India lives in several centuries at once, it has been said. What is true of peace will also be true if India and Pakistan go to war.
Yesterday, as Indian and Pakistani troops once again exchanged heavy artillery fire across Kashmir's ceasefire line, the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, held a war council in the Kashmiri capital, Srinagar, chairing a meeting of the Unified Command to review the preparations for war and the security situation along the border.
In Rawalpindi, Pakistan's corps commanders met to discuss operational strategy, and later announced that Pakistani troops were to be withdrawn from UN peace-keeping duties in Sierra Leone "in the wake of a grave Indian threat".
The world quakes at what will happen if the Pakistani leader, General Pervez Musharraf, or Mr Vajpayee press the nuclear button. Estimates of India's and Pakistan's nuclear strengths vary wildly, but at the low end of the scale Pakistan is estimated to have at least 40 nuclear bombs compared with India's 60 – quite sufficient for the task.
Friday, May 24, 2002
Two IDF soldiers were moderately wounded Thursday during heavy exchanges of fire with Palestinians in the West Bank town of Tul Karm.
The incident occurred inside the Palestinian-controlled zone (Area A), between the Tul Karm refugee camp and the Palestinian Authority offices in the town.
It appears that the soldiers, part of an infantry patrol inside the city, came under fire from Palestinians. The soldiers returned fire, and Palestinian sources reported that eight Palestinians, including a four-year-old girl, were injured. Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said the Palestinians were wounded by an Israeli tank shell fired at a building in a refugee camp on the edge of town. Four were said to be from the same family and one was in critical condition.
In the no man's land between the Muslim and Jewish Quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem, a burping contest between two boys begins. Shlomo, an ultra-orthodox Jewish boy, says he doesn't know any Arabs and has no real interest in meeting them. A young Palestinian boy comes over to check out the scene. Standing right next to Shlomo, he lets out a burp. Shlomo tries hard to ignore him, but he can't resist and burps back. The two burp themselves into giggles.
This burping contest appears in Promises, which chronicles the lives of seven Israeli and Palestinian children, ages nine to thirteen, living in and around Jerusalem. First-time filmmakers B.Z. Goldberg and Justine Shapiro, along with co-director and editor Carlos Bolado, shot the documentary between 1997 and 2000, in the comparatively peaceful period between the first and second intifadas.
More a drama than a documentary, Promises visits an ultra-orthodox Jewish school and a school where the Koran is taught as a manifesto for Palestinian liberation. It goes into homes in the Deheishe refugee camp and Beit-El, an Israeli settlement. In a world without checkpoints, these children would live in the same community, just a twenty-minute drive from each other. But as it is, they are a society apart. Their differing perspectives, and their interactions, give the film its poignancy.
George Bush flies into Berlin tonight to face an array of European allies who have grown increasingly irritated and apprehensive about his leadership.
The last time he crossed the Atlantic, he was jeered as the "toxic Texan" for his withdrawal from the Kyoto global warming accord. This time, the stakes are much higher and the chanting crowds of European demonstrators are unlikely to be so polite.
Much has changed between last July's Genoa summit and the president's return to Europe today. The US was struck a terrible blow on September 11 and Europe rallied to its side with a degree of solidarity that surprised almost everyone. But the sense of common purpose has crumbled rapidly since the beginning of the year, and now the usually tetchy transatlantic relationship has reached a critical moment.
The first loud shots have been fired in a trade war, and there are profound disagreements over US plans to oust Saddam Hussein, and over policy in the Middle East.
Europe, meanwhile, has been shocked by Washington's withdrawal from a string of treaties on global warming, missile defence and on the establishment of an international criminal court (ICC).
Mutual prejudices have rarely been stronger: American perceptions of rampant anti-Semitism in the old continent are matched by European - especially French - scorn for the death penalty and unbridled capitalism. Hostility to Europe on the American right now matches traditional anti-Americanism on the European left.
Eric Visger's tale of political deceit is becoming a hot election-year topic, both in local and statewide political circles.
Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer said the Holton teen-ager's allegations are further evidence that Republican operatives have been conducting "an organized scheme" to interfere with Democratic state senate primary elections.
State Rep. Gerald VanWoerkom, R-Norton Shores, said he will try to contact the Republican staffers in Lansing who allegedly tricked Visger into filing as a Democratic candidate in the 34th State Senate district. As the only Republican running in the district where Visger was a candidate, VanWoerkom said he wants to make sure his campaign isn't tainted by such tactics.
And some political leaders are wondering whether the Republican staffers may have broken laws in their alleged dealings with Visger. They say regulations governing the conduct of notary publics may have been violated, as well as laws preventing state employees from engaging in partisan politics while using state facilities.
In April, U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., got in a whole heap of trouble after she called for a thorough investigation of what George W. Bush knew before Sept. 11 about the potential for the sort of terrorist attacks that would shake the nation and the world on that fateful day.
McKinney is one of the most outspoken members of Congress and her statements were typically blunt.
"We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11th," she told a radio interviewer. "What did this administration know and when did it know it about the events of September 11th? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered? ... What do they have to hide?"
McKinney's call for a real investigation of what Bush knew - along with her parallel suggestion that it was necessary to review possible war profiteering by members of the Bush family and corporations with close ties to the president - drew a firestorm from pundits and partisans.
SEAN PENN has been one of his most vocal critics. “We now have a president who thinks in terms of good and evil and that comes from watching too many Hollywood movies,” Penn said. “In the film aspect as well as the political aspect we have always had a bloodlust.”
Penn is one of 11 directors contributing to a film called “11-09-01: Eleven Minutes, Nine Seconds, One Frame,” which will be released on Sept. 11 of this year.
But the biggest Bush critic has been Michael Moore, whose “Bowling for Columbine” — about the culture of guns and violence in America — has received rave reviews and a 13-minute standing ovation. The documentary is widely considered to be the front runner for the prestigious Palme d’Or award, and Moore’s anti-Bush comments have been lapped up by the foreign press.
“To use the dead of that day as the cover to push their right-wing agenda, to shred our Constitution, to take away civil liberties ... to try and distract people from Enron, ‘because we need to focus on the war on terrorism,’ ” Moore said. “I think it’s immoral, I think it’s abhorrent. . . . You’re being hoodwinked — and it’s despicable.”
BERLIN (Reuters) - Intense security for George W. Bush restored some of the atmosphere of the Cold War to the heart of Berlin, turning the center of the city into a virtual fortress and bringing a busy district to an eerie standstill.
About 10,000 police officers cordoned off a 14-block area around the Brandenburg Gate for the American leader, shutting down a main east-west traffic artery and leaving hundreds of businesses without customers throughout the government quarter.
A ghostly silence descended upon the normally bustling Unter den Linden boulevard that runs though the center of the city, just east of where the Berlin Wall stood until 1989.
"When this was a communist police state only diplomats and people with passes could get down this street," said Guenter Wolf, head waiter at the Dressler Restaurant on the boulevard. "It's been a bit like that again."
"Our business is being wiped out," said restaurant manager Katrin Mehls. "Usually we have several hundred customers. Today we've had two, plus a couple of dozen cops who wanted to use the toilet."
Even the Unter den Linden underground station was closed, forcing passengers to stay on board trains as they glided through the darkened station, a spooky reminder of the Cold War era when West Berlin trains passed through heavily guarded East Berlin stations without stopping.
Under fire from Republicans for questioning the administration's handling of pre-Sept. 11 intelligence data, Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.) yesterday accused the White House of hoarding information and vowed to pursue an independent inquiry to investigate the matter.
"There is an increasing pattern that I find in this administration that reflects an unwillingness to share information not only with us but within their own administration," Daschle said during the question-and-answer period after delivering a speech to mark the first anniversary of Democrats seizing the Senate majority.
The Majority Leader took shots at the FBI and CIA for failing to share information, singling out Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBIDirector Robert Mueller for criticism for withholding information from Bush following the attacks.
"One department not telling the other," Daschle said. "People in positions of responsibility not telling the President. I think we have got to ensure that we address that issue and I must say we are going to respect secrecy."
WASHINGTON (AP) - A judge on Thursday rebuffed a Bush administration effort to kill lawsuits aimed at revealing the inner workings of Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s energy task force.
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AP Photo
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said he will allow the private groups Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club (news - web sites) to take the first step in delving into the operations of the task force.
Run by Cabinet heads, the Cheney panel directed federal agencies in writing a plan last year that focused on expanding energy production — a position favored by the industry.
Sullivan said he may require that any material from the Cheney panel be turned over to him instead of to the private groups until he decides whether there is a legal basis for the case to proceed.
The administration maintains that only government employees were members of the task force, which disbanded last year. But the conservative group Judicial Watch alleges that former Enron chairman Ken Lay and lobbyists Mark Racicot, Haley Barbour and Thomas Kuhn were members.
Racicot is now Republican National Committee (news - web sites) chairman. The ex-Enron chairman and the three current and former lobbyists are defendants in the Judicial Watch case, with which the Sierra Club lawsuit has been combined.
Outside the courtroom, Alex Levinson of the Sierra Club said that "if Enron wrote part of the White House's energy policy, we want to know about it." The White House has acknowledged half a dozen meetings between Enron and Cheney or his aides on the task force.
WASHINGTON (AP) - An FBI agent has accused Washington headquarters of mounting a ``roadblock'' to the pre-Sept. 11 investigation of terrorism defendant Zacarias Moussaoui. The rare letter immediately prompted an internal investigation.
Agent Coleen Rowley, a lawyer in the Minnesota office that arrested Moussaoui last August, divulged in her letter that local agents became so frustrated with FBI headquarters that they sought to break from their chain of command and notify the CIA.
The local agents were reprimanded for trying, she alleged.
``When, in a desperate 11th-hour measure to bypass the FBI HQ roadblock, the Minneapolis division undertook to directly notify the CIA's counterterrorist center, FBI HQ personnel chastised the Minneapolis agents for making the direct notification without their approval,'' she wrote in the 13-page letter, excerpts of which were obtained by The Associated Press.
Government officials familiar with her letter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agent alleged FBI headquarters did not fully appreciate the terrorist threat Moussaoui posed and hindered local agent's efforts to get warrants to gather more evidence.
President Bush continues to delude himself that Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is interested in peace. Mr. Sharon has no intention of ever seriously negotiating with the Palestinians.
First it was the violence, then it was Yasser Arafat, and now Mr. Sharon says he won't negotiate until the Palestinian Authority cleans up corruption and becomes more democratic — presumably according to his definition.
That's arrogant hogwash, of course. If democracy and no corruption were the conditions for negotiations, there wouldn't be a single treaty between any nations on the face of the earth. Sharon intends to just drag things out, as the Israelis have done for more than 10 years, and in the meantime take more Palestinian land and squeeze and harass the Palestinians even more.
ATHENS – The Bush administration may hesitate to give Arab allies public credit, but Washington investigators should consider warnings that at least two friendly Arab intelligence services sent to Washington just weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Jordan, beyond a doubt, and Morocco, with some certainty, advised US and allied intelligence that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorists were preparing airborne terrorist operations in the continental United States.
What Washington's investigators should do now, after verifying the authenticity and content of those messages, is discover how seriously and at what levels of government, if any, they were considered or shared. And what, if any, operational conclusions were drawn.
First, the Jordan case: Since the early 1990s, the kingdom's well-organized and efficient intelligence service, called the GID (General Intelligence Division), reporting directly to the king, carefully tracked CIA- and Pakistani-trained Arab guerrillas both in and outside of Jordan. Many had fought in the victorious war to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON -- A Phoenix FBI agent who wrote a memo last year warning about suspicious Middle Easterners at flight schools had developed detailed information before Sept. 11 linking Arizona students to Osama bin Laden and to a radical British Islamic group, and he shared some of his concerns with the CIA, law enforcement sources said Wednesday.
Agent Kenneth Williams suspected that a group of about eight Middle Eastern men in the Phoenix area were not merely studying at flight schools but also had shown a keen interest in airplane engineering and airport construction and security, according to sources familiar with the closed-door briefings Williams gave members of Congress this week.
His review also determined that one of the Arizona flight school students appeared to have communicated through a middleman with one of Bin Laden's top aides, Abu Zubeida, and that several of the students under suspicion had links to a radical group called Al-Muhajiroun. The Britain-based group is dedicated to the establishment of a global Muslim state and has vocally supported Bin Laden and other terrorists.
(YellowTimes.org) – George W. Bush is actually not stupid or illiterate as many of you may think and laughingly describe him as. But in that case then, what is he? Well, he's a full-fledged living characterization of himself, which has now reached the level of complete parody. Just as you confidently expect the Road Runner to dodge Wiley E's projectiles and to outrun semis and Bugs Bunny to bring himself to a stop one inch off the ground after a thousand foot freefall, you fully expect the President of the United States to make absolutely no sense, while embarrassing himself as he sounds like someone just beginning to grasp the verbal patterns of rudimentary American English.
His rhetoric, too, has reached the level of that of a satirical script. (Did a presidential speech writer pen the words that Bush just mangled or did a Saturday Night Live cast member?) This has been especially evident in the past few glorious days, which have brought us revelations in the form of reports and memos regarding terrorist warnings throughout the summer that explicitly and definitively expose the lies of the Bush administration.
In his initial response to the questions regarding what he knew before September 11, Bush said: "I'll do whatever it takes, and I know you'll join me in doing whatever it takes to prevent the enemy from attacking America again like they did and causing thousands to suffer and to mourn and to grieve." (CBS, May 17, 2002)
Aside from basely invoking American suffering, mourning, and grief for his own ends and creating a "link" between him and us, he completely fails to address what was known and what wasn't with regard to warnings of terrorist attacks last summer. Obviously, this shouldn't come as a surprise, it's the status quo for political answers; however, with regard to an issue of such gravity, as well as his convenient reference to the mysterious yet ubiquitous "enemy," Bush's comments can only be seen as being Orwellian on their face.
Thursday, May 23, 2002
RAMALLAH: Marwan Barghouti, member of the Palestinian Legistlative Council was visited by members of the LAW society on May 21. At that visit, LAW determined that Mr. Barghouti is suffering torture at the hands of the Israelis.
According to LAW, Yesterday Barghouti was taken to the prison clinic. He suffers from pain in his back and hands, caused by position abuse. Barghouti's hands and legs are shackled to a small chair, angled to slant forward so that he cannot sit in a stable position. Due to nails sticking out of the chair on which is he is forced to sit for prolonged hours his back is bleeding. This position abuse, also known as 'shabeh' is the most common method of physical abuse applied by the Israeli General Security Service ('Shin Bet').
Acccording to LAW, Barghouti is held in solitary confined and is deprived of sleep for twenty hours a day since he was transferred to the Russian Compound. LAW stated that abusive body positioning, and sleep deprivation are common tactics used by the Israeli General Security Service, for they undermine a detainee's concentration and self-control.
More than a decade ago, on Earth Day 1990, millions of people joined together around the country to protest the rapidly declining health of our planet -- forcing corporations to realize that even the average Joe had started to take an interest in the well-being of the environment.
Predictably, the level of "greenwashing" has spiked sharply since that eventful Earth Day. Greenwashing is what corporations do when they try to make themselves look more environmentally friendly than they really are.
Arguably, the greenwashers get away with it more often than not. But their deceptions do not go entirely unnoticed. Every year for the past decade, the watchdog group Earth Day Resources for Living Green has released a report called "Don't Be Fooled." The report calls attention to the year's 10 worst greenwashers, the 10 companies that have made the most misleading claims about the environmental benefits of their products and industries. This year, www.ecopledge.com, a coalition of environmental organizations that uses boycotts to put pressure on environment-abusing companies, has joined Earth Day Resources in putting out the report (available online at www.earthdayresources.org.)
"Don't Be Fooled" accuses corporations of deceiving consumers with false claims of environmental responsibility and all-natural wholesomeness. Not only does the report focus on deceptive claims made by corporations, it also highlights specific sins, falling into two main categories: producing genetically engineered foods and polluting the environment.
MEDFORD, Mass. (AP) - Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (news - web sites) on Sunday accused President Bush (news - web sites)'s foreign policy team of suffering from "untreated bipolar disorder."
Albright said the Bush administration is projecting contradictory messages on a broad range of global conflicts, including the Middle East and Afghanistan (news - web sites).
"They talk about the importance of the rule of law, but seem allergic to treaties designed to strengthen the rule of law in areas such as money-laundering, biological weapons, crimes against humanity, and the environment," Albright said in a commencement speech at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
"This split personality is also evident in Afghanistan, where one day they are ridiculing nation-building and the next proposing a new Marshall Plan," Albright told the 189 graduates. "And in the Middle East, where the signals have varied day by day."
The United States has a $6 trillion national debt, a growing deficit and is borrowing money from the Social Security Trust Fund in order to fund government services.We can no longer afford to provide more than $125 billion every year in corporate welfare--tax breaks, subsidies and other wasteful spending--that goes to some of the largest, most profitable corporations in America.
One of the most egregious forms of corporate welfare can be found at a little-known federal agency called the Export-Import Bank, an institution that has a budget of about $1 billion a year and the capability of putting at risk some $15.5 billion in loan guarantees annually.At a time when the government is underfunding veterans' needs, education, healthcare, housing and many other vital services, more than 80 percent of the subsidies distributed by the Export-Import Bank goes to Fortune 500 corporations.Among the companies that receive taxpayer support from the Ex-Im are Enron, Boeing, Halliburton, Mobil, IBM, General Electric, AT&T, Motorola, Lucent Technologies, FedEx, General Motors, Raytheon and United Technologies.
A Senate panel voted on party lines Wednesday to issue Congress' first subpoenas to the Bush White House, seeking information on staff contacts with Enron Corp. officials.
The vote was 9-8 to subpoena staff members in President Bush's executive office and in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. The vote followed a two-hour debate that at times turned bitterly partisan.
The vote grew out of the Governmental Affairs Committee's investigation of Enron, which filed the biggest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history last year. The Houston-based company has been among Bush's biggest campaign contributors.
Some Republican senators accused Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., chairman of the committee, of being politically motivated in requesting the subpoenas and unfairly giving the impression that wrongdoing in the Enron affair had occurred in the White House.
Republicans noted that the White House had indicated it would deliver material to the panel on Wednesday and asked Lieberman to hold off the subpoenas. "Are we doing this to attract the attention of the public?" Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., asked. "It makes me very suspicious about the motivation of asking for a subpoena."
To comprehend the real hilarity of the current meltdown at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., review (and relish) the very un-presidential activities of the occupant during the last week.
First, there was this tidbit: Maximum Commandante Dick Cheney sends out invitations to GOP loyalists for a June 19 dinner to honor President-Figurehead "W" for, among other things, confronting and fighting terrorism. Wrapping the administration in the flag and castigating critics as treasonous is, of course, the favorite spin-tactic of this hell-bent-on-authoritarianism administration.
That I got one of these invites (sorry, Dick, but our publisher won't let me write off $25,000 for a table for 10 to my expense account) shows just how utterly incompetent the administration is at assessing friends and foes.
Among the perks for stuffing the GOP's pockets, the White House promised some photos, including one of Bush on Air Force One Sept. 11.
Without a doubt, that's raising campaign cash while standing on a pile of corpses. The awful tastelessness of the gutter-level ploy gagged even the docile, fearful-to-be-called-unpatriotic Democrats and mainstream media.
Just as that rather tepid little bit of Bush smarminess was beginning to subside, the really big, smelly chunk of merde hit the air-circulating system.
Prior to Sept. 11, Bush had had warnings -- oh yes he had -- about a terrorist threat. His mouthpiece, Ari Fleischer, had lied -- oh yes he had and despicably so -- when shortly after 3,000 innocent people died in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, the spokesman proclaimed "no warnings."
The press has acted as if this story smashed into their computers with "no warnings." But it's been there all along. The Los Angeles Times' very savvy Washington reporter, Richard Serrano, reported Sept. 20 -- nine days after the terrorist attack -- that "FBI and CIA officials were advised in August that as many as 200 terrorists were slipping into this country and planning 'a major assault on the United States.'"
Five people, including a current and a former F.B.I. agent, were charged by federal prosecutors yesterday with using confidential government information to manipulate stock prices and extort money from companies.
The conspiracy was led by Amr Ibrahim Elgindy, a stock adviser who has clashed with regulators and is well known among traders in small stocks for his aggressive attacks on companies he considers overvalued, according to an indictment unsealed yesterday in Brooklyn. Prosecutors said that he obtained government information about publicly traded companies and then used that information to predict which stocks would fall and to persuade companies to pay for his silence. Hundreds of investors have paid up to $7,000 a year for stock recommendations from Mr. Elgindy, known as Tony Elgindy and Anthony Pacific.
On Tuesday afternoon, F.B.I. agents arrested Mr. Elgindy and four others in California, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Derrick W. Cleveland, Troy Peters, Jeffrey A. Royer and Lynn Wingate were arraigned in federal courts; a hearing for Mr. Elgindy in San Diego was postponed until tomorrow, a Justice Department spokesman said. Prosecutors hope to consolidate the case in Brooklyn next week, but some of the defendants may oppose the move. Lawyers for four of the five could not be reached for comment or declined to comment. Stephen McCue, Ms. Wingate's lawyer, said she would fight the case and denied any wrongdoing.
The 33-page indictment is another blow to the F.B.I., which already faces complaints from lawmakers about its response to warnings of potential terrorist attacks before Sept. 11. An F.B.I. spokesman said the bureau was distressed by the indictment. The charges include obstruction of justice, racketeering, extortion and insider trading.
WASHINGTON — As President Bush tries to rally European support for military action against Iraq, U.S. armed services leaders are questioning whether their forces are ready for another war.
The chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have concluded that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must address concerns about an overtaxed military before they can plan action to oust Saddam Hussein, senior uniformed officials with knowledge of the debate said.
The military leaders don't oppose a war against Iraq. But their go-slow approach could clash with the civilian leadership of the Pentagon, which believes Saddam's government can be toppled easily.
One of those officials acknowledged that the military chiefs have serious problems with the battle plans under development. The official said the concerns aren't over how to oust Saddam but other possible war aims. It isn't clear whether the military would be required to destroy the Iraqi military or remain in Iraq after the war.
Young Egyptians are making daily attempts to cross the border into the occupied territory of Gaza to fight alongside the Palestinians against Israel.
According to guards on the strongly fortified crossing at Rafah, one or two Egyptians in their teens or early 20s are arrested every day trying to cross into Gaza.
"They just want to go to fight against Israel as the only way they feel possible to express solidarity with Palestinians," said Farid Zahran, who leads the main Egyptian organisation supporting the Palestinian intifada.
Last month Milad Mohammed Hameed, 22, tried to walk across the border but was spotted by Israeli guards and shot dead. He is now being called Egypt's "first martyr of the Palestinian intifada", and senior opposition politicians leading protests against Israel pay regular visits to his poor family in their village.
Mr Zahran does not believe that these young people are moved to sacrifice their lives by his group or political parties led by the Islamists and leftwing nationalists.
"It is the effect of the image," he said.
"This young man from Beheira had probably never heard of us before. It is enough for him to sit and watch the news every day and see the pictures of massacres Israel commits against Palestinian civilians and children."
A hunger-striking Seattle activist lies near death in Israeli custody.
BY THE TIME you read this, Seattle child-care provider and human rights activist Trevor Baumgartner may be resting safely in his Seattle home.
Or, he may have starved himself to death as a prisoner of the Israeli Army.
Either way, a desperate protest by Baumgartner and three other detained internationals appeared, on Tuesday morning (May 14), to be drawing to a climax. By Monday, reportedly near death after 11 days without food and six days of refusing water, Baumgartner and three other hunger- striking American detainees--Nathan Mauger of Spokane, Thomas Koutsoukos of suburban Chicago, and Nathan Musselman of Roanoke, Va.--were about to be deported by Israeli authorities, and Baumgartner, hospitalized and too weak to move, began "sipping small amounts of water."
But on Tuesday, deportation plans hit a snag, with Israeli authorities insisting that the deportees pay for their plane tickets. The seeming inability of authorities and the hunger strikers to reach agreement had plagued negotiations since May 2, when Baumgartner and 12 other foreigners were arrested at the then-besieged Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The group created a diversion while a group of 10 activists slipped through Israeli security into the church, carrying bags of food and medical supplies for the Palestinians trapped inside.
The detainees were held by the Israeli Army, although they were charged with no crime, appeared before no court, and technically were outside the boundaries of Israel (and therefore Israeli legal authority). Eight of the 13 arrested foreigners were immediately deported. The remaining five, all Americans, began a hunger strike to protest and draw attention to their situation. Their stated goal was to be allowed to leave Israel voluntarily, without any future prohibitions on their eligibility to return.
JERUSALEM – Hani knew it was wrong.
But the young Palestinian says he couldn't resist the woman who seduced him in a field near his house two years ago. And he never suspected what was to come.
In the middle of the tryst, the couple was ambushed by Israeli security agents who told Hani (not his real name) that his wife would be informed of the infidelity unless he cooperated. He says he now suspects he was set up, but he admits he was an easy target – wanted for a raft of petty crimes and a wallet full of fake identity cards. Within days he had agreed to trade his freedom for life as a collaborator.
Across the West Bank and Gaza Strip many thousands of Palestinians like Hani have been successfully coopted as informers. Precise numbers of those on Israel's payroll are unknown but figures of up to 15,000 have been suggested by human rights groups.
Most British diplomats are to be evacuated from Pakistan as the nation lurches closer to war with India in the deepening crisis over Kashmir.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, announced the emergency plans after receiving a "specific" terrorist threat, and appealed to all Britons to leave Pakistan.
Although Mr Straw insisted the announcement was not directly linked to the acrimonious stand-off between the nuclear neighbours, the Government made plain its alarm over the apparent slide towards war.
Tony Blair told MPs in the Commons: "This is indeed a very serious and grave situation and it cannot be stressed enough the dangers inherent in this situation where India and Pakistan are presently confronting each other."
The decision to scale back Britain's official presence in Pakistan was made amid alarm among ministers over the number of al-Qa'ida sympathisers in the country, many of whom have slipped across its porous border with Afghanistan. The country is also home to several other terrorist groups suspected of a series of attacks on Westerners.
RAMALLAH, West Bank The Israeli Army is stringing barbed wire around this Palestinian political and intellectual center as part of a sweeping plan to impose tough new security restrictions on Palestinian movements in the West Bank, say aid workers who fear that new restrictions will crush an already crippled economy and could lead to further violence.
The Kalandia checkpoint here, the way only to and from Jerusalem, is already a hellish scene. Under a hot sun Wednesday afternoon, a steady stream of Palestinians, hundreds at any given moment - old women in head scarves carrying grocery bags, young girls in school uniforms, businessmen talking on cell phones - plodded both ways along a fenced-in corridor after waiting in line to present their papers to Israeli soldiers hunkered behind sandbags. Clusters of bright yellow taxis wait at each end. The roughly 16-kilometer commute between cities now takes three taxis and sometimes two hours or more.
"Look at this, it's horrible," fumed Walid Ahmed, who gave his occupation as "nothing" because of the bad economy. "It's a shame to see old people, your mother, your father, walking like this. Does this look like the entrance to a major city?"
Things are about to get worse.
The new rules would effectively encircle and isolate the eight West Bank cities, creating eight zones - Palestinians are calling them cantons. Palestinians needing to travel would be required to apply to the army for a special permit to enter or leave a zone. The permits, which would have to be renewed each month, would only be valid from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m., creating an effective travel curfew.
A POISONOUS war of words has broken out between US and British troops in Afghanistan.
Hundreds of obscenities on the walls of portaloos at Bagram airbase sneer at the failure by "Euro trash" marines to capture or kill al-Qaeda, and rubbish Britain and the Royal Family.
And the marines come in for more criticism of their "disappointing" performance in the US forces magazine Stars and Stripes.
British troopers have hit back with their own graffiti, mocking that their allies are only good for guarding the loos.
AMMAN: Several members of the Foreign Women's Association in Amman were on the verge of tears on Monday as guest speaker Kathy Kelly, an activist from Voices in the Wilderness, recounted her experiences at Jenin camp.
While in Jenin camp from April 15-17, Kelly was one of only a handful of people to witness firsthand the aftermath of the Israeli siege on the Palestinian refugee camp.
“Everything was reduced to nothing,” exclaimed Kelly in despair.
Told by an Israeli soldier on her way into the camp that there were no women or children there, Kelly was shocked to find that in fact there were many women, one of whom was at least 70-year-old and struggling to pull herself out from the ruins that used to be her house.
“That old woman did not just drop from the sky,” Kelly told her audience, adding that “the words of the soldier came true: There were no children in the camp, for the children there had the hardened looks of men on their faces.”
ROME: Warning that thousands of Palestinians were no longer able to afford basic needs, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today launched an emergency operation to help feed about half a million non-refugees living amid dramatically deteriorating conditions in the Palestinian Territories.
"Hunger and malnutrition are rapidly increasing among the Palestinians," said WFP Regional Director Khaled Adly. "Even when food is available in some of the markets, many impoverished Palestinians have become increasingly unable to meet all their food needs."
The Rome-based UN agency which said it hopes to provide about 70,000 tons of food to help the most needy Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip until the end of the year, currently had about 29,000 tons available for the eight-month programme. With the 41,000-ton deficit estimated to cost about $18 million, WFP has appealed for funds to cover the shortage.
WFP voiced particular concern about some 360,000 extremely poor Palestinians, 60 per cent of whom belong to families where the breadwinner is a single mother, elderly, handicapped or chronically ill. The UN agency’s assistance will also go to help about 130,000 people who have lost their income as one or more members of the family lost their jobs in Israel due to security measures.
NABLUS: Israeli tankfire killed four Palestinians in the West Bank Wednesday afternoon, including one wanted by the occupation authorities for “his direct responsibility” in a number of suicide bombings, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.
Earlier Wednesday, the Israeli occupatin army cut the Gaza Strip in half by blocking the main north-south road.
Also Wednesday, a suicide blast killed two people, plus the bomber, and injured at least 20 in Rishon Lesion, south of Tel Aviv, Israeli public television reported.
In addition, two other Palestinian men died in the West Bank. One had explosives that went off prematurely while he was on foot at a road junction outside the town of Jenin, the military said.
The second man, Moussa Daraghmeh, 35, was shot dead at the main checkpoint on the edge of Bethlehem after a shouting match with soldiers, according to Palestinian witnesses and the man's cousin, Amer Daraghmeh.
-- If you believe Dick Cheney, don't read this column. It's unpatriotic.
At a Republican fund-raiser last week, he attacked anybody who dares raise questions about what the president knew about possible terrorist attacks before September 11. "Such commentary is thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war."
Dick Cheney is dead wrong. It is not irresponsible to demand that bureaucrats do the job we pay them to do. It is not irresponsible to expect people in authority to be held responsible for dumb, and perhaps fatal, mistakes. And, finally, it is not irresponsible, even in time of war, to raise questions about the presidency of George W. Bush.
Americans deserve to know what went wrong. How did the CIA, the FBI and the White House miss so many clues before September 11 about what Osama bin Laden was planning next for the United States? Who is responsible for the screw-ups? Whose heads are going to roll? And how can we be sure the problem has been fixed?
Immediately after September 11, we were told there were no advance warnings. We now know that's not true. There were plenty of warnings. They were simply ignored. There were lots of dots. Nobody ever connected them.
With Dick Cheney's permission, let's review the facts. Those 19 terrorists did not just slip into the country and carry out their terrorist attacks. They had been here for years, planning and getting ready. And, despite the fact that several were on the FBI's most-wanted list, they were living openly in major metropolitan areas, renting cars and apartments in their own names, procuring driver's licenses and taking flying lessons.
Citing the need for "a greater degree of public scrutiny, of public involvement, of public understanding," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) called for an independent commission that would fully investigate the causes and events leading to September 11.
An independent commission would be able to analyze the results of hearings from various committees and ensure that the American people get a complete picture of the performance of intelligence agencies, strategies for preventing future attacks, and more. Such an investigation would not seek to place blame, but rather would enhance our security and help prevent future attacks by assessing our intelligence and response capabilities.
With recent revelations that the Bush administration did not reveal the extent of terrorist warnings it received before September 11, leaders in both political parties have called for full Congressional and independent investigations. In January 2002, both President Bush and Vice President Cheney requested that Congress limit their investigations of the actions of the intelligence community leading up to September 11. The White House has continued to resist full investigations, even ridiculously questioning the patriotism of Democrats who are seeking a full account of the tragedy.
George Bush flies into Berlin tonight to face an array of European allies who have grown increasingly irritated and apprehensive about his leadership.
The last time he crossed the Atlantic, he was jeered as the "toxic Texan" for his withdrawal from the Kyoto global warming accord. This time, the stakes are much higher and the chanting crowds of European demonstrators are unlikely to be so polite.
Much has changed between last July's Genoa summit and the president's return to Europe today. The US was struck a terrible blow on September 11 and Europe rallied to its side with a degree of solidarity that surprised almost everyone. But the sense of common purpose has crumbled rapidly since the beginning of the year, and now the usually tetchy transatlantic relationship has reached a critical moment.
Who killed Asaq Mohammed? His uncle watched him die. Soon after the United States started bombing Afghanistan last autumn the small boy, just under two years old, fled his home on the back of a donkey with his parents and other family members.
For four days they travelled across mountains on snow-covered tracks. At night their only protection against the cold was a handful of blankets. They had no tents.
After three years of drought everyone was already weak with hunger before they set off from the village of Ghorambay in western Afghanistan. The long trek was too much for the most vulnerable. When they reached the town of Owbeh exhausted, Asaq and his six-month-old brother, Abdul Rahman, did not have the strength to recover. Their short lives slipped away.
Seyd Mohammed believes his two nephews would still be alive if they had not been forced to flee. "We were hopeful they wouldn't have died if we had stayed here", he says sadly as he stands outside his home.
The Bush Administration has taken political spin to a level undreamed of even by Bill Clinton. In two of the most critical issues facing the country, the White House is substituting demagoguery for information. Example One: Its response to questions about what the Administration knew prior to September 11 about possible terrorist attacks. Example Two: Team Bush's reaction to new criticism of its plan to create private Social Security accounts.
When pressed, all pols love to dip into their bag of tricks. Three favorite ways to avoid having to confront a serious issue are truly Orwellian: Deny a charge that was never actually made, accuse your critics of partisanship or even disloyalty, and change the subject. These days, the spin machine is working overtime.
If it weren't for the fact that the past week's headlines have been toying with the emotions of millions of people, and disrespecting the memory of thousands of victims, they'd be awfully funny.
First, we got the steady trickle -- well, maybe a stream and, on a good day, a torrent -- of revelations that seemingly every piece of the federal security apparatus (up to and apparently including President Clueless), was given or posessed at least some inkling that Al-Qaeda wanted to hijack airplanes and crash them into someplace with a lot of Americans in it. (Like, say, a building. In America.)
Then -- well, golly, WHAT A COINCIDENCE -- we've been flooded with a succession of dire warnings, carefully spread over each news cycle, that a new and incredibly horrifying terrorist attack is "certain," "imminent," "unavoidable," or whatever the White House Word of the Day might be, as faithfully relayed by the CJWT's. (Court Jesters with Teleprompters.)
(At least when Karen Hughes was running the White House propaganda show, it was occasionally subtle.)
Tuesday, these warnings hit a new low, with the intonation that Evil Terrorists want to rent apartment buildings and blow them up. Gee, that ought to do wonders for anyone who is or happens to look even vaguely Muslim or Arab and who needs to rent an apartment this month. Nice going, fellas.
Chevron Service
Could Pose Conflicts
The Public i attempted to contact Rice about her experience with Chevron, but she did not return calls. However, she said on the Fox TV broadcast, "I’m very proud of my association with Chevron, and I think we should be very proud of the job that American oil companies are doing in exploration abroad, in exploration at home, and in making certain that we have a safe energy supply."
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Chevron abroad. The oil giant has been accused of complicity with the Nigerian military and Mobile Police — a force so brutal it is known locally as the "Kill ’n Go" — in perpetrating human rights abuses, including extrajudiciary killings, beatings and detentions against local communities who have protested Chevron’s production activities in Nigeria’s delta region.
The problems surrounding Chevron’s oil and natural gas production and exploration in the Nigerian delta have their roots in the country’s political and economic history.
PARIS (AP) - An intense fire destroyed the stately Israeli embassy in Paris early Thursday, but officials doubted it was arson or related to a recent wave of anti-Semitic attacks in France.
Photos
AP Photo
The fire broke out around 2 a.m. in the five-story embassy, which was unoccupied at the time, police said. Eight firefighters were slightly injured during a five-hour battle to extinguish the blaze, and three were taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Flames could be seen shooting through upper-floor windows as the fire advanced unhindered from floor to floor and then to the roof.
"It was like a pottery oven in there," said Fire Capt. Laurent Vibert said afterward.
Dozens of people were evacuated from adjacent apartment buildings.
Four of the embassy's five floors were left in ruins, charred beyond repair, Paris Police Chief Jean-Paul Proust said.
WASHINGTON -- A Phoenix FBI agent who wrote a memo last year warning about suspicious Middle Easterners at flight schools had developed detailed information before Sept. 11 linking Arizona students to Osama bin Laden and to a radical British Islamic group, and he shared some of his concerns with the CIA, law enforcement sources said Wednesday.
Agent Kenneth Williams suspected that a group of about eight Middle Eastern men in the Phoenix area were not merely studying at flight schools but also had shown a keen interest in airplane engineering and airport construction and security, according to sources familiar with the closed-door briefings Williams gave members of Congress this week.
His review also determined that one of the Arizona flight school students appeared to have communicated through a middleman with one of Bin Laden's top aides, Abu Zubeida, and that several of the students under suspicion had links to a radical group called Al-Muhajiroun. The Britain-based group is dedicated to the establishment of a global Muslim state and has vocally supported Bin Laden and other terrorists.
The Bush administration issued a spate of terror alerts in recent days to mute criticism that its national security team sat on intelligence warnings in the weeks before the September 11 attacks.
The warnings, including yesterday's uncorroborated FBI report that terrorists might target the Statue of Liberty, quieted some of the lawmakers who said President Bush failed to act on clues of the September 11 attacks, although Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle yesterday reiterated his demand for an independent investigation.
The latest alerts were issued "as a result of all the controversy that took place last week," said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, referring to reports that the president received a CIA briefing in August about terror threats, including plans by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network to hijack U.S. commercial airliners.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government will file three lawsuits against Florida counties alleging voting rights violations resulting from the bitterly disputed 2000 presidential election, a Justice Department (news - web sites) official said Tuesday.
Two other lawsuits also will be filed, in Missouri and Tennessee, by the department's civil rights division, Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd told the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites).
The lawsuits will allege different treatment of minority voters, improper purging of voter rolls, "motor voter" registration violations and failure to provide access to disabled voters, Boyd said.
Other charges, he said, include failing to allow voters with limited proficiency in English to have assistance at the polls and failing to provide bilingual assistance.
Florida's voting system endured intense scrutiny after the 2000 election, including a recount and protests that went all the way to the Supreme Court before George W. Bush was declared the winner of the state — and the presidency.
Several groups, as well as dozens of black members of Congress, have alleged that black voters were kept from voting in Florida and other states on Election Day and ballots of others were systematically discarded.
BERLIN -- Shouting "Yankee go home", about 20,000 protesters marched peacefully in Berlin against U.S. policies today on the eve of a visit by President Bush that officials fear may widen a transatlantic rift rather than close it.
German authorities have mobilized 10,000 police - a post-war record for a state guest - to contain any violence from demonstrators protesting on issues ranging from a possible U.S. attack on Iraq to Washington's policies on trade, the environment and the Middle East.
Protesters marched through eastern Berlin chanting "Yankee go home" and waving banners reading "No blood for oil" and "Axis of Evil runs through the Pentagon," a jibe at Bush's description of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil."
Meanwhile, several hundred pro-U.S. demonstrators paraded at the former U.S.-run border crossing between East and West Berlin, dubbed Checkpoint Charlie.
When India detonated five nuclear bombs this week four years ago, many of its leaders, especially BJP ministers, convinced themselves that New Delhi had now staked an irrefutable claim to both international prestige and security. When Nawaz Sharif set off six of his own blasts in "retaliation", he boasted: "Ab Pakistan hamesha ke liye mahfooz ho gaya." (Now Pakistan has become safe forever).
Strategic "experts" in both countries duly spun out fanciful ex post rationalisations for the blasts. India and Pakistan, they prophesied, would both become more secure. "Maturity" and sobriety would be infused into their fraught relationship. South Asia would become "stable". India and Pakistan would gain in global stature and expand their room for independent manoeuvre.
OTTAWA (CP) - Canada will pull most of its ground troops out of Afghanistan this summer, leaving a few planes, ships and a handful of special forces soldiers in place, Defence Minister Art Eggleton announced Tuesday.
"This decision took into account a number of operational factors, including the need to provide a rest and training period for our troops," Eggleton told a news conference. The decision came despite a request from the U.S. military that the Canadian infantry stay on to help in the ground war against terrorism. Canada will keep some forces in the area, including five planes, three warships and about 40 commandos from JTF-2, the special operations group.
In all, about 1,300 Canadians will remain in the region, but except for the commandos, they won't be on the sharp end of the action.
Here's an obscenity even greater than the bare breast of a statue for Attorney General Ashcroft to cover up: the U.S. war against Afghanistan.
That's the implication of Vice President Dick Cheney's damage control efforts on the Sunday talking heads news shows earlier this week. On NBC NEWS' MEET THE PRESS, the Vice President purported that the U.S. has made some progress in the war on terrorism but warned, "the prospect of another attack against the United States is very, very real. It's just as real, in my opinion, as it was September 12."
It is? Even after seven-and-a-half months of war against Afghanistan? At more than $1 billion per month? A war that has killed and maimed and shattered the lives of thousands of people?
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
The owner of the local store once said to me: 'You know, I breathe one pound of dust walking downhill and breathe another two pounds going uphill. I think one day I will have a dust cancer.'
Summer is awful but I live here and I love my home. I love Al Ram though it is encircled with dust, under Israeli occupation, and neglected leaving room for dust to conquer and kill. The other day troops on the roadblock to Al Ram were covered with the dust trying to cross to Al Ram from Ramallah.
Dust lands on their faces and guns. I bet they breathe more dust than my good local storekeeper, who at least enjoys a bit of a sense of humor - unlike the troops, who get so infuriated when some dust land on the finger that shoots Palestinians crossing with the dust.
As days go by, faces become the color of dust. Even when water runs on the body to clean the dust, it seems reluctant to do so. Dust rules here.
I made a big mistake and decided to cross with the dust to Ramallah, as I wanted to breathe the Ramallah dust for a change. I got to the roadblock with some dust and asked permission to cross. The troops looked at me and nearly mistook me for a pile of dust but only realized that I was a human being when my five-month-old baby cried, as she was really sick and tired of waiting in the dust, the sun, and the colorless rocks.
'You cannot cross,' said the troops leaning on the cement blocks behind the sand bags. I held the proof of my British citizenship, which I am really proud of, high up in the air hoping it would save the day.
The passport was a little dusty and had an invalid visa. The dust-covered troops were unable to see the visa and decided to let me cross but decided not to allow my wife and my baby to cross. I said I would die if I had to go on without them especially my gorgeous baby. 'Tough shit,' he said, 'these are the orders.'
KUPWARA, India –– India's prime minister visited soldiers on the tense Kashmir frontier Wednesday, telling them to prepare for a "decisive battle" against Pakistan-supported Islamic insurgents. Cross-border shelling has killed dozens and reignited fears of war between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Hundreds of soldiers in bulletproof vests patrolled the mountain roads surrounding the army base where Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee addressed soldiers, many with minesweeping equipment and sniffer dogs. Helicopters hovered above.
Vajpayee asked the soldiers "to be ready for sacrifice. Your goal should be victory. It's time to fight a decisive battle. We'll write a new chapter of victory."
Shortly after Vajpayee arrived in Kashmir province on Tuesday, masked gunmen assassinated a leading Kashmiri peace advocate during a ceremony marking the murder of another independence leader 12 years ago.
House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt yesterday announced he will introduce a bill to create a blue-ribbon panel to investigate the September 11 terrorist attacks in the wake of reports that Democrats were retreating from their criticism of the Bush administration.
"I hope the president will work with us," the Missouri Democrat said. "I hope the Republican majority will agree with me that this legislation deserves immediate consideration."
Vice President Richard B. Cheney reiterated Sunday that the White House opposes an independent investigation because it could reveal sensitive intelligence.
And congressional Republicans said yesterday they likely have the votes to block the creation of such a panel. Many Republicans favor going forward solely with a joint investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Typical of many U.S. Christians, I somehow considered a modern state created in 1948 as a homeland for Jews persecuted under the Nazis as a replica of the spiritual, mystical Israel I heard about as a child.
When in 1979 I initially went to Jerusalem, I planned to write about the three great monotheistic religions and leave out politics. “Not write about politics?” scoffed one Palestinian, smoking a waterpipe in the Old Walled City. “We eat politics, morning, noon and night!”
As I would learn, the politics is about land, and the co-claimants to that land: the indigenous Palestinians who have lived there for 2,000 years and the Jews who started arriving in large numbers after the Second World War. By living among Israeli Jews as well as Palestinian Christians and Muslims, I saw, heard, smelled, experienced the police state tactics Israelis use against Palestinians.
My research led to a book entitled Journey to Jerusalem. My journey not only was enlightening to me as regards Israel, but also I came to a deeper, and sadder, understanding of my own country. I say sadder understanding because I began to see that, in Middle East politics, we the people are not making the decisions, but rather that supporters of Israel are doing so. And typical of most Americans, I tended to think the U.S. media was “free” to print news impartially.
THE MORE powerful the United States becomes, the more frightened we are. Why is that?
An undercurrent of hysteria has coursed through the talk out of Washington over the last week as, first, critics demanded to know whether government officials had ignored warnings of the terrorist attacks of last September and, second, the same government officials - in response? - issued a new warning of coming attacks that might be even worse.
The new warning is sharp enough to generate fear but too vague to enable any defensive preparation. In airports, citizens sheepishly submit to screening measures that are still administered with such incompetence that they can only enhance uneasiness - prompting the question, Is that the point? Meanwhile, the FBI admits it has no clue about the anthrax attacks, American soldiers remain on the hunt in Afghanistan, Pentagon war planners are getting ready for Iraq, and even Cuba is said to be readying biological weapons.
Since President Bush took office, the press and members of Congress have complained about his administration's extraordinary secrecy -- and the American public has yawned.
But last week's flap, over what Bush was told in August about Osama bin Laden's designs to hijack American airplanes, may be different. Americans don't blame the president for doing too little to prevent an attack, but they are displeased that the White House sat on the information for eight months. In a USA Today/CNN poll, 68 percent said the administration should have disclosed this information earlier.
The guarding of the hijacking information for eight months -- and acknowledging it only after a leak -- brought predictable outrage from Democrats, who had been urged by the White House to postpone and restrict probes. "Why was it not provided to us, and why was it not shared with the general public for the last eight months?" Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) demanded.
(YellowTimes.org) – We all learned in school that democracy cannot survive without a free press. To drive this lesson home, we were presented with the notion of a "dictatorship," understood in those days to be typified by the Soviet Union. In a dictatorship, we were told, government directly controls the press. The danger inherent in this arrangement was explained as follows: if a newspaper in a dictatorship ever dares to criticize the government, the offending journalists are sent to a gulag. Thus, power cracks its whip, institutions that set the tone for public discourse are intimidated, and everyone is kept in line. The government can never be subjected to critical review, no matter what it does - and the path to tyranny is wide open.
We were taught, in comforting contrast, that in the American system the press is free, so that many diverse viewpoints may find expression. Journalists may criticize the government without fear of being summarily arrested. In this way, so our cheerful theory ran, news organizations can perform their crucial watchdog function, and government is subjected to responsible scrutiny. This process, over time, was supposed to safeguard against misguided government policy and potential abuse of power.
From the vantage point of 2002, it is apparent that the theory of the role of the press in American democracy - the theory that sounded so comforting and admirable to us during our school years - contained a few flaws. The system breaks down in the case where the government and the media are both agents of the same powerful interests. In this case, the entire concept of "an independent press" is exploded. The press cannot be a "watchdog," because it is not truly distinct from the forces animating the government - any more than a left hand can serve as a "watchdog" over the right hand of the same creature.
What happens when the press and the government function as two arms of the same creature? The same thing that was feared in the classic case of the police state: the voice of the press becomes corrupted. It assumes the tinny, inauthentic hysterical tone that we associate with the Pravda of the bad old days. ("Our Great and Wise Leader has proclaimed that our glorious factories have once again surpassed the goals of the Five-Year Plan.") The press no longer guards the public interest, but becomes an instrument of privilege and power. It blurs issues and spews propaganda. Its voice becomes shrill as it praises its master, insisting on its own rightness and glory. That is the American press of 2002 - all lies, all the time.
First, in his own goofy way he's a political natural, a nice guy. His political style has a chumminess and warm physicality that's disarming. It's easy to detest his policies but not so easy to hate the man. The first time I watched him at close range, he was working a room of Democratic senators (he'd boldly solicited an invitation to a Democratic Caucus retreat and I was an invited speaker). That's when I realized how much his critics had underestimated the man as a politician. Bush was off script and off the record, and he did just fine at the banter. The wisecracks were spontaneous and smart. Indeed, if Clinton alienated because he was too clever by half, Bush endears when it turns out he's not as dumb as you thought. You're waiting for him to stumble and you're charmed when he doesn't.
Second, Bush has absolutely superb handlers and tacticians. His speechwriter, Michael Gerson, is so gifted that he could make a trained monkey sound like Thomas Jefferson. Karl Rove, his political grand strategist, has perfected a game of leaving the Democrats with no popular issues on the table. If Democrats are for Social Security, so is Bush. If they back patients' rights and prescription drugs, so does he. If they embrace kids, he does them one better. Bush then takes away in the fine print everything that he offers in the headlines. Politically, alas, this is mere detail -- so much policy wonkery. The betrayal enrages experts and advocates but can be dealt with by creative obfuscation when it comes to the voters. But what does that say about the voters?
Here we have the third and most alarming factor. This is an era in which voters are unusually quiescent. For two decades, expectations about what government can do have been so lowered -- and here many Democrats are just as culpable as Republicans -- that the broad public doesn't get terribly indignant about betrayals, much less of the ideological kind. The public has come to expect government to jerk people around. When Bush breaches a promise, it only confirms the general suspicion that government can't be trusted anyway. And the fact that the Democratic Party doesn't have a clear opposition ideology makes Bush's task that much easier.
Straw mission over 'very real' chance of India-Pakistan conflict
BRITAIN gave warning of the “very real and very disturbing” possibility of nuclear war between India and Pakistan last night as the Government prepared an emergency mission to Delhi and Islamabad.
Jack Straw is to fly to the capitals next week to try to avert “the most serious conflict in the world in terms of potential casualties and the use of nuclear weapons”.
In a chilling assessment of the escalating tensions in the sub-continent, the Foreign Secretary told journalists: “The international community is watching events with mounting concern. This is a crisis the world cannot ignore.”
Ministers believe the situation is now so tense that just one provocation could trigger catastrophe, and the murder of a prominent Muslim leader yesterday plunged the region even deeper into trouble. A million soldiers are assembled along the India-Pakistan border, most of them concentrated in the disputed region of Kashmir, where fresh clashes were reported yesterday.
ISRAELI INTRIGUE
This week, with the Middle East on the front pages of international news, our vice president visiting countries in that region and sympathy and support riding high for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, there is a sense of shock about the quiet and unofficial deporting, without any serious legal charges, of about 120 alleged Israeli espionage agents.
The story was published in France and confirmed by an official in our Justice Department. The Israeli Embassy said that it contained "no truth," and Fox News, after preparing and advertising a four-part investigation into Israeli espionage in America, withdrew all material on the program.
The details of this Israeli operation are contained in a 61-page task force report. The task force was made up of agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration's Office of Security Programs, the FBI and U.S. Air Force intelligence units. The DEA was first on the ball when its agents detected young Israeli spies making contacts with their undercover agents in January 2001.
Months of investigation found more than 120 Israelis between the ages of 22 and 30 claiming as their cover to be graphic arts students from Jerusalem University or the Betzalel Fine Arts Academy. The concept of "layout and design" suddenly took on a whole new meaning.
Some of them entered and left the United States several times, staying for a short while on each occasion. The "students" operated in cells of four to eight members, each with a team leader, out of San Diego; Irving, Texas; Little Rock, Ark.; and Hollywood and Miami, Fla. They operated in about 40 other cities as well. It is said that many of them tried to make contact with government officials, while others targeted and penetrated military bases, dozens of DEA and FBI buildings and other government agencies.
JACKSONVILLE -- A soldier from Fort Stewart, Ga., has been arrested on charges of planting an explosive device on a dirt road in northeastern Florida, police said Thursday.
Spc. Derek Lawrence Peterson, 27, was being held on $5 million bond at the Jacksonville Pretrial Detention Center.
"He was a soldier on leave, playing soldier," said Jacksonville Sheriff's Detective Larry Johns, who is investigating the case. Peterson told arresting officers that he was in the isolated area to "practice recon tactics."
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
By The Associated Press
(5/20/02) — Jurors in Arthur Andersen LLP's obstruction trial watched a video Monday in which audit team managers were told destroying documents before litigation is filed is "great" because "whatever might have been of interest to anybody is gone and irretrievable."
For the Western youth with no strings attached to the Middle East, the Israel/Palestine conflict might as well be happening in outer space - for we most often forget that those decaying bodies, the suffocating stench, the dried blood on the collapsed walls are none other than our very own humankind!
Every time I mention the sufferings of Palestinians, I'm accused of backing the "terrorists," and if looks could kill, I'd be long dead. Mention the plight of the hundreds dead and shattered under the Israeli occupation and I'm reminded of suicide bombers - "the absolutely Inhuman Islamic Maniacs that walk the face of Israel."
Inhuman Islamic Maniacs? I must admit the mainstream media has done an excellent job of brainwashing the "rational thinkers" of the West. What could possibly turn people like you and I into "inhuman maniacs"? Food for thought, isn't it?
Ayat Akhras, 18, detonated the explosives on her body outside a grocery store in Jerusalem. The news peg's read, "What Do You Think of Her Actions?" So I began thinking and asked myself if I could do it too, after all, I'm a Muslim girl around her age. My reply? No! Then why could she do it and not me? This very "why" provides insights for the emergence of suicide bombers. Ayat’s life, at first glance, may not seem much of a tragedy compared to the devastating stories of most Palestinians. The only difference is Ayat refused to be a silent spectator to Israeli atrocities around her and live in constant fear of an Israeli invasion that would turn her world topsy turvy. Her proactive decision to indulge in such an operation and her subsequent tragic death echoes the desperate need to probe into the plight of the Palestinians.
Witnessing the unfolding of present-day events is like watching something out of a grade-B, Hollywood, science-fiction horror flick, a lá Dr. Strangelove. However, the truly frightening part is that it's not a movie. The main character is a xeno- and ideophobic, hyperparanoid, power-hungry, self-delusional, trigger-happy leader run amok. He and his administrative warriors have convinced themselves that they have the right to launch nuclear missiles from their huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction not only in response to a chemical or biological attack, but also (more shockingly) in first, "pre-emptive" strikes against nations who are allegedly plotting terrorist attacks against their country. After all, according to their logic, nuclear bombs are really no different from conventional weapons. Besides, with its high-tech wizardry, know-how, and precision, their military would easily be able to minimize the consequences of nuclear fallout.
Welcome to the wonderful world of George W. Bush, et al.
Since President Bush took office, the press and members of Congress have complained about his administration's extraordinary secrecy -- and the American public has yawned.
But last week's flap, over what Bush was told in August about Osama bin Laden's designs to hijack American airplanes, may be different. Americans don't blame the president for doing too little to prevent an attack, but they are displeased that the White House sat on the information for eight months. In a USA Today/CNN poll, 68 percent said the administration should have disclosed this information earlier.
The guarding of the hijacking information for eight months -- and acknowledging it only after a leak -- brought predictable outrage from Democrats, who had been urged by the White House to postpone and restrict probes. "Why was it not provided to us, and why was it not shared with the general public for the last eight months?" Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) demanded.
The New York Times, in a breathless "exclusive" from unnamed "government officials," once again dutifully does the P.R. work for the White House. They swallow an implausible story, tossed to them like a dog bone, fashioned to protect "the President." Of course, two BuzzFlash readers saw through it in a minute, and these readers aren't getting paid what New York Times transcriptionists (aka journalists) and editors earn. We're sure of that.
Regarding: B.S. Alert. The New York Times Thinks This is Some Sort of Exclusive, But It's More of "Protect the President Leaking": "Ashcroft Learned of Agent's Alert Just After 9/11 but Bush Was Not Told"
Anyone can understand the Bush Administration's sensitivity to suggestions that the President may have had advance warning of possible airplane hijackings by Osama bin Laden's followers.
It seems patently unfair, with the evidence now available, to suggest that Bush could have known that Mideast terrorists would use commercial airliners as megamissiles to target famous symbols of American economic and military might. "It's sad to play upon the emotions of people as if there were something we could have done to stop it," First Lady Laura Bush said on May 17 in Budapest, "because that's just not the case."
In the 2000 election, the voters of this country could have been forgiven for sizing up George W. Bush as a cross between a moderate Republican and DLC Democrat. Here are some of the things he said while campaigning:
Well. The mainstream media is finally letting some mild criticism of Bush seep into its coverage. Much of it is fairly wimpy, such as Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz admitting, "Unfairly, perhaps, it smells like the administration wasn't being entirely candid in the aftermath." Duh. And this is the paper which supposedly exposed Watergate?
At least the Associated Press, CNN, and others have been letting family members of Sept. 11 victims criticize Bush & Co., so we can all see it's not partisan snipping by Democrats, as Republicans are saying. "It's shameful that they knew as much as they did and didn't warn anyone," Stephen Push, of Great Falls, Va., told the AP. His wife, Lisa Raines, was killed aboard the airplane that struck the Pentagon. "They put the business interests of the airlines above the lives of the citizens."
Donn Marshall of Marbury, Md., whose wife, Shelley, also died at the Pentagon, more directly put the blame on Bush, where much of it largely belongs. "It sort of makes you wonder where the get-tough president was when he was getting all this information, why they didn't react act more vigorously," Marshall told the AP. "The notion that American planes might be hijacked, that should have caused more concern, even if we didn't think that they might be flown into things."
May 27 issue — It was supposed to be a routine drop-by, little more: A quick strategic review with the president before he awarded a medal to Nancy Reagan in the Capitol Rotunda. But by the time George W. Bush arrived at a private gathering of Republican senators in the Mansfield Room, a vicious political war had erupted on the Hill, ignited by the disclosure that he had been warned last August about the possibility of Al Qaeda hijackings in the United States
In the 2000 election, the voters of this country could have been forgiven for sizing up George W. Bush as a cross between a moderate Republican and DLC Democrat. Here are some of the things he said while campaigning:
In a stirring passage in his convention speech, Bush invoked
single moms struggling to feed their kids and pay the rent. Immigrants starting a hard life in a new world. Children without fathers in neighborhoods where gangs seem like friendship. ... We are their country, too. ... When these problems aren't confronted, it builds a wall within our nation. On one side are wealth and technology, education and ambition. On the other side of the wall are poverty and prison, addiction and despair. And, my fellow Americans, we must tear down that wall.
One could imagine Bobby Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson -- or even Al Gore on a good day -- uttering just those words.
"To seniors in this country," Bush earnestly declared, "you earned your benefits, you made your plans, and President George W. Bush will keep the promise of Social Security -- no changes, no reductions, no way."
For nearly three hours two Sundays ago, farmer Mohammed Abu Samra Zakarna sat in the vineyard he works, the bodies of his wife and daughter stretched out before him. For part of that time, his young son lay crying and dying next to them. Mohammed's hands were tied behind his back, and his pants had been taken away at the order of the soldiers who had just killed his family. It happened in the vineyard belonging to Khalid Ibrahim, which Zakarna works as a tenant farmer, at the side of the Jenin bypass road, in the early morning hours, when the soldiers thought that their tank had hit a roadside bomb. Only there was no bomb, and the soldiers shot and shelled the Zakarna family, the parents and their two children, who were picking grape leaves.
A week later, on this past Sunday, the bereaved father and widower sat in his one-room apartment in the extended family's home in the town of Qabatiyah, holding his two remaining children in his arms. Seven-year-old Yasmin, the eldest, keeps crying. She knows that her mother, sister and brother were killed, but she has no idea how this happened. The IDF tried to save Basel, but when their efforts failed, the body was returned to the hospital in Jenin.
When he went to the hospital to claim the bodies of his wife and daughter, he also found the body of his son, who had been taken away by an Israeli ambulance a few hours earlier.
CHAR CHINE, Afghanistan, May 18 — A circle of trampled wheat stalks and dark bloodstains marked the place where the three villagers died, one of them a 13-year-old boy — gunned down in an American air attack as they hid in the wheat field, relatives and neighbors here said.
They were among five people killed when American Special Forces raided this small farming village in the province of Oruzgan, on the night of May 12. Villagers said they fled their homes in the dark as planes and helicopters strafed the houses and fields, fired rockets and then landed dozens of soldiers to search the houses. They detained at least 20 villagers and a number of visitors, they said.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration does not support a public commission to investigate the intelligence failures leading up to the September 11 attacks, fearing such disclosures could harm the war against terrorism, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
Two Palestinian suicide bombs in as many days have force-fed Israeli public support for fencing off the West Bank from the eastern border of the Jewish state, despite bitter opposition by settlers who fear a security fence may well be recognized in the future as the permanent border of an independent Palestine.
Responding to desperate pleas from leaders of Israeli towns and villages along the seam line [also known as the Green Line, Israel's pre-1967 border with the West Bank], Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer Monday set a six-month deadline for the erection of a long series of fences, electronic detection devices and other obstructions meant to foil the entry of suicide bombers and other militants into Israel proper.
At particularly sensitive points, the fence may be a solid, thick wall as much as eight meters, or 26 feet, tall.
LONDON (AP) The commander of the British marine forces in Afghanistan is to be replaced after claims that he mishandled operations, lost the confidence of his men and infuriated British and U.S. officials.
The Ministry of Defense said Monday that Brig. Gen. Roger Lane will be moved next month to unspecified staff duties after ending his current assignment in Afghanistan. Brig. Gen. Jim Dutton will then take over as commander of the 3 Commando Brigade.
The government said the decision was not related to controversy surrounding Lane. A Ministry of Defense statement said the change was needed to give the Royal Marines ''more choice'' in personnel planning.
After the move dominated the news headlines Monday morning, the government later said the decision was made in February, but did not explain why it was announced Monday. A spokesman in Afghanistan said the changeover had been long planned.
Anwar Al-Mirabi's captors sometimes greeted him with "Good morning, terrorist." Shuffled among a half-dozen jails in three states during the last eight months, he was denied a drinking cup, mattress, and toilet paper. The businessman asked for a change of clothes, but didn't get that either. Nor did he get prompt treatment for a painful, infected mass which swelled to the size of a fist.
Al-Mirabi's wife said he's been treated like an animal. More like an axe murderer, his attorney said. The fact is, Al-Mirabi's been treated like a terrorist.
And that might be OK if he was one. But the 29-year-old Arlington resident hasn't been charged with terrorism or any other crime. Unless you want to call ignoring an immigration deadline to be with your wife during childbirth a crime.
Why should I favor this man’s work, the work of a leftist and alleged anti-American? Because he gets the facts. Wherever a crisis breaks out, The Independent’s readership can almost always count on Mr. Fisk being there, asking unwelcome questions and revealing information that those in authority would rather not have made public. I started reading Mr. Fisk during the Kosovo bombings, which I abhorred, and still do. Time and again he called NATO out on its sordid little lies during that villainous attack on a country that had done the West no harm. The NATO-crats hated him so much at the time they called him "Bob Fiskic." Ever since, I made it a point to read Fisk’s columns whenever possible, and when I do, I almost always learn something new, even when I profoundly disagree with him.
It is said that in the first few years of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, no one seriously thought of holding on to these territories forever. It was at the time widely assumed, that these newly conquered lands were to be handed back to the Arabs as part of a peace agreement. I don't remember those days.
I was raised in a different Israel. In my Israel the small fundamentalist group of Jewish settlers has always enjoyed more political power than their relative share in the Israeli population. In my Israel both left-wing and right-wing governments enabled the colonialisation of these occupied Palestinian lands. My Israel paid, and is still paying, a heavy moral price for ruling another nation by the force of the sword. My Israel, built on the founding values of humanism, pluralism and democracy is being lost.
Bush says the inherent powers of the presidency have eroded to an unsettling degree over the past 30 years and he is moving to reclaim the lost prerogatives of the nation's highest office. He has drawn a distinct line that he has suggested no one dare cross.
"I have an obligation to make sure that the presidency remains robust and that the legislative branch doesn't end up running the executive branch," Bush said.
Critics counter that the administration's effort is nothing more than a thinly veiled power grab and that the office of the president is more potent now than at any time in recent memory. Bruce Fein, a former Justice Department official who worked in several Republican administrations, said the United States "has never had a more imperial presidency, at least since (President Franklin D.) Roosevelt during his conduct of World War II."
"What the president is claiming is legally and historically absurd and politically stupid," Fein said.