NucNews - March 19, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety Soviet navy 'left 20 nuclear warheads in Bay of Naples' By Peter Popham in Rome UK Independent 19 March 2005 http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=621549 Italy has an unwanted legacy from the Cold War in the form of 20 nuclear warheads on the seabed in the Bay of Naples, left there by the Soviet navy 25 years ago, it has been claimed. An expert on Soviet-era intelligence, Mario Scaramella, sent a memo confirming the existence of the missiles to Guido Bertolaso, the head of Protezione Civile, Italy's civil defence agency. "On 10 January 1970," the memo read, "a submarine of the November class detached itself from the Fifth Squadron (Mediterranean) of the Soviet navy with orders ... to place an imprecise number of tactical atomic torpedoes in the Bay of Naples. The submarine was armed with 24 nuclear torpedoes of two different types, for anti-aircraft carrier and anti-submarine use. They were used to mine the area used by the American Seventh Fleet." The Bay of Naples, with the volcanic cone of Mt Vesuvius in the background, is one of the most famous beauty spots in Italy, as well as a busy commercial harbour. The city of Naples which wraps round the bay is the seat of Nato command for southern Europe. The whole region is also one of the most seismically active in Europe. According to Mr Scaramella, the Soviet submarine in question sank months afterwards with only four nuclear torpedoes on board, leading experts to conclude that it had laid 20 torpedoes on the sea floor. A naval expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was highly unlikely that the torpedoes would explode. "It's much harder to make a nuclear weapon explode than a conventional one," he said. "Every single element has to perform perfectly. But the torpedoes would be a potential source of contamination. And the longer they stay on the sea bed, the greater the corrosion and the higher the risk they represent." Mr Scaramella said there had long been rumours of nuclear minefields on the seabed, reported in 2001 in the International Atomic Energy Agency's "Tecdoc-1242 Inventory of accidents and losses at sea involving radioactive materials". "The document includes the marginal note 'not confirmed'," he added, "to indicate that the Soviet Union had not been able officially to confirm the episode. But it was not denied, and the information was circulated to all the embassies in Vienna, where the agency is based, including the Italian one." Mr Scaramella told The Independent yesterday that in 2004 the placing of the torpedoes had finally been confirmed by former Soviet officials. Mr Bertolaso told the news weekly L'Espresso: "I have been assured by members of the armed forces that they are studying the matter. They said they have known of it for a long time but have lacked confirmation." The nuclear minefield was said to have been laid at the height of the Cold War, for activation in case of war and to cause radioactive contamination. Mr Scaramella, who is an adviser to an Italian parliamentary committee on Soviet-era espionage, said he had discovered the existence of the minefield while following up an Israeli intelligence report that nuclear material had been obtained in Naples by Russian gangsters with the help of the Camorra, the Naples Mafia. Mr Bertolaso said: "I hope we won't have to look for those missiles in the Gulf of Naples. I fear that there is everything down there, from cars on upwards. The technical people I have spoken to confirm that to find the torpedoes would be an extremely difficult operation." But one naval source said he doubted the presence of the torpedoes. "The chances of them going undetected are extremely remote," he said. "Sonar systems today give you a visual picture of the bottom of the sea. For a busy port such as Naples you map the bottom year by year. And the Italian navy's mine-clearing capability is very good." -------- india / pakistan Sandbagging the NSG by Gordon Prather March 19, 2005 Antiwar.com http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=5262 Why did Secretary of State Rice make India the first stop on her whirlwind Asian tour? Perhaps to see if she could sabotage yet one more Iranian deal-in-the-making. Not content with sabotaging the current Iranian negotiations with the European Union on trade and investment "normalization," Condi whizzed down to New Delhi to prevent India from "finalizing" technical and commercial contracts for a $4.5 billion natural gas pipeline that will provide Iranian natural gas mostly to India. India, already the world's sixth largest energy consumer, with consumption rapidly increasing, is relatively energy resource-poor, and is heavily dependent upon imports. For example, India now imports 70 percent of the oil it consumes. In return for India's agreement to buy large quantities of pipelined natural gas, Iran has awarded Indian gas companies major service contracts and also granted them participation in refining and other energy related projects to the tune of $40 billion. India and China were already collaborating in the development of the Yahavaran oil field in Iran. The Indians hope that the India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline will come to symbolize a cooperative supplier-consumer approach to development of Asian energy resources. So, how desperate was Condi to sabotage the burgeoning Russo-Sino-Iranian-Indian energy alliance? What carrot did Condi offer the Indians to prevent their finalizing the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline deal? You'll never guess. Nuclear power. But doesn't Condi know that Russia has already built two 1000 MWe nuclear power plants at Koodankulam and hoped to build four more? And doesn't she know that Russia and India signed a joint declaration earlier this year designed to expand bilateral linkages in the civilian nuclear sector? "Both sides are determined to continue their cooperation in the field of nuclear energy, incorporating innovative technologies to ensure energy security, with due regard to their commitments to non-proliferation norms." So what is Condi offering that the Russians can't? Enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Established in 1974, the 40-plus member NSG includes the five have-nuke states – US, UK, Russia, China and France. NSG "Guidelines for Nuclear Transfer" have long required the acceptance by the recipient state – whether NPT signatory or not – of IAEA Safeguards on certain imported items. For example, there are several nuclear reactors in India – not an NPT signatory – that are subject to IAEA Safeguards. But, as a consequence of what the International Atomic Energy Agency found in Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf War, the NSG soon promulgated "Guidelines for Transfers of Nuclear-Related Dual-Use Equipment, Material and Related Technology." Now, if any new NSG transfers are required by NSG Guidelines to be made subject to IAEA Safeguards, the NSG now requires all existing nuclear equipment at all facilities in the country be made subject. Russia has attempted to support India's – as well as Iran's – nuclear programs despite considerable opposition from the US. The US put great pressure on Russia to refrain from building the first two VVER nuclear power plants at Koodankulam. Russia got around that objection by arguing that the original contract for their supply was signed in 1988, before the new and more stringent NSG guidelines came into force in 1992. Similar objections were raised by the US with respect to Russia's supply of cryogenic engines for India's geostationary satellite launch vehicle program. These Russian engines were ultimately supplied without any transfer of the underlying technology. Russia was able to supply low-enriched uranium for the Tarapur Atomic Power Plant in 2001 on the basis of "safety" considerations. But, even then, the supply had "evoked a very negative reaction from the NSG." So, largely as a result of US pressure, the director of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency recently announced that Russia would be unable to supply any more reactors for the Koodankulam nuclear power project, nor be able to supply any more low-enriched uranium fuel for Tarapur. That is, unless India subjects its entire nuclear program – including its weapons program – to the full-scope (go-anywhere see-anything) IAEA Safeguards regime. Of course, up until now, India has been unwilling to do that. So how much does Condi want to isolate Iran? To sabotage the burgeoning Iranian-Chinese-Russian-Indian energy alliance? Enough to make "exceptions" to US export laws? To allow US-based vendors to construct nuclear power plants in India and supply fuel for them? To sandbag the NSG? Well, why not. The Bush-Cheney administration – in attacking Iraq and threatening to attack Iran – has already sandbagged the Constitution, the Congress, the UN Security Council, the European Union, the Russians and the IAEA. -------- US not finished with Pakistan yet By Syed Saleem Shahzad saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com Asia Times Online http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC19Df03.html KARACHI - The United States is exerting maximum pressure on Pakistan to provide a detailed and "authentic" list of all of its nuclear cooperation with Iran over the years. Contacts in the highest echelon of Pakistan's strategic quarters tell Asia Times Online that during her visit to Islamabad on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appraised Pakistan of the latest - and strong - US demands. Many in the Bush administration believe that Iran's nuclear energy program is a smokescreen for developing nuclear weapons. Tehran has agreed with the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it will temporarily suspend its uranium enrichment program. Last week, Pakistan publicly admitted that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the mastermind of the country's nuclear program, had given centrifuges - rather than just blueprints - to Iran as part of a package of materials that could be used to make a nuclear bomb, but only in "his personal capacity". Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium. Now the US wants hard evidence of this and all of Pakistan's other dealings so that it can build its case against Iran. This will include full scrutiny of Pakistan's nuclear program, especially from the late 1980s until the early 1990s, when Pakistan developed the nuclear device, which it eventually tested in 1998. Importantly, and to the consternation of Pakistan, the US demand includes direct access and interrogation of Pakistan's former chief of army staff, General Aslam Beg, who has on many occasions openly endorsed nuclear cooperation with Iran, former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan (August 17, 1988 until July 18, 1993) and Dr Khan. The exhaustive US demand has sent shock waves through General Headquarters Rawalpindi. To date, the belief had been that Pakistan's cooperation has been sufficient to avoid people like Dr Khan from being handed over. The contacts tell ATol that the initial reaction in Rawalpindi is that the requested people will not be placed in the hands of US interrogators. It is not known what "inducements" Washington is offering Islamabad for its cooperation, or, conversely, what stick it is waving for not cooperating. Pakistan has for a long time wanted F-16 fighters from the US, especially since India is reported to also be in the market, and already receives financial and other US military aid for collaborating in the "war on terror". "The [Pakistan proliferation] issue is of such critical importance that as soon as it broke out [last year], the Pakistani leadership decided at once what to do. They placed Dr Khan under house arrest so that nobody could meet him. After completely isolating Dr Khan, Pakistan extended all cooperation to the US, which was of value to the US and to its satisfaction," a top strategic expert maintained. "But US interrogation of personalities like Ghulam Ishaq Khan, A Q Khan and General Beg will mean a complete exhibition and access to all strategic secrets and would be tantamount to compromising Pakistan's integrity," the expert said. "Now, though, the US means business and it is collecting evidence [against Iran] which Pakistan is meant to provide. But the US has been asked to submit its queries concerning proliferation, and they will get a reply through Pakistani channels. Inquiries are continuing by Pakistani officials with all concerned officials, including General Beg, and their answers are being submitted to the US. It will continue in the future as well. "You can match the situation with the South Waziristan operation. At the start, the US was convinced through its intelligence that all high-value targets [such as Osama bin Laden] were holed up in South Waziristan [tribal region]. Washington urged Pakistan to allow US troops to operate in the terrain to win the 'war on terror' once and for all. However, from the beginning Pakistan drew a line on its cooperation under which it fully cooperated in the hunt for militants and in defeating pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda elements, but it refused to allow US troops to operate in Pakistani territory, though on occasions Pakistan turned a blind eye on US advancement in its territory," he added. Pakistan is obviously extremely sensitive about the proliferation and black market side of its nuclear program - which it still insists was carried by individual elements without the knowledge of the establishment. The public saga of Pakistan's nuclear program began some years ago at the wedding ceremony of then editor of the Muslim, Islamabad, Mushahid Hussain, a journalist-turned-politician and now general secretary of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League. He introduced Dr Khan to a senior Indian journalist, Kuldeep Nayyer. Thinking that he was speaking off the record, Dr Khan briefed Kuldeep, only to his horror - and to that of the establishment - to then read a full article on Pakistan's nuclear program. As a result, Dr Khan was given the same security and protocol as the president of Pakistan. But once Pakistan acquired nuclear capability, Dr Khan's security situation became lax and and he was allowed to move around and make statements in public, and even travel outside the country. "It was a fact that he was elevated as a celebrity in the country, and even for generals he was the heroic figure who equipped them with deterrence against Indian military might," one strategic expert told ATol. This hero-worship backfired. A classified interrogation report of Khan Research Laboratories' (KRL) security chief, Brigadier Tajwar, accepted that he knew about the movement of centrifuges outside KRL, but he dare not stop Dr Khan and ask about the purpose of the transportation. Pakistan's nuclear program was mostly developed at KRL. Although Dr Khan has been individually blamed - and publicly accepted responsibility for - Pakistan's proliferation, Iran handed over a list of about two dozen Pakistani scientists to the IAEA for alleged involvement in Iran's program. "US pressure came very late. Before Pakistan even knew of Dr Khan's involvement in proliferation and despite intense public reaction, Dr Khan was removed as head of KRL and banned to enter its labs. Only for the sake of face-saving in public he was appointed as an advisor to the president," said the expert. The fate of Dr Khan remains unclear. He is under virtual house arrest under heavy security in his residence near Islamabad, and he can be expected to live like that until his end, when he will take all his secrets with him. "Unfortunately, this is the most likely scenario. The US pressure is maximum, there is no doubt. That Pakistan will stand firm there is no doubt either. The situation will not change, even in the next two years. However, the ultimate reaction of a world superpower is only determined by its geostrategic requirements, not by any fixed ideas or rules," the strategic expert commented. -------- iran The Nuclear Demon That Won't Go Away By RON JACOBS Counterpunch March 19 / 20, 2005 http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs03192005.html Recent news reports in Israeli and US newspapers claim that Israel is planning to attack Iran this summer. The purpose of the attack will be to destroy that country's nuclear facilities. These same reports also claim that Washington has authorized these attacks. Indeed, unless Iran does not respond to the rumored attacks, one can safely assume that not only will Washington authorize the destruction of Tehran's nuclear power capability; its armies will be ready to go into Iran. Although both capitals are currently publicly committed to the diplomatic effort spearheaded by the European Union, Israeli officials say the time to attack will come later this year when they believe Iran will be in a position to start processing uranium. These same officials state further that Tel Aviv's inner cabinet has decided to act alone if the impasse continues after that time. "If all efforts to persuade Iran to drop (what Israel and the US believe to be) its plans to produce nuclear weapons should fail, the US administration will authorize Israel to attack," said one Israeli security source. (London Times) Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is on the move in Atlantic Ocean and rumored to be headed towards the Mediterranean Sea. According to the Indian Daily and a few other sources, if this were true there would be three carrier groups in the corridor of the Middle East. Such a confluence of forces would create quite a strike force against Iran and Syria. How would such an attack be responded to by Iran? One can assume that the answer is with the greatest force their military can muster. In addition, how would the growing Shia power base in Iraq take such aggression? One scenario that comes to mind is the expansion of the current Iraqi insurgency to include almost all Shia factions. If this were to happen, the unsafe streets (for US forces and their collaborators) of Iraq's rebellious cities and towns would become the unsafe streets of the entire country. Tacit or not, any approval of an Israeli attack on Iran would not only embolden and strengthen the insurgency in Iraq, it would make most every nation in the Middle East and Central Asia a living hell for US troops that are stationed there. As for Iran, the movement for democracy would be halted as the regime there mobilized against the attackers. Not only would Israel be in the sights of Iranian missiles, so would US troops and their civilian counterparts. Interesting to this entire scenario is the implication expressed in a New York Times piece that Washington's real aim in its moves toward Iran and other non-friendly countries with nuclear potential is to make it impossible for these countries to have any type of nuclear capability, peaceful or otherwise. Of course, this doesn't mean that Washington has become part of the antinuclear movement. What it does mean is that Washington is intensifying its decades-long drive to keep WMD in the hands of its allies and out of the hands of its present and future enemies. This is why Tehran will not give in to diplomatic bribery from the EU or DC. It knows that if it does, the way would be paved for an even greater military domination of the Middle East by Washington and Tel Aviv. In addition, Iran could eventually find itself in the awkward position of either bending to the demands of the US in terms of its oil sales (since military domination could eventually pave the way to Washington's complete control of fossil fuel energy supplies) or, even more incredibly, actually buying energy from US energy companies. The latter could happen if Tehran's nuclear power development program was ended either diplomatically or via war. If it was, and Tehran's claim that its energy needs truly can't be met from its internal fossil fuel supply become true, it could find itself back in the position of buying oil from a neighboring country via the US. So, don't be surprised when Tehran refuses the so-called overtures to give up its nuclear program. No matter how the western media frame the discussions between Tehran and the EU about this matter, there is only one real reason that Washington supports the EU moves. That reason is because the forces in power see them as one more tactic in Washington's drive to demobilize all potential WMD not controlled by Washington and its allies. In what some might interpret as a rare show of restraint, Washington is supporting these talks. Of course, a more cynical observer might think that Washington is only supporting them to give itself time to regroup militarily, since it doubts very much that Tehran will surrender its right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop nuclear power. This strain of thought acknowledges the current overextension of US military forces and assumes that this strain will ease by the time those forces would be needed in Iran. In a similar manner, this is the same rationale that underlies the Bush Administration's support for any kind of multilateral talks with the North Korean government. Currently, the US and southern Korean militaries are beginning their scheduled military exercises in and around the Korean peninsula. Included in these "games" is the deployment of the USS Kitty Hawk-a carrier equipped with nuclear weapons. As in the past, Pyongyang's forces have been placed on alert. This is because they fear that the mobilized forces of the US and Seoul could be easily be moved from a "war game" mobilization to an actual war. Pyongyang's fears are not misplaced, since joint US-S. Korean maneuvers have almost gone this way in the past. The most recent occurrence was in 1993, when the Clinton administration almost attacked northern Korea for the same reasons the Bush folks would today. Like Tehran, Pyongyang is under constant threat from the US, mostly because it refuses to go along with Washington's plans for the world. Also, like Tehran, Pyongyang not only has a nuclear power program, it believes that it has every right to have one and will defend that right. Unlike, Tehran, Pyongyang has few energy sources of its own and is dependent on imports to fuel its industry and homes. In addition, any moves toward a more open society in the northern part of the Korean peninsula will (if they haven't already) certainly fall by the wayside as long as the US threatens to attack. In the title for this piece I refer to a nuclear demon. This reference is not only to the fact of nuclear power and all of its destructive potentialities. It is more specific than that: that demon is the United States and its use of nuclear weaponry to threaten the world into submission. -------- israel Mordechai Vanunu: A victim of Israel's nuclear taboo Caroline Moorehead Saturday, March 19, 2005 International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/18/news/edmoorehead.html On Thursday, Mordechai Vanunu was taken from his temporary refuge in St. George's Cathedral in East Jerusalem and charged with 21 counts of violating the terms of his semi-freedom. It was not the first time that he had been called to the prosecutor's office, but since his case is due to be reviewed by the Israeli government early in April, this may be a warning of what is to come. What the government now has to do is to decide whether to let Vanunu leave the country, or whether to reimpose, for a second year, the tough restrictions under which he has lived since his release from prison: no contact with foreign journalists, no freedom to leave Israel, permission to move from Jerusalem only on condition that he reports each day to the police. Vanunu has breached the first condition repeatedly, giving interviews to all who make the journey to East Jerusalem. When able to, he has used the Internet to keep in touch with reporters, human rights groups and friends all over the world. The question now is whether Israel decides to punish him further. Almost 20 years ago, Vanunu was a young Israeli nuclear technician, working at the research reactor at Dimona in the Negev Desert. Laid off in 1985, he used his severance pay to travel around the world. Increasingly troubled by the realization that Israel, though denying it, had in fact become a nuclear power, he had taken photographs inside the plant before he left. When he reached Sydney, he told new friends at an Anglican church, where he began the process of converting from Judaism to Christianity, of his fears. The news reached the Sunday Times in London, which flew him to England, where he was debriefed by British scientists. Then, before the story could appear, Vanunu was lured to Rome by a young woman. On arrival, he was overpowered by two men, injected with a powerful drug, smuggled onto a ship and taken to Israel. The next that was heard of him was that he had been convicted of espionage and treason at a closed trial and jailed for 18 years. Vanunu was then 34. He is now 51, a slight, spare man who holds himself very still. He receives visitors in the inner courtyard of St. George's Cathedral, where he occupies one of the guest rooms. The first 11 years of his detention were, he says, the worst. Kept in solitary confinement, he was permitted a half-hour visit every two weeks from his family - in his case, two of his brothers, since his parents and eight other siblings, deeply religious Jews offended by his conversion and his actions, rejected him. He was locked in his cell for 22 hours every day. He prayed, he thought, he wrote, he watched television, he exercised, he ate. He asked for books on philosophy and history, and some were given to him. He studied Kant, Camus, Nietzsche and Sartre. Later, when he was granted a video player, he watched opera: Mozart, Verdi, Wagner. By standing on a chair in his cell, he could just see a small square of sky. On his release, Vanunu asked for sanctuary at St. George's. He has taken to wandering around the streets of East Jerusalem. He continues to provoke the Israeli authorities. One of his most recent allegations was that Israel was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who was, Vanunu maintains, exerting pressure on Israel to shed light on the Dimona nuclear plant. Some of Vanunu's pronouncements have worried friends; they fear that, cut off for so long from contact with friends, colleagues and the outside world, he has lost his once sure ear for analysis and context. They worry too that if he stays in Israel he may be in danger from extremists. That Israel is a nuclear power is no longer seriously in question. But by maintaining its policy of "nuclear ambiguity" and punishing and vilifying those who try to break this secrecy, Israel has created a black hole, a forbidden area, where the normal laws of democracy do not seem to apply. The Israeli public and the rest of the world are effectively prevented from asking the questions usual in other democracies - about cost, alternatives and accountability. In this, the Israeli government is helped by the U.S. policy of attacking evil regimes which seek nuclear arsenals while tolerating their possession by states considered trustworthy. Yet bringing Israel's nuclear weapons out into the open, and putting them on the table as part of a wider regional Middle Eastern peace deal, might be the only way to prevent other neighboring states from building their own bombs. Nothing Vanunu says is any longer of the slightest threat to Israel. But support for Vanunu within Israel is very limited. In a spirit of revenge, the Israelis may decide that his absurd punishment should continue. Caroline Moorehead is the author of ‘‘Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees.’’ -------- korea Rice arrives for N Korea nuclear talks as US-SKorea launch drill SEOUL (AFP) Mar 19, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050319091724.juc11xw1.html US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in South Korea Saturday for talks focused on bringing North Korea back to dialogue aimed at ending its nuclear program. Rice, on her first Asian tour since taking office in January, was scheduled to meet with with President Roh Moo-Hyun, Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young and Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon on Sunday. Her arrival coincided with the start Saturday of massive annual US-South Korea military exercises that North Korea said were aimed at a preemptive strike, justifying the bolstering of its "self-defensive nuclear arsenal." In Tokyo earlier Saturday, Rice told North Korea it must immediately return to stalled talks on its nuclear program. She said North Korea could only realize its wishes for security assurances and aid if it ended its boycott of the six-nation talks. "North Korea should return to the six-party talks immediately if it is serious about exploring the path forward that we and the other parties have proposed," Rice said in a speech at Sophia University in Tokyo. "This is where the North Korean government can find the respect it desires and the assistance it needs if it is willing to make a strategic choice," she said. Rice, who heads to Beijing Sunday to end her six-nation Asian tour, said China, Pyongyang's main ally, had a special responsibility to coax the reclusive regime back to the table. "China has a particular opportunity and responsibility here and I will soon be discussing in Beijing how the United States and China can advance our common interests on this and others," Rice said. North Korea, officially called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), last took part in the talks in June 2004. In February the communist state announced it was suspending the dialogue, demanding Rice apologize for calling it an "outpost of tyranny." "It is quite illogical for the US to intend to negotiate with the DPRK without retracting its remarks that listed its dialogue partner as 'an outpost of tyranny,'" a foreign ministry spokesman said Wednesday. But Rice has refused to apologize. In Islamabad on Thursday she accused North Korea of focusing on the label to avoid discussing its nuclear program and reiterated that United States had no intention of attacking the country. Rice's inclusion of three of the countries involved in the talks -- China, Japan and South Korea -- was aimed at mounting international pressure on the North, although this had not worked previously, said analyst Paik Hak-Soon of the Sejong Institute here. "The Bush administration's policy toward North Korea has been based on an assumption that North Korea would give in to coordinated international pressure and give up its nuclear programs," Paik said. "But this assumption has so far proved wrong as North Korea has moved to the other direction and promulgated its possesion of nuclear weapons," Paik said. He said Pyongyang would find it hard to return to dialogue unless it were assured that the US government only wanted to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons and not to bring about a regime change in the communist state. Rice arrived as US and South Korean troops started week-long annual military exercises that the United States says were "defense oriented" and designed to improve the ability of allied forces to defend South Korea against external aggression. Some 17,000 US troops, 6,000 of them stationed in South Korea, were taking part in the exercise with an unspecified number of South Korean troops, a US military spokesman said. North Korea reacted nervously. "The projected exercises are extremely dangerous nuclear war drills to mount a preemptive attack on the DPRK," the official Korean Central News Agency said on Friday. It said North Korea will take "all the necessary countermeasures including the increase of its nuclear arsenal" to cope with the "extremely hostile attempt of the US to bring down" its system. "The reality goes to prove that it is very just for the DPRK to have opted for bolstering its self-defensive nuclear arsenal in order to protect the peace of the country and the fate of the nation from the US moves for aggression...," it said. -------- pakistan Pakistan Test - Fires Nuclear - Capable Missile By REUTERS March 19, 2005 Filed at 2:05 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-pakistan-missile.html?pagewanted=print&position=&oref=login ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan Saturday successfully test-fired a long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile, the latest in a series of tests in one of the world's flashpoints. ``Today, we carried out a successful test-firing of the indigenously developed Shaheen II missile,'' a military official told Reuters. The missile could travel up to 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and carry all kinds of warheads, he said. The military said Pakistan had informed neighboring countries about the test in advance -- a practice also observed by nuclear-armed rival India, which regularly tests its own nuclear-capable missiles. Pakistan first successfully tested a nuclear weapon in 1998. President Pervez Musharraf, who watched the missile test, said the country's nuclear program had broad public support and was a matter of the highest national importance. ``The nation's nuclear capability ... was developed for Pakistan's own security and will continue to receive the highest national priority,'' Musharraf was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the military. ``The capability was here to stay, will continue to go from strength to strength and no harm will ever be allowed to come to it,'' he was quoted as saying. The launch was successful, the military said. ``The test was carried out to verify some of the refined parameters. Al Hamd-o-Lillah (Praise to God), all parameters were validated,'' it said. Pakistan and India, which have fought three wars since their independence from British rule in 1947 and went to the brink of a fourth in 2002, regularly carry out missile tests despite warming relations in recent months. Experts say India and Pakistan are thought to each have several dozen nuclear warheads that can be mounted on short- medium- and long-range missiles. ---- Pakistan test fires longest-range missile 3/19/2005 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-19-pakistan-missile_x.htm ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan successfully test-fired its longest-range, nuclear-capable missile Saturday. The test comes two days after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Pakistan to encourage its peace process with neighboring India. There was no immediate reaction from New Delhi. The Shaheen II missile has a range of 1,250 miles and it successfully hit the target, said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, a spokesman for the Pakistan army. He did not say where the test was conducted. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf witnessed the test and congratulated the missile's developers, the military said in a statement. "This missile which incorporates an advanced two-stage solid motor technology, can carry all types of conventional and nuclear warheads," the statement said. South Asia's nuclear rivals Pakistan and India routinely test-fire their missiles. ---- Pakistan's Musharraf vows to strengthen nuclear program as missile tested ISLAMABAD (AFP) Mar 19, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050319130325.zjnj78du.html President Pervez Musharraf vowed Saturday to further upgrade Pakistan's nuclear capability but with a "strict adherence" to non-proliferation as he watched the test-firing of a long-range missile which can carry a nuclear warhead. "The nation's nuclear capability, which enjoyed the broadest national consensus, was developed for Pakistan's own security and will continue to receive the highest national priority," a military statement quoted Musharraf as saying. The military ruler attempted to allay apprehensions about the future of the programme after fresh disclosures about the activities of disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. "The capability was here to stay, will continue to go from strength to strength and no harm will ever be allowed to come to it," he said. Pakistan admitted last week that Khan had supplied Iran with centrifuges, used to enrich uranium for atomic warheads. It said the government was not involved but has refused to give him up for questioning by other countries. Khan, who is considered a national hero in Pakistan and is the father of its nuclear bomb, confessed in February 2004 to leaking secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya after a government probe into nuclear proliferation. He was pardoned by Musharraf but has been living under virtual house arrest in Islamabad. "The president reiterated Pakistan's policy of consolidating and strengthening its minimum deterrence needs, as well as strict adherence to non-proliferation," the statement said. Saturday's firing of the Shaheen 2 (Hatf VI) surface-to-surface missile was a success, it said. "This missile system, which incorporates advanced two-stage solid motor technology, can carry all types of conventional and nuclear warheads to a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,243 miles). "The test was carried out to verify some of the refined technical parameters ... all parameters were validated." Musharraf congratulated the scientists and engineers on the test and said "the nation is proud of its strategic organisations and strategic forces." He said these forces had "gelled extremely well" under the National Command Authority into an effective deterrence force in a short span of five years. "Their technical and operational readiness was indeed praiseworthy and a source of strength and security for Pakistan," Musharraf said. Musharraf, quoted by the Associated Press of Pakistan news agency, said the test surpassed expectations with its accuracy. "The president expressed the hope that with such a tremendous success the country could venture into space exploration and finally enter into SLV (space launch vehicle) and also put a man in space," the agency said. Neighbouring states, particularly nuclear-armed rival India, were given prior notification of the test as a confidence-building measure, the military said. Foreign ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said the test would not affect the ongoing peace dialogue with India. "It is a routine test. It won't affect the dialogue process," he said. Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in May 1998 after India conducted similar detonations. Both countries have active missile programmes. Pakistan and India have a bitter history of confrontation, mainly over the Muslim-majority state of Kashmir which is divided between the two and claimed by both in full. Two of the countries' three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947 have been over Kashmir. But they have been engaged in a peace dialogue since January last year. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- alaska Alaska hamlet power-hungry Isolated village considers nation's tiniest nuclear plant By DAN JOLING Associated Press March 19, 2005, 8:31PM http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3093019 ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - Electric stoves are a convenience, but in the Yukon River city of Galena, many people pass them by — the appliances suck up more juice than residents can afford. With Galena tucked into the western part of Alaska, diesel oil that powers the electrical plant must be towed 350 miles by barge. Customers pay 30 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with a national average of 8.71 cents, so they cook with propane, turn off lights and limit television time. In need of relief, the community of 700 is turning to nuclear power. But Galena's plant would be far different from other U.S. commercial nuclear power plants — at 10 megawatts, it would be downright tiny. City officials met recently with staff from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to discuss licensing a plant being developed by Toshiba Corp. that could be a test case for providing cheap power to rural communities. "Some people believe nuclear is coming around again," said Marvin Yoder, Galena's city manager. Small proportions The smallest U.S. commercial nuclear power plants are the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant, 19 miles north of Omaha, Neb., and the Ginna Nuclear Plant, east of Rochester, N.Y. Both have electrical output of 470 megawatts, roughly 45 times larger than what Toshiba is contemplating, NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said. Joe Williams, an NRC senior project manager in the new reactors section, described the meeting with Galena officials as a get-acquainted session to hear about the city and lay out the formidable process for building a nuclear plant. Williams and Burnell stressed that the commission's role is not to discuss whether nuclear power is a viable alternative for rural America, but to ensure that reactors are safe. Remote village Few places are as rural in America as rural Alaska, and options for low-cost power are few. Galena is 185 miles west of the nearest link to the nation's highway system. Diesel oil is shipped to residents on the Yukon and Tanana rivers. Like all of Interior Alaska, Galena experiences wild temperature extremes, from a summer high of 92 to a winter low of 64 below zero. "It's a little bit like people in Florida getting used to hurricanes," Yoder said. "Cars don't like to run. You hope the windows are insulated good. If they aren't, you feel the cold coming right through." A reactor would be a dramatic contrast with Galena's austere infrastructure. Its roads are gravel, and only a few homes are on a piped water and sewer system. Most have water delivered and sewage pumped out of holding tanks. Galena began considering nuclear power after determining that wind and solar power were impractical and that coal was too costly. After discussions with Toshiba, city officials concluded nuclear power would be the cleanest and least expensive alternative, lowering costs to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. Toshiba officials said the small reactor would not be operating for five to 10 years. The actual reactor would be about 7 feet tall and 30 inches in diameter and would be near the bottom of a concrete tube about 60 feet below the ground. Special concerns The reactor's fuel, which has not been specified, would stay encapsulated for 30 years, unlike fuel at a conventional reactor that is routinely replenished. Yoder expects an encased reactor, with few moving parts using a low-grade plutonium or other fuel that could not be reused for weapons, would be cheaper to operate and protect than a conventional reactor. It will take at least another two years to determine whether Galena is an appropriate site for a reactor. It also remains to be seen whether such a small plant presents economies of scale that would allow such a tiny plant to pay for security costs, disposal of spent fuel and other expenses. "We don't have information to be able to judge that at this point," the NRC's Williams said. If it's successful in Galena, there are likely to be applications elsewhere. Yoder said no opposition has surfaced at city council meetings, but he attributed that to the fact that there are so many unknowns and that the council's endorsement must be renewed again in two years. Some doubts Yet Galena's neighbors on the Yukon River, the fourth-largest drainage basin in North America and home to the world's largest inland salmon run, have misgivings. Rob Rosenfeld of the Yukon River Intertribal Watershed Council, an organization created by the Yukon's indigenous people to protect the river, said villages around Galena worry about the experimental status of the reactor and what would happen to spent fuel. Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C., voiced concerns about how a reactor would stand up to the harsh Alaskan climate. "This design pushes all those envelopes to an extreme," he said. -------- utah Uranium mill may get second chance Price soars above $21 per pound: Demand for the ore is now far outstripping supply By Steven Oberbeck The Salt Lake Tribune 03/19/2005 http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2612618 With the price of uranium hitting levels unheard of in decades, two Wyoming mining companies hope to profit by reopening a Utah uranium ore processing mill shuttered since the early 1980s. U.S. Energy Corp. and its partner, Crested Corp., this week filed a formal request with the state for a license to reopen and operate its Shootering Canyon uranium mill about 15 miles north of Lake Powell near Ticaboo. The Shootering mill is the last and most modern uranium mill built in the United States, U.S. Energy spokesman Don Warfield said. It is one of only four uranium mills left in the country - and only two of those are now operating. U.S. Energy, which owns nearby uranium mining acreage, expects to eventually mine that property to provide feedstock for the mill. The company, however, estimates it could take up to two years to secure the necessary permits to reopen the mill, which operated only a few months after construction was completed in 1982. The companies estimate it will cost about $25 million to make the mill operational. They hope to arrange financing while the license application is processed by the Division of Radiation Control, which is part of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. "Depending on the quality of the information they submit to us about their plans, [securing a permit] can be a fairly short or an extremely lengthy process," said Dane Finerfrock, director of the Utah Division of Radiation Control. Ron Hochstein, president of International Uranium Corp., whose White Mesa mill near Blanding is one of only two uranium mills now operating, said the economics of uranium have changed with global demand for the ore now far outstripping supply. Over the past several years, International Uranium has kept its mill operating by periodically processing "alternate feeds" - or radioactive wastes containing small quantities of uranium. Much of that feedstock material comes from the cleanup of old nuclear-weapon research and production sites. "It allowed us to survive the past seven years," Hochstein said. Now, though, surging uranium prices are prompting mines such as that owned by U.S. Energy to reopen in the West. Uranium is selling above $21 per pound. It sold as low as $7.50 per pound in 2001. The surge is occurring because some are concerned uranium supplies for power plants worldwide may be within a decade of outstripping existing supplies. U.S. Energy's proposal, though, is not without critics. "It is just a bad idea to restart a mill to provide more fuel for existing nuclear powerhouses," said Sarah Fields, chairwoman of the Nuclear Waste Committee of the Utah Sierra Club's Glen Canyon Group. "We still don't have a solution to the spent fuel problem, and we're still dealing with the waste from all the other mills [shut down over the years]." Jason Groenewold of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah agrees reopening the mill is a bad idea. "Those mills leave a lot of toxic substances behind and often they have turned into dumps for radioactive waste," he said. Uranium mining boomed in Utah after miner Charles Steen in 1952 struck a deep bed of ore near Moab. By 1955, the year the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission announced a cooperative program between the federal government and the nuclear power industry to develop power plants, there were approximately 800 mines operating in the region. The industry, though, collapsed in 1962. Where once there were 26 processing mills operating in the country, the only one operating other than the International Uranium White Mesa mill near Blanding is a mill operated by Cotter Corp. in Colorado. steve@sltrib.com -------- MILITARY -------- africa Regime of tyranny and torture back to haunt Uganda By Adrian Blomfield in Kampala (Filed: 19/03/2005) UK Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/19/wuganda19.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/03/19/ixworld.html Suspected dissidents disappear after midnight visits to their homes; chilling screams can again be heard from Idi Amin's infamous torture chambers, reopened after a quarter of a century of disuse. From the few that escape come tales of punishment beatings and even mass executions. Welcome to President Yoweri Museveni's Uganda. One of Britain's favourite African states in recent years has, almost unnoticed in the West, become a sinister land where a corrupt regime uses its secret police to rule through fear. President Yoweri Museveni The reasons for this transition are not hard to fathom. Mr Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986, when his rebels marched triumphantly into the capital Kampala. Many of his countrymen believe he now wants to recast himself as that most African of leaders: a president for life. Signalling his intent to jettison the vestigial trappings of democracy his government still professes, Mr Museveni has set out to remove a constitutional provision that prevents him from standing in elections next year. Not all Ugandans are keen on the idea, but the government has ways of making them change their mind. Last year, Yasin, a taxi driver who occasionally chauffeured a senior opposition official around the countryside, was woken by a loud rapping at his door a few hours before dawn. The men who had come to arrest him were not policemen, but members of the widely feared Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). Yasin knew that the CMI, a shadowy spy agency directly answerable to the president, had no powers to arrest anybody. But he also knew better than to question his captors. He was taken to Makindye barracks, where some of the worst atrocities of Amin's infamous State Research Bureau, which used to force inmates to beat each other to death with sledgehammers, took place in the 1970s. "Every day for a week, they would hang me upside down and beat me with clubs," Yasin said. "They wanted to know names of people working for the opposition. I kept saying I didn't know any, but they wouldn't believe me." On his third day, Yasin watched as a fellow inmate, an elderly man accused of recruiting for the main opposition alliance, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), was killed using a method known as "Liverpool". The victim's head was placed in a bag that was repeatedly filled with water. To breathe, he had to drink it all, but the more he drank, the more bloated his belly became until his innards ruptured and he died in a pool of his own urine. The official existence of political parties was only allowed last year, under considerable western pressure. Until then Mr Museveni operated what he called a no-party system, in which every Ugandan belonged to an entity known as The Movement, which was headed by the president. In theory, the philosophy was supposed to rid Uganda of the ethnic and political divisions that helped cause the civil wars and dictatorships that characterised much of the country's history since independence from Britain in 1962. In practice it has allowed Mr Museveni to exert total control over most of his people. The leader of the FDC, Kizza Besigye, in exile in South Africa, has instructed his campaigners to dole out copies of Animal Farm during party rallies. But most people are too frightened to attend. Secret police infiltrate the rallies, noting down those who attend. It is usually supporters and low ranking FDC members who are taken to Makindye. As a means of spreading fear, it is an extremely effective method. Philip and his wife Juliet were picked up in January, accused of renting out their hall south of the capital for an opposition meeting. Like many fellow suspects, they were accused of supporting the People's Redemption Army (PRA), a shadowy rebel outfit the government links to the FDC. The Foreign Office Minister, Chris Mullin, says that it is likely the PRA does not exist. "Every night I was hung upside down over a pit of snakes while my wife was raped by army officers," said Philip, who was held in Room 21 of Mbale Police Station, another Amin torture chamber. "One time we had to move five dead bodies into a truck. Another time I was made to dig my own grave." Like Yasin, Philip and Juliet were released. Their captors told them to report what had happened to fellow villagers, but threatened them with death if they told anyone else. Certainly things are not as bad as they were under Amin, who killed half-a-million people in eight years of bloodshed. Mr Museveni remains popular in many quarters for bringing stability to the country. The president was long seen as an African role model in the West for his willingness to introduce economic reforms demanded by the World Bank. But many donors are now disgusted both by the repression and by the corruption in Mr Museveni's cabinet, many of whom are relatives of the president. "Museveni hoodwinked many donors for a long time and people wanted to see the glass as half full," a diplomat said. "We are now learning our lesson." But that lesson may have come too late. A gang of young thugs, known as the Kalangala Action Plan (KAP), is allegedly preparing to disrupt the elections. Styled on the youth wing of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party in Zimbabwe, the KAP was an effective tool of intimidation during flawed 2001 elections won by Mr Museveni. With an even greater risk of defeat if elections are free and fair, diplomats fear that the KAP could be responsible for serious violence and compound Uganda's human rights reputation still further. --------- asia Indonesia tests ties with 'arrogant' neighbor Mar 19, 2005 by Kalinga Seneviratne Inter Press Service http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/GC19Ae03.html JAKARTA - From Medan to Jakarta, Yogakarta, Surabaya, Solo and Batam, all across this vast archipelago Indonesian konfrontasi, or confrontation volunteer militias, are undergoing martial-arts training to attack what they call "arrogant Malaysia". The friendship between the two Southeast Asian Muslim neighbors has been strained in recent weeks over a disputed island off Indonesia's Kalimantan province. Both Malaysia and Indonesia are claiming ownership of the Ambalat island off northern Kalimantan and its seabed, which is believed to possess large quantities of petroleum and gas deposits. The dispute over the island flared up on February 16 when Malaysian state-owned oil company Petronas granted an oil exploration concession to the giant British-Dutch multinational Shell petroleum company. Since then, both countries have disputed each other's claim to the area and sent gunboats to protect their interests. Indonesia's Department of Transportation has also sent workers to build a lighthouse on Unarang Reef just off the island. Jakarta claims the Malaysian navy arrested and assaulted these workers before releasing them. While the Malaysian media has been mute on the issue, here in Indonesia the media has drummed up nationalist sentiments over the issue, which has been taken up by political and youth groups raising the specter of the Sukarno era "Smash Malaysia" campaign of 1963. While young people across the country have been enlisted as konfrontasi volunteers, some demonstrators have burned the Malaysian flag. Yet, leaders of both countries have appealed for refrain and vowed to settle the dispute by peaceful means. During a visit to Jakarta last week to meet his Indonesian counterpart to discuss the contentious issue, Malaysia's amicable foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, gave a series of media interviews to calm the waters and appealed to the Indonesian media to tone down its anti-Malaysian rhetoric. When asked by the popular Tempo magazine whether Malaysia was ready for war, Albar asked "what war?" He went on to assure Indonesia that war has never been an option considered by Malaysia. "Those who talk about war are the Indonesian media," he said. "Indonesian television talks about attacking Malaysia. I think they should tone it down." Confrontation between two countries that share a common religion, language and cultural traditions may sound somewhat out of place in the modern world. But, many analysts here argue that the latest confrontation is much more than just a dispute over territory. They point out that this comes hard on the heels of Malaysia's high-handed arrest and deportation of thousands of illegal Indonesian workers; while on the other hand, the Indonesian media has whipped up the Ambalat issue immediately after a controversial fuel-price hike by the government of newly elected President Susilo Bamabang Yudhoyono. "The Ambalat case has at least demonstrated how the spirit of nationalism has 'pushed back' waves of protests against the increase in fuel prices," observed political science lecturer Israr Iskandar of Andalas University in Padang. Writing in the Jakarta Post this week, he warned that while the Ambalat case has indicated that nationalism is still strong in Indonesia, it runs the danger of burying beneath it the real people's issues, especially cost of living. But media analyst Wahyutama of the Jakarta-based media watchdog Habibie Center argues that the treatment of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia may well be the trigger for the current nationalist sentiments here. On March 1, Malaysia began rounding up and arresting undocumented workers - most of whom are Indonesians - following the end of a four-month amnesty. Those arrested could face heavy fines, jail sentences and whipping. "We cannot just simplify Indonesia's reaction to Malaysia as a result of media exposure to the Ambalat issue. The reaction is the accumulated emotions of the Indonesian people toward Malaysia-Indonesia relations, especially regarding Indonesian workers," Wahyutama told Inter Press Service in an interview. "I believe the emotions are addressed to the Malaysian government and not to the people. "There is a general feeling among Indonesian people of being humiliated and dishonored by Malaysia," Wahyutama noted. "The Ambalat conflict happened in a sequence with the sweep of Indonesian illegal workers from Malaysia," he added. "This policy is viewed by Indonesian people with disgust. It shows Malaysia has no respect for the Indonesian people - especially the cruel punishment like whipping meted out by the Malaysian government to Indonesians." Malaysia's decision to award a concession for oil exploitation and management in the Ambalat area to Shell indicated that Kuala Lumpur is sure the island is part of its territory. Indonesia, however, is also confident that the area is in its maritime territory. Jakarta says its claim to the area is supported by historical facts that Ambalat previously was part of the Bulungan Sultanate that since Indonesia's independence in 1945 has been incorporated into the Indonesian archipelago. The latest clash between the two neighbors is related to the dispute over the Sipadan and Ligitan islands in the same Sulawesi Sea - a dispute that was settled in Malaysia's favor by the International Court of Justice in 2002. Malaysia's claim over Ambalat and the Unarang Reef is based on the 2002 judgement. But because there is an overlapping territory, Indonesia has used the rules of the Convention of Law of the Sea to lay claim to portions of the island, situated off the land border between East Kalimantan and Malaysia's state of Sabah. Analysts believe that Indonesia will not go into international arbitration on this issue because the 2002 case was very costly, especially the pay for foreign lawyers. Malaysia too is not in a mood for a legal battle, something Foreign Minister Albar indicated during his visit here last week. The two countries are due to meet again next week to hammer out a possible joint oil exploration deal in a bid to diffuse tensions. -------- iran India firm on gas-pipeline deal with Iran despite U.S. opposition By Agence France Presse (AFP) Friday, March 18, 2005 http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=13517 NEW DELHI: India won't be deterred by Washington's opposition to its plans to buy gas from Iran, Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said Thursday, a day after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice voiced differences with New Delhi over the project. "It is all rubbish," the minister told reporters referring to media reports that India would shelve its plans to import gas from Iran via a pipeline that would pass through Pakistan due to Washington's concerns. Rice told a news conference in New Delhi after talks with Indian leaders that the U.S. had already expressed its opposition to last month's agreement by the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers to go ahead with the $4.5 billion pipeline linking Iran's South Pars gas field to India via southwest Pakistan. "I think that our views concerning Iran are very well known by this time. We have communicated to the Indian government our concerns about the gas pipeline cooperation between Iran and India," Rice said. Oil Ministry sources said Thursday the pricing of gas from Iran would in the final run determine the viability of the project as firms importing the gas would have to be able to sell it to domestic consumers at an affordable price. Aiyar has been pushing the pipeline to help meet the energy needs of India, which imports more than two-thirds of its oil and gas supplies. India's Cabinet, after years of dithering, last month allowed the Oil Ministry to enter discussions with countries in the region for supply of gas by pipeline to meet the ever-growing needs of the burgeoning economy. Talks between India, Pakistan and Iran on the planned pipeline are to be held in Islamabad soon, with Aiyar expected to travel to Pakistan for the meeting. Negotiations on the pipeline began in 1994 but little headway was made because of tensions between Pakistan and India, which have fought three wars since gaining independence in 1947 from Britain. During Rice's visit to India, the first leg of her six-nation swing through Asia, she and Indian leaders agreed to strengthen their cooperation on defense and energy matters but begged to differ on Washington's plans to sell arms to Pakistan, the gas pipeline and the lukewarm U.S. response to India's claims to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. -------- israel / palestine Israeli Leftists Suddenly Leaning Into Sharon's Camp Surprised by his Gaza pullout plan, liberals put aside their distrust to back the conservative prime minister against the extreme right. By Henry Chu Los Angeles Times Staff Writer March 19, 2005 http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news4/la2.htm JERUSALEM — For 20 years, Daniel Savitch has despised Ariel Sharon. The veteran left-winger voted against the Israeli prime minister, regards his warrior career with revulsion and openly questions Sharon's honesty and integrity. So Savitch appreciates the irony of the position Israeli leftists now find themselves in: rooting for the political survival of a man many of them have long loathed. The leftists haven't changed stripes, Savitch insists, but Sharon has, at least on one issue. The conservative leader, a steadfast supporter of Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands, has promised to uproot all 21 enclaves in the Gaza Strip this summer, a step long advocated by many on the left. "I don't trust the guy, but I don't think this is the main issue here," said Savitch, 43, the executive director of a Jerusalem synagogue. "Suddenly he's doing the things that should have been done long ago…. It's too dangerous not to back him, too dangerous not to give him a chance." Ever since the Israeli leader announced his intention last year to pull troops and settlers out of Gaza, the usual party lines and loyalties have been scrambled as politicians and voters struggle to grasp the implications of a move few had expected. The prime minister's about-face on Gaza has been especially discomfiting for the Israeli left, which has been in disarray since the collapse of the 1993 Oslo peace accords. Grudgingly, many left-leaning Israelis and officials say they are swallowing their personal distaste and pulling for Sharon to prevail against the extreme right and the religious nationalists who want to derail his Gaza pullout plan. "I support Sharon in spite of Sharon," one veteran left-winger said with a groan. "It's extremely ironic that we now take up the campaign in favor of Ariel Sharon's program. However, history is full of surprises," said Janet Aviad, a leader of the Israeli activist group Peace Now, a longtime opponent of Jewish settlements.! "One shouldn't be stereotyped or locked into any one position," she said. "When you see a person who adopts your positions and moves in the direction that at least a majority of Israelis now support, vis-a-vis the settlements in Gaza, you have to support him." He needs the help. Although Sharon's Cabinet has approved his disengagement plan, to start at the end of July, opponents threaten to kill it by torpedoing his budget in parliament. Failure to pass a spending plan by the end of this month will automatically trigger new elections and imperil the pullback. That has created an uncomfortable dilemma for some on the left, who wholeheartedly support evacuating the Gaza settlements but strongly object to Sharon's spending plan. Zehava Galon, a leftist member of parliament with the Meretz-Yahad party, believes the proposed budget would help the rich and hurt the poor, which she can't abide. But if she votes against it, Galon could help bring down the government. "We are really in a Catch-22. On the one hand, we can't accept this horrible budget. It affects so many people in such a bad way, the most miserable people in Israel," Galon said. "On the other hand, we can't afford for us to be blamed that because of us, [Sharon] couldn't implement his plan." Polls consistently indicate that a strong majority of Israelis favor withdrawing the military and settlers from Gaza. A survey published this month by the daily newspaper Haaretz showed that if a referendum were to be held on the pullout, more than 80% of voters from each of the left-leaning Meretz-Yahad, Shinui and Labor parties would back it. By contrast, 52% of voters from Sharon's conservative Likud Party would support it, demonstrating "the extent to which Sharon is cutting himself off from his own party," the newspaper said. In a more surprising finding, a majority of Labor Party voters surveyed — a group traditionally hostile toward Sharon — gave him a grade! of 8 or higher, on a scale of 1 to 10, for his performance as prime minister. "I think everyone is united now in the position that our task at the moment is to support him," Peace Now leader Aviad said — words the longtime activist never thought she would utter. Political analysts say Sharon is no mere ideologue but, in many ways, a pragmatist and a canny operator. When he entered politics in the early 1970s, for example, he joined a more dovish faction within Likud, but later took on more hawkish positions for tactical reasons, political scientist Abraham Diskin said. "He was quite pragmatic over time," said Diskin, who teaches at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Whether Sharon is acting tactically or out of new convictions is beside the point for Aviad. "I don't know if he's converted or seen the light. I don't know about anything that happened in his brain or heart that brought this change about," she said. "I just see that he has changed his mind and is doing the work we would have expected a left-wing prime minister to do." A common, if mournful, refrain on the left these days is that only Sharon has the power and credibility to push through a withdrawal from Gaza. Many say there is no leader on the left who is experienced or popular enough to manage such a feat. "In the present political setup, he's the only leader who can dismantle even one house in a settlement," said Uri Avnery, a veteran leader of what is known in Israel as the radical left. "This is to a great extent the fault of the left wing, which did not succeed in creating political forces and bringing forth political leaders who have the power and authority and charisma to do anything." Avnery called on fellow political travelers to remain clear-eyed about Sharon, and to be vigilant about what he intends to do post-Gaza. But love him or hate him, he said, the battle over the Gaza settlements represents a pivotal moment in Israel's history, a harbinger, perhaps. "Thi s will be the big fight," Avnery said, "and in this big fight we have no choice but to support Sharon." If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives. -------- us Kids, Did Your Recruiters Tell You About the Shallow Graves? by Dr. Teresa Whitehurst, March 19, 2005 Antiwar.com http://www.antiwar.com/whitehurst/?articleid=5258 "Look! You fools! You're in danger! Can't you see? They're after you! They're after all of us! Our wives…our children…they're here already! You're next!" ~Dr. Miles Bennell, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers Before you or someone you love enlists, check out the lessons you'd better learn from the aptly-named article, "No Soldier Left Behind": "Going to the morgue can get some of these soldiers used to the initial shock of seeing death in its various forms," [Captain Kelly] Dobert explained. "But there is nothing that can prepare them for the shock of seeing the human remains with any type of decomposition of someone who looks like them, wearing the same uniform." Dobert uses other unusual training methods to make sure soldiers perform their job with skill, reverence, dignity and respect. She's not above scraping road kill off the highway to teach soldiers about the smell of decomposing flesh." Soundings, 3/9/05 Decomposing flesh: Not exactly what Mike had in mind when, heartbroken over a girl at the age of 16, he called the recruiter who'd been hounding him and said, "I'm signing up." I'm still awed by the fact that his parents cosigned the enlistment form, but they're a busy family with several kids to worry about, so busy perhaps that they haven't kept up with the news about America's new mission to install democracy (and US control) all over the world: That means all hands on deck, and all bodies on the front line. I'm sure Mike's family hasn't seen that article, or they'd know the military is ramping up a unit called "Mortuary Affairs," adding a second unit for the first time since the Korean War. Now why do you suppose the US military needs more gravediggers? "Our troops will come home when Iraq is capable of defending herself," Bush told reporters. "Bush: No Timetable for Troops Coming Home," ABC News, 3/16/05 With many, many countries left to conquer, the Bush administration is going to need to keep the enlistee (or draftee) assembly line running at top speed. As the Bush wars wag on, I predict less time spent on costly military training for combat at one end, accompanied by more demand for coffins on the other. Mike, now 17 and no longer depressed, has come to the same conclusion. He's over that girl and wants to live for a long time, even if nobody calls him a hero or gives him a purple heart or a funeral with military honors. He wants out of that Faustian bargain because he's realizing that the War of Terror is a global game of Risk that old men play with the bodies of the young. I told him he has the right to change his mind, despite the fact that some recruiters scare kids by threatening criminal prosecution if they do so. Recruiters are filling our kids' heads with tales of glory, so we have to fill the gap by telling them the truth about these "armies of one." Caring parents and teachers have a duty to communicate with troubled and ambitious kids alike, letting them know that they don't have to join the military to get over a broken romance or do heroic things. Mike, like all high school kids, should be given full informed consent regarding what they're getting themselves into—but I'm afraid they're not. Let's take a closer look at "No Soldier Left Behind," and what the recruiters aren't telling our impressionable youth. Kids, Did Your Recruiter Tell You: What Will Happen If You Don't Want to Kill People? The Bush military has a fiendishly creative solution for problematic pro-life values: Long story short, if you don't want to kill people, get ready to handle dead bodies: "Mortuary Affairs is the only specialty in the Army if a soldier can't handle it during AIT or in the field. The soldier can reassess without any negative affect on his career, Dobert explained. 'But we aren't like Lurch from "The Addams Family,"' Shaw laughed." "Shaw wanted to go into the military because he had a strong urge to protect the country. 'But I didn't want to kill people,' he explained. 'I wanted to be in the Army, and one of the things my aptitude test said was I am good with people. So while he was looking over job options that wouldn't have him shooting people, he noticed way at the bottom a job listing called 'Graves Registration.'" That You Should Respect 'Enemy' Soldiers—But Only After They're Dead? Ironically, the article reveals the moral relativism of today's no-holds-barred military culture when it describes soldiers' belated dignity, reverence and respect for soldiers on the other "side" whom the military teaches our kids to disrespect and demonize until the moment of death. This post-mortem respect for human life is bound to confuse young recruits, who know very well that respect for "the enemy" has no place in a military where soldiers on the other side are captured and tortured, or captured and killed: "She stressed the soldiers must treat every body with "dignity, reverence and respect," no matter what uniform the body is wearing. That means if an enemy soldier has been left behind, the ninety-two mikes will also inter that body in a temporary grave rather than leaving it to the elements." About the 'Personal Affects Pouches'? From the sound of things, dying in Iraq isn't a permanent condition; the article glows about Mortuary Affairs' gift for turning destroyed bodies "back into the people they used to be." How's it done? By gently rifling through your most private letters, pictures of your girlfriend, etc. after you're dead: "Sometimes it's the small things. For Army Sgt. A.G. Shaw, a Mortuary Affairs specialist, it's the pictures and letters he gently packs away into black bags called personal affects pouches. The little things that turn a destroyed body back into the man or woman he or she used to be." About the 'Human Remains Pouches'? The article takes pains to note that soldiers in Mortuary Affairs aren't morticians. Indeed, their task is far more gruesome than that: "These soldiers collect the battle dead and their affects so they may be sent home to Dover Air Force Base…Generally, soldiers in battle will bring back their dead. But in some cases, that isn't possible, so Mortuary Affairs specialists are tasked to find the fallen soldiers and place them in the black bags everyone else refers to as 'body bags.' To ninety-two mikes, they are 'human remains pouches.'" About the Shallow Graves? Christians believe that God creates life, but War Presidents take it away. I have to wonder what Jesus would say about all those soldiers, many of them just kids, deteriorating in their respective uniforms: "The dead are placed in an orderly fashion in rows 3 feet deep, up to 70 feet long with 10 remains in each row. American bodies are separated from coalition forces, which are also separated from the enemy. The soldiers will tag each row with metal stakes identifying the remains in that row, and take a Global Positioning System (GPS) location so disinterment can take place whether it is a day, month or even a year from the time of interment. Identifying the dead at this point is critical because the remains will deteriorate in the pouch…" "Even a brief glance at our society reveals that our greatest leaders—those remembered not for wining this or that battle or election or Emmy award but for influencing multitudes—have been those whose power came from a zeal for helping others….You may want to become a leader, or you may already be a leader. You may yearn for the power to do great things—and to be loved and appreciated for what you do. These are natural desires that can channel your energies in positive or negative directions, depending on how you handle them." Jesus on Parenting --------- Two Years Later, Iraq War Drains Military Heavy Demands Offset Combat Experience By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 19, 2005; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48306-2005Mar18?language=printer Two years after the United States launched a war in Iraq with a crushing display of power, a guerrilla conflict is grinding away at the resources of the U.S. military and casting uncertainty over the fitness of the all-volunteer force, according to senior military leaders, lawmakers and defense experts. The unexpectedly heavy demands of sustained ground combat are depleting military manpower and gear faster than they can be fully replenished. Shortfalls in recruiting and backlogs in needed equipment are taking a toll, and growing numbers of units have been broken apart or taxed by repeated deployments, particularly in the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve. "What keeps me awake at night is, what will this all-volunteer force look like in 2007?" Gen. Richard A. Cody, Army vice chief of staff, said at a Senate hearing this week. The Iraq war has also led to a drop in the overall readiness of U.S. ground forces to handle threats at home and abroad, forcing the Pentagon to accept new risks -- even as military planners prepare for a global anti-terrorism campaign that administration officials say could last for a generation. Stretched by Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States lacks a sufficiently robust ability to put large numbers of "boots on the ground" in case of a major emergency elsewhere, such as the Korean Peninsula, in the view of some Republican and Democratic lawmakers and some military leaders. They are skeptical of the Pentagon's ability to substitute air and naval power, and they believe strongly that what the country needs is a bigger Army. "The U.S. military will respond if there are vital threats, but will it respond with as many forces as it needs, with equipment that is in excellent condition? The answer is no," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.). To be sure, the military has also benefited from two years of war-zone rotations, and from a historical perspective it is holding up better than many analysts expected. U.S. troops are the most combat-hardened the nation has had for decades, and reenlistment levels have generally remained high. The war has also spurred technological innovation while providing momentum for a reorganization of a military that in many ways is still designed for the Cold War. Moreover, military leaders are taking steps to ease stress on the troops by temporarily boosting ranks; rebalancing forces to add badly needed infantry, military police and civil affairs troops; and employing civilians where possible. Yesterday, defense officials worried about recruiting announced that they will raise the age limit, from 34 to 40, for enlistment in the Army Guard and Reserve. The Pentagon is spending billions to repair and replace battle-worn equipment and buy extra armor, radios, weapons and other gear. Yet such remedies take time, and no one, including senior officials, can predict how long the all-volunteer force can sustain this accelerated wartime pace. Recruiting troubles, especially, threaten the force at its core. But with a return to the draft widely viewed as economically and politically untenable, senior military leaders say the nation's security depends on drumming up broader public support for service. "If we don't get this thing right, the risk is off the scale," said Lt. Gen. Roger C. Schultz, director of the Army National Guard, the military's most stressed branch. A Tough Sell At dusk the night the Iraq war started in March 2003, Staff Sgt. Spurgeon M. Shelley was near the Kuwaiti border, watching the orange glow of missiles streak overhead as he guided one Marine ammunition convoy after another north across the line of departure. Manning a dirt berm while wearing his gas mask and full chemical suit, Shelley was determined to make it home alive to see his daughter, Lena, 2. "I'm going to do whatever I have to, to survive," he told himself. Today, Shelley is on duty in what he calls a "one-man fighting hole" on another battlefield -- a Marine recruiting station in Lexington Park, Md., in St. Mary's County -- with a mission to persuade young men and women to enlist, and probably go to war. One recent night, after making dozens of fruitless phone calls to high school students, Shelley said his recruiting job is more taxing than combat. "I hear 'no' more times in one day than a child would hear in their entire childhood," he said. "If I had hair, I'd pull it out." The active-duty Army and Marine Corps, and five of six reserve components of the military, all failed to meet at least some recruiting goals in the first quarter of fiscal 2005, according to Defense Department statistics. The active-duty shortfalls came amid rising concern among Army and Marine officials that their services risk missing annual recruiting quotas for the first time this decade. Shelley, for example, has signed up four people in nearly six months, despite working 16-hour days. Asked why recruiting is so difficult, he has a quick reply: "The war." Increasingly, surveys show that the main reason young American adults avoid military service is that they -- and to a greater degree their parents -- fear that enlisting could mean a war-zone deployment and death or injury. One survey showed such fears nearly doubling among respondents from 2000 to 2004. Indeed, today's recruiting problems reflect a widespread concern dating from the conception of the all-volunteer force in 1973 -- that a military composed wholly of volunteers would not supply adequate troops for a lengthy ground war. But confidence in the force has since grown as it gained discipline and professionalism. Meanwhile, overseas missions proliferated, even as the military downsized drastically. The Army shrank from 40 active-duty and National Guard divisions during the Vietnam War to 28 when the Cold War ended, and it has 18 now. The military is seeking to rebuild forces, adding temporarily 30,000 Army soldiers and 5,000 Marines. But the war isn't the only obstacle. Rising college attendance and an expanding job market are giving high school graduates more choices. "It's times like this when unemployment is reaching 5 percent that is a critical level" for undercutting recruitment, said Curtis L. Gilroy, director of accession policy for the Defense Department. To meet its targets, the Army is considering expanding the use of enlistment bonuses of as much as $20,000. Both the Army and the Marines are adding hundreds of recruiters, who "will have to work very, very hard," Gilroy said. Shelley's situation exemplifies the pressure on today's recruiters. Up at 6:30, he consults his "plan of attack," a white sheet of paper on which he pencils in his activities by the hour. At lunchtime, he hits fast-food restaurants. When school lets out at 2:45, he starts calling potential recruits at home. In early evening, he goes to gas stations or the 7-Eleven, scouting for youths with "less desirable" jobs. At night, he is out "AC-ing," or "area canvassing," until 10:30. Palming the steering wheel of his steel-gray Dodge Stratus one night, Shelley cruises slowly past a Chick-fil-A. Scanning the cars, he estimates who's in the restaurant and whether it's worth going in. It's not. He makes one last, failed pitch of the day -- to an overweight young man stacking tomatoes at Giant -- and heads home. As long as the war drags on, recruiting won't improve, he predicts. "I think it's going to get worse." Growing Demands As the military struggles to find fresh recruits, there is unprecedented strain on service members and their families. Since 2001, the U.S. military has deployed more than 1 million troops for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 341,000, or nearly a third, serving two or more overseas tours. Today, an entrenched insurgency in Iraq ties down 150,000 U.S. troops, inflicting upwards of 1,500 deaths so far -- more than 10 times the number killed in the major combat operations that President Bush declared ended on May 1, 2003. Because of the spreading violence from the insurgency, coupled with a smaller foreign coalition than was hoped for, the U.S. Army and Marines in particular have scrambled to keep a force of roughly 17 brigades in Iraq until now, rather than draw down to eight brigades or even be out altogether, according to previous military projections. Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace Jr., the Army's operations chief, is a kind of circus master responsible for juggling limited units and equipment and prioritizing who does what. Ringed by organizational charts in his Pentagon office, the West Point graduate from Richmond ticked off the far-flung corners from which the Army has had to muster forces. "We've deployed units of the Old Guard!" he said, referring to the first-ever deployment of the ceremonial guard from Fort Myer, when a company was dispatched to Djibouti last year. "We've reached up inside of Alaska and grabbed the forces up there," he said. "Korea! Who would have ever thought that we would have deployed a combat formation?" he said, referring to a brigade sent from South Korea to Iraq. Two years ago, the Army released 2,500 recruiters so they could ship out with tactical units, officials say. The Marines also sent scores fewer people to recruiting school because they were needed for military operations. Reenlistment rates, which have remained strong despite lengthy combat tours, took a slight downturn in the active-duty Army and Army National Guard during the first four months of fiscal 2005. The Army met 94 percent of its target for getting first-term soldiers to reenlist, and it hit 96 percent among those in mid-career. An earlier study of troops in Bosnia showed they were initially more likely to reenlist than those who had stayed home, but their renewal rates dropped as the number, length and danger of deployments increased. "I worry about the soldiers with the second and third tour . . . since 9/11," Cody, the Army vice chief, told reporters Thursday. As it rounds up troops for deployments, the Army has had to allocate limited equipment. It has shuffled thousands of items from radios to rifles between units, geared up new industrial production, and depleted the Army's pre-positioned stocks of tanks, Humvees and other assets to outfit units for combat. Army stocks in Southwest Asia are exhausted, and those in Europe have also been "picked over," one U.S. official said. Roughly half of the Army and Marine equipment stored afloat on ships has been used up, the official said. Refilling the stocks must wait until the Iraq war winds down, Army officials say. Meanwhile, a sizable portion of Marine and Army gear is in Iraq, wearing out at up to six times the normal rate. Battle losses are mounting; the Army has lost 79 aircraft and scores of tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. "We are equip-stretched, let there be no doubt about it. . . . This Army started this war not fully equipped," Cody said in recent congressional testimony. The priority on allocating scarce resources to deployed units means that forces rotating back home -- especially reserve units -- are dropping in readiness. In many cases, they are being rated at the lowest level, C4, because of a lack of functioning equipment, required training or manpower. "The Army in the aggregate is reporting readiness levels that are less today than they have been in the past," said Paul W. Mayberry, deputy to the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. The Pentagon says that by rotating duties, it maintains enough ready forces and pre-positioned equipment to handle a crisis on the Korean Peninsula and other contingencies. But U.S. lawmakers are concerned. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said he worries primarily about the U.S. ability to respond if "some problem should arise on the Korean Peninsula." "How capable are we of handling another major conflict?" asked Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "It's pretty obvious that it would be incredibly difficult because of the portion of our resources devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan. What if a conflict broke out with North Korea or Iran?" Feeling the Strain Of all the military branches, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve are suffering the most, as they provide between a third and half of the troops in Iraq, despite a legacy of chronic shortages in their manning and equipment. "The real stress on the system was the fact that no one envisioned that we would have this level of commitment for the National Guard," which shipped seven combat brigades to Iraq and Afghanistan for the most recent rotation, Cody said. Because the Army traditionally undersupplies Guard and reserve units, few had the troops or gear needed when mobilized. As a result, large numbers of soldiers and equipment were shifted from one unit to another, or "cross-leveled," to cobble together a force to deploy. "We were woefully underequipped before the war started. That situation hasn't gotten any better. As a matter of fact, it gets a little bit worse every day, because we continue to cross-level," Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told Congress this month. The widespread fracturing of units is making it increasingly difficult for the Army to assemble viable forces from the remaining hodgepodge -- most of which have low readiness ratings, Army figures show. "It's a little bit like Swiss cheese. We've taken out holes in the units," Lovelace said. "Those holes are a lot of times leaders, and they are hard to grow." Already, the Guard and Reserve have deployed the vast majority of their forces most needed for fighting counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan -- such as military intelligence, civil affairs, infantry and military police -- bringing into question whether the Pentagon's two-year limit on reserve mobilizations is sustainable. "Can we do this forever? No. We can't do this forever at current levels," the Army National Guard's Schultz said in an interview. In a sign of deeper problems, career citizen-soldiers frustrated by broken units and long, grueling war-zone duties are increasingly leaving the Guard. Attrition among career guardsmen is running at nearly 20 percent, said Schultz, who expects that as many as a third of the members of some units rotating back from Iraq will quit. Recruitment is sluggish, reaching just 75 percent of the target for the first quarter of fiscal 2005 -- meaning that the Guard is unlikely to reach its desired strength of 350,000 soldiers this year. The viability of the Army Guard and Reserve will prove decisive, senior Army leaders say, as they consider in 2006 whether to permanently increase the size of the active-duty Army, and if so by how much. It also marks a critical test of the military's ability to appeal to the civilian population, not only with bonuses and education benefits, but also with an ethos of self-sacrifice that it considers the bedrock of the all-volunteer force. "For the all-volunteer force to work, it has to work all the time, not just in peacetime," Schultz said. "It's now time to answer the call to serve, to assemble on the village green." ---------- Air Force to Build Up Its Drone Supply Reuters Saturday, March 19, 2005; Page A04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48549-2005Mar18.html The Air Force said yesterday that it plans to buy enough Predator drones to equip 15 squadrons over the next five years, up from three currently, to use in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots. "The increase is in response to the escalating demand for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability in the ongoing global war on terror," the Air Force said. The Predator, resembling an upside-down spoon, may be piloted from thousands of miles away. Some versions have been equipped to fire laser-guided anti-armor Hellfire missiles in addition to collecting intelligence. The Air Force would spend $5.7 billion over the next five years for the drones, built by privately owned General Atomics Aeronautical System Inc. of San Diego, said Capt. Shelley Lai, a spokeswoman. The expanded number of brigades, each consisting of about 12 Predators, would be used to support U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other, unspecified missions, Lai said. "If there's a homeland security mission, that has not been defined yet," she said. The Air Force plans to set up new Predator squadrons in Texas and Arizona in 2006 and 2007 and in New York in 2009, she said. Remotely piloted aircraft, including Northrop Grumman Corp.'s high-flying Global Hawk, play a growing role in U.S. military operations, providing such things as reconnaissance images and battlefield video. Less expensive than manned warplanes, they also keep U.S. pilots out of harm's way. The expanded reliance on such remotely piloted spy planes underscores the shift in how the United States gathers intelligence, said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a research group in Arlington. "During the Cold War, the United States relied very heavily on satellites in orbit to find Russian missiles silos and to track the Red Army," he said. "Today's threats often require getting much closer to the enemy so that you can see small bands of terrorists or listen in on cell phone conversations," Thompson said. The current three active-duty Predator squadrons are based at Nellis Air Force Base and Indian Springs Auxiliary Field in Nevada. --------- Army Buys 8,000 Jammers To Equip Troops Agence France-Presse March 18, 2005 http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_jammers_031805,00.html The U.S. Army is buying over 8,000 electronic jammers to protect its troops in Iraq from improvised bombs but there is "no silver bullet" against the favored weapon of Iraqi insurgents, a top army general said Thursday. General Richard Cody, the army's vice chief of staff, nevertheless said U.S. casualties from so-called "improvised explosive devices," or IEDs, have dropped by 40 percent since a largely secret effort to develop defenses against them was launched 18 months ago. "There's no silver bullet at this time," he told reporters. "We do have a combination of things we're doing. We are buying millions of dollars worth of jammers that are capable. So we're not waiting for the silver bullet." Members of Congress have criticized the army for being slow to equip troops with jammers. Cody said the army took money from other programs in December to buy 8,000 more jammers. The army has checked out all commercially produced jammers, but they vary in effectiveness, he said, adding that few U.S. industries were making jammers before Iraq. Statistics on every IED attack since October have been fed into a data base, yielding "great predictive pattern analysis," he said. "We have seen a decline in effectiveness of the IEDs against us. But today or yesterday we lost two soldiers, and eight wounded. It's still out there," he said. -------- A Draft By Any Other Name...Is Still Wrong Exposing the Coming Draft CounterPunch Weekend Edition March 19 / 20, 2005 By TOM REEVES http://www.counterpunch.org/reeves03192005.html Articles in CounterPunch and elsewhere recently have given opposite views on whether the return of the draft is likely--and even whether a draft should be opposed at all. Noam Chomsky (Feb. 2) takes the strong pro-draft stand: "I have always favored a draft," he has said. Jacob Levich did a good job (Feb. 4) of decimating Chomsky's a-historical assertion that colonial wars have never been waged successfully with conscripts--always with professional armies and mercenaries Chomsky would say that's what we have in Iraq--and he would be right. Chomsky would also say it was the draft that pumped up student protests in Vietnam, and he would also be right there--partly (see below). Jacob Levich is also right to warn that a 'bipartisan effort' is now in the works to restore the draft, and that whatever its appeal as a movement-booster, it should be anathema to all Americans who love freedom and hate war. But the buzz and anti-buzz about the draft continues. On the one hand, headlines blare that the military draft is coming back. Internet sites and alternative media continue to promote this idea. Several articles have appeared in the mainstream press recently: "The Return of the Draft" in the February Rolling Stone, with a decidedly anti-draft stance; and "The Case for the Draft," in the March Washington Monthly, a pro-empire centrist magazine. Yet during the election debates in November, both Bush and Kerry categorically denied that either would allow the activation of a draft. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the idea as ridiculous, noting that he has always supported the 'volunteer army' which he helped create and is now "reorganizing." Most major media called the 'draft scare' pure urban myth created by internet rumor mills. The Selective Service System website states categorically that there are no 'active plans' to revive a draft. What are Americans to think--especially those now in their late teens and twenties who would be subject to forced military service if a draft were re-enacted? Jacob Levich has done a good job in CounterPunch of outlining the basic elements needed to answer this question. He clearly reveals the practical reasons to think a draft is likely soon, and the ethical and political reasons to oppose it. But most young Americans remain skeptical that a draft is likely. They would agree with most pundits that politicians of either party seek at all costs to avoid raising the specter of a revived draft. As Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris said in the Washington Monthly article: "...the draft (has) replaced Social Security as the third rail of American politics." For most progressive young Americans the draft seems far off, compared to more pressing issues like the War in Iraq or erosions of civil liberties by the ever-expanded Patriot Act. Young Americans need to be clear: both parties--Republicans and Democrats--are parties of war and parties of empire. Likewise, both ideological stances--liberal and conservative--rationalize and memorialize war and empire, each with a particular bent and emphasis. Both parties and both philosophies have vested interests in the powers and accouterments of the warfare state--that is, the total, modern state, with absolute control over its citizens in the name of national interest and security. Conservatives are more divided over empire than liberals--with strong libertarian and isolationist wings. In some ways, liberals have been the worst offenders--the most brutal war mongers, the most thoroughgoing statists. They always have been: Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, to name a few. JFK laid it out: "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." The Bay of Pigs and Kennedy's order of the assassination of Diem in Vietnam reveal Kennedy's leanings. Nixon was more cautious than Kennedy--and certainly than Johnson--in pursuing war and empire. Nixon dared to recognize China; it was he who finally extricated the U.S. from the Vietnam War, and it was under his Presidency that the draft was finally ended. (It should be noted that he was pushed into these measures by a massive, well-organized anti-war and draft resistance movement.) Both parties have promoted the growth of the U.S. empire throughout the 20th century, and both have supported colonial wars, though these were disguised as the cold war, and now as the war against terrorism. However much leaders of both parties protest--especially Bush and Rumsfeld who send Americans to die in Iraq-- now that the U.S. is firmly set on an imperial course, this will provoke wars which will demand more and more fighters. Even if Democrats were not so weak and disorganized, they would do little to staunch the bloodshed. John Kerry favored enlarging the army and sending more troops to Iraq. The liberal spokesman for the Democrats, Chairman Howard Dean, always emphasizes that Democrats favor a strong military as much as Republicans. As Charles Moskos, a prominent military sociologist, said just after 9/11, "We're in a new kind of war. It's time for a new kind of draft." The Washington Monthly piece calls it "a 21st century draft." As outlined in the now infamous Selective Service memo of February 2003, or by Moskos in his articles, and now by the Washington Monthly proposal of March 2005, it will be a much more efficient draft, more universal (women as well as men), more complex and more sinister. It will demand that all young people be registered in a massive data base that details their skills and strengths, their weaknesses and dalliances. It will know who are linguists and who are likely good at killing--and it will draft them to relevant tasks. It will draft for 'homeland security' as well as duty overseas--for border guards and immigration cops--and for computer nerds and medics. It won't even be called a draft--more likely, 'national service,' 'homeland service,' or 'universal service.' Yet when grunts are needed on the battlefield--it is likely that some form of the lottery will still be there to call them up. Donald Rumsfeld, who has indeed always pushed the concept of a 'citizen army,' has also always seen a lottery for compulsory service as a back-up for national emergencies. Already in 1965, at a national conference on the draft, Rumsfeld predicted, "We will move eventually toward a volunteer army, but above (that system) it would be necessary to have a compulsory system as a secondary mechanism for raising manpower." The final method, he said, "for choosing those for combat, when not enough volunteers are at hand, should be the most random." March 5, 2005 . (For these and other early quotes from Rumsfeld, see Sol Tax, THE DRAFT, University of Chicago, 1967.) Sooner or later, as in the year of the first 'survivors' show, the televised draft lottery of 1970, young people will crowd around their sets again--maybe even singing the Three Dog Night hit, "One is the loneliest number"--as they did thirty-five years ago. During the Presidential campaign, before Rumsfeld's most recent fevered denials that a draft was in the offing--and before the Republican leadership shot down the liberal version put forward by Rep. Charles Rangel and others as a form of anti-war maneuvering, Family Circle magazine--largest circulation women's journal in the country, with 23 million readers--published Jan Goodwin's, "Could Your Child Be Drafted?" (July 2004.) Charles Moskos--who has advised four Presidents on military manpower--was quoted: "We cannot achieve the number of troops we need in Iraq without a draft." The conservative Republican, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, was even more blunt: "Don't listen to what they say. Look at what they do. The Administration says 'no' to the draft, but what we've gotten from the Pentagon says 'yes'." Family Circle sent out a press release, including recommended actions for parents to work against a draft and to keep their children from being drafted. More and more nations are abolishing conscription. France, Portugal, Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria and many other countries abolished their programs of military or national service in the late 1990s and since 2000--most also abolishing mandatory registration. Over 100 nations--the majority--now have no form of draft or registration, and about 15 have registration but not a draft (like the U.S.) Surely the U.S. would not buck that trend. Or would it? It is the U.S., not France or China or any other power, which claims that it alone must "bring freedom to the world." This would not be the first way in which the U.S. is out of step, and out of touch, with most of the rest of the world. HARD FACTS WON'T GO AWAY The 'urban myth' about the draft's return keeps getting stronger. Some rather hard military facts persist as well. The Washington Monthly piece put it starkly: "America can remain the world's superpower. Or it can maintain its current all-volunteer military. It can't do both." As Moskos predicted, the U.S. was unable to maintain its forces in Iraq without a draft. The Pentagon used what many have called the 'backdoor draft.' Since early 2004, at least 40,000 national guardsmen and reserves (who make up 40% of those serving in Iraq) were compelled to remain on active duty after their tours were up--and more will soon face a similar fate. Most of those affected were told officially that their enlistment was extended until 2031! This is called 'stop loss,' an emergency measure which the President is supposed to be able to use only when Congress has declared war or a national emergency--which is not the case. Yet--like many other evidently unconstitutional measures--stop loss is a reality. In addition to the extensions of duty for the national guard and reserves, more than 5,500 of the 'Ready Reserves' have been called up for Iraq or Afghan duty. These are older men and women whose regular reserve duty has ended--including grandmothers and grandfathers edging toward retirement, as well as men and women raising families and pursuing careers who had no idea they would be called again to duty. Perhaps the worst sign for those who would keep an all-volunteer force while trying to run an empire is that military recruitment has suffered tremendously as the U.S. media feature stories about young Americans killed in combat. The Army and Marines have failed to meet their recruitment quotas, with the army running about 40% short. The most telling statistic is that 35-40% of those who enlisted in 2003 did not complete their first term--because of health or mental health problems, drug testing failures, desertion, or application for conscientious objector status. (See "Decoding Rumsfeld" by Bill Galvin, Nov. 4, 2004, on the NSBICO.org website; and summary of information on the draft, compiled by Chris Lombardi, Central Committee of Conscientious Objectors website, objector.org). All three military academies, which saw an increase in applications after 9/11, now draw smaller pools of those seeking admission--ranging from 15 to 25% fewer as of early this year. (Baltimore Sun, Feb. 8, 2005) ROTCs are also shrinking--even as Republican student groups have called for their revival. If the ROTCs and the Academies cannot provide enough officers, the services will be in serious trouble very soon. (See Baltimore Sun, "Applications Decline," pages 1B and 4B, Feb. 8, 2005.) As many U.S. military experts had previously warned, Jane's Intelligence Digest--an independent and internationally respected review-- stated emphatically in August 2003 that "U.S. forces are severely overstretched." Jane's pointed out that "traditional calculations for every soldier deployed" indicate that two soldiers are needed in reserve and one is needed for "mainland supply and support." Congress today limits the active military to 1.4 million men and women. In fact, the Pentagon has illegally increased that number by as many as 30,000 without the pre-requisite Congressional approval, as Stan Goff pointed out in the on-line journal, From the Wilderness, more than a year ago ("Will the U.S. Reopen the Draft?", February 27, 2004). Carter (a former Army officer and writer on national security issues) and Glastris, in the Washington Monthly, make a compelling case that the number of men the U.S. can keep for more than a year in a hostile country during an occupation is only about 80,000 under current conditions. They argue that Iraq demands--as the Army Chief of Staff at the outset of the war claimed--at least 250,000, and that the U.S., as 'superpower' needs to have a 'surge force' of about 500,000 ready at all times for the hotspots around the world. The U.S. has military bases in 130 countries, as well as secret installations in Israel, Austria, England and elsewhere. More than 300,000 of the 482,000 soldiers in the U.S. army are deployed abroad--21 out of 33 regular army combat units were overseas (according to Goff). This alone should require, according to the Janes formulary, 900,000 reserve and support soldiers! Yet the U.S. military presence abroad doesn't stop there. The Pentagon will not release exact figures, but marines, air force and various special forces are scattered across the globe. Besides those in Iraq (more than 150,000 in early 2005, and Afghanistan (nearly 10,000), and other regular combat-ready troops in the former Yugoslavia, in Korea, and in Europe, there are a dozen special forces operations and military commitments in Haiti, Cuba (Guantanamo), West Africa (with ECOWAS), Sudan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Columbia (where U.S. special forces virtually control the local military), Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and elsewhere. Complications in any of these arenas could suddenly require more U.S. forces. In Korea, the U.S. is committed by treaty and Congressional action to up to 700,000 troops if the South is attacked by the North. And what if the U.S. decides it needs to take out North Korea's nuclear capabilities, unleashing a full-scale war there? Then there are the other 'axis of evil' nations the U.S. has indicated are worthy of invasion--Syria and Iran. These may not be invaded tomorrow, but as President Bush has said, "Presidents may never say never." By early March, Bush had given Syria a May deadline to withdraw completely from Lebanon or face--what? Invasion? The Pentagon has recently appeared to bow to recruitment and retention pressures and to criticism within the military about troop levels. In mid-March 2005 it issued press releases predicting that the force in Iraq may be reduced later this year. Even if this occurs--and if the insurgency does not grow as a result--U.S. foreign policy under Bush will require more troops sooner or later. An empire cannot be built, and certainly not expanded as Bush has promised (under the guise of "spreading freedom") without imperial troops. The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) is a bipartisan group of top ranking military and political figures including current White House advisors. In 1995, PNAC laid out a strategy and time-line for a new U.S. foreign policy agenda post-cold-war which now seems chillingly prescient. In February this year, PNAC issued an open letter to Congress and the President in which it denounced the "warping" of roles for the National Guard and the reserves. "Reserves are meant to be reserves," its letter stated. PNAC quoted General James Helmly, Chief of the Army Reserves, "The Reserves are a broken force" due to over-use in Afghanistan and Iraq. PNAC went on: "We are close to exhausting U.S. ground forces," even without assuming other battlegrounds. The solution? "Increase the size of the active duty army and marine corps--at least 25,000 per year over the next ten years." The Washington Monthly article insists this greatly under-states the need--which is not for an increase in the active-duty army (which requires a thirty-year commitment to volunteer soldiers and their families), but for a large short-term surge force which could only be guaranteed by conscription. Failing that, the Pentagon goes on with its conscription of national guard and reserves for longer and longer re-enlistment periods, calling the elderly Ready Reserves, and even "reactivating the disabled"--that is, severely wounded soldiers. (Al Jazeera--Dec. 2004--has estimated that deaths and permanently disabled soldiers in Iraq have already deprived the U.S. of about 9% of its manpower there.) The U.S. gets around the maximum troop levels by depending more and more on extremely expensive private armies (security consultants--that is outright mercenaries) for as much as $1,500--$2,000 per day (TIME, April 12, 2004, article by Michael Duffy). When asked in writing by fifteen Democratic Senators last year after the grisly slaughter of Blackwatch mercenaries, Rumsfeld admitted there were at least 30,000 armed consultants in various capacities in Iraq alone. A listing of the more than 200 deaths among these consultants reveals South Africans, Filipinos, Chileans, Egyptians, Arabs and others, as well as U.S. citizens. Quite a few special forces officers who completed their duty in Iraq understandably refused to sign up again (despite incentives of as much as $100,000), in order to be re-hired out of uniform for the same killing duties. DESERTIONS ESCALATE: IS EXILE STILL AN OPTION? Meanwhile, refusal to answer the stop loss recalls and other forms of what the military calls 'desertion' are also growing. The Pentagon admits there were 5,500 desertions last year--and some feel this figure is far too low. As many as 1/3 of the 4000 Ready Reserves called back for duty last year applied for exemption or simply did not show up. (New York Times, Nov. 16, 2004, article by Monica Davey.) Although the option to apply for conscientious objector status for active-duty soldiers has not been withdrawn (as it was during the Gulf War), the military is making the process so onerous that some of the hundreds applying have simply given up--and gone AWOL. Lawyers for the National Lawyers Guild task force on G.I. Rights have launched a John Doe lawsuit against the Department of Defense on the stop loss orders. Those who run the GI rights hot-line report tens of thousands of calls from those facing stop loss orders as well as others, seeking help to avoid combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. has been so short on combat troops, it has almost never punished the deserters, and has mostly stopped giving them dishonorable discharges--in some cases, returning to duty those apprehended or who return. Field commanders in Iraq who complain about this--deserters are hardly the best soldiers--are told that manpower gaps are so extreme that the crisis demands this new policy. Potential AWOL soldiers in Iraq should be wary of this policy, however. It is not universal and may change. There have been a hundred or more active-duty soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, possibly many more, who have turned up in various other countries, ranging from Syria to Britain--especially in Canada --where at least seven have applied formally for refugee status, and have been allowed to stay pending reviews of their cases by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). Toronto and Vancouver peace activists and lawyers representing some of the U.S. deserters claim that twenty more are about to begin the process, and possibly a hundred U.S. soldiers and their families are in those cities, still underground. (Toronto Star, January 9, 2005) Yet G.I. and draft counselors for the groups in the U.S. working in these areas warn that things have changed drastically for those who would 'dodge' military service by going abroad. Bill Galvin of the Center on Conscience & War (CCW) says he feels the Canadian government is not likely to grant refugee status to deserting U.S. soldiers. Some counselors believe that the new U.S. agreements with Canada and other countries, specifically the Smart Border Declaration (SBD) make it unlikely that deserters or conscription resisters will not be extradited. A look at the Canadian embassy website reveals that SDB and other joint border measures are designed to keep deserters (and others, such as suspected 'terrorists') from leaving the U.S. in the first place. Random checks inside the U.S. are already in place a few miles before many border crossings. Advance passenger notifications at airports screen those who would leave the U.S.--measures never taken before in U.S. history. Both Canada and Sweden--the two countries which took the bulk of the 55,000 U.S. military deserters and draft refusers during the Vietnam War--have now agreed they will not automatically exclude extraditing such people. Even those who travel to Canada before they are called to avoid registration or draft--or merely to escape the militarism now rampant in the U.S.--face much more difficult processes for permission to live and work. In the Vietnam days it was still possible to apply within Canada for landed immigrant status. Changes in Canadian immigration laws in 1975 and 1995 require that applicants for immigrant status return to the home country to do this, and the process can take many months. The U.S. has gotten ever tougher, say draft and military counselors, on Vietnam-era deserters and draft resisters who did not apply for President Carter's amnesty and who are now Canadian citizens, often refusing them permission to visit the U.S. for funerals and other family crises. Some draft counselors say flatly, "Forget Canada." Yet many Canadian peace activists insist that Canadians will never tolerate their government's refusal to shelter those who refuse to fight in what they see as immoral wars. Most mainstream articles--like "AWOL in America " by Kathie Dobie in the March Harper's, downplay desertions to Canada and assert that Canada will not grant refugee status as during the Vietnam war. Toronto Attorney Jeffry House, who represents five deserters, says that while simple refusal of military service is not enough for refugee status, other strong arguments exist. "Being forced to fight in what Canada sees as an immoral and illegal war ought to be grounds for refugee status," he says. While he believes the refugee boards are currently taking orders from the foreign affairs office which signed the SBD agreements with the U.S., he is confident that on appeal in Canadian courts, many Americans who refuse to fight will be welcomed, as they were during Vietnam. (Interviewed by the World Socialist Website, Feb. 10, 2005). Prime Minister Paul Martin, who has begun to buck the U.S. more and more, commented in December, in response to a reporter's question about the U.S. deserters' cases before the Refugee Board: "We don't discriminate when it comes to refugees. Canada is a nation of immigrants." This was taken so positively by those who support the U.S. resisters, that Martin's office issued a disclaimer that his remarks should not be taken as referring to specific cases before the IRB. (Ottawa Sun, Dec.30, 2004.) Lee Zaslofsky, who became a Canadian citizen after fleeing the draft during the Vietnam War, is one of the many former U.S. resisters now involved in the War Resister Support Campaign. "It's not just leftists here who support resisters--we are drawing from labor unions, the churches, a cross section of Canadians. About 23,000 have signed our petition to support those who resist the U.S. wars. The U.S. resisters receive a warm welcome as they travel all over Canada--Quebec, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, small towns as well as cities. People are offering to house them--sometimes in out-of-the-way places. To those who say, "forget Canada," he says, "Yes, there is the risk they may not be able to return. Maybe there won't be a Watergate and a turn-around in the U.S. as there was for us. But who knows--things do change over time. I say to those who come here, you must accept that you are becoming a Canadian, and be prepared for not going back. Brandon Hughey (one of those whose case has yet to be heard by the IRB) just celebrated his first anniversary in Canada. He is alive, working and safe, and he is not killing anyone. If it comes to the crunch and the appeals are exhausted, the Federal Immigration Minister will have to decide, and the Canadian public will not stand for our government to become the enforcement arm of the Pentagon." If he's right, the growing trickle of U.S. resisters in Canada could become a flood. (Telephone conversation with the writer, March 16, 2005.) It is now clear that there is already a severe military manpower crisis. If the U.S. continues or increases it's involvement in Iraq, which is nearly certain, and if there is U.S. involvement in other areas, the crisis will become extremely urgent, requiring an urgent solution--one that Rumsfeld and others dislike, but which even Rumsfeld has always said may become necessary in an emergency: "Conscription, compulsion of any sort, under our Constitution, requires a demonstrated need." (At the Presidential Commission on the draft at the University of Chicago, December 1966.) Many military experts believe that need has already been fully demonstrated. As Carter and Glastris put it in the Washington Monthly: "...there's the serious ethical problem that conscription means government compelling young adults to risk death, an to kill--an act of the state that seems contrary to the basic notions of liberty...In practice, however, our republic has decided many times...that a draft was necessary to protect those liberties." They and others believe the time has come again to overcome such ethical qualms--"if American wishes to retain its mantle of global leadership...." Or, more bluntly, if Rumsfeld, Bush and the neo-cons wish to complete the building of a total warfare and security state, as they clearly intend to do, some form of conscription must follow. A NEW KIND OF DRAFT FOR A NEW KIND OF WAR The type of draft now being considered--both by some liberals and by White House military advisors and the Selective Service System--most closely resembles what Israel has today (minus the ethnic and religious distinctions)--and perhaps the Bush assertion of the "new kind of war" against terror most closely mirrors the real and desperate conflict within Israel between Jews and Palestinians struggling for the same small piece of territory. Since its beginning in 1948, Israel has been a nation under siege by its Arab neighbors and the Palestinians from whom it carved out its territory. The Israeli national service requires three years of service for all Jewish and Druze men, two for all women--between age 17 and 50. Israel divides the type of service in three parts: military (compulsory for men, except orthodox women and Jewish or Druze theology students or teachers), security (police, fire, border, anti- terror units), and community service. All students may defer enlistment, but must complete a month of training each year. There are exemptions only for the ultra-Orthodox religious scholars, mentally or physically impaired, and criminals. Women who are pregnant or married with children may also be deferred. In practice, only about 40% of all women actually serve. In this religiously based land, Christians and Muslims are not eligible to serve. What makes the Israeli system relevant for the current discussion of a revived draft in the U.S., is its focus on homeland and border security, and its universal, comprehensive nature in service of a national interest assumed to be at extreme risk from terrorism. Of course neither Mexico nor Canada represent a threat to the United States as do Israel's neighbors, but since 9/11, Bush has adamantly asserted the immediate danger of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. This would clearly qualify as Rumsfeld's demonstrated need for conscription. Yet the main features of the Israeli system seem likely to be elements of any revised conscription in America. Just as Israel is a central factor in U.S. middle-eastern foreign policy, the 'war on terror,' essentially a war on Arab and other Muslim militants, will demand an Israeli-style security apparatus. Another feature of the Israeli system likely to be imitated in the U.S. is a special skills draft for health-care and other specialists, who may be forced to serve even beyond the mandated period. Finally, as in the U.S., the reserves are a major back-up for this system. All Jewish and Druze men remain on call until age 42, women until 24. In practice, men are now required to train for one month only until age 35, and women not at all, but all former enlistees may be called up at any time, especially if they have unique skills not satisfied by existing recruits. The Rangel plan requires two years' service for all persons between 18 and 34, with delays for schooling only until age 20. Women are included. Persons approved as conscientious objectors could still be chosen for non-combat military service. Although Rangel's Universal National Service Act was defeated overwhelmingly when the Republican leadership sprang a floor vote last October to embarrass those who warned about a coming draft, Rangel's office says he will re-introduce it in 2005. The Selective Service suggests, as was done during the lottery years 1970-1973, that 20 is a more appropriate and less controversial year to require such service. Both the Rangel bill and the Selective Service proposal have these same types of required service--with an emphasis on the new needs of Homeland Security. The Border Patrol, for instance, is having great difficulty recruiting the thousands of new guards mandated by Homeland Security. In the Selective Service plan, women would be included in the mass registration drive--to collect a vast array of personal and skills data--but would be exempt from combat service, as at present. They could choose non-combat military roles, homeland security, or community service. If not enough young people chose the military option during a war, the current draft lottery would be re-activated for both men and women not specifically drafted for skills like linguistics, engineering, computers, and health care. The Rangel plan, which is not clear about whether women could be drafted for combat roles, and which does not include the massive skills' data base, allows the President to choose the types of alternative service and the method of selection for those chosen to serve in each category. This certainly seems to guarantee the kind of class stratification that the "imperfect society" Rumsfeld mentioned forty years ago has always demanded. Perhaps Donald Rumsfeld hit the nail on the head in 1966, when he said, "Society will be imperfect tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, whether we have a voluntary or an involuntary system." As Rumsfeld said then, correcting social injustice and "imperfection" does not correlate with how we choose our soldiers. The Washington Monthly proposal suggests compelling only those who would attend four-year colleges and universities to perform at least 12 months of some kind of national service before being allowed to pursue their education. They repeat the same three types of service that are in the other proposals: community service, homeland security, and military service (with a choice for non-combat or combat duty). Under this highly unlikely scenario, only the elite would be required to serve. "Even if only 10 percent of the one-million young people who annually start at four-year colleges and universities were to choose the military option, the armed forces would receive 100,000 fresh recruits every year." This, they say, would avoid a lottery, and give 'choice' to America's best-educated young people--it would also provide a force that has the language and computer skills so lacking in the current force. They propose (as does the Rangel bill) GI Bill of Rights benefits, including scholarships, for all who serve--with higher pay and higher benefits for those who accept combat roles. They do not say what would be done if 10% did not choose combat roles in time of war, nor do they explain why such a draft, aimed only at elite students, would not in fact trigger massive protests. In whatever form, the '21st century draft' will be more comprehensive. Almost all women's organizations now support equal opportunities for women in the military, so it is highly unlikely that there would be a feminist movement against a truly comprehensive compulsory national service. Gay and lesbians cannot count on traditional homophobia to keep them out either. Their principal spokespeople have been demanding for years that homosexuality not be a reason for discharge from the military. Congress is considering elimination of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, on the grounds that it has been extremely costly--as much as $191 million since its inception in 1993, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO) report in February 2005. The author of the "Don't Ask" policy is none other than Charles Moskos, who is most visible among White House advisors in promoting the "new kind of draft." (Some who know him say he's angling to become director of an expanded selective service under Bush.) He told the Advocate, a gay/lesbian publication, that "the policy should be abandoned if there is to be a draft," simply because it would be too easy for people to use this as a way out. (Advocate, July 6, 2004.) DOES THE DRAFT PROMOTE PROTEST? DOES CONSCRIPTION GUARD AGAINST WAR AND EMPIRE? If conscription in some form is likely--and likely not to resemble the Vietnam-era draft, but more closely an Israeli-style national service--what are the arguments for it, from an anti-empire, anti-war perspective? The arguments in its favor: (1) If anyone must be forced to serve, a draft would be fairer; (2) A broad national service would allow choice, and serve community interests as well as military; (3) A 'citizen' army--that is one drawn from among all citizens--is less likely to fight wars of empire or wars for corporate interest, and more likely to recognize unjust wars and human rights atrocities. A variant of this argument is that it was the draft that led to massive student protests during Vietnam, and that without a draft, such protests will be muted. These are the arguments that lead some of the most stalwart anti-war activists either to support a draft or national service, or at least not to oppose it. Rep. Rangel and his band of anti-war liberals (with some conservative support) agree that the war in Iraq and other adventurist policies of the U.S. cannot be sustained by the current so-called volunteer army--which they call the 'poverty draft.' They believe that by instituting a universal national service, including a compulsory military draft if not enough volunteer (or by threatening one), Americans will simply not go along with wars like the present one in Iraq. They argue that the anti-war movement in the 1960s and early '70s would not have been nearly as strong had their not been a draft which threatened the sons of the elite. They insist that a volunteer army today is based on an economic draft of the poor--especially non-white poor (though Rangel insists he is speaking about all the poor, not simply blacks). If a truly universal draft were enacted--without deferments that would exempt almost all elite children--and if the sons (and daughters) of that elite--including the President's daughters, for instance--were forced into military service--the war would end, and U.S. policy would change. Further, they hold that the only form of 'fair' selection of manpower for combat in wartime is one that is random and truly universal. Congressmen Rangel insists that the current volunteer force, especially those who face combat in Iraq, is made up primarily of the poor and lower middle class men, who have accepted such dangerous work because of economic necessity (the poverty draft). Others have continued to stress that there are more Blacks and other minorities in the military, and in Iraq, than their numbers in the general population would warrant. This echoes the complaint during the Vietnam War (when draftees were cannon fodder) that Blacks took the brunt of fighting and dying. A review of ethnic demographics of the military during the Vietnam period and then recently shows a more complex picture. Racially, 11% of the 648,560 soldiers (including officers) who fought in the Vietnam War at its height were Black--when they were 13.5% of the general population. The Black percentage of combat marines and army infantry was 14%. Among the 1.8 million who fought in Vietnam at any time during the 20-year conflict, 16% were black, but of all U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam, 12% were Black. It is interesting to compare some religious demographic figures: though less than 25% of the general population was Catholic at the time, more than 33% of combat deaths in Vietnam were Catholic. (These statistics are all from Charles Moskos and Sibley Butler, BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE, Harper-Collins, 1996.) Before 1966, however, 20% of casualties in Vietnam were Black, while this figure dropped to 10% by 1971. There is no way to know if heightened Black consciousness, Black desertions and G.I. organizing, or the general awareness of race in America, led to military policies that reduced such casualties. Throughout this period, the draft was the primary means of recruiting combat soldiers for Vietnam. It is also important to note that Blacks only made up 1% of draft board members in 1966, and by 1971, only 5%. No wonder that a Gallup Poll in 1972 found that 76% of all Black soldiers opposed the war--draftee or volunteer. Chomsky and others call the military of the late Vietnam War period a broken military. One general at the time spoke of two armies in Vietnam: the smaller force of faithful soldiers who followed the officers, and a larger body of anti-war grunts--many of whom were Blacks, Hispanics, working-class whites--and some intellectual officers from the upper middle class who came via elite university ROTCs. It is unclear whether this broken force had anything to do with the draft or not. It is undeniable that the presence of Blacks increased in the voluntary force developed after 1972 , growing far beyond their percentage in the society at large. In 1964, 9% of all military manpower was Black, while in 1976, the figure had increased to 15%. By the time of the 1991 Gulf War, 23% of the (voluntary) military were Black (but only 11% of the deaths in that war were Black-- about as many as in Vietnam). By this time, though, Blacks were only about 11% of the general population. It would appear that this was the high point of Black participation in the U.S. military. Since then, percentages have dropped--by 2003, the Black percentage was about 20%, but only 10.6% of combat units. Of those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would appear (the statistics are somewhat confusing) that 11.2% are black--just over their percentage in the population. Hispanic deaths are 11.7%--while their percentage in the general society is higher now than Blacks--about 14%. As an academic and activist, I was in Haiti during the intervention by U.S. troops in 1993 to restore President Aristide under Clinton, and several times during the U.S. occupation that followed it. Likewise, I have been in Haiti three times recently--once immediately after the U.S. intervention last year under the second George Bush to remove Aristide. In the 1990s, I was struck by the number of Blacks, both as ordinary marines, and as officers--including quite a few Haitian-Americans. I was told by the U.S. military in charge of the operation that Haitian-Americans had been sought out for duty in Haiti--which made sense. Last year, the opposite seemed true. In the streets, one saw countless trucks and humvees with U.S. marines--sometimes all white, never more than one or two Blacks. At the Presidential Palace, where marines had just been stationed to protect the new U.S.-approved 'president,' whom I interviewed, I counted more than 50 marines including two officers. There was only one Black. At the airport, a group of 'private security consultants' (private army soldiers) mingled with several marine officers on their way back to the states or for R&R in the Dominican Republic. All were white. I interviewed several at the palace and several more at the airport, and I spoke to some in the streets. Every soldier I interviewed was from a poor white, rural family--many from the U.S. South and Mid-West. Some of these soldiers had been 'snatched' from duty in Iraq, as they put it. One told me, "We have no idea what is going on here. None at all. They just told us a Saddam like dictator was taken out, like in Iraq." Many Haitians complained of serious incidents where civilians were killed because of language misunderstandings--the marines had no Creole translators with them. I asked a military advisor about this and he told me, "We have no policy to recruit Blacks or Haitians for duty here. The Canadians and the French can translate." This ignored the fact that Creole, spoken by most Haitians, is not the same as French. So what's going on? Is the army in the field whitening again? Is there an unwritten policy to cleanse some parts of the military of Blacks and other minorities--whether to satisfy Black feelings that they are bearing too much of the burden, or to avoid a return to the Vietnam situation where so many Black soldiers resisted and rebelled against an unjust war where they felt they had to kill people of their own or a similar race? A close look at the military reveals a very major racial shift since the Gulf War--and one that has not yet been widely acknowledged. Charles Moskos says military recruiting is now much more aggressive in rural areas than in urban ghettos. The result is clear in the make-up of the military. While general enlistment of Blacks has now fallen from 30% (at its height in the late 1990s) to about 13% today, the re-enlistment level for Blacks has remained far greater than that of whites. This is especially true for those in non-combat units, especially communications and unit administration. Moskos says that of the 45,586 combat infantry in the army in 2003, 10.6% were black; of the 12,000 air force pilots, 2%; and of the Green Berets, 5%. "The U.S. forces fighting the wars today are disproportionately white," said experts quoted in USA Today (1/20/03). Moskos told me (email correspondence, February 2004), "The portion of Blacks in combat units has been shrinking for two decades. Special forces are almost all white now. The high black numbers are in supporting roles. Even Black enlistment over all has been declining for the past two years--perhaps due to anti-Iraq and anti-Bush feelings among Blacks." Class demographics--that is the percentages from various income groups--are not kept by the Pentagon, at least not for public consumption--but it would seem that whether in a conscripted army during the Vietnam War or in a 'voluntary' army today, the poverty draft does work. Officers have always been drawn heavily from the U.S. South (the military academy graduation lists will show), and from middle and upper-middle class whites. That began to change in the period 1972-1991, when more Blacks went to those Academies and became officers. The older pattern now seems to be reappearing. Enlisted men--especially those in combat--come almost exclusively, whether drafted or volunteer, from lower middle class and the poor, and elite units are almost exclusively white now. The combat and casualty burden today seems to fall heaviest not on Blacks--or Hispanics--but on poor, rural whites--though it is difficult to prove this. The soldier facing potential combat in Iraq (or in Haiti or anywhere else) today is much more likely to be a poor white soldier from West Virginia or Nebraska than a Black from the urban ghettos of Watts or Harlem. (See also Charles Moskos, quoted by Newsmax.com, July 16, 2003, and subsequent articles by Moskos.) What does this have to do with bringing back the draft? Rangel and others say they are crafting a truly fair national service act, with a random military draft lottery, that will exempt no-one, and restore racial and class balance to the military overall. Yet both Rangel's bill and the plan being prepared by Selective Service for such a national service seem to perpetuate class differences, if not racial ones. And these plans are so much more total, that they seems to threaten the very concept of a free society. Rangel's plan, as well as the 'secret' proposals of Selective Service, would still channel young people into roles that are class related: 'skills' means middle or upper class youth; others will be grunts when grunts are needed. Again, Rumsfeld's assessment seems to hold up: in an unequal society, any form of military--drafted or volunteer--will fall more heavily on the poor. Noam Chomsky and some other radical critics of U.S. foreign policy, would agree with Rangel, but go further. They insist that 'citizen armies,' by which they mean armies drawn from the whole population and not a professional force of mercenaries, are by nature incompatible with imperial aims. Chomsky asserts that no modern European empire has fought colonial wars with conscripts--they have all built up professional, mercenary cadres, insulated from public opinion by their isolation within a military culture. He believes this is why Rumsfeld and the Pentagon so strongly prefer a 'voluntary' force. Jacob Levich has reviewed the history, and insists that Chomsky is simply wrong. ("Even Homer Nods: Chomsky and Conscription," CounterPunch, Feb. 4, 2005) Levich points out that the war in Iraq is already being waged by a 'citizen army,' drawn from men and women who are pulled from their families and their careers and forced to serve beyond their contracts as national guardsmen. He also surveys the history and finds that most colonial wars have been fought with a mix of conscripts and professional officers (Russia, Italy, Japan, Napoleon in France, Franco in Spain, Israel against the Palestinians). Britain, Levich points out, was the exception because it could depend on highly paid elite colonial troops--as the famed Gurkhas from India-- and I would add, Irish and Scottish regiments. Even if a so-called 'volunteer force' were not based on severe economic need and discrimination, a draft would both be fairer and less likely to sustain colonial wars and empire, Chomsky insists. Chomsky repeats the assertion that it was the draft that led to the massive protests against the Vietnam War--of which he was a part, but never (as he reminds us) as an opponent of the draft--only as opposed to the war itself and the imperial policies behind it. On the other hand, if a state is based on true consent (not manufactured consent, evidently!), its policies will be just, Chomsky asserts. Assumedly if such a state and its citizens were really threatened by an unjust state or non-state force, it would be 'just' to require that the burden of fighting fall on all citizens equally. (See Chomsky's interview with Amy Goodman on the Democracy Now radio program, Nov. 15, 2004, and his articles in Znet, Dec. 11, 2004, and CounterPunch, Feb. 2, 2005.) An examination of the facts during the Vietnam War do not bear out Chomsky's views about the connection between the draft and resistance to end the war. Inside the military--the broken force--according to statistics provided by the Pentagon--60% of those disciplined or suspected of anti-war organizing were from among volunteers. (See Stan Goff, From the Wilderness, Feb. 27, 2004.) I have personal knowledge of this. As an anti-war and anti-draft activist, I was smuggled onto a couple of military bases in the late 1960s (Fort Bragg and Fort Devins) to support groups within the military who opposed the war. Every leader of such a group whom I met was a volunteer, including some who were life-long professional soldiers. When I asked about this at the time, a sergeant told me, "We know the army well enough to keep from being caught--the fresh draftees would be mincemeat in a few days if they stood out by speaking out." In any case, what Chomsky, Rangel and others fail to point out is that every army is led by life-long professionals--who spend decades in isolation within a socialist-style military system that takes care of their every need, from groceries and schooling to health-care and recreation. At the same time, it is often the conscripts (or volunteer grunts at the bottom level) whose naiveté leads them to commit abuses against enemy soldiers and civilians. It is the same class of people who somehow get trapped into such behavior--whether at Mai Lai or Abu Ghreb. SHOULD THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT GEAR UP TO FIGHT THE DRAFT? As the evidence I have presented shows, some form of draft seems to be on America's horizon. It will be more comprehensive on the one hand, and more complex and subtle on the other. It will allow the illusion of 'choice,' since it will be a skills' draft for a wide range of roles demanded by the 'national interest.' Some--for instance, the Snopes rumor mill site in October 2004--simply dismiss this kind of draft as no draft at all. It will, they say, just require some with special skills--health care, linguistics, computer technology--to be inducted for both military and homeland security purposes. They call this a 'minimal' draft. In fact it is the maximum use of the conscription concept: compulsory registration of all young people, to include all relevant data about their training, skills, health and legal records, and then choose those with needed skills for specific urgent tasks--whether military, homeland security, or "other national interest." This is the draft expanded, not reduced, and it remains a likely option for a government hugely strapped both in terms of military manpower and it's perceived 'homeland' and anti-terror requirements. At the close of 2004, Al Jazeerah editorialized that, while it would take "a massive casualty-producing event on U.S. soil for the U.S. to re-introduce the draft," such an event was extremely likely if not now, soon. "Already the military situation is untenable, and homeland security itself is stretched impossibly thin already." Former Attorney General Ashcroft was chided for once saying more or less the same thing--yet did not retract his assessment. Some form of conscription is coming, so long as the U.S. continues its Imperial drive to control the whole world. This will be true whichever party is in the White House, though Democrats might put a better face on it, with more involvement of our allies. So long as the U.S. sees itself as under siege from hidden terrorists within and without, an Israeli style manpower system is the most likely. It will not be the simple Vietnam era draft of the infantry. But force, compulsion, conscription, involuntary servitude--for any role--whether as linguist or border guard or officer or foot soldier-- undermines a basic human right for people of all races and classes: free choice, especially over one's work and one's life. Furthermore--like the death penalty--conscription gives any state a power that is liable to be misused, and that is dangerous in the hands of those who see themselves as the embodiment of some ill-defined national interest. At the Stockholm Conference on Vietnam in 1969, I joined other anti-draft activists to propose a resolution to the assembled delegations from around the world. We proposed that ALL nations abolish conscription. Peace groups from the USSR and the Eastern Bloc staunchly opposed this. They were, of course, controlled by their governments. The anti-draft resolution was defeated (Rumania and Cuba abstained on the final vote). The Soviet argument was that just governments could require service from their young citizens--and that all should serve equally. Chomsky is like the Soviets in believing that a 'just government' could develop a fair system to fight its wars by having the power to force all its young people to serve. The flaw in this thinking is that any government can be trusted to be just, if it is granted total powers like conscription or the death penalty. Karl Marx himself seems to have agreed with this principle. (See Howard Zinn, "Je ne suis pas Marxiste," ZINN ON HISTORY, Seven Stories Press, 1999, pp. 86-87.) It is time to revive the old saw, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." If those who oppose empire and war are divided on the question of granting the state (and especially the empire) the absolute power of conscription, they will be much more easily overcome by those who promote the empire and wage the wars. REBUILDING AN ANTI-DRAFT MOVEMENT There has been a resurgence in anti-draft awareness and activism over the past two years. Long-time organizations against war and militarism, as well as those who organize conscientious objectors, have generally taken the stand that they oppose a return of the draft, but that it is unlikely today. These groups stress that more important issues are organizing within the military, against ROTC and JROTC campus units, and against military recruitment, especially in low income neighborhoods and at high schools and colleges. Such groups include the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO), War Resisters' League (WRL), American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). The traditional anti-military group that has given the most attention to the possible come-back of a draft is the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD). Yet it's articles have also downplayed the real possibility of a revived draft. The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) likewise has given token opposition to the Rangel bill, but its priorities are elsewhere. One veteran conscientious objector organization, formerly known as NISBCO, now the Center for Conscience and War (CCW) has mostly takes a middle road--it has not see the draft as an immediate threat, but viewed developments in the Selective Service System as worthy of close scrutiny. It provides a wealth of information to young people and their parents about any possible coming of a draft--and warns especially against expecting Canada or other exile to be a good option in the future. Yet CCW director Bill Galvin now says, "I've begun to see the draft as more and more of an issue that will face us within the next year." A spate of new anti-draft organizations have arisen over the past two years. Each of these has a rather specific ideological or cultural style and viewpoint, ranging from far left to far right. On the right are endselectiveservice.org of the Libertarian Party and draftisslavery.com, an objectivist group. Moderate groups include the quirky but moderate DraftResistance.org, which like many of the groups, seems largely the product of one individual or a local group, in this case from Alaska. A similar effort is wewontgo.org at the University of Tennessee, which is circulating a pledge among college students that they will refuse induction if a draft is re-instated. (In 1970, the 'Charlottesville Pledge,' which had young men promise to resist once 10,000 others had signed the pledge, has often been cited as a factor in the huge increase in those who refused induction or simply fled.) The left is represented by two very active new groups--again, both organized rather locally and/or by political parties or movements. One of these is People Against the Draft (nodraft.info) mostly in New York City--whose chief organizer, Jacob Levich, has written thoroughly researched and well-formulated articles for CounterPunch and other alternative media--but who has also managed to get some attention from major media. Another group that is just now becoming active is nodraftnoway. Associated with left-oriented anti-Iraq War groups, they have planned actions on both coasts--especially for the March 31 deadline when Selective Service will announce to the President it is up and running, prepared to re-institute the draft when called for, within as few as 75 days. Stopthedraft.com is another group that seems left-oriented, but courts support from all sides. Their site recently featured a distinctly conservative group, Mothers Against the Draft (MAD), of which Phyllis Schafly is a participant. Finally, Draftfreedom.org, located in Seattle, has been started by a marketing group that seeks to reach a wide range of constituencies to prevent the draft, as well as to support those who oppose the current war, including deserters and resisters. This confusing array of websites and organizations has as yet no coherence. No attempt has been made to put together a coalition or even loose network of the anti-draft, anti-military and conscientious objector groups specifically on the issue of fighting a renewed draft. The obvious reasons are two: many within these groups still do not believe the threat is real; a few prominent liberal and leftist allies are actively promoting a draft, or at least letting it be known (like Chomsky) that they do not oppose one. But this may be changing. The Fellowship of Reconciliation invited local and national peace groups and individuals from around the country in February to consider the possibility of a draft, as one of several issues facing those who oppose the war. The result was the Nyack Declaration of Conscience and Courage, which opposes war and any future draft and supports conscientious objection. On the other hand, some peace activists continue to question what they feel may be rumors about the draft starting up this year. Oskar Castro, coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Youth and Military Program, complained at the FOR gathering about "misinformation which leads the public to believe a future draft is eminent." (From the FOR website report on its Gathering of Conscience & Courage, Feb. 2005.) Clearly there is still uncertainty and division about a coming draft among those working against war and organizing military resistance. Given the facts of a U.S. military manpower shortage, the planning going on within Selective Service, and the obvious desire of the Bush government for an ever-more-comprehensive homeland security apparatus, it is extremely urgent for those who oppose empire and wars like Iraq to unite in recognizing the danger of a new kind of draft and in strongly opposing it. This cannot be like the old conservative-liberal (Goldwater-McGovern) coalition against the draft in the 1960s and 70s. Nowadays, most conservatives can be counted on to support a draft or virtually any other measure when Bush demands it in the name of fighting terror, and most liberals are likely to support some form of broad national service, if only to show they are not soft on terror and national defense. The 21st century anti-draft movement must be more diverse and more varied in its strategies than that of the 1960s and 70s. In the same March issue of Washington Monthly with the pro-draft article, Christina Larson writes that "modern marches matter only to the marchers," in her piece, "Postmodern Protests." "Protesting for protest's sake serves a market," she says, putting down such actions as merely self-serving psychological exercises. As others have indicated, the government has devised clever new strategies to keep protests from developing--such as the preventive detention in the post-Seattle anti-globalization demonstrations in Washington. The major media virtually ignore such protests today--any march or demonstration in Washington with fewer than 1000 will merit not one inch of space--and even the larger ones get sketchy coverage or are treated in puff pieces about the marchers' since of self-worth. Fran Donolan partially agrees, but sees a need to re-invent some of the long-time methods of protest. She has been a draft counselor and anti-war activist for over thirty years, and now teaches peace studies at Goucher College in Baltimore. She says, "As George Lakey and others have been urging for a long time, the work needs to be done closer to home--at the local level, first trying to persuade those who know you. But we shouldn't give up direct action or mass demonstrations--you just don't know when the critical mass will be reached--none of us do. Going to a demonstration, even a small one, was often the first time my students had a chance to connect their own concerns with a movement. Many of them have told me, 'That's what turned me around.'" In this new environment, anti-draft organizers must reserve protest rallies and marches for a time when they can amass really large numbers, and they must learn to outwit the government in keeping down the numbers and the media in its current tendency to ignore them. Pledges to resist--including on-line petitions--may still be useful, but only if tens-of-thousands of young people can be proven to have signed them. Those with internet savvy need to be enlisted to design cyber-strategies to parallel lobbying and street protests. A revived Anti-Draft Movement should cast the widest net possible, to include all those who seek to short-circuit the new Roman Empire that George Bush envisions, and to halt or stave off wars like Iraq--or Syria, or Iran, or North Korea. The common denominator for such groups--and the core value for all who really love freedom--should lead us to expose and fight the 'new kind of draft,' a truly total state institution which would register, monitor, channel and mobilize all young Americans for its various purposes. This will exclude many mainline Democrats and Republicans, liberals as well as conservatives, who have one vision or another of an America that "brings freedom to the world." On the other hand, it can include some conservatives and libertarians--like Texas Republican Representative Ron Paul--who staunchly oppose all three: the draft, the empire and the wars. And it should have on board all those progressives, radicals, and others who are usually thought to make up the "movement" for peace and social change on the 'left.' Good timing for this new movement to coalesce would be the week of May 15, which is international conscientious objector day, with lobbying, rallies and demonstrations already planned world-wide by groups ranging from War Resisters' International to the Center for Consciousness and War and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. It would be a good start if these and other groups began to coordinate their work by acknowledging the seriousness of the threat of a return to conscription in the United States, and by forging a common front against any form of compulsory service--a draft by any name and in any form. The new kind of war, which demands a new kind of draft, must spawn a new kind of anti-draft movement if there is to be any hope of stopping the draft, countering the spread of an American empire or bringing an end to the current war in Iraq and the other wars that will inevitably come as America maintains and builds its empire. Those who work for peace and social justice and against imperialism need to see that these three--the draft, empire and war--go together and need to be fought together as part of one coherent movement. Tom Reeves was co-author with Karl Hess of THE END OF THE DRAFT (Random House, New York, 1970). He was National Director of the National Council to Repeal the Draft from 1968-1972. He has written about a range of U.S. foreign policy and other political issues for CounterPunch, Z, Rabble, Interconnect, Dollars & Sense, the NACLA Report and other print and internet magazines -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- courts Judges take stand against Putin March 19, 2005 From Jeremy Page in Moscow Times Online http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1531756,00.html IN THE closeted world of the Russian judiciary, Olga Kudeshkina and Aleksander Melikov make an unlikely pair of whistle-blowers. She is the 54-year-old wife of a former KGB officer, a grandmother with a platinum-blonde beehive and 20 years’ experience as a judge in Siberia and Moscow. He is a 41-year-old veteran of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and a former police investigator appointed to the Moscow bench in 1997. Both have spent most of their lives as loyal servants of the state. But they are now leading a crusade against political pressure on judges from the Kremlin, which they say is destroying the last pillar of Russian democracy. Mrs Kudeshkina was dismissed from the Moscow City Court in May last year for “discrediting the judiciary” and Mr Melikov was dismissed in December for being too lenient. They say that they were ousted for complaining about systematic interference by Olga Yegorova, chairwoman of the Moscow City Court, which has forced more than 80 judges to leave their jobs since 2000. “It was actually fairer in Soviet times because everyone knew what to expect,” Mr Melikov said. “Today, they say in public that we are independent when in fact we are not.” Russia introduced a new criminal code in 2002 that was supposed to ensure the independence of the judiciary, place a greater burden of proof on the prosecution and protect defendants’ rights. Yet the conviction rate in criminal cases heard by judges is 99 per cent — the same as in Stalin’s last years. Jury trials, introduced nationwide in 2003, acquit more but account for only 8 per cent of all criminal trials. When President Putin took office in 2000, promising to end the lawlessness of the 1990s, one of his first acts was to approve Mrs Yegorova’s appointment, even though she had been rejected once. The wife of a general in the FSB, the KGB’s successor, she has overseen a series of trials with political overtones, including that of the oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Mrs Kudeshkina clashed with her new boss in 2003 while hearing the case of a police investigator accused of exceeding his authority in a fraud investigation into Moscow furniture stores whose owners had links to the FSB. She says that Mrs Yegorova encouraged her to find the defendant guilty, told her to falsify documents and then took her off the trial when she refused. Mrs Yegorova was not available for comment, but her office has denied the allegations. In 2003, Mrs Kudeshkina stood for parliament and told the press what had happened. She pulled out of the election but was soon dismissed from the court. This month she wrote an open letter about her case to Mr Putin and she now plans to take it to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Mr Melikov clashed with Mrs Yegorova in 2002 when he questioned her instructions for judges automatically to authorise police detentions. When the city’s courts were restructured in 2003, he and 12 others were left off the list of judges, even though he had life tenure. All but three took early retirement; he chose to fight. Russia’s Independent Council of Legal Experts says that all his rulings followed Russian law, bar one minor exception. However, a judicial qualifying commission took five minutes to find him guilty on 22 counts of negligence and undermining the judiciary. With no pension and no job, Mr Melikov plans to appeal but is not hopeful. He said: “They needed a judicial system that would guarantee the necessary decisions in cases like Khodorkovsky’s.” -------- terrorism [So-called terrorist - no explanation of reality, simply "not a terrorist after all." Looking like buffoons in Britain. et] Barracks terror alert as guard opens fire By David Sapsted (Filed: 19/03/2005) A soldier opened fire yesterday at a man "acting suspiciously" at an Army barracks, sparking an operation which, at one stage, involved soldiers, a helicopter and the anti-terrorist squad. Armed police officers later broke into a derelict house a mile from Connaught Barracks in Dover where the paratrooper had fired two shots with an SA82-2A rifle shortly before 6am. It followed reports of a man seen carrying a firearms case a mile from the barracks, currently home to the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment. Nobody was found. A spokesman at Kent police headquarters in Maidstone said: "A soldier on guard duty at Connaught Barracks, Dover, this morning fired two shots from within the barracks and Kent police and the Army are investigating the incident. "There was not an intruder at the barracks and no one has been injured as a result of this incident. Police have conducted a search of the barracks and surrounding area and, as a matter of course, the anti-terrorism unit attended, but has now left the site. "We are looking at CCTV as part of the investigation, which will also focus on whether he felt there was a genuine threat when he opened fire. "Roads around the barracks have been re-opened and Kent police and the Army are continuing their investigations." Armed officers carried out a sweep of the area and took forensic samples from a patch of blood in a nearby coach park. The blood was thought to have come from a fight that took place there last night. A second search was carried out later after a member of the public reported seeing a man carrying a canvas gun case. A police spokesman said: "We have now identified the man who appeared to be carrying a gun case and are satisfied that no offence has been committed." -------- OTHER -------- imf / world bank / wto (economics) Wolfowitz tries to reassure World Bank board March 19, 2005 By Patrice Hill THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/business/20050318-102951-3228r.htm Paul Wolfowitz, President Bush's choice to head the World Bank, moved to assure European leaders yesterday that he intends to maintain the bank's primary mission of fighting poverty. In an unusual series of private, one-on-one meetings that started yesterday with French and Saudi Arabian members of the bank's board, Mr. Wolfowitz sought to assuage fears raised by his push to spread democracy through war in Iraq and potentially elsewhere in the Middle East. Mr. Wolfowitz told Paris' Le Figaro newspaper that he would avoid "regime change" at the bank, referring to the prescription he applied as architect of the Iraq war, while he told Bloomberg News that he would not try to use the bank to promote democracy in developing nations. "The bank's mission is promoting economic development," said the deputy defense secretary, who is staying in his Pentagon job for now. "To be effective in doing that, it has to keep a degree of separation." The bank board's 24 members are scheduled to vote on Mr. Wolfowitz's nomination March 31. He is expected to keep meeting with board members individually before the vote. Mr. Bush asked European leaders earlier this week not to pass judgment on Mr. Wolfowitz's nomination before hearing how he intends to run the bank. Leaders in Europe and elsewhere have indicated they are open to hearing him out. Liberal advocacy groups have come out forcefully against the nomination, however, charging that Mr. Wolfowitz will apply a kind of U.S. hegemony at the bank and shift its focus away from environmental and social projects like climate change. "I am looking forward to meeting Mr. Wolfowitz in Brussels to listen to his ideas on development, the main challenges ahead and his vision for the World Bank as a major actor," said Louis Michel, a European Union official who asked Mr. Wolfowitz to explain his views. Mr. Wolfowitz's views on development and Africa — which has been the main recipient of World Bank aid in recent years — are unknown in Europe. Mr. Michel said. Mr. Wolfowitz, a former ambassador to Indonesia and dean of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, has made his mark in the defense area and has written and spoken little on poverty and development issues. With the U.S. president putting his own prestige on the line, analysts say it is unlikely that board members would outright reject Mr. Wolfowitz unless serious opposition builds between now and the date of the vote. The bank's presidents traditionally are appointed by the United States, which is the bank's largest shareholder. Also helping approval is the acquiescence the Bush administration gave to the European Union's pick to head the International Monetary Fund in the fall. European nations traditionally choose the IMF leader, and Spanish-born Rodrigo de Rato was one of the first to endorse Mr. Wolfowitz. Still, much has changed since the bank's bylaws and traditions were shaped in 1944. While the United States was then the biggest donor of development aid, Europe and Japan have emerged in the past decade as the world's largest donors. Mr. Michel noted that the European Union has built a strategic partnership with the World Bank to alleviate poverty — an alliance Mr. Wolfowitz pledged to maintain. "I wouldn't be taking on this huge responsibility if I didn't believe in the mission," said the defense deputy, who would replace retiring President James Wolfensohn in June. Mr. Wolfowitz's interest in the job reportedly arose during a tour of the disaster-stricken Indonesian province of Banda Aceh after it got hit by a massive tsunami in December. The Pentagon provided critical support to victims who were cut off by the destruction of roads and bridges in the area. "People in Indonesia have a different view of me" than critics in Europe, Mr. Wolfowitz told Bloomberg. But he acknowledged that "I have a lot to learn" about Africa. "It's probably a region of the world for which the bank is most crucial." Mr. Wolfowitz said he is committed to "listening" and carrying out the views of all the bank's 184 members before making strategic decisions, and he will not be a mouthpiece for the Bush administration. -------- ACTIVISTS Urgent: No nuke waste on Native lands! Please help by signing nat'l group letter to U.S. NRC. From: Kevin Kamps - Nuclear Information Resource Service Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 11:32 PM PREVENT RADIOACTIVE RACISM! Sign your group onto letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission opposing high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah by emailing person's name, title (if any), group name, city and state to kevin@nirs.org as soon as possible (by Sunday, March 27 at the latest) "The greatest minds in the nuclear establishment have been searching for an answer to the radioactive waste problem for fifty years, and they've finally got one: haul it down a dirt road and dump it on an Indian reservation." ---Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth Dear Friends and Colleagues who oppose the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, In spring, 2002 you (or someone else from your group) signed a group letter opposing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump on the eve of the U.S. House and Senate votes to override Nevada's veto. Thank you for your crucial support in that long, ongoing struggle. You'll be pleased to know that the Yucca dump proposal is experiencing major problems, although it is far from dead. We need to remain ever vigilant against it. I'm writing you now about a related environmental justice matter that has taken on great urgency. Culminating an almost eight-year-long process, a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Licensing Board on February 24, 2005 ruled in favor of granting a license to the proposed Private Fuel Storage, LLC (PFS) high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah. Opening of this dump would initiate the transportation 4,000 high-level radioactive waste casks by train across the U.S., putting millions of people in jeopardy of a Mobile Chernobyl from an accident or terrorist attack (to see how close such routes could pass by you, go to http://www.ewg.org/reports/nuclearwaste/find_address.php.) PFS would store 44,000 tons of irradiated nuclear fuel - nearly 80% of the commercial high-level radioactive waste that currently exists in the U.S. - on the tiny Goshute reservation. The Skull Vally Goshute community is already surrounded by toxic industrial and military facilities, such as U.S. Army nerve gas incinerators and storage, the Dugway Proving Ground for chemical/biological/radiological weaponry, and the Hill Air Force Base/Utah Test and Training Range (the largest bombing range in the country), the single biggest emitter of gaseous chlorine in the U.S. (Magnesium Corporation on the Great Salt Lake), a "low" level radioactive waste dump, hazardous waste dumps and incinerators, etc. Adding high-level radioactive waste to this toxic mix is blatant environmental racism. Margene Bullcreek, the leader of the opposition to the dump within the tribe, was quoted in the New York Times on Feb. 28 "We're concerned with health, but it's also the land we believe in. I think this could destroy whatever sacredness is there." According to Chris Peters of the Seventh Generation Fund in Arcata, CA, this very same dump, pushed by the U.S. nuclear establishment in government and industry since 1987, has been targeted at scores of tribes. All of them -- most often led by women tribal members (such as Grace Thorpe at Sauk and Fox Reservation in Oklahoma, and Rufina Marie Laws at Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico) -- have fended off the proposed dumps, until now. None has gone as far as PFS targeted at the Skull Valley Goshutes Reservation. But it too can and must be stopped. (See http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/pfsejfactsheet.htm for more background information.) A national, group sign-on letter (see www.nirs.org for the letter under the Feb. 24 alert, or the letter and complete list of signatories under the March 14 update), urging the NRC Commissioners to reject the PFS license application, was delivered on Monday, March 14 signed by 240 organizations (19 Native American groups, 21 national U.S. groups, 193 regional/state/local U.S. groups, and 7 international groups), whose combined memberships represent millions of people. Skull Valley Goshute tribal members opposed to the dump topped the list of signatories. Please consider signing on to this important solidarity letter, by sending your name, title (if any), organization, city and state to kevin@nirs.org by Sunday, March 27. Please spread the word to other, kindred spirit groups which might also sign on. Thanks for your help! ---Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Washington, D.C., 202.328.0002 ext. 14, kevin@nirs.org , http://www.nirs.org -------- A victim of Israel's nuclear taboo Caroline Moorehead International Herald Tribune Saturday, March 19, 2005 http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/03/18/news/edmoorehead.html LONDON - On Thursday, Mordechai Vanunu was taken from his temporary refuge in St. George's Cathedral in East Jerusalem and charged with 21 counts of violating the terms of his semi-freedom. It was not the first time that he had been called to the prosecutor's office, but since his case is due to be reviewed by the Israeli government early in April, this may be a warning of what is to come. What the government now has to do is to decide whether to let Vanunu leave the country, or whether to reimpose, for a second year, the tough restrictions under which he has lived since his release from prison: no contact with foreign journalists, no freedom to leave Israel, permission to move from Jerusalem only on condition that he reports each day to the police. Vanunu has breached the first condition repeatedly, giving interviews to all who make the journey to East Jerusalem. When able to, he has used the Internet to keep in touch with reporters, human rights groups and friends all over the world. The question now is whether Israel decides to punish him further. Almost 20 years ago, Vanunu was a young Israeli nuclear technician, working at the research reactor at Dimona in the Negev Desert. Laid off in 1985, he used his severance pay to travel around the world. Increasingly troubled by the realization that Israel, though denying it, had in fact become a nuclear power, he had taken photographs inside the plant before he left. When he reached Sydney, he told new friends at an Anglican church, where he began the process of converting from Judaism to Christianity, of his fears. The news reached the Sunday Times in London, which flew him to England, where he was debriefed by British scientists. Then, before the story could appear, Vanunu was lured to Rome by a young woman. On arrival, he was overpowered by two men, injected with a powerful drug, smuggled onto a ship and taken to Israel. The next that was heard of him was that he had been convicted of espionage and treason at a closed trial and jailed for 18 years. Vanunu was then 34. He is now 51, a slight, spare man who holds himself very still. He receives visitors in the inner courtyard of St. George's Cathedral, where he occupies one of the guest rooms. The first 11 years of his detention were, he says, the worst. Kept in solitary confinement, he was permitted a half-hour visit every two weeks from his family - in his case, two of his brothers, since his parents and eight other siblings, deeply religious Jews offended by his conversion and his actions, rejected him. He was locked in his cell for 22 hours every day. He prayed, he thought, he wrote, he watched television, he exercised, he ate. He asked for books on philosophy and history, and some were given to him. He studied Kant, Camus, Nietzsche and Sartre. Later, when he was granted a video player, he watched opera: Mozart, Verdi, Wagner. By standing on a chair in his cell, he could just see a small square of sky. On his release, Vanunu asked for sanctuary at St. George's. He has taken to wandering around the streets of East Jerusalem. He continues to provoke the Israeli authorities. One of his most recent allegations was that Israel was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who was, Vanunu maintains, exerting pressure on Israel to shed light on the Dimona nuclear plant. Some of Vanunu's pronouncements have worried friends; they fear that, cut off for so long from contact with friends, colleagues and the outside world, he has lost his once sure ear for analysis and context. They worry too that if he stays in Israel he may be in danger from extremists. That Israel is a nuclear power is no longer seriously in question. But by maintaining its policy of "nuclear ambiguity" and punishing and vilifying those who try to break this secrecy, Israel has created a black hole, a forbidden area, where the normal laws of democracy do not seem to apply. The Israeli public and the rest of the world are effectively prevented from asking the questions usual in other democracies - about cost, alternatives and accountability. In this, the Israeli government is helped by the U.S. policy of attacking evil regimes which seek nuclear arsenals while tolerating their possession by states considered trustworthy. Yet bringing Israel's nuclear weapons out into the open, and putting them on the table as part of a wider regional Middle Eastern peace deal, might be the only way to prevent other neighboring states from building their own bombs. Nothing Vanunu says is any longer of the slightest threat to Israel. But support for Vanunu within Israel is very limited. In a spirit of revenge, the Israelis may decide that his absurd punishment should continue. Caroline Moorehead is the author of ‘‘Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees.’’ ---- 'They can't train you for the reality of Iraq. You can't have a mass grave with dogs eating the people in it' Two years after the war began, a growing number of US troops are refusing to return to Iraq Suzanne Goldenberg in Fort Stewart, Georgia Saturday March 19, 2005 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1441289,00.html?gusrc=rss At the same time that Kevin Benderman's unit was called up for a second tour in Iraq with the Third Infantry Division, two soldiers tried to kill themselves and another had a relative shoot him in the leg. Seventeen went awol or ran off to Canada, and Sergeant Benderman, whose family has sent a son to every war since the American revolution, defied his genes and nine years of military training and followed his conscience. As the division packed its gear to leave Fort Stewart, Sgt Benderman applied for a discharge as a conscientious objector - an act seen as a betrayal by many in a military unit considered the heart of the US army, the "Walking Pride of Uncle Sam". Two years ago today, the columns of the Third ID roared up from the Kuwaiti desert for the push towards Baghdad. When the city fell, the Marines controlled the neighbourhoods on the east side of the Tigris and the Third ID had the west. It was, according to the army command, an occasion for pride. Some of the men and women who were there remain unconvinced. Like Sgt Benderman, who served six months in Iraq at the start of the war, they were scarred by their experience, and angry at being called again to combat so soon. They may not be part of any organised anti-war movement, but the conscientious objectors, runaways, and other irregular protesters suggest that, two years on, the war is taking a heavy toll. "They can't train you for the reality. You can't have a mass grave with dogs eating the people in it," Sgt Benderman told the Guardian. "It's not like practising for a football game, or cramming for a test in college. You can go out there and train, but until you actually experience war first hand you don't know what it's like." A large man in his uniform, with blue eyes and a southern drawl, the 40-year-old is every inch the soldier. He has spent nearly 10 years in the army, signing up for a second stint in 2000 because he felt he had not done his duty to his country. The war did away with that feeling, with the sergeant horrified by Iraqi civilian deaths and the behaviour of the young menhe commanded, who he said treated war like bumping off targets in a video game. Unthinkable "I didn't turn into the pope overnight. I am still Kevin Benderman, but I am trying to find a better way of living," he said. Once such dissent would have been unthinkable - as would the growing disquiet within the ranks of the US army as its forces rotate into Iraq on second and even third tours. Open resistance remains relatively rare. Only a handful of troops have filed conscientious objector applications; Vietnam, which was fought by conscripts, produced 190,000 such petitions. But the conscripts only had one tour. Soldiers' advocates and peace activists believe the first signs of opposition within the military could slowly grow - as it did for Vietnam - turning disgruntled soldiers and their families into powerful anti-war advocates. A number of Iraq veterans have begun to speak out. The root causes for more widespread dissent are there. Longer and repeat deployments have worn down regulars and reservists. So has the rising toll, with more than 1,500 US soldiers dead and 11,000 wounded. Recruitment and re-enlistment rates are down - especially for African-Americans, a 40% drop in the past five years - increasing the strain on the Pentagon. Between 40,000 and 50,000 military personnel are in Iraq despite serious medical conditions that should have ruled them out of combat, according to the National Gulf War Resource Centre. The GI Rights Hotline, which counsels troops, says it fielded 32,000 calls last year from soldiers seeking an exit from the military, or suffering from post-combat stress. Others vote with their feet. Last year the Pentagon admitted that 5,500 of its forces had gone awol, although it claims many returned to their units after resolving personal crises. Some abandoned the country altogether - like Chris Cornell, a Third ID private. At 24, he had been in the military for two years, joining up in search of a better life than in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas. Army life had begun to pall - "because of the crap that goes on" - when the division began to prepare for Iraq. He didn't want to go. "I didn't sign up to kill people. I couldn't live with myself," he told the Guardian. At first, he tried to get a medical discharge, deliberately failing dozens of physical training tests. Then, weeks before his unit's January 10 departure, his sergeant called the troops in for a talk. "He got up there in front of the whole battery and he told us we were going to Iraq, whether we liked it or not." Pte Cornell went home on leave and consulted the activists he calls his adopted family. They suggested Canada - terra incognita for a southerner like Pte Cornell - and he landed in Toronto, jobless, sleeping in someone else's flat, and seeking political asylum. He was the seventh US soldier to apply for refugee status in Canada, and a half dozen more with Canadian parents or spouses are claiming citizenship, according to Jeffrey House, a Toronto lawyer handling many of the claims. But there could be hundreds more who have gone to ground. "I believe there a number of people here illegally," he says. "No one would suspect them by their accent, and so they just disappear." Among those who serve, resentment is high, fuelled by "stop loss" orders by which the Pentagon hangs on to troops past their release date, and shortages of armoured vehicles and other protective gear. Emails and blogs from Iraq regularly rail against their officers and the war. The high command does not want to hear them, soldiers' advocates say, because it does not want to encourage dissent. When Sgt Benderman tried to file his papers as a conscientious objector in December, his commanding officer called him a coward. Last month he was ordered to face a court martial for desertion. He could face seven years in prison. Now, away from his unit in the war zone, Sgt Benderman waits for the army to hear his case. Each morning he leaves his home in Hinesville, Georgia, to report for 6.30am drill. Others in his situation have gone underground, but Sgt Benderman views that option with distaste. So does his wife, Monica, who says: "If you really believe in what you are doing, then why run?" Carl Webb, 39, a member of the Texas National Guard, claims he didn't have a choice. His protest is just as public as Sgt Benderman's - and even less conventional. He has been awol since last August but the military should not have any problems finding him. Mr Webb has posted his email address, phone number, and several photos of himself on a website setting out his opposition to the war For years, the military had been his one constant in an otherwise anchorless life, and Mr Webb did stints in the regular army as well as various guard units. But by last July, when he was a month away from getting out, he got the call that he was being plucked from his unit to serve with a tank company near Baghdad. "It was a total surprise. Even my command said this is some kind of a mistake, and I could file a hardship case," he told the Guardian. Mr Webb thought about filing a conscientious objector application, but decided he didn't fit the strict criteria. Now he is daring the Pentagon to try to get him because he figures that would encourage other opponents of the war. "Most soldiers obey their orders because they are afraid of what could happen to them. They think, 'Oh, they are going to throw me in a dungeon, and put shackles on me, and I'll never see the light of day,' or they fear the isolation," he said. "But just by being out there, I am going to give them ideas. I'm an example." Iraq in figures: the toll of the conflict so far 1,512 US troops killed in Iraq 1,157 US troops killed in combat 355 US non-combat deaths 11,285 US troops wounded 86 UK troops killed in Iraq 35 UK troops killed in combat 91 troops from other states killed 17,053-19,422 estimated number of civilian casualties since the war started, according to Iraq Body Count 257 number of non-Iraqi civilians killed (30 of whom were British) 189 number of foreign nationals kidnapped since October 2003 47 number still captive 170,000 number of coalition troops in March 2003 175,000 number of coalition troops in Iraq in March 2005 45,000 number of British troops in March 2003 8,930 number of UK troops in Iraq in March 2005 30 number of countries identified as members of the coalition backing the war in March 2003 38 number of countries which have provided troops in Iraq at some point 24 number of states currently providing troops in Iraq 5 number of countries currently planning to withdraw troops from Iraq 18,000 latest estimate of strength of insurgency 1,000 estimated number of foreign fighters involved in the insurgency ---- Scott Ritter, Arms Inspector Turned Peace Activist, Says Get Ready for the Draft Saturday, March 19, 2005 by the Hudson Valley News (New York) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0319-06.htm Former United National Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter gained more prominence, or notoriety, for what he did after leaving that job. His blunt criticism of the war in Iraq, and in particular, the Bush administration’s policy in the Mid-East, has made him a hit on college campuses. Ritter: "Hussein had elections" Ritter drew a large crowd and standing ovation at SUNY New Paltz last night by claiming, among other things, that the recent election in Iraq is a fraud. “Stalin had elections. Hitler had elections. Saddam Hussein had elections. Elections don’t bring democracy,” he said. Not, Ritter argued, when it is the U.S. Military, not the people themselves that are running the election. Ritter contends that the Military is becoming less functional as a tool of an ambitious foreign policy that, he says, is headed for showdown with Iran, an adversary far more ominous than Iraq. That, he says, will mandate the inevitable reinstitution of a draft. “A breakdown of our military’s ability to handle these adventures. Congress will be confronted with that and congress will have to take action. So, the blame will be thrust on the shoulders of congress, and the Bush administration will say ‘Well, we didn’t want this’. But, it had to happen.” Ritter says he supports the U.S. Military, and those who serve, when they are defending America. What they are doing now, he says, is empire-building, based on a premise of lies. The forum was organized by “Alternatives to Military” (ATM) on the eve of today’s planned rally at SUNY New Paltz, marking the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. One of the organizers, Rebecca Rotzler, Deputy Mayor of the Village of New Paltz, says while they would love to end recruiting altogether at colleges, a more realistic goal is to give equal visibility to alternatives, including conscientious objection. ---- N.Y., Calif. Activists Protest Iraq War By SAM DOLNICK Associated Press Writer Mar 19, 3:12 PM EST http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/W/WAR_ANNIVERSARY_PROTESTS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME NEW YORK (AP) -- Anti-war activists marched in the streets of New York and other American cities on Saturday, stopping traffic and lying down alongside flag-draped cardboard coffins to mark the second anniversary of the war in Iraq. Some of the demonstrators were arrested in New York as they demanded that U.S. troops be brought home. "This country was founded by acts of civil disobedience," said David McReynolds, 75, of New York, as he marched along 42nd Street. "We have an obligation to make our resistance public and to say as clearly as we can that the war is illegal." Organizers encouraged civility in San Francisco, where protests just after the war began were among the most vocal and angry in the country, with thousands of arrests and frequent conflicts between police and demonstrators. "We are telling people to bring their families, their mothers, their children. We're taking the security and the integrity of these demonstrations very seriously," said Bill Hackwell, a spokesman for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, the main march coordinator. About 350 people in New York listened to anti-war speeches at the United Nations, then marched along 42nd Street across Manhattan to Times Square, where police penned them in on a sidewalk. A small contingent of protesters then knelt in front of a military recruiting station and lay down on Broadway next to the flag-draped coffins. Traffic was stopped for about five minutes before police moved in and arrested 27 protesters. "It's such a small act in light of over 100,000 Iraqis dead and 1,500 American soldiers dead," Anna Brown, 40, of Jersey City, N.J., said before she was arrested. Besides the Times Square event, there were rallies in Harlem, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. At least nine people were arrested at the other sites, according to an unofficial police count. Veronica Momjian, 24, carried a handmade "Give Peace a Chance" sign in the Manhattan demonstration. "I'm here to chastise the government for putting us in the middle of a bloody and disgusting war," she said. "Things are looking worse and there's no foreseeable end to this." --- Two Year Anniversary of Iraq War Kicks Off in DC Non-Violent Resistence and Active Non-Cooperation by Kevin B. Zeese, March 19, 2005 Antiwar.com http://www.antiwar.com/orig/zeese.php?articleid=5261 Demonstrations against the Iraq War scheduled to occur in nearly 600 cities in all 50 states this weekend, kicked off this Thursday across the street from the White House in Washington, DC as representatives of veterans groups and others signed a document pledging to encourage and support soldiers who, of their own conscience, refuse orders to fight in the Iraq War. The declaration violates United States Code 18, Section 2387, which makes support and encouragement of soldiers resisting their orders illegal, and which carries a maximum penalty of $10,000 or ten years in prison. In opening the signing of the declaration Gordon Clark of Iraq Pledge of Resistance quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said of another war, at another time "The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours." After we signed the Pledge of Resistance we attempted to deliver it to the president. An earlier attempt to have the press secretary accept the pledge was rejected. And, at the gate of the White House the guard joined in the denial refusing to deliver our signatures to the president. Stephen Cleghorn, a member of Military Families Speak Out said before signing the Pledge: "My son joined the military to serve his country and go into harms’ way if necessary to defend our country. That was his conscientious choice. His choice has been abused by this president as our soldiers have been made into harm's ministers in an unnecessary war. This war based on lies about an imminent threat to our country breaks faith with the courage and sacrifice that people such as my son are willing to make. Therefore I support and encourage any soldier who decides that he or she must in good conscience refuse orders to Iraq." The two year anniversary of the war sees veterans and their families taking the lead in speaking out against the Iraq War. They know from their own experience what is really going on in Iraq. As Iraq War veteran Jimmy Masey recently said in an interview: "I believed that we were going over there to help those people but when I started witnessing innocent civilians being killed and no humanitarian aid being provided, I started to see the evil doings." The opposition to the war then moved to an Army recruiting center in downtown Washington, DC on L Street NW between 13th and 14th streets. There we blocked the entrance to the recruiting center for an hour. Literature dispelling the myths of recruitment was handed out. Among the facts provided were: * Once you sign up for military service and arrive at basic training, you are subject to call-up duty for eight years. * Two-thirds of vets never receive any funding for college. Only 15% of recruits graduate from a four-year college. * The Veterans Administration estimates that one-third of veterans are homeless and vets earn 11% to 19% less than non-veterans of similar backgrounds. The literature also highlighted the fine print on the recruiting forms: "Law and regulations that govern military personnel may change without notice to me. Such changes may affect my status, pay, allowances, benefits and responsibilities as a member of the Armed Forces regardless of the provisions of this enlistment/re-enlistment document." This clause ensures the military is not bound by any promise made by the recruiter. At the recruitment center Ellen Barfield, of Veterans for Peace, described the rapid growth of counter recruitment drives that are developing throughout the country. Already, recruiters are finding it difficult to draw people into the services, as counter recruitment expands and youth know the truth about the contract they are signing, recruitment will become even more difficult. In addition to discouraging recruitment, Barfield went further saying: "I honor and encourage my courageous brothers and sisters in uniform now, who are listening to their consciences and speaking out against the horrors of occupation in Iraq, at the risk of prison or fleeing the US. I give them my deepest respect and the assurance that there are many who agree with them and offer assistance and support." Preventing the U.S. military from having the bodies it needs to continue the Iraq War – or even worse, to expand President Bush’s military adventurism into other countries – may be among the most effective steps the peace movement can take to end the war in Iraq, as U.S. troops are already spread thin. As we saw yesterday, with the lopsided vote in favor of the additional $83 billion for the continued occupation, we cannot trust elected officials in Washington, DC to stand up for peace and justice nor for obeying international law which sees the U.S. occupation of Iraq as illegal. For further information on the Iraq Pledge of Resistance and how you can get involved visit: http://www.iraqpledge.org ---- Two years after Iraq invasion, anti-war protesters hit streets nationwide JUSTIN M. NORTON Sat, Mar. 19, 2005 Associated Press http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/special_packages/iraq/11181578.htm SAN FRANCISCO - Thousands of anti-war protesters took to the streets of San Francisco and other American cities Saturday, chanting slogans, stopping traffic and carrying cardboard coffins to commemorate the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. In San Francisco, thousands of demonstrators rallied in Dolores Park in the city's Mission district, holding up posters with photographs of slain U.S. soldiers and carrying signs with slogans such as "No to War for Capitalist Profits." The protesters then marched to San Francisco City Hall for another rally. "This is a war of aggression," said Ed McManus, 54, a Marin County resident who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War but only recently began protesting the Iraq War. "Bush has admitted by his actions and his deeds that he is a war criminal." The San Francisco march was one of hundreds of anti-war demontrations around the country on Saturday - two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. At least 1,519 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began, according to an Associated Press count. In Los Angeles, a spirited march through Hollywood drew more than 1,500 people in a light rain.Among the sea of banners and signs was one bearing a scowling image of President Bush and the word "warmonger." Protester Adrienne Burk, who had an American flag draped over her shoulder, said she would never send her 21-year-old son to "fight for someone else's folly." Burk, who works in movie advertising, pinned a paper sign to the flag that read: "I am a patriot and I want my troops back." In New York City, hundreds of protesters, some carrying cardboard coffins draped in American flags, gathered at armed forces recruiting stations and demanded that U.S. troops be brought home. "I'm here to chastise the government for putting us in the middle of a bloody and disgusting war," said Veronica Momjian, 25, protesting in Manhattan. "Things are looking worse and there's no foreseeable end to this." In Chicago, hundreds of police, some in riot gear, escorted about a thousand marchers down Dearborn Avenue to an afternoon rally at the Federal Plaza. Police were out in force to prevent a repeat of the scene two years ago when thousands of protesters caused a huge traffic jam during rush hour. Demonstrators originally planned to march on Michigan Avenue, but with police threatening to arrest anyone who tried, the demonstration moved to a park a few blocks away. "They don't want to show the size of the opposition," said protester Earl Silbar of Chicago. "It's a free country if you agree with the government." The protests in San Francisco just after the war began in 2003 were among the most vocal and angry in the country, with thousands of arrests and frequent conflicts between police and demonstrators. Many protesters were detained only to return immediately to the streets, and police claimed that the protests were costing the city upward of $900,000 a day in overtime and other costs. Sammy Kitmotto, 31, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley was arrested for blocking an intersection during the 2003 protests and has continued protesting the Iraq War in the ensuing years. "You've got to devote yourself to the struggle and find people who feel the same way," Kitmotto said. "If I was opposing this alone it would be more disheartening." Organizers expected robust demonstrations Saturday but were encouraging civility. Nonetheless, police lined the San Francisco streets clutching protective helmets and wearing long batons. Eight people were arrested for blocking an intersection, according to police. Protesters passed a woman dressed up like the famous photo of the hooded prisoner from Abu Ghraib prison. The woman was surrounded by demonstrators wearing masks of Condoleeza Rice, George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld dancing to the song "Shout" by the Isley Brothers. The weekend began with a controversy over the Board of Supervisors' decision to commemorate everyone who has died in the Iraq war, regardless of nationality, by flying the flag above City Hall at half-staff. Mayor Gavin Newsom denied the request, arguing that the flag should be flown at half-staff only when a prominent local figure dies or by order of the president or governor. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who sponsored the resolution to protest the United States' involvement in Iraq, denounced the decision as "deplorable." Ruth Kuntzman, 19, a student at California State University, Long Beach, drove seven hours from southern California to attend the march with friends, listening to 1980s political punk rock like the Dead Kennedys for the entire drive. "If you're not active, and if you don't fight, it makes things much worse," Kuntzman said. ---- Peace Rally Marks Second Anniversary of Start of Iraq War By Charisse Yu March 19, 2005 http://www.kimatv.com/x3443.xml?ParentPageID=x3738&ContentID=x50272&Layout=KIMA.xsl&AdGroupID=x3443&NewsSection= The wet weather in Ellensburg didn't stop several people from attending a peace rally today. While thousands of soldiers have come back home safely from weary battles in Iraq, thousands have also lost their lives in the war, and many more are still there. Sunday marks the second anniversary of US invasion and bombing of Iraq. "We know there are no weapons of destruction in Iraq.. we need to leave," says Clint Coppernoll. Some say tax dollars should be spent elsewhere. Onlookers show their support with peace signs and honked their horns. Sunday at least 765 towns and cities across the US participated, that's double from last year. ---- Tens of thousands protest in London two years after Iraq invasion Sat Mar 19, 2005 12:00 PM ET Mideast - AFP http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050319/wl_mideast_afp/iraqwar2yearsbritain LONDON (AFP) - Tens of thousands of people marched through central London banging drums and waving banners and posters denouncing the "war on terror" on the second anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq (news - web sites). Pictures of US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) under the title "World's Number One Terrorist" and banners saying "No War in Iran (news - web sites)" mingled with others warning British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) that people would not vote for him in a general election expected in May due to his support for the invasion. Police early Saturday afternoon estimated the crowd at 40,000 to 45,000 while organisers said that some 150,000 people had turned out in protest at the Iraq war and other elements of the US-led war on terror. "This will be one of our biggest demonstrations," said Lindsay German, convener of Saturday's march and member of the Stop The War Coalition. "It expresses the very strong opposition to the war in Iraq and occupation," she said. The march, which left from Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, was to end at Trafalgar Square where speeches were to be made by anti-war campaigners such as former Guantanamo Bay inmate Martin Mubanga. Protestors placed a coffin in front of the US embassy along the way with "100,000 dead" written on it. "We need help to make this demonstration as big as possible" another spokesman for the Stop The War Coalition, said. "With rumours of an attack on Iran in June and the demonstration being a matter of weeks before the general election it would be fantastic to have many hundreds of thousands of people expressing their anti-war sentiment," he said. Campaigners with loudspeakers called on people to rally in protest against the "war on terror" and also urged them to gather again in Scotland in July when Blair is due to host a Group of Eight meeting of industrialised countries as president of the G8. "I want to stop the war, I am from China and we are probably next on (Bush's) list after Syria and Iran," said Laurence Wong, 48, a teacher living in London who was calling on people to sign a petition to stop any attack on Iran and Syria. "Today's demonstration is going to be a surprise for the government and for the national newspapers because they thought we had forgotten our anger at the war but we most definitely have not," he said. "I want to stop the war on terror and this can only be done through a mass movement of people from across the world," said Moira Nolan, 35, another member of the Stop The War Coalition. "Before Britain went to war in Iraq about 48 percent of the public supported the war -- now that figure is down to 29 percent," she said. The Iraq war would feature prominently in people's mind in the upcoming general election, which is widely expected to be called for May 5, said Nolan. "Blair wanted to push this issue from the front pages but the British public will not let that happen," she said. People poured into the capital from across the country, including 29-year-old human rights author Susanna Akono who travelled in a coach from Kent. "The war on terror is wrong because it is not going to end terrorism when you have people such as Iyad Allawi (Iraq's outgoing prime minister) being put in power," she said, an anti-war poster in her hand. Akono from Cambodia, who is married to a British man and is pregnant, said that she planned to go on a hunger strike from April 14 in protest against the continuing war on terror. "I want to do everything I can to make sure my child has a secure future," she said. Reg Keys, a 62-year-old from North Wales who lost his son Thomas in the Iraq war, turned out Saturday to protest against what he said were government lies. "It is something that you will never get over and the only thing one can do is try and expose the deceit and betrayal. I stand here a betrayed man by my government who lied to me about the need to send my son to war," he said. Thomas Keys, a military policeman, died in June 2003, four days ahead of his 21st birthday. ---- Peace rally attracts about 3,000 near Fort Bragg By VALERIE BAUMAN Associated Press Writer March 19. 2005 6:56PM http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050319/APN/503190942&cachetime=5 An anti-war rally organized in part by veterans and military families drew about 3,000 people to a park near Fort Bragg - home to more than 40,000 soldiers and thousands of other dependents. Demonstrators attending the rally on the second anniversary of the United States' invasion of Iraq said they hoped it would build pressure to bring troops home. "I can't remain silent on these issues, slap a yellow ribbon on my car and call it supporting our troops," said Kara Hollingsworth, the wife of a soldier serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. "I support our troops by making sure they are not put in harm's way unless absolutely necessary." The demonstration in a town where life revolves around the sprawling Army base, home to the Army's Green Berets and the elite 82nd Airborne Division, was met by about 100 opponents waving American flags and banners. Anne Hladik is a military wife too. Her husband is in Baghdad, preparing to come home from his second deployment. She stood with the counter-protesters. "I'm very insulted that people came here specifically to harass our military families," Hladik said. "It's hurtful because it gives (soldiers overseas) the illusion, at what may be a difficult time, that the nation may be against them." Hladik said the best way to show support for U.S. troops was to send care packages and calling cards to service men and women overseas. Similar protests across the United States and Europe marked the anniversary of the Iraq war. At least 45,000 Britons marched past the American Embassy in London to protest the invasion. In Fayetteville, the day opened with a march to Rowan Street Park, where 100 boxes draped with American flags represented soldiers killed in Iraq. Rally organizers repeated throughout the event that their support for the troops meant wanting the Bush Administration to bring them home safe. Michael Hoffman, a co-Founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War who invaded Iraq in 2003 with the Marines, be didn't think anti-war protests undermine the morale of troops facing danger, Hoffman said. "I've been in Iraq, I've been shot at, you're not thinking about the protests, you're not thinking about yellow ribbons, you're thinking about 'how am I going to get out of this?'" he said. Police made one arrest Saturday. Rann Bar-On, a rally speaker was arrested for obstructing and delaying arrest, and trespassing, both misdemeanors. Officers said he tried to enter the rally site without a mandatory search. ---- Hundreds Gather In Lancaster For Second Anniversary of Iraq War March 19, 2005 WGAL http://www.thewgalchannel.com/news/4301060/detail.html Hundreds of people opposed to the war in Iraq used Saturday's two-year anniversary to make their voices heard in downtown Lancaster. The assembly began in the shadow of Lancaster's War Memorial, but for some people, the war in Iraq is much more than a shadow. "I feel that the war is not worth the price that our people are paying-- our soldiers-- and the families," said Joe Arndt, whose son is being deployed to Iraq this summer. Hundreds marched along the city streets, many dressed in black as a symbol of mourning and grief. "I wish that there'd be an end to this war and that our troops would come home," said Arndt. "And our son won't have to go." ---- War Protesters in Wilkes-Barre Saturday, March 19, 2005 6:25 p.m. WNEP http://www.wnep.com/Global/story.asp?S=3100451 Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq and people all around the world are marking the date with protests, including some in our area. There was a small protest on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre today. The demonstration was part of a coordinated effort all over the globe. "If you want to make us safer and reduce the risk of terrorism, then we need to get our troops out of Iraq," said organizer Robert Griffin. There were much larger protests in New York City and around the world Saturday. ---- Peace protests proceed in Louisville 05:31 PM EST on Saturday, March 19, 2005 WHAS-11 http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news4/louisville-antiwar.html Louisville -- Not everyone sees the War in Iraq as a necessary victory for the United States. In Louisville on Saturday, those who oppose the War held a series of protest vigils. "Support our troops, Bring them home! Support our troops. bring them home!," was the chant heard on Old Brownsboro Road. Carrying signs that say "End the War!, Peace is patriotism" about 30 people were expressing their opinion. The Louisville Peace Action Community sponsored the vigils. "America is now becoming a country that believes in war to get what it wants and that is a change that not everybody is comfortable with," says Sam Avery of the Peace Action Community. This is not the first time the group has protested the war. They have held a vigil on the first Sunday of every month for the last two years. "Two years ago, we could say America is a country that believes in peace, but having attacked a country that we were not attacked by is a major change in who we are and what we stand for," says Avery. Sunday vigils are planned for Southeast Christian Church and at the intersection of the Outer Loop and Preston Highway. ---- Canadian demonstrations mark second anniversary of U.S. invasion of Iraq March 19, 2005 - 15:58 (CP) http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/politics/news/shownews.jsp?content=n031908A MONTREAL (CP) - About 4,000 antiwar protesters joined countless others across Canada and around the world on Saturday, marching downtown to mark the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Demonstrators banged drums, chanted slogans and pumped signs in the air as they marched to the U.S. consulate. Marilyn Rheault, 24, travelled from Trois-Rivieres, about 140 kilometres northeast of Montreal, to attend. "There's a lot of misinformation - that (the Iraqis) have chosen their government so things aren't as bad," Rheault said. "But it's the contrary, it's not really them that have chosen . . . . We have to send that message to the government - both Canadian and American." Although the demonstration drew just a fraction of the tens of thousands who clogged downtown Montreal to protest the war in 2003, organizers called the march a success. Raymond Legault, a spokesman for the antiwar group Echec a la guerre, said thousands of Iraqi civilians died in the war and continue to suffer and should not be forgotten. "There's no significant improvement in people's lives," he said. "The people are more and more insecure and more divided then ever, for these reasons we think the occupation should stop immediately. That the troops there should leave." In Ottawa, about 100 protesters, mostly young students, took over a major intersection a block from Parliament Hill to protest the war. Cheryl Clark, 19, said she came to support the Iraqis. "We have to show our solidarity with the Iraqi people who are being killed by the occupation," Clark said. Mark Donald, 18, agreed. "We have to show George Bush that the world opposes what he's doing in Iraq." ---- Anti-War Protesters Demonstrate In Abingdon Brian Mills News Channel 11 Mar 19, 2005 4:48 PM EST http://www.wjhl.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=TRI/MGArticle/TRI_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031781678923&path=Variables.path The names ring out like a roll call. But it's a roll call no one will answer to. They are the names of the American men and women who have died in Iraq over the past two years. “ Aaron Clarke, David Jeffrey Clarke, Kevin Clark, these are just a few of the fifteen hundred names it took the organizers here more than two weeks to put on card board crosses, says Reporter Brian Mills. Saturday is the second anniversary and folks have gathered in Abingdon Virginia to pay their respects. “ It’s a pretty small thing to do for the families well the parents and spouses and children of people who have been killed its just a very small symbol that we care”, says Lynn Eastin. The fluttering crosses are also a symbol of protest. “ Just for people to think what is it that our nation and therefore we are doing in another country and to perhaps think twice before we allow ourselves to get in this situation again, says Lynn Eastin. As for the families who have loved ones fighting over in Iraq, each day holds the possibility it could be their last. “ Yeah I think about it every day, especially if he says he is going to call, then he doesn’t'”, says Laura Mitchell. As the protesters in Abingdon unravel their last banner they hope when March 19th rolls around next year there will be no need to hold up any more crosses. And Laura Mitchell just hopes her husband is home long before then. Laura Mitchell’s husband is a Corporal with the 2-278th Armored Cavalry Regiment. He’s been in Iraq since December. ---- Day of war protest in Cottage Grove 3/19/2005, 2:27 p.m. PT By NIKI SULLIVAN The Associated Press http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1111263927240610.xml&storylist=orlocal COTTAGE GROVE, Ore. (AP) — About 230 people gathered in this small Willamette Valley town Saturday to mark the second anniversary of the war in Iraq. At the start of the day, marchers were largely silent, forsaking the raucous cheers and chants that have characterized many Oregon war protests. Instead, protesters walked two-by-two through a quiet residential street, some carrying bells, others holding a half-mile-long chain of flags bearing the names of American troops and Iraqi children killed during the war. Ron Betts, 58, a disabled Vietname veteran who drove from Waldport to join the protest and carried a flag that said, "Honor the warrior, not the war." "The best thing we can do is get out, and get out as fast as we can," Betts said. At the end of the march, Colton residents Michelle and Steve DeFords, whose son was killed in Iraq last fall, laid a wreath in his honor at the Oregon National Guard headquarters, while a trumpeter in the audience played Taps. "I wonder why 'real Americans' aren't outraged," Michelle DeFords said. "I am so tired of hearing that you can't support the troops and oppose the war." A handful of Cottage Grove residents watched the march from nearby storefronts, including 84-year-old Henry Isaacs, who carried a rolled up newspaper with a story about the death in Iraq of his great-grandson, Ken Leisten. "I don't care for a protester of any kind," said Isaacs, a World War II veteran whose sons fought in Vietnam. Peace protesters have held vigils in Cottage Grove several times a week over the past two years, but they chose to organize a large protest in the quiet timber town of about 9,000 because it is the home for the largest deployment of Oregon National Guard troops since World War II. About 700 of those troops returned to Fort Lewis Air Force Base earlier this week, after spending a year in Iraq. A homecoming is planned for March 31 at the formal demobilization ceremony in Salem, and a parade and patriotic day of events are planned for the end of May. Oregon still has more than 800 Guard members serving overseas: 650 in Iraq, 100 in Afghanistan and 50 at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The troops — the largest deployment of Oregon National Guard troops since World War II — saw some of the heaviest urban combat and suffered eight deaths during their yearlong tour. The peace protest is one of more than 700 scheduled nationwide on the second anniversary of the war in Iraq, according to United for Peace, a national peace group. In Oregon, 14 cities planned peace protests, from Pendleton to Lincoln City, to honor the 38 soldiers with Oregon ties who have died in Iraq and the 1,515 nationally. ---- Protest in Minneapolis marks two-year anniversary of Iraq war Associated Press Posted on Sat, Mar. 19, 2005 http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news4/minneapolis-antiwar.html MINNEAPOLIS - Peace advocates in the Twin Cities are protesting the war in Iraq today. It's been two years since the war began. A protest in Minneapolis this afternoon is calling for an end to the war in Iraq and the safe return of troops. The Minneapolis protest starts at 1 p.m. in Loring Park, with a march following at 1:30 p.m.. A closing program is scheduled for 2:30 at Wesley United Methodist Church. Later this evening, a group called Neighbors for Peace will walk to show their opposition to the war. They will walk from Snelling and Summit Avenues to the Mississippi River in St. Paul at 5:45 p.m.. And at 7 p.m., St. Paul Reformation Lutheran Church is holding a candelight vigil for peace. ---- Protest ensue on Iraq war's two-year anniversary Saturday, March 19, 2005 4:41:37 PM http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_fullstory.asp?id=31984 CLEVELAND -- Anti-war demonstrations were held across Ohio and the rest of America Saturday by peace activists calling for the end of the Iraq war two years after it began. The national anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice is leading the effort. They want President Bush to bring U.S. troops home. On Fountain Square in Cincinnati, about 300 people stood under umbrellas listening to musicians play anti-war songs. Speakers included high school students and a University of Cincinnati student who wants military recruiters banned from campus. Similar rallies were held in Cleveland, Columbus and smaller cities in all parts of Ohio. ---- Iraq War Protesters March on Hollywood 3/19/2005 KABC-TV LOS ANGELES — Anti-war demonstrators marched in Hollywood and elsewhere across the country and around the world today to mark the second anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. As of 2 p.m., there were no reports of arrests locally, said Los Angeles police Sgt. Jeanne Harris of the Hollywood Station. "Everything has been peaceful," according to Harris, who estimated the crowd size at about 2,000 people. She said the turnout was "substantially reduced" from the size of previous anti-war demonstrations in Hollywood. The march took place under overcast skies, with a chance of rain through the afternoon. In New York, demonstrators reportedly carried flag-draped cardboard coffins to protest the continuing military occupation in Iraq. Cities in Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, Italy and Turkey also were the scenes of anti-war rallies today, according to broadcast reports. ---- Anti-War Activists Rally In Pittsburgh March 19, 2005 Pittsburgh Channel http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/4300927/detail.html PITTSBURGH -- Two years ago, the U.S. led coalition invaded Iraq. Saturday, anti-war activists used the second anniversary to voice their opinion in Pittsburgh. Hundreds took part in a march that went from Squirrel Hill to Oakland. The protest highlighted the ongoing cost of the war. Two rallies were held at the start and finish of the march featuring music and guest speakers. Copyright 2005 by ThePittsburghChannel ---- Anti-war protests held across Europe March 20, 2005 By Janelle Stecklein ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050319-110524-9628r.htm LONDON -- Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters demonstrated across Europe yesterday to mark the second anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, with 45,000 marching from London's Hyde Park past the U.S. Embassy. In Istanbul, about 15,000 people protested in the Kadikoy neighborhood against the U.S. presence in Iraq. But the rallies were nowhere near as big as those in February 2003, just before the war, when millions marched in cities around the world to urge President Bush and his allies not to attack Iraq. With international forces still facing violent opposition in Iraq, protesters were divided about what to demand from leaders now. While some wanted a full troop withdrawal, others argued that would leave Iraqis in a worse position than before the invasion. "We got the Iraqis into this mess, we need to help them out of it," said Kit MacLean, 29, waiting near Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner before the London march began. Some worried Mr. Bush might be planning another war in the Middle East or elsewhere. "After Iraq -- Iran? Syria? Cuba?" read one placard. One man carried fake bombs with American flags painted on them and a dartboard map of the world showed a U.S. missile sticking out of Iraq. Security was heavy as the demonstrators moved past the U.S. Embassy. Cement barricades and metal fences blocked the building, as they have since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Two former British soldiers placed a cardboard coffin bearing the words "100,000 dead" outside the embassy. "George Bush, Uncle Sam, Iraq will be your Vietnam," marchers chanted. At the demonstration in Istanbul, two marchers dressed like U.S. soldiers pretended to rough up another, who was dressed as a detainee with a sack on his head, in a mimed criticism of prisoner abuse cases. "Murderer Bush, get out," read one sign. In the southern city of Adana, home to a Turkish military base used by American forces, protesters laid a black wreath in front of the U.S. Consulate to protest the war, the Anatolia news agency reported. In Athens, about 3,000 protesters brought the city center to a standstill for three hours and painted outlines of bodies outside the U.S. Embassy. Hundreds also turned out in Sweden and Norway. "I think it's important to show that we still care about this," said Linn Majuri, 15, a member of the environmental organization Green Youth in Stockholm. "People have become apathetic about this, it's no longer something they walk around thinking about every day." With music and banners, marchers in Rome demanded the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq. "Iraq to the Iraqis!" read one banner. Demonstrations also were planned in nine Spanish cities including Madrid, Barcelona and the Basque seaside resort of San Sebastian. British elections expected in May added a charge to the London protest. Prime Minister Tony Blair has been Mr. Bush's staunchest ally in Iraq, despite strong domestic opposition to the war, especially among members of his Labor Party.