[Peace] News notes 2005-05-08 (fwd)

[C. G. Estabrook]

[I find that last week's list didn't get posted. Sorry, CGE]

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        Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism,"
        for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, May 8, 2005.
        (Sources provided on request; a paragraph followed
        by a bracketed source is substantially verbatim.)
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[1. OCCUPATION] Eight days of insurgent violence have left more than 270
dead. More than 120 people -- including 11 Americans -- were killed last
weekend in a wave of car bombings, ambushes and drive-by shootings. Last
Sunday marked the second-year-anniversary of President Bush's Mission
Accomplished speech. Since then, nearly 1,600 coalition troops and tens of
thousands of Iraqis have been killed. Agence France Press is reporting 567
Iraqis were killed last month alone. This marks an increase of almost 50
percent over the number killed in March. A Saturday morning bombing in
Baghdad killed at least 22 people, including a group of schoolgirls from a
nearby Catholic school -- bringing the death toll to 300 in nine days. Two
Americans were among the dead. [Slate]
	Guerrillas in Baghdad targeted a convoy of vehicles of the sort
used by notables with a massive bomb that tossed armored SUVs about like
toys, and left 29 dead and 54 wounded, as a small mushroom cloud billowed
into the sky. Few commentators, when they mention such news, point out the
obvious. The United States military does not control Baghdad. It doesn't
control the major roads leading out of the capital. It does not control
the downtown area except possibly the heavily barricaded "green zone." It
does not control the capital. The guerrillas strike at will, even at Iraqi
notables who can afford American security guards (many of them e.g.
ex-Navy Seals). Responsibility for the attack was claimed by Mesopotamian
al-Qaeda, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. [I think the Baathists and old
Iraqi military are behind most of these attacks, not Zarqawi.] A pamphlet
attributed to Zarqawi is circulating in Baghdad, that threatens an attack
on the American homeland. The pamphlet was distributed at Friday prayers
at several mosques in Baghdad. The pamphlets called for a jihad or holy
war against the Americans and the new Iraqi security forces. One said,
"The infidels can expect nothing from us save the sounds of weapons and
explosions, until they depart from our land and leave us to live in
accordance with our Holy Law. And we shall chase them to their land, so
that they will pay the poll tax as a subject population." President Jalal
Talabani, meeting in Amman with King Abdullah II of Jordan, said that the
two had agreed on joint security measures targeting Zarqawi's group
(actually named Monotheism and Holy War), which threatens both countries.
This also according to al-Hayat. There was severe tension between Iraqi
Shiites and Jordanian Sunnis earlier this year when it was alleged that a
Jordanian suicide bomber targeted Hilla. Fear of radical Salafis (Sunni
fundamentalists), it was being alleged, was a platform for good
governmental relations between Jordan and the new Iraq. [Juan Cole]
	Knight Ridder reports on "beatings and intimidation of Iraqi
reporters" by Iraqi security forces.

[2. WAR] A memorandum revealeed in the course of the British election
should lead to the impeachment of Bush and Cheney: "...the intelligence
and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with
the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi
regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the
aftermath after military action." --Sir Brian Dearlove, head of MI6,
reporting on Iraq war plans in Washington, a year before the invasion, in
a secret British government memorandum, 23 July 2002. [Timesonline]
	Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer questions
about a secret US-UK agreement to attack Iraq. In the letter, Conyers and
other members say they are disappointed the mainstream media has not
touched the revelations. "Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the
United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride"
to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers
writes. "The London Times reports that the British government and the
United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002,
before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had
discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so. The Times
reports, based on a newly discovered document, that in 2002 British Prime
Minister Tony Blair chaired a meeting in which he expressed his support
for "regime change" through the use of force in Iraq and was warned by the
nation's top lawyer that such an action would be illegal," he adds. "Blair
also discussed the need for America to "create" conditions to justify the
war." [RawStory]

[3. TORTURE] Pakistani authorities have captured Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the
alleged Al-Qaeda number three. [WT]
	On Wednesday the Pakistani government gave the media a picture of
his discolored, apparently beaten, face.  A lecturer from Harvard's
ridiculous "Kennedy School of Government" tells NPR that it's good that he
remains in Pakistanic hands rather than American custody because Pakistani
intelligence is more "nimble" and "they don't have to provide lawyers, the
way we do" [sic]; of course, she says, "American agents will be involved
in the interrogation."
	Now the London Times suggests that Abu al-Faraj al-Libi is being
confused with Anas al-Libi, a mastermind of the 1998 US embassy bombings
in East Africa. Abu al-Faraj the Libyan, some observers suggest, is a
third-tier al-Qaeda member largely known for involvement in recent plots
to assassinate Pakistani Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Lamb and Shehzad go so far
as to speculate that the US and the Pakistani governments are deliberately
hyping the significance of the arrest to give the impression of great
progress in the "war on terror."

[4. MILITARY] The Pentagon's top general, Richard Myers, gave Congress a
report Monday acknowledging that he US army is stretched thin. [NYT, LAT]
Meanwhile, other officials were saying that the US is unprepared for nuke
attack. [WP]
	US defence budget will equal rest of world combined "within 12
months" The US defence budget reached US$417.4 billion in 2003 -- 46 per
cent of the global total. [janes.com]
	The 368-58 roll call Thursday by which the House approved an $82
billion spending bill, mostly for military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Rep. Johnson of course voted for it. Only three Republicans
voted againts it. Illinois Democrats -- Bean, Y; Costello, Y; Davis, N;
Emanuel, Y; Evans, Y; Gutierrez, N; Jackson, Y; Lipinski, Y; Rush, Y;
Schakowsky, N.
	U.S. Marines landed on Somalia's coast in one of their most
visible hunts for militants in the country since they set up a Horn of
Africa counter terrorism force in 2002, Somali officials said on Thursday.

[5. TERRORISM] Despite spending 4.5 billion dollars on screening devices,
the inspector general of the DHS says that the likelihood of detecting a
hidden weapon or bomb has not significantly changed since 2002, when the
federal government assumed control of airport screening. Turns out, the
equipment bought by the government to monitor the country's ports,
airports, mail, and air is largely ineffective, unreliable, or too costly
to operate. Because of a glitch in the design of one device, termed a
"dumb sensor" by officials at Newark Airport, cat litter may set off an
alarm, but highly enriched uranium may not. The department is expected to
spend another $7 billion to upgrade its technology. [Slate]

[6. LOOTING] The last 58.5 million acres of untouched national forests,
which President Clinton had set aside for protection, were opened to
possible logging, mining and other commercial uses by the Bush
administration on Thursday. New rules from the U.S. Forest Service cover
some of the most pristine federal land in 38 states and Puerto Rico. [AP]

[7. MEDIA] The WP reports that Al Jazeera is increasing its coverage of
growing reform movements in Kuwait, Egypt, and Morocco; airing hours of
footage of street protests in Lebanon, as well as the Palestinian and
Iraqi elections. Although the Post begins the article by claiming this new
focus is a "boon" for Bush and the new propaganda line for Mid-East
democratization, it later quotes an anonymous senior State Department
official as saying, "It's still the enemy. It still does stupid things."
But Qatar is drawing up plan to sell off al-Jazeera ... because of
pressure from the US and a de facto advertising boycott by Arab countries
offended by its critical coverage ...
	The New York Times is reporting that the Republican chairman of
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- Kenneth Tomlinson -- is
aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other
conservatives consider liberal bias. The CPB is a private, nonprofit
entity financed by Congress to ensure the vitality of public television
and radio. A number of former Bush administration employees now have top
positions at the CPB. In March, Tomlinson hired the director of the White
House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member. And Ken
Ferree, a former top aide to Michael Powell at the Federal Communications
Commission, is now the acting president of the CPB. In addition, the Times
reports that Tomlinson hired an outside consultant last year to keep track
of the political leanings of guests on the program Now With Bill Moyers.
The consultant was asked to place the program's guests in categories like
"anti-Bush," "anti-business" and "anti-Tom DeLay," In December 2003, three
months after he was elected chair Tomlinson sent the head of PBS - Pat
Mitchell -- a letter charging that Moyers' show "does not contain anything
approaching the balance the law requires for public broadcasting." At the
same time, Tomlinson was encouraging public broadcasters to begin
broadcasting a weekly show hosted by the editor of the conservative
editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.
	On the subject of rapid and total withdrawal from Iraq ... Al
Franken and most of the rest of Air America Radio ... omit any mention of
the topic. Their attitude to grass roots opposition to the war is the same
-- bury it. And compared to Franken's favorite topics, that is the ones
sanctioned by the Democratic establishment, for example, the corrupt
practices of Tom DeLay, the war in Iraq which is laying waste an entire
country and claiming tens of thousands of lives, takes a back seat ...
Each week the conservative, John McLaughlin, on his PBS program tracks the
Iraqis killed and the Americans killed and wounded in Iraq. No such
segment exists on Franken's program - nor on any other Air American Radio
program ... the conservative McLaughlin provides a more biting critique of
the war than Franken and his cronies can muster ... Franken is simply a
Democratic partisan, a pitiful hack at heart.  [CP]

[8. COURTS] Pvt. Lynndie England (of the leash fame) pled guilty to
abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib ... As the Post notes, the judge nearly
didn't accept England's plea after England said she had been ordered to
pose with the prisoner and didn't know what she had done wrong. The court
adjourned for a bit, England's lawyer gave her a talking to, and England
returned to say her actions were "not only morally wrong but legally
wrong. I had a choice, but I chose what my friends wanted me to do."
[Slate]

[9. POLLS] Only 41% say the war in Iraq was worth it; 57% say it wasn't.
Support for the decision to go to war in Iraq has fallen to its lowest
level since the invasion began in March 2003, according to a USA
TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll released Tuesday.  That's a 35-percentage-point drop
from the high in '03.  Public support peaked as Saddam Hussein's regime
fell in 2003 when 76% of those polled said the war was worth it. [USAT]
	Last Sunday, May 1, millions around the world marked International
Workers Day or May Day. In Cuba, up to hundreds of thousands gathered in
the Plaza of the Revolution. Cuban president Fidel Castro took the
occasion to criticize the United States for allowing Cuban exile Luis
Posada Carriles to enter the country even though he has been tied to the
bombing of a commercial airliner in 1976. In other May Day events, some
500,000 people took to the streets of Germany. Police reported making 100
arrests there. In Japan, hundreds of thousands rallied to call for a
global ban on nuclear weapons. 60 years ago this summer the United States
dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A large anti-nuclear rally
was also held in New York ahead of this week's gathering at the United
Nations to review the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And in
Nepal, 10,000 people took to the streets of Kathmandu in the largest
pro-democracy march since King Gyanendra seized complete power in
February.
	...According to the American Religious Identification Survey,
Americans who answer "none" when asked to identify their religion numbered
29.4 million in 2001, more than double the 14.3 million in 1990. If
unbelievers had their own state -- the state of None -- its population
would be more than twice that of New England's six states, and None would
be the nation's second-largest state: California, 34.5 million. None, 29.4
million. Texas, 21.3 million ... Unbelievers should not cavil about this
acknowledgment of majority sensibilities. But Republicans should not seem
to require, de facto, what the Constitution forbids, de jure: "No
religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or
public Trust." [G. Will]

[10. EU] "Do all you can to prevent France from betraying progress!" This
is the message German intellectuals call out in an open letter to their
French colleagues, printed today in the SZ and yesterday in the French
paper Le Monde. --Wolf Biermann, poète et chanteur ; Hans Christoph Buch,
écrivain ; Günter Grass, écrivain, Prix Nobel de littérature ; Jürgen
Habermas, philosophe ; Klaus Harpprecht, écrivain, ancien conseiller de
Willy Brandt ; Alexander Kluge, cinéaste ; Michael Naumann, écrivain et
ex-ministre délégué à la culture ; Peter Schneider, écrivain ; Gesine
Schwan, présidente de l'université européenne Viadrina ; Armin Zweite,
historien d'art ; Werner Spiess, historien d'art et ancien directeur du
Musée national d'Art moderne de paris.

[11. ISRAEL] Wednesday, Pentagon analyst and Iran specialist Larry A.
Franklin was arrested by the FBI. The charge: turning over classified U.S.
government documents to two operatives of the American Israeli Political
Affairs Committee (AIPAC), longtime policy director Steve Rosen and his
deputy Keith Weissman ... It's no accident that Franklin was part of the
Pentagon policy shop presided over by DoD undersecretary Douglas Feith,
who also presided over the infamous "Office of Special Plans" – which
was set up to funnel misinformation about Iraq's nonexistent "weapons of
mass destruction" and lie us into war. [Antiwar.com]
	Hundreds of left-wing protesters demonstrated in Tel Aviv on
Thursday evening against the Israel Defense Forces' killing Wednesday of
two Palestinian youths in the West Bank. The two teenagers were shot dead
near the village of Beit Likia, west of Ramallah, during a protest against
the construction of the separation fence in the area. [Haaretz]

[12. NK] U.S. government officials are monitoring recent satellite
photographs of North Korea that appear to show extensive preparations for
a nuclear weapons test, according to a report in the New York Times.
[Reuters] Mohamed ElBaradei said a test would have "disastrous political
and environmental consequences". [BBC]

[13. RUSSIA] A group of politicians, academics and human rights
campaigners have signed an open letter attacking Russia's record on
democracy and political freedom. They claim official ceremonies to be held
in Moscow undermine the memory of those who fought and died in the war.
Signatories include ex-Czech President Vaclav Havel and former US
ambassadors. The Project on Transitional Democracies, which drafted the
letter, is a neocon operation, a spin-off of PNAC.  That fact was omitted
from the BBC coverage, and elsewhere.

[14. UK] In what one paper called a "joyless victory," on Thursday the
Labour party won a third consecutive term for the first time, but with
less of the vote than any victorious party (37%) and a reduced majority
(~65, down from ~165 in the ~650 member house of Commons), apparently
owing largely to the Iraq war and the government's lies about it.  
Turnout was at American levels (61%, up 2% from 2001's record low), so
Tony Blair got a smaller percentage of the potential votes (22%) than
George Bush (31%); almost 4 out of 5 Brits did not vote for him. George
Galloway, expelled from the Labour party for his opposition to the Iraq
war, defeated a Labour incumbent in East London.
	In the north of Ireland, the moderate parties (UUP and SDLP) lost
ground to the militant ones (DUP and Sinn Fein). Unionist David Trimble, a
Nobel laureate, lost his seat in the British parliament. The Ulster
Unionist Party (UUP) he leads, the dominant force in Northern Ireland
politics for most of the province's history, was left with just one seat
as the Democratic Unionists (DUP) of firebrand preacher Ian Paisley ate
into its support.  The DUP had increased its representation in the British
parliament from six seats to nine. Sinn Fein, whose members do not take up
their seats, won five, up from four last time.

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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--
          "The Religious Left: Theology and Politics" and
         "Chomsky and Friends" (occasionally Mondays 6-7pm)
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