[Peace] News notes 2006-02-05
Carl Estabrook
cge at shout.net
Mon Feb 6 21:56:46 CST 2006
==================================================
Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism,"
for the February 5, 2006, meeting of AWARE, the
"Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort" of Champaign-Urbana.
(Sources provided on request; paragraphs followed
by a bracketed source are substantially verbatim.)
==================================================
THE LONG WAR. A peculiar week, in which the White House (i.e.,
the central Bush administration) seemed to be in disarray --
witness the crazy State of the Union Speech -- and war secretary
Rumsfeld, who'd been lying low much of the winter, leapt from his
Pentagonal hole to proclaim, not just six more weeks, but perhaps
six more decades of war -- thus making up for the late, lamented
Cold War. His world-wide enemies -- all of whom seem to resemble
Hitler -- are going to be sure it's a "Long War (TM)," he says.
(Thank goodness, this leader of the war party seems to say.)
Could his sudden emergence this week mean that the war party is
losing out to the enrich-our-base faction in the White House? At
least Rumsfeld is consistent: a reporter asked him shortly after
9/11/2001, "How will we know when we're succeeding in the 'War on
Terror(TM)'?" Rumsfeld replied, "When we convince the American
people that it'll be a long war..."
[1] SOTU SORTA SO-SO. For weeks administration sources told reporters that
the State of the Union address would focus on health care. But at the last
minute the White House might have realized that its health care proposals,
based on the idea that Americans have too much insurance, would suffer the
same political fate as its attempt to privatize Social Security.
("Congress," Mr. Bush said, "did not act last year on my proposal to save
Social Security." Democrats responded with a standing ovation.) So Mr.
Bush's speechwriters were told to replace the health care proposals with
fine words about energy independence, words not backed by any actual
policy. What about the rest of the speech? The State of the Union is
normally an occasion for boasting about an administration's achievements.
But what's a speechwriter to do when there are no achievements? One answer
is to pretend that the bad stuff never happened. The Medicare drug benefit
is Mr. Bush's largest domestic initiative to date. It's also a disaster:
at enormous cost, the administration has managed to make millions of
elderly Americans worse off. So drugs went unmentioned in the State of the
Union. Another answer is to rely on evasive language. In Iraq, said Mr.
Bush, we've "changed our approach to reconstruction." In fact,
reconstruction has failed. Almost three years after the war began, oil
production is well below prewar levels, Baghdad is getting only an average
of 3.2 hours of electricity a day, and more than 60 percent of water and
sanitation projects have been canceled. So now, having squandered billions
in Iraqi oil revenue as well as U.S. taxpayer dollars, we've told the
Iraqis that from now on it's their problem. America's would-be Marshall
Plan in Iraq, reports The Los Angeles Times, "is drawing to a close this
year with much of its promise unmet and no plans to extend its funding." I
guess you can call that a change in approach... [Krugman]
The endless capacity of the Democrats to abase themselves found
pathetic expression in their official response to Bush's speech, which was
delivered, not by any national leader of the party, but by the newly
elected governor of Virginia, Timothy Kaine. The obscurity of the
messenger was matched by the insipid and empty character of the message.
Kaine devoted exactly one sentence to foreign policy and the war in Iraq,
in the course of which he declared that every American shares Bush's goal
of winning the war on terror and supporting our troops. [crosscurrents]
[2] UH, I DIDN'T MEAN IT. Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce
Mideast oil imports: One day after President Bush vowed to reduce
America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75
percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said
Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally [ICH]
[3] AFTER DOWNING ST., ANOTHER IMPEACHABLE MEMO. The Guardian is reporting
that Bush told Blair "that the US was so worried about the failure to find
hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of 'flying U2 reconnaissance
aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours'. Mr
Bush added: 'If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN
resolutions]'." This came out in a memo obtained by Phillipe Sands, QC,
for the new edition of his book "Lawless World." The memo is apparently
the minutes of a two-hour meeting between Bush and Blair (and possibly the
cast of Monty Python) which took place at the White House on January 31,
2003 close to two months before the "decision" to go to war. The
revelation that the Guardian has focused on, however, is this one. The
memo shows, according to the Guardian, "that Bush made it clear the US
intended to invade whether or not there was a second resolution and even
if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.
Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was 'solidly' behind US
plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion's legality
and despite the absence of a second UN resolution." ... On this side of
the water, this story may not even be the war crime of the week, though,
since it remains to be seen whether the US media will cover it. You'd
think they would do so just for the level of outlandish stupidity just for
the comic value. But, let's not hold our breath. We now have the British
media revealing to us citizens of the US democracy not just the internal
workings of 10 Downing Street, but also the goings on at 1700
Pennsylvania. This memo clearly contains revelations at least as
grievously incriminating as would the memo alleged to show that Bush
wanted to bomb al Jazeera. The British government's attempt to crack down
on leaks has not shut off all the taps. There is the remote possibility,
of course, that this latest memo came from a US source. If so, the shame
of the US media for missing the scoop should be all the greater. A
movement is gaining steam to impeach Blair for his role in our president's
illegal war. Our brothers and sisters in the anti-war movement in the UK
are always three steps ahead of us. What will we do in the United States
if the leaders of the coalition of the willing go down one by one? What
will we do if evidence emerges that our government lied to their
governments? When will the nation most responsible for this humiliating
disaster take up some accountability? When will we cease to be a global
laughingstock and villain? When will someone in charge find even the
ordinary decency to do what the police chief did after arresting Cindy
Sheehan for wearing a shirt apologize? [ADS]
[4] MORE WAR: The Pentagon announced plans Friday to increase special
operations forces [and] expand psychological warfare ... The plan comes
three days before President Bush sends Congress a 2007 budget that seeks a
nearly 5 percent increase in Defense Department spending to $439.3 billion
... the plan calls China the greatest future threat, saying that country
has "the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States"
... The plan calls for an increase in special operations forces by 15
percent, including the establishment of the first Marine Corps commando
unit. And there will be a one-third increase a jump of 3,700 in troops
assigned to psychological warfare and civil affairs units ... The plan,
called the Quadrennial Defense Review ... "Now in the fifth year of this
global war, the ideas and proposals in this document are provided as a
roadmap for change, leading to victory," Rumsfeld said in a letter
accompanying the document ... the plan calls for doubling purchases of
unmanned aircraft, particularly for surveillance; developing a new
long-range bomber force ... The administration said war costs for 2006
would total $120 billion [outside of the 2007 budget]. The budget proposal
represents the fifth consecutive year that spending on weapons has
increased, after years of cutbacks during the 1990s. [AP]
[5] AND THIS ISN'T PART OF THE MILITARY BUDGET. The Bush administration
said Thursday it will ask Congress for $120 billion more for the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan and $18 billion more this year for hurricane relief.
If approved by Congress, the war money would push spending related to the
wars toward a staggering half-trillion dollars ... About $70 billion of
the new war money will be requested for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
this year, bringing total spending on the two campaigns to $120 billion
for the current budget year. The other $50 billion in new war money will
be set aside in the 2007 budget for the first few months of the fiscal
year that begins Oct. 1. More money will likely be needed in 2007. The
Congressional Budget Office has estimated that $320 billion has been spent
on Iraq and Afghanistan since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, including $50
billion that Congress sent Bush in December. [AP]
[6] CHINA'S MILITARY BUDGET IS ABOUT A TENTH OF OURS. A senior U.S.
official said on Wednesday that the Pentagon is seeking to dissuade China
from building its military forces to a level not warranted by its security
needs ... The Bush administration frequently has voiced concern about
China's growing military spending. After as many as 17 years of
double-digit defense spending increases, China is currently spending two
to three times more than the $30 billion publicly announced as its defense
budget, U.S. officials estimate.
[7] WE WANT A LONG WAR. The United States is engaged in what could be a
generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that
might last decades as allies [i.e., us] battle extremists who want to rule
the world [sic], Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.
Rumsfeld, who laid out broad strategies for what the military and the Bush
administration are now calling the "long war," likened al Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin ... He said there is a
tendency to underestimate the threats that terrorists pose to global
security, and said liberty is at stake. "Compelled by a militant ideology
that celebrates murder and suicide with no territory to defend, with
little to lose, they will either succeed in changing our way of life, or
we will succeed in changing theirs," Rumsfeld said in a speech at the
National Press Club. [WP]
[8] WAIT A MINUTE, I THOUGHT OSAMA WAS HITLER. US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld said that the rise of elected populist leaders in Latin
America like Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez was "worrisome". Speaking
at the National Press Club in Washington at about the same time that
Chavez announced the expulsion of the US naval attache in Caracas for
spying, Rumsfeld said the emergence of populist leaders through elections
in Latin American was "worrisome." "You've got Chavez in Venezuela with a
lot of oil money," he said. "He's a person who was elected legally just as
Adolf Hitler was elected legally." And then (he) has consolidated power.
And now of course is working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr Morales and
others," Rumsfeld said, said referring to Evo Morales, Bolivia's new
socialist president. [AFP]
[9] RUMSFELD STILL AT LARGE. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld urged
America's allies to increase their military spending to prevent the rise
of a "global [sic] extremist Islamic empire" ... "The Iranian regime is
today the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism," he said. "The world
does not want, and must work together to prevent, a nuclear Iran."
Rumsfeld was in Munich to address a defense conference focused on the
relationship between America and its European allies. Rumsfeld said
terrorists hope to use Iraq as the "central front" in their war [as US
intelligence warned it would become, if the US invaded] ... "The struggle
ahead promises to be a long war that will cause us all to recalibrate our
strategies [and] perhaps further adjust our institutions..." he said ...
"They seek to take over governments from North Africa to Southeast Asia
and to re-establish a caliphate they hope, one day, will include every
continent," he said. "They have designed and distributed a map where
national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist Islamic
empire." Likening the war on terror to the Cold War [he said] "It may be
easier for all of us to use our scarce tax dollars to meet urgent needs we
all have at home," Rumsfeld said. "But unless we invest in our defense and
security, our homelands will be at risk." [sfgate.com]
[10] INFOWARS. A newly declassified Pentagon document shows Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has personally approved wide-ranging plans for
the military to increase its ability to fight an electronic information
war. The document recommends that the United States should seek the
ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic
spectrum". It states that US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy
the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors,
and weapons systems". According to the BBC, this means the US military is
seeking the capability to knock out any telephone, networked computer, or
radar system on the planet. The same document also raises new questions
about the U.S. military's use of propaganda overseas. By law, the military
is barred from directing propaganda toward American audiences. But the
Pentagon acknowledges in the report that the U.S. public is increasingly
exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations.
[DN]
Despite the controversy over its domestic eavesdropping
operations, The National Security Agency is in the process of expanding
its operations by building a new hub and data warehouse in the Denver
region. According to the Government Executive Magazine, the new Colorado
facility will serve as the NSA's center for data mining. The site will
reportedly be able to hold the electronic equivalent of the Library of
Congress every two days.
Newsweek has revealed that there have been deep divisions within
President Bush's own Justice Department over the legality of the
administration's tactics since 9/11. In a major piece titled The Palace
Revolt, Newsweek reports a group of conservative attorneys stood up to the
hard-liners led by Vice President Cheney over whether the president can
assume near unlimited powers in the so-called war on terror. According to
Newsweek, these attorneys fought to bring government spying and
interrogation methods within the law. Some were so concerned over the
legality of the administration's eavesdropping program that they lined up
private attorneys in case the program even drew the scrutiny of Congress
or prosecutors.
[11] MEDIA MEAN TO MILITARY. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on
Wednesday [that] U.S. personnel felt constrained partly due to fear of
criticism in the media ... "How do we compete in this struggle in a way
that can counter the ability of the enemy to lie, which we can't do [sic],
(and) the ability of the enemy to not have a free media criticizing them?
You don't see much criticizing of them" ... The U.S. military command in
Iraq is investigating a military program that funneled money to some Iraqi
newspapers to publish pro-American articles. The Pentagon in 2002 closed
its Office of Strategic Influence after reports that it planned to plant
false news stories with foreign media outlets. "We're not going to lose
wars or battles out there. The only place we can lose is if the country
loses its will. And the determinant of that is what is played in the
media," Rumsfeld said. "And, therefore, the terrorists have media
committees, and they plan it. And they manipulate and manage to influence
what the media carries throughout the world. And they do it very
successfully. They're good at it." But Rumsfeld said the risk of being
criticized by the U.S. news media had a chilling effect on the U.S.
military. "And they (defense personnel) say, oh my goodness, if you do
anything in that area, you get penalized because there's bad press,
there's bad news, someone doesn't like it, there's a congressional
hearing, the newspaper has it on the front page because it's about the
media and the media likes to write about the media," Rumsfeld said. "And
our people are chilled and reticent and uncomfortable," Rumsfeld added.
[E&P]
[12] BETTER BOMB THEM NOW. The English-language Aljazeera news channel
will be launched this spring with 250 journalists from 30 countries, Nigel
Parsons, managing director of the new channel, said on the sidelines of
the Aljazeera Media Forum in Doha, Qatar. Veteran BBC television host Sir
David Frost and Josh Rushing, a former US marine who was a Pentagon
spokesman during the first months of the US-led invasion of Iraq, have
signed with the Aljazeera International. [AFP]
[13] PHOENIX LIVES AGAIN? A British member of the European parliament is
calling for a new probe into the murder of hundreds of academics in Iraq.
More than 250 Iraqi academics have been assassinated since the invasion of
Iraq in March 2003 -- but not a single person has been brought to justice
for their murder. Now Euro-MP Caroline Lucas has joined a campaign of
high-profile anti-war activists in calling for a United Nations
investigation into the killings. The Green Party MEP for Southeast
England, who is also co-president of the European parliament's cross-party
Peace Initiatives group, said thousands of Iraqi educators had been forced
to flee for their lives ... "These assassinations, which appear to be
countrywide, non-partisan and non-sectarian, must be investigated by the
U.N. Special Rapporteur on summary executions -- and those responsible
brought to justice. Iraq needs security and stability, but it is clear
that the continued U.S. and (British) occupation is contributing to the
problem, not the solution," Lucas said. The call for a U.N. probe has been
joined by American linguist and anti-war activist Noam Chomsky, Nobel
prize-winning British playwright Harold Pinter and author J.M. Coetzee.
[UPI]
The Phoenix Program ... [was a torture and] assassination program
undertaken by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam
War. The program was designed to identify and "neutralize" ... the
noncombatant infrastructure of Viet Cong (VCI) cadres ... While the
Phoenix operations were originated by the CIA, they were eventually turned
over to the U.S. Army and Republic of Vietnam military. "I never knew in
the course of all those operations any detainee to live through his
interrogation. They all died. There was never any reasonable establishment
of the fact that any one of those individuals was, in fact, cooperating
with the VC, but they all died and the majority were either tortured to
death or things like thrown out of helicopters ... [Phoenix] became a
sterile depersonalized murder program ... Equal to Nazi atrocities, the
horrors of Phoenix must be studied to be believed." --Former Phoenix
officer Bart Osborne, testifying before Congress in 1971. [Wikipedia]
[14] SHOULDN'T WE KNOW ABOUT THIS? The former commander of Abu Ghraib
prison, Col. Janis Karpinski, testified that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez,
former senior US military commander in Iraq, gave orders to cover up the
cause of death for some female American soldiers serving in Iraq.
[15] WHAT COUNTS AS CRIME. Peace activist Teresa Grady was sentenced
Friday for four months in prisons for spilling her own human blood at a
military recruiting station in upstate New York to protest the Iraq war.
Grady and her three co-defendants, known as the St. Patricks Four,
received prison sentences totaling 20 months. They were all sentenced
during the same week that a military jury in Colorado decided not to jail
an Army interrogator even though he was found guilty of negligent homicide
in the torturing and killing of an Iraqi detainee. [DN]
In Georgia, six human rights activists were sentenced to up to
three months in jail on Monday for participating in non-violent protests
outside the Fort Benning military base that houses what was once known as
the School of the Americas. A total of 32 activists were charged with
trespassing after they walked on the military base in November calling for
the closing of the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation.
[DN]
[16] WE REDEFINED TORTURE, WHY NOT SPYING? Contrary to popular belief,
there is no absolute ban on [military] intelligence components collecting
U.S. person information, the U.S.Army's top intelligence officer said in a
2001 memo that surfaced Tuesday. Not only that, military intelligence
agencies are permitted to receive domestic intelligence information, even
though they cannot legally collect it, according to the Nov. 5, 2001, memo
issued by Lt. Gen. Robert W. Noonan Jr., the deputy chief of staff for
intelligence. MI [military intelligence] may receive information from
anyone, anytime, Noonan wrote in the memo, obtained by Secrecy News, a
newsletter from the non-profit Federation of American Scientists in
Washington ... Remember, merely receiving information does not constitute
collection under AR [Army Regulation] 381-10; collection entails receiving
for use, he added. (Army Regulation 381-10, U.S. Army Intelligence
Activities, was reissued on Nov. 22, 2005, but had not previously been
disclosed publicly.) ... The Pentagons Counterintelligence Field Activity
(CIFA) was launched in 2002 with the mission of gathering information and
conducting activities to protect DoD and the nation against espionage,
other intelligence activities, sabotage, assassinations, and terrorist
activities, according to a CIFA brochure. Its TALON program has amassed
files on antiwar protesters ... More than 5,000 TALON reports were
received and shared throughout the government in the programs first year
of operation, Carol A. Haave, deputy undersecretary of Defense for
counterintelligence and security, told the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence in May 2004. [CQ]
[17] UH-OH: THESE GUYS WERE SUPPOSED TO RUN THE GOVERNMENT FOR US. Four
Iraqis were killed in a heavy gunfight that broke out before dawn Thursday
reportedly between the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada
Sadr and US forces in Baghdad's Sadr City. A US military spokesman said
fighting began around 1:00 am (2200 GMT Wednesday) when the coalition
forces came under attack during a raid in the poor, predominantly Shiite
Baghdad district ... In a separate incident, insurgents attacked an oil
storage facility near the northern city of Kirkuk setting off a massive
blaze, an official with the Northern Oil Company said ... The US military
said two children died in the town of Hit during a gunfight between
security forces and insurgents on Wednesday.
[18] I THINK THEY WANT US OUT. A new poll found that nearly half of Iraqis
approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and most favor setting a timetable
for American troops to leave. The poll also found that 80 percent of
Iraqis think the United States plans to maintain permanent bases in the
country even if the newly elected Iraqi government asks American forces to
leave ... Only 39 percent of Iraqis surveyed thought that Iraqi police and
army forces were strong enough to deal with the security challenges on
their own, while 59 percent thought Iraq still needed the help of military
forces from other countries ... "Iraqis are demanding a timetable for U.S.
withdrawal, and most believe that the U.S. has no plans to leave even if
the new government asks them to," said Steven Kull, the director of the
Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland,
which conducted the poll ... Among Sunni Muslims, 88 percent said they
approved of the attacks. That approval was found among 41 percent of
Shiite Muslims and 16 percent of Kurds. Ninety-three percent of Iraqis
oppose violence against Iraqi security forces, and 99 percent oppose
attacks on Iraqi civilians. "They're pretty much the same results that
have been going on since 2003, so it's consistent with a lot of the
attitudes that exist," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon
official and a longtime Iraq watcher at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, a center for national-security studies in
Washington. "We're not seen as liberators by the Sunnis, but what else is
new?" ... U.S. officials have acknowledged in the past that the mere
presence of American troops in Iraq has helped fuel the insurgency ...
During a visit with U.S. troops in Fallujah on Christmas Day, Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said "at the moment there are no plans for
permanent bases" in Iraq. "It is a subject that has not even been
discussed with the Iraqi government," he said. According to the poll, 80
percent of Iraqis overall assume that the United States intends to keep
bases in Iraq. The breakdown of people who have that belief is 92 percent
of Sunnis, 79 percent of Shiites and 67 percent of Kurds. [KR]
[19] SHOULD WE BE PAYING ATTENTION? Aljazeera has aired a new video in
which al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri calls George Bush a
butcher and threatens a new attack in the US ... The video appeared to be
recorded this month, as it mentioned a call for a truce issued by Bin
Laden in an audio tape Aljazeera said was recorded in January ...
Al-Zawahiri, shown wearing white robes and a white turban, said the US had
ignored an offer from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden for a truce.
"Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a
failure. You are a curse on your own nation," he said, referring to Bush.
"Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses," he said ...
"My second message is to the American people, who are drowning in
illusions. I tell you that Bush and his gang are shedding your blood and
wasting your money in frustrated adventures" ... Al-Zawahiri added: "The
lion of Islam, Shaikh Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, offered you a
decent exit from your dilemma. But your leaders, who are keen to
accumulate wealth, insist on throwing you in battles and killing your
souls in Iraq and Afghanistan and - God willing - on your own land." The
video came in the wake of a 19 January audiotape by bin Laden in which he
warned that al-Qaida is preparing attacks in the US but he offered a truce
"with fair conditions" to build Iraq and Afghanistan ... "Your leaders
responded to the initiative of sheik Osama, may God protect him, by saying
they don't negotiate with terrorists and that they are winning the war on
terror. I tell them: You liars, greedy war mongers, who is pulling out
from Iraq and Afghanistan? Us or you? Whose soldiers are committing
suicide because of despair? Us or you?" [AJ]
[20] WEREN'T THEY LIBERATED? For the second day in a row, U.S. and Afghan
forces continued to pursue a large group of militants in the mountains of
southern Afghanistan. The battle, says the NYT, is "the largest in
Afghanistan in months." [Slate]
[21] YOU KNOW, THERE'S A PROBLEM WITH THIS DEMOCRACY THING. The Senate
approved a nonbinding resolution condemning Hamas and expressing support
for halting assistance to the Palestinian government ... "We cannot afford
to have Iran with a nuclear weapon," Bush said. "We want them to have
nuclear power but under the conditions that we describe." [AP]
[22] OIL WILL PAY FOR THE OCCUPATION. The Sunday papers describe corrupt
Iraqi officials in the oil industry enabling the insurgency. In one
example, the crooked director of a major oil-storage plant near Kirkuk is
accused of orchestrating an attack on his own facility ... American
officials have declared the week starting Feb. 19 to be Anti-Corruption
Week. [Just one week? Hmm.] [The NYT and the WP] focus on the case of
Meshaan al-Juburi (Mishan Jubouri in the WP), an Iraqi lawmaker who is
accused of stealing millions from a program aimed at protecting the
country's oil pipelines and, possibly, funneling some of that money to the
insurgency ... Ali Allawi, Iraq's finance minister, estimates that nearly
half of all oil-smuggling profits goes to the insurgents. [Slate]
[23] THAT LEAVES ONLY 99.75% OF WHAT WE KNOW WAS STOLEN. In the United
States, a former official has admitted stealing millions of dollars meant
for the reconstruction of Iraq. Robert Stein held a senior position in the
Coalition Provisional Authority, which administered Iraq after American
and allied forces invaded in 2003. In a Washington court, he admitted to
stealing more than $2m (1.12m) and taking bribes in return for contracts.
He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. Robert Stein's story is
one of extraordinary corruption and excess amid the ruins of Iraq. He was
in charge of overseeing money for the rebuilding of shattered
infrastructure in south-central Iraq in 2003 and 2004. Mr Stein admitted
in court to conspiring to give out contracts worth $8m to a certain
company in return for bribes. He also received gifts and sexual favours
lavished on him at a special villa in Baghdad ... Robert Stein admitted to
stealing $2m from reconstruction funds. Some of that money, the court
heard, was smuggled onto aircraft and flown back to the United States in
suitcases. [BBC]
[24] CAN'T ARGUE WITH THE MARKET. Oil giant ExxonMobil reported Monday it
made a record $36 billion last year - a sum larger than the economies of
125 countries. Exxon became the first company to ever make more than $10
billion in a financial quarter. During the last three months of 2005 the
oil giant made over $1,300 every second or nearly $5 million every hour.
The country's three biggest oil companies - ExxonMobil, Chevron and
ConocoPhillips - earned a combined $63 billion last year. Officials from
the country's major oil companies, however, are refusing to testify this
week at a Senate hearing looking into whether oil industry mergers in
recent years have made gasoline more expensive at the pump. While it is
making record profits, Exxon Mobil is also trying to avoid paying damages
from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. On Friday the corporation asked a
federal appeals court to erase an order for Exxon to pay out five billion
dollars in damages ordered by an Alaskan jury. [DN] The Anglo-Dutch oil
giant Shell announced record profits for a British company of $22.9bn (
12.9bn) on the back of soaring oil prices. [ICH]
Bush defended the huge profits of Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)
Wednesday, saying they are simply the result of the marketplace and that
consumers socked with soaring energy costs should not expect price breaks
... Early this week, Exxon reported record profits of $10.71 billion for
the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year - the largest of any
U.S. company. While some politicians raised furious objections, Bush had a
different reaction. "There is a marketplace in American society," he
said. "There's also a responsibility for energy companies to continue to
invest and improve the ways that the American people can get energy," he
said. "I would very much hope that Exxon would participate in the
development of a pipeline out of Alaska, for example, in order to make
sure there's more natural gas available for families and small business
owners so the economy will grow." [AP]
[25] HARD-EYED MEN WHO DID WELL OUT OF THE WAR. Halliburton has reported
it made a company-record $2.4 billion last year - making 2005 the
company's most profitable year in its 86 year history. The company - which
was once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney - has seen its stock value
double over the past year. Last week Halliburton subsidiary KBR won a $385
million contract to build and operate new detention facilities in case of
a "emergency influx of immigrants" into the country. [DN]
[26] BUT THE RICH ARE GETTING RICHER. Americans' personal savings rate
dipped into negative territory in something that hasn't happened since the
Great Depression. Consumers depleted their savings to finance the
purchases of cars and other big-ticket items. The Commerce Department
reported Monday that the savings rate fell into negative territory at
minus 0.5 percent, meaning that Americans not only spent all of their
after-tax income last year but had to dip into previous savings or
increase borrowing. The savings rate has been negative for an entire year
only twice before -- in 1932 and 1933 -- two years when the country was
struggling to cope with the Great Depression, a time of massive business
failures and job layoffs. With employment growth strong now, analysts
said that different factors are at play. Americans feel they can spend
more, given that the value of their homes, the biggest asset for most
families, has been rising sharply in recent years ... A negative savings
rate means that Americans spent all their disposable income, the amount
left over after paying taxes, and dipped into their past savings to
finance their purchases. For the month, the savings rate fell to 0.7
percent, the largest one-month decline since a 3.4 percent drop in August.
The 0.5 percent negative savings rate for 2005 followed a 1.8 percent rate
of savings in 2004. The last negative rates occurred in 1932, a drop of
0.9 percent, and a record 1.5 percent decline in 1933. In those years
Americans exhausted their savings to try to meet expenses in the wake of
the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. One major reason that consumers
felt confident in spending all of their disposable incomes and dipping
into savings last year was that a booming housing market made them feel
more wealthy. As their home prices surged at double-digit rates, that
created what economists call a "wealth effect" that supported greater
spending. The concern, however, is that the housing boom of the past five
years is beginning to quiet down with the rise in mortgage rates. Analysts
are closing watching to see whether consumer spending, which accounts for
two-thirds of total economic activity, falters in 2006 as Americans,
already carrying heavy debt loads, don't feel as wealthy as the price
appreciation of their homes would seem to indicate. For December, the 0.4
percent rise in incomes was in line with Wall Street expectations. It
followed a similar 0.4 percent increase in November, with both months
lower than the 0.6 percent rise in October. The 0.9 percent rise in
spending with slightly above the expectation for a 0.8 percent increase
and was almost double the 0.5 percent increase in November.
[27] MORE FOR THE RICH, LESS FOR THE POOR. Republicans in the House of
Representatives narrowly won passage on Wednesday of a controversial bill
to trim about $39 billion from domestic spending over five years, capping
a yearlong push to cut health care for the poor and elderly and other
programs. By a partisan vote of 216-214, the House approved the bill,
sending it to President Bush for signing into law ... The bill, approved
in the Senate in December after Vice President Dick Cheney cast a rare
tiebreaking vote, was approved by the House late last year. A small change
made by the Senate forced another House vote ... Referring to $70 billion
in proposed Republican tax cuts, Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat,
said, "You don't have to be much beyond sixth grade to know that's going
to add to your deficits" when offset by only $39 billion in spending cuts.
The Senate on Wednesday began debating a $70 billion tax-cut measure that
would extend alternative minimum tax relief through 2006, ensuring that
millions of middle-class families will not end up paying the tax that
originally was intended for the very wealthy ... The nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office said this week that cuts to Medicaid spending
would affect 13 million poor people, 20 percent of the program's
participants. Many of those would be children, the CBO said ... The bill
also sets February 17, 2009, as the deadline when television stations must
switch to airing only new digital broadcasts. It provides up to $1.5
billion to help some consumers buy converter boxes so existing televisions
do not go dark after the transition. [Reuters]
Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL 15TH) was one of thirteen Republicans
voting against the bill. He is susceptible to pressure.
[28] JACK AND THE INTERNATIONAL RIGHT. In the mid-1980s Jack Abramoff
helped launch the pro-apartheid International Freedom Foundation.
According to the South African Mail & Guardian, the IFF was promoted as an
independent think tank but it was actually part of an elaborate South
African military intelligence operation set up to combat sanctions and
undermine Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. While Abramoff
headed the IFF in Washington, in South Africa it was run in part by Craig
Williamson, a notorious military intelligence officer known for carrying
out a series of bombings and assassinations. The South African Truth and
Reconciliation Commission granted Williamson amnesty for his role in the
1982 bombing of the ANC's office in London and for ordering the
assassination of at least two anti-apartheid campaigners. Abramoff first
visited South Africa in 1983 at a time when he was head of the College
Republicans National Committee. Two years later Abramoff helped organize
an international conference of right wing groups uniting the U.S.-backed
Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, leaders of the Afghan mujahedin,
Nicaraguan contras and Laotian guerrillas. As part of Abramoff's work with
South Africa, he also made the film Red Scorpion that was filmed in
occupied Namibia and reportedly funded by the South African military.
[29] CARTOON VIOLENCE. Muslim protesters torched the Danish consulate in
Beirut on Sunday and damaged property in a Christian area in riots over
cartoons of Prophet Mohammad ... On Saturday, Syrians set fire to the
Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus, damaged the Swedish embassy
and tried to storm the French mission but were held off by riot police ...
Several Sunni Muslim clerics were on the streets urging restraint and
asking protesters, who came from across the country, to leave the scene, a
Reuters witness said. Some protesters stoned a Christian Maronite church
nearby and a group of Muslim clerics went to the church to apologize,
witnesses said. [Reuters]
A Tom Toles editorial cartoon published in The Washington Post on
Monday and on its Web site has drawn a very rare and very strong protest
letter to the editors from all six members of The Joint Chiefs of Staff
... The letter, not yet published by the Post, charges that the six
military leaders "believe you and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to your
readers and your paper's reputation by using such a callous depiction of
those who have volunteered to defend this nation, and as a result, have
suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds. ... As the Joint Chiefs, it
is rare that we all put our hand to one letter, but we cannot let this
reprehensible cartoon go unanswered" ... The Toles cartoon shows a
soldier, a quadriplegic, in a hospital, being visited by a Dr. Rumsfeld
who is scribbling on a form. Rumsfeld says, "I am listing your condition
as battle hardened." At the bottom a smaller figure of the doctor adds,
"I'm prescribing that you be stretched thin. We don't define that as
torture." [E&P]
[30] GITMOIZE 'EM. Two "detainees" are near death. Two hunger-striking
prisoners are about to move from being figuratively entombed in Guantanamo
to being literally entombed there. And where did I learn about this? In
Granma, referring to an earlier story in the Times (U.K.). According to
both Google and Yahoo news, the story has not appeared in a single
American media outlet. Well, you can understand why. It's just two more
people the U.S. is about to kill. What's that as a percentage of 100,000+?
Not even worth mentioning. [lefti]
[31] ETERNAL VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF LIBERTY. The Republican chairman of
the Senate intelligence committee on Friday endorsed President George W.
Bush's domestic surveillance program and said the White House was right to
inform only a handful of lawmakers about its existence. In a letter to the
top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Pat
Roberts of Kansas expressed "strong support" for [the] program ... The
panel is to hear testimony Monday from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
on the issue ... The administration, which refers to the eavesdropping as
a limited "terrorist surveillance program," says it is justified by Bush's
constitutional authority as commander in chief and by the authorization of
military force that Congress granted the president after the 2001 attacks
on New York and Washington. Democrats and other critics say the NSA
program could violate constitutional protections against unreasonable
searches, as well as the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which
requires the government to seek wiretap warrants from a secret court even
during times of war.
[32] CONVENIENT "SCHEDULING CONFLICT." A federal judge on Friday set
former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's trial date for January
2007, two months after the midterm congressional elections. Libby, who
faces perjury and obstruction of justice charges, will go on trial Jan. 8,
said U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton. Walton said he had hoped to
start the trial in September but one of Libby's lawyers had a scheduling
conflict that made an earlier date impossible. [AP]
[33] STEALTH LAW. The House of Representatives agreed on Wednesday to a
second brief extension of key provisions of the Patriot Act ... With a
number of provisions set to expire on Friday, the House approved a measure
on a voice vote to extend them until March 10. The Senate was certain to
provide its needed concurrence ... House Judiciary Committee Chairman
James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, said the bill, which was
blocked by the Senate, would provide new safeguards and again called for
its passage. [Reuters]
A new provision tucked into the Patriot Act bill now before
Congress would allow authorities to haul demonstrators at any "special
event of national significance" away to jail on felony charges if they are
caught breaching a security perimeter. Sen. Arlen Specter , R-Pa.,
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sponsored the measure, which
would extend the authority of the Secret Service to allow agents to arrest
people who willingly or knowingly enter a restricted area at an event,
even if the president or other official normally protected by the Secret
Service isn't in attendance at the time. [FOX]
[34] INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE WORKS. In news from Haiti, one of the
country's best known political prisoners - the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste has
been temporarily released from jail in order to be treated for leukemia
and pneumonia. Jean-Juste was first taken to a hospital in Port-Au-Prince
where he briefly spoke with reporters. He was then flown to Miami where he
will be treated. The interim Haitian government has been widely criticized
for jailing the 59-year-old priest. Hundreds of religious, political and
human rights leaders and 50 members of the U.S. Congress had called on the
Haitian government to release him. Amnesty International had labeled
Jean-Juste a "prisoner of conscience." While Jean-Juste has been
temporarily freed, hundreds of other supporters of the ousted President
Jean Bertrand Aristide -- including the well-known singer So Ann -- remain
in jail. [DN]
[35] NOW THEY TELL US. The New York Times has revealed new details of the
US role in the overthrow of Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide. In a
lengthy expose published Sunday, former US ambassador Brian Dean Curran
says the White House and State Department actively ignored his complaints
over the Haiti activities of the International Republican Institute -- a
government-funded group with close ties to the Bush administration. Over
Curran's objection, the IRI convened training sessions for anti-Aristide
groups at a Santo Domingo hotel. These meetings were financed by the US
government. On one occasion, two key leaders of the armed rebellion that
eventually toppled Aristide -- Guy Phillipe and Paul Accelin -- were
staying at the same hotel where the meetings took place. Curran was
removed from his post in July 2003 -- six months before his term was set
to expire. Otto Reich, who served as Assistant Secretary of State during
President George W. Bush's first term, said Curran was replaced because
"we did not think the ambassador was carrying out the new policy in the
way we wanted it carried out." Aristide was deposed just months later, on
February 29th 2004, in what he called a modern-day kidnapping in the
service of a coup d'etat backed by the United States. [DN]
[36] SUPPORT OUR TROOPS? In Ohio, a 35-year-old veteran of the Iraq war
was buried on Saturday - a week after he committed suicide. Army Reservist
Douglas Barber was a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War and had
publicly spoken out about the psychological toll war takes on veterans. A
month before he died he appeared on Doug Basham's radio show. Barber
reportedly spent two years fighting the military to get counseling and for
the VA to recognize his disability. Just days before he shot himself,
Douglas Barber wrote, "We cannot stand the memories and [we] decide death
is better. We kill ourselves because we are haunted by seeing children
killed and families wiped out." Meanwhile a new report from UPI is
estimating 19,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been
diagnosed with post-traumatic stress since 2002. Overall 40,000 veterans
from the two wars have exhibited some signs of mental health disorders.
[DN]
[37] ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE. The six-day World Social Forum wrapped up
in Caracas with US anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan calling President
George W. Bush a "terrorist." On Sunday Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
led a massive rally during which he warned the U.S. against attacking
Iran. He was joined on stage by Sheehan and Elma Beatriz Rosado -- the
wife of Filiberto Ojeda Rios, the Puerto Rican independence leader who was
shot dead by FBI agents in September. [DN]
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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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