[Peace] News notes 2005-11-27

[Carl Estabrook]

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        Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism,"
        for the Sunday, 27 November 2005, meeting of AWARE,
        "Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort" of Champaign-Urbana.
        (Sources provided on request; paragraphs followed
	by a bracketed source are substantially verbatim.)
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[1] THE WAR IN IRAQ has caused the death of 2100 U.S. soldiers and has
maimed or wounded another 20,000. The financial cost has topped $400
billion.
	The FBI reported Monday that 139 police officers were killed in
the line of duty in 2004, with guns and traffic accidents claiming the
most lives. [AP] Jeffrey St. Clair points out, "By contrast, police have
killed an average of 373 people per year in shootings alone."

[2] ON A SUNDAY MORNING TV talk show, Seymour Hersh said that President
Bush was living in a religious dreamworld and was incapable of dealing
with reality.  Some evidence for that may be found in the story of Bush's
plan to bomb the TV station Al-Jazeera. located in the US allied state of
Qatar.
	Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper has been ordered to cease
publishing further details from an allegedly top secret memo revealing
that ... Bush wanted to bomb Aljazeera.  The gag order from
Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith came nearly 24 hours after the paper
published details of what it said was a transcript of talks between Bush
and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In those talks, which took
place during the prime minister's April 2004 visit to Washington, Blair is
said to have talked Bush out of launching "military action" on the
television channel's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. "No 10 did nothing to
stop us publishing our front page exclusive yesterday (Tuesday)," the
Daily Mirror said on Wednesday, referring to the British prime minister's
office. But the attorney-general warned that publication of any further
details from the document would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act...
"We are not going to dignify something so outlandish and inconceivable
with a response," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Tuesday.
[Believe nothing until it is officially denied.] Following the Mirror's
report there have been calls to release the transcript. The threat by Bush
also "casts fresh doubt on claims that other attacks on Aljazeera were
accidents", the Mirror said in its report on Tuesday. In November 2001,
Aljazeera's office in Kabul was destroyed by a US missile. None of the
crew was at the office at the time... In April 2003, an Aljazeera
journalist, Tariq Ayub, died when its Baghdad office was struck during a
US bombing campaign. A British civil servant has been charged under the
Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking the government memo. [AJ]

[3] [THE MOST INTERESTING STORY this week was from Cairo, where] Iraqi
political leaders met at a reconciliation conference under the auspices of
the Arab League ... the Cairo conferees, representing a very broad
spectrum of ethnic and religious factions, issued a joint statement that
demanded the withdrawal of foreign forces in accordance with a timetable
[and] acknowledged the legitimacy of resistance to foreign occupation,
while condemning acts of terror against civilians. [NYO] They also called
for the release of prisoners held by the US Iraq without trial or charge.
	[On the scene of the conference, the Egyptian newspaper] Al-Hayat
says that ...the intelligence services of the Arab states, of Iraq, of the
guerrilla movement in Iraq, and of the US, conducted discussions on the
sidelines of the National Reconciliation Conference ... on how to isolate
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his radical Salafi (fundamentalist Sunni) faction
in Iraq.  Iraqi guerrilla groups such as "The Islamic Army," "The Bloc of
Holy Warriors," and "The Revolution of 1920 Brigades" conveyed their
conditions behind the scenes. (Despite the Islamist names of these groups,
they are probably mostly neo-Baathist.) Among their demands are 1) working
to end the foreign occupation, 2) compensation to the Iraqis for the
damages arising from the American invasion; 3) the release of prisoners;
and 4) building political and military institutions that are not
subservient to American and regional influence. [Juan Cole]

[4] IRAQI PRESIDENT JALAL TALABANI has dismissed as "nonsense" the charge
that the country's rights abuses are as bad as they were in Saddam
Hussein's era.  Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi made the
comparison as he called for prompt action on recent torture claims ... Mr
Allawi's remarks have angered the Shias and Kurds, who suffered most under
Saddam, a BBC correspondent says.  Mr Allawi's remarks were published in
an interview with the UK's Observer newspaper on Sunday, as Iraq gears up
for parliamentary elections next month. [BBC}

[5] DEMOCRAT PARTY FECKLESSNESS was on display again this morning on the
TV talk shows. Sen. Joseph Biden, who said that he will seek the Dem
Presidential nomination in 2008, went on Meet the Press and to say that
while Dick Cheney was a liar, the President had only "misled."  Wisconsin
Senator Russ Feingold [at the Democrat party's extreme liberal edge]
declared on ABC's This Week that he wants our troops out of Iraq by the
end of 2006, but that we should still send our Special Forces into the
country to do things on the sly.
	Joe Biden doesn't think the war is lost, he said, but he sees a
six-month window in which the President has to "fundamentally change" the
way things are being done. [He doesn't say how.  He did say] that we
"can't sustain" 150,000 troops in Iraq for the next two years, as outlined
in his Saturday WashPost Op/Ed, Time for an Iraq Timetable. [redstate.org]

[6] SENTOR BARACK OBAMA has once again said (to applause in the press)
that he is against withdrawal from Iraq and thus for the continuation of
the war.  His position continues to be no different in substance from that
of the administration, who also want a troop reduction in Iraq.  There was
a report this week that the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, urged
the Cairo Reconciliation Conference to ask for a timetable for withdrawal,
so that the Bush administration could say that it was complying with Iraqi
wishes by the 2006 elections.  The administration of course has no
intention of completely leaving Iraq.

[7] JOSE PADILLA, a U.S. citizen in prison for three years as an enemy
combatant suspected of planning a "dirty bomb" attack on the United
States, has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and aid
terrorists overseas.
	Citing unnamed current and former government officials, the NYT
says on Page One that the administration backed down from more serious
charges against Jose Padilla because the case relied on the suspect
testimony of two al-Qaida suspects who are secretly being held by the U.S.
and who gave their testimony while being tortured. An internal CIA report
concluded that one of the men had talked while being subjected to what the
Times calls "excessive use" of waterboarding. [Slate]

[8] A FEDERAL JURY found an American man guilty of conspiring to
assassinate President George W. Bush and receiving financial aid from
al-Qaeda, rejecting his claims of torture by Saudi police. Ahmed Omar Abu
Ali, 24, was found guilty on nine counts, including conspiracy to kill
Bush, conspiracy to hijack a plane and offering to aid Osama bin Laden's
terror network ... reports Agence France-Press.  Abu Ali had pleaded not
guilty and his defense lawyers said he was tortured into making false
statements in Saudi Arabia, where he was arrested in June 2003. He was
held in Saudi custody for 20 months before returning to the United States
after being indicted. But Judge Gerald Bruce Lee admitted the confessions
as evidence over defense objections. Lee set a sentencing hearing for
February 17, 2006. Abu Ali could face life in prison. "I hope this verdict
does not give the government the green light to send citizens to other
countries that practice torture to circumvent the constitution," said [his
defense attorney]. Born in Texas, Abu Ali's parents were Jordanian. The
family lived in Falls Church, Virginia, a Washington suburb, until Abu Ali
went to study at the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia.  U.S.
prosecutors based most of their case against Abu Ali on statements made in
Saudi Arabia.  In December, U.S.  District Court Judge John Bates in
Washington ordered the Justice Department to state what role, if any, U.S.
officials played in Abu Ali's arrest. The Justice Department refused,
arguing that since he was detained abroad Abu Ali was outside the
jurisdiction of U.S. courts. [MASNET]

[9] THE NYT fronts the differences between terror suspects tried with
crimes in U.S. courts and those held as "enemy combatants" and tried by
the military in an attempt to discern the rules after last week's reversal
in the Jose Padilla case. Their conclusion is the White House assigns (and
reassigns) the status of suspects solely to shield its broad investigatory
powers from scrutiny in the courts. [Slate]

[10] VENEZUELAN OFFICIALS signed a deal Tuesday to ship 12 million gallons
(45 million litres) of discounted home heating oil to poor Americans in
Massachusetts as part of a plan by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to help
needy US communities.  The fuel is being offered by Citgo Petroleum Corp,
a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company which runs roughly
16,000 gas stations in the US.  US Rep William Delahunt, who helped broker
the deal, ... said the agreement could set an example for US oil
companies. Congressional leaders have asked the companies to use some of
their profits to fund heating fuel assistance programmes for low-income
residents. [Jamaica Observer]

[11] A CONFIDENTIAL UK FOREIGN OFFICE DOCUMENT accuses Israel of rushing
to annex the Arab area of Jerusalem, using illegal Jewish settlement
construction and the vast West Bank barrier, in a move to prevent it from
becoming a Palestinian capital.  In an unusually frank insight into
British assessments of Israeli intentions, the document says that Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's government is jeopardizing the prospect of a peace
agreement by trying to put the future of Arab East Jerusalem beyond
negotiation and risks driving Palestinians living in the city into radical
groups ... The UK Foreign Office document had been presented to an EU
council of ministers meeting chaired by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw,
on Monday with recommendations to counter the Israeli policy, including
recognition of Palestinian political activities in East Jerusalem.  But
the council put the issue on hold until next month under pressure from
Italy, according to sources, which Israel considers its most reliable EU
ally.  Israel has described a recommendation for moving EU meetings with
the Palestinian Authority from Ramallah to East Jerusalem in recognition
of the Arab claim as a "negative occurrence." It claims the eastern part
of Jerusalem it occupied in the 1967 war is part of its "indivisible
capital". Almost all governments maintain embassies in Tel Aviv because
they do not recognize the Israeli claim.  The document, drawn up by the
British consulate in East Jerusalem as part of the UK's presidency of the
EU, says Israeli policies are designed to prevent Jerusalem from becoming
a Palestinian capital, particularly settlement expansion in and around the
city. It says Sharon's plan to link Jerusalem with the large Maale Adumim
settlement in the West Bank by building thousands of new homes "threatens
to complete the encircling of the city by Jewish settlements, dividing the
West Bank into two separate geographical areas."  It adds, "Israeli
activities in Jerusalem are in violation of both its Roadmap [peace plan]
obligations and international law."  The Foreign Office also concludes
that the vast concrete barrier, which Israel asserts is a security
measure, is being used to expropriate Arab land in and around the city:
"This de facto annexation of Palestinian land will be irreversible without
very large-scale forced evacuations of settlers and the rerouting of the
barrier."  The document says stringent Israeli controls on the movement of
Palestinians in and out of the city are an attempt to restrict Arab
population growth. "When the barrier is completed, Israel will control all
access to East Jerusalem, cutting off its Palestinian satellite cities of
Bethlehem and Ramallah, and the West Bank beyond. This will have serious
... consequences for the Palestinians," it says.  "Israel's main
motivation is almost certainly demographic ... the Jerusalem master plan
has an explicit goal to keep the proportion of Palestinian Jerusalemites
at no more than 30 percent of the total." All of this, the document says,
greatly reduces the prospects of a two-state solution because a core
demand of the Palestinians is for sovereignty over the east of the city.
[Taipei Times]
	Italy's foreign minister, the post-Fascist Gianfranco Fini, who
Israel considers its strongest ally in Europe, exerted pressure on the EU
committee to not take any further steps ... Fini has worked hard to shed
his party's stigma of anti-Semitism from its fascist past by being
relentlessly pro-Israel. [WW4Report]

[12] THOUSANDS CONVERGED on Ft. Benning, Georgia this past weekend for the
annual protest against the School of the Americas (including my wife and
some of her associates).  19,000 activists gathered in the largest protest
ever to demand the closing of the infamous military base where countless
Latin American officers have been trained in methods of torture and
repression. 41 people were arrested for trespassing after managing to
penetrate the razor-wire fences surrounding the base to perform civil
disobedience

[13] ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS are the new gay marriage, trumpets the LAT,
pegging immigration reform as the defining social issue for the next
election cycle, just as homosexual nuptials were last year. Unlike gay
marriage, however, there are serious rifts within the right on how best to
deal with immigration reform, with big businesses (and President Bush)
calling for a temporary worker program, while hard-liners are looking to
wall off Mexico. [Slate]

[14] THE LAT INDIRECTLY QUESTIONS the findings in the suicide of a U.S.
colonel stationed in Iraq. One day Col. Ted Westhusing was investigating
allegations of corruption by U.S. contractors in Iraq, the next he shot
himself in the head, less than a month before he was scheduled to return
home. The LAT won't come out and say that some of the details in
Westhusing's death don't quite add up, but it's clear that the LAT is
skeptical of the official explanation. Either way, the story says a lot
about what life is like for soldiers serving in Iraq: It's either
incredibly corrupt or impossibly depressing. [Slate]

[15] WHY IRAQ WAR SUPPORT FELL SO FAST -- US public support has dropped
faster than during the Vietnam and Korean wars, polls show.  The three
most significant US wars since 1945 - Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq - share
an important trait: As casualties mounted, American public support
declined. In the two Asian wars, that decline proved irreversible. With
Iraq, the additional bad news for President Bush is that support for the
war in Iraq has eroded more quickly than it did in those two conflicts.
For Mr. Bush, low support for his handling of the war - now at 35 percent,
according to the latest Gallup poll - has depleted any reserves of
"political capital" he had from his reelection and threatens his entire
agenda. Last week's bombshell political developments, both the bipartisan
Senate resolution calling for more progress reports on Iraq and the
stunning call for withdrawal by a Democratic hawk, Rep. John Murtha of
Pennsylvania, have not helped. But the seeds of Bush's woes were planted
early on. Just seven months into the Iraq war, Gallup found that the
percentage of Americans who viewed the sending of troops as a mistake had
jumped substantially - from 25 percent in March 2003 to 40 percent in
October 2003. In June 2004, for the first time, more than half the public
(54 percent)  thought the US had made a mistake, a figure that holds
today. With Vietnam, that 50-percent threshold was not crossed until
August 1968, several years in; with Korea, it was March 1952, about a year
and a half into US involvement. Why did Americans go sour on the Iraq war
so quickly, and what can Bush do about it? John Mueller, an expert on war
and public opinion at Ohio State University, links today's lower tolerance
of casualties to a weaker public commitment to the cause than was felt
during the two previous, cold war-era conflicts. The discounting of the
main justifications for the Iraq war - alleged weapons of mass destruction
and support for international terrorism - has left many Americans
skeptical of the entire enterprise. In fact, "I'm impressed by how high
support still is," Professor Mueller says. He notes that some Americans'
continuing connection of the Iraq war to the war on terror is fueling that
support. In addition, intense political polarization gives Bush resilient
support among Republicans. But among Democratic voters who supported the
US-led invasion initially, most have long abandoned the president. In
polls, independent voters now track mostly with Democrats. And, analysts
say, once someone loses confidence in the conduct of a war, it is
exceedingly difficult to woo them back... Pollster Daniel Yankelovich,
writing in the September/October 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine,
states that "in my judgment the Bush administration has about a year
before the public's impatience will force it to change course."...
Scholars like Mueller at Ohio State speak of an emerging "Iraq syndrome"
that will have consequences for US foreign policy long after American
forces pull out - particularly in Washington's ability to deal forcefully
with other countries it views as threatening, such as North Korea and
Iran. "Iraq syndrome" seems to be playing out, too, with the American
public.  The just-released quadrennial survey of American attitudes toward
foreign policy - produced jointly by the Pew Research Center and the
Council on Foreign Relations - shows a revival of isolationism [sic]. Now,
42 percent of Americans say the US should "mind its own business
internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on
their own" - up from 30 percent in 2002. According to Pew Research Center
director Andrew Kohut, that 42 percent figure is also similar to how the
US public felt in the mid-1970s, at the end of the Vietnam War, and in the
1990s, at the end of the cold war.  [CSM]

[16] CIA DIRECTOR PORTER GOSS says: "This agency does not do torture.
Torture does not work," Goss said. "We use lawful capabilities to collect
vital information, and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative
ways, all of which are legal and none of which are torture." . . . One of
those "unique and innovative ways" is the practice of "water boarding," in
which: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head
slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face
and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a
terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the
treatment to a halt. Such water boarding elicited the "vital" information
from Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi that "Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use
biochemical weapons." As a CIA-sourced ABC News investigation reports, "al
Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the
statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment." The
administration's position is now crystal clear. "We do not torture," we
water board; we do not use Soviet-style imprisonment - interrogation
tactics, we just secretly use former Soviet facilities and Red Army
false-confession techniques. And if some detainees die in the process,
well, bad apples and all that. [reason.com]

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  C. G. Estabrook, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801
  ### <www.carlforcongress.org> <www.newsfromneptune.com> ###
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