[Peace] News notes 2006-02-19

[Carl Estabrook]

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        Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism,"
        for the February 19, 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.)
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[1] LOOTERS IN CHARGE.  The LA Times today describes today how the Bush
administration is using federal agencies' arcane regulations and legal
opinions to shield industries (e.g., automakers) from lawsuits by
consumers and states. [LAT]
	Tuesday's New York Times headlined "U.S. Royalty Plan To Give
Windfall to Oil Companies, $7 Billion Over Five Years" ... On the whole,
the mainstream media ignore the growing divide between rich and poor,
because increasingly, the media executives and editors are part of the
ruling elite. The leading Democrats ignore it for the same reason ... as
former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis put it: "We can have
concentrated wealth in the hands of a few or we can have democracy, but we
cannot have both" ... Top executives now make more in a day than the
average worker makes in a year ... Of the world's 100 largest economies,
47 are nations, and 53 are corporations ... Thirty zip codes in America
have become fabulously wealthy. Meanwhile, whole urban and rural
communities are languishing in poverty, crumbling infrastructure, growing
economic insecurity and fear ... In 1999, the 225 richest had a combined
wealth of $1 trillion. That's equal to the combined annual income of the
world's 2.5 billion poorest people ... The wealth of the world's three
most well-to-do individuals now exceeds the combined gross domestic
product of the 48 least developed countries. Half of the world's
population of six billion live on less than $2 a day, while 1.3 billion
get by on less than $1 a day. [R. Nader]

[2] NOT THE RIGHT SORT OF DEMOCRACY. The NYT this week described how the
US and Israel are working to undermine the victory of Hamas in the
Palestinian election, despite the administration's new excuse for killing
people in the Middle East -- that it's bringing democracy to the region.
The campaign was underway in the NYT today, with an article about how
Hamas' victory was ascribable in part to a quirk in the design of the
elections.  (No comparison was drawn to the 2000 presidential election in
the US.)

[3] TOO MUCH DEMOCRACY.  Israel's cabinet has approved punitive sanctions
on the Palestinian Authority ... Israel will withhold an estimated $50m
(28m) in monthly customs revenues due to the PA [why is Israel collecting
them in the first place?], as well as impose travel restrictions on Hamas
members.  Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the PA was becoming a
"terrorist authority" and ruled out any contact with a Hamas-led
government...
    * Russia invites Hamas to Moscow for talks aimed at helping the
stalled peace process, stressing Russia's opposition to terrorism but its
willingness to talk with the organisation's political wing.
    * European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana says Israel should
not have acted before Hamas forms a government or sets out a policy
towards Israel. [BBC]
	The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution on Wednesday
urging that direct U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority be stopped as
long as the militant group Hamas, which is expected to form a new
Palestinian government, calls for Israel's destruction. The nonbinding
resolution expressing the sense of Congress was approved 418-1. [The only
nay was from Congressman Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat who represents the
First District, Hawaii.] The Senate passed the measure earlier this month.
[Reuters]

[4] UH, SORRY. British military police have begun interviewing four Iraqi
youths about an alleged attack by soldiers. The video appearing to show
abuse by British troops filmed by another soldier, followed a
demonstration in Amara, southern Iraq, two years ago ... The ruling
council in that province, Maysan, has announced an end to co-operation
with UK forces.  That means the vast majority of the area of Iraq under
British control is now refusing to co-operate, after a similar move in
Basra last week. All contacts with UK military and civilian authorities in
Maysan have been suspended and the council has demanded the release of all
the detainees from the province being held by the coalition ... The video
... shows soldiers apparently kicking and beating Iraqis, and was widely
condemned. UK Defence Secretary John Reid told the BBC people should be
"slow to condemn our troops" who have to fight under difficult
circumstances. While the images were unacceptable, it was important to
keep this in proportion, he said. [BBC]

[5] IT'S NOT ABOUT OIL.  Nine foreign oil workers have been seized by
armed militants from a barge in Nigeria's Niger Delta. The group,
including three Americans, two Thais, two Egyptians, a Briton and a
Filipino, were on a pipelaying barge. Shell's Forcados export terminal was
also set on fire, and oil loading there has been suspended. The attacks
come a day after a militant commander told the BBC his group was declaring
"total war" on all foreign oil interests in the Delta. The Movement for
the Emancipation of the Niger Delta gave oil companies and their employees
until midnight on Friday night to leave the region ... "These individuals
and facilities were well guarded by a large number of soldiers who
resisted for an embarrassingly short period before escaping to ensure
their personal safeties," said the militants in their e-mail statement.
The men were working for Willbros, a US engineering firm which is a Shell
subcontractor, in the Forcados River, 50km (30 miles) west of Warri ... On
Wednesday the Nigerian military used a helicopter to hit barges it said
were being used by militants to smuggle stolen oil. The rebels recently
blew up two oil pipelines, held four foreign oil workers hostage and
sabotaged two major oilfields.  The group wants greater control of the oil
wealth produced on their land. Nigeria is Africa's leading oil exporter
and the fifth-biggest source of US oil imports, but despite its oil
wealth, many Nigerians live in abject poverty. [BBC]

[6] JUST LIKE KOSOVO.  Bush [said Friday that] he would support an
expanded role by NATO [in Darfur] ... "it's going to require, I think, a
NATO stewardship ..." [he said] ... A Pentagon spokesman [said] "NATO
could potentially be a significant leader" ... An official who described
the Oval Office session [between Bush and Kofi Annan this week] said Mr.
Annan had noted that any new United Nations force would need heavier
weapons and far better intelligence units than those provided to the
African Union. "That can only come from a few places," the official said,
"NATO or the United States" ... Mr. Bush's comments came after he received
a briefing on Iraq at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, the headquarters of
the United States Central Command and the Special Operations Command.
Reporters were ushered into the briefing room, which had a large map of
the Middle East projected on the wall... [NYT]
	[Appearing on the PBS Newshour with right-wing Sen. Sam Brownback,
Illinois' junior Sen. Obama said,] "The issue is US leadership. What we
can do is to insist that NATO forces provide a bridge as was indicated by
Sen. Brownback ... having NATO forces there ... would be absolutely
crucial ... The main thing that we've got do is use the kinds of political
pressure that we can bring to bear on other countries when we really think
that something is of our national interest ... we have to say to our
allies and part of what we have to communicate to countries like China is
that this is an important national priority for us ... It's also in our
national security interest because ... this not only creates the seeds of
terrorism, it also creates the kind of despair that over time spills over
into our own country. " [PBS]
	There is some bipartisan support for intervening in the troubled
region. Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) plan
to introduce a resolution in Congress calling for NATO troops to help the
African Union "stop the genocide" in the Darfur region. The State
Department official said there appears to be broad consensus at the United
Nations to provide the force much broader rules of engagement. But he said
that there are still many difficult issues to address, making it unlikely
to win U.N. Security Council authorization by the end of the month. The
United States holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this
month. The council's African members, Tanzania, Congo Republic and Ghana,
backed by China and Qatar, do not want to discuss a U.N. peacekeeping
mission until the African Union has formally indicated that it wants the
United Nations to step in. That is expected to happen early next month.
[WP]

[7] DEMOCRATS INTO THE TANK ONCE MORE.  Thursday the Senate voted 96-3 to
move toward final passage of ... the Patriot Act ["compromise"], which the
White House negotiated with a handful of Republicans ... Only Sens. Jim
Jeffords, an independent from Vermont, and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., supported
Sen. Feingold's [filibuster attempt].[AP]

[8] IN SPITE OF NEWS MANAGEMENT. "Among the many controversies surrounding
the Bush Administration, its response to Hurricane Katrina is most
troubling to voters," according to a new WNBC/Marist poll. The survey
found that 66% of registered voters nationwide "are bothered a great deal
or a good amount by the administrations response to Hurricane Katrina" ...
The second most troubling is the Bush administration's wiretapping of
Americans without a warrant, with 50% bothered a great deal or good
amount.
	More adults in the United States believe their federal
administration was wrong to order military action against Iraq, according
to a poll by Gallup released by CNN and USA Today. 55 per cent of
respondents believe the U.S. made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, up
four points since late January.

[9] HOW CAN WE IGNORE WHAT WE'VE DONE?  Reporter Seymour Hersh said last
year, "This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out
saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically
what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys,
children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with
the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of
the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror.
It's going to come out."
	The Pentagon has been working strenuously to make sure the
American public doesn't see this material.  Many news organiations have
it, but won't publish it.  That conspiracy of silence has now been broken
by an Australian TV station, who've published some pictures, and the US
online site Salon, which claims to have most of it.
	CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr [presented] the most
outrageously off-target reporting .... In her numerous appearances during
the morning news cycle on CNN after the images were first broadcast on
Australia's SBS television, Starr described what she saw as the "root of
the Abu Ghraib prison scandal" as such: "Let's start by reminding
everybody that under U.S. military law and practice, the only photographs
that can be taken are official photographs for documentation purposes
about the status of prisoners when they are in military detention. That's
it. Anything else is not acceptable. And of course, that is what the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal is all about." [Scahill]

[10] HOW CAN WE IGNORE WHAT WE'VE DONE? (II) The United States must close
its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay because it is effectively a
torture camp where prisoners have no access to justice, a U.N. report
released Thursday concluded.
	Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday said the United States
should close the prison at Guantanamo Bay for terror suspects as soon as
possible, backing a key conclusion of a U.N.-appointed independent panel.
[AP]
	The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has launched a passionate
attack on President George Bush, saying his administration's refusal to
close the notorious Guantanamo Bay camp reflected "a society that is
heading towards George Orwell's Animal Farm".

[11] GLOBALIZATION.  Sheriffs from 10 states have partnered with Israeli
security officials to learn more about homeland security techniques. The
10, members of the National Sheriffs' Association, shared experiences on
border security, information sharing, private-sector security involvement,
security public facilities, incident response and other areas of vital
importance in the age of terrorism. The American Israel Education
Foundation, a supporting organization of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, sponsored the one-week event, which took place last
week in Israel. "Israel has been preparing for and responding to terror
attacks for 50 years," AIPAC board member Harriet Zimmerman said in a news
release Tuesday. "Our goal is to ensure that U.S. law enforcement and
first responders have the opportunity to learn from Israel's vast
experience in this critical area." [UPI]

[12] AND OF COURSE WE'D LET THEM DO THAT HERE. The Bush administration,
frustrated by Iranian defiance over its nuclear program, proposed
Wednesday to spend $85 million to promote political change inside Iran by
subsidizing dissident groups, unions, student fellowships and television
and radio broadcasts.

[13] PROVERB: THE DEFICIT WILL BE DIVIDED AMONG THE PEASANTS. U.S.
military spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will rise to $115
billion for this year and nearly $400 billion since the fighting started
under an emergency request the White House submitted Thursday. A separate
request for almost $20 billion in new hurricane relief funds would bring
total spending in response to Katrina and Rita to more than $100 billion.

[14] I THOUGHT THEY'D PACKED THE COURTS. A federal judge dealt a setback
to the Bush administration on its warrantless surveillance program,
ordering the Justice Department on Thursday to release documents about the
highly classified effort within 20 days or compile a list of what it is
withholding.
	The American Bar Association denounced President Bush's
warrantless domestic surveillance program Monday, accusing him of
exceeding his powers under the Constitution ... The nation's largest
organization of lawyers adopted a policy opposing any future government
use of electronic surveillance in the United States for foreign
intelligence purposes without first obtaining warrants from a special
court set up under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  The
400,000-member ABA said that if the president believes the FISA is
inadequate to protect Americans, he should to ask Congress to amend the
act. [AP]

[15] BETTER THAN JACKGATE.  Al Kamen of the Washington Post has announced
the winners of his "Name the Abramoff Scandal" contest. Some of the
winners: "Wretched Access"; "Bribeshead Revisited"; "Bribes 'n' Tribes";
"Slots and Yachts"; and "Desperate House Lives." [WP]

[16] FROM A CONVERSATION WITH NOAM CHOMSKY ABOUT THE WAR:
	"Well. the first thing that should be done in Iraq is for us to be
serious about what's going on. There is almost no serious discussion, I'm
sorry to say, across the spectrum, of the question of withdrawal. The
reason for that is that we are under a rigid doctrine in the West, a
religious fanaticism, that says we must believe that the United States
would have invaded Iraq even if its main product was lettuce and pickles,
and the oil resources of the world were in Central Africa. Anyone who
doesn't believe that is condemned as a conspiracy theorist, a Marxist, a
madman, or something. Well, you know, if you have three gray cells
functioning, you know that that's perfect nonsense. The U.S. invaded Iraq
because it has enormous oil resources, mostly untapped, and it's right in
the heart of the world's energy system. Which means that if the U.S.
manages to control Iraq, it extends enormously its strategic power, what
Zbigniew Brzezinski calls its critical leverage over Europe and Asia.
Yeah, that's a major reason for controlling the oil resources -- it gives
you strategic power. Even if you're on renewable energy you want to do
that. So that's the reason for invading Iraq, the fundamental reason.
	"Now let's talk about withdrawal. Take any day's newspapers or
journals and so on. They start by saying the United States aims to bring
about a sovereign democratic independent Iraq. I mean, is that even a
remote possibility? Just consider what the policies would be likely to be
of an independent sovereign Iraq. If it's more or less democratic, it'll
have a Shiite majority. They will naturally want to improve their linkages
with Iran, Shiite Iran. Most of the clerics come from Iran. The Badr
Brigade, which basically runs the South, is trained in Iran. They have
close and sensible economic relationships which are going to increase. So
you get an Iraqi/Iran loose alliance. Furthermore, right across the border
in Saudi Arabia, there's a Shiite population which has been bitterly
oppressed by the U.S.-backed fundamentalist tyranny. And any moves toward
independence in Iraq are surely going to stimulate them, it's already
happening. That happens to be where most of Saudi Arabian oil is. Okay, so
you can just imagine the ultimate nightmare in Washington: a loose Shiite
alliance controlling most of the world's oil, independent of Washington
and probably turning toward the East, where China and others are eager to
make relationships with them, and are already doing it. Is that even
conceivable? The U.S. would go to nuclear war before allowing that, as
things now stand." --posted 14 January 2006

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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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