to re-elect [sic] Bush
marking Bush's weakest showing to date. And nearly 60 percent of Americans
say the number of U.S. casualties in Iraq has become unacceptable." [DN
1015]

THE NEXT WAR AGAINST TERRORISM? (III) "The U.S. House of Representatives
voted 398-4 Wednesday to impose news sanctions against Syria ... tensions
increased along the Syrian-Iraq border. Agence France Press is reporting
that U.S. forces killed several men identified as foreign fighters along
the border." [DN 1019]

WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE. A soon-to-be-published book
titled The Faith of George W. Bush reports that during his run for
president, George W. Bush told a Texas preacher, 'I feel like God wants me
to run for president. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going
to need me... I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me
to do it.' [DN 1019]

ALTHO' AMERICANS ARE OPPOSED. "Congress overwhelmingly approved $87
billion of military and reconstruction funds for use in Iraq and
Afghanistan, granting the Bush administration the vast majority of what he
asked for when he sent an omnibus plan to Capitol Hill in early September.
Both chambers ended up trimming about $2 billion worth of prisons,
hospitals, and garbage trucks from the original proposal, with the Senate
straying further still from the White House's wish list by designating $10
billion in reconstruction aid as a loan to be paid back out of future
Iraqi oil revenues. The Senate also added $1.3 billion in health-care
benefits for veterans and excised about $200 million earmarked for
importing petroleum into Iraq, amid claims by some lawmakers that a
subsidiary of Halliburton was improperly inflating prices for such
services. A conference committee will hash out the differences between the
House and Senate versions of the package next week ... Sen. John Kerry,
Sen. John Edwards and Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted against the plan, while
Rep. Dick Gephardt and Sen. Joe Lieberman were in favor." [NYT 1018 via
SLATE] 

HIDDEN CHARGES. "In addition to the $55 billion the U.S. and World Bank
estimate will be needed to rebuild Iraq over the next five years, the
country is carrying between $300 billion and $400 billion in international
debt, including nearly $200 billion in unpaid reparations from the first
Gulf War." [LAT 1018 via SLATE]

NOTE THE DATE. "In April 2002 the State Department assigned 200 Iraqi
business leaders, lawyers, and engineers to 17 working groups charged with
outlining the major challenges of a U.S. occupation, the NYT explains. The
resulting 2,000-page report was more realistic about the dilapidated state
of Iraqi infrastructure and civil society than the Pentagon's
reconstruction planners were. It also predicted that a power vacuum
immediately after Saddam Hussein's fall could lead to widespread looting,
and that a quick dismantling of the Iraqi army might cause disgruntled
ex-soldiers to attack the U.S. The Defense Department's reconstruction
office did not learn about the report until less than a month before the
start of the war. According to 'State Department officials,' the Pentagon
blocked efforts by the military's chief reconstruction official to appoint
one of the report's coordinators as his adviser." [SLATE 1019] On Friday,
the UN Security Council approved a US resolution that made the occupation
of Iraq "multinational" -- but with the US in charge...

IT'S ALSO A PRISON, INTERROGATION, AND PERHAPS TORTURE CENTER. "The former
Saddam International Airport now houses Iraq's first Burger King ... its
sales have reached the top 10 among all Burger King franchises on Earth in
the five months since it opened ... even with A limited menu, and with
competition from the Bob Hope dining facility at the airport -- which is
free and serves 8,000 meals a day -- Burger King's daily sales are between
$15,000 and $18,000, military officials say. The restaurant probably owes
much of its success to its location. The sprawling, heavily fortified
airport complex, the nerve center of the U.S. military's operations in
Iraq, provides a captive clientele of more than 6,000 soldiers, plus
contractors and other civilians. In addition, Washington dignitaries fly
in and out, and all mail for U.S. forces in Iraq arrives here." [WP 1019]

NOTE THE 'FREE MARKET' PROVISIONS. "The NYT reefers a dispatch from Kabul
on the imminent publication of the proposed new constitution for
Afghanistan. The document was drawn up by a commission of 35 'lawyers and
experts' appointed by President Hamid Karzai. To solicit citizen input,
the commission sent out half a million questionnaires and got back
100,000. The proposed government will have centralized (i.e., non-federal)
authority, with a president who appoints a prime minister, a bicameral
legislature, an independent judiciary, and some human rights and
free-market guarantees. Most Afghanis worry that the new government will
be entirely secularist, so the commissioners decided to call the new
nation the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and include language that 'no
law will be made which will oppose Islamic principles.' A 'grand assembly'
of 500 people, many of them conservative Islamists, will convene on Dec.
10 to debate the constitution's adoption." [SLATE 1019]


	"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading
	newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second
	hand of a clock." --Ben Hecht (1894-1964)