[Peace] News notes 2006-03-05

[Carl Estabrook]

	==================================================
	Notes from last week's "global war on terrorism,"
	for the March 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.)
	==================================================
	PLUS CA CHANGE, PLUS LA MEME POSE (from tinyrevolution.com):
	Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, in 2004:
		"Should national unity prevail, Iraq's chances of becoming
	a stable democracy will improve dramatically. I'd like to see one
	other thing in Iraq, an outbreak of gratitude for the greatest act
	of benevolence one country has ever done for another."
	David Lawrence, editor of US News & World Report, in 1966:
		"What the United States is doing in Vietnam is the most
	significant example of philanthropy extended by one people to
	another that we have witnessed in our times."

"For Bush's March 2 pit stop in New Delhi, the Indian government tried
very hard to have him address our parliament. A not inconsequential number
of MPs threatened to heckle him, so Plan One was hastily shelved. Plan Two
was to have Bush address the masses from the ramparts of the magnificent
Red Fort, where the Indian prime minister traditionally delivers his
Independence Day address. But the Red Fort, surrounded as it is by the
predominantly Muslim population of Old Delhi, was considered a security
nightmare. So now we're into Plan Three: President George Bush speaks from
Purana Qila, the Old Fort.  Ironic, isn't it, that the only safe public
space for a man who has recently been so enthusiastic about India's
modernity should be a crumbling medieval fort? Since the Purana Qila also
houses the Delhi zoo, George Bush's audience will be a few hundred caged
animals and an approved list of caged human beings, who in India go under
the category of "eminent persons." They're mostly rich folk who live in
our poor country like captive animals, incarcerated by their own wealth,
locked and barred in their gilded cages, protecting themselves from the
threat of the vulgar and unruly multitudes whom they have systematically
dispossessed over the centuries."
	--Indian author Arundhati Roy

[1] IRAQ WAR.  Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa ... is now calling for a
withdrawal of ground troops from Iraq on the grounds that it is in a civil
war and we should extricate our troops from the quagmire ... thousands of
Indonesians demonstrated Saturday demanding that the US withdraw from Iraq
... Two Iraqi women hoping to tour the US have been refused visas. The US
had killed their husbands and children ... the grounds for denying them
entry was that they did not have enough close family back in Iraq to
guarantee that they would want to return there. [juancole.com]
	Iraq is not on the verge of civil war ... Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chairman Gen. Peter Pace said [Sunday] ... Asked how things are going,
Pace said: "I'd say they're going well. I wouldn't put a great big smiley
face on it, but I would say they're going very, very well." [AP]
	Iraq can expect more bombings like the one at a Shiite Muslim
shrine that set off fighting between Shiites and Sunnis, the chief of the
U.S. Central Command said Saturday.  Gen. John Abizaid blamed Al-Qaida
terrorists for the blast and said it marked a clear - and successful -
change in tactics by the group in its campaign to ignite civil war among
Iraqis. [AP]
	The idea that civil war in Iraq would be a good thing has already
made it into the opinion pages of The Australian, propounded by Daniel
Pipes ... at Fox, as far as I can tell, the official pro-war position now
emerging is
    * there is no civil war in Iraq
    * there will be no civil war in Iraq
    * if civil war comes, it wont be our fault
    * when civil war comes, it will be a good thing
	Unfortunately, at this point there's not much anyone can do. The
US and UK have long since lost control of the situation, and the dynamic
has gone beyond the control of any individual or group in Iraq. We'll just
have to hope that the Iraqi leaders (Sistani and Sadr on the Shia side,
and the various groups contending to represent the Sunni Arabs and Kurds,
among others) can pull something out of the fire between them.
[crookedtimber]
	In Basra followers of Muqtada al-Sadr held a joint prayer service
with Sunnis in the largest Sunni mosque, with 3,000 attending. Muqtada has
called for Sunni-Shiite unity on a platform of expelling the Americans,
but his followers are suspected of some of the worst excesses in the
sectarian violence of the past week and a half.  I'd say it is no more
than a rumor. but a Turkish newspaper is reporting that Prime Minister
Ibrahim Jaafari asked Turkey to send troops to Iraq to replace the
Americans on his recent trip to that country. [juancole]
	The Kurdistan Alliance and the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord
Front are attempting to block Ibrahim Jaafari from becoming prime
minister. The United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament, has
the right to nominate the PM, and an internal party vote resulted in
Jaafari's victory. Jaafari is, however, unacceptable to the United States
because of his close ties to Iran and his socialist tendencies (he
recently expressed admiration for Noam Chomsky and wondered if Noam would
come visit Baghdad). The US appears to be working with the Kurds and the
Sunnis behind the scenes to make Jaafari's candidacy collapse. The United
Iraqi Alliance has 132 votes in the 275-strong parliament, but 184 are
needed to choose a president. It therefore needs partners from either the
Kurds or Sunni Arabs or both, and these two can essentially filibuster and
prevent the formation of a government unless the UIA goes along with them.
[juancole]
	Iran [is] to invest $1 billion in Iraq ... to rehabilitate the
countrys industrial sector. [Azzaman]
	The U.S. military in Iraq said on Sunday media reports that
America and Britain planned to pull all troops out of Iraq by spring 2007
were "completely false" ... Two British newspapers reported on Sunday that
the pull-out plan followed an acceptance by the two governments that the
presence of foreign troops in Iraq was now an obstacle to securing peace.
[Reuters]
	The U.S. State Department is winding down its $20 billion
reconstruction program in Iraq and the only new rebuilding money in its
latest budget request is for prisons, officials said on Tuesday. State
Department Iraq coordinator James Jeffrey told reporters he was asking
Congress for $100 million for prisons but no other big building projects
were in the pipeline for the department's 2006 supplemental and 2007
budget requests for Iraq, which total just over $4 billion. [Reuters]
	Lawrence Kaplan makes the case for staying in Iraq in the
supposedly liberal New Republic, furthering the venerable journal's odd
transformation into the Weekly Standard of the liberal branch of the
neoconservative movement. Basically Kaplan offers the standard argument:
the US can't withdraw from Iraq because doing so would cause a bloodbath
... In poll after poll Iraqis express the opinion that their welfare would
be better served if the American military would leave their country and
they are generally supportive of the insurgency. These were the findings
of the British poll and also the recent study done by the Program on
International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. The PIPA
survey found that 87% of Iraqis want the government to endorse a timeline
for US withdrawal, that 70% of Iraqis would like the US to withdraw either
within 6 months or within 2 years, and that 47% of Iraqis approve of the
"attacks on US-led forces in Iraq". [amleft]
	Conservative legend William F. Buckley Jr. and neoconservative
icon Francis Fukuyama have joined the swelling ranks of Americans judging
George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq a disaster. [consortiumnews.com]

[2] "GLOBAL EXTREMIST ISLAMIC EMPIRE." Rumsfeld told an audience at the
Truman Presidential Library in Missouri that America needs enough military
force in Iraq to support the forging of an inclusive government. But he
says the number shouldn't be so big that it feeds the insurgency and makes
Iraqis think the U-S cares only about oil ... Rumsfeld also likened
America's impatience and political division over the war on terror to
disagreements over the Cold War, when he says a nation weary from World
War Two resisted global involvements. [AP]
	Earlier this month, the State Department allocated $55 million to
finance the Syrian opposition, that it to say anybody who would agree to
work against the Baathist regime of al-Assad. The money would come from
the departments Middle East Partnership Initiative, announced in 2002 to
promote reforms in the Middle East and North Africa, al-Jazeera reported
at the time. MEPI is funded through the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Neoconservatives have held tight control over NEDs agenda and its
institutional structure since its founding, notes Right Web. NEDs chairman
is Vin Weber, who along with current NED board member Francis Fukuyama and
former board members Paula Dobriansky and Paul Wolfowitz signed the
founding statement of the Project for the New American Century, the
organization responsible for devising the invasion of Iraq. Allen
Weinstein, who was a member of the USAID-working group known as the
Democracy Group that proposed the formation of a quasi-governmental group
to channel U.S. political aid, served as NEDs acting president during its
first year. Talking about the role of NED, Weinstein told the Washington
Post in 1991 that a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago
by the CIA.[kurtnimmo]
	Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he had advised the United
States against attacking Iran, predicting that Tehran would react through
its influence over Shi'ite Muslim communities in Arab countries in the
Gulf.  In remarks to Egyptian newspaper editors published on Wednesday,
Mubarak also said an Israeli attack on Iran was most unlikely because
Tehran would respond by launching ballistic missiles at the Jewish state.
[Reuters]
	"Valley of the Wolves," by the Turkish director Serdan Akar, shows
crazed American GIs massacring innocent guests at a wedding party and
scenes in which a Jewish surgeon removes organs from Iraqi prisoners in a
style reminiscent of the Nazi death-camp doctor Josef Mengele. Bavaria's
interior minister conceded last week that he had dispatched intelligence
service agents to cinemas showing the film to "gauge" audience reaction
and identify potential radicals.  Edmund Stoiber, the state's conservative
governor, has appealed to cinema operators to remove what he described as
"this racist and anti-Western hate film" from their programs ... At a
packed cinema in a largely Turkish immigrant district of Berlin last week,
"Valley of the Wolves" was being watched almost exclusively by young
Turkish men. They clapped furiously when the Turkish hero of the film was
shown blowing up a building occupied by the U.S. military commander in
northern Iraq.  In the closing sequence, the hero is shown plunging a
dagger into the heart of a U.S. commander called Sam. The audience
responded by standing up and chanting "Allah is great!"  Afterward, an
18-year-old member of the audience said: "The Americans always behave like
this. They slaughtered the red Indians and killed thousands in Vietnam.
I was not shocked by the film, I see this on the news every day." [DT]

[3] THE ADMINISTRATION. The White House is cracking down on leaks of
classified information. The Post says the administration's efforts
"include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and
a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted
under espionage laws." [Slate]
	Bush in Pakistan said his talks with President Pervez Musharraf
will focus on the war on terror and ways of combating "radical Islam" ...
In India, Mr Bush reached a landmark nuclear cooperation agreement with
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.  US officials have ruled out any similar
deal with Pakistan ... "I believe that a prosperous, democratic [sic]
Pakistan will be a steadfast partner for America," [Bush] said ... The
co-operation agreement, which is still to be ratified by the US Congress,
gives India access to US technology, although it has not signed the
Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.  It reverses US policy, which had put
restrictions on nuclear co-operation ever since India became a nuclear
power in 1974. [BBC]
	Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has sent a letter to the Senate
Judiciary Committee clarifying his Feb. 6 testimony on Bush's warrantless
electronic surveillance activities ... At least one constitutional scholar
who testified before the committee yesterday said in an interview that
Gonzales appeared to be hinting that the operation disclosed by the New
York Times in mid-December is not the full extent of eavesdropping on U.S.
residents conducted without court warrants. [talkleft]
	Jerome R. Corsi, one of the authors of the attack on John Kerry,
"Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry,"
suggests a motive for Bush's strong support of the ports deal: "What does
Dubai Ports World have in common with CSX, Treasury Secretary John Snow,
and the Bush Family? The Carlyle Group is the answer currently gaining
ground on the Internet. What once seemed the propaganda ramblings of none
other than "Fahrenheit 911's" Michael Moore may end up becoming the
subject of the Senate's upcoming investigation into what Washington
insiders are beginning to call the "Dubai Debacle." As reported in the
Guardian as early as 2001, Bush '41 and '43 have been connected to the
Carlyle Group in various ways resulting in substantial compensation to the
Bush family from Carlyle Group investments. Widely discussed is that CSX
the rail and ocean carrier container company was sold to DP World in 2004
after Treasury Secretary John Snow was no longer CSX's chief executive
officer. What has received far less attention is the transaction announced
in December 2002, in which the Carlyle Group acquired a majority stake in
CSX for $300 million. [worldnetdaily]
	The CIA Inspector General has opened an investigation into the spy
agency's executive director, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, and his connections to
two defense contractors accused of bribing a member of Congress and
Pentagon officials ... As executive director of the CIA, Foggo oversees
the administration of the giant spy agency. He was appointed to the post
by CIA director Porter Goss after working as a mid-level procurement
supervisor ... While based in Frankfurt, Germany, he oversaw and approved
contracts for CIA operations in Iraq.  Foggo is a longtime friend of Brent
Wilkes, listed as unindicted co-conspirator No. 1 in government documents
filed in the Cunningham investigation. The two played high school football
and were in each other's weddings.  According to government documents,
Wilkes gave Cunningham $630,000 in cash and gifts in exchange for help in
getting government contracts. Wilkes was the founder of ADSC, Inc, in
1995. Under Wilkes, the company obtained more than $95 million in
government contracts. [ABC News]
	"In the aftermath of the public revelation of the presidential
'teleconference' and mounting criticism of the performance of Michael
Chertoff, Administration sources told Human Events today that the
secretary of Homeland Security has 'only a few days left' in the Bush
Cabinet." [politicalwire.com]
	The emails from Cheney's office that were turned over to
Fitzgerald earlier this month were written by senior aides and sent to
various officials at the State Department, the National Security Council,
and the Office of the President. The emails were written as early as March
2003 - four months before Plame Wilson's cover was blown in a report
written by conservative columnist Robert Novak. The contents of the emails
are said to be damning, according to sources close to the investigation
who are familiar with their substance. The emails are said to implicate
Cheney in a months-long effort to discredit Wilson - a fact that Cheney
did not disclose when he was interviewed by federal investigators in early
2004, these sources said. [truthout.org]
	Senior GOP sources envision the retirement of Mr. Cheney in 2007,
months after the congressional elections. The sources said Mr. Cheney
would be persuaded to step down as he becomes an increasing political
liability to President Bush. The sources reported a growing rift between
the president and vice president as well as their staffs. They cited Mr.
Cheney's failure to immediately tell the president of the accidental
shooting of the vice president's hunting colleague earlier this month. The
White House didn't learn of the incident until 18 hours later. Mr.
Cheney's next crisis could take place by the end of the year, the sources
said. They said the White House was expecting Mr. Cheney to defend himself
against charges from his former chief of staff, Lewis Libby, that the vice
president ordered him to relay classified information. Such a charge could
lead to a congressional investigation and even impeachment proceedings.
"Nothing will happen until after the congressional elections," a GOP
source said. "After that, there will be significant changes in the
administration and Cheney will probably be part of that" ... "The Libby
case is far more lethal than the hunting accident," another GOP source
said. "If the heat gets too much, Cheney might say his health requires him
to leave office. Whatever happens, the president will make sure it's
handled delicately." [Insight]

[4] TORTURE POLICY. US military officers, breaking with domestic and
international legal precedent, said that "war on terror" military
tribunals at the Guantanamo naval base could allow evidence obtained
through torture. The US military officer presiding over the trial of an
alleged aide to Osama bin Laden said he was not ready to rule out such
evidence. The officer, who wields power similar to a judge, was asked by
the defense lawyer representing Ali Hamza Ahmad al-Bahlul, a Yemeni
accused of plotting terror attacks for bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, if he
was ready to exclude all evidence secured through torture ... After the
hearing, US officers confirmed that the rules written for the newly
created military tribunals, or commissions, left the question open. The
rules also allow for hearsay evidence and other exceptions to standard US
and international legal norms. Asked about evidence secured through
coercion, a spokeswoman for the military tribunals said the issue would be
addressed by the officers presiding over each trial. [AFP]
	Bush administration lawyers, fighting a claim of torture by a
Guantanamo Bay detainee, yesterday argued that the new law that bans
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody does
not apply to people held at the military prison. In federal court
yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that
a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen.
John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge treatment that the detainee's lawyers
described as "systematic torture."  Government lawyers have argued that
another portion of that same law, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005,
removes general access to U.S. courts for all Guantanamo Bay captives.
Therefore, they said, Mohammed Bawazir, a Yemeni national held since May
2002, cannot claim protection under the anti-torture provisions ... In
court filings, the Justice Department lawyers argued that language in the
law written by Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Carl M. Levin
(D-Mich.) gives Guantanamo Bay detainees access to the courts only to
appeal their enemy combatant status determinations and convictions by
military commissions. [WP]

[5] ISRAELI OCCUPATION.  Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has earmarked a
series of settlement blocs in the West Bank that Israel intends to retain
within its final borders, the ministry said Tuesday. "When we talk about
Israel's permanent or future borders it includes the Jordan Valley, Maale
Adumim, Gush Etzion, Ariel, Kedumim-Karnei Shomron and Rehan-Shaked,"
Mofaz said in a speech late Monday. The area mentioned by Mofaz accounts
for around 20 percent of the West Bank. [AFP]
	Israel's interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Thursday to
use an "iron fist" against Palestinian militants as polls showed his
party's lead slipping less than a month before a general election ... A
poll published in Haaretz daily on Thursday showed Kadima winning 37 of
parliament's 120 seats, down from 39 last month and 44 seats predicted in
a survey taken at the end of January. [Reuters]

[6] COURT APPEARANCES. Saddam Hussein said [at his trial on] Wednesday
that [his] government had the right to confiscate land for the "national
interest" and said he ordered "substantial compensation" be paid to its
owners. "Why are you trying other people?" he said. "The head of state is
here, so try him, and let the others go." [AP]
	The Supreme Court ... ruled that federal extortion and
racketeering laws cannot be used to ban demonstrations [at abortion
clinics]. The 8-0 decision ends a case that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals had kept alive despite a 2003 ruling by the high court that lifted
a nationwide injunction on anti-abortion groups led by Joseph Scheidler
and others ... Social activists and the AFL-CIO had sided with abortion
demonstrators in arguing that lawsuits and injunctions based on the
federal extortion law could be used to thwart their efforts to change
public policy or agitate for better wages and working conditions.  The
legal battle began in 1986, when the National Organization for Women filed
a class-action suit challenging tactics used by the Pro-Life Action
Network to block women from entering abortion clinics.  NOW's legal
strategy was novel at the time, relying on civil provisions of the 1970
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which was used
predominantly in criminal cases against organized crime. [AP]
	Mayor Ken Livingstone won a respite yesterday from a
government-appointed panel's order suspending him from office for four
weeks for insulting a Jewish reporter.  The order -- which raised profound
questions about the limits of democracy and free speech -- was frozen by a
High Court judge who ruled that Mr. Livingstone could remain at work
pending an appeal of the suspension, which was to have begun today. The
London mayor, nicknamed "Red Ken" for his leftist views, had harshly
criticized the suspension by an unelected body, saying it "strikes at the
heart of democracy" and violates his right to speak freely ... That view
was endorsed by one of Mr. Livingstone's fiercest critics, London Daily
Mail political commentator Peter Hitchens.  "No such body should exist,"
Mr. Hitchens said of the Adjudication Panel. "The voters of London are
free to get rid of Mr. Livingstone at the next election. It is their job
to do so, not that of some committee."  The issues raised by the
suspension are not unlike those in the case of David Irving, a British
historian who last month was ordered locked up for at least three years
for speeches he made 17 years ago denying some details of the Holocaust.
"I come from a free country, and I'm not going to let anybody silence me,"
Mr. Irving argued in his defense during an interview with Britain's Sky
Television that sounds ironic in light of the Livingstone case. "Freedom
of speech," the historian said, "means freedom to say things to other
people that they don't want to hear." [WT]
	80.8 percent of crack cocaine defendants in 2003 were black,
despite the fact that more than 66 percent of crack cocaine users in the
U.S. were white or latino.  Black drug offenders have a 20 percent greater
chance of being sentenced to prison than white offenders. Between 1994 and
2003, the average time served by blacks for a drug offense increased by 77
percent, compared to an increase of 28 percent for white drug offenders.
[US Sentencing Commission]

[7] REPRESSIVE LEGISLATION. The renewal of the USA Patriot Act is heading
for final passage in the Senate ... Overwhelming support for the two-bill
package during several initial votes this week virtually assured Senate
passage Thursday afternoon ... "The die has now been cast," acknowledged
the law's chief opponent, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., after the Senate
voted 84-15 to end his filibuster. [Obama voted to end the filibuster;
Durbin didn't.] ... Feingold and his allies complained that the
restrictions on government power would be virtually meaningless in
practice. Though small, his group of four objectors represented progress
for Feingold. In 2001, he cast the lone vote against the original Patriot
Act, citing concerns over the new powers it granted the FBI ... Feingold,
a possible Democratic presidential candidate, said: "I am disappointed in
this result. But I believe this fight has been worth making." With that,
he began reading the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Then he left the
chamber. [AP]

[8] MEMORY HOLE. Two highly classified intelligence reports delivered
directly to President Bush before the Iraq war cast doubt on key public
assertions made by the president, Vice President Cheney, and other
administration officials as justifications for invading Iraq and toppling
Saddam Hussein, according to records and knowledgeable sources.  On at
least four earlier occasions, beginning in the spring of 2002, according
to the same records and sources, the president was informed during his
morning intelligence briefing that U.S. intelligence agencies believed it
was unlikely that Saddam was an imminent threat to the United States ...
The summaries stated that both the Energy and State departments dissented
on the aluminum tubes question . This is the first evidence that Bush was
aware of the intense debate within the government during the time that he,
Cheney, and members of the Cabinet were citing the procurement of the
tubes as evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. In his address to the U.N.
General Assembly on September 12, 2002, the president asserted, "Iraq has
made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich
uranium for a nuclear weapon." [Murray Waas]
	New questions are being raised about the role of the German
government in the US invasion of Iraq an invasion it publicly opposed.
The New York Times is reporting German intelligence agents gave the US a
copy of Iraqs plans to defend Baghdad before the invasion. The news comes
after last months disclosure German intelligence agents in Baghdad helped
select at least one bombing target aimed at Iraqi president Saddam Hussein
in which twelve civilians were killed. [DN]
	If you thought agents provacateur went out of vogue when
COINTELPRO was ostensibly dismantled in 1971, think again. There's a
"terrorist" named Hamid Hayat on trial on California right now in a case
that for some reason hasn't received much focus nationally. Hayat is
accused of (and denies) having attended "terrorist training camps" in
Pakistan and is charged with "providing material support to terrorists."
Hayat says that he went to Pakistan to find a wife, which he did. Anyway,
here's what came out in the trial today:
    An FBI informant repeatedly pushed a terror suspect to attend an
Al-Qaida camp while he was in Pakistan, at one point yelling at him in a
telephone conversation: "Be a man -- do something!"
    His [the informant's] attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, has previously said
the government paid Khan [the informant] $250,000 since it recruited him
shortly after the 2001 terror attacks. He was working at a fast-food
restaurant in Bend, Ore., at the time. Khan, 32, emigrated from Pakistan
as a teenager and was awarded U.S. citizenship after he became an
informant, according to previous testimony.
    He struck up a friendship with Hayat shortly after arriving in Lodi in
May 2002 as part of an FBI effort to infiltrate the area's Pakistani
community. [lefti]
	Hours after a commercial plane struck the Pentagon on September 11
2001 the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was issuing rapid orders
to his aides to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, according to notes
taken by one of them. "Hard to get good case. Need to move swiftly," the
notes say. "Near term target needs - go massive - sweep it all up, things
related and not."  The handwritten notes, with some parts blanked out,
were declassified this month in response to a request by a law student and
blogger, Thad Anderson, under the US Freedom of Information Act. Anderson
has posted them on his blog at outragedmoderates.org.  [Guardian]

[9] POLL RESULTS. Many adults in the United States regret their
governments decision to launch the coalition effort in Iraq, according to
a poll by the New York Times and CBS News. 63 per cent of respondents
think the result of the war with Iraq was not worth the loss of American
life and other costs of attacking Iraq. [NYT]
	The Harris telephone poll of 1,016 U.S. adults found 57 percent of
adults feel U.S. law enforcement is using its expanded surveillance powers
in a proper way, while 40 percent feel they are not being used in a proper
way. The survey also found that 66 percent think that it is very or
somewhat likely that there will be a major terrorist attack in the next 12
months -- up from the 55 percent who felt that way in June 2005. [Insider]
	An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq
think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and nearly
one in four say the troops should leave immediately, a new Le Moyne
College/Zogby International survey shows ... Different branches had quite
different sentiments on the question, the poll shows. While 89% of
reserves and 82% of those in the National Guard said the U.S. should leave
Iraq within a year, 58% of Marines think so. Seven in ten of those in the
regular Army thought the U.S. should leave Iraq in the next year.
Moreover, about three-quarters of those in National Guard and Reserve
units favor withdrawal within six months, just 15% of Marines felt that
way. About half of those in the regular Army favored withdrawal from Iraq
in the next six months ... The wide-ranging poll also shows that 58% of
those serving in country say the U.S. mission in Iraq is clear in their
minds, while 42% said it is either somewhat or very unclear to them, that
they have no understanding of it at all, or are unsure. While 85% said the
U.S. mission is mainly to retaliate for Saddams role in the 9-11 attacks,
77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was to
stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq. Ninety-three percent said
that removing weapons of mass destruction is not a reason for U.S. troops
being there, said Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby
International. Instead, that initial rationale went by the wayside and, in
the minds of 68% of the troops, the real mission became to remove Saddam
Hussein. Just 24% said that establishing a democracy that can be a model
for the Arab World" was the main or a major reason for the war. Only small
percentages see the mission there as securing oil supplies (11%) or to
provide long-term bases for US troops in the region (6%). [zogby.com]
	A CBS News poll has found the number of Americans who approve of
President Bushs overall job performance and his handling of the Iraq war
has fallen to an all-time low. 34 percent of Americans give the President
a favorable job approval rating, while even less -- 30 percent -- approve
of the Presidents handling of the Iraq war. Meanwhile, less than a third
of Americans believe President Bush has adequately responded to the needs
of victims of Hurricane Katrina. [DN]
	A BBC survey of over 40,000 people in 35 different countries found
that 60% believe the Iraq war has increased rather than decreased the
chances of major terrorist attacks. Only 12% believe the war has made the
chances of an attack less likely. [DN]
	At least, some [adminstration members] consoled themselves, Bush
beat out Vice President Cheney, who was viewed favorably by just 18
percent in the CBS survey. [WP]
	Wall Street Journal columnist Dan Henninger argued, "[The Dubai
Ports World imbroglio] gave the Democrats an opportunity to get to the
right of the president on a terror issue, and attack him for being soft on
terror." It is now acceptable -- indeed, commonplace -- to racially
stereotype and denigrate Arabs and Muslims. And there is no outcry against
the curtailment of their civil liberties and rights. A December 2004
Cornell University opinion poll showed 44 percent of Americans approved
curtailing some civil liberties for all Muslim Americans-including
registering with the federal government, close monitoring of mosques by
law enforcement agencies and racially profiling citizens of Muslim or
Middle Eastern heritage. [Sharon Smith]

[10] OUR HEMISPHERE. Almost a month ago, the U.S. government pressured the
Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City to evict a Cuban delegation who was meeting
with some American energy executives, on the grounds that the Sheraton was
violating U.S. law by "providing services to Cubans." The situation has
been stewing since then, since many Mexicans and even members of the
U.S.-leaning Mexican government, resented the trampling of Mexican
sovereignty represented by the extraterritorial application of U.S. law.
This is, of course, the same sentiment which led 182 out of 191 nations in
the United Nations to vote this year to denounce the U.S. blockade of of
Cuba. And yesterday, the Mexico City government took action, not a frontal
assault, but a flanking attack, by ordering the closing of the Sheraton,
based not on the expulsion of the Cubans (although we all know that's the
underlying reason), but on a variety of code violations. [lefti]
	I've written on numerous occasions about the Cuban offer of 1500+
(originally 1100) disaster-trained, disaster-equipped medical personnel to
help victims of Hurricane Katrina. That offer was first made on Tuesday,
August 30, the day after the hurricane hit (with a promise that the first
contingent could be on site by the very next day). The United States
government, led by its vacationing and politicking President, its
vacationing and house-hunting Vice-President, and its vacationing and
shoe-shopping Secretary of State, never responded to the Cuban offer.
Later, various administration people made noises about how the Cuban
doctors weren't needed. [lefti]
	Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young is rising to the defense of
Wal-Mart as a company that helps the poor, but acknowledges his new
efforts may be in conflict with his years of being pro-union. [AJC]

[11] ACADEMIC LIBERALS. Within 48 hours of [Harvard president] Larry
Summers's resignation, Harvard professors Alan Dershowitz and Ruth Wisse,
and Martin Peretz, a longtime Harvard lecturer, wrote passionate defenses
of the deposed president in the Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and The
New Republic. Wisse quoted Dershowitz's remark that Summers was a victim
of ''an academic coup d'etat by . . . the die-hard left of the Faculty of
Arts and Sciences." Peretz expressed similar scorn for the FAS, which he
called ''an alliance of frightened souls and hyped-up orators." All three
bemoaned the loss of Summers, and all three are among the country's most
vocal, articulate, and consistent defenders of Israel. [BG]
	[The dismantling of the Soviet economy under Russian president
Yeltsin involved] financial improprieties by those in charge of Harvard's
Russia project, including Andrei Shleifer, a professor of economics who is
a friend and protg of Dr. Summers's, and Jonathan Hay, a Harvard-trained
lawyer. The two men were accused of making personal investments in Russia
at a time when they were working under contract to establish capitalism in
the former Soviet nation. Their behavior led the United States government
to file civil charges against Harvard, Mr. Shleifer and Mr. Hay for fraud,
breach of contract and making false claims. In a settlement reached last
summer, Harvard agreed to pay $26.5 million. Mr. Hay was ordered to pay a
fine based on his future earnings and Mr. Shleifer agreed to pay $2
million, though none of the parties admitted wrongdoing. Mr. Shleifer has
not been subjected to any disciplinary action from Harvard. Some Harvard
watchers attribute that to Dr. Summers's influence, though he formally
recused himself from the matter, and they see the entire affair ... as an
indelible stain on Harvard's reputation. [NYT]
	Janitors who clean offices at the University of Miami went on
strike today to demand a decent wage for their families. And who is
President of the University of Miami? Donna Shalala, Clinton's director of
the Health and Human Services, who claimed in a recent interview to have
"spent much of her public career as an advocate for the poor" but won't
stand up for the working poor working at the university over which she
presides. Most of these janitors, who service both the Coral Gables campus
and Jackson Memorial Hospital, work for Boston-based UNICCO, a commercial
facilities services company that operates in malls, universities, and
office buildings across the country. Although UNICCO staff at schools such
as Harvard earn between $13 and $14 an hour and have fully paid health
insurance, janitors at UM sites earn as little as $6.33 an hour, and are
not provided with health insurance for themselves or their families.
[tpmcafe.com]

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  109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801
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