Warwitness
Reports of the new world order as defined by the fascist dictator, AWOL deserter, miserable failure, George W. Bush.
Also exposing the liar, Tony Blair,
and the zionist fascist, Ariel Sharon.
All readers can now post comments on any of the stories in this blog by clicking on the link below.
Thursday, January 29, 2004
9/11: WHY STILL SO MANY QUESTIONS?
This is the text of an advertisement produced during the New Hampshire Democratic primaries by the familes of those killed on September 11, 2001
Welcome to the Stonewalled World of the 9/11 Victim Families
Where the Media Seldom Visits, the Truth Rarely Shines, and Unanswered Questions Never End
September 11, 2001 America suffered the greatest national security disaster in our history. The attacks left thousands dead and millions grieving. The economy was gravely wounded, the country paralyzed with fear. Flags were waved, wars were launched, and harsh laws swiftly passed. Today 866 days later America is a very different place, facing fiscal ruin, endless war, and the politics of dread. Perhaps the only thing that remains the same is our people's ongoing ignorance about what really happened that day Most of us have since moved on and stopped asking. The victims' families have not.
These days when people question our government's policies the spreading wars, ballooning debt, the shrinking Bill of Rights, they often meet the same response: "Have you forgotten 9-11?" as if its shocking memories should explain and justify it all.
The 9/11 victim families experienced the deepest pain and take the question two steps further, "Have you forgotten to ask what really happened and if it had to happen at all?" They too vow to "Never Forget," but they frame their promises in far more detail.
+We shall never forget that in 2001 our leaders were warned over 20 times by eleven foreign governments of an imminent AI Qaeda attack, but then seemed to totally ignore them or somehow forget about it.
+We shall never forget that on August 6, 2001 our own CIA briefed the President and staff with an urgent report entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." but they did nothing to protect or warn us.
+We shall never forget that after hearing the second Tower was hit and that "America is under attack," our Commander in Chief continued to sit and chat in a children's reading class for twenty minutes while people were dying in New York and more hijackings were underway.
+We shall never forget that no fighters were routinely scrambled to protect New York or our capitol even though the FAA and NORAD knew within minutes that four planes were out of control.
+We shall never forget that only Saudi royalty and Bin Laden family members were permitted to fly in our country during the national air lock- down, and were all allowed to leave the US without any serious questioning.
+We shall never forget that unknown speculators reaped tens of millions short selling United and American Airlines stocks in the days before the attacks. (Nor should we forget that they remain unknown simply because the SEC refuses to tell us who they are.)
+We shall never forget that no 9-11 air traffic controllers, NORAD staff, or pilots from the "combat-ready air squadrons" around DC have ever been searched out or interviewed by our free and fearless press. We shall never forget FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley recounting how her pre-9/11 attempts to investigate AI Qaeda were incessantly quashed and how the chief quasher was promoted after the attacks. We shall never forget that NO ONE has ever lost their job or been held accountable for the failures of 9-11.
+We shall never forget that after Derry NH 9-11 widow Ellen Mariani bravely filed a 62-page RICO racketeering suit against the White House for 9/11 malfeasance and conspiracy last November, only three small gutsy newspapers in the entire nation ever dared to report on her case. (One was the Manchester Union Leader. May we gratefully remember that too.)
No, Let Us Never Forget What Happened on 9-11 or How Little We Still Really Know...
To educate yourself a bit, visit www.911 independentcommission.org, the official website of the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission. To give you a sense of their concerns and frustration we offer a small sampling of other still outstanding questions below
• On September 9, 2001 the President reportedly had a war plan on his desk to go into Afghanistan. What was the origin of this plan and why was it prepared before the September 11 th attacks?
• What negotiations was our government party to with the Taliban regarding the trans-Afghan pipeline before 9/11 ? What is the state of the pipeline now? Who will own it, run it, protect it, profit from it?
• Why did Donald Rumsfeld state that Saddam Hussein was involved immediately after the September 11th attacks? Who called Wesley Clark on 9/11 and asked him to implicate Saddam?
• In the months before 9/11, many foreign governments reportedly sent the US warnings about imminent terrorist attacks. Who sent those warnings, who received them, and what was then done?
• Why were Saudi nationals suddenly given preferential immigration treatment above all other nations and allowed fast-track visas without the normally required interviews? Why were the hijackers' incomplete and erroneous visa applications ever accepted at all?
• In March 2001 our intelligence services were told to back off investigating Saudis and AI Qaeda. Who gave those orders and why?
• Why did the FAA's and NORAD's standard operating procedures totally breakdown on 9/11 after they had scrambled interceptors 67 different times the previous year? Why were no jets sent up to guard DC from neighboring Andrews and Anacostia Air Bases, and why did planes from distant bases fly at less than a third of their top speed?
How Many of These Mysteries Have You Ever Seen Addressed in the US Corporate Media?
Indeed, if it weren't for independent newspapers, alternative media and Internet access to the foreign press, few of us would ever hear there are still huge outstanding questions about 9/11 at all.
For more vital self-defense information please see: www.911citizenswatch.org, www.unansweredquestions.org, www.cooperativeresearch.org, www.septembereleventh.org, www.911independentcommission.org, www.911forthetruth.com, Best printed resource: The War on Freedom by Nafeez M. Ahmed (See: www.progressivedailynews.com/WarOnFreedom/)
Welcome to the Stonewalled World of the 9/11 Victim Families
Where the Media Seldom Visits, the Truth Rarely Shines, and Unanswered Questions Never End
September 11, 2001 America suffered the greatest national security disaster in our history. The attacks left thousands dead and millions grieving. The economy was gravely wounded, the country paralyzed with fear. Flags were waved, wars were launched, and harsh laws swiftly passed. Today 866 days later America is a very different place, facing fiscal ruin, endless war, and the politics of dread. Perhaps the only thing that remains the same is our people's ongoing ignorance about what really happened that day Most of us have since moved on and stopped asking. The victims' families have not.
These days when people question our government's policies the spreading wars, ballooning debt, the shrinking Bill of Rights, they often meet the same response: "Have you forgotten 9-11?" as if its shocking memories should explain and justify it all.
The 9/11 victim families experienced the deepest pain and take the question two steps further, "Have you forgotten to ask what really happened and if it had to happen at all?" They too vow to "Never Forget," but they frame their promises in far more detail.
+We shall never forget that in 2001 our leaders were warned over 20 times by eleven foreign governments of an imminent AI Qaeda attack, but then seemed to totally ignore them or somehow forget about it.
+We shall never forget that on August 6, 2001 our own CIA briefed the President and staff with an urgent report entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." but they did nothing to protect or warn us.
+We shall never forget that after hearing the second Tower was hit and that "America is under attack," our Commander in Chief continued to sit and chat in a children's reading class for twenty minutes while people were dying in New York and more hijackings were underway.
+We shall never forget that no fighters were routinely scrambled to protect New York or our capitol even though the FAA and NORAD knew within minutes that four planes were out of control.
+We shall never forget that only Saudi royalty and Bin Laden family members were permitted to fly in our country during the national air lock- down, and were all allowed to leave the US without any serious questioning.
+We shall never forget that unknown speculators reaped tens of millions short selling United and American Airlines stocks in the days before the attacks. (Nor should we forget that they remain unknown simply because the SEC refuses to tell us who they are.)
+We shall never forget that no 9-11 air traffic controllers, NORAD staff, or pilots from the "combat-ready air squadrons" around DC have ever been searched out or interviewed by our free and fearless press. We shall never forget FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley recounting how her pre-9/11 attempts to investigate AI Qaeda were incessantly quashed and how the chief quasher was promoted after the attacks. We shall never forget that NO ONE has ever lost their job or been held accountable for the failures of 9-11.
+We shall never forget that after Derry NH 9-11 widow Ellen Mariani bravely filed a 62-page RICO racketeering suit against the White House for 9/11 malfeasance and conspiracy last November, only three small gutsy newspapers in the entire nation ever dared to report on her case. (One was the Manchester Union Leader. May we gratefully remember that too.)
No, Let Us Never Forget What Happened on 9-11 or How Little We Still Really Know...
To educate yourself a bit, visit www.911 independentcommission.org, the official website of the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission. To give you a sense of their concerns and frustration we offer a small sampling of other still outstanding questions below
• On September 9, 2001 the President reportedly had a war plan on his desk to go into Afghanistan. What was the origin of this plan and why was it prepared before the September 11 th attacks?
• What negotiations was our government party to with the Taliban regarding the trans-Afghan pipeline before 9/11 ? What is the state of the pipeline now? Who will own it, run it, protect it, profit from it?
• Why did Donald Rumsfeld state that Saddam Hussein was involved immediately after the September 11th attacks? Who called Wesley Clark on 9/11 and asked him to implicate Saddam?
• In the months before 9/11, many foreign governments reportedly sent the US warnings about imminent terrorist attacks. Who sent those warnings, who received them, and what was then done?
• Why were Saudi nationals suddenly given preferential immigration treatment above all other nations and allowed fast-track visas without the normally required interviews? Why were the hijackers' incomplete and erroneous visa applications ever accepted at all?
• In March 2001 our intelligence services were told to back off investigating Saudis and AI Qaeda. Who gave those orders and why?
• Why did the FAA's and NORAD's standard operating procedures totally breakdown on 9/11 after they had scrambled interceptors 67 different times the previous year? Why were no jets sent up to guard DC from neighboring Andrews and Anacostia Air Bases, and why did planes from distant bases fly at less than a third of their top speed?
How Many of These Mysteries Have You Ever Seen Addressed in the US Corporate Media?
Indeed, if it weren't for independent newspapers, alternative media and Internet access to the foreign press, few of us would ever hear there are still huge outstanding questions about 9/11 at all.
For more vital self-defense information please see: www.911citizenswatch.org, www.unansweredquestions.org, www.cooperativeresearch.org, www.septembereleventh.org, www.911independentcommission.org, www.911forthetruth.com, Best printed resource: The War on Freedom by Nafeez M. Ahmed (See: www.progressivedailynews.com/WarOnFreedom/)
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Key points: The Hutton report
Here is a BBC summary of the major points in Lord Hutton's report into events surrounding the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly.
ON DR KELLY'S DEATH
Dr Kelly took his own life and no third party was involved
No-one involved could have contemplated that Dr Kelly would take his own life as a result of the pressures he felt
Dr Kelly was not an easy man to help or to whom to give advice
Can not be certain of factors that drove Dr Kelly to suicide
Dr Kelly probably killed himself because of extreme loss of self-esteem and would have seen himself as being publicly disgraced
Dr Kelly would have felt his job was at risk and that his life's work could be undermined
ON ANDREW GILLIGAN'S REPORT
Andrew Gilligan's report that Downing Street "probably knew" the 45-minute claim in its Iraq dossier was wrong was a grave allegation and attacked the integrity of the government and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC)
The 45-minute claim in the Iraq dossier was based on a report received by the intelligence services that they believed to be reliable
Whether or not that source was subsequently shown to be unreliable, the central allegation made by Andrew Gilligan in his BBC report was unfounded
The allegation that the reason the claim was not in the original draft of the dossier was because it was only from one source and the intelligence service did not believe it to be true, was also unfounded
It is not possible to reach a definite conclusion as to what Dr Kelly said to Mr Gilligan
Satisfied Dr Kelly did not say to Mr Gilligan that the government knew the 45-minute claim was wrong or that intelligence agencies did not believe it was necessarily true
ON THE BBC
Editorial system at BBC was defective in allowing Mr Gilligan's report to go to air without editors seeing a script
BBC management failed to make an examination of Mr Gilligan's notes of the interview with Dr Kelly
There was a defect in the BBC's management system relating to the way complaints were investigated
BBC governors failed to investigate Mr Gilligan's actions properly
ON THE PREPARATION OF THE DOSSIER
The Prime Minister's desire to have as compelling a dossier as possible may have subconsciously influenced the JIC to make the language of the dossier stronger than they would otherwise have done
The JIC and its chairman, John Scarlett, were concerned to ensure that the contents of the dossier were consistent with the intelligence available to the JIC
The dossier could be said to be "sexed up" if this term is taken to mean it was drafted to make the case against Saddam as strong as intelligence permitted
But in the context of Mr Gilligan's report, "sexed up" would be understood to mean the dossier was embellished with items of intelligence known or believed to be false or unreliable. This allegation is unfounded
ON THE NAMING OF DR KELLY
There was no underhand government strategy to name Dr Kelly
It was necessary to have Dr Kelly before the foreign affairs committee
If details that a civil servant had come forward to volunteer he had met Mr Gilligan had been withheld, the government would have been accused of a cover-up
The Government's belief that Dr Kelly's name was bound to come out was well founded
MoD did take some steps to help Dr Kelly once his name was made public
The MoD was at fault in the way it dealt with Dr Kelly once his name was made public
MoD failed to tell Dr Kelly his name would be made public
Dr Kelly's exposure to press interest was only one of the issues putting him under stress
OTHER ISSUES
The publishing of leaked extracts of the report in the Sun newspaper was deplorable
Investigative and legal action is being considered over the leak
Final submissions to the inquiry from parties involved are being made public
The full report
Here is a BBC summary of the major points in Lord Hutton's report into events surrounding the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly.
ON DR KELLY'S DEATH
Dr Kelly took his own life and no third party was involved
No-one involved could have contemplated that Dr Kelly would take his own life as a result of the pressures he felt
Dr Kelly was not an easy man to help or to whom to give advice
Can not be certain of factors that drove Dr Kelly to suicide
Dr Kelly probably killed himself because of extreme loss of self-esteem and would have seen himself as being publicly disgraced
Dr Kelly would have felt his job was at risk and that his life's work could be undermined
ON ANDREW GILLIGAN'S REPORT
Andrew Gilligan's report that Downing Street "probably knew" the 45-minute claim in its Iraq dossier was wrong was a grave allegation and attacked the integrity of the government and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC)
The 45-minute claim in the Iraq dossier was based on a report received by the intelligence services that they believed to be reliable
Whether or not that source was subsequently shown to be unreliable, the central allegation made by Andrew Gilligan in his BBC report was unfounded
The allegation that the reason the claim was not in the original draft of the dossier was because it was only from one source and the intelligence service did not believe it to be true, was also unfounded
It is not possible to reach a definite conclusion as to what Dr Kelly said to Mr Gilligan
Satisfied Dr Kelly did not say to Mr Gilligan that the government knew the 45-minute claim was wrong or that intelligence agencies did not believe it was necessarily true
ON THE BBC
Editorial system at BBC was defective in allowing Mr Gilligan's report to go to air without editors seeing a script
BBC management failed to make an examination of Mr Gilligan's notes of the interview with Dr Kelly
There was a defect in the BBC's management system relating to the way complaints were investigated
BBC governors failed to investigate Mr Gilligan's actions properly
ON THE PREPARATION OF THE DOSSIER
The Prime Minister's desire to have as compelling a dossier as possible may have subconsciously influenced the JIC to make the language of the dossier stronger than they would otherwise have done
The JIC and its chairman, John Scarlett, were concerned to ensure that the contents of the dossier were consistent with the intelligence available to the JIC
The dossier could be said to be "sexed up" if this term is taken to mean it was drafted to make the case against Saddam as strong as intelligence permitted
But in the context of Mr Gilligan's report, "sexed up" would be understood to mean the dossier was embellished with items of intelligence known or believed to be false or unreliable. This allegation is unfounded
ON THE NAMING OF DR KELLY
There was no underhand government strategy to name Dr Kelly
It was necessary to have Dr Kelly before the foreign affairs committee
If details that a civil servant had come forward to volunteer he had met Mr Gilligan had been withheld, the government would have been accused of a cover-up
The Government's belief that Dr Kelly's name was bound to come out was well founded
MoD did take some steps to help Dr Kelly once his name was made public
The MoD was at fault in the way it dealt with Dr Kelly once his name was made public
MoD failed to tell Dr Kelly his name would be made public
Dr Kelly's exposure to press interest was only one of the issues putting him under stress
OTHER ISSUES
The publishing of leaked extracts of the report in the Sun newspaper was deplorable
Investigative and legal action is being considered over the leak
Final submissions to the inquiry from parties involved are being made public
The full report
Blair's phyrric victories
Once (or rather twice) again. Tony B-liar demonstrates his mastery of spin-doctoring. Both on tuition fees and the Hutton report, he has managed to move the focus away from the main issues and on to peripheral matters.
On tuition fees, he shifted the focus from the principle of saying one thing (no tuition fees) in the New Labour election manifesto and then doing the opposite, a betrayal of the trust (again!) ofthe electorate. However much the Labour "rebels" may achieve during the committee stage of the bill, they have been diverted from the main founding principle of Labour education policy, that it should be free to all.
On the death of David Kelly, again, we have been diverted from the main issue, New Labour's lies in taking us to war with a sovereign country, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, to consideration of the detail of who leaked Kelly's name to the media and how the issue can be used to destroy the reputation of a respected and trustworthy BBC journalist.
According to today's Sun, B-liar is "vindicated" by Hutton. Well, since the enquiry was set up specifically in order to obfuscate the real guilt over the Iraq aggression, it matters not whether its conclusions are a whitewash. The whole enquiry was a whitewash, and in view of its restrictive terms of reference, could have been nothing else.
However, before B-liar starts hugging himself with glee, it may have been a Phyrric victory. Consider the opposite scenario: what if the tuition fees vote had gone against him? In that case, B-liar would have called an immediate vote of confidence, which undoubtedly he would have won, because no one's going to vote publicly to humiliate their leader and give comfort to the Tories. He could then have said: OK, game over, let's get on with our "reforming" agenda.
Instead, he's delivered himself up as a hostage to fortune. The aggro is going to continue, on and on, until he is finally forced to say "oh sod it", and accept whatever lucrative sinecure Bush must have promised him to secure his compliance in a strategy that had nothing to do with world peace, and everything to do with the continued plans of an unelected US dictator in the pockets of global imperialism to consolidate his fascistic rule over his fellow Americans.
On tuition fees, he shifted the focus from the principle of saying one thing (no tuition fees) in the New Labour election manifesto and then doing the opposite, a betrayal of the trust (again!) ofthe electorate. However much the Labour "rebels" may achieve during the committee stage of the bill, they have been diverted from the main founding principle of Labour education policy, that it should be free to all.
On the death of David Kelly, again, we have been diverted from the main issue, New Labour's lies in taking us to war with a sovereign country, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, to consideration of the detail of who leaked Kelly's name to the media and how the issue can be used to destroy the reputation of a respected and trustworthy BBC journalist.
According to today's Sun, B-liar is "vindicated" by Hutton. Well, since the enquiry was set up specifically in order to obfuscate the real guilt over the Iraq aggression, it matters not whether its conclusions are a whitewash. The whole enquiry was a whitewash, and in view of its restrictive terms of reference, could have been nothing else.
However, before B-liar starts hugging himself with glee, it may have been a Phyrric victory. Consider the opposite scenario: what if the tuition fees vote had gone against him? In that case, B-liar would have called an immediate vote of confidence, which undoubtedly he would have won, because no one's going to vote publicly to humiliate their leader and give comfort to the Tories. He could then have said: OK, game over, let's get on with our "reforming" agenda.
Instead, he's delivered himself up as a hostage to fortune. The aggro is going to continue, on and on, until he is finally forced to say "oh sod it", and accept whatever lucrative sinecure Bush must have promised him to secure his compliance in a strategy that had nothing to do with world peace, and everything to do with the continued plans of an unelected US dictator in the pockets of global imperialism to consolidate his fascistic rule over his fellow Americans.
MichaelMoore: Answers please, Mr. Bush!
Michael Moore fired his opening salvo against George Bush and his rightwing cronies with his bestseller Stupid White Men. Now the president is in his sights again. In this second extract from his new book he asks his old enemy seven awkward questions...
"I have seven questions for you, Mr Bush. I ask them on behalf of the 3,000 who died that September day, and I ask them on behalf of the American people. We seek no revenge against you. We want only to know what happened, and what can be done to bring the murderers to justice, so we can prevent any future attacks on our citizens.
1. Is it true that the Bin Ladens have had business relations with you and your family off and on for the past 25 years?
Most Americans might be surprised to learn that you and your father have known the Bin Ladens for a long time. What, exactly, is the extent of this relationship, Mr Bush? Are you close personal friends, or simply on-again, off-again business associates? Salem bin Laden - Osama's brother - first started coming to Texas in 1973 and later bought some land, built himself a house, and created Bin Laden Aviation at the San Antonio airfield.
The Bin Ladens are one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia. Their huge construction firm virtually built the country, from the roads and power plants to the skyscrapers and government buildings. They built some of the airstrips America used in your dad's Gulf war. Billionaires many times over, they soon began investing in other ventures around the world, including the US.
They have extensive business dealings with Citigroup, General Electric, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and the Fremont Group. According to the New Yorker, the bin Laden family also owns a part of Microsoft and the airline and defense giant Boeing. They have donated $2m to your alma mater, Harvard University, and tens of thousands to the Middle East Policy Council, a think-tank headed by a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles Freeman. In addition to the property they own in Texas, they also have real estate in Florida and Massachusetts. In short, they have their hands deep in our pants. Unfortunately, as you know, Mr Bush, Salem bin Laden died in a plane crash in Texas in 1988. Salem's brothers - there are around 50 of them, including Osama - continued to run the family companies and investments. After leaving office, your father became a highly paid consultant for a company known as the Carlyle Group - one of the nation's largest defense contractors. One of the investors in the Carlyle Group - to the tune of at least $2m - was none other than the Bin Laden family. Until 1994, you headed a company called CaterAir, which was owned by the Carlyle Group.
After September 11, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal both ran stories pointing out this connection. Your first response, Mr. Bush, was to ignore it. Then your army of pundits went into spin control. They said, we can't paint these Bin Ladens with the same brush we use for Osama. They have disowned Osama! They have nothing to do with him! These are the good Bin Ladens. And then the video footage came out. It showed a number of these "good" Bin Ladens - including Osama's mother, a sister and two brothers - with Osama at his son's wedding just six and a half months before September 11. It was no secret to the CIA that Osama bin Laden had access to his family fortune (his share s estimated to be at least $30m), and the Bin Ladens, as well as other Saudis, kept Osama and his group, al-Qaida, well funded.
You've gotten a free ride from the media, though they know everything I have just written to be the truth. They seem unwilling or afraid to ask you a simple question, Mr Bush: WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? In case you don't understand just how bizarre the media's silence is regarding the Bush-Bin Laden connections, let me draw an analogy to how the press or Congress might have handled something like this if the same shoe had been on the Clinton foot. If, after the terrorist attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, it had been revealed that President Bill Clinton and his family had financial dealings with Timothy McVeigh's family, what do you think your Republican party and the media would have done with that one?
Do you think at least a couple of questions might have been asked, such as, "What is that all about?" Be honest, you know the answer. They would have asked more than a couple of questions. They would have skinned Clinton alive and thrown what was left of his carcass in Guantanamo Bay.
2. What is the 'special relationship' between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family?
Mr Bush, the Bin Ladens are not the only Saudis with whom you and your family have a close personal relationship. The entire royal family seems to be indebted to you - or is it the other way round?
The number one supplier of oil to the US is the nation of Saudi Arabia, possessor of the largest known reserves of oil in the world. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, it was really the Saudis next door who felt threatened, and it was your father, George Bush I, who came to their rescue. The Saudis have never forgotten this. Haifa, wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the US, says that your mother and father "are like my mother and father. I know if ever I needed anything I could go to them". A major chunk of the American economy is built on Saudi money. They have a trillion dollars invested in our stock market and another trillion dollars in our banks. If they chose suddenly to remove that money, our corporations and financial institutions would be sent into a tailspin, causing an economic crisis the likes of which has never been seen. Couple that with the fact that the 1.5m barrels of oil we need daily from the Saudis could also vanish on a mere royal whim, and we begin to see how not only you, but all of us, are dependent on the House of Saud. George, is this good for our national security, our homeland security? Who is it good for? You? Pops?
After meeting with the Saudi crown prince in April 2002, you happily told us that the two of you had "established a strong personal bond" and that you "spent a lot of time alone". Were you trying to reassure us? Or just flaunt your friendship with a group of rulers who rival the Taliban in their suppression of human rights? Why the double standard?
3. Who attacked the US on September 11 - a guy on dialysis from a cave in Afghanistan, or your friend, Saudi Arabia?
I'm sorry, Mr Bush, but something doesn't make sense. You got us all repeating by rote that it was Osama bin Laden who was responsible for the attack on the United States on September 11. Even I was doing it. But then I started hearing strange stories about Osama's kidneys.
Suddenly, I don't know who or what to trust. How could a guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, hooked up to dialysis, have directed and overseen the actions of 19 terrorists for two years in the US then plotted so perfectly the hijacking of four planes and then guaranteed that three of them would end up precisely on their targets? How did he organise, communicate, control and supervise this kind of massive attack? With two cans and a string?
The headlines blared it the first day and they blare it the same way now two years later: "Terrorists Attack United States." Terrorists. I have wondered about this word for some time, so, George, let me ask you a question: if 15 of the 19 hijackers had been North Korean, rather than Saudi, and they had killed 3,000 people, do you think the headline the next day might have read, "NORTH KOREA ATTACKS UNITED STATES"? Of course it would. Or if it had been 15 Iranians or 15 Libyans or 15 Cubans, I think the conventional wisdom would have been, "IRAN [or LIBYA or CUBA] ATTACKS AMERICA!" Yet, when it comes to September 11, have you ever seen the headline, have you ever heard a newscaster, has one of your appointees ever uttered these words: "Saudi Arabia attacked the United States"?
Of course you haven't. And so the question must - must - be asked: why not? Why, when Congress released its own investigation into September 11, did you, Mr. Bush, censor out 28 pages that deal with the Saudis' role in the attack?
I would like to throw out a possibility here: what if September 11 was not a "terrorist" attack but, rather, a military attack against the United States? George, apparently you were a pilot once - how hard is it to hit a five-storey building at more than 500 miles an hour? The Pentagon is only five stories high. At 500 miles an hour, had the pilots been off by just a hair, they'd have been in the river. You do not get this skilled at learning how to fly jumbo jets by being taught on a video game machine at some dipshit flight training school in Arizona. You learn to do this in the air force. Someone's air force.
The Saudi air force? What if these weren't wacko terrorists, but military pilots who signed on to a suicide mission? What if they were doing this at the behest of either the Saudi government or certain disgruntled members of the Saudi royal family?
The House of Saud, according to Robert Baer's book Sleeping With the Devil, is full of them. So, did certain factions within the Saudi royal family execute the attack on September 11? Were these pilots trained by the Saudis? Why are you so busy protecting the Saudis when you should be protecting us?
4. Why did you allow a private Saudi jet to fly around the US in the days after September 11 and pick up members of the Bin Laden family and fly them out of the country without a proper investigation by the FBI?
Private jets, under the supervision of the Saudi government - and with your approval - were allowed to fly around the skies of America, when travelling by air was forbidden, and pick up 24 members of the Bin Laden family and take them first to a "secret assembly point in Texas". They then flew to Washington DC, and then on to Boston. Finally, on September 18, they were all flown to Paris, out of the reach of any US officials. They never went through any serious interrogation. This is mind-boggling. Might it have been possible that at least one of the 24 Bin Ladens would have possibly known something? While thousands were stranded and could not fly, if you could prove you were a close relative of the biggest mass murderer in US history, you got a free trip to gay Paree! Why, Mr. Bush, was this allowed to happen?
5. Why are you protecting the Second Amendment rights of potential terrorists?
Mr. Bush, in the days after September 11, the FBI began running a check to see if any of the 186 "suspects" the Feds had rounded up in the first five days after the attack had purchased any guns in the months leading up to September 11 (two of them had). When your attorney general, John Ashcroft, heard about this, he immediately shut down the search. He told the FBI that the background check files could not be used for such a search and these files were only to be used at the time of a purchase of a gun. Mr. Bush, you can't be serious! Is your administration really so gun nutty and so deep in the pocket of the National Rifle Association? I truly love how you have rounded up hundreds of people, grabbing them off the streets without notice, throwing them in prison cells, unable to contact lawyers or family, and then, for the most part, shipped them out of the country on mere immigration charges. You can waive their Fourth Amendment protection from unlawful search and seizure, their Sixth Amendment rights to an open trial by a jury of their peers and the right to counsel, and their First Amendment rights to speak, assemble, dissent and practice their religion. You believe you have the right to just trash all these rights, but when it comes to the Second Amendment right to own an AK- 47 - oh no! That right they can have - and you will defend their right to have it. Who, Mr. Bush, is really aiding the terrorists here? 6. Were you aware that, while you were governor of Texas, the Taliban travelled to Texas to meet with your oil and gas company friends?
According to the BBC, the Taliban came to Texas while you were governor to meet with Unocal, the huge oil and energy giant, to discuss Unocal's desire to build a natural-gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan through Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and into Pakistan.
Mr. Bush, what was this all about?
"Houston, we have a problem," apparently never crossed your mind, even though the Taliban were perhaps the most repressive fundamentalist regime on the planet.
What role exactly did you play in the Unocal meetings with the Taliban? According to various reports, representatives of your administration met with the Taliban or conveyed messages to them during the summer of 2001. What were those messages, Mr. Bush? Were you discussing their offer to hand over Bin Laden? Were you threatening them with use of force? Were you talking to them about a pipeline?
7. What exactly was that look on your face in the Florida classroom on the morning of September 11 when your chief of staff told you, 'America is under attack'?
On the morning of September 11, you took a jog on a golf course and then headed to Booker elementary school in Florida to read to little children. You arrived at the school after the first plane had hit the north tower in New York City. You entered the classroom around 9am and the second plane hit the south tower at 9.03am. Just a few minutes later, as you were sitting in front of the class of kids, your chief of staff, Andrew Card, entered the room and whispered in your ear. Card was apparently telling you about the second plane and about us being "under attack".
And it was at that very moment that your face went into a distant glaze, not quite a blank look, but one that seemed partially paralysed. No emotion was shown. And then ... you just sat there. You sat there for another seven minutes or so doing nothing.
George, what were you thinking? What did that look on your face mean? Were you thinking you should have taken reports the CIA had given you the month before more seriously? You had been told al-Qaida was planning attacks in the United States and that planes would possibly be used. Or were you just scared shitless?
Or maybe you were just thinking, "I did not want this job in the first place! This was supposed to be Jeb's job; he was the chosen one! Why me? Why me, daddy?"
Or ... maybe, just maybe, you were sitting there in that classroom chair thinking about your Saudi friends - both the royals and the Bin Ladens. People you knew all too well that might have been up to no good. Would questions be asked? Would suspicions arise? Would the Democrats have the guts to dig into your family's past with these people (no, don't worry, never a chance of that!)? Would the truth ever come out?
And while I'm at it ...
Danger - multi-millionaires at large...I've always thought it was interesting that the mass murder of September 11 was allegedly committed by a multi-millionaire. We always say it was committed by a "terrorist" or by an "Islamic fundamentalist" or an "Arab", but we never define Osama by his rightful title: multi- millionaire.
Why have we never read a headline saying, "3,000 Killed by multi-millionaire"? It would be a correct headline, would it not?
Osama bin Laden has assets totalling at least $30m; he is a multi-millionaire. So why isn't that the way we see this person, as a rich fuck who kills people? Why didn't that become the reason for profiling potential terrorists? Instead of rounding up suspicious Arabs, why don't we say, "Oh my God, a multi-millionaire killed 3,000 people! Round up the multi- millionaires! Throw them all in jail! No charges! No trials! Deport the millionaires!!"
Keeping America safe
The US Patriot Act and the enemy combatant designation are just a hint of what Bush has in store for us. Consider a brainchild of Admiral John Poindexter, an Iran-contra perp, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa): the "policy analysis market", which the government was to put up on a website.
Apparently, Poindexter reasoned that commodity futures markets worked so well for Bush's buddies at Enron that he could adapt it to predicting terrorism.
Individuals would be able to invest in hypothetical futures contracts involving the likelihood of such events as "an assassination of Yasser Arafat" or "the overthrow of Jordan's King Abdullah II". Other futures would be available based on the economic health, civil stability and military involvement in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey. All oil-related countries. The proposed market lasted about one day after it was revealed to the Senate.
Senators Wyden and Dorgan protested the Pentagon's $8m request, and Wyden said, "Make-believe markets trading in possibilities that turn the stomach hardly seem like a sensible next step to take with taxpayers money in the war on terror."
As a result of the uproar over this, Poindexter was asked to step down.
Giving Saddam the key to Detroit
In Las Vegas, an armored fighting vehicle was used to crush French yogurt, French bread, bottles of French wine, Perrier, Grey Goose vodka, photos of Chirac, a guide to Paris and, best of all, photocopies of the French flag. France was the perfect country to pick on. If you're a cable news company, why spend priceless reporting time on investigating whether Iraq really does have weapons of mass destruction when you can do a story about how rotten the French are?
Fox News led the charge of pinning Chirac to Saddam Hussein, showing old footage of the two men together. It didn't matter that the meeting had taken place in the 1970s. The media didn't bother to run (over and over again) the footage from when Saddam was presented with a key to the city of Detroit, or the film from the early 1980s of Donald Rumsfeld visiting Saddam in Baghdad to discuss the progress of the Iran-Iraq war.
The footage of Rumsfeld embracing Saddam apparently wasn't worth running on a continuous loop. Or even once. OK, maybe once. On Oprah."
© Michael Moore, 2003
Michael Moore fired his opening salvo against George Bush and his rightwing cronies with his bestseller Stupid White Men. Now the president is in his sights again. In this second extract from his new book he asks his old enemy seven awkward questions...
"I have seven questions for you, Mr Bush. I ask them on behalf of the 3,000 who died that September day, and I ask them on behalf of the American people. We seek no revenge against you. We want only to know what happened, and what can be done to bring the murderers to justice, so we can prevent any future attacks on our citizens.
1. Is it true that the Bin Ladens have had business relations with you and your family off and on for the past 25 years?
Most Americans might be surprised to learn that you and your father have known the Bin Ladens for a long time. What, exactly, is the extent of this relationship, Mr Bush? Are you close personal friends, or simply on-again, off-again business associates? Salem bin Laden - Osama's brother - first started coming to Texas in 1973 and later bought some land, built himself a house, and created Bin Laden Aviation at the San Antonio airfield.
The Bin Ladens are one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia. Their huge construction firm virtually built the country, from the roads and power plants to the skyscrapers and government buildings. They built some of the airstrips America used in your dad's Gulf war. Billionaires many times over, they soon began investing in other ventures around the world, including the US.
They have extensive business dealings with Citigroup, General Electric, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and the Fremont Group. According to the New Yorker, the bin Laden family also owns a part of Microsoft and the airline and defense giant Boeing. They have donated $2m to your alma mater, Harvard University, and tens of thousands to the Middle East Policy Council, a think-tank headed by a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles Freeman. In addition to the property they own in Texas, they also have real estate in Florida and Massachusetts. In short, they have their hands deep in our pants. Unfortunately, as you know, Mr Bush, Salem bin Laden died in a plane crash in Texas in 1988. Salem's brothers - there are around 50 of them, including Osama - continued to run the family companies and investments. After leaving office, your father became a highly paid consultant for a company known as the Carlyle Group - one of the nation's largest defense contractors. One of the investors in the Carlyle Group - to the tune of at least $2m - was none other than the Bin Laden family. Until 1994, you headed a company called CaterAir, which was owned by the Carlyle Group.
After September 11, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal both ran stories pointing out this connection. Your first response, Mr. Bush, was to ignore it. Then your army of pundits went into spin control. They said, we can't paint these Bin Ladens with the same brush we use for Osama. They have disowned Osama! They have nothing to do with him! These are the good Bin Ladens. And then the video footage came out. It showed a number of these "good" Bin Ladens - including Osama's mother, a sister and two brothers - with Osama at his son's wedding just six and a half months before September 11. It was no secret to the CIA that Osama bin Laden had access to his family fortune (his share s estimated to be at least $30m), and the Bin Ladens, as well as other Saudis, kept Osama and his group, al-Qaida, well funded.
You've gotten a free ride from the media, though they know everything I have just written to be the truth. They seem unwilling or afraid to ask you a simple question, Mr Bush: WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? In case you don't understand just how bizarre the media's silence is regarding the Bush-Bin Laden connections, let me draw an analogy to how the press or Congress might have handled something like this if the same shoe had been on the Clinton foot. If, after the terrorist attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, it had been revealed that President Bill Clinton and his family had financial dealings with Timothy McVeigh's family, what do you think your Republican party and the media would have done with that one?
Do you think at least a couple of questions might have been asked, such as, "What is that all about?" Be honest, you know the answer. They would have asked more than a couple of questions. They would have skinned Clinton alive and thrown what was left of his carcass in Guantanamo Bay.
2. What is the 'special relationship' between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family?
Mr Bush, the Bin Ladens are not the only Saudis with whom you and your family have a close personal relationship. The entire royal family seems to be indebted to you - or is it the other way round?
The number one supplier of oil to the US is the nation of Saudi Arabia, possessor of the largest known reserves of oil in the world. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, it was really the Saudis next door who felt threatened, and it was your father, George Bush I, who came to their rescue. The Saudis have never forgotten this. Haifa, wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the US, says that your mother and father "are like my mother and father. I know if ever I needed anything I could go to them". A major chunk of the American economy is built on Saudi money. They have a trillion dollars invested in our stock market and another trillion dollars in our banks. If they chose suddenly to remove that money, our corporations and financial institutions would be sent into a tailspin, causing an economic crisis the likes of which has never been seen. Couple that with the fact that the 1.5m barrels of oil we need daily from the Saudis could also vanish on a mere royal whim, and we begin to see how not only you, but all of us, are dependent on the House of Saud. George, is this good for our national security, our homeland security? Who is it good for? You? Pops?
After meeting with the Saudi crown prince in April 2002, you happily told us that the two of you had "established a strong personal bond" and that you "spent a lot of time alone". Were you trying to reassure us? Or just flaunt your friendship with a group of rulers who rival the Taliban in their suppression of human rights? Why the double standard?
3. Who attacked the US on September 11 - a guy on dialysis from a cave in Afghanistan, or your friend, Saudi Arabia?
I'm sorry, Mr Bush, but something doesn't make sense. You got us all repeating by rote that it was Osama bin Laden who was responsible for the attack on the United States on September 11. Even I was doing it. But then I started hearing strange stories about Osama's kidneys.
Suddenly, I don't know who or what to trust. How could a guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, hooked up to dialysis, have directed and overseen the actions of 19 terrorists for two years in the US then plotted so perfectly the hijacking of four planes and then guaranteed that three of them would end up precisely on their targets? How did he organise, communicate, control and supervise this kind of massive attack? With two cans and a string?
The headlines blared it the first day and they blare it the same way now two years later: "Terrorists Attack United States." Terrorists. I have wondered about this word for some time, so, George, let me ask you a question: if 15 of the 19 hijackers had been North Korean, rather than Saudi, and they had killed 3,000 people, do you think the headline the next day might have read, "NORTH KOREA ATTACKS UNITED STATES"? Of course it would. Or if it had been 15 Iranians or 15 Libyans or 15 Cubans, I think the conventional wisdom would have been, "IRAN [or LIBYA or CUBA] ATTACKS AMERICA!" Yet, when it comes to September 11, have you ever seen the headline, have you ever heard a newscaster, has one of your appointees ever uttered these words: "Saudi Arabia attacked the United States"?
Of course you haven't. And so the question must - must - be asked: why not? Why, when Congress released its own investigation into September 11, did you, Mr. Bush, censor out 28 pages that deal with the Saudis' role in the attack?
I would like to throw out a possibility here: what if September 11 was not a "terrorist" attack but, rather, a military attack against the United States? George, apparently you were a pilot once - how hard is it to hit a five-storey building at more than 500 miles an hour? The Pentagon is only five stories high. At 500 miles an hour, had the pilots been off by just a hair, they'd have been in the river. You do not get this skilled at learning how to fly jumbo jets by being taught on a video game machine at some dipshit flight training school in Arizona. You learn to do this in the air force. Someone's air force.
The Saudi air force? What if these weren't wacko terrorists, but military pilots who signed on to a suicide mission? What if they were doing this at the behest of either the Saudi government or certain disgruntled members of the Saudi royal family?
The House of Saud, according to Robert Baer's book Sleeping With the Devil, is full of them. So, did certain factions within the Saudi royal family execute the attack on September 11? Were these pilots trained by the Saudis? Why are you so busy protecting the Saudis when you should be protecting us?
4. Why did you allow a private Saudi jet to fly around the US in the days after September 11 and pick up members of the Bin Laden family and fly them out of the country without a proper investigation by the FBI?
Private jets, under the supervision of the Saudi government - and with your approval - were allowed to fly around the skies of America, when travelling by air was forbidden, and pick up 24 members of the Bin Laden family and take them first to a "secret assembly point in Texas". They then flew to Washington DC, and then on to Boston. Finally, on September 18, they were all flown to Paris, out of the reach of any US officials. They never went through any serious interrogation. This is mind-boggling. Might it have been possible that at least one of the 24 Bin Ladens would have possibly known something? While thousands were stranded and could not fly, if you could prove you were a close relative of the biggest mass murderer in US history, you got a free trip to gay Paree! Why, Mr. Bush, was this allowed to happen?
5. Why are you protecting the Second Amendment rights of potential terrorists?
Mr. Bush, in the days after September 11, the FBI began running a check to see if any of the 186 "suspects" the Feds had rounded up in the first five days after the attack had purchased any guns in the months leading up to September 11 (two of them had). When your attorney general, John Ashcroft, heard about this, he immediately shut down the search. He told the FBI that the background check files could not be used for such a search and these files were only to be used at the time of a purchase of a gun. Mr. Bush, you can't be serious! Is your administration really so gun nutty and so deep in the pocket of the National Rifle Association? I truly love how you have rounded up hundreds of people, grabbing them off the streets without notice, throwing them in prison cells, unable to contact lawyers or family, and then, for the most part, shipped them out of the country on mere immigration charges. You can waive their Fourth Amendment protection from unlawful search and seizure, their Sixth Amendment rights to an open trial by a jury of their peers and the right to counsel, and their First Amendment rights to speak, assemble, dissent and practice their religion. You believe you have the right to just trash all these rights, but when it comes to the Second Amendment right to own an AK- 47 - oh no! That right they can have - and you will defend their right to have it. Who, Mr. Bush, is really aiding the terrorists here? 6. Were you aware that, while you were governor of Texas, the Taliban travelled to Texas to meet with your oil and gas company friends?
According to the BBC, the Taliban came to Texas while you were governor to meet with Unocal, the huge oil and energy giant, to discuss Unocal's desire to build a natural-gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan through Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and into Pakistan.
Mr. Bush, what was this all about?
"Houston, we have a problem," apparently never crossed your mind, even though the Taliban were perhaps the most repressive fundamentalist regime on the planet.
What role exactly did you play in the Unocal meetings with the Taliban? According to various reports, representatives of your administration met with the Taliban or conveyed messages to them during the summer of 2001. What were those messages, Mr. Bush? Were you discussing their offer to hand over Bin Laden? Were you threatening them with use of force? Were you talking to them about a pipeline?
7. What exactly was that look on your face in the Florida classroom on the morning of September 11 when your chief of staff told you, 'America is under attack'?
On the morning of September 11, you took a jog on a golf course and then headed to Booker elementary school in Florida to read to little children. You arrived at the school after the first plane had hit the north tower in New York City. You entered the classroom around 9am and the second plane hit the south tower at 9.03am. Just a few minutes later, as you were sitting in front of the class of kids, your chief of staff, Andrew Card, entered the room and whispered in your ear. Card was apparently telling you about the second plane and about us being "under attack".
And it was at that very moment that your face went into a distant glaze, not quite a blank look, but one that seemed partially paralysed. No emotion was shown. And then ... you just sat there. You sat there for another seven minutes or so doing nothing.
George, what were you thinking? What did that look on your face mean? Were you thinking you should have taken reports the CIA had given you the month before more seriously? You had been told al-Qaida was planning attacks in the United States and that planes would possibly be used. Or were you just scared shitless?
Or maybe you were just thinking, "I did not want this job in the first place! This was supposed to be Jeb's job; he was the chosen one! Why me? Why me, daddy?"
Or ... maybe, just maybe, you were sitting there in that classroom chair thinking about your Saudi friends - both the royals and the Bin Ladens. People you knew all too well that might have been up to no good. Would questions be asked? Would suspicions arise? Would the Democrats have the guts to dig into your family's past with these people (no, don't worry, never a chance of that!)? Would the truth ever come out?
And while I'm at it ...
Danger - multi-millionaires at large...I've always thought it was interesting that the mass murder of September 11 was allegedly committed by a multi-millionaire. We always say it was committed by a "terrorist" or by an "Islamic fundamentalist" or an "Arab", but we never define Osama by his rightful title: multi- millionaire.
Why have we never read a headline saying, "3,000 Killed by multi-millionaire"? It would be a correct headline, would it not?
Osama bin Laden has assets totalling at least $30m; he is a multi-millionaire. So why isn't that the way we see this person, as a rich fuck who kills people? Why didn't that become the reason for profiling potential terrorists? Instead of rounding up suspicious Arabs, why don't we say, "Oh my God, a multi-millionaire killed 3,000 people! Round up the multi- millionaires! Throw them all in jail! No charges! No trials! Deport the millionaires!!"
Keeping America safe
The US Patriot Act and the enemy combatant designation are just a hint of what Bush has in store for us. Consider a brainchild of Admiral John Poindexter, an Iran-contra perp, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa): the "policy analysis market", which the government was to put up on a website.
Apparently, Poindexter reasoned that commodity futures markets worked so well for Bush's buddies at Enron that he could adapt it to predicting terrorism.
Individuals would be able to invest in hypothetical futures contracts involving the likelihood of such events as "an assassination of Yasser Arafat" or "the overthrow of Jordan's King Abdullah II". Other futures would be available based on the economic health, civil stability and military involvement in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey. All oil-related countries. The proposed market lasted about one day after it was revealed to the Senate.
Senators Wyden and Dorgan protested the Pentagon's $8m request, and Wyden said, "Make-believe markets trading in possibilities that turn the stomach hardly seem like a sensible next step to take with taxpayers money in the war on terror."
As a result of the uproar over this, Poindexter was asked to step down.
Giving Saddam the key to Detroit
In Las Vegas, an armored fighting vehicle was used to crush French yogurt, French bread, bottles of French wine, Perrier, Grey Goose vodka, photos of Chirac, a guide to Paris and, best of all, photocopies of the French flag. France was the perfect country to pick on. If you're a cable news company, why spend priceless reporting time on investigating whether Iraq really does have weapons of mass destruction when you can do a story about how rotten the French are?
Fox News led the charge of pinning Chirac to Saddam Hussein, showing old footage of the two men together. It didn't matter that the meeting had taken place in the 1970s. The media didn't bother to run (over and over again) the footage from when Saddam was presented with a key to the city of Detroit, or the film from the early 1980s of Donald Rumsfeld visiting Saddam in Baghdad to discuss the progress of the Iran-Iraq war.
The footage of Rumsfeld embracing Saddam apparently wasn't worth running on a continuous loop. Or even once. OK, maybe once. On Oprah."
© Michael Moore, 2003
Human Shield Faith gets 3 months for 'trespassing'
Sarasota resident and peace activist Faith Fippinger was sentenced Monday to three months in federal prison for trespassing on federal property in Columbus, Ga.
FULL REPORT
Sarasota resident and peace activist Faith Fippinger was sentenced Monday to three months in federal prison for trespassing on federal property in Columbus, Ga.
FULL REPORT
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
New York Times Op-Ed Contributor: One Iraqi, One Vote?
In calling the capture of Saddam Hussein "crucial to the rise of a free Iraq," President Bush forgot the old saw about being careful what you wish for. Six weeks later, the administration seems shocked by the effect that event had on the country's Shiite community, which makes up 60 percent of the population.
No longer worried about the return of Saddam Hussein, the Shiites -led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani - are focusing on the second part of their much-shouted slogan, "No, no to Saddam; no, no to America." And the Bush team seems unable to stomach the idea that democracy in Iraq will mean Shiites assuming power, and most likely developing close ties with Shiite-dominated Iran.
FULL REPORT
In calling the capture of Saddam Hussein "crucial to the rise of a free Iraq," President Bush forgot the old saw about being careful what you wish for. Six weeks later, the administration seems shocked by the effect that event had on the country's Shiite community, which makes up 60 percent of the population.
No longer worried about the return of Saddam Hussein, the Shiites -led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani - are focusing on the second part of their much-shouted slogan, "No, no to Saddam; no, no to America." And the Bush team seems unable to stomach the idea that democracy in Iraq will mean Shiites assuming power, and most likely developing close ties with Shiite-dominated Iran.
FULL REPORT
New York Times Op-Ed: Congress should curtail the many serious excesses of Patriot Act
"President Bush is making an oddly timed push for renewal of the Patriot Act. Since important provisions of the law do not expire until the end of 2005, his real reason for raising the issue last week in his State of the Union address seemed to be political: to create the appearance of being tough on terrorism, which is central to his re-election campaign, while undercutting the chorus of critics, spanning the political spectrum, who are calling the act a threat to civil liberties. Mr. Bush had it exactly backward. Rather than rushing to renew the law, Congress should curtail its many serious excesses."
The Politics of Security
The Politics of Security
New York Times: Citing Free Speech, Judge Voids Part of Antiterror Act
"For the first time, a federal judge has struck down part of the sweeping antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, joining other courts that have challenged integral parts of the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism.
"In Los Angeles, the judge, Audrey B. Collins of Federal District Court, said in a decision made public on Monday that a provision in the law banning certain types of support for terrorist groups was so vague that it risked running afoul of the First Amendment."
Full report
"In Los Angeles, the judge, Audrey B. Collins of Federal District Court, said in a decision made public on Monday that a provision in the law banning certain types of support for terrorist groups was so vague that it risked running afoul of the First Amendment."
Full report
HEBRON: The fence beside our door
by Art Gish
Just over a year ago, on Christmas day, 2002, Israeli soldiers constructed a high fence and gate on our street right beside our door in Hebron, cutting off access to Shuhada Street for us and everyone else in the Chicken Market.
We then had to walk two blocks north to get to Shuhada Street and come back down the street to walk south on that street from our apartment
Members of our Christian Peacemaker Team wondered what the meaning of that barrier was in the larger picture of what was happening in Hebron.
Now we have a clearer understanding. That tall fence and gate outside our door is part of the wall being built all around the West Bank, walling in (imprisoning) most of the Palestinian people into small areas (cantons or reservations), and at the same time taking about half of the West Bank. The Palestinian land on the outside of the wall is becoming Israeli land.
Slowly, the streets on the other side of the wall in Hebron becoming available for Jews only. Settlers here say those streets have now been "purified".
Increasingly Israeli soldiers are stopping us on the street and asking us to identify our religion. How we answer that question determines which streets we are allowed to walk on.
Ever since first coming to Hebron in 1995, I have been disturbed by all the evidences of racism embedded in the occupation. Apartheid, the separation of peoples, is becoming more and more stark. This year I have little contact with Israeli settlers, because we are separated by the fence, the wall.
As a believer in the oneness of God, the oneness of creation, the oneness of humanity, I find that apartheid wall deeply offensive. It contradicts everything I hold dear and sacred. It must be stopped. But sadly, it is being subsidized by U.S. taxpayers via the loans and aid the U.S. gives Israel.. I wonder why.
People have built many walls of separation throughout history. Every one of them has fallen, and every one of them now looks foolish. This wall will also come down someday.
I wonder, however, how many more people on both sides will have to die before we learn that we must either live together or die together.
by Art Gish
Just over a year ago, on Christmas day, 2002, Israeli soldiers constructed a high fence and gate on our street right beside our door in Hebron, cutting off access to Shuhada Street for us and everyone else in the Chicken Market.
We then had to walk two blocks north to get to Shuhada Street and come back down the street to walk south on that street from our apartment
Members of our Christian Peacemaker Team wondered what the meaning of that barrier was in the larger picture of what was happening in Hebron.
Now we have a clearer understanding. That tall fence and gate outside our door is part of the wall being built all around the West Bank, walling in (imprisoning) most of the Palestinian people into small areas (cantons or reservations), and at the same time taking about half of the West Bank. The Palestinian land on the outside of the wall is becoming Israeli land.
Slowly, the streets on the other side of the wall in Hebron becoming available for Jews only. Settlers here say those streets have now been "purified".
Increasingly Israeli soldiers are stopping us on the street and asking us to identify our religion. How we answer that question determines which streets we are allowed to walk on.
Ever since first coming to Hebron in 1995, I have been disturbed by all the evidences of racism embedded in the occupation. Apartheid, the separation of peoples, is becoming more and more stark. This year I have little contact with Israeli settlers, because we are separated by the fence, the wall.
As a believer in the oneness of God, the oneness of creation, the oneness of humanity, I find that apartheid wall deeply offensive. It contradicts everything I hold dear and sacred. It must be stopped. But sadly, it is being subsidized by U.S. taxpayers via the loans and aid the U.S. gives Israel.. I wonder why.
People have built many walls of separation throughout history. Every one of them has fallen, and every one of them now looks foolish. This wall will also come down someday.
I wonder, however, how many more people on both sides will have to die before we learn that we must either live together or die together.
Sunday, January 25, 2004
ISM witness from Palestine: Tanks back in Nablus
By Zeiad Faied (Member of the International Solidarity Movement)
Nablus remained relatively quiet until Thursday and the repair work to the roads and pavements continued. Two years ago tanks and bulldozers tore up the road between Askar refuge camp and Balata camp leaving the road impassable, the municipality leveled the road off somewhat between my first and second visits and cars could get along the road slowing down for the worst bits. At the moment they are resurfacing this road with new ultra smooth black tarmac. On the way up to Nablus from Balata they have once again started to repair the pavements relaying the curbstones and resetting the brick cobblestones. All this had been repaired once since 2002 but was destroyed by the tanks during the recent invasion. The people's belief that there will be a continuation of this invasion was proved true on Thursday and some of this work was undone once more.
People are rebuilding their lives here continually. From the engineer who has just ordered smelting coke from Italy for his foundry hoping to complete an order, to the poor families in the old city who have done their best to make their homes habitable again after the IDF severely damaged them earlier this month. In Balata they have cleared the rubble from one of the houses that was demolished by the army last month, and are now laying new foundations, everywhere you look people are continuing with their lives.
But the tanks were back in Nablus yesterday and managed to damage some of the new curbs as they passed. By the time we arrived from Balata a tank was at a crossroads near the center and many jeeps were roaming about the place causing the usual clashes. We were told that there were people in a Mosque in the Obaidah area near the university and the soldiers had them surrounded. When we arrived there we found that a school had also been held for some time but the children had now been let out. The whole area was cordoned off by jeeps and an armored military bulldozer was present.
It turned out that a wanted man who had taken part in the resistance fighting during April 2002 in the old city was now hiding in the area. We decided to get in to the area to find out what was going on. Obaidah is on the side of the mountain with the main streets running parallel and one above the other. Steep flights of steps join the streets. We made our way to a street overlooking the cordoned off area and then descended some steps and used back lanes until we were just above the house that the soldiers had surrounded. We started asking questions and it turned out that the wanted man was Emad Akkobeah who was 28 or 30 years old, and the house that was surrounded belonged to an uncle; the man's own family house was next door.
We then spent most of the day watching, Earlier in the day the soldiers had been saying over the loud speakers, "Emad we have come for you, we know you are a nice boy and don't want to cause your family any problems so come out and we will take you away." They said this and other things in a mocking style as if they were talking to a child. Two other wanted men had been executed by the soldiers only last week in a nearby district of Nablus after they had been taken in to custody. Eventually they got the mother to speak over the loud speaker. Apparently at first she told him not to come out and then later said that she gave him to God. Later they were playing a recording of her asking him to give himself up. During this time there were many bursts of gunfire and sound bombs.
During the afternoon we could hear the bulldozer moving about and eventually we could hear the sound of things breaking. We moved to a new position from where we could see the bulldozer was knocking down the front of the house by driving into it with his bucket. The bucket could reach up to the second floor and he soon stove in all the first and second floor walls of this 4 story house. There was then a lot of heavy gun fire directed at the house.
Things remained quiet after this and then a dog emerged from the occupied house below us and entered the holes in the front wall. The dog came out after a while and was sent back in again. When he emerged for the second time heavily armed soldiers accompanied by dogs then entered. We counted 12 men and three dogs. After some time it became obvious that there was no one in the house, and that the soldiers were laying explosives in the house.
Eight families live in the house and they had not been allowed to take any of their possessions with them when the soldiers made them leave. All the adjacent houses were still occupied except the Akkobeah family who had been arrested and who we later saw in hand cuffs. We then move again to another vantage point where we could see what was going on but was far enough away to be safe for us out in the open when the house was blown up.
The explosion when it came was immense, the walls of the house erupting outwards before being engulfed by huge clouds of choking dust that was sent high in to the sky. The shock wave from it damaged all the adjacent houses severely making them uninhabitable. It also blew windows out many streets away. We had to retreat until the worst of the dust settled. Once we could see again there was no sign of the house only a heap of ruin.
A crowd started to form and then there was a shout and the wanted man emerged and went off accompanied by the crowd, he obviously had not been in the house. Some people had been hurt by the explosion and were evacuated by ambulance. The devastation to the adjacent houses was extensive with walls being knocked down and whole window frames and doors being blown inwards destroying all the furniture and blowing the windows out at the other side of the house.
When we returned today cleaning up was well under way with two JCB's clearing the rubble, electricians making the electrics safe and people trying to make the surrounding houses weather proof again with plastic sheeting over the windows.
This casual demolishing of everything that these families own only breeds more resentment and loathing of the Israelis. Thirty families were affected by this demolition and about 100 people made homeless, some of them permanently. Not one person had done anything that was against international law, the wanted man was perfectly in his right to defend his city from the invading army. The occupying army has no right to demolish property belonging to civilians. This continual breaking of The Hague and Geneva Conventions must be challenged, collective punishment is not allowed.
By Zeiad Faied (Member of the International Solidarity Movement)
Nablus remained relatively quiet until Thursday and the repair work to the roads and pavements continued. Two years ago tanks and bulldozers tore up the road between Askar refuge camp and Balata camp leaving the road impassable, the municipality leveled the road off somewhat between my first and second visits and cars could get along the road slowing down for the worst bits. At the moment they are resurfacing this road with new ultra smooth black tarmac. On the way up to Nablus from Balata they have once again started to repair the pavements relaying the curbstones and resetting the brick cobblestones. All this had been repaired once since 2002 but was destroyed by the tanks during the recent invasion. The people's belief that there will be a continuation of this invasion was proved true on Thursday and some of this work was undone once more.
People are rebuilding their lives here continually. From the engineer who has just ordered smelting coke from Italy for his foundry hoping to complete an order, to the poor families in the old city who have done their best to make their homes habitable again after the IDF severely damaged them earlier this month. In Balata they have cleared the rubble from one of the houses that was demolished by the army last month, and are now laying new foundations, everywhere you look people are continuing with their lives.
But the tanks were back in Nablus yesterday and managed to damage some of the new curbs as they passed. By the time we arrived from Balata a tank was at a crossroads near the center and many jeeps were roaming about the place causing the usual clashes. We were told that there were people in a Mosque in the Obaidah area near the university and the soldiers had them surrounded. When we arrived there we found that a school had also been held for some time but the children had now been let out. The whole area was cordoned off by jeeps and an armored military bulldozer was present.
It turned out that a wanted man who had taken part in the resistance fighting during April 2002 in the old city was now hiding in the area. We decided to get in to the area to find out what was going on. Obaidah is on the side of the mountain with the main streets running parallel and one above the other. Steep flights of steps join the streets. We made our way to a street overlooking the cordoned off area and then descended some steps and used back lanes until we were just above the house that the soldiers had surrounded. We started asking questions and it turned out that the wanted man was Emad Akkobeah who was 28 or 30 years old, and the house that was surrounded belonged to an uncle; the man's own family house was next door.
We then spent most of the day watching, Earlier in the day the soldiers had been saying over the loud speakers, "Emad we have come for you, we know you are a nice boy and don't want to cause your family any problems so come out and we will take you away." They said this and other things in a mocking style as if they were talking to a child. Two other wanted men had been executed by the soldiers only last week in a nearby district of Nablus after they had been taken in to custody. Eventually they got the mother to speak over the loud speaker. Apparently at first she told him not to come out and then later said that she gave him to God. Later they were playing a recording of her asking him to give himself up. During this time there were many bursts of gunfire and sound bombs.
During the afternoon we could hear the bulldozer moving about and eventually we could hear the sound of things breaking. We moved to a new position from where we could see the bulldozer was knocking down the front of the house by driving into it with his bucket. The bucket could reach up to the second floor and he soon stove in all the first and second floor walls of this 4 story house. There was then a lot of heavy gun fire directed at the house.
Things remained quiet after this and then a dog emerged from the occupied house below us and entered the holes in the front wall. The dog came out after a while and was sent back in again. When he emerged for the second time heavily armed soldiers accompanied by dogs then entered. We counted 12 men and three dogs. After some time it became obvious that there was no one in the house, and that the soldiers were laying explosives in the house.
Eight families live in the house and they had not been allowed to take any of their possessions with them when the soldiers made them leave. All the adjacent houses were still occupied except the Akkobeah family who had been arrested and who we later saw in hand cuffs. We then move again to another vantage point where we could see what was going on but was far enough away to be safe for us out in the open when the house was blown up.
The explosion when it came was immense, the walls of the house erupting outwards before being engulfed by huge clouds of choking dust that was sent high in to the sky. The shock wave from it damaged all the adjacent houses severely making them uninhabitable. It also blew windows out many streets away. We had to retreat until the worst of the dust settled. Once we could see again there was no sign of the house only a heap of ruin.
A crowd started to form and then there was a shout and the wanted man emerged and went off accompanied by the crowd, he obviously had not been in the house. Some people had been hurt by the explosion and were evacuated by ambulance. The devastation to the adjacent houses was extensive with walls being knocked down and whole window frames and doors being blown inwards destroying all the furniture and blowing the windows out at the other side of the house.
When we returned today cleaning up was well under way with two JCB's clearing the rubble, electricians making the electrics safe and people trying to make the surrounding houses weather proof again with plastic sheeting over the windows.
This casual demolishing of everything that these families own only breeds more resentment and loathing of the Israelis. Thirty families were affected by this demolition and about 100 people made homeless, some of them permanently. Not one person had done anything that was against international law, the wanted man was perfectly in his right to defend his city from the invading army. The occupying army has no right to demolish property belonging to civilians. This continual breaking of The Hague and Geneva Conventions must be challenged, collective punishment is not allowed.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
From: PCR [mailto:PCR]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 9:25 AM
To: rapprochementpalestine@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [rapprochement] Balata camp and Beit Furiq
To:
Prime Minister Tony Blair (letter)
Foreigh Secretary Jack Straw
Keith Hill MP
Foreign Office Advisor Mike O'Brien
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
Personal Rep of Sec Gen to UN in Palestine Terje Rod Larsen
Cc:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Spokesperson of the Israeli Prime Minister
Spokesperson of the Israeli Defence Ministry
UK Ambassador to Israel Sherard Cowper-Coles
Dear Sirs,
I am horrified to read reports of the current seige being undertaken by the Israeli army against the civilian communities of Nablus, Balata camp and Beit Furiq.
Nablus has been under permanent curfew for 10 consecutive days and Balata refugee camp for 18 days. No food or medical supplies are being allowed into Balata, with every entrance sealed by the army and there are signs of starvation. Medical relief teams are being obstructed and at times completely prevented from passing into the camp. Beit Furiq has been under intermittent and severe closure for many months. This is in direct contradiction to the recent speeches of Prime Minister Sharon who claims the army has been easing the closure of the occupied Palestinian territories.
In Balata on 3Jan 2 men and a 15 yr old boy were also shot by Israeli snipers. All 3 were shot in the back, there are no reports of Palestinian fire at the time. The Israeli government should be pressed for a full independent investigation into their unlawful killings. Their names are Amjad Bilal Masri (15 yrs), Amer Kathym Arafat and Rouhi Hazem Shouman.
Earlier last week the Israeli military shot and injured 4 people who were walking alongside a funeral for an old woman who had passed away. No demonstrations or political events were taking place in or around the funeral. I urge you to demand the Israeli government conduct a full inquiry into the use of lethal ammunition against an unarmed funeral procession.
In Nablus old city the 400 year old Abdelhadi Palace that houses 75 women who have no place to live and no sources of income (widows etc) has in the past week been seized by the Israeli military, the women forced onto the streets at 03:30 hours the night it was overrun. The ancient building is now under threat of demolitian, the women homeless. It is imperative the women be allowed to return to this charitable institution immediately with no threat of soldiers' harrassment again.
And let's not forget that during the so called period of "relative calm" in Israel/Palestine when no Israeli citizens died in attacks, from 4 Oct to the end of December the Israeli army was responsible for killing 117 Palestinian civilians, including 23 children and and they demolished 500 families' homes. This should be loudly condemned by all governments and the United Nations. The selective condemnation by the British governments of Israeli deaths vs Palestinian deaths is blatant racism and is a disgrace to our nation.
I urge you to apply every and immediate pressure on the Israeli government to cease its seige of these residential areas and to end their many terrorising tactics against the civilian Palestinian population with immediate effect.
Yours respectfully,
Alison Keefe
London, UK
Jack Straw residentclerk@fco.gov.uk
Mike O'Brien mike.o'brien@fco.gov.uk
Kofi Annan ecu@un.org
Terje Rod Larsen Personal Rep of Sec Gen to UN in Palestine unsco@palnet.com
Ariel Sharon webmaster@pmo.gov.il
Spokesperson of the Israeli Prime Minister dover@pmo.gov.il
Spokesperson of the Israeli Defence Ministry info@mail.idf.il
UK Ambassador to Israel Sherard Cowper-Coles webmaster.telaviv@fco.gov.uk
To visit this group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rapprochementpalestine/
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 9:25 AM
To: rapprochementpalestine@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [rapprochement] Balata camp and Beit Furiq
To:
Prime Minister Tony Blair (letter)
Foreigh Secretary Jack Straw
Keith Hill MP
Foreign Office Advisor Mike O'Brien
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
Personal Rep of Sec Gen to UN in Palestine Terje Rod Larsen
Cc:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Spokesperson of the Israeli Prime Minister
Spokesperson of the Israeli Defence Ministry
UK Ambassador to Israel Sherard Cowper-Coles
Dear Sirs,
I am horrified to read reports of the current seige being undertaken by the Israeli army against the civilian communities of Nablus, Balata camp and Beit Furiq.
Nablus has been under permanent curfew for 10 consecutive days and Balata refugee camp for 18 days. No food or medical supplies are being allowed into Balata, with every entrance sealed by the army and there are signs of starvation. Medical relief teams are being obstructed and at times completely prevented from passing into the camp. Beit Furiq has been under intermittent and severe closure for many months. This is in direct contradiction to the recent speeches of Prime Minister Sharon who claims the army has been easing the closure of the occupied Palestinian territories.
In Balata on 3Jan 2 men and a 15 yr old boy were also shot by Israeli snipers. All 3 were shot in the back, there are no reports of Palestinian fire at the time. The Israeli government should be pressed for a full independent investigation into their unlawful killings. Their names are Amjad Bilal Masri (15 yrs), Amer Kathym Arafat and Rouhi Hazem Shouman.
Earlier last week the Israeli military shot and injured 4 people who were walking alongside a funeral for an old woman who had passed away. No demonstrations or political events were taking place in or around the funeral. I urge you to demand the Israeli government conduct a full inquiry into the use of lethal ammunition against an unarmed funeral procession.
In Nablus old city the 400 year old Abdelhadi Palace that houses 75 women who have no place to live and no sources of income (widows etc) has in the past week been seized by the Israeli military, the women forced onto the streets at 03:30 hours the night it was overrun. The ancient building is now under threat of demolitian, the women homeless. It is imperative the women be allowed to return to this charitable institution immediately with no threat of soldiers' harrassment again.
And let's not forget that during the so called period of "relative calm" in Israel/Palestine when no Israeli citizens died in attacks, from 4 Oct to the end of December the Israeli army was responsible for killing 117 Palestinian civilians, including 23 children and and they demolished 500 families' homes. This should be loudly condemned by all governments and the United Nations. The selective condemnation by the British governments of Israeli deaths vs Palestinian deaths is blatant racism and is a disgrace to our nation.
I urge you to apply every and immediate pressure on the Israeli government to cease its seige of these residential areas and to end their many terrorising tactics against the civilian Palestinian population with immediate effect.
Yours respectfully,
Alison Keefe
London, UK
Jack Straw residentclerk@fco.gov.uk
Mike O'Brien mike.o'brien@fco.gov.uk
Kofi Annan ecu@un.org
Terje Rod Larsen Personal Rep of Sec Gen to UN in Palestine unsco@palnet.com
Ariel Sharon webmaster@pmo.gov.il
Spokesperson of the Israeli Prime Minister dover@pmo.gov.il
Spokesperson of the Israeli Defence Ministry info@mail.idf.il
UK Ambassador to Israel Sherard Cowper-Coles webmaster.telaviv@fco.gov.uk
To visit this group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rapprochementpalestine/
Naomi Klein: 'Rebuilding Iraq' is a Risky Business
"At ReBuilding Iraq 2, held on December 3-4, it seems finally to have dawned on the investment community that Iraq is not only an 'exciting emerging market'; it's also a country on the verge of civil war. As Iraqis protest layoffs at state agencies and make increasingly vocal demands for general elections, it's becoming clear that the White House's prewar conviction that Iraqis would welcome the transformation of their country into a free-market dream state may have been just as off-target as its prediction that US soldiers would be greeted with flowers and candy. "
Full report
"At ReBuilding Iraq 2, held on December 3-4, it seems finally to have dawned on the investment community that Iraq is not only an 'exciting emerging market'; it's also a country on the verge of civil war. As Iraqis protest layoffs at state agencies and make increasingly vocal demands for general elections, it's becoming clear that the White House's prewar conviction that Iraqis would welcome the transformation of their country into a free-market dream state may have been just as off-target as its prediction that US soldiers would be greeted with flowers and candy. "
Full report
Sunday, January 18, 2004
New York Times columnist: American policy today toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is insane.
"Can anyone look at what is happening - Palestinians, gripped by a collective madness, committing suicide, and Israelis, under a leadership completely adrift, building more settlements so fanatical Jews can live in the heart of Palestinian-populated areas - and not conclude the following: That these two nations are locked in an utterly self-destructive vicious cycle that threatens Israel's long-term viability, poisons America's image in the Middle East, undermines any hope for a Palestinian state and weakens pro-American Arab moderates.
No, you can't draw any other conclusion. Yet the Bush team, backed up by certain conservative Jewish and Christian activist groups, believes that the correct policy is to do nothing. Well, that is my definition of insane.
Israel must get out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as soon as possible and evacuate most of the settlements. I have long advocated this, but it is now an urgent necessity. Otherwise, the Jewish state is in peril."
FULL REPORT
"Can anyone look at what is happening - Palestinians, gripped by a collective madness, committing suicide, and Israelis, under a leadership completely adrift, building more settlements so fanatical Jews can live in the heart of Palestinian-populated areas - and not conclude the following: That these two nations are locked in an utterly self-destructive vicious cycle that threatens Israel's long-term viability, poisons America's image in the Middle East, undermines any hope for a Palestinian state and weakens pro-American Arab moderates.
No, you can't draw any other conclusion. Yet the Bush team, backed up by certain conservative Jewish and Christian activist groups, believes that the correct policy is to do nothing. Well, that is my definition of insane.
Israel must get out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as soon as possible and evacuate most of the settlements. I have long advocated this, but it is now an urgent necessity. Otherwise, the Jewish state is in peril."
FULL REPORT
Thursday, January 15, 2004
New York Times: Hussein Warned Iraqis to Beware Outside Fighters, Document Says
Intelligence: Hussein Warned Iraqis to Beware Outside Fighters, Document Says:
"Saddam Hussein warned his Iraqi supporters to be wary of joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq to battle American troops, according to a document found with the former Iraqi leader when he was captured, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.
The document appears to be a directive, written after he lost power, from Mr. Hussein to leaders of the Iraqi resistance, counseling caution against getting too close to Islamic jihadists and other foreign Arabs coming into occupied Iraq, according to American officials.
It provides a second piece of evidence challenging the Bush administration contention of close cooperation between Mr. Hussein's government and terrorists from Al Qaeda. C.I.A. interrogators have already elicited from the top Qaeda officials in custody that, before the American-led invasion, Osama bin Laden had rejected entreaties from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Mr. Hussein."
FULL REPORT
Intelligence: Hussein Warned Iraqis to Beware Outside Fighters, Document Says:
"Saddam Hussein warned his Iraqi supporters to be wary of joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq to battle American troops, according to a document found with the former Iraqi leader when he was captured, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.
The document appears to be a directive, written after he lost power, from Mr. Hussein to leaders of the Iraqi resistance, counseling caution against getting too close to Islamic jihadists and other foreign Arabs coming into occupied Iraq, according to American officials.
It provides a second piece of evidence challenging the Bush administration contention of close cooperation between Mr. Hussein's government and terrorists from Al Qaeda. C.I.A. interrogators have already elicited from the top Qaeda officials in custody that, before the American-led invasion, Osama bin Laden had rejected entreaties from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Mr. Hussein."
FULL REPORT
January 17: Oppose anti-Muslim attack by the French government
From: answer.general@action-mail.org
[mailto:answer.general@action-mail.org]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 2:31 AM
To: answer.general@action-mail.org
Subject: [ANSWER]: January 17: Oppose anti-Muslim attack by the French
government
JANUARY 17: OPPOSE ANTI-MUSLIM ATTACK BY THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT
The International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition supports the Muslim Students
Association of the U.S. and Canada in the campaign to oppose French
President Jacques Chirac's hijab ban.
The Chirac government's move cannot be understood outside of its racist
social context. It amounts to a collective demonization of Muslims and an
invitation to further maliciously cast them outside the construct of
society, as demanded by the vocal extreme right. All must challenge this
qualitative escalation in racism generated against Muslims in the United
States and throughout Western Europe, as it is being codified into various
aspects of law.
There is no doubt that this is also an abrogation of a fundamental
democratic right - the right of religious expression free from government
interference. The outcome of this struggle will have a significant impact on
the rights of all people and on all individuals as they choose to exercise
their basic right of religious freedom. We urge people to join the
demonstrations organized by the Muslim Student Association of the U.S. and
Canada.
Below are details: Saturday, January 17 will be an international day of
protest in conjunction with human rights, civil rights and religious
organizations around the world. The protest will take place in cities where
French consulates reside including: Washington, DC; Atlanta, GA; Houston,
TX; Miami, FL; San Francisco, CA; and New York City, NY. In Washington DC,
rally from 11 am - 2 pm across from the French Consulate (4101 Reservoir
Road). For more information, go to http://www.msa-national.org@
---------------------------
Email circulated by:
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
http://www.InternationalANSWER.org
info@internationalanswer.org
Washington 202-544-3389
New York 212-633-6646
Los Angeles 213-487-2368
San Francisco 415-821-6545
Sign up to receive updates (low volume):
http://www.internationalanswer.org/subscribelist.html
To make a tax-deductible donation, go to
http://www.internationalanswer.org/donate.html
------------------
Send replies to answer@action-mail.org
This is the ANSWER activist announcement list. Anyone can subscribe by
sending any message to
To unsubscribe
[mailto:answer.general@action-mail.org]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 2:31 AM
To: answer.general@action-mail.org
Subject: [ANSWER]: January 17: Oppose anti-Muslim attack by the French
government
JANUARY 17: OPPOSE ANTI-MUSLIM ATTACK BY THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT
The International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition supports the Muslim Students
Association of the U.S. and Canada in the campaign to oppose French
President Jacques Chirac's hijab ban.
The Chirac government's move cannot be understood outside of its racist
social context. It amounts to a collective demonization of Muslims and an
invitation to further maliciously cast them outside the construct of
society, as demanded by the vocal extreme right. All must challenge this
qualitative escalation in racism generated against Muslims in the United
States and throughout Western Europe, as it is being codified into various
aspects of law.
There is no doubt that this is also an abrogation of a fundamental
democratic right - the right of religious expression free from government
interference. The outcome of this struggle will have a significant impact on
the rights of all people and on all individuals as they choose to exercise
their basic right of religious freedom. We urge people to join the
demonstrations organized by the Muslim Student Association of the U.S. and
Canada.
Below are details: Saturday, January 17 will be an international day of
protest in conjunction with human rights, civil rights and religious
organizations around the world. The protest will take place in cities where
French consulates reside including: Washington, DC; Atlanta, GA; Houston,
TX; Miami, FL; San Francisco, CA; and New York City, NY. In Washington DC,
rally from 11 am - 2 pm across from the French Consulate (4101 Reservoir
Road). For more information, go to http://www.msa-national.org@
---------------------------
Email circulated by:
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
http://www.InternationalANSWER.org
info@internationalanswer.org
Washington 202-544-3389
New York 212-633-6646
Los Angeles 213-487-2368
San Francisco 415-821-6545
Sign up to receive updates (low volume):
http://www.internationalanswer.org/subscribelist.html
To make a tax-deductible donation, go to
http://www.internationalanswer.org/donate.html
------------------
Send replies to answer@action-mail.org
This is the ANSWER activist announcement list. Anyone can subscribe by
sending any message to
To unsubscribe
GREEN PARTY ON TERRORIST LIST
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 23:39:07 -0800
Subject: GREEN PARTY ON TERRORIST LIST BY THE REGIME!
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14884
Green Party "Terrorists"
By Frederick Sweet, Intervention Magazine, January 6, 2003
Writing about his no-fly nightmare in the Fairfield County Weekly, art dealer Doug Stuber, who had run Ralph Nader's Green Party presidential campaign in North Carolina in 2000, [tells how he] was pulled out of a boarding line and grounded. He was about to make an important trip to Prague to gather artists for Henry James Art in Raleigh, N.C., when he was told (with ticket in hand) that he was not allowed to fly out that day.
Asking "why not?" he was told at Raleigh-Durham airport that because of the sniper attacks, no Greens were allowed to fly overseas on that day. The next morning he returned, and instead of paying $670 round trip, was forced into a $2,600 "same day" air fare. But it's what happened to Stuber during the next 24 hours that is even more disturbing.
Stuber arrived at the airport at 6 a.m. and his first flight wasn't due out until nearly six hours later. He had plenty of time. At exactly 10:52 in the morning, just before boarding was to begin, he was approached by police officer Stanley (the same policeman who ushered him out of the airport the day before), who said that he "wanted to talk" to him. Stuber went with the police officer, but reminded him that no one had said he couldn't fly, and that his flight was about to leave.
Officer Stanley took Stuber into a room and questioned him for an hour. Around noon, Stanley had introduced him to two Secret Service agents. The agents took full eye-open pictures of Stuber with a digital camera. Then they asked him details about his family, where he lived, who he ever knew, what the Greens are up to, and other questions.
At one point during his interrogation, Stuber asked if they really believed the Greens were equal to al Qaeda. Then they showed him a Justice Department document that actually shows the Greens as likely terrorists - just as likely as al Qaeda members. Stuber was released just before 1 PM, so he still had time to catch the later flight.
The agents walked Stuber to the Delta counter and asked that he be given tickets for the flight so that he could make his connections. The airline official promptly printed tickets, which relieved Stuber, who assumed that the Secret Service hadn't stopped him from flying. Wrong! By the time Stuber was about to board, officer Stanley once again ushered him out the door and told him: "Just go to Greensboro, where they don't know you, and be totally quiet about politics, and you can make it to Europe that way."
In Greensboro, after Stuber showed his passport he was told that he could not fly overseas or domestically. Undeterred, he next traveled an hour-and-a-half to Charlotte. In Charlotte, the same thing happened. Then Stuber drove three hours to his home after 43 hours of trying to catch a flight.
Stuber said he could only conclude that the Greens, whose values include nonviolence, social justice, etc., are now labeled terrorists by the Ashcroft-led Justice Department.
Questions about how one gets on a no-fly list creates questions about how to get off it. This is a classic Catch-22 situation. The Transportation Security Agency says it compiles the list from names provided by other agencies, but it has no procedure for correcting a problem. Aggrieved parties would have to go to the agency that first reported their names. But for security reasons, the TSA won't disclose which agency put someone on the no-fly list.
________________________________________________________________________________
Frederick Sweet is Professor of Reproductive Biology in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 23:39:07 -0800
Subject: GREEN PARTY ON TERRORIST LIST BY THE REGIME!
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14884
Green Party "Terrorists"
By Frederick Sweet, Intervention Magazine, January 6, 2003
Writing about his no-fly nightmare in the Fairfield County Weekly, art dealer Doug Stuber, who had run Ralph Nader's Green Party presidential campaign in North Carolina in 2000, [tells how he] was pulled out of a boarding line and grounded. He was about to make an important trip to Prague to gather artists for Henry James Art in Raleigh, N.C., when he was told (with ticket in hand) that he was not allowed to fly out that day.
Asking "why not?" he was told at Raleigh-Durham airport that because of the sniper attacks, no Greens were allowed to fly overseas on that day. The next morning he returned, and instead of paying $670 round trip, was forced into a $2,600 "same day" air fare. But it's what happened to Stuber during the next 24 hours that is even more disturbing.
Stuber arrived at the airport at 6 a.m. and his first flight wasn't due out until nearly six hours later. He had plenty of time. At exactly 10:52 in the morning, just before boarding was to begin, he was approached by police officer Stanley (the same policeman who ushered him out of the airport the day before), who said that he "wanted to talk" to him. Stuber went with the police officer, but reminded him that no one had said he couldn't fly, and that his flight was about to leave.
Officer Stanley took Stuber into a room and questioned him for an hour. Around noon, Stanley had introduced him to two Secret Service agents. The agents took full eye-open pictures of Stuber with a digital camera. Then they asked him details about his family, where he lived, who he ever knew, what the Greens are up to, and other questions.
At one point during his interrogation, Stuber asked if they really believed the Greens were equal to al Qaeda. Then they showed him a Justice Department document that actually shows the Greens as likely terrorists - just as likely as al Qaeda members. Stuber was released just before 1 PM, so he still had time to catch the later flight.
The agents walked Stuber to the Delta counter and asked that he be given tickets for the flight so that he could make his connections. The airline official promptly printed tickets, which relieved Stuber, who assumed that the Secret Service hadn't stopped him from flying. Wrong! By the time Stuber was about to board, officer Stanley once again ushered him out the door and told him: "Just go to Greensboro, where they don't know you, and be totally quiet about politics, and you can make it to Europe that way."
In Greensboro, after Stuber showed his passport he was told that he could not fly overseas or domestically. Undeterred, he next traveled an hour-and-a-half to Charlotte. In Charlotte, the same thing happened. Then Stuber drove three hours to his home after 43 hours of trying to catch a flight.
Stuber said he could only conclude that the Greens, whose values include nonviolence, social justice, etc., are now labeled terrorists by the Ashcroft-led Justice Department.
Questions about how one gets on a no-fly list creates questions about how to get off it. This is a classic Catch-22 situation. The Transportation Security Agency says it compiles the list from names provided by other agencies, but it has no procedure for correcting a problem. Aggrieved parties would have to go to the agency that first reported their names. But for security reasons, the TSA won't disclose which agency put someone on the no-fly list.
________________________________________________________________________________
Frederick Sweet is Professor of Reproductive Biology in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Book review: The New Pearl Harbor: Was the Bush Administration Complicit in 9/11?
by Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether
http://www.deceptiondollar.com/news/911BookReview.htm
Until recently I dismissed the suggestions that the Bush administration might have been complicit in allowing 9/11 to happen as groundless "conspiracy theory." I regarded the federal investigative bureaucracies as suffering from a "lock the barn door after the horse has escaped" syndrome. American government agencies seemed to me to be full of repressive energy and exaggerated overreach after some atrocity had occurred, but remarkably incompetent when it came to preventing something in advance. There is no question that the Bush administration has profited greatly from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but I did not imagine that they could have actually known they were being planned and deliberately allowed them to happen.
Thus it was with some skepticism that I agreed to read the new book written by David Ray Griffin, a process theologian from the Claremont School of Theology (Claremont, California), that argues the case for just such complicity. This book, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, is due for release in January, 2004. Griffin admits that he too was skeptical toward such suggestions until he began to actually read the evidence that has been accumulated by a number of researchers, both in the United States and Europe. As he became increasingly convinced that there was a case for complicity, he planned to write an article, but this quickly grew into a book.
The first startling piece of evidence that Griffin puts forward is establishing the motive among leaders in the Bush administration for allowing such an attack. Already in 2000 the right-wing authors of the "Project for the New American Century: Rebuilding America's Defenses," opined that the military expansion they desired would be difficult unless a "new Pearl Harbor" occurred. They had outlined plans for a major imperial expansion of American power that included a greatly increased military budget and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, primarily to secure oil supplies, but also to control the region generally. But they believed that the American people would not have the will for such actions without some devastating attack from outside that would galvanize them through fear and anger to support it. In short, they had already envisioned facilitating a major attack on the United States in order to gain the public support for their policy goals.
Griffin then shows the considerable evidence that the Bush administration knew in advance that such an attack was being planned, despite claims by the administration that such an attack was completely unanticipated. As early as 1995 the Philippine police conveyed to the U.S. information found on an Al-Queda computer that detailed "Project Bojinka" that envisioned hyjacking planes and flying them into targets, such as the World Trade Center, the White House and the Pentagon. By July of 2001 the CIA and the FBI had intercepted considerable information that such an attack was planned for the Fall. Leaders of several different countries, including the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as leaders of Russia, Britain, Jordan, Egypt and Israel, conveyed information to the United States that such an attack was being planned. It appears not only that all these warnings were disregarded, but that investigations into them were obstructed.
The actual events of September 11 leave many puzzling questions. Standard procedures for intervention when a plane goes off course were not followed in the case of all four airplanes. Within ten minutes of evidence that a plane has been hijacked standard procedures call for fighter jets to intervene and demand that the plane follow it to an airport. If the plane fails to obey, it should be shot down. There was time for this to happen before the plane was over New York City in the case of the first jet and more than ample time in the case of the second. Moreover when the order was finally given to intervene, it was not to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, seventy miles from New York City, but from Otis Air National Guard in Cape Cod.
Griffin also examines unexplained issues about the other two planes. Eye witnesses and on-site evidence suggests that a missile or guided fighter aircraft, not a large commercial plane, crashed into the Pentagon. Moreover the part of the Pentagon that was hit was not where high ranking generals were working, but an area under repair with few military officials. Flight #93 was the only plane shot down, although only after it appeared passengers were on the verge of taking control. Griffin also examines the conduct of President Bush on that day, giving considerable evidence that he knew of the first crash immediately after it happened, but delayed his response for some half a hour, nonchalantly continuing with a photo op with elementary school children.
These are only a few details of the myriad data that Griffin assembles to show that, not only did the Bush administration have detailed information that such attacks were going to occur on September 11 and failed to carry through protective responses in advance, but that they also obstructed the standard procedures to intervene in these events on the actual day it happened.
Griffin concludes the book with some considerable evidence of the way the Bush Administration has obstructed any independent investigation of 9/11 since it occurred, both withholding key documents and insisting that the official investigation, when it was set up, limit itself to recommendations about how to avoid such an event in the future, and not focus on how it actually was able to happen. Griffin writes in a precise and careful fashion, avoiding inflammatory rhetoric. He argues for a high probability for the Bush Administration's complicity in allowing and facilitating the attacks, based not on any one conclusive piece of evidence, but the sheer accumulation of all of the data. He concludes by calling for a genuinely independent investigative effort that would examine all this evidence. He himself plans to send the book to the Kean Commission presently charged with that task, even though he has doubts about its real independence.
I personally found Griffin's book both convincing and chilling. If the complicity of the Bush Administration to which he points is true, then Americans have a far greater problem on their hands than even the more ardent anti-war critics have imagined. If the administration would do this, what else would they do to maintain and expand their power?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether has been a pioneer Christian feminist theologian for over three decades and is among the most widely read theologians in the world. Her book, Sexism and God-Talk, a classic in the field of theology, remains the only systematic feminist treatment of the Christian symbols to date. With wide-ranging scholarship, Dr. Ruether has written and edited over thirty books and hundreds of articles and reviews.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
Especially since the assassination of Pres. John Kennedy, the right wing in America has attemped to pooh-pooh conspiracy theorists as nuts. But in reality, isn't conspiracy synonymous with politics?
The comparison between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor may be accurate in more ways than one. In his book, Day of Deceit" published in 2000, Robert B. Stinnett made the case that the attack on Pearl Harbor was no surprise to US intelligence and that it occurred as a result of deliberate provocations of the Japanese by the FDR administration in order to get the US into the war. One of the leaders of the massive anti-war movement in the US at that time was Charles Lindberg and it would have taken something like a "sneak" attack on US territory to turn around public opinion. Incidentally, about the same number of people died at Pearl Harbor as died in the World Trade Center.
By 1941, the American public had gotten better educated and would have rejected a ploy such as the sinking of the battleship Maine just four decades earlier that got the US into war with Spain. It was William Randolph Hearst and his huge propaganda industry that sold Americans on the idea it was the Spaniards that sunk the Maine when in reality it was an accidental explosion of coal dust aboard the ship. But this was not admitted by the US Navy until about 1960.
Tom Cahill
by Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether
http://www.deceptiondollar.com/news/911BookReview.htm
Until recently I dismissed the suggestions that the Bush administration might have been complicit in allowing 9/11 to happen as groundless "conspiracy theory." I regarded the federal investigative bureaucracies as suffering from a "lock the barn door after the horse has escaped" syndrome. American government agencies seemed to me to be full of repressive energy and exaggerated overreach after some atrocity had occurred, but remarkably incompetent when it came to preventing something in advance. There is no question that the Bush administration has profited greatly from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but I did not imagine that they could have actually known they were being planned and deliberately allowed them to happen.
Thus it was with some skepticism that I agreed to read the new book written by David Ray Griffin, a process theologian from the Claremont School of Theology (Claremont, California), that argues the case for just such complicity. This book, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, is due for release in January, 2004. Griffin admits that he too was skeptical toward such suggestions until he began to actually read the evidence that has been accumulated by a number of researchers, both in the United States and Europe. As he became increasingly convinced that there was a case for complicity, he planned to write an article, but this quickly grew into a book.
The first startling piece of evidence that Griffin puts forward is establishing the motive among leaders in the Bush administration for allowing such an attack. Already in 2000 the right-wing authors of the "Project for the New American Century: Rebuilding America's Defenses," opined that the military expansion they desired would be difficult unless a "new Pearl Harbor" occurred. They had outlined plans for a major imperial expansion of American power that included a greatly increased military budget and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, primarily to secure oil supplies, but also to control the region generally. But they believed that the American people would not have the will for such actions without some devastating attack from outside that would galvanize them through fear and anger to support it. In short, they had already envisioned facilitating a major attack on the United States in order to gain the public support for their policy goals.
Griffin then shows the considerable evidence that the Bush administration knew in advance that such an attack was being planned, despite claims by the administration that such an attack was completely unanticipated. As early as 1995 the Philippine police conveyed to the U.S. information found on an Al-Queda computer that detailed "Project Bojinka" that envisioned hyjacking planes and flying them into targets, such as the World Trade Center, the White House and the Pentagon. By July of 2001 the CIA and the FBI had intercepted considerable information that such an attack was planned for the Fall. Leaders of several different countries, including the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as leaders of Russia, Britain, Jordan, Egypt and Israel, conveyed information to the United States that such an attack was being planned. It appears not only that all these warnings were disregarded, but that investigations into them were obstructed.
The actual events of September 11 leave many puzzling questions. Standard procedures for intervention when a plane goes off course were not followed in the case of all four airplanes. Within ten minutes of evidence that a plane has been hijacked standard procedures call for fighter jets to intervene and demand that the plane follow it to an airport. If the plane fails to obey, it should be shot down. There was time for this to happen before the plane was over New York City in the case of the first jet and more than ample time in the case of the second. Moreover when the order was finally given to intervene, it was not to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, seventy miles from New York City, but from Otis Air National Guard in Cape Cod.
Griffin also examines unexplained issues about the other two planes. Eye witnesses and on-site evidence suggests that a missile or guided fighter aircraft, not a large commercial plane, crashed into the Pentagon. Moreover the part of the Pentagon that was hit was not where high ranking generals were working, but an area under repair with few military officials. Flight #93 was the only plane shot down, although only after it appeared passengers were on the verge of taking control. Griffin also examines the conduct of President Bush on that day, giving considerable evidence that he knew of the first crash immediately after it happened, but delayed his response for some half a hour, nonchalantly continuing with a photo op with elementary school children.
These are only a few details of the myriad data that Griffin assembles to show that, not only did the Bush administration have detailed information that such attacks were going to occur on September 11 and failed to carry through protective responses in advance, but that they also obstructed the standard procedures to intervene in these events on the actual day it happened.
Griffin concludes the book with some considerable evidence of the way the Bush Administration has obstructed any independent investigation of 9/11 since it occurred, both withholding key documents and insisting that the official investigation, when it was set up, limit itself to recommendations about how to avoid such an event in the future, and not focus on how it actually was able to happen. Griffin writes in a precise and careful fashion, avoiding inflammatory rhetoric. He argues for a high probability for the Bush Administration's complicity in allowing and facilitating the attacks, based not on any one conclusive piece of evidence, but the sheer accumulation of all of the data. He concludes by calling for a genuinely independent investigative effort that would examine all this evidence. He himself plans to send the book to the Kean Commission presently charged with that task, even though he has doubts about its real independence.
I personally found Griffin's book both convincing and chilling. If the complicity of the Bush Administration to which he points is true, then Americans have a far greater problem on their hands than even the more ardent anti-war critics have imagined. If the administration would do this, what else would they do to maintain and expand their power?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether has been a pioneer Christian feminist theologian for over three decades and is among the most widely read theologians in the world. Her book, Sexism and God-Talk, a classic in the field of theology, remains the only systematic feminist treatment of the Christian symbols to date. With wide-ranging scholarship, Dr. Ruether has written and edited over thirty books and hundreds of articles and reviews.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
Especially since the assassination of Pres. John Kennedy, the right wing in America has attemped to pooh-pooh conspiracy theorists as nuts. But in reality, isn't conspiracy synonymous with politics?
The comparison between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor may be accurate in more ways than one. In his book, Day of Deceit" published in 2000, Robert B. Stinnett made the case that the attack on Pearl Harbor was no surprise to US intelligence and that it occurred as a result of deliberate provocations of the Japanese by the FDR administration in order to get the US into the war. One of the leaders of the massive anti-war movement in the US at that time was Charles Lindberg and it would have taken something like a "sneak" attack on US territory to turn around public opinion. Incidentally, about the same number of people died at Pearl Harbor as died in the World Trade Center.
By 1941, the American public had gotten better educated and would have rejected a ploy such as the sinking of the battleship Maine just four decades earlier that got the US into war with Spain. It was William Randolph Hearst and his huge propaganda industry that sold Americans on the idea it was the Spaniards that sunk the Maine when in reality it was an accidental explosion of coal dust aboard the ship. But this was not admitted by the US Navy until about 1960.
Tom Cahill
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Quarantining dissent - How Secret Service protects Bush from free speech
James Bovard - San Francisco Chronicle - Sunday, January 4, 2004
When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up "free speech zones" or "protest zones," where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event.
When Bush went to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, "The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us."
The local police, at the Secret Service's behest, set up a "designated free-speech zone" on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush's speech.
The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, but folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president's path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign.
Neel later commented, "As far as I'm concerned, the whole country is a free-speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind."
At Neel's trial, police Detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine "people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views" in a so-called free- speech area.
Paul Wolf, one of the top officials in the Allegheny County Police Department, told Salon that the Secret Service "come in and do a site survey, and say, 'Here's a place where the people can be, and we'd like to have any protesters put in a place that is able to be secured.' "
Pennsylvania District Judge Shirley Rowe Trkula threw out the disorderly conduct charge against Neel, declaring, "I believe this is America. Whatever happened to 'I don't agree with you, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it'?"
Similar suppressions have occurred during Bush visits to Florida. A recent St. Petersburg Times editorial noted, "At a Bush rally at Legends Field in 2001, three demonstrators -- two of whom were grandmothers -- were arrested for holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone. And last year, seven protesters were arrested when Bush came to a rally at the USF Sun Dome. They had refused to be cordoned off into a protest zone hundreds of yards from the entrance to the Dome."
One of the arrested protesters was a 62-year-old man holding up a sign, "War is good business. Invest your sons." The seven were charged with trespassing, "obstructing without violence and disorderly conduct."
Police have repressed protesters during several Bush visits to the St. Louis area as well. When Bush visited on Jan. 22, 150 people carrying signs were shunted far away from the main action and effectively quarantined.
Denise Lieberman of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri commented, "No one could see them from the street. In addition, the media were not allowed to talk to them. The police would not allow any media inside the protest area and wouldn't allow any of the protesters out of the protest zone to talk to the media."
When Bush stopped by a Boeing plant to talk to workers, Christine Mains and her 5-year-old daughter disobeyed orders to move to a small protest area far from the action. Police arrested Mains and took her and her crying daughter away in separate squad cars.
The Justice Department is now prosecuting Brett Bursey, who was arrested for holding a "No War for Oil" sign at a Bush visit to Columbia, S.C. Local police, acting under Secret Service orders, established a "free-speech zone" half a mile from where Bush would speak. Bursey was standing amid hundreds of people carrying signs praising the president. Police told Bursey to remove himself to the "free-speech zone."
Bursey refused and was arrested. Bursey said that he asked the police officer if "it was the content of my sign, and he said, 'Yes, sir, it's the content of your sign that's the problem.' " Bursey stated that he had already moved 200 yards from where Bush was supposed to speak. Bursey later complained, "The problem was, the restricted area kept moving. It was wherever I happened to be standing."
Bursey was charged with trespassing. Five months later, the charge was dropped because South Carolina law prohibits arresting people for trespassing on public property. But the Justice Department -- in the person of U.S. Attorney Strom Thurmond Jr. -- quickly jumped in, charging Bursey with violating a rarely enforced federal law regarding "entering a restricted area around the president of the United States."
If convicted, Bursey faces a six-month trip up the river and a $5,000 fine. Federal Magistrate Bristow Marchant denied Bursey's request for a jury trial because his violation is categorized as a petty offense. Some observers believe that the feds are seeking to set a precedent in a conservative state such as South Carolina that could then be used against protesters nationwide.
Bursey's trial took place on Nov. 12 and 13. His lawyers sought the Secret Service documents they believed would lay out the official policies on restricting critical speech at presidential visits. The Bush administration sought to block all access to the documents, but Marchant ruled that the lawyers could have limited access.
Bursey sought to subpoena Attorney General John Ashcroft and presidential adviser Karl Rove to testify. Bursey lawyer Lewis Pitts declared, "We intend to find out from Mr. Ashcroft why and how the decision to prosecute Mr. Bursey was reached." The magistrate refused, however, to enforce the subpoenas. Secret Service agent Holly Abel testified at the trial that Bursey was told to move to the "free-speech zone" but refused to cooperate.
The feds have offered some bizarre rationales for hog-tying protesters. Secret Service agent Brian Marr explained to National Public Radio, "These individuals may be so involved with trying to shout their support or nonsupport that inadvertently they may walk out into the motorcade route and be injured. And that is really the reason why we set these places up, so we can make sure that they have the right of free speech, but, two, we want to be sure that they are able to go home at the end of the evening and not be injured in any way." Except for having their constitutional rights shredded.
The ACLU, along with several other organizations, is suing the Secret Service for what it charges is a pattern and practice of suppressing protesters at Bush events in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas and elsewhere. The ACLU's Witold Walczak said of the protesters, "The individuals we are talking about didn't pose a security threat; they posed a political threat."
The Secret Service is duty-bound to protect the president. But it is ludicrous to presume that would-be terrorists are lunkheaded enough to carry anti-Bush signs when carrying pro-Bush signs would give them much closer access. And even a policy of removing all people carrying signs -- as has happened in some demonstrations -- is pointless because potential attackers would simply avoid carrying signs. Assuming that terrorists are as unimaginative and predictable as the average federal bureaucrat is not a recipe for presidential longevity.
The Bush administration's anti-protester bias proved embarrassing for two American allies with long traditions of raucous free speech, resulting in some of the most repressive restrictions in memory in free countries.
When Bush visited Australia in October, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mark Riley observed, "The basic right of freedom of speech will adopt a new interpretation during the Canberra visits this week by George Bush and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao. Protesters will be free to speak as much as they like just as long as they can't be heard."
Demonstrators were shunted to an area away from the Federal Parliament building and prohibited from using any public address system in the area.
For Bush's recent visit to London, the White House demanded that British police ban all protest marches, close down the center of the city and impose a "virtual three-day shutdown of central London in a bid to foil disruption of the visit by anti-war protesters," according to Britain's Evening Standard. But instead of a "free-speech zone," the Bush administration demanded an "exclusion zone" to protect Bush from protesters' messages.
Such unprecedented restrictions did not inhibit Bush from portraying himself as a champion of freedom during his visit. In a speech at Whitehall on Nov. 19, Bush hyped the "forward strategy of freedom" and declared, "We seek the advance of freedom and the peace that freedom brings."
Attempts to suppress protesters become more disturbing in light of the Homeland Security Department's recommendation that local police departments view critics of the war on terrorism as potential terrorists. In a May terrorist advisory, the Homeland Security Department warned local law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on anyone who "expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government." If police vigorously followed this advice, millions of Americans could be added to the official lists of suspected terrorists.
Protesters have claimed that police have assaulted them during demonstrations in New York, Washington and elsewhere.
One of the most violent government responses to an antiwar protest occurred when local police and the federally funded California Anti-Terrorism Task Force fired rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders at the Port of Oakland, injuring a number of people.
When the police attack sparked a geyser of media criticism, Mike van Winkle, the spokesman for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center told the Oakland Tribune, "You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act."
Van Winkle justified classifying protesters as terrorists: "I've heard terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact, and shutting down a port certainly would have some economic impact. Terrorism isn't just bombs going off and killing people."
Such aggressive tactics become more ominous in the light of the Bush administration's advocacy, in its Patriot II draft legislation, of nullifying all judicial consent decrees restricting state and local police from spying on those groups who may oppose government policies.
On May 30, 2002, Ashcroft effectively abolished restrictions on FBI surveillance of Americans' everyday lives first imposed in 1976. One FBI internal newsletter encouraged FBI agents to conduct more interviews with antiwar activists "for plenty of reasons, chief of which it will enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles and will further service to get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
The FBI took a shotgun approach toward protesters partly because of the FBI's "belief that dissident speech and association should be prevented because they were incipient steps toward the possible ultimate commission of act which might be criminal," according to a Senate report.
On Nov. 23 news broke that the FBI is actively conducting surveillance of antiwar demonstrators, supposedly to "blunt potential violence by extremist elements," according to a Reuters interview with a federal law enforcement official.
Given the FBI's expansive definition of "potential violence" in the past, this is a net that could catch almost any group or individual who falls into official disfavor.
James Bovard is the author of "Terrorism & Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil." This article is adapted from one that appeared in the Dec. 15 issue of the American Conservative.
James Bovard - San Francisco Chronicle - Sunday, January 4, 2004
When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up "free speech zones" or "protest zones," where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event.
When Bush went to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, "The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us."
The local police, at the Secret Service's behest, set up a "designated free-speech zone" on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush's speech.
The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, but folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president's path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign.
Neel later commented, "As far as I'm concerned, the whole country is a free-speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind."
At Neel's trial, police Detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine "people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views" in a so-called free- speech area.
Paul Wolf, one of the top officials in the Allegheny County Police Department, told Salon that the Secret Service "come in and do a site survey, and say, 'Here's a place where the people can be, and we'd like to have any protesters put in a place that is able to be secured.' "
Pennsylvania District Judge Shirley Rowe Trkula threw out the disorderly conduct charge against Neel, declaring, "I believe this is America. Whatever happened to 'I don't agree with you, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it'?"
Similar suppressions have occurred during Bush visits to Florida. A recent St. Petersburg Times editorial noted, "At a Bush rally at Legends Field in 2001, three demonstrators -- two of whom were grandmothers -- were arrested for holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone. And last year, seven protesters were arrested when Bush came to a rally at the USF Sun Dome. They had refused to be cordoned off into a protest zone hundreds of yards from the entrance to the Dome."
One of the arrested protesters was a 62-year-old man holding up a sign, "War is good business. Invest your sons." The seven were charged with trespassing, "obstructing without violence and disorderly conduct."
Police have repressed protesters during several Bush visits to the St. Louis area as well. When Bush visited on Jan. 22, 150 people carrying signs were shunted far away from the main action and effectively quarantined.
Denise Lieberman of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri commented, "No one could see them from the street. In addition, the media were not allowed to talk to them. The police would not allow any media inside the protest area and wouldn't allow any of the protesters out of the protest zone to talk to the media."
When Bush stopped by a Boeing plant to talk to workers, Christine Mains and her 5-year-old daughter disobeyed orders to move to a small protest area far from the action. Police arrested Mains and took her and her crying daughter away in separate squad cars.
The Justice Department is now prosecuting Brett Bursey, who was arrested for holding a "No War for Oil" sign at a Bush visit to Columbia, S.C. Local police, acting under Secret Service orders, established a "free-speech zone" half a mile from where Bush would speak. Bursey was standing amid hundreds of people carrying signs praising the president. Police told Bursey to remove himself to the "free-speech zone."
Bursey refused and was arrested. Bursey said that he asked the police officer if "it was the content of my sign, and he said, 'Yes, sir, it's the content of your sign that's the problem.' " Bursey stated that he had already moved 200 yards from where Bush was supposed to speak. Bursey later complained, "The problem was, the restricted area kept moving. It was wherever I happened to be standing."
Bursey was charged with trespassing. Five months later, the charge was dropped because South Carolina law prohibits arresting people for trespassing on public property. But the Justice Department -- in the person of U.S. Attorney Strom Thurmond Jr. -- quickly jumped in, charging Bursey with violating a rarely enforced federal law regarding "entering a restricted area around the president of the United States."
If convicted, Bursey faces a six-month trip up the river and a $5,000 fine. Federal Magistrate Bristow Marchant denied Bursey's request for a jury trial because his violation is categorized as a petty offense. Some observers believe that the feds are seeking to set a precedent in a conservative state such as South Carolina that could then be used against protesters nationwide.
Bursey's trial took place on Nov. 12 and 13. His lawyers sought the Secret Service documents they believed would lay out the official policies on restricting critical speech at presidential visits. The Bush administration sought to block all access to the documents, but Marchant ruled that the lawyers could have limited access.
Bursey sought to subpoena Attorney General John Ashcroft and presidential adviser Karl Rove to testify. Bursey lawyer Lewis Pitts declared, "We intend to find out from Mr. Ashcroft why and how the decision to prosecute Mr. Bursey was reached." The magistrate refused, however, to enforce the subpoenas. Secret Service agent Holly Abel testified at the trial that Bursey was told to move to the "free-speech zone" but refused to cooperate.
The feds have offered some bizarre rationales for hog-tying protesters. Secret Service agent Brian Marr explained to National Public Radio, "These individuals may be so involved with trying to shout their support or nonsupport that inadvertently they may walk out into the motorcade route and be injured. And that is really the reason why we set these places up, so we can make sure that they have the right of free speech, but, two, we want to be sure that they are able to go home at the end of the evening and not be injured in any way." Except for having their constitutional rights shredded.
The ACLU, along with several other organizations, is suing the Secret Service for what it charges is a pattern and practice of suppressing protesters at Bush events in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas and elsewhere. The ACLU's Witold Walczak said of the protesters, "The individuals we are talking about didn't pose a security threat; they posed a political threat."
The Secret Service is duty-bound to protect the president. But it is ludicrous to presume that would-be terrorists are lunkheaded enough to carry anti-Bush signs when carrying pro-Bush signs would give them much closer access. And even a policy of removing all people carrying signs -- as has happened in some demonstrations -- is pointless because potential attackers would simply avoid carrying signs. Assuming that terrorists are as unimaginative and predictable as the average federal bureaucrat is not a recipe for presidential longevity.
The Bush administration's anti-protester bias proved embarrassing for two American allies with long traditions of raucous free speech, resulting in some of the most repressive restrictions in memory in free countries.
When Bush visited Australia in October, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mark Riley observed, "The basic right of freedom of speech will adopt a new interpretation during the Canberra visits this week by George Bush and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao. Protesters will be free to speak as much as they like just as long as they can't be heard."
Demonstrators were shunted to an area away from the Federal Parliament building and prohibited from using any public address system in the area.
For Bush's recent visit to London, the White House demanded that British police ban all protest marches, close down the center of the city and impose a "virtual three-day shutdown of central London in a bid to foil disruption of the visit by anti-war protesters," according to Britain's Evening Standard. But instead of a "free-speech zone," the Bush administration demanded an "exclusion zone" to protect Bush from protesters' messages.
Such unprecedented restrictions did not inhibit Bush from portraying himself as a champion of freedom during his visit. In a speech at Whitehall on Nov. 19, Bush hyped the "forward strategy of freedom" and declared, "We seek the advance of freedom and the peace that freedom brings."
Attempts to suppress protesters become more disturbing in light of the Homeland Security Department's recommendation that local police departments view critics of the war on terrorism as potential terrorists. In a May terrorist advisory, the Homeland Security Department warned local law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on anyone who "expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government." If police vigorously followed this advice, millions of Americans could be added to the official lists of suspected terrorists.
Protesters have claimed that police have assaulted them during demonstrations in New York, Washington and elsewhere.
One of the most violent government responses to an antiwar protest occurred when local police and the federally funded California Anti-Terrorism Task Force fired rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders at the Port of Oakland, injuring a number of people.
When the police attack sparked a geyser of media criticism, Mike van Winkle, the spokesman for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center told the Oakland Tribune, "You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act."
Van Winkle justified classifying protesters as terrorists: "I've heard terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact, and shutting down a port certainly would have some economic impact. Terrorism isn't just bombs going off and killing people."
Such aggressive tactics become more ominous in the light of the Bush administration's advocacy, in its Patriot II draft legislation, of nullifying all judicial consent decrees restricting state and local police from spying on those groups who may oppose government policies.
On May 30, 2002, Ashcroft effectively abolished restrictions on FBI surveillance of Americans' everyday lives first imposed in 1976. One FBI internal newsletter encouraged FBI agents to conduct more interviews with antiwar activists "for plenty of reasons, chief of which it will enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles and will further service to get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
The FBI took a shotgun approach toward protesters partly because of the FBI's "belief that dissident speech and association should be prevented because they were incipient steps toward the possible ultimate commission of act which might be criminal," according to a Senate report.
On Nov. 23 news broke that the FBI is actively conducting surveillance of antiwar demonstrators, supposedly to "blunt potential violence by extremist elements," according to a Reuters interview with a federal law enforcement official.
Given the FBI's expansive definition of "potential violence" in the past, this is a net that could catch almost any group or individual who falls into official disfavor.
James Bovard is the author of "Terrorism & Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil." This article is adapted from one that appeared in the Dec. 15 issue of the American Conservative.
truthout: The Lies for War Unravel
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 12 January 2004
Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski wore the uniform of the United States military for most of her adult life. In the last few years, until her retirement last April after 20 years of service, she has watched the infrastructure of American foreign policy creation rot from the inside out. Her view was not from the cheap seats, from some faraway vantage point, but from the hallways where the cancer walked and talked. Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski worked in the same Defense Department offices where the cadre of hawkish neoconservatives that came in with George W. Bush trashed America's reputation, denigrated her fellow soldiers, and recreated the processes of government into a contra-constitutional laughingstock.
"My personal experience leaning precariously toward the neoconservative maw showed me that their philosophy remains remarkably untouched by respect for real liberty, justice, and American values," Kwiatkowski writes in the January 19 edition of The American Conservative magazine. "I was present at a staff meeting when Deputy Undersecretary Bill Luti called General Zinni a traitor. At another time, I discussed with a political appointee the service being rendered by Colin Powell in the early winter and was told the best service he could offer would be to quit. I heard in another staff meeting a derogatory story about a little Tommy Fargo who was acting up. Little Tommy was, of course, Commander, Pacific Forces, Admiral Fargo."
Kwiatkowski saw these people, and their work within the Office of Special Plans, up close and personal, and has been raising alarms about it for nearly a year. The Office of Special Plans, or OSP, was a Pentagon planning group directed by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who was the department's No. 3 official. The OSP was staffed by the hawkish neoconservatives Kwiatkowski describes in her American Conservative editorial, men who had advocated using the American military to overthrow Saddam long before they came to work for Feith. The day-to-day boss of OSP was William Luti, a former Navy officer who worked for Vice President Dick Cheney before joining the Pentagon. The work of the OSP was, at bottom, to cherry-pick data from intelligence reports to justify an attack on Iraq.
Back in August of 2003, Kwiatkowski wrote, "What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam (Hussein) occupation (in Iraq) has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense." She described the work of the OSP in particular as, "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress". Kwiatkowski claims, in short, that a decision to go to war had been made long before, and that these men at the OSP were fashioning justifications for that decision on the fly, and despite overwhelming evidence to suggest that war was not necessary.
Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski was not the only one watching the immediate desire for war in Iraq within the ranks of the Bush administration. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who lost his job because he dared question the efficacy of giving massive tax cuts to rich people, has stepped forward with some truly remarkable revelations about the way business is done at 1600 Pennsylvania.
O'Neill describes the process of decision-making between Bush and his people as being "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people." This is not a comforting image when one imagines the deliberations of the most powerful people in the world. Yet the blind and the deaf, according to O'Neill and the 19,000 pages of memos, documents and private National Security briefings he has in his possession, were also adept liars.
Pulitzer prizewinning journalist Ron Suskind has captured O'Neill's views in a new book titled 'The Price of Loyalty.' "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq," says Suskind about his interviews with O'Neill and his review of the documentary evidence. "It was about what we can do to change this regime. Day one, these things were laid and sealed." Suskind got his hands on one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001. The document was titled 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts,' and included a map of potential areas for exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries," says Suskind, "and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq."
O'Neill was afforded a position on the National Security Council because of his job as Treasury Secretary, and sat in on the Iraq invasion planning sessions. "It was all about finding a way to do it," says O'Neill. "That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this.'" This perspective is backed up by former Director of State Department Policy Planning, Richard Haass. Haass has quoted National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as saying, about pursuing UN cooperation on the Iraq invasion, "Save your breath. The president has already decided what he's going to do on this," in June of 2003.
CBS News reported on September 4, 2002 that notes taken by an aide to Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld clearly state that the process towards war on Iraq was begun five hours after the attacks of September 11 unfolded. There was no evidence linking Hussein or Iraq to the attacks, and there is still none; George W. Bush was forced recently to publicly admit as much, and Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted on Friday that no evidence exists to connect Iraq to al Qaeda.
A report released in 2000 titled 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' issued by the neoconservative think tank The Project for the New American Century states, "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." In other words, whatever threat may be posed by Hussein is far less important than the need for the United States to establish a massive, permanent military presence in the Gulf region.
'Rebuilding America's Defenses,' and the think tank which published it, are important for two reasons: The Project for the New American Century had Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and most of the architects of this Iraq war on its membership role in 2000; the desire and decision to attack Iraq existed in print from the hands of these men before they came to power with George W. Bush. In other words, September 11 had nothing specifically to do with it. "Go find me a way to do this," said Bush well before 9/11 about an attack on Iraq. Rumsfeld, surveying the hole blasted into the side of the Pentagon, had found that way.
The American people were let in on none of this. The scale of the deception is massive.
The American people were told that Iraq posed a direct threat to the United States because of its massive stores of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Those stores included, according to the White House, 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 1,000,000 pounds of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents, 30,000 munitions to deliver them, and a production line that would rapidly deliver nuclear weapons enriched with African uranium. Because of the "sinister nexus between Iraq and al Qaeda," as stated by Colin Powell before the United Nations on February 5, war was required immediately because those weapons could be delivered to terrorists for use against us.
Still, we were told, George W. Bush would work with the international community on the matter. We were told that war would be the choice of last resort. Reasonable people are running the show in Washington, we were assured, and no one is going to barnstorm into battle unless it is absolutely necessary. The Bush administration drafted Resolution 1441 on the matter of invading Iraq for the United Nations, and put the words "weapons inspectors" into the document. Those two words were the reason 1441 received unanimous consent from the Security Council.
Now, ten months and 500 dead American soldiers later, we have the truth.
The decision to attack Iraq was made within days of Bush's occupation of the White House. When the weapons inspectors failed to find any of the arms promised by the Bush administration, that administration attacked and undermined the inspection process and piled hundreds of thousands of combat troops onto the Iraqi border.
"Save your breath," said Condoleezza Rice. "The president has already decided what he's going to do on this."
The Washington Post reported on January 7, "In public statements and unauthorized interviews, investigators said they have discovered no work on former germ-warfare agents such as anthrax bacteria, and no work on a new designer pathogen -- combining pox virus and snake venom -- that led U.S. scientists on a highly classified hunt for several months. The investigators assess that Iraq did not, as charged in London and Washington, resume production of its most lethal nerve agent, VX, or learn to make it last longer in storage. And they have found the former nuclear weapons program, described as a 'grave and gathering danger' by President Bush and a 'mortal threat' by Vice President Cheney, in much the same shattered state left by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s."
Days later, a report by experts on weapons proliferation from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace titled 'WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications,' stated that Iraq's weapons programs did not, "Pose an immediate threat to the United States, to the region, or to global security. With respect to nuclear and chemical weapons, the extent of the threat was largely knowable at the time. Iraq's nuclear program had been dismantled and there was no convincing evidence of its reconstitution.
Regarding chemical weapons, UNSCOM discovered that Iraqi nerve agents had lost most of their lethality as early as 1991. Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, and UN inspections and sanctions effectively destroyed Iraq's large-scale chemical weapon production capabilities. It is unlikely that Iraq could have destroyed, hidden, or sent out of the country the hundreds of tons of chemical and biological weapons, dozens of Scud missiles and facilities engaged in the ongoing production of chemical and biological weapons that officials claimed were present without the United States detecting some sign of this activity before, during, or after the major combat period of the war."
The report continued by stating, "The dramatic shift between prior intelligence assessments and the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), together with the creation of an independent intelligence entity at the Pentagon and other steps, suggest that the intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policymakers' views sometime in 2002. There was and is no solid evidence of a cooperative relationship between Saddam's government and Al Qaeda. There was no evidence to support the claim that Iraq would have transferred WMD to Al Qaeda and much evidence to counter it. The notion that any government would give its principal security assets to people it could not control in order to achieve its own political aims is highly dubious."
George W. Bush and his people in the White House and Defense Department wanted a war with Iraq. They began seeking a premise for that war as soon as they arrived in Washington. They created the Office of Special Plans to fashion justification out of whole cloth. They browbeat analysts at the CIA and State Department to manufacture frightening portraits of an Iraqi threat that did not wed to reality. They used the terror created by September 11 against the American people to get that war, and lied time and again about the threat posed by that nation. All stated rationales for war - weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda connections, the likelihood of another 9/11-style attack by Hussein or his agents - have been decisively disproven.
Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski knew it all along. "War is generally crafted and pursued for political reasons," she says in her American Conservative editorial, "but the reasons given to Congress and the American people for this one were so inaccurate and misleading as to be false. Certainly, the neoconservatives never bothered to sell the rest of the country on the real reasons for occupation of Iraq - more bases from which to flex U.S. muscle with Syria and Iran, better positioning for the inevitable fall of the regional sheikdoms, maintaining OPEC on a dollar track, and fulfilling a half-baked imperial vision. These more accurate reasons could have been argued on their merits, and the American people might indeed have supported the war. But we never got a chance to debate it."
-------
William Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New York Times and international best-selling author of three books - "War On Iraq," available from Context Books, "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available from Pluto Press, and "Our Flag, Too: The Paradox of Patriotism," available in August from Context Books.
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 12 January 2004
Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski wore the uniform of the United States military for most of her adult life. In the last few years, until her retirement last April after 20 years of service, she has watched the infrastructure of American foreign policy creation rot from the inside out. Her view was not from the cheap seats, from some faraway vantage point, but from the hallways where the cancer walked and talked. Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski worked in the same Defense Department offices where the cadre of hawkish neoconservatives that came in with George W. Bush trashed America's reputation, denigrated her fellow soldiers, and recreated the processes of government into a contra-constitutional laughingstock.
"My personal experience leaning precariously toward the neoconservative maw showed me that their philosophy remains remarkably untouched by respect for real liberty, justice, and American values," Kwiatkowski writes in the January 19 edition of The American Conservative magazine. "I was present at a staff meeting when Deputy Undersecretary Bill Luti called General Zinni a traitor. At another time, I discussed with a political appointee the service being rendered by Colin Powell in the early winter and was told the best service he could offer would be to quit. I heard in another staff meeting a derogatory story about a little Tommy Fargo who was acting up. Little Tommy was, of course, Commander, Pacific Forces, Admiral Fargo."
Kwiatkowski saw these people, and their work within the Office of Special Plans, up close and personal, and has been raising alarms about it for nearly a year. The Office of Special Plans, or OSP, was a Pentagon planning group directed by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who was the department's No. 3 official. The OSP was staffed by the hawkish neoconservatives Kwiatkowski describes in her American Conservative editorial, men who had advocated using the American military to overthrow Saddam long before they came to work for Feith. The day-to-day boss of OSP was William Luti, a former Navy officer who worked for Vice President Dick Cheney before joining the Pentagon. The work of the OSP was, at bottom, to cherry-pick data from intelligence reports to justify an attack on Iraq.
Back in August of 2003, Kwiatkowski wrote, "What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam (Hussein) occupation (in Iraq) has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense." She described the work of the OSP in particular as, "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress". Kwiatkowski claims, in short, that a decision to go to war had been made long before, and that these men at the OSP were fashioning justifications for that decision on the fly, and despite overwhelming evidence to suggest that war was not necessary.
Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski was not the only one watching the immediate desire for war in Iraq within the ranks of the Bush administration. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who lost his job because he dared question the efficacy of giving massive tax cuts to rich people, has stepped forward with some truly remarkable revelations about the way business is done at 1600 Pennsylvania.
O'Neill describes the process of decision-making between Bush and his people as being "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people." This is not a comforting image when one imagines the deliberations of the most powerful people in the world. Yet the blind and the deaf, according to O'Neill and the 19,000 pages of memos, documents and private National Security briefings he has in his possession, were also adept liars.
Pulitzer prizewinning journalist Ron Suskind has captured O'Neill's views in a new book titled 'The Price of Loyalty.' "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq," says Suskind about his interviews with O'Neill and his review of the documentary evidence. "It was about what we can do to change this regime. Day one, these things were laid and sealed." Suskind got his hands on one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001. The document was titled 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts,' and included a map of potential areas for exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries," says Suskind, "and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq."
O'Neill was afforded a position on the National Security Council because of his job as Treasury Secretary, and sat in on the Iraq invasion planning sessions. "It was all about finding a way to do it," says O'Neill. "That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this.'" This perspective is backed up by former Director of State Department Policy Planning, Richard Haass. Haass has quoted National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as saying, about pursuing UN cooperation on the Iraq invasion, "Save your breath. The president has already decided what he's going to do on this," in June of 2003.
CBS News reported on September 4, 2002 that notes taken by an aide to Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld clearly state that the process towards war on Iraq was begun five hours after the attacks of September 11 unfolded. There was no evidence linking Hussein or Iraq to the attacks, and there is still none; George W. Bush was forced recently to publicly admit as much, and Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted on Friday that no evidence exists to connect Iraq to al Qaeda.
A report released in 2000 titled 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' issued by the neoconservative think tank The Project for the New American Century states, "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." In other words, whatever threat may be posed by Hussein is far less important than the need for the United States to establish a massive, permanent military presence in the Gulf region.
'Rebuilding America's Defenses,' and the think tank which published it, are important for two reasons: The Project for the New American Century had Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and most of the architects of this Iraq war on its membership role in 2000; the desire and decision to attack Iraq existed in print from the hands of these men before they came to power with George W. Bush. In other words, September 11 had nothing specifically to do with it. "Go find me a way to do this," said Bush well before 9/11 about an attack on Iraq. Rumsfeld, surveying the hole blasted into the side of the Pentagon, had found that way.
The American people were let in on none of this. The scale of the deception is massive.
The American people were told that Iraq posed a direct threat to the United States because of its massive stores of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Those stores included, according to the White House, 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 1,000,000 pounds of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents, 30,000 munitions to deliver them, and a production line that would rapidly deliver nuclear weapons enriched with African uranium. Because of the "sinister nexus between Iraq and al Qaeda," as stated by Colin Powell before the United Nations on February 5, war was required immediately because those weapons could be delivered to terrorists for use against us.
Still, we were told, George W. Bush would work with the international community on the matter. We were told that war would be the choice of last resort. Reasonable people are running the show in Washington, we were assured, and no one is going to barnstorm into battle unless it is absolutely necessary. The Bush administration drafted Resolution 1441 on the matter of invading Iraq for the United Nations, and put the words "weapons inspectors" into the document. Those two words were the reason 1441 received unanimous consent from the Security Council.
Now, ten months and 500 dead American soldiers later, we have the truth.
The decision to attack Iraq was made within days of Bush's occupation of the White House. When the weapons inspectors failed to find any of the arms promised by the Bush administration, that administration attacked and undermined the inspection process and piled hundreds of thousands of combat troops onto the Iraqi border.
"Save your breath," said Condoleezza Rice. "The president has already decided what he's going to do on this."
The Washington Post reported on January 7, "In public statements and unauthorized interviews, investigators said they have discovered no work on former germ-warfare agents such as anthrax bacteria, and no work on a new designer pathogen -- combining pox virus and snake venom -- that led U.S. scientists on a highly classified hunt for several months. The investigators assess that Iraq did not, as charged in London and Washington, resume production of its most lethal nerve agent, VX, or learn to make it last longer in storage. And they have found the former nuclear weapons program, described as a 'grave and gathering danger' by President Bush and a 'mortal threat' by Vice President Cheney, in much the same shattered state left by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s."
Days later, a report by experts on weapons proliferation from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace titled 'WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications,' stated that Iraq's weapons programs did not, "Pose an immediate threat to the United States, to the region, or to global security. With respect to nuclear and chemical weapons, the extent of the threat was largely knowable at the time. Iraq's nuclear program had been dismantled and there was no convincing evidence of its reconstitution.
Regarding chemical weapons, UNSCOM discovered that Iraqi nerve agents had lost most of their lethality as early as 1991. Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, and UN inspections and sanctions effectively destroyed Iraq's large-scale chemical weapon production capabilities. It is unlikely that Iraq could have destroyed, hidden, or sent out of the country the hundreds of tons of chemical and biological weapons, dozens of Scud missiles and facilities engaged in the ongoing production of chemical and biological weapons that officials claimed were present without the United States detecting some sign of this activity before, during, or after the major combat period of the war."
The report continued by stating, "The dramatic shift between prior intelligence assessments and the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), together with the creation of an independent intelligence entity at the Pentagon and other steps, suggest that the intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policymakers' views sometime in 2002. There was and is no solid evidence of a cooperative relationship between Saddam's government and Al Qaeda. There was no evidence to support the claim that Iraq would have transferred WMD to Al Qaeda and much evidence to counter it. The notion that any government would give its principal security assets to people it could not control in order to achieve its own political aims is highly dubious."
George W. Bush and his people in the White House and Defense Department wanted a war with Iraq. They began seeking a premise for that war as soon as they arrived in Washington. They created the Office of Special Plans to fashion justification out of whole cloth. They browbeat analysts at the CIA and State Department to manufacture frightening portraits of an Iraqi threat that did not wed to reality. They used the terror created by September 11 against the American people to get that war, and lied time and again about the threat posed by that nation. All stated rationales for war - weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda connections, the likelihood of another 9/11-style attack by Hussein or his agents - have been decisively disproven.
Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski knew it all along. "War is generally crafted and pursued for political reasons," she says in her American Conservative editorial, "but the reasons given to Congress and the American people for this one were so inaccurate and misleading as to be false. Certainly, the neoconservatives never bothered to sell the rest of the country on the real reasons for occupation of Iraq - more bases from which to flex U.S. muscle with Syria and Iran, better positioning for the inevitable fall of the regional sheikdoms, maintaining OPEC on a dollar track, and fulfilling a half-baked imperial vision. These more accurate reasons could have been argued on their merits, and the American people might indeed have supported the war. But we never got a chance to debate it."
-------
William Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New York Times and international best-selling author of three books - "War On Iraq," available from Context Books, "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available from Pluto Press, and "Our Flag, Too: The Paradox of Patriotism," available in August from Context Books.
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Training for new ISM volunteers in London
From: John [ISM London] [mailto:john@ism-london.org]
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 12:32 AM
To: ISM London big list
Subject: [ismlondon-announce] Training for new ISM volunteers in London
# Subscribe & Unsubscribe Information in the footer
Thinking of joining ISM?
We are holding a training weekend on Saturday 17th & Sunday 18th
January in London for new volunteers.
The day is designed for people who are considering joining the ISM,
either in Palestine or in London. The introduction will give you more
information about what the ISM does and how you can help build the
growing movement. We will cover issues such as: non violence & non-
violent direct action; cultural sensitivity; consensus decision-
making; affinity group structures; safety; motivations; emotional
wellbeing; media handling; local support.
Please note that training in the UK is highly recommended before
travelling to Palestine to join an ISM campaign.
If you are interested in attending, please email info@ism-london.org
to register for the training. We will then send you details of the
time, venue and content of the day.
Hoping to see you next weekend.
Char.
-----------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to visit www.ism-london.org
--
ISM London
Web: http://www.ism-london.org
Forum: http://www.ism-london.org/forum
Email: mailto:contact@ism-london.org
==========================================================
ISM is a movement of Palestinian and International
activists working to raise awareness of the struggle
for Palestinian freedom and an end to Israeli occupation.
==========================================================
List Info
==========
Everything about this list:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/ismlondon
To unsubscribe, send mail to:
ismlondon-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net
To subscribe, send mail to:
ismlondon-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 12:32 AM
To: ISM London big list
Subject: [ismlondon-announce] Training for new ISM volunteers in London
# Subscribe & Unsubscribe Information in the footer
Thinking of joining ISM?
We are holding a training weekend on Saturday 17th & Sunday 18th
January in London for new volunteers.
The day is designed for people who are considering joining the ISM,
either in Palestine or in London. The introduction will give you more
information about what the ISM does and how you can help build the
growing movement. We will cover issues such as: non violence & non-
violent direct action; cultural sensitivity; consensus decision-
making; affinity group structures; safety; motivations; emotional
wellbeing; media handling; local support.
Please note that training in the UK is highly recommended before
travelling to Palestine to join an ISM campaign.
If you are interested in attending, please email info@ism-london.org
to register for the training. We will then send you details of the
time, venue and content of the day.
Hoping to see you next weekend.
Char.
-----------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to visit www.ism-london.org
--
ISM London
Web: http://www.ism-london.org
Forum: http://www.ism-london.org/forum
Email: mailto:contact@ism-london.org
==========================================================
ISM is a movement of Palestinian and International
activists working to raise awareness of the struggle
for Palestinian freedom and an end to Israeli occupation.
==========================================================
List Info
==========
Everything about this list:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/ismlondon
To unsubscribe, send mail to:
ismlondon-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net
To subscribe, send mail to:
ismlondon-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
Israeli siege of Balata camp and Beit Furiq
From: PCR [mailto:PCR]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 9:25 AM
To: rapprochementpalestine@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [rapprochement] Balata camp and Beit Furiq
To:
Prime Minister Tony Blair (letter)
Foreigh Secretary Jack Straw
Keith Hill MP
Foreign Office Advisor Mike O'Brien
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
Personal Rep of Sec Gen to UN in
Cc:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Spokesperson of the Israeli Prime Minister
Spokesperson of the Israeli Defence Ministry
Dear Sirs,
I am horrified to read reports of the current seige being undertaken by the Israeli army against the civilian communities of
In Balata on 3Jan 2 men and a 15 yr old boy were also shot by Israeli snipers. All 3 were shot in the back, there are no reports of Palestinian fire at the time. The Israeli government should be pressed for a full independent investigation into their unlawful killings. Their names are Amjad Bilal Masri (15 yrs), Amer Kathym Arafat and Rouhi Hazem Shouman.
Earlier last week the Israeli military shot and injured 4 people who were walking alongside a funeral for an old woman who had passed away. No demonstrations or political events were taking place in or around the funeral. I urge you to demand the Israeli government conduct a full inquiry into the use of lethal ammunition against an unarmed funeral procession.
In Nablus old city the 400 year old Abdelhadi Palace that houses 75 women who have no place to live and no sources of income (widows etc) has in the past week been seized by the Israeli military, the women forced onto the streets at 03:30 hours the night it was overrun. The ancient building is now under threat of demolitian, the women homeless. It is imperative the women be allowed to return to this charitable institution immediately with no threat of soldiers' harrassment again.
And let's not forget that during the so called period of "relative calm" in Israel/Palestine when no Israeli citizens died in attacks, from 4 Oct to the end of December the Israeli army was responsible for killing 117 Palestinian civilians, including 23 children and and they demolished 500 families' homes. This should be loudly condemned by all governments and the United Nations. The selective condemnation by the British governments of Israeli deaths vs Palestinian deaths is blatant racism and is a disgrace to our nation.
I urge you to apply every and immediate pressure on the Israeli government to cease its seige of these residential areas and to end their many terrorising tactics against the civilian Palestinian population with immediate effect.
Yours respectfully,
Alison Keefe
Jack Straw residentclerk@fco.gov.uk
Mike O'Brien mike.o'brien@fco.gov.uk
Kofi Annan ecu@un.org
Terje Rod Larsen Personal Rep of Sec Gen to UN in
Ariel Sharon webmaster@pmo.gov.il
Spokesperson of the Israeli Prime Minister dover@pmo.gov.il
Spokesperson of the Israeli Defence Ministry info@mail.idf.il
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