[Peace-discuss] News notes 040808

Tue Aug 10 17:37:33 CDT 2004

        Notes from last week's "war on terrorism" --
        for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, August 8, 2004.
        (Sources indicated at the ends of paragraphs;
        unsourced text and titles are mine.)

	Friday was Hiroshima Day; Monday, the anniversary
	of the atom bombing of Nagasaki.

AT THE TIME OF THE DROPPING OF THE HIROSHIMA BOMB, MOST US PRESS FOLLOWED
THE GOVERNMENT'S PROPAGANDA, BUT THERE WERE DISSENTS, EVEN WITHIN THE
"MAINSTREAM." The New York Herald-Tribune found "no satisfaction in the
thought that an American air crew had produced what must without doubt be
the greatest simultaneous slaughter in the whole history of mankind,"
likening it to the "mass butcheries of the Nazis or of the ancients." A
leading religious body in America, the Federal Council of Churches, urged
that the U.S. drop no more atomic bombs on Japan, in a statement issued by
two of its leaders, G. Bromley Oxnam and John Foster Dulles. America had
won the race for the bomb but it "may yet reap the whirlwind," Hanson
Baldwin, military analyst for the New York Times, declared.
	Interest in Hiroshima, however, receded as other events in the
Pacific war, as well as speculation about a Japanese surrender, took
center stage. On Aug. 9, the top two headlines on the front page of The
New York Times announced the Soviets' declaration of war against Japan.
Not until line three did this message appear: "Atom Bomb Loosed on
Nagasaki." The target of the second attack, a city of 270,000 people, was
described, variously, as a naval base, an industrial center, or a vital
port for military shipments and troop embarkation, anything but a largely
residential city. The bomb, in fact, exploded over the largest Catholic
community in the Far East [and was simply a scientific experiment with
human subjects]. [E&P 8/3]

TO CELEBRATE HIROSHIMA DAY, last week the Bush administration announced
[according to the Washington Post's Dafna Linzer] that "it will oppose
provisions for inspections and verification as part of an international
treaty that would ban production of nuclear weapons materials ...
Arms-control specialists reacted negatively, saying the change in U.S.
position will dramatically weaken any treaty and make it harder to prevent
nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. The
announcement, they said, also virtually kills a 10-year international
effort to lure countries such as Pakistan, India and Israel into accepting
some oversight of their nuclear production programs." [The reasons the US
offered were specious, and what is probably the real reason, Israel,
wasn't mentioned.]

SPREADING FEAR, TERROR, AND POVERTY. Bush signs $417 billion defense bill,
including pay increases and $25 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan: "With this
legislation, America's military will know that their country stands behind
them as they fight for our freedom and as they spread the peace." [WT]

THE UNCONSCIOUS SPEAKS THE TRUTH.  Kerry at DemCon accurately (if
accidentally) calls our military policy terrorism: now Bush asserts US
readiness to harm US [Reuters]: "Our enemies are innovative and
resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to
harm our country and our people, and neither do we." Don't you find the
stuff he means to say scary enough? [wonkette.com 8/8]

CAPITOL HILL BLUE REPORTS, "A sullen President George W. Bush is
withdrawing more and more from aides and senior staff, retreating into a
private, paranoid world where only the ardent loyalists are welcome ...
White House aides say Bush has retreated into a tightly-controlled
environment where only top political advisors like Karl Rove and Karen
Hughes are allowed. Even White House chief of staff Andrew Card complains
he has less and less access to the President. Among cabinet members, only
Attorney General John Ashcroft ... remains part of the inner circle."

THIS WEEK WE HAD TERROR ALERTS THAT EVEN THE MAINSTREAM PRESS WAS
SKEPTICAL OF. "The first thing to notice about the elevated orange terror
alert is that it is confined to Democratic stronghold cities and states.
The next is to realize that no battleground states will be subjected to
formal elevated alerts, lest the security interruptions sour the swing
voters residing therein."
[www.suntimes.com/output/orourke/cst-edt-rour08.html]

WAG THE TERRORIST. After the announcement of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani's
arrest in Pakistan followed "almost magically" a visit to Islamabad by
Centcom Commander General John Abizaid, and coincided with the Democratic
Party's convention, Asia Times claims that more al-Qaeda operators "are
already in detention in Pakistan to be produced when and as necessary."
BUT apparently one of the "senior Al Qaeda members" captured in Pakistan
was actually a Pakistani undercover agent providing the US with
intelligence.
[maxblumenthal.blogspot.com/2004/08/pakistani-valerie-plame.html][www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109185597245383648]

WAG THE TERRORIST II. In Albany, the FBI used tens of thousand of dollars
to setup and entrap a pizza parlor owner and the imam of the local mosque.
[NYT 8/6]

OCT. SUP. The Sunday New York Times featured carefully-placed USG leaks
that Iran and North Korea haven't curbed their nuclear weapons programs
... According to the NYT, the administration is responding to Iran's
expanding weapons program by increasing "unspecified covert actions" in
the country ... The piece also says Israeli officials have stated
privately that they would consider an attack on Iran's nuclear plant
similar to the one on Iraq's Osirak facility in 1981 should the Iranians
come close to producing a weapon. [Slate 8/8]

SHI'ITE UPRISING. The LAT lead focuses on a failed raid on Muqtada Sadr's
home -- the Iraqi National Guard hoped to arrest the rebel cleric, but he
wasn't home. In Iraq this week, the US prompts a Shi'ite uprising by
invading Najaf and rejecting Sadr's offer of a cease-fire. Najaf sees the
worst fighting since the handover; 300 militants killed by American and
Iraqi forces at midweek. "It is now clear that the operations have been a
complete success," says a local police commander. [NYT]

ROBERT FISK ON THE SITUATION IN IRAQ LAST WEEKEND. The war is a fraud. I'm
not talking about the weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. Nor
the links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida which didn't exist. Nor all
the other lies upon which we went to war. I'm talking about the new lies.
For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that did
not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist. Much of Iraq
has fallen outside the control of America's puppet government in Baghdad
but we are not told. Hundreds of attacks are made against US troops every
month. But unless an American dies, we are not told. This month's death
toll of Iraqis in Baghdad alone has now reached 700 -- the worst month
since the invasion ended. But we are not told.
	The stage management of this catastrophe in Iraq was all too
evident at Saddam Hussein's "trial". Not only did the US military censor
the tapes of the event. Not only did they effectively delete all sound of
the 11 other defendants. But the Americans led Saddam Hussein to believe
-- until he reached the courtroom -- that he was on his way to his
execution. Indeed, when he entered the room he believed that the judge was
there to condemn him to death. This, after all, was the way Saddam ran his
own state security courts. No wonder he initially looked "disorientated"
-- CNN's helpful description -- because, of course, he was meant to look
that way. We had made sure of that. Which is why Saddam asked Judge Juhi:
"Are you a lawyer? ... Is this a trial?" And swiftly, as he realised that
this really was an initial court hearing -- not a preliminary to his own
hanging -- he quickly adopted an attitude of belligerence.
	But don't think we're going to learn much more about Saddam's
future court appearances. Salem Chalabi, the brother [nephew?] of
convicted fraudster Ahmad and the man entrusted by the Americans with the
tribunal, told the Iraqi press two weeks ago that all media would be
excluded from future court hearings. And I can see why. Because if Saddam
does a Milosevic, he'll want to talk about the real intelligence and
military connections of his regime -- which were primarily with the United
States. [Independent 8/1] [Now comes the report that Salem Chalabi has
been indicted by an Iraqi judge for the murder of an Iraqi official
looking into Chalabi family holdings.]

CAN YOU SPARE A DIME? Iraq's US-installed interim government, which is
planning to spend about US$2 billion on its military this year, has
declared it is too poor to pay the $14.6 million it owes the United
Nations. [But it did reinstate the death penalty and close the Baghdad
office of Aljazeera.]

A NATIONAL SHAME. US opens up Guantanamo tribunals late Friday [in the
news black hole]. Two Afghan men have denied being enemy fighters in
appearances before US military tribunals reviewing the status of
Guantanamo Bay detainees ... It is the first time any of the around 600
detainees, who have been held without trial or access to lawyers for more
than two years, have been allowed any form of hearing ... Both detainees
asked for witnesses and each was denied by the tribunals on the grounds
that they were not relevant ... The man overseeing the prisoners' appeal
process, Gordon England, has rejected claims that the process is flawed"
... We are allowing the detainees to appear before the hearing and present
their case, and we have a person to work with them," he said. The
detainees do not have lawyers, but "personal representatives" because it
is an administrative not a legal proceeding, Mr England said. He said
detainees were being treated as enemy combatants, not prisoners of war
which are entitled to certain legal rights, because "there's no declared
war between countries". If the tribunals, presided over by three military
officers, find that a prisoner does not qualify as an enemy combatant, he
may have to be freed. Mr England conceded this, but said he did not expect
"a very large number" to be released. [BBC 8/6]

TIP OF THE TORTURE ICEBERG. The "Combatant Status Review Tribunals"  are a
process the Washington, DC-based Center for Constitutional Rights calls a
"sham" and is challenging in court. In the last week, the US released five
Moroccans and four French citizens from the GuantÃ¡namodetention centers
into the hands of their governments, reports the Associated Press. A
lawyer for two of the French men told reporters that his clients described
their time at the military prison in GuantÃ¡namo as "hell" ... On
Wednesday, three British citizens who were formerly held at GuantÃ¡namo
released a 115-page description of the abuses they say they endured while
being held for two and a half years without charges. Their horrific and
detailed testimony describes numerous allegations of torture, humiliation,
and violation of rights. They say US forces forcibly injected them with
unknown drugs, brutally physically assault them, sexually violated and
humiliated them, kept them cages exposed to the sun and to snakes and
scorpions, degraded their religion and restricted their religious
practice, kept them in solitary detention and interrogated them for long
periods of time, and coerced false confessions ... A week ago Friday the
Pentagon filed papers in federal court, asserting that the detainees at
GuantÃ¡namo do not have the right to lawyers, according to National Public
Radio. The 32-page reported argues that only US citizens have the
constitutional right to counsel and that although the US Supreme Court
ruled the non-citizen prisoners at GuantÃ¡namo must have access to US
courts to challenge their detentions, the ruling did not technically grant
them the right to a lawyer. [NS 8/4]

SPARE A DIME? (II) The Post has a very long, comphrehensive, and important
article in the evolving story of U.S. robbery of Iraqi money, with a good
headline into the bargain -- $1.9 Billion of Iraq's Money Goes to U.S.
Contractors. The CPA awarded about 2000 contracts with Iraqi money. The
total amound involved was $2.26 billion, "at least 85 percent" of which
was obligated to U.S. Companies. In particular,
    --Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., a subsidiary of Halliburton, was paid
$1.66 billion from the Iraqi money, primarily to cover the cost of
importing fuel from Kuwait. The job was tacked on to a no-bid contract
that was the subject of several investigations after allegations surfaced
that a subcontractor for Houston-based KBR overcharged by as much as $61
million for the fuel. [Empire Notes 8/3]

SPARE A DIME? (III) According to the Houston Chronicle, Halliburton
dropped health benefits for retirees, sued three of them when they wrote
letters to complain, then announced that the retirees were being sued for
their own benefit. [Cursor 8/3]

DROP A DIME. Halliburton agrees to pay $7.5 mil in settlement of SEC
probe, Cheney "cooperated willingly;" a second suit, filed Thursday,
alleges "serial fraud" and bribery. Four financial officers say so, and
Cheney's sucessor is implicated, but not Dick. [CBSMW, Reuters]

NICKEL AND DIMED. Job creation numbers fall short of Wall Street forecast
-- 32,000 rather than 200,000-plus. Bush aides insist the numbers are
"decent." [WP] The stock market hit lows for the year, owing in part to
the high price of oil, from sources as distinct as Russian taxation,
Chinese consumption, and the Venezuelan referendum next Sunday.

THE SCANDAL ALWAYS ABOUT TO BREAK. A military investigator tells a court
that U.S. troops abused Iraqi prisoners "just for fun," and Rolling Stone
obtains the 106 "annexes" that the Defense Department withheld from the
Taguba report last spring, with detailed reports implicating American
soldiers and translators in rape and sodomy of Iraqi prisoners. Oregon
National Guard soldiers attempted to stop Iraqi jailers from abusing
dozens of prisoners, but were ordered to return the prisoners to their
abusers and leave, according to a published report.
[www.gadsdentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040807/APA/408070766]

WELL, 911 DID CHANGE EVERYTHING... Illinois to become home to most the
rhetorically intriguing senate race in the country, as former presidential
candidate Alan Keyes prepares to announce candidacy against Dem Barack
Obama. Keyes is not a state resident, but could draw national attention,
money and support. [AP] In 2000 Keyes said, "I deeply resent ... Hillary
Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and
pretend to represent people there, so I certainly wouldn't imitate it."
[cursor.org 8/4]

CANADIAN CASABLANCA? Canada's War Resisters Support Campaign prepares an
intensive lobbying effort to persuade the Canadian government to provide
sanctuary to U.S. soldiers refusing to participate in the war in Iraq.
Granting refugee status is problematic, says one American, because "It's
tantamount to Canada saying that the U.S. is a repressive country that
persecutes its citizens."

...FOR EVERYONE WHO OWNS ONE. In a Salon editorial, Newsday columnist
James Pinkerton laments the "creeping hawkishness" of the Washington Post,
observing that the paper's editorial stance on Iraq "is about the same,
these days, as that of the Wall Street Journal."

NO HONOR AMONG THIEVES. Defense Secretary Donald Rumfeld describes
Undersecretary Douglas Feith as "one of the intellectual leaders in the
administration," by way of defending him from retired General Tommy
Franks, who writes in his memoir that Feith was "getting a reputation
around here as the dumbest (expletive) guy on the planet."

AND THEN THEY WERE ROBBED AT GUNPOINT ON THE STREET (TRUE). AP reports
that seven Iraqis seeking to learn more about the process of government
were barred from city hall in Memphis after the city council chairman
threatened to "evacuate the building and bring in the bomb squad" if they
entered. Plus: the only GOP candidate on the ballot in a Tennessee
congressional primary election promotes eugenics and declares that "white
children deserve the same rights as everyone else."

JULIAN GENS. Meanwhile, there is a report that a commercial flight to
Washington is held up for two hours for a Bush daughter.

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