[Peace] News notes 2005-09-11

[Carl Estabrook]

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        Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism,"
        for the Sunday, 11 September 2005, meeting of AWARE,
        "Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort" of Champaign-Urbana.
        (Sources provided on request; some are indicated.)
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[1] On the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the question of why the
New York buildings collapsed has still not been properly addressed.
Modern buildings must be constructed with the understanding that they
should survive being hit by an airplane, but the World Trade Center
buildings were allowed to be built without complying with the relevant
building codes, ostensibly because they were constructed by the Port of
New York Authority, but actually because they were built by Rockefeller
moneyed interests, concerned to protect their investment in property in
depressed lower Manhattan. After the attack, a professional fire fighting
journal pointed out that it was unheard of to dispose of the debris, as
was done, before the causes for the collapse was determined.

[2] After the attacks Americans were encouraged by their political leaders
not to consider why the perpetrators committed these crimes, but their
ostensible spokespeople were clear enough. They offered three reasons: the
sanctions against Iraq (Clinton is still responsible for more Iraqi deaths
than Bush); Israel's military occupation; and US support for oppressive
governments in Arabia and the Persian Gulf.  Without necessarily approving
of the crimes, many in the Arab world held the same views then (as the WSJ
pointed out) -- and many more probably do now, after the brutal and racist
American occupation of Iraq, which has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis
and of course continues.  Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said
Thursday his prewar speech to the United Nations accusing Iraq of
harboring weapons of mass destruction was a "blot" on his record.  A bit
late in the day...

[3] In the war this week the US attacked the Turkmen city of Tal Afar in
northern Iraq in their usual way -- 500-pound bombs on the residents as
the insurgents melted away. "Guerrillas used a roadside bomb to kill four
US private security men in the southern city of Basra on Wednesday ...
There are about 20,000 such private security guards in Iraq, and some 200
have been killed." [J. Cole] The WP on Saturday ran an article describing
"Security Contractors in Iraq Under Scrutiny After Shootings." The many
mercenary companies in Iraq seem to be running death squads of the sort
the US began in Latin America in the Kennedy administration. The US puppet
government in Iraq last year exempted them from prosecution.  They are
indistinguishable from US military to the Iraqis, but they are not under
military command, although run from the Pentagon. The UN this week
protested against massive violations of human rights by the brutal and
undisciplined US forces.

[4] At home the courts continue to support the government's disregard of
the constitution.  A three judge panel of the 4th circuit (presided over
by a candidate for the open SC seat, Michael Luttig) said that the
president could hold an American citizen indefinitely, without trial or
charge, because the Congress by a joint resolution (the "Authorization for
Use Of Military Force," of September 18, 2001) set aside the Bill of
Rights.  Meanwhile a lower court said that part of a gag order in the
Patriot Act was unconstitutional; but the lack of seriousness of this
challenge to the USG is indicated by the judge's comment, that "she was
just 'a little district court judge sitting here in Bridgeport [CT],' not
'sophisticated about international terrorism,' and she acknowledged that a
gag order might be vital for national security under some circumstances."
[NYT] Meanwhile a hunger strike -- largely unreported in the the US --
continues at the illegal prison in Guantanamo Bay.  The Guardian/UK
reports 200 detainees are in the 5th week of a hunger strike.  On Friday
the USG admitted that it was force feeding more than a dozen of them.

[5] The malfeasance of federal, state and local government in the wake of
the Gulf coast hurricane became more obvious this week, despite the
banning and beating of journalists and the suspension of the Bil of Rights
in New Orleans. Details emerged such as that "Doctors working in
hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than
leaving them to die ... as they evacuated hospitals ... senior doctors
[decided] to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed
could not make it out alive" [Mail on Sunday] as reported in British
papers, not American. The NYT did finally report that "Police agencies to
the south of New Orleans were so fearful of the crowds trying to leave the
city after Hurricane Katrina that they sealed a crucial bridge over the
Mississippi River and turned back hundreds of desperate evacuees."
Meanwhile "President Bush, reasoning that requiring contractors to pay
prevailing wages in Katrina's aftermath would 'increase the cost to the
Federal Government,' issued a proclamation suspending Davis-Bacon" -- the
Depression era law requiring government contractors to pay prevailing area
wages.  These contractors are of course Halliburton, Bechtel, KBR, etc.

[6] What has happened on the Gulf coast reveals an on-going campaign for a
change of mind in America.  When capitalism broke down in the US and
world-wide, 75 years ago, the New Deal saved it by grudgingly admitting a
principle not granted before -- that government in the US did have a
responsibility to take basic care of its citizens.  Social Security and
Welfare were the most obvious results.  But for 25 years now, the USG has
successfully undermined that principle, in the period of reaction of the
Reagan/Clinton/Bush years, reaching obvious success with the repeal of
Welfare.  A clapped-out senator (D. P. Moynihan) who realized what was
happening said then that the USG was revoking the responsibility assumed
during the New Deal.  Now we see the success of the policy, in the 20% of
the residents of New Orleans left to drown, and then those who survived
dispersed -- but they're supposed to keep moving, like the Okies. Barbara
Bush, the presidential Id, made it clear when when she said that "it's
sort of scary [that] they all want to stay in Texas."  A Louisiana
congressman, Rep. Richard Baker of Baton Rouge is quoted in the WSJ as
saying, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't
do it, but God did."

[7] But the $62B appropriated by Congress (and the millions raised by
private charity) "doesn't actually belong to the relief agencies or the
government; it belongs to the victims. The agencies entrusted with the
money should be accountable to them ... [but] Jimmy Reiss, chairman of the
New Orleans Business Council, told Newsweek that he has been brainstorming
about how 'to use this catastrophe as a once-in-an-eon opportunity to
change the dynamic.' The Business Council's wish list is well-known: low
wages, low taxes, more luxury condos and hotels. Before the flood, this
highly profitable vision was already displacing thousands of poor
African-Americans: While their music and culture was for sale in an
increasingly corporatized French Quarter (where only 4.3 percent of
residents are black), their housing developments were being torn down. ...
'Now the developers have their big chance to disperse the obstacle to
gentrification--poor people.'
	"Here's a better idea: New Orleans could be reconstructed by and
for the very people most victimized by the flood. Schools and hospitals
that were falling apart before could finally have adequate resources; the
rebuilding could create thousands of local jobs and provide massive skills
training in decent paying industries. Rather than handing over the
reconstruction to the same corrupt elite that failed the city so
spectacularly ... For a people's reconstruction process to become a
reality (and to keep more contracts from going to Halliburton), the
evacuees must be at the center of all decision-making ... A dangerous
consensus is building that they should collect a little charity, apply for
a job at the Houston Wal-Mart and move on. [But some] however, are calling
for the right to return: they know that if evacuees are going to have
houses and schools to come back to, many will need to return to their home
states and fight for them ... Those wanting to donate to a people's
reconstruction can make checks out to the Vanguard Public Foundation, 383
Rhode Island St., Suite 301, San Francisco, CA 94103. Checks should be
earmarked "People's Hurricane Fund." [Naomi Klein]

[8] A UN report this week points out that UN: "Parts of America are as
poor as the Third World," says The Independent, a British newspaper. The
U.N. issued its "Human Development Report" today. Here are just some of
its conclusions about the United States:
    * Child mortality is on the rise in the United States
    * The infant mortality rate in the US is now the same as in Malaysia
    * Blacks in Washington DC have a higher infant death rate than people
in the Indian state of Kerala
    * Hispanic Americans are more than twice as likely as white Americans
to have no health coverage
    * Child poverty rates in the United States are now more than 20 per
cent This report was covered in both the New York Times and the Washington
Post, but in both of those articles there is not a single mention of the
U.N.'s assessment of the United States... [lefti]

[9] But of course the US has a way of dealing with these strains.  Agence
France Presse reports that a "Draft US Defense Paper Outlines Preventive
Nuclear Strikes.  A new draft US defense paper calls for preventive
nuclear strikes against state and non-state adversaries in order to deter
them from using weapons of mass destruction and urges US troops to
'prepare to use nuclear weapons effectively.' The document, titled
'Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations' and dated March 15, was put
together by the Pentagon's Joint Staff" -- using the explicit excuse of
9/11.

[10] Regardless of the federal debacle on the Gulf coast, the polls show
Bush's approval rating as the same low level that growing anti-war
sentiment had brought it to under 40%, -- the lowest of his presidency.
The Zogby poll this week showed that he would lose in an election against
any past president of the last 30 years -- but he would still beat Kerry,
48% to 47%.

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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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