[Peace] News notes 2006-01-29

[Carl Estabrook]

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        Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism,"
        for the January 29, 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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	"...history ... is indeed little more than the register of the
	crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."
	--Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
	"Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes & disasters
	committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines."
	--Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

[1] The NYT [runs a long front-page feature] on Haiti where national
elections have been rescheduled four times and are now set for February 7.
[It manages to obscure the fact that that the US has overthrown elected
governments in Haiti twice in fifteen years, because of "the threat of a
good example" in the hemisphere's poorest country -- the virus of
independent development might spread.] [But it does focus on] the
International Republican Institute, a "democracy building group" with
extremely close Bush ties ... the group opposed former president Aristide,
even when the U.S. was claiming to back him, [and] undermined [his
government] ...  The IRI has seen its federal financing nearly triple in
three years and it does work in more than 60 countries. [Slate]

[2] An unmanned drone aircraft was responsible for the failed
assassination attempt [that killed 17-30 people, including children] in
Pakistan two weeks ago ... U.S. officials [claim] that strikes by unmanned
Predator aircraft have killed at least four senior Al Qaeda officials.
Drones have also been responsible for 19 "successful" strikes on overseas
terrorist suspects. Officials confirm that "many civilians" were killed by
the strikes ... A former counter-terrorism official claimed that the U.S.
generally needs a host country's approval before conducting a drone
attack, but "there are a few countries where the president has decided
that we can whack someone without the approval or knowledge of the host
government." [Slate]
	Reuters reports that the Bush administration is unlikely to shy
away from using Predator missile attacks in Pakistan, despite the risk of
political backlash ...  Pakistan lodged a public protest a day after the
Damadola airstrike, saying it would not allow such attacks to happen
again, while demonstrations spread across the country and anti-American
sentiment seethed in the Pashtun tribal belt on the border ... Bush and
other senior White House officials were apprised of the Damadola plan
before the attack ... "It was a White House decision. The CIA director
generally has command and control. But this one was of such sensitivity
[because of the attack on civilians] that it needed a White House
check-off," said a former U.S. intelligence officer with knowledge of the
Damadola operation. [Reuters]

[3] The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives
of suspected insurgents in hopes of "leveraging" their husbands into
surrender, U.S. military documents show.  In one case, a secretive task
force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence
officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel
suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the
family's door telling him "to come get his wife."  The issue of female
detentions in Iraq has taken on a higher profile since kidnappers seized
American journalist Jill Carroll on Jan. 7 and threatened to kill her
unless all Iraqi women detainees are freed. [AP] Hostage-taking is a war
crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which the Bush administration
has described as "quaint"...

[4] [The Palestinian party Hamas won a landslide election victory over
long-dominant Fatah party in Wednesday's election for the Palestinian
parliament,] Fatah's cronyism and corruption was no match for the Hamas
charity network and military wing the latter of which claimed credit for
Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last year ... poll results show 40 percent
of Israelis would negotiate with Hamas if it renounced violence and less
than a third said Israel ought to cut off all contacts with the
Palestinian Authority and resume targeted killings if Hamas refused to do
so. [Slate]
	We should recall that Hamas, the religion-based Palestinian party,
was created twenty years ago with the financial support of the US and
Israel.  It was supposed to undercut support for the secular PLO.  This
was not a new policy -- the U.S. had encouraged Islam-based parties in the
Middle East since it was confronted with pan-Arab nationalism threatening
"our" oil after WWII.  In general, the U.S. destruction of secular
nationalism promoted religious nationalism (as in Iran). The policy
reached its zenith when the Carter administration, in the most expensive
CIA operation in history, gathered the most fanatical Islamicist fighters
it could find and sent them to Afghanistan to annoy the USSR -- that was
before the Russian invasion, according to President Carter's National
Security Adviser.  One result was the formation of al-Qaida.

[5] Interim Prime Minister Olmert said on Sunday Israel would boycott a
Palestinian government that includes Hamas and urged foreign leaders to do
the same until the militant group meets Israeli terms. "Israel will not
hold any contacts with the Palestinians" unless Hamas "renounced terror,"
recognized the Jewish state's right to exist and accepted all agreements
Palestinian leaders had signed with Israel, Olmert said in broadcast
remarks ... "These principles are acceptable to the international
community. I do not intend to make any compromise on this matter," said
Olmert ... But Hamas has largely abided by a cease-fire Abbas reached with
Israel, and Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was quoted in media
reports as saying the Islamic group was "behaving responsibly" and would
likely continue to curb attacks.
	But liberal Democratic senator Joseph Biden said the United States
should stop giving money to the Palestinians now that Hamas is in power.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said he agreed with holding back U.S.
aid ... "Until they [learn how to govern], it's very difficult for us to
expect to provide significant financial assistance or engage in meaningful
peace talks with a party that is explicitly against the prospects for
peace," Obama said on ABC.

[6] An audit of US reconstruction spending in Iraq has uncovered
spectacular misuse of tens of millions of dollars in cash, including
bundles of money stashed in filing cabinets, a US soldier who gambled away
thousands and stacks of newly minted notes distributed without receipts.
The audit, released [Wednesday] by the US Special Inspector General for
Iraq Reconstruction, describes a country in the months after the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein awash with dollars, and a Wild West atmosphere where
even multi-million-dollar contracts were paid for in cash. The findings
come after a report last year by the inspector general which stated that
nearly $9 billion (5 billion) of Iraq's oil revenue disbursed by the
US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which governed Iraq until
mid-2004, cannot be accounted for. [TimesUK]

[7] Because of unforeseen security costs, haphazard planning and shifting
priorities, the U.S.-financed reconstruction program in Iraq will not
complete scores of projects that were promised to help rebuild the
country, according to a U.S. oversight agency.  Only 49 of the 136
projects that were originally pledged to improve Iraqi water and
sanitation will be finished, along with about 300 of an initial 425
projects to provide electricity, according to the report released Thursday
... The figures are the first quantitative measure of what Stuart Bowen
Jr., the inspector general in the office that issued the report, has
called the "reconstruction gap," the difference between what the United
States originally promised to build and what it will actually complete.
The inspector general is charged with oversight of the entire $25 billion
rebuilding effort in Iraq, although the report focuses on projects
financed by $18.4 billion allocated to the program by the U.S. Congress in
2004. [NYT]

[8] Bush will send his 2007 budget to Congress on Feb. 6. Bush will use
his new budget to propose cutting the size of the Army Reserve to its
lowest level in three decades and stripping up to $4 billion from two
fighter aircraft programs ... Under the plan, the authorized troop
strength of the Army Reserve would drop from 205,000 - the current number
of slots it is allowed - to 188,000, the actual number of soldiers it had
at the end of 2005. Because of recruiting and other problems, the Army
Reserve has been unable to fill its ranks to its authorized level. Army
leaders have said they are taking a similar approach to shrinking the
National Guard. They are proposing to cut that force from its authorized
level of 350,000 soldiers to 333,000, the actual number now on the rolls.
[AP]
	The U.S. Army has forced about 50,000 soldiers to continue serving
after their voluntary stints ended under a policy called "stop-loss" ...
court challenges have fallen flat ... U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth
in Washington dismissed a suit filed in 2004 by two Army National Guard
soldiers. The suit claimed the Army fraudulently induced soldiers to
enlist without specifying that their service might be involuntarily
extended. [Reuters]

[9] Bush's State of the Union speech on Tuesday will give an optimistic
account of the Iraq war and the U.S. economy, when both are in severe
trouble.  A Fox News poll (yeas, Fox News) shows Americans "are most
interested in hearing the president speak to the nation about the
situation in Iraq (26%), the economy (20%) and terrorism (11%)." But the
war on terrorism is what the administration thinks will save them,
according to Karl Rove.
	Bush said [Thursday] he has exclusive authority over a broad range
of issues -- including forbidding White House officials to testify before
Congress about the government's Hurricane Katrina response and ordering
warrantless electronic surveillance within the United States.
"Conducting war is a responsibility in the executive branch, not the
legislative branch," the president said [WT]

[10] The latest WP/ABC News poll says that Bush has "a lower approval
rating than any postwar president at the start of his sixth year in
office," including Richard Nixon. By a split of 51 percent to 35 percent,
those polled said they'd opt to go in the direction "outlined by
congressional Democrats rather than the direction established by the
president." The poll also revealed that those polled favored Democrats
over Republicans in their votes for the House.
	That's a 10-point drop for the president from a year ago, and the
Democrats' first head-to-head majority of his presidency.  In addition,
Democrats lead Republicans by 14 points, 51 to 37 percent, "in trust to
handle the nation's main problems, the first Democratic majority on this
question since 1992. And the Democrats hold a 16-point lead in 2006
congressional election preferences, 54 to 38 percent among registered
voters, their best since 1984."
	[However] whether this shifts many seats in the elections 10
months off is far from assured. Not only are the powers of incumbency
immense [that's a polite way to say that house seats are so gerrymandered
that House seats are as secure as members of the Soviet politburo],
there's also no broad anti-incumbency sentiment in the country; indeed 64
percent approve of their own representative's work. [abcnews]
	The Democrats, of course, since they're working for the same
opulent minority of Americans as the Republicans, will offer only token
alternatives.  It looks for example as if they will not stop the
confirmation of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court, which they could do with a
filibuster. ("There is an over-reliance on the part of Democrats for
procedural maneuvers," Sen. Obama told ABC's "This Week.")

[11] The NYT [runs what it says is] a comparison of President Bush's
expected [health-care plan] with the ill-fated health care plan presented
12 years ago by Bill Clinton. The article [says misleadingly] that the
Clinton plan wanted to provide universal health care and envisioned an
expanded federal government ... the Bush plan focuses more on the toll
that rising health care costs are taking on employers and plans on
shifting the burden to individuals ... while worrying that costs may rise
by increasing the demand for health care. [Slate]

[12] At least three Republican senators and representatives this morning
called on the president to release the White House Abramoff Records. [TPM]
[The White House says] that the records, including photographs of Bush
with Abramoff, are irrelevant ... Bush distanced himself from Abramoff
last week, saying "I know not the man" [or words to that effect], and
refused to release photographs in which he appeared with Abramoff.  Bush
said release of photographs would be used for "pure political purposes" by
Democrats ... Abramoff was a major fund-raiser for Bush's 2004 re-election
campaign. [Reuters]
	The administration's defense is a counsel of despair -- "everyone
does it.' They insist that Republicans and Democrats alike took money form
the likes of Abramoff, ant they're probably right.  Meanwhile, Abramoff's
connections with apartheid South Africa and the West Bank settlers, to
whom he gave money from his American Indian clients, are not mentioned,
however. But the Bush administration did have a response to the growing
scandal this week: they removed the prosecutor of the Abramoff case, by
making him a federal judge...

[13] The NYT reports that James Hansen, NASA's "top climate scientist,"
says the Bush administration has tried to silence him ever since he gave a
lecture last month calling for "prompt reductions" of greenhouse gases
linked to global warming ... Bush's chief science adviser suggests the
danger may not be so grave: "There's no agreement on what it is that
constitutes a dangerous climate change." The WP also reports that NASA
officials tried to discourage a reporter from interviewing Hansen for the
article and gave him the go ahead to talk only if an agency spokeswoman
listened in on the conversation. [Slate]

[14] A military jury on Monday ordered a reprimand but no jail time for an
Army interrogator convicted of killing an Iraqi general [Abed Hamed
Mowhoush, who had surrendered himself to U.S. custody.].  Chief Warrant
Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. also was ordered to forfeit $6,000 salary and
was largely restricted to his barracks and workplace for 60 days.
Welshofer, 43, had originally been charged with murder and faced up to
life in prison. But on Saturday he was convicted instead of negligent
homicide and negligent dereliction of duty. [AP]
	The autopsy photos of Mowhoush make the now-infamous images from
Abu Ghraib prison look like a costume party. Bruises and welts cover
Mowhoush's dead body.  Doctors ruled that Mowhoush was smothered.
Officials charge that Welshofer stuffed him inside a sleeping bag, bound
him with an electric cord, sat on his chest and covered his mouth. Still,
there is no question that Mowhoush was also savagely beaten ... Welshofer
deserves punishment for killing Mowhoush. But the presidential
administration and Army chain of command that lets military prisoners be
stuffed in sleeping bags or wall lockers or held down to have water poured
down their mouths and noses won't get their due. The "nonmilitary" folks
(read CIA) whom a witness said beat Mowhoush two days before he died have
not even been charged. [Denver Post]

[15] Meanwhile, a peace activist was sentenced Monday to six months in
prison for splattering his own blood at a military recruiting station to
protest the then-looming war in Iraq ... on March 17, 2003.  The so-called
Saint Patrick's Four were convicted for damaging government property and
entering a military recruiting station for unlawful purposes. [AP] A clear
contrast on the question of what gets you sent to jail in Bush's
America...

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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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