[Peace] News notes 041127

Tue Nov 30 11:27:02 CST 2004

[I've had several requests that I post these notes to this list rather
than peace-discuss, so I'll try that for a while.  --CGE]

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        Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism" [GWOT],
        for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, November 14, 2004.
        (Sources provided on request; a paragraph followed by a
        bracketed source is substantially verbatim.)
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Ten Stories Wretchedly Reported by the US Media This Week:

[1. UKRAINE DISPUTE] The dispute over the presidential election in Ukraine
is "an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived
exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in
four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple
unsavoury regimes. Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US
consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US
non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in
Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box," and later
in Georgia and Belarus. [Guardian] The presidential election in Romania
today has some similarities.
	Neither the winner of the presidential election in the Ukraine,
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, nor his Western-supported
ultranationalist rival Viktor Yushchenko, are "democrats" or "reformers"
in any accepted sense. They differ, however, on the issue of the Ukrainian
identity and destiny in what is a deeply divided country. Ukraine is like
a large Montenegro, split between its Russian-leaning half (the south, the
east) and a strongly nationalist west and north-west that defines its
identity in an unyielding animosity to Moscow.

[2. IRANIAN NUKES] Iran continues to negotiate with the EU over its
nuclear programs.  Since the USG wants these talks to fail, the US media
reports them negatively.

[3. IRAQ FIGHTING] Insurgents lobbed mortars into the Green Zone Friday,
killing four British contractors and wounding 15.
	This week 5,000 US, British and Iraqi troops have launched another
large offensive to battle the growing resistance movement. After large
attacks on Fallujah and Mosul, troops are now focusing on the province of
Babil, south of Baghdad. The US has dubbed the new offensive Operation
Plymouth Rock. The attack marks one of the largest offensive since the
fall of the Baghdad 20 months ago.
	Red Crescent convoys have finally reached Fallujah civilians,
after the three-week U.S.-led assault earlier this month ... a spokesman
said that the organisation fears that more than 6,000 people may have died
in the U.S. offensive and that thousands of families badly need
assistance. The population of US prison camps in Iraq has doubled since
early October.
	The Iraqi Defense Ministry has admitted that 2085 Iraqis were
killed in the course of the US assault on Fallujah. The same ministry,
along with US military spokesmen, keep denying that any civilians were
killed. Some un-embedded wire service reports say that Fallujah survivors
"charged, in interviews, that as well as deaths from bombs and artillery
shells, a large number of people, including children, were killed by
American snipers. Some of the killings took place in the build-up to the
assault on the rebel stronghold, and at least in one case, that of the
death of a family of seven, including a 3-month-old baby, American
authorities have admitted responsibility and offered compensation. Men of
military age were particularly vulnerable. But there are also accounts of
young children, women and old men being killed."
	CBS has elicited from the Pentagon the real figure of US
casualties in Iraq, which is more like 25,000. Nine per cent of US troops
in Iraq have been killed or hospitallized. The number of U.S. troops
killed this month has topped 100 for only the second month since the start
of the war.  The only month deadlier for the US was last April when 147
troops died.
	A New York Times editorial calls for substantial U.S. troop
increases in Iraq, Pentagon officials appear to concur, and Sen. John
McCain says up to 50,000 more are needed. Rumsfeld has said the U.S. would
send an unspecified number of additional troops to Iraq ahead of the
January 30 vote.

[4. IRAQ POLITICS] Iraq's main Shi'ite parties have insisted that
elections should go ahead on January 30 as planned, rejecting mounting
calls from Sunni and secular politicians for postponement.
	At an international conference on Iraq, the US and Britain have
fought off attempts by France and several Arab countries to draw up a
timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from the country.
	Noting that what he characterizes as "today's antiwar position --
it was a terrible mistake and it's a terrible mess, but we can't just walk
away from it -- was actually the pro-war position during Vietnam," Michael
Kinsley argues that "Anyone who opposes the war [in Iraq] but isn't ready
to demand peace needs an answer to the question, 'Why on Earth not?'"
	The NYT Arts section report that NBC plans to turn the 9/11
Commission Report into an eight-hour mini-series.

[5. ARMS CONTROL] The United States, stung by insurgent attacks in Iraq,
has urged the international community to consider banning all sales of
anti-tank and other heavy landmines, but ruled out its participation in an
international conference on mines designed to maim or kill people.
	Bush is considering giving the Pentagon more power to carry out
secret paramilitary operations overseas. Currently the CIA handles such
covert operations, but Bush has ordered an internal review of the policy.
	Congress has defeated a request by the Bush administration to fund
research and the possible development of a new family of nuclear weapons.
Congress' new $388 billion spending bill eliminates funding for the
nuclear "bunker buster" as well as other "advanced concept" tactical
nuclear weapons. {Congressman Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts said, "This
is the biggest victory that arms control advocates in Congress have had
since 1992, when we were able to place limits on nuclear testing. If we
are to convince other countries to forgo nuclear weapons, we cannot be
preparing to build an entire new generation of nuclear weapons here in the
U.S."}
	The Guardian of London is reporting that newly revealed internal
government documents show that the US Air Force has adopted a doctrine to
establish space as the military's next objective in order to give the
country "space superiority." Part of the new doctrine calls for
pre-emptive strikes against enemy-operated satellites. [The US government
in the Clinton and Bush administrations have in fact been rather candid on
these matters, which are of course immensely dangerous.  The best account
is Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival," just out in paperback.]

[6. PROTEST NUMBERS] 15,000 troops, or "the same number ... deployed in
the Fallujah offensive," were on hand to guard President Bush during his
visit to Colombia this week.
	Anti-U.S., anti-war protests were carried out around the world
last weekend. In Chile, 30,000 took to the streets Sunday to protest
President Bush and his visit to Santiago. 5,000 Turks rallied to denounce
the Fallujah attack. In Libya, thousands protested against the US war. In
Gaza over 4,000 took part in protests against the Israeli occupation and
the occupation of Iraq. And a week ago last Wednesday 13,000 Greeks took
to the streets to protest the US.
	Last weekend in Columbus, Georgia, a record 16,000 demonstrators
protested outside the School of the Americas at Fort Benning. Police
reported making 20 arrests. The protesters called on the government to
shut down the school, which has a notorious record of training Latin
American military officers who went on to commit gross human rights
abuses.

[7. US ECONOMY] The dollar continued its precipitate fall against world
currencies, as inflation rose, and many credit card lenders were doubling
and tripling their rates. Meanwhile the number of millionaire households
has increased by a record 2 million over the past year.
	The NY Times today discusses the administration's plans for Social
Security personal investment accounts. Financing the plan will require
borrowing "from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars over a
decade." The national debt is now about $7.5 trillion.

[8. CONGRESSIONAL DE-LIBERATION] The 2005 spending bill had $15.8 billion
worth of "extras," including $25,000 for the study of mariachi music and
$2 million to buy back the presidential yacht, sold by Jimmy Carter in
1977. The yacht, the U.S.S. Sequoia, currently rents for $2,500 an hour.
The bill also gave two committee chairmen and their assistants access to
income tax returns, without regard to privacy laws. Republicans called the
latter provision a mistake, and vowed to repeal it.
	Another part of the massive spending bill will result in nearly
100,000 college students losing all of their federal grants to go to
school. Another million students could lose some of their federal grant
funding.

[9. LATIN AMERICA] During a brief visit to Columbia Monday, President Bush
vowed to increase the amount of aid Washington provides to Colombia and to
continue Plan Columbia. The Washington Post reports Bush's visit was
designed to showcase the benefits of talking tough on terrorism and being
an ally of the United States. Colombia already receives more US aid than
any nation outside the Middle East despite concerns from human rights
groups.
	Newly released CIA documents show the Bush administration knew
about the plot to overthrow Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez weeks before
the 2002 military coup. Until now the Bush administration has claimed it
had no role in the failed coup and didn't know one was being planned.
Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archives said "This is substantive
evidence that the CIA knew in advance about the coup, and it is clear that
this intelligence was distributed to dozens of members of the Bush
administration, giving them knowledge of coup plotting."
	Meanwhile in Spain, the country's new foreign minister, Miguel
Angel Moratinos, has accused the former Spanish government headed by Jose
Maria Aznar of backing the 2002 coup in Venezuela.

[10. MIDDLE EAST] Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned for life
by the Israelis, agreed not to run against PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas in the
Jan. 9 election for the Palestinian presidency, in which the two risked
splitting the Fatah vote. In return, Fatah agreed to hold internal
elections (on Aug. 4).
	The group Human Rights Watch has called on the Illinois-based
company Caterpillar Inc. to immediately stop selling its D9 bulldozer to
the Israeli army. The group claims the vehicles are being used to level
the homes of Palestinians in violation of international humanitarian law.
[DN]
	Meanwhile the Israeli government has launched an investigation
into a report by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot that Israeli
soldiers have routinely desecrated the bodies of dead Palestinians and
took "trophy photos" of the corpses. In one case soldiers posed for
pictures with the head of a suicide bomber. In another instance, soldiers
bound the body of an unarmed Palestinian to the hood of a jeep.

  ==============================================================
  C. G. Estabrook
  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   
  <www.newsfromneptune.com> <www.carlforcongress.org>
  ===============================================================
  People who work hard to keep food on the table  
  and are deluged with propaganda from infancy 
  trying to get them to max out half a dozen credit cards 
  to satisfy "wants" that are largely constructed 
  by huge industries devoted to that purpose, 
  cannot be expected to carry out individual research projects 
  on every topic, or any topic. If people don't know the facts, 
  that's our fault: we've failed as organizers and activists. 
  So let's do more about it, instead of blaming people 
  for what they do not do on their own -- 
  which would not be easy, by any means.  --Noam Chomsky
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