NucNews October 16, 2006



-------- NUCLEAR 


-------- australia

Nuclear reactor by 2016?

October 16, 2006 The Age

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/nuclear-reactor-by-2016/2006/10/16/1160850842259.html

Australia could start planning to build its first nuclear power station within ten years, Industry and Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane says.

Mr Macfarlane's prediction comes after Prime Minister John Howard yesterday gave his strongest support yet for the introduction of nuclear power in Australia.

Mr Macfarlane said while it was important to have an informed public debate on the issue, he believed nuclear power could play a key role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Australia.

"Nuclear power comes with benefits and risks and they need to be weighed up," he told reporters after addressing the 15th Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference in Sydney.

"Once that debate is had, then the government will able to make a decision on how we move forward.

"But it's certainly possible that within the next ten years, a nuclear power station could begin to be planned."

By the end of the year, the federal government is expecting an expert task force to release a draft report on the merits of introducing nuclear power in Australia.

----

Nuclear industry official foresees big output need

Bloomberg News October 16, 2006

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/16/business/energy.php

SYDNEY Global nuclear power output may need to increase twentyfold this century if rising greenhouse gas emissions are to be slowed while improving living standards for the poorest nations, the World Nuclear Association said here Monday.
 
In 10 years, rising energy demand in developing nations will push their emissions of gases blamed for global warming ahead of those of the major industrial countries, said the association's director general, John Ritch.
 
To curb that growth, and make enough power to help provide food and water for the poorest people, Ritch said, expansion of nuclear power generation will need to accelerate at a significant rate.
 
"From an environmental perspective, it will not be adequate if the nuclear industry simply doubles or triples or quadruples its capacity in this century," Ritch told delegates to the Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference.
 
This will require "nothing less than 8,000 to 10,000 gigawatts of nuclear power, a twentyfold increase," said Ritch, whose association is based in London and represents reactor owners and the suppliers of their fuel.
 
About 16 percent of the world's electricity is made at 442 nuclear reactors with a combined capacity of 370 gigawatts. Demand for new reactors from countries trying to increase power output and reduce emissions from coal and oil-fired generators could push world capacity to 430 gigawatts by 2020, according to an estimate by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
 
But that effort will not be enough to meet the needs of the nine billion people that may populate the planet by 2050, compared with 6.4 billion now, Ritch said. This rising global population and a harsher climate are also likely to compound the growing shortages of adequate drinking water in some regions, he said.
 
"As a remedy," he said, "we have one available tool: large-scale desalination of drinking water, an energy-intensive process that will compound global energy demand."
 
If world governments are serious about tackling the environmental danger posed by climate change, there needs to be a long-term international goal to cut carbon emissions by 60 percent, Ritch said.
 
Nuclear power also needs to be encouraged to speed new construction and start lowering costs through economies of scale, he said.
 
Floating atom plant planned
 
Indonesia is poised to sign an agreement with the Russian electricity trading company Raoues to develop a floating nuclear power plant, a provincial government official said, Agence France- Presse reported from Jakarta.
 
The authorities from Gorontalo Province on Sulawesi Island signed a memorandum of understanding Friday with Russian-Indonesian Corp., a joint venture that seeks to develop trade, said a provincial spokesman, Rudi Iriawan.
 
The head of the provincial economic affairs bureau, Ishak Ndoma, said another agreement between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Raoues was to be signed in the next few weeks for the power plant, which is intended to have a capacity of 70 megawatts.



-------- britain

British Energy to Shut Two Nuclear Reactors on Cracks (Update2)

By Mathew Carr and Lars Paulsson
Last Updated: October 16, 2006 (Bloomberg) 

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=afLVE51i4Ovo

Oct. 16 -- British Energy Group Plc, whose plants produce as much as a fifth of the U.K.'s power, said units at two nuclear sites will be shut because of cracks in boilers. The shares plunged as much as 26 percent.

``Preparations are being made to shut down'' the reactors, the Livingston, Scotland-based company said today in a statement. ``The company is not able to give guidance as to when both units at Hinkley Point B and both units at Hunterston B will return to service.''

Chief Executive Officer Bill Coley has struggled with production halts after boiler-tube cracks were discovered in other reactors at the two sites earlier this year. The shutdowns may undermine confidence in atomic energy as the U.K. weighs building a new generation of nuclear stations.

British Energy's reactors ``have proved to be unreliable,'' said Mark Hives, a London-based utilities analyst for Societe Generale SA. He has a ``sell'' recommendation on the shares. ``Not only will they lose output, but they will have to make good on any sales contracts'' at higher winter power prices.

Shares of British Energy slid as much as 148.5 pence to 412 pence. The stock traded at 426 pence at 3:11 p.m. in London.

The company in September maintained a fiscal year production target of 61 to 63 terawatt-hours, though said achieving it would be ``challenging'' after cutting an electricity generation forecast.

Government Stake

Boiler tube cracking at two other reactors at the Hunterston B and Hinkley Point B plants would delay their return to the power grid, British Energy said then. The company said in the September statement it may have to shut down other reactors at the sites for checks and repairs.

Carl Gibson, head of external affairs at British Energy, declined to comment on the company's production target.

The U.K. government, which owns about two-thirds of British Energy through the Nuclear Liabilities Fund, in July repeated it will sell part of the stake under a policy to sell assets. A spokesman for the U.K.'s Department of Trade and Industry today said he couldn't immediately comment.

Hinkley Point B was built between 1967 and 1975 and began generation in February 1976. It's located in Somerset, on the southwest coast of England. Hunterston B is one of British Energy's two Scottish atomic plants, located on the west coast. It also started in February 1976. The two sites are scheduled to be decommissioned in 2011, according to the company's Web site.

Duke Career

Shares of British Energy began trading in January 2005 after a three-month delisting, during which time the company reached agreement with creditors on a 1.5 billion-pound ($2.8 billion) bailout and a plan to swap debt for equity as the company sought to avoid bankruptcy.

Coley was appointed CEO last year after a 37-year career at Duke Power Co. in the U.S. He succeeded Michael Alexander, who oversaw the government-sponsored bailout that gave control to bondholders after power prices plunged 40 percent in four years through 2002.

British Energy has eight nuclear plants in the U.K. with a total capacity of 9,568 megawatts. The company's only non- nuclear unit, the Eggborough coal-fired station, has a capacity of 2,000 megawatts.

British Energy's output target for the financial year ending March 2007 compares with total U.K. 2005 power production of 398 terawatt-hours, figures on the Department of Trade and Industry's Web site show.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mathew Carr in London at m.carr@bloomberg.net

----

Nuclear firm to be fined over leak

Press Association
Monday October 16, 2006 7:28 AM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6150306,00.html

The firm that runs Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant will be fined in court on Monday after admitting safety breaches following a radioactive leak.

Around 83,000 litres of acid containing about 20 tonnes of uranium and 160kg of plutonium escaped from a ruptured pipe into a sealed concrete holding cell at the site in Cumbria.

The spillage of spent nuclear fuel was discovered in April 2005 - but may have gone unnoticed for eight months.

No one was injured and no radioactive material escaped into the atmosphere after the leak at the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) part of the site.

But British Nuclear Group Sellafield Ltd, which runs the facility, later pleaded guilty to three counts of breaching conditions attached to the Sellafield site licence, granted under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965.

The Health and Safety Executive brought the prosecution, arguing the firm failed to ensure safety systems were in good working order and that radioactive material was effectively contained.

Representatives of the company will appear at Carlisle Crown Court on Monday.

They face unlimited fines under the powers of the court.

---

British Nuclear Group fined over leaks

16 October 2006 

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/1016/sellafield.html

The operators of the Sellafield Nuclear Reprocessing Plant have been fined £500,000 following failures which led to a leakage of highly radioactive liquid within the plant.

British Nuclear Group, which operates Sellafield, had pleaded guilty to three breaches of their operating licence following prosecution by Britain's Health and Safety Executive.

Today the fine was imposed by a judge sitting at Carlisle Crown Court.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Openshaw said he had no doubt that BNG was guilty of serious faults and failings and had not properly discharged its public duty.

The judge initially imposed a fine of £750,000 but reduced this to £500,000 because of the guilty plea.

The leak of 83,000 litres of radioactive fluid inside the thermal oxide reprocessing plant at Sellafield was detected in April last year.

However, subsequent investigation showed the leak had begun in a fractured pipe within the THORP Plant in August 2003.

It was the latest in a series of safety breaches which has prompted the Irish Government to call for Sellafield to be shut down.

In 1983, it was discovered that on three separate occasions a mixture of radioactive waste, solvent, and water was directly discharged into the Irish Sea.

The Government insists that Sellafield, which is closer to Dublin than London, poses a serious and continuing threat to the health and safety of Irish people.



-------- business

Mitsubishi Heavy in final nuclear talks with France's Areva

10-16-2006, 04h47
TOKYO (AFP)

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=146785

Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy has entered the final stage of talks with French giant Areva on a tie-up to build nuclear power reactors in the face of growing competition, a report says.

The alliance is aimed at Toshiba Corp, which this year bought US power plant maker Westinghouse from British Nuclear Fuels, said the Yomiuri Shimbun, quoting unnamed sources close to Mitsubishi Heavy.

A spokesman for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Japan's top heavy machinery marker, declined comment.

The tie-up would aim to develop pressurized water reactors (PWR), the technology used in about 70 percent of nuclear power plants around the world.

It would cut development costs for an expected rise of orders in the United States and China, the report said.

The alliance would also compete against General Electric, which unsuccessfully sought Westinghouse and has formed a partnership with Japan's Hitachi Ltd.

Mitsubishi Heavy used to receive overseas orders from Westinghouse but expects the tie-up to end with the company being bought out by Toshiba.

Toshiba bought Westinghouse from British Nuclear Fuels for 5.4 billion dollars in the largest overseas acquisition by a Japanese company in years.

Together, Westinghouse and Toshiba are the world leader in civilian nuclear technology. The second-ranked is Areva, a state-owned firm created in 2001 by a merger between Cogema, Framatome and CEA industrie.

Japan depends on nuclear power for 30 percent of its energy needs and expects demand to go up as current reactors need to be replaced.

Toshiba also expects an expansion of business in the United States where the government wants to re-launch construction of nuclear reactors in the face of soaring oil prices.



<a name="du"></a>

-------- depleted uranium

DIABETES AND DEPLETED URANIUM: IF ITS AN EPIDEMIC, ITS NOT GENETIC, notes Leuren Moret

2006-10-16 UN Observer
By Leuren Moret

http://www.unobserver.com/layout4.php?id=2695&blz=1

DIABETES AND DEPLETED URANIUM: IF ITS AN EPIDEMIC, ITS NOT GENETIC, notes Leuren Moret

The global pandemic of diabetes, which is increasing each year, began with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The resulting global atmospheric pollution has resulted in a diabetes pandemic caused by hundreds of thousands of pounds of vaporized depleted uranium used in atomic and hydrogen bombs as "tamping", fission products from nuclear power plants, and the illegal use of depleted uranium radioactive poison gas weapons introduced to the battlefield by the US in 1991. Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and now Lebanon are now uninhabitable. Israel soon will be.

Depleted uranium is being used to carry out an illegal nuclear war against countries with mineral resources the British Economic Empire and US Economic Empire must control. The huge global increase in diabetes between 1996-97 is indicative of a global environmental event. Now we know why Rhodes Scholar President Clinton was grid bombing and carpet bombing in Iraq in the NO-FLY-ZONES for ten years. Grid bombing and carpet bombing is carried out for the sole purpose of terrain contamination.

Unfortunately, we the citizens of the world are now sitting together in the Auschwitz radioactive poison gas chamber which our atmosphere has been converted into by the "GLOBAL 2000" National Security Council policy paper written in 1979 for (David Rockefeller's protege) President Jimmy Carter by (David Rockefeller's protege) Henry Kissinger, (David Rockefeller's protege) Zbiegnew Brzezinski, General Alexander Haig, and Ed Muskie.

The Queen's favorite American buccaneers, Cheney, Halliburton, and the Bush family, are tied to her through uranium mining and the shared use of illegal depleted uranium munitions in the Middle East, Central Asia and Kosovo/Bosnia.

Thank you Queen Elizabeth, the Rothschilds, and David Rockefeller for carrying out the depopulation plans of Sir Cecil Rhodes, the sponsor of the RhodesScholarship and mid-1800s explorer of Africa.

For more information:

GLOBAL DEPOPULATION HAS BEGUN
http://www.berkeleycitizen.org/diabetes.html

THE QUEEN'S DEATH STAR
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2006/DU-Europe-Moret26feb06.htm



-------- europe

New glitch at Czech nuclear plant angers Austrians

Mon Oct 16, 2006 (AFP)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061016/sc_afp/czechenergynuclearenvironmentaustria_061016134424

PRAGUE - A reactor at the Czech Republic's controversial Temelin nuclear power plant shut down due to a malfunction, prompting threats of new demonstrations by environmentalists in nearby Austria.

Power station spokesman Milan Nebesar said the first of the plant's two reactors had been shut down automatically at dawn after the safety system detected damp inside an electrical generator.

"In the next 24 hours, engineers will dry out... the generator before checking and testing it," he said. "Then the reactor will again be hooked up to the grid."

Nebesar said the breakdown was "not serious", but Austrian anti-nuclear group Atomstopp said a demonstration at the border crossing between the two countries could take place on Sunday.

"We have to have the agreement of the authorities," spokesman Andreas Reimer told the Czech CTK news agency, charging that the Temelin plant was in a "disastrous condition."

Demonstrators used a dozen tractors decorated with balloons inscribed with "Stop Temelin" to completely block the Wullowitz-Dolni Dvoriste border crossing between the two countries for an hour on October 8.

Protestors regard security at the Soviet-built power plant only 60 kilometers (40 miles) from the border with Austria as insufficient.

Construction work on the plant began in 1987. It was initially to have had four Soviet-technnology reactors but was scaled down after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989 to two.

The plant became operational in 2000 equipped with security systems supplied by the US company Westinghouse for the two VVER 1000 Type V 320 pressurized-water reactors.

Austria has been officially against nuclear power since 1978.



-------- iran

Scott Ritter on "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change”

Monday, October 16th, 2006 Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/16/144204

Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter: “The path that the United States is currently embarked on regarding Iran is a path that will inevitably lead to war. Such a course of action will make even the historical mistake we made in Iraq pale by comparison.” [includes rush transcript] Twenty-five ministers from the European Union are expected to meet tomorrow to ask the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. They say sanctions are necessary because of Iran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment. Though Iran contends its nuclear program is for generating electricity, the U.S. and some of its allies allege it is trying to develop atomic weapons.

On Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said that Western threats to impose sanctions were part of a "psychological war" and that the Islamic Republic was more determined than ever to pursue peaceful nuclear technology.

A new book by former weapons inspector - Scott Ritter - claims that the Bush Administration is determined to wage war against Iran. In "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change," Ritter examines the administration’s regime-change policy and the potential of Iran to threaten US national security interests.

    * Scott Ritter, Ritter served from 1991 to 1998 as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq in the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). His new book is, "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change." His previous book is "Iraq Confidential."

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: A new book by former weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, claims the Bush administration is determined to wage war against Iran. In Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change, Scott Ritter examines the administration’s regime change policy and the potential of Iran to threaten U.S. national security interests. He writes, “The path the United States has currently embarked on regarding Iran is a path that will inevitably lead to war. Such a course of action will make even the historical mistake we made in Iraq pale by comparison,” he writes. Scott Ritter joins us in the studio now. Welcome to Democracy Now!

SCOTT RITTER: Well, thanks.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is the key to understand about Iran right now, about the U.S., well, about your title targeting -- Target Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: Well, the most important thing is to understand the reality that Iran is squarely in the crosshairs as a target of the Bush administration, in particular, as a target of the Bush administration as it deals -- as it relates to the National Security Strategy of the United States. You see, this isn’t a hypothetical debate among political analysts, foreign policy specialists. Read the 2006 version of the National Security Strategy, where Iran is named sixteen times as the number one threat to the national security of the United States of America, because in the same document, it embraces the notion of pre-emptive wars of aggression as a legitimate means of dealing with such threats. It also recertifies the Bush administration doctrine of regional transformation globally, but in this case particularly in the Middle East. So, we’re not talking about hypotheticals here, regardless of all the discussion the Bush administration would like you to believe there is about diplomacy. There is no diplomacy, as was the case with Iraq. Diplomacy is but a smokescreen to disguise the ultimate objective of regime change.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the difference in approach the U.S. takes to North Korea, which has, according to their own reports, set off a nuclear bomb, and Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: Well, the only thing that the Bush administration’s approach towards North Korea and the Bush administration’s approach towards Iran have in common is that the endgame is regime change. Other than that, what you see -- I guess the other thing they have in common is the total incoherence of their approach. Look, North Korea and Iran, you can’t compare; it’s apples and oranges.

North Korea is a declared nuclear power. They even declared their intent to have nuclear weapons. They haven’t hidden this from anybody. They withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in total conformity with the rule of law. They put the world on notice. They said, we will not participate. They gave them the appropriate timeline. They invited the inspectors out. And then, surprise, surprise, despite the fact that the Bush administration said, “Well, they’re just bluffing,” well, they’re not bluffing. They just popped one off. And guess what. If we continue to push North Korea irresponsibly -- because again, what are we talking about here?

What do we want to achieve in North Korea? Do we really care about the North Korean people, want human rights to -- no, regime change. This is all about regime change. This is about the United States being able to dictate the terms of coexistence with everybody else in the world. Do people understand that our policy towards China is regime change? Do they understand what the ramifications of that is? That’s what’s going on with North Korea. And we shouldn’t be surprised that they did exactly what they said they were going to do.

Now, we take Iran. Iran is a nation that says, “We don’t have a nuclear weapons program. We have no intention.” In fact, when North Korea exploded their device, the Iranians condemned it. They said nuclear weapons cannot be part of a global equation. And yet, we continue to try and lump them together as if North Korea and Iran are part and parcel of the same policy. Well, maybe they are part and parcel of the same incoherent approach that the Bush administration has taken to dealing with nuclear proliferation.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, you just returned from Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: I came -- I was in Iran in early September, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did you do there?

SCOTT RITTER: I went there as a journalist for Nation magazine. I was there to research an article that hopefully will come out some time in November. You know, it was funny, the Iranian government, like many governments, says one thing, does another. I had a whole agenda that had been agreed upon in advance, that I was going to go and interview X, interview Y, visit sites, see etc. And I got there to find out that the Iranian government, regardless of what we had coordinated here in the United States, had no clue (a) that I was coming and (b) that I had an agenda. So, I show up in Iran, and I’m on my own.

What an eye-opening experience to be on your own in a nation that has been called an Islamic fascist state. I have been to dictatorships in the Middle East. I have been to nations that have a high security profile. Iran is not one of these nations. I’m a former intelligence officer who has stated some pretty strong positions on Iran, and yet I had full freedom of movement in Iran with no interference whatsoever. And as a result, although I didn’t have the approved agenda, I had my own agenda, which allowed me to interview senior government officials, senior military officials, senior intelligence officials, and to visit sites that were deemed sensitive. The conclusion is that the American media has gotten it wrong on Iran. It’s a very modern, westernized, pro-Western, and surprisingly pro-American country that does not constitute a threat to the United States whatsoever.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re a former weapons inspector in Iraq.

SCOTT RITTER: Correct.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about similarities or differences you see between the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and what’s happening now with Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: The biggest similarity that we need to point out is that in both cases no evidence was put forward to sustain the allegations that are being made. Iraq was accused of having weapons of mass destruction programs, reconstituting chemical, biological, nuclear, long-range ballistic missile programs. There was an inspection process in place that had access, full access to the facilities in question, and no data was derived from these inspections that backed up the Bush administration's allegations. And yet, Iraq was told, it’s not up to the inspectors to find the weapons. It’s up to Iraq to prove they don't exist. Iraq had to prove a negative. And they couldn't. We now know that in 1991, Saddam Hussein had destroyed the totality of his weapons programs. There weren’t any left to find, discover. There was no threat.

We now have Iran. It’s alleged to have a nuclear weapons program. And yet the International Atomic Energy Agency, the inspectors who have had full access to the sites in Iran, have come out and said, “Well, we can’t say that there isn’t a secret program that we don’t know about. What we can say, as a direct result of our investigations, there is no data whatsoever to sustain the Bush administration's claims that there is a nuclear weapons program.” And yet, the Bush administration once again is putting the onus on Iran, saying, “It’s not up to the inspectors to find the nuclear weapons program. It’s up to the Iranians to prove that one doesn’t exist.” Why do we go down this path? Because you can’t prove a negative. There’s nothing Iran can do that will satisfy the Bush administration, because the policy at the end of the day is not about nonproliferation, it’s not about disarmament. It’s about regime change. And all the Bush administration wants to do is to create the conditions that support their ultimate objective of military intervention.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, one of the things you talk about in your book is that no attention has been paid to the Supreme Leader's pronouncement in the form of a fatwa, that Iran rejects outright the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, when we say “Supreme Leader,” first of all, most Americans are going to scratch their head and say, “Who?” because, you see, we have a poster boy for demonization out there. His name is Ahmadinejad. He’s the idiot that comes out and says really stupid vile things, such as, “It is the goal of Iran to wipe Israel off the face of the world,” and he makes ridiculous statements about the United States and etc. And, of course, man, he -- it’s a field day for the American media, for the Western media, because you get all the little sound bites out there, Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad, president of Iran. But what people don't understand is, while he can vocalize, his finger is not on any button of power. If you read the Iranian constitution, you’ll see that the president of Iran is almost a figurehead.

The true power in Iran rests with the Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader is the Ayatollah Khamenei. He is supported by an organization called the Guardian Council. Then there’s another group called the Expediency Council. These are the people that control the military, the police, the nuclear program, all the instruments of power. And not only has the Supreme Leader issued a fatwa that says that nuclear weapons are not compatible with Islamic law, with the Shia belief system that he is responsible, in 2003 he actually reached out to the Bush administration via the Swiss embassy and said, “Look, we would like to normalize relations with the United States. We’d like to initiate a process that leads to a peace treaty between Israel and Iran.” Get this, Israel and Iran. He’s not saying, “We want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.” He is saying, “We want peace with Israel.” And they were willing to put their nuclear program on the table.

Why didn’t the Bush administration embrace this? Because that leads to a process of normalization, where the United States recognizes the legitimacy of the theocracy and is willing to peacefully coexist with the theocracy. That’s not the Bush administration's position. They want the theocracy gone. They will do nothing that legitimizes that, nothing that sustains peace. They rejected peace. So, it’s not Ahmadinejad that represents the threat to international peace and security when it comes to American-Iranian relations. It’s the Bush administration, because the Bush administration refuses to put peace on the table. Bush talks about diplomacy. There will not be diplomacy, true diplomacy, until he puts Condoleezza Rice on an airplane, sends her to Tehran to talk to the Supreme Leader.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Scott Ritter. He has written a new book. It’s called: Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change. And the picture on the cover has an image of a U.S. gun, of a gun with an American flag. Talk about the image you have here and the backdrop of it.

SCOTT RITTER: You know, I wish I could take credit for that image. But unfortunately, that is the work of -- not unfortunately, fortunately that’s the work of a really good graphic designer with Nation Books who came up with, I think, a cover that is not only attractive but symbolic. But I think the point is here that Iran is the target. You know, we talk about America and the symbols of America. And yet, we have an American flag transformed into a symbol that the world recognizes when you say the United States: a weapon. And it’s very sad to think of the United States, the nation that’s supposed to espouse human rights, individual civil liberties, that when you talk about the United States around the world today, they think about us only in terms of violence, violence brought on by guns, because that’s what we’ve become, a nation of violence.

AMY GOODMAN: The scenario you envision around the U.S. and Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: War. The bottom line is that the Bush administration has two more years left to govern here in the United States. They have a policy of regional transformation in the Middle East: regime change. We see that policy in play today in Iraq with all of its horrible manifestations. You’d think that they would have learned something, but they haven’t. They continue to articulate that Iran needs to be transformed into a viable democracy, although, according to your news broadcast today and then other news coming out, it looks like we’re going to give up on democracy in Iraq.

Look, Bush has already said that he doesn’t want to leave Iran to the next president, that this is a problem he needs to solve now. And the other factor that we haven’t woven in here that we need to is the role played by Israel in pressuring the United States for a very aggressive stance against Iran. Israel has drawn a red line that says, not only will they not tolerate a nuclear weapons program in Iran, they will not tolerate anything dealing with nuclear energy, especially enrichment, that could be used in a nuclear program. So, even if Iran is telling the truth -- Iran says, “We have no nuclear weapons program. We just want peaceful nuclear energy” -- Israel says, “So long as Iran has any enrichment capability, this constitutes a threat to Israel,” and they are pressuring the United States to take forceful action.

AMY GOODMAN: In what way?

SCOTT RITTER: Oh, it’s diplomatic pressure. We see -- starting in 2002, you saw the Israeli prime minister and the defense minister come running to the United States in the lead-up to the war with Iraq, saying, “Hey, let's not worry too much about Iraq. That’s not really a big problem. I know we’ve got a lot of rhetoric going on about weapons of mass destruction, but the big problem’s Iran.” And the Bush administration said, “We don't want to talk about Iran right now. We’re dealing with Iraq.” In the immediate aftermath of the war, Israel came and said, “Alright, thank you for getting rid of Saddam. We now want you to focus on Iran.” And the United States continued to put Iran on the back burner. And it wasn’t until the Israeli government leaked some intelligence to an Iranian opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, who came out and said, “Hey, look, there’s this site in Natanz. They’re doing enrichment there.” And suddenly the United States was forced to say, “Oh, we’ve got to put Iran back on the front burner.” And it’s been Israel that’s been dictating the pace of media operations, let’s say, on Iran.

AMY GOODMAN: Something the media says is that Iran doesn’t need nuclear power -- it has plenty of oil -- that nuclear power is just its way of getting nuclear weapons.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, there can be no doubt that Iran has plenty of oil, but that oil is the only thing Iran has going for it, in terms of a viable world-class economy. In 1976, the Shah of Iran came to the United States, sent his representatives to intercede and say, “Look, we’ve done an analysis, and we’ve got a finite amount of oil. And right now we need to export it. And if we don't export it, we don't make money, etc. We don't have enough oil to sustain this. We need to come up with an indigenous energy policy that frees up our oil for exportation. We want to use nuclear energy.” And the U.S. government went, “Good idea, Shah. We're all for it.” That was Gerald Ford.

The chief of staff of the White House at the time was Dick Cheney. The Secretary of Defense was Donald Rumsfeld. So, this argument that both Cheney and Rumsfeld put out today that Iran is a nation awash in a sea of oil, there is no need for a nuclear energy program, they both supported Iran's goals of achieving nuclear energy in 1976. Not only nuclear energy, but they also supported the Shah when he said, “We cannot allow a nuclear energy program’s fuel to be held hostage by the vagaries of sanctions and war. We need an indigenous fuel-manufacturing capability inclusive of the full uranium enrichment process.” And guess what the U.S. government said in 1976. “No problem, Shah. Good deal.” Of course, in 1979, the Islamists come in and suddenly we change our opinion. The bottom line is, Iran has every right legally to a nuclear energy program, and economically, we’ve already deemed it a responsible way to go.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, both the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner have said covert actions have already begun in Iran, U.S. military. Do you think that is true?

SCOTT RITTER: I respect the reporting of Seymour Hersh. I respect the analysis of Sam Gardiner. And I respect the integrity of people who have talked to me who are in a position to know. Look, we’re already overflying Iran with unmanned aerial vehicles, pilotless drones. On the ground, the CIA is recruiting Mojahedin-e-Khalq, recruiting Kurds, recruiting Azeris, who are operating inside Iran on behalf of the United States of America. And there is reason to believe that we’ve actually put uniformed members of the United States Armed Forces and American citizens operating as CIA paramilitaries inside Iranian territory to gather intelligence.

Now, when you violate the borders and the airspace of a sovereign nation with paramilitary and military forces, that’s an act of war. That’s an act of war. So, when Americans say, “Ah, there’s not going to be a war in Iran,” there's already a war in Iran. We’re at war with Iran. We’re just not in the declared conventional stage of the war. The Bush administration has a policy of regime change. They’re going to use the military, and the military is being used.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have a minute, but the role of the media in all this. In the lead-up to the invasion, they slammed you, they smeared you, as you were a UN weapons inspector who was opposed to the invasion.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, you know, they can come at me again all they want. I could care less. It’s like water off a duck's back. The problem’s not me. The issue is not me. The issue is truth and facts. I think it’s clear today that we weren’t given the truth and the facts about the reality of Iraq in the lead-up to the war, and it's clear the media is not doing the same with Iran. We are being preprogrammed to accept, at face value, true anything negative about Iran. That’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book, to put it into a proper perspective.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter. His book is Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change. He is a former UN weapons inspector. And tonight, you will be at the Ethical Culture Society in New York City, along with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh. 



-------- korea

Seoul Can Build A-Bombs Within 1 Year
	
By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
voc200@koreatimes.co.kr
10-16-2006 Korea Times
		
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200610/kt2006101617211910440.htm

A South Korean lawmaker yesterday claimed the country is capable of building atomic bombs in a year if there were no opposition from overseas.

Rep. Suh Sang-kee at the main opposition Grand National Party made the remarks after interviewing several anonymous nuclear scientists at home.

``According to many domestic experts, South Korea currently has technologies enough to develop atomic bombs with uranium within a year,'' Suh said.

``The experts also think it would take a couple of years for us to build up plutonium bombs and deploy them if overseas checks do not stand in the way,'' the 60-year-old said.

Suh stressed that the Korean Peninsula must be free from nuclear weapons and the development of nuclear arsenals would work against the country's interest.

``In reality, we cannot secure highly-enriched uranium or plutonium with the International Atomic Energy Agency inspecting our country continuously,'' Suh said.

``In an extreme case if we have no choice but to make atomic bombs, however, experts recommend Seoul should turn to uranium rather than plutonium to make weapons as it is easier to make weapons with the former,'' he added.

Local nuclear researchers split into two opposing camps over Rep. Suh's comments.

Chang In-soon, former head of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), contended both plutonium and uranium bombs can be created here in less than a year.

``Technologically speaking, we know how to enrich uranium since we acquired the technique to do so with lasers in 2004. As soon as we establish a facility to enrich uranium, we will be able to roll out weapons with it,'' Chang said.

``In addition, it is not a tall task to extract plutonium from uranium and we have a number of nuclear power plants. In an emergency, we will be able to arm ourselves with plutonium bombs in less than a year,'' he said.

Chang gained global prominence in 2004 when suspicions arose that South Korea had enriched uranium.

Under Chang's tenure at the state-run KAERI, his underlings carried out enrichment experiments with uranium in 2000 and that caused the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate the case four years later.

By contrast, Prof. Hwang Joo-ho at Kyung Hee University rebuffed the above-mentioned arguments.

``We do not have any infrastructure to develop nuclear weapons. We do not have the technologies to enrich uranium or reprocess the substance to gain plutonium,'' Hwang said.

``In this climate, it is a nonsense to argue we have techniques and know-how to make fission bombs in a year. It would take more than 10 years,'' Hwang noted.

Prof. Lee Un-chul at Seoul National University agreed with Hwang.

``Rep. Suh's remarks seem to be too overblown. People think we have cutting-edge technologies to make fission bombs because we heavily rely on nuclear energies,'' Lee said.

``Yet, electrical generation has little to do with nuclear bombs. I think it would take a decade to develop nuclear arsenals based on our own technologies,'' he added.

Lacking oil and natural resources, South Korea presently depends on nuclear power for more than 40 percent of the country's total energy supply.

----	

Seoul's New Satellite Blanks N.Korean Nuke Test

Oct. 16, 2006 Chosun Ilbo

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200610/200610160010.html

South Korea’s Arirang-2 satellite launched in July this year failed to take any pictures of North Korea at the time the reclusive country said it conducted a nuclear test, it emerged. The satellite launched on July 28 cost W266.3 billion (US$1=W955) and equipped with a precision camera capable of identifying a car on a bridge on the Han River is designed to serve military purposes.

Uri Party lawmaker Kang Sung-jong said Sunday in a press release the government would have been able to observe North Korea’s nuclear test site with the help of the Arirang-2 satellite but did not take a single picture of North Korea between Oct. 3, when the North announced its test plan, and Oct. 9, when it went ahead.

As it happens, the satellite was passing over the Korean Peninsula at around 10:35 a.m. on Oct. 9, when the test was conducted, but it only took pictures of South Korea, Kang said. “This was confirmed by administration documents submitted by the government and answers give by the intelligence authorities,” he added.

An official with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute said, “When it comes to satellite photos, terrestrial observation centers determine the coordinates where pictures will be taken, and the satellite takes and sends them.” He said the government decides the coordinates and sends them to the institute, which has no influence over them. “It was not until the Wednesday morning after the North conducted the nuclear test on Monday that the government started taking pictures of North Korea via the satellite,” Kang said. “I put the question why it didn’t but could get no clear answer.” A senior KARI official told the Chosun Ilbo on the phone there was no order from the government that pictures of North Korea were not to be taken. “The satellite just operated according to its pre-determined schedule,” he said.

Kang recalled that the Arirang-2 is a multi-purpose satellite designed to be used in case of a national security crisis and natural disaster. “The government should give its own answer why the satellite was launched in the first place if it couldn’t do its part in such a serious crisis.”

(englishnews@chosun.com ) 

----

U.S. confirms nuclear blast; Rice concerned about possible second Korean test

Updated 10/16/2006 
By Bill Nichols and Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-16-korea-usat_x.htm

WASHINGTON — Radioactive materials contained in air samples gathered last week confirm that North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test, the office of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said today.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed concern today that North Korea might be planning a second test. "We're watching it, obviously," Rice told reporters. "I hope they would not take such a provocative act."

In a statement posted on its website, Negroponte's office said the blast was small by standards of nuclear tests; less than 1 kiloton. Each kiloton is equal to the force produced by 1,000 tons of TNT. The bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons.

The statement marks the first official confirmation by the U.S. government that North Korea carried out a nuclear test as the Pyongyang regime had claimed last week.

The confirmation comes as Rice prepares to visit Japan, South Korea and China this week in an effort to shore up efforts by Asian allies to punish North Korea.

A United Nations Security Council resolution passed unanimously Saturday calls for nations to prevent North Korea from buying or selling certain specified weapons and technology. The measure also bans some luxury goods from North Korea and freezes funds associated with weapons programs.

While voting for the resolution, China indicated it had concerns about participating in inspections of cargo bound for North Korea, its longtime communist ally. Actions by China, North Korea's principal trading partner, is considered key to the success of the new sanctions.

Today, China inspected trucks bound for North Korea in the border city of Dandong, though its U.N. ambassador said Beijing would not stop and board ships.

"This is a resolution we have to implement," Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters. "The question was raised whether China will do inspections. Inspections yes, but inspection is different then interdiction and interception."

China historically has opposed actions that might destabilize the North Korean regime and send thousands of refugees across the 880-mile border the nations share.

Rice, who is expected to arrive in Japan on Wednesday, said she was "not concerned that the Chinese are going to turn their backs on their obligations." Said Rice: "We expect every member of the international community to fully implement all aspects of this resolution."

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said today that his country was considering more sanctions.

Australia says it will go beyond the U.N. sanctions by banning North Korea's ships from entering its ports, except in emergencies.

North Korea remains defiant. The No. 2 ranking leader, Kim Yong Nam, says the country will strengthen its military and "achieve a final victory in the historic standoff with the U.S."

The United States wants to pressure North Korea into returning to stalled six-nation talks aimed at convincing Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program.

Rice also drew a comparison between the North Korean test and the nuclear program of Iran, which is also under U.N. scrutiny.

"The Iranian government is watching ... It can now see that the international community will respond" to efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, Rice said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency warned today that up to 30 countries could have the technology to develop nuclear arms "in a very short time." Nine countries are known or suspected to have nuclear weapons.

Rice disputed that Bush's characterization of Iraq, North Korea and Iran as an "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address had helped to aggravate the nuclear problem.

"The president had the diagnosis right," she said.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, said today his country won't be intimidated by U.N. sanctions on North Korea and plans to push ahead with its own nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad also rejected as "illegal" a Security Council demand that Tehran suspend its own uranium enrichment activities, state-run television reported Monday.

"Some Western countries have turned the U.N. Security Council into a weapon to impose their hegemony and issue resolutions against countries that oppose them," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

Ahmadinejad's comments are the first Iranian official reaction to U.N. sanctions against North Korea.

"They (U.S.) use the council for threats and intimidation," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

Contributing: Wire reports 



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

More countries could develop nuclear bombs: IAEA

By Karin Strohecker Mon Oct 16, 2006 (Reuters)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061016/wl_nm/nuclear_safeguards_dc_1
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-nuclear-safeguards.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

VIENNA - As many as 30 countries may develop the capacity to produce nuclear weapons swiftly unless more is done to tackle the spread of the technology, the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), issued the warning a week after North Korea said it had tested a nuclear bomb.

"We are dealing with almost as I call them virtual nuclear weapons states," ElBaradei said in an opening speech to a nuclear safeguards conference in Vienna.

He added a new approach was needed "so not to end up with nine weapons states but another 20 or 30 who have the capacity to develop nuclear weapons in a very short time span."

Five countries -- the U.S., Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom -- have formally declared their nuclear weapons and signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The four other nations known or suspected to have an atomic bomb are India, Pakistan, Israel, and now North Korea.

ElBaradei said new challenges had emerged as the nuclear technology was available for both peaceful and non peaceful purposes.

It had become fashionable for countries over the past decade to look into the option of "shielding themselves, protecting themselves through nuclear weapons," he said.

"It started with Iraq, we then saw Libya, we are still going through verifying the Iran undeclared program for almost two decades, we have seen the nuclear test in North Korea," he said.

ElBaradei criticized the fact that nuclear control policies were applied in different ways to different countries.

"It is difficult to maintain the logic that for some countries reliance would be made on nuclear weapons or even trying to develop new nuclear weapons while telling everybody else that is not good for you," he said.

"The logic is not there and that is an issue we need to look at."

While ElBaradei did not name names, the United States has often been criticized by other countries for being too lenient with Israel and India even though they have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

ElBaradei also said his agency needed more money for its verification programs.

"$120 million is the budget we are supposed to cover and verify the whole world with," he said. "That's a drop in the ocean." 

----

Next U.N. Head Willing to Go to North Korea for Talks

By REUTERS
October 16, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-un-ban.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

PARIS - The next secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, said there was still room for dialogue with North Korea and he was prepared to travel to Pyongyang for talks.

In an interview with a French newspaper published on Monday, Ban, who will take over from Kofi Annan on January 1, also urged North Korea to avoid doing anything that would further isolate it from the international community.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose financial and arms sanctions on North Korea to punish the reclusive nation for its claimed nuclear weapon test.

``Depending on the circumstances, and after having had consultations with the relevant countries, in particular those in the six-party talks ... I am ready to take my own initiatives, including a visit to North Korea, of course,'' he said in an interview with Le Monde newspaper.

He said he would like to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and explain to the North Koreans what they must do to be ``responsible members of the international community.''

``They should think about the future of their people and their country,'' Ban said. ``Much better opportunities await them if they give up their program and their nuclear weapons.''

Ban, who is currently South Korea's foreign minister, said North Korea must not take any ``new negative action'' that would further isolate it.

North Korea has boycotted talks with the South, the United States, China, Japan and Russia since last year because of a U.S. crackdown on firms it suspects of aiding Pyongyang in illicit activities such as counterfeiting.

In a concession to China, the U.N. resolution specifically excludes the use of force, but allows economic sanctions and a restriction on naval and air transport.

Ban said China had played a ``very constructive'' role in trying to resolve the crisis with North Korea.

He said he was also concerned about Iran's nuclear standoff with the international community.

``Confidence is at the heart of the problem,'' he said.

``The Iranian government has not convinced the international community that its intentions are peaceful. I hope it will stop its enrichment activities.''

Ban comfortably beat six rivals to win the nomination to take over from Annan who has led the world body since 1997.

Asked if weapons proliferation would be a big issue during his mandate, he said: ``Of course. It's one of the biggest threats for the international community to manage.''

He also urged the Sudanese government to accept a United Nation's peacekeeping force in the Darfur region.

``I'm disappointed by its (the government's) lack of cooperation,'' he said.


------- u.s. nuclear weapons

Cheyenne Mountain war room to close

October 16, 2006
By Robert Weller
Associated Press 

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2268440.php

CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN AIR FORCE STATION, Colo. — Dr. Strangelove would have a heart attack: America’s vaunted underground war room deep inside this granite mountain is being retired. Not only that, but Russian military men have been inside the place.

During the long nuclear standoff with Moscow, the nation’s super-secret nerve center was a symbol of both Cold War might and apocalyptic dread, depicted in such movies as “WarGames” in 1983.

But with the end of the Cold War, the war room is being put on “warm standby” to save money. A staff will keep it ready to resume operations at a moment’s notice if a blast-hardened command center becomes necessary, but the critical work is being shifted to Peterson Air Force Base, about 10 miles away.

“In today’s Netted, distributed world we can do very good work on a broad range of media right here,” Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, said from his Peterson headquarters. “Right there at that desk, including one push-button to the president.” Moreover, the U.S. military says the countries that have succeeded the Soviet Union as the main threat to this country _ hostile states such as North Korea and Iran _ do not have the weapons to take out a command center in Colorado.

The United States and Canada spent hundreds of millions on early warning systems to detect a Soviet attack in the 1950s. All the information was funneled into a two-story blockhouse at Colorado Springs’ Ent Air Force Base that could be taken out by a bazooka, NORAD historian Thomas Fuller said.

So crews began digging in 1961 on the edge of Colorado Springs on what used to be a ranch, eventually removing 700,000 tons of granite. Two 25-ton blast doors were constructed to protect the 15 tunnel-like buildings 2,400 feet underground. Each is suspended on thousand-pound springs or, as the joke goes, “the real Colorado springs.” The mini-city included a barbershop, medical clinic, convenience store, even a fire and police force.

For 40 years, staff in the mountain kept an eye on the Soviets from a command center in a small room.

Glitches resulted in false alerts in 1979 and 1980, neither coming close to the level pictured in the Matthew Broderick movie “WarGames.” (“Dr. Strangelove” and “Fail-Safe,” both of which came out in 1964, two years before the Cheyenne Mountain command center opened, also famously depicted electronic war rooms.) The collapse of the Soviet Union was the death knell for Cheyenne Mountain. A few years later, Russians were invited to Peterson in case the change of the millennium caused any catastrophic computer problems.

Then came the Sept. 11 attacks. The Northern Command was created in 2002 to defend the nation from internal attacks. Its headquarters were built at Peterson and NORAD’s commander was put in charge of both.

It was from Peterson where the military was able to scramble fighter planes 10 minutes after a small plane crashed into a New York City high-rise last week.

Cheyenne Mountain was a comfort for many during the Cold War. It was put in the middle of the continent for safety reasons, to help ensure that key decisions on defending the nation from a nuclear attack could be made before it was too late.

Until the later years of the Cold War, when more accurate and high-yield bombs were developed, Cheyenne Mountain could probably have even withstood a direct hit.

“It was the place that made us feel good during the Cold War, especially after the Cuban missile crisis and the Russians had developed intercontinental ballistic missiles,” said Lt. Gen. William Odom, a former National Security Agency director.

Keating said the new the control room, in contrast, could be damaged if a terrorist commandeered a jumbo jet and somehow knew exactly where to crash it. But “how unlikely is that? We think very,” Keating said.

Keating said it costs about $250 million a year to operate Cheyenne Mountain fully staffed. Congress’s Government Accountability Office has said efforts to modernize Cheyenne Mountain were too expensive or behind schedule.

Last year, the commander of long-range Russian military aviation visited the command center at Cheyenne Mountain. NORAD recently said it also would like to begin talks with the Russians about joint surveillance flights along the Alaska-Siberia frontier.

“The Russians have been up there,” Keating said. “We’ve drank vodka at the Broadmoor (Hotel). We’ve sat here and discussed grave issues. Life goes on. It’s OK.” 




-------- MILITARY 


-------- arms 

DR Congo arms embargo 'failing'

Monday, 16 October 2006
BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6055864.stm

Rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo are using arms from many countries despite a strict UN arms embargo, according to a report.

Bullets from the US, China, Russia and Greece were found in the eastern Ituri district, the Control Arms Campaign report says.

It highlights the need for a treaty to regulate arms sales, the group says.

The UN is due to vote later this month on starting work on an international arms trade treaty.

The UN imposed an arms embargo on DR Congo's militia groups in 2003.

But the campaign - which also includes Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms - said small arms made in Russia, China, Serbia and South Africa had also been found in the district.

The munitions were not sold directly but were probably diverted by third parties and arriving via neighbouring countries, the report says.

'Tidal waves'

Jeremy Hobbs of Oxfam International said it was an example of lax arms controls fuelling conflict.

"UN arms embargoes are like dams against tidal waves; alone they can't stop weapons flooding in," he said.

Campaigners want restrictions on the international transfer of weapons that could be used to commit human rights violations, fuel conflict or undermine development.

Irene Khan of Amnesty International said the DR Congo rebels had an "appalling track record" of rights violations including rape and torture.

"That bullets from so many countries have fuelled these abuses is yet another indication that an arms trade treaty must become a reality," she said in a statement.

Four million people are thought to have died in DR Congo's five-year conflict. 



-------- britain

Keep the general, sack the ministers

By Ben Quinn
(Filed: 16/10/2006) UK Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/16/ndannatt116.xml

Online visitors flooded an unofficial website used by the Army's rank and file at the weekend to view a section discussing Sir Richard Dannatt's comments.

A discussion thread dealing with the issue was viewed nearly 3,000 times yesterday, while dozens of messages of support posted in recent days were overwhelmingly supportive of the general's call for troops to pull out of Iraq "some time soon".

Under the heading Knives Out For Dannatt, contributors to the Army Rumours Service Website, www.arrse.co.uk, debated reports yesterday that ministers were privately calling for the head of the armed forces to be sacked.

Users attacked the Prime Minister and the Government. "Politicians are truly the most oily, untrustworthy, and unlikeable power whores in society," wrote one.

"Blair might well be seething because he knows that he and his foreign policy is wrong, and the general is right.

"As for the whispering campaign that has inevitably been mounted against an honourable man, who at the moment of reaching the pinnacle of his career, risked it to let the British public become aware of the ragged state of the British military, it says more about the moral fibre of the politicos who snipe and back brief than the general who stands up for his men."

Another wrote: "It's senior ministers that need bloody sacking for getting us embroiled in an unwinnable open-ended mess in the first place. Cheeky bleeders!"

Elsewhere, a contributor warned: "We need to be careful that this is not inflated into some sort of perceived coup," stating that Sir Richard made his view clear in an authorised interview.

"Presumably, his view is consistent in public as well as in private," they added.

"He is not suggesting parking tanks on Parliament Square. Why should he be sacked because his professional opinion sits awkwardly with the lies and spin employed by New Labour?"

Another wrote that a letter writing campaign in support of Sir Richard should be encouraged if there were moves afoot to remove him.

"The electorate will not forgive MPs who acquiesce and allow the sacking of a decorated courageous officer of unimpeachable integrity," said the contributor.

However, there was also evidence that some troops were not entirely impressed by Sir Richard.

One wrote: "What he said was factual but the forum sadly wrong. This is a democracy (freedom of speech accepted) but it is the Government's job to make decisions.

"We can't have martial law or a coup! Extreme I know but his job is to inform the ministers who will then make informed judgements and decisions."

Another remarked: "Let's see if Dannatt does another cheesy interview with a newspaper.

"That's if he keeps his job. In the long term he will be treated with contempt by the MPs and has therefore made his job harder. He may have won this battle but certainly not the war."



-------- israel / palestine 

Israeli bombs 'major threat' to Lebanese children: UNICEF

Mon Oct 16, 2006
BEIRUT (AFP) 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061016/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictlebanon

Unexploded Israeli bomblets littering southern Lebanon pose the greatest threat to children, according to a stark warning from the UN children's agency on the same day that public schools reopened after the devastating war with Hezbollah.

"Unexploded ordnances, including cluster bombs, remain the single greatest physical threat to children's well being in affected areas of Lebanon," a
UNICEF statement said Monday.

The bomblets "still pose a major threat to children near their homes, in fields and other areas where they travel, play or farm with their parents," it said.

Fifteen civilians, including several children, have been killed by Israeli bombs in southern Lebanon since the Israeli war on the Lebanese Shiite militant movement Hezbollah ended with a UN-brokered ceasefire on August 14.

Explosions of Israeli cluster munitions in southern Lebanon -- mainly bomblets as small as a torch battery -- have also maimed more than 90 civilians, according to an AFP count based on UN figures.

The Lebanese army says that there are "possibly around one million" unexploded Israeli bomblets scattered around the south.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said the Israeli army fired at least 1.2 million bomblets into Lebanon during the 34-day conflict.

UNICEF has launched a public awareness campaign focused on teaching children not to pick up unfamiliar objects. Many of the bomblets look like harmless objects or even toys.



-------- russia / chechnya

Going Nuclear at the North Pole
Russian Energy Company to Build Floating Nuclear Power Plant

Oct. 16, 2006 ABC News

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2573725&page=1

Despite the controversy that still surrounds the use of nuclear power, a Russian energy company has planned to build a floating nuclear power plant to fill the energy needs of the country's northern territories.

The plant would put two reactors on a barge that could dock and then be plugged into local power lines, providing affordable electricity for a part of the country where power is unreliable and expensive, according to Popular Science magazine.

Construction is scheduled to begin in 2007 and could be online generating power as early as 2010, according to announcements from RosEnergoAtom, the Russian national atomic energy company. The floating reactor will be built by Sevmash, a company that builds nuclear submarines in the northern city of Severodvinsk.

RosEnergoAtom currently has 31 nuclear reactors at 10 power plants across Russia, which provide 17 percent of the country's electricity, the company says.

Though the U.S. military used the idea in the 1960s and then a private power company tried it unsuccessfully in the 1970s, the plan represents a global revisiting of the question of the safety and logic of using nuclear power.

Despite the intense opposition nuclear power once faced, experts say the world is a very different place now, and the voice of opposition may not be quite as loud as it once was.

The Lesser of Two Evils

John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, says there's a lot of gray area in the power options for any nation.

"You're basically choosing which set of problems you're going to choose to live with," he says.

Nuclear power is cheap once the plant's up and running, but the plants themselves are very expensive — the floating plant would cost roughly $200 million.

But the real danger is in the toxic byproducts created by nuclear power that aren't easily disposed of or stored. Despite the fact that the United States hasn't issued a license for the construction of a new plant since the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979, toxic materials from plants are still shipped around the country, in search of permanent homes.



-------- POLITICS


-------- propaganda wars

Good News From Gaza

by Ran HaCohen
October 16, 2006 Antiwar.com

http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/?articleid=9862

Fleeing from Nazi Austria on the eve of World War II, Sigmund Freud was asked to sign a statement that saying he was not mistreated. The old Jewish psychiatrist is said to have asked whether he could add: "I can most highly recommend the Gestapo to everyone."

Israeli Hotel Spoils Palestinians

Since the abduction of an Israeli soldier on June 25th, the world's biggest open-air prison – Gaza Strip – has been subject to a continuous, murderous Israeli attack, with several Palestinians killed every single day, and scores injured. While Lebanon was flattened by millions of Israeli bombs, nobody cared about Gaza. Following the Israeli defeat in Lebanon, the frustrated army can now take revenge on the helpless Gazans with renewed destructive energies. Gaza is under total siege, with poverty at 75 percent, no electricity in the intolerable late-summer heat, let alone proper medical care.

But even in these darkest days there is a single ray of light. There is someone who does care about the people of Gaza, someone who does see them as human beings deserving food, shelter, freedom and dignity. Guess who. Mother Teresa? Close, but no cigar. The answer is: the Israeli army. At least if you ask Israel's by far most popular portal, YNET, the website of Israel's most selling daily Yediot Achronot. Read along (Hebrew; translation: ynetnews.com).

"IDF sets up detention center near Gaza: Palestinian men held at special temporary center set up near Gaza as IDF embarks on wave of arrests

"The Israel Defense Force set up a temporary detention center near the border with the Gaza Strip where dozens of Palestinian men arrested by troops operating in the tiny coastal strip are interrogated each day."

So far so good. Or not so good. One wonders what would come next: a couple of critical questions? A short comment about the illegality of this procedure? After all, international law explicitly forbids the abduction of people across the border of an occupied territory, so that all Israelis involved in this "detention center" can be accused of war crimes. Or, if international law doesn't count, what about the Israeli law? Under what paragraph are these people arrested, living in an area from which Israel claims to have withdrawn? Perhaps a short comparison between the number of Israelis abducted by Palestinians (soldiers: 1; civilians: 0; children: 0) and the huge number of Palestinians abducted by Israel? Not quite. Shall we at least live to see who the arrestees are, what their stories may be? Well, let's read on.

"The army said soldiers have been instructed to treat the detainees in a humane manner and stressed that most men are released after undergoing interrogation. Released Palestinians are given a package of food staples like sugar, oil and flour. 'We can be proud of the IDF's treatment of the Palestinians,' reservist soldiers operating the center said. [...] 'Since yesterday, arrestees have been pouring in,' a soldier told Ynet. 'In the afternoon a number of Palestinians arrived, whose ages ranged from 15-year-old teenagers to adults aged 45. We made every effort to give the Palestinians a good feeling, we set up tables, benches, and we even set up shades so they don't have to stand in the sun.' Soldiers said the arrestees did not seem scared, and some were seen laughing. Most Palestinians who arrived at the center on Thursday were neither blindfolded nor handcuffed. 'Every one of them was taken to a tent for interrogation. Those with links to terror groups were taken by bus to another facility and the rest were released to Gaza within hours,' soldiers said. 'We received orders to serve them hot meals, and the brigade set a table with bread and chocolate and served them drinks,' reservists said. 'We felt great pride for the treatment, for treating the Palestinians with respect, even those suspected of terror activities.'"

So now we know it all. "Detention center" must be a leftist or anti-Semitic defamation. What the Israeli army runs just outside Gaza is in fact a luxury hotel with full board. Soldiers work in room service, giving Palestinians a brief relief from the terrible conditions in Gaza: water, shade, food, chocolate, hot meals, even a good laugh.

Not only adults enjoy the hotel's services: even children can be surprised by the merciful Israeli soldiers who take them out of their wretched beds in the middle of the night, transport them by tanks and armored personnel carriers (air-conditioned buses to be introduced shortly, please forgive the inconvenience) to this army-run oasis, ask them how they feel ("interrogation"), spoil them with the hotel's excellent services, and consequently release them well-quipped with a bag full of goodies.

The soldiers also say that most Palestinians were neither blindfolded nor handcuffed. This is hardly confirmed by the three photos illustrating the report, in which, out of a dozen Palestinians pictured, 12 are clearly seen blindfolded (and most probably handcuffed as well). This, however, is quite understandable: the rumor has it that if the precise location of the IDF Luxury Hotel were compromised, hundreds thousands of starving Palestinians would apply, at least for free bed-and-breakfast. Indeed, one can most highly recommend this detention center to everyone.

Media as Propaganda

This YNET report is a quite a typical example of the mainstream Israeli media coverage of the Occupation's atrocities and war crimes. Much (though by far not all) the information is open and accessible to the public. Every Israeli can now know that Israel runs a concentration camp near the allegedly no-longer-occupied Gaza, with large numbers of Palestinians, including children, abducted from the Strip and held there for unknown periods of time, some released, some moved on for further "treatment." But this piece of information – to which the article dedicates approximately 50 words – is flooded by more than 200 words of pure propaganda, like in the darkest dictatorships, which frames the news item in a safe way and silences in advance any critical questions or thoughts. The impression the reader gets is that there's some camp out there where Palestinians get more than a fair treatment.

Typically, the propaganda quotes just one side: the army, the soldiers, i.e., the perpetrators. Not a single victim is interviewed: we don't know under what circumstances they were kidnapped, we don't know if a single word of the soldiers is true, we don't know what the arrestees have to pay for their release (collaboration, as usual?). Even the fact that children are kidnapped doesn't arouse any question on the part of the "journalist" or his editors in the "free press."

And, to be on the safe side, this pure propaganda doesn't leave out the inevitable comparison between Israel – the regional power that strangulates Gaza, kills and wounds its citizens, men, women and children, by conventional and satanic experimental weapons, and abducts them arbitrarily to its camps – and the Palestinian side, which abducted one Israeli soldier and harasses the Israeli civilians living around Gaza by primitive missiles. That's what the distorted comparison between victims and perpetrators looks like:

"It is sad that on the other side respect to human life in not as such, as they use children as human shields and an innocent population is under constant threat because of terror groups."

Not a single evidence is given, but why expect one in a propaganda item.

Controversy

In the readers' reactions, the so-called backtalks, however, one can see the Israeli democracy at work. Democracy encourages controversies, as we all know. This report too aroused a heated debate. While many readers took great pride of the army's humanitarian behavior, even more readers disagreed, being highly critical of the army's conduct. Highly critical, to say the least. Here: "Why arrest? Kill them off!," several readers suggested. "Why give them chocolate? Torture them to find our kidnapped soldier!," urged another. "We pay with our lives for our morality; the terrorists are human trash!," preached yet another Israeli reader. Out of 120 backtalk items, less than 5% questioned the validity of this cheap propagandistic report. So either the framing worked perfectly, or the website's backtalk editors completed the job by a suitable selection.

----

How the Myth of Spat on Vets Holds Back the Anti-War Movement

Interview with Jerry Lembcke
Conducted and transcribed by Stephen Philion
October 16, 2006 LewRockwell.com

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/philion1.html

Q: In the recent days the British general responsible for British troops in Iraq has make remarkably strong calls for British troops to be removed from Iraq. So it’s pretty timely to have a discussion like this, since I’m finding that there are quite a few students who are opposed to the US occupation of Iraq, but are afraid to "go against" the soldiers, many of whom are friends or relatives. First thing, though, is, for the sake of those who haven’t read your book The Spitting Image, maybe you could give a quick intro to the key arguments of the book.

Lembcke: I got interested in this topic in the runup to the Persian Gulf War in 90–91. There were students who were opposed to the war, but afraid to speak out because of what they had heard about the antiwar movement and veterans during the Vietnam War era. These stories of "spat upon" vets were beginning to circulate in the news and students on campuses were picking up on these stories. I had never heard these stories before. So I got interested in where they were coming from, how long they had been told, who was telling them and so forth.

One thing led to another and I kept looking back in the historical records, when people were actually coming home from Vietnam and I found out that no, there was no record. Not only was there no record of people spat on, but none of anyone claiming that they were spat on. So then I got interested in the stories as a form of myth and found out that in other times and other places, especially Germany after WWI, soldiers came home and told stories of feeling rejected by people and particularly stories of being spat on.

Like with the case of the Vietnam stories many of the "spitters" were young girls and knowing that these things happened at another time and place supposedly, I found out about a Freudian psychologist who wrote about male fantasies and treated these stories as fantasies, expressions of the subconscious, men who felt they’d lost manhood in the war. When I told a psychologist friend of mine in women's studies, she asked me who the spitters were…she too thought it was likely a myth since the spitters were women, an expression of loss of manhood.

Looking a little further, I found that French soldiers returning from Indochina after defeat at Dien Bien Phu also told stories of being treated badly, rejected by women, attacked by women on the streets, having to take their uniforms off before going in public, being ashamed of their military service. These were very similar to stories circulating in the 1980’s in the US. The time gap between the end of the Vietnam War and when the stories began to be told is also a sign that there is something of an element of myth or legend. That’s the key part of the book, not whether or not such things, since it’s hard to refute what isn’t documented, ever happened, as much as the mythical element.

And of course we see how the rise of the myth had an effect on support for the war in Iraq.

Q: And what is the link that you see?

Lembcke: In a nutshell, most people remember there was pretty widespread opposition to the US going into Iraq with huge demos in February and March of 2003. And then there were a good number of "support the troops" rallies that tapped into the popular sentiment that something bad happened to the troops when they returned from Vietnam. The very slogan "support the troops" with the yellow ribbons and all that sort of presumes that someone doesn’t support the troops and that presumption is based on that sentiment, belief that when people came home from Vietnam they were treated badly and we don’t want to do that again this time.

By having these rallies in 2003, the people who supported the war use support the troops as a way to support the war. A lot of these rallies told stories of Vietnam vets who had been spat on. I got calls from people in Florida, North Carolina, Vermont,…news reporters who had been at these rallies and asking me, "What about these stories?" Sometimes they would even have men who said they were vets or family members who claimed they remembered someone being spat on. The myth was used to drum up emotional support for the troops, or better said, to dampen down opposition to the war. Again, the same way it worked during the Persian Gulf War, some were afraid of being outspoken against the war lest they be accused of being "against the troops."

I teach at Holy Cross College and just the other day in one of my classes, in the context of talking about the context of the Bush administration’s strategy of being very accusatory toward critics of the war policy as being "cut and run" Democrats, "soft on terrorism..." With no more context than that, one of my students said she was "undecided about the war, but as long as the troops were fighting it was really important to "support the troops and we have to support the mission…" Now is not the time to be critical of the war, it was, in her mind…all mixed together.

That’s the way it works on people’s emotions. It throws them off-target. The target is the war itself and what we need to be doing is opposing the war itself. Often emotions get kind of confused with this stuff about "supporting the troops." It creates just enough space for the administration to push on ahead.

Q: Yes, it seems to be a good strategy to distract from the main issue, namely the policy of making war itself. I never quite understand why it’s so important to focus on the supporting the troops as so central an issue. It doesn’t really matter, since the troops in fact have little, in fact no say, in war policies to begin with.

Lembcke: Yes, it confuses the means and ends of war, it becomes a form of demagoguery. It makes a non-issue an issue, "support or not supporting the troops." At a humanitarian level, none of us wants to put people in harm’s way. The people who oppose the wars are most strident in that objective of keeping people out of the war. That’s not an issue, but it keeps us from focusing on the war itself and talking about it. And one of the things I’m concerned about now is a certain strain of the anti-war movement has gotten caught up in this itself. There’s a certain group of antiwar types who focus on what happens to the soldiers, how they’re damaged psychologically, physically,…I’ve been to a number of anti-war rallies now where all they talk about is PTSD and what happens to "our boys" when we send them off to war. It’s sort of a mirroring of the political right’s approach. They make the "support the troops" ideology the basis for supporting the war, and some strands in the anti-war movement now mimic that we need to oppose the war by "supporting the troops" and, I’ve been to some antiwar protests where very very little is said about the war itself!

We hear instead about getting the troops the help they need and heart rendering stories of parents of sons who have committed suicide after they come home, etc. That stuff from the anti-war left is as beclouding as similar rhetoric from the right, in that it takes us away from a political discourse, which we need in order to focus our energies around stopping the war and its causes.

Q: What’s your sense in terms of how this myth is replayed now with vets coming home from Iraq and claims of their being "abused" by the antiwar movement or sentiment?

Lembcke: I’ve heard a few of these stories. Again, in the spring of ’03, stories circulated about soldiers being spat on. In Vermont a story went around that a woman in the National Guard had been pelted with a box of stones by antiwar teenagers. None of these stories have turned out to be supportable by any sort of evidence. And then, periodically, other stories like one in Seattle of a guy who was back from Iraq marching in a parade, "spat on," "booed," "called baby killer," etc. The same, no serious evidence.

Occasionally then I get reports of these, but I’ve always suspected if the war goes down as a "lost war," we’ll hear more such stories, but the more important point, I think, is that the image of spat on Vietnam Vets is so engrained and part of the American memory and cultural sub-text, it almost doesn’t have to be reaffirmed through stories of Iraq Vets being "spat on" or "mistreated." It’s almost as though the Vietnam Spitting myth is a background that everyone "knows" about and when the President talks of Democrats not supportive of the war or otherwise baits antiwar people, the background that makes that resonant is the belief that something untoward happened to Vietnam Vets.

So it’s not necessarily good news for the anti-war movement if we don’t hear stories of Iraq Vets being "spat on." My fear is the mythical spat on Vietnam Vet is now so internalized as something that "happened," it doesn’t have to be spoken anymore as a contemporary phenomenon.

Q: What’s the significance of the documentary Sir! No Sir, which tells the story of the GI antiwar movement during Vietnam, in terms of what that film can tell students trying to organize antiwar movements on campuses across America today?

Lembcke: Oh, I think it’s terribly powerful. Even thought there’s no mention of Iraq, Afghanistan, or the War on Terror in the film, it seems that everyone that sees the film can extrapolate from it to the ways it applies to the wars that we’re currently involved in. Probably the greatest impact it has is on young people in the military today. I’ve done quite a bit of public speaking at showings of the film.

First of all, it reminds even those of us involved in the antiwar movement as vets of stuff that they had forgotten about or informed us about things that were going on at that time that we didn’t know about. They’re kind of surprised to find out quite a few things about the GI antiwar movement that they didn’t know.

Q: One of the things I was surprised to learn of was the extent of support shown to Jane Fonda by American soldiers stationed in Asia during the war at the "Free The Army" tour that she, other famous actors such as Donald Southerland, and soldiers/vets organized at US bases. Considering all the media discourse about vets’ anger at Fonda, I had no idea that some 60,000 soldiers had attended and enthusiastically received her at those shows, which served as an alternative to Bob Hope’s pro-war tours at the time. Also the extent of African American soldiers in the antiwar movement was something I never fully heard about in histories of the antiwar movement, which the movie makes clear was very deep and militant.

Lembcke: I was in Vietnam in 1969 and got involved in Vietnam Veterans Against the War once I returned and yet there were things in that film that I had not known about at the time. On the one hand there was a lot in the news in the papers about the vets antiwar movement at the time, which I know now just from researching it. I don’t think there was a blackout at all, often it was front-page news and people knew about it.

One of the things I found interesting was looking at Stars and Stripes, the civilian-published but military-supported publication that soldiers got in Vietnam and a lot of anti-war news was reported there. It reported the story of Billy Dean Smith, the GI accused of fragging an officer, which is featured in Sir! No Sir!. It had stories about soldiers in Vietnam wearing black armbands in support of the 1969 anti-war Moratorium back home. It turns out Stars and Stripes is a pretty good source for information on the vets’ and soldiers antiwar sentiment and movement back then!

So people knew of these things then. The more important story is what’s happened to that in people’s consciousness and memory. It certainly is gone now, even from people who were active in the vets' antiwar movement then. Sir! No Sir! has helped to bring it back into the public memory and showing that a vets antiwar movement can happen now is very helpful for people teaching in college and high school. They can take this knowledge into the classroom and that part of the history can get back into the curriculum. Younger people will now get a different view of what happened then.

I’ve talked to a few soldiers back from Iraq, one a Holy Cross College student who graduated in Spring 2002 who was an ROTC cadet who is back from Iraq and has spoken after showings of Sir No Sir!, and likewise didn’t know about the GI antiwar movement during Vietnam. She reports that there is a lot of opposition to the US occupation of Iraq among US soldiers in Iraq but it doesn’t express itself because there’s no organization, no organized communication between people. Maybe the film will play a catalyst role, if people see this film about organized GI opposition to the Vietnam War, it might inspire and even spark their imagination about the kinds of thing that can be done to oppose the war from within the military.

Q: And the significance of that for today?

Well, the GI antiwar movement became a vitally important part of the antiwar movement during Vietnam. And that is likely to be the case today also. Lots of people are asking what’s the difference between today and Vietnam? Why isn’t there a movement today? One possible answer is that the movement within the military is not quite congealed yet, but that the potential is there. Hopefully Sir! No Sir! can have an effect on accelerating that development a bit.

Q: One of the things that struck me about the film is that you saw that soldiers were not just protesting the war because of their equipment issues or technical matters about how the war was being conducted, but actually because they were against what was happening to the people of Vietnam because of the war and they were learning, while deployed there, about the actual history of the Vietnamese people’s struggles against foreign occupation as opposed to what they were brainwashed to believe in boot camp or high school teachers.

Lembcke: Here’s a big difference, namely the nature of the "enemy" and how it’s perceived. In the later years of Vietnam we came back rather sympathetic to the cause of the other side. One of the vets interviewed in the film, David Cline, talks of how he was shot and how he had shot a Viet Cong soldier. He then recalls how he looked at the fellow he had shot dead and realizes that this man was fighting for his country too, for freedom. That was a real consciousness raising moment for him and he dedicated moments like that to doing something to honor the loss of that man’s life, namely to end the war and contributing to the other side’s fight for freedom. I certainly came back in February 1970 with such sentiments, though I’m not sure exactly how it happened. Surely conversations with other GIs and my own reading at the time helped with that.

But today it is harder to portray the "enemy" in Iraq or Afghanistan in that kind of sympathetic way, there’s a political challenge there for the American antiwar movement to understand what the other side represents.

It needs to get some grasp on what is supportable in what the other side is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, like we did in the Vietnam War. Recall in the early phases of the Vietnam war, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong were called terrorists and their tactics were called tactics of terror. Today we talk about the roadside bomb in Iraq, but during Vietnam there was the satchel charges were one of the main weapons of the Vietnamese War.

Q: For those of us who haven’t fought in a war, what is a Satchel Charge?

Lembcke: A briefcase that would be loaded with explosives, dropped off some place and would explode. The point I’m making is that early in the war in Vietnam the Vietnamese and the Vietcong weren’t as viewed sympathetically as they were by the early 1970’s. What changed was how they were represented in terms of what they were all about. I think we need to go through that rethinking process on Iraq now, though I’m not sure where that goes.

We don’t right now have an embraceable "other" as we did in Vietnam and what the complexity of the other side means, how it’s to be sorted out, what’s supportable…but we need to find if there is something there to be supportable and that can have a big impact on the military elements against the war, namely that there is an honorableness to the "enemy" on the other side as was the case for GIs against the war in Vietnam.

Q: I always find it interesting to focus on what happens with US when it does negotiate with the armed opposition in Iraq, what the US’s key demands are during such negotiations and how the US can’t meet the oppositions’ demands because of that oppositions’ demands, no matter how low the bar is set, because those demands go against the interests of the US, given its actual goals in Iraq.

Lembcke: Most of us understand the war ended when the Vietnamese people won. And when we recognized that the sooner the other side wins, the war is over. The US is not gonna stop fighting until it stops, when the US is unable or unwilling to win the war. That conclusion is very sobering if it’s applied to the war in Iraq. That’s a pretty sobering thought, is this war going to go on until the US can’t do so anymore and at what point is the US antiwar movement going to see that the war won’t end until the other side wins and who is the other side? It’s very complex, the other side is very divided, not a monolith. So I don’t know how that lesson from Vietnam translates into something we can act on to inform our political work today.

Q: There’s plenty of writing out there on the liberal left that we can’t leave now because of the nature of the opposition.

Lembcke: Yes, there is that, but you know the pro-war elements during Vietnam used that logic too. They often said we can’t leave now, we’ll have so many losses or the "bloodbath" that would happen if we left too soon…

Q: I find that when I deal with people on the liberal-left who will argue that calling for leaving Iraq immediately is "isolationism." But if you argue back that this is not isolationism we are arguing, but that the US should pay massive reparations to the people of Iraq for the damage the US invasion and occupation has caused the Iraqi people – no reply forthcoming. They have no answer as to why we know that that is not going to happen if the US stays there or if it leaves!

But it opens up the question that people on the liberal-left who support staying there that the pro-war or lukewarm "anti-war" liberal left have no answer for, namely what is the purpose of what the US is doing in Iraq? It’s just set in stone for them that if we leave things will be worse, even though the evidence now is so overwhelmingly that the US occupation is the key source of the violence we see in Iraq today. So much so that the argument that once was so common among the liberal left, "well the Iraqis want us to stay" has really collapsed under the weight of Iraqi realities. Now even the Iraqis polled are saying in big majorities in US State Dept. commissioned polls that they want us to leave now and it’s okay to shoot US soldiers.

Lembcke: The NYT kind of buried that story on the inside, but the antiwar movement can use that information. We shouldn’t have to make that argument, it should be apparent we’re not welcome, but sometimes data helps to persuade.

Q: It also throws the light back on Iraqis, which the "supports the troops" antiwar movement focus doesn’t do. The focus is so often only on Americans as though the only impact is on Americans or it’s the only one that matters, except for small periods like Abu Ghraib or Haditha…

Lembcke: Yes, the war becomes all about us and erases Iraqis, much like we did during Vietnam erasing the agency of Vietnamese people.

Q: Yes, it’s interesting that in the process, ironically, it ignores the agency of the soldiers and their potential role in stopping the war and recognizing the actual roots of war itself.

Lembcke: Yes, you know one of the best new sources of information for the antiwar movement is another film called "Why We Fight." I saw it with two classes and they haven’t stopped talking about it. If they had heard before about the term "military industrial complex," now it makes it more real. Now they think about the war beyond the slogans of "the war is for freedom, democracy"…which is all most Americans know. The oil thing too has also become a kind of cliché they don’t think about much. For my students those bumper-stickered explanations are erased and the film puts the war in a much more material and realistic framing. It’s a film that might have as important an impact as Sir! No Sir!

October 16, 2006

Jerry Lembcke [send him mail] teaches Sociology at Holy Cross College. Visit his website.

Stephen Philion [send him mail] teaches Social Theory in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at St. Cloud State University and researches Chinese Workers’ Protests against Privatization. Visit his website.



-------- ENERGY 


-------- alternative energy

U.S. Pledges $13 Million for Solar Energy Projects

ST. LOUIS, Missouri, October 16, 2006 (ENS)

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2006/2006-10-16-09.asp#anchor3

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman last week announced more than $13 million in funding for solar technologies. The funding is part of the administration's Solar America Initiative and will support the development of more efficient solar panels, known as photovoltaic devices.

The initiative aims to make solar power cost competitive with conventional electricity sources by 2015, by developing materials that convert sunlight directly to electricity.

"This investment is a major step in our mission to bring clean, renewable solar power to the nation," Bodman said. "If we are able to harness more of the sun's power and use it to provide energy to homes and businesses, we can increase our energy diversity and strengthen our nation's energy security."

The $13 million in funding includes about $4.5 million to be awarded for fiscal year 2007. The money will support a number of projects, including the Solar Codes and Standards Working Group Leadership, which will create and operate a national working group to manage solar codes and standards.

The 5-year project will assist in the implementation, development of codes and standards studies, and the monitoring of emerging codes and standards issues.

Another project earmarked for funding will focus on the creation of a national voluntary photovoltaic module rating standard, including performance, reliability, safety, anticipated degradations and operational limits, as well as the establishment of testing procedures and protocols for the standard's use. The project is planned to last three years, at $1 million per year, for a total project value of $3 million.

The funding will also aid a city strategic partnership initiative, whereby the Energy Department will work to accelerate the adoption of solar technology at the local level by engaging city governments and users of electricity. The cost-shared project is two years in duration and has a total project value of $3.2 million.

Bodman made the announcement at last week's government-sponsored renewable energy conference in St. Louis. He also pledged $17.5 million for 17 biomass research, development and demonstration projects and $4 million for biomass genomics research. 



-------- ACTIVISTS

War at Forefront in Minn. Debate
Rep. Kennedy Assumes GOP Candidates' Defensive Stance

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 16, 2006; A05

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101500767_pf.html

Minnesota Senate candidates Mark Kennedy (R) and Amy Klobuchar (D) battled over the war in Iraq, North Korea's nuclear ambitions and taxes yesterday as Kennedy faced downdrafts in a new poll, national GOP support and President Bush's approval ratings, in a snapshot of Republican troubles nationwide.

In a nationally televised debate on NBC's "Meet the Press," Kennedy, a three-term congressman, stood by his House vote to authorize the war in Iraq when read his statements in 2003 that "the trend" there was "very positive," in 2005 that "progress was clear," and in February that he expected significant troop withdrawals within a year because of U.S. success.

"You can't really play TiVo and rewind in the real world," said Kennedy, 59. "I stand by my vote. . . . We acted on the information we knew at the time and acted correctly."

Klobuchar, the Hennepin County attorney, cited recent comments by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) and former secretary of state James A. Baker III, who is co-chairing a congressionally mandated commission to study options for Iraq, arguing that even some Republicans believe it will soon be time to change course.

"We cannot, as Congressman Kennedy and the president are talking about, just stay the course indefinitely with more troops dying, over $300 billion spent," said Klobuchar, 46, county prosecutor since 1999. "You cannot solve a problem that you don't admit exists."

The exchange summarized Republicans' predicament 23 days before the Nov. 7 elections: forced onto the defensive in prosecuting an unpopular war.

"I think Kennedy did as good as he can do," said a national GOP campaign official who watched the 40-minute debate and who lamented its initial focus on the Iraq war. "It is just a tough issue to be talking about it in mid-October in a state like Minnesota," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of critiquing an ongoing campaign and candidate.

The retirement of Minnesota's first-term Sen. Mark Dayton (D) was expected to give the Republicans one of their best chances to pick up a Democratic seat and bolster their 55-to-45-seat advantage.

The GOP announced in September that Minneapolis-St. Paul will host the 2008 Republican National Convention, as the party seeks to build on recent gains in the longtime Democratic bastion in the Midwest.

But Klobuchar is leading handily despite a barrage of attacks by her rival on immigration, fighting terrorism and her support for repealing Bush tax cuts on the richest 1 percent of Americans.

A new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll of 818 likely voters published yesterday showed Klobuchar leading Kennedy, 55 percent to 34 percent, although other recent surveys show a lower double-digit lead. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

President Bush's disapproval rating was 61 percent, his highest ever in the state.

At the same time, Republicans said the national party is focusing money for television time on states such as Tennessee, where outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's seat is open, and others, such as Missouri and Pennsylvania, with seats held by vulnerable incumbents.

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Religious Communities Urge a Diplomatic Response to North Korea

From: "Faithful Security" <info@faithfulsecurity.org>
Date: Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:13 pm

After the October 9 announcement that North Korea tested a nuclear weapon, faith communities immediately spoke out.  The National Council of Churches of Korea, the Buddhist Jugye Order, and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea joined the World Council of Churches and numerous other religious groups in expressing sorrow that a nuclear weapon was tested and calling for a peaceful response from other nations.  Many of these religious groups also spoke out in favor of an international effort to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Faithful Security agrees with Father Simon Chun Jong-hun, president of the Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice in Korea, that:

  “Direct dialogue is the only way to solve the  nuclear problem this time.  The nuclear test is  a crisis for sure, but we should take this  chance to make progress in the peace effort.”

We also commend evangelical Christian leader Rick Warren’s response to North Korea’s missile tests this past July:

"I am not a politician, I am a pastor. But I do know that in any conflict – whether in a marriage, in business or between nations – as 
>long as the parties keep talking, there is hope. My plea to everyone involved in this diplomatic process, is to please, keep talking."

This week, please join the international religious community in calling upon world leaders to fashion peaceful responses to the nuclear test and in prayer for the people of North and South Korea as they face the nuclear weapons danger up close.  Please also pray for the world’s religious community, that we may all speak out in greater numbers in favor of the elimination of nuclear weapons.

In peace,

Faithful Security

Statements from Religious Groups and Denominations on the North Korean Nuclear Test:

United Methodist Church:

http://ga3.org/ct/k1NSmq91amUK/
“Mission Leader Calls North Korean Test “Deplorable” And Calls for International Nuclear Disarmament”

National Council of Churches:

http://ga3.org/ct/91NSmq91amy1/
“NCC condemns North Korea nuclear test, urges diplomacy”

Pax Christi:

http://ga3.org/ct/97NSmq91amya/
“Pax Christi USA Condemns North Korean Nuclear Test, Calls upon Bush Administration to Enter into Direct Negotiations”

World Council of Churches:

http://ga3.org/ct/9dNSmq91amyq/
“WCC asks for peaceful, lawful and collective response to North Korean nuclear test”

Worship Materials on the North Korean Nuclear Test:

UMC General Board of Discipleship:

<http://ga3.org/ct/kpNSmq91amUC/>“A Call to Prayer with the President of the United States and Leaders of the World”

Analysis of the North Korean Nuclear Test:

Friends Committee for National Legislation (Quakers):

http://ga3.org/ct/k7NSmq91amUV/
“North Korean Nuclear Test is Predictable Result of Failed U.S. Diplomatic Strategy”

Sojourners, “God’s Politics” Blog:

http://ga3.org/ct/kdNSmq91amUZ/
“The North Korean Bomb is a Bush Administration Failure”