[Peace-discuss] News notes 040530

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Notes from last week's "war on terrorism" -- prepared
	for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, May 30, 2004.
	(Sources indicated at end; caps are my comments.)

A PENTECOST WEEKEND OF AMERICAN-INSPIRED VIOLENCE. Gunmen killed 22 people
in a weekend of violence [in SA], slitting the throats of some foreigners,
before three of the killers fled and a fourth was wounded and captured in
this Saudi oil city [Al-Khobar], the interior ministry said. The dead were
listed as: eight Indians, three Filipinos, three Saudis, two Sri Lankans,
one American, one Briton, an Italian, a Swede, one South African and one
Egyptian, according to the official SPA news agency. [AFP 5/31] Gunmen
attacked three civilian vehicles carrying foreigners in northwest Baghdad
Sunday, killing two Westerners and seizing three others, witnesses and
police at the scene said. Two of the four-wheel-drive vehicles, of the
type used by foreign contractors, employees of the U.S.-led administration
and some media in Iraq, appeared to have collided after coming under fire
on a main highway, and two bodies could be seen. Locals and police said
the attackers had dragged away three survivors of the attack. [REUTERS
5/30] In one of the most severe losses since the fall of the Taliban, four
U.S. soldiers were killed in Afghanistan yesterday by Taliban, apparently.
[SLATE 5/30] Meanwhile three U.S. troops died Thursday. More than 800
soldiers have now been killed since the invasion of Iraq. [DN 4/28]
American troops in Iraq died in May at a rate of more than two per day,
pushing the combined death count for April and May beyond 200 ... For the
National Guard and Reserve, whose part-time soldiers make up at least
one-third of the 135,000 American troops in Iraq ... At least 22 citizen
soldiers [sic] died, nearly one-third of all U.S. losses in May. As a
percentage of the month's death toll, that is about double what it had
been in most previous months of the war. It also shows that the Guard and
Reserve are bearing an increasing combat load. [AP 5/30]

CAPTURED OR KILLED, THE ARMY SAID. Once again, says the LAT, the U.S. is
making concessions in Najaf and Fallujah in an effort to limit casualties
and stabilize Iraq, a strategy that "carries risks, such as appearing weak
militarily and losing credibility in the already skeptical eyes of
Iraqis." And apparently Sadr wants even more; namely, for U.S. soldiers to
stop patrolling Najaf and Kufa, reports the WP article. Yesterday
skirmishes between Sadr's militiamen and U.S. forces threatened a fragile
cease-fire, and three marines were killed in the Anbar province west of
Baghdad. [SLATE 5/30]

TOTALITARIAN MIND. The NYT takes an exclusive look at an Army report by
Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder disclosing that hundreds of Iraqi prisoners were
held in Abu Ghraib for extended periods despite any evidence of guilt.
Apparently some Iraqis were detained several months for simply expressing
"displeasure or ill will" toward coalition forces. According to the paper,
the Army arrests hundreds of Iraqis each week and "has offered little
public explanation of the process of deciding who should be released and
who should remain in prison." Said the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq
last week, "If they were innocent, they wouldn't be at Abu Ghraib." (Two
days later, 624 prisoners were released from the prison, the fourth such
release this month. Perhaps he was channeling President Bush, who once
declared of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, more than 100 of whom have been
released, "The only thing I know for certain is that these are bad
people.") [SLATE 5/30]

PAPER OF BROKEN RECORD. On the heels of this week's WMD non-apology from
the editors of the NYT, Public Editor Dan Okrent presents a diagnosis of
the newspaper's institutional problems, which mentions Judith Miller.
[SLATE 5/30] "You know what? I was proved fucking right. That's what
happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, 'There she goes
again.' But I was proved fucking right."  --New York Times reporter Judith
Miller interviewed on Salon.com ... she is referring to her story about
the "scientist" in a baseball cap pointing to a spot in the desert where
chemical weapons had been dumped, not a word of which ever proved true,
neither his identity (it now is claimed he was actually a military
"intelligence" person) nor the presence of any chemicals dumped in the
desert.

MAYBE BETTER THAN BUSH. [The WP reports on an hourlong interview with
reporters on Friday.  Among other things] Kerry accused the administration
of having no plan to deal with North Korea's rush to build its nuclear
weapons arsenal. He derided the Bush administration's long effort to set
up six-nation talks to resolve the impasse over North Korea's nuclear
ambitions as a "fig leaf" designed to cover up its failure to have a
coherent policy. Kerry said he would immediately begin bilateral
negotiations with North Korea -- a goal the Pyongyang government has long
sought. But, perhaps in a nod to the sensitivities of the Japanese, the
South Koreans and the Chinese, he said he would not abandon the six-nation
talks. "I would keep them both going," Kerry said. "I would do the
six-party [talks], but I would engage in bilateral discussions." The Bush
administration has argued that bilateral talks would reward North Korea
for its behavior, and has contended that it is necessary to include the
other nations to ensure a regional solution. Kerry declined to say what he
would offer North Korea as inducements to give up its weapons but said he
would be willing to discuss a broad agenda that includes reducing troop
levels on the Korean peninsula, replacing the armistice that ended the
Korean War and even reunifying North and South Korea. Kerry said Bush has
made a serious mistake by not talking directly with Pyongyang. Of the
North Korean leader, he said his advisers -- such as former defense
secretary William J. Perry and former national security adviser Samuel R.
"Sandy" Berger -- told him that when they were in the Clinton
administration "they had no illusion that Kim Jong Il was probably
cheating over here and [creating] trouble over there, but they were
getting the process of a dialogue to get a verification structure." [WP
5/30]

MAYBE WORSE. [In other OS news] Kerry released a communication in which he
asserts that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez "lost the opportunity to
demonstrate the popular support he says he has," because the referendum
process "represents legitimate defiance of his leadership." [Kerry
attacked the Bush administration from the Right, as Dems often do in
regard to LA and Israel]. In Kerry's judgment, Bush "unfortunately has
decided not to take a true leadership role in channeling international
pressure against President Chavez in order to permit the referendum to
occur without incidents. In fact, his tacit support for the imprudent
military coup in April 2002 against Chavez has undermined his capacity to
manage that role." [Translated by Philip Stinard in vheadline.com 5/29]

NEVER MIND. The FBI issued an urgent terror alert to several cities
Friday, warning of the prospect of an imminent terrorist attack, but then
retracted it hours later. The New York Times reported Saturday FBI
officials decided to retract the warning after their intelligence proved
unfounded. [UPI 5/29]

ELECTORAL (AS OPPOSED TO REAL) POLITICS. A Chicago Tribune poll of 600
likely registered [IL] voters, conducted May 21-24, shows Kerry with a
commanding 16 percentage-point lead over Bush in a head-to-head November
matchup--54 percent to 38 percent. And even if independent Ralph Nader
were to qualify for the Illinois ballot, Kerry maintains a 16
percentage-point lead over Bush--53 percent to 37 percent. Nader receives
only 4 percent. The poll showed 52 percent of Illinois voters now say they
have an unfavorable opinion of Bush compared with only 37 percent who look
upon him favorably. In addition, 55 percent say they disapprove of the way
he is handling the presidency. While Illinois has trended Democratic and
Bush lost the state by a dozen percentage points in the 2000 presidential
contest, a similar poll taken just five months ago showed 51 percent of
Illinois voters held a favorable attitude toward Bush while 40 percent
disapproved. Back then, 49 percent of Illinois voters approved of the job
Bush was doing as president while 42 percent did not. [5/30]

RUST NEVER SLEEPS. Bush leads Democratic rival John Kerry in the key swing
state of Ohio in a three-way matchup that includes independent
presidential candidate Ralph Nader, a new poll shows. Republican Bush was
at 47 percent, followed by Kerry at 41 percent and Nader at 3 percent
among registered voters surveyed by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research for
The Plain Dealer. Results were released late Saturday. Nine percent of
voters were undecided. Bush's lead came although about half in the poll
expressed disapproval of his handling of the economy, found to be the No.
1 issue among Ohio voters. The state is one of several in the region to
lose manufacturing jobs under Bush, while Kerry has made the jobs issue
central to his White House campaign. These latest results come two weeks
after an American Research Group poll of 600 likely voters found Kerry had
edged ahead of Bush in the state, 49 percent to 42 percent, with Nader at
2 percent. Bush won Ohio in 2000 by 4.4 percentage points. The Mason-Dixon
Polling telephone survey of 1,500 registered voters was conducted May
20-25, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
(The Zogby poll on May 24 had Kerry leading in Ohio by 4.6% (44.8%-49.4%)
with 0.9% for Nader.)

IMPERIAL POLITICS. So, the Iraqi Governing Council which was hand-picked
by the U.S. decides to hand-pick Iyad Allawi for the post of prime
minister of the transitional "fully sovereign" government. Bremer attended
the session of the GC that picked Allawi and congratulated him. Chief U.N.
spokesperson, Fred Eckhard, says that the U.N. is surprised but "respects"
the choice but "it's not how we expected it to happen." Eckhard also said
that, "In the end, it's the Governing Council and the (U.S.-led coalition)
that will make the decision."  Meanwhile, senior U.S. officials in Baghdad
were apparently concerned that the Governing Council, which is supposed to
have picked him, would learn of "their" pick through the media:

 >BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The momentum for a vote by the Iraqi
 >Governing Council on the newly designated prime minister came about
 >in the last 24 hours after it became clear that Iyad Allawi enjoyed a
 >"strong groundswell" of support, a senior U.S. official in Baghdad said.
 >Officials also feared his name would be leaked to the news media --
 >that the council might learn the selection "from CNN," said the
 >official, who was intricately familiar with the process.

Links to CIA? Hand-picked by the body hand-picked by Bremer who was
hand-picked by Bush? Current bogeyman Chalabi's blood relative? No
political support within the country? Responsible for the infamous "WMDs
operational within 45 minutes" claim? No, no, no. Here's the correct
description of the process, coming from the same official who was worried
that the choice would leak prematurely to the Governing Council:

 >"It is a historic moment," this official said. "This has been a process
 >of full-blown democratic politics." [underthesamesun.org 5/30]

PEACE AND FREEDOM. In other Iraq news, gunmen opened fire Thursday on an
envoy carrying a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. Salama al-Khafaji
survived the attack but her son died. Two Japanese journalists and their
Iraqi translator were killed Thursday when their car was hit by a
rocket-propelled grenade south of Baghdad. Newsday is reporting that many
Iraqi women are being held in U.S.-run jails in Iraq not because they have
committed a crime but to be used as leverage in securing the arrest of
their relatives. Human rights lawyers have said detaining a fugitive's
relatives is a form of "moral coercion" forbidden under the Geneva
Conventions.  Back home, California Senator Dianne Feinstein has called on
the Food and Drug Administration to reassess the safety of A drug, called
mefloquine or lariam, that has reportedly caused permanent brain damage in
at least six soldiers who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. [DN 5/28]

FIGHTING TERRORISM. And a new report by the International Institute for
Strategic Studies concludes that the occupation of Iraq has helped al
Qaeda recruit new members. The think tank estimated there are potentially
18,000 members of al Qaeda around the world. [DN 5/27]

FIGHTING TERRORISM (II).The governor of Georgia has declared a preemptive
state of emergency in six cities near where the G-8 Summit is taking place
between June 8 and 10. The order will remain in effect until June 20 -- 10
days after the summit ends. According to the Gwinnett Daily Post in
Georgia, the emergency decree gives police in at least one town,
Brunswick, the power to ban protests from happening during the summit. A
week ago the Brunswick City Council amended its laws to give police the
authority to ban protests without citing any specific reason if a state of
emergency is declared. Brunswick is the closest mainland city to Sea
Island where the summit is being held. [DN 5/28]

THE REAL TERRORISM. In its annual report released Wednesday, Amnesty
International concludes that the US-led war on terror has produced the
most sustained attack on human rights and international law in 50 years. A
leader of Amnesty said "The global security agenda promoted by the U.S.
administration is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle. Violating
rights at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad, and using
pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses have damaged justice
and freedom, and made the world a more dangerous place." [DN 5/26]

A CHOICE NOT AN ECHO. While Bush was speaking at the War College [on
Monday], independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader spoke at the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He called for a complete
withdrawal of US military and corporate interests from Iraq by the end of
the year. Nader also called on US forces to be replaced by peacekeeping
forces from the United Nations. [DN 5/25]

NEVER MIND (II). In Portland Oregon, the FBI has admitted it mistakenly
detained a Muslim lawyer in connection to the Madrid bombings that killed
191 people in March. Brandon Mayfield was picked up as a material witness
in the case after the FBI claimed it had matched his fingerprints to
prints found near the scene of the attacks. Now the FBI said the
fingerprints do not match. Mayfield, who is a convert to Islam and a
former US Army lieutenant, said after his release "This is a serious
infringement on our civil liberties. In a climate of fear, this war on
terrorism has gone to the extreme, and innocent people are victims as a
result." Mayfield was held for nearly three weeks although no charges were
ever filed against him. [DN 5/25]

LEAD RAT LEAVES SHIP. Richard Perle, until recently a powerful adviser to
U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, described U.S. policy in post-war
Iraq as a failure. "I would be the first to acknowledge we allowed the
liberation (of Iraq) to subside into an occupation. And I think that was a
grave error, and in some ways a continuing error," said Perle, former
chair of the influential Defence Policy Board, which advises the Pentagon.
With violent resistance to the U.S.-led occupation showing no signs of
ending, Perle said the biggest mistake in post-war policy "was the failure
to turn Iraq back to the Iraqis more or less immediately. "We didn't have
to find ourselves in the role of occupier. We could have made the
transition that is going to be made at the end of June more or less
immediately," he told BBC radio, referring to the U.S. and British plan to
transfer political authority in Iraq to an interim government on June 30.
[TS 5/26]

POODLE TUGS ON LEASH. With polls indicating 64 per cent of Americans
believe Bush has no clear plan for Iraq, the U.S. president is embarking
on a series of weekly speeches to pitch his proposal to hand over
sovereignty to an appointed interim Iraqi government on June 30. But that
plan, contained in a United Nations Security Council resolution drafted by
the United States and Britain, has led to confusion about who will have
ultimate control over U.S.-led coalition forces. The resolution leaves
over-all military control in the hands of the United States, but British
Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted yesterday that such power would be
transferred to the interim Iraqi government. The interim government, Blair
added, will even have the power to order foreign troops to leave the
country - a power not mentioned in the resolution."If there is a political
decision as to whether you go into a place like Falluja in a particular
way, that has to be done with the consent of the Iraqi government," he
said. "And the final political control remains with the Iraqi government.
Now that's what the transfer of sovereignty means." Blair's description of
the U.S.'s Falluja operation as a "political decision" - suggesting it was
not a matter of military or security necessity - was also veiled criticism
of an action that killed an estimated 600 Iraqis, and has been strongly
denounced in a British foreign ministry memo as "heavy handed." Blair made
clear that the Iraqi interim government's power over coalition troops
would be limited, insisting that British troops will not carry out orders
they disagree with. Still, his comments seemed at odds with U.S. Secretary
of State Colin Powell, who insisted yesterday U.S. forces "will remain
under U.S. command and will do what is necessary to protect themselves."
[TS 5/27]

A POLICY OF BARBARISM. An Army summary of deaths and mistreatment
involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan shows a
widespread pattern of abuse involving more military units than previously
known. The cases from Iraq date back to April 15, 2003, a few days after
Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in a Baghdad square, and they extend
up to last month, when a prisoner detained by Navy commandos died in a
suspected case of homicide blamed on "blunt force trauma to the torso and
positional asphyxia." Among previously unknown incidents are the abuse of
detainees by Army interrogators from a National Guard unit attached to the
Third Infantry Division, who are described in a document obtained by The
New York Times as having "forced into asphyxiation numerous detainees in
an attempt to obtain information" during a 10-week period last spring.
[NYT 5/26]

OUR FRIENDS CAN PLAY, TOO. The Amnesty International human rights group
alleged yesterday that a Chinese government delegation visited the
Guantanamo Bay prison in 2002 and participated in interrogations in which
Chinese detainees were subjected to sleep deprivation, forced sitting for
many hours and intimidation. Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for the group,
said Amnesty based the claim on multiple sources of information but
declined to identify them. In a statement released yesterday, Amnesty said
it deemed "credible" the sources' allegation that the Chinese delegation
took part in the mistreatment of some of the 22 Chinese-origin ethnic
Uighur detainees at the U.S. military prison in Cuba. U.S. military
officials have denied allegations of physical mistreatment leveled by some
released detainees from Britain, but say some "credible" allegations "are
being investigated." In the past, U.S. officials have confirmed that
foreign intelligence officers visited the Guantanamo Bay jail to help
question their countrymen, but few allegations have emerged that any
helped direct abusive interrogations. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Burfeind, a
military spokeswoman, declined to comment yesterday on Amnesty's
allegations. U.S. officials have said some or all of the Chinese detainees
likely will be released soon. But human rights groups have expressed
concern that members of the mainly Muslim Uighur community could be
harassed or tortured if returned to China from Guantanamo Bay. [WP 5/26]

AND IT'S NOT "A FEW BAD APPLES." A U.S. Army general dispatched by senior
Pentagon officials to bolster the collection of intelligence from
prisoners in Iraq last fall inspired and promoted the use of guard dogs
there to frighten the Iraqis, according to sworn testimony by the top U.S.
intelligence officer at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to the officer,
Col. Thomas Pappas, the idea came from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who
at the time commanded the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
and was implemented under a policy approved by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S.
Sanchez, the top U.S. military official in Iraq. "It was a technique I had
personally discussed with General Miller, when he was here" visiting the
prison, testified Pappas, head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade
and the officer placed in charge of the cellblocks at Abu Ghraib prison
where abuses occurred in the wake of Miller's visit to Baghdad between
Aug. 30 and Sept. 9, 2003. "He said that they used military working dogs
at Gitmo [the nickname for Guantanamo Bay], and that they were effective
in setting the atmosphere for which, you know, you could get information"
from the prisoners, Pappas told the Army investigator, Maj. Gen. Antonio
M. Taguba, said a transcript provided to The Washington Post. [WP 5/26]

WE USED TO DO IT WITH BLACK FOLKS. Sen. Trent Lott spoke Monday about the
abuse depicted in Iraqi prison photos. Lott said while he is upset by the
sexual abuse shown in some photos, he feels some physical abuse may be
warranted if it saves American lives. "Frankly, to save some American
troops' lives or a unit that could be in danger, I think you should get
really rough with them," Lott said. "Some of those people should probably
not be in prisons in the first place." When asked about the photo showing
a prisoner being threatened with a dog, Lott was unmoved. "Nothing wrong
with holding a dog up there unless it ate him," Lott said. "(They just)
scared him with the dog." Lott was reminded that at least one prisoner had
died at the hands of his captors after a beating."This is not Sunday
school," he said. "This is interrogation. This is rough stuff."

KRUGMAN ON JOBS.  Here's one way to look at it. The job forecast in the
2002 Economic Report of the President assumed that by 2004 the economy
would have fully recovered from the 2001 recession. That recovery,
according to the official projection, would lead to average payroll
employment of 138 million this year — 7 million more than the actual
number. So we have a gap of 7 million jobs to make up.
    And employment is chasing a moving target: it must rise by about
140,000 a month just to keep up with a growing population. In April, the
economy added 288,000 jobs. If you do the math, you discover that
President Bush needs about four years of job growth at last month's rate
to reach what his own economists consider full employment.
    The bottom line, then, is that Mr. Bush's supporters have no right to
complain about the public's failure to appreciate his economic leadership.
Three years of lousy performance, followed by two months of good but not
great job growth, is not a record to be proud of.  [NYT]

COMMENTS ON BUSH'S MONDAY SPEECH. ...It's "important to take the 'U.S
face' off the occupation," Kenneth Pollack, director of research at the
Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said yesterday ... The President's
biggest problem is that he is fast running out of ways to justify both the
initial war and the occupation. Saddam Hussein's banned arsenals turned
out to be a mirage. There is no evident progress toward making the war a
beachhead for democracy in the Arab world. And the moral high ground of
ousting a brutal dictator has eroded. "There has been a complete collapse
of trust in the United States," said Shibley Telhami, who is the Anwar
Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland.
"The moral argument was the last thread," he said, and the Abu Ghraib
prison scandal "severed it." [G&M 5/25]

BEFORE MONDAY'S SPEECH. The President's approval rating has dropped to a
new low of 41 percent, and more than six in ten say the country is heading
in the wrong direction ... Bush's troubles have given Kerry a clear lead
in the horserace -- if the November election were being held today.
Independent voters seem to have been especially affected. Overall, 49
percent of registered voters now say they would vote for Kerry, 41 percent
for Bush. Bush's overall job approval rating has continued to decline. 41
percent approve of the job he is doing as President, while 52 percent
disapprove -- the lowest overall job rating of his presidency. Two weeks
ago, 44 percent approved. A year ago, nearly two-thirds did.

LIBERAL DEMOCRAT ALTERNATIVE. Rep. Tom Lantos accused Egypt and the
Palestinians Monday of responsibility for Israel's invasion of the
southern Gaza Strip and denounced Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as
"poison" and "a pest" who should "fade into oblivion." Lantos, the ranking
Democratic member of the House International Relations Committee, sharply
criticized the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees for
"shielding terrorists" and corruption [SFC 5/25]

BUT SOME ARE ON BUSH'S SIDE. At Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., a suggestion
from chief executive E. Stanley O'Neal is not to be taken lightly. O'Neal
eliminated 24,000 jobs, froze pay and steadily pushed out competitors for
executive power, including colleagues who had championed his rise up the
corporate ladder. "Ruthless," O'Neal has reportedly told colleagues,
"isn't always bad." So it came as no surprise that when O'Neal sent
letters to senior executives at Merrill Lynch in early June asking them to
contribute to President Bush's reelection campaign, the response was
prompt and generous. Between June 12 and June 30 of last year, the
Bush-Cheney campaign was inundated with 157 checks from Merrill Lynch
executives and at least 20 from their spouses; 140 checks were for the
maximum allowed by law: $2,000. Total take generated by the O'Neal letter:
$279,750 in less than three weeks. When that total is combined with the
rest of the money contributed to Bush by employees during the current
election cycle, Merrill Lynch personnel have given $459,050, according to
Dwight Morris & Associates, which studies political money. The money
flowing from Merrill Lynch employees is part of a $12.14 million tidal
wave of cash to the Bush campaign from the finance and insurance sectors.
Wall Street has stepped up to the plate in support of Bush, and Bush has
sponsored legislation producing billions of dollars in revenue on Wall
Street. [$2.7 to Kerry]

LET'S DO IT QUIETLY. Government scientists plan an underground nuclear
experiment, short of a nuclear blast, at the Nevada Test Site on Tuesday.
The experiment will involve detonating high explosives around plutonium in
a steel sphere while X-rays, radar and lasers chart the behavior of the
radioactive element. Scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in
New Mexico will run the test in a tunnel nearly 1,000 feet below ground at
the site about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The test dubbed "Armando"
is the 21st subcritical experiment at the site. Federal officials say the
experiments are essential to maintaining the safety and reliability of the
U.S. nuclear arsenal. The experiments technically do not violate the 1996
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty because no critical mass is formed and there
is no full-scale nuclear explosion. Anti-nuclear groups criticize the
experiments as contrary to the treaty's spirit. The U.S. has observed a
nuclear testing moratorium since 1992, but has not ratified the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The Bush administration and Congress last
year reduced from three years to two years the time it would take to
resume full-scale nuclear tests. [AP]

BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU TELL THE TRUTH. AP covers, then spins, Iraqi civilian
deaths. Wonder of wonder, actual data (to an extent anyway) about civilian
deaths in Iraq:  An "AP survey of morgues in Baghdad and the provinces of
Karbala, Kirkuk and Tikrit found 5,558 violent deaths recorded from May 1,
2003, when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations."
Then comes the coverup:  "Figures for violent deaths in the months before
the war showed a far lower rate. That doesn't mean Iraq is a more
dangerous place than during Saddam Hussein's regime. At least 300,000
people were murdered by security forces and buried in mass graves during
the dictator's 23-year rule, U.S. officials say, and human rights workers
put the number closer to 500,000." Left I on the News has covered the
subject of mass graves before; suffice it to say there is no serious
evidence to back up that claim of 300,000 or 500,000 Iraqis in mass
graves. At the same time, there is serious evidence (and U.N. reports)
that somewhere between 500,000 and one million Iraqis, mostly children,
died as a result of the UN/US sanctions, but for some reason, the AP
doesn't see fit to add that statistic to indicate how dangerous Iraq was
under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Incidentally, the 5,558 figure is
understated in more ways than just the fact that many of the major
provinces of Iraq, among them those of Fallujah and Najaf, are not
included. The figure also doesn't include any civilian not brought to a
morgue, which the article points out includes many, many people. And, just
to repeat what AP does write, this figure only includes civilians killed
since "major combat operations" were pronounced over by George Bush; it
does not include civilians killed from the day of the original bombing
(March 20) through May 1. [LEFTI 5/23]

VERY CAREFUL. There's an article in the New York Times today which centers
on this: "Israel's justice minister, a Holocaust survivor, started a
political uproar on Sunday when he attacked an Israeli plan to demolish
Palestinian homes in Gaza and said that a suffering Palestinian woman
reminded him of his grandmother." At the very end of the article, though,
the author draws in miscellaneous unrelated developments in the region:
"The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said that early
Thursday, during an Israeli raid on the West Bank city of Jenin, Israeli
forces broke into the agency's office near the refugee camp there. It said
soldiers fired a shot toward the agency's senior project manager, then
handcuffed and blindfolded him and held him for three hours, threatening
him with violence." The article then ends with this scandalous final
paragraph:  "In November 2002, in the same United Nations compound, a
soldier shot and killed Iain Hook, Mr. Wolstenholme's predecessor in
Jenin, during a skirmish with militants." Iain Hook was not killed "during
a skirmish with militants." Go read any number of accounts of his murder
here if you like. Iain Hook was shot inside his trailer inside the UN
compound. According to Irish peace activist Caoimhe Butterly, who was
present that day and was also shot by the Israelis while protecting
Palestinian children from the Israeli soldiers, a fight between
Palestinian militants and Israeli soldiers, which did occur in the Jenin
refugee camp where the UN compound was located, had ended more than two
hours before either of them was shot. The attitude of the Israelis was
indicated by their comment to Hook, who, while waving the blue UN flag and
attempting to negotiate with the Israelis, was told ""We don't care if you
are the United Nations or who you are. F*** off and go home!" Iain Hook's
death was an out-and-out murder by Israelis. The New York Times would like
you to forget, or never to know, that little detail. Followup: Meanwhile,
CBS News tonight adds its own efforts to cover for Israeli crimes. Their
lead-in to the story about the destruction of homes in Rafah? "Israeli
destruction of homes in Rafah is causing widespread resentment."
Resentment? How about "world-wide outrage"? "Widespread condemnation"?
Resentment? [LEFTI 5/23]

ANIMALS IN GAZA. Quote of the Day: "I can't call the Israelis animals
because animals are beautiful."  - Mohammed Juma, zookeeper of the only
zoo in Rafah, bulldozed yesterday by the Israeli army, who killed or freed
all the animals in the process. Other things were of course also "in the
way" of the non-animal, but hardly human, Israeli soldiers involved in the
"operation":  "The army destroyed a one-and-a-half acre olive grove in the
centre of the camp, uprooting its 300 trees and the home of the owner's
father, Suleman Qishta, 95. The owner, Mehidan Qishta, said that a
bulldozer had pushed through the wall as his father lay on his bed. Debris
which had crashed down on the bed was still visible yesterday, as were
cuts and bruises on the old man's arms and legs. 'I heard my father
screaming after the bulldozer came,' said Mr Qishta. 'I thought he was
dying.'" American tax dollars hard at work. [lefti.blogspot.com 5/23]

BERKELEY, HOME OF LIBERALISM. UC faculty backs weapons labs. Professors
vote to support operating Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore facilities. By
more than three to one, University of California faculty have voted in
favor of keeping the nation's largest public university at the helm of two
federal labs that design all U.S. nuclear explosives. In the second such
vote in less than a decade, a majority of professors on all 10 campuses
reaffirmed support for continuing UC's more than 60 years operating Los
Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national labs, which invented and maintain
thermonuclear devices at the heart of every bomb and warhead in the U.S.
Arsenal. [TRIVALLEY HERALD 5/20]

  ===============
  C. G. 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
  <www.newsfromneptune.com>
  ====================================
  "Instead of the comforting rationale
  that merit breeds success
  and that the successful have merit,
  a more rational approach would be
  to speculate that in our society
  wealth and power tend to accrue
  to those who are ruthless, cunning,
  avaricious, self-seeking,
  lacking in sympathy and compassion,
  subservient to authority and willing
  to abandon principle for material gain..."
  --Noam Chomsky
  ==============