[Peace] News notes 2007-02-25

[C. G. Estabrook]

[These notes on the "Global War on Terror" were prepared for the weekly 
meeting of AWARE, the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign-Urbana. 
Much of this material was discussed on the Saturday morning radio 
program, "News from Neptune," by me and Paul Mueth, with the assistance 
of producer J. B. Nicholson-Owens and research director Eric Sizemore. 
Archived programs and citations are at <www.newsfromneptune.com>. Other 
references will be provided on request. —CGE]

*The theme of the the week is the Bush administration's actually doing 
the job it is supposed to do.*

[1] In US, record numbers are plunged into poverty: The gulf between 
rich and poor in the United States is now wider than ever, and the 
number of extremely impoverished is at a three-decade high, a report out 
Saturday found.  Based on the latest available US census data from 2005, 
the McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that almost 16 million Americans 
live in "deep or severe poverty" defined as a family of four with two 
children earning less than 9,903 dollars -- one half the federal poverty 
line figure ... the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent 
[during the Bush administration] -- 56 percent faster than the overall 
poverty population grew in the same period.  Worker productivity has 
increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and 
job growth have [not]. At the same time, the share of national income 
going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and 
salaries ... the median household income for working-age families, 
adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.  An American 
Journal of Preventive Medicine study found that since 2000, the number 
of severely poor -- far below basic poverty terms -- in the United 
States has grown "more than any other segment of the population."
	Sixteen million Americans now live in "severe poverty," defined as 
individuals making less than $5,080 annually and families of four making 
less than $9,903. Yes, 16,000,000.

[2] While this situation obtains, and the USG continues to kill people 
in our name in the ME and around the world -- and plans for even more 
killing -- the need to avoid real politics in this country mandates an 
especially early start for the Great Diversion, the "presidential race" 
among candidates whose policies are largely indistinguishable, but all 
substantially to the right of what the US public wants.  This situation 
is marked in the media by what Freud called the "narcissism of small 
differences," when he said that we reserve our most virulent emotions -– 
aggression, hatred, envy -– towards those who resemble us the most. In 
American marketing, it's called "product differentiation."  Thus one 
assumes that it actually makes a difference what Barack Obama said last 
week.  But on the question of who gets killed or starves, it doesn't.

[3] Politics in America in the winter of 2007 occur outside the media, 
often in what has been the refuge from politics since the European 
colonization, namely, organized religion.  (That's why the US seems so 
much more religious than Europe.)  For example, we read on our own 
peace-discuss list that "Amana – The Settlement Movement", a Zionist 
organization, will host a real estate fair in Teaneck, New Jersey to 
recruit more colonizers to illegally occupy Palestinian land in the West 
Bank.  Tammy Watts, who posts this message, notes "it appears that 
events like these may be taking place across the country in the near 
future."

[4] Meanwhile, from an analysis of Gallup Poll data collected since the 
beginning of 2005.  American Jews turn out to be the religious group 
most opposed to the Iraq War (77 percent say it was a mistake) unless 
you count "black Protestants" as a separate group -- 78 percent of black 
Protestants say it was a mistake. By contrast, the "no religion" group 
only musters 66 percent in opposition. Among Jewish Democrats, a 
whopping 89 percent say the war was a mistake.  And Reform Jews are more 
opposed to the war than secular Jews.

[5] Amongst Christians -- Evangelicals, Protestants, Orthodox, 
Anglicans, peace churches, Black majority congregations and Roman 
Catholics -- are preparing to pray and protest throughout the United 
States on 16 March 2007, to mark the fourth anniversary of the war and 
occupation of Iraq.  The anniversary events will include public prayer, 
a candlelight procession through Washington DC, vigils across the 
country, and a protest culminating with 1,500 Christians surrounding the 
White House with the light of peace. The 'Christian Peace Witness' is 
organized by a broad cross-section of Christian denominational peace 
groups and organizations.

[6] In Britain, tens of thousands demonstrated against the war 
yesterday, after PM Blair, whose approval ratings are even lower than 
Bush's, announced that the UK would be withdrawing 1600 troops from 
southern Iraq -- and sending 1,000 more to Afghanistan.

[7] And in Italy, the center-left government of PM Prodi fell, over 
issues concerning Prodi's support for American imperialism: "Operation 
Enduring Freedom - the satirical self-description of the NATO/UN 
occupation of Afghanistan - and the expansion of the US military base in 
Vicenza in Northern Italy."

[8] IRAN. The Sunday Times (UK) today quotes "a source with close ties 
to British intelligence" as saying “There are four or five [US] 
generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an 
attack on Iran. There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a 
lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even 
possible.” A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. 
Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against 
striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior 
commanders.
General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said recently 
there was “zero chance” of a war with Iran. He played down claims by US 
intelligence that the Iranian government was responsible for supplying 
insurgents in Iraq, forcing Bush on the defensive.
Hillary Mann, the National Security Council’s main Iran expert until 
2004, said Pace’s repudiation of the administration’s claims was a sign 
of grave discontent at the top.
Mann fears the administration is seeking to provoke Iran into a reaction 
that could be used as an excuse for an attack. The US air force is 
regarded as being more willing to attack Iran. General Michael Moseley, 
the head of the air force, cited Iran as the main likely target for 
American aircraft at a military conference earlier this month.

Remember the law ascribed to I. F. Stone, Claud Cockburn and others: 
Never believe anything until it's been officially denied.
	Israel's deputy defence minister denied on Saturday that Israel was in 
talks with the United States to use Iraqi airspace as part of possible 
plans to attack Iranian nuclear sites.
	Despite the Bush administration's insistence it has no plans to go to 
war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing 
attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead 
from President Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in an article by 
Seymour Hersh in the March 4 issue.
	The panel initially focused on destroying Iran's nuclear facilities and 
on regime change but has more recently been directed to identify targets 
in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq, 
according to an Air Force adviser and a Pentagon consultant ... they 
said that U.S. military and special-operations teams had crossed the 
border from Iraq into Iran in pursuit of Iranian operatives ... In 
response to the report, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said: "The 
United States is not planning to go to war with Iran. To suggest 
anything to the contrary is simply wrong, misleading and mischievous.

[9] A three-judge panel of the DC federal appeals court on Tuesday 
upheld 2-1 that part of the Military Commissions Act that suspended 
habeas corpus for foreign prisoners’ at Guantanamo, since they were 
being held "outside the country."

[10]  And in a Miami courtroom, "the cruel methods US interrogators have 
used since September 11 to break prisoners are finally being put on 
trial ... The Bush Administration's plan was to put Jose Padilla on 
trial for allegedly being part of a network linked to international 
terrorists. But Padilla's lawyers are arguing that he is not fit to 
stand trial because he has been driven insane by the government ... 
According to his lawyers and two mental health specialists who examined 
him, Padilla has been so shattered that he lacks the ability to assist 
in his own defense. He is convinced that his lawyers are 'part of a 
continuing interrogation program' and sees his captors as protectors. In 
order to prove that 'the extended torture visited upon Mr. Padilla has 
left him damaged,' his lawyers want to tell the court what happened 
during those years in the Navy brig. The prosecution strenuously 
objects, but the judge has ordered several prison employees to testify 
at the hearings on Padilla's mental state, which begin February 22.
	"The techniques used to break Padilla have been standard operating 
procedure at Guantanamo Bay since the first prisoners arrived five years 
ago. These same practices have been documented in dozens of cases of CIA 
'extraordinary rendition' as well as in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan 
... These standard mind-breaking techniques have never faced scrutiny in 
a US court because the prisoners in the jails are foreigners and have 
been stripped of the right of habeas corpus ... [But] Padilla is a US 
citizen. The Administration did not originally intend to bring Padilla 
to trial, but when his status as an enemy combatant faced a Supreme 
Court challenge, the Administration abruptly changed course, charging 
Padilla and transferring him to civilian custody. He is the only victim 
of the post-9/11 legal netherworld to face an ordinary US trial.
	"If these techniques drove Padilla insane, that means the US government 
has been deliberately driving hundreds, possibly thousands, of prisoners 
insane around the world. What is on trial in Florida is not one man's 
mental state. It is the whole system of US psychological torture." 
--Naomi Klein

[11] Finally, having discussed the executive and the judiciary, we turn 
to the Congress, which the drafters of Constitution meant to be the 
principal branch of government -- and there we find that nothing 
happened this week.  The Democrats avoid taking actions that would 
actually inhibit the administration's war.

	*	*	*

"I still think, despite everything, that the US is very unlikely to 
attack Iran. It could be a huge catastrophe; nobody knows what the 
consequences would be. I imagine that only an administration that’s 
really desperate would resort to that. But if the Democratic candidates 
are on the verge of winning the election, the administration is going to 
be desperate. It still has the problem of Iraq: can’t stay in, and can’t 
get out." --Noam Chomsky