[Peace-discuss] News notes 040613

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Notes from last week's "war on terrorism" -- prepared
	for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, June 13, 2004.
	(Sources indicated at the ends of paragraphs;
	text not so identified and/or in caps is mine.)

Ronald Reagan, an elderly mass-murderer, was buried this week.  He had
once been chief magistrate of the United States, in a period of reaction
as the country's business interests struggled to regain control of a
society and polity that had moved in the direction of social equality,
even during the reign of another half-mad reactionary, Richard Nixon.

In Reagan's so-called electoral landslides of 1980 and 1984,
three-quarters of the eligible voters did not vote for him. Polls in both
years showed that Americans strongly rejected his policies.  By the time
he and his successor and continuator left office, when the effects of
their domestic programs were apparent, Reagan was tied with Nixon as the
least popular ex-president.

A fitting eulogy was pronounced by Fr. Miguel d'Escoto, foreign minister
of Nicaragua while Reagan was president: "...I pray that God in his
infinite mercy and goodness forgive him for having been the butcher of my
people, for having been responsible for the deaths of some 50,000
Nicaraguans.  We cannot, we should not ever forget the crimes he committed
in the name of what he falsely labeled freedom and democracy.  More
perhaps than any other U.S. President, Reagan convinced many around the
world that the U.S. is a fraud, a big lie. Not only was it not democratic,
but in fact the greatest enemy of the right of self-determination of
peoples. Reagan ... was known as the great communicator, and I believe
that that is true only if one believes that to be a great communicator
means to be a good liar..."

The slavishness of the for-profit media to national mythology was on
display all week, not least at NPR.  As Doug Henwood (of the excellent
Left Business Observer) remarked, "In life [Reagan's] popularity ratings
were almost identical to Clinton's and well below Eisenhower's. So can we
please put this in perspective?  It's what Alex Cockburn once called an
electronic Nuremberg rally. It's not a spontaneous popular outpouring."

WHAT THE RALLY COVERS. Henwood pegs the military costs in Iraq to date at
about $143 billion, with the tab rising $4 billion to $5 billion a month.
Reconstruction has cost about $20 billion so far, with another $50 billion
to $100 billion still needed, Henwood reports. "If the occupation goes on
for three years, which is what the military pundits say is likely, the
total bill could come to $362 billion. Add to that an estimated 0.5
percent knocked off GDP growth because of high oil prices, and that's
another $50 billion," he says. Add it all up, and the bill comes to nearly
$4,000 per household, not including interest. "I wonder how people would
react if they got a bill from Washington for that amount," he said. [Sean
Gonzalez, Cape Cod Times, 5/25, republished in Sam Smith's Undernews 5/27]

PATRICK COCKBURN DESCRIBES WHAT WE'VE BOUGHT. The Rich Have Been Warned to
Leave Baghdad; For the Poor There is No Escape from Crime ... Or Trigger
Happy US Troops ... Not surprisingly, many wealthy Iraqis decided the
safest course is to move with their families to Jordan. Kidnapping is not
the only threat. The son of one of the richest men in Baghdad was attacked
in his car by gunmen a few weeks ago and the vehicle was riddled. His wife
and son were killed. It is still unclear who wanted to assassinate him but
the random violence is similar to that in parts of Russia in the early
1990s. The difference is that in Iraq there is also the danger of being
killed by the insurgents or the notoriously trigger-happy American troops.
Being poor in Iraq is no defence against crime. In the heart of Baghdad,
within sight of the heavily fortified Green Zone where the Coalition
Provisional Authority has its headquarters, buses are robbed by street
gangs every day [INDEPENDENT 6/9]

WHY DO THEY HATE US? Arab leaders are spurning invitations to the G8
summit amid a diplomatic furore over its plans to lay down goals for a
Greater Middle East and North Africa. The leaders of Saudi Arabia,
Morocco, Tunisa, Egypt and Pakistan are understood to be boycotting the
summit, which President George Bush wanted to use to show unity with the
Islamic world. They have said they feel patronised and outraged at
proposals for the G8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia, in the United States,
to be used to lay out a manifesto for an area stretching from Afghanistan
to Libya. Mr Bush's original plan was to make the summit a bridge-building
exercise - seeking to repair relations strained by the Iraq war. He
intended to propose renewal for the Greater Middle East. This idea has
been enthusiastically backed by King Abdullah II of Jordan and also signed
up to by the leaders of Turkey and Yemen. The new leaders of Iraq and
Afghanistan are also on board. But president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has
said he is "furious'" about being dictated to by the G8 group of the
world's richest countries. Leaders in Jordan and Saudi Arabia have echoed
his comments. France and Russia have also blocked plans for a Democracy
Assistance Group which was to be unveiled at the G8 meeting. Their
ambassadors said that it smacked of regime change. [SCOTSMAN 6/8]

CONTROL YOUR PRESS. The New York Times reports most Arab nations with the
exception of Qatar have been invited to attend the G8 summit in Sea
Island, Georgia. The Qatar snub is the latest chapter in an ongoing battle
over the Qatar-based satellite news channel Al Jazeera which the US claims
incites anti-American violence in Iraq. One diplomat said, "It's strange,
having a summit declaration on democratic reforms and not inviting a
country because it has a free press." [DN 6/7]

CONTROL YOUR PRESS (II). In Italy, the country's largest electric company
cut off power to two left-wing radio stations just as they were preparing
to broadcast coverage of the protests against President Bush on Friday.
This according to a report by MediaChannel. The electric company, which is
partly state owned, claimed the power outage was due to maintenance work
but it forced the two stations Radio Città Aperta and Radio Onda Rossa
off the air for four hours. Green Party ministers have called for a
parliamentary inquiry into the power outage. Protesters estimate 250,000
took to the streets against Bush in Italy. [DN 6/7]

WHO/WHOM? In other Iraq news, the London Telegraph is reporting an arrest
warrant has been issued for the American consultant Francis Brooke who has
worked for years with Ahmend Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. An
Iraqi judge said Brooke had tried to stop a recent raid on Chalabi's
headquarters. Brooke, who is believed to be back in Washington, boasted in
a recent interview with the New Yorker that he helped engineer the war on
Iraq by providing the United States the evidence it was seeking on weapons
of mass destruction. He told the magazine "I'm a smart man. I saw what
they wanted, and I adapted my strategy." The INC has been widely accused
on passing on fabricated intelligence to the U.S. government and major
media outlets including the New York Times. [DN 6/7]

WHO WERE THE MERCS WORKING FOR? Meanwhile the Baltimore Sun has revealed
that employees of the private military firm DynCorp oversaw the raid that
was carried out on Chalabi's headquarters by Iraqi police with U.S.
support. Members of Chalabi's INC had previously said that armed Americans
in civilian clothes directed the Iraqi police on what rooms to go into and
what items to take. The State Department has given DynCorp $50 million to
provide 1,000 advisers to help organize Iraqi law enforcement and criminal
justice systems. There are an estimated 20,000 contract security workers
in Iraq. A recent report by the Senate Armed Services Committee predicts
the number could more than triple in the next several months. On Saturday
four employees of the North Carolina-based security company Blackwater USA
were killed in an ambush. [DN 6/7]

IMPEACH THE ANTI-AMERICAN TORTURER. Over the weekend the U.S. released 320
more prisoners from the Abu Ghraib. This came as more news reports emerged
that the incidents of torture recently captured on film in Abu Ghraib were
not isolated events but part of a new Pentagon policy on dealing with
detainees. The Wall Street Journal is reporting it has obtained a
classified Bush administration report that concluded the president wasn't
bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might
torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice
Department. The advice was part of a classified report on interrogation
methods prepared for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after commanders at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained in late 2002 that with conventional
methods they weren't getting enough information from prisoners. The report
claimed that on national security grounds the president could approve the
use of almost any physical or psychological action during interrogation
including torture. In addition, the report advised that torture or
homicide could be justified as "self-defense," should an official
"honestly believe" it was necessary to head off an imminent attack on the
U.S. [DN 6/7]

THEY REALLY WANT TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS. The New York Times is
reporting federal prosecutors recently questioned Vice President Dick
Cheney as part of their investigation into who outted the identity of CIA
agent Valerie Plame in apparent retaliation for public criticism of the
Iraq war by her husband, ambassador Joseph Wilson. Cheney was not brought
before the grand jury and was not questioned under oath. In his recent
book Wilson identified Cheney's chief of staff Scotter Libby as one
possible source of the leak. [DN 6/7]

NO PARTNERS FOR PEACE. An Israeli court has sentenced a popular
Palestinian leader who was once seen as a possible successor to
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to life in prison. Marwan
Barghouti was convicted last month of five killings. He rejected the
sentence saying "The Israeli courts are a partner to the Israeli
occupation. The judges are just like pilots who fly planes and drop
bombs." In other news from Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's cabinet
has approved a watered-down plan for Israel to dismantle Jewish
settlements in Gaza. [DN 6/7]

HE DIDN'T GIVE THE DATE AND TIME. The FBI has confirmed that it failed to
act on a tip from a British man a year before Sept. 11 that Al Qaida was
planning a large-scale attack in the U.S. The 29-year-old man approached
the FBI in Newark NJ and told them he had been trained as a hijacker for
Osama Bin Laden and had been taught the layout of the cockpit on a Boeing
commercial plane. After questioning, the FBI allowed him to leave the
country voluntarily. And according to the Independent of London no action
was taken beyond placing his name on a no-fly list. The FBI claims it
couldn't substantiate his claims even though he passed a lie detector
test. It wasn't until after Sept. 11, 2001 that U.S. officials tried to
contact him again.  [DN 6/7]

MEANWHILE, WE KNOW BUSH MUST GO. Kerry has a solid lead over Bush among
voters nationwide, according to a Los Angeles Times poll on Thursday that
cited widespread unease over the country's direction, Iraq policies and
the economy. Kerry, the U.S. senator from Massachusetts, led Bush by 51
percent to 44 percent nationally in a two-way match-up, according to the
poll of 1,230 registered voters taken from Saturday to Tuesday. The
figures dropped with independent Ralph Nader in the mix: Kerry drew 48
percent in a three-way race and Bush 42 percent, the poll showed.
Majorities disapproved of Bush's handling of the economy and Iraq, despite
encouraging news on both recently, the poll said. Fifty-six percent of
respondents said America "needs to move in a new direction" because Bush's
policies have not improved the country. [REUTERS 6/10]

THE WEEK BEGAN WITH AN EXTRAORDINARY ARTICLE IN THE WSJ. The article
describes a confidential Pentagon report providing legal rationales and
interpretations by which US personnel could use torture and methods of
near-torture in contravention of various international treaties and US
laws. The bulk of the arguments rest on arguments of "necessity" and the
powers of the president as commander-in-chief. They also go into some
depth about how people acting at the president's order could avoid
prosecution for demonstrably criminal acts. The article is well worth
reading for this alone. But that whole discussion is different in kind
from one passage in the report. I quote from the piece: "To protect
subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that
Mr. Bush issue a 'presidential directive or other writing' that could
serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is 'inherent in
the president.'" [TPM 5/7] OR, AS NIXON SAID, BEFORE HE WAS IMPEACHED,
"WHEN THE PRESIDENT DOES IT, THAT MEANS THAT IT IS NOT ILLEGAL."

THE WP PUBLISHES TODAY A SERIES OF DEFENSE DEPARTMENT MEMOS, written at
the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, which shed light on the
treatment of prisoners by U.S. Troops; [e.g.] Military officers briefly
allowed their captives to believe they were being taken to their deaths,
in order to "keep them scared."  When a Red Cross official criticized U.S.
interrogation techniques, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who commanded
detention operations at the prison (and later recommended that Abu Ghraib
be "Gitmo-ized"), replied that methods of interrogation should not fall
under the Red Cross's purview. [SLATE 6/13]

TORTURE REGIME. In January 2002, for example, Rumsfeld approved the use of
dogs to intimidate prisoners there; although officials have said dogs were
never used at Guantanamo, they were used at Abu Ghraib. Then, in April
2003, Rumsfeld approved the use in Guantanamo of at least five other
high-pressure techniques also listed on the Oct. 9 Abu Ghraib memo, none
of which was among the Army's standard interrogation methods. This overlap
existed even though detainees in Iraq were covered, according to the
administration's policy, by Geneva Convention protections that did not
apply to the detainees in Cuba. [WP 6/12]

ALSO IN THIS MORNING'S PAPERS IS THE REVELATION THAT during the opening
weeks of the Iraq war, the U.S. launched 50 airstrikes on a wide range of
Iraqi leaders, far more than had previously been acknowledged. All were
unsuccessful, and some are now believed to have caused significant
civilian casualties. [NYT/SLATE 6/13]

REAPING THE WHIRLWIND (I). For the second time in two days, a senior
member of the US puppet administration in Iraq was murdered, as was a
university professor.  A car bomb in Baghdad killed 12 and injured at
least as many. Insurgents detonated another car bomb outside Taji, north
of Baghdad, during an attack on U.S. troops, killing one American soldier
and wounding two others. And a rocket hit the Green Zone, the US compound
in Baghdad. [CGE]

REAPING THE WHIRLWIND (II). Islamic extremists affiliated with al-Qaida
are responsible for the kidnapping of an American in Riyadh, the Saudi
capital, according to a statement released by the group. The statement
referred to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and warned that,
"We have our legal right to treat [American hostages] the same way they
treat our people." In addition to the kidnapping, whose victim is Paul
Johnson, a 49-year-old Lockheed Martin employee, the group also took
responsibility for killing another American. [WP/SLATE 6/13]

RAT-LINES. A group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials,
several appointed to key positions by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan
and George H.W. Bush, plans to issue a joint statement this week arguing
that President George W. Bush has damaged America's national security and
should be defeated in November. The group, which calls itself Diplomats
and Military Commanders for Change, will explicitly condemn Bush's foreign
policy, according to several of those who signed the document. "It is
clear that the statement calls for the defeat of the administration," said
William C. Harrop, the ambassador to Israel under President Bush's father
and one of the group's principal organizers. [LAT 6/13]

GROWTH OF INEQUALITY. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that developing
nations have fallen behind since 1964, when the UN Conference on Trade and
Development was founded. "The sad truth is that the world today is a much
more unequal place than it was 40 years ago," he told Group of 77
ministers. The G77 was also formed in 1964, after the first UN Conference
on Trade and Development, which is to open its 11th meeting Monday in Sao
Paulo. G77 has grown to 135 member countries. Much of that inequality has
to do with the terms of trade with the developed world, he said. "Debt
crises have revealed serious weaknesses in the international financial
architecture," Annan said. "Too many developing countries remain dependent
on the export of primary commodities for all or most of their foreign
currency earnings, leaving them vulnerable to price declines and
volatility. Developing countries also suffer from a lack of access to
markets of developed countries, and from other imbalances and injustices
that have led you to raise questions about the basic fairness of the
global trade regime. "If these years have taught us anything, it is that
opportunities for development need to be more equally distributed," Annan
said. [AFP 6/13]

OCTOBER SURPRISE CANDIDATE (I). A Group of Eight plan to stop the spread
of nuclear weapons was aimed at sparking the same crisis in North Korea as
that in Iraq, forcing the communist state to increase its nuclear
deterrent, North Korea said on Sunday. The leaders of the world's major
powers urged North Korea to abandon its weapons program and reiterated a
commitment to six-way nuclear talks at their annual summit, held last week
in Sea Island, Georgia. They also singled out North Korea and Iran in a
statement of concern about the spread of nuclear weapons. "It demanded the
DPRK scrap its nuclear program first through forced inspection, the same
method as the U.S. applied to Iraq in the past," a spokesman for the
North's Foreign Ministry told the official news agency, KCNA. [REUTERS
6/13]

OCTOBER SURPRISE CANDIDATE (II). ON THE COVER OF TODAY'S NYT MAGAZINE IS
AN AERIAL PHOTO WITH THE FULL PAGE HEADLINE, "Is Iran Going Nuclear?" The
subhead is, "A journey through Washington, Vienna and Tehran -- and toward
a next showdown." It's by New Yorker and NYT hack James Traub, who last
winter wrote "a lengthy article about the image problem of the Democratic
Party [seeking] to answer the question of whether or not the Democrats
could convince voters that they were the party of strength, or whether
they were, as Traub put it, still 'lost in a funk of pacifism.'" [See the
whole destruction of Traub (and the Democrats) by the excellent Matt
Taibbi in NY Press 17:23, June 9-15, 2004.]

OGA IN CHARGE. The London Independent is reporting Iraqis are already
highly skeptical of the new interim government that was selected by the
U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council with many fearing that it is simply
a front for a new version of U.S. occupation. One Iraqi told the paper,
"In one sense the Americans are transferring power but only to their own
agents. The new government are all pawns of the CIA." At least one top
Iraqi offiical, Iyad Allawi, the appointed prime minister, is a former CIA
agent. The New York Times reported earlier this week that Allawi's group
the Iraqi National Accord carried out bombings on Iraqi civilians during
the 1990s for the CIA. [DN 6/11]

INHERENTLY, THE LAW IS WHAT I SAY IT IS. At the G8 conference in George,
President Bush held a rare press conference. He said NATO is not likely
too contribute troops to Iraq and he refused to rule out that torture was
used during interrogations. Asked repeatedly about what message was sent
to interrogators about the using torture, Bush said "The instructions went
out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you." Earlier
this week internal Bush administration memos were leaked to the press that
indicated the administration had concluded the president had the power to
ignore U.S. and international law regarding torture on the grounds of
national security. When asked on Thursday, Bush said he couldn't recall if
he had seen the memo. [DN 6/11]

INHERENTLY, THE LAW IS WHAT I SAY IT IS (II). Attorney General John
Ashcroft rejected calls by Congress Tuesday to discuss or release secret
government memos that reportedly determined the Bush administration could
ignore domestic and international laws and allow U.S. interrogators to
torture detainees. According to news reports, one 50-page Justice
Department memo said inflicting physical or psychological pain might be
justified if it was done in order "to prevent further attacks on the
United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network." The administration's
support for the use of torture has been widely criticized by human rights
groups. Wednesday several of the country's major newspapers weigh in with
editorials. The Washington Post writes "Theirs is the logic of criminal
regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on
grounds of 'national security.' [DN 6/9]

NOW WE NEED THE UN. The fifth version of the [UN SC] resolution was
approved on Tuesday. The original draft was submitted by the United States
and Britain on 24 May ... The original draft started out by reaffirming
the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq. The final resolution
marks the break with the US and British occupation in stronger language,
by "welcoming the beginning of a new phase in Iraq's transition to a
democratically elected government and looking forward to the end of the
occupation and the assumption of full responsibility and authority by a
fully sovereign and independent interim government." Both drafts endorse
the formation of the interim government, but the final version limits its
powers until an elected transitional government can take over.
[aljazeera.net 6/9]

NOW WE DON'T. Israeli warplanes on Monday bombed sites in Lebanon just
south of Beirut, the country's capital. Targeted were disused sites of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The BBC reports it was the
closest raid to Beirut since Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon
four years ago. Lebanon filed a formal protest to the UN Security Council
and Israel warned more attacks may be coming. [DN 6/8]

DEJA VU AND WE DO ZILCH. The state of Florida has identified 47,000 more
voters in the state that are potential felons who may be purged from
voting rolls and stripped of their right to vote in the upcoming
presidential election. [DN 6/8]

POPE CALLS ON BUSH TO REPENT. The Pope last week subjected George Bush to
a very public, relentlessly critical assessment of the US administration's
performance in Iraq, attacking "deplorable" abuses of prisoners and
calling for an international solution to the country's crisis. During the
president's visit to the Vatican, which the administration had hoped would
help him win Catholic votes in November's presidential election, the Pope
warned Mr Bush he would never succeed in the war on terrorism if he failed
to ensure respect for basic human rights. [GUARDIAN 6/5]

YOU'VE HEARD THE BULL, NOW SEE THE COWS. President George W. Bush traveled
to France to attend a ceremony commemorating the D-Day invasion and
attempted to play down his dispute with President Jacques Chirac over the
invasion of Iraq; Bush told French journalists that he was never angry
with the French or with Chirac for his refusal to endorse the war, and he
even invited Chirac to visit the ranch down in Crawford, Texas. "If he
wants to come and see cows, he's welcome to come out here and see some
cows," Bush said, apparently unaware that Chirac, a former agriculture
minister, is a cattle expert. [HARPER'S WEEKLY]

WE WON'T NEED NO STINKIN' BADGES. Last February, two Army
counterintelligence agents showed up at the University of Texas law school
and demanded to see the roster from a conference on Islamic law held a few
days earlier. Their reason: they were trying to track down students who
the agents claimed had been asking "suspicious" questions. "I felt like I
was in 'Law & Order'," said one student after being grilled by one of the
agents. The incident provoked a brief campus uproar, and the Army later
admitted the agents had exceeded their authority. But if the Pentagon has
its way, the Army may not have to make such amends in the future. Without
any public hearing or debate, NEWSWEEK has learned, Defense officials
recently slipped a provision into a bill before Congress that could vastly
expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United
States, including recruiting citizens as informants. Ever since the 1970s,
when Army intel agents were caught snooping on antiwar protesters,
military intel agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the
United States. But the new provision, approved in closed session last
month by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would eliminate one big
restriction: that they comply with the Privacy Act, a Watergate-era law
that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to
disclose who they are and what they want the information for. The CIA
always has been exempt -- although by law it isn't supposed to operate
inside the United States. The new provision would now extend the same
exemption to Pentagon agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency --
so they can help track terrorists. A report by the Senate Intelligence
Committee says the provision would allow military intel agents to
"approach potential sources and collect personal information from them"
without disclosing they work for the government. The justification:
"Current counterterrorism operations," the report explains, which require
"greater latitude ... both overseas and within the United States." DIA
officials say they mainly want the provision so they can more easily
question American businessmen and college students who travel abroad. But
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman concedes the provision will also be
helpful in investigating suspected terrorist threats to military bases and
contractors inside the United States. "It's a new world we live in," he
says. "We have to do what is necessary for force protection." Among those
pushing for the provision, sources say, were officials at northcom, the
new Colorado-based command set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
to oversee "homeland defense." Pentagon lawyers insist agents will still
be legally barred from domestic "law enforcement." But watchdog groups see
a potentially alarming "mission creep." "This... is giving them the
authority to spy on Americans," said Kate Martin, director of the Center
for National Security Studies, a group frequently critical of the war on
terror. "And it's all been done with no public discussion, in the dark of
night." [NEWSWEEK 6/14]

DO TELL. Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy to Iraq,
announced his resignation from the post at a meeting yesterday of the
Security Council and in the presence of Secretary General Kofi Annan. The
resignation, brewing for a number of days, shocked the diplomatic
community at the world body. Brahimi explained that his decision stemmed
from great difficulties and frustration experienced during his assignment
in Iraq. He said that he does not intend to return to Iraq. [HAARETZ 6/14]

THE LAWLESS STATE. The United States faces a real crisis. It's not just
the military failure of Bush's policies in Iraq or the discrediting of our
armed forces and intelligence agencies as corrupt, incompetent, and
criminal. It is above all our international isolation and disgrace because
of our contempt for the rule of law. Article six of the U. S. Constitution
says, in part, "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." The
Geneva Conventions of 1949 covering the treatment of prisoners of war and
civilians in wartime are treaties the U.S. government promoted, signed,
and ratified. They are therefore the supreme law of the land. Neither the
President nor the Secretary of Defense has the authority to alter them or
to choose whether or not to abide by them. President Bush's invention of
such hitherto unknown categories as "illegal combatant," "evil-doer," or
"bad guy" and his claim of a unilateral right to imprison such persons
indefinitely, without charging them or giving them access to the courts
and legal counsel, is a usurpation of the Constitution. It is precisely
why the United States should have ratified the treaty establishing the
International Criminal Court. It is intended to deal not only with genuine
terrorists and people like Saddam Hussein but also with the kind of crimes
President Bush has committed. [Chalmers Johnson, truthout.org 6/11]

THE TORTURE STATE IS A POLICE STATE. 3,000 held in America's global gulag:
The United States government, in conjunction with key allies, is running
an "invisible" network of prisons and detention centres into which
thousands of suspects have disappeared without trace since the "war on
terror" began. [OBSERVER/UK 6/14]

DON'T BET ON IT. A Red Cross spokeswoman says according to the Geneva
Conventions, Iraqi prisoners of war and jailed civilians should be
released after June 30th. That's when a new interim government takes over
the country from the U-S-led coalition. The spokeswoman says the handover
will mean the occupation and armed conflict in Iraq are over. She says
articles in the Geneva Conventions say once a conflict ends, all prisoners
of war and imprisoned civilians should be released, unless there are
criminal charges against them. Iraqis will be running their own affairs
after June 30th. But about 150-thousand U-S and other coalition troops
will remain in the country to help with security [SIC]. [AP 6/14]

TWO GOOD PIECES:

[1] Jeffrey St. Clair on one of the criminal apparatchiks of this war (the
Pentagon insisted he accompany Gen. Taguba to the Senate Armed Forces
Committee) in the current print edition of CounterPunch: "Rumsfeld's
Enforcer: the Mysterious Career of Stephen Cambone"; and

[2] Noam Chomsky's (long) talk at Oxford last week, "Doctrines and
Visions: Who Is to Run The World, and How?" (June 4, 2004), in which he
raises the question quite remarkably ignored by US media: "We have just
passed the first anniversary of the President's declaration of victory in
Iraq. I won't speak about what is happening on the ground. There is more
than enough information about that, and we can draw our own conclusions. I
will just mention one aspect of it: What has happened to Iraqis?..."
	<http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20040604.htm>

  ==============================================================
  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>
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  "One great source of the strength of the ruling class
  has ever been their willingness to kill
  in defense of their power and privileges.
  Let their power be once attacked
  either by foreign foes or by domestic revolutionaries,
  and at once we see the rulers prepared to kill and kill and kill.
  The readiness of the ruling class to order killing,
  the small value the ruling class has ever set upon human life,
  is in marked contrast to the reluctance of all revolutionaries
  to shed blood."  --James Connolly
  =====================================================