[Peace] News notes, 10/21

[C. G. Estabrook]

NOTES ON THE WEEK'S NEWS, FOR AWARE MEETING 10/21 [N.B.--this list is
highly selective, omitting especially the most over-hyped information:
e.g., I try not to mention anthrax.]

Sources:
	[AFP] = Agence France-Presse
	[ALL] = major papers
	[AP] = Associated Press
	[BBC] = British Broadcasting Corporation
	[CNN] = Cable News Network
	[FR2] = France 2 (TV)
	[FT] = Financial Times (London)
	[GL] = Guardian (London)
	[HI] = Hindu (India)
	[IHT] = International herald Tribune
	[LAT] = Los Angeles Times
	[LM] = Le Monde
	[NYT] = New York Times
	[OL] = Observer (London)
	[RT] = Reuters
	[TI] = Times of India
	[TL] = Times (London)
	[UPI] = United Press International
	[UST] = USA Today
	[WP] = Washington Post
	[WT] =Washington Times
	[WSJ] = Wall Street Journal
	[YN] = Yahoo News

*MONDAY 10/15. Second week of bombing began with Nader criticizing the
Bush Administration's war on terrorism in a speech before an enthusiastic
paying audience of approximately 2,500 in San Francisco.  He called for a
democratic debate over the Administration's policies saying, "the mindless
bombing of Afghanistan's infrastructure will not end well for Afghanistan
and, I fear, it will not end well for us."  He called for the US to "move
forward under international law to apprehend the criminals.  This is an
international crime and we've got to find ways to bring these criminals to
justice."
	[LAT,NYT,WP] Bush rejects the Taliban's offer to ship bin Laden
off to a third country.  US begins using anti-personnel AC-130 gunships in
Afghanistan; goal is to "kill as many of the Tal as possible," says
Pentagon.
	[] 200,000-300,000 march in Italy as Italian PM meets with Bush;
not even during the Gulf War or the one in Kosovo did this Franciscan-led
peace march attract so many.
	[WP] 20,000 at anti-war rally in rural Pakistan; Pakistan
"moderates" anti-US.
	[RT] Rumsfeld compares battle against terrorism to the Cold War.
	[HI] Caspian region oil reserves might be the third largest in the
world (after Western Siberia and the Persian Gulf) and, within the next 15
to 20 years, may be large enough to offset Persian Gulf oil;
Turkmenistan's Karakum Desert holds the world's third largest gas
reserves; the Caspian basin may hold as much as 33 times the estimated
holdings of Alaska's North Slope, enough to meet US energy needs for 30
years or more.
	[IHT] UN says greater part of Afghan drug cultivation is located
in areas under Northern Alliance control.
	[WP] Former CIA officials told the Washington Post that the best
outcome would be for the Pakistanis or the anti-Taliban movement in
Afghanistan itself to find and kill bin Laden.  "Remember the case of Che
Guevara," one ex-CIA man said.
	[GL] German Green Party says that the US should stop the bombing
of Afghanistan or at least cease temporarily so humanitarian aid can be
got into the country; Chancellor Schroeder rejects calls for a cease-fire,
affirming Germany's policy of maintaining "unrestricted solidarity" with
Washington, and slaps them down: there are enough Green Bombers [like FM
Jokscha Fischer] to make it stick.
	[RT] U.S. retail sales into their steepest tumble in at least nine
years.

*TUESDAY 10/16. US bomb hits Kabul Red Cross Center: Fox News banners
"Bombing With Care" all day.
	[TI] As many as 100,000 Afghan children could die this winter
unless food reaches them in sufficient quantities over the next six weeks,
UNICEF warned.  The organization needed 36 million dollars to carry out
its "bare emergency work" inside the country but so far had only received
half that amount. "If you are a child born in Afghanistan today, you are
25 times more likely to die before the age of five than an American or a
French or a Saudi Arabian child."  More than half the children in
Afghanistan are already malnourished and 300,000 children died each year
from preventable causes.
	[ALL] SOS Colin Powell appears with Pakistan's military dictator
to announce plans for a democratic government in Afghanistan... SOD
Rumsfeld: any civilian deaths were the result of secondary explosions that
erupted after the U.S. bombed caves storing ammunition... AG Ashcroft:
don't grant FOIA requests: terrorism, you know... [Yes, they did do and
say that.]
	[WP] Bush has a Doctrine: "We must eliminate the scourge of
international terrorism. In order to do that, we need not only to
eliminate the terrorists and their networks, but also those who harbor
them."  I.e., the United States will be the unilateral judge of whether a
country is supporting terrorism.
	[AP] During the late 1980s, the United States supplied arms worth
$500 million a year to anti-Soviet fighters including Afghanistan's
current Taliban rulers, bin Laden and others.
	[AP] Industrial activity plummeted in September the 12th straight
month of decline.  The last time there was a string of 12 consecutive
declines in industrial output was from November 1944 through October 1945.
Output at the nation's factories, utilities and mines fell by 1 percent
last month, the worst showing since June, when industrial production
declined by the same amount, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday. That
followed a 0.7 percent decrease in August.
	[AFP] The State Department has said it is developing a
counter-terrorist strategy for Colombia and other Andean nations, including
"where appropriate -- as we are doing in Afghanistan - the use of military
power."

*WEDNESDAY 10/17. Rehavam ["Gandhi"] Zeevi, the Israeli Tourism Minister,
assassinated by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
	[GL] Pentagon has spent millions of dollars to purchase the images
taken by the civilian satellite Ikonos, in an effort to prevent western
media from seeing pictures of the effects of bombing in Afghanistan --
dead bodies on the ground. Strike aircraft flew from the USS Theodore
Roosevelt on Wednesday for the first time since the bombing campaign
began; the Roosevelt recently entered the Arabian Sea and is expected to
relieve the USS Enterprise, which already is overdue to complete its
standard six-month deployment.
	[WSJ] Germany will send soldiers into Afghanistan.
	[WSJ] Army units posing as terrorists successfully infiltrated
U.S. nuclear weapons plants "well over 50 percent" of the time.

*THURSDAY 10/18. [AP] Rumsfeld: "...you cannot really do sufficient
damage" with air power alone. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff: "...this is the most important task that the U.S.
military has been handed since the Second World War.  What's at stake here
is no less than our freedom to exist as an American people."
	[Iranian radio] "Informed sources report that US helicopters from
the Pakistani-Afghan border have entered Afghan territory and deployed
troops around Kandahar."
	[AP] Four members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network are jailed
for life amid intense security at a New York court for their role in the
1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa. 224 people died in those
attacks. The four were also ordered to pay $33 million in restitution,
perhaps taken out of terrorist assets frozen by US.
	[RT] Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has condemned the anthrax
attacks on America: "I cannot imagine that humans can use germs against
other humans, whatever the degree of animosity between them. "It is a
cowardly, evil and irresponsible action putting in danger the whole of
humanity."

*FRIDAY 10/19. [WP] U.S. Special Forces have arrived in Afghanistan;
Unnamed Pentagon Officials say that the troops are "operating in small
numbers in southern Afghanistan in support of the CIA's effort in the
Taliban heartland."  Black Hawk helicopter crash kills 2 US personnel and
injures more.
	[TL] Israel moved tanks into three West Bank towns and killed a
leading Palestinian militant with a car bomb.  Sharon: "Arafat has seven
days to impose absolute quiet in the [occupied] territories. If not, we
will go to war against him. As far as I am concerned, the era of Arafat is
over." Israel's Security Cabinet said he "would be treated in the way in
which the US treats the Taliban." At least three other Palestinians were
killed, including a 10-year-old schoolgirl; four other schoolgirls and
three adults were wounded in Jenin.
	[UPI] At least six Palestinians were killed Friday during
confrontations with Israeli troops and tanks that were ordered into the
Palestinian-controlled towns of Bethlehem --and Beit Jala.
	[FR2] Mayor of Paris dedicates plaque on bridge to 300 Algerians
killed by Paris police 40 years ago.
	[YN] Rep. Steve Buyer [R-IN) says that the United States should
use tactical nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden's terrorist network
in Afghanistan if it is linked to recent anthrax incidents in the United
States.

*SATURDAY 10/20. [GL] The messages being broadcast from the EC-130E planes
say in Pashtu and Dari. : "Attention, Taliban. You are condemned. Did you
know that? The instant the terrorists you support took over our planes,
you sentenced yourselves to death. You will be attacked by land, sea, and
air... Resistance is futile," [Do psy-ops like Star Trek?]
	[] Afghan soldiers were told Friday that while they were dying in
war their leader was enjoying a life of pleasure with his three wives.
	[GL] While Bush wooed Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, it was reported
that China paid Osama bin Laden several million dollars for access to
unexploded American cruise missiles. The Clinton administration fired 75
missiles into Afghanistan during the attack on Bin Laden's camps on August
20, 1998. A report four months later in the Pakistani newspaper Ausaf,
cited Taliban sources as saying that 40 were found unexploded.
	[ALL] first known ground action in the 13-day-old war; US military
leave behind letter-size sheets of paper with the words "Freedom Endures"
above a picture of firemen raising the flag at the World Trade Center.  
So the mail s being delivered in Afghanistan; BUT--
	[NYT] At home, postage rates will go up substantially.

*SUNDAY 10/21. [WP] Bush orders CIA last month to do "whatever is
necessary" to kill Osama Bin Laden.
	[HI] Coca-Cola bottling plant in Andhra Pradesh attacked in
protest against the U.S. attack on Afghanistan.
	[OL] UN is set to issue an unprecedented appeal to the US to halt
the war on Afghanistan and allow time for a huge relief operation.
	[LAT] Israeli incursions into Palestinian areas seize five cities
with dozens dead; "We plan to stay," says an Israeli army officer.
	[NYT] 830 people are held by US in preventive detention; no
evidence has been found linking any of them to the attacks.  Most are
being held on immigration or traffic violations, or falsifying documents.
"But the arrests have a purpose beyond the investigation of the Sept. 11
attacks: to prevent more attacks," says the Times.
	[LAT] fronts the thirst for information about Islam and
Afghanistan since Sept 11. "What is their book, the one like the Bible?" a
woman asks a clerk in a California bookstore.  People are buying atlases
so they can locate Afghanistan on a map.  They're studying Arabic suddenly
-- and taking the Foreign Service Exam. At UCLA, 50 new seminars have been
created to meet student interest. "Subjects range from a look at America's
role as the world's only superpower to case studies of militant Islam in
Uzbekistan and Sudan." ["War is God's way of teaching Americans geography"
-- Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914?]

AND FINALLY, on January 21, 2000, candidate George W. Bush said, "When I
was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they
were.  It was us versus them, and it was clear who them was.  Today, we
are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there."

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