[Peace] News notes for June 9 [part 2 of 3]

[C. G. Estabrook]

[continued from part 1]

TUESDAY, JUNE 04, 2002

DEMS AND REPS AGREE AGAINST FAMILIES. Teen-age children of working welfare
mothers do worse in school than teens whose welfare mothers don't work,
according to a new synthesis of welfare studies. Teens with younger
siblings seem to be the poorest performers, possibly because their single
working mothers rely on them for child care, said Lisa A. Gennetian, a
lead author of the study released today by the Manpower Demonstration
Research Corp. "These findings should give pause to policy-makers who want
to change the welfare law and make mothers leave home even more," said
Jodie Levin-Epstein of the Center on Law and Social Policy. The report
comes as the Bush administration and House Republicans are calling for the
next round of welfare reform to require welfare parents to be in
productive activities 40 hours a week, including 24 hours of work. Law now
requires 20 hours of work. [WASH TIMES]

WHAT CONSTITUTION? Three separate courts have told the U.S. Justice
Department that its secrecy policy regarding the arrest of 1,200 Muslim
immigrants after Sept. 11 is illegal. Yet the department, in particular
its Immigration and Naturalization Service, has failed to heed the message
. . . History will not treat kindly this chapter in the federal
government's response to Sept. 11. Deportation hearings, which until Sept.
11 were open, are now closed airtight for those arrested after the attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Even family members of the
accused are barred from attending. Hearing dates and docket information
are stamped secret. In most cases, the names of the accused and the
reasons for their arrests have never been disclosed. Most of those
arrested after Sept. 11 reportedly have been deported . . . How many more
times will the Justice Department have to be told that blanket closings of
deportation hearings and refusing to disclose names or charges and to
admit even family members to hearings, constitute a violation of due
process rights? [HARTFORD COURANT]

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY. Bernard J. Ebbers, chief executive of WorldCom Inc.,
was ousted from his job a month ago. But he got something better than a
gold watch for his years of service: $1.5 million annually for life -- as
long as he keeps up with the payments on his $400 million loans from the
company. L. Dennis Kozlowski, former chairman of Tyco International Ltd.,
had negotiated for himself a severance package worth more than $100
million -- though his resignation on Monday and indictment yesterday on
charges of tax evasion have left the exact amount he will receive
uncertain. George Shaheen left his job as chief executive of Andersen
Consulting in 2000 to become head of Webvan, a firm that disintegrated
during the dot-com collapse. His18 months' labor there netted the
57-year-old executive $375,000 a year -- for the rest of his life . . .
"We're seeing the most obnoxious compensation packages in history" at a
time when fewer workers have guaranteed retirement income, said John Hotz,
deputy director of the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit consumer
organization . . . In 1978, about 38 percent of workers were covered by
defined benefits plans, which gave them a certain level of retirement
income, and about 18 percent were covered by plans that required them to
invest on their own for the future, according to the Employee Benefit
Research Institute. By 1997, only 21 percent of workers had guaranteed
retirement incomes and 42 percent participated in plans that required them
to invest on their own, such as 401(k)s. [WASH POST]

SOMEONE READ IT TO HIM? President Bush dismissed a report put out by his
administration warning that human activities are behind climate change
that is having significant effects on the environment. The report to the
United Nations, written by the Environmental Protection Agency, puts most
of the blame for recent global warming on the burning of fossil fuels that
release carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the environment.
But it suggests nothing beyond voluntary action by industry for dealing
with the so-called "greenhouse" gases, the program Bush advocated in
rejecting a treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 calling for
mandatory reduction of those gases by industrial nations. "I read the
report put out by the bureaucracy," Bush said dismissively Tuesday when
asked about the EPA report, adding that he still opposes the Kyoto treaty.
[AP]

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 05, 2002

HE DIDN'T PROVE HE WASN'T GUILTY. Federal prosecutors explicitly accused
John Walker Lindh on Tuesday of being partly responsible for the slaying
of CIA agent Johnny "Mike" Spann during an Afghan prison uprising in
November. In a bluntly worded 32-page motion, the prosecutors said the
Marin County man accused of participating in a conspiracy to kill
Americans overseas and of providing material support for terrorists can be
blamed directly for Spann's death under the law of conspiracy. "The fact
that we do not have evidence that Lindh wielded the weapon that fired the
bullet that killed Spann has been taken by the defense as an admission
that Lindh was an innocent bystander. He was neither a bystander nor, in
any respect can he be described as innocent," the U.S. attorneys
prosecuting Lindh wrote in their filing with U.S. District Judge Thomas
Ellis. "Lindh was a member of a conspiracy to kill Americans," wrote the
prosecutors, led by U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty and Assistant U.S. Attorney
Randy Bellows. The prosecutors then cited the law of conspiracy, which
says, for example, that a person who drives a getaway car for bank robbers
is part of the robber conspiracy and would be liable for murder if someone
in the bank were killed during the holdup. "By well-established conspiracy
law, the murder of Mr. Spann . . . is attributable to all conspirators,
and that is true whether they fired guns themselves or even knew that the
uprising would take place," prosecutors argued in their court filing. The
fact that Lindh remained silent while the two agents tried to question him
is even more damning, the government said. "In effect, they (the agents)
provided Lindh what amounted to an extraordinary opportunity. . . . Lindh
was being offered a last chance to extricate himself, to withdraw from, to
renounce the conspiracy," the prosecutors wrote.

OK, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE NEXT STORY? President Bush yesterday reiterated his
opposition to an independent commission to look into 9/11 intel issues. "I
don't want to tie up our team when we're trying to fight this war on
terror," said Bush.

I GUESS THIS DOESN'T TIE UP THE TEAM. The U.S. Justice Department plans to
propose a rule that would require the government to begin fingerprinting,
photographing, and keeping detailed background information on some
foreigners -- including student-visa holders -- who visit the United
States, department officials confirmed on Wednesday. The plan, which some
critics derided as "ethnic profiling," could affect 20,000 foreign
students living in the United States. The proposed policy would enforce
World War II-era laws that are already on the books and expand a 1998
federal rule that requires visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Syria to
be photographed and fingerprinted upon arrival. Attorney General John
Ashcroft explained the proposed policy, known as the National Security
Entry-Exit Registration System, in a speech at the Justice Department on
Wednesday. [CHE]

MAYBE IT DOES. Experts cited in the papers said they were concerned that
the I.N.S. is too understaffed and poorly managed to handle what would be
an enormous new workload. [NYT]

IT WOULD MAKE IT EASIER TO IDENTIFY THEM. Meanwhile, Arab-American groups
continued to slam the proposal. "What is next? Forcing American Muslims to
wear a star and crescent as a means of identification for law enforcement
authorities?" asked the leader of one group, in the LAT. 

THE WAR ON DRUGS, IN ANOTHER SENSE. Pilots from the U.S. fighter squadron
that mistakenly bombed Canadian troops in Afghanistan had told their
commanders shortly before the fatal accident that they were exhausted and
needed more rest between missions. The informal meeting between pilots of
the 183rd Fighter Wing and their commanding officers was convened after
the unit misidentified a bombing target during a previous mission over
Iraq. The 183rd, an Air National Guard unit currently stationed in Kuwait,
was flying patrol missions in the no-fly zone in Southern Iraq as well as
sorties over Afghanistan. In the meeting, held in the week before Canadian
soldiers were shelled by American bombs in Afghanistan, at least one F-16
pilot complained that requirements for crew rest were not being observed
and that many of the pilots were overtired. The pilot was told, however,
that further questions about crew rest would not be looked on favorably by
the wing command. Instead, pilots were advised to speak to a flight
surgeon about so-called "go/no pills" -- amphetamines used to help stay
awake on long missions, and sedatives to help sleep. Then, on April 17, a
fighter from the 183rd flying a patrol mission accidentally bombed
Canadian troops conducting a live-fire exercise south of Kandahar. Four
soldiers from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry were killed
and eight injured. [VANCOUVER SUN]

SO THAT'S THE GIANT SUCKING SOUND. Revelations that H. Ross Perot's
company provided energy traders with a blueprint for manipulating
California's electricity market stunned and angered state lawmakers and
caused the company's stock to plummet. In response, Perot called a state
senator investigating the matter and offered to testify. After Perot
Systems Corp. helped develop the computer systems used to track California
electricity trading, it peddled a detailed presentation to energy
companies on ways to "game" the state's power market, newly released
documents show. The blueprint outlined schemes similar to "Death Star" and
others later used by Enron Corp. to inflate profits . . . California
lawmakers said they were stunned by the 44-page presentation, a series of
computer graphics that provided a primer on the state's deregulated
electricity market and then illustrated ways to exploit it to raise power
prices. An industry consultant testifying before the Senate committee
Wednesday likened it to "handing grade-school children loaded revolvers,"
and concluded that power traders armed with such information would clearly
have put the schemes to use. "This is corporate behavior at its despicable
worst," s aid Sen. Joseph Dunn, a Democrat from Orange County's Santa Ana,
the state lawmaker leading the inquiry, adding that it appeared that
Perot's firm might have played a role in the "economic rape of
California." Gov. Gray Davis quickly entered the fray, calling for the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to investigate Perot Systems'
actions. "If true, this is an ethical violation of the highest order and
quite possibly a criminal offense," Davis said. [ARIZONA REPUBLIC]

UNAVOIDABLY DETAINED. One Robert H. Kirkpatrick regrets he cannot accept
the vice president's fine invitation "to join the President and Mrs. Bush
for a private dinner here in Washington on June 19th." Cheney also wanted
to ask Kirkpatrick "to serve as a special representative of St.
Clairsville, Ohio, at the President's Dinner," a major fundraiser. "In
fact, a special place of honor has already been reserved for you to
recognize your steadfast support of President Bush. . . . It is also the
annual gathering of the President's closest supporters like you, the
Republican members of the House and Senate, and our Party's grassroots."
Alas, Kirkpatrick, though of Canton, Ohio, is living in St. Clairsville as
a special guest of the Belmont Correctional Institution, where he's doing
time for cocaine possession. Kirkpatrick, in a letter to the Akron Beacon
Journal and other papers, said he was "overwhelmed" to be invited "to such
a prestigious event." [WP]

AVOIDABLY DETAINED. Mordechai Vanunu is now in his 16th year of
imprisonment for exposing Israel's secret nuclear programme. In 1986, the
former technician at the desert plant near the town of Dimona leaked
photographs of and information about Israel's nuclear facilities to the
Sunday Times, destroying Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity". Using his
pictures and testimony, nuclear experts estimated that Israel had the
world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons - about 200 warheads.
Israel's revenge was swift. Vanunu was lured from Britain to Italy by a
female Mossad agent, kidnapped, drugged, put on a ship to Israel, and
tried in a secret court. His first 11 years were spent in solitary
confinement in a tiny cell, with a canvas cover over the window to shut
out the tiniest glimpse of grass or trees. Vanunu remains locked inside
the squat, dull yellow blocks of the Shikma prison at Ashkelon, with two
more years to go until his release in April 2004. Most Israelis had
probably forgotten his existence until a photograph, the first newly
recorded image of Vanunu in three years, appeared in newspapers last
month. But while public anger towards Vanunu has been lost in the passions
of the intifada, his blood relatives cannot forgive him. Vanunu's parents,
who brought their family to Israel from Marrakech in 1961, are orthodox
Jews, as are most of his seven brothers and sisters, and the family
disowned him for converting to Christianity. He became an Anglican in
Australia in 1985. That is where Nick and Mary Eoloff stepped in. The
Eoloffs, a tall, angular couple in their 70s from the American midwest,
are on a small list of people who are allowed to visit Vanunu, which
consists of his lawyer and members of his immediate family. Improbable as
it may seem, the Eoloffs count as family members as they legally adopted
Vanunu in 1997. Radical Catholics from St Paul, Minnesota, they had read
about Vanunu and joined the international campaign to win his release,
writing to their congressmen and senators. When that did not work, the
Eoloffs - who already had six grown-up children - seized on the idea of
adoption, imagining that it would allow Vanunu to be transferred to a
prison in the US. It did not, and so, twice a year, the elderly couple
make the long journey to Israel for their prison visits. On their May 14
visit, The couple were warned that the visit would be cancelled if they
raised any taboo topics: the kidnapping, nuclear weapons, the Dimona
plant. A prison social worker took notes of the entire conversation, He
tells them that he still believes it was worth 18 years of his life to
expose Israel's nuclear secrets, and that he will resist Israel's efforts
to muzzle him. That bitterness informs even the smallest of decisions
inside Shikma, confining Vanunu in another prison of his own making. He
refuses to initiate conversations with guards, insists on reading
newspapers in English - not Hebrew - and will only listen to the BBC. He
refuses to work or have a social worker, and won't eat lunch when it is
served, the Eoloffs say, because he wants to maintain at least a tiny
portion of his life that is not under Israeli control. Vanunu was denied
parole because he refused to promise that he would never speak about his
kidnapping and jail ordeal, or the desert reactor. "He is the most
stubborn, principled and tough person I have ever met," says his lawyer,
Avigdor Feldman. He has been denied permission to view the entire
transcript of his trial on security grounds, although sections have been
published in the Israeli press. And he has been denied permission to meet
two British lawyers who have been trying for five years to visit him - to
pursue a case against the British government for its failure to protect
him from the Mossad agent who lured him to Italy. But most pressing of
all, as far as Vanunu is concerned, are the preparations for his release.
He is finally due to walk out of Shikma in April 2004, and Feldman has
started applying for a passport so that he can travel, perhaps to settle
in the US or to begin a new life lecturing on the dangers of nuclear
weapons. Although his release cannot be legally prevented, there are fears
that he will never be permitted to leave Israel, a country he now
despises. "When I asked him what he thought he had accomplished," says
Mary, "he said the major thing was the need for freedom of speech, and he
insisted he would not promise not to speak about anything once he got
out." [GUARDIAN]

THURSDAY, JUNE 06, 2002

THIS TIME IT WILL WORK. Israeli troops stormed Yasser Arafat's
headquarters early Thursday, blew up three buildings in the sprawling
compound and shelled the Palestinian leader's living area in response to a
Palestinian suicide attack on an Israeli bus that killed 17 passengers.
Six hours later, the troops left the compound and the rest of the city of
Ramallah. During the military operation, a shell or rocket hit about five
feet from Arafat's bed, punching a hole into the wall dividing his bedroom
and an adjacent bathroom. An Israeli army spokesman, Capt. Jacob Dallal,
said Arafat was not the target of the operation. "If there had been any
intention of harming Arafat, it would not have been a problem," Dallal
said. The assault with bulldozers and tanks came just a month after troops
withdrew from the compound after a 34-day siege that confined Arafat to
several rooms. Though Israel's said then it wanted to isolate Arafat, the
house arrest gave him hero status in the eyes of Palestinians and much of
the Arab world. There was speculation that another major Palestinian
terror attack would prompt Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to expel
Arafat. Sharon adviser Raanan Gissin said, however, Arafat's ouster was
not contemplated for now. "His expulsion would not solve the problem. The
security services do not recommend this as the most effective solution. We
will operate in accordance with the recommendation of the security
services," he said. The Israeli daily Maariv wrote in an editorial
Thursday that "the blood-boiling spectacle of the people who were burned
to death in a bus ... needs to bring us very close to a decision to rid
the region of Arafat's presence." The attack on Arafat's compound was in
response to Wednesday's suicide bombing in which a member of the Islamic
Jihad group drove a car packed with 42 pounds of explosives alongside a
moving bus and detonated the load, igniting a huge fireball. Seventeen
Israelis and the assailant were killed. Among the dead were 13 soldiers in
their late teens and early 20s. "Forever 20," read the headline in the
Yediot Ahronot daily Thursday, alongside the pictures of the victims.
Islamic Jihad members said the bomber, 18-year-old Hamza Samudi, learned
to drive just four days before the attack, with his handlers giving him a
few quick pointers on where to find the brake, the clutch and how to shift
gears. On the day before the attack, Samudi had taken his elderly father
for a drive in the stolen car given to him by Islamic Jihad, neighbors
said. After the attack - the deadliest since Israel completed its six-week
military offensive against Palestinian militias last month - Sharon
delayed by two days his departure for Washington where he is to meet with
President Bush at the White House on Monday. A senior U.S. official said
Israel did not inform the United States before the incursion into
Ramallah, and Washington did not give prior approval. Earlier this week,
visiting CIA chief George Tenet warned Arafat that if he did not stop
suicide bombings, he would stand alone against Israeli reprisals, a
suggestion that the United States would not try to rein in Sharon. Arafat
adviser Nabil Abu Rdeneh accused the United States of turning a blind eye
to what he called Israeli aggression. "It (the United States) has from the
start given Israel a green light to attack our people," he said. [AP]

NOTHING CAN GO WRONG. India's military is seeking final authorization to
invade the Pakistani side of divided Kashmir in the middle of this month
to destroy the camps of Islamic militants. Smart bombs and other advanced
ordnance are reported to have been loaded on to French-made Mirage 2000H
and Russian-built MiG-27 aircraft at bases in northern and western India.
As Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, strengthened his warning to Britons
to leave the region, military planners in Delhi expressed confidence that
a war would not boil over into a nuclear exchange. A senior Indian
official accused Britain, America and other western countries of "adding
their weight to Pakistan's nuclear blackmail" by telling their citizens to
leave. "This is jumping the gun," he said. "Our intention is not to have
an all-out war. It would be a limited action." Most senior Indian officers
expect that the conflict would last about a week before pressure from
America and other powers forced a ceasefire. One officer said he believed
there was only the "slimmest chance" of nuclear weapons being used. "We
will call Pakistan's nuclear bluff," he said. It [the nuclear factor]
cannot deter us any more." [TELEGRAPH UK]

"AWE-EVOKING'?! Television's Mr. Rogers greeted many of this year's
Dartmouth College seniors daily when they were children, but some are not
pleased he will be greeting them on graduation day. Fred Rogers, of ``Mr.
Rogers' Neighborhood'' fame, is this weekend's commencement speaker.
``It's like Barney the dinosaur speaking at our graduation,'' said history
major Michael Weiss. ``We're 22 years old and we're getting lectured by a
guy who plays with puppets for a living.'' Some student skeptics said they
wondered whether Rogers would greet the graduates with a cheery ``Hello,
neighbor,'' change his shoes before speaking, or wear his characteristic
cardigan sweater rather than a cap and gown.``I had hoped for someone more
awe-evoking,'' said Chris Moore, a graduating philosophy major. ``Some
secretary of the U.N., or (Rudolph) Guiliani, or a human rights leader.''
Dartmouth College President James Wright, who made the final choice of the
commencement speaker, said a good speaker is someone students can look up
to, who can draw from experience and make timely remarks. Past Dartmouth
commencement speakers have included Robert Reich, Bill Clinton, George
Mitchell and Madeline Albright. Rogers, 74, attended Dartmouth for two
years during the 1940s before transferring to Rollins College in Winter
Park, Fla. [AP]

SURPRISED? Where America gets its oil: Domestic 41%; Canada 9%; Saudi
Arabia 8.5%; Venezuela 8%; Mexico 7%; Iraq 4%; Nigeria 4%. [WALL STREET
JOURNAL]

WAR IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS. On July 10, The Public Forum Institute is
coordinating The Small Business Homeland Security Expo 2002 in Washington,
DC. This is a gathering with Senators John F. Kerry (D-MA) and Christopher
S. Bond (R-MO) to showcase small businesses and their homeland security
products. The expo will provide an opportunity for small business owners
to educate the US Congress and others on the products currently being
developed and produced that will help efforts to protect our homeland. The
Public Forum Institute is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit
organization dedicated to creating the most advanced and effective means
of fostering public discourse. [PROG REV]

PROGRESS IN INEQUALITY, ACCORDING TO THE WASHINGTON POST. Change in
household income, 1979-1997: lowest 20% of households: -1%; top 20% of
households: 53%; top 1% of households: 175%. Top one percent's share of
household wealth: 1929 = 44%; 1939 = 36%; 1949 = 21%; 1962 = 32%; 1979 =
21%; 1989 = 37%; 1999 = 39%. 

WHEN NEWS BREAKS, WE FIX IT. [Justin Gullingsrud writes] I've about had it
with the New York Times and their whitewashing of articles. The topic of
news sites "updating" their content as stories progress has come up on
Slashdot and other places, but I've never seen anyone mention any
systematic shift in editorial slant. I first noticed this in coverage of
the Presidential debates and ranted about it then; now I have actual saved
pages to document the phenomenon. Have a look at
<http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~justin/ashcroft-v1.html> and
<http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~justin/ashcroft-v2.html>. v1 is a snapshot as of
about 6:30 last night, close to when the story was first posted, I think.
v2 is from today at around 11:30. Obvious differences are: - the new
version is just over half the size of the original version; - In the
original, the first paragraph attributes to John Ashcroft the statement
that the proposed regulations would affect "tens of thousands of Muslim
and Middle Eastern visa holders"; in the new version, the first paragraph
only says "foreign students, tourists, researchers and other visitors"; -
Many noteworthy Ashcroft quotes from the original were excised from later
versions; - The original states that "The proposal ignited a raging debate
in the Bush administration. White House officials supported the Justice
proposal, but the State Department lodged objections..." Absolutely no
mention is made of this division of opinion in later versions. - The
original ends with some interesting background information on how the
proposals came to be written and who was involved; the latest version
states that "reaction to the proposal was divided largely along partisan
lines" and quotes a Republican (Sensenbrenner) as saying that the propsal
is "a reasonable first step". [POSTED BY R. BRAUN TO PEACE-DISCUSS]

[continued in part 3]