[Peace-discuss] News notes 041024

[C. G. Estabrook]

        Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism" [GWOT],
        for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, October 24, 2004.
        (Sources provided on request; a paragraph followed by a
	bracketed source is substantially verbatim.)

[1. RESISTANCE] In Iraq Saturday guerrillas killed 49 army recruits
northeast of Baghdad; a US diplomatic security officer was killed by a
mortar attack on "Camp Victory," the US military headquarters near Baghdad
airport; and a Bulgarian soldier was killed and three others wounded by a
car bomb in the southern city of Kerbala.  An American mercenary firm
tells the NYT that in the last two weeks, the average number of attacks on
US and Iraqi forces has jumped by about a third to approximately 90 per
day ... the firm asked that the statistics not be attributed to it by
name. [SLATE]

[2. TORTURE] The Washington Post leads Sunday with a secret memo
authorizing the CIA to transfer detainees out of Iraq for interrogation, a
practice that violates the Geneva Conventions. The Justice Department
drafted the prisoner memo back in March at the CIA's behest. Since then
the agency has moved perhaps as many as a dozen prisoners out of the
country ... the CIA has not disclosed the identities or whereabouts of
these Iraqi detainees to the Pentagon, Congressional oversight committees,
or even its own investigators who are reviewing detention policy, even in
the wake of the torture scandal [SLATE] -- which Alfred McCoy points out
is the results of interrogation techniques the CIA has propagated and
practiced for nearly half a century.

[3. LAW] The NYT reports Sunday on the White House order for military
tribunals, the work largely of VP Cheney. The final details were hidden
even from Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, who was "particularly angry"
when she learned of the order at the same time as the public; Bush played
only a "modest" role in the debate; and the Pentagon muzzled objections by
its own lawyers. Since the order was signed on Nov. 13, 2001, military
investigators have struggled to tie any more than a dozen out of the 560
Gitmo detainees directly to "significant terrorist acts" and have only
formally charged four. [SLATE]

[4. ATTACK] Fallujah is already now being bombed daily, as it is softened
up for the long-awaited siege. As soon as British troops are redeployed,
the US will again turn the city into a bloodbath.  The British government
agreed Thursday to meet a U.S. request to move British troops into central
Iraq to free up American forces for an attack, a proposal that has met
opposition within the Labour Party.
	Patrick Graham in the Guardian on Fallujah: "First, they were
occupied by the US army's 82nd Airborne, an incompetent group of louts
whose idea of cultural sensitivity was kicking a door down instead of
blowing it up. Within eight months of the invasion, the 82nd had killed
about 100 civilians in the area and lost control of Falluja, leaving it to
the US marines to try and retake the city last April. After killing about
600 civilians, the marines retreated ... there is no question [however
that] the marines can take the city. But the US has a developed a habit of
winning engagements while losing the war -- while breaking the laws of war
in the process. This is what Britain's redeployment will help to unleash."
Robin Cook, former Labour Foreign Secretary, says that British troops will
now be tarred by association with US methods.
	Interestingly, the LAT reports that when a Marine commander agreed
back in April to hand control of the city to a local force called the
"Fallujah Brigade," the deal took Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Bremer, and the
White House by surprise. [SLATE]

[5. SCANDAL] The highest ranking soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib prison
scandal was sentenced to eight years in prison: he's a Staff Sgt. -- not
an officer -- Ivan "Chip" Frederick, 38, an Army reservist from
Buckingham, VA, a corrections officer in civilian life.
	Instead of reprimands or dismissals, one general tied to the
torture and abuses at Abu Ghraib prison will probably receive a promotion
(Gen. Ricardo Sanchez) and another has been recommended for a new command
position (Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast). At the same time, both US corporations
with direct ties to the abuse scandal have been rewarded with lucrative
contracts valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars, notably the Titan
Corp.  Meanwhile, an amazing group of war profiteers called Custer Battles
has been found to as stupid as it was greedy.

[6. NEOCONS] As recently as January 2004, a top Defense Department
official [Douglas Feith] misrepresented to Congress the view of American
intelligence agencies about the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda,
according to classified documents described in a new report by a Senate
Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan. As ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed
Services Committee, he said that he would ask the panel to take
"appropriate action" against Feith for a "continuing deception of
Congress."

[7. PROFITEERS] The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Army will
let Halliburton keep several billion dollars that they over-charged the
government -- because Halliburton didn't keep good enough records...
Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root has so far billed the Pentagon
about $12 billion in Iraq, and about $3 billion the Army itself said were
overcharges.

[8. DRAFT] The Selective Service has been updating its contingency plans
for a military draft of doctors, nurses and other health care workers,
according to the New York Times. The Times has obtained a secret report
written this summer that described how such a draft might work, how to
secure compliance and how to mold public opinion and communicate with
health care professionals.
	The US has deployed some 4,200 soldiers over the age of 50 during
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least 10 soldiers over the age of 50
have died so far in the two conflicts. The total number of U.S. troops
killed in Iraq has now topped 1,100. [DN]

[9. HAITI] There has been fighting in Haiti since the end of September,
when demonstrators demanded the return of President Aristide and condemned
political persecution of his Lavalas party. The protest came on the 10th
anniversary of Aristide's first return from exile in 1994. Police
reportedly opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators. At least 55 people
have been killed in widepsread violence since then. The bloodshed comes
just weeks after storms and flooding left more than 3,000 Haitians dead
las month. Top Lavalas leaders and activists have been arrested in recent
weeks. Last week, Catholic priest Father Gerard Jean-Juste was arrested as
he was feeding 600 children from his church in Port-au-Prince. The
government accused him of inciting violence. Haitians took to the streets
in Port-au-Prince and Miami to protest the arrest. The Bush administration
has lifted a 13-year arms embargo on Haiti -- that is to say for the
US/French puppet government.

[10. ISRAEL] Monday Human Rights Watch issued a 135-page report accusing
Israel of systematically violating international law by destroying the
homes of 16,000 Palestinians in southern Gaza ... Human Rights Watch is
calling on the United States and European countries to demand Israel pay
reparations for victims or compensation to Palestinians who lost their
homes. In addition, the report calls on Caterpillar Inc, which supplies
Israel with bulldozers, to suspend sales of equipment used in illegal
demolitions.

[11. ELECTION] The US will conduct an election a week from Tuesday, but
the outcome will probably make little difference to the US wars.  Three
out of four self-described supporters of President Bush still believe that
pre-war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to
produce them and that Saddam Hussein provided "substantial support" to al
Qaeda. But only 6% of Bush supporters say they support him because they
support his views on issues, while only 13% of Kerry supporters say they
support Kerry because they support his agenda.
	According to a detailed survey by the Chicago Council of Foreign
Relations, Americans by large majorities (a) support international
treaties like Kyoto and the Nuclear Test Ban; (b) think the US should join
the World Court and the International Criminal Court; and (c) even support
the elimination of the veto in the Security Council (which the the US is
the greatest user of), so that the US would accede to the will of the
majority.
	Even more strikingly, a large majority of Americans oppose
preventive war and think the US should be neutral in Israel/Palestine
(75%): only 17% think the US should tilt toward Israel.
	Naturally, practically none of these positions is represented in
the election -- there's "almost a total disillusion, disappearance of the
basis for a democratic society ... if we compare, say, this election with
elections in, say, the second biggest country in the hemisphere, Brazil,
we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. They have actual elections where
there are issues and where they can elect some mass popular organizations"
(Noam Chomsky on DN).

  ==============================================================
  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
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