Wednesday, 30 April 2003

Franks may face war crimes charge

Belgium is coming under pressure from the US to block a potentially explosive war crimes case against General Tommy Franks, commander of coalition forces in Iraq.

Jan Fermon, a Brussels lawyer, confirmed yesterday that 19 Iraqi plaintiffs were seeking to bring charges that would name the general and other US soldiers who had allegedly committed crimes.

Mr Fermon claimed there were 17 violations of Belgium's controversial 1993 war crimes law, which allowed universal jurisdiction until it was amended early this month.

The legal move could prove embarrassing for the government of Guy Verhofstadt, who opposed the war in Iraq along with France and Germany, and is now seeking to mend fences with the US.

Weapons of Mass Destruction found! Zoom on Doom: Easy-to-find nuclear weapons map Up to 8 More Seen Charged in Enron Case Loyalty Day, 2003: By the President of the United States of America

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2003, as Loyalty Day. I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance. I also call upon government officials to display the flag of the United States on all government buildings on Loyalty Day.

US split on handling N. Korea: After Pyongyang's nuclear claims last week, hardliners spar with those who advocate more talks. Monsanto may face disaster - Greenpeace report Putin taunts Blair: Is Saddam sitting in a bunker ready to blow the whole place up with WMD? Judge Rejects Suit Against Bush Over War Elaine Cassel: A Recent Judicial Reprimand of Attorney General Ashcroft Exposes a Pattern of Gag Order and Ethics Violations By His Office Mini-nukes a 'terrible idea,' adviser says: Bunker busters would not go deep enough, according to physicist Pearl 'killed over secrets': France's leading philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, says that American journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan last year was killed because he knew too much. The Bush economy doesn't play in Peoria: The president says a big tax cut for the rich will create jobs for the hard-hit middle class. In this city of faded glory, few believe him. U.S. to cut 6,000 airport screening jobs George Walker Hoover? President Bush is on track to match Herbert Hoover's record of job destruction. Mr. Jefferson, What's This About a Contretemps? Bush's role in state fiscal crises Changing face of hunger at S.F.'s oldest soup kitchen: St. Anthony serving more seniors and families Bush administration asks high court to preserve 'under God' in Pledge of Allegiance The State Dept. Wins One: Bush plans to give a career diplomat authority over Gen. Garner in Iraq Bush to Name Diplomat to Administer Iraq - Newsweek Two More Protesters Killed in Iraqi Town Three Weeks On, Many in Baghdad Feel Angry, Hopeless Lawyer: US Troops Face War Crimes Allegations Pensions For Execs, Shaft For Workers The Secrets of September 11: The White House is battling to keep a report on the terror attacks secret. Does the 2004 election have anything to do with it? Report Finds Number of Black Children in Deep Poverty Rising Garner: Americans Should Beat Chests with Pride America Signs Deal with Terror Group Troops 'Are Letting Looters Smuggle Iraqi Antiquities' US Tells Iraq Oil Ministers Not to Act Without Its OK Thom Hartmann: The Crime Of The Century: A Never-Ending "War Against Terrorism" Defense CEOs are big winners of Iraq war Iraq war helps BP gush to record £2.3bn profit Bush Would Consider Preemptive Strike: Expert U.S. Calls For Halt To Nuke Commerce With Iran N. Korea: Sanction move could trigger war Public Still Rejects Unilateralism, Imperial Role Kennedy warns on nuclear tests

Senator Edward Kennedy yesterday warned that the Bush administration was preparing to restart the testing of nuclear weapons so it could develop a new generation of bunker-busting bombs and tactical "mini-nukes", potentially triggering a new arms race.

US troops open fire again on Fallujah crowd

US troops opened fire today on anti-American demonstrators for the second time this week, during a march to protest about the previous shootings. At least one person was reported to have been killed and 16 wounded.

Chirac leads new defence challenge to US Putin publicly rebuffs Blair: We are not with you and we don't believe you: The message from Moscow Suicide bomber kills two in Tel Aviv: Attack comes after Palestinians approve peacemaking cabinet 97 held hostage on oil rigs fear for their lives To the US it was self-defence. To the Iraqis it was murder Afghan deportees tied up and forced on to planes US pulls out of Saudi Arabia to end grievance fuelling radical Islam Three killed and 45 hurt in Tel Aviv suicide bombing

Tuesday, 29 April 2003

FBI agent under fire -- from agency: Exclusive interview: Turner blew whistle on Ground Zero theft So much for Arab-American support Bush cancels plans for Oslo visit: US President George W Bush won't be coming to Oslo next month after all. Instead, he and Norway's prime minister will settle for a visit at the White House on May 16. UPDATE 3-Halliburton's Iraq work for U.S. adds to profit Missteps by Press Color Iraqi Perceptions N Korea never admitted to nukes: China US anger at war crimes threat: The Bush administration has reacted angrily to suggestions that General Tommy Franks, the commander of the US-led war in Iraq, might be charged with war crimes. Dianne Feinstein: Low-Yield Nuclear-Proliferation Treatment of ex-nuclear plant staffer questioned American Forces Reach Cease-Fire With Terror Group Patriot Raid (AlterNet, 29 April 2003)

The police placed their fingers on the triggers of their guns and kicked open the kitchen doors. Shouts emanated from the kitchen and a few seconds later five Hispanic men were made to crawl out on their hands and knees, guns pointed at them.

After patting us all down, the five officers seated us at two tables. As they continued to kick open doors to closets and bathrooms with their fingers glued to their triggers, no less than ten officers in suits emerged from the stairwell. Most of them sat in the back of the restaurant typing on their laptop computers. Two of them walked over to our table and identified themselves as officers of the INS and Homeland Security Department.

[...]

"You have no right to hold us," Asher insisted.

"Yes, we have every right," responded one of the agents. "You are being held under the Patriot Act following suspicion under an internal Homeland Security investigation."

The USA PATRIOT Act was passed into law on October 26, 2001 in order to facilitate the post 9/11 crackdown on terrorism (the name is actually an acronym: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.") Like most Americans, I did not recognize the extent to which this bill foregoes our civil liberties. Among the unprecedented rights it grants to the federal government are the right to wiretap without warrant, and the right to detain without warrant. As I quickly discovered, the right to an attorney has been seemingly fudged as well.

When I asked to speak to a lawyer, the INS official informed me that I do have the right to a lawyer but I would have to be brought down to the station and await security clearance before being granted one. When I asked how long that would take, he replied with a coy smile: "Maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe a month."

We insisted that we had every right to leave and were going to do so. One of the policemen walked over with his hand on his gun and taunted: "Go ahead and leave, just go ahead."

We remained seated. Our IDs were taken, and brought to the officers with laptops. I was questioned over the fact that my license was out of state, and asked if I had "something to hide." The police continued to hassle the kitchen workers, demanding licenses and dates of birth. One of the kitchen workers was shaking hysterically and kept providing the day's date -- March 20, 2003, over and over.

As I continued to press for legal counsel, a female officer who had been busy typing on her laptop in the front of the restaurant, walked over and put her finger in my face. "We are at war, we are at war and this is for your safety," she exclaimed. As she walked away from the table, she continued to repeat it to herself: "We are at war, we are at war. How can they not understand this."

[...]

One of the taxi drivers, a U.S. citizen, spoke to me during the interrogation. "Please stop talking to them," he urged. "I have been through this before. Please do whatever they say. Please for our sake."

[...]

The Patriot Act is just the first phase of the erosion of the Fourth Amendment. From the Justice Department has emerged a draft of the Domestic Securities Enhancement Act, also known as Patriot II. Among other things, this act would allow the Justice Department to detain anyone, anytime, secretly and indefinitely. It would also make it a crime to reveal the identity or even existence of such a detainee.

Nigerian strikers hold 100 foreign oil workers aboard oil platform Justices: U.S. Can Jail Deportees: Ruling affects immigrants who have completed criminal sentences but await deportation. But justices also approve challenges to custody on a case-by-case basis. Wayne Madsen: About Those Iraqi Intelligence Documents: Were They Planted? Straw: Iraq May Not Have WMDs Privilege Revoked: The government says it can pry into the attorney-client relationship all it wants. Did our leaders lie to us? Do we even care? Paul Krugman: Matters of Emphasis N.Korea Says No More Talks Without U.S. Concessions U.S. Troops Fire on Iraqi Protesters

"They shot everyone who moved," Rafid Mahmoud, a cousin of one wounded man, said at Fallujah hospital Tuesday. He stood in front of the bed of his brother, who stared at visitors, his foot newly amputated.

"Americans are criminals," said 37-year-old Ebtesam Shamsudein, her leg bandaged. Her seven children surrounded her, one boy wearing clothes smeared with bloody palmprints.

[...]

Shamsudein's husband, the man whose foot was amputated, was wounded when he ran to close the gate to keep protesters out and his children in. Shamsuedein was shot trying to help him.

One of her brothers-in-law came out to help. He was shot in the heart and died, relatives and doctors said. The men's mother, 65, stepped outside to see, and was shot in the shoulder.

"They go out to save one another, you know," Mahmoud said. "They are brothers."

US troops kill 13 at pro-Saddam rally, claim self-defence Anger Mounts After U.S. Troops Kill 13 Iraqi Protesters

Salah Abdullah Hamid said his cousin, a 36-year-old man employed by the Oil Ministry, was an innocent bystander.

"He was not part of the protest. He did not have a weapon. He was killed by American bullets," he said.

Asked why the troops had fired, he replied: "We don't know. No one knows why...We want the Americans to leave our country completely. We are a Muslim country."

US troops 'kill 13 Iraqi protesters' Norman Mailer: We went to war just to boost the white male ego Iraqis agree to form government within weeks Nuclear war risk grows as states race to acquire bomb

This was the Treaty that was supposed to lead to a non-nuclear world, but experts say the risks of proliferation are worse now than for 50 years. In the past two years the multilateral effort to contain and reduce the nuclear risk has unravelled. At the last NPT review conference in 2000 all member states signed a 13-point programme that included an undertaking by the five declared nuclear-weapon states to nuclear disarmament.

"That agreement is now gathering dust on some filing cabinet somewhere," said Dan Plesch, senior researcher at the Royal United Services Institute. "For the first time since the 1950s there isn't a global framework ... to get rid of nuclear weapons."

[...]

In the run-up to the Iraq war, the US President, George Bush, signed National Security Presidential Directive 17, which said: "The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force -- including potentially nuclear weapons -- to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States ..."

This assertion, analysts say, undermined an important prop of the NPT process: the so-called "negative security assurances", initially made in 1978 and strengthened by the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 984 in 1995, not to use nuclear weapons against the non-nuclear weapon states.

The assurances were considered vital in discouraging states from developing their own nuclear weapons. Now people wonder if they are worth the paper it they are written on.

The popularising of the term Weapons of Mass Destructionhas blurred the formerly stark distinction between nuclear and other weapons, and has paved the way for this change, claims Ms Crandall. She said: "Such terminology reduces the understanding of the unparalleled destructive capacity of nuclear weapons compared to the less destructive effects of chemical and biological weapons."

Monday, 28 April 2003

Nuclear Madness and Missile Envy: The New Nuclear Danger: Dr. Helen Caldicott in Vancouver Rummy's North Korea Connection: What did Donald Rumsfeld know about ABB's deal to build nuclear reactors there? And why won't he talk about it? Anger, horror at war's violence Anti-American sentiment pummels global-trade agenda During the War the Media Was Deliberately Vigilant in their Choice of Words Rumsfeld heralds 'first strike' era: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that his country has entered a new era in which it must pre-emptively seek out and prevent attacks by terrorists and terrorist states. CEOs at Defense Contractors Earn 45 Percent More, Study Finds; Campaign Contributions Tied to Bigger Contracts CEOs at Defense Contractors Earn 45% More: Campaign Contributions Tied to Bigger Contracts Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman: Grace News Ruth Rosen: At home, no superpower Cutbacks Imperil Health Coverage for States' Poor U.S. Iraq Policy for Dummies 9/11 and Bush's Record

To the Editor:

Re "Bush's Aides Plan Late Sprint in '04" (news article, April 22):

Since the worst terrorist attack in American history, which took the life of my brother, occurred in New York on Sept. 11, it seems appropriate that President Bush will be making his re-election bid from that city at that time in 2004.

Perhaps the millions of unemployed Americans, veterans whose benefits have been threatened, families of dead civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, working people who lost their pensions to corporate fraud, and 41 million Americans without health insurance can come to town and join him in celebrating the other achievements of his first term.
DAVID POTORTI
Cary, N.C., April 23, 2003

Saddam Link to al-Qaeda In Doubt Advocacy Group Finds Contaminant in Lettuce: Officials question whether chemical poses health risk Israeli Ambassador to US Calls for 'Regime Change' in Iran, Syria

WASHINGTON - The Israeli ambassador in Washington called for "regime change" in Iran and Syria on Monday through diplomatic isolation, economic sanctions and what he called "psychological pressure."

Ambassador Daniel Ayalon said the U.S. invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein helped create great opportunities for Israel but it was "not enough."

"It has to follow through. We still have great threats of that magnitude coming from Syria, coming from Iran," he told a conference of the pro-Israeli Anti-Defamation League.

Iraqis Target Gen. Franks for War Crimes Trial

The Bush administration has reacted angrily to the complaint. A senior administration official warned that "there will be diplomatic consequences for Belgium" if the complaint is taken up by a court there and Belgian authorities issue indictments against Gen. Franks and other U.S. officials.

"The complaint will be filed stating that unknown American personnel are directly responsible for committing war crimes in Iraq," Mr. Fermon said.

Iraqis Sue Franks For war Crimes, U.S. Irked

WASHINGTON, April 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) -- Suffering from indelible psychological scars for losing their loved ones to the U.S.-led war on their country, Iraqi civilians are preparing to lodge a complaint with a Belgian court against Chief of the U.S. Central Command Gen. Tommy Franks and other U.S. military officials for committing unspeakable war crimes in Iraq, a leading U.S. newspaper reported Monday, April28 .

Representing 10 Iraqis who say they were victims of or eyewitnesses to atrocities perpetrated during the U.S.-led war, Jan Fermon, the Brussels-based lawyer, said the complaint will ask an investigative magistrate to look into whether indictments should be issued against Gen. Franks, the Washington Times wrote.

Washington Heads for New UN Row Over Control of Oil Wealth Fighting is over but the deaths go on: Guardian investigation reveals mines have killed up to 80 civilians since the conflict ended

Some of the 1,500 cluster bombs the US dropped on Iraq have also killed and wounded people around Mosul, Kirkuk and Jalula. In Mosul and Kirkuk, Iraqi soldiers stockpiled ammunition and small arms in homes and schools. "They clearly believed that by withdrawing into the cities they could make the war last for six months," Mr Sutton said.

Rumsfeld to offer Franks top army post: report Al-Qaida links still dubious Local Iraqis question Bush: Today, he is likely to find more skeptics in Dearborn 'Heads will roll' in State Department Suspicious Discovery Apparently Wasn't Chemical Weapons Fury at agriculture post for US businessman

Oxfam last night launched a scathing attack on the man the US has put in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq.

Dan Amstutz is a former senior executive of Cargill, the biggest grain exporter in the world, and served in the Reagan administration as a trade negotiator in the Uruguay round of world trade talks.

Kevin Watkins, Oxfam's policy director, said Mr Amstutz would "arrive with a suitcase full of open-market rhetoric", and was more likely to try to dump cheap US grain on the potentially lucrative Iraqi market than encourage the country to rebuild its once-successful agricultural sector.

"Putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of a human rights commission," Mr Watkins said.

Paris and Berlin prepare alliance to rival Nato Iraq weapons chief becomes 13th capture on US hit list IRA 'moving towards closure of conflict' Martin McGuinness: 'This is a defining moment. Now others must seize it' Colombian rebels murder teacher in 'act of madness' Iraqi guerrilla legend speaks US arrests bogus Baghdad mayor

Sunday, 27 April 2003

Bummed by the economy? Typical CEO got $1.8 million Coming soon: united serfs of America Spooked John Brady Kiesling: Diplomatic Breakdown: The author, a career diplomat, quit his job at the US Embassy in Athens because he could not defend the war in Iraq and a foreign policy that he sees as dangerous to America.

The more aggressively we use our power to intimidate our foes, the more foes we create and the more we validate terrorism as the only effective weapon of the powerless against the powerful.

[...]

As one cherished contact, a longtime member of parliament, conservative, pro-US, put it: "I supported you in the Gulf War, I supported you in Kosovo, when 99 percent of the Greeks were opposed, but this war is simply wrong." I drew the duty of reproving another friend, a distinguished Greek specialist on the United States, a longtime US resident, who had produced an editorial with views of our Iraq policy almost indistinguishable from those of my old sparring partners in the Greek Communist Party. I knew that if we had lost this group, we had already lost the whole Middle East and half of Europe.

Howard Dean: Equal Rights is the Responsibility of Every American Women Fear Their Rights Will End With Hussein Era: Many in Iraq say their liberties and ambitions may be curtailed if Shiite religious leaders prevail. Fuzzy Math on Iraq Jobless and Hopeless, Many Quit the Labor Force Many Civilians Among 64 Killed in Afghan Fighting Jonathan Raban: Democracy holds little allure in the Muslim world Syria warned to curb 'terror links' The spooky provenance of the smoking gun that backfired Halliburton: All In The Family Anis Shivani: Is America Becoming Fascist?

No doubt, fascism is a descriptor too carelessly thrown around; but Nixon and Reagan, no matter how reprehensible their politics, were not quite fascist. Bush is the most dangerous man in contemporary history: Hitler didn't have access to weapons that could blow up the world, and no American or other leader since World War II with access to such weapons has been as out of control. Perhaps a non-controversial statement may be that the fascist tendency always exists, at the very least latent and dormant. But when more and more of the latency becomes actualized, there comes a point when the nature of the problem has to be redefined. We may already have crossed that point. As Eco notes, "Ur-Fascism can still return in the most innocent of guises. Our duty is to unmask it and to point the finger at each of its new forms ­ every day, in every part of the world." And as Eco reminds us, Roosevelt issued a similar warning.

Since liberals don't understand the magnitude of the crisis global capitalism faces, they don't understand the extent of the desperate, last-ditch effort to find an ideological glue ("terror") to hold together the centrifugal forces in the American population. Part of the confusion is that this is fascism but not really fascism ­ it is only its simulation, although no less horrifying for that reason ­ because all the twentieth-century ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, and socialism) are rapidly dissolving.

Osprey fails key tests of performance: Weight, Balance Issues Put Program Further Behind, but Marines Say V-22 Is Still Their Top Aviation Priority Protesting 'Patriots': Town Among Several Vowing to Block Patriot Act Enforcement The jobless trap: Some settle for little, or give up

The number of so-called "underemployed" -- those forced to take part-time or low-paying jobs -- has grown 41 percent nationwide since the recession started two years ago.

Throw in the discouraged jobless who have stopped looking for work altogether, and the 5.8 percent U.S. unemployment rate darkens to a seasonally unadjusted 10.4 percent.

Advisor resigns while US reacts to limit damage US lied about WMDs: Ritter Way clear for Rumsfeld to pick team: Franks may be named Army chief of staff S.F. mental ward is budget victim: Critics decry 'unethical' discharge of severely ill patients Militants' Crude Camp Casts Doubt on U.S. Claims: Ansar al Islam's bases show that the Al Qaeda surrogate posed no serious threat beyond its mountain borders, despite what Powell asserted before the war. 'Peaceful' Nuclear Power Fuels Spread of Weapons A Flashback to the 60's for an Antiwar Protester The damning of Gorgeous George: In a burning Baghdad building a journalist finds 'proof' that the Labour MP and Saddam apologist was in the pay of the Iraqi regime. Andy McSmith pieces together the full extraordinary story and asks: was he or wasn't he? The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden Documents link Iraq, bin Laden: Star reporter finds terror chief's name in Iraqi dossier, covered with White-Out Bush May Be a Write-In On More Than One State Ballot Bush's Leadership Pinnacle Was Tariq Aziz the coalition's mole?

Iraq's former deputy prime minister, now in US hands, was the urbane public face of the Saddam regime. But he may have helped the allies to target his ex-boss, reports Con Coughlin

Rolling Back the 20th Century US plans 'Cuba lite' blockade on North Korea Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies: Intelligence agencies accuse Bush and Blair of distorting and fabricating evidence in rush to war

The case for invading Iraq to remove its weapons of mass destruction was based on selective use of intelligence, exaggeration, use of sources known to be discredited and outright fabrication, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Arms Dump Blast Fuels Fury MP may be tried as traitor Fresh doubts surface over embattled MP Fury as explosion at weapons dump kills 40 Six die as Baghdad weapons dump is blown up

Saturday, 26 April 2003

Shadowy Kiwi 'CIA operative' See also Mystery man keeps the best of company Where your taxes aren't going -- health and education McCain: N. Korea Bigger Threat Than Iraq Distraught man says Baghdad blast wiped out family Fury as us strips thieves Marine Discusses Execution-Style Killing No Hollywood ending for 'Norma Rae' factory: union mill to close A Rebel's Political Odyssey: Former Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark's baffling choices in causes and allies, including ties to Saddam Hussein, leave him reviled, shunned. 'Master-Blaster' -- A Case for Liberation Robert Fisk: Did the US murder these journalists? Samia, a brave and honest woman, was almost destroyed as a human being by that American tank crew Anti-U.S. Protests After Iraqi Arms Dump Carnage American to Oversee Iraqi Oil Industry U.S. Still Has Not Found Iraqi Arms: Search Goes On for Weapons Powell Cited Illegal Aliens Can Be Held Indefinitely, Ashcroft Says Papers: Documents Show Iraq-Al Qaida Link Wolfowitz rejects account of China North Korea summit diplomacy As Companies Reduce Costs, Pay Is Falling Top to Bottom EPA Diverts Agents From Normal Duties Anti-Kerry effort angers family Stone-throwing children put U.S. troops on edge

MOSUL, Iraq, April 26 (Reuters) - The love affair between U.S. troops and Iraqi children is turning sour.

As the invading troops pushed north towards Baghdad in the first weeks of the war, it was always the children in every town that came out first to smile, wave, give the thumbs-up and shout the same greeting: "Good, good, good!"

Happy to see a friendly face, the soldiers waved back and many handed out candies from their field rations.

But this correspondent, who has travelled with U.S. troops since the start of the war, has seen more and more of the encounters ending with some children, usually the older ones in their early teens, hurling stones at the soldiers.

Book on Arctic refuge gets a chilly reaction 6 Die in Blasts at Baghdad Munitions Dump US draws sword of trade retribution: Only those nations which stood by it when the going got tough, like 'our friend Singapore', will get trade backing We won't stop in Iraq - Bush aide Battle Over Judiciary Enters New Phase: As Democrats prepare to fight Bush choice, other nominees move toward approval. No proof of Powell's arms claims: U.S. empty-handed in Iraq search for weapons of mass destruction Bush, master of the snub Troops 'paraded naked thieves' US soldiers 'strip' Iraqi thieves Bush warns N Korea Anger over deadly Baghdad arms cache explosions Bush on a revenge mission

American anger at France over its refusal to support war in Iraq reached new heights yesterday when President George Bush took a direct swipe at President Chirac.

"I doubt he'll be coming to the ranch any time soon," was Mr Bush's tart comment in an interview with NBC News, when asked about Jacques Chirac -- a reference to the informal summits Mr Bush likes to hold with favoured foreign leaders at his cherished retreat in Crawford, Texas. Many in his administration -- by implication, himself among them -- had the impression "that the French position was anti-American", the President said.

Bush accuses North Korea of blackmail after talks fail

As President George Bush accused North Korea of blackmail yesterday, his administration was weighing with allies in the region the next move in the ever-deepening confrontation with Pyongyang over its nuclear ambitions.

Cheap coffee threatens to wipe out wildlife and ruin farmers

Friday, 25 April 2003

Rumsfeld's Untidy World 20 Years Of School Bashing

Blaming public schools for social ills has a long and dishonorable history, of which the 1983 report is only one particularly egregious example. Yet in the international reading study released this month (and ignored by most media), American students finished ninth among 35 nations. White American students outscored top-ranked Sweden 565 to 561. Americans attending schools with less than 10 percent of the students in poverty (13 percent of all students) scored a whopping 589, and only those attending schools with more than 75 percent of the students in poverty (20 percent of all students) scored below the international average.

These statistics tell us how wealth and poverty affect achievement, and where we need to allocate resources. We don't need to spend billions to test every child every year in reading, math and science, as the No Child Left Behind legislation requires, to find out.

Bush: Harming a Fetus Should Be Fed Crime Request for Documents Exposes Rift on Terror Panel Keep out of town hall, Kut tells US troops: Self-appointed Shia ruler issues decrees from barricaded building Rumsfeld fired Army secretary Thomas White Rank Dissent: How the far right is greasing the skids for a GOP fall Ex-CIA Professionals: Weapons of Mass Distraction: Where? Find? Plant? Wolfowitz blocked China hosted summit on North Korea in 1980s: documents Bush pal blasts Newt for pre-war hit at Powell Be a hand-plucked adviser but don't DeLay the check

Imagine Mark Hafs' surprise this week when his wife called him at work to say she had just gotten off the phone with an assistant to Tom DeLay, the majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Wait. There's more, she said. Was he sitting down?

In recognition of his accomplishments as a key business leader in Washington state, Hafs was being honored with the prestigious National Leadership Award and an appointment to the Business Advisory Council.

Soon, very soon, Hafs could expect to receive a handsome portrait photo of President George W. Bush. And -- get this! -- one of the perks of being an advisory council member would be invitations to rub elbows at a series of black-tie events with world leaders eager to hear Hafs' advice.

[...]

It seems that, since last fall, tens of thousands of Americans have been honored with this "award," which comes firmly attached to a request for a $300 donation to help lobby for Bush's multibillion-dollar tax cut. DeLay's office says the funds go to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Without a check, there's no presidential photo suitable for framing. And don't bother to pack the tux.

No More Whistlin' Dixie: Diane Sawyer's indecorous performance with the Dixie Chicks. Experts Doubt N. Korean Nuclear Claim U.S. Had Advance Word of N. Korea Nuclear Claim Is the destruction of hospitals and public health records a cover up of 'depleted' uranium health impacts in Iraq? White Quits as U.S. Army Secretary «Vi tok klærne og brente dem før vi dyttet dem ut med 'tjuv' skrevet på brystet.»

The Norwegian paper Dagbladet published photos on Friday of armed U.S. soldiers forcing Iraqi men to walk naked through a park.

Amnesty International News Release: Iraq: Stripped Naked and Humiliated by US Soldiers Democratic presidential contender says US should target Syria, Hizbullah Nearly half of Vt. seeds altered

MONTPELIER -- The percentage of seeds sold in Vermont that are genetically altered is much higher than state officials had previously anticipated, according to figures released Thursday by the Vermont Department of Agriculture.

The building world boycott of the US: Eminent physicist refuses to review American colleagues' papers

"I will not at this point correspond with any american institution. Some of us have lived through 1939."

"We are witnessing man hunt and wanton killing of the type and scale not seen since the raids on American Indian populations, by a superior technological power of inferior culture and values."

Gulf troops face tests for cancer Unexploded Bombs Kill, Maim Iraqis Reason for War? White House Officials Say Privately the Sept. 11 Attacks Changed Everything

W A S H I N G T O N, April 25 -- To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war -- a global show of American power and democracy.

US shuns Iran-style theocracy for Iraq Rumsfeld: North Korea talks did not move toward solution E.J. Dionne Jr.: Freedom-Fried Republicans U.N. Rights Body In Serious Decline Reports of weapons 'greatly exaggerated' An antiwar American looks to the north and south for a new place to call home

And, she says, now she wants out.

"I can't help but feel like I've left America," she says over the telephone from her home in West Virginia.

"I feel like I've gone to another planet somehow."

Dianne Burnham knows she is not the majority. Nor is she a loud voice, but speaks quietly and cautiously, wary of the death threats that have already come her way as the convener of the Ohio Valley Peace group and an American who is deeply opposed to America's war with Iraq.

The physiotherapist and mother of two is one year away from retirement, and this month she drove north to see if perhaps she might feel more at home in Planet Canada than she has felt this spring in Planet America. She fell in love with London, Ont. -- clean, small enough, a good university for her continuing education plans -- but she is also looking at Costa Rica and has not yet made a decision.

All she knows for sure is she had better leave the country where she has lived her entire life, but no longer feels a part of -- or, for that matter, welcome.

Bush Shows 'Pattern of Hostility' Toward Civil Rights Reports of Weapons 'Greatly Exaggerated' BBC Director General Greg Dyke strikes out at US media BBC chief attacks US media war coverage

The head of the BBC launched a broadside against American broadcasters on Thursday, accusing them of "unquestioning" coverage of the Iraq war and blatant patriotism.

BBC director-general Greg Dyke said many US television networks had lacked impartiality during the conflict and risked losing credibility if they persisted with their stance.

"For the health of our democracy, it's vital we don't follow the path of many American networks."

Turner Calls Rival Media Mogul Murdoch 'Warmonger'

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ted Turner said on Thursday too few people owned too many media organizations and called rival media baron Rupert Murdoch a warmonger for what he said was Murdoch's promotion of the U.S. war in Iraq (news - web sites).

"He's a warmonger," Turner said in an evening speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco of Murdoch, whose News Corp. Ltd. owns the fast-growing Fox News Channel. "He promoted it."

"There's really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It's not healthy."

The independence of CNN; the legacy of NBC's Bloom: "War Talk" finale here. It's a mop-up operation that uncovers suspicious objects of possible mass deception.

According to a CNN transcript of the program, he [CNN news head Eason Jordan] said: "I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people there and said, for instance, at CNN, 'Here are the generals we're thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off about the war.' And we got a big thumbs-up on all of them. That was important."

Important in what respect? CNN viewers were not about to learn, for time had run out. "OK, we've got to leave it there," said Kurtz.

Which was unfortunate, because Jordan had just revealed that he had asked the Pentagon, in effect, to vet and approve ex-military men that CNN hoped to use as analysts. That is getting cozy.

AIDS tightens grip on South: Region has 40% of U.S. cases, experts report Galloway's a crook - how convenient: These dramatic revelations come just when Britain needs an outspoken voice of dissent more than ever N Korea talks over: Powell Chris Floyd: Global Eye -- Open Book Leaked document exposes pro-Israel lobby's manipulation of US public

The document, entitled "Wexner Analysis: Israeli Communication Priorities 2003," counsels pro-Israel advocates to keep invoking the name of Saddam Hussein, and to stress that Israel "was always behind American efforts to rid the world of this ruthless dictator and liberate their people." Despite his solid support for Israel and Ariel Sharon, the document warns pro-Israel advocates not to compliment or praise President Bush. At the same time it acknowledges that Yasser Arafat has been a great asset to Israel because "he looks the part" of a "terrorist." The installation of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian prime minister, and potential replacement for Arafat, comes "at the wrong time," because he has the potential to improve the image of the Palestinians, and that could put the onus on Israel to return to negotiations. The document advises supporters of Israel to appear to affect a "balanced" tone, but admits that in arguing for Israel's policies, the illegal "settlements are our Achilles heel," for which there is no good defense.

The document was commissioned by the Wexner Foundation, a private foundation that funds, among other pro-Israel initiatives, "Birthright Israel," a program that pays for young American Jews to take free trips to Israel. The Israel Project is an initiative of pro-Israel organizations, political consultants and businesspeople. The Luntz Research Companies is a leading public relations and opinion research firm.

Powell defends attack on Baghdad hotel North Korea pushing ahead with "deterrence," says forces battle-ready Blair's secret war meetings with Clinton

Thursday, 24 April 2003

Candidates Agree Bush Pushing Unfair Tax Cuts For The Wealthy: Bush Administration Plan Targets Children to Pay for Massive Tax Breaks Postmodern Imperialism

At random: in ``The Principles of Colonization and Colonial Legislation" (1927), Arthur Girault cites the speech ``On Colonial Duty" delivered in 1897 by a certain Mr. Gide (no relation to the famous writer).

There one reads: ``Colonization is not a question of profit, but a question of duty. Colonization is necessary because there is a moral obligation incumbent upon peoples, as upon individuals, to use the powers and advantages they have received from Providence for the general good of humanity. Colonization is necessary because colonization is numbered among those duties incumbent upon great nations which they may not escape without failing at their mission and without incurring a real moral downfall."

Austin American-Statesman Editorial Board: Six suggestions for post-war protesters Avoiding Bogus Lessons from the Iraq War US plan to reduce France's role in Nato The War Nobody Won: Part 1: Chaos, crime and incredulity Don't Go Up Against U.S., UK's Straw Tells France Top US State department official calls Gingrich an "idiot"

"Newt Gingrich does not speak in the name of the Pentagon and what he said is garbage," US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Elizabeth Jones told the Publico daily.

"What Gingrich says does not interest me. He is an idiot and you can publish that," she added.

U.S.: Guantanamo Kids at Risk

(New York, April 24, 2003) The detention of children at Guantanamo poses grave risks to their well-being, Human Rights Watch said today, in response to the U.S. military's acknowledgement that at least three children, ages 13 to 15, are among the detainees at Guantanamo. In a letter sent today to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Human Rights Watch urged the United States to strictly observe international children's rights standards regarding the detainees.

Human Rights in the U.S.: Guantanamo Detainees Human Rights Watch: U.S Foreign Policy and Human Rights Naomi Klein: Argentina's Luddite rulers: Workers in the occupied factories have a different vision: Smash the logic, not the machines

In 1812, bands of British weavers and knitters raided textile mills and smashed industrial machines with their hammers. According to the Luddites, the new mechanized looms had eliminated thousands of jobs, broken communities and deserved to be destroyed. The British government disagreed and called in 14,000 soldiers to brutally repress the worker revolt and protect the machines.

Fast-forward two centuries to another textile factory, this one in Buenos Aires. At Brukman, which has been producing men's suits for 50 years, it's the riot police who smash the sewing machines and the 58 workers who risk their lives to protect them.

On Monday, the Brukman factory was the site of the worst repression Buenos Aires has seen in almost a year. Police had evicted the workers in the middle of the night and turned the entire block into a military zone guarded by machine guns and attack dogs. Unable to get into the factory and complete an order for 3,000 pairs of dress trousers, the workers gathered a huge crowd of supporters and announced it was time to go back to work. At 5 p.m., 50 middle-aged seamstresses in no-nonsense haircuts, sensible shoes and blue smocks walked up to the police fence. Someone pushed, the fence fell, and the Brukman women, unarmed and arm in arm, slowly walked through.

They had only taken a few steps when the police began shooting: tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, then lead. The police even charged the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, in their white headscarves embroidered with the names of their "disappeared" children. Dozens of demonstrators were injured.

This is a snapshot of Argentina less than a week before its presidential election. Each of the five major candidates is promising to put this crisis-ravaged country back to work. Yet Brukman's workers are treated as if sewing a grey suit were a capital crime.

Why this state Luddism, this rage at machines? Well, Brukman isn't just any factory; it's a fabrica ocupada, one of almost 200 factories across the country that have been taken over and run by their workers in the past 18 months. For many, the factories, employing more than 10,000 nationwide and producing everything from tractors to ice cream, are seen not just as an economic alternative, but as a political one as well. "They are afraid of us because we have shown that, if we can manage a factory, we can also manage a country," Brukman worker Celia Martinez said on Monday night. "That's why this government decided to repress us."

A military coup, American style

JACKSON, Wyo. -- The off-season population of this town, one of the gateways to Yellowstone National Park and other spectacular gifts from God, is less than 7,000. So you don't expect to see big airplanes roaring into the little Jackson Hole Airport. But three giant cargo planes did last Monday morning. Air Force C-130s.

"Cheney's coming," said a lady in the tiny cafeteria. Outside the window, SUVs and other perks of the Office of the Vice President of the United States, who has a home here, began rolling out of the body of one of the transports. "Must cost a lot, huh?" someone said.

U.S. Economic Prescriptions Still Failing in Latin America

Closer to home, Latin Americans are increasingly rejecting "neoliberalismo," the economic experiment that their governments have adopted -- at Washington's urging - - over the last two decades. There can be no doubt as to the failure of this experiment, which has included indiscriminate opening to foreign trade and investment flows, large scale privatizations, and the widespread implementation of unsuccessful macro-economic policies advocated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

From 1980 to 2000, income per person in Latin America grew by only 7 percent over the whole period. In the pre-experimental years of 1960-1980, it grew by 75 percent. No statistical test is needed to see that something has gone terribly wrong.

Canadian Programmer Says U.S. Cut Funding After Comments

WASHINGTON -- A respected Canadian computer programmer says the United States government severed research financing for a computer security project he was working on after he made remarks in the Canadian press critical of the American military.

The programmer, Theo de Raadt, the 35-year-old founder of an international collaborative software project known as OpenBSD, had been receiving support from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or Darpa, a research arm of the American military that is closely tied to the founding of the Internet.

Iraqi Shiites Grow Uneasy Over U.S. Occupation: Cleric Says Americans Must Leave Rumsfeld: Iraqis Free to Form Own Gov't as Long as It is Not an Iranian-Style Theocracy US Bridles as UN's Kofi Annan Calls It 'Occupying Power' North Korea's War Strategy of Massive Retaliations against US Attacks MSNBC's Banfield: Media filtered realities of war Bob Herbert: Pull the Plug

Delma Banks Jr. had eaten his last meal and, in a controlled panic, was starting to count off the final 10 minutes of his life when word came last March 12 that his execution was being postponed because the Supreme Court might want to review his case.

Last Monday the court decided that yes, it would hear Mr. Banks's appeal. This should throw a brighter spotlight on a case that embodies many of the important things that are wrong with the death penalty in the United States.

Here are just some of the problems. There is no good evidence that Mr. Banks, who was accused of killing a 16-year-old boy in a small town in Texas in 1980, is guilty. A complete reading of the record, including facts uncovered during his appeals, shows that he is most likely innocent.

There is irrefutable evidence of gross prosecutorial misconduct. The key witnesses against Mr. Banks were hard-core drug addicts who had much to gain from lying. One was a paid informer, and the other was a career felon who was told that a pending arson charge would be dropped if he performed "well" while testifying against Mr. Banks. The special incentives given to the two men for their testimony were improperly concealed by prosecutors. Both witnesses have since recanted.

Gingrich accused of idiocy, McCarthyism for criticism of State Department Bush Comes Clean: It Was About the Oil

Thousands of Iraqis have been reduced to poverty, raped and murdered by rampaging goons as U.S. Marines stood around and watched. Wanna guess how long it will take them to "get over it"? We watched the plunder of museums in Mosul and Baghdad safe at home with our tisk-tisk dismay, but Iraqis will remain outraged by the wanton devastation we wrought through war, permitted through negligence and shrugged off through arrogance. ("We didn't allow it," Rumsfeld shrugged. "It happened.") Imagine foreign troops sitting idly, laughing as hooligans trashed the Smithsonian, stole the gold from Fort Knox and burned down the Department of the Interior.

That was us in Iraq.

[...]

Then Bush slips a $680 million contract to the Bechtel Group, whose Republican-oriented board includes such Reagan-era GOP luminaries as secretary of state George Schulz and defense secretary Caspar Weinberger (the late William Casey, Reagan's CIA director, was a Bechtel executive). The deal puts the company in position to receive a big part of the $100 billion estimated total cost of Iraqi reconstruction. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bechtel gave Republican candidates, including Bush, about $765,000 in PAC, soft money and individual campaign contributions between 1999 and 2002.

Finally, refusing to accept bids from potential competitors, Bush grants a two-year, $490 million contract for Iraqi oil field repairs to Halliburton Co., the Houston-based company where Dick Cheney worked as CEO from 1995 to 2000. "It will look a lot worse if Halliburton gets the USAID [Agency for International Development] contract, too," Bathsheba Crocker, an Iraq specialist for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warned in March. "Then it really starts looking bad." Guess what! Halliburton has since scored a piece of that $600 million USAID contract.

Are we looking bad yet?

Only Bush's most intimate friends were invited to bid for these contracts. Even businesses based in Great Britain, where Tony Blair risked his political career to support Bush, have been excluded from a rigged process where only U.S.-based, Republican-led, Bush-connected companies need apply.

Two senior Democratic Congressmen, Henry Waxman and John Dingell, are asking the General Accounting Office to look into these sleazy kickback deals. "These ties between the vice president and Halliburton have raised concerns about whether the company has received favorable treatment from the administration," their letter reads. Well, duh. But don't count on appropriate action--like impeachment proceedings--from the do-nothing Dems.

No weapons detected at 80 sites on top 100 list Bible brigades: First bombs to pulverize army, now sermons to 'save Iraqi souls' Republicans take aim at the 40-hour work week: Everybody gets screwed on this one, except the bosses. SARS and AIDS: What the people don't know IRAQ: Mideast Nuclear Weapons Free Zone a Non-Starter IRAQ: Oil Giant Makes its Absence Felt Iraq's Aziz Held, New Government Coming in Baghdad Iraqi deputy prime minister surrenders to U.S. N. Korea admits having nuclear weapons Presidential candidate speaks out at Cal against war George: I will sell off everything I own to clear my name U.S. Looks Into Edwards Campaign Donations U.S., N. Korea talks near collapse: NBC reports Pyongyang admitted having nuclear weapons There's Lies, Damn Lies, and then there's the Corporate Press North Korean flights unsettle crisis talks N. Korea Claims to Have Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Officials Say Crony Capitalism Goes To War F.B.I. Opens Inquiry Into Seizure of Documents From Associated Press U.S. Warns Iraqis Against Claiming Authority in Void N. Korea: U.S. Leading Region Toward War China Looks Like Winner in N. Korea Talks Annan says coalition is an 'occupying power' Annan Labels Coalition 'Occupying Force' U.S., North Korea End Nuclear Talks in Beijing Habla usted Clear Channel? (Salon.com, 24 April 2003)

If the FCC allows the two biggest Spanish-language media companies in the U.S. to merge, it'll create a media conglomerate that will dwarf all competitors -- and could help GOP-friendly radio titan Clear Channel deliver Hispanic votes for Bush in '04.

North Korea issues war warning to US The end of the world as we know it (maybe): Martin Rees, the astronomer royal, believes our civilisation will be lucky to survive the century. Simon Hattenstone hears why. Bush warns Tehran to keep out of Iraq's Shia strongholds Russian official predicts 'catastrophic' events

A top Russian Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying yesterday in Tokyo that a "catastrophic" development of events in the US-North Korean nuclear standoff was imminent and could occur within the next day.

"It is probable that, as early as tomorrow, there will be a catastrophic development of events," Itar-Tass quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov as saying.

He added that the standoff had "reached an extreme stage" but did not give a more detailed explanation about his warning.

Losyukov holds the Asian affairs brief in the ministry.

MP: My homes from Glasgow to Portugal are no £1m portfolio

Wednesday, 23 April 2003

Corporate Colonialism: Companies . . . March!

Like one of the 19th-century European colonial empires, the Bush government is calling on Bechtel, Halliburton, and other major corporations to take over the job of running the Iraqi colony. These companies are to act in the name of the government. They are to be paid out of our taxes. It might just as well be the British East India company. The colonial corporations become the instrument of the nation-state, in this case to undertake the reconstruction of Iraq. They, not the government, are the purveyors of laws and customs and democratic ideals.

Monster.com's resume purge draws fire

WASHINGTON--Job-hunters at Monster.com who happened to go to school in Syria or Iran may be in for an unpleasant surprise on Thursday.

So might employers that use the popular job-search site, which boasts more than 800,000 job postings, to advertise open positions in Sudan, Myanmar and five other countries.

In a move the company claims is designed to comply with federal regulations, Monster on Thursday will delete most references to those countries from job postings and résumés. A note that Monster sent to affected users says: "Your résumé will be altered, removing all sanctioned countries from your résumé."

The Headache of Black Gold Ownership Shell faces international protest at AGM Touché! Kerry fires back at Bush camp Uri Avnery: Abu against Abu Afghan security deteriorates as Taliban regroup Rights group demands decision on youths at Guantanamo Bay Santorum's Anti-Gay Remarks Fit Pattern of Discrimination Chalmers Johnson: Korea, South and North, at Risk

South Koreans are no doubt watching the "multilateral" talks between the United States, North Korea and China with great interest, but they would do well to chart their own course to security on the Korean peninsula.

[...]

If President Roh were to ask American troops to leave South Korea altogether, with perhaps only a treaty promising an American "nuclear umbrella" in case the North ever did use nuclear weapons, a reconciliation between the two Koreas might come very speedily. The South risks little by trying this strategy, since its own armed forces are fully capable of matching any Northern threat short of a nuclear attack.

RIGHTS: Shell Goes into Shell over its Promises Mohamed ElBaradei: Preemption Is Not The Model

We must resolve to treat not only the symptoms but also the root causes of conflicts -- foremost the divide between rich and poor, schisms between cultures and regimes in which human rights are brutally suppressed.

Finally, no collective system of security is sustainable if it is premised on continuing the asymmetry between the nuclear haves and have-nots. As the Canberra Commission stated a few years ago, "the possession of nuclear weapons by any State is a constant stimulus to other States to acquire them." The new vision of international security must work toward eliminating this asymmetry by delegitimizing weapons of mass destruction, and it must be inclusive in nature, guaranteeing that every nation that subscribes to the new system will be covered by the security "umbrella."

Only by eliminating the motivation to acquire weapons of mass destruction can we hope to significantly improve global security.

The writer is director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

U.S. Flag Burning Back in Baghdad Supreme Court Examines Free Speech Rights The Real Axis of Evil Administration moves ahead on nuclear `bunker busters' U.S. Warns Against Iranian Interference in Iraq What, No Smoking Gun? US Forces Worse than Saddam, Iraqi Shiite Leader Charges U.S.-Russia Nuclear Disposal Project Said Advancing Embattled Lab Unveils New Nukes

The United States' arsenal of 10,000 nuclear weapons isn't enough. The country needs more bombs, and the place to make them is the scandal-plagued Los Alamos National Laboratory.

China plays key role in Korea talks: Bringing America to table raises profile of Asia's economic power (The Guardian, 23 April 2003) US detains children at Guantanamo Bay Environmental Groups Target Bush Record: Advocates Feel President Vulnerable Despite Major Administration Moves After 'Decline,' U.S. Again Capable of Making Nuclear Arms: Energy Department is restarting production of plutonium parts for its stockpile of bombs.

"It is a sign that after a long period of decline, the weapons complex is back and growing," said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Energy Department weapons expert. "To the average U.S. citizen, it would be accurate to say we have restarted the production of nuclear weapons."

[...]

Thomas Cochran, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the government is now spending about $6 billion annually on the nuclear weapons complex, 50% more than it did during the Cold War.

'No Fly' List Is Challenged in a Lawsuit Bush Election Drive to Tap September 11 Memories: Republican party plans convention to coincide with third anniversary of attack Robert Fisk: Looking Beyond War US signals action against France: American Secretary of State Colin Powell has said France will suffer consequences for having opposed the US over the war with Iraq. Oil Flow From Iraq Resumes After War N Korea admits nuke defection Noam Chomsky's Golden Rule

The principle is that if somebody carries out terror against us or against our allies, it's terror, but if we carry out terror or our allies do, maybe much worse terror, against someone else, it's not terror, it's counterterror or it's a just war. -- Noam Chomsky, "Power and Terror"

Emmanuel Todd points to imminent end of US as world's policeman

Berlin, Apr 23, IRNA -- Prominent French historian Emmanuel Todd predicted the imminent end of the United States as the global policeman, citing the country's deep economic problems.

"The world thinks that the US has achieved worldwide leadership because of its victory in Iraq. I think it has lost its unlimited might because of this war," DPA quoted Todd as saying in an interview with the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, due to hit the newsstands on Thursday.

He added that the US had "demonstrated its unlimited military might" in Iraq "to cover up its economic weakness".

Todd stressed that America should be concerned with improving its economic situation instead of fighting wars.

Americans accused of turning blind eye to killings by Kurds U.S. Planners Surprised by Strength of Iraqi Shiites Iraqi force members arrested for looting: Fighters are part of group supported by Pentagon FOX TV engineer charged with smuggling stolen Iraqi paintings, bonds Fox News Engineer Charged With Smuggling Hans Blix vs the US: 'I was undermined' Charley Reese: Poor Sean Hannity

This is not a left/right, liberal/conservative issue. It's not a question of patriots versus traitors, as the morons among the neoconservative crowd try to paint every human being who refuses to click his heels and salute their guru, Richard Perle, and their emperor, George Bush. This is a cultural issue. Three great treasures -- the museum, the National Library and the largest collection of Koranic writings in the world -- were looted and burned. Since we had destroyed the Iraqi government, it was our responsibility to protect them.

I don't blame President Bush. I'm sure he's unaware of their existence. After all, he brags about not reading. But what would we say if the crowds who have rioted in Washington in the past had been allowed to loot and burn the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress? Do you think we would have accepted an excuse that there weren't enough cops to protect those two treasures?

There is a definitely a whiff of anti-intellectualism -- so characteristic of fascist states -- in the air. Beware of bully boys who worship the military and scoff at museums and libraries. [...] Beware of people who can't tell the difference between patriotism and military conquest. [...]

Galloway set to be dumped as Labour MP

Tuesday, 22 April 2003

Rumsfeld Calls for Regime Change in North Korea

A secret Donald Rumsfeld memorandum calling for regime change in North Korea was leaked yesterday, opening a fresh foreign policy split in the Bush administration.

US blueprint to bomb N Korea Scientists protest war: Severing ties with US science in condemnation of US policy. Korea's DMZ: 'Scariest place on Earth' Amy Goodman Interview with Robert Fisk Elated Shiites, on Pilgrimage, Want U.S. Out Evangelical crusaders prepare to fight Islam with aid and a Bible Activists: War lets Bush aim at environment The NYT and WMD: Finally, the Necessary Evidence Les Américains confrontés à un réveil islamiste Fears of cholera, typhoid in Baghdad: Lights on for a lucky few in Iraqi capital Iran Is Said to Send Agents Into Southern Iraq US-trained troops 'caught looting in Baghdad' James Carroll: A nation lost Argentine protestors torch cars GIs arrested in $1M swag snag Bush's "Christian" Blood Cult: Concerns Raised by the Vatican

According to journalists close to the Vatican, the Pope and his closest advisers are also concerned that the ultimate acts of evil - the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon - were known in advance by senior Bush administration officials. By permitting the attacks to take their course, there is a perception within the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy that a coup d'etat was implemented, one that gave Bush and his leadership near-dictatorial powers to carry out their agenda.

Cash-Strapped Schools Turn to Busing Fees U.S. growth indicator retreats in March: Weak employment, little business spending cited as 'major headwinds' Many faces of Donald Rumsfeld: Tough crusader, 'aw-shucks' bumbler: Defence secretary plays to media Bush Pursues Offshore Oil Drilling in Alaska: With the Arctic refuge off-limits, the White House sets its sights on the Beaufort Sea. Russell Mokhiber to Ari Fleischer: "MSNBC reported this week that Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal rivals that of France and Britain. Given that arsenal, does the President support Syria's call to make the Middle East a region free of weapons of mass destruction?" A New War in Washington N. Korea Is No Place to Apply Iraq 'Lessons' Pentagon adviser berates Moscow and Paris 'NK Poses Threats to Global Security' "Climate of fear" rules Afghanistan - rights group Korea, South and North, at Risk Anti-war protesters hit Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale Democracy Now!: Robert Fisk on Iraq, Dennis Kucinich on war on Iraq, John R. MacArthur calls Judith Miller's piece in yesterday's New York Times "the closest thing i've ever seen to American state media" and "a watershed in the history of the paper"

"This story is a kind of watershed, I think, in the history of the paper because what it does is it lifts the curtain on how they do journalism at the Times. Now, it's hard for the general public to follow these things. There is too much being thrown at you. But you need to know that Judith Miller has been obsessed with Saddam Hussein for a long time, and with Arab terrorism, and she's been taking the feed from the government for a long time -- from security officials, from spies, from anybody who could sell her a story. And the worst thing she had done to date was to promote the aluminum tubes fraud of last September which has been completely refuted, the story being that the Iraqis were trying to buy high-grade aluminum tubes to revive their nuclear weapons program. She promoted -- inflated -- this story with another reporter at the Times named Michael Gordon. It was a leak from the White House which was then turned around the next day on all the Sunday talk shows by Cheney, who was then able to cite a story in the New York Times about the imminent nuclear threat posed by the aluminum tubes -- a story that he had leaked, or that his people had leaked.

"Now we come to a story at a time when the American people are wondering -- or at least some of us are wondering -- where the Weapons of Mass Destruction, so-called, are hidden, that we're supposed to be going after. That was the pretext for going into Iraq, the premise for going into Iraq. They couldn't find any. Day after day, people were asking, but no stories, no explanation.

"But good old reliable Judith Miller comes through with a story from MET Alpha which purports to be a weapons inspection or weapons uncovering unit, but is really a propaganda unit. And she does the most astonishing thing I've ever seen in a story in the New York Times -- which was, by the way, put on the front page of the Times. She agrees first of all to a censorship -- a gag -- where she says, 'OK, I won't report this until you've vetted my story.' She then agrees, and her editors agree, to have certain details deleted from the story, and then she writes the following amazing paragraph. She says,

While this reporter could not interview the scientist, she was permitted to see him from a distance at the sites where he said that material from the arms program was buried.

Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried. This reporter also accompanied MET Alpha on the search for him and was permitted to examine a letter written in Arabic that he slipped to American soldiers offering them information about the program and seeking their protection.

"Now, the notion of a New York Times reporter first of all agreeing to this gag is almost unprecedented, as far as I know. But to base a very important story politically and historically on a single source and the observation of a guy in a baseball cap at some distance pointing at the ground is beyond parody. But it's very dangerous parody. I mean, when I was on the show the other day and you said we're really at the point where we have a state media, I would have said, 'I'm not sure we're there,' or I thought to myself, 'I'm not sure we're there' -- this is the closest thing I've ever seen to an American state media."

Blix: 'US undermined inspectors'

American officials tried to discredit the work of inspectors in Iraq to further their own case for war, the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has charged.

Send Blix to Iraq, says Cook: Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix should return to Iraq "on the next plane", Robin Cook has said. France makes surprise Iraq proposal: In boost to U.S., French envoy calls on U.N. to lift sanctions

Death of diva who gave voice to civil rights struggle

George Monbiot: The bottom dollar: There is only one way to check American power and that is to support the euro Rumsfeld: Iraq Should Not Be Theocracy 2000 Presidential Race: Contributions from Selected Industries U.S., North Korea in Beijing for Nuclear Talks US plan to bomb North Korea Army contract for Feinstein's husband: Blum is a director of firm that will get up to $600 million Children held at Camp Xray, US admits U.N.'s Blix Questions Case for War on Iraq Secret US file: oust regime in Pyongyang Peace activists prepare mass protest after Briton is gunned down by Israelis Chalabi's men shot dead by American Marines Paul Krugman: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs Rumsfeld denies U.S. plans to retain bases in Iraq

Monday, 21 April 2003

Letter of protest to George W. Bush on Iraq war and nuclear weapons from Tadatoshi Akiba, Mayor of Hiroshima, 21 April 2003 William Rivers Pitt : The Silence about September 11 U.S. Media Losing Global Respect Hollywood Revives McCarthyist Climate By Silencing And Sacking War Critics How American power girds the globe with a ring of steel: New bases take Pentagon's armed presence far and wide

Whenever America goes to war, the spoils of victory invariably include more US military bases overseas.

Having vanquished Saddam Hussein, the Pentagon is planning to establish four US bases in Iraq, according to reports in Washington yesterday.

Pope puts pressure on US

The Pope sent a coded rebuke to Washington yesterday when he urged Iraqis to take charge of rebuilding their country while working closely with the international community.

GOP Leaders Furious with Frist Local Officials Rise Up to Defy The Patriot Act Bob Herbert: Profiting From War Iraq arms hunt erodes U.S. assurance This occupation is a disaster. The US must leave - and fast: Any gratitude for the removal of Saddam is now virtually exhausted IRAQ: ICFTU Ready to Assist Workers Ex-general to head Iraq's OPEC delegation Missed Opportunity? U.S. Attack May Have Ended Saddam Surrender Attempt Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert

This is the story that Harper's publisher John R. MacArthur has called "the closest thing i've ever seen to American state media" and "a watershed in the history of the paper."

Charley Reese: Rachel Corrie Deserves Justice

Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American girl who was murdered by the Israelis. She was standing on a large mound of earth trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer from smashing the house of a Palestinian doctor in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli bulldozer plowed right over her and then backed up, further crushing her frail, young body. Of course, the Israelis claim it was an accident. But there are photographs, taken by her companions as it was happening, that clearly show she was perfectly visible to the bulldozer driver. You can see them on the Internet.

The question for us is, are we going to seek justice for this idealistic American girl, or are we going to allow the spineless, corrupt government in Washington to accept, without investigation, the Israeli excuse, as it always does? It just so happens that Israel has apparently decided to drive out international observers. The Israelis killed Rachel; they shot another international observer in the face and a third one in the head -- all within the past few weeks. These are not "militants." They are idealistic young people trying in a nonviolent way to protect Palestinians from Israeli violence.

Police Questions on War Dissent Are Off Base William Rivers Pitt: The Silence about September 11 Chicks Tix Going Quick Despite Bush Controversy President Praises Efforts By Syria: New Cooperation On Iraq Is Cited (Washington Post, 21 April 2003) High Court to Reconsider Miranda Warnings (AP, 21 April 2003)

The Supreme Court said Monday it will reconsider the scope of the familiar police warnings that begin, "You have the right to remain silent."

Santa Cruz to sue feds over medical marijuana raids White House rides brakes on '04 run: Bush aides also trying to keep political edge gained with Iraq Ex-CIA chief gets tough on Syria: Says nation 'needs regime change': Calls Baathists `fascist parties' (Toronto Star, 21 April 2003) Fast food comes to Iraq Smart bombs aimed at Saddam killed families Lugar says N. Korea nukes beg war option Tank captain admits firing on media hotel Playing with death

THE figures are frightening the reality is appalling. Most guns may have fallen silent but the death toll in Iraq continues to rise.

In the city of Kirkuk in the past seven days, 52 people have been killed and 63 injured by mines and dangerously unstable unexploded munitions.

Administration Divided Over North Korea

"WASHINGTON, April 20 -- Just days before President Bush approved the opening of negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear program, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld circulated to key members of the administration a Pentagon memorandum proposing a radically different approach: the United States, the memo argued, should team up with China to press for the ouster of North Korea's leadership."

States, Facing Budget Shortfalls, Cut the Major and the Mundane N.Korea 'Corrects' Nuclear Reprocessing Statement S.Korea Sees U.S. Talks with North Going Ahead Ba'athists slip quietly back into control Al-Jazeera correspondent detained in Basra US bars access to oil ministry, power plant US wants permanent access to military bases in post-war Iraq

The United States is planning to use Iraq to maintain a long-term strategic foothold in the Middle East that would include the right to use four of the country's military bases, Bush administration officials said.

Sunday, 20 April 2003

Ex-U.S. Official Says CIA Aided Baathists The War at Home Even Critics of War Say the White House Spun It With Skill Blinded by the myths of victory: The fight to save Ali Ismail Abbas offers us the illusion of hope to soothe our consciences The Perils Of Empire: This Looks Like America's Moment. History Should Give Us Pause Fake documents and exaggeration: The claims Gov. Bush Spends Easter With Broward Prison Inmates Drug Cuts Devastate Patients' Income Yes, U.S. helped Iraq get chemical, biological weapons Energy Bill Offers Billions for N-Power Senators, Congressmen put pro-Israel stance in writing Case of the Homeland Whodunnit (PalmBeachPost.com, 20 April 2003) Bob Edwards: The press and freedom: some disturbing trends

Kentucky journalism and broadcasting have changed drastically since I left here 33 years ago. Back then, you owned it. Your major newspapers, television and radio stations were owned and operated by Kentuckians. Today home ownership is pretty much confined to small-town weeklies, KET and the public radio stations. Your major daily newspapers are now provincial outposts for absentee corporate owners who expect profit margins of 20 to 30 percent. The managers of your TV stations report to bosses far away who care less about the stations? community service and journalistic exposés than they care about how those stations are contributing to the share price of corporate stock.

Ex-U.S. official says CIA aided Baathists: CIA offers no comment on Iraq coup allegations: Claim that Saddam was on payroll `utterly ridiculous' (Reuters, 20 April 2003) Arabs flee revenge of the Kurds: For decades, Saddam 'Arabised' northern Iraq. Now his ethnic cleansing is being reversed, with bloody results No role for UN in weapons hunt Israel seeks pipeline for Iraqi oil: US discusses plan to pump fuel to its regional ally and solve energy headache at a stroke John Pilger: The unthinkable is becoming normal. Do not forget the horror: The saving of one little boy must not be a cover for the crime of this war 'Russian spies told Saddam how Bush would justify war' Blair 'no' to Iraq arms inquiry Anthrax, chemicals and nerve gas: who is lying?: Growing evidence of deception by Washington First Newspaper to Hit Baghdad's Streets Is Red US army was told to protect looted museum (The Observer, 20 April 2003) Japan questions Rumsfeld's remarks over N Korea The True Cost of Hegemony: Huge Debt US risks provoking Kurds with peacekeeping request America nervous as militant cleric's rallies attract mass support Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq Outback's UFO claims are proved to be a lot of hot air Israeli army accused of targeting TV man killed in West Bank: British 'human shield' near death as soldiers are blamed for another civilian shooting

"The soldier looked. He saw me and Nazeh," Mr Titi said. "I looked and saw that [Nazeh's] head was damaged severely. His brain was hanging out of his skull."

There were suggestions that the soldier might have been firing at stone-throwers behind the journalists, but Mr Titi stressed that all that was behind them was a wall and a doorway. The cameramen were experienced at working in Nablus, and had carefully positioned themselves so that they were not in the line of fire between the soldiers and the stone-throwers.

Mr Darwazeh was wearing a bright yellow vest clearly marked "Press". He leaves behind a wife and five children, the youngest six months old. His death, so soon after journalists were killed when a US tank deliberately fired a shell into the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, will raise new concerns that journalists are being targeted.

Did CNN Turn Up The Boos During Michael Moore's Speech? So where are they, Mr Blair?

Not one illegal warhead. Not one drum of chemicals. Not one incriminating document. Not one shred of evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction in more than a month of war and occupation

Saturday, 19 April 2003

Iraqi Shiites, Jockeying for Power, Preach an Anti-American Sermon New Anti-Environment Tack By Bush? Fear and anger in Syria

In a year's time, there will be American tanks rumbling through the narrow streets of this typical Middle Eastern city - at least that's what a lot of people here are starting to believe as every day brings more US accusations against Syria.

'They Did The Destroying. So Why Can't They Get Everything Working Again?' Gunfire Interrupts First Press Conference By 'Pentagon's Man' Iraq War Planned for Years India Concerned by Taliban Resurgence Children main victims of cluster bombs Will Potter: It's Not Just Protesters Anymore: When Police Attack Journalists Looted paintings seized by customs UN raises the stakes with call to Blix Chaplain's hasty retreat stuns troops: Minister's gone; no one's sure why Three Americans injured in attack on US helicopter in Pakistan U.S. offering secret deals for Iraq work Smuggle ring lures N. Korea defectors Double standards in reporting casualties N. Korean Statements Jeopardize New Talks: Nuclear Program's Status Is Unclear Venezuela has proof Washington was behind failed coup, general Prove Iraqi guilt, MPs tell Blair Protesters pour from the mosques to reclaim the streets for Islam

Iraq's huge political differences erupted into the open in the capital yesterday as tens of thousands of religious protesters called on the US to leave the country even as Washington's closest protege, Ahmad Chalabi, told a press conference that "the moral imperative is on the US to provide leadership and the Iraqi people will accept it".

More troops set for Iraq The day of the jackals: Rod Liddle raises some disturbing questions about the looting of antiquities from the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad N Korean scientists defect Texas Reactor Vessel Is Leaking Water

Friday, 18 April 2003

Bill Moyers on Money and Politics Arizona Gov. Vetoes Primary Bill U.S. Marines Guard $1B in Gold in Iraq Ford Backs Off Pledge to Improve Efficiency of SUV Mileage What China should do about North Korea Uncertainties loom over North Korea talks Franks faces Belgium 'genocide' case Divisions in administration cloud direction of U.S. foreign policy Bush Aides Downplay Hope for Postwar Economic Surge New online harassment involves provocative messages sent under guise of activists Oliver Stone gets the ax The editor of a Web site that included criticism of the U.S. war against Iraq said Thursday he has shut the site down after receiving threats against his life. Saddam's gold gun seized at Heathrow Human Shield To Bear Witness To U.S. Crimes In Iraq Israeli Commandoes In Iraq To Assassinate 500 Scientists Blair: I was ready to quit over Iraq North Korea "successfully reprocessing" nuclear fuel rods E. J. Dionne Jr.: Disabling Organized Labor Privatizing Water: What the European Commission Doesn't Want You to Know U.S. official: N. Korea move 'insulting' Pyongyang must dismantle nuclear weapons: Bush Fresh bank scandals hit Iraq's leader in waiting US should be "embarrassed" over failure to find WMDs: ex-spies Lebanon unveils most pro-Syrian cabinet ever amid US warnings to Damascus British agents conducted illegal, secret war on IRA The murderous collusion at heart of Ulster's dirty war U.S. Gives Bechtel a Major Contract in Rebuilding Iraq North Korea 'Successfully Reprocessing' Fuel Rods Senior Baath Party official captured; Thousands of Iraqis demand US forces to leave

Meanwhile, thousands of people carrying Korans and waving banners demonstrated outside a Baghdad mosque on Friday demanding the United States leave Iraq. In the first Friday prayers since U.S. tanks drove to the heart of the Iraqi capital last week, Imam Ahmed al-Kubaisi said in his sermon the United States invaded Iraq to defend Israel and denied that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

His followers poured out of the mosque after prayers chanting anti-U.S. slogans and waving banners that read "No to America. No to Secular State. Yes to Islamic State."

Thursday, 17 April 2003

U.S. digs, searches in vain for Iraqi chemical weapons U.S. bombed bases of Iranian rebels in Iraq Pressure to find weapons mounts Judge questions Bush request to halt Cheney suit A crusade after all? Plans of some Christians to evangelize as they offer aid pose dilemma for Iraqi reconstruction. Deadly clash raises tensions in north: 3 Iraqis killed, 11 wounded in Mosul fighting Donald Rumsfeld admits strategy to "penalize the papers and the television and the newspapers that don't give good advice, and reward those people that do give good advice" Borrowed Time For Women Syria Built Arsenal as 'Equalizer': Israel's Arms Spurred Fear (Washington Post, 17 April 2003)

Syria's current arsenal of chemical warheads and Scud missiles was started more than 30 years ago to counter Israel's development and possession of nuclear weapons, according to present and former U.S. intelligence officials.

"They have been developing chemical weapons as a force equalizer with the Israelis," a former senior intelligence analyst said yesterday. "Hafez al-Assad, the present president's father, saw chemicals as a way to threaten the Israelis and an equalizer for their nuclear program." Assad knew, the former analyst said, that "military aid from the Soviets would never be able to match what Israel developed in the nuclear field and received from the U.S."

Blair's alliance with Bush is a damaging strategic error: War has undermined Britain in both Europe and the developing world Eric Alterman: Bush Goes AWOL America's New Iraqi Order: Promising Democracy While Protecting Abusers America would enter Syria to snatch Saddam Amira Hass: A stone's throw from here (Ha'aretz, 17 April 2003) British Aid Plane Prevented from Entering Iraq Judge Scolds Cheney Lawyers in Energy Case Appeal Indonesia May Dump Dollar; Rest of Asia Too?: William Pesek Jr. The Black Commentator: Conspiracy Theories Baghdad - A Lying Marine Israel Approaches Turkey for Reactivation of Mosul-Haifa Pipeline The Black Commentator: The stealth war on the poor Bush Cultural Advisers Quit Over Iraq Museum Theft Bush Panel Members Quit Over Looting (Washington Post, 17 April 2003) Howard Dean: Bush: It's Not Just His Doctrine That's Wrong Daily Show Does Bush Scientists urge shell clear-up to protect civilians: Royal Society spells out dangers of depleted uranium Baghdad treasures: Museum raid looks planned Turkey, S. Korea discuss defense cooperation Judges Question Bid to Stop Cheney Suit Wayne Madsen: Another Sign of the "End Times" for American Journalism: Lap Dogs to Power in a Climate of Fear Tim Robbins: Baseball, Censorship and the War: A Chill Wind is Blowing Through This Nation

I imagined our leaders seizing upon this moment of unity in America, this moment when no one wanted to talk about Democrat versus Republican, white versus black, or any of the other ridiculous divisions that dominate our public discourse. I imagined our leaders going on television telling the citizens that although we all want to be at Ground Zero, we can't, but there is work that is needed to be done all over America. Our help is needed at community centers to tutor children, to teach them to read. Our work is needed at old-age homes to visit the lonely and infirmed; in gutted neighborhoods to rebuild housing and clean up parks, and convert abandoned lots to baseball fields. I imagined leadership that would take this incredible energy, this generosity of spirit and create a new unity in America born out of the chaos and tragedy of 9/11, a new unity that would send a message to terrorists everywhere: If you attack us, we will become stronger, cleaner, better educated, and more unified. You will strengthen our commitment to justice and democracy by your inhumane attacks on us. Like a Phoenix out of the fire, we will be reborn.

And then came the speech: You are either with us or against us. And the bombing began. And the old paradigm was restored as our leader encouraged us to show our patriotism by shopping and by volunteering to join groups that would turn in their neighbor for any suspicious behavior.

Rumsfeld: Bioweapons May Be Hard to Find William Pfaff: Bush's new global order will generate resistance

The oil ministry was secured early in the battle of Baghdad, even if the hospitals and museums were not; that told us about one Bush administration priority.

Lack of troops threatens Bush's postwar goals Chalmers Johnson: Korea, South and North, at Risk Baghdad leaders 'elected' Barred! US military bans peace team members from Palestine Hotel Israel wants strike on Syria while iron's hot Bechtel Has Ties in Washington, and to Iraq In Korea crisis, China takes lead: The US and North Korea agreed to three-way talks in Beijing next week to discuss the North's nuclear programs.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA -- That China has pulled off a diplomatic coup, engineering three-way talks with the US and North Korea to resolve the crisis over Kim Jong Il's nuclear programs, is a major surprise in Asia.

Robert Fisk: For the people on the streets, this is not liberation but a new colonial oppression: America's war of 'liberation' may be over. But Iraq's war of liberation from the Americans is just about to begin

It's going wrong, faster than anyone could have imagined. The army of "liberation" has already turned into the army of occupation. The Shias are threatening to fight the Americans, to create their own war of "liberation".

At night on every one of the Shia Muslim barricades in Sadr City, there are 14 men with automatic rifles. Even the US Marines in Baghdad are talking of the insults being flung at them. "Go away! Get out of my face!" an American soldier screamed at an Iraqi trying to push towards the wire surrounding an infantry unit in the capital yesterday. I watched the man's face suffuse with rage. "God is Great! God is Great!" the Iraqi retorted.

"Fuck you!"

[...]

The hooks in the ceiling are just in front of Captain Isawi's desk. I understood what this meant. There wasn't a separate torture chamber and office for documentation. The torture chamber was the office. While the man or woman shrieked in agony above him, Captain Isawi would sign papers, take telephone calls and -- given the contents of his bin -- smoke many cigarettes while he waited for the information he sought from his prisoners.

Were they monsters, these men? Yes. Are they sought by the Americans? No. Are they now working for the Americans? Yes, quite possibly -- indeed some of them may well be in the long line of ex-security thugs who queue every morning outside the Palestine Hotel in the hope of being re-hired by the US Marines' Civil Affairs Unit.

The names of the guards at the Qasimiyeh torture centre in Baghdad are in papers lying on the floor. They were Ahmed Hassan Alawi, Akil Shaheed, Noaman Abbas and Moham-med Fayad. But the Americans haven't bothered to find this out. So Messrs Alawi, Shaheed, Abbas and Fayad are welcome to apply to work for them.

[...]

"America, yes, it got rid of Saddam. But Iraq belongs to us. Our oil belongs to us. We will keep our nationality. It will stay Iraq. The Americans must go."

[...]

Even the unshredded files contain a wealth of information. But again, the Americans have not bothered -- or do not want -- to search through these papers. If they did, they would find the names of dozens of senior intelligence men, many of them identified in congratulatory letters they insisted on sending each other every time they were promoted. Where now, for example, is Colonel Abdulaziz Saadi, Captain Abdulsalam Salawi, Captain Saad Ahmed al-Ayash, Colonel Saad Mohammed, Captain Majid Ahmed and scores of others? We may never know. Or perhaps we are not supposed to know.

Iraqis are right to ask why the Americans don't search for this information, just as they are right to demand to know why the entire Saddam cabinet -- every man jack of them -- got away. The capture by the Americans of Saddam's half-brother and the ageing Palestinian gunman Abu Abbas, whose last violent act was 18 years ago, is pathetic compensation for this.

Now here's another question the Iraqis are asking -- and to which I cannot provide an answer. On 8 April, three weeks into the invasion, the Americans dropped four 2,000lb bombs on the Baghdad residential area of Mansur. They claimed they thought Saddam was hiding there. They knew they would kill civilians because it was not, as one Centcom mandarin said, a "risk free venture" (sic). So they dropped their bombs and killed 14 civilians in Mansur, most of them members of a Christian family.

The Americans said they couldn't be sure they had killed Saddam until they could carry out forensic tests at the site. But this turns out to have been a lie. I went there two days ago. Not a single US or British official had bothered to visit the bomb craters. Indeed, when I arrived, there was a putrefying smell and families pulled the remains of a baby from the rubble.

No American officers have apologised for this appalling killing. And I can promise them that the baby I saw being placed under a sheet of black plastic was very definitely not Saddam Hussein. Had they bothered to look at this place -- as they claimed they would -- they would at least have found the baby. Now the craters are a place of pilgrimage for the people of Baghdad.

[...]

Then there's the fires that have consumed every one of the city's ministries -- save, of course, for the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Oil -- as well as UN offices, embassies and shopping malls. I have counted a total of 35 ministries now gutted by fire and the number goes on rising.

Yesterday I found myself at the Ministry of Oil, assiduously guarded by US troops, some of whom were holding clothes over their mouths because of the clouds of smoke swirling down on them from the neighbouring Ministry of Agricultural Irrigation. Hard to believe, isn't it, that they were unaware that someone was setting fire to the next building?

[...]

Because there is also something dangerous -- and deeply disturbing -- about the crowds setting light to the buildings of Baghdad, including the great libraries and state archives. For they are not looters. The looters come first. The arsonists turn up later, often in blue-and-white buses. I followed one after its passengers had set the Ministry of Trade on fire and it sped out of town.

The official US line on all this is that the looting is revenge -- an explanation that is growing very thin -- and that the fires are started by "remnants of Saddam's regime", the same "criminal elements", no doubt, who feature in the marines' curfew orders. But people in Baghdad don't believe Saddam's former supporters are starting these fires. And neither do I.

The looters make money from their rampages but the arsonists have to be paid. The passengers in those buses are clearly being directed to their targets. If Saddam had pre-paid them, they wouldn't start the fires. The moment he disappeared, they would have pocketed the money and forgotten the whole project.

So who are they, this army of arsonists? I recognised one the other day, a middle-aged, unshaven man in a red T-shirt, and the second time he saw me he pointed a Kalashnikov at me. What was he frightened of? Who was he working for? In whose interest is it to destroy the entire physical infrastructure of the state, with its cultural heritage? Why didn't the Americans stop this?

As I said, something is going terribly wrong in Baghdad and something is going on which demands that serious questions be asked of the United States government. Why, for example, did Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence, claim last week that there was no widespread looting or destruction in Baghdad? His statement was a lie. But why did he make it?

The Americans say they don't have enough troops to control the fires. This is also untrue. If they don't, what are the hundreds of soldiers deployed in the gardens of the old Iran-Iraq war memorial doing all day? Or the hundreds camped in the rose gardens of the President Palace?

So the people of Baghdad are asking who is behind the destruction of their cultural heritage: the looting of the archaeological treasures from the national museum; the burning of the entire Ottoman, Royal and State archives; the Koranic library; and the vast infrastructure of the nation we claim we are going to create for them.

UN snubs Blair plea for envoy to Iraq: PM left isolated by White House stance

"The hawks in the Bush administration feel they were badly burnt by the failure to get the Council's backing for the war and are determined to stop the people who blocked them from getting their hands on the pie," is how a senior diplomat explained the US position.

North Korea climbs down on nuclear talks War crimes case planned against U.S: Washington says groups' bid proves ICC a political tool Experts: Looters Had Keys to Iraqi Vaults Some Looters Had Keys to Iraqi Museum Vaults, Experts Say A terrorist, yes, but no proof of Saddam's links to Bin Laden Sony Drops Bid to Trademark 'Shock and Awe' US said to 'care more about Iraqi oil than its people'

Allied forces were accused by human rights organisations yesterday of using cluster bombs in populated areas of Baghdad and caring more about protecting oil reserves than the welfare of the Iraqi people.

Civilians killed as Mosul riots continue Bond-style cache reveals regime's deadly gadgetry Fear reigns, as one detested militia replaces another

Many people in Iraq complain that George Bush has so far utterly failed to live up to his promises of real "liberation", but the people of Baqubah have better reason than most.

General Franks strides into his Baghdad palace

Wednesday, 16 April 2003

Some Peace Activists Won't Pay Fed Taxes Pro-Saddam gangs challenge marines' control of Tikrit Hands off Syria US admits Mosul killings: A US commander has admitted that American troops did shoot and kill a number of Iraqis during a protest in the northern city of Mosul. The Shia Of Najaf Seethe Ominously, Fearing The Yoke Of U.S. Occupation Arab world set to foot the war bill Amnesty International renews local call for torture probe: Amnesty International's Norwegian unit is asking local authorities to investigate claims that the US is torturing prisoners of war in Cuba and Afghanistan. Some POWs are believed to have been killed. Syria To Submit Resolution On WMDs To Security Council (IslamOnline.net, 16 April 2003) Key Republican Not Sure on Patriot Act Qatar FM: U.S. are occupation troops US will not cross Syrian border to hunt Saddam Russia accuses US of military build-up near its borders Photo index: Key people for post-conflict Iraq 'A Chill Wind is Blowing in This Nation...' CIA's 'brightest prospect' for Iraq presidency missing: Former army chief facing war crimes trial in Denmark Protest turns violent as EU signs up new members Embedded Photographer: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Nothing left to drink in Basra Many Iraqis Turn Anger Toward the U.S. Misery Follows Refugees Streaming Back to Baghdad Bush: Saddam 'passed into history' 10 New Nations Join European Union Helen Thomas: Once Opposed, Bush Begins Nation Building: President Once Said He Wouldn't Follow Clinton's Example In Balkans Q&A on International Law, Occupation

GENEVA (AP) - The United States contends it is a ``liberating force'' in Iraq, but the International Committee of the Red Cross - the world's chief authority on the conduct of warfare - says the coalition forces are an ``occupying power,'' with wide-ranging responsibilities to look after the Iraqi people.

Ilana Mercer: On pimps and 'presstitutes'

"We are focusing on the preservation of [Iraqi] government documents," Rice said. "We feel they will prove very important in finding the weapons of mass destruction. ... It will take a while because this regime was brilliant at hiding its true programs and weapons of mass destruction so no one should expect that to happen quickly."

However, this paper chase also could give U.S. officials an excuse for failure. Coalition airstrikes -- and newly liberated, vengeance-minded looters -- in Baghdad targeted government buildings that may have held records the U.S. military is trying to find. Looters have also torn up the homes -- and the documents -- of missing regime officials such as Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," who was apparently killed by coalition airstrikes.

Scott Ritter: Missing Arms Cast Doubt on War Agent Orange use 'understated'

The United States military used much more Agent Orange and other defoliant spray during the Vietnam war than previously thought, scientists say.

A new study of US military records also found that the amount of cancer-causing dioxin chemicals in the spray has been seriously underestimated.

The war is over. Now these questions must be answered

Where are the weapons of mass destruction?
Where is Saddam?
What about the alleged links to al-Qa'ida?
How many Iraqi soldiers were killed and injured?
How many civilians were killed and injured?
How many Allied casualties?
Did the Allies stick to the Geneva Conventions?
Why did Saddam's forces crumble?
Was the war illegal?
What side deals were made?
Who is in the 'coalition' and what did they do?
Where is the anti-war alliance now?
Is the UN relevant any more?
Do Iraqis feel liberated?
Why did so many journalists die?
Who was really responsible for the two marketplace bombings?
Is there a humanitarian crisis?
Are the contracts to rebuild Iraq all going to White House cronies?
Is this the first step to reordering the Middle East?
What about North Korea?
What happened to the human shields?
Has public opinion changed since the war began?
Is Ahmed Chalabi just a crooked US stooge?
What are the chances of an Iranian-style Shia revolution?
How long will American troops stay in Iraq?
Has the Rumsfeld doctrine been vindicated?
Was it really all about Israel?
Or was it about oil?
Or was it about the 2004 presidential election?
Is the world a safer place?

Senator Schumer Pushes to Make Covert Surveillance Easier: Ashcroft's New Ally Officials Reject Plan to Fix Voting Machines Inquiry demanded over US failure to stop library looting US marines raid rooms at media hotel in Baghdad

Jean-Paul Mari, a journalist with the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur said three marines entered his room and ordered him at gunpoint to lie on the floor.

He said the marines, in full body armour and wearing balaclavas, checked his press accreditation papers then searched his room.

"It lasted 10 minutes," he told AFP.

Baghdad museum's greatest treasures 'stolen to order' Ze'ev Schiff: Between Zambish and Bush So who really did save Private Jessica?: Doctor claims that soldiers terrorised unarmed staff

THE rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, which inspired America during one of the most difficult periods of the war, was not the heroic Hollywood story told by the US military, but a staged operation that terrified patients and victimised the doctors who had struggled to save her life, according to Iraqi witnesses.

[...]

Today, the hospital struggles on without adequate supplies of drugs and without running water or mains electricity.

"There are two faces to Americans," Dr Harith said. "One is freedom and democracy, and giving kids sweets. The other is killing and hating my people. So I am very confused. I feel sad because I will never see Jessica again, and I feel happy because she is happy and has gone back to her life. If I could speak to her I would say: 'Congratulations!'"

American soldiers fire on political rally, killing at least 10 civilians Jim Clancy: Museum 'shattered' by looters Filmmaker Moore urges liberals not to despair, better days ahead Clinton blasts US foreign policy Arianna Huffington: Victory Aside, the Invasion Was a Bad Idea North Koreans and U.S. Plan Talks in Beijing Next Week U.S. concentrating forces near Syrian border Actor Robbins Says US Now Viewed as 'Rogue State' Canada won't join U.S. to isolate Syria, PM says: Chrétien doing further harm to U.S. relations, Alliance says U.S., North Korea to Meet in Beijing US bans media from protests Special analysis: Iraq has fallen. Saddam is deposed. But, after 27 days of war, little else is resolved US neglect casts dark shadow over a city without light or much love for the invaders N.K. wants Japan, Russia out of talks

Tuesday, 15 April 2003

Republican Guard commander cut deal with US (Al Jazeera, 15 April 2003) Geov Parrish: The Next President US Companies Quietly Caught Trading with the Enemy: Commentary: U.S. Companies Risk Only a Wrist Slap

In the past two weeks, the government has revealed that 57 companies and organizations have been fined for doing business with terrorists, despots and tyrants.

However, neither the government nor the companies are forthcoming with the public about the details of the illicit trade with rogue governments like Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Sudan.

Russell Mokhiber to Ari Fleischer: Ari, a 21-year-old British peace activist, Thomas Hurndall, was shot by an Israeli sharp shooter and killed on Friday. That brings to four the foreign peace makers who -- peace activists who have been shot or killed or wounded in the last couple weeks. I'm wondering if the President is concerned that the Israelis are targeting peace activists? Marines Raid Journalists' Baghdad Hotel Tests rule out suspect bio-labs: The buried labs U.S. troops found last week were not the mobile chemical and biological weapons labs one U.S. Army general suspected, according to the head of an expert team brought in to examine them. Groups Warn of Diesel Health Risks AOL insider trading alleged: Executives including Chairman Steve Case are included in a suit filed by the University of California Marine's 'miracle escape' rumbled A dissenter looks at war's consequences People in Basra Contest Official View of Siege: Life Was Mostly Normal, Residents Say; Doctors Report Many Civilians Killed Iraqis Say Lynch Raid Faced No Resistance Hall's Petroskey Throws Wild Pitch US army hampers coverage of Iraqi protests Washington needs to stop being fiscally irresponsible Sen. Graham Urges Possible Missile Attack on Syria Troops fire on protesters: report The Syria Question: Blair rejects an invasion (Independent.co.uk, 15 April 2003) For Korean-Americans, Concerns for a New War Coalition in the dock: There is a strong war crimes case against US and British leaders, but big powers have immunity

War crimes are always perpetrated by the loser in war. Though both sides may commit crimes, the victors have always been able to turn might into right, ignoring their own violations and penalising their enemy. At Nuremberg in 1945, the western states knew that their bombing of German cities could pose awkward questions and they quietly dropped their charges against the Luftwaffe; the democracies sat side-by-side with the Soviet Union, which many people argued at the time could itself be regarded as guilty on several of the same counts for which German leaders were indicted.

Should Saddam Hussein be caught alive, he will be made to account for years of crimes against humanity, if he is not murdered first by trigger-happy US forces. Western consciences will have no problems about arraigning Saddam and his henchmen. They will be expected to pay the way Hitler and his gang were expected to pay in 1945, though it is worth remembering that until a trial was finally agreed on in May 1945, Churchill preferred the idea that Nazi leaders should be shot on the spot once they were captured. Saddam might join Milosevic at the Hague, as a warning to tyrants worldwide that a grim justice awaits them.

But this time the situation is different. The legal position is anything but clear-cut. A good deal of informed opinion worldwide regards the Anglo-American invasion and conquest of Iraq as an illegal act of aggression, in the course of which it is coalition forces that have perpetrated numerous war crimes while pulverising Iraqi resistance. The Nuremberg precedent might be invoked to argue that committing crimes in order to overcome tyranny is legally permissible, but there is an awkward contrast with the treatment of German war crime in 1945: now it is the US and Britain that many believe have waged a war of aggression.

Robert Fisk: Would President Assad invite a cruise missile to his palace? (Independent.co.uk, 15 April 2003)

So now Syria is in America's gunsights. First it's Iraq, Israel's most powerful enemy, possessor of weapons of mass destruction -- none of which has been found. Now it's Syria, Israel's second most powerful enemy, possessor of weapons of mass destruction, or so President George Bush Junior tells us. No word of that possessor of real weapons of mass destruction, Israel -- the number of its nuclear warheads in the Negev are now accurately listed -- whose Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, has long been complaining that Damascus is the "centre of world terror".

But Syria is a target all right. First came the US claim that Damascus was sending gas masks to the Iraqi army. The Syrians denied it -- but what if it's true? Why shouldn't an Arab neighbour offer Iraqi soldiers protective clothing during an American invasion which has no international legitimacy? Then Syria was accused of sending, or allowing, Arab "volunteers" to cross into Iraq to fight the Americans. This is much harder for the Syrians to deny. I've met a few of them here in Baghdad, most anxious to return to their homes in Homs and Damascus, others -- from Algeria and Morocco -- telling me that they will be safe if they can reach the Syrian border because "there will be no trouble from there". But here, too, there's a whiff of hypocrisy.

Whenever Israel goes to war, there are hundreds of "volunteers" from the United States rushing to Tel Aviv to join the Israel Defence Force, and America never complains.

[...]

And the signs were clear long ago. Take the article in The New York Times by Larry Collins -- joint author with Dominique Lapierre of O Jerusalem! -- which last month announced that the Syrian-supported Hizbollah resistance in Lebanon had 10,000 missiles that could fly to Tel Aviv and "leave in their wake devastation more terrible than anything Israel has ever known". The missiles are a myth -- I travel the roads of southern Lebanon every two weeks and there are no such missiles, as the UN force there will confirm -- but this doesn't matter. And then it will be Libya who has the most sophisticated C-B weapons. Or Saudi Arabia. Or anyone else Israel wants attacked.

Robert Fisk: Library books, letters and priceless documents are set ablaze in final chapter of the sacking of Baghdad

So yesterday was the burning of books. First came the looters, then the arsonists. It was the final chapter in the sacking of Baghdad. The National Library and Archives ­ a priceless treasure of Ottoman historical documents, including the old royal archives of Iraq ­ were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the library of Korans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment was set ablaze.

I saw the looters. One of them cursed me when I tried to reclaim a book of Islamic law from a boy of no more than 10. Amid the ashes of Iraqi history, I found a file blowing in the wind outside: pages of handwritten letters between the court of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who started the Arab revolt against the Turks for Lawrence of Arabia, and the Ottoman rulers of Baghdad.

And the Americans did nothing. All over the filthy yard they blew, letters of recommendation to the courts of Arabia, demands for ammunition for troops, reports on the theft of camels and attacks on pilgrims, all in delicate hand-written Arabic script. I was holding in my hands the last Baghdad vestiges of Iraq's written history. But for Iraq, this is Year Zero; with the destruction of the antiquities in the Museum of Archaeology on Saturday and the burning of the National Archives and then the Koranic library, the cultural identity of Iraq is being erased. Why? Who set these fires? For what insane purpose is this heritage being destroyed?

With God and guns behind them, clerics begin calling shots Paul Krugman: Behind Our Backs

As the war began, members of the House of Representatives gave speech after speech praising our soldiers, and passed a resolution declaring their support for the troops. Then they voted to slash veterans' benefits.

Progress on NKorea talks but hard bargaining ahead The thrill of battle Bush vetoes Syria war plan Graham Invitation Irks Muslims at Pentagon: Clergyman Has Called Islam 'Evil' Syria: the fork in the road for Bush and Blair: Engage with Damascus and you can hope for change with some stability. Pull it down and you may reap the whirlwind IRAQ: Hundreds of U.S. Soldiers Emerge as Conscientious Objectors New Patriot Act creates uproar, brings together uncommon allies U.S. Has No Plans to Count Civilian Casualties: Congress Calls for 'Assistance' to Iraqis For War Losses Clinton blasts US approach to international affairs In bombed neighborhoods, everyone 'wants to kill Americans'

Monday, 14 April 2003

AOL-TW Execs Accused of Insider Trading William Rivers Pitt: How America Lost the War US broadcasters' war stance under scrutiny Shiite Clerics Move to Assume Control in Baghdad: Religious Leaders Seek to Restore Services, Keep Distance from U.S. Forces Baghdad Did Not Fall - It Was Handed Over U.S. also denies Iraqi oil to Lebanon Oil and Gas Industry Only Winners in House Passage of Republican Energy Bill Iran continues to raise secret deal claim Robert Fisk: Americans defend two untouchable ministries from the hordes of looters (Independent.co.uk, 14 April 2003) Critical Condition (Mirror.co.uk, 14 April 2003) In Twin Cities, Clinton calls on Bush to make deal with North Korea Farce, Tragedy and Taxes Antiwar Groups Shifting Their Focus to Bush: Voter Registration, Search for Congressional Candidates Among Strategies Considered Rumsfeld Requests Power to Reorganize Services Sharon vows to make 'painful concessions' Baghdad Battered by US Gas Bombs US warns Syria not to provide haven for wanted Iraqis

Lawrence Eagleburger, who was US Secretary of State under George Bush Sr, told the BBC: "If George Bush [Jr] decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran after that he would last in office for about 15 minutes.In fact if President Bush were to try that now even I would think that he ought to be impeached. You can't get away with that sort of thing in this democracy."

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Cheering crowds don't make an unjust war right

In 1970, I was on the streets of Kampala with hundreds of thousands of others screaming and dancing for joy the day Idi Amin came into power, placed there by the US, the UK and Israel. Mobs are not dependable nor good at foresight when momentous changes take place. Go re-read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. And another lesson: Uganda was liberated by Ugandans and Tanzanians, with our encouragement, not by a foreign force supported by exiles living safe lives. Amin was as devilish a dictator as Saddam.

Today the crowds are already furious that US troops readily protect the Ministry of Oil, but are coy about saving hospitals, museums or ordinary citizens as the cities drift quickly into anarchy. A fearful hatred between Shia and Sunni Muslims is now stalking the streets of Iraq. The scenes of bedlam are going to be very useful to the occupation because they will enable the US to "reluctantly" impose rule over barbaric natives (who by that time will be begging for it in ever greater numbers) -- ever the reason for imperialism. We are back to the days of the scramble for Africa when colonial white powers took over countries to "protect and civilise" them.

[...]

What lessons does the world take from this victory? That it is OK to kick away any international institution, law, convention if you have the might. That countries should get moving with a nuclear weapons programme, because that brings the big boys to the negotiating table. That you can pre-emptively attack anyone -- without any real evidence, just because you can. That unless the UN and the EU agree to do what the US wants it to do, both institutions will be marginalised too.

Finally, those people with newly found concern for the Iraqi people, where were they for the past 13 years? When groups like Voices in the Wilderness were raging against the effects of the sanctions which were killing hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people, I never saw The Sun weeping on its pages. What do pro-war people say about the effects of depleted uranium? Or Geoff Hoon's disgusting statement that mothers would thank us for killing their babies with cluster bombs? Theirs is a cynical pity, reserved and evoked for political purposes.

It will get worse, this manipulation. The BBC's excellent Andrew Gilligan is under fire from Blair and Co. for some of the most honest reporting we have seen so far. All they now want is applause from us. They shouldn't get it, not now, not ever. All they have done is damage the fragile world and its political ecology.

Helen Thomas: U.S. War Flouts Violations Of International Law: Is It A Case Of 'Do As We Say, Not As We Do'

Now that we are bypassing the tenets of international law and acting out our own rules of behavior on the world stage, I pity the professors in the law schools. Their challenge will be to explain how our nation, which prides itself as a nation of laws, got itself into this fix.

Family Struggles to Tell Father That Three Daughters Are Dead

This evening, Mr. Abbas, sitting with his broken heel propped up on a chair, with scabs and cuts from the shrapnel that blasted into chest, legs and arms, told how his apartment filled with smoke that night and how he dragged three of his children out. He rushed back into the apartment for the other three. Then the missile exploded. "I still have three more children in the hospital," Mr. Abbas said. That is what everyone has been telling him.

Reagan blasts Bush

April 14, 2003 | The Bush inner circle would like to think of George W.'s presidency as more of an extension of Ronald Reagan's than of his one-term father's. Reagan himself, who has long suffered from Alzheimer's disease, is unable to comment on those who lay claim to his political legacy. But his son, Ron Jr., is -- and he's not pleased with the association.

"The Bush people have no right to speak for my father, particularly because of the position he's in now," he said during a recent interview with Salon. "Yes, some of the current policies are an extension of the '80s. But the overall thrust of this administration is not my father's -- these people are overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive, and just plain corrupt. I don't trust these people."

From republic to empire

Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were labelled 'imperial presidents,' recalls former White House adviser ROGER MORRIS . But neither could hold a candle to today's George Bush

America's attacks on Syria simply confirm fears of its Middle East intentions U.S. Allies Also Have Chemical Weapons Bush: Iraq War Drove N. Korea to Concede U.S. Toughens Warnings to Syria on Iraq, Other Issues As Iraqis Flee To Syria, U.S. Nets Scientist Syrian foreign minister accuses U.S of wanting to destroy Iraq Syria is 'not next coalition target' - Straw Robert Fisk: Saddam is airbrushed out by the city that bore his name Analysis: Poverty and despair behind Iraq's ethnic violence: With so many Iraqis living on the edge of starvation, it is hardly surprising they took the chance to loot anything they could US blamed for failure to stop sacking of museum Goldman Prize Honors Environmental Crusaders Saddam's brother captured 'trying to escape to Syria' Analysis: Poverty and despair behind Iraq's ethnic violence: With so many Iraqis living on the edge of starvation, it is hardly surprising they took the chance to loot anything they could

Sunday, 13 April 2003

Rout proves anti-war point

Sometimes the United States and its allies are wrong, and the rest of the world is right.

The opponents of war in Iraq -- France, Germany, Russia, China, Canada, Mexico, the Arab nations and the many others -- were vindicated last week when Baghdad fell just 21 days after the U.S.-led invasion began.

Aftermath: The Bush Doctrine Revealed: Russia spied on Blair for Saddam The Better Rhetor: "What You Need to Know" (And Why You'd Better Know It)

Table of top 100 human rights abusers

Bush ready to fight war on two fronts

Defeat of Saddam does not end US ambitions in the Middle East. The friends of President Bush have grand plans to create an American Imperium - and to consolidate their power at home

The last shot of the war in Iraq will be the starting pistol for two further campaigns by the administration of President George W Bush. One will be fought in the region: no one really believes America's project is confined to Iraq. The toppling of Saddam is first base in what Michael Ledeen, leading thinker among the neo-conservatives driving foreign policy, calls 'a war to remake the world'.

The second front will be the home one: unlike his father - who lost an election the year after driving Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait - President George Bush junior has also to win what former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal promises to be a resumption of 'partisan warfare' at home.

If he succeeds in both campaigns, he will have become the most powerful President in US history, both at home and across the new Imperium of which victory in Iraq is the first footprint.

Syria could be next, warns Washington

The United States has pledged to tackle the Syrian-backed Hizbollah group in the next phase of its 'war on terror' in a move which could threaten military action against President Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus.

The move is part of Washington's efforts to persuade Israel to support a new peace settlement with the Palestinians. Washington has promised Israel that it will take 'all effective action' to cut off Syria's support for Hizbollah - implying a military strike if necessary, sources in the Bush administration have told The Observer .

A civilisation torn to pieces

Baghdad, reports Robert Fisk, is a city at war with itself, at the mercy of thieves and gunmen. And, in the city's most important museum, something truly terrible has taken place: the mob has turned upon its own heritage, stealing and systematically smashing priceless antiquities that once were the glory of Iraq

They lie across the floor in tens of thousands of pieces, the priceless antiquities of Iraq's history. The looters had gone from shelf to shelf, systematically pulling down the statues and pots and amphorae of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Medes, the Persians and the Greeks and hurling them on to the concrete.

Environment under unilateral attack in America Bush aides press 'preemptive deterrence' in Mideast Carving up the new Iraq Saddam aide: Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction Pentagon Was Told Of Risk to Museums: U.S. Urged to Save Iraq's Historic Artifacts As looting continues, US hires controversial company to police Bush Doctrinaires: Analysts Point to Strong Signs America's War Machine Will Continue to Roll Plan for Democracy in Iraq May Be Folly: Experts Also Question U.S. Ability to Reform Entire Middle East Scandal-Hit US Firm Wins Key Contracts Media Watchdog Concerned CNN Had Armed Guard Rock-Hurling Prisoners Riot at Main U.S. POW Camp Carving Up The New Iraq Israeli army 'targeted' peace activist: Parents of injured British student demand investigation into 'deliberately reckless actions' Hoon backs ex-Saddam loyalists to rebuild nation: Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon says it is time to allow Iraqis to start 'building from the bottom', as members of the Ba'ath party are to be used to restore order. Lost in the Shuffle, a Sign of Strength for Social Security Admiral says banned arms claims were exaggerated The Spoils of War Coverage America targeted 14,000 sites. So where are the weapons of mass destruction? Powell warns Syria not to prove 'safe haven' for Saddam Saddam Hussein's science adviser surrenders Freed aid workers tell of prison torture Hunt for Saddam intensifies as Iraqis plead for protection

Saturday, 12 April 2003

Disappointed Marines learn stay in Baghdad may be indefinite

Blix: US was bent on war

War against Iraq was a foregone conclusion months before the first shot was fired, the chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has claimed.

In a scathing attack on Britain and the US, Mr Blix accused them of planning the war "well in advance" and of "fabricating" evidence against Iraq to justify their campaign.

Letting rip after months of frustration, he told the Spanish daily El Pais: "There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the [weapons] inspections."

Robert Fisk: Who is to blame for the collapse in morality that followed the 'liberation'?

Pillage merits a specific prevention clause in the Geneva Conventions, just as it did in the 1907 Hague Convention

Even as tape of the pillage in Basra was being beamed around the world, there was Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Blackman of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards cheerfully telling the BBC that "it' s absolutely not my business to get in the way." But of course it is Colonel Blackman's business to "get in the way". Pillage merits a specific prevention clause in the Geneva Conventions, just as it did in the 1907 Hague Convention upon which the Geneva delegates based their "rules of war". "Pillage is prohibited," the 1949 Geneva Conventions say, and Colonel Blackman and Mr Hoon should glance at Crimes of War, published in conjunction with the City University Journalism Department -- page 276 is the most dramatic -- to understand what this means.

When an occupying power takes over another country' s territory, it automatically becomes responsible for the protection of its civilians, their property and institutions. Thus the American troops in Nasiriyah became automatically responsible for the driver who was murdered for his car in the first day of that city's "liberation". The Americans in Baghdad were responsible for the German and Slovak embassies that were looted by hundreds of Iraqis on Thursday, and for the French Cultural Centre, which was attacked, and for the Central Bank of Iraq, which was torched yesterday afternoon.

But the British and Americans have simply discarded this notion, based though it is upon conventions and international law. And we journalists have allowed them to do so. We clapped our hands like children when the Americans "assisted" the Iraqis in bringing down the statue of Saddam Hussein in front of the television cameras this week, and yet we went on talking about the "liberation" of Baghdad as if the majority of civilians there were garlanding the soldiers with flowers instead of queuing with anxiety at checkpoints and watching the looting of their capital.

Catholic leader wants Bush to be tried: Says international court should prosecute president as war criminal Weapons teams scour Iraq: Secret units in desperate hunt for banned arsenal

Britain and the United States have bypassed the United Nations to establish a secret team of inspectors to resume the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

It is a sign of the desperation in London and Washington to find a "smoking gun" to justify the war that the Anglo-American team has already conducted three inspections in the past two weeks.

No banned weapons have so far been found.

U.S. Adviser Perle Warns Syria Over Iraqi Weapons U.S. Marines Exchange Heavy Fire in Central Baghdad War and Peace: Anarchy in the Streets Pillagers Strip Iraqi Museum of Its Treasure With N. Koreans, a Quiet Diplomacy: Network of Academics, Officials at Work to Break Impasse Baghdad Seethes With Anger Toward U.S. UN Must Oversee Iraq Reconstruction, say Russia, France and Germany

LONDON (Reuters) - Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, a key architect of the U.S.-led drive to topple Saddam Hussein, said in remarks published on Saturday Syria would be a possible military target if it was found harboring Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

In an interview with the International Herald Tribune newspaper, Perle said that if such weapons were found on Syrian soil "I'm quite sure we would have to respond to that."

"It would be an act of such foolishness on Syria's part," Perle said.

"Our first approach would be to demand that the Syrians terminate that threat by turning over anything they have come to possess and failing that, I don't think anyone would rule out the use of any of our full range of capabilities."

Activists Stunned by U.S. Debt Forgiveness Plan Looters Ransack Baghdad's Antiquities Museum

BAGHDAD - Looters have sacked Baghdad's antiquities museum, plundering treasures dating back thousands of years to the dawn of civilization in Mesopotamia, museum staff said on Saturday.

They blamed U.S. troops for not protecting the treasures.

U.S. Threatens Iraqi Scientists Our Venerable Warmongers: The Rush to Justify the Devastation

When you wage a war that is strongly opposed by the great majority of those on the planet who are aware of such things, when your own people are becoming increasingly militant against your unilateral waging of that war, when you know well that your war is palpably and embarrassingly illegal, immoral, illogical and unjust, when you can't admit the real reasons for the war ... then you have a consuming need to find a moral-sounding and credible selling point -- "Regime change", to remove the evil Saddam, the Iraqi people will welcome us with flowers and music!

Activists Shut Down Senate to Protest War Spending Kathleen and Bill Christison: It Need Not Be This Way: Final Thoughts from Palestine British-appointed Basra chief exposed as former Ba'athist: Troops protect sheikh after mob attack British peace activist shot by IDF troops in Gaza Strip A city in flames. A nation in chaos U.S. to Respond to N.Korea Via Diplomatic Channels Chaos, or just a little vase they're going through? U.S. Says N.Korea's Neighbors Key to Ending Crisis North Korea Makes Big Shift in Nuclear Talks Demand Global Eye -- Damascus Road Jokes aside, this corner of America wants Dubya impeached Key Bridges Are Reopened in Baghdad Robert Fisk: Flames engulf the symbols of power

Friday, 11 April 2003

UK troops 'break law' by hooding Iraqi prisoners

Hooding - the placing of a bag or sack over an individual's head and securing it so that it cannot be removed - is a practice with an ugly history. It is not only inhuman and illegal; it is also often the harbinger of further rough treatment.

The Marines Shot Anything They Considered a Threat

Continuing attacks on US forces in Baghdad by Iraqi fighters in civilian clothes produced a deadly response on Thursday, as nervous soldiers of the US 5th Marines opened fire repeatedly, hitting unarmed men, women and children. Three times in three hours I saw troops who had seized one of Saddam Hussein's small palaces open fire, killing five people and wounding five - among them a six-year- old girl who was shot in the head.

DuPont Has Withheld Company Study From EPA for 22 Years: Results Show Teflon Chemical in Babies' Blood He rallied for the troops and lied about his past: Halfmoon-- Don Neddo, who always wanted to be a paratrooper, claimed to have fought in Korea US Forces Encourage Looting Hate speech shocks Yale campus: In response to violent message, 'drastic action' planned for today.

Lo locked her door and stayed in her room as the intruders attempted to jimmy the lock. Eventually the intruders--one of whom wielded a two-by-four--gave up. But they left a menacing note on Lo's door: "I love kicking the Muslims ass bitches ass! They should all die with Mohammad. We as Americans should destroy them and launch so many missiles their mothers don't produce healthy offspring. Fuck Iraqi Saddam following fucks. I hate you, GO AMERICA."

"Catastrophic" Situation at Baghdad Hospital: ICRC Official US Show of Force Galls Arab World: A day after Baghdad's fall, many foresee American dominance in the Middle East - and possible reprisals. China, Iran and U.S. Top Executioners, Amnesty Says

GENEVA - At least 1,526 people were executed worldwide last year, with 80 percent of all known executions carried out in China, Iran and the United States, Amnesty International said on Friday.

British Peace Activist Clinically Dead After Being Hit by Israeli Sniper Fire in Rafah U.S. Plans to Run Iraqi Oil for A While Russian defence chief urges North Korea to take back nuclear inspectors Remarks by Bush aides worry Syria: Ordinary people fear their nation could be target of 'regime change' India Mulls 'Pre-Emptive' Pakistan Strike, Cites U.S. Iraq War Precedent Congressman Questions Iraq Work Given To Halliburton Subsidiary Without Competition The Future of Iraq's Oil Is this freedom, ask Iraqis as chaos reigns Vanishing Liberties: Where's the Press? Anthrax Source Probably Domestic House Passes Pro-Development Energy Bill War within a war a real possibility War veterans in Hilo protest war in Iraq Bush Economic Record: African Americans Disproportionately Suffer Job Losses Conservative constitutional catfight! Right-wing activists team up with the left-wing ACLU to bash the PATRIOT Act. The Justice Department is not amused. The Real War - On American Democracy High Price of Empire: the new White House bunker mentality Iraqis Storm Embassy in Tehran, but Still Hate U.S. China's and U.S. Discuss Iraq, North Korea Don't think it's all over Former Congressman Takes Bush To Court For 'War Crimes': Federal Judges Have 60 Days To Respond Praying for a miracle with tragic little Ali Who's next for global vigilante? U.S. Uses Iraqi TV to Send Its Message Charley Reese: Dull Television Details Given on Contract Halliburton Was Awarded Colonel Apologizes for Journalists' Deaths, Defends Actions N Korea 'ready for war': North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong-il, has reportedly made a highly symbolic visit to an air force base, hours after the fall of Baghdad. Upper-Class Tax Cuts, Working-Class Soldiers Kurdish victory provokes fears of Turkish invasion US threatens to use biggest bomb as hunt switches north Murdered in a mosque: the cleric who went home to act as a peacemaker Robert Fisk: Baghdad: the day after: Arson, anarchy, fear, hatred, hysteria, looting, revenge, savagery, suspicion and a suicide bombing US says flag incident was a 'coincidence' Rendon Group (From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda)

Thursday, 10 April 2003

Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot ENVIRONMENT: Bush Fighting 'Secret War' On Green Laws - Kennedy Bush's Body Language Speaks Volumes

Watching George W. Bush deliver his speeches is becoming more alarming as his diction and body language become ever so transparently arrogant. Only people who are oblivious to the Other as a living concept are capable of such behavior. The President issues statements that polarize and divide: "You are either with us or with them" is the most obvious. There are plenty of such declarations that an elected official is not supposed to contemplate, let alone utter. This diction is the linguistic realm of the dictator who has to answer to no one.

Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot (United Press International, 10 April 2003) Dead correspondent was deliberately targeted (Al-Jazeera, 10 April 2003) Could Saddam Hussein be striking a last-minute deal? (Al-Jazeera, 10 April 2003) Parviz Esmaeili: Dictators' Collusion Ari & I: White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer

Mokhiber: Ari, two things. How many people have been killed in this war?

Ari Fleischer: That's a question you need to address to DOD.

3 nuns must accept fate, prosecutor says: U.S. attorney explains conviction in protest case was not enjoyable for him From over-capacity to war Descent into a charnel-house hospital hell John Pilger: Crime Against Humanity

A BBC television producer, moments before he was wounded by an American fighter aircraft that killed 18 people with "friendly fire", spoke to his mother on a satellite phone. Holding the phone over his head so that she could hear the sound of the American planes overhead, he said: "Listen, that's the sound of freedom."

Did I read this scene in Catch-22? Surely, the BBC man was being ferociously ironic. I doubt it, just as I doubt that whoever designed the Observer's page three last Sunday had Joseph Heller in mind when he wrote the weasel headline: "The moment young Omar discovered the price of war". These cowardly words accompanied a photograph of an American marine reaching out to comfort 15-year-old Omar, having just participated in the mass murder of his father, mother, two sisters and brother during the unprovoked invasion of their homeland, in breach of the most basic law of civilised peoples.

No true epitaph for them in Britain's famous liberal newspaper; no honest headline, such as: "This American marine murdered this boy's family". No photograph of Omar's father, mother, sisters and brother dismembered and blood-soaked by automatic fire. Versions of the Observer's propaganda picture have been appearing in the Anglo-American press since the invasion began: tender cameos of American troops reaching out, kneeling, ministering to their "liberated" victims.

North Korea says no to nuclear inspections CIA Report: N. Korea Goal Is Two Nukes a Year Security Council Balks at Postwar Plans IRAQ: U.S. Govt Accused of War Crimes against Journalists Suicide bomber in Baghdad injures four Marines Unshared Sacrifices Garner Waiting For 'Last Shot' To Rule Baghdad Disabled protesters are arrested next to governor's office: 6 among group unable to see Perry 'We hear two shots, we let off 150 back' Iraqi nuclear plant searched, public may be at risk, UN says New phase of war: apparent dead people Iraq in the red UN discussion of nuke issue 'a prelude to war': Pyongyang Alarm as North Korean planes enter Japan's airspace American Flag Flap: Stars and Stripes on Saddam's Doomed Statue Strikes a Sensitive Chord Looters ransack Baghdad hospitals Robert Fisk: Final proof that war is about the failure of the human spirit Robert Fisk: A day that began with shellfire ended with a once-oppressed people walking like giants

The Americans "liberated" Baghdad yesterday, destroyed the centre of Saddam Hussein's quarter-century of brutal dictatorial power but brought behind them an army of looters who unleashed upon the ancient city a reign of pillage and anarchy. It was a day that began with shellfire and air strikes and blood-bloated hospitals and ended with the ritual destruction of the dictator's statues. The mobs shrieked their delight. Men who, for 25 years, had grovellingly obeyed Saddam's most humble secret policeman turned into giants, bellowing their hatred of the Iraqi leader as his vast and monstrous statues thundered to the ground.

[...]

But winning a war is one thing. Succeeding in the ideological and economic project that lies behind this whole war is quite another. The "real" story for America's mastery over the Arab world starts now.

Britain must now ensure that there is no US puppet government in Iraq: When American politicians talk, as they continually do, about Iraq run by Iraqis, the question arises of 'whose Iraqis?' Spoils of War

Follow the money. Former Secretary of State George Shultz is on the board of directors of the Bechtel Group, the largest contractor in the U.S. and one of the finalists in the competition to land a fat contract to help in the rebuilding of Iraq.

Iraqis have paid the blood price for a fraudulent war: The crudely colonial nature of this enterprise can no longer be disguised 'Hitler' Exec Producer Fired Over Remarks Google, Makes it possible for anyone to find your address using your telephone number Save me, save me from fog of U.S war coverage Busted, broke, and on the back burner March, street theater take on FBI, Patriot Act Citizens protest USA Patriot Act Experts: US "Discovery" Of Nuclear Materials Already Known (AP, 10 April 2003) Count your remaining liberties at the next security checkpoint Sony leads charge to cash in on Iraq Murdoch Adds to Empire With Control of DirecTV Iraqis Now Waiting for Americans to Leave What Counted: People, Plan, Inept Enemy Veteran Liberal Lions Roar at Bush Hitchens: Saddam hides like a rat in a sewer Rejoicing minority free after 35 years

Wednesday, 9 April 2003

Cheney: Saddam regime is over

Geoffrey Heard: Not Oil, But Dollars vs. Euros

China Blocks U.N. Statement Condemning N. Korea: Move Hampers Security Council's Effort to Pressure Pyongyang Over Nuclear Weapons Program Stonewalling Security UNICEF warns of worsening situation for children in Iraq Iraq war planned long in advance; banned arms not the priority: Blix War planned 'long in advance' Journalists snub Straw and Spanish premier Despite cheering crowds, Army unit sees urban combat in Baghdad GOP Orchestrates Dixie Chick Protests Shi'ite Group to Boycott U.S. Talks on Iraq In Search of Horror Weapons Ivins: Bush offers crooks and warmongers to lead Iraq George Bush's war could be his undoing Pak deserves military action: Yashwant Sinha North Korea reminds Japan it is within striking distance 'Spiritual warfare' looms Anti-war leaders to meet in Russia Hastert's office computer makes geopolitics fun

Every war protester's worst nightmare is on display in the waiting room outside of House Speaker Dennis Hastert?s (R-Ill.) Capitol digs.

A computer screen saver displays a partial map of the Middle East with the names of some countries deliberately changed in ways that might drive anti-Big Oil types crazy: Iraq is dubbed "Chevron"; Syria is "Arco"; and Iran is "New Texas." Afghanistan, colored black, is labeled "Toast."

A tale of two photos

You have probably seen the photos of the statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled, and TV footage of jubilant Iraqis rolling the bronze head around, bringing back memories of so many previous popular uprisings -- 1989, 1956, 1953...

A wide angle shot in which you can see the whole of Fardus Square (conveniently located just opposite the Palestine Hotel where the international media are based), and the presence of at most around 200 people -- most of them US troops (note the tanks and armored vehicles) and assembled journalist

Kids + debt = bankruptcy: Expert points to reasons Utah is No. 1 in filings Baghdad: a battle that did not happen Contain and Isolate: The New York Times and the Peace Movement After Iraq, rogue nations won't be spared: Hoon Houston on list of top terror targets Denver Men Are Ordered Released in Terror Probe: Charges Against Two Not Proved, Judge Says GM pulling plug on electric cars Mill Valley City Council votes to oppose USA Patriot Act U.S. Tells Iran, Syria, N. Korea 'Learn from Iraq'

"With respect to the issue of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the post-conflict period, we are hopeful that a number of regimes will draw the appropriate lesson from Iraq that the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is not in their national interest," Bolton told a news conference.

Through a Screen, Darkly We said it would be a nightmare: And yes, that's exactly what it is Ad urging Bush impeachment angers America's one-sided prayers WAR IN IRAQ MILITARY: US-backed militia terrorises town

Hay Al Ansar, on the outskirts of Najaf in Iraq, was glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party government, when the city was seized by US forces last week.

But they appear to be just as terrified, if not more so, of their new rulers -a little-known Iraqi militia backed by the US special forces and headquartered in a compound nearby.

Iraq Humanitarian Crisis Verging on Catastrophe: Ill-supplied nation faces 'a huge problem like you have never seen' Hall Cancels 'Bull Durham' Festivities

NEW YORK - Stung by anti-war criticism from Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, the baseball Hall of Fame has canceled a 15th anniversary celebration of the film "Bull Durham" that was to feature the co-stars.

Hall president Dale Petroskey sent a letter to Robbins and Sarandon this week, saying the festivities April 26-27 at Cooperstown, N.Y., had been called off because of their remarks.

Petroskey, a former White House assistant press secretary under Ronald Reagan, said recent comments by the actors "ultimately could put our troops in even more danger."

Reached Wednesday night, Robbins said he was "dismayed" by the decision. He responded with a letter he planned to send to Petroskey, telling him: "You belong with the cowards and ideologues in a hall of infamy and shame."

Russia helping Saddam flee: Report Robert Fisk: Is there some element in the US military that wants to take out journalists? Press Watchdogs Protest U.S. Killings of Journalists in Baghdad From the Archives: Pentagon threatens to kill independent reporters in Iraq (10 March 2003) Robert Fisk: The dogs were yelping. They knew bombs were on the way Eleven Afghan civilians killed in accidental US bombing near Pakistan border Civilians killed in Israeli assassination of Hamas militant Exclusive: In an Unjust War, Iraqis Are Paying the Price Saddam survived attack on building say British intelligence sources In Basra, Growing Resentment, Little Aid: Casualties Stoke Hostility Over British Presence Bombs blast homes instead of Saddam Gulf War 2: Bombs blast homes instead of dictator's bunker: Saddam 'survives' Pandemonium at the hotel reporters called home Joseph Stiglitz: The ruin of Russia: No rewriting of history can change the fact that neo-liberal reform produced undiluted economic decline

A transition that lasts two decades, during which poverty and inequality increase enormously as a few become wealthy, cannot be called a victory for capitalism or democracy. Moreover, the longer-run prospects are far from rosy: with investment a mere 10% of what it was in 1990, even if that investment is better allocated, how can growth be sustained?

[...]

But there is another vision of a market economy, one based on greater equality, which uses the power of markets to bring prosperity not just to the few but to all of society. That Russia's transition did not achieve this is not a surprise. That goal was not a part of the reformers' vision. The great paradox is that their view of economics was so stilted, so ideologically driven, that they failed even in their narrower objective of bringing about economic growth. What they achieved was undiluted decline. No rewriting of history will change this.

Republicans Want Terror Law Made Permanent 'Mogadishu' prof back at Columbia

Tuesday, 8 April 2003

Int'l Coalition Formed To Put 'Invaders' On Trial TV Commercial Blasts Citigroup for Environmental Destruction: Celebrities Join Thousands In Cutting Up Citi Credit Cards New Book Encourages Nonpayment of Taxes for Iraq War Al-Jazeera TV Correspondent Killed in Baghdad Raid Amid the Fragments of Lives, New Enemies are Made: The American bombs that shattered a middle-class neighborhood vaporized more than houses and people Udall Backs Creating Department of Peace 94 Arrested In Protest On 5th Ave. IRAQ: CPJ condemns journalists' deaths in Iraq: Group calls for an investigation Commentary: Dark day for Iraq journalists India has developed chemical weapons of mass destruction : Rashid Chemical hypocrites: As it struggles to justify its invasion, the US is getting ready to use banned weapons in Iraq BP maps out Iraq strategy: World's No. 3 oil company is getting ready to work on the world's second largest reserves of crude. Death, fear, grief at Baghdad bomb site but no sign of Iraqi leader Economy on the Edge: 'Rude Awakening' May Be in Store, Following Iraq War Iraqis In Basra Weigh Freedom's Cost Nicholas D. Kristof: The Ring of Truth?

DOHA, Qatar -- The front line in the war for hearts and minds in the Arab world and beyond is here, at the U.S. Central Command headquarters and media center, and it's prettier than most battlefields. The stage that the generals speak from each day was built for the government by a showbiz professional at a cost of $250,000, and it's as high-tech as an Abrams tank.

Syria now top US target for 'regime change' If history's calendar were a landscape of memory, this would be a time surrounded by monoliths of deja vu A Marine's Story

When I was a Marine infantryman in Vietnam, support meant a lot to me and my fellow grunts, but it didn't mean what most people thought. We wanted to come home alive. When we got wounded or sick, we wanted good medical help. We wanted rations that we could trade with the Vietnamese for real food.

We saw war protesters as allies, certain to save lives and bring us home sooner if they succeeded. Those who advocated winning at any cost would only get more of us killed.

The worst kind of support came from those who voted for the war and against adequate medical care, rehabilitation and education for veterans. While patriotic talk is cheap, veterans prefer to survive and enjoy the tangible benefits they earned.

We didn't join the Marines for love of country. We joined to get out of the house, out of the city, off the farm, into a job, and because we were 18 and believed we were indestructible. Let's start treating our soldiers not as icons but as real people.

JOHN MERSON

Siasconset, Mass., April 3, 2003

U.K. Forces Committed Mass Killing In Umm Qasr: Iraqis 25 Reporters Besieged By U.S. Tanks Send SOS Ramzaj discontinues operation U.S.: No international court on Iraq: War crimes may go before pan-Arab courts, military tribunals

The Bush administration has ruled out any role for international courts in trying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other Iraqis for war crimes. NBC's Pete Wiliams reports.

China steps up preparation for U.S. conflict: America's war in Iraq seen as precursor to Asia conquest Protest Music is Alive and Kicking By the right, Fox in step with brass French TV film shows US tank blasting hotel Jerry Brown Endorsed Shooting Of Protesters And Port Workers Egyptian Intellectual Speaks Of the Arab World's Despair

"People in Egypt and many parts of the Arab world used to love America, and now they have a sense of being betrayed, misunderstood, taken lightly," he said. "And when it comes to the central problem of the Middle East -- the Arab-Israeli conflict -- we feel that even a minimum of American even-handedness is missing."

Know thine enemies: The American media seem to think the US is at war with France as well as Iraq, writes Duncan Campbell

I was buying some groceries in a store just after the war in Iraq had started when the man taking my money asked whether or not I thought we were about to come under attack.

I can understand that being a topic of conversation in Basra, but we were in LA - the sun was shining and there were surfers heading for the beach.

I assured him he need not worry, the Iraqis were not about to mount an invasion on California. Yes, he said, but what about the French?

It was only when I was about to tell him that French troops were already making their way south from Quebec and that Napoleon was confident they would be in Long Beach by Easter that I realised he was serious.

Protesters stop HMAS Sydney leaving harbour

Monday, 7 April 2003

US media dig deep for politicians

Political donations by US television and radio stations have almost doubled in the last year, research has shown.

And the Bush family's association with many media organisations runs deep and is reflected by the hefty handouts from the likes of NBC network owner General Electric and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, both trenchant supporters of the war.

"Smoking gun" WMD site in Iraq turns out to contain pesticide (Agence France Presse, 7 April 2003) Simpson: 'This is like a scene from hell. There are bodies all around' Cultural Gulf Separates Forces, Iraqis by Letta Taylor

"I say we just -- nuke this place and make it into a parking lot," seethed Lance Cpl. Ryan Eman, 22, of Michigan.

[...]

"It's like you're fighting a faceless enemy," said Cpl. Jeb Moser, 21, of Ruston, La. "They're all just ragheads to me, the same way they used to call the enemy 'gooks' in Vietnam."

"Raghead, raghead, can't you see? This old war ain't -- to me," sang Lance Cpl. Christopher Akins, 21, of Louisville, Ky., sweat running down his face in rivulets as he dug a fighting trench one recent afternoon under a blazing sun.

Asked whom he considered a raghead, Akins said: "Anybody who actively opposes the United States of America's way ... If a little kid actively opposes my way of life, I'd call him a raghead, too."

As for non-hostile Iraqis, "I think they can be brought up intellectually, but it'll take some work because they're still in the Stone Age," Akins said. He appeared startled to hear that Iraqis are descendants of ancient Mesopotamia, a thriving civilization that created the world's first known system of writing and body of law, and that until the havoc of Hussein's regime, Iraq also enjoyed a substantial and highly educated middle class.

Telling War's Deadly Story at Just Enough Distance

Large numbers of Iraqi soldiers have been killed, according to the Pentagon, and more than 2,000 Iraqi civilians, the government of Saddam Hussein said, many of them in the last week. But when James Kelly, the managing editor of Time, lays out the 20 pages of photos intended to anchor the magazine's coverage of the war, there were pictures of soldiers, battles and rubble, but no corpses.

Hospitals overwhelmed as air assault gathers pace

Lying in bed in Baghdad's Kindi Hospital with an improvised wooden cage over his chest to stop his burnt flesh touching the bed cover, he tells his story.

"It was midnight when the missile fell on us. My father, mother and brother died. My mother was pregnant.

"Neighbours pulled me out and brought me here unconscious," he said yesterday.

The Pentagon's "Trainee," Ahmad Chalabi (INC), Claims to be epresentative of a New Iraq UA student arrested during anti-war demonstration Shuffled Off in Buffalo Demonstrators Protest at Port Chicago Evidence Contradicts Rumors of Torture

A poignant bit of unfinished history caught up with the current campaign against Saddam Hussein today, as American and British officials combed through a makeshift morgue for Iraqi and Iranian soldiers killed in the 1980's in a war most Iraqis are too young to remember.

Investigators from the United States 75th Exploitation Task Force arrived here this morning from their camp in northern Kuwait. The task force, charged with documenting war crimes, had come to investigate what initial descriptions of the site suggested was a center for torture and execution.

But in just a few hours, Chief Warrant Officer Dan Walters, the leader of the task force's Criminal Investigation Division unit, said a preliminary examination of the remains and some of the thousands of pages of documents that were abandoned in a building next to the warehouse suggested that atrocities had probably not occurred here. Rather, he said, Iraqis had apparently been processing the remains and preparing to exchange them with Iran.

"Their wounds were consistent with combat deaths, not executions," said Mr. Walters, whose team is supported by the 75th Field Artillery Brigade, normally based in Fort Sill, Okla. "So far," he added, "there are no indications that war crimes were committed here."

If Dubya has a plan for postwar Iraq, he's not telling Congress Special Ops, CIA fighting hidden war away from cameras Army Questions Spearhead Mom: Band's protest ways draws military inquiries

[...] in Boston, the mother of the group's human beatbox Radioactive received a visit from two plainclothes Army officers.

"She'd spoken in an interview about her daughter who has been deployed in the Gulf, and her son who is in this band Spearhead," says Spearhead frontman Michael Franti. "They showed her a picture of her son wearing a t-shirt that said 'Unfuck the world' on the front, and 'Dethrone the Bushes' on the back. They told her that was an un-American statement. She said, 'That's free speech,' and they said, 'Well, things are changing these days.'"

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Bush is right: this is not a clash of civilisations: This simplistic explanation reduces cultures to stereotypes and disables anti-war resistance Gunter Grass: The U.S. Betrays Its Core Values Russian Military intel update: War in Iraq, April 7 (morning) Missing Iraqi General in Kuwait after CIA aided Denmark escape Robert Fisk: It seemed as if Baghdad would fall within hours. But the day was characterised by crazed normality, high farce and death Robert Fisk: The Allied grip tightens on Baghdad: On the streets, grim evidence of a bloody battle It's Too Soon to Tell, but Expect the Final Tab to Be High Robert Fisk in Baghdad: The twisted language of war that is used to justify the unjustifiable Iraqi troops fight back Taliban Reviving, Afghan Gov't Faltering War Profiteer Protest Press Release

New York, NY. At 8:40 this morning, approximately 19 protesters were arrested for blocking the entrance to an office building at 712 5th Avenue in protest against the Carlyle Group for promoting and exploiting the war against Iraq for profit. Soon after, a double row of riot police quickly surrounded a group of approximately 100 protesters and bystanders as they stood on the sidewalk across the street, gave no order to disperse, and arrested them.

U.S. holds Baghdad palaces as night falls

A military intelligence officer for the U.S. 101st Airborne Division told Agence France-Presse that initial reports about a chemical weapons depot near Hindiyah, 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, were incorrect. What was thought to be the nerve agent sarin turned out to be pesticide.

Where are the WMD? "Smoking Gun" WMD Site in Iraq Turns Out to Contain Pesticide Missile cache may be regime's elusive chemical weapons Amid Allied jubilation, a child lies in agony, clothes soaked in blood Rubber Bullets Used Against Oakland War Protesters Police Fire Non-Lethal Projectiles at War Protest in Oakland; Nearby Longshoremen Injured Oakland demonstration aftermath (photos) Oakland Police Fire Rubber Bullets at Anti-War Protesters Workers Who Feel Discarded Librarians Use Shredder to Show Opposition to New F.B.I. Powers Despair of a village at devastation Kerry takes anti-war rhetoric on road to Iowa Defeats dismay Arab media Supreme Court Upholds Cross Burning Ban

Sunday, 6 April 2003

Neoconservative clout seen in U.S. Iraq policy U.S. Prison Population Surpasses 2 Million

The number of people in U.S. prisons and jails has surpassed 2 million for the first time, according to a Justice Department report released on Sunday. Prisons and jails held one out of every 142 U.S. residents. The prison and jail population, long the world's largest, has almost doubled since 1990.

Prison Rates Among Blacks Reach a Peak, Report Finds

An estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20 to 34 are in jail or prison, according to a report released yesterday by the Justice Department.

Dilip Hiro: The West will have to reap the whirlwind sown by Bush and Blair U.S.-Led Invaders Extend Their Grip on Iraq

The United States says it is taking precautions to avoid civilian casualties, but Baghdad's hospitals are packed to overflowing with wounded residents of the capital.

One of them is Ali Ismaeel Abbas, 12, who was fast asleep when a missile obliterated his home and most of his family, leaving him orphaned, badly burned and missing both his arms.

"Can you help get my arms back? Do you think the doctors can get me another pair of hands?" Abbas asked. "If I don't get a pair of hands I will commit suicide," he said with tears spilling down his cheeks.

Poor hardest to find on campus: Report: Low-income students more scarce than minorities US accused of plans to loot Iraqi antiques (Sunday Herald) Taliban Take Control Of Government Offices In Zabul Baghdad on brink Tracy McVeigh: North Korea and the US 'on a slide towards conflict'

War in North Korea is now almost inevitable because of the country's diplomatic stalemate with America, a senior UN official claims.

Andy Rooney: Just Tell Us The Truth Little Hope for Post-War Boom in US Economy U.S. Finds No Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq Red Cross: Iraq Wounded Too High to Count Counting the victims of Iraq war: One of the biggest and as yet unanswered questions about the war in Iraq is how many people have been killed.

"the ICRC is estimating that at the height of the bombardment on Sunday, they were receiving injured people at the rate of 100 an hour."

Red Cross: Iraq Wounded Too High to Count: Red Cross Says Number of Casualties in Baghdad Is So High That Hospitals Have Stopped Counting Up to 3,000 Iraqi fighters dead in show of force run in Baghdad 7-year-old Kurd: 'I like war': Kids forced to grow up quickly as rebel warriors in northern Iraq Anti-war marchers to confront Bush Nick Coleman: L'amour flagging in Little Falls Counting the victims of Iraq war Convoy Evacuating Russian Ambassador from Baghdad Comes Under Attack Disarmament in tatters: U.S. undermined arms control system that was already deadlocked Something terrible happened here. Something murderous One boy's war... bathed in blood of his family America's forces patrol the world The fight yet to come Cronies set to make a killing: Oliver Morgan and Ed Vulliamy on the chequered past of US firms in the frame First U.S. plane lands at Baghdad airport A morally hollow victory

Mary Riddell: No amount of PR will disguise the fact that this war is an outrage against humanity.

A fearful war to remember: We stand on the brink of a century of violence unless we heed the lessons of this conflict A very Roman lesson for today French march ditched as riots feared The battle for hearts and minds: Part five: Why Hollywood's scrabbling to cash in on America's new national icon California's schools to lay off 25,000 staff US accused of hypocrisy on human rights: State Department reveals double standards in annual global assessment of government treatment of citizens

The US State Department released its latest global report on human rights last week, inviting some ironic comment since the United States can now easily be perceived to have broken its own guidelines about the physical mistreatment of prisoners and suspension of judicial due process.

"Stress and duress" interrogation techniques -- condemned by the State Department as a form of torture when practised by others -- secret detentions, closed hearings and lack of access to lawyers or the courts have all been features of the Bush administration's "war on terror".

John Pilger: We see too much. We know too much. That's our best defence

We now glimpse the forbidden truths of the invasion of Iraq. A man cuddles the body of his in-fant daughter; her blood drenches them. A woman in black pursues a tank, her arms outstretched; all seven in her family are dead. An American Marine murders a woman because she happens to be standing next to a man in a uniform. "I'm sorry,'' he says, "but the chick got in the way.''

Covering this in a shroud of respectability has not been easy for George Bush and Tony Blair. Millions now know too much; the crime is all too evident. Tam Dalyell, Father of the House of Commons, a Labour MP for 41 years, says the Prime Minister is a war criminal and should be sent to The Hague. He is serious, because the prima facie case against Blair and Bush is beyond doubt.

Belgium restricts 'genocide law': Belgium's parliament has restricted the scope of a controversial law that allows foreign leaders to be tried in Belgian courts for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Belgium amends war crime legislation Belgium curtails war crimes law; may end suit against Sharon

Saturday, 5 April 2003

John Pilger: The War for Truth

WE HAD a great day," said Sgt Eric Schrumpf of the US Marines last Saturday. "We killed a lot of people."

He added: "We dropped a few civilians, but what do you do?" He said there were women standing near an Iraqi soldier, and one of them fell when he and other Marines opened fire. "I'm sorry," said Sgt Schrumpf, "but the chick was in the way".

For me, what is remarkable about this story is that I heard almost the same words 36 years ago when a US Marine sergeant told me he had killed a pregnant woman and a child because they had "got in the way".

That was in Vietnam, another country invaded by the US military machine, which left up to two million people dead and many more maimed and otherwise ruined. President Reagan called this "a noble cause". The other day, President Bush called the invasion of Iraq, another unprovoked and piratical act, "a noble cause".

Israeli Defense Forces shoot American peace activist in the face Surrounded by guns but no water, southern Iraqis lose faith in invaders Protests Continue in War's Second Week To Activists, Real Battles Are on Home Front Near Baghdad, U.S. troops encounter a 'remarkable' foe: 'Jihad' forces from Syria, Egypt, Marine officers say Britain Admits There May Be No WMD's in Iraq (AlJazeera.net, 05 April 2003) The Taliban are Back in Southeast Afghanistan Forecasters underrating weakness of US economy US Marines 'kill seven Iraqis after truck fails to stop' Will our `grunts' be discarded after war? Hoon is 'cruel' for claims on cluster bombs claims Baghdad Hospitals Stretched to their Limits: ICRC The American Portrayal of a War of Liberation Is Faltering Across the Arab World Blair and friends staring into war's political abyss A witness to bombs, death, forgiveness: Oakland grandmother wages peace in Iraq UN and Army at Odds as Troops Encourage Looting Poverty, Military Service Seem to Go Hand-in-Hand Turf War Rages in Washington Over Who Will Rule Iraq U.S. vanguard troops staying in city centre Saddam airport falls to coalition War of Words Erupts Over Progress of American Troops U.S. Says Republican Guard Not Cohesive Arabiya TV Hires Sacked Arnett for Iraq Coverage Rescued POW was shot, doctors tell family: Parents flying to Germany to be with daughter in hospital Former CIA analyst decries war with Iraq

"I'm telling you tonight, the amount of disinformation this administration has been putting out about this situation is enormous," Pelletiere told the attentive crowd. "The Bush administration has no regard for America's perception. The public opinion in the United States does not stand for much anymore."

For Bush, Time to Mend Economy Is Running Out The mood changes as the marine invasion gains momentum Rich Procter: 'Operation Cancelled Election 2004 is in play...'

The goal was to get America's mind off the abysmal economy they'd created, the festering corporate scandals in which they were eyeball-deep, and a 9-11 probe that threatened to reveal to the American people that the Bushies were at best sound asleep, and at worst criminally negligent.

Al-Jazeera ties halted Brauchli: Ashcroft has trouble with lawyerly ethics Accounts Vary on U.S. Move Into Baghdad Farmers plunder wealth of regime's remains: Oil plants may have survived war but not trashing by rural poor Where were the panicking crowds? Where were the food queues? Where were the empty streets? Exclusive: Just a Few Weeks Ago The toll of a war that has taken Allies to the gates of Baghdad

130,000 British and American troops are in action in Iraq from a total force of 250,000 in the Gulf. The Allies have launched 725 Tomahawk cruise missiles, flown 18,000 sorties, dropped 50 cluster bombs and discharged 12,000 precision-guided munitions. There have been an estimated 1,252 Iraqi civilian deaths, 57 Kurdish deaths and 5,103 civilian injuries. 88 Allied troops have been killed in the conflict, 27 of whom are British. At least 12 Allied soldiers are missing, 34 Allied soldiers have been killed in 'friendly fire' incidents or battlefield accidents. 9 journalists have been killed or are unaccounted for. There have been 2 suicide attacks on US troops, killing 7 soldiers. 8,023 Iraqi combatants have been taken prisoner of war. So far, 0 weapons of mass destruction have been found. 1,500,000 people in southern Iraq have no access to clean water. 200,000 children in southern Iraq are at risk of death from diarrhoea. 17,000,000 Iraqis are reliant on food aid, which has now been stopped. 600 oil wells and refineries are now under British and American control. 80bn dollars has been set aside by US Congress to meet the cost of war. A capital city of 5,000,000 people now stands between the Allied forces and their 1 objective: the removal of Saddam Hussein

Friday, 4 April 2003

Media Should Follow Up On Civilian Deaths: Journalist's evidence that U.S. bombed market ignored by U.S. press Contrary to policy, US forces occupy schools and church: Experts say the move, which began four days ago in a northern Iraqi town, may violate international law. Army chaplain offers baptisms, baths Activists protest Iraq war coverage Civilian Casualties 'Horrifying': Truck Delivered Dismembered Women, Children Jobless recovery at two-year mark: Payrolls down over two million since recession began US Arms Group Heads for Lisbon U.S. Needs U.N. OK on Iraq Oil Revenues Gun, Germs and Stall? Forces enter the 'Baghdad of heart' FBI Pulls Open Net For Wiretapping Samar's story: Samar Hussein was killed by a bomb that fell on dusty farmland miles outside Baghdad. But, as Kim Sengupta discovers, she is just one of this war's forgotten victims Senate Won't Debate Alaska Oil Drilling Jobs Show Worse-Than-Expected Drop Saddam was not always Washington's 'demon' Kerry Lashes Out at Republican Criticisms Hoon: 'No proof that Allied bombs hit marketplace' Complexities of war the minister chose to ignore Natick Labs protesters reject deal, will go to court 'Liberated' city where looters run wild and death stalks the streets Widespread Use of Cluster Bombs Sparks Outrage Iraq Army Uses Execution to Keep Discipline, Group Says Geoff Hoon, Robert Fisk and reporting the truth Robert Fisk: Iraqi Army's Defenses Seem Impenetrable The War Against Ourselves: An Interview with Major Doug Rokke Unreal city Nuns attack US weapons of mass destruction Atlantic Monthly Editor Killed in Iraq: Michael Kelly Was a Columnist for The Washington Post Blacks Show Biggest Decline in Support for War Compared with 1991: Other traditional Democratic groups also much less supportive of current Iraq war China and Russia eye new checks on US power Suddenly, American troops are at the gates of Baghdad IMF: Bubble May Burst for U.S. Housing Market War at home considered lost by us 'The wrong war at the wrong time,' former Mideast envoy maintains Businesses Cut 108,000 Jobs in March Outrage: The public chastising of Barbados and its neighbours by Otto Reich, United States special envoy to President George W. Bush for Western Hemispheric Initiatives, has earned a stinging rebuke from [Barbados] Government. Fears of a steeper decline for the dollar US military admits 'suspicious' powder is explosive U.S. Maneuvers to Avoid Debt Ceiling Tempe declares city sites havens for Muslim victims Allies 'seize most of Baghdad airport' Robert Fisk: Reports of airport assault premature How The Presstitutes Lie To America Charlie Reese: Ambivalence Of War

But as much as I love Lee and despise Sherman, Sherman was right. The glory of war is all moonshine. It is pure hell. That's why the American networks censor, without even being told, the ugly images of war. That was the case when they decided not to air the pictures of dead Americans that Iraqi television made available and that were broadcast globally by Al-Jazeera, the independent Arab television network.

That was the wrong decision. It is not the job of journalists to protect the sensitivities of people or to participate in American propaganda. Those ugly pictures of young Americans, their faces mutilated by bullets and shrapnel, are the true face of war. That's what war is: death, mutilation and destruction. Why hide from Americans what they wanted? The polls say 70 percent or more support war. Well, you should be willing to look at what you support -- all of it, not just a censored, prettified version of it.

1,400 Iraqis killed in battles 'Rolling' Victory Key to U.S. Endgame: Controlling Territory, Halting Resistance Are Aims; Surrender Not Expected

Thursday, 3 April 2003

Wonder-Working Power: George W. Bush, armed with the sharp sword of Christian fundamentalism, wades into battle George McGovern: The Reason Why Hawaii May Become First State to Publicly Oppose Patriot Act Ralph Nader: Puzzling Questions Arise from Bush's Campaign of Fear Panel: Comp Time OK Instead of Overtime The minute it's made up, you'll hear about it: Ah yes, that chemical weapons factory that turned out to be an all-night petrol garage Red Cross horrified by number of dead civilians Senator Clinton Confronted by Anti-War Protester

The unidentified white male approached Clinton as she was speaking to reporters about the amendment she has cosponsored with Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) to add $3 billion in aid to local governments as part of the president's emergency supplemental appropriations request.

"Senator, please look at my baby. There are babies in Iraq just like mine that are dying. I wish you could do something to stop it," the man said. "This is a terrible thing that's happening, and young people - too young to drink - our own American kids are dying, and I really wish you could do something to stop it."

Numerous security personnel from the United States Secret Service, the U.S. Capitol Police and other agencies, present to protect various officials who had spoken at the press conference, looked on as the exchange took place.

"Hopefully, we're going to have a decisive victory as soon as possible," Clinton responded. "And that will be a very good thing for the Iraqi people and their children."

Secret Service agents - assigned to protect Clinton as the wife of a former U.S. president - did not intervene in the confrontation or detain the man, who made no threats or threatening gestures. After addressing Clinton, he walked away, pushing his child in a stroller without speaking to any of the other elected officials present, including Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D).

Robert Fisk: Wailing children, the dead and the wounded Iraqis loot Ali's palace Blair Condemns U.S. Threats To Syria, Iran (IslamOnline.net, 3 April 2003) 20,000 Greeks To Go On Strike Over Iraq War Umm Qasr aid effort 'a shambles' British Consulate in Turkey Bombed No sniping, mortars, or tracer. And no sign of the dreaded Republican Guard Six Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli troops 28 arrested at Alliant while protesting depleted uranium weapons Ex-CIA director: U.S. faces 'World War IV'

He said the new war is actually against three enemies: the religious rulers of Iran, the "fascists" of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists like al Qaeda.

Two US aircraft shot down over Iraq There's No Business Like War Business U.N. Envoy Sees 'Real Potential' for N. Korea War I Miss America: Even Dick Nixon looks good to me now James Ridgeway's War Log: How the Rich Go to War: They Send the Poor to Fight STRATFOR intelligence report: Baghdad Show The Whole Truth US may face cruel laws of urban combat White House Is Revising Its War Message: Setbacks Providing Lessons In Iraqi Hospitals, Child War Casualties Mount Fourteen Large Explosions Rock Central Baghdad Senior Iraqi cleric may be 'neutral' on U.S. presence: Ayatollah bids Iraqis 'not get involved,' denies issuing fatwa, spokesman says Joe Bob's America: Free Geraldo! Eight anti-war protesters arrested Iraq Vote Relieves S. Korea's Roh, Angers Protesters Democracy Now! radio interview: Kesbeh family arrives in Jordan after being deported from Houston: we talk with them from a refugee camp where the family of nine now lives near penniless in a single bedroom Poodle Blair turns into terrier Blasts Heard Outside U.S. Military Base Near Tokyo U.S.: Iran will infiltrate 5 Iraqi cities Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee McCallum: Canadians can't detain Iraqis at sea: No mandate to intercept, capture, or transfer them U.S. Forces Launch Assault on Baghdad Airport At the gates of Baghdad Kerry says US needs its own 'regime change' Demand for news pushes web traffic to record levels Robert Fisk: Saddam's masters of concealment dig in, ready for battle Hundreds of US-backed Afghan troops battle suspected Taliban At least 15 killed by bomb at Philippines food stall

Wednesday, 02 April 2003

An Unnecessary War

Professor Katherine van Wormer of the University of Northern Iowa, an expert in addiction, says that Bush has many qualities of a ''dry drunk,'' a former alcoholic who stopped drinking but still thinks obsessively. She wrote:

'Bush's rigid, judgmental outlook comes across in virtually all his speeches. To fight evil, Bush is ready to take on the world, in almost a biblical sense. . . . Bush possesses the characteristics of the `dry drunk' in terms of his incoherence while speaking away from the script; his irritability with anyone (for example, Germany's Gerhard Schreoder) who dares disagree with him; and his dangerous obsessing about only one thing (Iraq). . . .

'Bush drank heavily for over 20 years until he made the decision to abstain at age 40. About this time, he became a `born-again Christian,' going as usual from one extreme to the other.''

Richard Blow, former executive editor of George magazine, said: ``Certainly the president is no intellectual. He received mediocre grades at college, he's not a big reader, he lacks curiosity and he resists discussion about abstract subjects. He couldn't last 10 minutes with Bill Clinton in a debate about public policy. . . . And yet, this is not to say that Bush is dumb. . . . He makes decisions and sticks to them because he isn't interested in gray areas. Possibly Bush finds complexity intimidating; sometimes his sarcastic talk seems to mask a kind of mental insecurity. . . . It is this thought process that has led Bush to war.''

Florida State University religion professor Leo Sandon wrote in The Tallahassee Democrat: 'There is a holy-war motif on the part of both the United States and Iraq. Our president believes that Saddam is evil and that the United States `has been chosen by God and commissioned by history to be a model in the world of justice.' Saddam has assured his people that God is on 'your side' and that 'your enemies will go to hell and be shamed.' . . . Religion played a major role in getting us here. . . . Remember the idolatry that is implicit in too closely identifying the will of God with national aims.''

Arundhati Roy: Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris and Euphrates

On the steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers scrawl colourful messages in childish handwriting: For Saddam, from the Fat Boy Posse. A building goes down. A marketplace. A home. A girl who loves a boy. A child who only ever wanted to play with his older brother's marbles.

[...]

Despite the pall of gloom that hangs over us today, I'd like to file a cautious plea for hope: in times of war, one wants one's weakest enemy at the helm of his forces. And President George W Bush is certainly that. Any other even averagely intelligent US president would have probably done the very same things, but would have managed to smoke-up the glass and confuse the opposition. Perhaps even carry the UN with him. Bush's tactless imprudence and his brazen belief that he can run the world with his riot squad, has done the opposite. He has achieved what writers, activists and scholars have striven to achieve for decades. He has exposed the ducts. He has placed on full public view the working parts, the nuts and bolts of the apocalyptic apparatus of the American empire.

Blacks March Against War In New York Spanish PM faces legal action for supporting Iraq war Arundhati Roy: Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris and Euphrates

How many children, in how many classrooms, over how many centuries, have hang-glided through the past, transported on the wings of these words? And now the bombs are falling, incinerating and humiliating that ancient civilisation

US leadership 'not viable' - Irish conventioneer

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS -- The US cannot sustain its current power, so Europe needs to look closely at its future security needs. That was the stark warning from a leading member of the Convention on the Future of Europe, on Tuesday.

Bikes not bombs: Antiwar movement achieves critical mass on the streets of San Francisco every weekday. Oregon Law Would Jail War Protesters as Terrorists Economist predicts world recession: Morgan Stanley economist cites SARS, war uncertainties as the main causes for pending recession. Michael T. Klare: The Generals' Revolt Children killed in US assault Is the Bush administration seeking "regime change" in Canada? Vets March and Teach in Washington John Sug: The flowering of fascism: Silencing dissent is extremist and un-American Washington's quiet war in Colombia: 3 more U.S. contractors die in operations vs. drugs, rebels Jordan's king says war is 'invasion' U.N. Fears U.S. Bomblets Resemble Food Packets Kucinich Takes to the House Floor to Call For An End to The War Beyond Baghdad: As the assault on the Iraqi capital looms, machinations about the country's future are already under way, writes Brian Whitaker We don't understand Iraqis, admits US officer: Regime not about to collapse, war planner concedes US Uses Cluster Bombs: Military Criticized for Type of Ordnance U.S. military warns foreign journalists in Iraq: 'Don't mess with my soldiers. Don't mess with them because they are trained like dogs to kill. And they will kill you...' Democracy Now!: "Until this administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer:" U.S. forces blow up Iraqi pipeline to Syria Iraq Denies Destruction Of Republican Guard Division Children killed and maimed in bomb attack on town

Terrifying film of women and children later emerged after Reuters and the Associated Press were permitted by the Iraqi authorities to take their cameras into the town. Their pictures -- the first by Western news agencies from the Iraqi side of the battlefront -- showed babies cut in half and children with amputation wounds, apparently caused by American shellfire and cluster bombs.

Much of the videotape was too terrible to show on television and the agencies' Baghdad editors felt able to send only a few minutes of a 21-minute tape that included a father holding out pieces of his baby and screaming "cowards, cowards'' into the camera. Two lorryloads of bodies, including women in flowered dresses, could be seen outside the Hilla hospital.

The proof: marketplace deaths were caused by a US missile First blows hit US economy: The war on Iraq is already beginning to affect the health of the US economy, research shows. Battle for Baghdad imminent Once reviled, Hussein now winning many Arabs' support Robert Fisk: Cows and armed guards on a college campus. Where is the truth amid all this subterfuge? US 'destroys Guard division' on road to Baghdad 'You've just killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough' Israel spending £27,000 a month on protection for lone settler

A Jewish settler living alone on a hill in the West Bank is being guarded by six Israeli soldiers. The cost is about £27,000 a month, an opposition member of parliament says.

Civilian deaths occur in war - but that is no excuse for needless belligerence Saddam fails to appear in person for TV statement Straw: UK will not attack Syria or Iran Independent links in full Charley Reese: What Is The Real Cost?

I wish I could be more optimistic, but we are seeing today really the only part of the American government -- the military -- that works well. We are diplomatically inept and far too naive as a people to be a successful empire. President Bush has risen above his level of competence, and there is not a single member of his administration anybody would call wise. I'm afraid electing Bush president was like handing a loaded gun to a 6-year-old.

Tuesday, 1 April 2003

'Terror' as the Ultimate Excuse Al Jazeera TV Lives on Fees That Fox, NBC, TF1 Pay for Footage How the Dissidents Fooled the Washington Hawks At Umm Qasr, the Southern Port "Secured" by the Marines, "It's Chaos" U.S. war priorities shift away from disarming Iraq Rep. Conyers Seeks Disclosures of Pentagon Advisers WorldCom Audit Fraud May Rise To $11 Billion Corporate America's Most Wanted Jeremy Mayer: Presidential Quarantine: Why Bush can't leave America -- and why that matters

George W. Bush is under an international quarantine. It is not security concerns that prevent him from going overseas, nor is it the unseemly appearance of leaving the White House while our troops fight along the Euphrates. Rather, Bush can't leave America because his policies are intensely unpopular in almost every country on earth.

The quiet Americans: Why corporate CEOs are afraid to publicly support the war Secrets and Lies Become Weapons in Basra Standoff Rumsfeld ignored advice on top Pentagon generals on Iraq: Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh on the war, Richard Perle's resignation, Gen. Barry McCaffrey & more. Are Scott, Carly and Larry risking time at Camp X-Ray? Rumsfeld's Design for War Criticized on the Battlefield Teach-in turns into anti-war forum Anti-war Italian Satellite Channel Launched Syria offers angry retort to Powell and Rumsfeld remarks Powell Hastily Heads for Meetings With European Leaders Conyers Letter to Rumsfeld: Requesting Financial Disclosure from Defense Policy Board UK troops sent home for questioning war - lawyer Annan says Arab nations want U.N. to work toward cease-fire in Iraq White House struggles to put Bush above TV For Israel Lobby Group, War Is Topic A, Quietly: At Meeting, Jerusalem's Contributions Are Highlighted UN Disarmament Commission calls for world order based on effective arms control and rejection of unilateral use of force UNFPA expresses concern over decline in resources for population, reproductive health Countries trade barbs over "selectivity" in human rights, debate justifications of war in iraq; Independent Expert on Extreme Poverty Presents Report to Commission on Human Rights

"The Commission on Human Rights carried on this afternoon with its annual debate over alleged abuses anywhere in the world, hearing a series of complaints that the discussion amounted to unfair finger-pointing by Western democracies at less-developed countries, and that the current war against Iraq made a mockery of any criticism of Iraq's domestic human rights record.

"Questioning or outright condemning the Commission's methods in scrutinizing country-specific human rights situations were India, Algeria, China, Costa Rica, and Malaysia. A Representative of Cuba, summing up the mood in a right of reply, asked whether there was any point in responding to the attacks launched by Western States against developing countries. Did these countries have the moral authority to judge the Third World, he asked. Why did Canada not speak about the situation of its indigenous people? The only thing the European Union (EU) was united about was its criticism of developing countries. Why didn't the EU condemn the war against Iraq? Double standards were the common denominator of the Western group, the Cuban Representative charged.

"Among those criticizing the war in Iraq were Cuba, Egypt, Malaysia, and Iraq itself. A Representative of Malaysia said it was indeed strange that while Iraq had been deemed guilty of human rights abuses for the past decade, a superpower, assisted by its allies, had taken it upon itself to "liberate" the people of Iraq from the shackles of their current status by waging an unjust war against those same people."

'You didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!': A journalist's account of the killing of a car full of Iraqi civilians by US soldiers differs widely from the official military version, says Brian Whitaker French plea as cemetery defaced: French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has pleaded for trans-Atlantic tolerance after graffiti was daubed on a British war cemetery in northern France. Iraq War Boosts Militants' Recruiting In Umm Qasr, fears of a second Bush betrayal are fuelled by bitter memories Non-Combat Losses Break Records Air Canada declares bankruptcy: Canada's largest airline has filed for bankruptcy but vowed to keep flying. The wisdom of fools? Air war weapon stockpile runs critically low: US needs to keep up supplies to back threat of new wars Baghdad Battle Uncharted Territory; Expect Blood Fox News, military reach deal on Rivera: Correspondent will leave Iraq rather than be expelled 'US may face Soviet-style misadventure in Iraq' Stephen R. Shalom: Iraq War Quiz Immanuel Wallerstein: "The End of the Beginning" MP urges troops to disobey orders Indonesia considers switch from dollar to euro Peter Arnett: This War Is Not Working Home of the free: Arnett joins Mirror Mirror Front Pages Allies breach Saddam's 'red line' American troops kill seven women and children at checkpoint U.S. Troops Kill Seven Iraqi Women, Children in Car German military historians predict Anglo-American defeat in Iraq Civilians shot dead at checkpoint Crowds greet US Marines who stormed town in the search for 'Chemical Ali' Robert Fisk: Iraq is littered with graves of Britons killed in another colonial war The damage we are doing to our relations with the Middle East could last a generation Afghan clerics call for new holy war Andrew Grice: Britain and US in crisis talks over North Korea Independent links in full Relief workers put at risk if army hands out food, Brussels warns 'We want this over in a minute. We just want a basic life and to drink good water' Can Saddam's desert be a Garden of Eden again?

When Azzam Alwash was a boy he went duck-hunting with his father on the Mesopotamian marshes. They took an old wooden boat and rowed south from his home in Nasiriyah into one of the largest wetlands in the world -- the land of the Marsh Arabs, which some believe is the origin of the story of the Garden of Eden.

This week, watching TV images of the battle for Nasiriyah from his new home in California, Alwash wonders at the different landscape. "I look at the pictures of the bridges over the Euphrates. All the land behind used to be endless bullrushes and reedbeds stretching for hundreds of miles. But now there is nothing green. It is totally gone," he says.

The Death Toll Powell flies out with a post-war warning for Syria and Iran NBC sacks veteran war reporter over Iraqi TV interview Campbell airs frustration at Iraqi strength in media war Cheney's company loses contract bid Robert Fisk: The monster of Baghdad is now the hero of Arabia Prisoners of War In the line of fire: two holy cities that the US dares not desecrate Dissent grows over war strategy: As militants try to 'Islamise' the conflict in Iraq, questions are being asked about how the war was planned and how it is being fought, writes Brian Whitaker Guardian: Iraq in pictures Hackers Plan Attacks To Protest Iraq War U.S. scours for Saddam-al-Qaida link: Special forces search Islamic group's camps in northern Iraq