[Peace-discuss] News notes 040215

[C. G. Estabrook]

  Notes on last week's GWOT ("Global War on Terror"),
  prepared for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, February 15, 2004.
  (Passages below are quotations from or paraphrases of accounts  
  in sources indicated by initials; comments in capitals are mine.)

[1] US PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS:

WHAT'S IN THE NEWS BLACK HOLE THIS WEEK? President Bush, trying to stamp
out a political firestorm, released all his National Guard files during
the Vietnam War on Friday to answer election-year charges from Democrats
that he shirked his duty. The White House handed out thick packets
containing hundreds of pages of documents retrieved from a National Guard
records center in Denver. A group of reporters was given 20 minutes to
review dozens of pages detailing Bush's medical exams during his service.
[REUTERS] All the front-page analyses conclude that the new material
provides scant evidence that Bush showed for Guard duty in Alabama between
May 1972 and April 1973. [SLATE]

GREAT ISSUE OF THE DAY. Opponents of the Democratic presidential hopeful
John Kerry began e-mailing a picture of Kerry at a 1971 antiwar rally with
to one another four days ago; it depicted Jane Fonda standing by Kerry's
side. The photo had been doctored. Alex Polier, a 27 year old journalist
is alleged to have had a two-year affair with the front-runner for the
Democratic nomination. Polier and her fiance were believed to be at the
Nairobi home of Mr Schwartzman's parents, who moved to Kenya from Israel.
"Well, there is nothing to report," Kerry told NY talk show host Don Imus.
"So there is nothing to talk about. I'm not worried about it. No."

GREAT VISTA OF THE DAY. Howard Dean faced scores of empty chairs in a
half-empty hall on Saturday as he neared an anticipated defeat in
Wisconsin's primary next week. There is a Democrat debate today.

GREAT DISS-YOU OF THE DAY. Bush dealt with a major issues facing the US by
visiting the Daytona 500 -- the most-watched auto race in the United
States -- which is run in the state of Florida. He got a much warmer
reception than Bill Clinton did when he visited a NASCAR race as a
candidate in September 1992, when the question of his lack of Vietnam-era
military service was dogging Clinton. At the Southern 500 race in
Darlington, S.C., Clinton was booed and heckled by fans, many shouting
"draft dodger!" at him ... He spent an unusually long time at the race -
more than two hours, compared to the 55 minutes he planned at a Monday
event on the economy across Florida in Tampa. Bush does not submit to news
media interviews often, but he did two Sunday with networks that reach
millions of race fans -- NBC, which aired the race, and with the Motor
Racing Network. [AP] The Toronto Star's Antonia Zerbisias says the major
media were MIA for four years, as evidenced by 13,000 stories on Bill
Clinton's draft avoidance against about 50 on Bush's military career. (For
more details, check out http://www.awolbush.com.) "Now it has become a
campaign issue for the self-styled "wartime president" who refused to
fight but did not hesitate to send other people's children to die." [TS]

[2] IRAQ:

WHO WHOM? The Financial Times reports that a confidential US "January
national review of Iraq," cites the "highest rate of violence since
September 2003." Now this last week in Iraq has been particularly violent.  
More than 100 people were killed by two car bombs, apparently suicides,
against recruits for the new US-dominated Iraqi police and army. Then
Saturday a well-planned military operation against a police barracks in
Fallujah killed at least 15 police and freed dozens of prisoners. Four of
the attackers were killed as well as several Iraqi civilians, bringing the
number of dead to 25. At least 40 people were wounded. Documents found on
the four dead attackers indicated that two were Lebanese and that one was
Iranian, the Americans said. [NYT] According to the first NYT report
posted on its web site, the attack by a large (80 strong), heavily armed,
and perfectly disciplined force was the work of the Badr brigades, a
fanatically antiBaathist Shiite militia.  This was not repeated in the
second version, which included the US military's allegation of Baathist
responsibility. However, at least for now, that version still includes the
information that the attackers shouted "God is Great," carried the black
flags of the Shiite militias, and included *Persian* speakers (a few of
whom were captured).  According to France-TV's "Le Journal," about 200
prisoners were liberated. [LBO] On Thursday, a convoy carrying the US
commander of in the Middle East General John Abizaid came under attack. He
was not injured.  [DN]

SHH! A regional summit brought together Iraq and the six countries which
border it, plus Egypt, for two days of talks in Kuwait and issued calls
for the UN to assist Iraq - and for the US to leave as soon as possible.
The group had met four times since US-led forces overthrew Saddam Hussein
last April, but this was the first time Iraq was invited. [BBC]

WHAT? U.N. envoy to Iraq thinks that early elections -- whether direct, as
the Shiites prefer, or indirect, as the U.S. wants -- are not feasible.
One alternative, an interim U.N. role, was all but ruled out by Secretary
General Kofi Annan for security reasons. Another option is an expanded
Iraqi Governing Council. [SLATE] A column headlined 'Pentagon eager to
wash hands of Iraq mess it created,' quotes a senior administration
official who says that "Rumsfeld and his people... can't wait for July 1
when the CPA turns into the U.S. Embassy and the whole mess they have made
becomes Colin Powell's." [J. GALLOWAY, KR] And Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay
Garner, the former U.S. interim administrator in Iraq, has said that a
U.S. military presence in Iraq should last "the next few decades." This
according to a report in the publication Congress Daily.  [DN]

UH, SORRY. The US overseer in Iraq was forced to admit that the coalition
has failed to provide proper funding for the country's health system,
after coming under a barrage of criticism here from top doctors. [AFP]

[3] PREPARATIONS FOR OCTOBER SURPRISE

SARTORIAL THREATS. The Washington Post leads with the latest bulletin from
the inspectors dismantling Libya's nuclear-weapons program: proof that
China supplied Pakistan with bomb designs in the 1980s. The bomb
blueprints that Libya surrendered to inspectors were stashed in the white
shopping bag of an Islamabad haberdasher (the "Good Looks Tailor"), but
they were written in Chinese and based on a weapon tested by China in the
1960s. (Pakistan's own nukes are based on a more modern design.) The
inspectors, who have already tied Libya's centrifuge parts to Pakistani
designs, said the Chinese blueprint would have produced a useable weapon,
but one too heavy for Libya's small missiles. A former inspector tells the
Post that Iranian and North Korean missiles could carry such a bomb.
"Investigators" assert that Iran has similar nuclear technology to that
found in Libya. [SLATE]

SCIENTIFIC THREATS. Relatives of six Pakistani scientists, colleagues of
the pardoned A. Q. Khan who are currently imprisoned without trial, have
accused the government of scapegoating the scientists to cover up the
military's complicity in selling nuclear technology. [FT]

STATISTICAL THREATS. More evidence that the Bush administration will need
a war emergency to win the November election -- at least something to
frighten Americans enough to vote Republican (or at least not vote
Democrat). The self-described "war president" (actually the people around
him) are capable of committing enormities to see that happen. James K.
Galbraith analyzed the poll results that will lead them to that
conclusion:
	"...What is the message of these numbers? One stands out: In his
entire first term, only three episodes so far have gained approval for
Bush. All were related to terrorism and to war. They were 9/11, the war on
Iraq, and the capture of Saddam. Taken together, the five months when Bush
gained popularity on these events account for 89 percent of all the
variation in the change of Bush's job approval, measured by the average of
these polls.
	"But equally, consider what has happened in the other 32 months.
The record is remarkably consistent: In the range of approvals above 48
percent or so -- that is, among voters who did not vote for him in 2000 --
Bush loses support, month after month. And he does so at what is nearly a
constant rate. Tick, tock.
	"Measured by a number of different techniques (including
regression analysis), Bush's monthly loss of approval appears to be a
little less than 1.6 percentage points -- every month, on average. And the
variation around that average (standard error) is quite small: less than
one-fourth of that value. That means that in 95 percent of the cases, the
decline is between 0.9 and 2.3 percent per month. Tick, tock..." [SALON]

[NOTE KEN URBAN'S OCTOBER SURPRISE WEBSITE]

...ALL OF THE PEOPLE, ALL OF THE TIME. A Washington Post/ABC poll finds
that 54 percent of Americans believe that President Bush exaggerated or
lied about prewar intelligence and that only 48 percent now believe the
war was worth fighting, down 8 points from last month. The poll also found
that 51 percent prefer a report evaluating the accuracy and use of prewar
intelligence before the election. [CURSOR]

RAT OUT OF THE BAG? In what is seen as a blow to the Bush administration,
the Senate Intelligence Committee said Thursday that it planned to
investigate whether White House officials exaggerated the Iraq threat or
pressured analysts to tailor their assessments of Baghdad's weapons
programs to bolster the case for war. This according to a report in the
Los Angeles Times. The White House had sought the inquiry to be confined
to the performance of the CIA and other intelligence agencies. The
committee will also examine the role played by the Pentagon’s secretive
Office of Special Plans and the Iraqi National Congress.  [DN]

BUT THE FIXER IS IN. "Democracy Now!" discussed "longtime Republican
operative," Judge Laurence Silberman, co-chair of the adminsitration's
commission investigating intelligence failures on Iraq. [CURSOR]

GOOD Q FROM THE RIGHT. "How we were persuaded to go to war raises grave
questions about the character and competence of those who led us into it,"
writes Pat Buchanan. "And if it was not the weapons, what was the real
reason America went to war on Iraq?" [CURSOR]

UH-HUH. The former head of the Iraqi oil industry reconstruction effort,
retired Shell Oil CEO Philip Carroll, argues that Halliburton was actually
helping to prevent civil unrest with deliveries of gasoline for which it
reportedly overcharged the U.S. government by $61 million. Two
ex-Halliburton employees tell Congress a different story. [CURSOR]

PROPAGANDA FREEBIE. The U.S. has launched a satellite TV network from
Beirut, a kind of Radio Free Europe for the Arab world called Al-Hurra, or
"The Free One." [BP]

PROMOTING THE RULE OF LAW. A joint British and American spying operation
at the United Nations scuppered a last-ditch initiative to avert the
invasion of Iraq ... Senior UN diplomats from Mexico and Chile provided
new evidence last week that their missions were spied on, in direct
contravention of international law.  The former Mexican ambassador to the
UN, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, told The Observer that US officials intervened
last March, just days before the war against Saddam was launched, to halt
secret negotiations for a compromise resolution to give weapons inspectors
more time to complete their work.  Aguilar Zinser claimed that the
intervention could only have come as a result of surveillance of a closed
diplomatic meeting where the compromise was being hammered out. He said it
was clear the Americans knew about the confidential discussions in
advance. 'When they [the US] found out, they said, "You should know that
we don't like the idea and we don't like you to promote it."' The
revelations follow claims by Chile's former ambassador to the UN, Juan
Valdes, that he found hard evidence of bugging at his mission in New York
last March. The new claims emerged as The Observer has discovered that
Government officials seriously considered dropping the prosecution against
Katharine Gun, the translator at the GCHQ surveillance center who first
disclosed details of the espionage operation last March.  According to
Whitehall sources, officials feared the prosecution would leave the
Government and the intelligence services open to embarrassing disclosures.
They were known to be concerned that the 29-year-old Chinese language
specialist would be seen as a patriotic young woman acting out of
principle to reveal an illegal operation rather than as someone who
betrayed her country's secrets. They are also known to be worried that any
trial would force the disclosure of Government legal advice on
intervention in Iraq, described by one source as 'at best ambiguous'.  
Gun has attracted high profile support, particularly in the US, where her
case has been taken up by Hollywood stars, civil rights campaigners and
members of Congress. Yesterday, Oscar nominee, Sean Penn, told The
Observer that Gun was 'a hero of the human spirit'. [OBSERVER]

PROMOTING THE RULE OF LAW (II). Israel announced on Thursday that it would
not go before the International Court of Justice to defend its building of
a massive blockade wall through the West Bank. Israel claims that it does
not recognize the court's jurisdiction in the matter.  [DN]

AN OLD RUMOR, BUT A REAL THREAT? Al-Qaida has obtained tactical nuclear
explosive devices that can fit inside a suitcase, Israel Radio reported
Sunday night citing the Al-Hayat newspaper. According to the Arabic daily
based in London, the devices are not intended for use, except in the event
that the existence of the organization is threatened. The report said that
members of Osama bin Laden's group purchased the devices from Ukrainian
scientists who sell them to anyone willing to pay the price. [HAARETZ]

HEGEMONY OR SURVIVAL? On Thursday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N.
nuclear watchdog said the world could be headed for destruction if it does
not stop the spread of atomic weapons technology. He wrote "The supply
network will grow, making it easier to acquire nuclear weapon expertise
and materials. Eventually, inevitably, terrorists will gain access to such
materials and technology, if not actual weapons. If the world does not
change course, we risk self-destruction."  [DN]

[4] MISCELLANEOUS:

US ECONOMY IN TROUBLE. The U.S. trade deficit -- the amount of stuff
Americans bought from abroad minus the stuff they sold abroad -- hit a
record $489.4 billion in 2003, the papers report. (In other words,
Americans had to borrow $489.4 billion from foreigners to pay for the
imports they consumed but couldn't afford.) The NYT writes that, contrary
to economic theory, the trade deficit has increased despite the falling
value of the U.S. dollar (which makes U.S. goods cheaper abroad and
therefore increases demand for U.S. exports). The WP, by contrast, says
that the falling dollar is starting to boost U.S. exports. Both the WP and
NYT note that the trade deficit is now 4.5 percent of GDP, but only the
NYT bothers to give the comparable figure for 2002 (4 percent). [SLATE]

US POLITY IN TROUBLE. Post columnist David Broder peruses recent
Congressional Records to find out what our lawmakers have been up to while
the nation focuses its attention on the Democratic primaries and the
president's National Guard service. After its two-month Christmas
vacation, the House "passed momentous resolutions honoring the
contributions of Catholic schools, saluting school mentors and supporting
efforts to recruit more of them, recognizing and commending the
achievements of NASA and ... passed a bill extending the life of the
breast cancer stamp from 2005 to 2006 ... The Senate discussed many
important issues and agreed that most of them need further reflection."

US ACADEMY IN TROUBLE. The Post's trade deficit article notes that White
House economic adviser N. Gregory Mankiw, a former academic, had to
apologize yesterday for insensitivity after saying that the migration of
service jobs overseas "is just a new way of doing international trade" ...
the 1997 edition of Mankiw's macroeconomics textbook argues that the large
federal budget deficits of the 1980s "reduced national saving, leading to
a large trade deficit." This is accompanied by a graph showing a
historical correlation between the federal budget and the trade balance.
And what does a high trade deficit mean for America? "High current
consumption [as reflected in a trade deficit] leads to lower future
consumption, implying that future generations bear the burden of low
national savings." [SLATE] In other words, the WH econ adviser was agaisnt
the two deficits -- budget and trade -- that are the hallmarks of the Bush
econ policy.

US POLICE OK. The organizer of an Islamic law conference at UT Law School
is questioning whether ethnic discrimination brought a Special Agent for
Army Intelligence to campus Monday. Special Agent Jason Treesh confronted
students at the law school, demanding a list of people who attended a
conference about women and Islamic law. The conference, Islam and the Law:
The Question of Sexism, included speakers from around the nation and
focused on the rights of women under Islamic law. Treesh would not comment
about why he was at the law school, but his supervisor, Commander Demetria
Marria, said Treesh was following procedure. Army Intelligence was
investigating allegations of two Army personnel who attended the
conference, Marria said. She said the two reported being approached by
three Middle Eastern men who asked questions that were "suspicious in
nature.". . . [DAILY TEXAN]

IT'S ONLY MONEY. A new report issued by the General Accounting Office has
determined that Pentagon contractors owe the government owe at least $3
billion in back taxes. Under federal law the government could have levied
fines of $100 million on these contractors last year. Instead the
government collected just under $700,000. [DN] Washington's Tilt to
Business Stirs a Backlash in Indonesia ... In Indonesia's case,
"protecting the interests of major investors and creditors was at the
center of the table in everything we did," says Edmund McWilliams, who was
chief political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta from 1996 to
1999. "Concerns about stability made it to the margins. Concerns about
human rights, democracy, corruption never made it onto the table at all."
[WSJ]

IT'S ONLY A SPEECH. President Bush claimed in his 2002 State of the Union
address that the U.S. discovered in Afghanistan detailed plans of U.S.
nuclear plants. On Monday night the White House told the Wall Street
Journal that Bush's statement admitted no such plans had ever been found.
This story has resurfaced this month after a commissioner on the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission responded to an inquiry of Greenpeace and that the
NRC was aware of no evidence that diagrams of nuclear plants had been
found in Afghanistan.

IT'S ONLY A SPEECH (II).  President Bush's interview on "Meet the Press"
as discussed by right-wing speech-writer Peggy Noonan: "...his performance
was not impressive ... it reads better than it played ... The president
seemed tired, unsure and often bumbling. His answers were repetitive, and
when he tried to clarify them he tended to make them worse. He did not
seem prepared. He seemed in some way disconnected from the event." [WSJ]

CONCLUDING UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPT: Oklahoma congressional candidate
Wayland Smalley (motto: "By Golly, Smalley is Strong on Defense"):  
"There are reasons that polygamy is illegal in our country. On 9-11 we saw
what harem life can produce. A 47th son, such as Osama Bin Laden, rarely
gets the quality time he needs with a father. Apparently, the results can
be disastrous."

***