[Peace] News notes 2005-02-20

[C. G. Estabrook]

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	Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism,"
	for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, February 20, 2005.
	(Sources provided on request; a paragraph followed
	by a bracketed source is substantially verbatim.)
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	"I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the
	oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there
	will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and
	equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of
	exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash but
	I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin."
	--attributed to Malcolm X; February 21, 2005, is the 40th
	anniversary of his assassination

[1. IRAQ] At least 8 suicide bombings killed more than 90 people on this
weekend of the major Shia holiday, Ashura. The NYT reports that two of the
bombers "had black skin" and were probably Sudanese. On this holiday a
year ago, about 200 were killed in suicide attacks.  The most interesting
comment comes from the WP, which reports that Shiites "defied the bombs
and surged back into their mosques, vowing not to retaliate."
	Ibrahim Jaafari, interim vice president and head of the pro-Iran
Dawa party, may be the Shi'ite choice for Iraqi prime minister.  Another
candidate is the Pentagon/Neocon favorite Ahmed Chalabi.
	The WSJ reports, amazingly, that the US is encouraging the growth
of private armies in Iraq, run by tribal leaders, government ministers,
etc. -- what in Afghanistan are called warlords.
	US Marines and Iraqi troops set up checkpoints and imposed an 8 pm
to 6 am curfew on the Sunni city of Ramadi on Sunday. Time magazine
reports this weekend that secret negotiations are going on between the US
military in Iraq and elements of the resistance.
	Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said on Sunday that setting a
timetable for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq "would be a mistake ... We
don't want to send a signal to the insurgents, to the terrorists, that we
are going to be out of here at some date certain.  I think that would be
like a green light to go ahead and just bide your time ... it is not in
America's interests for the Iraqi government, the experiment in freedom
and democracy, to fail," she said, echoing the SOTU speech almost exactly.
But Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said on Sunday a goal for a pullout would
would show the US did not want to be an occupier. "It doesn't mean you
have to stick to it, you don't have a specific timetable, it just sends an
important signal that we are not there forever," she said on CNN,
representing the liberal fringe of Democratic opinion as Clinton
represents the mainstream.

[2. GWOT] Al Qaeda's deputy leader said in a videotape broadcast on Sunday
that governments could not stop al Qaeda attacks and that the security of
the West depended on respect for Islam and an end to aggression against
Muslims.  Ayman al-Zawahri said in the tape broadcast by satellite
television Al Jazeera "Western nations' ... real security lies in
cooperating with the Muslim nation on the basis of respect and ending
aggression. Your new crusader campaign will end, God willing, in defeat as
did those that preceded it but after the deaths of tens of thousands, the
destruction of your economy and exposing you in the pages of history," he
added. Zawahri noted that his comments came three years after the first
prisoners were taken from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
	Bush's new CIA chief tells a Senate committee that the war in Iraq
is recruiting terrorists. Meanwhile, SOD Rumsfeld shows his contempt
(quite appropriate) for Congress in testimony before a House committee.
	Up to 1,000 children may have died in one Afghan province over the
past few weeks under the regime we established (or not) there.
	North Korea said Saturday it will return to six-party talks on its
nuclear program -- as the US demanded -- if the United States pledges to
stay out of its domestic affairs.
	An Australian Scientist describes how the U.S. censored his WMD
Reports before the Iraq war, as a US missile defense test fails again, for
the second time in 2 months.  Canadian media report that "Britain's
biggest nuclear site can't account for 30 kilograms of plutonium -- enough
to make seven or eight nuclear bombs. But officials with the U.K. Atomic
Energy Authority said Thursday that it's a measurement problem and the
plutonium is not really missing." [CBC].  Meanwhile, Greenpeace Activists
Storm Petroleum Exchange (London) as the Kyoto treaty comes into effect,
without the participation of the US.
	The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security
releases an audit of the federal government's grants to upgrade port
security, which shows that less than a quarter of the $517 million
allocated has actually been spent, and that much of the money has gone to
"nonessential projects."  Grants went to such improbable terrorist targets
as St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, Martha's Vineyard, "and six locations
in Arkansas, none of which appeared to meet the grant eligibility
requirements." (Arkansas is land-locked, but the DHS undersecretary for
border and transportation security is Asa Hutchinson, who is resigning to
run for governor of Arkansas.)
	The Scum Also Rises: John Negroponte is appointed Director
National Intelligence this week; he's reported to have been the
administration's fourth choice.  His credentials as a murderer and
torturer were established as US ambassador to Honduras during the Reagan
wars in Central America, from which he graduated to UN ambassador and then
to the head of the world's largest US embassy, in Baghdad. He was reported
desperate to leave that particular sinking ship.
	NPR reports that Negroponte's confirmation hearings have been
"contentious" -- because of "strong feelings" by Republicans and
Democrats.  "Public" radio then immediately goes to a story on Rep. Tim
Johnson's "Civility Caucus"!
	The Senate meanwhile confirms Michael Chertoff, 98-0 as the new
Director of Homeland Security, in spite of his involvement in the
administration's torture policy.

[3. TORTURE] The Guardian/UK in a important article says that the story of
the US torture policy is becoming clear, but that's not true in the US
media.
	The AP reports how an Iraqi died while hanging from wrists at Abu
Ghraib.  The CIA crucified him -- their term for it, remarkably enough, is
"Palestinian hanging" -- and his corpse was photographed with grinning
U.S. soldiers.  There was also a story this week of a 'Detainee Blinded at
Guantanamo.' Perhaps because of such "negative publicity," the C.I.A. said
in the NYT this week that it wants out of Gulag business, perhaps another
turn in the Pentagon/CIA war. Meanwhile, four former private security
contractors (i.e., mercenaries) who worked in Iraq have told NBC News that
they witnessed private contractors kill innocent Iraqi civilians; one
said, "I didn't want any part of an organization that deliberately murders
children and innocent civilians."
	A German news magazine reports that the US stands accused of
kidnapping German citizen to Afghanistan.  There have been similar reports
in other European media. The ACLU calls for special counsel to investigate
torture, given new AG Gonzales' conflict of interest.
	New evidence has emerged that US forces in Afghanistan engaged in
widespread Abu Ghraib-style abuse, taking "trophy photographs" of
detainees and carrying out rape and sexual humiliation.  Such abuses took
place in the main detention centre at Bagram, near the capital Kabul, as
well as at a smaller US installation near the southern city of Kandahar.
Also, an Iraqi detained at Tikrit in September 2003 was forced to withdraw
his report of abuse after soldiers told him he would be held indefinitely.
Meanwhile, photographs taken in southern Afghanistan showing US soldiers
from the 22nd Infantry Battalion posing in mock executions of blindfolded
and bound detainees, were purposely destroyed after the Abu Ghraib scandal
to avoid "another public outrage." The Iraqi detainee claims that three US
interrogators in civilian clothing dislocated his arms, stuck an unloaded
gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, choked him with a rope until he
lost consciousness, and beat him with a baseball bat. The detainee
withdrew his charges on November 23, 2003. He says he was told: "You will
stay in the prison for a long time, and you will never get out until you
are 50 years old."  In December the US said eight prisoners had died in
its custody in Afghanistan. In a separate case, two former prisoners of
the US in Afghanistan have come forward with claims against their American
captors. In sworn affidavits to a British-American human rights lawyer, a
Palestinian says he was sodomised by American soldiers in Afghanistan.
Another former prisoner of US forces, a Jordanian, describes a form of
torture which involved being hung in a cage from a rope for days.

[4. IRAN & SYRIA] It's not clear who set off the massive bomb in Beirut on
Monday that killed former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri and other people. It
doesn't seem in Syria's interest to do so, but it would be in Israeli and
US interests to do so in their campaign against Syria.  The CIA has set
off bombs that killed civilians in Beirut before, and the Mossad (Israeli
spy agency) has recently killed people with bombs in the Syrian capital.
	Iran has vowed to back Syria against "challenges and threats"
after a meeting this week. The US has accused Tehran of seeking nuclear
weapons and has withdrawn its envoy to Damascus. US Secretary of State
Rice told a Senate foreign affairs committee hearing that the decision to
recall the ambassador was a culmination of a "long series of problems"
with Syria -- notably allegations that Damascus has harboured Iraqi
insurgents and allowed them to cross into Iraq to fight against US troops.
US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, visiting Beirut for
Hariri's funeral on Wednesday, called for a "complete and immediate
withdrawal" of the 14,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon. [BBC]
	AS Bush goes to Europe, the US is pushing European countries to
list the Lebanese political party Hezbollah -- it has several seats in
parliament -- as a terrorist organization, a Neocon/Israeli goal since the
Hezbollah militia forced the end of Israeli occupation of southern
Lebanon.
	Israel announced this week that Iran will know how to build bomb
in 6 months, but Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the UN's International Atomic
Energy Agency, said that there's no new evidence of nukes in Iran in the
last 6 months -- so the the US will try to get him kicked out of his job
at the end of this month.
	CNN ran the same photo purporting to show nuclear facilities in
both Iran and North Korea ... the photo -- labeled "Iraq-nuclear.jpg" --
was also used in a U.S. government-funded news organization's report on
North Korea's nuclear program. [Cursor]
	Russia will sign a deal with Iran next week to start nuclear fuel
shipments for the Russian-built reactor there, an Iranian official said on
Thursday. [Reuters] Earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry confirmed it was
discussing the possibility of selling short-range anti-aircraft missiles
to Syria.

[5. HAITI] Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and other supporters of
ousted ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide were taken from Haiti's main
prison on Saturday and possibly lynched.

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   C. G. Estabrook <www.newsfromneptune.com>
   "News from Neptune" (Saturdays 10-11AM), and
   "From Bard to Verse: A Program of the Spoken Arts"
   (Saturdays noon-1PM) on WEFT, Champaign, 90.1 FM,
   Community Radio for East Central Illinois
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