October 2002

Israel despises the International Criminal Court (ICC) even more than the Bush administration

Thursday, October 31, 2002

"A three-month-old controversy in Israel over a peace group's efforts to collect evidence of alleged war crimes committed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against Palestinians intensified Tuesday when a senior member of the ruling Likud Party submitted a bill in Israel's parliament that would make it a crime for any Israeli citizen to provide assistance, documents or information to the new International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague.

"The bill, which was presented by Zeev Boim, chairman of the governing coalition, attaches a 10-year prison sentence to the proposed crime, and would ban any group found to be engaged in the activities it covers."

[...]

"'This bill betrays the memory of six million Holocaust victims,' declared former Knesset member and peace activist Uri Avnery. 'After the Holocaust, the Jewish people fought with all its strength for the creation of an International War Crimes Court, and now the Sharon Government tries to destroy it. This is tantamount to an admission that they have something to hide.'"

Jim Lobe: War Crimes Debate in Israel Heats Up Again

Ariel Sharon's national unity government collapses; government likely to swing right

Thursday, October 31, 2002

Germany begs forgiveness, remains in doghouse

Thursday, October 31, 2002

"German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer met with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday, beginning a mission to patch relations badly torn by the anti-American campaign rhetoric of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

"Still irritated by Schroeder's criticism and the comments of a cabinet minister who equated President Bush's politics to Adolf Hitler's, the White House refused to see Fischer, who ordinarily makes a stop there."

[...]

"Relations with Schroeder's government were fractured when Schroeder turned around his flagging reelection campaign with rhetorical assaults on Bush and his Iraq policy. The speechifying became intense and, one U.S. official said yesterday, 'we felt his comments were personal.'

"A testy relationship became worse when Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin was quoted as saying that Bush resembled Hitler in using war talk to divert attention from domestic problems. After the Sept. 22 election, Schroeder accepted Daeubler-Gmelin's resignation.

"Another senior member of Schroeder's Social Democratic Party resigned after likening Bush to a Roman emperor. Ludwig Stiegler said 'Bush is acting as if he's Caesar Augustus and Germany is the province of Germania.'"

UN Security Council members concur with Nelson Mandela: US is a threat to world peace

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

As described in another article by Maggie Farley and Doyle McManus, several members of the Security Council now view the United States as a threat, largely because of its "bullying".

But US "bullying" and bribery in the Security Council is actually the norm, as Phillis Bennis points out in her recent article in The Nation.

What has changed?

Perhaps the difference is that with the promulgation of The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, the Bush administration has formally articulated its doctrine: "we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such terrorists".

The United States has explicitly declared its intention to attack what it wants, when it wants, where it wants, how it wants, whom it wants, and for how long it wants. There is no mention of the phrase "international law" in the document.

Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy of "speak softly and carry a big stick" has been modified. The big stick is still there as always to bludgeon poor countries, but there is no longer a perceived need to "speak softly".

In a recent article in The Nation, Richard Falk and David Krieger summed up the Bush administration's strategy as follows: "There are two main ways to ruin the UN: to ignore its relevance in war/peace situations, or to turn it into a rubber stamp for geopolitical operations of dubious status under international law or the UN Charter."

The Bush administration has spent a great deal of time placing the onus on the United Nations to remain "relevant" by acquiescing to the will of the United States. This is a shrewd rhetorical strategy. Either the Security Council ruins its credibility by approving a war of aggression in clear violation of its own charter; or it rejects the Bush administration's war of aggression, the Bush administration defies the decision and wages aggressive war, and the impotency of the UN is displayed for all the world to see. The UN must take a severe blow to either its moral authority or its credibility.

In a recent article, George P. Fletcher sums up the matter quite succinctly: "If the requirements of reciprocity and publicity are applied to the current plans to invade Iraq, the implications are clear. If they are not, US President George W. Bush risks engaging in unlawful aggression against a foreign country."

US developing chemical and biological weapons while threatening to bomb Iraq for same

Monday, October 28, 2002

"Respected scientists on both sides of the Atlantic warned yesterday that the US is developing a new generation of weapons that undermine and possibly violate international treaties on biological and chemical warfare.

[...]

"Malcolm Dando, professor of international security at the University of Bradford, and Mark Wheelis, a lecturer in microbiology at the University of California, say that the US is encouraging a breakdown in arms control by its research into biological cluster bombs, anthrax and non-lethal weapons for use against hostile crowds, and by the secrecy under which these programmes are being conducted."

[...]

" 'What happened in Moscow is a harbinger of what is to come,' Mr Dando said. 'There is a revolution in life sciences which could be applied in a major way to warfare. It's an early example of the mess we may be creating.'"

[...]

"But by blurring the edges of the treaty, they argue the US is inviting other countries to do the same. The US, Mr Dando said, 'runs the very real danger of leading the world down a pathway that will greatly reduce the security of all.' "

Julian Borger: US weapons secrets exposed (The Guardian, 29 October 2002)

Walter Cronkite: War on Iraq may provoke World War III and could go nuclear; Americans know less and less and they don't care; when people don't stand up to demand free press over propaganda, they become guilty

Monday, October 28, 2002

" 'I see the possibility if we do that [invade Iraq without UN support] of really setting forth World War III.'

[...]

"Cronkite said he fears Americans are learning less and less about what their government is doing, and worse, they do not seem to care.

"He cited recent presidential elections that have seen less than half of registered voters go to the polls. The result has been leaders who are chosen by about a quarter of the electorate.

"'That means we don't have a democracy,' he said. 'We've got an oligarchy here, not a democracy. Our democracy is in some danger if we don't concentrate on educating the populace.'

[...]

"But for a country's citizens to be truly free and the government to be held accountable, he said people must have a free press that gathers all the facts.

"He said an example of the alternative would be a situation like what he witnessed after WWII, after the Nazi concentration camps were freed. The people who lived in nearby towns cried at the sights of the persecuted Jews and told reporters they had no idea of what was going on behind the walls of the camps.

"Many were probably telling the truth, he said, but that did not make them any less responsible.

" 'They applauded as Hitler closed down the independent newspaper and television stations and only gave them his propaganda,' Cronkite said. 'When they did not rise up and say, "Give us a free press," they became just as guilty.' "

Christopher Ferrell: Journalist Cronkite Warns Against Potential War

Bush Sr. on Wellstone: "Who is this chickenshit?"

Sunday, October 27, 2002

Wayne Madsen: Pappy Bush on Paul Wellstone: "Who Is This Chickenshit?"

Worldwide protests against Bush administration's war of aggression against Iraq

Washington DC crowds may have reached 100-150 thousand, San Francisco 80 thousand

Sunday, October 27, 2002

Bjork's mom on hunger strike to protect Iceland from Alcoa, former stomping grounds of Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill

Saturday, October 26, 2002

After two years, the New York Times and the Washington Post come around: the Bush administration lies a lot.

Saturday, October 26, 2002

The results are in: Iraq war propaganda peddled by Bush administration and Lieutenant Blair doesn't add up

Saturday, October 26, 2002

Pentagon open air Chemical/Biological Weapon (CBW) testing on civilians and servicemembers and Operation Northwoods

Saturday, October 26, 2002

US gasses its own people

Operation Northwoods

Back in the day, the United States wanted to provoke a war with Cuba. The only question was how. The Joint Chiefs of Staff got creative, came up with some ideas, and submitted a plan. The idea was to wage a terror campaign against US citizens and blame it on the Cubans, among other things.

Daniel Ellsberg: "War for oil is not some radical slogan, it's a simple statement of reality."

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

"What they are holding out is an image of empire that in this chaotic world looks rather attractive to a lot of Americans. But the lesson of Sept. 11 is that it's going to be a very bloody business. That's not to say anything in favor of the people or causes behind Sept. 11. But the fact is, killing innocent civilians in a Muslim country is going to lead to reaction that costs American lives as well. It's wrong of us to even think about waging an aggressive war under these conditions."

Daniel Ellsberg: The Shame of the Politicians

University of Texas Student Government opposes Bush administration's war of aggression against Iraq

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

" 'For those of you who feel it is inappropriate to debate foreign policy within the Student Government institution, please realize that it is more inappropriate that people die at the hands of the United States,' said Amber Novak, a journalism graduate student."

Ryan Petkoff: SG Adopts Resolution Opposing War

Film on election theft by Bush administration makes waves in Florida

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

The story of the Jim Crow style Florida voter purge is seeping through the iron wall of US mainstream censorship.

" 'We need political reform. The government in this country is for sale,' Joan Karatzas said after watching 'Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election.' Other viewers said the 50-minute video reinforced their opinion that George W. Bush is not the legitimate president of the United States, having won the office by questionable means."

'Unprecedented' Controversy Election Video Opens Old Wounds

Chris White: "I oppose this war as a U.S. citizen, a veteran, and a doctoral student in history."

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

"While my military experience is what first made me skeptical about our government's motives in the developing world, it wasn't until I went to college and began reading hundreds of books and thousands of articles that I was able to truly grasp the profundity of our leadership's contempt for the freedoms they claim to protect. As a rule, we have worked hard to prevent the rise of democracy in the developing world, all the while claiming legitimacy as 'the world's police force' because of our so-called 'democratic' values. The hypocrisy is astounding. When one investigates our complicity in death squads, torture, massacres, rape, and mass destruction, one realizes that freedom often threatens the current power structure in this country."

Why I Oppose the US War on Terror: an ex-Marine Sergeant Speaks Out

B-52 Bomber drops payload
Under the command of George W. Bush, B-52 bombers along with other bombers and strike aircraft have killed 3,500+ Afghan civilians. According to CIA Director George Tenet, the terrorist threat against the United States remains unchanged.

After 3,500+ Afghan civilian deaths, terrorist threat remains unchanged

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

With the Bush administration planning a war of aggression against Iraq, troublesome facts emerge regarding the so-called "war on terror".

" 'The threat environment we find ourselves in today is as bad as it was ... the summer before 9/11,' CIA Director George Tenet told a joint Congressional committee looking into pre-9/11 intelligence lapses last week."

Jesse Jackson blasts Bush administration

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

"In two years under Bush, a $3.5 billion federal budget surplus has turned into a $20 billion deficit; poverty rates have climbed and family income has gone down; people have lost trillions of dollars in value from their pension and 401-K plans; funding for Medicare, public education and Bush has yet to meet even once with the NAACP, he said."

Jackson Stresses the 'Struggle is Not Over': Civil Rights Leader Takes on Bush

Bush administration's pirate ship runs into bad weather at United Nations

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

US-subsidized Israel continues collective punishment against Palestinians by depriving them of water and olive harvests

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

From today's Guardian Unlimited:

"Israel signalled yesterday that in deference to Washington's campaign against Iraq it will hold back from its usual tough response following Monday's suicide bombing which killed 14 bus passengers.

"But it swiftly made life harder for many Palestinians with a ban on drilling for water because it said the Palestinian Authority leader is conducting a "water intifada". It also barred olive picking at the height of the harvest.

[...]

"A member of the Palestinian Hydrology Group, Abdel Rahman Tamimi, said the move prevents many in the occupied territories from irrigating fields and will deprive some villages of their only access to water.

" 'If they apply this thing, that means most of the Palestinian farmers in the north of the West Bank and the Jordan valley will not be able to pump water for their fields. Some of those wells are also used for drinking,' he said. 'If it is allowed to go on, most of the land in the north will be under threat of desertification and then people will have to leave. That's what the Israelis want, of course.' "

Article 33 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War reads as follows:

"No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited."

[...]

"Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited."

John Pilger: "Many journalists now are no more than channelers and echoers of what Orwell called the official truth. They simply cipher and transmit lies."

Tuesday, October 22, 2002

The following are some of the awards John Pilger has received over the years:

But like many award-winning journalists such as Robert Fisk and Greg Palast, his work is censored in America because it doesn't fit into the American easy-listening "impartial" journalism rubric. As Pilger points out, "impartial" has a specific meaning.

"Many journalists become very defensive when you suggest to them that they are anything but impartial and objective. The problem with those words 'impartiality' and 'objectivity' is that they have lost their dictionary meaning. They've been taken over. 'Impartiality' and 'objectivity' now mean the establishment point of view. Whenever a journalist says to me, 'Oh, you don't understand, I'm impartial, I'm objective,' I know what he's saying. I can decode it immediately. It means he channels the official truth. Almost always. That protestation means he speaks for a consensual view of the establishment. This is internalized. Journalists don't sit down and think, 'I'm now going to speak for the establishment.' Of course not. But they internalize a whole set of assumptions, and one of the most potent assumptions is that the world should be seen in terms of its usefulness to the West, not humanity. This leads journalists to make a distinction between people who matter and people who don't matter. The people who died in the Twin Towers in that terrible crime mattered. The people who were bombed to death in dusty villages in Afghanistan didn't matter, even though it now seems that their numbers were greater. The people who will die in Iraq don't matter. Iraq has been successfully demonized as if everybody who lives there is Saddam Hussein. In the build-up to this attack on Iraq, journalists have almost universally excluded the prospect of civilian deaths, the numbers of people who would die, because those people don't matter."

UN Food and Agriculture Organization: "Progress in reducing world hunger has virtually come to a halt [...] millions of people, including 6 million children under the age of five, die each year."

Sunday, October 20, 2002

" 'In the worst affected countries, a newborn child can look forward to an average of barely 38 years of healthy life, compared to over 70 years of life in 24 wealthy nations.' One in seven children born in poor countries where hunger is most common will die before reaching the age of five. Most children are dying because they lack adequate food and essential nutrients, which leaves them weak, underweight and vulnerable. These children are highly at risk from infectious diseases. The four biggest killers of children in developing countries are diarrhoea, acute respiratory illness, malaria and measles."

Progress in reducing hunger has virtually halted

Nuclear folklore

Sunday, October 20, 2002

Many Americans believe that the threat of global nuclear holocaust somehow magically went away with the Berlin wall. Like many popular American folk beliefs, this is false.

During the Cuban missile crisis, the United States was busy dropping stun grenades on a Russian submarine. What they didn't know in all their wisdom was that the sub had a nuclear tipped torpedo and that the sub officers were holding a vote over whether or not to fire it. Two voted yes, and one voted no. A Russian officer named Arkhipov saved the human race from nuclear annihilation.

"Orlov, who described the episode in a book published earlier this year, said that war came within one word of happening: The sub was authorized to fire its nuclear torpedo with the approval of three officers aboard; two wanted to shoot, the third said no."

This was neither the first nor the last time that life on Earth was nearly exterminated. It also happened around dawn on January 25, 1995. A Norwegian rocket was picked up by Russian early warning systems. Within minutes, Boris Yeltsin found himself sitting in front of his black nuclear-command suitcase, which had been opened for the first time in history. Had he followed procedure and launched on warning, a general nuclear exchange would likely have transpired. This event is described in a Washington Post article.

In his article entitled Preventing an Accidental Nuclear Winter, Dean Babst wrote the following:

"In a study made by the World Health Organization, they found that a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia could kill one billion people outright. In addition, it could produce a Nuclear Winter that would probably kill an additional one billion people. It is possible that more than two billion people, one-third of all the humans on Earth would be destroyed almost immediately in the aftermath of a global thermonuclear war. The rest of humanity would be reduced to prolonged agony and barbarism. These findings are from a study chaired by Sune K. Bergstrom (the 1982 Nobel laureate in physiology and medicine) nearly 20 years ago."

In an interview with Mark Sugg, Admiral Stansfield Turner said the following:

"There are two reasons why the situation today is more dangerous than it was in 1995 and the Norwegian incident. The first is that the Russians simply have not been putting any more money into the maintenance of their warning systems, their missile systems and so on. They are deteriorating and they're more fragile then ever.

"The second, and one that is not being noticed much, is that the Russians are repeatedly telling us publicly that their nuclear establishment is deteriorating, they are not replacing it, and therefore, they are inexorably going to drop in the numbers of nuclear weapons they have available to them. The Chairman of the Duma's Defense Committee several weeks ago predicted that by 2007, they would have only one-fourth to one-sixth the number of nuclear warheads on line that we do, one-fourth to one-sixth. That's dangerous. What do they do? They feel vulnerable. It's not true, but they think we might do a surprise attack and try to disable them totally. Their counter to that is to go to hair trigger alert so they can launch before our attack impacts on them. That is very dangerous. You put that in the circumstances of Norway in 1995 and President Yeltsin might not have hesitated. He might have launched. So it's very dangerous."

Jim Winkler, head of social policy for George W. Bush's church: Bush administration's war of aggression "without any justification according to the teachings of Christ"

Sunday, October 20, 2002

Even George W. Bush's own church knows the war on Iraq is wrong.

Iraq war 'unjustifiable', says Bush's church head (Guardian)

John Simpson: US public "horribly misinformed"

Saturday, October 19, 2002

Veteran BBC reporter John Simpson called Fox News "dysfunctional, grotesquely patriotic and embarrassing", and said that Americans have been "horribly misinformed."

"I went to Ground Zero and I found that many people believed US immigration policy was the reason why America was so disliked. Thank God I don't have to broadcast to them. There is no recognition of linkage with America's support for Israel. There is a great hunger for information in America which people are not just getting."

Simpson berates 'hysterical' US networks

1932 Anti-Hitler protest art by John Heartfield
Early anti-Hitler protest art by John Heartfield from 1932. Willett's book Heartfield versus Hitler is an absolute refutation to the many who attempted to excuse their tolerance and/or support of Hitler's rise to power with the disingenuous claim: 'We did not know.'
Translation:
Der Sinn des Hitlergrusses
The real meaning of the Hitler salute
Kleiner Mann bittet um grosse Gaben
The little man asks for big gifts
Millionen stehen hinter mir!
I've got millions standing behind me

May I please have another helping of brain damage? The reasons why people call NPR "National Propaganda Radio" and rail about the "Feddies"

Thursday, October 17, 2002

NPR, like virtually every other mass media outlet, invites guest "experts" with titles such as "senior research fellow" from what are purported to be independent "think-tanks" on a daily basis. The "think-tanks" have names such as the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Brookings Institution and Citizens for a Sound Economy. These "think-tanks" are organizations subsidized by powerful corporate interests with the sole purpose of disinforming the public into supporting harmful policies and practices that are very profitable for the very few.

These "think-tanks" are multi-million dollar organizations, and they receive very large grants from organizations such as John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.; David H. Koch Charitable Foundation; Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation; and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.

Their strategic goal is deregulation of all barriers to the flow of cash to the rich. This includes deregulation of worker protection laws, laws against putting nuclear weapons in space, laws preventing the poisoning and rape of the Earth and its people, and laws enacting any domestic programs which are all to be associated with the despised term "welfare".

If the "think-tanks" are the elite Special Forces of the Thought Neutralization Initiative, the Storm Troopers and Orcs are marshalled and herded by organizations like the Media Research Center, which publishes "Cyber Alerts" so that people like ERKTHE can rain down storms of acidulous and asinine email on the white male Republicans who are at the forefront of the vast left-wing conspiracy which threatens the nation. Media Research Center is a "grassroots organization" which has received $1.3 million from many of the same people who support the "think-tanks." Of course Good Americans©® can always donate more to Media Research Center's crusade against sanity from their homepage.

A sample of the "research" generated by Media Research Center: Woody Harrelson's October 17th I'm an American tired of American lies in Guardian Unlimited is "a fresh America-hating blast from a left-wing actor."

To the people at Media Research Center, counting civilian casualties in Afghanistan is aiding and abetting the enemy.

And for stuffing the judiciary with people guaranteed to strip away the Bill of Rights to make way for profit, we have the Federalist Society with its $7.5 million in grants from the same organizations.

William Hartung: Proliferation, Not Iraq, Is the Issue

Daniel Ellsberg: "We are at this moment at a point where the worst possible consequences of the US and Israeli nuclear policies may shortly be realized."

Thursday, October 17, 2002

Daniel Ellsberg is the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and altered the course of history. These days he thinks about things like possible first use of nuclear weapons in Iraq and the shocking insanity of the Bush administration.

"We are at this moment at a point where the worst possible consequences of the US and Israeli nuclear policies may shortly be realized. Either or both Israeli and US tactical nuclear weapons could very plausibly be launched against Iraq within months, if the US invasion being prepared leads Saddam Hussein to launch short-range missiles armed with chemical warheads against Israel or against US troops. Both countries have warned that such an act--which is highly likely to follow, or even shortly precede, an American ground assault--will lead to the "annihilation" of Iraq, the "destruction" of its society. These are clearly nuclear threats of the use of nuclear weapons: which President Bush has very accurately described to the UN as "weapons of mass murder." I do not believe, under this Administration or that of Israel, that these threats of mass murders are bluffs, or that they are meant solely for purposes of deterrence."

Related links

Not content with subverting democracy in the US, Bush administration seeks global suppression of democracy by pursuing war of aggression in Iraq

Thursday, October 17, 2002

The facts:

In Southern Africa, they call the phenomenon "minority white rule".

International law professor Francis A. Boyle launches impeachment campaign against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft

Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Professor of international law Francis A. Boyle has launched a national impeachment campaign against key members of the unelected Bush administration.

"I am today announcing the start of a national campaign to impeach Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft," Boyle said.

"The Cheney doctrine of pre-emptive war was rejected decisively by the Nuremberg tribunal of 1946," Boyle said. "This Nazi doctrine must be repudiated by us just as soundly as it was repudiated by us back in 1946."

In an email addressed to the American Association of Law Schools Section on Minority Groups which he reposted to the Nuclear Issues discussion group, Boyle said the following:

Dear Colleagues:

In light of the House vote for war, we are trying to get one MOC who voted against war to support introducing our Bill of Impeachment against Bush et al into the House in order to prevent this war of aggression against Iraq. Our proposed Bill of Impeachment would be along the lines of the Gonzalez Bill of Impeachment against Bush Sr for his war against Iraq, plus an additional Article VI dealing with the Ashcroft Police State. I am willing to serve as Counsel to any MOC you can send my way-- just as I was honored and pleased to do so with the late and great Honorable Henry B. Gonzalez. Thank you for your consideration.

Yours very truly,

Francis

Related items

Harry Belafonte: "This was not a personal attack on Colin Powell. However ... speaking on behalf of so many African American citizens, I have found Colin Powell to be a tragic failure."

Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Harry Belafonte defended his on-air comparison of Colin Powell to a "house slave."

"My analogy to the plantation existence I say without regret, and maintain that the overwhelming majority of black people in this country agree that the impending war with Iraq is a colossal mistake."

Belafonte also ripped John Ashcroft: "There's something wrong with men who think the way Ashcroft does and who manipulate the justice system the way he does."

Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy: not a "Bushie", therefore an "anti-American"

Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Today's edition of Democracy Now! featured a speech given by Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy.

"Flags are bits of coloured cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead."

[...]

"Twenty-nine years ago, in Chile, on the September 11, 1973, General Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in a CIA-backed coup. 'Chile shouldn't be allowed to go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible', said Henry Kissinger, then President Nixon's national security adviser."

[...]

"Chileans tell the story of how the musician Victor Jara had his hands cut off in front of a crowd in the Santiago stadium. Before they shot him, Pinochet's soldiers threw his guitar at him and mockingly ordered him to play."

[...]

"Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain's festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modern world. Both are fault-lines in the raging international conflicts of today. "

"In 1937 Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians: 'I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance that a great wrong has been done to the red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place'."

[...]

"The US government says that Saddam Hussein is a war criminal, a cruel military despot who has committed genocide against his own people. That's a fairly accurate description of the man. In 1988 he razed hundreds of villages in northern Iraq and used chemical weapons and machine-guns to kill thousands of Kurdish people. Today we know that that same year the US government provided him with $500m in subsidies to buy American farm products. The next year, after he had successfully completed his genocidal campaign, the US government doubled its subsidy to $1bn. It also provided him with high quality germ seed for anthrax, as well as helicopters and dual-use material that could be used to manufacture chemical and biological weapons."

US Military now conducting surveillance on protesters.

Military surveillance of civilian political activity protected under the First Amendment

Monday, October 14, 2002

Concerns have been raised by photos depicting open military surveillance of the September 27-29 IMF and World Bank protests in Washington, DC over whether or not they violate the Posse Comitatus Act. The Posse Comitatus act reads as follows:

USC Title 18 Sec. 1385. - Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus

"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both"

In a recent interview on Democracy Now!, Christopher Pyle, professor of constitutional law at Mount Holyoke College and author of "Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics, 1967-1970", said the following:

US Military now conducting surveillance on protesters.

"I see no problem with that at all. So far as I can tell, that is used in command and control of military forces in a legitimate mission which is to keep the peace on the streets. The problem would arise if the film from those cameras was then archived and protesters were identified and put in watch lists of various sorts. This is what the Army did in the 1960s. I had the pleasure of disclosing the Army's domestic spying operations in the 1960s. I had been an officer in Army intelligence, and the Army had databanks on some six million people and was covering every demonstration of twenty people or more, and was doing so not in uniform like these soldiers, but in civilian clothes, and so they were essentially running the apparatus of a police state. Not with the motivations of creating a police state, but with a kind of indifference to the civil liberties implications of creating that kind of a record system on lawful, First Amendment-protected civilian political activity. That's the great danger, and we're now at one of those moments in history where command and control surveillance for locating troops in a situation can gradually metastasize into domestic spying on civilians by the military and that's when you get the militarization of law enforcement functions, and that's very dangerous."

Pushing for war

Monday, October 14, 2002
Iraqi Celebrations
Iraqi Celebrations Monday October 14, 2002. Iraqi children perform during celebrations organized by the Iraqi government at the National Theater in Baghdad, Monday, on the eve of the referendum in which Iraqis are expected to give their support to President Saddam Hussein for the next seven years. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Byrd quotes Gestapo founder Goering to illuminate Bush administration strategy

Friday, October 11, 2002

"Byrd used a quote to begin his final speech:

"'It is the leaders of a country who determine the policy. It is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, a parliament or a communist dictatorship, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders....

"'All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.'

"Byrd then identified its author: 'Herman Goering, founder of the Gestapo, president of the Reichstag, convicted war criminal.'"

Byrd has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's rush to war, and has pointed to a heightened responsibility for average Americans to keep abreast of current events in order to avoid being misled.

Read more

Related items

Vladimir Putin on "propagandistic" Iraq information: "Russia doesn't have in its possession any trustworthy data which would support the existence of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We haven't received from our partners any such information as yet."

Friday, October 11, 2002

Russian President Vladimir Putin rained on the poodle when he rejected the claims of weapons of mass destruction as "propagandistic."

Read More

House and Senate arrogate all Constitutional war powers to an unfit and unelected President

Friday, October 11, 2002

The House and Senate have decided that the Framers were incorrect in assigning the authority to declare war to the Congress. Congress has hotwired the Constitution by declaring that "The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate."

This vote was an open defiance of the will of the American people; communications to elected representatives were overwhelmingly against a war against Iraq.

Although the resolutions passed, many Representatives and Senators showed leadership by listening to their constituents and voting against the resolution.

White House 'exaggerating Iraqi threat'

Dr. Helen Caldicott: "The incidence of congenital malformations has doubled in the exposed populations in Iraq where these weapons [U.S. depleted uranium shells] were used. Among them are babies born with only one eye or missing all or part of their brain."

Wednesday, October 9, 2002

"As the Bush administration prepares to make war on the Iraqi people -- and make no mistake, it is the civilian population of that country and not Saddam Hussein who will bear the brunt of the hostilities -- it is important that we recall the medical consequences of the last Gulf War. That conflict was, in effect, a nuclear war.

"During the 1991 Gulf War, the United States deployed hundreds of tons of weapons, many of them anti-tank shells made of depleted uranium 238. This material is 1.7 times more dense than lead, and hence when incorporated into an anti-tank shell and fired, it achieves great momentum, cutting through tank armor like a hot knife through butter.

"What other properties does uranium 238 possess? First, it is pyrophoric: When it hits a tank at high speed it bursts into flames, producing tiny aerosolized particles less than 5 microns in diameter that are easily inhalable into the terminal air passages of the lung. Second, it is a potent radioactive carcinogen, emitting a relatively heavy alpha particle composed of 2 protons and 2 neutrons. Once inside the body -- either in the lung if it has been inhaled, or in a wound if it penetrates flesh, or ingested since it concentrates in the food chain and contaminates water -- it can produce cancer in the lungs, bones, blood, or kidneys. Third, it has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, meaning the areas in which this ammunition was used in Iraq and Kuwait during Gulf War will remain effectively radioactive for the rest of time."

Medical consequences of attacking Iraq

Immanuel Wallerstein: US is "a lone superpower that lacks true power, a world leader nobody follows and few respect, and a nation drifting dangerously amidst a global chaos it cannot control"

On the future of US global hegemony

"Pax Americana is over. Challenges from Vietnam and the Balkans to the Middle East and September 11 have revealed the limits of American supremacy. Will the United States learn to fade quietly, or will U.S. conservatives resist and thereby transform a gradual decline into a rapid and dangerous fall?"

[...]

"But Vietnam was not merely a military defeat or a blight on U.S. prestige. The war dealt a major blow to the United States' ability to remain the world's dominant economic power. The conflict was extremely expensive and more or less used up the U.S. gold reserves that had been so plentiful since 1945. Moreover, the United States incurred these costs just as Western Europe and Japan experienced major economic upswings. These conditions ended U.S. preeminence in the global economy. Since the late 1960s, members of this triad have been nearly economic equals, each doing better than the others for certain periods but none moving far ahead."

"The Eagle Has Crash Landed"

On the so-called "Bush doctrine of preemption"

"So the plan seems clear. First, the U.S. tries assassination of Saddam Hussein. If that doesn't work (and it seems a bit unlikely that it will), then a preemptive first strike. President Bush has been quite ready to indicate that he wishes "regime change" in various countries. To say that this is a violation of sovereignty is to say the obvious. But that doesn't seem to faze him, since he is speaking the language of power, not of law. He is coating this language of power in the language of morality: the struggle against terrorism and for democracy. I shall not here discuss the political efficacy of such a policy. I have done that elsewhere, and its political efficacy is precisely the subject of debate within the U.S. administration, the U.S. Congress, and the various leaders of the European Union."

"But this is not only a question of politics, but of law and of morality, and these two issues seem to be getting less debate. It seems clear to simple people (I am a simple person) that 'forestalling' is not 'defense' for one simple reason: the only way the law recognizes defense is after an act occurs. Intent to engage in an act does not constitute an act, since one never knows if the intent will be carried through. In addition, the forestaller is interpreting this intent, and he can (and quite often does) interpret it incorrectly. In criminal law, I am not legally authorized to shoot someone because I have heard him say nasty things about me and think that one day soon he may try to shoot me. If however, this other person points a gun at me, I may shoot him in self-defense. Without this elementary distinction, we are in a lawless world."

"Preemption: The Political and Moral Stakes"

On Israel/Palestine

"The short run is with the Israeli hawks. They have the guns (and the nuclear weapons). And they have 99% U.S. support. But the middle run doesn't look good for any one - not Israelis, not Palestinians, not Jews, not Arabs - and not Americans. And let us not forget. Someone may soon be using tactical nuclear weapons."

"Israel/Palestine: It's Getting Ugly"

Read more from Immanuel Wallerstein

Vincent Cannistraro: "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA."

Wednesday, October 9, 2002

The Bush administration is wilfully disseminating false information in order to recruit accomplices for its planned Nuremberg crime against peace in Iraq.

"[...] some of the key allegations against the Iraqi regime were not supported by intelligence currently available to the administration. Mr Bush repeated a claim already made by senior members of his administration that Iraq has attempted to import hardened aluminium tubes 'for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons'. The tubes were also mentioned by Tony Blair in his dossier of evidence presented to parliament last month.

"However, US government experts on nuclear weapons and centrifuges have suggested that they were more likely to be used for making conventional weapons.

" 'I would just say there is not much support for that [nuclear] theory around here,' said a department of energy specialist."

[...]

"Mr Albright, who heads the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington thinktank, said: 'There's a catfight going on about this right now. On one side you have most of the experts on gas centrifuges. On the other you have one guy sitting in the CIA.'

"Mr Albright said sceptics at the energy department's Lawrence Livermore national laboratory in California had been ordered to keep their doubts to themselves. He quoted a colleague at the laboratory as saying: 'The administration can say what it wants and we are expected to remain silent.' "

Read more

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Bush administration seeks world domination

Rep. Jim McDermott: "People that I trust say if we don't derail this coup that is going on, we are going to wind up with a government run by the president of the United States and all the rest of us will be standing around just watching it happen."

Monday, October 7, 2002

According to an article in the Seattle Times, Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) accused George W. Bush of seeking to become an emperor: "This president is trying to bring to himself all the power to become an emperor--to create Empire America."

Read the full Seattle Times article

Texans protest Bush administration's filthy war
Texans gather on October 5 to oppose the Bush administration's conspiracy to commit a Nuremberg crime against peace in Iraq by waging an aggressive war in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, the Nuremberg Principles, the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 and the obligation under customary international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State. (source: Austin Indymedia)

1,500 gather in Austin to protest conspiracy by Bush administration to commit Nuremberg crime against peace in Iraq

Sunday, October 6, 2002

1,000 to 1,500 people from all over Texas turned out on Saturday to protest the public conspiracy by certain members and supporters of the Bush administration to plan and prepare a war of aggression against Iraq which would establish the United States as the first rogue nuclear hyperpower in the 4.55 billion year history of planet Earth. The protest coincided with protests in other cities such as Portland, Ore. and Manchester, N.H.

The peaceful protest took place on a beautiful sunny Austin day. Local APD and federal officers were on hand, and no police or protester violence was reported. People of all ages attended the event.

Original articles mentioning the event appeared in the Austin-American Statesman, San Antonio Express-News, the UK's Guardian Unlimited, ABC News Online (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), and Austin Indymedia.

AP articles on the event were carried by the New York Times, Guardian Unlimited, Houston Chronicle, ABC News, CNN, Tyler Morning Telegraph, The Plain Dealer, Yahoo online, Salon.com, Miami Herald, Billings Gazette, San Francisco Chronicle, the Abilene Reporter-News, and many other news outlets in the United States and around the world.

Additional stories

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Senior Democrat Robert C. Byrd: Bush administration's war "blind and improvident"

Friday, October 4, 2002

Senator Robert C. Byrd -- the senior Democrat, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and the only person in the history of the Republic to have been elected to six consecutive terms in the Senate -- called on Congress to resist the pressure for a rushed debate on the Bush administration's war of aggression against Iraq. Lawmakers ignored his advice and voted 95 to 1 to proceed with the debate.

Senator Byrd said the following: "The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood."

Read more

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House members speak out in opposition to resolutions granting war powers to the Bush administration

Thursday, October 3, 2002

House Representatives Bernie Sanders, John Conyers, Jr., Bob Filner, Peter DeFazio, Lynn N. Rivers, Jan Schakowsky, Sheila Jackson Lee, Lloyd Doggett, Hilda L. Solis, Marcy Kaptur, and others held a press conference Thursday to oppose resolutions granting war powers to the Bush administration.

The Representatives were speaking in relation to S. J. RES. 46 and H. J. RES. 114. They urged Americans to call their Representatives and Senators in order to put a stop to the war.

Representative Conyers, who is the ranking Democrat on the Committee on the Judiciary, began his remarks by announcing that the Congressional Black Caucus of 38 members had put out a statement of "principles opposing the war in Iraq or any attempt for the President to get additional powers." He then said that "this is the most disturbing arrogation of Constitutional power by any President in my memory."

Representative Filner said, "when I was a student in 1964, I castigated the Congresspeople who voted for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. I am not going to vote for a Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 2002 that cedes all power to the President and gives away the Constitutional authority that the Congress has."

Representative DeFazio said, "the so-called bipartisan negotiations at the White House turned out a pile of words and paper, but what it all constitutes in the end is a blank check for the President of the United States. It basically rubber stamps his existing predilection to launch a preemptive war against Saddam Hussein without allies. There is nothing in this so-called bipartisan compromise that would restrict him in any way or exert the authority of Congress in any way to lawfully determine the future course of this action, the scope of this action, the duration of this action, the objectives of this action. None of that has been laid out. Hasn't been laid out by the President, and yet he seems to rush. It seems that we have crossed sort of a brave new threshold here with the Bush Doctrine. It's a lot like we're basing our international and foreign policy on the substance of what were called "precogs" in the movie Minority Report. This guy doesn't have nuclear weapons, the Brits say he can't get nuclear weapons as long as there are sanctions against him, but the Bush administration says he might someday have a nuclear weapon, and if he did someday have one nuclear weapon, he might blackmail us, a country with 10,000 hydrogen bombs -- I don't think so. The United States, with all its might, can certainly withstand that. I mean, this is an extraordinarily dangerous step and opening the door to the war in Iraq is just the first step down a very very long dark path that will haunt us throughout the next century. There are many countries that have beefs with their neighbors -- India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, Russia and Georgia -- you know, the list is endless. And if the United States breaks down the international law and the precedents of the last fifty years since WWII, we're opening the door to worldwide conflagration in the future."

The press conference was organized by Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich, who concluded the conference with his own remarks.

C-SPAN Thursday, October 03, 2002: News Conference to oppose Iraq War Resolution with Members of Congress

Related items

Gephardt endorses Nuremberg crimes against peace
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt joins the public conspiracy to commit a Nuremberg crime against peace in Iraq by waging an aggressive war in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and in violation of obligations under customary international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State.

Gephardt openly declares support of war of aggression on Iraq

Thursday, October 3, 2002

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt has come out in support of the Bush administration's planned war of aggression against Iraq. "We had to go through this, putting politics aside, so we have a chance to get to a consensus that will lead the country in the right direction," said Gephardt.

Read more

Oscar Brown Jr.: "The squares are runnin' it, and what we need is hip people. And by hip, I mean 'human improvement potential.' "

Thursday, October 3, 2002

In a discussion with Ed Asner and Suheir Hammad, Oscar Brown Jr. said more than once that the country is being run by "squares."

Listen

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Joseph E. Stiglitz gives Bush an "F" grade for economic policy

Wednesday, October 2, 2002

It's no secret that I am a tough grader on economic policy. The Bush administration may want to pretend that its F is really an A. But that won't change the reality.

Read more

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Last modified: Thu Feb 5 19:12:15 CST 2004