[Peace] News notes for the AWARE meeting 2007-10-21

[C. G. Estabrook]

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER 2007
(ON THIS DAY IN 1837, on the orders of U.S. General Thomas Sidney Jesup, 
resistance leader Osceola was arrested when he came under a flag of 
truce to negotiations with the U.S. army in Fort Payton, Florida.  He 
had led a small band of guerrilla fighters from the Seminole tribe, a 
multi-ethnic and bi-racial alliance, when the United States tried to 
remove them from their lands in Florida. The Second Seminole War, from 
1835 to 1842, was the most expensive Indian war fought by the United 
States and lasted longer than any war involving the United States 
between the American Revolution and the Vietnam War.  Osceola died of 
malaria on January 20, 1838, less than three months after he was 
imprisoned, and was buried with military honors.)

[1] IRAQ. A US attack -- including airstrikes -- into the Sadr City 
region of Baghdad killed at least 49 people today, apparently including 
women and children.  The US military said it was going after a "rogue 
Shi'ite leader" funded by Iran.
	Meanwhile Kurdish soldiers in the north ambushed Turkish soldiers and 
killed twelve. The Turkish government is threatening to invade northern 
Iraq to suppress the Kurds.

[2] IRAN. VP Cheney said today that the US will not allow Iran to have a 
nuclear weapon.  Speaking to the Israeli lobby group the Washington 
Institute for Near East Studies, he said, "Our country, and the entire 
international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state 
fulfills its grandest ambitions." That would make sense if he were 
talking about Israel (or the US), but he's not.
	Wednesday Bush said, "...if you're interested in avoiding World War 
III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them [Iran] 
from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," Bush 
said.  The administration is apparently making plans to bomb knowledge, 
because their other excuses have failed.
	Hardliners in Iran are said to welcome a US attack, hoping it will do 
for them in terms of domestic support what 9-11 did for the Bush 
administration.

[3] TORTURE.  The LAT reports that the FBI is "quietly reconstructing" 
its case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 14 other suspected al-Qaida 
leaders, because the evidence collected by CIA torture might not be 
admissible at trial, and the administration wants to have AQ show trials 
before the 2008 election.  Some 300 agents and analysts in a "Guantanamo 
task force" have been working on the investigations for most of two 
years. The investigations were requested by the Defense Department 
"after legal rulings indicated that al-Qaeda suspects would probably win 
some form of trial in which evidence would have to be presented."
	Meanwhile, the new AG nominee, Michael Mukasey, refused to call 
waterboarding torture, but the Senate Democrats will probably approve 
him anyway.
	Bush is asked (but doesn't answer) his definition of torture, and it's 
suggested that the White House press corps "try its hand at enhanced 
interrogation techniques to pry information out of its high-value 
source, George W. Bush."

[4] ECONOMY.  On the 20th anniversary of the 1987 stock market crash, 
stock markets declined more than 2 1/2% on Friday while Treasury bonds 
rose.  The dollar continues to drop against the euro ($1.43) and the 
pound ($2.05).

[5] PAKISTAN. The US-arranged deal between President Pervez Musharraf 
and corrupt former president Benazir Bhutto edged closer to collapse 
after bombs killed 140 of the would-be prime minister's supporters.

[6] SPYING.  Senate Democrats approved new eavesdropping legislation 
this week; caving in to VP Cheney, they agreed to give retroactive 
immunity to telecom companies that carried out warrantless wiretaps for 
the National Security Agency. The bill is so bad that Senator (and 
presidential candidate) Chris Dodd said that he would put a hold on his 
own party's bill and filibuster it if the hold isn't honored.

[7] BRITAIN.  Ex-UK PM Blair gave a speech in New York this week in 
which he blamed Iran [sic] for terrorism in the Middle East.  Blair 
obviously wants to reclaim his title as Bush's poodle from French 
president Sarkozy, who was called further left than Hillary Clinton by 
the Economist this week.
	And in Britain an MP who resigned his seat to investigate the death of 
Dr. David Kelly, the scientist who exposed the flaws in Blair's argument 
for attacking Iraq, says in a new book that Kelly was murdered.
	A British parliamentary committee is set to investigate claims of its 
government's complicity in a secret CIA prison for terror suspects on 
the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

[8] MUTINY. The Air Force said Friday it has punished 70 airmen involved 
in what they say was the "accidental" cross-country flight of a 
nuclear-armed B-52 bomber.  (Was it mutiny to position the weapons for 
use in Iran, or to expose what was happening?  Or both?)

[9] ISRAEL. The media reported this week that the Israeli air attacks on 
Syria were targeted on a nuclear installation.  The reports apparently 
were placed by VP Cheney's office.  Other sources in the "intelligence 
community" say that the report was false and known to be false. The war 
within the administration continues.

[10] ELECTION. In the presidential charade, Hillary Clinton leads in 
contributions from the arms industry, and Ron Paul leads in 
contributions from the uniformed military.

[11] CONGRESS. Rep. Paul is introducing legislation to repeal the 
Military Commissions Act of 2006 (which suspended habeas corpus) and to 
prohibit “extraordinary rendition” and the use of evidence obtained by 
torture.  It restores FISA and regulates signing statements.  Naturally 
it's too far to the left to be supported by the leading Democratic 
presidential candidates.

[12] HOPEFUL NOTE.  After the hookers testified, the prosecution rested 
in a Congressional corruption trial that has drawn in former Speaker 
Dennis Hastert, who will resign his House seat later this year.
	But -- to take with the left what I gave with the right -- you should 
read the NYT today for Frank Rich's account of corruption in the 
occupation of Iraq, which has claimed the lives of an number of American 
officials, civil and military, by suicide and apparent murder.  A lot of 
money is involved: "America has to date 'spent twice as much in 
[constant] dollars to rebuild Iraq as it did to rebuild Japan — an 
industrialized country three times Iraq’s size, two of whose cities had 
been incinerated by atomic bombs.” (And still Iraq lacks reliable 
electric power.)"

--Carl Estabrook <www.newsfromneptune.com>

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