[Peace] News notes 2005-01-30

[C. G. Estabrook]

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        Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism" [GWOT],
        for the (canceled) AWARE meeting, Sunday, January 30, 2005.
        (Sources provided on request; a paragraph followed by a
        bracketed source is substantially verbatim.)
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WE BRING THEM DEMOCRACY. The weekend of the American-staged Iraqi election
(on the anniversary of the Tet Offensive, 1968, the turning point tin the
US assault on Vietnam) began with Reuters' reporting that a rocket hit the
US embassy in Baghdad, killing two Americans.
	The US military preparations for holding the election is called
"Operation Founding Fathers" [sic].  It involves moving Iraqi security
forces and materials to voting sites, enforcing a "no roll" vehicular ban,
and filling the cities with tanks, Apache attack helicopters, and combat
jets in a show of force. The NYT notes the beginning of a nationwide 7pm.
curfew. Meanwhile, five American soldiers were killed by roadside bombs
and small arms fire. The puppet Iraqi president admits that most Iraqis
won't vote.
	In mainstream newspapers, only the comic strip Doonesbury is
discussing the fact that "the US is building permanent bases throughout
Iraq, digging in for the long haul," regardless of the outcome of the
elections.

WE BRING THEM FREEDOM. More civilians have been killed by "coalition
forces" than by the Iraqi resistance in the last six months, according to
Iraq's Ministry of Health. In the six months ending 1 January 2005, 3,274
Iraqi civilians were killed. Of those deaths, 60% -- 2,041 civilians --
were killed by the coalition and Iraqi security forces. Insurgent attacks
claimed 1,233 lives, and wounded 4,115 people, during the same period.

WE BRING THEM CIVILIZATION. An ex-officer describes lewd tactics at
Guantanamo.  Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the
US. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with sexual touching, by wearing
a miniskirt and thong underwear, rubbing a prisoner's back with her
breasts and in one case, smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual
blood, according to an insider's written account.

AND OF COURSE WE TORTURE THEM. Michael Chertoff, who has been picked by
President Bush to be the homeland security secretary, advised the Central
Intelligence Agency on the legality of coercive interrogation methods on
terror suspects under the federal anti-torture statute, current and former
administration officials said this week. Depending on the circumstances,
he told the intelligence agency, some coercive methods could be legal, but
he advised against others, the officials said. Mr. Chertoff's previously
undisclosed involvement in evaluating how far interrogators could go took
place in 2002-3 when he headed the Justice Department's criminal division.
The advice came in the form of responses to agency inquiries asking
whether C.I.A. employees risked being charged with crimes if particular
interrogation techniques were used on specific detainees. One technique
that C.I.A. officers could use under certain circumstances without fear of
prosecution was strapping a subject down and making him experience a
feeling of drowning. Other practices that would not present legal problems
were those that did not involve the infliction of pain, like tricking a
subject into believing he was being questioned by a member of a security
service from another country. But in other instances Mr. Chertoff opposed
some aggressive procedures outright, the officials said. At one point,
they said, he raised serious objections to methods that he concluded would
clearly violate the torture law. While the details remain classified, one
method that he opposed appeared to violate a ban in the law against using
a "threat of imminent death." ... Mr. Chertoff's division said that
whether the techniques were not allowed depended on the standards outlined
in an August 2002 memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel that has
since been disclosed and which defined torture narrowly. That memorandum,
signed by Jay S. Bybee, then the head of the legal counsel's office, said
inflicted pain, for example, qualified as torture only if it was of a
level equivalent to organ failure or imminent death. The officials said
that when the agency asked about specific practices, Mr. Bybee responded
with a second memorandum, which is still classified. They said it said
many coercive practices were permissible if they met the narrow definition
in the first memorandum.
	The C.I.A. was seeking to determine the legal limits of
interrogation practices in cases like that of Abu Zubaydah, the Qaeda
lieutenant captured in March 2002. The officials said Mr. Chertoff was
directly involved in these discussions, in effect, evaluating the legality
of techniques proposed by the C.I.A. by advising the agency whether its
employees could go ahead with proposed interrogation methods without fear
of prosecution. Mr. Chertoff is scheduled to appear on Wednesday before
the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. Senators
have said that Mr. Chertoff, a highly respected former prosecutor, will
have little difficulty being confirmed.

THEY SEEM TO GET THE IDEA. North Korea appears to have bought a complete
nuclear weapon from either Pakistan or a former Soviet Union state, a
South Korean newspaper said today, quoting a source in Washington.

BUT ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE. Activists for a more equitable
globalisation on Wednesday inaugurated the fifth annual World Social Forum
in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Launched as a challenge to the World Economic
Forum in Davos, its original purpose was to discuss alternatives to
neo-liberal thought and proposals for a more just world order. In recent
years participants in both forums have debated intensely via live
satellite video links. One debate ended in mutual insults and shouting.

WE ARE THE MAJORITY. A recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Jan.
14-16, finds a slight majority of Americans, 52%, saying it was a mistake
to send troops to Iraq. Forty-seven percent say it was not a mistake.
Earlier in the month, Americans were more divided about the war in Iraq,
with 50% saying it was a mistake and 48% saying it was not. These results
show a slight increase since mid-November in the percentage saying it was
a mistake to send troops. In previous polling conducted from the beginning
of October through mid-November, the percentage of Americans who said it
was a mistake to send troops ranged from 44% to 48%. Attitudes on Iraq, as
measured by this question, have varied throughout the past year. In late
June and early July, for example, a majority of Americans (54% in two
consecutive surveys) believed it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq.
Earlier in 2004, a majority of Americans -- ranging from 54% to 58% --
said it was not a mistake to send troops.
	Half of Americans say the United States should either send more
troops (24%) or maintain the current level of troops (26%). Forty-six
percent say the country should withdraw some or all of the troops. Gallup
has asked Americans this question numerous times since the beginning of
the Iraq war in March 2003. Over the past year, Americans showed a slight
tendency to support sending more troops or keeping the troop level the
same.
	Gallup's Jan. 7-9 poll found that only 42% of Americans approve of
the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, while a majority of
Americans, 56%, disapprove. The 56% disapproval rating is the highest Bush
has received since June of last year.

BUT THEY ARE THE GOVERNMENT. The U.S. Senate voted 85-13 Wednesday to
confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. Here are the 13 senators
who voted against her confirmation:
	Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
	Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
	Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
	John Kerry, D-Mass.
	Carl Levin, D-Mich.
	James Jeffords, I-Vt.
	Jack Reed, D-R.I
	Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
	Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii
	Evan Bayh, D-Ind.
	Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
	Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
	Richard Durbin, D-Ill.
	(No Obama, Clinton, Schumer, Biden, ...)
	In the history of the United States, the Senate has NEVER rejected
a Secretary of State nominee.  Since 1789, only nine nominees to the
position of Secretary of State have received votes AGAINST their
confirmation; Rice is the first secretary of state since 1981 not to win
unanimous confirmation.  Henry Kissinger was approved 78-7, Dean Acheson
83-6 and Alexander Haig 93-6.
	On the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
suggested Democrats were sore losers. "I wonder why we are starting this
new Congress with a protracted debate about a foregone conclusion,"  
McCain said. Since Rice is qualified for the job, he said, "I can only
conclude that we are doing this for no other reason than because of
lingering bitterness over the outcome of the election."
	The Senate debates the nomination of Condoleezza Rice: "I really
don't like being lied to repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally," said
Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota.

AND THEY CONTROL THE MONEY. White House increased its estimate of the
current budget deficit to $427 billion, $15 billion more than last year.
The president earlier promised to halve the deficit by the end of his
term. The higher than forecast red ink is partially a result of war
appropriations. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office put out a
similar deficit estimate yesterday. As a percentage of GNP, the deficit is
a bit lower than last year and much lower than the Reagan-era budget. The
money allocated for the war(s) -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- has been going
up a bit each year: $78.6 billion in 2003, $88 billion in 2004, and now
$105 billion ($80 billion newly requested plus $20 billion already in the
pipeline).
	The Bush administration plans to announce as early as Tuesday that
it will seek about $80 billion in new funding for military operations this
year in Iraq and Afghanistan, pushing the total for both conflicts to
almost $300 billion so far. The NYT: "One military expert who has been
briefed by the Pentagon said on Tuesday that part of the $80 billion would
be used to establish more permanent military bases in Iraq, assuming the
new Iraqi government permits" it. Knight Ridder notices that the Shiite
coalition likely to win the election has backtracked from saying it will
demand a deadline for the U.S. to withdraw. The second item on its
campaign platform used to call for "setting a timetable for the
withdrawal." Now it says, "The Iraq we want is capable of protecting its
borders and security without depending on foreign forces."

WHAT WE CAN DO. Editorials in both the Post and NYT urge senators to vote
down Alberto Gonzales' nomination for attorney general. After noting that
Gonzales was "vague, unresponsive and misleading" during his hearing, the
WP says he was much clearer in his followup written responses: "According
to President Bush's closest legal adviser, this administration continues
to assert its right to indefinitely hold foreigners in secret locations
without any legal process; to deny them access to the International Red
Cross; to transport them to countries where torture is practiced; and to
subject them to treatment that is 'cruel, inhumane or degrading,' even
though such abuse is banned by an international treaty that the United
States has ratified. In effect, Mr. Gonzales has confirmed that the Bush
administration is violating human rights as a matter of policy."

BUT THEY BUY THE MEDIA. The US wants Qatar to sell Al Jazeera News. The
oil-rich country Qatar may sell the popular and often inflammatory Al
Jazeera television station and web site in order to get the US government
off its back.
	Syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher got $21,500 for doing
ghostwriting and consulting on the White House's marriage initiative,
which she also pushed in some columns, without of course mentioning the
money. Now that it's revealed, she writes in a column: "I should have
disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage
initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it."

AN EVEN LESS FREE COUNTRY. The [British] government will not release the
official guidance it received about the potential legality of the Iraq war
under a new freedom of information law. When the Freedom of Information
Act came into force on January 1, a series of media and political
organisations submitted requests to see the guidance issued by the
government's top legal officer, Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith.
Opponents of the US-led, British-backed war of March 2003 have long sought
access to the guidance, saying they doubted the legality of the conflict
under international statutes. A request to see the advice lodged by the
Press Association had been refused, as the information was exempt from the
act, a government official said in a letter. [AFP]

BUT WE JUSTIFY TORTURE. Investigative files released Tuesday by the
American Civil Liberties Union suggest that the Army failed to
aggressively investigate allegations of detainee abuse. Some of the
investigations concern serious allegations of torture including electric
shocks, forced sodomy and severe physical beatings.  Army personnel have
admitted to beating or threatening to kill Iraqi detainees and stealing
money from Iraqi civilians but have not been charged with criminal
conduct, according to newly released Army documents.
	Twenty months after Saddam Hussein's government was toppled and
its torture chambers unlocked, Iraqis are again being routinely beaten,
hung by their wrists and shocked with electrical wires, according to a
report by Human Rights Watch, released Tuesday.
	Iraqi security forces have been committing widespread torture and
other human rights abuses while US and British authorities turn a blind
eye, according to a report. The commanding officer of three British
soldiers accused of abusing prisoners destroyed his records two weeks
before their court martial, a court has heard. [bbc.co.uk]

CAN WE KILL ENOUGH OF THEM?  Osama bin Laden, believes the way to bring
down a superpower is to weaken its economy through protracted guerilla
warfare. We "bled Russia for ten years until it went bankrupt and was
forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden boasted in his October 2004
videotape. "We are continuing in the same policy to make America bleed
profusely to the point of bankruptcy," said bin Laden. The US military is
planning to keep 120,000 troops in Iraq for the next two years, according
to Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace, Jr. He admitted that the number could
fluctuate depending on the circumstances. I was saying before that I did
not think it wise to announce a strict timetable for US military
withdrawal from Iraq, lest the appointment of a date certain become,
itself, an occasion for instability and violence. I think the troop levels
should be drawn down steadily, without an announcement until perhaps the
very end. But this announcement of a 24-month-long continued military
presence is also unwise. Why would Lt. Gen. Lovelace say this? How can he
know what the will of the new parliament will be, once it meets in mid to
late February? Once there is an elected government, no matter how flawed
the elections, the US will be in Iraq at the pleasure of the
representatives of the Iraqi people. I think it is unfortunate that the US
is saying anything at all about long-term plans just before the election.
If they think they can present the new parliament with a fait accompli
this way, I think they are going to be disappointed. [Juan Cole]
	At the current pace of U.S. deployments to Iraq, the Pentagon may
be hard-pressed by next year to provide enough reserve combat troops
suitable for the mission, judging from the military services own estimates
of available manpower.

POISONING THE WELLS. the Israeli Army has a psy-ops unit that used to be
very active but has been less so recently, and is now being revived. This
psy-ops unit plants articles in the Arab press about groups like Lebanon's
Hizbullah, painting them as vicious terrorists. Then it comes to Israeli
newspaper like Haaretz with translations, and urges that the pieces be
written up for Israeli and Western audiences. But of course the pieces are
reported as originating in the Arab press:
    "The unit's activities have been controversial for years. In October
1999, Aluf Benn revealed in Haaretz that members of the unit used the
Israeli media to emphasize reports initiated by the unit that it managed
to place in the Arab press. He reported that the news reports focused on
Iranian and Hezbollah involvement in terror activity."  So is MEMRI, which
translates articles from the Arabic press into English for thousands of US
subscribers, in any way involved in all this? Its director formerly served
in . . . Israeli military intelligence. How much of what we "know" from
"Arab sources" about "Hizbullah terrorism" was simply made up by this
fantasy factory in Tel Aviv? As someone who reads the Arabic press quite a
lot, this sort of revelation is extremely disturbing. I also saw an
allegation that British military intelligence had planted stories in the
US press about Saddam's Iraq. You begin to wonder how much of what you
think you know is just propaganda manufactured by some bored colonel. No
wonder post-Baath Iraq looks nothing like what we were led to to expect by
the press, including the Arab press! [Juan Cole]

WE SHOULDN'T LET THEM TALK ABOUT IT. THE four Britons held in Guantanamo
Bay fly home as their lawyers prepare to launch a record £30million
compensation claim over their 'illegal' detention. At least two of the men
allege they have been tortured and all four are understood to claim their
human rights were consistently abused during three years in the
controversial camp on Cuba. The claims will form the basis of the biggest
compensation suit so far against the U.S. authorities over alleged torture
and abuse. It will detail a string of what are said to be 'devastating'
allegations over the four men's detention and treatment. Former law
student and father of four Moazzam Begg, 36, from Birmingham, computer
programmer Feroz Abbasi, 24, motorcycle courier Martin Mubanga, 29, and
Richard Belmar, 24, all from London, will be arrested under the Terrorism
Act 2000 after arriving in Britain today on an RAF plane. All have been
extensively interviewed in Guantanamo Bay by MI5 but despite detailed
files, including alleged evidence uncovered by U.S. interrogators, they
are said to be unlikely to face charges in Britain. The U.S. say they
attended Al Qaeda terror camps, volunteered for suicide bombings and
pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden. Begg is said under to have
confessed to a plot to bomb Parliament while Abbasi is alleged to have
volunteered for suicide missions and to have been arrested in the Afghan
frontline town of Kunduz armed with a rifle and two grenades. But any
'evidence' obtained in Camp Delta cannot be used in courts here because
the detainees were not legally represented or formally cautioned. The men
have claimed that admissions they are alleged to have made were extracted
'under duress'.

AND WE SHOULDN'T LET THEM OBJECT. President George W. Bush tried to bully
Canadian officials on missile defence during his visit last month by
linking Canada's participation to future protection from the U.S., the
Washington Post reported Sunday. The newspaper quoted an unidentified
Canadian official who was in the room as saying Bush waved off their
attempts to explain how contentious the issue is for Prime Minister Paul
Martin's minority government. "(Bush) leaned across the table and said:
'I'm not taking this position, but some future president is going to say,
Why are we paying to defend Canada?'" the official was quoted as saying.
"Most of our side was trying to explain the politics, how it was difficult
to do," he said. But Bush "waved his hands and remarked: 'I don't
understand this. Are you saying that if you got up and said this is
necessary for the defence of Canada, it wouldn't be accepted?'" The White
House refused comment on the surprisingly pointed remarks... Martin has
told reporters that Bush's position at the meeting was one of incredulity
that anyone would oppose the system, aimed at knocking out supersonic
missiles launched by terrorists or rogue states. But the Post report
suggests the meeting was far more tense than that. U.S. diplomats had
assured their Canadian counterparts that the prickly issue wouldn't be
raised during Bush's visit. But it came up at the private meeting with
Martin and the president unexpectedly raised it during a major foreign
policy speech in Halifax the next day...  Pentagon officials blamed an
unsuccessful test launch last month on a "minor glitch" in computer
software. They say they may never publicly declare when the shield is
fully ready. [Canadian Press]

THEY'RE JUST TRYING TO GET ATTENTION. Twenty-three terror suspects tried
to hang or strangle themselves at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay
during a mass protest in 2003, the military confirmed Monday. The
incidents came during the same year the camp suffered a rash of suicide
attempts after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller took command of the prison with a
mandate to get more information from prisoners accused of links to
al-Qaida or the ousted Afghan Taliban regime that sheltered it. Between
Aug. 18 and Aug. 26, the 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves
with pieces of clothing and other items in their cells, demonstrating
"self-injurious behavior," the U.S. Southern Command in Miami said in a
statement. Ten detainees made a mass attempt on Aug. 22 alone. U.S.
Southern Command described it as "a coordinated effort to disrupt camp
operations and challenge a new group of security guards from the
just-completed unit rotation." ...  Those incidents were mentioned
casually during a visit earlier this month by three journalists, but
officials then immediately denied there had been a mass suicide attempt.
Further attempts to get details brought a statement Friday night, with
some clarifications provided Monday by military officials at Guantanamo
Bay and the U.S. Southern Command. Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for
Amnesty International's office in Washington, was critical Monday of the
delay in reporting the incident. "When you have suicide attempts or
so-called self-harm incidents, it shows the type of impact indefinite
detention can have, but it also points to the extreme measures the
Pentagon is taking to cover up things that have happened in Guantanamo,"
he said. "What we've seen is that it wasn't simply a rotation of forces
but an attempt to toughen up the interrogation techniques and processes."
Officials said Monday they differentiated between a suicide attempt in
which a detainee could have died without intervention and a "gesture" they
considered aimed only at getting attention. In 2003, there were 350
"self-harm" incidents, including 120 "hanging gestures," according to Lt.
Col. Leon Sumpter, a spokesman for the detention mission. Last year, there
were 110 self-harm incidents, he said.

THE SS BRANCH [SIC]. The Pentagon, edging into foreign spy operations
traditionally handled by the CIA, is now using its own intelligence
support group to work directly with U.S. special forces troops in world
trouble spots, defense officials said on Monday... The Washington Post,
citing Pentagon documents and interviews with participants, reported on
Sunday that Rumsfeld had created the Strategic Support Branch to end "near
total dependence" on the CIA for human intelligence. "There is no unit
that is directly reportable to the secretary of defense [he said
carefully...] for clandestine operations as described in the Post
article," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on
Monday... The Post, citing an early planning document, said the group's
focus was also on Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, the Philippines and Georgia.
Defense Department spokesman Lawrence DiRita said in a statement
responding to the Post article that the war on terrorism necessitated "a
framework by which military forces and traditional human intelligence work
more closely together and in greater numbers than they have in the past."
"It is accurate, and should not be surprising, that the Department of
Defense is attempting to improve its long-standing human intelligence
capability," he said.

AND ON THE HORIZON... Central banks are shifting reserves away from the US
and towards the eurozone in a move that looks set to deepen the Bush
administration's difficulties in financing its ballooning current account
deficit. In actions likely to undermine the dollar's value on currency
markets, 70 per cent of central bank reserve managers said they had
increased their exposure to the euro over the past two years. The majority
thought eurozone money and debt markets were as attractive a destination
for investment as the US. The findings emerge from a survey of central
bank reserve managers published today and conducted between September and
December of last year. About 65 central banks, controlling assets worth
$1,700bn, took part and the results showed a marked change in attitude
over the past two years. Any rebalancing of central bank reserve
portfolios has serious implications for the global financial system as the
US has become increasingly dependent on official flows of funds to finance
its current account deficit, estimated at $650bn in 2004. At the end of
2003, central banks held 70 per cent of their official reserves in
dollar-denominated assets and central bank purchases of US securities had
financed more than 80 per cent of the the US current account deficit in
2003. Any reluctance to increase exposure to dollar assets further could
cause the greenback to plunge on currency markets. "The US cannot take
support for the dollar for granted," said Nick Carver, one of the authors
of the study conducted by Central Banking Publications, a company that
specialises in reporting on central banks. "Central banks' enthusiasm for
the dollar seem to be cooling off." In a further worrying sign for the
greenback, 47 per cent of reserve managers surveyed said they expected the
growth of official reserves to slow to less than 20 per cent over the next
four years. Between the end of 2000 and mid-2004, official reserves had
increased by 66 per cent. Slower reserve accumulation growth implies the
supply of official finance is likely to become more limited but few expect
the demand from the US for finance to slow. The consensus among economists
is that the US current account deficit will increase to $694bn in 2005.
More than 90 per cent of central bank reserve managers said that the
income from reserve management was "important" or "very important". In the
two years since a similar survey was conducted, reserve managers had begun
to seek higher returns for the money under management. For these managers,
dollar assets have become less attractive because the fall in the dollar
since 2002 has reduced the yield they received and, in some cases, has led
to negative real returns. Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal
Reserve, warned in November that there was a limit to the willingness of
foreign governments to finance the US current account deficit. The survey
was conducted on the guarantee of anonymity for the banks involved. The 65
central banks that participated control 45 per cent of global official
reserves. Individually, they had up to $250bn under management. [FT]

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	C. G. Estabrook
	"News from Neptune" (Saturdays 10:00-11:00AM) and
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	www.newsfromneptune.com carl at newsfromneptune.com
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