[Peace] News notes for May 26 [part 1 of 2]

[C. G. Estabrook]

	NOTES ON THE WEEK'S "WAR ON TERRORISM" --
	FOR THE AWARE MEETING 02.05.26

[Summary of the week -- The "War on Terrorism" road-show goes to Europe,
and Bush fiddles with Pootie-Poot (as the US president is reported to call
the Russian president) while flames threaten.  Loath as I am to upset Lois
(and anyone else), I'm appending the piece by Robert Fisk that I read at
tonight's meeting, "There Is A Firestorm Coming, And It Is Being Provoked
By Mr Bush"; also Peace Action's analysis of the dangerous lies in Bush's
nuclear treaty with the Russians.  Comments in caps and these are mine.
Regards, Carl]]

SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2002

NO HONOR AMONG THIEVES. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
on Sunday accused President Bush's foreign policy team of suffering from
``untreated bipolar disorder.'' Albright said the Bush administration is
projecting contradictory messages on a broad range of global conflicts,
including the Middle East and Afghanistan. "They talk about the importance
of the rule of law, but seem allergic to treaties designed to strengthen
the rule of law in areas such as money-laundering, biological weapons,
crimes against humanity, and the environment,'' Albright said in a
commencement speech at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy. ``This split personality is also evident in Afghanistan, where
one day they are ridiculing nation-building and the next proposing a new
Marshall Plan,'' Albright told the 189 graduates. ``And in the Middle
East, where the signals have varied day by day.'' At the White House on
Sunday, spokesman Gordon Johndroe declined to respond to Albright's
accusations, or comment on the unusual nature of a former secretary of
state attacking a sitting administration. ``The president and his foreign
policy team are focused on uniting the country, winning the war on
terrorism and defending the United States and its allies' interests,''
Johndroe said. Albright challenged the Republican president to present a
more cogent, unified message during his upcoming trip to Moscow and
European capitals. "President Bush will have the opportunity to clarify
the character and purpose of American leadership by spelling out not only
what America is against, which is terror, but also what America is for,''
Albright said. Albright, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations and during the Clinton administration became the first woman to
serve as secretary of state, began her 20-minute address by saying Bush
deserves the country's support in the war against terrorism. She also said
that, ``as reluctant as they may be to admit that Bill Clinton did
anything right,'' there are areas of agreement between the two
administrations. Albright strongly admonished Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. ``At Camp David, Arafat
rejected the best deal the Palestinians may ever be offered. He is a
survivor and a virtuoso of double-talk, not a leader,'' Albright said.
``But Sharon was also a fierce opponent of Camp David, and has never put
forward a viable plan for peace.'' It is unusual for a former secretary of
state to attack an incumbent administration, but Albright and current
Secretary of State Colin Powell have clashed before. At the beginning of
the Clinton presidency, Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, argued against U.S. military involvement in Bosnia's ethnic
conflict. Albright, then ambassador to the United Nations and a strong
advocate of using force to end ethnic slaughter, is said to have stared at
Powell and asked: ``What's the point in having this superb military you
are always talking about if we can't use it?'' In his book, Powell said of
the incident: ``I thought I would have an aneurysm. American GIs were not
toy soldiers to be moved around on some sort of global game board.'' [AP]

BOTH THE LA TIMES AND THE WSJ (FRONT PAGE) DECIDED THIS WAS THE WEEK TO
WRITE ABOUT THIS TOPIC.  In the "strange bedfellows" department, one of
the oddest pairings on the current political scene is American Jews and
the Christian right ... It used to be progressive non-Jewish Americans who
strongly backed Israel. Now Israel's best friends here are people like
former Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed (who now heads
the Georgia Republican Party) and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
The Anti-Defamation League even went to the extreme of reprinting as an
advertisement in the New York Times and other newspapers an article titled
"We People of Faith Stand Firmly With Israel" that Reed wrote for The Los
Angeles Times ... In some sense, this Christian fundamentalism is a mirror
image of the Jewish fundamentalism contained within the Sharon government.
While Sharon himself is a secular hawk, he has survived in politics since
1967 as the patron of the settlers, the hard core of whom are religious
fanatics--and not only in their desire to control the biblical land of
Israel that includes all of what they call "Judea and Samaria" or "Greater
Israel." The most extreme among them also hold all of the modern
democratic institutions of the state -- from the Supreme Court to
parliamentary democracy -- in contempt. They yearn for a land of Israel
fashioned in the image of the ancient kingdom of David, as opposed to the
modern, pluralistic, forward-looking state Israel is today. The newest
member of Sharon's Cabinet is the head of the National Religious Party,
Effi Eitam, a former Israeli army brigadier general who was refused higher
promotion within the army because of his harsh treatment of Palestinians.
Eitam, a "born-again" Jew, is a former secular kibbutz member transformed
into a messianic Jew, much along the lines of other Religious Party
settlers who saw the post-1967 era in Israel more as the fulfillment of
biblical dictate than as a move to meet Israel's security needs. Eitam,
who has declared that he will be the first "kippa-wearing" prime minister
(wearing a kippa, or yarmulke, denotes religious observance), is an
ultrareligious Jew with fiercely undemocratic values. He believes not only
in dealing ruthlessly with Palestinians across the 1967 Green Line but he
says that the Israeli Arab citizens who reside within Israel's pre-1967
borders should be transferred out. He would do well with his counterparts
in the United States, but his beliefs would most likely find little
support among the bulk of Jews in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the U.S.
Yet it is this point of view--in Israel and the U.S.--that is being
strengthened by an alliance that supports Sharon, right or wrong. As if
the Christian right's vision of Israel weren't alien enough to the Israel
most American Jews desire, a second result of this newfound alliance is
the strengthening of the right wing's resolve within the current U.S.
political landscape. The alliance of the Christian right, the
neoconservative intellectuals (many of whom are Jewish) who long ago gave
up on the Democrats and the more mainstream Jewish organizations has
strengthened the resolve of the Bush administration to say yes to almost
anything Sharon is doing. But it has also strengthened the ability of the
conservatives to push through an American agenda that both runs counter to
the will of the majority of American Jews and could even endanger American
Jewish interests. [Jo-Ann Mort, national secretary of Americans for Peace
Now, LA TIMES]

MONDAY, MAY 20, 2002

HOW IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN. Despite the pleadings of Governor Ryan of
Illinois and representatives of the huge American agribusiness cartels,
Fidel Castro of Cuba refused today to resume trade with the United States
unless George Bush releases political prisoners, conducts independently
monitored elections and accepts a list of tough conditions for "new
governments in Washington -- and Florida -- that are fully democratic." He
did however agree to offer political asylum to Gov. Ryan. Castro said the
United States' legacy of freedom "has been insulted by a despot who uses
police methods to enforce a bankrupt vision, under the name of a 'War on
Terrorism.' That legacy has been debased by a relic from another era who,
with this secret police chief Ashcroft, has turned their beautiful nation
into a prison." "Without political reform, without economic reform, trade
with the US will merely enrich George Bush and his cronies -- including
his family and the so-called 'Carlyle Group,'" he said Monday. "It will
not help the American people." To win his approval of easing restrictions,
Castro said the US must: -Allow opposition parties, such as Greens, access
to the ballot. -Allow independent trade unions. -Free all political
prisoners, notably those the US holds in Cuba, at Guantanamo Bay. -Allow
human rights organizations to visit the US to ensure that the conditions
for free elections are being created, especially in the upcoming Florida
elections. -Allow outside observers to monitor 2004 elections. -End
discriminatory practices against US workers (recently described in detail
by B. Ehrenreich). "Full normalization of relations with the US,
diplomatic recognition, open trade and a robust aid program will only be
possible when the US has a new government that is fully democratic, when
the rule of law is respected and when the human rights of all Americans
are fully protected," Castro said He voiced support for a referendum in
the US asking voters whether they favor civil liberties, including freedom
of speech and assembly, and amnesty for political prisoners. [ASSOCIATED
POETS]

THIS ONE'S TRUE. According to several sources who were in the room last
Thursday afternoon, [Pres. Bush gave Republican senators] a jut-jawed,
disjointed discourse with a tinge of diatribe and a crescendo of podium
pounding. The president dismissed questions about his administration's
counterterrorism actions-or lack of them-before September 11 as mere
Democratic partisanship. "I sniff some politics in the air," he scoffed.
Then he wandered off to the Middle East, recounting a blunt Oval Office
conversation with Ariel Sharon. He said he'd asked the Israeli leader if
he really hated Yasir Arafat. Sharon had answered yes, according to the
president. "I looked him straight in the eye and said, 'Well, are you
going to kill him?' " Sharon said no, to which the president said he'd
replied, "That's good." Bush was just getting warmed up. "Now you guys
really got me going," he said. He threatened to block the entire defense
bill if it contained money for the controversial and costly Crusader
artillery system. "I mean it. I'll veto it," he said tersely, glancing at
Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, where Crusader would be built. Bush ended
with an attack on North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. "He's starving his
own people," Bush said, and imprisoning intellectuals in "a Gulag the size
of Houston." The president called him a "pygmy" and compared him to "a
spoiled child at a dinner table." Stunned senators didn't know quite what
to make of the performance. "It was like in church, when the sermon goes
on too long and you're not sure what the point is," one told NEWSWEEK.
"Nobody dared look at anybody else." If Bush seemed unsure of his
bearings, he had reason to be. After eight months of political calm, the
war on terror abroad has turned into an uncivil war at home. Until last
week, the capital was full of urgent but murky bureaucratic debates about
the quality of counterterrorism information-sharing. Now, suddenly,
Democrats, investigators and the news media were asking the hoary Nixonian
questions: what did the president know and when did he know it? And they
were asking new but equally dramatic ones: With years' worth of scattered
but numerous hints of Al Qaeda's emerging suicide strategy, why didn't
Bush know more? And why weren't people told after September 11 what the
administration knew before that fateful day? ... By a 68 to 24 percent
margin, [people] want a congressional investigation of intelligence
failures ...[The adminsitration] dispatched Vice President Dick Cheney to
wave the patriotic flag at a political dinner in New York, where he warned
critics not to make "incendiary comments" that are "totally unworthy of
national leaders in time of war." The Bushies even took the unprecedented
step of wheeling out Laura Bush to defend her husband. Traveling in
Budapest, Hungary, Mrs. Bush stayed up late to watch a Condi Rice
briefing. The next morning the First Lady volunteered to reporters that it
was "very sad that people would play upon the victims' families' emotions,
or all Americans' emotions." [!] The counteroffensive temporarily silenced
most Democrats. But the Bush administration nevertheless found itself in a
nightmarish if familiar Washington predicament, forced to issue statements
without knowing what leaks might immediately undercut them. [!] ...
Privately, some hard-liners criticized Press Secretary Ari Fleischer for
confirming the basic substance of the Aug. 6 memo when it was first
reported by CBS ... Others criticized Rice's briefing. "She wasn't ready
for prime time," huffed one staffer ... Some wished that counselor Karen
Hughes-who was traveling with Mrs. Bush and will soon be leaving the White
House-was back at spin-control central. More urgently needed than a
message leader is a message, said Republican polltaker Frank Luntz. The
topic: what people need to know, and what, for security reasons, they
can't be told. "The public is confused about the relationship between
national security and the flow of information from the government," he
said. "One minute they're being issued too many warnings, the next minute,
not enough. People don't want to know anything that might compromise the
war effort, but they need to have a better sense of what the limits are
and why." ... Cheney sees Congress and the media as annoyances-at best.
This view was reinforced by the advent of war. More than ever they tend to
think that the public has a right to know only what the top guns think is
worth telling them. [Howard Fineman NEWSWEEK May 27]

WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN? When the going gets tough, VP Cheney gets going
-- to the talk shows. Cheney appeared on "Meet the Press" and "Fox News
Sunday," during which he said that the possibility of another terrorist
attack was "almost certain." Echoing Cheney, national security adviser
Condoleeza Rice tells CNN that the investigation into the performance of
intelligence agencies leading up to the 9/11 attacks should be kept behind
closed doors. [CURSOR.ORG]

HO-HUM. Ten Afghans dead as allied forces may have mistaken warring
warlords for al-Qaeda. [CSM]

CENSORSHIP THE US WAY, AS SEEN BY A BRIT. What a sad place New York City
has become. A vibrant, disputatious town with a worldwide reputation for
loud voices and strongly expressed opinions is tip-toeing around in
whispers. Grief over the casualties of the twin towers massacre is not the
reason (those wounds are slowly healing), but a stifling conformity which
muzzles public discourse on US foreign policy, the war on terrorism and
Israel. "If people knew I held these views, I wouldn't be able to stay in
this job," an old college friend confided as I passed through the city for
a few days last week. He was appointed by the Bush administration to a top
Federal position (not connected to foreign policy) some months ago. His
subversive views on the Middle East, if uttered in Europe, would raise no
eyebrows: Ariel Sharon has no vision or strategy; his tactics on the West
Bank are counter-productive; the American media are failing to report
adequately on the suffering of innocent Palestinians in cities ransacked
by Israeli troops. Another friend, a liberal rabbi, was about to set off
on a regular visit to Israel. She contrasted the usual furious public
arguments which she expected to find there to the behind-the-hand
mutterings of New Yorkers. "Over here Sharon and Netanyahu have managed to
turn the issue of terrorism, which was provoked by Israeli behaviour on
the West Bank, into an existential question of the survival of the Israeli
state. Debate becomes disloyalty," she complained. The Israeli prime
minister's humiliating refusal to heed the White House's call last month
for an immediate halt to Israel's West Bank incursions should have
prompted a debate on whether Bush or Sharon makes US foreign policy, she
argued. Instead, the leaders of most American Jewish organisations sided
with Sharon and were pleased when Bush backed down. Listening to these
anguished but private complaints suddenly reminded me of the Soviet Union
of the Brezhnev era when lower-level officials, journalists and other
fringe members of the regime sat around their kitchen tables, expressing
their true views only to family and close friends. A far-fetched analogy,
of course, until you look at the narrowness of public discussion, not just
on Israeli-Palestinian issues, but also on the threatened American attack
on Iraq and the administration's war on terrorism in general. When Tom
Daschle, the Senate majority leader, suggested this spring that the war
had failed because Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar were still free, he was
fiercely attacked and never dared to repeat the point. The campaign for an
all-out attack on Iraq continues in full swing with none of the
congressional opposition which marked the Gulf war a decade ago. John
Bolton, the state department's most hawkish official, is taken seriously
when he "names" countries with biological weapons programmes which the US
claims the right to target with military strikes. No one contrasts his
purported expertise with the fact that, after seven months, the FBI has
failed to discover the whereabouts of the people or the laboratories in
the US which produced and mailed anthrax-coated letters last autumn. If
the administration is so ignorant about events on its own doorstep, why
should anyone believe it knows what is going on in labs in Iraq, Iran or
Cuba? To enforce this abandonment of reasoned argument in the name of a
witch-hunt against terrorists, a strange alliance of evangelical
Christians in Congress has come together with the leaders of American
Jewish organisations who normally support the Democratic party. "We live
in a culture where there is a diminishing tolerance of dissent," commented
Abe Brumberg, long-time editor of Problems of Communism, the Soviet-era
journal which was funded by the US government. He drew my attention to a
column by Frank Rich in the New York Times. The piece reported that
America's foremost Jewish newspaper, Forward, was fielding subscription
cancellations for accepting an ad from Jews Against the Occupation.
Mainstream papers are also being targeted. "Our press is not being
muzzled," Rich was careful to write, "but the dictates of what constitutes
politically correct conversation about the Middle East are being tightened
to the point that American leaders of all stripes increasingly seem to be
in a contest to see who can pander the most to American Jews." On CNN's
domestic news one morning their vacuous presenter Paula Zahn urged viewers
to stay with her until after the break. "A new book which criticises
American foreign policy and says the US has been guilty of terrorism has
sold 160,000 copies. We'll have more," she announced. Noam Chomsky's book,
I wondered. Are they really going to let him appear? No such luck. The
offending book was indeed by Chomsky but America's leading dissident was
not invited on to the show. Like Soviet television in the 1970s, which
regularly put up regime hacks to pillory the two giants of non-conformity,
Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, without giving them a say, Ms
Zahn's guest was William Bennett, a Republican former cabinet minister. He
proceeded to "explain" Chomsky's high sales with a flippant "kooks in our
midst" argument. Many Americans were still in deep confusion after the
shock of September 11, and some people were prepared to believe anything,
he claimed. Chomsky was unsurprised when I rang him later. "It's typical,"
he said. "CNN International interviews me a lot, but the US channel
doesn't dare." Far from being depressed, Chomsky was in bullish mood. Like
an intellectual rock star he is perpetually on the move, travelling to
packed auditoria on campuses around the US and abroad. "I spend about an
hour every night turning down email requests to speak," he said. He was
off to Bogota in Colombia later that day. Other professorial friends were
not so gung ho about the extent of campus radicalism, in spite of recent
peace marches in Washington and New York. But they agreed that
universities are the only place for political discussion these days. "I
hear there was a fantastic debate at Yale Law School recently," my highly
placed Bush appointee reported. "Two Palestinian law students wiped the
floor with Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist." The fascination,
and frustration, of America has always been the way one society can
produce so much optimistic vigour and risk-taking intellectual energy
alongside a ruling culture of such boorish ignorance and cruelty. To judge
from the east coast today, the middle-aged liberal intelligentsia is
letting itself be intimidated into taking the wrong side.
[j.steele at guardian.co.uk]

TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2002

NOW LET'S PLAY, 'WHO'S IN THE ENEMIES' GAP?" The Bush administration
accused Iran on Tuesday of being "the most active state sponsor of
terrorism" while offering modest praise to Libya and Sudan for reducing
their support for international terrorists. In its annual report on global
terrorism, the US state department said Iran had supplied Lebanese and
Palestinian groups with arms, training and finance to attack Israel. The
report, which was released on Tuesday, underscores how Iran has risen to
the top of Washington's list of rogue states supporting terrorism and
developing weapons of mass destruction. It follows President George W.
Bush's controversial condemnation of Iran in January as one of three
nations constituting "an axis of evil". It also highlights how the US has
diverged from its main European allies, who favour greater dialogue, over
how to engage with Tehran and encourage the process of reform in Iran.
White House officials say that Iran will feature prominently in talks
between Mr Bush and President Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week. Russia
is constructing nuclear plants in Iran and supplying the country with
conventional weapons. The state department said that, while there was no
evidence that Iran had sponsored the September 11 attacks on New York and
Washington, it remained a powerful force in international terror.
"Although some within Iran would like to end this support, hardliners who
hold the reins of power continue to thwart any efforts to moderate these
policies," the report said. Alongside Iran, the US named Cuba, Libya,
Iraq, North Korea, Sudan and Syria as its list of state sponsors of
terrorism for the eighth year running. While the report describes 2001 as
the worst year in terms of deaths caused by terrorism, it also depicts an
improving trend in the number of attacks, down by 19 per cent to 346.
"Sudan and Libya seem closest to understanding what they must do to get
out of the terrorism business and each has taken measures pointing it in
the right direction," the report said. [FINANCIAL TIMES]

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2002

A POLITICAL INDICATOR FROM AMERICA'S CHIEF RIVAL (EUROPE). In elections in
Ireland, voters give massive backing to Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and
his Fianna Fail party in a general election which also sees Fine Gael, the
main opposition party, lose over a third of its seats, Sinn Fein increase
its representation from one seat to five and the Greens take six seats.
According to Niall Stanage of the Dublin-based magazine Magill, Sinn
Fein's increased support in last week's Irish elections was down to its
left-wing policies. The attempt by Ruari Quinn, leader of the Labour
party, to portray Sinn Fein as an ultra-nationalist party along the lines
of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front in France was apparently 'absurd',
as 'Sinn Fein is supportive of asylum seekers' rights'. Was this really so
absurd? Sinn Fein, like Le Pen's party and the Pim Fortuyn movement in
Holland, appeals to voters for whom cultural integrity and 'the nation'
are of paramount importance. All three movements are deeply sceptical
about the European Union. Sinn Fein was the most vocal anti-Nice Treaty
campaigner in Ireland's 2001 referendum, with many of their supporters
labelling it the 'new Act of Union'.The Shinners may claim to be socialist
and supportive of multiculturalism (except if your 'tradition' involves
walking down streets banging large drums), but they remain in essence a
nationalistic party. That is why I look forward to Sinn Fein MEPs taking
their rightful place alongside the UKIP and Eurosceptic Tories in the
Brussels parliament. Little Irelanders and Little Englanders together,
telling Johnny Foreigner where to shove it. [SPIKED]

THE REST OF THE KNOWS JUNE IS FOR THE WORLD CUP, TO BE DECIDED IN JAPAN.
On Tuesday, the West Japan Railway Company started gluing down stones that
support railway tracks in southern Japan, to prevent fans from tearing
them up and using them as missiles. But the most fearful news is that
smoking will be banned from all stadiums, to comply with an agreement
between FIFA and the World Health Organisation (WHO). 'Sport is a
celebration of life', says WHO. 'Tobacco products, on the other hand,
degrade life and cause disease and death.' [SPIKED]

THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC POSITION. Scores of protesters displayed their
anger outside [Sen. H. R. Clinton's] house here in the Embassy Row
neighborhood, unhappy with her decision to back President Bush's drive to
enact new work requirements that they say will ultimately harm welfare
recipients . . . Mrs. Clinton, the New York Democrat, has joined a group
of moderate and conservative Democratic senators in supporting a bill to
increase the work requirement for welfare recipients to 37 hours a week, a
significant increase over the current 30 hours. Mr. Bush would require 40
hours . . . A longer workweek, her critics argue, would force states to
abandon existing job-training and placement programs in favor of unpaid
workfare assignments for legions of welfare recipients. [NYT]

THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2002

TIP OF THE ICEBERG. The U.S. military used two kinds of nerve gas and a
biological toxin in tests on Navy ships in the 1960s, the Pentagon
acknowledged for the first time Thursday. Officials said veterans harmed
by exposure to the agents could be eligible for health benefits. The four
tests in the Pacific from 1964 to 1968 used either the deadly nerve agent
sarin, the nerve gas known as VX, or a biological toxin that causes
flu-like symptoms, Defense Department statements said. The tests,
conducted on barges, tugs, destroyers and other ships, were to test the
weapons themselves, protective gear and decontamination procedures ... The
Department of Veterans Affairs (news - web sites) has mailed letters to
about 600 veterans who may have taken part in the tests, VA Secretary
Anthony Principi said Thursday. Any who were harmed by the chemicals could
be eligible for VA benefits ... The Pentagon released details about six
tests from a 1960s program to evaluate chemical and biological weapons and
defenses against them. The Defense Department had agreed two years ago to
begin releasing details about the tests and contacting participants after
pressure from Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and veterans who participated.
"I'm somewhat alarmed by it," Thompson said. "It seems to me enough time
has passed that someone over there should have known who was involved and
what was going on." The tests also used chemicals and bacteria meant to
simulate weapons, as well as fluorescent or radioactive chemicals used as
tracers, the Defense Department said. One type of bacteria used to
simulate germ weapons was later found to cause infections, and a separate
test where that germ was sprayed on San Francisco is believed to have
caused an infection that killed a man. The tests were among 113 conducted
as part of a project called SHAD, or Shipboard Hazard and Defense. The
Pentagon has acknowledged using chemical and biological simulants before,
but has not admitted using the actual weapons agents themselves. [AP]

THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC POSITION (II).  We noted that the Democratic
leadership in the Senate acquiesced in the Bush "Fast-Track" plan.  When
the vote came around, the following Democratic Senators vores FOR
fast-track, aka "Trade Promotion Authority": Baucus, Mont.; Bayh, Ind.;
BIDEN, DEL.; Bingaman, N.M.; Breaux, La.; Cantwell, Wash.; Carper, Del.;
Cleland, Ga.; DASCHLE, S.D.; Dayton, Minn.; EDWARDS, N.C.; FEINSTEIN,
CALIF.; Graham, Fla.; HARKIN, IOWA; KERRY, MASS.; Kohl, Wis.; Landrieu,
La.; LIEBERMAN, CONN.; Lincoln, Ark.; Miller, Ga.; Murray, Wash.; Nelson,
Fla.; Nelson, Neb.; Wyden, Ore. Also Jeffords independent. [PROGRESSIVE
REVIEW]

THE RICH BUY GOLD WHEN THINGS LOOK BAD: IT'S AT A 27-MONTH HIGH... It
isn't quite 1980, when the price of gold topped out at more than $850 US
an ounce. But the surge in bullion prices this year has some gold-bugs
predicting that the best is yet to come for their precious metal. On
Thursday, the spot price of gold rose $4.50 US to close at $322.80 US on
the New York Mercantile Exchange. That's its highest since an intraday
$326 US spot price realized on February 29, 2000. Since Jan. 1 this year,
the spot price has steadily risen from $278 US - a gain of 16 per cent.
But that pales beside the gains enjoyed by some gold company stocks.
Analysts say terrorism jitters, a weak U.S. dollar, sabre-rattling between
India and Pakistan, low interest rates, and a Japanese buying spree have
all played their part in the recent run-up. Gold is simply seen as a safe
place to park money in times of turmoil. But will it go to $850 US again?
The pundits, as usual, disagree on the staying power of this gold rush.
John Embry, manager of the Royal Precious Metals Fund, told CBC Business
News he sees $350 US gold by the end of this year and $500 US in the next
two or three years. Experts note that the $850 US price back in 1980 was
set during a time of much higher inflation. Gold, the traditional hedge
against inflation, will not likely benefit from that in the near future,
as inflation remains in low single-digits in much of the industrialized
world. [CBC]

READ MARX ON ALIENATION. Workers with little latitude for decision making
die earlier than employees with more flexibility, even if the latter have
high-stress jobs, according to a new study. "The lack of control a person
had in his or her job substantially increased the hazard of death," says
Benjamin C. Amick III, Ph.D., of the University of Texas School of Public
Health at Houston. The research team says this is the first study to
examine the psychosocial impact of working conditions over the cumulative
life course of a representative sample of U.S. working adults. Workers
with little control in their jobs were 43 to 50 percent more likely to die
during a period of five to 10 years than workers who had high-stress jobs
but more decision-making responsibilities. [CFAH.ORG]

BUSH STRIKES A SPARK LIKE MARINUS VAN DER LUBBE? The German parliament
heard an appeal for a united defense of common Western values on Thursday
in an address that was the highlight of U.S. President George W. Bush's
visit to Germany. The speech, the first to the Bundestag by an American
leader since the parliament returned to the historic Reichstag building in
1999, joined broad themes of democracy and freedom with Mr. Bush's bid to
strengthen the resolve of Germans, and other Europeans, to support his war
against terrorism. "We build a world of justice, or we will live in a
world of coercion," Mr. Bush warned, adding at another point, "We are
building and defending the same house of freedom -- its doors open to all
of Europe's people, its windows looking out to global challenges beyond."
By all of "Europe's people," the president made clear that he was also
referring to the people of Russia, where he flew just a few hours after
his Bundestag speech. His calls for a joint war against international
terrorism were combined with an invitation to the Russians to become part
of a global alliance for a peaceful and just civilization. There was also
a clear effort to convince skeptical Europeans that they should support
him in the broadening of that campaign. Although the possibility of an
attack on Iraq was not mentioned during Mr. Bush's address, he described
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as a continuing threat during a news
conference later with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and appealed to
Europeans not to ignore it. The fear that the United States will attack
Iraq was a major factor in bringing out thousands of protesters to peace
demonstrations during the 19-hour Bush visit, and Mr. Schröder appeared
eager to downplay any open discussion of possible German participation in
such a campaign. "There are no concrete military plans for attacks on
Iraq, so there is no reason for me to speculate," he replied to a reporter
who asked him to clarify Germany's position. Added Mr. Bush: "I told the
chancellor that I have no war plans on my desk, which is the truth."
During his appearance before a packed parliamentary chamber, which gave
him a cordial welcome apart from the heckling of a few members at the
beginning of his speech, Mr. Bush stressed that military and other
security means alone would not make lives in the West secure. Poverty,
disease and corruption must be overcome, and education vastly improved in
the developing world, he said. Mr. Bush assured parliamentarians that the
United States would not regard a stronger and more united Europe as a
rival, but had an interest in the "success of our allies." Before leaving
for Moscow, he paid tribute to his country's new, more cooperative
relationship with Russia. "Russia and the West are no longer enemies" and
this has enabled Moscow and Washington to reduce arms and lower tensions,
he said, an observation that will have had resonance for many listeners in
a city that was for so long the embodiment of East-West divisions. The
Bush visit was accompanied by the stiffest security measures ever seen in
Berlin. On Wednesday evening, 58 people were arrested after violence broke
out at demonstrations, but the crowds at Thursday's protests were smaller
than expected, perhaps because of the wet weather. In private talks with
Mr. Schröder and German Foreign Minister Joseph (Joschka) Fischer that
included U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Mr. Bush sought ideas and
support for constraining Mr. Saddam. At the news conference, he called the
Iraqi president a dictator who presented a "real threat" to the entire
international community. But he also said Germany should use whatever
diplomatic means it could to influence him, and while acknowledging that
his administration was studying military options he added that Germany
would be consulted before any military action. Mr. Bush and the chancellor
also focused on the Middle East, with Mr. Schröder expressing backing for
U.S. policy. At a time when many backers of strong transatlantic ties are
concerned by growing U.S.-European differences on environmental, trade and
other issues, including the war on terrorism, both Mr. Bush and his hosts
stressed that the German-U.S. relationship remained strong. Mr. Bush said
Germany was an important partner for the United States and thanked the
country for its military commitment in Afghanistan, which he recognized as
a difficult political decision for Mr. Schröder in view of postwar
Germany's traditional fear of foreign military entanglements. In his
welcoming address, the parliament's president, Wolfgang Thierse, prodded
Mr. Bush to support the Kyoto treaty on climate control and the
International Criminal Court, both of which are opposed by the United
States. But he also noted that Mr. Bush's speech to the German parliament
came on the 53rd anniversary of the passage of the Federal Republic of
Germany's constitution, a document that he described as the political
basis for a democratic state that remains heavily indebted to the United
States. "None of that has been forgotten," Mr. Thierse said. [FRANKFURTER
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG]

[continued in part 2]