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NUCLEAR
Iraq Hands Over Arms Declaration to U.N.
Weapons Inspector Asks U.S. to Share Secret Iraq Data
U.N. Has Long List of Iraq Questions
MILITARY
G.I.'s Walk Perilous Line Between Finding Enemy and Alienating Afghans
Afghan Official Says U.S. Strike Killed Civilian
US, Russia marching on Central Asia
Putin seeks closer ties where U.S. deploys jets
Washington, D.C. plans smallpox shots for entire city
U.K. move evokes Russian protest
Israel hit for 2 U.N. deaths
The Israelization of America
10 Palestinians Are Killed in Israeli Hunt for a Militant
Kuwaitis nervous as war games start to look like the real thing
Vessel Strikes Navy Ship in Persian Gulf
Saudi official says Jews 'were behind' 9/11
Allies Alter Tune on Defense
Kyrgyzstan and Russia Sign New Pact
U.S. Military Readies for Qatar War Game
Abrams Back in Capital Fray at Center of Mideast Battle
Misinformation about Iraq
U.S.'s Powerful Weapon in Iran: TV
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Post-election marijuana fight heats up
ACTIVISTS
Cancer claims pacifist [Philip] Berrigan
U.S. Peace Activist Philip Berrigan Dead at 79
Anti-War Activist Philip Berrigan Dies
Phil Berrigan, America's Greatest Arms Inspector Dies...
A.N.S.W.E.R.: Upcoming Actions, New Endorsements
Protesters Shot Dead in Venezuela
South Koreans Gather in Fresh Anti - U.S. Protest
Thousands Protest for Reform in Iran, 60 Arrested
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- inspections
Iraq Hands Over Arms Declaration to U.N.
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent
Dec 7, 2002 3:40 PM EST
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_ARMS_DECLARATION?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
Iraq has handed over its long-awaited weapons declaration. (Audio)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq, denying it has weapons of mass destruction, delivered to the United Nations on Saturday its long-awaited declaration detailing its nuclear, chemical and biological programs.
The filing of the more than 12,000 pages of technical detail, required under a U.N. resolution by this weekend, now shifts the crisis into a new phase, as Washington and Baghdad move step by step toward a crossroads between war and peace. Advertisement
President Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, apologized to the people of Kuwait for his 1990 invasion. He also assailed Kuwait's leaders, saying the neighboring country was under U.S. occupation and working with foreigners to attack his regime.
The dramatic events on a Saturday evening in Baghdad were clearly designed as a bid by the Iraqi leadership to extricate the country from the chain of war and sanctions that has left it ostracized for more than a decade.
Iraqi government vehicles drove to the U.N. compound on Baghdad's outskirts bearing a half-dozen boxes and bags holding the arms documents totaling more than 12,000 pages.
Beginning at 8:05 p.m., checking each section one by one, the Iraqis led by Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin handed over three sets of the documents to Miroslav Gregorich, head of the U.N. monitoring operation in Iraq. One set goes to the U.N. nuclear agency in Vienna, one to the U.N. inspection agency in New York, and one - in a black tote bag with a red seal - to the U.N. Security Council.
As the documents were being transferred, the Iraqi information minister appeared on national television to read the letter from Saddam to the people of Kuwait, more than 12 years after his army invaded their country. The Iraqi army was driven out of Kuwait in February 1991 by a huge U.S.-led military campaign.
"We apologize to God about any act that has angered Him in the past and that was held against us, and we apologize to you (the Kuwaitis) on the same basis," Saddam said.
But he accused Kuwaiti officials of turning the country's oil wealth into their own personal wealth and depositing them "in foreign banks under foreign control."
He said Kuwait's leaders were working "with foreigners" to attack Iraq, and he referred to Kuwait, where thousands of U.S. troops have been based since the 1991 war, as being under American occupation.
"As you can see, the foreigners are occupying your country in a direct occupation," he said. "And as you know, when the foreigners occupy a country, they don't only desecrate the soil, but also the soul, religion and mind."
There was no official reaction from the Kuwaiti government and the speech was not broadcast by Kuwait's state television media. The statement, however, was broadcast by Arab satellite channels which many Kuwaitis watch. Several of them dismissed the apology as a self-serving Iraqi stunt.
"This is a speech aimed at inciting Kuwaitis to attack Americans and at threatening Kuwait for cooperating with America," said Mohammed al-Jassem, editor of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Watan. "This cannot be considered an apology by any means."
Ahmed al-Rubi, a liberal Kuwaiti lawmaker, noted that Saddam did not deliver the remarks personally "because he could not offer an apology himself." Al-Rubi said he doubted the statement would be enough to "drive a wedge" between Kuwaitis and their rulers.
Earlier in the day, Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, who oversaw the preparation of Iraq's arms declaration, said the documents "will answer all the questions which have been addressed during the last months and years."
Amin also said it would name companies and countries that helped Iraq develop weapons of mass destruction in the past, information that could help in prosecutions under other nations' export-control laws.
As for today, "I reiterate here Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction," he told reporters. "I think if the United States has the minimum level of fairness and braveness, it should accept the report and say this is the truth."
In his weekly radio address Saturday, President Bush made clear his skepticism about Iraq's weapons inventory. "Thus far we are not seeing the fundamental shift in practice and attitude that the world is demanding," Bush said in remarks taped Friday.
Iraqi officials displayed the declaration to the international media before it was handed over to U.N. officials in Baghdad. It will be delivered Sunday to U.N. headquarters in New York and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
On a table in a government office, reporters viewed copies of volumes devoted separately to nuclear, chemical, biological and missile activities, titled "Currently Accurate, Full and Complete Declarations."
The mass of paper, in red and blue covers, was spread on a table accompanied by computer disks, presumably with added information.
Under the Security Council resolution calling for the report, teams from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the U.N. nuclear watchdog resumed inspections Nov. 27 after a four-year interruption.
On Saturday, the inspectors visited two sites south of Baghdad previously inspected in the 1990s - an industrial plant that in the 1980s helped make medium-range missiles now forbidden to Iraq by the United Nations, and a site associated with Iraq's major nuclear research center.
As usual, the U.N. inspection agency offered no immediate information about the visits.
Iraq's report on past weapons programs and industrial activity will take U.N. experts weeks to analyze and inspectors months to verify inside Iraq. And U.N. officials said weeding out data that might help others produce chemical, biological or nuclear weapons will further delay handover of material to the Security Council's 15 member nations.
"No member will get it on Monday," chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told reporters in New York on Friday.
The Bush administration says it's sure Iraq still harbors banned arms, despite its repeated denials - including the one in the declaration. If Iraq doesn't disarm, U.S. officials say, they will seek Security Council sanction for military action against Iraq. Failing that, they say, Washington would initiate an attack.
U.S. officials have not presented conclusive evidence Iraq has banned weapons. The White House said Thursday that "solid evidence" would be turned over to U.N. inspectors.
The United States on Friday offered to protect Iraqi scientists who cooperate with international weapons inspectors searching for hidden arms.
The Security Council resolution under which weapons inspectors are working allows them to solicit information from Iraqi scientists without Iraqi officials being present.
The Security Council resolution adopted Nov. 8 required Iraq to file by Sunday an "accurate, full, and complete declaration" of all weapons programs. Iraq also was required to report on "all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programs," even if not weapon-related.
After Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War, U.N. inspectors destroyed many tons of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and dismantled its program to try to build nuclear bombs. But the monitoring collapsed amid U.N.-Iraqi disputes, and the inspectors suspect they may have missed some chemical and biological weapons.
The inspectors hope the Iraqis at least will help them answer open questions by, for example, supplying convincing documentation on the fate of 550 artillery shells filled with poisonous mustard gas. Iraqi and U.N. accounts contain many such discrepancies from the 1990s.
The U.N. resolution provides that "false statements or omissions" in Iraq's declaration would constitute a "material breach," that is, a potential cause for military action, but only if coupled with Iraqi noncooperation. That would seem to exempt inaccuracies shown to be inadvertent.
If Iraq eventually is found to have cooperated fully with the inspectors, U.N. resolutions call for the Security Council to consider lifting economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
--------
Weapons Inspector Asks U.S. to Share Secret Iraq Data
December 7, 2002
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/international/middleeast/07NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 6 - Hans Blix, a leader of the United Nations weapon inspections in Iraq, today parried the Bush administration's prodding of him to be more aggressive, saying he had received no official criticism from American officials. But he called on the United States to share secret intelligence to help in the search for Iraqi arms sites.
Though administration officials have demanded for days that the inspectors pick up the pace and forcefulness of their work, Mr. Blix said he heard only "very supporting words" from the United States and other nations in a closed Security Council meeting here today.
But he noted, in comments to reporters after the session, that only the inspectors had the authority to look inside potential Iraqi arms facilities, and he appealed to Washington - with just a hint of impatience - to give him better information about where to look.
Mr. Blix said his team was preparing to ask for private interviews with Iraqi arms scientists, as administration officials have urged. But he said he had not yet decided whether to use new powers he was given by the Council, at Washington's insistence, to take the experts and their families out of the country, and suggested that that approach could create misunderstandings with Iraq.
"I have said that we are not going to abduct anybody and we're not serving as a defection agency," Mr. Blix said.
Iraq confirmed today that it would turn over a voluminous declaration of its arms programs to the weapons inspectors late Saturday in Baghdad. The deadline for the declaration, set by Resolution 1441, is Sunday.
The Council decided that the declaration, which is expected to run more than 10,000 pages, would initially remain secret and in the hands of the weapons inspectors, so they can screen it for any information about Iraq's arms programs that could be used by other nations or by terrorists to build weapons.
"The initial attitude of the Council is that no one should have access to anything that could be used for proliferation," Mr. Blix said. His team is expected to receive and review Iraq's documents on chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles, while the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, will analyze the nuclear declaration.
Mr. Blix said he had learned from Iraq that the declaration will include new data about its past nuclear programs and about materials and equipment Iraq has obtained that could be used for civilian purposes or to make illegal weapons.
Under the procedure established today, neither the United States nor any other Security Council nation will see any part of the declaration until the United Nations arms teams have purged sensitive passages, which the inspectors will keep in their confidential files.
Once again today, Iraqi officials denied that they had any prohibited weapons. They said the declaration would show how they had eliminated weapons they had in the past.
"Everything we had has been destroyed, and we have no intention to do that again," said Mohammed A. Aldouri, the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations. "Iraq is clean of any kind of mass-destruction weapons."
Diplomats pointed out in the meeting that the Security Council is the world's highest authority in enforcing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and other conventions barring chemical and biological weapons. These pacts include specific terms controlling the release of information that could be used to make prohibited weapons.
Past Iraqi arms declarations were given to United Nations weapons inspectors but were not distributed to the Security Council or released to the public. Council diplomats worried today that receiving Iraq's new declaration unfiltered might constitute a violation, since virtually all documents that reach the Council sooner or later leak to the press and the public.
"We don't want to provide any cookbooks," a United Nations official said. Past Iraqi declarations provided extensive and highly detailed technical information about how Iraq said it made and destroyed chemical weapons.
Mr. Blix seemed his usual jovial self after the meeting, joking about the enormous document he is to receive. But he betrayed a twinge of frustration when he was asked about the stream of commentary from Washington that he had gotten off to a slow start, even though the inspections began just over a week ago.
"Of course we would like to have as much information from any member state as to evidence they may have on weapons of mass destruction, and, in particular, sites," Mr. Blix said. "Because we are inspectors, we can go to sites. They may be listening to what's going on and they may have lots of other sources of information. But we can go to the sites legitimately and legally."
So far, Mr. Blix has been getting contradictory messages from Washington, United Nations officials said. On one hand, administration officials are pressing him to work faster and send out more inspectors to more places to undermine Baghdad's ability to conceal any hidden programs. At the same time, Washington has been holding back its intelligence, waiting to see what Iraq will say in its declaration.
Under the terms of Resolution 1441, if the United States can show that Iraq has omitted any significant information about a prohibited weapons program, Baghdad will be in "material breach" of the resolution, and Washington can go to war to make it disarm.
"We want to have recommendations from member governments about what they suggest to do, and we listen to all of them," Mr. Blix said. But he added: "We have to act on behalf of the whole Council. We're grateful for recommendations, but we are, I've said before, in nobody's pocket."
United States officials here confirmed that they refrained from criticizing Mr. Blix before the Council today.
"We think Dr. Blix and his team have done a very good job," an American official said. "It really depends on Iraq's cooperation."
Mr. Blix gave an upbeat but cautiously limited assessment of the inspections so far.
"There have been no impediments placed in our way," he said. "We have had prompt access to sites all around." But he said he would not use the word "cooperation" yet, because it is too early in the inspections process.
Mr. Blix said he would report on his "first glance" at the contents of Iraq's declaration next Tuesday, when he is scheduled to meet for lunch with representatives of all 15 Council nations and Secretary General Kofi Annan. The declaration is expected to arrive on paper, and vast portions of it will be in Arabic, so it will have to be translated by language experts with high-level security clearance.
--------
U.N. Has Long List of Iraq Questions
December 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Iraq-Outstanding-Questions.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- How much anthrax did Iraq actually produce and was it all destroyed as Baghdad claims? Where are 550 artillery shells that it filled with mustard gas? Why were no remnants found of warheads for 50 long-range missiles that Iraq said it destroyed?
As Iraq prepared the declaration of its nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs that it will hand to U.N. inspectors on Saturday, it had a roadmap of unanswered questions from the former U.N. inspection agency and an international panel of experts.
``These questions have been on the table for some time, and we hope that Iraq's new declaration might address them,'' said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. The commission is in charge of eliminating Iraq's chemical, biological and missile programs.
Soon after U.N. inspectors left Baghdad in December 1998 ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes to punish the Iraqi government for its lack of cooperation, former chief weapons inspector Richard Butler produced a 280-page report on the state of Iraq's disarmament.
Butler said inspectors remained strongly convinced that Baghdad had documents that would reveal ``the full picture'' of its weapons programs -- but had refused to hand them over.
The report said Iraq must submit a full accounting of its biological warfare program, which Butler once called ``a black hole.''
U.N. inspectors had destroyed a substantial portion of Iraq's chemical weapons and made a pretty good account of illegal missiles, though questions still remained, Butler said. For example, it was never established what happened to all the deadly VX nerve agent that Iraq produced.
But the same could not be said of biological weapons. Iraq first denied having them and later tried to downplay the number and quality of its stock, Butler said.
The report lists biological agents Iraq produced including deadly botullinum toxin, anthrax and ricin; gas gangrene, which rots flesh; and aflatoxin, which causes liver cancer. Baghdad also said it did research on rotavirus, which causes diarrhea; and hemorrhagic conjunctivitis virus, which affects the eyes.
The report cites Iraq's failures to account for all stocks of biological agents and the material used to grow the agents. Inspectors said, for example, that they believe Iraq produced three times the amount of anthrax and 16 times more gas gangrene than Baghdad declared.
An international panel that made recommendations to the Security Council on Iraq's disarmament in March 1999 said ``critical gaps'' in Iraq's biological program ``need to be filled to arrive at a reasonably complete picture.''
It noted that biological warfare agents can be produced using simple equipment and Iraq possesses the capability and knowledge to produce them ``quickly and in volume.''
The panel said Iraq needed to account for 500 R-400 aerial bombs equipped for chemical and biological agents, for 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas that it claimed to have lost shortly after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and for its military plans to use VX, the deadly nerve agent.
As for its long-range missiles, it said Baghdad must explain why no remnants of warheads for 50 missiles that the government says it unilaterally destroyed were recovered. Iraq must also account for seven locally produced missiles and missile fuel it claims to have destroyed on its own, the panel said.
Nuclear inspectors discovered that Iraq had imported thousands of pounds of uranium, some of which was already refined for weapons use, and had considered two types of nuclear delivery systems. Inspectors seized the uranium, destroyed facilities, and confiscated thousands of documents.
But ``questions remain with regard to the lack of certain technical documentation, external assistance to Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons program, and Iraq's abandonment of its nuclear weapons program,'' the panel said.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
THE MILITARY
G.I.'s Walk Perilous Line Between Finding Enemy and Alienating Afghans
December 7, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID ROHDE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/international/asia/07ARMY.html
ASADABAD, Afghanistan - With hundreds of Afghans staring at them, a half-dozen American paratroopers carrying assault rifles marched down the main street of this mountainous former Taliban stronghold on a recent Friday morning.
As they escorted two officers buying supplies, the soldiers darted their eyes back and forth, searching for a lurking threat. Afghans stared back, seemingly fascinated and frightened by the strange visitors bristling with weapons.
The scene, like many involving American soldiers here, was tense, awkward and filled with mixed messages. An American soldier who bought a pet monkey and propped it on his shoulder won a roar of approval from the crowd. But moments later, a clerk in a nearby music store blared a tape praising the Taliban.
Four months after the United States adopted a new strategy of using more ground troops to hunt for remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, it is unclear if the strategy is working, Afghan officials say.
Attacks on American bases have continued through the fall, and by some measures are intensifying. Afghans along the border with Pakistan say aggressive American ground troops and a lack of relief aid are alienating the local population.
The central issue of the American military mission here is at stake: how to defeat a shadowy guerrilla enemy without alienating fiercely independent Afghans with a long tradition of souring on, and then humbling, great powers, among them the British Empire and the Soviet Union.
Recent attacks and dozens of interviews with Afghans in three strategic border provinces - Paktia, Khost and Kunar - suggest that American forces are, at best, holding their own in what has evolved into a classic counterinsurgency campaign. Rather than being cowed, their enemies appear to be gradually growing bolder.
Over the last three months, the number of attacks on American soldiers has remained constant, at about 50 a month, according to military officials.
American officials say that sweeps by ground troops are keeping former Taliban and Qaeda forces from massing, and that most of the attacks continue to involve the nighttime firing of inaccurate Soviet-made rockets that almost always miss their targets.
But the nature of the attacks appears to be changing. Instead of single rockets launched at night, in some cases volleys of 5 to 10 rockets are being fired at American bases, according to military officials. Frequently these days, several bases are attacked in a single night, and the men firing the rockets are almost never caught.
Recently, three men in a truck drove near an American base in Lwara at 12:30 p.m., fired a rocket that struck the base and escaped. A sniper shot an American Special Forces soldier in the leg.
American military officials call the rocket attacks desperate and fruitless. "In terms of effectiveness, they don't hit anything," said Col. Roger King, a spokesman for American forces in Afghanistan. "We have yet to have anybody killed."
Colonel King added: "Half of the weapons caches we've found in the last two months have been from local people coming and telling us. They are getting results."
Afghan officials along the border say the United States should flood the area with aid, not soldiers. Each month, the United States spends an estimated $1 billion on military operations in Afghanistan, and an average of $25 million on aid. Pentagon officials have said recently that they plan to shift some of their focus to rebuilding.
One of the Afghan officials calling for a change in American tactics is Jan Khan, the mayor of this isolated provincial capital 20 miles from the Pakistan border. He said American soldiers recently broke down doors and confiscated $3,000 in cash in a search of his house, a raid he said was based on a false tip.
"If they were not searching homes and not making problems for people, the people would welcome them," Mr. Khan said. "If they want to rebuild Afghanistan, the people will be very happy."
All of those interviewed were rural ethnic Pashtuns, the group that formed the backbone of the Taliban and is often assumed to be hostile to Americans and Afghanistan's new American-backed government.
Yet Pashtuns expressed surprisingly strong support for Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, also a Pashtun, and they praised American Special Forces soldiers, who often wear beards and baseball caps, for treating them with respect.
Their complaints focused on the ground troops used in sweeps since this summer, which mostly include elements of the 82nd Airborne Division. They referred to the airborne troops as "the bad soldiers."
Pashtuns accused the paratroopers of unnecessary aggressiveness. American tactics intended to overwhelm an enemy and minimize casualties - like hovering helicopter gunships and firing off mortar rounds as a warning - frighten and alienate Afghans, they said. Entering houses without permission, in particular, humiliates the Pashtuns.
Kunar residents, including the mayor, said American soldiers test-firing mortars on a mountainside in September killed a child shepherd. Others complained of paratroopers' pointing their guns at civilians and detaining innocent people.
Colonel King, the American spokesman, confirmed that a local man brought the body of a dead child to the American base, but said soldiers firing the mortars had believed the mountain was deserted. He also said all American forces asked for permission to enter houses, distributed food and blankets during searches and had female American soldiers search Afghan women.
In the end, the largest challenge may be bridging the different expectations that Americans and Afghans have of the military's mission.
A young American paratrooper on patrol here on the recent Friday morning asked where he could buy "a Russian infantry bayonet - one of the real ones."
A few yards away, a 25-year-old Afghan who gave his name as Jabar asked if someone could help him write a letter to the American soldiers saying: "My house burned down. Help me."
--------
POWER STRUGGLES
Afghan Official Says U.S. Strike Killed Civilian
December 7, 2002
New York Times
By CARLOTTA GALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/international/asia/07AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 6 - A civilian was killed and several others were injured on Sunday when an American B-52 bombed feuding factions in western Afghanistan, a government minister said this week.
The bombing was welcomed by one Afghan commander, who said it forced the two sides apart and ended the fighting.
A cease-fire declared after the bombing has held, and a government delegation returned from the region today saying it had won an agreement from both sides to pull back. The bombing demonstrated that American forces remain the most powerful arbiter in the regional power struggles that plague Afghanistan.
American Special Forces troops called in the airstrikes after coming under fire during a patrol in the Shindand area, south of Herat, a military spokesman confirmed on Monday. Fierce fighting had raged there through the previous night, with the two Afghan groups trading fire.
Five soldiers loyal to the governor of Herat, Ismail Khan, were killed in the fighting, said Enayatullah Nazari, the minister for refugees and a member of the government delegation sent to investigate. That casualty figure was much lower than those cited in previous accounts.
The B-52 bombed the front line between Mr. Khan's troops and those of the local Pashtun commander, Amanullah Nekzad. One bomb fell on a civilian area, killing one person and injuring others, Mr. Nazari said. He said villagers reported that 25 houses were damaged.
The international coalition had informed Mr. Khan of its intention to bomb, Mr. Nazari said. But his opponent, Mr. Nekzad, said he was unaware of the presence of the American forces in the area. Still, Mr. Nekzad said he was glad the Americans had intervened to stop the fighting, which he said had left 11 of his men dead and 19 wounded.
"The bombing was very good in my opinion," he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. "We were very heavily engaged and the bombing stopped the fighting between us."
A spokesman for Mr. Khan, Muhammadullah Afzali, said nine men fighting for Mr. Khan were killed.
Each side blamed the other for starting the fighting.
-------- asia
US, Russia marching on Central Asia
By Sergei Blagov
December 7, 2002
Asia Times
http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/DL07Ag02.html
MOSCOW - During a brief stopover in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin endorsed Russian deployment of fighter jets, bombers and other aircraft in that country. The move is obviously designed to reassert Russia's military influence in a region where the United States has its own semi-permanent military presence with bases in also in Kyrgyzstan as well as Uzbekistan.
On Wednesday, Putin told journalists in Bishkek that Russian air force deployment was very important and brought "a new quality" to security arrangements in the region. Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev urged Russia to become a "main strategic cornerstone of Central Asia".
Russian and Kyrgyz officials also signed the Bishkek Declaration, pledging closer security and economic ties. This agreement is not directed against third countries, Putin was quoted as saying. A deal to write off some $40 million of Kyrgyz debt to Moscow was also agreed to.
On December 2, two Su-25 attack jets and two Il-76 military transport planes (along with 70 troops to establish air traffic control systems and provide security) arrived from neighboring Tajikistan and landed at a military airfield in Kant, about 20 kilometers east of Bishkek.
And on December 4, three Su-27 fighter jets arrived from the Lipetsk base in Central Russia. Incidentally, one of them, plane No 17, is dubbed the "presidential aircraft" by Russian pilots because Putin used this plane to fly over Chechnya in an unprecedented public relations exercise two years ago.
Although the three Su-27 fighter jets are to return to Lipetsk soon, the two Su-25 are to stay. This symbolic presence is the vanguard of a force that will ultimately include more than 20 Russian aircraft and more than 700 troops, eventually to become the most significant outside Russia's borders since the Soviet collapse in 1991.
In all, Russia plans to deploy five Su-25 attack jets, five Su-27 fighters, two An-26 transports, two Il-76 transports, five L-39 training jets and two Mi-8 helicopters at Kant, according to RIA, the official Russian news agency. The Russian aircraft will form the core of the air unit based at Kant.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov arrived in Kyrgyzstan on December 4 to inspect Kant base. He announced that the Russian task force was to provide the air power for a contingent of ground forces. Known as a rapid reaction force, this group could total more than 5,000 troops from Russia, as well as from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, members of an alliance of former Soviet republics known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Ivanov also dismissed rumors that Russian deployment would cost up to US$300 million a year.
The Russian deployment comes against a backdrop of recent protests in southern Kyrgyzstan, provoked by a controversial border treaty under which Kyrgyzstan agrees to transfer some 95,000 hectares of its territory to China in an attempt to settle a long-running border dispute over land. The Russian deployment now means that Kyrgyzstan is host to two foreign air bases, the other being the US facility at Manas, a Bishkek suburb.
The US base, which was established in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, is designed to provide air support for regional operations by the anti-terrorism coalition in Afghanistan. Some 2,000 American personnel now occupy Manas and up to 5,000 coalition soldiers are expected to be based there eventually. Although this force could help Kyrgyz authorities to deal with terrorist threats, coalition troops are unlikely to back the government in disputes with the opposition.
The security deal between Moscow and Bishkek arguably indicates that the US has failed to provide sufficient support to the Akayev administration in terms of security needs and domestic political problems with the opposition. Therefore, Akayev is now increasingly depending on Russian backing, military, political and financial.
Russia and Kyrgyzstan have maintained close political and military ties, and Akayev has tended to support the Kremlin's policies in the region. In response, Moscow has backed Akayev's regime and warned against interference in Kyrgyz internal affairs.
However, Moscow carefully denied that the Russian deployment in Kyrgyzstan was anti-American. Nobody was going to push the Americans from Central Asia or try a strategic encirclement, the RIA commented. But now Russia, as well as China and India, realized that the Americans were unable to clear the region from terrorism, according to RIA. It was not impossible that Russian troops could eventually need to defend the Americans in the event of worst-case scenarios, the agency said.
As Putin traveled to China on December 1-3 and India on December 3-5, speculation re-surfaced about the three countries ganging up together to form a China-India-Russia "strategic triangle" to help balance the global dominance of the United States. However, Russian experts concede that such a triangle appeared unlikely to materialize since Russia, China and India were keen to strengthen good relations with Washington and they have backed the US war on terror.
The idea of the strategic triangle was first spelled out by former Russian chief diplomat and then prime minister Yevgeny Primakov back in 1998. Primakov, a veteran Middle East expert and former chief of Russia's main intelligence agency, was widely seen as a leading proponent of Moscow's pro-Asian and anti-American policy.
So far both China and India have distanced themselves from the idea of an India-Russia-China strategic axis. However, foreign ministers of the three countries met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session in New York in September for trilateral informal talks. It has been understood that such meetings would be held regularly.
In 1998, Primakov's "strategic triangle" concept as a counterbalance to US dominance was little more than a bold vision, RIA said earlier this week. However, by December 2002 the situation had changed dramatically and the Moscow-Bejing-New Delhi axis was becoming more realistic, yet without its anti-US agenda, the agency added.
But although the "strategic triangle" concept still has some supporters in Moscow, Putin's Asian tour come in the wake of improved relations with the West by supporting the US war on terror and tacitly accepting NATO's eastward expansion. Therefore, the "strategic triangle" idea is unlikely to become Russia's official policy at this stage, indicating that Moscow wants partners in both the East and West.
----
Putin seeks closer ties where U.S. deploys jets
Briefly - KYRGYZSTAN
December 7, 2002 •
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021207-96829632.htm
BISHKEK - Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged this week to strengthen ties with Kyrgyzstan, days after Russian fighter jets landed here, in an apparent bid to counter the growing U.S. influence in Central Asia.
Mr. Putin, who arrived from India on Thursday after an Asian tour that included China, said he had held talks with Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev on boosting economic and military cooperation. The two leaders signed an agreement to cooperate in the sphere of security.
Mr. Putin said the talks underlined "the resolution of the two countries to strengthen their alliance." His visit followed the temporary deployment of three Su-27 fighter jets, two Su-25 ground-attack planes and two Il-76 cargo planes to the Kant air base a dozen miles outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
Kyrgyzstan has allowed about 2,000 U.S.-led troops together with fighter jets to deploy at its Manas airport outside Bishkek for operations to root out al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan.
AFGHANISTAN
Iran alerts its diplomats to al Qaeda threat
TEHRAN - Iran has put its diplomats in Afghanistan on high alert after receiving information that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network plans to attack its embassy in Kabul, a newspaper reported Thursday.
"Two al Qaeda members of Arab origin have entered Kabul to blow up the embassy or to attempt suicide attacks and kill our diplomats," the Entekhab daily quoted Iran's charge d'affaires in Afghanistan as saying.
SRI LANKA
India bars any talks with Tamil Tigers
COLOMBO - An opposition delegation that just returned from New Delhi said India would not sit down for any kind of talks with Tamil Tiger rebels.
Anura Bandaranaike, President Chandrika Kumaratunga's brother and adviser, led a three-member opposition team that returned Thursday from a three-day visit to India. The visit came after India did not send a political representative to a meeting in Oslo last week where international donors pledged support for Sri Lanka's peace process with the Tigers.
India had reservations about joining the meeting organized by peace facilitator Norway, since it would have had to share a platform with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The LTTE was banned by India in 1992 after the group's leader,Velupillai Prabhakaran, was held responsible for the May 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. His widow, Sonia, now leads his Congress party, which is the main opposition in India.
Weekly notes
Nepali leaders offered a guarded welcome this week to an offer of peace talks by Maoist rebels fighting the Himalayan nation's monarchy. Interim Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand, whose appointment is considered unconstitutional by mainstream political parties, has said he is ready for talks with the rebels but insists they issue a formal proposal in a letter to the government. Rice and vegetables grown in groundwater contaminated by Bangladesh's arsenic problem also take up the poison and accumulate it, say scientists in a report today in New Scientist published in full in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. The water contamination occurs in shallow wells dug by international aid agencies in the 1970s and '80s into underground sediments later found to contain high levels of arsenic.
-------- biological weapons
Washington, D.C. plans smallpox shots for entire city
By Tom Ramstack
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 7, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20021207-69458770.htm
The D.C. Health Department is scheduled to deliver a plan to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday that proposes offering smallpox vaccinations to the District's entire population within a year.
Like plans in other cities and states, the District's vaccination program raises the possibility that smallpox vaccine will be offered to the entire U.S. population under a policy President Bush is expected to announce in about a week.
The policy is intended to counter the risk of terrorists unleashing the smallpox virus on the United States. Smallpox is one of the world's most lethal viruses. It is characterized by rash and high fever.
District health officials are coordinating their plan with similar vaccination plans by the Maryland and Virginia health departments.
The only undetermined issues are when the vaccinations would begin and how many people would receive them, said Dr. Michael Richardson, senior deputy director of the D.C. Health Department.
"It's a foregone conclusion we are going to vaccinate people," Dr. Richardson said. "We expect this is going to occur."
Pregnant women, children under 1, persons with eczema and anyone with a weakened immune system, such as those infected with HIV or chemotherapy patients, would be advised against getting the vaccinations.
"They have a higher likelihood of an adverse reaction," Dr. Richardson said.
Adverse reactions can include fatigue, body pains and itchiness. For every 1 million people vaccinated, one or two are expected to die. Between 14 and 52 others would suffer serious side effects, such as brain inflammation, according to the CDC's historical data on smallpox vaccinations.
The emergency version of the District's plan lays the groundwork for all eligible D.C. residents and visitors to be vaccinated within one week after the first smallpox case is reported or by early 2004 if no cases occur.
The vaccinations for health care workers could start as soon as this month under the "pre-event smallpox vaccination plan," Dr. Richardson said. Vaccinations for the general population, which would be administered at university auditoriums, would begin in about a year and continue for as long as 120 days, he said.
Participating universities listed in the Health Department plan include American University, Catholic University, Gallaudet University, George Washington University and Howard University. Secondary school auditoriums might be used if they are needed, Dr. Richardson said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is requiring the plans from all states and major cities to prepare for a bioterrorist attack.
"The CDC has asked us to prepare plans about how to vaccinate the entire population in case a mass vaccination was determined to be necessary," said Trina Lee, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Health.
The Virginia plan does not specify locations for administering the vaccine. Instead, it leaves the decision to the state's 35 health district directors, who would first consult local officials.
Maryland health officials cited security concerns in refusing to say where vaccines would be administered.
The Maryland plan focuses on first administering vaccines to hospital personnel and public health workers, which would require 6,000 to 8,000 doses, said Karen Black, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
"We expect to have six to 10 sites to vaccinate the public health teams," Miss Black said.
President Bush's announcement will determine the extent of the vaccination program.
"The president has not made his decision," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the new Department of Homeland Security.
So far, the Bush administration's policy consists of "just preparation," he said.
In the District and the nation, the vaccine would be administered in three phases. The first phase would be limited to hospital health care personnel and public health workers. It would include about 3,000 to 5,000 persons in the District.
The second phase would be expanded to all emergency response personnel, which would be 50,000 to 100,000 firefighters, police, emergency medical personnel and other emergency workers in the District.
The third phase would cover the general population, which Dr. Richardson said would be about 600,000 residents and visitors to Washington.
The workers in the first two phases would receive the vaccinations at their job sites or public health clinics. The general population would get them at the university auditoriums.
The emergency version of the plan, which the D.C. Health Department delivered to the Centers for Disease Control on Dec. 2, is essentially the same as the yearlong plan, except more personnel would be working in less time.
Emergency management workers would give out food and water at the sites, mental health workers would stand ready for emotional outbursts, and security workers would keep order. The federal government would cover the costs.
Another event that would trigger an accelerated vaccination schedule is war with Iraq.
"The estimation of risks and threats changes at that point," Dr. Richardson said. "We may need to step up our preventive strategy."
If no emergency occurs, the first phase of vaccinations for Washington is scheduled to be completed in 45 to 60 days, followed by phase two in 60 to 90 days, then phase three in 90 to 120 days. No starting date has been set for any of the phases.
-------- britain
U.K. move evokes Russian protest
By Hasan Suroor,
December 7, 2002
The Hindu
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/stories/2002120802621400.htm
LONDON DEC. 7. Noted British actress Vanessa Redgrave has played many difficult roles in her distinguished film career but being caught up in a real-life drama is quite something else as she discovered at the weekend when she found herself playing a starring role in a diplomatic row between Britain and Russia over Moscow's demand for the extradition of a Chechen leader for alleged war crimes.
The row erupted when Akhmed Zakayev, whom Russia links with the Moscow theatre siege and a host of other terrorist incidents, was arrested in London on Friday but released immediately on bail after Ms. Redgrave stood a £50,000 surety for him denouncing the Russian `evidence' as `fabrication'.
Russians reacted furiously with the Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, accusing Britain of treating a `terrorist' with kid gloves. "I ask myself what would have happened if another terrorist, Osama bin Laden, had arrived in London like Zakayev with an international arrest warrant against him....How would you deal with him? Would you react the same way as with Zakayev? Would you talk to him in a police station and let him out again on to the street'' he asked, speaking in Portugal.
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, was reported to have spoken to the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, over telephone about his Government's case against Mr. Zakayev and a senior Russian official was quoted as saying that Moscow took "this issue, very, very seriously''.
Mr. Zakayev was arrested as he arrived at Heathrow airport from Denmark after being freed by a court which held that the evidence produced by Russian authorities was not sufficient. He had spent five weeks in prison in Denmark. Known in the theatre world as "Chechnya's Lawrence Olivier'', Mr. Zakayev is the Chechen Government's main negotiator and has been living in London for several months as Ms. Redgrave's guest.
Though he led a long and often violent campaign for Chechen independence, he is regarded as a moderate leader who has held peace talks with Russian authorities in the past. He denies any involvement in the theatre siege.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel hit for 2 U.N. deaths
By Joshua Mitnick
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 7, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021207-82854116.htm
TEL AVIV - The United Nations reproached Israel for a pre-dawn incursion yesterday into a Gaza Strip refugee town that killed two of its humanitarian workers during a search for Palestinian militants.
Ten Palestinians were killed and about 20 were wounded after a three-hour battle in the El-Bureij refugee camp in which Israeli tanks, bulldozers and helicopter gunships were used. The Israelis met fierce resistance by local militiamen who countered with machine-gun fire and hand grenades.
The sides gave conflicting accounts on how many civilians died in the attack, which took place during the Muslim holiday of Eid el-Fitr, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Six Hamas activists were among those killed, according to a statement received by the Hezbollah TV station al-Manar in Lebanon.
The European Union also took Israel to task yesterday over the Palestinian killings. In Copenhagen, the Danish presidency of the EU strongly condemned "military or other violent actions directed indiscriminately against a civilian neighborhood, whether Palestinian or Israeli."
"There can be no justification for the high number of killed and injured as a result of last night's Israeli incursion into the El-Bureij refugee camp in Gaza," it said.
"While recognizing Israel's legitimate right to fight terrorism, the EU has consistently rejected Israeli methods of extra-judicial killings and house demolitions and Israel's excessive use of force," the statement said.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was "gravely concerned" by the incursion, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York. "He wishes to remind the government of Israel of its obligations as an occupying power to protect the civilian population and urges them to ensure that the Israeli Defense Forces behave with greater restraint and discipline and in conformity with international humanitarian law."
Israel demolished the house of Aiman Shasniyeh, a Palestinian accused of carrying out attacks on settlers and soldiers in the Gaza Strip, but failed to arrest the militant. It was the second time in three days that the army had targeted members of the Popular Resistance Committee, a Gaza militia known for using land mines to destroy two Merkava tanks, reputed as the most secure armored vehicle in the world.
An army spokesman called the incursion a "precise operation" aimed at the most "senior-level terrorists."
Palestinian witnesses said the incursion began at 1:30 a.m. yesterday when about 25 tanks and three bulldozers rumbled into Bureij, a densely populated town of about 30,000 south of Gaza City.
Israeli army sources said a helicopter was called in to snuff out two sources of heavy gunfire during the fighting. The military said the helicopter fired a missile into the street, killing five members of Hamas.
"There was shooting from all directions, and then the tanks arrived," said Isa Shasniyeh, a brother of Aiman, who was arrested during the incursion. "They came to our house, and I was blindfolded, and our house was blown up."
On Wednesday, Mustafa Sabah, another member of the Popular Resistance Committee, had been killed in a missile attack on a Palestinian police station in Gaza City.
U.N. Relief and Works Agency said the staff members killed - Osama Hassan Tahrawi, 31, and Ahlam Riziq Kandil, 32 - worked at schools in the town. Miss Kandil was shot in the neck, shoulder and abdomen while insider her house.
Last month, UNRWA official Iain Hook was killed by Israeli soldiers during clashes in Jenin, prompting Mr. Annan to demand that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon punish the soldiers responsible. Israeli soldiers said they mistook Mr. Hook's cell phone for a weapon.
"This loss of civilian lives, of people working for a humanitarian U.N. agency, is completely unacceptable," the agency's Commissioner General Peter Hansen said in Geneva yesterday. "I must condemn what appears to be the indiscriminate use of heavy firepower in a densely populated civilian area."
Palestinian witnesses said six of those killed yesterday were unarmed civilians from two families.
----
The Israelization of America
by James Brooks
December 7, 2002
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/brooks1.html
US officials recently announced the somewhat jarring news that Israeli security forces will be training American soldiers in the techniques of urban warfare. Apparently Israel's illegal thirty-five year occupation of Palestine has enabled it to perfect tactics that our troops will need in a 'possible' war on Iraq.
Most informed Americans will receive this news with a sense of both foreboding and dislocation. The brutal tactics of the Israeli "Defense" Forces have been denounced for decades by human rights groups, the United Nations, and scores of foreign governments. Is this how we want our own troops to fight? Our sense of dislocation (even "topsy-turvy") in greeting this news traces to something else; the fact that Israel has always been our client, not the other way around. Why are the Israelis now teaching us?
Is this really something new, or is it merely an unusually explicit lesson in the continuing education of American power by the Israeli vanguard? Who has been learning from whom in this "special relationship"?
From Covert Crimes to Points of Pride
Over the past half century, Israel's organized terror against Palestinian civilians has moved from the relatively secret operations of special Israeli army and paramilitary units to globally televised depredations wrought with helicopter gunships, state-of-the-art tanks, and F-16 fighters. In the process, massacres like those perpetrated in the old days by Israeli army units at Deir Yassin and Qibya have been dwarfed, in terms of casualties, scope, and property damage, by today's daily and indiscriminate destruction in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Crimes that Israel once felt compelled to hide from the world are now on full display, vigorously defended by the Israeli government.
Fifty years ago, America also felt the need to conduct most of its international crimes far from public view. Interventions in the affairs of uncooperative nations (invariably conducted to "fight communism") were mostly secretive, CIA-led actions that made surreptitious use of special military units, typically called "American advisors" (Honduras, Guatemala, Iran, and Cuba provide a few relevant examples).
Now, emboldened by the demise of its only global counterweight, the Soviet Union, and encouraged by Israel's success in using conventional military forces in a public and illegal campaign against civilians, the US is increasingly eschewing the old "secret war" model in favor of direct and open military intervention with American troops. Witness Somalia, Haiti, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan during the past ten years.
Pre-emptive Action
Israel has long been criticized for taking pre-emptive military action against its perceived enemies. Two well-known examples are its surprise attack against a nearly-completed Iraqi nuclear power plant and its protracted, illegal and bloody occupation of southern Lebanon. Despite worldwide criticism of these and many other blatant violations of international law, Israel continued, and continues, undaunted.
The Clinton administration was noted for its fawning support of Israel's occupation, and for abandoning a long-standing US commitment (on paper only, of course) to return Palestine to its pre-1967 borders. Clinton also took a big page out of Israel's book on international relations, when he insisted, against strenuous objections from the United Nations, that the US has the right to launch pre-emptive strikes, and that NATO had the right to wage war on Yugoslavia without UN approval. This year, the Bush administration dropped all pretense of maintaining security with deterrence and adopted the illegal Israeli standard of pre-emptive strikes as official US policy.
Militarization of Politics
Our politicians have also learned much by example from our close and "special" relationship with the government of Israel. For decades, our pols have used cant, dissimulation and fraud to excuse Israel's most egregious crimes. In the process, much has been learned about how to turn acts of wanton destruction into a noble defense of freedom. Israel's willingness to keep 'pushing the envelope' of state terror has been invaluable in this process, training both American pols and media in the arts of propaganda required to justify ever-larger crimes.
Meanwhile, the American populace has been steadily learning to accept Israel's gross violations of human rights, international law, and common decency as "necessary for peace and security", justified by "Israel's right to defend herself". This lesson in moral decay and desensitization is proving handy indeed, as the current US administration seeks to extend American hegemony in the Middle East by a new war of occupation.
The Terror Card
Following the tragedy of 9/11, Israel immediately recast its thirty-five-year occupation of Palestine as an essential front in the "war on terror". To extract maximum political advantage from our loss and grief, Israeli politicians like Ariel Sharon suggested, with typical touches of arrogance and self-satisfaction, that, finally, Americans know how Israelis have felt for years. We face a common and implacable enemy, they lectured us, leaving unspoken the message that we Americans had better develop some backbone and put our shoulder to the anti-terror wheel.
Of course, our politicians did not really require Israel's instruction to convert our tragedy into their political windfall. However, they quickly employed several rhetorical devices that, before 9/11, were most often found in Israel's political toolbox (domestic and foreign). Suddenly, all kinds of international and domestic issues were redefined as being part of the "war on terror", requiring new and drastic solutions that were, of course, necessary for "security", and often highly profitable for favored corporate interests.
No doubt our leaders saw major advantages to this radical simplification of world affairs. First, they could dispense with even the pretense of negotiation, because "you cannot negotiate with terrorists". They could neatly sidestep, or simply dispose of, human rights limitations imposed by law and the Constitution, because "terrorists have no respect for the rule of law". The "terror card" also enabled them to bulldoze public opposition to new and highly intrusive government surveillance, and so on.
Remote Funding
Just as Israel depends on billions of dollars annually from a compliant US government to maintain its military occupation and indifference to UN resolutions and international law, America's power axis also thrives on a steady flow of wealth from a similarly remote and supine source - the American people. And just as Israel makes it a point to occasionally disobey the orders of its US sponsors, so American politicians at the pinnacle of power pointedly disregard the many voices of the people that call for justice and peace. During consideration of the recent Congressional resolution supporting war on Iraq, Democracy Now reported that citizen messages to Congressional offices of both chambers and both sides of the aisle were running 10 to 1 against the resolution. Naturally, both the House and Senate passed the measure by overwhelming margins. The reply to the American public was clear; "We watch our push-polls. Pay your taxes and shut up."
Injustice at Home
Even within its own pre-1967 borders, Israel's human rights record is abysmal. Twenty percent of Israel's population is now comprised of non-Jewish Arabs who, by law, are systematically rendered second-class citizens in their own homeland. Special hells in Israel's complex legal and social caste system are reserved for Bedouins and African Jews. Israel's stubborn insistence on the primacy of the "Jewish state" and its institutionalized discrimination against non-Jews have set poor examples for America, where Israel is routinely hailed as a shining example of "Western democracy". We cannot quantify the debasing effects of this mass fantasy, but we can see that while America's own system of minority repression becomes increasingly severe, the public is told that pride in America's "liberty and equality for all" is at an all-time high.
Occupation
Israel's long war of attrition against the Palestinians has proven to America's power elite that it is possible to indefinitely occupy the land of another people, even in the face of nearly global opposition - if you're backed by enough raw power. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip constitute a kind of open-air laboratory and lecture hall, in which Israel demonstrates the advantages of occupation to its dutiful American pupil. These advantages include a dirt-cheap labor pool that can be turned on and off at will, the ability to emasculate and/or decapitate any effort at self-rule within the occupied lands, the utility of occupation as an object lesson and divisive thorn-in-the-side of neighboring enemies, and so on. Israel has also demonstrated the usefulness of sustained occupation for increasing a nation's overall military might. The constant war-footing, and the need for violent repression of a restive and disenfranchised people, create never-ending opportunities for the purchase and use of the latest military equipment, and for the containment of domestic politics.
One Lesson Not Learned?
While American power has in general been a very attentive student of Israeli policy and practice, there is one crucial lesson at the back of Israel's textbook that remains unlearned: Israel's approach will never create peace or achieve a just solution. Of course, that suits its purposes. The point of Israeli strategy is to grind the Palestinians into dust until they just blow away, and the last shreds of Palestine can be swept up into Greater Israel, always the goal of the military Zionists and their Laborite alter egos.
Unless forced to do otherwise, Israel, driven by a tragic and fundamentally racist ideology, will fight on for a hundred years to dispose of the "Palestinian problem". But American attempts to apply the localized Israeli model (designed to acquire land the size of Rhode Island) to a "global war on terror" are rewriting the definition of "over-reach". By following Israel's lead (which is constitutionally averse to just solutions) in the "war on terror", we ensure that the war will never be won and will never end. Increasingly, we suspect that our leaders may understand this lesson, too. And they're getting ready to send another 14 billion dollars in shiny red apples (disguised as new loan guarantees and military aid) to their beloved teachers in Jerusalem.
James Brooks of Worcester, Vermont is former marketing director of Vita-Flex Nutrition and was founding vice-president of the National Association of Equine Supplement Manufacturers. Past articles have been published on the NileMedia Web site. Currently Mr. Brooks serves as webmaster for Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel and publishes News Links, a daily e-mail digest of Middle East news and commentary. Brooks is also a member of the national Al-Awda Co-ordinating Committee.
--------
10 Palestinians Are Killed in Israeli Hunt for a Militant
December 7, 2002
New York Times
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/international/middleeast/07MIDE.html
BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip, Dec. 6 - A dark-of-night attempt by Israeli troops to capture a militant in this warren of concrete-block houses went badly awry early today, turning into a firefight that left 10 Palestinians dead, including two workers at United Nations schools here.
A United Nations official condemned what he called "the indiscriminate use of heavy firepower in a densely populated area," and said the organization would open an inquiry into the deaths. But an Israeli military spokeswoman insisted that troops had followed orders limiting the use of heavy arms, and that the deaths resulted when Israeli troops responded to Palestinian gunfire.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, clearly responding to the United Nations complaint, accused Palestinian militants of using civilians as "human shields" for their operations.
By midmorning, thousands of Palestinian men filled the camp's trash-strewn streets in a procession, chanting "God is great" and escorted by hooded men carrying Kalashnikovs.
Green, red and black flags of Palestinian militant groups flew above them, and the black flag of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committee was planted this afternoon atop the ruins of the apartment house that Israeli troops had raided.
The occupant they had been seeking, a military leader of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committee named Ayman Shishniya, escaped the attack unharmed and was seen this morning offering condolences to mourners in the camp's center.
Witnesses said at least two of the dead were Palestinian militants who began firing at Israeli troops and tanks as they surrounded Mr. Shishniya's two-story apartment house at about 2:15 a.m.
Israel's military commander in Gaza, Brig. Gen. Israel Ziv, said at least four of the dead were members of Hamas, the militant group that has led the two-year campaign of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israeli civilians and troops. He said one of Mr. Shishniya's brothers had been arrested.
But most of the deaths and injuries occurred about 150 yards from Mr. Shishniya's house, on a desolate street corner where an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at a group of Palestinians who had been awakened by the rumble of tanks and firing of guns.
That attack killed at least six people, including Merwan Tahrawi, 15, and his 27-year-old relative Osama Hassan Tahrawi, a guard at a United Nations-supported preparatory school. A teacher at a United Nations-sponsored elementary school, 31-year-old Ahlam Riziq Alwawi, was struck by shrapnel inside her house and died at a hospital later, the United Nations said.
Ten others were wounded, including five brothers struck by shrapnel several houses down the street from where the rocket or shell hit.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency announced the deaths of the two school workers this afternoon at its headquarters in Geneva. Two weeks ago, a British official with the same agency, Iain Hook, was shot and killed by Israeli troops.
The United Nations, which provides aid to Bureij, calls it a refugee camp. But it is in fact a decades-old concrete-block city, a mazelike, teeming Gaza City suburb that has become permanent as the Israeli-Palestinian divide has hardened.
The Israeli military calls it a haven for terrorists. Witnesses said scores of tanks and several helicopters descended on the camp to find Mr. Shishniya and three subordinates and to demolish the five-apartment building where he and an extended family lived.
It was reduced to a rubble of concrete pads, scattered personal-computer parts and a bent satellite dish after the soldiers evicted five families and ensured that it was vacant. Sharon Feingold, the chief spokeswoman for Israeli Defense Forces in Jerusalem, called the demolition "a clear message for a terrorist that there is a price to be paid for terrorist actions, a price to be paid both by themselves and their families."
Siham Tahwari, 44, said this afternoon that gunfire awakened her family, and that her son Osama and his brother went outside to investigate.
"All the young men here left their houses," she said. "Some had guns, some not. Osama had a gun."
Mr. Tahwari, the school guard, was among at least five men who were on the corner outside the Tahwari home, standing beneath a sprayed-on peace symbol, when an Israeli helicopter fired a missile, killing them instantly.
Captain Feingold said the group had been firing on Israeli troops when that missile, the only one fired during the conflict, was released. There was no way to verify her account.
Among those killed was Merwan Tahwari, a tall, moon-faced boy who had quit school two years ago to sell bottles of gasoline after his father, who had worked in Israel, lost his job with the beginning of the Palestinian uprising and the closing of Gaza's border with Israel.
Today his mother, 40-year-old Hanan, said that Merwan had asked to return to school this year but that she had refused him because their extended family - 18 children and 3 adults - had so little to live on.
Asked what she would do now, she said: "Praise God, we will be patient in such a catastrophe. And may God take revenge."
-------- mideast
Kuwaitis nervous as war games start to look like the real thing
By Patrick Bishop in Kuwait
07/12/2002
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/07/wirq107.xml/
How eerily familiar it all seems in Kuwait. Humvees buzzing up and down the desert highways; taciturn men with buzz cuts and big biceps, dressed in unconvincing civvies, filling the big hotels, and scurrying network minions preparing the ground for the arrival of the television magnificos.
The scene here in Abdali, for anyone who was in Saudi Arabia that December 12 years ago, throbs with deja vu. All the signs are that America is well advanced down the path to another war with Iraq. The official line remains that nothing unusual is going on. Almost 4,000 troops on live firing exercises and manoeuvres in the desert within sight of Iraqi border positions are merely training.
Even the imminent arrival of Gen Tommy Franks, the designated commander of an Iraq campaign, with his mobile headquarters in nearby Qatar for a five-day virtual reality test of their command and control capabilities is being presented as a routine biennial exercise.
Nobody is fooled. "Anyone with more than two brain cells can see that a major build-up is under way," said a Western military onlooker.
In the past year the US army presence in Kuwait has more than doubled to about 9,000, with armour and artillery to match, and there are about 12,000 military personnel in total.
That is only a fraction of the 250,000 from all services that are reckoned to be needed in theatre to guarantee a victory with minimum losses.
But more significantly, the military has taken over a quarter of the emirate - about 750 square miles - and turned it into a gigantic base.
Well-equipped and heavily protected camps are planted on the grubby sands, named after the American states that suffered most in the September 11 attacks.
The biggest is Camp New York, and two new airstrips capable of taking heavy aircraft have been laid in the flat wastes.
The militarisation of Kuwait is only the most visible indication of the circle of aircraft, ships, and tanks that is hardening around Iraq. The impression is that America could be ready for war much more rapidly than the six months it took last time.
It is reinforced by the military's advanced state of preparations to handle the anticipated huge media presence. Public affairs officers are already briefing journalists on their needs in the field and organising trips for reporters to "embed" with units in the desert.
The rules - for the moment at least - are much looser than in 1991, when a military hierarchy imbued with the notion that the American media had lost them the Vietnam War insisted on maximum control.
Television crews and reporters will be free to travel in their own vehicles and use their own communications to send uncensored reports, unlike last time when all material had to be shipped to the rear for transmission.
The emphasis is on mobility, strengthening the view that the military is anticipating a quick finish as well as a quick start.
The Kuwaitis view all this purposeful activity with mixed feelings. Kuwait City has recovered from the scarring left by the Iraqis and the oil well fires were extinguished long ago.
The psychological damage has taken longer to repair. Kuwait is a small place, about the size of Wales, with a population of two million people, most of them suspicious of change.
After the war they resisted calls for modernisation and returned thankfully to the feudal embrace of the ruling al Sabah family which runs the state like a family firm.
Anything that threatens the status quo excites alarm. "Most people would be delighted to see the back of Saddam Hussein but there is some concern about what happens afterwards," said a Western diplomat.
Among them is Jassim Boodai, editor in chief of Al Rai Al Aam newspaper.
"There is no doubt that the Americans are going to win," he said. "It is a bit like Manchester United taking on a team from Zimbabwe. I'm happy with that but I'm not comfortable with what happens next.
"They are not going to just topple Saddam and go home. If they start to stick their nose into the rest of the Arab world there will be a big mess."
Kuwait's position, sandwiched between two big powers, makes him fear for its survival. "We might end up a southern Iraqi state or a northern Saudi state," he said.
After the Gulf war Kuwaitis were in love with their liberators. Now there are signs of stirring anti-Americanism, along with fear of al-Qa'eda.
Kuwaitis will be grateful to America if it finishes its business with Saddam. But the Americans' increasingly heavy presence, which has attracted armed attacks by al-Qae'da sympathisers, makes them nervous and they will be relieved when they move on.
The men in the Humvees and desert camouflage fatigues show every sign of preparing to do so, and sooner rather than later.
----
Vessel Strikes Navy Ship in Persian Gulf
By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer
Dec 7, 2002
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SHIP_COLLISION?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Iranian oil vessel collided with a U.S. Navy destroyer Friday in the northern Persian Gulf, punching a two-foot gash in the destroyer's side but causing no injuries, U.S. military officials said.
The USS Paul Hamilton was in no danger and continued operating after the collision, the officials said. The hole in the all-steel hull was above the water line.
Officials said there did not appear to be any hostile intent in the collision.
The American ship was attempting to conduct a maritime intercept of the Iranian ship when the collision happened. Officials said it was unclear what happened. In a maritime intercept, the U.S. ship would have approached the targeted ship to communicate and possibly to board it. Details in this case were sketchy.
There was no immediate word on the condition of the Iranian ship, which was described as an oil vessel but not a tanker.
The Paul Hamilton has been conducting maritime intercept operations in the Gulf in support of the global war on terrorism. The collision was at 8:24 p.m. local time (12:24 p.m. EST). It is under investigation.
The Paul Hamilton, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is part of the USS Abraham Lincoln battle group patrolling the Persian Gulf. The battle group is scheduled to return to the United States this month.
The destroyer is 505 feet long and has 32 officers and 313 enlisted sailors aboard. It was commissioned in 1995 and is in the Arleigh Burke class of destroyers. One of its sister ships, the USS Cole, was rammed by terrorists while refueling in Aden, Yemen, in October 2000, killing 17 sailors. The Paul Hamilton is equipped with radar systems designed to detect seaborne and airborne threats at great distances. It is armed with Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and Standard anti-aircraft missiles.
On the Net:
USS Paul Hamilton at http://www.paul-hamilton.navy.mil/
----
Saudi official says Jews 'were behind' 9/11
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 7, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021207-86245398.htm
A senior Saudi Arabian security official told an Arabic newspaper late last month he believed Jews masterminded the September 11 terrorist attacks, a revelation that caps a rocky week in which Saudi efforts in the global war on terrorism have been sharply questioned.
In a newly released English transcript of the interview, given to the Kuwaiti daily Al Siyasa, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef ibn Abdul AI said the "Zionist-controlled media" had used the attacks to drive a wedge between Washington and Riyadh.
"We put big question marks and ask who committed the events of September 11 and who benefited from them," Prince Nayef said. "I think [the Jews] were behind these events."
The Saudi government earlier this week stepped up an already aggressive public relations campaign to shore up its image as an ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, battling continued criticism in Congress and new reports that Saudi money was being used to finance radical Islamic movements.
Top Saudi officials have not commented on the interior minister's remarks, but the text of the lengthy interview was displayed on a Web site (www.ain-al-yaqeen.com) that provides official policy pronouncements and press interviews by top government officials.
The Saudi government has never officially declared al Qaeda responsible for the September 11 strikes and has said the Saudi nationals involved in the attacks were purposely drafted to embarrass the government.
The Saudi royal family argues that it is the main target of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network, which are determined to drive U.S. and other Western forces from the country housing many of Islam's holiest sites.
The Bush administration, which hopes to secure the use of bases in Saudi Arabia as a staging area for a potential war with Iraq, has consistently praised Saudi efforts to stem the flow of funds to terrorist groups, in particular by clamping down on Islamic charity networks that were exploited by al Qaeda and other groups.
Fifteen of the 19 September 11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, and influential Saudi mosques routinely criticize the United States and Israel. A Council on Foreign Relations survey in October concluded: "For years, Saudi individuals and charities have been the most important source of funds for al Qaeda and for years Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to the problem."
"The interior minister's comments only serve to confirm American suspicions about the Saudi government's commitment to the war on terror," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, in a letter to the Saudi ambassador.
The Saudi government hoped to stem the criticism by announcing Tuesday a series of steps to tighten controls on charitable giving, and detailing the accounts frozen and the individuals detained by the government in the wake of September 11.
Adel Al-Jubeir, the government's leading foreign policy spokesman, denounced what he called a "feeding frenzy" in the United States news media to find fault with the Saudi record.
Prince Nayef, in the transcript of his interview, said the "hostile attitude" shown by U.S. and British newspapers toward the Saudi government "does not scare the kingdom, but it is annoying because it is unwarranted and does not serve our interests."
The idea that Israel or Jewish interests had a role in the September 11 strikes has had wide currency throughout the Middle East, including serious discussions in the Arab-language press over whether thousands of American Jews did not report to work at the World Trade Center that day because they were tipped off that an attack was imminent.
-------- nato
Allies Alter Tune on Defense
NATO Members Vow to Spend More, but Reality Intrudes
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 7, 2002; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21174-2002Dec6?language=printer
PARIS -- For years, U.S. military officials coming to Europe have sounded a constant theme: Europeans need to spend more on defense and do more to shoulder the burden of the Atlantic alliance. And routinely the message has been politely listened to, and then ignored.
But in the post-September 11 defense environment, some analysts are seeing hints of change. The recent NATO summit in Prague ended with what U.S. and NATO officials called unofficial promises from several European countries to increase their military spending. Most NATO members have signed on to a list of new commitments -- including leasing transport planes and investing in precision-guided munitions -- that could require significant outlays of cash.
"The tide has turned in terms of the attitude towards defense," said George Robertson, the NATO secretary general and long a vocal proponent of spending increases.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a news conference in Prague before his departure, was less convinced there had been a shift in thinking. "I'm never satisfied -- it's genetic with me," he said. "I'd like to see them inject a sense of urgency." In addition to spending more, he said, there is also a need to refocus spending priorities toward the "real threats" that have emerged since the terrorist attacks in the United States.
Interviews with diplomats and defense analysts since the Prague summit suggest the reality may be somewhere between these two views. Promises made at Prague might have been genuine statements of government leaders' intentions, they said, but now back home, those leaders have to confront tight budgets, shrinking resources and competing demands for the same money.
One obstacle is the budgetary calendar. Defense spending, particularly for major purchases, requires planning years ahead, but it is difficult for governments to pledge money beyond the upcoming fiscal year.
A NATO ambassador in Brussels said, "I think the trend is in the direction of doing more -- but exactly how much more will be determined by the new budget," which in his country will not be approved until January.
NATO had set 2 percent of gross domestic product as the minimum countries should spend on defense. But the majority of NATO countries are not close to that. Germany, for example, spends about 1.5 percent, according to NATO. The figure for defense spending is not likely to change soon, diplomats said. "Defense is not a popular thing to spend money on," the NATO diplomat said.
Rather than increasing defense spending, most countries will simply end the annual reductions in their military budgets that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Then, governments were looking for a financial "peace dividend" with the end of the Cold War.
The decline in defense budgets generally ended close to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and coincided with the return to power of center-right governments in several European countries. France has announced a substantial increase in defense spending, as have Portugal and Hungary. "In most countries, the trend toward decreasing has been replaced by a stabilization," said Francois Heisbourg, a French defense analyst. Still, he said, "Quite surprisingly, some significant countries, like Italy and the Netherlands, are getting into fairly deep cuts."
The United States is spending about $355 billion per year on defense, with the Bush administration's latest increases factored in, but Europe and Canada combined spend about $160 million, or less than half of the U.S. defense budget.
The problem, analysts said, was not so much that Europe and Canada together were spending less, but were spending what they had on the wrong things, allowing the gap in military technology to grow between the United States and its allies.
For example, said one NATO official, the United States has about 550 air-to-air refueling tankers. Europe has 100. The United States has 300 planes for airlifting large cargo; Europe has four. "To spend more money is necessary, but you've got to spend it on the right things," this official said.
"We've got far too many tanks," Robertson said in Prague. "We've got far too many fighters and attack aircraft. We've got far too many troops that are not deployable."
At the NATO summit, an effort was made to produce a set of "consortium" areas in which countries, especially smaller ones, could pool their resources. But officials acknowledge privately that such arrangements have limits, because sovereignty, history and pride mean that most countries do not want to depend upon others for certain key aspects of their national defense. Every country, for instance, wants to have its own air force to protect its airspace, even if it would be cost-effective to have only a few countries with fighter jets guarding a common European airspace.
-------- russia / chechnya
ASIAN SECURITY
Kyrgyzstan and Russia Sign New Pact
December 7, 2002
New York Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/international/asia/07KYRG.html
MOSCOW, Dec. 6 - Russia has signed a new security pact with Kyrgyzstan, where a Russian air squadron and up to 1,000 Russian troops will be based by year's end as part of a new rapid-reaction force that marks a major deployment for the Russian military in formerly Soviet Central Asia.
President Vladimir V. Putin, visiting the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, as part of an Asian tour, said Russia would have 20 aircraft and about 1,000 troops in place at a base some 40 miles from where American troops are based in Kyrgyzstan. The planes and soldiers will join forces from two other Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov, stated the purpose bluntly on Russian television on Thursday: "In case of aggression against members of the Collective Security Treaty, the air force unit will be employed for its direct purpose - to bomb and wipe out the enemy."
The Collective Security Treaty Organization joins Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan and until now has existed largely on paper.
Political and military analysts interpret the deployment as an effort by Russia to increase its influence in a region it once controlled.
Alexei Malashenko, a scholar in residence and Central Asia specialist at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the deployment was Russia's attempt to influence domestic politics in Kyrgyzstan, now roiled by protests and demands that President Askar Akayev resign.
Unrest has been frequent since the Kyrgyz police killed four people last spring in a particularly violent protest. "This is a chance for Russia to openly take part in Central Asian politics, to show that it is still influential, and that it is ready to take responsibility for more than just planes," Mr. Malashenko, who has just returned from Kyrgyzstan, said in a telephone interview. "It's better to have Akayev than a mess."
American troops in Kyrgyzstan use Manas airport, less than 40 miles from the more modest airport in Kant where the Russians are taking up position.
-------- us
U.S. Military Readies for Qatar War Game
By CHRIS TOMLINSON
Associated Press Writer
Dec 7, 2002 7:30 AM EST
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/Q/QATAR_US_EXERCISE?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
DOHA, Qatar (AP) -- U.S. military planners on Saturday began formal preparations for a computer-assisted exercise to evaluate the Central Command's ability to fight a war from a mobile headquarters in this Gulf nation, a spokesman said.
Sitting in the center of a large building, flanked by 200 members of his battle staff and with a 25-by-25-foot screen nearby, Gen. Tommy Franks began a two-day walk-through of the war game before it formally begins Monday, said James Wilkinson, the spokesman for Central Command. Advertisement
Central Command's top battle planners and their staff will spend between seven and 10 days at Qatar's As Sayliyah army base playing a sophisticated, computer-assisted game that will test their ability to communicate and react to a realistic - but fictitious - battle scenario with thousands of players around the world.
Centcom officials have refused to discuss details of the war game, but Qatar's proximity to Iraq and the tension surrounding U.N. weapon's inspections has prompted speculation that it is a rehearsal for war with Baghdad.
"The first rule in the military is that secrecy saves lives and increases the commander's options," Wilkinson said Saturday. "We won't discuss any details whatsoever."
Known as a "rock drill," Saturday's warm up for the war game, which begins Monday, ensures everyone involved knows the rules and understands what scenarios will be evaluated, Wilkinson said. The term dates back to when commanders used sand boxes and rocks instead of computer screens to simulate troop movements.
The exercise is important to test the latest technology, including the new, portable headquarters that has been flown to Qatar from the command's home base in Tampa, Florida. The headquarters comprises a portable building, tents and state-of-the-art communications equipment.
The players for the exercise, dubbed Internal Look, are limited to senior commanders and will not include combat units, though commanders at division and corps levels will observe the exercise via computer links.
Several thousand people worldwide will participate in the game, there will be a number of observers from foreign militaries.
Internal Look has been held periodically since 1990, but this is the first time Central Command has set up the new portable headquarters. It is also the first time Internal Look has been held outside the United States.
The modular buildings and the high-speed digital communications equipment, constructed by defense contractor Raytheon, can handle extreme heat and cold. They were designed to cope with any climate in Central Command's area of responsibility, which includes 25 countries in central and southwest Asia and East Africa.
On the Net:
U.S. Central Command: http://www.centcom.mil
----
Abrams Back in Capital Fray at Center of Mideast Battle
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
December 7, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/politics/07ABRA.html?ei=1&en=f32a5eaa84bc1750&ex=1040274712&pagewanted=print&position=top
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - Elliott Abrams, a pugnacious conservative and passionate advocate of Israel, is no stranger to Washington's policy wars.
But Mr. Abrams's selection this week as President Bush's director of Middle Eastern affairs at the White House plunged him into one of the sharpest disputes in the nation's capital - the one in the administration over how to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mr. Abrams's appointment thrilled those who had criticized the administration for being too tough on Israel and too deferential to the Palestinians. But it dismayed those, especially at the State Department, who want Israel to ease its crackdown in the West Bank and Gaza.
An administration official said Mr. Abrams's ascension had created "serious consternation" at the State Department. It was seen there, he said, as likely to impede the efforts of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to work with European nations to press Israel and the Palestinians to adopt a staged timetable leading to creation of a Palestinian state in three years.
The timetable, known as a "road map," has been criticized by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, though he endorsed it in principle this week. Supporters of Israel in Congress, who had also criticized the road map approach, welcomed the appointment of Mr. Abrams.
"There are two foreign policy teams in this administration on a lot of issues," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who went to Harvard with Mr. Abrams in the 1960's. "Clearly Elliott is coming out of the hard-line team. But that is where Bush's heart is."
Mr. Abrams comes to his new job trailed by a cloud of controversy, most of it having to do with his pleading guilty in 1987 to the charge that he withheld information from Congress on the Reagan administration's efforts to assist antigovernment guerrillas in Nicaragua.
He was pardoned by the first President Bush in December 1992. At the time, plenty of people around Washington said Mr. Abrams would never be back as a policy maker.
Now, not only is Mr. Abrams back - though not in a position that would require confirmation by the Senate - but a raft of figures involved in the battles over the Nicaragua guerrillas, known as the contras, are back, as well. John M. Poindexter, a national security adviser to President Reagan who was convicted in 1990 of five felony counts (the convictions were later overturned), is directing a Pentagon project that would assemble information on suspected terrorists.
John D. Negroponte, who was ambassador to Honduras during the time that the contras were being given aid through that country in defiance of a law barring such aid, is ambassador to the United Nations.
And Otto J. Reich, who was charged with running a covert domestic propaganda campaign against the Nicaragua government, is a special envoy for western hemisphere affairs at the State Department.
Administration officials say Mr. Abrams was picked for the Middle East and North Africa portfolio under Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, because a strong manager was needed and the previous director, Zalmay Khalilzad, had been preoccupied with the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
"Everybody has enormous confidence in him," a senior administration official said. "He is not just a good manager. He is an intellectual force in many policy areas. Whatever controversy there was in the past is in the past."
Many of those critical of Mr. Abrams speak with admiration for his intellect and management skills, which will be tested not only in the Israel-Palestinian conflict but also if there is a war with Iraq, followed by a long occupation and reconstruction.
But others say he has rankled some colleagues in the administration already. For instance, during Secretary Powell's efforts to negotiate a resolution on Iraq at the United Nations, Mr. Abrams spent some weeks at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Two officials critical of Mr. Abrams said his role was to make sure that Secretary Powell did not make too many concessions to the Europeans on the resolution's wording, pressing a hard-line view that was shared by Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff.
One of these officials said Mr. Negroponte was upset by Mr. Abrams's interventions. But a spokesman for Mr. Negroponte, Rick Grenell, said that this was not true and that the ambassador "values Elliott's input." Another official said cooperation between the State Department and the White House was "as good as we've had in quite a while."
For associates and acquaintances, Mr. Abrams's new responsibilities reflect the intensity of his ambitions and political passions. Like many so-called neoconservatives, he began life as a liberal Democrat on many issues but became disenchanted with the left, and especially in his case by student protests at Harvard.
On Capitol Hill, he worked for two of the most prominent Democrats with strong anti-Communist views, Senator Henry Jackson of Washington and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, before becoming a Republican and supporting Mr. Reagan for president in 1980. Mr. Reagan appointed him to various positions in the State Department in the 1980's.
Of his admission that he misled Congress on aiding the contras, Mr. Abrams has defended himself by saying he was following administration policy at the time. He has also said he was a victim of abuses by a special prosecutor, in a way that Democrats later came to understand during President Clinton's impeachment.
Mr. Abrams also has family ties to the neoconservative movement. His wife's mother is Midge Decter, and her stepfather is Norman Podhoretz. Both are leading members of the neoconservative pantheon and stern critics of liberal cultural attitudes.
Five years ago, Mr. Abrams wrote a book, "Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in Christian America," which argues against the loss of religious faith among Jews and criticizes intermarriage as a danger to their survival in America. He also urged Jews to make greater common cause with evangelical Christians in rallying support for Israel.
He was a fierce opponent of the Oslo peace negotiations between Israel and Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, even while they seemed to bear fruit. He wrote in the 1990's that it was a mistake for Mr. Clinton to trust Mr. Arafat. He advocated that position from the start of this Bush administration, until it became Mr. Bush's position last June.
With the Middle East consumed by the spiral of suicide bombings and Israeli retaliations, Mr. Abrams is certain to be among those advocating that Israel be given wide latitude to battle terrorism.
Associates say he is also considered likely to side with pro-Israel Americans who say that the road map pressed by Secretary Powell does not make it sufficiently clear that Mr. Arafat must be removed, and that terrorism must cease entirely, before Israel makes any irretrievable concessions on withdrawal from Palestinian territories.
Israel is also critical of the role being played in the drafting of the road map by Europe, Russia and the United Nations, as well as by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Critics say that these nations and groups are unlikely to support removal of Mr. Arafat as a precondition of peace, as Mr. Bush does.
Longtime advocates of an aggressive American effort to support Middle East peace negotiations say the administration appears to have pulled back from pressing the road map, out of sensitivity to Mr. Sharon's objections - but not to have abandoned it entirely, out of sensitivity to the Europeans and Arabs.
"It does seem that the White House has decided to back off," said Martin Indyk, a former adviser to Mr. Clinton. "If the administration were preparing for a new push on the road map, this would be an unusual appointment," he said, referring to Mr. Abrams.
-------- propaganda wars
Misinformation about Iraq
by Edward Said,
November 30, 2002
MMN
http://www.mediamonitors.net/edward56.html
The flurry of reports, leaks, and misinformation about the looming US war against Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in Iraq continues unabated. It is impossible to know, however, how much of this is a brilliantly managed campaign of psychological war against Iraq, how much the public floundering of a government uncertain about its next step. In any event, I find it as possible to believe that there will be a war as that there will not. Certainly the sheer belligerency of the verbal assaults on the average citizen are unprecedented in their ferocity, with the result that very little is totally certain about what is actually taking place. No one can independently confirm the various troop and navy movements reported on a daily basis, and given the lurching opacity of his thinking, George W Bush's real intentions are difficult to read. But that the whole world is concerned -- indeed, deeply anxious -- about the catastrophic chaos that will ensue after another Afghanistan-like air campaign against the people of Iraq, of that there is little doubt.
And yet, one aspect of the deluge of opinion, and a fact that is most disturbing quite on its own and without reference to its actual intention, is the spate of articles concerning post-Saddam Iraq. One that I'd like to discuss in particular is obviously part of a continuing effort by an Iraqi expatriate, Kanan Makiya, to promote himself as the father of what he calls a "non-Arab" and decentralised post-Ba'ath country. Now it is quite clear to anyone with the slightest concern about the travails of this rich and once-flourishing country that the years of Ba'athist rule have been disastrous, despite the regime's early programme of development and building. So there can be little quarrel with trying to imagine what Iraq might look like if Saddam is toppled either by American intervention or by internal coup. Makiya's contribution to this effort has been a steady one, both on the airwaves and in quality journals where he is given a platform to air his views, about which I shall speak in a moment. What has been made less clear, however, is who he is and from what background he emerges. I think it is important to know these things, if only to judge the value of his contribution and to understand more precisely the special quality of his thoughts and ideas.
Usually identified as having a research connection with Harvard and as a professor at Brandeis University (both in Boston), Makiya when I knew him first in the early 1970s was closely affiliated with the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. As I recall, he was then an architecture student at MIT, but he hardly said anything during the occasions I saw him. Then he disappeared from view, or rather from my view. He surfaced in 1990 as Samir Khalil, the author of a vaunted book called The Republic of Fear that described Saddam Hussein's rule with considerable dread and drama. One of the media-rousing works of the first Gulf War, The Republic of Fear seemed to have been written -- according to a fawning interview with Makiya that appeared in the New Yorker magazine -- while Makiya took time off from working as an associate of his father's architectural firm in Iraq itself. He admitted in the interview that, in a sense, Saddam had financed the writing of his book indirectly, although no one accused Makiya of collaborating with a regime he obviously detested.
In his next book, Cruelty and Silence, Makiya attacked Arab intellectuals whom he accused of opportunism and immorality because they either praised various Arab regimes or remained silent about the various governments' abuses against their own people. Of course Makiya said nothing about his own history of silence and complicity as a beneficiary of the Iraqi regime's munificence, even though, of course, he was entitled to work for whomever he pleased. But he said the vilest things about people like Mahmoud Darwish and myself for being nationalists, allegedly supporting extremism and, in Darwish's case, for having written an ode to Saddam. Most of what Makiya wrote in the book was, in my opinion, revolting, based as it was on cowardly innuendo and false interpretation, but the book, of course, enjoyed a popular moment or two since it confirmed the view in the West that Arabs were villainous and shabby conformists. It seemed not to matter that Makiya himself had worked for Saddam or that he had never written anything about the Arab regimes until his Republic of Fear, until, that is, he was out of Iraq and done with his employment there. He was hailed here and there in America for being a brave man of conscience and for having defied the self-censoring practice of Arab intellectuals, but this praise was usually heaped on Makiya by people who had no knowledge of the fact that Makiya himself never wrote in an Arab country or that whatever meagre writing he produced had been written behind a pseudonym and a prosperous, risk-free life in the West.
Except for his two books and an article urging the US administration to occupy Baghdad during the first Gulf War, Makiya wasn't much heard from after that. Then last year he produced an unreadable novel proving somehow that the Dome of the Rock was really built by a Jew; it was sent to me by the publisher, so I happened to have skimmed it before it appeared officially, but was nevertheless aghast at how badly written it was, and how, unable to resist showing off how many books its author had read, it was peppered with footnotes, surely an unusual thing for what purported to be a work of fiction. It died a merciful death, however, and Makiya lapsed back into silence.
Until the government-inspired campaign against Iraq broke out a few months ago Makiya had said little about the war against terror, the events of 9/11, and the war in Afghanistan. It is true that he did a kind of commentary for a popular American biweekly of Mohamed Atta's supposed Islamic terrorist handbook, but even by his standards it was a negligible performance. I vividly recall, however, that late last summer I happened by chance to hear a radio interview with him in which he was identified for the first time as heading a US State Department group planning for a post-war, post-Saddam Iraq. His name had not appeared among those mentioned as being part of the US-funded Iraqi opposition groups, nor had he contributed anything that could be read by a member of the general public about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or any other Middle Eastern issues, although I had heard that he had visited Israel a number of times.
The most complete version of his plans for Iraq after an American invasion that derive from his current employment as a resident employee of the US Department of State, appears in the November 2002 issue of Prospect, a good liberal British monthly to which I subscribe. Makiya begins his "proposal" by enumerating the extraordinary assumptions behind his arguments, two of which almost by definition are unimaginable. The first is that "the unseating" of Saddam should not occur after a bombing campaign. Makiya must have been living on Mars to imagine that, in the event of a war, a massive bombing attack would not occur even though every single plan circulated for regime change in Iraq has stated explicitly that Iraq would be bombed mercilessly. The second assumption is equally imaginative, since Makiya seems to believe against all evidence that the US is committed to democracy and nation- building in Iraq. Why he thinks that Iraq is like Germany and Japan after World War II (both of which were rebuilt because of the Cold War) is beyond me; besides, he doesn't once mention the fact that the US is determined to bring down the Iraqi regime because of the country's oil reserves and because Iraq is an enemy of Israel. So, he starts out by making preposterous assumptions that simply fly in the face of all the evidence.
Undeterred by such unimportant considerations, he presses on. Iraqis are committed to federalism, he says, rather than to a centralised government. The proof that he offers is pretty negligible. Like all his other attempts to convince his reader that he makes telling points, his logic is so weak because it is based equally on fictional supposition and his own, highly dubious personal affirmations. He is committed to federalism, and so he says are the Kurds. Where federalism as a system is supposed to come from (other than from his desk in the State Department), he doesn't bother to say. Clearly, he plans to have it imposed from the outside, although he makes the largely unsubstantiated claim that "everyone" is agreed that federalism in Iraq should be the outcome. This "means devolving power away from Baghdad to the provinces", presumably by a stroke of General Tommy Franks' pen. One would have thought that post-Tito Yugoslavia never existed and that that tragic country's federalism was a total success. But Makiya is so committed to his views as a kinglike theoretician of government that he simply ignores consequences, history, people, communities, and reality altogether so that he can make his ludicrously improbable case. This, of course, is exactly what the US government likes, that is, to have miscellaneous Arab intellectuals responsible to no constituency who urge the US military on to war while pretending to be bringing "democracy" to the place in full contradiction of America's real aims and its actual historical practices. Makiya seems not to have heard about ruinous US interventions in Indochina, Afghanistan, Central America, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, and the Philippines, or that the US is currently involved militarily with about 80 countries.
The grand climax of Makiya's justification for the invasion of Iraq by the United States is his proposal that the new Iraq should be non-Arab. (Along the way, he speaks contemptuously of Arab opinion which, he says, will never amount to anything. This obviously clears the board for his airy speculations about both the future and the past.) How this magical de-Arabising solution is to come about, Makiya doesn't say, any more than he shows us how Iraq is to be relieved of its Islamic identity and its military capabilities. He refers to a mysterious alchemical quality he calls "territoriality" and proceeds to build another sandcastle on that as the basis for a future state of Iraq. In the end, however, he volunteers that all this is going to be guaranteed "from the outside", by the United States. Where this has ever taken place before is not an issue that troubles Makiya, any more than he seems concerned about US unilateralism and needless destructiveness.
One scarcely knows whether to laugh or cry at Makiya's posturings. Clearly this is a man with no recorded experience of government, or even of citizenship. Between countries and cultures and with no visible commitment to anyone (except to his upwardly mobile career), he has now found a haven deep inside the US government which he uses to fuel his amazingly speculative flights of fancy. For someone who has lectured his peers about intellectual responsibility and independent judgement, he provides examples of neither one nor the other. Exactly the opposite. Perched on a pulpit that has freed him from any accountability he seems now to be serving a master who has paid him well for his services -- as Saddam employed him in the past -- and his versatile conscience. I find it incredible that Makiya allows himself such sanctimony and vanity, but then why shouldn't he? He has never engaged in a public debate with any of his fellow Iraqis, never written for an Arab audience, never put himself forward for an office or for any political role requiring personal courage and commitment. He has either written pseudonymously or attacked people who have had no chance to respond to his defamations.
It is sad that Makiya implicitly suggests that his is the voice and the example of the future Iraq. And to think that thousands of lives have already been lost to his patron's cruel sanctions or that many more lives and livelihoods are about to be destroyed by electronic warfare wreaked on his country by George Bush's government. But this man is untroubled by any of this. Devoid of either compassion or real understanding, he prattles on for Anglo- American audiences who seem satisfied that here at last is an Arab who exhibits the proper respect for their power and civilisation, regardless of what role Britain played in the imperialist partition of the Arab world or what mischief the US dealt the Arabs through its support for Israel and the collective Arab dictatorships.
In and of himself, Makiya is a passing phenomenon. He is, however, a symptom of several things at once. He represents the intellectual who serves power unquestioningly; the greater the power, the fewer doubts he has. He is a man of vanity who has no compassion, no demonstrable awareness of human suffering. With no stable principles or values, he is typical of the cynical anti-Arab hawks (like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld) who dot the Bush administration like flies on a cake. British imperialism, Israel's brutal occupation policies, or American arrogance do not detain him for a moment. Worst of all, he is a man of pretension and superficiality, flattering himself on his reasonableness even as he condemns his own people to more travail and more dislocation. Woe to Iraq!
----
U.S.'s Powerful Weapon in Iran: TV
December 7, 2002
New York Times
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON with NAZILA FATHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/arts/television/07IRAN.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - The letter, written in Farsi, was as tantalizingly mysterious as the videotape it was wrapped around. "Excuse the unprofessional quality of the video," wrote the sender, a young Iranian. "We didn't want to attract authorities by using a production crew."
On the tape was a jolting series of interviews with frustrated Iranians complaining about their country's stalled political reforms and the repressiveness of its ruling mullahs.
The unsolicited video was sent not to the C.I.A. but to the young Iranian cast of "Next Chapter," a hip, new MTV-inspired television show broadcast from the Voice of America headquarters here and beamed to Iran via satellite. The sender, who had smuggled the tape out of Iran and mailed it from London, could not broadcast the hotly political material on government-controlled Iranian television, so he appealed to his Iranian peers in the United States.
The subject was more controversial than the show's typical fare, which intersperses bites of politics and hard news with fast-cut segments on sports, movies, fashion and cars. But the show's hosts broadcast it anyway, between a piece on the winners of the third annual North American Wife Carrying Contest in Newry, Maine, and an interview with Jay Leno.
"We know that so many young people in Iran are fed up, and they just want to be heard," said Roozbeh Mazhari, 29, one of the hosts of "Next Chapter," referring to the sandwiching of the tape. "But they also want some fun."
While the United States is bracing for a possible military offensive in Iraq, behind the scenes a soft war is well under way. It is aimed at winning the hearts and minds of young people in the Middle East at a time when radical Islamists are encouraging anti-American sentiment.
In Iran, dissatisfaction with the Islamic regime has been building for years. In recent weeks, it has led to pro-democracy protests in the streets of Tehran over the death sentence given to a reformist scholar. This sea change has created new opportunities for influencing opinion.
"Next Chapter," which had its debut on Sept. 10, is one of several recent projects that are are putting a new spin on old-fashioned American propaganda.
Some programs are directed by the State Department, which last year hired Charlotte Beers, a former Madison Avenue advertising executive, to devise a multimillion-dollar public diplomacy campaign, complete with academic exchange programs and slick public service advertisements, to soften anti-American feelings.
In a separate venture, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the government agency that oversees Voice of America, received $35 million this year to start a youth-oriented Middle Eastern radio network. (Voice of America's programs are run by journalists, and their content is not subject to State Department approval.) The network, called Radio Sawa ("sawa" means "together" in Arabic), sprinkles news tidbits written from an American perspective into a heavy rotation of American and Middle Eastern pop music.
Later this month the board will begin broadcasting a similarly formatted $8 million venture in Iran called Radio Farda ("farda" means "tomorrow" in Farsi).
"Next Chapter," produced by the Voice of America's Farsi service, has a comparatively small startup budget of less than $1 million.
The new programs' youthful direction is dictated by demographics. Like many Middle Eastern countries, Iran has many people under 30, roughly 70 percent of its 66 million citizens. "These are not traditional users of U.S. government-sponsored news," said Norman J. Pattiz, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors' Middle East committee. "We can reap terrific dividends by talking to these young people directly in a way they understand."
Some believe that soft tactics are far wiser than military might. "America is so much more than its military and economic prowess," said Reza Ladjevardian, 36, an Iranian writer based in Houston. "The people of Iran have seen that fundamentalism doesn't work. Appealing to them with cooperation and reasoning, rather than `axis of evil' talk, is a virtually risk-free proposition for the U.S."
The cast of "Next Chapter" agrees. This weekly program tackles topics ranging from political talk over a possible war with Iraq to street talk over "8 Mile," the rapper Eminem's hit movie, now making its way through the Middle East on pirated DVD's. The show carefully avoids direct criticism of Iran's Islamic regime; its style is subtly subversive.
A recent entertainment segment, for instance, profiled the Cuban jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, who did not have a word to say about Iran or Iranians but talked movingly about fleeing a repressive regime for political and artistic freedom. The interview with Jay Leno focused on using comedy to criticize politics.
Another segment showed Iranian students at the University of Maryland enjoying Mehregan, a traditional Persian fall festival, without mentioning directly what viewers in Iran already know: that this secular holiday's celebration is discouraged by the country's religious leaders.
A regular feature called "A Day in the Life" uses a reality television approach to showcase ordinary Iranian 20-somethings living in the United States. As the jumpy camera followed Anahita Sami, a 20-year-old student, and her friends around the campus of George Washington University, she chatted about dorm life, exams, being away from home for the first time, nothing particularly exciting. But the point is made: Yeah, she can wear those clothes, say those things and do that stuff.
"We need to get this generation ready for something new," said Ahmad Baharloo, who directs Voice of America's Farsi service and is executive producer of "Next Chapter." "We don't want to tell them what to do, but make them look and think and respond to logic."
The show, which is simulcast on the radio and over the Internet, is too new, Voice of America officials said, to have data on the number of viewers. Early feedback suggests it is reaching only a tiny slice of its potential audience. Iranians have complained to Voice of America that they can't find the show on their satellite channels, and when they do, the signal is too weak for good reception.
Still, there is evidence of a sprouting fan base. Amateur videos, like the one from London, have arrived from Iranians in Japan and Seattle. Web hits to Voice of America's Farsi service, at voanews.com/farsi/, spiked by the hundreds in the weeks after the show's premiere.
There are also e-mail messages from eager viewers like Hadi, a Tehran teenager who wrote that he and other teenagers in his apartment building were gathering to listen to the show on the radio because they could not get it on television. "I wish we could ask President Bush to send us a digital satellite so we can see your show," Hadi wrote, adding that his friends held a candlelight vigil in observance of the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
There has, however, been considerable criticism of the new youth-driven government efforts. Some say the new shows are so soft that they are condescending. And in Iran, where conservative factions of the government have recently closed down dozens of independent news publications, political strategists argue that there is greater need than ever for serious news.
"Yes, youth may want to listen to music and watch fun TV," said Nasser Hadian, a professor of political science at Tehran University who is currently a visiting professor at Columbia. "But there is still an audience hungry for real analysis, and the United States is wasting an opportunity if they ignore that."
Mahtab Farid, who worked until recently as a political reporter on "Next Chapter" and is now part of the news team for Radio Farda, agrees that hard news is essential. But she said young people in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East were also eager for new ways to reach across cultures.
As a child in Iran in 1979, Ms. Farid, 29, watched American news clips of the hostage crisis at the United States Embassy in Tehran. "I remember yelling at the TV," she said. "I would say: `Those stupid journalists! They keep saying Iran has taken America hostage. Don't they know it's just a small group of bad people? Don't they know we don't all hate America?' "
She says the experience helps her understand what it must be like for Iranian youth who now feel marked by the "axis of evil" label.
"We know what's missing on each side because we have been on both sides," Ms. Farid said. "These shows give us a special tool to reach from one side to the other."
The cast of "Next Chapter" is still struggling for the right balance in content. The program has referred to the recent student protests in Iran in its brief news segment, but so far it has avoided commenting on them.
"You cannot spend every minute of the day on politics," Mr. Baharloo said. "Part of our job with the show is to give the young people a rest."
Still, some messages are getting through. On a recent Tuesday night in Tehran, four men and two women sat around a 29-inch television in the home of Pooya, a 30-year-old rug merchant, waiting to watch the show.
The friends giggled over the cast members' Farsi, which they said sounded a bit too American and informal. And they weighed in on the movie and car reports, which they agreed were cool.
The show opened with a segment on the American Humane Society and the importance of protecting animals: a seemingly mundane topic but timely in Iran. One of the country's hard-line Muslim clerics had recently declared dogs unclean and called on security forces to stop people from walking them in public. As the group listened intently, Pooya's younger brother, Ali, patted the family dog and nodded his approval.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- drug war
Post-election marijuana fight heats up
Activists rethink strategy, target drug czar
By Alex Johnson
MSNBC
Dec. 7, 2002
http://www.msnbc.com/news/842736.asp
Regrouping after state initiatives to relax marijuana laws were defeated last month, some by crushing margins, advocates plan to build on public support for medical marijuana programs and have mounted an aggressive campaign to discredit federal officials who have made opposition to any tolerance of marijuana - even for medical purposes - a cornerstone of national drug policy.
SUPPORTERS managed to get initiatives that would loosen prohibitions or penalties on personal use of marijuana on the ballot in Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, South Dakota and the District of Columbia.
Among statewide measures, only an initiative to legalize medical marijuana in the nation's capital was approved, and it cannot go into effect without the approval of Congress, which rejected an earlier voter-approved measure. None of the losing measures was able to draw more than 43 percent support.
"I think we've learned that we have a substantial educational job to do, still," said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, which sponsored the Nevada initiative.
GOING FOR THE WHOLE POT
Independent experts and advocates on both sides agreed that the initiatives failed because they were poorly worded and ran up against unusually effective opposition.
Bruce Kleiman, a professor of policy studies at UCLA who researches drug policy, crime and health care, said advocates bit off more than they could chew, offering measures that went well beyond politically popular medical marijuana laws, which have drawn as much as 80 percent support in some polls.
In Nevada, for example, Question 9 would have fully legalized possession of as much as 3 ounces of marijuana. The Arizona initiative would have decriminalized possession into nothing more serious than a traffic violation, while the South Dakota initiative would have legalized hemp farms. The Ohio measure would have amended the state constitution to all but eliminate jail time for offenders.
"In Nevada, in particular, the thing was really very badly drafted," said Kleiman, who is widely considered an honest broker in a debate otherwise dominated by fierce partisans. "In particular, their 3-ounce rule made it pretty easy to make fun of."
DRUG CZAR WADES IN
Kleiman also credited initiative opponents with being better organized this year.
"The discouraging point of view for the advocates of marijuana is [that] now the opponents have their act together, and when they've got their act together, they win every time," he said.
Opposition was rallied by a series of hard-hitting ads the Office of National Drug Control Policy ran across the country in the weeks leading up to Election Day, bluntly equating the buying of illicit drugs with support for terrorists. Although the ads did not touch on any specific ballot proposals, initiative proponents said voters interpreted them as direct campaigning by the federal government to vote no.
John Walters, director of the drug policy office, also barnstormed the country in the final weeks giving speeches in states where statewide or local ballot measures were in play.
'Part of the description of the job from Congress ... is to oppose efforts to legalize drugs. It's the Office of National Drug Control Policy.' - THOMAS RILEY Office of National Drug Control Policy
The Marijuana Policy Project filed a formal complaint with the Office of Special Counsel this week seeking Walters' removal for allegedly violating federal regulations limiting government officials' involvement in political campaigns. Critics also accused him of diverting federal money earmarked for drug treatment and addiction-prevention programs to the political effort.
"He broke the law by using the authority of his office to conduct a political campaign, and it was absolutely a campaign of lies and distortions designed to frighten people," Mirken said.
Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy, which promotes decriminalization and sentencing reform, complained that Walters and other drug policy officials "are political campaign managers. This is not appropriate behavior."
Thomas Riley, a spokesman for Walters, dismissed the complaints as "laughable" and "wacky" and cheerfully acknowledged that Walters urged Americans to oppose any attempt to relax restrictions on marijuana.
"Part of the description of the job from Congress ... is to oppose efforts to legalize drugs," Riley said. "... It's the Office of National Drug Control Policy."
Riley said the initiatives failed last month because they were bad ideas. Voters did not want to encourage policies that would lead to "more addiction, more traffic fatalities ... more drugs available for young people," he said.
BACK TO BASICS
Beginning with a conference in Anaheim, Calif., the weekend after Election Day, legal-marijuana organizations, which in the past have been fractious and difficult to unite, are working out how best to fight back. Two of the avenues they will pursue are clear: focusing on what the public has said it will accept, and demonizing the drug czar.
Mirken said the initiatives that failed last month were "considerably bolder than those initiatives which had passed [in the past], which were essentially straight medical marijuana initiatives." 'The discouraging point of view for the advocates of marijuana is [that] now the opponents have their act together, and when they've got their act together, they win every time.' - BRUCE KLEIMAN UCLA
"The one in Arizona would have set up a state distribution system of free medical marijuana to patients. That was perhaps a bit much for people," Mirken said. "And in Nevada, we were dealing with doing away with marijuana prohibition entirely and creating a state-regulated market."
Experts said the larger legal-marijuana movement should build on its success selling the idea of medical marijuana to the public. Evidence suggests that marijuana may lessen the suffering of AIDS and cancer patients and people with arthritis, glaucoma and degenerative nerve disease, and Kleiman of UCLA said the government's opposition was "a complete loser."
Zeese said that on medical marijuana, "we have anywhere from 70 to 80 percent support nationwide, except maybe in the Deep, Deep South. Generally speaking, we have vast support on medical marijuana."
Significant support could be won by highlighting the federal government's aggressive assault on providers of medical marijuana in California. Even though the state has legalized such cultivation, the Justice Department has pre-empted state laws and prosecuted the practice under federal law, winning mandatory 10-year minimum prison terms for some defendants.
"Clearly, for both humane reasons and because practical progress is possible, we need to work on medical marijuana very seriously in the next year or two," said Mirken, who said he and his allies could do a better job of raising the specter of federal agents "with automatic rifles rousting disabled women out of bed to take their medicine."
"The Bush administration and the federal government is just absolutely out of step with the American public" on medical marijuana, he said.
TARGET: JOHN WALTERS
Legalization advocates are also mounting a campaign to discredit Walters as a Republican partisan using his position to advance a hard-right agenda.
Walters, who was deputy to drug czar William Bennett during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush, has assumed a zero-tolerance stance against marijuana, saying it is harmful on its own and leads to use of harder drugs. Brandishing several years' worth of scientific reports, activists strongly contest both contentions.
During the years he was out of government, Walters, a prominent conservative policy activist, made several pronouncements that have given his critics ammunition.
In 1996, Walters co-wrote a book with Bennett and John DiIulio, who until recently directed President Bush's office to promote "faith-based" social programs. Titled "Body Count: Moral Poverty and How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drugs," the book argued that, among other factors, America's drug epidemic could be traced to single-parent families, liberal school curriculums and weakening of religious faith.
Walters has also dismissed medical marijuana as "pseudo-science" and drug-treatment programs as "the latest manifestation of the liberals' commitment to a therapeutic state in which the government serves as the agent of personal rehabilitation."
'DECLARING WAR' ON DRUG CZAR
In a statement of its intentions, the Marijuana Policy Project publicized its filing against Walters with the Office Special Counsel by saying it was "declaring war on the drug czar for his illegal and dishonest activities."
"I think attacking the drug czar's office is an old strategy, not a new one," Kleiman said, an observation that Gen. Barry McCaffrey, President Bill Clinton's drug czar, would certainly echo. But the tone of the attacks against Walters turned distinctly toward the personal:
- In an editorial this month, Reason magazine ridiculed Walters as living in a "sad little propaganda dreamworld."
- In an interview with Time magazine, John Sperling, the billionaire founder of the University of Phoenix, who has donated millions of dollars to legalization campaigns, called Walters "a pathetic drug-war soul who is defending a whole category of horrors he's indifferent to."
- Mirken, the Marijuana Policy Project's spokesman, denounced Walters as a "serial lawbreaker" and an "ideologue" with "no interest in facts or data."
- "He's a John Bircher of the drug war," Zeese said. "He's an extremist."
Riley, Walters' spokesman, said some of the attacks were so outlandish that they could be described only as "goofy" and asked, "What kind of teenage fantasy world are people living in?"
"If you had a powerful disagreement with U.S. transportation policy or any other kind of policy issue, I don't think that that's a good way to get taken seriously," Riley said. "That's a way to fall into the caricature, I think, that a lot of people have of the drug legalizers."
Kleiman, the UCLA researcher, also cautioned that a visceral personal campaign against Walters "seems unlikely to be a winner. ... It seems to me if you asked the average voter whether the drug czar was against legalization, they'd probably say yes and wouldn't think that was a horrible thing."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Cancer claims pacifist [Philip] Berrigan
Daniel Lewis,
New York Times
Saturday, December 7, 2002
San Francisco Chronicle news services contributed to this report.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/12/07/MN3238.DTL
Philip Berrigan, the former Roman Catholic priest who led the draft board raids that galvanized opposition to the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, died Friday night in Baltimore after a lifetime of battling "the American Empire," as he called it, over the morality of its military and social policies. He was 79.
His family said the cause was liver and kidney cancer.
An Army combat veteran sickened by the killing in World War II, Berrigan came to be one of the most radical pacifists of the 20th century -- and, for a time in the Vietnam period, a larger-than-life figure in the convulsive struggle over the country's direction.
In the late '60s, he was a Catholic priest serving a poor black parish in Baltimore and seeing nothing that would change his conviction that war, racism and poverty were inseparable strands of a corrupt economic system.
His Josephite superiors had previously hustled him out of Newburgh, N.Y., for aggressive civil rights and anti-war activity there; the "fatal blow," he said, had been a talk to a community affairs council in which he asked, "Is it possible for us to be vicious, brutal, immoral and violent at home and be fair, judicious, beneficent and idealistic abroad?"
He hardly missed a beat after his transfer to Baltimore, founding an anti- war group, Peace Mission, whose operations included picketing the homes of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk in December 1966.
By the fall of 1967, Berrigan and three friends were ready to try a new tactic. On Oct. 17, they walked into the Baltimore Customs House, distracted the draft board clerks and methodically spattered Selective Service records with a red liquid made partly from their own blood.
Three decades later, Berrigan remembered feeling "exalted" as the judge sentenced him to six years in prison. From then on, he would be in and out of jail for repeated efforts to interfere with government operations and deface military hardware.
Even before his sentencing for the Customs House raid, Berrigan instigated a second invasion, against the local draft board office in Catonsville, Md. Among those persuaded to join was his older brother, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest and poet, who had been one of the first prominent clergymen to preach and organize against the war.
The "Catonsville Nine" struck on May 17, 1968, taking hundreds of files relating to potential draftees from the second floor of the Knights of Columbus building, where the draft board rented space. They piled the documents in the parking lot and set them burning with a mixture of gasoline and soap chips -- homemade napalm.
With so many marches and campus protests going on across the country, it would have been impossible to quantify the effect of a single event on public opinion. What can be said about the Catonsville raid is that it inspired others in New York City, Milwaukee, Boston, Chicago and other cities, the tactic becoming a sort of calling card of the "ultraresistance."
It also elevated the Berrigan brothers to the status of superstars. The two were on the cover of Time magazine and illuminated in profiles by the smartest writers.
But many Americans saw them as traitors, or at best naive dupes of the Viet Cong.
Berrigan had lived at Jonah House, a communal living facility of war resisters, for much of the past decade.
In a final statement released by his family, he said, "I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family and the Earth itself."
--
This is a Dec. 1968 photo of the Rev. Phillip Berrigan at an unknown location. Philip Berrigan, the patriarch of the Roman Catholic anti-war movement, died Friday night Dec. 6, 2002 of liver and kidney cancer, his family said. He was 79. (AP Photo) - Fredericksburg.com December 7, 2002
http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/apmethods/apphotos/NY107120701.jpg
----
U.S. Peace Activist Philip Berrigan Dead at 79
Sat December 7, 2002
By Bryan Sears
Reuters
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=1868375
BALTIMORE - Philip Berrigan, the former Roman Catholic priest who with his Jesuit brother Daniel led a generation of religious opposition to the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race, died of cancer at the age of 79, his family said on Saturday.
Berrigan died late on Friday at Jonah House, his communal living facility for pacifists in West Baltimore, after being diagnosed with liver and kidney cancer in October. He stopped chemotherapy after one treatment and received last rites at a Nov. 30 ceremony officiated by the Rev. Daniel Berrigan.
"These are hair-trigger times, with well-manicured barbarians at the wheel and our nuclear strike force poised and ready," he said in a statement to friends and supporters issued earlier this week.
"The American people will prevail. So will all thoughtful and decent people throughout the world," added the message, sent to well-wishers on a Jonah House card.
Berrigan, who spent at least 11 of the past 35 years behind bars for acts of civil disobedience, was ordained a Josephite priest in 1955 and assigned to teach black children in Louisiana, where the Civil Rights movement inspired him to a lifelong commitment to peace and social justice.
He and Daniel Berrigan became national figures of the anti-war movement during the Catonsville Nine protest on May 17, 1968, when they and fellow activists poured homemade napalm onto hundreds of Selective Service cards outside a draft board at a Knights of Columbus hall in Catonsville, Maryland.
"I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself," Berrigan said in a statement given to his wife, the former nun Elizabeth McAlister, during the weekend before Thanksgiving.
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and a longtime Berrigan friend, credited the two brothers with forging a path of religious civil disobedience among American Catholics during the Vietnam War.
"They helped inspire a generation of peace activists that later turned their attention to American military intervention in Central America, and finally, to war itself," Zinn said.
"The deep, deep sense I have of him is really beyond praise, beyond words," Daniel Berrigan said of Philip in an interview last year.
PLOWSHARES FOUNDER
Philip Berrigan, a World War II veteran, helped found the Plowshares peace movement against the modern arms race in 1980, on the Biblical ethic of beating swords into plowshares. The group's first act was to break into a General Electric defense plant near Philadelphia, smash the nose cones of Mark 12A warheads and douse blueprints with blood.
In his final clash in December 1999, he and three other Plowshare activists broke into an Air National Guard base near Baltimore and attacked two A-10 warplanes with blood and hammers to protest the military's use of depleted uranium in armor-piercing shells.
He was imprisoned for the act and remained behind bars until Dec. 14, 2001.
"There are times when I'd like to just sit back in my rocking chair, but I'm going to fight all the way and hopefully die with my boots on," Berrigan told Reuters in a May 2001 interview at a federal prison in Ohio.
His public appearances against violence and militarism continued into this autumn, though he needed a walker to get around.
"Right to the end, in the midst of his dying, he was unflinching and unswerving in his call for a world without war," said Richard Deats of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith peace group that helped Catholics including the Berrigans, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton unify the peace voices of the church.
In his 1996 autobiography, "Fighting the Lamb's War," Berrigan described Jesus as a revolutionary committed to social justice and Washington as a plantation where minorities live in shoddy housing and work at lousy jobs or wait to be herded into prison as members of a neglected surplus populace.
"I see no point in working within an evil system. Christ was never a reformer. He didn't advocate voting for one corrupt politician over another," Berrigan wrote. "He preached that we should dismantle, not attempt to patch, the state."
Born Oct. 5, 1923, in Two Harbors, Minnesota, Philip Francis Berrigan is survived by his wife, two daughters, a son and four brothers.
----
Anti-War Activist Philip Berrigan Dies
By KASEY JONES
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Saturday, December 7, 2002
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Obit%20Philip%20Berrigan
BALTIMORE -- Philip Berrigan, the former priest whose fight against the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons helped ignite a generation of anti-war dissent, has died of cancer. He was 79.
Berrigan's family said he was diagnosed with cancer two months ago and decided to stop chemotherapy last month. He died Friday night at Jonah House, the communal residence for pacifists that he founded.
His brother, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, officiated over last rites ceremonies Nov. 30, attended by friends and peace activists, family members said.
Berrigan led the "Catonsville 9," a group that staged one of the most dramatic protests of the 1960s. The group, including Daniel Berrigan, doused homemade napalm on a small bonfire of draft records in a Catonsville parking lot on May 17, 1968.
In a statement given to his wife, Elizabeth McAlister, during the Thanksgiving weekend, Philip Berrigan said:
"I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself."
Berrigan was born Oct. 5, 1923, and served as an artillery officer in World War II. He was ordained a Catholic priest in the Josephite Order in 1955.
He participated in the civil rights movement in the South. Berrigan's first public anti-war act was pouring blood on draft files in Baltimore in 1967.
"We confront the Catholic Church, other Christian bodies and the synagogues of America with their silence and cowardice in the face of our country's crimes," he said at the time. "We are convinced that the religious bureaucracy in this country is racist, is an accomplice in this war and is hostile to the poor."
Berrigan expanded those views to include opposition to almost any form of established government that would wage war, deploy nuclear weapons or even use nuclear power.
Following the 1968 anti-war protest in Catonsville, the demonstrators were convicted of conspiracy and destruction of government property, but remained free on bail for 16 months until the Supreme Court of the United States declined to reconsider the verdict.
On the day they were supposed to begin serving their sentences, the Berrigan brothers and two others went into hiding. Philip Berrigan was found 12 days later at a church in New York City and was taken to federal prison in Lewisburg, Maine.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee in November 1970 that Philip and Daniel Berrigan were leaders of a plot to blow up Washington power lines and kidnap a high White House official. In January 1971, Philip Berrigan, McAlister, and four others were indicted on charges of plotting to kidnap then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and blow up the heating systems of federal buildings in Washington.
Berrigan and McAlister, who was a former nun, were found guilty in April 1972 only of smuggling of letters in and out of Lewisburg prison.
In 1980, Berrigan and seven others poured blood and hammered warheads at a GE nuclear missile plant in King of Prussia, Pa. That action began the international Plowshares movement.
Berrigan, who had been arrested at least 100 times and served a total of 11 years in prison for his anti-war and anti-nuclear activities, once said he had no intention of retiring from his career as a peaceful violator of U.S. laws.
"We can't very well do that because of the state of the world, " he said. "We're killing ourselves, and some of us are not making a murmur about it."
Berrigan was released from federal prison in Elkton, Ohio, in December 2001 for his most recent Plowshares activities.
Besides his wife and brother, Berrigan is survived by three children: Frida, Jerry and Kate.
-------
Phil Berrigan, America's Greatest Arms Inspector Dies...
American Journal
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
December 7, 2002
CounterPunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn1207.html
American has lost one of its senior weapons inspectors, one of its most ardent would-be dismantler of weapons of mass destruction. Phil Berrigan died in the evening last Friday, December 6, at Jonah House, the community in Baltimore he co-founded in 1973, surrounded by family and friends. For 40 years he campaigned against war and violence, most of all against nuclear weapons. Challenge America's weapons of mass destruction, and the state locks you up. Phil Berrigan spent about eleven years in prison in the cause of peace and disarmament.
Berrigan wrote a final statement in the days before his death. His final comments included this: "I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself."
Blessed are the peacemakers, Jesus told the crowd in the Sermon on the Mount, and Lo, Ronald Reagan named the MX nuclear missile the Peacemaker.
The Berrigans and their brave comrades shed their blood on a nuclear warhead being manufactured at the GE plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, recalling the blood that Jesus shed for sinful humanity, and Lo, they named a ballistic missile submarine USS City of Corpus Christi, the city of the body of Christ and they probably knew not what they did, aside from honoring the home port of some Texan pork dispenser on Capitol Hill.
The word from Jonah House is that those who mourn for Berrigan and wish to honor his memory may make donations in Berrigan's name to Citizens for Peace in Space, Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons, Nukewatch, Voices in the Wilderness, the Nuclear Resister, or any Catholic Worker house.
Philip Berrigan, was born in 1923 in the Minnesota Iron Range, near Bemidji, maybe a hundred miles west of the birthplace of the man who wrote The Masters of War. He was the first priest to ride in a Civil Rights movement Freedom Ride.
In 1967 he poured blood on draft files in Baltimore with 3 Others, known as the "Baltimore Four." A year later he burned draft files in Catonsville, MD with 8 others, including his brother, Fr. Daniel Berrigan. That action was known as the "Catonsville Nine." He was convicted of destruction of US property, destruction of Selective Service records, and interference with the Selective Service Act of 1967.
In 1971, while in prison, he was named co-conspirator by J. Edgar Hoover and a Harrisburg grand jury, charged with plotting to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up the utility tunnels of US Capitol buildings. In the event he was convicted only of violating prison rules for smuggling out letters. In September 9, 1980 he poured blood and hammered with 7 others on Mark 12A warheads at a GE nuclear missile plant, King of Prussia, PA. He was charged with conspiracy, burglary, and criminal mischief; convicted and imprisoned. The action became known as the "Plowshares Eight;" and began the international Plowshares movement. He participated in 5 more Plowshares actions, resulting in 7 years of imprisonment.
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A.N.S.W.E.R.: Upcoming Actions, New Endorsements
From: "International A.N.S.W.E.R." <nowardc@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat Dec 7, 2002 2:13am
UPCOMING ACTIONS / NEW ENDORSEMENTS FOR JAN. 18
More than 2,000 organizations and individuals have endorsed and are organizing for the upcoming mass marches in Washington DC and San Francisco on January 18. We are happy to announce that in the last 24 hours many new endorsements have come in, including Black Voices for Peace and Women's Strike for Peace. The list of cities bringing buses, vans and car caravans is rapidly expanding, and is now over 100.
In addition to supporting the January 18 demonstration, A.N.S.W.E.R. also wants to endorse all other anti-war activities and we are circulating the following calendar.
EMERGENCY RESPONSE ACTIONS
It is clear from the Bush administration's posture that they are committed to carrying out a war against Iraq. Nothing Iraq can do appears to stop the drive towards war. While there will be massive actions on January 18 in Washington DC and San Francisco, we must be prepared to take immediate action at the moment that Bush initiates this war of aggression. The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition calls on all of its affiliate organizations and supporters to prepare for mass demonstrations the day of or the day after the initiation of a U.S. war, as well as for local or regional actions the following Saturday.
In the event of a new U.S. war on Iraq, we encourage activists in every city and town in the United States to hold coordinated emergency anti-war actions at 5 pm on the day the bombing begins, or at 5 pm the next day if the bombing begins at night. Also, consider holding a local or regional protest the next Saturday at 12 noon.
Many cities and communities have a tradition of holding these emergency actions in response to U.S. military aggression. If your community does not have a traditional plan, pick a busy location/intersection, a Federal Building, Town Hall, etc. Following are details for protests in some major cities:
Washington DC: Meet at the White House at 5 pm the day the bombing begins or at 5 pm the day after if the bombing begins at night. East Coast Regional Emergency Response: Go to DC the first Saturday after a new attack for a demonstration beginning at 12 noon.
New York City: Calls has been issued from a number of groups, including A.N.S.W.E.R. and No Blood for Oil to meet at Times Square for a mass demonstration at 5 pm the day the bombing begins or at 5 pm the day after if the bombing begins at night. All groups and individuals who oppose a war should meet to demonstrate in Times Square.
East Coast Regional Emergency Response: Go to DC the first Saturday after a new attack for a demonstration beginning at 12 noon. Buses from NYC and other cities.
San Francisco: Meet at Powell & Market St. at 5 pm the day the bombing begins or at 5 pm the day after if the bombing begins after 12 noon. Also: demonstration the following Saturday at 12 noon (same location).
In your city or town!
NOW: WOMEN'S VIGIL FOR PEACE & INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY MARCH
NOVEMBER 17 - MARCH 8 - Join prominent women and women's organizations across the country for this historic peace vigil and rolling fast in front of the White House in Washington DC starting Sunday, November 17, 2002 in Lafayette Park, continuing through March 8, International Women's Day, and culminating in a massive women's peace march.
More info: www.unitedforpeace.org
DECEMBER 7 BED-STUY PEACE WALK & RALLY
Gather 12 noon at Restoration Plaza (1360 Fulton St., between Brooklyn & New York). 2-5 pm: Rally at AME Zion Baptist Church (54 McDonough Street, near Tompkins).
More info: 718-907-0578
DECEMBER 8 EMERGENCY PRAYER VIGIL FOR PEACE
Riverside Church (490 Riverside Avenue, between 122 & 125 Streets) in the Main Sanctuary, 5:30- 8:00 PM. Speakers include Rev. Herbert Daughtry, Iman Mahdi Bray, Rev Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III, Rev William Fauntroy.
More info: 718-596-1991
DECEMBER 10 NATIONALLY COORDINATED LOCAL ANTI-WAR ACTIONS ON INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY
United for Peace has called for nationally coordinated local anti-war actions on Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day. United for Peace has confirmed 25 actions in 15 states on Dec. 10 -- from rallies to peace vigils to teach-ins.
More info: www.unitedforpeace.org
DECEMBER 14 HARLEM ANTI-WAR MARCH AND RALLY (NYC)
Gather: 12 noon at 157th and Broadway Organized by Uptown Youth for Peace & Justice
More info: Karim at 347-203-6157 or luchando@b...
DECEMBER 15 ANTI-WAR ORGANIZING MEETING
Anti-War Organizing Meeting at House of the Lord Church (415 Atlantic Avenue, Downtown Brooklyn, between Nevins & Bond Street) in Brooklyn from 4 to 7 pm. Sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. & Rev. Herbert Daughtry.
More info: 718-596-1991 or 212-633-6646
DECEMBER 21 YOUTH PEACE RALLY
Meet at 4 pm at House of the Lord Church (415 Atlantic Avenue, Downtown Brooklyn, between Nevins & Bond Street).
More info: 718-596-1991
JANUARY 18 & 19 NATIONAL MARCH ON WASHINGTON DC & THE CONVENING OF THE PEOPLE'S PEACE CONGRESS
On the Martin Luther King anniversary weekend and the 12th anniversary of the beginning of the Gulf War, thousands will converge in Washington DC to say NO to war on Iraq. There are now buses traveling from over 100 cities in almost 40 states to be in Washington DC and San Francisco on January 18. Groups are traveling from all over the East Coast, Midwest, South and West Coast.
Dr. King believed that it was impossible to successfully wage a war on poverty at home while waging a war of aggression in Vietnam. The same can be said today about George W. Bush's global war drive. Social programs and services are being looted as Bush and Congress provide record-breaking sums for weapons of mass destruction and war.
The thousands of people who are coming to Washington, D.C., honor Dr. King and his legacy by opposing another criminal war--this time in the Middle East--and by demanding instead that these hundreds of billions of dollars be spent on jobs, education, housing, healthcare and to meet human needs.
For buses to DC and SF, to endorse, for downloadable PDFs and more, go to www.InternationalANSWER.org or call 202-544-3389 / 212-633-6646 / 415-821-6545
JANUARY 20 BLACK VOICES FOR PEACE WASHINGTON DC
Black Voices for Peace presents the second annual Martin Luther King Jr. National Workshop and Rally for Justice and Peace: Living the Legacy of Action Against Militarism, Racism and Economic Injustice. We must oppose the U.S. policy of war and support for war in the Middle East, and stop Bush's war plans and actions throughout the world. We must demand full funding for human needs and economic justice for all. We must demand racial equality and justice, religious tolerance, civil rights and civil liberties for all.
Opening Session: 10:30am-11am Action Sessions: 11am-1pm
Protesters Shot Dead in Venezuela;
Oil Deliveries Slowed
December 7, 2002
New York Times
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/international/americas/07VENE.html
CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 6 - Three demonstrators were shot dead tonight and nearly 30 were wounded when at least one gunman opened fire in a crowded plaza here that had become the epicenter for antigovernment protest. Opponents of President Hugo Chávez's government blamed his administration, throwing the possibility for a peaceful solution to Venezuela's turbulent political situation into turmoil.
Mayor Leopoldo López of the Chacao district of Caracas, of which the plaza is a part, said that a Portuguese-born man whom he identified as João Goveia was arrested and accused of the shooting. Witnesses said at least one other gunman also fired into the crowd. Investigators detained six men in an attempt to determine what transpired.
Diosdado Cabello, the Venezuelan justice and interior minister, told reporters that Mr. Goveia had confessed. "Now we have to find out why he did it," he said.
The shootings, at Altamira Plaza in the affluent eastern end of Caracas, came moments after a powerful opposition movement declared that it would continue a five-day-old nationwide strike against Mr. Chávez.
The strike brought the oil industry closer to a full-scale shutdown today, with the state-owned oil company announcing that it may not be able to ship oil to all its customers.
Although government officials stressed that the company, Petróleos de Venezuela, was still producing and shipping oil, its president, Ali Rodríguez, said in a news conference that the industry was "vulnerable" and that damages from the walkout had been "considerable." Late tonight, six senior board members offered their resignations. Mr. Rodríguez said the company had sent some clients notices of force majeure, invoking a legal clause that allows a seller to escape contract terms because of circumstances out of its control.
"We have had to declare a state of force, telling our clients today that there can be delays in the deliveries of crude and products that come from Venezuela," Mr. Rodríguez said.
The increasing involvement of oil workers and executives from Petróleos de Venezuela in the strike had given the anti-Chávez movement momentum and brought the country much closer to a standstill.
Oil accounts for 80 percent of export earnings and 50 percent of government revenues in Venezuela, one of the world's largest oil exporters.
The shooting in Caracas, at 7:15 p.m., then escalated the crisis, infuriating government opponents who have long accused the Chávez administration of using repressive tactics to squelch protest. Foes of the president had been pushing for early elections to resolve Venezuela's political turmoil, but within minutes of the shooting, leading strike organizers declared that only the president's resignation would do.
"The president should resign to open the path to 24 million Venezuelans who want their liberty," said Julio Borges, an opposition Congressman.
The vice president, José Vicente Rangel, called the shootings a "provocation" to prompt further turbulence, saying the Chávez administration had nothing to do with the shootings.
"The national government in the most categorical and profound way condemns what happened tonight," he said. "We are not protecting anybody."
Diego Garrido, 20, who was standing in the plaza, said the gunman stood calmly and emptied the bullets from a semiautomatic handgun, pulling new cartridges from a knapsack. Mr. Garrido's girlfriend, Olga García, 19, was hit in the abdomen.
The dead included a 17-year-old girl and among the wounded were children, medical workers said.
"He would shoot, take out a new cartridge and keep firing," Mr. Garrido said. "It was so fast. I saw 15 people go down." A group of high-ranking military officers opposed to Mr. Chávez, who have used the plaza as their base, pulled their weapons as the shooting began and told people to get down. The protesters - many draped in the red, blue and yellow of the Venezuelan flag - scattered.
Luis Jiménez, 48, had been standing among the people who were killed. "The first to fall was that man," he said, pointing to a body covered by a sheet and a Venezuelan flag. "Then a woman fell right here. She said, `Help me! Help me!' "
The shooting came eight months after a huge antigovernment protest ended in gunfire, leaving at least 19 people dead. Mr. Chávez was temporarily removed from power in the chaos afterward, with opponents charging that pro-Chávez gunmen were responsible for the violence.
An hour after the shootings tonight, César Gaviría, secretary general of the Organization of American States, said the two sides had agreed to meet, and he called for calm. "These events take place at moments of high tension," he said. "In a moment like this, I say to all the officials and Venezuelans: be calm."
Still, some opposition leaders of the Democratic Coordinator, a large umbrella group for anti-Chávez groups, called for the strike against the government to go on indefinitely, until Mr. Chávez resigns.
The United States issued a warning to its citizens tonight to put off nonessential travel to Venezuela, saying it was "gravely concerned" about the escalating violence.
The strike's threat to the oil industry was apparent earlier today at the Paraguana refinery complex, outside Punto Fijo in northwest Venezuela.
The refinery, the largest in the country, usually processes about a million barrels daily. But it was at a standstill today as dockworkers stayed home and several tanker crews refused to transport crude.
"You will usually see the dock full," said Eligio Luques, 40, as he steered his fishing boat near idle tankers anchored near the refinery. "Normally, they come in and out of there."
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South Koreans Gather in Fresh Anti - U.S. Protest
December 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-korea-usa-visit.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - Thousands of South Koreans gathered in Seoul and other major cities on Saturday in a fresh anti-U.S. protest ignited by a traffic accident in which a U.S. Army vehicle killed two local schoolgirls.
The demonstrators -- students and religious and civic groups -- called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea and for changes to a bilateral agreement that governs the legal status of U.S. soldiers on Korean soil.
Some 2,000 protesters joined a candlelit vigil and march on the U.S. embassy in Seoul, police and local media said. At least 1,500 rallied in South Korea's second city Pusan, one of more than two dozen cities hit by protests.
The accident in June -- and the U.S. court martial acquittal last month of the soldiers who operated the armored vehicle -- intensified anti-American sentiment in Korea, arousing demands that they be tried and punished under Korean law.
Holding up candles and chanting anti-American slogans, protesters scuffled briefly with police near the U.S. embassy.
Veteran protest leader Mun Jeong-hyeon, a Catholic priest, said the largest outpouring of anti-U.S. sentiment in recent years ``means that we are going to be independent, we are going to be free from the arrogance and the pressure of the USA.''
The anti-U.S. campaign unfolding in South Korean streets, media and on the Internet complicates the task faced by Washington and Seoul in coordinating strategies to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
ALLIANCE CONCERNS
The emotive traffic accident has become an issue in the December 19 presidential elections, with all main candidates endorsing the activists' calls for an overhaul of the Status of Forces Agreement governing U.S. troops in South Korea.
The contestants have called on President Bush to apologize directly to the country, following a statement conveyed by the U.S. embassy and apologies by Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and many U.S. generals.
The presidential Blue House issued a statement stressing the need for the 50-year-old U.S.-South Korea alliance, maintained to deter aggression from Communist North Korea.
``As our ally, the United States is cooperating with us in maintaining stability and peace on the peninsula,'' Presidential spokeswoman Park Sun-sook said in the statement. ``Our alliance with Washington benefits our national interests.''
Opposition candidate Lee Hoi-chang, whose conservative party champions traditional close ties to the United States, said the alliance faced a serious challenge.
``My biggest concern is that this issue will spill over into widespread calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea, damaging the bilateral alliance that has been a pillar of our country's security,'' Lee said while campaigning in Seoul.
U.S. CONGRESSMEN SKIP SEOUL
U.S. Representative Henry Hyde, head of the House International Relations Committee, and four other congressmen canceled a visit to South Korea earlier in the day, citing growing anti-American sentiment.
``Chairman Hyde postponed his visit because he did not want the delegation to become the focal point of demonstrations here,'' the U.S. embassy in Seoul said in a statement. The lawmakers had planned to travel from Japan on Saturday to meet South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean defectors.
About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea to deter any aggression by North Korea. The 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armed truce, which has yet to be replaced by a permanent peace treaty.
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Thousands Protest for Reform in Iran, 60 Arrested
December 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-protests.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Baton-wielding security forces arrested at least 60 people in the Iranian capital on Saturday, a city official said, as thousands gathered in and around Tehran University to call for political reform.
The demonstration, which coincided with National Students' Day, was the most significant sign in recent weeks that ordinary Iranians were willing to join students in the largest pro-reform protests in the Islamic Republic for over three years.
``Around 60 to 70 people have been arrested, most of whom are being questioned,'' Ali Taala, general director of security and political affairs at the governor's office in Tehran, told the students' news agency ISNA.
He said the street demonstration, unlike a rally held by students within the university campus, had not been authorized and was therefore illegal. Most of those arrested were not students, he said.
The pro-reform protests, which until now had been confined largely to universities, reflect simmering tension in the country of 65 million people where President Mohammad Khatami's reformist government is at loggerheads with powerful hard-liners opposed to his agenda of greater democracy and social freedom.
While Khatami has won two landslide elections and enjoys the backing of parliament, hard-liners control key unelected state bodies such as the judiciary, armed forces and a constitutional watchdog that vets legislation and election candidates.
Witnesses said at least 2,000 people began congregating in the streets around the university on Saturday afternoon watched by several hundred riot and regular police.
MIXED CROWD
The mixed gathering of young and old, men and women -- many of whom wore the traditional black head-to-toe garment known as the chador -- occasionally chanted slogans such as ``Political prisoners must be freed!''
Baton-wielding police made several charges, forcing people to dart into side streets and seek shelter in nearby buildings.
Late on Saturday evening a crowd of about 500 relatives and friends of those arrested gathered outside a central Tehran police station, clamoring for their release, another witness told Reuters.
Inside the university during the afternoon about 3,000 students chanted ``Death to the Taliban in Kabul and Tehran'' and called for a referendum on Iran's political future.
The rally was marked by sporadic violence as students and hardline Islamic militia hurled stones at one another over the high university fence. Police placed a cordon of buses around the campus to hamper the stone throwers and block the students from view.
The student rallies, which began early last month, were sparked by a death sentence imposed on a reformist academic but quickly took on wider political significance.
``Referendum, referendum!'' the students chanted on Saturday as they marched, clapping and whistling, through the campus.
``Our national interests should be determined by the direct vote of the people,'' said Mousavi Panah, a member of Tehran University's Islamic Students' Association.
Reformists have urged the students to keep their protests peaceful, saying hard-liners could unleash a brutal crackdown if the demonstrations got out of hand and moved out of the universities and onto the streets.
The death sentence against history lecturer Hashem Aghajari, imposed for his questioning of Iran's clerical rule, was appealed against on Monday.
-- Additional reporting by Parinoosh Arami, Parisa Hafezi
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