[Peace] Re: we want your text (fwd)

[parenti susan rose]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 18:41:22 -0500
From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>
To: parenti susan rose <sparenti at staff.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Re: we want your text

On Mon, 15 Oct 2001, parenti susan rose wrote:

> Carl, the Ladies Against War group, while standing out in the rain (I
> say this for sympathy) felt that we would benefit greatly if you could
> post what you read yestereday to the AWARE e mail . Is this possible?
> thanks susan.

Susan-- You certainly have my sympathy, my notes (appended), and, I hope,
Thursday my presence.  Regards, Carl


[Notes on the week's news, prepared for the AWARE meeting, 10/14]

*SUNDAY 10/7.  US and its "coalition" (i.e., the British lapdog and some
dictatorships, like Pakistan) begin to bomb Afghanistan:
	--the US refused offers from "the other side" to negotiate, as it
had in both the Gulf War and Kosovo War ;
	--the US attacked without UN authorization and contrary to
international law as expressed in article 51 of the UN charter; and
	--a letter from US ambassador to the UN John Negroponte (who as
ambassador to Honduras ran part of the Reagan administration' terrorist
war against Nicaragua) to the Security Council announced that the US may
attack other countries (cf. Clinton's rejection of UN authorization for
Kosovo): "We may find that our self defense requires further actions with
respect to other organizations and other States" (!).  Then he personally
delivered a warning to Iraq's senior UN envoy: the US would launch
military strikes against Iraq if Saddam Hussein tried to assist
Afghanistan or move against his domestic opponents while the US attacked
Afghanistan.
	World reaction is represented by Seumas Milnem in the Guardian
(London): "None of the Anglo-American onslaughts since 1991 can match the
cruel absurdity of this week's bombing of one of the poorest and most
ruined countries in the world by the planet's richest and most powerful
state, assisted as ever by its British satrap."  Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz told Congress that it should consider repealing the Posse
Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that forbids the use of the military in
domestic police work.

*MONDAY 10/8. NPR's Morning Edition host Bob Edwards says, "Leaders of
Congress were quick to issue a statement in support of the military action
in Afghanistan."  He then asks Cokie Roberts, "Were there any dissenters?"
"None that matter," she replies.

Anti-US riots in Pakistan and Palestine lead to deaths at the hands of
local police.  Just after the bombing begins, Pakistani President
Musharraf fires the head of the ISI (Pakistan's CIA) for being associated
with militant Islamic groups; much of the Pakistani population and much of
the army, the source of Musharraf's rule, sympathize with US enemies.

Tom Ridge (who as governor of PA signed more than 200 death warrants)
sworn in as head of the Nazi-sounding "Office Of Homeland Security."
Stocks of private companies that build and operate prisons for governments
are up as much as 300% ("in this market!") in anticipation of internment
camps and new prisons.  Fed Bureau of Prisons has just let out requests
for bids for two prisons to hold criminal aliens in Georgia.

In Britain, convention of "opposition" party begins with a pledge of no
criticism of Tony Blair's government.

*TUESDAY 10/9.  Protest demonstrations in Egypt, India, and Pakistan.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld announces, "Bombing alone won't win war."
Bush did not mention bin Laden by name in either of two public appearances
yesterday; "This is really not about Osama bin Laden," Bush's spokesman
Ari Fleischer says.  (Then what is it about?)

Chevron-Texaco stockholders vote to merge, creating (only) the fourth
largest oil company, after Exxon-Mobil, RD Shell, and BP.  Among the
global assets counted in the Chevron Texaco merger is a 45 percent
interest in 9 billion barrels of reserves in the Tengiz oil field of
Kazakhstan, not far from Afghanistan; Exxon Mobil owns a 25 percent
interest in the Tengiz field, bringing total US shares to 70 percent of
the recoverable reserves; Afghanistan's outlaw government has been
blocking plans for a pipeline that would move Central Asia's oil and gas
to the coast of the Arabian Sea

*WEDNESDAY 10/10. Four member of a UN mine-removal team killed by US bomb

The conservative Financial Times (London) warns US off a "humanitarian
catastrophe" as a result of its of air assault: "Grim evidence of
widespread hunger and the migration of refugees in Afghanistan emerged
this week to underscore the urgent need for the restoration of
conventional food and medical aid."

Democratic leaders in the Senate halted committee consideration of the
Bush administration's Energy Plan (including Alaska drilling), already
been passed by a House vote of 240-189, in spite of support in the Senate,
by a parliamentary maneuver not used in 40 years.

*THURSDAY 10/11.  It is announced that the US is using "anti-personnel"
cluster bombs in Afghanistan: so much for the attack on military assets.

The White House has persuaded the top-five news organizations from
replaying tapes from bin Laden's organization "to prevent any coded
messages from reaching his minions" (!).  But news executives who promise
to edit Bin Laden's public statements deem national security "only a
secondary consideration." What they're mainly worried about is airing too
much of "the other side." CBS News president Andrew Heyward explained to
the Washington Post, "The propaganda issue is a legitimate issue"!

Los Angeles Times reports on a "surge" of CIA operatives in central Asia,
backed by a virtually unlimited budget.

At his press conference Thursday night, Bush repeated some form of the
phrase "bring them to justice" 16 times.

*FRIDAY 10/12 The NYT and WP quote a top British admiral saying he expects
the "time-frame to be at least several months."  The WSJ fronts a piece on
the illnesses that have hit soldiers taking the anthrax vaccine and
reports that 102 US service members have been court-martialed for refusing
to take it. USAT fronts a long story on some of the Northern Alliance's
past, including multiple accusations of rape and pillage.

The on-going war in Colombia is generally being overlooked: the WP reports
that Colombian rightists (armed by the US through the Colombian military)
kill 24 villagers; the Guardian reports right-wing militias accused of new
massacres

The House passes the "anti-terror bill"; a similar version got through the
Senate on Thursday; it contains provisions (including certain wiretap and
electronic surveillance procedures) that federal prosecutors have wanted
for years. [See the web-site of that fiery defender of freedom Rep Bob
Barr of GA.]

*SATURDAY 10/13. A US Navy F/A-18 attack aircraft missed a Taliban
military target at Kabul airport Saturday and the 2,000-pound 'smart' bomb
destroyed civilian houses.

Hundreds killed in Nigeria in anti-American riots.

Thousands of demonstrators joined peace marches in London, Berlin,
elsewhere.

Iraq said US and British planes attacked targets in the south of the
country -- 11 sorties coming from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait

*SUNDAY 10/14.  An Israeli sniper murders Hamas leader at his home in
Palestinian-controlled area.

London Guardian reports two US jets bombed a village in eastern
Afghanistan, killing more than 100 people; it was no accident: the two
planes took three firing runs.

As the bombardment goes on, the NYT reports that the White House rejected
yet another offer by Afghanistan's Taliban rulers to negotiate on Osama
bin Laden.

Finally, PINKY IS BACK: as Secretary of State Colin Powell departs for
Pakistan, former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (known as "Pinky"
when she was a student at Radcliffe) came to Washington this week to open
her campaign for a third term as PM of the world's second largest, and
only nuclear armed, Muslim State.  After each of her first two terms she
was overthrown, political and financial corruption was rampant, and her
arranged husband remains in a Karachi prison.  But Bhutto has powerful
allies, including the Israelis and their lobby in Washington; they were
helpful bring her to power in the past.  Her visit to Washington was
coordinated by Mark Siegel, long-time Democratic Party activist with close
connections to Israel, to the US Congress, and to the Israeli lobby.
Bhutto is making herself available if the US decides to establish a
"democratic' government in Pakistan -- i.e., if Musharraf can't handle the
Islamicists: Powell's there to check up on him.

	[Paul Kotheimer circulates the following lines from poet William
	Carlos Williams:

	"It is difficult
	To get the news from poems
	Yet men die miserably every day
	For lack
	Of what is found there."]

	==============================================================
	C. G. Estabrook
	Visiting Professor of Sociology
	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