[Peace] News notes for AWARE meeting 2007-04-29

[C. G. Estabrook]

[1] THE NYT REPORTS TODAY that U.S. government inspectors in Iraq found 
that in a sampling of eight reconstruction projects officially declared 
successes by the U.S., ranging from a maternity hospital to an airport 
power station, seven "were no longer operating as designed because of 
plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent 
looting and expensive equipment that lay idle." The inspections were 
carried out by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq 
Reconstruction (which Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter tried to do away 
with last year). Many projects are in areas too unsafe to visit.

[2] THE DEMOCRATS, elected last fall to end the war, have struggled 
desperately to find a way to continue it in the face of its rejection by 
the American public.  Told that George Bush will veto a funding bill for 
the war if it contains some pious hopes for the rearrangement of US 
forces in the Middle east, they are now scrambling for ways to fund the 
war that Bush will accept.  The AP reported Saturday "Democratic leaders 
are turning to Republicans to help them pass a new Iraq war spending 
bill that President Bush won't veto."

[3] IN IRAQ, Reuters reports at least 152 people killed in the ongoing 
U.S. occupation this weekend. A suicide car bomber killed 60 people and 
wounded 170 near one of Iraq's most revered Shi'ite shrines in the holy 
city of Kerbala, and at least 9 U.S. occupation troops were killed, 
including three killed Saturday in a single roadside bombing outside 
Baghdad.
	The Iraqi cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr called Bush the 
"anti-Christ" on Saturday and urged him to heed calls by the Democrats 
to withdraw from the chaos of Iraq. Sadr, whose ministers quit Shi'ite 
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government this month, renewed his 
demand for a U.S. pullout a day after Bush pledged to veto legislation 
that would require U.S. troops to begin leaving Iraq by October 1. The 
Democrats have promised to send the bill to the White House on Tuesday, 
the fourth anniversary of Bush declaring aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln: 
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended" after Saddam Hussein was 
ousted in 2003.
	In Awja, the small town north of Baghdad where Saddam was born, young 
children gathered with men and women on Saturday to celebrate the 
birthday of the once-feared dictator, who was executed on December 30. 
Iraq has become the "central front of al Qaeda's global campaign," 
General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told reporters 
in Washington on Thursday. [He did not stress that that was the result 
of US policy.] [Reuters]

[4] THE US PRESS this week was full of tributes to the late Boris 
Yeltsin, who ruled Russia in the 1990s.   It is remarkable that one of 
the major events of the 20th century, the disappearance of the Soviet 
Union, and the transition of Russia from an officially communist state 
to an officially capitalist one (we might wonder about the suitability 
of both descriptions) was presided over by two buffoons, Boris Yeltsin 
and Bill Clinton.
	"As Strobe Talbott characteristically put it, ‘Clinton and Yeltsin 
bonded. Big time.’ In the eyes of most Russians, on the other hand, 
Yeltsin’s administration set loose a wave of corruption and criminality; 
stumbled chaotically from one political crisis to another; presided over 
an unprecedented decline in living standards and collapse of life 
expectancy; humiliated the country by obeisance to foreign powers; 
destroyed the currency and ended in bankruptcy. By 1998, according to 
official statistics, GDP had fallen over a decade by some 45 per cent; 
the mortality rate had increased by 50 per cent; government revenues had 
nearly halved; the crime rate had doubled. It is no surprise that as 
this misrule drew to a close, Yeltsin’s support among the population was 
in single figures." In contrast, "On the evidence of comparative opinion 
polls, [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is the most popular national 
leader alive today." (Perry Anderson, "Russia’s Managed Democracy" 
<www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n02/ande01_.html>)

[5] WAR CRIMINAL WASHES BLOOD FROM HIS HANDS: former CIA director George 
Tenet has published a book saying that he warned White House before the 
invasion that chaos could ensue in Iraq, and that White House and 
Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Cheney, were 
determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush 
administration, long before the Sept. 11 attacks, and repeatedly 
stretched available intelligence to build support for the war.

[6] WAR CRIMINAL WASHES BLOOD FROM HER HANDS: U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, 
D-N.Y., kicked off the California Democratic Party convention Saturday, 
promising to end the Iraq war if she is elected president.   A few 
hecklers yelled "Bring the troops home" and one held up a sign that said 
"Hillary, if you fund it, you own it." Clinton has refused to apologize 
for her 2002 vote authorizing the war.

[7] WAR CRIMINAL WASHES BLOOD FROM HIS HANDS: Senator Durbin kept silent 
on prewar knowledge. The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the 
American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent 
because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee.
	If this is true, the senator is complicit through inaction with the 
launching of an illegal war and the deaths of thousands of American and 
hundreds of thousand of Iraqis. As a senator who swore to uphold the 
constitution, he had the right and responsibility to make the lying 
excuses for an unconstitutional war known.  The constitution explicitly 
provides (art. 1, sect. 6) for members of congress that "for any Speech 
or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other 
Place"  -- i.e., he cannot be bound by any oath of secrecy when the good 
of the nation requires it.  This was the rule under which Sen. Gravel 
made public the Pentagon papers as the government was attempting to 
suppress them as classified.

[8] IN WHAT WAS STYLED A DEBATE among Democratic presidential 
candidates, the following points were made: "We [the United States] have 
no important enemies. What we need to do is to begin to deal with the 
rest of the world as equals, and we don't do that. We spend more as a 
nation on defense than all the rest of the world put together. Who are 
we afraid of? And Iraq has never been a threat to us. We invaded them."
	But the person offering these commonsense observations, former Sen Mike 
Gravel of Alaska, who also condemned Clinton and Obama's nuclear threats 
to Iran, was described by the NYT as "comic relief."  Earlier in the 
week the WP characterized Rep. Kucinich's introduction of an impeachment 
resolution against VP Cheney by dwelling on the fact that Kucinich is 
short.

[9] NATO RISKS LOSING THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN because of a "tremendous 
deterioration" in the popularity of the government of U.S.-backed 
President Hamid Karzai, according to the former U.S. ambassador to the 
United Nations Richard Holbrooke.

[10] WORLD WIDE TERROR ATTACKS ARE UP 30%. Secretary of State 
Condoleezza Rice and her top aides earlier this week had considered 
postponing or downplaying the release of this year's edition of the 
terrorism report.

[11] IN "THE MOST LAWLESS WAR OF OUR GENERATION," according to the 
former UN Spokesperson on Somalia, Ethiopians are there without any 
international legitimacy. They're occupiers who violated the UN Charter, 
but they have the sponsorship of the US.  The US continues to prop up 
its client regime in Somalia through lawlessness and slaughter, as part 
of its general Middle East policy.

[12] THE CIA HELD A CAPTURED AL QAEDA LEADER in a secret prison since 
autumn and transferred him a week ago to the U.S. military prison at 
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, officials said Friday (in the news Black Hole).

[13] ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO GONZALES was heckled by a small group of 
student protesters, including one wearing a black hood and an orange 
jumpsuit, as he posed with classmates Saturday during their 25-year 
Harvard Law School reunion. When the photographer was getting everybody 
set up and having people say "cheese," the protesters yelled: "say 
torture, instead," "resign" and "I don't recall."

[14] U.S. ALLIES OFFERED $854 MILLION after Hurricane Katrina, but only 
$40 million has been put to use. The majority of the cash aid has gone 
uncollected, "delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can 
be spent." The U.S. also bungled offers of manpower, supplies, and 
expertise, says the Washington Post.

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