[Peace] News notes 2006-01-22

[Carl Estabrook]

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        Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism,"
        for the January 22, 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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	Lyndon Johnson [once] said that, [although] he didn't want to
	"follow Hitler," ... Hitler had the right idea: "Just take a
	simple thing and repeat it often enough, even if it wasn't true,
	why, people accept it." Johnson was speaking by telephone to
	Martin Luther King, Jr., in Selma, Alabama, about how to convince
	Southern whites that Southern blacks deserved the franchise. The
	curious political-science tutorial came on the afternoon of
	January 15, 1965, King's thirty-sixth birthday. [New Yorker]

[1] In an audiotaped message broadcast on the Arabic television network Al
Jazeera Thursday, Osama Bin Laden offered "a long-term truce to rebuild
Iraq and Afghanistan and prevent billions of dollars from finding their
way to the powerful and to the war mongers in America, who supported
Bush's election campaign with millions of dollars."  The US immediately
rejected the idea. White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said: "We do
not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business..." [an
interesting metaphor]. [DN]

[2] "Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview -- and many Democrats have a
pre-9/11 worldview," says Bush strategist Carl Rove. "Last Friday, Rove
delivered a lunchtime address before several hundred RNC members,
defending the president's eavesdropping program and blasting Dems critical
of the war on terror. Yet Rove, who is still under scrutiny in the Plame
leak, didn't stick around for the lengthy standing ovation he received.
Within seconds of concluding the speech, Rove had dashed offstage and out
a side entrance, avoiding a group of protesters dressed as plumbers to
signify the ongoing leak investigation." [Newsweek] Sen. John McCain said
Sunday that America must explore alternate energy sources to avoid being
held hostage by Iran or by "wackos" in Venezuela...  "We've got to get
quickly on a track to energy independence from foreign oil, and that
means, among other things, going back to nuclear power," McCain said on
Fox News Sunday. [Reuters]

[3] In the run-up to the president's State of the Union speech at the end
of the month, Hillary Clinton attacks the administration from the right
for *not being belligerent enough* towards Iran, as the Israeli government
wants. And the Democratic party has chosen Virginia's neophyte governor
Kaine, a *supporter* of the war, to deliver the Democratic response.
>From the other side, Amnesty International launches a "Tell the Truth
About Torture, Mr. President" campaign and urges full, honest disclosure
of u.s.  acts of torture during state of the union address. [Fat chance.]

[4] Neocon Pentagon staffer Larry Franklin was sentenced to jail for
espionage this week, but the judge said he didn't really mean to harm
America, and his sentence will be reduced when he testifies against two
members of the Israeli lobby, AIPAC, who aided his transfer of classified
information to Israel.

[5] As the White House prepared to ratchet up its defense for the National
Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without court warrants, a small
group of House Democrats convened legal experts and advocates in a
basement hearing room to poke holes in the administration's legal
rationale.  Bush's argument that he has executive power to authorize such
surveillance "flies in the face of both common sense and legal precedent,"
said Rep. John Conyers Jr., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee, who led the meeting.  "What the president ordered in this case
was a crime," George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley
said. "The federal law makes it clear that you cannot engage in this type
of operation without committing a crime."  The American Civil Liberties
Union filed suit against the NSA over the program this week, saying that
it violates the First and Fourth amendments and the separation of powers
... On Thursday, the Justice Department [argued] that the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978) [is unconstitutional because] it
curtails the president's power to protect the nation during wartime.
White House officials have asserted that Bush's power as commander in
chief allows him to take actions to protect national security, and that
the congressional resolution passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks further cemented that authority. [baltimoresun] In fact,
two lawsuits have been filed alleging that the NSA's use of warrantless
wiretapping is illegal. The ACLU filed the first suit on behalf of a
number of journalists along with Greenpeace and the Council on
American-Islamic Relations ... one of the journalists involved, somewhat
surprisingly, is Christopher Hitchens ... The other lawsuit was filed by
the Center for Constitutional Rights, ... the group who among other things
serve as legal counsel for many of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay ... the
CCR also filed war crimes charges against Rumsfeld... [amleft] Meanwhile,
former VP Al Gore calls for a special counsel on eavesdropping.

[6] Sen. Durbin (D-IL) announced Thursday that "he will vote against Judge
Sam Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court. And he said so many other senators
intensely oppose Alito that they may have enough votes to sustain a
filibuster." Sen. Obama (D-IL), typically, has not said how he will vote
and will not do so until he meets privately with Alito this week.
[Obviously, voting agaisnt Alito is merely posturing unless a senator is
willing to support a filibuster.] [CST]

[7] In the war, the US government has refused to express regret over last
weeks CIA bombing in Pakistan. The attack killed at least 17 people,
perhaps twice that, including women and children. [DN] The U.S. has
released 500 people from prisons in Iraq. Among the released were three
journalists with the Reuters new agency who had been held without charges
for over four months.

[8] In Lebanon, nearly 10,000 students marched on the US embassy near
Beirut to denounce what they called Washingtons interference in their
country. The students chanted slogans including "America out" and "Death
to America." [DN]

[9] In Europe, a Swiss senator has said that it is clear that the CIA
undertook illegal activities in Europe by secretly transporting and
jailing suspected terrorists.  The official (Dick Marty) is heading up a
European investigation into allegations that the CIA operated secret
prisons in Poland and Romania. He also said blame has to be placed on all
European nations who have helped the U.S. carry out its covert operations
... Last week a Swiss newspaper published the text of an intercepted
Egyptian memo about U.S. interrogation centers in Eastern Europe and the
Balkans. The memo had been faxed from the Egyptian foreign ministry to the
Egyptian embassy in London. But it had been intercepted by the Swiss
secret service and then leaked to the press. [DN] In the UK the Blair
government is "secretly trying to stifle attempts by MPs to find out what
it knows about CIA 'torture flights' and privately admits that people
captured by British forces could have been sent illegally to interrogation
centers." A hidden strategy aimed at suppressing a debate about rendition
... is revealed in a briefing paper sent by the Foreign Office to No 10.
The document shows that the government has been aware of secret
interrogation centers, despite ministers' denials... [Guardian]

[10] The Foreign Minister of the new German center-right government
(Frank-Walter Steinmeier) has ruled out any military strike against Iran.
Last week, the new German chancellor on a visit to Washington said that
Guantanamo camp should be closed.

[11] Human Rights Watch released its annual report Wednesday, including a
scathing critique of the Bush administration, accusing it of undermining
human rights around the world by the way its waging the so-called war on
terror. The group also called on Congress to set up an independent panel
to investigate U.S. human rights abuses. [DN]

[12] Data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that
the hourly and weekly pay of most US workers fell behind inflation in
2005.  Congress is expected soon to approve legislation that requires
states to place at least half of their welfare families in jobs or
approved training programs.  Only 10 states meet that requirement ... Some
people fear that states will improve their rates primarily by kicking
people out of the aid program...

[13] Six former heads of the Environmental Protect Agency five of them
Republicans accused the Bush administration Wednesday of ignoring efforts
to curb global warming and other environmental problems.

[14] The highest-ranking U.S. Army officer charged with killing a detainee
in Iraq was found guilty on Saturday of negligent homicide but not guilty
on the more serious charge of murder of an Iraqi general during an
interrogation. [Reuters] The US Army announced this week it was raising
the age limit for new soldiers by five years and doubling monetary
incentives for enrollment. Under the new rules, the maximum age for
enlistment will be 39 years old. The Army is also doubling enlistment
bonuses to up to $40,000 dollars for the regular Army and up to $20,000
dollars for the Army Reserve. The announcement comes after the US Army
missed its recruiting targets in 2005. [DN] In Texas, a 55-year old former
Marine has been arrested for avoiding military service in the Vietnam War
... over 36 years ago; he is currently in a Texas prison. He could face up
to three years in jail. [Reuters]

[15] USA Today is reporting the national aviation security authority is
preparing a new screening process that could mark the beginning of a
two-tiered system for airport security checks. Under the new process, air
travelers who agree to pay a one-hundred dollar annual fee and undergo a
criminal record check will be allowed to pass through separate security
checkpoints.

[16] In India, writer Arundhati Roy has refused to accept a prestigious
Indian writing award in protest. Roy accused the Indian government of
toeing the U.S. line by "violently and ruthlessly pursuing policies of
brutalization of industrial workers, increasing militarization and
economic neo-liberalization."

[17] At Columbia University Law School in NY, a "citizens Commission of
Inquiry" meets this weekend and will hear testimony on the question: Is
the Bush Administration guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity?
... witnesses from the US and UK will testify in five areas: 1) war, 2)
torture, 3) global environment, 4) global health, and 5) the
administrations response to Katrina. [afterdowningstreet]

[18] To their credit [Google] were the only ones who tried to keep
customer search records private from an intrusive DOJ fishing expedition
... Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes. Kudos to Google, jeers to the
spineless weasels at MSN, AOL and Yahoo. [bigpicture]

[19] Former political prisoner and torture survivor Michelle Bachelet
(from Salvador Allende's Socialist Party) elected as Chile's first female
president; Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as Liberia's new president,
first elected female leader in Africa.

[20] The New York Times is reporting a high-level Bush administration
intelligence assessment concluded in early 2002 that the sale of enriched
uranium from Niger to Iraq was unlikely.

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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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