[Peace] News notes for May 5, 2002 [part 1 of 2]

[C. G. Estabrook]

	NOTES ON THE WEEK'S "WAR ON TERRORISM," 
	FOR THE AWARE MEETING 02.05.05

[This week I'll try to resume the pattern of posting these notes after the
meeting.  As always, there are rough and fragmentary -- the briefest of
indications of what's going on.  This week's notes are followed by a
column by Robert Fisk, the British journalist whom the actor John
Malkovich said this week he'd like to kill (I love actors, but some of the
best are none too bright) -- and by my column for this week's "C-U
CityView" (!).  And the comments in caps are mine, too.  Regards, Carl]


MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2002

IN THE NAME OF THE WOT.  In the latest Israeli military "incursion," tanks
and troops poured into Hebron in search of militants, leaving nine
Palestinians dead in the West Bank town of Hebron. [AP]

GRACE IS EVERYWHERE.  Thousands of Israeli Jews and Arabs gathered in Tel
Aviv on Saturday to protest the policies of the Sharon government and
stand in solidarity with Israeli reservists refusing to serve in the
military. One of the speakers was Nurit Peled-Elhanan, whose daughter was
killed in a Hamas suicide bombing. [DN]

WHAT WAS THIS WAR ABOUT?  Osama bin Laden was able to escape the clutches
of US troops in Afghanistan thanks to a powerful military commander
currently serving with the Afghan government, a rival warlord said.
Commander Hazrat Ali helped the alleged terrorist mastermind flee from the
eastern Tora Bora mountains during an intense US-led offensive last
December, strongman Haji Zaman told reporters in this northwestern
frontier city. Ali was recently appointed security chief and commander of
the country's eastern zone by Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai,
replacing the sacked Zaman. Zaman said Ilyas Khel, another Afghan
commander, had been appointed by Ali to guard the route by which bin Laden
made his escape. "Ilyas Khel was a supporter of bin Laden's al-Qaeda
network and Hazrat Ali knew it," he said.

BUSINESS AS USUAL.  The United States had been considering a coup to
overthrow the elected Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, since last June,
a former US intelligence officer claimed yesterday. It is also alleged
that the US navy aided the abortive coup which took place in Venezuela on
April 11 with intelligence from its vessels in the Caribbean. Evidence is
also emerging of US financial backing for key participants in the coup.
Wayne Madsen, a former intelligence officer with the US navy, told the
Guardian yesterday that American military attaches had been in touch with
members of the Venezuelan military to examine the possibility of a coup.
"I first heard of Lieutenant Colonel James Rogers [the assistant military
attaché now based at the US embassy in Caracas] going down there last June
to set the ground," Mr Madsen, an intelligence analyst, said yesterday.
"Some of our counter-narcotics agents were also involved." Mr Madsen also
said that the navy helped with communications jamming support to the
Venezuelan military, focusing on communications to and from the diplomatic
missions in Caracas belonging to Cuba, Libya, Iran and Iraq - the four
countries which had expressed support for Mr Chavez. In Caracas, a
congressman has accused the US ambassador to Venezuela, Charles Shapiro,
and two US embassy military attaches of involvement in the coup. Roger
Rondon claimed that the military officers, whom he named as (James) Rogers
and (Ronald) MacCammon, had been at the Fuerte Tiuna military headquarters
with the coup leaders during the night of April 11-12. And referring to Mr
Shapiro, Mr Rondon said: "We saw him leaving Miraflores palace, all smiles
and embraces, with the dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga [who was installed
by the military for a day] ... [His] satisfaction was obvious. Shapiro's
participation in the coup d'état in Venezuela is evident." The US embassy
dismissed the allegations as "ridiculous". Mr Shapiro admitted meeting Mr
Carmona the day after the coup, but said he urged him to restore the
national assembly, which had been dissolved. Mr Carmona told the Guardian
that no such advice was given, although he agreed that a meeting took
place. Mr Rondon has also claimed that two foreign gunmen, one American
and the other Salvadorean, were detained by security police during the
anti-Chavez protest on April 11 in which around 19 people were killed,
many by unidentified snipers firing from rooftops. "They haven't appeared
anywhere. We presume these two gentlemen were given some kind of
safe-conduct and could have left the country," he said. The members of the
military who coordinated the coup have claimed that they did so because
they feared that Mr Chavez was intending to attack the civilian protesters
who opposed him. Mr Chavez's opponents claim pro-Chavez gunmen shot
protesters while his supporters say the shots were fired by agents
provocateurs . In the past year, the United States has channeled hundreds
of thousands of dollars in grants to US and Venezuelan groups opposed to
Mr Chavez, including the labor group whose protests sparked off the coup.
The funds were provided by the National Endowment for Democracy, a
nonprofit agency created and financed by the US Congress. [GUARDIAN UK]

EVEN THE AP RECOGNIZES THE SITUATION As much as many poor cheered Chavez's
return, the wealthy have felt only gloom.On April 11, opposition marchers
and pro-government protesters clashed, leaving 17 people dead and hundreds
wounded. Alarmed by the violence, Chavez's military high command ousted
him at dawn the next day and installed an interim government made up of
conservative politicians headed by one of Venezuela's most important
businessman.The provisional leaders struck down dozens of laws promulgated
under Chavez, including one intended to hand out land to peasants.Chavez
was swept back to power two days later by loyalist troops and thousands of
protesters, mainly people who descended from the shantytowns ringing this
South American capital, where the average wage-earner makes about $6 per
day.In Caracas' wealthy suburbs, residents are now dismayed. "I'm leaving
the country in 10 days because I don't think the situation is going to
improve. I have a young son and I don't want him to grow up in Venezuela,"
said Maya Aguilar, a housewife interviewed while shopping in an elegant
Caracas mall.The mall is in the upscale Chacao neighborhood, home to
mansions and exclusive country clubs.Aguilar plans to move to Mexico with
her husband, a Venezuelan businessman who began searching for a job abroad
after Chavez's return.Venezuela's elites say Chavez has stoked class
division by labeling as "rancid oligarchs" many who opposed his
left-leaning policies."I think it's criminal to make people believe that
one part of society stole what they have from another," said Pedro Luis
Echeverria, an economist. U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
said Monday that Chavez had helped bring about the coup attempt with
undemocratic policies."The threat to democracy in Venezuela didn't begin
with those people in the streets," Rice told a foreign-policy forum. "We
have to remember that Chavez also, in shutting down the press, for
instance, was doing things to harm Venezuela democracy long before that
fateful outcome."The turmoil should prompt Chavez "to recognize the
importance of democratic values for real - not just claiming that, because
you're elected, you are exercising democratic values," she said.For
Venezuela's have-nots, Chavez's tough rhetoric was a welcome challenge to
a ruling class they blame for squandering the country's vast oil wealth
while 80 percent of the 24 million Venezuelans live in poverty.[AP]

TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2002

I LOVE DEMOCRACY.  President General Musharraf of pakistan, who became so
through a military coup, engineers a plebiscite: "The system for counting
votes seemed particularly relaxed. At the end of the day, officials said,
poll takers simply dumped the ballots out of their boxes, added them up
and phoned in the numbers." [NYT] The Pakistan government said 50% of the
electorate participated, and 98 percent have endorsed Musharraf; the
rather iondependent Pakistani press said the turnout was between 5% and
10%, and everyone agrees it was rigged.  The question people were asked to
vote on is a laugh: "For the survival of the local government system,
establishment of democracy, continuity of reforms, end to sectarianism and
extremism, would you like to elect President General Pervez Musharraf as
president for five years?" [Only the WSJ quoted it.]

WEDNESDAY, MAY 01, 2002 [WORKERS' MAY DAY]

JUSTICE IN A BURKA.  A federal judge has ruled that, as the WSJ puts it,
"authorities can't imprison people just because they might be helpful in
grand-jury investigations." At issue was the Justice Department's
post-Sept. 11 habit of detaining people as material witnesses in
terrorist-related grand jury investigations. Attorney General John
Ashcroft said the DOJ will appeal the ruling. The Journal emphasizes that
this is only the latest court rebuke for the Justice Department's
anti-terrorism tactics. [SLATE]

The NYT finally gets around in the 23rd paragraph to mention the court's
account of the FBI's behavior: the judge concluded that "there were both
misrepresentations and omissions in the affidavit, and that this was not a
result of mistake or accident" -- i.e., the FBI lied and suppressed
evidence in this case.  (Surely in no others.)  That's how things are done
in the Bush DOJ.

THURSDAY, MAY 02, 2002

TERRORISTS ON THE LOOSE.  On his first day of release from his compound,
Arafat toured the destruction at schools and hospitals in Ramallah.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops killed one man and injured two more at the
Church of the Nativity because the men had guns, the soldiers claimed.
Peace activists have now showed up at this standoff and have entered the
church bearing food. [SLATE]

OUR REPRESENTATIVES AT WORK. The House on Thursday passed an hysterical
resolution -- H RES 392, "Expressing Solidarity with Israel in its Fight
Against Terrorism" -- that might have been written by the Israel's
propaganda office.  Our congressman, Tim Johnson, was one of 112
co-sponsors. David Bonior, John Conyers, Jesse Jackson, Barbara Lee,
Cynthia McKinney, David Obey, and the Republican Ron Paul were among the
21 voting against it. Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders voted "present."
The Senate passed a similar resolution.

The text can be found thru <thomas.loc.gov>, but here's some, for the
flavor:

"...the United States and Israel are now engaged in a common struggle
against terrorism and are on the front-lines of a conflict thrust upon
them against their will ... the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is part of
Arafat's Fatah organization and has been designated a `Foreign Terrorist
Organization' by the United States Government, and other Fatah forces have
murdered scores of innocent Israelis ... the Israeli Government has
documents found in the offices of the Palestinian Authority that
demonstrate the crucial financial support the Palestinian Authority
continues to provide for terrorist acts, including suicide bombers [NO
MENTION OF HOW 'THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT' CAME TO BE THERE] ... the recent
escalation of Palestinian attacks, killing 46 Israelis during the week of
Passover, included a heinous suicide-bombing at a religious ceremony which
killed 27 and wounded more than a hundred, many critically, and was
perpetrated by a known terrorist whom Israel had previously asked Yasir
Arafat to arrest ... Yasir Arafat continues to incite terror by, for
example, saying of the Passover suicide bomber, `Oh God, give me a
martyrdom like this' ... Yasir Arafat and the PLO have a long history of
making and breaking anti-terrorism pledges; ... President Bush, in his
speech of April 4, 2002, stated that `the situation in which he [Arafat]
finds himself today is largely of his own making'; that Arafat `missed his
opportunities, and thereby betrayed the hopes of the people he's supposed
to lead'; and that, `[g]iven his [Arafat's] failure, the Israeli
Government feels it must strike at terrorist networks that are killing its
citizens' ... Israel's military operations are an effort to defend itself
against the unspeakable horrors of ongoing terrorism and are aimed only at
dismantling the terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian areas, an
obligation Arafat himself undertook but failed to carry out ... the
process of Israeli withdrawal is nearly complete ..." etc., etc.

OUR REPRESENTATIVES, CONT. The idiotic majority leader, Dick Armey, was on
TV Wednesday night suggesting that all Palestinians should be removed from
the West Bank and sent to "Arab countries that have hundreds of thousands
of acres of land"; his staff quickly released a statement saying gently
that he didn't know what he was talking about.

REMEMBER THAT WAR?  US "operations" are going on in eastern Afghanistan,
near Khost, but "Senior American officers discounted any impending
large-scale attack like the one in March." [NYT] But the WP suggests that
a "major battle may be brewing."  There is fighting between "our"
warlords, though. At least six people have been killed. One of the
squabbling warlords is Abdul Rashid Dostum, also known as Afghanistan's
deputy defense minister.

A NIGHTMARE SCENARIO FOR THE BUSHIES. Iraq and the UN are scheduled are
beginning negotiations today about the possible return of UN weapons
inspectors. [WP]

FRIDAY, MAY 03, 2002

REMEMBER THAT WAR (II)? Physicians for Human Rights says that its teams
have discovered a new Afghan war grave near Sherbarghan prison that may
contain the remains of Taliban fighters who surrendered to Northern
Alliance forces last year. PHR offers a preliminary assessment -- with
photo documentation -- of alleged mass gravesites in northern Afghanistan.
[BBC]

AND THE WAR IN WASHINGTON. The State Department cut off funds for the
Iraqi National Congress, an Iraqi opposition group [OF CIA CREATURES]
favored by some in Vice President Cheney's office. USA TODAY says that the
adminsitration would prefer to use an "Afghanistan strategy" in Iraq and
have the US military "help" local opposition forces overthrow Saddam [BUT
THEY CAN'T FIND ANY, BECAUSE THE US HAS BETRAYED THEM ALL IN THE PAST].
Sunday's NYT said, though, that the administration is leaning toward an
invasion because "using local forces there would be insufficient to bring
a change in power." [SLATE]

FIGHT CORRUPTION: WATCH A COMMERCIAL. The broadcast industry is now
describing people who skip over commercials as thieves. And with new
technology like HDTV and insane laws such as the DMCA, they may very well
make it stick in the future. Jamie Kellner is the chairman and CEO of
Turner Broadcasting, which encompasses everything from CNN to TNT and is a
part of AOL Time Warner. An interview with Kellner appeared in Cable
World. In response to a question on why personal video recorders were bad
for the industry, Kellner responded: "Because of the ad skips.... It's
theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're
going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an
ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button
you're actually stealing the programming." [2600 MAGAZINE]

[continued in part 2]