------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Afghanistan: Nuclear Terrorism Poses Questionable Threat
Former Weapons Inspector Worries About Nuclear Attack
'No need' for more nuclear power
Austria threatens Czech EU talks over Temelin
Radar Watches Over French Nuke Plant
German government demands Biblis nuclear report
North Korea still stalls UN nuclear inspections
Russia and U.S. Optimistic on Defense Issues
US pipelines, nuclear plants, dams seen vulnerable
Security alert dropped at Three Mile Island nuke
Nuclear plant is site of scare

MILITARY
Let us pause and think before plunging into another Big Muddy
From Tribal Elders, a Call to Arms
Increased U.S. Activity Said to Aid Afghan Rebels
Former plumber is master of betrayal On the cusp of victory
Chaos as Afghans flee bombed city
U.S. Used to Pursue Biowarfare
Marijuana Prescription Law OK'd
India Battles Terrorism on Many Fronts
India Vows to Get Tough with Pakistan Over Kashmir
West Bank explodes in deadly violence
Israeli Tanks Move Into Bethlehem
Court Clears Way for Vote on Vieques
UN Balks at Post-Taleban Role
US troops enter Afghanistan
Special Forces Open Ground Campaign
Pentagon: 2 Killed in Pakistan Crash
Joint Strike Fighter Not Ready Yet

OTHER
Alternative fuel brewing in man's backyard
Wartsila buys Finnish biomass power plant firm
Companies Probe Use of Steam on Germs
Amnesty Report Finds Use of Torture Is Still Common in Brazil
Please don't bomb my house...
THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION
THE GLOBAL CRACKDOWN
Secretive federal spy agencies get $47 million for new technology
Bush says China stands 'side by side' with United States
Arafat must act against terrorism in his own backyard
Watch out for America's own extremists

ACTIVISTS
A Model for the Horror: Reflections on September 11 and Trident
Pacifists prepare for possibility of draft
Making Our Voices Count
Int Law Prof Criticizes US Retaliation
What's So Complex About It?
GREEN PARTY USA CONDEMNS THE BOMBING OF AFGHANISTAN
Professor criticizes U.S. actions



-------- NUCLEAR

Afghanistan: Nuclear Terrorism Poses Questionable Threat

By Tony Wesolowsky
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/10/19102001094433.asp

Has suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network acquired the materials necessary to construct a nuclear device? The U.S. government accuses bin Laden of trying for years to do just that. A U.S. federal indictment charges that Al-Qaeda tried to buy bomb-making components as early as 1993. Others believe Al-Qaeda has attempted to buy ready-made nuclear warheads on the black market. How realistic is it to think that terrorists possess a nuclear capability?

Prague, 19 October 2001 (RFE/RL) -- In 1998, members of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network approached separatist rebels in Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya. Al-Qaeda offered the rebels $30 million and two tons of drugs. In return, Al-Qaeda would receive 20 nuclear warheads the Chechen rebels had captured from Russian military installations. The deal was never consummated. Russia's Federal Security Bureau, or FSB, reportedly foiled the plan.

This chilling tale is recounted by Friedrich Steinhausler, an arms control expert who is now at Stanford University's Center for Security and Cooperation in the U.S. state of California. The story, Steinhausler says, doesn't end there.

He says European security authorities are now investigating alleged attempts by Russian organized criminal groups to sell radioactive materials to Al-Qaeda earlier this year: "The current situation is best described by the attempts to involve Russian organized crime in acquiring radioactive material. And such negotiations between representatives of Al-Qaeda and a prominent member of the Russian mafia supposedly have taken place [in 2001] in Spain in Europe, and this event is being investigated by several European security organizations."

Steinhausler says the first serious attempt by Al-Qaeda to acquire nuclear materials took place in 1993. According to Steinhausler, the go-between for bin Laden was a Sudanese man, Jamel Ahmed Al-Fadl, who described himself as a former aid to bin Laden. Al-Fadl now lives with his wife and children in the U.S. under the federal witness protection program. "The result of multiple clandestine meetings with middlemen between Al-Fadl, representative of Al-Qaeda, resulted in a meeting with a former Sudanese military officer who offered fissile material supposedly contained in a container 60 to 90 centimeters long with multiple writings on it, among them, reportedly, the words 'South Africa,'" Steinhausler says.

Steinhausler says Al-Fadl received $10,000 for his intermediary role, but it is not clear whether the uranium purchase ever occurred.

In 1994, police in Prague arrested three men carrying almost 3 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, which was allegedly smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. Steinhausler says this nuclear heist is believed to have been organized by a web of mafia groups operating in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belarus, Ukraine, and Germany and may also have been tied to bin Laden.

And while Steinhausler says the 1998 nuclear smuggling operation in Chechnya was broken up by the Russian FSB, others aren't so sure. A report published earlier this year in Geostrategy-Direct.com newsletter -- edited by "Washington Times" reporters Bill Gertz and Robert Morton -- claimed that bin's Laden's possession of nuclear devices is no longer in doubt. The report says Russian intelligence sources believe bin Laden has a handful of tactical nuclear weapons received from Chechen rebels who raided Russian nuclear installations.

As late as 1991, more than 50,000 nuclear devices were scattered over 500 sites in the former Soviet republics and in Eastern Europe. Most analysts say Russia has made great strides toward consolidating most of them and removing nuclear weapons from unstable parts of the country, such as the north Caucasus, but fears persist. Economic collapse has meant little funding to maintain and protect nuclear facilities. Employees at Russian nuclear installations are often poorly paid.

The Japanese Aum Shirinkyo cult, the architects of a deadly nerve-gas attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995, are believed to have attempted to buy a nuclear warhead on the Russian black market. A Moscow news report ["Literaturnaya Gazeta"] claimed that the extremist Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, sent a letter to the Federal Nuclear Research Center offering to buy a single atomic weapon.

And Rensselaer Lee at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C., says Russian managers at top-secret defense plants offered plutonium for sale to visiting scientists. Lee -- the author of "Smuggling Armageddon: The Nuclear Black Market in the Former Soviet Union and Europe" -- says the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service reportedly masterminded the delivery of almost a pound of plutonium oxide from Moscow to Munich in August 1994.

Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent Moscow-based defense analyst, scoffs at reports that Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda network have tried to acquire nuclear materials in Russia: "All investigations for the last 10 years and all reports of possible loose Russian nukes turned out to be unsubstantiated. There are many [such stories]."

Felgenhauer says that if Al-Qaeda does, indeed, possess nuclear materials, they most likely came from Pakistan, the only country that recognizes Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, which has been sheltering bin Laden.

David Kyd is a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN-affiliated nuclear watchdog group. Kyd points out that even if Al-Qaeda did acquire nuclear material, building a bomb would be extremely difficult.

"Could you build one? Well, that's a very challenging and expensive and time-consuming proposition. You need 8 kilograms of plutonium or 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. That's a large quantity, not easy to come by."

He says terrorists are more likely to opt for chemical or biological weapons: "I think I would be more tempted by quicker, simpler, cheaper, safer options, like chemical or biological. Chemicals, for instance, are easy to come by -- and substances that are banal [harmless], when combined, can have a devastating effect -- psychologically and also for public health. So I'm not sure if nuclear or radiological weapons -- that is, things that are radioactive but not fissile, like plutonium and highly enriched uranium -- I'm not sure they're on the top of a terrorist's list."

But terrorists groups may not have completely ruled out the nuclear option. As of September 1999, the International Atomic Energy Agency has recorded more than 150 reports of illegal trafficking of nuclear material. Agency spokesman Kyd says: "Since 1999, there have been over 150 cases -- confirmed cases -- of seizures of radioactive materials on the black market. Of those -- and that's somewhat reassuring, but not totally -- six have involved nuclear weapon-grade material. In other words, highly enriched uranium or plutonium."

According to Kyd, of the six serious cases, five occurred in the former Soviet bloc, including Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Latvia, and along the Bulgarian-Romanian border. In April 2000, Georgian police seized several hundred reactor-fuel pellets containing a total of 920 grams of enriched uranium.

For years, officials in the U.S. and elsewhere have been warning that terrorist groups may some day acquire weapons capable of great devastation -- biological, chemical, or nuclear. In 1998, former CIA Director John Deutch and other officials in the Clinton administration warned that "catastrophic terrorism has moved from far-fetched horror to a contingency that could happen next month."

After the events of 11 September, little seems far-fetched anymore.

----

Former Weapons Inspector Worries About Nuclear Attack

Friday October 19 09:05 AM EDT
http://www.nci.org/

For several years the United States has tried to help Russia keep nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists.

NewsChannel5's Adam Shapiro reports in Special Assignment that one of the most respected experts on the subject is sounding an alarm that nobody can afford to ignore.

Richard Butler: "I'm not painting a doomsday scenario. Nor am I prone to exaggeration. My deepest concern is what we saw on the 11th is a beginning not an end and that the next time it might be nuclear."

Adam Shapiro: "Richard Butler is a man whose word carries a lot of weight.

He is the former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq and an internationally recognized expert on arms control.

America's attention is focused on biological threats like anthrax but Butler says the more immediate danger comes from nuclear weapons." /> Richard Butler: "I am pointing to the existence of small portable nuclear weapons that you don't need a missile to deliver that could be brought in with a suitcase which may have fallen into the hands of these terrorist groups."

Adam Shapiro: "A few months ago this would have sounded preposterous, but now they're taking it quite seriously -- a device no bigger than my briefcase capable of destroying a city like New York or Cleveland. The only saving grace they say is that the technology needed to miniaturize that kind of nuclear device is very difficult to come by and most nations don't have it, at least not yet."

Richard Butler: "There are credible reports that a dozen or so small nuclear weapons suitcase bombs have gone missing."

Adam Shapiro: "[They are] Missing from the former Soviet Union.

The secretary of Russia's security council testified before Congress in 1997 that as many as 43 of those small nukes were missing. At one point he said it was as many as 80."

Joe Cirincione --Carnegie Endowment: "Russian officials deny it. U.S. officials deny it. The truth is we may never know until one of those weapons shows up."

Adam Shapiro: "Joe Cirincione is the director of the Carnegie Endowment's non-proliferation project.

He says the U.S. should immediately triple the half-billion dollars it currently spends helping Russia control, guard and account for its nuclear weapons.

One of Osama bin Laden's operatives on trial for his role in the two U.S. embassy bombings testified that bin Laden was attempting to buy enriched uranium and ingredients in nuclear bombs as early as 1993 and 1994."

Joe Cirincione: "There is no question that the nuclear issue is the No. 1 unmet national security threat to the United States.

What I doubt is whether or not work or energy is put into this problem. We need to solve it, and we need to solve it soon. It is a matter of urgency."

Adam Shapiro: "It's a threat the U.S. has known about for years -- but now -- can no longer ignore."

U.S. customs agents are equipped with devices that can measure radioactivity to screen cargo shipped into the states.

Richard Butler says that the only way to remove the threat is to drive terrorists and their networks out of the civilized world.

-------- britain

'No need' for more nuclear power

Terry Macalister
Friday October 19, 2001
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,576765,00.html

A government-backed organisation has told the cabinet that a controversial expansion of nuclear power would not be needed if it were to reduce demand by adopting a range of energy efficiency measures.

The Energy Saving Trust (EST), run by a former scientist from the UK Atomic Energy Authority, believes a mix of tax incentives and regulation could cut household fuel consumption by 12.5%.

"If renewable energy sources are expanded in the way we expect by 2010 I do not believe there is a need for major new investment in large centralised nuclear or coal plants," said Eoin Lees, chief executive of EST.

The government is in the middle of a major overhaul of energy policy in the face of declining oil and gas production from the North Sea as nuclear plants are nearing the end of their life cycles.

Environmental groups are worried that senior ministers are increasingly open to arguments from British Energy and others for new nuclear facilities to be built as they reduce fossil fuel burning and help Britain to meet its global warming targets.

But the EST, established by government and private sector companies including BP, argues in a submission to the performance and innovation unit of the cabinet office that this might not be necessary.

Its research showed that the electricity shortfall in the household sector from the expected withdrawal of nuclear and coal-fired stations could be more than covered by energy efficiency.

Mr Lees had confidence that similar savings were available in the commercial, industrial and public sector uses of electricity.

Among the measures suggested are a widening of the 5% value added tax to include all energy efficiency products such as condensing boilers and compact fluorescent lights; tightening of building regulations so that new constructions have zero household carbon dioxide emissions, and a major public awareness campaign.

Greenpeace welcomed the views of EST. "We have very real fears that the energy review under Brian Wilson might lead to a resurgence of nuclear power rather than creating the launch pad for renewable energy which everyone wants."

-------- czech republic

Austria threatens Czech EU talks over Temelin

Reuters
19/10/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12887/story.htm

PRAGUE - Officials at the Czech Temelin nuclear power plant said yesterday they had applied to raise the controversial station's output as Austria threatened to impede EU accession talks over the Soviet-designed plant.

Temelin said in a statement it was awaiting approval by the Czech nuclear watchdog to raise output at its first reactor up to 75 percent of full capacity, the highest level ever, as it continues testing operations.

At the same time, the Austrian Environment Ministry said it would block the closing of the energy chapter between the EU and the Czechs next week unless its concerns about the Temelin nuclear plant were addressed.

Austria has been a long-standing opponent of the Temelin nuclear power station, just 60 km (37 miles) from the Austrian border, raising concerns that the plant is unsafe and should be shut down.

"The Austrian government acts on the basis of repeated parliamentary resolutions according to which provisional closure of the energy chapter with the Czech Republic will not be approved unless there is a satisfactory resolution of open questions," the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Czechs say the plant, combining Soviet-designed equipment with U.S. control systems, is safe.

The Czech power producer CEZ hopes the station's first block will be fully operational by the end of this year, followed by the second block next year.

Temelin said in a statement the turbogenerator's output has stabilised at 490-500 megawatts while the reactor is operating at 55 percent of capacity during the current testing phase.

Temelin was allowed last week to conduct final tests on the second block ahead of nuclear fuel loading later this year.

-------- france

Radar Watches Over French Nuke Plant

October 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-France.html?searchpv=aponline

PARIS (AP) -- French defense officials have stationed a radar system in northwest France to sweep the skies above Europe's largest nuclear reprocessing plant as a precaution against airborne suicide attacks, a defense official said Friday.

The radar system, called Crotale and capable of scouting out airplanes flying at low altitude, is mounted on a large military vehicle parked near the nuclear center at La Hague, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said there had been no threats and that the measure was purely a precaution. The radar system can be used in conjunction with missiles, but none has yet been set up, he said, declining to discuss future plans. The military can also use fighter planes to shoot down aircraft picked up on radar screens, he said.

In a statement, France's Green Party said the government had finally taken into account ``the nearly unimaginably vast consequences'' that an attack on the site could bring.

La Hague stocks 8,250 tons of nuclear fuel, officials say. After the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the site shut its doors to visits by the public because of safety fears.

The radar system is part of a broader initiative to bolster defense in northwestern France since the attacks on the United States. Most of France's air bases are located in the southeast.

France has transferred military aircraft to the country's western regions, including Mirage fighter planes that have been moved to a base in Lann-Bihoue in the Brittany region.

The official declined to provide more details about protection at the nation's other nuclear facilities. France is one of the world's most nuclear-dependent countries, getting more than three-fourths of its energy from nuclear power.

The ministry is keeping most of its plans secret, and revealed details about the La Hague site only because of intense public interest in the nuclear reprocessing plant, which treats waste from reactors in Europe and Asia.

French Defense Minister Alain Richard said Thursday that France may deploy surface-to-air missiles to protect sensitive civil and military sites across France. Among the sites the government promised to protect was the La Hague nuclear facility, French nuclear officials said.

La Hague stocks 8,250 tons of nuclear fuel, officials say.

-------- germany

German government demands Biblis nuclear report

Reuters,
19/10/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12888/story.htm

FRANKFURT - Germany's federal environment ministry said yesterday it had required a comprehensive report on corrosion damage which was detected at the 1,240 megwatt Biblis B nuclear reactor earlier this week.

The plant, which is currently undergoing its annual maintenance period, would only be allowed to reopen when the problem had been fully assessed and corrective measures were in place, the ministry said in a press release.

"The ministry believes it is necessary that Biblis B only rejoins the grid when federal authorities have completed their safety and technical assessment," it said.

Operator RWE on Tuesday said the defects had been spotted in the corrosion protection system of the plant's cooling water cycle, delaying its restart.

Biblis B was shut for its annual overhaul during the weekend September 8/9 and had originally been due to be reconnected in the course of next week.

The federal ministry said it had been told by the environment ministry in Hesse state, where Biblis is located, that the corrosion damage had escaped checks for the last 23 years but new testing technology had revealed it now.

It also said it had asked the national commission on nuclear reactor safety (RSK) to discuss the problem at a meeting which had been specially put forward to October 24 from November 7.

Nuclear power is a controversial issue in Germany, where government and industry last year agreed to gradually phase out all reactors by the early 2020s.

There has been a spate of incidents amid increased security awareness recently which have resulted in a probe into security procedures at the currently closed Isar 1 plant operated by E.ON and the unplanned temporary closure of EnBW's Philippsburg II reactor following safety doubts there.

The unplanned outages have lent support to German spot power prices.

-------- korea

North Korea still stalls UN nuclear inspections

Reuters
Story by Evelyn Leopold,
19/10/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=12890

UNITED NATIONS - Despite U.S. warnings that North Korea could forfeit two nuclear power reactors, it has made no move to work with international inspectors trying to analyze its past atomic arms program, the United Nation's nuclear watchdog agency said this week.

"We are still where we had been a year ago. We continue to verify the freeze of the existing facilities but we haven't really made any progress with regard to verification of the past program," said Mohammed Elbaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Wednesday.

Elbaradei, in an interview, said he believed North Korea was waiting for the construction of the reactors to move past the excavation phase before it took action.

"They feel that the reactor project is not going according to schedule. It was supposed to be completed by 2003 and people are now talking about 2008," he said.

"So they feel there is no reason for them to start cooperating with us. I hope that once they get a schedule for delivery they will come to us," he said.

In 1994, the Clinton administration and North Korea worked out the "Agreed Framework" accord in which Pyongyang agreed to freeze its plutonium production program and eventually to dismantle it.

In return, Washington agreed to replace North Korea's graphite-moderated reactors with two light-water reactors, which are less useful in making bomb-grade material, to help ease the country's power shortage.

The deal, worth $5 billion, is financed by a consortium that also includes South Korea, Japan and the European Union.

One condition was that North Korea would allow the IAEA to inspect several nuclear waste sites and make sure all plutonium was under international safeguards once a "significant portion" of the reactors was completed. The United States has warned several times that work on the reactors could be halted if the inspectors continued to be barred.

"Basically we want to see how much plutonium had been produced in North Korea and make sure that it is declared to us and put under safeguards," Elbaradei said.

KEEP WEST GUESSING?

Analysts have speculated that North Korea wants to keep the West guessing about its nuclear potential and thereby maintain leverage over the Bush administration to keep the bargain.

The IAEA would need three to four years to complete its work "and I guess they still feel they can buy some time - and exert some pressure," Elbaradei said.

"So we are in a waiting phase. The ball is in their court, Elbaradei said of the dispute that began in 1991.

"It's not a good case to show respect for the nonproliferation regime," he said. "We would like to see that case come to an end as soon as we can."

Separate from the reactor project, the United States has urged North Korea to resume negotiations on missile and other issues, stalled since President George W. Bush took office in January and ordered a review of U.S. policy.

The review went beyond curbing missiles and concluded Pyongyang had to undertake a wider program to curb its military potential and North Korea has not responded.

U.S. Secretary State Colin Powell told reporters flying with him to Shanghai on Wednesday that the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States had probably slowed the North Korean decision-making process, but dire economic circumstances in the country would eventually force it to seek better relations.

"Eventually the North Koreans will respond in a way that will allow us to go forward because I don't think they have any other choice or future," Powell said. "Their economy doesn't get any better."

-------- missile defense

STRATEGIC RELATIONS
Russia and U.S. Optimistic on Defense Issues

New York Times
October 19, 2001
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/international/19DIPL.html

SHANGHAI, Oct. 18 - Russia and the United States signaled tonight that they were near a breakthrough on the key strategic issues that had divided the two countries since President Bush came into office, in particular Washington's plans to build missile defenses and Russia's troubled relations with an expanding NATO alliance.

The progress was reported tonight after a meeting here between Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov. A Russian diplomat said the meeting had created "favorable conditions" for "forming a new framework for strategic relations" between Moscow and Washington when Mr. Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin meet here on Sunday on the sidelines of a summit meeting of Asian and Pacific leaders.

The diplomat, quoted by the Russian Interfax news agency in a dispatch from Shanghai, said the meeting of the two leaders, to be followed by talks next month in Crawford, Tex., at President Bush's home, "would be of exceptional significance in this sense."

The momentum in the strategic arms negotiations, stalemated for months after the two leaders opened them this summer at their first meetings in Slovenia and Italy, follows Mr. Putin's announcement last month that he was opening Russian air space to the American airlift of military and relief cargoes to Central Asian republics for deployment on Afghanistan's northern frontier.

Along with its support for the American military campaign in Afghanistan, Russia is offering its oil fields as a secure alternative to dependence on the turbulent Persian Gulf.

"Not only is the cold war over," Secretary Powell said, "the post- cold-war period is also over."

Washington and Moscow now regard the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States as a watershed event in international relations, a number of experts say, that has offered opportunities for Mr. Putin and Mr. Bush to battle a common enemy.

This could generate a level of cooperation that allows Mr. Putin to overcome the objections of domestic critics who grumble that he is compromising Russian security by making concessions to Washington. Mr. Putin's strong support for American intervention in Central Asia allows Mr. Bush to promote a greater role for Russia in Western security.

Neither side made public the details of any prospective agreement. But in recent days Secretary Powell has underscored that Washington is now prepared to make the kind of cuts in its nuclear arsenal that Moscow has been seeking as a possible trade-off for amending the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Russia might also choose not to object to a testing program for missile defenses that might otherwise be construed as a violation of that 1972 accord.

The Bush administration's determination to build a missile defense shield has been a source of tension with Russia because such a shield violates the ABM treaty, regarded by Russia as the basis of all strategic arms control.

A senior State Department official traveling with Secretary Powell said tonight that he would not go so far as to predict that Mr. Putin was ready to accept American proposals to modify the ABM treaty to allow extensive testing. But the official emphasized an "across the board" change in attitude by the Russian leadership toward cooperation on everything from strategic issues to fighting terrorism and closer relations between Russia and NATO.

The American official said Russia's decisions this week to abandon a Soviet-era electronic eavesdropping base in Cuba and give up its lease on the Cam Ranh Bay naval base in Vietnam signified a change of thinking that went beyond the financial savings that both steps would yield for the Russian military.

"Clearly the Russians, in making these decisions for financial or whatever other reasons, do see this as a new opportunity in a changed time," the official said, "and it comes up again when we talk about NATO- Russian cooperation."

The official said NATO and Russian officials had stepped up their consultations in recent weeks to expand their cooperation, but he would not elaborate beyond saying that the cooperation did not include joint military action.

Mr. Powell met Mr. Ivanov after a day of meetings with the foreign and trade ministers of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. The ministers completed a statement condemning terrorism, though efforts by the United States to get a specific pledge of support for its military operations in Afghanistan foundered after Indonesia and Malaysia raised objections. Both have large Muslim populations. Secretary Powell declared that he was satisfied with the statement.

"I got a resounding signal of support from all the members present," he said.

Mr. Bush arrived this evening, and he and the secretary will meet Mr. Putin on Sunday after his talks with President Jiang Zemin on Friday.

Mr. Putin's decision to align Russia with the fight against the bases of Al Qaeda, the network led by Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban government in Afghanistan has been hailed as a significant turn in Russia's post- cold-war policy toward the West. It has secured one immediate benefit for Russia: greater Western acceptance of the military campaign Mr. Putin is waging in the rebellious territory of Chechnya.

The Russian leader characterizes the Chechnya campaign as Moscow's battle against terrorism by Islamic militants, some trained in Afghanistan. Though the Bush administration abruptly shifted its policy to acknowledge that terrorist groups had exploited the Chechnya conflict, the White House and State Department continue to admonish Mr. Putin to seek a political settlement there, and to hold accountable Russian military commanders who had presided over atrocities. Since last summer, Bush administration officials have been pressing Moscow not to put Washington in the position of withdrawing from or violating the ABM accord. Such a step would probably incite renewed concerns in Europe and the Middle East that Mr. Bush was still pursuing a unilateralist course in foreign policy, and could undermine his coalition-building against terrorists.

For his part, Secretary Powell said the terrorist attacks on the United States and its commitment to build a worldwide coalition against terrorist groups had ended any pretense of American unilateralism.

"Nobody's calling us unilateral anymore," he said in remarks to American businessmen here. "We're so multilateral it keeps me up 24 hours a day checking on everybody."

The secretary applauded Russia's decision to abandon the bases in Cuba and Vietnam, which were hallmarks of America-Soviet rivalry.

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

US pipelines, nuclear plants, dams seen vulnerable

USA: October 19, 2001
Story by Julie Vorman,
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12885/story.htm

WASHINGTON - A threat against the Three Mile Island nuclear plant was seen yesterday as a potent reminder about the vulnerability of energy supplies that keep U.S. home computers humming, cars and trucks rolling down the highways, and manufacturers' assembly lines moving.

Some U.S. senators have urged billions of dollars be spent to protect American oil refineries, natural gas pipelines, hydropower dams and nuclear power plants. In the post-Sept. 11 world those facilities are highly desirable targets, they say.

Nuclear plants, which rank among the nation's most closely guarded facilities, are of particular concern because an attack could spew radioactive contamination over hundreds of miles.

The Three Mile Island plant - the site of the worst U.S. nuclear accident a generation ago - set off alarm bells throughout the industry after receiving what it called a "credible threat" late Wednesday. The plant gave no details.

Two Pennsylvania airports were closed until early Yesterday and other unspecified precautions were taken until federal officials announced there was no longer any immediate danger.

NEW AIR, WATER RESTRICTIONS

Since the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, the federal government has imposed new restrictions on air space and waterways near nuclear plants.

Some advocacy groups say that is not enough.

"I hope this Three Mile Island threat will serve as a wake-up call," said Steven Dolley, research director of the non-profit Nuclear Control Institute. It has urged the government for years to impose stricter security at plants.

"We are especially concerned about the possibility of a commando-style ground attack to take over a nuclear plant with the assistance of an insider," Dolley said. "There is also the risk of more conventional vehicle bomb attacks."

The nation's 103 plants, which provide about one-fifth of U.S. electricity, are typically built near a lake, river or ocean for huge volumes of water needed to cool their reactors.

Nuclear plants have long been required to have armed guards, razor wire or fences, strict background checks of all employees and other monitoring devices.

Plants refuse to speak about new security precautions. However, it is known that since Sept. 11 governors in New York and New Jersey dispatched National Guard troops to protect nuclear plants. Massachusetts is considering a similar move.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission took the unprecedented step of halting Internet publication of its daily plant status report, fearing it could be used by terrorist organizations.

NEW ATTENTION TO PIPELINES, DAMS

"What we learned from the terrorist attacks in September is that we were much too trusting as a nation in protecting our assets and people," said Bob Cuomo, an energy expert with the consulting firm DRI-WEFA. "Much of the security already in place is not going to work with a very determined terrorist."

But extra protection for oil pipelines criss-crossing the nation would be costly, he said. Most already have surveillance equipment monitoring a handful of key locations.

The risk became clear on Oct. 4 when the huge trans-Alaska pipeline was closed for three days after it was pierced by a bullet, in what was described as an act of drunken mischief.

A spokesman for Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles said that it was impossible to defend the entire 800-mile-long pipeline, which carries about 1 million barrels of oil each day.

Dams, which are key sources of electricity in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast, are also difficult to protect.

At the Grand Coulee and other dams, visitor centers were closed, gates closely monitored, and all employees and contractors must show identification. The dams and "ladders" that let salmon swim upriver to spawning grounds are among the Pacific Northwest's favorite tourist spots.

"If somebody did try to take out part of the system, we are pretty confident we can go around the outage using backup systems," said Mike Hansen, spokesman for Bonneville Power Authority, a federal hydropower agency. It manages electricity lines stretching from the Canada border to Southern California, forming the backbone of the Western power grid.

Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission stopped making public documents and maps that detail construction of interstate pipelines, power plants and hydropower dams.

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

The waterways adjacent to many refineries and nuclear plants are also a concern.

The U.S. Coast Guard has imposed 94 off-limits zones for boaters in the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts as well as the Great Lakes. Fishing, recreation and other vessels face fines of $5,000 or more for entering the zones.

The biggest security zone extends one mile off California's biggest nuclear plant, PG&E Corp's Diablo Canyon station located midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

At major ports, the U.S. Department of Transportation is evaluating security with an eye toward stricter measures. That has some companies worried about costs and red tape.

"In a free society with open trade, you cannot protect yourself against any potential scenario, whether it's a nuclear power plant, a dam or a truck," a shipping source said. "You can make yourself crazy."

Some shippers at the Port of Duluth on Lake Superior, who previously thought their biggest risk was from drug smugglers or thieves, have added guards to restrict traffic to the docks along 49 miles of shoreline in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

"The very word 'security' has changed dramatically where it's now synonymous with anti-terrorism," said port director Davis Helburg.

-------- pennsylvania

Security alert dropped at Three Mile Island nuke

Reuters
Story by Scott DiSavino,
19/10/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12883/story.htm

NEW YORK - U.S. officials yesterday dismissed a threat to the Three Mile Island nuclear power station as no longer credible, a day after putting the Pennsylvania plant on high alert and shutting nearby airports.

"We took the appropriate actions putting the reactor on a heightened state of alert last night following a report from the federal intelligence community of a threat to Three Mile Island," Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said.

"We no longer consider that threat credible," Sheehan said, adding it was "very specific" to the Three Mile Island facility. He declined to elaborate.

"Everything appears to be back to normal" Melanie White, spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington.

Three Mile Island permanently shut one of its two reactors after an accident in 1979. The remaining unit has been shut since Oct. 8 for refueling, which raises security risks because it involves bringing in hundreds of contract workers. Refueling operations are typically carried out every 18 to 24 months at U.S. reactors.

All 103 U.S. nuclear power rectors, among the most closely guarded facilities in the country, have been on even higher alert following the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The NRC was notified of the threat late Wednesday, in turn alerting Exelon Nuclear, which operates Three Mile Island, prompting stepped up security in coordination with state and federal agencies.

The plant, about 12 miles (19 km) from the Pennsylvania state capital in Harrisburg, is owned by AmerGen Energy Inc, a joint venture between Exelon Corp. of Chicago, the parent of Exelon Nuclear, and British Energy plc of Edinburgh, Scotland.

AIRPORTS BRIEFLY SHUT The threat prompted the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees the safety of the nation's airports and airlines, to shut airspace to planes for 20 miles (32 km) around the plant, including the nearby Harrisburg International and Lancaster airports for about four hours.

Pennsylvania State Troopers, local police and private security hired by Exelon Nuclear were guarding Three Mile Island.

While National Guard troops have been sent to guard nuclear power stations in New York and New Jersey following the Sept. 11 attacks, there were no guardsmen at Three Mile Island.

Three Mile Island made headlines in 1979 when an overheated reactor triggered the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, leaking some radiation while operators scrambled to ease pressure building up in the reactor containment vessel.

--------

Nuclear plant is site of scare

By Fred Bayles
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20011019/3553786s.htm

A threat against the Three Mile Island nuclear plant that prompted the scrambling of military jets and a shutdown of nearby airports turned out to be not credible, officials said Thursday.

Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in King of Prussia, Pa., said his agency received information Wednesday night ''from the intelligence community'' warning of a credible threat to the plant.

Federal officials took no chances. Jet fighters were dispatched to the area, and nearby Harrisburg International and Lancaster airports were closed for nearly 4 hours. Sheehan said the alert was lifted after the NRC was notified that the initial threat was not credible. Officials said the threat was based on information from intelligence sources they declined to identify.

The plant remained on high alert Thursday. Military aircraft patrolled the skies, and the FBI and state police were called in to beef up security.

Three Mile Island's Unit 2 was the site of the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident in 1979, when a portion of the reactor's core melted.

Wednesday's scare renewed fears that the nation's 103 nuclear power plants could be the next target of terrorists who might try to crash an aircraft into a nuclear reactor. Security at nuclear power plants has often been questioned during the past decade. Sheehan said the NRC has required additional security measures since the attacks Sept. 11.

The NRC says reactors are among the most hardened structures in the country, designed to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. ''However, we could not rule out the possibility that a large aircraft . . . loaded with fuel, deliberately crashed into a containment building, might not cause some structural damage that could release some radiation,'' said Victor Dricks, an NRC spokesman.


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Let us pause and think before plunging into another Big Muddy

Friday, Oct. 19, 2001,
San Jose Mercury News
By Patrick J. Buchanan

A MONTH after the massacres, and the ugly scenes of Arabs and Muslims cheering the wounding of America, millions are still asking the question: ``Why do they hate us?''

Last week, the president professed himself ``amazed'' to ``see that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred of America.''

``I'm amazed that there's such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us . . . like most Americans, I just can't believe (it). Because I know how good we are.''

But if they misunderstand us, do we also misunderstand them? National Review says we are ``hated . . . because we are, indeed, powerful, rich, and good.'' Other journalists and politicians say we are hated because we are a democracy, with freedom of speech, of the press, and of worship, as though Osama bin Laden's cave-dwellers had stumbled onto a copy of the Bill of Rights, and gone berserk.

Now, nothing can justify the atrocities of Sept. 11. Nor need we hear out unctuous plea bargains for those who murdered more than 5,000 of our countrymen in a crime that dwarfs the evil for which Timothy McVeigh was rightly put to death. But after the Taliban go down and bin Laden is run to earth, America had best reflect before launching a second Cold War.

We need to know why scores of millions of Arabs hate us. Why does the Islamic sea seem so hospitable to the likes of bin Laden? Why do crowds from the Philippines to Pakistan to Palestine riot for the Taliban? Why are all the Islamic nations so reluctant to back us? And if we truly wish to know why they hate us, ought we not listen to them?

As the poet Robert Burns wrote, the greatest of gifts is to ``see ourselves as others see us.'' How do the Arab and Islamic peoples see us? How do we appear in their eyes?

In the imams' indictment, here are America's alleged sins:

First, America props up puppet regimes of parasite-princes who squander the oil wealth of Arabia in the fleshpots of the West.

Second, U.S. presence on Saudi soil defiles the land on which sit the holy places of Mecca and Medina.

Third, we pollute their culture and countries with drugs, alcohol, abortions, blasphemous books, filthy magazines, hellish music and dirty movies that capture and corrupt their young.

Fourth, we starve Iraqi children with sanctions, because Saddam Hussein defies U.N. resolutions, as we give Israel the weapons to defy the U.N., persecute Palestinians, and deny them the liberty we champion.

To those who hate us, it is America that is the Evil Empire. To some commentators, it is un-American even to repeat such charges. Yet, it seems unintelligent not to. As Sun Tzu wrote: ``Know thy enemy, know thyself, in a thousand battles, a thousand victories.''

If we must fight these people the rest of our lives, we should know why they hate us, and we delude ourselves if we believe the slaughter of Sept. 11 came about because we are ``good.''

Inhuman as these crimes were, they were not ``senseless'' or ``irrational.'' They were purposeful acts of political terror. Having seen how Reagan pulled out of Lebanon after the Marine massacre, how Clinton pulled out of Somalia after Mogadishu, bin Laden believes we have less staying power than the Red Army that left Afghanistan after a decade of bloodshed and 15,000 dead.

Terrorism is a weapon employed for centuries by the weak, the desperate, the fanatic, for a reason: It works.

Consider three recent Nobel Peace Prize winners. In 1946, Menachem Begin blew up the King David Hotel, full of British nurses, to force the Brits out of Palestine. They left. His Irgun perpetrated a massacre at Deir Yassin in 1948. The Palestinians fled, as he had hoped.

Nelson Mandela was not sentenced to life in prison for a sit-in at the Five-and-Dime. His ANC ``necklaced'' its enemies, i.e., lynched them, and the ANC prevailed through terror.

Yasser Arafat's PLO was a nest of organizations, all of which, including his own Fatah, committed acts of terror. And, in part, through such acts, Hezbollah drove the Israelis out of Lebanon and Arafat brought them to Oslo.

The goal of Osama bin Laden is to drive America out of his region by first drawing us deeper in. And, as one reads of new U.S. security ties to Uzbekistan, promises to rebuild Afghanistan, new pledges to Pakistan, and commitments to help resolve the Palestinian conflict, one wonders if bin Laden's lasting achievement will not have been to draw the American Empire into a vast second Vietnam, from Algeria to Afghanistan, as the prelude to driving us out of his world forever.

Let us pause and think before plunging into another Big Muddy.

Patrick J. Buchanan is a syndicated columnist and former presidential candidate.

----

From Tribal Elders, a Call to Arms
Ethnic Pashtuns Begin to Build A Movement Against the Taliban

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 19, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18418-2001Oct18.html

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct. 18 -- Under a 40-foot mulberry tree in a walled garden down a back alley of Peshawar, Rostum Sherzad sat today with fellow Afghan militia commanders to begin plotting the future of their battered homeland.

Sherzad, 38, had walked out of Afghanistan on Wednesday, across the rugged border 30 miles west of here in the company of two dozen elders and militia commanders of the Pashtun ethnic group. Now, responding to a call to arms by a Pashtun leader named Mohammed Zaman Ghun Shareef, the elders issued a resolution demanding that the Taliban cede power and make way for "a broad-based government."

"If they won't do it, and worse comes to worse, we will go and fight," Zaman declared.

Zaman's appeal to his clansmen to line up against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban -- and the assent of Sherzad and his delegation -- marked an important first step toward a goal set out by U.S. and Pakistani intelligence services: opposition to Taliban rule among the Pashtuns of southwestern Afghanistan.

Precipitating opposition by Pashtun Afghans has become a key part of U.S. strategy to dislodge the Taliban. The effort, Pakistani intelligence officials said, includes attempts to peel off disenchanted Taliban officials, but also to revive opposition by anti-Taliban leaders among the Pashtuns who have been quiescent since being defeated in the Taliban's sweep to power in the mid-1990s.

Several high-ranking Taliban officials, including two ministers, have indicated they are thinking about breaking ranks, a senior Pakistani official said today. And a large number of Pashtun tribal leaders such as Zaman have responded favorably to queries from Pakistani intelligence operatives seeking their cooperation.

"Not one Pashtun tribal leader contacted so far, from the east to the south in Afghanistan, has refused to participate in the political coalition being created to rid the country of [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden," a Pakistani official said.

Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, making up more than 40 percent of its 26 million inhabitants. They form the geographic and popular roots of the radical Islamic movement led by Mohammad Omar that has controlled most of Afghanistan since 1996 and made it a haven for accused terrorist bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization.

Sherzad, with his black beard and clear, dark eyes, seemed like an ideal recruit, for politics or something more violent. He said he commands about 120 fighters in the Khugiani district just southwest of Jalalabad. They were ordered to turn in their AK-47 assault rifles after being defeated by the Taliban in 1996, but surrendered only 37 and buried 70 more to fight another day.

"We were not against the Taliban at first," he said. "We wanted to have peace in our country. But the Taliban are so selfish and narrow-minded and they can't accommodate any other person."

Sowing dissent among the Pashtun population would not only deprive Taliban rulers of their political support base. It also would endanger the reliability of their home territory, an important consideration if the pounding by U.S. aircraft underway since Oct. 7 forces Taliban commanders to retreat to safety and try to regroup.

According to some Pakistani officials, this may not be far off. The Northern Alliance, rebels of mostly Uzbek and Tajik ethnic origin who have been fighting the Taliban for five years, have closed in on Mazar-e Sharif, the main Taliban stronghold in the north. Herat, the main western city, has been eliminated as a refuge because Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim rebels roam nearby. And with the punishing U.S. air raids now in their 12th day, including attacks against troop concentrations north of Kabul, these officials say, the Taliban's grip on the capital and its ministries has begun to slip.

That leaves the Pashtun-inhabited southwest, where Zaman has his followers and where others also have called their followers to gather and declare opposition to the Taliban.

Malik Zarin Khan, who controls an armed camp in the remote Shahi region in Konar province hard on the border with Pakistan, has put out word that his tribesmen should come to Peshawar in the next few days to receive new orders. Zarin, who has lived here in exile for several years, met recently in Rome with Afghanistan's exiled king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, who many expect to play a major role in gathering disparate Afghan political and ethnic groups to prepare for a post-Taliban government.

A high-level gathering, including Zahir Shah's representatives and such Pashtun tribal leaders as Zarin and Zaman, along with prominent Taliban opponents from other ethnic groups, has been scheduled in Peshawar for next week.

Another likely target of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency -- although so far without known success -- is Jallaludin Haqqani. A well-known Taliban commander in Paktia province, Haqqani has been feuding with his superiors since spring over ownership of a stretch of land. He is reported by observers here to be disenchanted with their rule. In that light, Peshawar journalists who follow events on the other side of the border noted that his home town, Khost, seems to have been spared from bombing.

Zaman, who gathered his followers today, is among a group of Afghan opposition figures who have been allowed back into Pakistan only since the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. That was when the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, dropped his country's support for the Taliban and threw in his lot with the United States in the campaign against bin Laden and his Taliban hosts.

After being defeated by the Taliban in 1996, Zaman took refuge in Peshawar, but continued agitating against its rule back home. At the Taliban's request in 1997, Pakistan gave him 48 hours to leave; he fled to Paris. Zaman returned Oct. 6.

Another change in official Pakistani attitudes has been suddenly lax enforcement of regulations banning Afghan exiles from carrying weapons. Zaman's home was guarded today by a squad of bearded men with AK-47s slung over their shoulders.

But Zaman himself spoke mainly of restoring peace to Afghanistan and unifying its perennially battling political and ethnic factions. He called on the United States to stop bombing, saying it is up to Afghans to resolve their country's problems. At the same time, he criticized the swift U.S. departure from the region after Soviet troops were driven out of Afghanistan a decade ago in a guerrilla war organized in large part by the CIA.

"The Americans just walked away from Afghanistan and left Afghanistan a total mess," he said, speaking in Pashto through an interpreter. "And it's because of that that the problem with Osama bin Laden emerged. It's a kind of blowback, and the Americans have suffered because of it."

Zaman declined to elaborate on what he will try to do militarily if the Taliban remains in power, or whether he is receiving money or arms from Pakistan or the United States. But Sherzad, the district commander, said Pakistan should help as it did in the 1980s against the Soviets -- only this time with larger, more sophisticated weapons to better match the Taliban arsenal.

What Zaman's followers need to become effective against the Taliban army, he added, are multiple rocket launchers, ground-to-ground missiles and heavy artillery.

Several other junior commanders, who did not want their names published for fear of what might happen to their families, said the Taliban movement in any case has lost its support among a vast majority of the people around Jalalabad.

"The whole system is now limited to those who ride around on pickups mounted with machine guns," said one burly man, referring to the Taliban military's standard vehicles. When the armed vehicles travel the streets of Jalalabad, he said, people urge the drivers to go away, fearing they will attract a U.S. airstrike.

Special correspondent Kamran Khan in Karachi, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

--------

Increased U.S. Activity Said to Aid Afghan Rebels

New York Times
October 19, 2001
By THOM SHANKER and STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/international/19MILI.html

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 -- American Special Forces troops have been operating inside Afghanistan to support armed groups opposing the Taliban there, according to a senior military officer.

Military officials in Pakistan said that, in the past 48 hours, there had been increased activity by American forces at Jacobobad, one of two Pakistani air bases designated by the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, as staging posts for what have been described as "search and rescue operations."

Previously, officials in Pakistan's military intelligence agency had said that helicopter-borne special operations troops were expected to use that base and another, Pasni, about 350 miles southwest of Khandahar.

Jacobabad is about 200 miles southeast of Khanadar, the spiritual headquarters of the Taliban and headquarters of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's leader.

"There is nothing that we have not been doing for a while," an American officer said. Army Special Forces soldiers are known to be at bases in Uzbekistan, across Afghanistan's northern border, and aboard the carrier Kitty Hawk, south of Pakistan.

Any American troop activity from these bases would have to be under conditions set by General Musharraf, who has said on several occasions in the past month, including just this past week, that there are no American ground troops in Pakistan. But by using the term "ground troops," military specialists say, Gen. Musharaff may have left open the possibility that he has secretly agreed to American special operations being mounted from those bases without publicity.

In Shanghai, where he was attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, President Bush declined to talk about current military activity in Afghanistan.]

The latest operations were first reported tonight by The Washington Post .

Since Defense Department officials have said repeatedly that special operations forces would be a critical part of the campaign against the Taliban and the terrorist groups it has been sheltering, American forces have been operating in Afghanistan to coordinate with the Afghan opposition, to identify targets and to be ready for combat action against terrorist targets once intelligence identifies them.

Members of a Special Forces group from Fort Campbell on the Kentucky-Tennessee border have received orders to leave for Afghanistan, a deployment that is being undertaken with as much secrecy as possible.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that the United States was prepared to give direct military assistance to opposition groups hoping to move on the Afghan capital and topple the Taliban regime.

Mr. Rumsfeld gave his most precise checklist to date of how the offensive to uproot the terrorist network called Al Qaeda and punish its Taliban sponsors would be coordinated with the Northern Alliance, the main opposition group. The alliance, frustrated until now with the targets of the American bombardment, has made little headway against the Taliban after years of civil war and 12 days of American-led bomb and missile strikes. "They're going to have some help in food, they're going to have some help in ammunition, they're going to have some help in air support and assistance," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

While giving neither a timetable for an opposition ground offensive, nor any prescription for a postwar government in Afghanistan, Mr. Rumsfeld said that American military action would be designed to help the Northern Alliance advance.

"Our effort would be to try to make them successful," he said, "to do things that are helpful to them so that they have the opportunity to move forward, as they are, towards Mazar-i-Sharif; to move forward, as they are, towards the northeast, where there is an Al Qaeda unit that they've been working on; to move south towards Kabul."

Mr. Rumsfeld's statement raised several questions, not least how it could be squared with the clear opposition of a chief American ally, Pakistan, to a Northern Alliance advance on Kabul. This week, speaking in the Pakistani capital, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell suggested that Pakistan's concerns would be respected.

In an interview today with the Cable News Network, Mr. Rumsfeld was asked about concerns that America "might leave the Taliban in place and make them and Osama bin Laden even bigger heroes."

"That's not going to happen," Mr. Rumsfeld replied.

It was not the first time that tensions appeared between a Pentagon eager to push the military campaign vigorously and a State Department concerned about preserving the delicate alliances that make up America's coalition against terrorism.

Mr. Rumsfeld said assistance would include providing ammunition and coordinating American airstrikes with Northern Alliance operations. He made clear that air power alone would not be enough to achieve America's aims: the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden and the ousting of his Taliban protectors.

"There are things you can find from the air," Mr. Rumsfeld said, including clusters of enemy troops and weaponry. "But you cannot really do sufficient damage" with air power alone. Warplanes, he added, "can't crawl around on the ground and find people."

The Northern Alliance is on the ground in parts of northern Afghanistan. But its senior officials say they are increasingly baffled by the signals from the administration and increasingly frustrated by the apparent reluctance to bomb front-line Taliban positions.

These officials, including Gen. Baba Jan, a prominent Northern Alliance general, say the front line near Kabul is packed with thousands of Arab and Pakistani volunteers, including followers of Mr. bin Laden.

The defense secretary has been the strongest voice in the administration calling for the demise of the Taliban, and he has repeatedly stated that the people of Afghanistan should rise up and oust the regime.

Other administration voices, however, have cautioned against anointing the Northern Alliance as America's proxy. The Northern Alliance is dominated by ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks, and it is not acceptable to many Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan.

Although the Northern Alliance is focused on trying to take Kabul and the strategic northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif, it is not clear that even their capture would free Afghanistan of the Taliban, whose main base is in the south around Kandahar.

Up to now the Northern Alliance has provided little or no evidence that it has the military capacity to dislodge the Taliban. It appears to be awaiting the kind of bombing that would dent the Taliban's military advantage. Taliban forces outnumber those of the Northern Alliance by about three to one.

Similarly, it is not clear that reports of defections from the Taliban to regional commanders of either the Alliance or other anti-Taliban forces are credible. Politics in Afghanistan is intensely local, with many warlords swapping sides in alliances of convenience that have shifted with the changing fortunes of the 22 years of war that began with the Soviet invasion in 1979.

Defense Department and military officials say that target recommendations and other intelligence from opposition groups have so far been unclear and unreliable. Mr. Rumsfeld today accused the Taliban and the terrorists of hiding in civilian areas, even using the camouflage of religious sites to complicate planning for attacks against them.

"There's no question but that the Al Qaeda and the Taliban are using mosques," and that is being done purposely, he said, "because they know that we are a country that tries to avoid high-collateral-damage targets."

Mr. Rumsfeld said that the United States would "like to receive targeting information" from opposition groups. An important role of Army Special Forces in particular is to provide a reliable bridge between guerrilla forces and American commanders as well as to find targets with precision.

A senior Defense Department official said after Mr. Rumsfeld spoke that the United States had not yet provided munitions directly to opposition forces in Afghanistan.

A military officer indicated that ammunition and small arms would were more likely to be provided by other countries interested in seeing the Taliban fall, and who have an arms industry more compatible with the Northern Alliance's arsenal.

--------

Former plumber is master of betrayal On the cusp of victory

October 19, 2001
Jan Cienski
National Post
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20011019/744421.html

WASHINGTON - The United States has had to make some unsavoury friends in its battle against Osama bin Laden's terrorist legions, but none more so than General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a cruel and cunning warlord who is fighting for control of the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif.

Even by the hardened standards of Afghanistan, the beefy former plumber and field hand stands out as by far the ablest practitioner of the double cross. Perhaps it helps that Gen. Dostum is a player of the traditional Uzbek sport of buzkashi, in which men on horseback struggle for the bloody corpse of a headless goat -- a game played without teams and rules.

With his bristling moustache and his stiffly pressed Soviet-style camouflage uniforms, Gen. Dostum reigned for years from Mazar, where he and his 50,000 ethnic Uzbek troops created a state within a state, surviving on smuggling, drug exports and war before the Taliban ousted him.

When reporter Ahmed Rashid visited Gen. Dostum's medieval fortress, the Quila-e-Jhangi, the Fort of War, just outside Mazar, he found pools of blood and flesh in the dusty courtyard. Inquiring whether a goat had been slaughtered, he was told the general had just finished punishing a soldier accused of theft. The man had been tied to a tank and crushed to a pulp under its steel treads.

Another favourite punishment was ripping a victim in two by strapping him to tanks headed in opposite directions.

While he ruled his troops with a bloody hand, the general had a lighter touch with the civilian population of Mazar, a city of about a million on the rolling steppes of northern Afghanistan and the country's gateway to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

A carpet dealer who visited the city recalled few roadblocks and a relatively uncorrupt military. While the Taliban was imposing its misogynistic religious fanaticism on the rest of Afghanistan, Mazar was an oasis of secular normalcy.

Mazar had a Dostum-funded university with many female students, and women worked throughout the civil service as teachers and doctors.

Even during the Soviet invasion, when the Soviets would unhesitatingly unleash their power on cities and villages that resisted them, Mazar was not the scene of much destruction.

Gen. Dostum retained control by maintaining an intricate balance of alliance and deceit with the array of powers vying for control over Afghanistan.

The general began his scramble to power as a Communist union boss and later the leader of a crack ethnic Uzbek militia that backed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and protected vital Soviet supply lines north of Mazar.

After the Soviets left in 1989, leaving a puppet Communist regime behind, Gen. Dostum headed the fearsome Uzbek militia called Jowzjan, which was used by the Communist leader Najibullah as his elite strike force against mujahedeen guerrillas. Gen. Dostum was even awarded the Hero of the Republic of Afghanistan medal.

In 1992, he abandoned Najibullah and sided with the mujahedeen, who took control of Kabul, the capital. The hard-drinking general then switched sides again, abandoning the newly formed government and siding with hardline Islamic leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, helping him to rocket Kabul and kill thousands of civilians.

Over the ensuing years, Gen. Dostum made and broke alliances with renowned guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, with Hekmatyar and even with the Taliban.

The general turned against the Taliban when he saw Najibullah, his former boss, castrated and hanged from a tank barrel the day after the militia seized Kabul in 1996.

The General was in turn betrayed by several of his commanders, who suspected him of arranging for the murder of their brother.

In 1997, the commanders, led by General Malik Phalawan, overthrew Gen. Dostum and invited the Taliban into Mazar under a power-sharing agreement. The General and his family fled north to Uzbekistan.

Within two days, thousands of black-turbaned Taliban fighters were in Mazar, smashing television sets, forcing women off the streets and, most worryingly for Gen. Malik, disarming the local population and his troops.

The Taliban fundamentalists -- ethnic Pashtuns in a city where most of the population is Uzbek or Hazara -- made themselves so hated the city rose up in revolt. The militia's Datsun trucks were cut off inside the city's warren of streets and about 1,000 Taliban fighters were massacred.

Gen. Malik captured thousands more, many of whom were executed. One of Gen. Malik's commanders estimated that more than 1,200 Taliban were killed by being packed into steel shipping containers and left to die of heat and suffocation in the desert sun.

Gen. Dostum rushed back from exile in Turkey to repel another Taliban attack in late 1997 but the militia finally recaptured Mazar in August, 1998.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the reclusive leader of the Taliban, allowed his forces two days to take revenge on the citizens of Mazar for their betrayal.

Human rights groups reported that thousands of Taliban fighters swarmed through the ancient city, particularly hunting Hazaras, members of the country's minority Shiite Muslim sect. Women and children walking the streets were shot. Hazaras were pulled out of houses and factories and killed. Prisoners in the city jail were told to recite Sunni Muslim prayers. Those who stumbled had their throats cut.

Hundreds of men were herded into shipping containers and driven three hours to Shiberghan. One witness said only three men were left alive by the time one such container was opened.

Since then, Gen. Dostum has been fighting a guerrilla campaign against the Taliban with a hard core of 2,000 soldiers. With U.S. help he hopes to retake his old capital.

After dallying with Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Iran, India and Pakistan, with communists, nationalists, rebels and fundamentalists, Gen. Dostum is now friends with the United States.

"I wouldn't put my money on Abdul Rashid Dostum," warned Shireen Hunter, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "He is a thoroughly self-interested man."

-------

Chaos as Afghans flee bombed city

BBC (with additional by Reuters).
19 October 2001.

Refugees have been flooding out of Afghanistan in terror at continued US strikes.

More than 3,500 Afghans poured into the border town of Chaman on Friday after fleeing heavy bombing in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

The UN said the refugees came with no food and no belongings -- and they described the situation as chaotic.

"A wave of panic has swept the border," a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees told the AFP news agency.

"Our border monitors reported that about 3,500 people, mostly women and children, entered Pakistan at the Chaman border crossing Friday," UNHCR spokeswoman Fatoumata Kaba said.

Intense U.S.-led military strikes on targets in and around Kandahar overnight and Friday morning appeared to have sparked panic among residents of the Taliban stronghold in southwest Afghanistan, Kaba said.

It appeared to be the biggest single exodus of Afghan civilians to Pakistan since Western strikes began 13 days ago.

Describing the new arrivals in Pakistan as a "sudden rush," Kaba said she believed they had been allowed to enter on humanitarian grounds -- although witnesses said a few well-aimed stones had also probably helped focus the border guards' minds.

In the morning, a crowd of around 2,000 people had gathered at Chaman on the Afghan side.

There was also a long queue of around 200 donkey-carts bringing scrap metal for foundries in Pakistan -- a daily routine -- stopped by the Pakistani authorities.

When the crowd started throwing stones at the border post, the gates were opened and the hundreds of people pushed their way in.

Among them were five families with members they said had been injured in the U.S. air raids.

Nazar Muhammad, with multiple fractures in his legs and one arm, and his son Mohammad Zaman with a broken back, were the two most seriously injured.

Pakistani officials say 50,000 Afghans have crossed into Pakistan since the crisis began.

The UN is painting an increasingly bleak picture of the fate of the refugees.

Many Afghans, they say, have not got money for food, let alone the journey to the border.

New arrivals report having to pay smugglers up to $50 -- a huge sum in a country already brought to its knees by drought and war.

The Pakistani Government is only allowing new refugee camps to be built in the border area, a remote and inhospitable region.

Aid agencies have pleaded with the government to be allowed to build camps elsewhere.

Refugee Mohammed Gul, a refugee from Kandahar told the BBC's Pashto service that he worked in a military hospital, but medicines had run out.

He said: "Bombs were hitting people's houses."

"They damaged lots of houses and they injured and killed lots of innocent people."

"We were there and I saw about 50 people who died and some became injured."

"Everyone is looking to the sky and waiting and thinking when will the American aircraft come and starting killing them."

-------- biological weapons

U.S. Used to Pursue Biowarfare

October 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Anthrax-US-Military.html

The United States had a biological warfare program to produce offensive weapons for three decades at Fort Detrick, Md. During that time, it produced weapons using anthrax and at least six other infectious agents.

World War II: Joint civilian-military effort developed bombs loaded with bacterial botulinum toxin and anthrax. The war ended before weapons could be completed and used.

Cold War years: U.S. scientists went beyond anthrax and botulinum. Brucellosis, tularemia, Q fever, Venezuelan equine encephalitis and food poisoning were developed as war tools.

1960s: Open-air experiments exposed U.S. civilians to benign bacteria in airports, bus stations and the New York City subways. Those experiments showed that a biological attack could easily kill large numbers of civilians.

Nov. 25, 1969: Realization of the dangers and increasing criticism of biological weapons led President Nixon to end the U.S. program.

1972: The United States, the Soviet Union and more than 100 other countries signed the Biological Weapons and Toxin Convention, which forbids the development, production and stockpiling of biological arms.

1973: All U.S. stocks were officially destroyed. Defensive germ research continues.

-------- drug war

Marijuana Prescription Law OK'd

October 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Netherlands-Medicinal-Marijuana.html

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- The Dutch Cabinet approved a bill Friday that would allow pharmacies to fill marijuana prescriptions and for the government to pay for them.

Parliament was expected to vote in the next few months on the proposal to put medicinal marijuana on the national health care plan. If the bill is passed by the 150-seat legislature, pharmacies would be supplied with ``pharmaceutical quality'' marijuana after testing by a government agency.

Although the sale of marijuana is technically illegal, Dutch authorities tolerate the sale of small amounts in hundreds of so-called ``coffee shops'' that operate openly. A gram of marijuana costs about $4.

Under the new law, most users would have the cost of their joints paid by the government as long as it is prescribed by a doctor.

A government statement recognized that some patrons of coffee shops use marijuana to alleviate pain.

``An increasing number of patients suffering illnesses such as cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis receive medicinal cannabis,'' it said.

The law is needed to remove an ``undesirable'' contradiction between practice and law ``despite lack of scientific evidence'' of the effects of marijuana use, the statement said.

Many patients using the drug without professional assistance have had successful results, it added. ``Experiences are positive: less pain, less nausea after chemotherapy, less stiffness with MS,'' the statement said.

The prescription marijuana would be grown along government guidelines. As is selling, growing marijuana is illegal but tolerated in small quantities, and the Netherlands produces some of the most potent varieties in the world.

Though several countries tolerate marijuana use by medical patients, only Canada licenses them to legally grow and possess it, said Paul Armentano, a spokesman for the Washington-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The Canadian government is also growing marijuana and plans to create a government-run system to distribute it.

Britain has licensed a company, GW Pharmaceuticals, to grow large amounts of marijuana to develop a medical extract, such as a spray that patients can spray in their mouths. However, smoking marijuana remains illegal there.

In the United States, nine states have exempted medical patients from prosecution under state laws, but they can still be arrested under federal laws, Armentano said.

-------- india

India Battles Terrorism on Many Fronts

October 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Tackling-Terrorism.html?searchpv=aponline

SRINAGAR, India (AP) -- Few modern states have faced terrorism and guerrilla war on as many fronts as India.

Born in the bloody Hindu-Muslim schism that also created Pakistan, the republic of one billion people has over the past 53 years lost three national leaders to bombers and gunmen.

And although India can claim credit for remaining a democracy while fighting one violent challenge after another, that fight has been tainted by accusations of human rights abuse, and has produced few victories.

Some of these struggles are decades old, but they have become more ominous because India tends to discern the hand of rival Pakistan in many of them, and both countries have tested nuclear weapons. The rivalry also makes it harder for the United States, which would like both to join its global anti-terrorism campaign.

India's insurgencies often can be traced to poverty. Uneven development in many regions produces grievances among ethnic, religious and linguistic groups, and there's no shortage of politicians willing to capitalize on their resentments.

Since 1989, the most enduring conflict has been over the northern state of Jammu-Kashmir, ruled by India and claimed by Pakistan. A dozen different militant groups have planted mines in outdoor markets and on dirt roads, set off car bombs in town centers and blasted army camps, police stations and people's homes. Between 30,000 and 60,000 people have died.

The government has deployed 500,000 soldiers, police and paramilitary troops. Their duties include searching houses, barns and forests for militants. Groups have been banned, their bank accounts seized and leaders imprisoned, often for years without charge because the authorities say no one would testify against them.

In the 1980s, when Kashmir was relatively quiet, India's biggest headache was the Sikhs' campaign to recover the independent homeland they had ruled in Punjab province until the late 19th century.

Sikh militants hijacked planes, blew up cars and planted bombs in buses and train stations in cities including New Delhi, the capital.

The revolt was put down with massive police force, arbitrary arrests and long-term incarceration of insurgent leaders. But not before the Sikhs dealt India one more shattering blow. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 in revenge for sending her troops into the Sikhs' most sacred shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, 240 miles northwest of New Delhi.

Assassination was nothing new in Indian politics. Founding father Mohandas Gandhi (no relation to Indira Gandhi) was shot dead by a Hindu fanatic in 1948. Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Mrs. Gandhi's son, was blown up by a Sri Lankan suicide bomber in 1991.

Apart from Sikhs and Kashmiris, India has had to grapple with some 30 tribal groups seeking either independence or greater autonomy in the seven northeastern Indian states wedged between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

The rebels accuse the federal government of exploiting their natural resources while neglecting development. They kidnap, kill tea plantation managers and set off bombs in markets and trains. The death tolls -- two here, four there -- have added up to thousands over the past 53 years.

Then there's a Maoist group claiming to be battling for the landless in Bihar, eastern India, and in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, the left-wing People's Liberation Group targets landowners and politicians whom they accuse of impoverishing the people.

The government's primary weapon is the Internal Security Act, originally enacted by the British to quell India's own independence movement. It allows indefinite detention without trial of anyone suspected of sedition. At the height of the Sikh rebellion, police, soldiers, paramilitary troops and undercover agents could get away with torturing suspects to confess and making them sign false testimony.

India also passed laws allowing police and soldiers to curtail constitutional rights and judicial safeguards in cases of suspected terrorism. People can be prohibited from meeting in groups, demonstrating on the street and seeing their lawyers or a doctor if they are arrested.

Those laws have been extended to Jammu-Kashmir, where human rights organizations complain of disappearances, unexplained deaths of young men in custody and the rape of Muslim women while their houses are being searched.

``Security forces are given blanket powers when they are carrying out raids in search of insurgents. Junior functionaries misuse these powers with impunity,'' said Anil Nauriya, a civil rights lawyer who appears before India's Supreme Court in New Delhi.

--------

India Vows to Get Tough with Pakistan Over Kashmir

October 19, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-india.html?searchpv=reuters

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India on Friday accused Pakistan, a key player in the global war against terrorism, of harboring terrorists itself and vowed tough action if Pakistan continued to send Islamic militants to fight in disputed Kashmir.

``We do not find fault with America's effort to have Pakistan as a front-ranking ally,'' Home Minister L.K. Advani told a news conference.

``At the same time America...must ensure that those who are part of this war against terrorism are themselves not guilty of providing a safe haven to terrorists, hijackers and organizers of terrorist camps.''

Advani said India had no plans at present to cross the military Line of Control dividing the Himalayan territory of Kashmir between India and Kashmir in ``hot pursuit'' of Islamic guerrillas fighting Indian rule.

But, echoing Israel's demand to the Palestinian Authority to hand over the killers of its tourism minister or face retribution, Advani said Pakistan should surrender ``terrorists'' hiding there.

``We have given to Interpol a long list of people who have been guilty of terrorist actions in India...some of whom have been provided asylum in Pakistan. Now there are obvious implications,'' he said.

India has long accused Pakistan of sponsoring ``cross-border terrorism'' in Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies.

But Advani's attack on Pakistan -- which came amid rising border tensions between the two nuclear rivals -- was among the strongest yet from India.

Advani said that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had both created Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and planned ''terrorist'' attacks in the Kashmir and other parts of India.

``It is, therefore, disingenuous for Pakistan to now claim to be an ally of the international community in the fight against terrorism,'' he said.

But for now India could understand why Washington needed Pakistan's help, he said. Secretary of State Colin Powell visited India and Pakistan earlier this week.

``I could see that America in this present phase is keen to have Pakistan on its side,'' he said. ``On the whole, I can realize the difficulties that Washington is having.''

TOUGH ACTION

But India, incensed by a suicide bomb attack by a Pakistan-based militant group on Kashmir's state assembly on October 1, is keen to fight its own battles and says it has stepped up efforts to stop guerrillas crossing the border.

``The proactive policy will continue, which means we will not be looking for terrorists to strike first...we will certainly go all out for them,'' he said.

On Monday, India and Pakistan exchanged fire in the most serious border shooting in nearly a year. Sporadic gunfire has continued since then, but an army official said it was routine.

There has been rising international concern that India would copy U.S. strikes on Afghanistan to root out Islamic militants by launching its own attack in search of guerrillas in Pakistan.

But Advani ruled that out for the moment.

``...in international law it is legitimate that if anyone attacks you, you have the right to hot pursuit,'' he said. ``But we have avoided that until now and at the present point of time we do not propose to do it.''

``We are in a position to do whatever needs to be done even while remaining in our borders,'' he added.

Advani said that in the past few months Indian security forces had been remarkably successful in identifying, locating and eliminating militants in Jammu and Kashmir.

He said this had led to ``a keenness to infiltrate more people into the state'' and subsequent exchanges of border firing.

The Pakistan-based Islamic Jaish-e-Mohammad group warned this week of fresh suicide strikes in New Delhi, Bombay and elsewhere in India in retaliation for the firing.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has pledged to help the United States in its war on terrorism, sacked the head of the ISI and invited Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for talks.

-------- israel

West Bank explodes in deadly violence

October 19, 2001
By Dan Ephron
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011019-16892044.htm

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Six Palestinians and one Israeli were killed in a seizure of violence in the West Bank yesterday, after Palestinians rejected the Jewish state's ultimatum to hand over the killers of Cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi.

Israeli tanks charged into two West Bank towns and gunbattles raged at several confrontation points, including Beit Jala, where Palestinians broke a localized truce in place since August and fired on Israelis in the adjacent Gilo neighborhood.

Early today, 20 Israeli tanks penetrated two miles into the autonomous Palestinian town of Bethlehem in the West Bank, witnesses observed.

Among the dead from the yesterday' violence were a 10-year-old Palestinian girl and an Israeli hiker.

The fighting formed the backdrop for Mr. Zeevi's state funeral, where some speakers called on the government to force the collapse of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's administration.

It also erased even the slightest hope for a cease-fire, which the United States had been working hard to achieve while it wages its global war against terrorism.

"All the American pressure in the world right now won't stop the fighting here," said one Western diplomat who refused to be identified. "There's just too much rage on both sides."

Israel sent its tanks into the Palestinian-controlled towns of Ramallah and Jenin early in the morning, tearing up asphalt and stirring up plumes of dust. A few Palestinians fired automatic rifles at the tanks from inside buildings and behind street corners but the Palestinian Authority did not dispatch its troops to halt the incursion.

By midmorning, residents of both towns had scurried indoors, leaving the streets eerily quiet. In Ramallah, two tanks took up positions on a hill, their barrels pointed at the neighborhoods below.

In Jenin, a schoolgirl was killed and six others were wounded in crossfire near the Ibrahimin school. Palestinians said the girl, Reham Ward, died when a shell slammed into the school but a reporter on the scene found no evidence of shelling.

A few thousand people poured into the streets for the child's funeral procession, including masked gunmen. The girl's father, Nabil Ward, held a gun during the procession and led mourners in chants against Israel.

"I tell Sharon and all the criminals and terrorist Jews that the blood of my daughter Reham and all the other innocent martyrs will not go in vain. Blood will flow and bloom," he said, and squeezed off several rounds of gunfire into the air.

After nightfall, three Palestinians died when an explosion ripped through their car near Bethlehem. Among the dead was Atef Abiyat, a top Palestinian militant accused by Israel of killing at least five persons.

People in the area rushed to the car and dragged three charred bodies out of the burning wreckage. Witnesses were not sure if the car was struck by a missile or torn apart by a bomb but Palestinians blamed Israel for the incident.

Israel has killed scores of militants in targeted attacks since fighting erupted in the West Bank and Gaza 13 months ago but officials would not confirm if Israeli security was involved in the Bethlehem explosion. A statement from Mr. Sharon's office suggested Mr. Abiyat might have been preparing a car-bomb for an attack on Israel.

"I'm not sorry. He was a murderer. Who did it, I do not know," said Uzi Landau, Israel's public security minister, interviewed on Channel Two television.

Later in the evening, news broke of another attack, this one on Israelis. Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a group of hikers in the West Bank, killing one man and wounding two others.

Fighting between Israelis and Palestinians had eased slightly in recent weeks thanks in part to intensive American diplomacy.

Washington is concerned the fighting here will sap Muslim support for an all-out assault on international terrorism. Many Arabs define Israel's violence-punctuated occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as state terrorism and feel the United States should take on the Jewish state with the same vigor in which it is now going after Islamic militants.

The U.S. mediation effort collapsed when a Palestinian militant gunned down Mr. Zeevi - Israel's minister of tourism - at a Jerusalem hotel Wednesday.

The U.S. State Department, responding to the Israeli incursions in the West Bank, said both sides should avoid steps that inflame the situation and complicate measures to achieve calm.

It also called on Mr. Arafat to arrest the killers and bring them to justice but sidestepped the issue of Israeli demands to hand over the killers of the Israeli minister.

"That's something for the two sides to work out," U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said in Washington Mr. Zeevi, who led the most right-wing party in Israel's parliament, had advocated the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli security sources said police, after a 24-hour investigation, already knew the names of people involved in the attack. Israel passed those names to Mr. Arafat but members of his administration said the Palestinian Authority would not extradite anyone.

"That's not going to happen," said Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. Mr. Sharon said hours after the assassination that Israel would take undisclosed measures if Palestinians did not hand over the men.

In a statement yesterday, he said the Jewish state would act toward the Palestinian Authority "in accordance with the international rules that apply to authorities that support terrorism."

--------

MIDEAST
Israeli Tanks Move Into Bethlehem

October 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) -- Israeli tanks and troops moved into biblical Bethlehem early Friday, seizing two hotels for command posts and stepping up pressure on the Palestinians following the killing of an Israeli Cabinet minister.

Israeli forces have entered several Palestinians areas in the past two days, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government has frozen contacts with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. The moves are part of a tough political-military response in the wake of Wednesday's shooting death of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, an ultranationalist killed by members of a radical Palestinian group.

Israel sent some 30 tanks and armored personnel carriers into Bethlehem and neighboring Beit Jalla before dawn Friday after Palestinian forces fired on a Jewish neighborhood on the southern fringe of Jerusalem.

As Israeli troops fortified their positions Friday, including sniper positions on the tops of the two hotels, thousands of Palestinians chanting ``Revenge, revenge'' marched through the center of Bethlehem as part of the funeral for three Palestinian militants killed Thursday.

Palestinians jammed Manger Square in Bethlehem, in front of the traditional birthplace of Jesus, with some militants firing rifles in the air, as the three bodies were brought for the funeral procession.

Addressing the crowd, Kamel Hamad, a leader of Arafat's Fatah movement, said Palestinians would continue their struggle ``as long as there is one soldier or one settler in our land.''

Atef Abayat, the leader of the Palestinian Tanzim militia in Bethlehem, was killed along with two other members of his militia in a huge explosion in his car on Thursday.

The Palestinians blamed Israel for the blast. The Israelis, who have carried out dozens of targeted attacks against Palestinian militants, had Abayat near the top of their wanted list, saying he was responsible for several fatal shootings of Israelis. However, Israel refused to say if it was responsible for the explosion.

Within an hour of the blast, Palestinian gunmen opened fire Thursday night on the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. In the early hours of Friday, the Israeli tanks rolled into Bethlehem and Beit Jalla in one of Israel's biggest incursions into Palestinian territory in a year of Mideast fighting.

The Israeli forces took control of hills and houses in Beit Jalla to stop the firing, according to the Israeli military. Soldiers and armed Palestinians exchanged gunfire. Doctors said seven Palestinians were wounded, three critically, in Israeli fire at Beit Jalla, Bethlehem and another nearby town, Beit Sahour. An Israeli soldier was seriously wounded by a sniper, the military said.

Palestinian official Nabil Abu Rdeneh denounced the incursion and called on the United States to intervene and ``put an end to this continuous Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.''

Bethlehem, a town heavily dependent on foreign tourists, has been badly hit by the fighting, which has forced many hotels to shut because of a lack of business. The Israeli troops took over two of the better known hotels -- the Paradise and the luxury Inter-Continental -- placing tanks in front, soldiers inside, and snipers on the roofs, witnesses said.

Israeli Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir said the Israeli incursion ``will last as long as there will be shooting from Beit Jalla toward Jerusalem.'' He said Arafat failed to live up to his commitment to stop the firing.

Israeli Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit said Israel had no intention of holding on to Palestinian territory but had to ``stop Palestinian attacks against Israel.''

Israel sent tanks into Beit Jalla on Aug. 28 and held the village for two days, withdrawing after the Palestinians pledged to maintain calm there. The area had been calm until Thursday.

There was also violence Friday in the West Bank town of Ramallah, when a Palestinian security officer in the Force 17 unit was killed in a clash with Israeli forces, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military was checking the report.

In the Gaza Strip, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was killed when a shell he was playing with exploded, doctors and relatives said. They said an Israeli tank fired the shell overnight at the Khan Younis refugee camp.

The two Palestinian deaths Friday followed a bloody day Thursday in which a total of six Palestinians and one Israeli were killed.

Fighting between Israelis and Palestinians had been declining a bit in recent days, but Wednesday's killing of Zeevi outraged Israelis. Sharon's government has demanded the Palestinians hand over those responsible. The Palestinians say they have made several arrests, but are not expected to turn over suspects to the Israelis.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for Zeevi's death, saying it was revenge for Israel's killing of PFLP leader Mustafa Zibri in an Aug. 27 missile attack. Israel said it targeted Zibri because he had organized car bombings carried out by the group.

-------- puerto rico

Court Clears Way for Vote on Vieques

New York Times
October 19, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/national/19PUER.html

SAN JUAN, P.R., Oct. 18 - Puerto Rico's Supreme Court has ordered election officials to prepare for a Nov. 6 referendum for the island of Vieques on whether the Navy should end war games there, but reserved a final ruling.

The order was issued after Judge Sonia Velez of Superior Court ruled on Monday in a lawsuit by six Vieques residents that such a referendum would be unconstitutional.

Puerto Rico's Justice Department appealed. The Supreme Court ordered preparations for the referendum to continue and told the two sides to submit arguments by Friday so it could rule.

Residents of Vieques would vote on whether they want the Navy to stop training and leave by May 2003 or continue bombing practice in exchange for a $50 million economic development program.

Moves in Washington could cancel the vote. The White House said earlier that instead it would order the Navy off Vieques by May 1, 2003.

The House passed a bill last month that canceled the referendum, imposed the date suggested by President Bush and allowed the Navy to train on Vieques until top officers found another site. A Senate bill keeps the referendum. A conference committee was to work out differences, but was delayed.

-------- u.n.

UN Balks at Post-Taleban Role

By Tim Judah in northern Afghanistan
RCA No. 76, 19-Oct-01
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca/rca_200110_76_2_eng.txt

United Nations officials are horrified by US talk of the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taleban.

Every time a shell is fired at the Qurugh frontline, just south of the border with Tajikistan, you can feel the vibrations reverberate through the hot air. Then you crouch in the trenches, jump over the top and sprint forward with troops of the anti-Taleban 523 Kunduz Brigade.

Just behind the lines, are ruined villages with compounds full of tea-sipping soldiers and commanders champing at the bit, waiting for the order to launch an all out offensive on Mullah Omar's forces.

Many of these men are refugees from Taleban-held territory. They want to go home and to be reunited with their families.

Like most Afghans they are exhausted by 22 years of war, and indeed, many of them are too young to even remember what peace was like. But some still have plenty of energy left.

Reclining like a pasha on a mattress on the floor of his headquarters General Alam Kahn, a veteran of the conflict with the Soviet Union and the civil wars that have followed, said simply, "Not only am I not tired but I want to fight Pakistan."

Kahn's antipathy towards Islamabad, which nurtured him and his fellow mujahedin fighters during the war against the Soviet Union, springs from the fact that, as they say, Pakistan then tried to dictate who would govern Afghanistan and finally sponsored the Taleban.

After a hearty lunch of rice and mutton, the general's aide, Faziludin, who lost an arm fighting in Kabul, thoughtfully sucks a coffee flavoured boiled sweet. Then, in a matter of fact way, he lets drop that when he gets to Mazar-e-Sharif, he intends to "kill Pakistani, Arab and Chechen Taleban but not Afghan ones because they are my brothers."

In 1997, just after the Taleban first entered the city some 2,000 of them were massacred, just over half crammed into containers and left to bake to death in the blistering sun. When the containers were opened the bodies were found to have turned black. In 1998, the Taleban retook the city and massacred some 6,000 people in revenge.

Paik Chong-Hyun, a UN special rapporteur, who investigated the deaths of the Taleban, wrote in his report that many of them were tossed down deep wells, then hand grenades were thrown in and the wells were bulldozed over.

Ever since, UN-led efforts to make peace have come to naught. It feels especially bitter about Afghanistan since Diego Cordovez, then a UN under secretary general, helped negotiate the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989.

In the wake of that none of the solemn commitments made by any of the parties involved was kept. So, the country has been at war ever since, with neighbours and big powers alike interfering and manipulating the various parties as they see fit.

UN policy makers are highly alarmed by the evolving situation, fearing they will be asked to clear up the mess in the wake of the current bombing campaign.

On Thursday, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general and his special representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, met Richard Haass, the top US state department official in charge with Afghanistan plus John Negroponte, the US ambassador to the UN. On Friday, Brahimi was due for talks with the US administration in Washington. In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the US, the UN kept a low profile, doing little in public beyond issuing statements of condolence and regret. Now, according to IWPR sources, it is shifting into high gear.

"Given our past experience," said a senior UN political official in New York, who asked not to be named, "we are trying to be prepared this time." She said an emergency task force had now been formed which was, "running through all the scenarios in case the Taleban are defeated".

Over the last few days, Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, has mooted the idea of a post-Taleban UN peacekeeping force for Afghanistan. But UN officials are horrified by the idea. They fear being called in to sort out an impossible mess made by others.

"We have been burned too often," said the UN official referring to the organisation's missions in Bosnia and Croatia between 1991-95. Its representatives are still bitter about these believing that the US undermined them and that they were then blamed for their failure.

Now, with not a little sang-froid, UN officials are certainly not keen to find themselves hauled into an Afghan mission to help out the US.

Even the fact that President Bush has suddenly told Annan that the US will now pay the bulk of its longstanding arrears to the world body, is not helping assuage UN scepticism.

"What have they got in mind?" said the UN source, "for how long? What would the mandate be? The US would like to move quickly and declare a situation where the UN takes over but we are saying this cannot be rushed. Brahimi is trying to lower the tone. The conditions are not there to think of deploying troops let alone anything else. Who is going to give the troops? Africans? Is the US going to put its troops in harms way? This is no joke. It makes Bosnia look like a kids game."

One idea that has been mooted is that the UN could play a similar sort of role to the one it played in Cambodia, in the run up to the elections it supervised there in May 1993. But, as the UN source pointed out, "In Cambodia you had a framework for peace. In Afghanistan you don't".

When he visited Islamabad on Tuesday, Colin Powell appeared to endorse the proposal of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf that a future government of Afghanistan should include "moderate Taleban elements".

This enrages Northern Alliance spokesmen such as Abdullah Abdullah, the foreign minister of the anti-Taliban alliance. He has rejected the proposal out of hand saying that there was no such thing as a moderate Taleban element. "Their objective is terrorism and fanaticism so who would expect us to join such a government with such people. This is against the objective of the international alliance against terrorism," he said.

Down in the Panjsher valley, Northern Alliance officials are preparing a broad-based future administration, which would include non-Taleban Pashtuns. Given the current diplomatic dynamics, it is quite possible that, at a certain point in the future, the moves afoot at the UN, in the US and in the Panjsher valley will come together and a formula for governing Afghanistan involving the UN will be hammered out. When, and what that will look like though, it remains far too early to tell.

Tim Judah, author of Kosovo: War and Revenge (Yale), is a regular IWPR contributor.

-------- u.s.

US troops enter Afghanistan

Washington Times
October 19, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/nobyline-2001101993540.htm

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- U.S. special forces have entered Afghanistan and were seen near the western city of Heart, the official Iranian news agency, IRNA reported Friday.

Asked to comment on the report at his news conference in Shanghai, President Bush said he would not comment on reports concerning troop movements.

"I will not comment upon military operations ... for the fear of disrupting operations that are taking place but we will use whatever means available to achieve justice."

Bush also confirmed that the military operation in Afghanistan would continue for as long as it takes to "bring (the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington) to justice. Our nation would do whatever it takes to bring them to justice, no matter what it takes."

Despite Bush's refusal to comment on reports of troop movements, a Pentagon official told British Broadcasting Corp. that "this could be the first phase of a larger troops presence in Afghanistan."

U.S. special forces have reportedly been preparing to move into Afghanistan from the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, stationed in the Indian Ocean.

Quoting witnesses, the Iranian agency said that Iranian reporters had seen U.S. troops near Herat, which borders Iran.

Before it fell to the Taliban militia in 1997, Herat was a stronghold of rebel commander Ismail Khan who has been operating from Iran since his ouster from the western Afghan city.

Western diplomatic sources in the Pakistani capital Islamabad said that both U.S. and British sources had entered the area on "a mission of scouting and intelligence gathering."

They said the limited number of troops who entered Afghanistan would contact Pashtun tribesmen in western and southern Afghanistan and see if they could be encouraged to rebel against the Taliban.

Meanwhile, U.S.-led forces continued their airstrikes into Afghanistan for the thirteenth consecutive day Friday. Reports from Afghanistan spoke of heavy bombing in and around the Taliban headquarters of Kandahar in southwestern Afghanistan.

--------

Special Forces Open Ground Campaign
Small Numbers Are Said to Be Operating To Aid CIA Effort in Southern Afghanistan

By Thomas E. Ricks and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 19, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18411-2001Oct18.html

U.S. Special Forces have begun the ground phase of America's war against terrorism in Afghanistan, operating in small numbers in southern Afghanistan in support of the CIA's effort in the Taliban heartland, defense officials said yesterday.

Their presence on the battlefield comes amid growing indications that the war's intensity is about to increase dramatically after 11 days of U.S. and British airstrikes that Pentagon officials say have pummeled the defenses of the Taliban regime's militia.

The number of U.S. personnel on the ground is just a handful now and is unlikely to ever resemble the large conventional forces assembled in the Persian Gulf War a decade ago, defense officials said. But their presence marks a turning point in only the second week of the conflict, heightening the risk to U.S. forces and underscoring the seriousness of the Bush administration's commitment to prosecuting its war against terrorism.

The new Special Forces mission in southern Afghanistan is designed to expand an ongoing CIA effort to encourage ethnic Pashtun leaders to break away from the Taliban militia, a senior defense official said.

But another official said additional Special Forces are likely to be deployed soon, and could take on other missions such as reconnaissance, target designation for aircraft and, on rare occasions, direct attacks on Taliban or terrorist leaders.

Disclosure of the new Special Forces mission came on a day when a number of prominent officials commented on the inevitability of ground troops.

In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been President Bush's closest ally in the campaign, said "the next few weeks will be the most testing time but we are on track to achieve the goals we set out." He added: "I don't think we have ever contemplated this being done by air power alone."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, briefing reporters at the Pentagon, declined to comment on the presence of Special Forces in Afghanistan "until we have an activity that is significant and noticeable." But Rumsfeld noted that aircraft "cannot really do sufficient damage. . . . They can't crawl around on the ground and find people."

Joining Rumsfeld, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added: "We are prepared to use the full spectrum of our military capabilities. Obviously, that's not just bombers, that's just not carrier-based aircraft; that's other assets as well. We talked earlier about Special Forces."

Myers concluded with a direct appeal to all U.S. military forces and the American people. "I firmly believe that this is the most important task that the U.S. military has been handed since the Second World War," said Myers, who as a fighter pilot flew 600 combat hours over Vietnam. "And what's at stake here is no less than our freedom to exist as an American people. . . . So to every soldier, sailor, airmen, Marine, and Coast Guardsmen, and DOD civilian, and our allies and friends, I say, 'Let's stay ready, let's stay focused.' "

As Myers and Rumsfeld hinted at the impending ground war, EC-130 "Commando Solo" psychological operations aircraft broadcast instructions to civilians to follow when U.S. troops arrive: "Attention! People of Afghanistan, United States forces will be moving through your area," according to transcripts released by the Pentagon.

"We are here for Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and those who protect them! Please, for your own safety, stay off bridges and roadways, and do not interfere with our troops or military operations. If you do this, you will not be harmed."

The Bush administration holds bin Laden and al Qaeda, the global extremist network he commands, responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. The Taliban, Afghanistan's ruling militia, has harbored bin Laden and supported his infrastructure since bin Laden was expelled from Sudan in 1996.

In northern Afghanistan, sources with the Northern Alliance opposition group said yesterday that U.S. military officers arrived on Wednesday aboard two helicopters to hold meetings with Gen. Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek warlord fighting the Taliban, the Associated Press reported. U.S. military officials have said since the war began Oct. 7 that Army Special Forces have been operating in northern Afghanistan to coordinate with the Northern Alliance, a coalition comprised primarily of ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks.

In addition to Special Forces, a senior defense official said the Pentagon has a number of innovative actions planned for Afghanistan and other countries that harbor terrorists. "There are going to be somethings that will surprise you -- weapons that people don't know we have," he said.

These weapons, he said, would be akin to the armed drone -- a Predator reconnaissance aircraft newly equipped with Hellfire antitank missiles -- that the United States is using for the first time over Afghanistan.

Other defense officials have said they expect a large and visible helicopter assault involving Special Forces aviation units aboard the USS Kitty Hawk in the Arabian Sea and in bases in Uzbekistan, just north of Afghanistan. British special forces are also expected to operate on the ground in Afghanistan, an informed source said.

Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, chief of the Central Command that oversees the Afghanistan campaign, is expected to travel to Saudi Arabia next week to review progress of the war, Pentagon officials said.

As the war moved through its 12th day, U.S. warplanes continued hitting targets, bombing around Kabul, the capital, and the cities of Kandahar and Jalalabad, witnesses said.

Northern Alliance commanders, speaking from Mahmoud-e Raqi in northern Afghanistan, 30 miles north of Kabul, said they are prepared to advance on the capital but would wait until an agreement is reached on a coalition government to replace the Taliban.

More than 200 miles to the north, fighting continued around Mazar-e Sharif, where Taliban forces are attempting to halt a drive by Northern Alliance fighters to capture the important crossroad city.

"It's back and forth, and if there were any gains, it would be on the side of the Taliban," one defense official said at the Pentagon.

Taliban officials, speaking in Kabul and Dubai, claimed that from 400 to 900 civilians had been killed in the airstrikes but said that their leaders and the leaders of al Qaeda, including bin Laden, were safe.

Despite those assertions, a group based in London, the Islamic Observation Center, reported that an al Qaeda member with ties to the group's senior leaders, known as Abu Baseer al-Masri, had been killed, apparently as the result of an airstrike.

In Cairo, Reuters obtained a statement by Mohammed Atef, a former Egyptian policeman described by terrorism experts as al Qaeda's military commander, saying that U.S. forces would be driven from Afghanistan as they were from Somalia in 1993. "The calculations of the crusade coalition were very mistaken when it thought it could wage a war on Afghanistan, achieving victory swiftly," Atef said.

At the Pentagon briefing, Rumsfeld and Myers denied Taliban claims that hundreds of civilians have died and said that the U.S. airstrikes have been precise, except for a bomb that went off course and killed four civilians in a house in Kabul.

"When television says we're bombing Kabul, we're not bombing Kabul," Rumsfeld said. "We may take out a single location in Kabul, but most of the effort is on the outskirts of Kabul in unpopulated areas and military targets."

Myers disputed Taliban claims that 18 people were killed when a bomb struck a bus in Kandahar. U.S. military analysts, he said, "have looked at that very hard in the area that they said the bus was in. They've looked at the targets we struck in that area, and we can find no evidence that the bombs were anywhere other than where they were supposed to go, and no evidence of [any bomb hitting a bus] at this point."

Describing targets attacked on Wednesday, Myers said they included terrorist camps, al Qaeda forces, Taliban military facilities and troop deployments. While Northern Alliance commanders have complained that U.S. aircraft have not engaged dug-in Taliban troops defending Kabul, Myers said that U.S. fighter jets have attacked those forces.

-------

Pentagon: 2 Killed in Pakistan Crash

October 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Helicopter-Accident.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A U.S. helicopter supporting a commando raid in Afghanistan crashed Friday in neighboring Pakistan, killing two people in the first combat-related American deaths of the military campaign.

A brief Pentagon statement said the helicopter crash was an accident but provided no details. The two military personnel who were killed were not immediately identified so their families could be notified first.

The helicopter was in the air Friday night to provide rescue assistance, if needed, during a raid inside southern Afghanistan by about 100 special operations forces, including Army Rangers, said a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The helicopter did not enter Afghanistan airspace, the official said.

The deaths bring to three the number of people killed since the U.S. military campaign against the al-Qaida terror network and the ruling Taliban militia began Oct. 7. Master Sgt. Evander Andrews, of Solon, Maine, assigned to the 366 Civil Engineer Squadron, was killed last week in a forklift accident while building an air strip in Qatar, a peninsula in the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. military began moving troops and helicopters into two Pakistan air bases on Oct. 12, setting up operations near the Afghan border to launch commando raids or rescue missions.

A month after the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Pakistan acknowledged for the first time Oct. 11 that American military aircraft had landed inside its borders and were using at least two air bases.

---------

Joint Strike Fighter Not Ready Yet

October 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Joint-Strike-Fighter.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Production should be delayed for a next-generation fighter jet that is the subject of the largest Pentagon contract ever because the jet's technology isn't at a high enough standard, congressional investigators said Friday.

The finding by the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, comes one week before the Pentagon is to award the Joint Strike Fighter's $225 billion production contract.

The GAO said in a report that the jet will cost more, take longer to produce and have performance problems if it goes forward.

Boeing Co. is competing with Lockheed Martin Corp. for the contract. The fighter will serve the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marines as well as Britain's Royal Navy. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday no decision has been made on who will get the contract.

The revolutionary warplane is designed to combine supersonic speeds with the ability to hover and will have radar-baffling stealth technology.

But the GAO said the jet's technologies have not been fully developed for its size, weight and configuration. It also said the technologies have only been shown to work in ground tests and some still are in the laboratory phase.

``We disagree with the DOD's assertion that technology is mature enough,'' the GAO said.

The report did not describe the technologies because of the contract competition between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The GAO had similar findings in a May 2000 report.

The GAO said if the Defense Department chooses not to delay the program then the agency should dedicate resources to ensure that critical technologies are shown to be ready.

In a written response, the Pentagon said it conducted an independent review that showed the technology is developed enough to move forward.

``We believe that the technologies are there to go into the next phase,'' said Cheryl Irwin, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

But the GAO said the Defense Department used the wrong tools for assessing the technologies' risks.

Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., who chairs the House Appropriations national security subcommittee, sent a letter to Rumsfeld and other congressional members outlining the GAO's findings.

His office said Shays did not take a position on whether the jet's development should move forward.

Rick Fuller, a Boeing spokesman who had not read the report, said the technology is the most advanced in the world at this time. He also said ``hundreds and hundreds'' of airborne tests had been conducted on the jet's technology.

``All that has exceeded expectations,'' he said.

The contract to be awarded calls for building 3,000 planes for the United States and Britain. If other countries decide to replace their jets with the jet, the contractor could build another 3,000.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Alternative fuel brewing in man's backyard

Friday, October 19, 2001
By Adam Gorlick,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/10/10192001/ap_45303.asp

ASHFIELD, Mass. - The slick brown goo that Tom Leue concocts in his backyard chemistry lab isn't as appetizing as the french fries it once cooked, but Leue gets plenty of mileage out of the used restaurant oil.

With a dash of wood alcohol and a sprinkle of lye, Leue brews the grease trap sludge into biodiesel, an environmentally friendly fuel that powers diesel engines and heats homes. Biodiesel can be produced from soybean oil or recycled vegetable oil from restaurants. It produces none of the carbon monoxide or small particles created by burning traditional petroleum-based diesel fuel.

"Petroleum is awful for the environment," Leue said. "It causes global warming and acid rain. It's just not compatible with living things."

Leue's two Volkswagen Jettas with diesel engines run on the stuff; so do his tractor and pickup. His home heating furnace burns it with no problems, he said.

And there's no shortage of the raw material he needs to make the fuel. Once a week, Leue hops in his Ford pickup truck powered by a tankful of his Yellow Brand Premium Biodiesel and makes the rounds of nearby restaurants. "Chinese restaurants are my favorite," he said. "They usually use very clean oil."

Using a bright yellow tank in the pickup's flatbed, Leue sucks up to 200 gallons of grease that the restaurants save for him.

Back at his makeshift lab, a converted maple sugaring house coated with the dull odor of cooking oil, Leue pumps the sludge into a holding tank and begins transforming it into fuel. Sap pans, a 24-gallon hot water heater, and a huge soup cauldron Leue got from a school cafeteria are about all the hardware he needs.

The oil is pumped through a series of filters to remove bits of food and other sediment. Then the addition of lye and wood alcohol separates useless glycerin from what becomes the fuel. After settling overnight, the brew is ready.

Leue, a 53-year-old biologist who also inspects septic systems and has done energy and asbestos removal consulting for towns and schools in the area, started making biodiesel about three years ago. He learned how to do it when he and his wife decided to wean themselves off a reliance on petroleum-based oil. And Leue's failure to make a living off small farming and maple syrup left him with a stash of equipment he needed.

"People like syrup on their pancakes maybe once a week, but they have to drive every day," Leue said. "So it makes sense to provide a fuel for them that won't hurt the environment the way gasoline does."

While Leue's operation is low tech, his product is high priced. At $2.50 a gallon, sales of Yellow Brand Premium Biodiesel are sluggish in the few stores that sell it. "There's a lot of interest in it but not a lot of sales," said Margaret Keith, owner of Elmer's Country Store in Ashfield center, where two 5-gallon jugs of Yellow Brand sit on the floor. Yellow Brand is also sold at an Easthampton auto shop and will soon be on the shelves in a Greenfield market.

Still, Leue churns out about 240 gallons a week and says he has no surplus. Most of the biodiesel is sold straight from the pump he has on his property.

Richard Baruc, one of Leue's customers, says he has had no problems with his two family vehicles after using Yellow Brand. "Our pickup loves it," said Baruc, who buys fuel from Leue in 55-gallon drums. Baruc, who runs a farm in Orange with his wife, said their 1997 Ford pickup gets 19 miles to the gallon. Their 1980 Mercedes gets 24 miles to the gallon. "It's just as good as we'd get with regular diesel," he said.

While small-batch production of biodiesel is uncommon - state, federal, and industry officials said they don't know of any other homegrown operations in New England - popularity of the alternative fuel is growing in America. Five million gallons of biodiesel were produced last year, and industry officials say 20 million gallons will be produced by the end of 2001, according to the National Biodiesel Board.

The board says there are more than 100 fleets of public and private trucks and buses across the country that are fueled by biodiesel. Diesel engines don't require any modifications to run on the fuel, board spokeswoman Jenna Higgins said. But Higgins warned consumers to make sure the product is approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Leue said he's applied to register as a fuel producer with the EPA. He said he isn't trying to compete with large-scale biodiesel production companies but hopes to at least provide an education on the availability of clean-burning fuels. "It may be more expensive than gasoline and other fuels, but biodiesel has benefits built into that cost," he said. "You're not adding to the burdens of the planet by using this product."

----

Wartsila buys Finnish biomass power plant firm

Reuters
19/10/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12889/story.htm

HELSINKI - Finnish engineering group Wartsila said yesterday it had agreed to acquire Sermet Oy, a Finnish producer of biofuel power plants, for an undisclosed sum to boost its business in that area.

"Sermet's net sales in 2001 are expected to total approximately 20 million euros ($18.18 million) and the result to be on a good level," Wartsila said in a statement.

Acquiring Sermet would help strengthen Wartsila's position as a supplier of decentralised power plant systems, the engine-builder said.

"Demand for power plants running on fuels from renewable energy sources is growing strongly," Wartsila said. It added that biomass-fuelled power plants with total capacity of about 1,000 megawatts were currently under construction in Europe.

"There is a large market potential in the developing countries," it said.

-------- health

Companies Probe Use of Steam on Germs

October 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Sanitized-Mail.html?searchpv=aponline

BOSTON (AP) -- Steam, chemicals and even radiation have been used for decades to fight the dangerous germs that settle on everything from chicken parts to surgical instruments.

Now, anthrax attacks have the ``industrial sterilization'' industry scrambling to see if its technology might work on something new: unopened mail.

Several companies say they're fielding calls asking whether their machines could be used in mail rooms to zap or steam away dangerous bacteria, such as anthrax. At least one says it's lining up deals to run mail through an irradiator.

Some insist the technology could be an effective way to make mail safer. But others see huge practical challenges.

``Anthrax is easy to kill,'' said Arthur Trapotsis, a scientist at Consolidated Machine Corp., a small Boston company that has been turning out steam sterilizers -- essentially giant pressure cookers -- for 50 years. ``It's not difficult to kill a spore on paper. It's when it's in your system that it's difficult.''

For all the fear they've provoked, anthrax bacteria are vulnerable to the same weapons outside the body as other kinds of germs -- namely wet heat and gamma rays. One expert has even said ironing a letter would kill anthrax spores inside, though others say it could take 20 minutes of solid, intense heat.

Last week, Trapotsis tried smearing bacteria on a stack of letters and putting them into one of the company's oven-sized units. He shut the door, infused 250-degree steam for a few minutes, and filtered out the air. The letters emerged undamaged and, according to tests, bacteria-free.

The company makes walk-in sized units that could handle more mail. But Consolidated Machine founder Bill Barnstead says he's had no customers for those steamers so far. He's sent letters to government officials but hasn't heard back.

Meanwhile, irradiation companies such as Steris Corp. , based in Mentor, Ohio., and MDS Nordion, based in Ontario, say they're moving cautiously in response to calls about their irradiation devices, some of which can disinfect with a barrage of gamma rays.

MDS Nordion spokeswoman Paula Burchat says the first commercial irradiator was used in the 1960s to kill any lingering anthrax germs in lambs wool sweaters.

In Mulberry, Fla., Food Technology Service has already lined up several companies to use excess capacity at the company's irradiation facility, normally used for ``truckloads'' of animal parts and fruit. The company's stock more than doubled to more than $3 in the last week before falling back below that mark Thursday.

Chief Executive Richard Hunter says deals are in the final stages to irradiate mail for several companies, at a cost of a few cents per letter.

``It doesn't change the mail, leave any stain or residue, it's not radioactive,'' Hunter says. ``But it does kill any pathogens, it sterilizes.''

Numerous clients have asked the Securities Services Group at Kroll Inc. , the world's largest risk consulting firm, whether such technology could protect their mail rooms, according to chief operating officer Jeff Schlanger.

``I believe it has great potential,'' he said. ``We're looking into the irradiation of bulk quantities of mail.''

Biochemist Allen Louie, of Cambridge-based consulting firm Arthur D. Little, says irradiating mail raises numerous problems. Radiation, though safe to people, could damage contents, as could steam. Gamma rays could also be deflected by a metal box inside a package, and they work better in wet environments.

Furthermore, ``something that's in the middle of a bundle would not get as good treatment as something toward the end of a bundle,'' he said.

But the real problems are logistical and financial. Spokesmen at several companies acknowledge the current machines, though some as large as a small room, simply aren't designed for huge quantities of mail.

``Even the big (sterilizers) couldn't do even a fraction of the amount of mail that would come through a company's mail room,'' Louie said.

The logical place to irradiate would be at centralized Post Office locations, Louie said, but that could cause delivery delays. It would be easier to irradiate only suspicious mail or mail at obvious targets, like the U.S. Capitol.

``They look like promising technologies. They're not going to be there tomorrow,'' said Postal Service spokesman Greg Frey. ``In the meantime, we need to get through this.''

At Consolidated Machine, the Boston company, founder Bill Barnstead said he wouldn't be out to profit from steaming mail; a home-sized unit would cost $300-$500. Its biggest units, walk-in size, cost $100,000. For MDS Nordion's 4,000-6,000 square foot units, construction and installation costs are between $3 million and $5 million.

Numbers like that would worry the Post Office, which delivers 680 million pieces of mail per day and says it was already in financial straits before the Sept. 11 attacks.

``We welcome the technology,'' Frey said. ``We also welcome anyone's idea on how to pay for the technology.''

-------- human rights

Amnesty Report Finds Use of Torture Is Still Common in Brazil

New York Times
October 19, 2001
By LARRY ROHTER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/international/americas/19BRAZ.html

SÃO PAULO, Brazil, Oct. 17 - More than 15 years after democratic rule replaced military dictatorship, torture remains "widespread and systematic" throughout Brazil, regarded by the authorities as an accepted method of policing and unpunished by judges, according to a new report issued here by Amnesty International.

Just as in Argentina, Chile and other Latin American countries that suffered under military rule, torture was widely used here as a tool of political repression in the 1970's and 80's. That led to widespread revulsion, with civic and religious groups leading campaigns for its abolition.

But public attitudes have changed in recent years. And with crime and violence rising in São Paulo and other cities, ordinary citizens have come to favor the use of any and all tactics to maintain order.

"To many people, torture is a crime of the past," said Tim Cahill, an Amnesty International researcher who worked on the new report. In contrast to the middle-class white students and intellectuals who suffered in the past, "many of today's victims are poor or African-Brazilians, and so what they undergo is not deemed torture," he said.

Many police officials who engaged in torture under the dictatorship benefited from amnesties under democratic rule and remained in their jobs. As a result, the Amnesty International report concluded, "the failure to investigate and punish the crimes committed under the military government has built up an ethos of impunity within the security forces, which has allowed torture and ill-treatment to flourish."

Mr. Cahill also suggested a link between the continued use of torture and the poor training and meager resources available to law enforcement officials. "The police don't have investigative skills or tools," he said, "so they beat confessions out of prisoners and torture becomes a de facto method of policing."

Gilberto Sabóia, Brazil's secretary of state for human rights, said Brazil "recognizes the need for adequate investigation of complaints of torture and for a mechanism to repress these crimes." He cited the recent convictions of police officers in about 20 cases, but said constitutional restraints also hamstring the state.

The Amnesty International report follows one by the United Nations' Commission on Human Rights, which came to similar conclusions after a delegation visited Brazil last year.

In 1997, the Brazilian government, whose top echelons include officials who were themselves jailed or forced into exile during the dictatorship, pushed for passage of an antitorture law. The statute defines torture as a crime and includes a provision stating that testimony obtained by torture should be inadmissible.

But the legislation is routinely flouted by police officers, who are confident that judges will ignore or refuse to enforce the restrictions.

Responding to the criticisms, the government is about to start an antitorture campaign, including radio and television announcements that urge the public to denounce incidents of torture. A telephone hot line to receive complaints is scheduled to start at the end of the month, along with new federal and state commissions to monitor complaints and oversee prosecutions.

Amnesty International praised the government for its willingness to confront the issue of torture and for its "full and frank response" to international criticism. But the group also expressed doubt that the initiatives would be enough to prosecute perpetrators of torture or end abuses.

--------

Please don't bomb my house...

The Times of India
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2001
http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1026500011

PESHAWAR: Seven-year-old Ursal wakes up at night, crying. Her 6-year-old sister Nazeen jumps when she hears any loud noise. Their 10-year-old cousin Nasim is nervous when he is indoors, afraid the house will collapse around him.

These refugee children, whose family fled the Afghan capital of Kabul five days ago, were already ragged, ill and malnourished before the US-led bombing campaign began. Now they have added fear and displacement to the long list of hardships already besetting them.

The extended Gul family - four women and 17 children -slipped out of Kabul before dawn last Thursday, terrified after four nights of thunderous bombardment that shook the poor neighborhood where they lived. Sometimes the warplanes came back by day as well.

The family managed to arrange truck transport to a point near the border, which is closed by refugees.

They crossed the frontier in the dark on a steep, rocky mule track, with guides who charged what was for them the astronomical sum of $8 per adult.

Exhausted and nearly penniless, they finally arrived in the frontier city of Peshawar over the weekend. Two of the women left behind husbands who will try to follow later; two had already been widowed by earlier fighting in Afghanistan.

They were able to carry almost nothing with them. On their cross-border journey, each adult was clutching at least one small child, and the older children were responsible for shepherding along their younger brothers and sisters.

''We have what we are wearing -that is all,'' said Qandi Gul, 40, the mother of six girls and a boy, covered from head to toe in burqa. Only her chapped, callused hands showed, palms turned up in a gesture of helplessness.

On Monday, the mothers and 11 of the children made their way to an Afghan aid group, the Welfare and Development Organization. By word of mouth in the refugee camps, it has become a crucial way station for new arrivals like these. Because they are here illegally and fear being picked up and sent home, they are afraid to seek help anywhere else.

Almost all the children were ill with diarrhea or respiratory ailments, said Al-Umera, a 28-year-old doctor treating them. As the family waited in an anteroom at the aid group's offices, a chorus of racking coughs arose.

There are limits to what she will be able to do for them, said the doctor, whose own family fled Afghanistan when she was 5. None of the children has gotten enough to eat in a long time, she says, and malnourishment will leave them susceptible to more illness, especially in the cramped, squalid conditions in which they will be living.

Al-Umera, who like many Afghans uses only one name, questioned the children gently about the bombardment and the family's flight.

Most are sleeping badly, their mothers told her. ''This one has bad dreams - she cries out at night,'' said Qandi Gul, mother of Ursal, a luminous-eyed 7-year-old who carried her 18-month-old brother Lamzai on her skinny hip. (AP)

-------- media spin

THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION: WHY AMERICANS WILL BELIEVE ALMOST ANYTHING
Worth reading over and over again... =) www.thedoctorwithin.com

From: "Elijah Alexander" <elijah_natureboy@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001
Chapter 33 - by Tim O'Shea

Aldous Huxley's inspired 1954 essay detailed the vivid, mind-expanding, multisensory insights of his mescaline adventures. By altering his brain chemistry with natural psychotropics, Huxley tapped into a rich and fluid world of shimmering, indescribable beauty and power. With his neurosensory input thus triggered, Huxley was able to enter that parallel universe described by every mystic and space captain in recorded history. Whether by hallucination or epiphany, Huxley sought to remove all controls, all filters, all cultural conditioning from his perceptions and to confront Nature or the World or Reality first-hand - in its unpasteurized, unedited, unretouched, infinite rawness.

Those bonds are much harder to break today, half a century later. We are the most conditioned, programmed beings the world has ever known. Not only are our thoughts and attitudes continually being shaped and molded; our very awareness of the whole design seems like it is being subtly and inexorably erased. The doors of our perception are carefully and precisely regulated. Who cares, right?

It is an exhausting and endless task to keep explaining to people how most issues of conventional wisdom are scientifically implanted in the public consciousness by a thousand media clips per day. In an effort to save time, I would like to provide just a little background on the handling of information in this country. Once the basic principles are illustrated about how our current system of media control arose historically, the reader might be more apt to question any given popular opinion.

If everybody believes something, it's probably wrong. We call that Conventional Wisdom.

In America, conventional wisdom that has mass acceptance is usually contrived: somebody paid for it. Examples:

a.. Pharmaceuticals restore health
b.. Vaccination brings immunity
c.. The cure for cancer is just around the corner
d.. Menopause is a disease condition
e.. When a child is sick, he needs immediate antibiotics
f.. When a child has a fever he needs Tylenol
g.. Hospitals are safe and clean.
h.. America has the best health care in the world.
i.. Americans have the best health in the world.
j.. Milk is a good source of calcium.
k.. You never outgrow your need for milk.
l.. Vitamin C is ascorbic acid.
m.. Aspirin prevents heart attacks.
n.. Heart drugs improve the heart.
o.. Back and neck pain are the only reasons for spinal adjustment.
p.. No child can get into school without being vaccinated.
q.. The FDA thoroughly tests all drugs before they go on the market.
r.. Pregnancy is a serious medical condition
s.. Chemotherapy and radiation are effective cures for cancer
t.. When your child is diagnosed with an ear infection, antibiotics should be given immediately 'just in case'
u.. Ear tubes are for the good of the child.
v.. Estrogen drugs prevent osteoporosis after menopause.
w.. Pediatricians are the most highly trained of al medical specialists.
x.. The purpose of the health care industry is health.
y.. HIV is the cause of AIDS.
z.. AZT is the cure.
aa.. Without vaccines, infectious diseases will return
ab.. Fluoride in the city water protects your teeth
ac.. Flu shots prevent the flu.
ad.. Vaccines are thoroughly tested before being placed on the Mandated Schedule.
ae.. Doctors are certain that the benefits of vaccines far outweigh any possible risks.
af.. There is a power shortage in California.
ag.. There is a meningitis epidemic in California.
ah.. The NASDAQ is a natural market controlled only by supply and demand.
ai.. Chronic pain is a natural consequence of aging.
aj.. Soy is your healthiest source of protein.
ak.. Insulin shots cure diabetes.
al.. After we take out your gall bladder you can eat anything you want
am.. Allergy medicine will cure allergies.

This is a list of illusions, that have cost billions and billions to conjure up. Did you ever wonder why you never see the President speaking publicly unless he is reading? Or why most people in this country think generally the same about most of the above issues?

HOW THIS WHOLE SET-UP GOT STARTED

In Trust Us We're Experts, Stauber and Rampton pull together some compelling data describing the science of creating public opinion in America. They trace modern public influence back to the early part of the last century, highlighting the work of guys like Edward L. Bernays, the Father of Spin. From his own amazing chronicle Propaganda, we learn how Edward L. Bernays took the ideas of his famous uncle Sigmund Freud himself and applied them to the emerging science of mass persuasion. The only difference was that instead of using these principles to uncover hidden themes in the human unconscious, the way Freudian psychology does, Bernays used these same ideas to mask agendas and to create illusions that deceive and misrepresent, for marketing purposes.

THE FATHER OF SPIN

Bernays dominated the PR industry until the 1940s, and was a significant force for another 40 years after that. (Tye) During all that time, Bernays took on hundreds of diverse assignments to create a public perception about some idea or product. A few examples:

As a neophyte with the Committee on Public Information, one of Bernays' first assignments was to help sell the First World War to the American public with the idea to "Make the World Safe for Democracy." (Ewen)

A few years later, Bernays set up a stunt to popularize the notion of women smoking cigarettes. In organizing the 1929 Easter Parade in New York City, Bernays showed himself as a force to be reckoned with. He organized the Torches of Liberty Brigade in which suffragettes marched in the parade smoking cigarettes as a mark of women's liberation. Such publicity followed from that one event that from then on women have felt secure about destroying their own lungs in public, the same way that men have always done.

Bernays popularized the idea of bacon for breakfast.

Not one to turn down a challenge, he set up the advertising format along with the AMA that lasted for nearly 50 years proving that cigarettes are beneficial to health. Just look at ads in issues of Life or Time from the 40s and 50s.

During the next several decades Bernays and his colleagues evolved the principles by which masses of people could be generally swayed through messages repeated over and over hundreds of times. One the value of media became apparent, other countries of the world tried to follow our lead. But Bernays really was the gold standard. Josef Goebbels, who was Hitler's minister of propaganda, studied the principles of Edward Bernays when Goebbels was developing the popular rationale he would use to convince the Germans that they had to purify their race. (Stauber)

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Bernay's job was to reframe an issue; to create a desired image that would put a particular product or concept in a desirable light. Bernays described the public as a 'herd that needed to be led.' And this herdlike thinking makes people "susceptible to leadership." Bernays never deviated from his fundamental axiom to "control the masses without their knowing it." The best PR happens with the people unaware that they are being manipulated.

Stauber describes Bernays' rationale like this:

"the scientific manipulation of public opinion was necessary to overcome chaos and conflict in a democratic society." Trust Us p 42

These early mass persuaders postured themselves as performing a moral service for humanity in general - democracy was too good for people; they needed to be told what to think, because they were incapable of rational thought by themselves. Here's a paragraph from Bernays' Propaganda:

"Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind."

A tad different from Thomas Jefferson's view on the subject:

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise that control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not take it from them, but to inform their discretion."

Inform their discretion. Bernays believed that only a few possessed the necessary insight into the Big Picture to be entrusted with this sacred task. And luckily, he saw himself as one of that few.

HERE COMES THE MONEY

Once the possibilities of applying Freudian psychology to mass media were glimpsed, Bernays soon had more corporate clients than he could handle. Global corporations fell all over themselves courting the new Image Makers. There were dozens of goods and services and ideas to be sold to a susceptible public. Over the years, these players have had the money to make their images happen. A few examples:

Philip Morris Pfizer Union Carbide Allstate Monsanto Eli Lilly tobacco industry Ciba Geigy lead industry Coors DuPont Chlorox Shell Oil Standard Oil Procter & Gamble Boeing General Motors Dow Chemical General Mills Goodyear

THE PLAYERS

Dozens of PR firms have emerged to answer that demand. Among them:

Burson-Marsteller Edelman Hill & Knowlton Kamer-Singer Ketchum Mongovin, Biscoe, and Duchin BSMG Buder-Finn

Though world-famous within the PR industry, these are names we don't know, and for good reason. The best PR goes unnoticed. For decades they have created the opinions that most of us were raised with, on virtually any issue which has the remotest commercial value, including:

pharmaceutical drugs vaccines medicine as a profession alternative medicine fluoridation of city water chlorine household cleaning products tobacco dioxin global warming leaded gasoline cancer research and treatment pollution of the oceans forests and lumber images of celebrities, including damage control crisis and disaster management genetically modified foods aspartame food additives; processed foods dental amalgams

LESSON #1

Bernays learned early on that the most effective way to create credibility for a product or an image was by "independent third-party" endorsement. For example, if General Motors were to come out and say that global warming is a hoax thought up by some liberal tree-huggers, people would suspect GM's motives, since GM's fortune is made by selling automobiles. If however some independent research institute with a very credible sounding name like the Global Climate Coalition comes out with a scientific report that says global warming is really a fiction, people begin to get confused and to have doubts about the original issue.

So that's exactly what Bernays did. With a policy inspired by genius, he set up "more institutes and foundations than Rockefeller and Carnegie combined." (Stauber p 45) Quietly financed by the industries whose products were being evaluated, these "independent" research agencies would churn out "scientific" studies and press materials that could create any image their handlers wanted. Such front groups are given high-sounding names like:

Temperature Research Foundation International Food Information Council Consumer Alert The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition Air Hygiene Foundation Industrial Health Federation International Food Information Council Manhattan Institute Center for Produce Quality Tobacco Institute Research Council Cato Institute American Council on Science and Health Global Climate Coalition Alliance for Better Foods

Sound pretty legit don't they?

CANNED NEWS RELEASES

As Stauber explains, these organizations and hundreds of others like them are front groups whose sole mission is to advance the image of the global corporations who fund them, like those listed on page 2 above. This is accomplished in part by an endless stream of 'press releases' announcing "breakthrough" research to every radio station and newspaper in the country. (Robbins) Many of these canned reports read like straight news, and indeed are purposely molded in the news format. This saves journalists the trouble of researching the subjects on their own, especially on topics about which they know very little. Entire sections of the release or in the case of video news releases, the whole thing can be just lifted intact, with no editing, given the byline of the reporter or newspaper or TV station - and voilá! Instant news - copy and paste. Written by corporate PR firms.

Does this really happen? Every single day, since the 1920s when the idea of the News Release was first invented by Ivy Lee. (Stauber, p 22) Sometimes as many as half the stories appearing in an issue of the Wall St. Journal are based solely on such PR press releases.. (22) These types of stories are mixed right in with legitimately researched stories. Unless you have done the research yourself, you won't be able to tell the difference.

THE LANGUAGE OF SPIN

As 1920s spin pioneers like Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays gained more experience, they began to formulate rules and guidelines for creating public opinion. They learned quickly that mob psychology must focus on emotion, not facts. Since the mob is incapable of rational thought, motivation must be based not on logic but on presentation. Here are some of the axioms of the new science of PR:

ü technology is a religion unto itself
ü if people are incapable of rational thought, real democracy is dangerous
ü important decisions should be left to experts
ü when reframing issues, stay away from substance; create images
ü never state a clearly demonstrable lie

Words are very carefully chosen for their emotional impact. Here's an example. A front group called the International Food Information Council handles the public's natural aversion to genetically modified foods. Trigger words are repeated all through the text. Now in the case of GM foods, the public is instinctively afraid of these experimental new creations which have suddenly popped up on our grocery shelves which are said to have DNA alterations. The IFIC wants to reassure the public of the safety of GM foods, so it avoids words like:

Frankenfoods Hitler biotech chemical DNA experiments manipulate money safety scientists radiation roulette gene-splicing gene gun random

Instead, good PR for GM foods contains words like:

hybrids natural order beauty choice bounty cross-breeding diversity earth farmer organic wholesome.

It's basic Freudian/Tony Robbins word association. The fact that GM foods are not hybrids that have been subjected to the slow and careful scientific methods of real cross-breeding doesn't really matter. This is pseudoscience, not science. Form is everything and substance just a passing myth. (Trevanian)

Who do you think funds the International Food Information Council? Take a wild guess. Right - Monsanto, DuPont, Frito-Lay, Coca Cola, Nutrasweet - those in a position to make fortunes from GM foods. (Stauber p 20)

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD PROPAGANDA

As the science of mass control evolved, PR firms developed further guidelines for effective copy. Here are some of the gems:

- dehumanize the attacked party by labeling and name calling - speak in glittering generalities using emotionally positive words - when covering something up, don't use plain English; stall for time; distract - get endorsements from celebrities, churches, sports figures, street people - anyone who has no expertise in the subject at hand - the 'plain folks' ruse: us billionaires are just like you - when minimizing outrage, don't say anything memorable - when minimizing outrage, point out the benefits of what just happened - when minimizing outrage, avoid moral issues

Keep this list. Start watching for these techniques. Not hard to find - look at today's paper or tonight's TV news. See what they're doing; these guys are good!

SCIENCE FOR HIRE

PR firms have become very sophisticated in the preparation of news releases. They have learned how to attach the names of famous scientists to research that those scientists have not even looked at. (Stauber, p 201) This is a common occurrence. In this way the editors of newspapers and TV news shows are often not even aware that an individual release is a total PR fabrication. Or at least they have "deniability," right?

Stauber tells the amazing story of how leaded gas came into the picture. In 1922, General Motors discovered that adding lead to gasoline gave cars more horsepower. When there was some concern about safety, GM paid the Bureau of Mines to do some fake "testing" and publish spurious research that 'proved' that inhalation of lead was harmless. Enter Charles Kettering.

Founder of the world famous Sloan-Kettering Memorial Institute for medical research, Charles Kettering also happened to be an executive with General Motors. By some strange coincidence, we soon have the Sloan Kettering institute issuing reports stating that lead occurs naturally in the body and that the body has a way of eliminating low level exposure. Through its association with The Industrial Hygiene Foundation and PR giant Hill & Knowlton, Sloane Kettering opposed all anti-lead research for years. (Stauber p 92). Without organized scientific opposition, for the next 60 years more and more gasoline became leaded, until by the 1970s, 90% or our gasoline was leaded.

Finally it became too obvious to hide that lead was a major carcinogen, and leaded gas was phased out in the late 1980s. But during those 60 years, it is estimated that some 30 million tons of lead were released in vapor form onto American streets and highways. 30 million tons.

That is PR, my friends.

JUNK SCIENCE

In 1993 a guy named Peter Huber wrote a new book and coined a new term. The book was Galileo's Revenge and the term was junk science. Huber's shallow thesis was that real science supports technology, industry, and progress. Anything else was suddenly junk science. Not surprisingly, Stauber explains how Huber's book was supported by the industry-backed Manhattan Institute.

Huber's book was generally dismissed not only because it was so poorly written, but because it failed to realize one fact: true scientific research begins with no conclusions. Real scientists are seeking the truth because they do not yet know what the truth is.

True scientific method goes like this:

1. form a hypothesis
2. make predictions for that hypothesis
3. test the predictions
4. reject or revise the hypothesis based on the research findings

Boston University scientist Dr. David Ozonoff explains that ideas in science are themselves like "living organisms, that must be nourished, supported, and cultivated with resources for making them grow and flourish." (Stauber p 205) Great ideas that don't get this financial support because the commercial angles are not immediately obvious - these ideas wither and die.

Another way you can often distinguish real science from phony is that real science points out flaws in its own research. Phony science pretends there were no flaws.

THE REAL JUNK SCIENCE

Contrast this with modern PR and its constant pretensions to sound science. Corporate sponsored research, whether it's in the area of drugs, GM foods, or chemistry begins with predetermined conclusions. It is the job of the scientists then to prove that these conclusions are true, because of the economic upside that proof will bring to the industries paying for that research. This invidious approach to science has shifted the entire focus of research in America during the past 50 years, as any true scientist is likely to admit.

Stauber documents the increasing amount of corporate sponsorship of university research. (206) This has nothing to do with the pursuit of knowledge. Scientists lament that research has become just another commodity, something bought and sold. (Crossen)

THE TWO MAIN TARGETS OF "SOUND SCIENCE"

It is shocking when Stauber shows how the vast majority of corporate PR today opposes any research that seeks to protect

public health the environment

It's a funny thing that most of the time when we see the phrase "junk science," it is in a context of defending something that may threaten either the environment or our health. This makes sense when one realizes that money changes hands only by selling the illusion of health and the illusion of environmental protection. True public health and real preservation of the earth's environment have very low market value.

Stauber thinks it ironic that industry's self-proclaimed debunkers of junk science are usually non-scientists themselves. (255) Here again they can do this because the issue is not science, but the creation of images.

THE LANGUAGE OF ATTACK

When PR firms attack legitimate environmental groups and alternative medicine people, they again use special words which will carry an emotional punch:

outraged sound science junk science sensible scaremongering responsible phobia hoax alarmist hysteria

The next time you are reading a newspaper article about an environmental or health issue, note how the author shows bias by using the above terms. This is the result of very specialized training.

Another standard PR tactic is to use the rhetoric of the environmentalists themselves to defend a dangerous and untested product that poses an actual threat to the environment. This we see constantly in the PR smokescreen that surrounds genetically modified foods. They talk about how GM foods are necessary to grow more food and to end world hunger, when the reality is that GM foods actually have lower yields per acre than natural crops. (Stauber p 173) The grand design sort of comes into focus once you realize that almost all GM foods have been created by the sellers of herbicides and pesticides so that those plants can withstand greater amounts of herbicides and pesticides. (The Magic Bean)

THE MIRAGE OF PEER REVIEW

Publish or perish is the classic dilemma of every research scientist. That means whoever expects funding for the next research project had better get the current research paper published in the best scientific journals. And we all know that the best scientific journals, like JAMA, New England Journal, British Medical Journal, etc. are peer-reviewed. Peer review means that any articles which actually get published, between all those full color drug ads and pharmaceutical centerfolds, have been reviewed and accepted by some really smart guys with a lot of credentials. The assumption is, if the article made it past peer review, the data and the conclusions of the research study have been thoroughly checked out and bear some resemblance to physical reality.

But there are a few problems with this hot little set up. First off, money. Even though prestigious venerable medical journals pretend to be so objective and scientific and incorruptible, the reality is that they face the same type of being called to account that all glossy magazines must confront: don't antagonize your advertisers. Those full-page drug ads in the best journals cost millions, Jack. How long will a pharmaceutical company pay for ad space in a magazine that prints some very sound scientific research paper that attacks the safety of the drug in the centerfold? Think about it. The editors aren't that stupid.

Another problem is the conflict of interest thing. There's a formal requirement for all medical journals that any financial ties between an author and a product manufacturer be disclosed in the article. In practice, it never happens. A study done in 1997 of 142 medical journals did not find even one such disclosure. (Wall St. Journal, 2 Feb 99)

A 1998 study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that 96% of peer reviewed articles had financial ties to the drug they were studying. (Stelfox, 1998) Big shock, huh? Any disclosures? Yeah, right. This study should be pointed out whenever somebody starts getting too pompous about the objectivity of peer review, like they often do.

Then there's the outright purchase of space. A drug company may simply pay $100,000 to a journal to have a favorable article printed. (Stauber, p 204)

Fraud in peer review journals is nothing new. In 1987, the New England Journal ran an article that followed the research of R. Slutsky MD over a seven year period. During that time, Dr. Slutsky had published 137 articles in a number of peer-reviewed journals. NEJM found that in at least 60 of these 137, there was evidence of major scientific fraud and misrepresentation, including:

a.. reporting data for experiments that were never done b.. reporting measurements that were never made c.. reporting statistical analyses that were never done o Engler

Dean Black PhD, describes what he the calls the Babel Effect that results when this very common and frequently undetected scientific fraudulent data in peer-reviewed journals are quoted by other researchers, who are in turn re-quoted by still others, and so on.

Want to see something that sort of re-frames this whole discussion? Check out the McDonald's ads which often appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Then keep in mind that this is the same publication that for almost 50 years ran cigarette ads proclaiming the health benefits of tobacco. (Robbins)

Very scientific, oh yes.

KILL YOUR TV?

Hope this chapter has given you a hint to start reading newspaper and magazine articles a little differently, and perhaps start watching TV news shows with a slightly different attitude than you had before. Always ask, what are they selling here, and who's selling it? And if you actually follow up on Stauber & Rampton's book and check out some of the other resources below, you might even glimpse the possibility of advancing your life one quantum simply by ceasing to subject your brain to mass media. That's right - no more newspapers, no more TV news, no more Time magazine or Newsweek. You could actually do that. Just think what you could do with the extra time alone.

Really feel like you need to "relax" or find out "what's going on in the world" for a few hours every day? Think about the news of the past couple of years for a minute. Do you really suppose the major stories that have dominated headlines and TV news have been "what is going on in the world?" Do you actually think there's been nothing going on besides the contrived tech slump, the contrived power shortages, the re-filtered accounts of foreign violence and disaster, and all the other non-stories that the puppeteers dangle before us every day? What about when they get a big one, like with OJ or Monica Lewinsky or the Oklahoma city bombing, or now with Gary Condit? Do we really need to know all that detail, day after day? Do we have any way of verifying all that detail, even if we wanted to? What is the purpose of news? To inform the public? Hardly. The sole purpose of news is to keep the public in a state of fear and uncertainty so that they'll watch again tomorrow and be subjected to the same advertising. Oversimplification? Of course. That's the mark of mass media mastery - simplicity. The invisible hand. Like Edward Bernays said, the people must be controlled without them knowing it.

Consider this: what was really going on in the world all that time they were distracting us with all that stupid vexatious daily smokescreen? Fear and uncertainty -- that's what keeps people coming back for more.

If this seems like a radical outlook, let's take it one step further:

What would you lose from your life if you stopped watching TV and stopped reading newspapers altogether?

Would your life really suffer any financial, moral, intellectual, literary, spiritual or academic loss from such a decision?

Do you really need to have your family continually absorbing the illiterate, amoral, phony, uncultivated, desperately brainless values of the people featured in the average nightly TV program? Are these fake, programmed robots "normal"?

Do you need to have your life values constantly spoonfed to you?

Are those shows really amusing, or just a necessary distraction to keep you from looking at reality, or trying to figure things out yourself by doing a little independent reading?

Name one example of how your life is improved by watching TV news and reading the evening paper. What measurable gain is there for you?

PLANET OF THE APES?

There's no question that as a nation, we're getting dumber year by year. Look at the presidents we've been choosing lately. Ever notice the blatant grammar mistakes so ubiquitous in today's advertising and billboards? Literacy is marginal in most American secondary schools. Three-fourths of California high school seniors can't read well enough to pass their exit exams. ( SJ Mercury 20 Jul 01) If you think other parts of the country are smarter, try this one: hand any high school senior a book by Dumas or Jane Austen, and ask them to open to any random page and just read one paragraph out loud. Go ahead, do it. SAT scales are arbitrarily shifted lower and lower to disguise how dumb kids are getting year by year. (ADD: A Designer Disease) At least 10% have documented "learning disabilities," which are reinforced and rewarded by special treatment and special drugs. Ever hear of anyone failing a grade any more?

Or observe the intellectual level of the average movie which these days may only last one or two weeks in the theatres, especially if it has insufficient explosions, chase scenes, silicone, fake martial arts, and cretinesque dialogue. Radio? Consider the low mental qualifications of the falsely animated corporate simians hired as DJs -- seems like they're only allowed to have 50 thoughts, which they just repeat at random. And at what point did popular music cease to require the study of any musical instrument or theory whatsoever, not to mention lyric? Perhaps we just don't understand this emerging art form, right? The Darwinism of MTV - apes descended from man.

Ever notice how most articles in any of the glossy magazines sound like they were all written by the same guy? And this writer just graduated from junior college? And yet has all the correct opinions on social issues, no original ideas, and that shallow, smug, homogenized corporate omniscience, to assure us that everything is going to be fine... Yes, everything is fine.

All this is great news for the PR industry - makes their job that much easier. Not only are very few paying attention to the process of conditioning; fewer are capable of understanding it even if somebody explained it to them.

TEA IN THE CAFETERIA

Let's say you're in a crowded cafeteria, and you buy a cup of tea. And as you're about to sit down you see your friend way across the room. So you put the tea down and walk across the room and talk to your friend for a few minutes. Now, coming back to your tea, are you just going to pick it up and drink it? Remember, this is a crowded place and you've just left your tea unattended for several minutes. You've given anybody in that room access to your tea.

Why should your mind be any different? Turning on the TV, or uncritically absorbing mass publications every day - these activities allow access to our minds by "just anyone" - anyone who has an agenda, anyone with the resources to create a public image via popular media. As we've seen above, just because we read something or see something on TV doesn't mean it's true or worth knowing. So the idea here is, like the tea, the mind is also worth guarding, worth limiting access to it.

This is the only life we get. Time is our total capital. Why waste it allowing our potential, our personality, our values to be shaped, crafted, and limited according to the whims of the mass panderers? There are many truly important decisions that are crucial to our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, decisions which require information and research. If it's an issue where money is involved, objective data won't be so easy to obtain. Remember, if everybody knows something, that image has been bought and paid for.

Real knowledge takes a little effort, a little excavation down at least one level below what "everybody knows." 1

REFERENCES

Stauber & Rampton Trust Us, We're Experts Tarcher/Putnam 2001

Ewen, Stuart PR!: A Social History of Spin 1996 ISBN: 0-465-06168-o Published by Basic Books, A Division of Harper Collins

Tye, Larry The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations Crown Publishers, Inc. 2001

King, R Medical journals rarely disclose researchers' ties Wall St. Journal, 2 Feb 99.

Engler, R et al. Misrepresentation and Responsibility in Medical Research New England Journal of Medicine v 317 p 1383 26 Nov 1987

Black, D PhD Health At the Crossroads Tapestry 1988.

Trevanian Shibumi 1983.

Crossen, C Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America 1996.

Robbins, J Reclaiming Our Health Kramer 1996.

Bernays, E Propaganda Liveright, New York 1928.

Jefferson, T Writings New York Library of America, p 493; 1984.

O'Shea T The Magic Bean 2000 www.thedoctorwithin.com Alternative Medicine magazine May 2001.

-------- police / prisoners

THE GLOBAL CRACKDOWN

From: "radtimes" <resist@best.com>
By Jim Redden, author Snitch Culture (Feral House, 2000)
10/19/01

The Global Surveillance State predicted in the December 2000 edition of my book Snitch Culture is rising from the ashes of the September 21, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

It is being done under the guise of an international War on Terrorism orchestrated by President George Bush, the son of the former CIA director who ran the illegal Iran-Contra supply network while he was Vice-President.

With the nation still reeling from the apocalyptic attacks, Bush declared war on terrorism in general and Saudi exile Osama bin Laden in particular. Although only Congress has the power to declare war, Capitol Hill simply rolled over and applauded the crusade, just like they did in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama and the Balkans.

And just as they did in those conflicts, the mass media wrapped itself in the flag, stifled all voices of dissent, and rushed to embrace "America¹s New War," as CNN dubbed it in red, white and blue letters. With the talking heads calling for the nation to rally behind Bush, U.S. bombers were pounding Afghanistan, bin Laden¹s assumed home base, by early October. Even as much of the Muslim world rose up to oppose the strikes, the talking heads gushed enthusiastically about the accuracy of satellite-directed missiles and "bunker buster" mega-bombs.

Meanwhile, Bush turned responsibility for securing the domestic front over to Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor who oversaw the violent suppression of civil rights during the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, including covert surveillance of lawful political groups and the brutal arrest of protest leaders on trumped-up charges. As head of the newly created Office of Homeland Defense, Ridge is in charge of the anti-terrorism activities of over 40 federal law enforcement agencies. An early estimate put the cost of defending the country at $1.5 trillion over the next five years.

If Bush and Ridge have their way, within a few years everyone will be required to carry an official ID card that will include a computer chip to allow the government to track their movements. Facial recognition cameras will scan crowds at airports and other public places, matching faces with vast databases that will include millions of digital drivers¹ license photos. The FBI will plug its Carnivore computers into the servers used by Internet Service Providers to route e-mail traffic. All information collected by any government agency will be shared with every police agency around the world.

More than that, the government is apparently preparing to round up thousands of people. On October 4 the New York Post reported that the Federal Bureau of Prisons had just issued requests for bids to build two prisons to hold "criminal aliens" in Georgia, with three more prisons in the Southwest deserts that can hold 1,500 detainees to be built early next year. The article speculated that the Wackenhut private security company could win the contracts because it has run immigrant camps in Australian made out of converted military bases.

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told a law school audience in Manhattan on September 29, "[W]e're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country."

Many of these invasive practices will be authorized by the first major expansion of the Snitch Culture in the 21st Century, the so-called USA Act of 2001 rushed through Congress with little debate within weeks of the attacks on New York and Washington DC. Many of the provisions enhance the power of domestic law enforcement agencies to spy on Americans for "intelligence" as opposed to criminal investigations. Among other things, the law:

--Creates the new crime of "Domestic Terrorism" that could be interpreted to impose heavy penalties on political protest.

--As part of a crackdown on "Cyber-terrorism," computer hackers and virus makers will face life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, even if no one is ever harmed by their activities.

--Allows information obtained during criminal investigation to be shared with the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Secret Service and the military without judicial review, and with no restrictions on how these agencies can use the information.

--Authorizes covert "sneak and peak" searches where the government can enter your home, office or other private place and search your files, photograph your belongings, and download your computer hard drive without telling you.

--Allows ³forum shopping² where law enforcement agencies can use friendly judges to obtain "single jurisdiction" search warrants to use against suspects in other parts of the country, making it almost impossible to challenge them.

--Allows the CIA to spy on American citizens and requires the FBI to share its files with the spy agency, including those on law-abiding American citizens.

--Allows indefinite detention of non-citizens, including legal aliens, without meaningful judicial review.

--Requires colleges and universities to open student files to law enforcement agencies.

--Expands wiretap authority by allowing police to obtain the equivalent of "blank" warrants for any phone in the country.

--Widens the scope of subpoenas for records of electronic communications to include evidence such as credit card receipts and Internet accounts.

--Authorizes U.S. authorities to shire into about persons suspected of terrorism or money laundering with financial institutions.

--Orders the Attorney General to explore the feasibility of an integrated computer fingerprint identification system that can be used at points of entry and US consulates.

"Most Americans do not recognize that Congress has just passed a bill that would give the government expanded power to invade our privacy, imprison people without due process and punish dissent," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington National Office, said on October 12.

The War on Terrorism claimed many victims before the bill even passed, however. As always, the first victim of this new war was the truth. President George Bush flatly told the nation that much of the government¹s activities would be conducted in secret and might never be disclosed. "Watch what you say," White House press spokesman Ari Fleischer warned within days of the attacks. A short time later, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice personally told the heads of all major television and cable networks to censor their newscasts, and they agreed.

Al Cross, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, said the restrictions are preventing reporters from doing their jobs.

"They¹re finding it increasingly difficult to fulfill their roles as watchdogs," Cross said on October 13. "It just seems that things have been done willy-nilly."

Other early victims included foreign visitors. Over 700 people, mostly from the Middle East, were jailed in the early stages of the investigation into the attack. Many were simply released after being held in interrogated for weeks. A 20-year old student from Pakistan said he was stripped and beaten in his cell by other inmates while jail guards failed to intervene and denied him medical care. In three midwestern states, U.S. immigration officials cut off all visits and phone calls for detainees for a full week. Authorities refused to tell San Diego attorney Randall Hamud where his three clients, Osama Awadallah, Modhar Abdullah and Yazeem Al-Alsami, were even held.

But this new War on Terrorism is not just another domestic law enforcement initiative. It is the excuse to create an international surveillance society that will ultimately monitor everyone in the world.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair carried the message to receptive leaders throughout Europe. Dozens of other countries promptly signed up, pledging all possible support. The United Nations quickly passed a resolution requiring all member nations to cooperate by opening up their banks to international inspectors, potentially affecting billions of law-abiding citizens across the globe. The September 11 attacks allowed governments in Europe and the Middle East to round up hundreds of political dissidents under the guise of cracking down on terrorist networks.

History teaches us these new powers will be abused. President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War. Foreign-born socialists and labor organizers were deported during World War I. Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II. The government spied on, harassed and even murdered political protesters during the Vietnam War era.

As in the past, America¹s New War will benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. Multinational corporations facing growing protests over their labor and environmental practices will find it easier to do business. Fledgling labor movements in developing countries will be shut down as terrorist organizations. Dissident political organizations will have their bank accounts frozen and their assets seized.

Meanwhile, the establishment press is ignoring many troubling questions. Chief among them, what is the government¹s real relationship with bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the September 11 attacks. The CIA admits that bin Laden was an ³intelligence asset² during Afghanistan¹s war against the Soviets, but insists he turned against America when the U.S. government turned its back on him after the Cold War. Michel Chossudovsky, professor of economics at University of Ottawa, insists the CIA never severed its ties with him and other Muslim militants, however.

"Since the end of the Cold War, these covert intelligence links have not only been maintained, they have become increasingly sophisticated," Chossudovsky claims. "New undercover initiatives financed by the Golden Crescent drug trade were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus (controlled by the CIA) essentially served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia."

This raises an obvious question about the September 11 attacks: What did the government know when did they know it? Government agents infiltrated such previous attacks as the Greensboro Massacre, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal office building. Although intelligence officials originally denied having any advance warning of the September 11 attacks, they were soon forced to admit that "lots of signs" pointed to the plot, including warnings of an impending "Hiroshima" on U.S. soil.

Three days after the attacks, Newsweek, the Washington Post and the Knight Ridder newspapers reported that five of the hijackers were trained at secure U.S. military installations during the 1990s. The reports also claimed three of the terrorists had listed their address as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, and had participated in military exchange programs for foreign officers at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida.

The Pentagon denied the reports and the stories went away. But in fact, the FBI raided the private Florida flight school where several of the suicide pilots trained within hours of the attacks, proving the government knew more far more about the terrorists than it is admitting.

Likewise, the media is ignoring even bigger questions. Five Israeli citizens were arrested and held in isolation after accusations surfaced that nearly 4,000 Jews mysterious skipped work at the World Trade Center. Who are they? George Bush Sr. is in business with bin Laden¹s family through the Carlyle Group, a private Washington DC equity firm that has essentially become the nation's largest defense contractor. What is real relationship between these two powerful families?

And what is the role of oil in the equation? According to published reports, the U.S. and Pakistan decided to install a stable regime in Afghanistan around 1994 to ensure the safety of a Unocal pipeline project. Is Operation Enduring Freedom just the final step in this effort to tap the region¹s oil reserves?

Don¹t look to the CNN or any other mainstream news outlet for the answers. They are too busy playing their roles as cheerleaders for the Snitch Culture, gleefully pumping the $5 million rewards offered for what they dubbed, "The World¹s Most Wanted Terrorists."

-------- spying

Secretive federal spy agencies get $47 million for new technology
Defence Minister Art Eggleton says the money will be used for all kinds of information gathering purposes.

BRUCE CHEADLE
Canadian Press
Friday, October 19, 2001
Montreal Gazette
http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={4399B5FB-DD2F-42B0-A53A-131789AA5D84}

OTTAWA (CP) - Canada's spy agencies got a $47-million boost to their technological capabilities Friday, and the federal government is also considering hiring more personnel for the fight against international terrorism.

"Our government will need enhanced intelligence capabilities in the coming weeks and months," Defence Minister Art Eggleton said in announcing the new money outside the grey granite Canadian Security Intelligence Service building in east-end Ottawa.

The secretive Communications Security Establishment - a civilian eavesdropping agency attached to the Defence Department - gets the bulk of the cash. The CSE's $106-million annual budget gets a one-time injection of $37 million.

CSIS, which handles counter-espionage and counter-terrorist duties mostly within Canada, receives $10 million to augment its $194-million budget.

The funding comes out of the $280-million security envelope announced by the Liberals in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Most of the new intelligence money will go to information technology.

"As we all know, technology is changing and advancing at a galloping pace," said Eggleton. "It is critical, therefore, that CSE remain on the cutting edge of technological advancements."

Some $31 million of the CSE's new money will be used for technology infrastructure, he said.

The CSIS contribution is also targeted at upgrading the collection and evaluation of electronic information.

"What the $10 million does is gives them the equipment," said Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay, the minister responsible for CSIS.

MacAulay said the government's new security committee, headed by Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley, meets Saturday afternoon to discuss longer term issues such as hiring more spies.

Manley was in Toronto on Friday, where he hinted the sweeping anti-terrorism legislation introduced this week may not be the end of the Liberals' legislative agenda.

"It may be that we will want to bring in a second omnibus bill depending on how many legislative measures different departments will require," he said. "But it's too soon for me to say that."

At Saturday's meeting, Manley is expected to canvass government departments on whether they think more laws need to be strengthened.

Ottawa had already been planning to update the Aeronautics Act next spring but a Transport official said Friday that could be accelerated.

But a senior government official said that, beyond Transport, there may not be any more new terrorism-related legislation.

An announcement on enhanced security for passports may come next week, but it won't require legislative changes. There's also the possibility of new money for FINTRAC, the government's system for tracking suspect financial transactions.

Since about $253 million of the $280-million security envelope has already been announced, the remainder is likely to be allotted mainly for new personnel, said the senior official.

The CSE will likely need more manpower for its expanded role under the new anti-terrorism bill, said intelligence expert Wesley Wark of the University of Toronto.

CSE is being given the power to monitor the communications of Canadians who are talking with potential security threats abroad. Previously, the agency was forbidden from listening to any domestic communications.

But adding personnel, whether for CSE or CSIS, is far more problematic than upgrading equipment.

"The number of available intelligence professionals is very small in the government, so agencies find it very difficult to expand in a time of crisis," said Wark.

"They just don't have people to draw on within the established boundaries of the community. It's small, and already over-stretched."

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, CSE and CSIS have been a focus of attention for critics who cite Canada's relative lack of overseas intelligence gathering - particularly operatives on the ground - as a security weakness.

MacAulay didn't directly address the issue of foreign human intelligence collecting information the old fashioned way.

But he followed the lead of CSIS director Ward Elcock this week in saying the domestic spy agency doesn't need a new legislated mandate to more aggressively pursue operations abroad.

"The fact is CSIS does have the authority for the security of the nation to investigate anything within this country and outside of this country - and it does so."

Wark said the relatively small cash infusion for CSIS - about five per cent of its budget as opposed to more than a third for the CSE - suggests the government still hasn't decided whether Canada needs a genuine foreign intelligence service.

Wark called the $10 million for CSIS "a downpayment."

"No one should allow themselves to be fooled in Canada that we have a foreign intelligence gathering agency at the moment," said Wark.

"We don't, no matter what Ward Elcock might say about CSIS's legal mandate."

The new CSE funding includes:

- $26 million for upgrading information technology infrastructure and enhancing processing and analysis.

- $6 million for measures related to the CSE mandate.

- $5 million for equipment to counter cyber-threats and vulnerabilities identification.

The Communications Security Establishment is a highly secretive civilian branch of the Defence Department charged with undertaking international eavesdropping on all types of electronic traffic - including phone calls, radio signals and e-mail.

The CSE, with an annual budget of almost $106 million, is part of an international network, working especially closely with counterparts in the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

The CSE and CSIS have been a focus of attention since the Sept. 11 attacks, with critics citing Canada's relative lack of overseas intelligence gathering as a security weakness. CSIS has an annual budget of just under $200 million and about 2,000 employees. It is essentially a defensive counter-espionage and counter-terrorist agency that does most of its work within Canada.

CSIS director Ward Elcock told a Commons committee this week the service has the mandate and the ability - if not enough resources - to run covert operations abroad.

"The reality of covert operations is that they are, by definition, expensive, often riskier, and you have to be sure you're going to get a bang for your buck if you're going to do that kind of thing.

-------- terrorism

Bush says China stands 'side by side' with United States in war on terror

Canadian Press
Friday, October 19, 2001
Montreal Gazette
http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={297CB6B9-F19C-4813-9256-186B030642D3}

SHANGHAI (CP) - President George W. Bush, meeting for the first time with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, said Friday he is confident China stands "side by side with the American people" during U.S. military strikes on Afghanistan.

Bush said he is satisfied with Chinese co-operation on intelligence-gathering and pursuing financial assets of the al-Qaida organization and its founder, Osama bin Laden. "There was no hesitation, there was no doubt they'd stand with our people during this terrible time," Bush said. He said the Chinese government stands "side by side with the American people as we fight this evil force."

For his part, Jiang said at a joint news conference he was "pleased to note that recently, there's been an improvement in our ties."

The two leaders met on the eve of the Asian Pacific Economic Co-operation summit - a meeting Bush hopes to use to garner further support for the U.S.-led effort against terrorism.

At the start of their one-on-one meeting, Bush told his Chinese counterpart: "You are president of a great nation. It's important for us to get to know each other."

During last year's presidential campaign, Bush once called China a "strategic competitor" but now the United States is making a determined effort to improve relations.

Bush and Jiang met for about two hours at a guesthouse in the western suburbs of Shanghai. Bush raised the issue of missile proliferation and discussed the anti-terrorism campaign in broad terms.

Bush said he made the point the war on terrorism "must never be an excuse to persecute minorities," an apparent reference to the Muslim minorities in Uighur in China's northwestern Xinjiang region.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell praised Pacific Rim countries Thursday for joining the U.S. global campaign against terrorism but noted some hope U.S.-led attacks in Afghanistan will end soon.

At a news conference ending the ministerial meetings, Powell was asked if any of the APEC ministers had expressed concern.

"I'm very proud of the way in which the world has come together to say that terrorism cannot be tolerated," he said.

"I found understanding among my colleagues. There was a hope that the military campaign would be ended quickly on a note of success, but I cannot say that concerns were expressed, just the hope that it would achieve its purpose soon."

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan used strong words - some recalling Bush's attack on terrorism - as he outlined four points the APEC ministers have agreed on.

"Anti-terrorism is a fight between justice and evil, civilization and savagery," Tang said as ministers of the 21 economies of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum were wrapping up their 13th annual meeting.

"It's not a confrontation between different nations, different cultures or different religions," Tang said.

"We recommend dialogue between civilizations, co-existence and co-operation."

Tang said during a breakfast meeting the APEC foreign ministers also agreed:

-Terrorism is a "threat to international peace and security" and "should be severely denounced and attacked."

-International conventions against terrorism and relevant UN Security Council resolutions must be "well carried-out" and nations must stop activities in support of terrorism.

-To combat the financing of terrorism in a drawn-out campaign that "involves every aspect of politics, economics, society and law."

APEC leaders are expected to issue a statement on terrorism when they finish their summit on Sunday. A draft obtained by The Associated Press makes no mention of bin Laden or the U.S.-led military strikes against his al-Qaida terror network and the hardline Islamic Taliban government harbouring him in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who like Bush is on his first trip outside North America since four planes were hijacked and crashed in the United States, is to meet one-on-one with eight to 12 of the leaders in attendance, including Bush and representatives of Indonesia and Malaysia.

APEC members Indonesia and Malaysia were unable to endorse the bombing of Afghanistan, which has stirred outrage throughout much of the Muslim world and creates serious political troubles for them at home.

"There are sensitivities in how publicly they talk about the military aspect of that fight against terrorism," said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, after discussing it with his Indonesian and Malaysian counterparts.

"They are being cautious in how they handle that issue for domestic reasons, and I don't think we should be too insensitive to the political concerns that they have," Downer said, following his bilateral talks with Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda and Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar.

Many Muslims believe the Palestinian question must be resolved before terrorism can stop and they blame U.S. support of Israel for aggravating the matter.

Malaysia has warned the attacks on Afghanistan won't work and has proposed an international conference on terrorism.

Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz said Thursday leaders should try to discover "the root of the problem" and be careful with "whatever retaliation may be taken, so that it doesn't harm innocent people."

APEC leaders are expected to call the attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11 "murderous deeds."

The APEC countries also are expected to urge the World Trade Organization to launch a new round of global trade negotiations next month - two years after the WTO's spectacular failure at a Seattle summit shut down by anti-globalization protests.

The APEC members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

---

Arafat must act against terrorism in his own backyard: former Israeli PM

Canadian Press
Friday, October 19, 2001
Montreal Gazette
http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={59400D4F-0F45-47A1-B359-B31ED643BE1E}

MONTREAL -- The United States must tell Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to take action against terrorism in his own backyard, former Israeli prime minister Euhud Barak said Friday.

The Palestinian leader can't turn a blind eye to Muslim extremist groups and other terrorists operating in close proximity, Barak told a news conference.

Barak also accused Arafat of being ``directly and personally responsible for promoting and encouraging terror by his own people.''

``And at the same time he's responsible for systemic closing of his eyes to terror which is carried out by extreme militant Muslim organizations like Hamas and... elements of Hezbollah.''

The United States and Britain must tell Arafat to pursue terrorists among his own people and put an end to incitement in the Palestinian media against Israel and the West, Barak added.

``If you are taking all these steps, when our hands will be free from Taliban and al-Qaida we will turn and demand from the Israelis to respond positively in resuming (peace) negotiations.''

Barak spoke to 2,000 members of Montreal's Jewish community on Thursday night about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

He became prime minister in 1999 and was voted out in February.

---

Watch out for America's own extremists

By Gary Ackerman and Cheryl Loeb
Christian Science Monitor
October 19, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1019/p11s3-coop.html

MONTEREY, CALIF. - As the United States puts in place stringent new security measures, the nation must also watch for a possible unintended consequence: Domestic extremist groups may be inflamed by the new laws, inciting them to violence as well.

There are already ominous rumblings. In response to the Sept. 11 attacks, one extremist Christian group posted a warning to America on its website: "You have sought to use these events of destruction, to further your agenda and feign your image of justice and freedom fighter to the world. I have not sent you but I shall drag you in a bed of afflictions that you shall not recover from again."

This may be just rhetoric, but the chance that there are disaffected Americans who harbor intense hatred for their own government and are willing and capable of committing violence against national targets must not be ignored. Remember Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.

Given the existence of these groups, speculation that one or more may have been involved in the spate of anthrax-filled letters going to prominent American targets has some credibility.

The number of such groups active in the US is much higher than many people realize. While the number of groups peaked at about 800 in the mid-1990s, there are still almost 200 known groups that actively seek independence from the Union or a forcible change in the way this country is governed.

Domestic extremist groups appear to have just as much, if not more, interest in unconventional weapons as their Middle Eastern counterparts. In the mid-1980s, a Christian survivalist group known as The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, hatched a plan to carry out a mass-casualty attack on major American cities by poisoning water supplies with potassium cyanide. In the early 1990s, members of an antigovernment militia group, the Minnesota Patriots Council, acquired the deadly toxin ricin.

In 1995, antigovernment activist Larry Wayne Harris was arrested for possession of a strain of anthrax that turned out to be nonlethal. He had previously been caught with the bacterium that causes the plague, and had written a self-published book on how to create and use biological weapons.

The ideology of antigovernment militants telegraphs the possibility of a backlash against heightened security, post-Sept. 11. These militants often embrace white-supremacist, apocalyptic, or extremist Christian identity beliefs. They view the federal government as an enemy of the people, depriving US citizens of their civil rights and pandering to interests suggested by vast global-conspiracy theories such as the "New World Order," under which United Nations-led foreign troops will impose a despotic rule over the US.

Such extremist groups may therefore feel affronted if the FBI is granted more extensive powers of surveillance and detection. Ditto, the increase of federal law-enforcement and military personnel at airports, sporting events, metro stations, and other public venues. They may believe that the proposed plan for a system of national identification cards is just another way for the government to subjugate US citizens to its "oppressive" rule. The plan for NATO surveillance planes to patrol American skies will only further cement the beliefs of these groups that the government is illegally imposing its "tyrannical" rule on the people.

America, of course, needs to increase its security. But new measures do raise the specter of a possible backlash from US extremists. Continued attention to these groups is called for. While fighting the enemy without, we must not forget the enemy within.

Gary Ackerman and Cheryl Loeb are research associates at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.


-------- activists

A Model for the Horror: Reflections on September 11 and Trident

Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001
From: Stephen Kobasa <skobasa@pop.snet.net>

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- from Shelley, "Ozymandias" (1818)

The vocabulary of "ground zero" is a misnomer as applied to the site of the World Trade Center. Sixteen acres of ruin register as dramatic enough from a human perspective, coupled to the statistics of death and trauma which ripple endlessly from it. But those familiar with the reality of Trident recognize the need for more substantial geographical scales to measure the effects of nuclear weapons. For all its horror, this was a miniature of destruction, a fragment of the apocalypse.

Yet it is not in a comparison of physical effects that the incomprehensibility of Trident has its greatest resonance. Clearly the protocols of emergency response were revealed to be largely inadequate for the damage that the city of New York suffered. Specialized fire and rescue units were almost entirely decimated; communications and transportation massively disfigured; commuters of the morning became the refugees of the afternoon. The implications here are clear enough as soon as one posits the use of a single 475 kiloton warhead.

But it is in the definitions of terrorism that the terrible gift of September 11 is most obvious. We are now freed from the limits of our fantasies in imagining the dimensions of chronic fear. Trident has always been the essence of terror, holding as it does all creation at risk. Our defense against it was to render it abstract, unthinkable. But we are now faced with the paradox of judging the lesser terror of a suicidal crime as being unacceptable, while the immeasurably greater threat of Trident remains to be tolerated, even celebrated, as a source of our illusory security.

Anthrax is Trident in an envelope, at least in regard to the sense of instability it produces. Like the box cutters of the hijackers, the ordinary turns fatal in a single moment. There are no limits to the fragility of things, memories as well as lives. What does the archivist live for when there will be no one to read the documents she preserves? And how does one register a death toll when almost all the bodies have vanished? There is a yearning to see the corpses lining a morgue, an assurance of their reality, a justification for our madness.

Trident will not allow for posted lists of the missing or the grief of survivors. There is a warning in the dimensions of sorrow that last month's events created. A nuclear holocaust will erase even that painful trace of human response. There will be no occasion for distant sympathy or condolences or charity. An actual ground zero by definition renders all things void.

How are we left, then? As our society evolves into an Orwellian state of permanent war for which there are no announced boundaries, we accumulate further justifications for resistance to Trident as both machine and perception. The weapon has already done its work. What remains is to reconstruct a human community in which all terror is abjured, whatever its source. If not, we risk realizing T.S. Eliot's prediction of the world's whimpering end. No bang will be necessary.

Stephen Vincent Kobasa Trident Resistance Network 18 October 2001

----

Pacifists prepare for possibility of draft

By IAN JONES
October 19, 2001,
National Catholic Reporter
http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives/101901/101901h.htm

Washington, President Bush has assured the nation that no military draft is being considered, but conscientious objectors are taking no chances.

In a session some might think of as a flashback to Vietnam War-era activities, the Center on Conscience & War held a draft counselor training seminar here Sept. 30 in the Methodist Building, just across the street from the U.S. Capitol. A small group of mainly church-affiliated counselors attended.

The center, formerly the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors, was founded in 1940 by a coalition of religious organizations in response to the poor treatment of conscientious objectors during World War I and in anticipation of U.S. involvement in the war in Europe. They were "pariah," said J.E. McNeil, executive director of the center, which now promotes conscientious objector rights and protects individual conscientious objectors.

The four-hour training session was prompted, McNeil said, by "the ceaseless ringing" of the center's telephone since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But for the center, "this is business as usual. Like the military, conscientious objectors have to be prepared well in advance of an armed conflict." Prior to Sept. 11 the center's main job has been handling some 2,000 calls and hundreds of e-mails a month from men and women trying to get out of the military. Many members of the military who call tell counselors they joined under the Defense Department's Delayed Enlistment Program, part of a marketing campaign that promises college tuition and other perks to teenagers and has an annual price tag of $24 million.

"Just because there's this crisis, the peace movement and my organization are not doing anything different than we've been doing for the last 20 years, or the last 60 years," said McNeil. "What we've always done and will continue to do is try to make a world where war is not considered necessary."

These days, however, the group's training sessions are spurred on, in part, by the five-to-10-year conflict the president has projected. A protracted ground war in Afghanistan would mean a thinning of the military ranks, McNeil said. That in turn would cause a drop in patriotic fervor and thus in volunteers for the armed forces. "Add in the possibility of a second major action, say the Chinese invade Taiwan or want to take over more of the Asian part of Russia, and there is further need to fill the ranks," McNeil said. To her, the Sept. 11 attacks marked the first step toward such actions -- and toward a draft, she said.

"I'm not saying either of those will definitely happen, but it would be foolish of us not to be prepared," said McNeil. "The military says they always have to be ready if there's an invasion or a war. We have to be prepared as well, to respond in a reasonable measure."

At the Sunday training session, McNeil and the center's counseling coordinator, Bill Galvin, explained the intricacies of the Pentagon's two separate draft policies. The counselors will then explain them to young people who face recruitment, and to those faced with required selective service registration, wartime or not.

The concern today, said Galvin, is that the government's emergency draft plan gives conscientious objectors a miniscule window of opportunity -- about 10 days -- to claim their status before they are shipped off to boot camp. The key for conscientious objectors, he said, is to create an information packet far in advance of recruitment, a personal history of their moral objection to war. This should include a photocopy of their selective service postcard (complete with an anti-war comment written above the required personal data), proof of registration with a church, and support letters from parents, teachers or clergy.

Pacifism has taken a few knocks since Sept. 11, said McNeil. She cited an "incredible but not surprising" Sept. 25 Washington Post op-ed article in which Michael Kelly concludes that American pacifists are "objectively pro-terrorist" and "evil."

Such criticisms are not new. Conscientious objectors were imprisoned during World War I and interned in work camps in WWII. They are often beaten, spat on and labeled communists "or whatever current curse their detractors think is appropriate," said McNeil. The military is more accommodating to conscientious objectors today, but the center regularly gets calls from an Army recruiter who berates the group as evil and threatens violence.

"I spend a lot of time explaining to people that I know what I'm asking is tough," said McNeil. "War is a lot easier than what we are suggesting." She uses parenting as a comparison: It's a lot easier to spank children than to teach them right from wrong. But physical punishment fails in the long run, she said.

"Many of my constituents' beliefs are exclusively faith-based, in the sense that God said it, they believe it and that settles it. I share that view, but I also think that war doesn't work," she said. "People say pacifism doesn't work, either, but we haven't really given it a long-term try, have we?

"It's clear to me that we've been dealing with terrorism by trying to blow up whoever we think is a terrorist. And all we get are bigger, better and more effective terrorists," said McNeil. "It took centuries to get here. Hopefully it won't take centuries to learn war isn't an effective tool."

McNeil understands the risk of pacifist statements at times of national crisis. She has heard recent horror stories of arrest, harassment and beatings of those who have stood up to speak their conscience. "But if I'm not willing to stand up for what I believe in," she said, "I'm a poorer person."

Or as Galvin puts it, relating an ironic comment he's heard often of late: "The way some people are talking, you'd think Jesus was a pacifist."

Ian Jones is a freelance writer living in Arlington, Va.

National Catholic Reporter, October 19, 2001

----

Making Our Voices Count

From: "9-11Peace Alert" <action@9-11peace.org>
Fri, 19 Oct 2001

Dear friend of 9-11peace.org,

Thank you for being part of our tremendously popular online campaign for a humanitarian response to the violence of September 11th. More than 500,000 of us have signed the petition, representing 190 countries. I want to give you an update on how we're taking this huge collective voice straight to world leaders and what we can do next.

WHAT WE'VE DONE

This week, we've delivered over half a million online signatures from 190 countries to: * U.S. President Bush; * NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson; * European Commission President Romano Prodi.

In Great Britain, MP Lynne Jones and three other Members of Parliament delivered the petition to Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday.

Media around the world are watching and writing about our effort, from the Chicago Sun-Times to the South China Morning Post.

WHAT WE CAN DO NEXT

7.5 million Afghans face starvation in the near future. As the U.S. and its allies have begun bombing in Afghanistan, the UN and other international aid organizations have been forced to suspend relief efforts. While the thousands of airdropped food rations are a start, they are not nearly enough to prevent many innocent Afghans from dying of hunger.

Once winter sets in, providing food and medicine to these suffering people will be difficult or impossible.

It is crucial that world leaders act now to ensure that enough aid reaches the Afghan people before it's too late.

Please phone your country's national leadership now, via the number listed at:
http://www.9-11peace.org/phonereps.php3

Urge them to:

"Please support a massive and immediate increase in food and medical aid to Afghanistan, delivered through the United Nations."

If you have time on your call, you may want to mention that:

- Military actions including bombing and the sealing of borders obstruct the delivery of food.

- Once winter arrives in Afghanistan, getting aid into the country will be extremely difficult. We need to act now to avert mass starvation.

- Aid will be much better received if it comes from the UN, not the US.

Please let us know you're making this important call at:
http://www.9-11peace.org/callmade.php3

We'd like to keep a count so that we can demonstrate that thousands support this crucial action.

Thank you for your help. If the world community doesn't do something to avert this humanitarian crisis now, the victims of September 11th will soon number far more than 6,000.

Sincerely,

Eli Pariser
9-11peace.org
October 19, 2001

PS: Here's our press release:
http://www.9-11peace.org/10-9-01petition.php3

---

Int Law Prof Criticizes US Retaliation (Against Afghanistan)

From: "Boyle, Francis"
To: nukenet@envirolink.org

Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001
Tom Polansek
The Daily Illini

Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954(voice) 217-244-1478(fax) fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

America's military retaliation in Afghanistan was not prompted by the terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, University law professor Francis Boyle said Thursday night.

Boyle, who specializes in international law, believes the United States began military strikes against Afghanistan to obtain extended access to oil and natural gas deposits in Central Asia.

"The people who run this country are cold, calculating people," Boyle said. "They know exactly what they're doing and why they're doing it. The movers and shakers, they've paid tremendous attention to Central Asia and the oil resources there."

The Pentagon is hammering out a deal with the government of Uzbekistan, which neighbors Afghanistan, to build a U.S. military base there, Boyle said.

"Clearly, what is going on in Afghanistan is not self-defense," he said. "Retaliation is never self-defense."

The actions of the United States in Afghanistan constitute armed aggression and are illegal, Boyle said. International law requires that there be a court hearing to determine the guilt or innocence of an individual accused of terrorist acts, as Osama bin Laden is, he said.

Boyle criticized Congress for not creating a panel with subpoena powers to fully investigate the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We are not going to get that investigation," he said. "Yet we are waging a war on Afghanistan based on evidence that Secretary of State Colin Powell said was not even circumstantial."

Muslim and non-muslim countries around the world are condemning U.S. military actions because they are not justified under international law, Boyle said.

He said that attacks by the United States against Afghanistan will result in a "human catastrophe" and predicted that at least 100,000 people will die in the war unless American citizens demand that it end.

The Progressive Resource/Action Cooperative organized Boyle's presentation at the Illinois Disciples Foundation, 610 E. Springfield Ave. in Champaign.

The foundation's board of directors passed a resolution against the U.S. military action in Afghanistan on Sept. 18. The resolution, posted on the foundation's Web site, stated that the foundation will use its resources to "urge restraint on the part of the U.S. government in this dangerous period of national anger and shock." The resolution further said it will "call upon those bodies responsible for upholding international law to hold the U.S. accountable to these laws in its response to the recent attacks."

"Thoughtless military retaliation against presumed enemies or their supporters and the use of assassination as a legitimized tool of diplomacy will not further or protect civilization, but rather, signal its formal and complete demise," the resolution stated.

Steve Kline, freshman in LAS, attended the presentation and said Boyle's idea of why the United States was bombing Afghanistan was "a complete surprise."

"The way he phrased it it sounded like a very valid explanation," Kline said. "I want to check out some of the facts he presented, though." www.dailyillini.com

-------

What's So Complex About It?

October 19, 2001
By Michael Albert

In the past few weeks I have minutely explored, often with Stephen Shalom, multifold concerns about September 11 and the "war on terrorism." With him I have tried to calmly and soberly respond to all kinds of concerns people feel. I recommend doing it. We all need to become adept at rebutting the insanely manipulative media messages that crowd into so many people's minds, and into our own as well. But going straight to the uncomplicated heart of the matter sometimes has merit, too.

The U.S. bombing of Afghanistan is a barbaric assault on defenseless civilians. It threatens a nearly incomprehensible human calamity. It is pursuing abominable goals.

The bombing is not a "just war," as Richard Falk labels it in The Nation, but a vigilante attack. No, it is not a vigilante attack; it is a vigilante lynch-mob assault writ large. No, it is not even a vigilante lynch mob assault writ large--even vigilante lynch mobs go after only those they think are culprits and not innocent bystanders. The bombing of Afghanistan is a gargantuan repugnance hurled against some of the poorest people on the planet. And this gargantuan repugnance is undertaken not out of sincere if horrendously misguided desires to curtail terrorism--since the bombing undeniably manifests terror and feeds the wellsprings of more terrorism to come--but out of malicious desires to establish a new elite-serving logic of U.S. policy-making via an endless War on Terrorism to replace the defunct Cold War. This is rehashed Reaganism made more cataclysmic than even his dismal mind could conceive.

When people say, but doesn't the U.S. have a right to defend itself?. I understand their hurt, pain, anger, and confusion. But I also have to admit that I want to scream that the U.S. is increasing the likelihood that a million or more souls will suffer fatal starvation. Is that self defense?

Put differently, what kind of thinking sees denying food to humans as self defense? The answer is thinking like Bush's, thinking like bin Laden's, thinking that treats innocent human lives as chess pieces, as checkers, as tidily winks, in pursuit of its own deadly agendas. Thinking that is willing to rocket a plane into a building to take 6,000 innocent lives, or thinking that is willing to drop bombs into an already devastated country abetting cataclysmic starvation. Or, more often, it is thinking that has been systematically denied the most basic information relevant to the issues at hand, and that is too fearful, depressed, angry, or cynical to admit disturbing truths.

You think I exaggerate?

Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said October 15, "The bombing has to stop right now. There is a humanitarian emergency." Lest anyone miss the point, he continued, "In winter the lorries cannot go in any more. Millions of Afghans will be unreachable in winter and winter is coming very, very soon." As Reuters reported (and AP carried as well, but not any U.S. newspaper or other major media outlet, as best I can tell), "the United Nations has warned of a catastrophe unless aid can get through for up to seven million Afghans." Ziegler continues, "We must give the (humanitarian) organizations a chance to save the millions of people who are internally displaced (inside Afghanistan)," adding that he was echoing an (essentially unreported) appeal made by U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson a few days earlier, who was in turn echoing reports that go back to before the bombing. Ziegler called the bombing "a catastrophe for humanitarian work." Or in the words of Christian Aid Spokesman Dominic Nutt (quoted in the Scotsman but again in no U.S. papers): "We are beyond the stage where we can sit down and talk about this over tea. If they stop the bombing we can get the food aid in, it's as simple as that. Tony Blair and George Bush have repeatedly said this is a three-stringed offensive--diplomatic, military and humanitarian. Well the diplomatic and military are there but where is the humanitarian? A few planes throwing lunchboxes around over the mountains is laughable."

So what's complicated in all this?

Perhaps someone with a more subtle mind than mine can clarify it for me. But assuming one has the above information at hand, to me it all seems to boil down to this. If we bomb (or even just threaten to bomb), they are more likely to starve. If we don't bomb (or threaten to bomb), they are less likely to starve. If we choose bombing, we are telling the innocent civilians who may starve--not thousands but millions of them--you just don't count. Compared to Washington's agenda, you are nothing. And what is Washington's agenda? Remarkably the stated aim is to get bin Laden and to try him or perhaps just execute him ourselves. We could stop the bombing and have him tried in a third country, the Taliban has noted, but that's not acceptable. So for this minuscule gradation of difference, we are told that Washington is willing to risk 7 million people. Behind the rhetoric, to me the real goals appear to be to delegitimate international law, to establish that Washington will get its way regardless of impediments and that we can and will act unilaterally whenever it suits us -- the technical term for which is to be "credible" --and to propel a long-term war on terrorism to entrench the most reactionary policies and notions in the U.S. and around the globe, and, along with all that, to terminate bin Laden and others. Risking seven million people's lives for these aims is worse than doing it only for the minuscule gradation of trying bin Laden ourselves rather than having a third country do it, because the additional reasons are all grotesquely negative, supposing such calculus is even manageable by a sane mind.

When I was a kid and first learned about Nazi Germany, like many other kids, I asked how could the German population abide such horrors. I even wondered if maybe Germans were somehow genetically evil or amoral. I have long since understood that Germans weren't different than Brits or Americans or anyone else, though their circumstances were different, but for those who still don't understand mass subservience to vile crimes induced by structural processes of great power and breadth, I have to admit that I mostly just want to shout: Look around, dammit!

We live in a highly advanced country with means of communication that are virtually instantaneous and vastly superior to what the German populace had. We don't have a dictator and brownshirts threatening everyone who dissents. Dissent here isn't pleasant and involves some sacrifice and risk, but the price is most often way less than incarceration, much less death. That's fact one. Fact two is that our country is risking murdering a few million civilians in the next few months...every serious commentator knows it, no serious commentator denies it...and we are pursuing that genocidal path on the idiotic or grotesquely racist pretext that by so doing we are reducing terrorism in the world, even as we add millions to the tally of civilians currently terrorized for political purposes and simultaneously breed new hate and desperation that will yield still more terror in the future. Does anyone remember "destroying the city to save it"? What's next? Terrorize the planet to rid it of terrorists? For people of my generation, in the Vietnam War the U.S. killed roughly 2 million people over years and years of horrible violation of the norms of justice, liberty, and plain humanity. The utterly incomprehensible truth is that the U.S. could attain that same level of massacre in the next few months, and, whether it happens or not, is quite sanguine about doing so, as is virtually its entire intelligentsia, its mainstream media pundits, and so on.

It is possible, with considerable effort, for the average person to discover that this "war" is potentially genocidal. One can easily get much more background, context, and analysis from ZNet, sure--but of course only one out of roughly every five hundred or one thousand U.S. citizens has encountered ZNet--but one can get that single insight, the possibility that genocidal calamity is imminent, even from the NY Times or Washington Post or any major paper that one might read, if one digs deep into it and reads it very carefully. Of course, the fact that such information isn't prime time news in every outlet in the land reveals how supinely our media elevate obedience above performance. They are seeing the AID and UN reports and calls for a bombing halt, of course, and seeing the articles in periodicals around the world, and they are simply excluding it from U.S. communications. But even with this massive media obfuscation, how hard is this war to comprehend, supposing one actually tries to comprehend it?

Shortly after September 11 there was a letter in the NYT that a grade school child wrote to the editor, and I paraphrase from memory: "If we attack them aren't we doing to them what they did to us?" This child wasn't a genius, just a normal elementary school student. The Times probably ran the letter to show how cute kids can be, but of course the child was correct, not cute. The real question is why don't more of us see what the child instantly saw, even now, weeks later, with the horror before our eyes?

Yes, a never-ending trumpet beat of patriotism proclaiming U.S. virtues and motives contributes to our blindness. Of course accumulated confusions, augmented daily, cloud our understanding and push the sad facts of potential starvation out of our field of vision. And yes the human capacity for self deception to avoid travail contributes, no doubt, to the process. But I suspect most people's blindness is largely due to resignation. The key fact, I suspect, isn't that people don't know about the criminality of U.S. policies, though there is an element of that at work, especially in the more educated classes, to be sure. But even among those carefully groomed to be socially and politically ignorant -- which is to say those who have higher educations -- I think many people do know at some broad level Washington's culpability for crimes, and of those who don't know, many don't in part because they are deceived, sure, but also in part because they are more or less actively avoiding knowing. And in my view the key factor causing this avoidance isn't that people are sublimating comprehension to rationalizations due to cowardly fearing the implications of dissent and wanting to run with the big crowd instead of against it. I think instead that people can find deep resources of courage, when they think it will do some good. Witness those firemen, average folks, running up the stairs of the WTO.

No, to me the biggest impediment to dissenting is that people feel that they can't impact the situation in any useful way. If one has no positive hope, then of course it appears easiest and least painful and even most productive to toe the line and get on with life, trying to ignore the injustices perpetrated by one's country, or to alibi them, or even to claim them to be meritorious, while also trying to do what one can for one's kids and families, where we believe we can have an impact. To admit the horror that our country is producing seems to auger only alienation and tears. Here is one of many examples ... at the end of an email that I got from a young woman as I was finishing writing this essay, the author laments: "I've never had a huge amount of trust in governmental actions. But what I do know is that I have no control over anything. And all I can do is hope."

It follows that the task of those who understand the efficacy of dissent is of course to counter lies and rationalizations and to clear up confusions by calmly and soberly addressing all kinds of media-induced concerns and confusions that people have, but it is also to demonstrate to people their capacity to make a difference. We have to escort people, and sometimes ourselves too, over the chasms of cynicism and doubt to the productivity of informed confidence.

We do not face, as some would claim, a transformed world turned upside down and inside out. There is no new DNA coursing through us and our major societal institutions are as they were yesterday, last week, and last year. In fact, the main new thing in this month's events is that major violence based in the third world hit for the first time in modern history people in the first world. But the problem of civilians being attacked is all too familiar. And all too often the perpetrator is us, or those we arm and empower, including in this case, with bin Laden being a prime example of monstrous blowback. And now the problem is being replicated, writ ever larger, as if by a berserk Xerox machine. What we have to do is precisely what we would want others to do: oppose barbaric policies with our words and deeds, arouse ever greater numbers of dissenters, and nurture ever greater commitment to dissent, until elites cannot sensibly believe that a "War on Terrorism" will lead to anything but a population thoroughly fed up with and hostile to elites. People all over the world are embarking on this path...we should too.

-------

GREEN PARTY USA CONDEMNS THE BOMBING OF AFGHANISTAN

October 19, 2001
Green Party USA OFFICIAL PRESS STATEMENT #3
GPUSA Media Information Center: (212) 592-0740

The Green Party USA condemns the U.S. and British bombing of Afghanistan as inhumane and an act of "state terrorism" against a starving and impoverished nation. The killing of innocent civilians, whether intended or not, is a violation of international law. The U.S. bombing of Afghanistan must cease immediately.

"Greens everywhere are mobilizing in an antiwar movement to force an end to the cycle of violence," said Mitchel Cohen, Green Party USA media coordinator. "The Green Party USA has officially endorsed anti-war protests that will occur in a number of cities set for Saturday, October 27th, and our members are participating in numerous efforts to stop these bombings and save people's lives," Cohen said.

Greens believe that all human life is equally valuable, whether a person works in lower Manhattan or lives in the desert outside Kabul. We mourn the lives of those hundreds of innocent civilians murdered by U.S. bombs in Afghanistan, just as we continue to mourn the thousands killed in the Sept. 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. These were criminal acts, as are ALL acts of terror against innocent civilians, whether committed by individuals or by governments (including the United States). Those responsible for acts of terror ­- including "state terror" -- should be brought to justice under international law.

Our call for justice, however, must not be confused with calls for "revenge," which will only lead to the deaths of more innocent civilians. "Justice should be the result of a fair, impartial and transparent trial conducted under international law at which credible evidence is produced," said Brooklyn Green Pete Dolack. Thus far, that evidence against any specific individual, including Osama Bin Laden, has been questionable. For a nation to embark upon bombing another country -- in the case of Afghanistan, one that had been armed and financed by the U.S. government ­- for any reason, but especially without producing clear evidence while killing innocent civilians in the process, is an arrogant and inhumane act.

Furthermore, pounding Afghanistan's population will only generate new waves of retaliatory attacks. As columnists Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman have noted, the bombardment of Afghanistan "is a policy that will diminish U.S. security, ignores overriding humanitarian concerns, and precludes more sensible approaches to achieving justice and promoting security in the United States and around the world."

"The devastation to the environment and civilian population caused by cluster bombs and by the use of Depleted Uranium artillery (contained in Tomahawk missiles) will be a lingering and insidious nightmare against the environment and Afghanistan's people," said Barb Sweeney of New Mexico, a member of the Green Party USA's International Relations committee.

And, added Mitchel Cohen, "It's painfully ironic that among the very first civilians killed in Afghanistan by the U.S. bombing were four United Nations workers employed as part of a non-governmental organization project to clean up landmines there."

The U.S. remains one of the few nations in the world still refusing to sign the international treaty banning the use of landmines.

"It's important to ask 'Who benefits?' The immense oil empire of the Cheney and Bush dynasties sow a trail of suffering and destruction wherever there are profits to be made and resources to control," Sweeney said.

A good deal of evidence has now come to light that it was the CIA which trained, funded, armed and defended Osama Bin Laden and the forces he assembled in Afghanistan ­ the same forces now accused of attacking the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Many of those who have been brought back into power in George W. Bush Jr.'s administration were the ones responsible, during George Bush, Sr.'s presidency, for training and financing the very organizations they now hunt under the banner of "terrorism".

"These officials are using the events of Sept. 11th as a pretext for activities that have nothing to do with 'preventing terrorism,' and everything to do with promoting "territoryism" -- securing territory for a trans-Afghanistan oil pipeline, and for cracking down on opponents of the 'New World Order," said Cohen. "Many Greens believe that all the death and destruction is the 'collateral damage' not of legitimate liberation movements but of a struggle between different factions of the global ruling class over the fate of oil politics in the Arabian Peninsula and in Central Asia. It's all about oil, corporate profits and globalization," Cohen said.

The Green Party USA encourages those who are non-violently resisting the U.S. military bombardment of Afghanistan, and the dictates of multinational oil corporations and the International Monetary Fund. "The best way to protect U.S. citizens against terrorist attacks is by forcing our government to follow international law and end its military conquests in the Middle East and rest of the world," Cohen said.

Since 1986 the Green Party has been guided by the 10 Key Values of Social Justice, Community-Based Economics, Non-violence, Decentralization, Future Focus/Sustainability, Feminism, Personal and Global Responsibility, Respect for Diversity, Grassroots Democracy, and Ecological Wisdom. ------- For additional information, call the GPUSA Media Information Center at (212) 592-0740.

Contacts: Mitchel Cohen <mitchelcohen@mindspring.com>, Coordinator, and Barb Sweeney <barb@globalcircle.net>

Previous Green Party USA press statements on this subject and on related issues are available at GPUSA's website: www.greenparty.org. Also, link to www.globalcircle.net for additional related information.

------

Professor criticizes U.S. actions

Daily Illini
Tom Polansek The Daily Illini
Friday, October 19, 2001
http://www.dailyillini.com/oct01/oct19/news/stories/news_story07.shtml

America's military retaliation in Afghanistan was not prompted by the terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, University law professor Francis Boyle said Thursday night.

Boyle, who specializes in international law, believes the United States began military strikes against Afghanistan to obtain extended access to oil and natural gas deposits in Central Asia.

"The people who run this country are cold, calculating people," Boyle said. "They know exactly what they're doing and why they're doing it. The movers and shakers, they've paid tremendous attention to Central Asia and the oil resources there."

The Pentagon is hammering out a deal with the government of Uzbekistan, which neighbors Afghanistan, to build a U.S. military base there, Boyle said.

"Clearly, what is going on in Afghanistan is not self-defense," he said. "Retaliation is never self-defense."

The actions of the United States in Afghanistan constitute armed aggression and are illegal, Boyle said. International law requires that there be a court hearing to determine the guilt or innocence of an individual accused of terrorist acts, as Osama bin Laden is, he said.

Boyle criticized Congress for not creating a panel with subpoena powers to fully investigate the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We are not going to get that investigation," he said. "Yet we are waging a war on Afghanistan based on evidence that Secretary of State Colin Powell said was not even circumstantial."

Muslim and non-muslim countries around the world are condemning U.S. military actions because they are not justified under international law, Boyle said.

He said that attacks by the United States against Afghanistan will result in a "human catastrophe" and predicted that at least 100,000 people will die in the war unless American citizens demand that it end.

The Progressive Resource/Action Cooperative organized Boyle's presentation at the Illinois Disciples Foundation, 610 E. Springfield Ave. in Champaign.

The foundation's board of directors passed a resolution against the U.S. military action in Afghanistan on Sept. 18. The resolution, posted on the foundation's Web site, stated that the foundation will use its resources to "urge restraint on the part of the U.S. government in this dangerous period of national anger and shock." The resolution further said it will "call upon those bodies responsible for upholding international law to hold the U.S. accountable to these laws in its response to the recent attacks."

"Thoughtless military retaliation against presumed enemies or their supporters and the use of assassination as a legitimized tool of diplomacy will not further or protect civilization, but rather, signal its formal and complete demise," the resolution stated.

Steve Kline, freshman in LAS, attended the presentation and said Boyle's idea of why the United States was bombing Afghanistan was "a complete surprise."

"The way he phrased it it sounded like a very valid explanation," Kline said. "I want to check out some of the facts he presented, though."



------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)

------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!