April 19, 2003

Media Compilation #131: Murky Future for the Middles East


Dear journalist

Once again there is such a large amount of material worthy of attention that I must make this a double-length compilation.

Hopefully you'll have time to review it as there is lots of really important and, as usual, largely unreported news and views on the war in Iraq and its messy aftermath.

Of course there are some recent positive developments, chief amongst them the newly rediscovered freedom of expression in Baghdad, although this may lead to more troubles in controlling the situation there ...

Most of these articles dated back more than a couple days ago... and yet most are still very much relevant. See for yourself!

Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com

This compilation is archived at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2003/MediaCompilation131.htm


"I believe that there is a greater power in the world than the evil power of military force, of nuclear bombs-there is the power of good, of morality, of humanitarianism. I believe in the power of the human spirit. I should like to see our great Nation, the United States of America, take the lead in the fight for good, for peace, against the evil of war. I should like to see in our cabinet a Secretary for Peace, with a budget of billions of dollars per year perhaps as much as 10 percent of the amount now expended for military purposes. I should like to see set up a great international research program involving thousands of scientists, economists, geographers, and other experts working steadily year after year in the search for possible solutions to world problems, ways to prevent war and to preserve peace. During the past hundred years there have been astounding developments in science and technology, developments that have completely changed the nature of the world in which we live. So far as I can see, the nature of diplomacy, of the conduct of international affairs, has changed very little."

- Linus Pauling - Nobel Peace Prize winner and peace activist. From his book NO MORE WAR pages 216 and 217 (Dodd, Mead, and Company NY)


"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war . . . and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

- James Madison, April 20, 1795


"If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves."

- Howard Zinn, historian and author


"I'm sick and tired of old men dreaming up wars in which young men do the dying."

- George McGovern during his 1972 presidential campaign


CONTENTS

1. America Faces Israel Scenario
2. A Kinder, Gentler Patriotism
3. Israel is Developing 'Ethnic Bomb' for Growing Biological Weapons Arsenal


See also:

Republican Guard commander cut deal with US forces (April 15)
http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2627&version=1&template_id=263&parent_id=258
The mystery of what happened to the Iraqi Republican Guard defending Baghdad appears to have been solved if a report in today's Le Monde is to be believed. The French daily reports that Maher Sufyan, Commander of the Republican Guard reached an agreement with American forces in which he ordered his forces to surrender in exchange for his transfer via an American Apache helicopter to an undisclosed safe haven. Quoting anonymous sources, Le Monde's correspondent in Baghdad said that Sufyan ordered all Republican Guard forces to lay down their arms and go home. Shortly thereafter an Apache helicopter escorted Sufyan from the Al Rashid camp, east of Baghdad, to an unknown location. ALSO: Iran continues to raise secret deal claim An Iranian news agency close to top conservative military figures attributed the fall of Baghdad to a secret tripartite agreement between Saddam Hussain, Russia and the U.S. http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=84189
ALSO: Baghdad Did Not Fall - It Was Handed Over --by Jalal Ghazi "Arabic media are using the word 'safqa' to explain the sudden collapse of Baghdad and the Iraqi regime. Translated into English, 'safqa' means 'a deal made fast and in secrecy.'" Arabic media are speculating that a 'safqa' -- Arabic for a secret deal -- was arranged between the United States and the Baath regime to hand over Baghdad."
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=5ae05a118069ebe6d68ef5995a2ebb7d
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/01141810.htm
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=4/10/03&cat=2&Num=017

How America Lost the War (April 14)
http://truthout.org/docs_03/041503A.shtml

The sacking of Iraq's museums: US wages war against culture and history
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/muse-a16.shtml
"The looting of Iraq's museums and National Library, with the destruction of much of Iraq's cultural heritage, is a historic crime for which the Bush administration is responsible."

Baghdad museum's greatest treasures 'stolen to order' (April 16)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=397630

Bush Panel Members Quit Over Looting (April 17)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42416-2003Apr16.html
Cultural Advisers Say U.S. Military Could Have Prevented Museum Losses
Citing "the wanton and preventable destruction" of Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities, the chairman of the President's Advisory Committee on Cultural Property has submitted his resignation to President Bush. Another of the committee's nine members is also resigning over the issue. "While our military forces have displayed extraordinary precision and restraint in deploying arms -- and apparently in securing the Oil Ministry and oil fields -- they have been nothing short of impotent in failing to attend to the protection of [Iraq's] cultural heritage," Martin E. Sullivan wrote in the resignation letter that he sent Monday to the White House. (...) "Officials at UNESCO estimate that about 150,000 items, with a total value in the billions of dollars, [already] have been taken," Moe wrote. "Losses include 4,000-year-old Sumerian gold jewelry, 5,000-year-old tablets with some of the world's earliest known writing, and thousands of other objects." CLIP

U.S. Threatens Iraqi Scientists Iraqi scientists accused U.S. forces of encouraging looting of universities
http://www.islamonline.net/english/news/2003-04/12/article02.shtml
CAIRO, April 12 - Appealing to the world community to protect them from the U.S. aggression aimed at obliterating Iraq's minds, a number of Iraqi scientists and university professors sent an SOS e-mail complaining American occupation forces were threatening their lives. In their e-mail, a copy of which was sent to IslamOnline.net Friday, April 11, they said they have dictated their message to a respected Iraqi scientist in the Netherlands over phone, urging him to circulate it to all parties concerned to protect them from the arbitrary inquires and arrests by the U.S. occupation forces. Iraqi scientists asserted that occupation troops demanded them, particularly physicists, chemists and mathematicians, to hand over all documents and researches in their possession. The appeal message also said that looting and robberies were being taken place under the watchful eye of the occupation soldiers. The occupation soldiers, the e-mail added, are transporting mobs to the scientific institutions, such as Mosul University and different educational institutions, to destroy scientific research centers and confiscate all papers and documents to nip in the bud any Iraqi scientific renaissance. The frantic scientists also underlined that some of them were placed under house arrest and deprived of going to their laboratories and universities.

US Forces Encourage Looting (April 11 - From Sweden's largest daily newspaper)
http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1435&a=129852&previousRenderType=1
(...) "I was just 300 meters away when the guards where murdered. Then they shot the building entrance to pieces, and their Arabic translators in the tanks told people to run for grabs inside the building. Rumours spread rapidly and the house was cleaned out. Moments later tanks broke down the doors to the Justice Department, residing in the neighbouring building, and looting was carried on to there. "I was standing in a big crowd of civilians that saw all this together with me. They did not take any part in the looting, but were to afraid to take any action against it. Many of them had tears of shame in their eyes. The next morning looting spread to the Museum of Modern Art, which lies another 500 meters to the north. There was also two crowds in place, one that was looting and another one that disgracefully saw it happen." Do you mean to say that it was the US troops that initiated the looting? "Absolutely. The lack of scenes of joy had the US forces in need of images of Iraqis who in different ways demonstrated their disgust with Saddam's regime." CLIP -

Robert Fisk : Ministry of Oil and Ministry of Interior protected from looting (April 14)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3401035&thesection=news&thesubsection=dialogue
BAGHDAD - Iraq's scavengers have thieved and destroyed what they have been allowed to loot and burn by the Americans - and a two-hour drive around Baghdad shows clearly what the United States intends to protect, presumably for its own use. After days of arson and pillage, here's a short but revealing scorecard. US troops have sat back and allowed mobs to wreck and then burn the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Irrigation, the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Information. They did nothing to prevent looters from destroying priceless treasures of Iraq's history in the Baghdad Archaeological Museum and in the Museum in the northern city of Mosul, nor from looting three hospitals. However, the Americans have put hundreds of troops inside two Iraqi ministries, which remain untouched - and untouchable - because tanks and armoured personnel carriers and Humvee jeeps have been placed inside and outside both institutions. And which particular ministries proved to be so important for the Americans? Why, the Ministry of Interior, of course - with its vast wealth of intelligence information on Iraq - and the Ministry of Oil. The archives and files of Iraq's most valuable asset - its oil fields and, even more important, its massive reserves, perhaps the world's largest - are safe and sound, sealed off the from the mobs and looters, and safe to be shared - as Washington almost certainly intends -- with US oil companies. It casts an interesting reflection on America's supposed war aims.

'To Hell With History!' (April 15)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer41.html
(...) One of the buildings sacked by those getting what the new ruling class regards as their "first taste of freedom" was the National Museum of Antiquities, in Baghdad. Statues, carvings, pots, cuneiform texts, and other items dating back some 5,000 years were indiscriminately destroyed by rioters and looters who apparently saw nothing of relevance to their lives in artifacts of their own history. A disregard for lessons from the past is an international phenomenon. Among the destroyed collections were items from ancient Sumeria, one of the most advanced cultures of its time. A Sumerian text, dated 2,300 B.C. contains the word "ama-gi," the first known expression of the concept "liberty." Western civilization, itself, traces many of its roots to this part of the world, lands that have been crisscrossed and peoples subdued by one tyrannical regime after another. I suspect that the Sumerians would have known what many of their descendants - whose historical records now lie in rubble - will have to rediscover for themselves, namely, that their newly imposed "freedom" is but the most recent pretext by which some people presume to rule and despoil others.

Questions over favoured firms' links to Bush administration (April 15)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,937108,00.html
Jobs for the boys: the reconstruction billions - Anti-war protesters in San Francisco recently barricaded the gates of Bechtel, the engineering group that oversaw the construction of the Channel tunnel. The protesters set aside the usual rallying cry: the war in Iraq was not all about oil, they noted, it was also about building roads and schools, and getting power and water services back in operation in a country ravaged by years of underinvestment as well as war. Contracts worth billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Iraq are already being handed out by the US government, offering huge profits to a few, favoured companies, many with high-level contacts in the Bush administration and a history of donations to the Republican party. The contracts are being awarded exclusively to US firms and, instead of the usual tendering process, are by invitation only. Bechtel is one of six construction firms chosen to bid.

US starts military-build along Iraq's border with Syria: German Daily
http://www.irna.com/en/world/030414171229.ewo.shtml
Berlin, April 14, IRNA -- The United States has apparently began a major military build-up along Iraq's western borders with Syria, the daily Bild cited confidential remarks by an unidentified US general. New American troop contingents and heavy military hardware, including A-10 fighter planes, M1 'Abrams' tanks, 'Apache' combat helicopters and massive bomb arsenals, have been secretly deployed in the Iraqi town of Ar-Rutbah . Washington has repeatedly threatened Damascus over the past days for allegedly aiding the deposed Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

Iran Won't Recognize U.S.-Led Iraq Gov't (April 16)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2570990,00.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Wednesday his country will not recognize a U.S.-installed interim administration in Iraq and will support Syria if it is attacked.

US rejects Iraq DU clean-up (April 14)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2946715.stm

Scientists Urge DU Clean-Up To Protect Civilians 
http://www.voice4change.org/stories/showstory.asp?file=030418~to.asp
Hundreds of Tons of Depleted uranium used by Britain and the United States in Iraq should be removed to protect the civilian population, the Royal Society said yesterday, contradicting Pentagon claims it was not necessary.

The nightmare scenario: freedom to choose rule by the ayatollahs (April 16)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,937620,00.html

Mosul shootings overshadow US-led talks (April 16)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s832822.htm
United States troops have opened fire on a crowd opposed to the US-installed governor in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing at least 10 people and injuring as many as 100, witnesses and doctors said. The incident overshadowed the start of US-brokered talks aimed at sketching out a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq and was sure to ignite anti-US sentiment sparked in protests in Baghdad and at the talks in the southern city of Nasiriyah. Witnesses reported that US troops had fired into a crowd which was becoming increasingly hostile towards the new governor, Mashaan al-Juburi, as he was making a pro-US speech in the northern oil city. "There are perhaps 100 wounded and 10 to 12 dead," Dr Ayad al-Ramadhani said at the city hospital. US forces in Mosul refused to comment to AFP, and at US Central Command in Qatar, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told a press briefing he had seen no military reports of the incident and could not confirm it. One witness, Marwan Mohammed, 50, told AFP: "The people moved toward the government building, the children threw stones, the Americans started firing. Then they prevented the people from recovering the bodies."

U.S. Govt Accused of War Crimes against Journalists
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=17456
International journalists' organisations are accusing the U.S. government of committing war crimes in Iraq by intentionally firing at war correspondents.

Lost In The Rubble (April 16)
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0316/mondo4.php
Anthrax, Biological Weapons, And Other Smoking Guns We Never Found In Iraq
"25,000 liters of anthrax" / "38,000 liters of botulinum toxin"
"500 tons of sarin, mustard [gas] and "VX nerve agent"
"Several mobile biological weapons labs"
"An advanced nuclear weapons development program"
George W. Bush, State of the Union speech, January 28, 2003

War Crimes Case Planned Against United States (April 15)
http://www.nationalpost.com/world/story.html?id=ECE98D7D-B287-47A5-90FB-A76063AD1B4E
Washington Says Groups' Bid Proves ICC A Political Tool - UNITED NATIONS - A coalition of lawyers and human rights groups yesterday unveiled a bid to use the UN's new International Criminal Court as a tool to restrain American military power. In a move Washington said vindicated U.S. claims that the court would be used for political purposes, the rights activists are working to compile war crimes cases against the United States and its chief ally in Iraq, Britain. "There is a way that the United States can be accused ... of aiding and abetting war crimes," said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

US Troops Accused Of Carnage (April 16)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/16/1050172608832.html
United States troops opened fire on a crowd hostile to the new pro-American governor in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul yesterday, killing at least 10 people and injuring as many as 100, witnesses and doctors said. The shooting overshadowed the start of US-brokered talks aimed at sketching out a post-Saddam Iraq. At Mosul hospital Dr Ayad al-Ramadhani said the American soldiers had fired into a crowd that was becoming increasingly hostile towards governor Mashaan al-Juburi as he was making a pro-US speech in the city.

US More Keen On Oil Than Iraqi People (April 16)
http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2687&version=1&template_id=263&parent_id=258
Deeply concerned over the anarchic turn of events in Iraq, Amnesty International charged the US-led forces on Tuesday with being more concerned about Iraqi oil well than the Iraqi people. "There seems to be have been more preparation to protect the oil wells than to protect hospitals, water systems or civilians," lamented Irene Khan, the secretary-general of the international human-rights group in what is the strongest indictment of the US and its allies to date for their inability to restore normalcy in Iraq since they ousted the government of Saddam Hussein. "The first taste of the coalition's approach to law and order will not have inspired confidence in the Iraqi people," insisted Khan at a news conference held in London. Criticism of the US-led forces is expected to get shriller following the indictment from as influential a body as Amnesty.

Long-Term Damage From a Short-Term War : Leaving a Mess in Mesopotamia (April 16)
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0316/pyne.php
Raw sewage courses through canals and riverbeds. Toxic clouds from burning oil and smoldering buildings billow into the air, raining particles on the countryside. Heavy metals and a stew of chemicals from bombed industrial plants spill into the soil and pollute drinking-water supplies. Iraq doesn't look as bad as a smoky Kuwait did in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, but Iraq's air, land, and water have been battered in 2003, and some experts say more Iraqi civilians will die from post-war environmental problems than have been killed during the fighting. Even before the end of the current war, the U.S. had started preparations to rebuild roads and airports, make water drinkable, and otherwise mitigate immediate public health hazards. But it hasn't addressed the toxic soup left in the wake of the bombings. The Department of Defense has done no environmental assessment in Iraq of damage, cleanup requirements, or costs, acknowledged Glen Flood, a Pentagon spokesman. (...) Since the first Gulf War, a dozen nations, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey, along with other countries that helped in the environmental cleanup, have submitted nearly $80 billion in claims to the United Nations; most of the claims haven't yet been paid. In this war, funding hasn't come through yet for UNEP's initial request of half a million dollars, part of a UN appeal to its members for $2.2 billion in emergency assistance to Iraq in the next six months. During the war to date, USAID has spent half a billion dollars on aid to Iraq, virtually none of it on environmental issues. A short attention span may be as limiting as shallow pockets. In 1991, UNEP recommended creation of an international plan to rehabilitate the environment, a sort of Marshall Plan to deal with the environmental disaster in the Middle East caused by the first Gulf War. The plan never materialized, and much of the damage remains. When asked why, Nick Nuttall, UNEP's head of communications, said there was no particular reason. "After a war. there's lots of goodwill and good ideas," he said. "And then the world moves on."

Weapon of mass destruction - Spectre orange (March 29)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,923715,00.html
Nearly 30 years after the Vietnam war, a chemical weapon used by US troops is still exacting a hideous toll on each new generation. Hong Hanh is falling to pieces. She has been poisoned by the most toxic molecule known to science; it was sprayed during a prolonged military campaign. The contamination persists. No redress has been offered, no compensation. The superpower that spread the toxin has done nothing to combat the medical and environmental catastrophe that is overwhelming her country. (...) He lies on a mat on the floor, his matchstick limbs folded uselessly before him, his parents taking it in turns to mop his mouth, as if without them he would drown in his own saliva. Hoi, the boy's mother, tells us how she met her husband when they were assigned to the same Viet Cong unit in which they fought together for 10 years. But she alone was ordered to the battle of Troung Hon mountain. "I saw this powder falling from the sky," she says. "I felt sick, had a headache. I was sent to a field hospital. I was close to the gates of hell. By the time I was discharged, I had lost the strength in my legs and they have never fully recovered. Then Ky was born, our son, with yellow skin. Every year his problems get worse." Her husband, Hung, interrupts: "Sometimes, we have been so desperate for money that we have begged in the local market. I do not think you can imagine the humiliation of that." And this family is not alone. All the adults here, cycling past us or strolling along the dykes, are suffering from skin lesions and goitres that cling to necks like sagging balloons. The women spontaneously abort or give birth to genderless squabs that horrify even the most experienced midwives. In a yard, Nguyen, a neighbour's child, stares into space. He has a hydrocephalic head as large as a melon. Two houses down, Tan has distended eyes that bubble from his face. By the river, Ngoc is sleeping, so wan he resembles a pressed flower. "They told me the boy is depressed," his exhausted father tells us. "Of course he's depressed. He lives with disease and death." CLIP

Vietnam Dioxin Spray Estimate Quadruples (April 17)
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030414/030414-10.html
Flight Records Reveal Full Extent Of Agent Orange contamination. - A fresh study of long-forgotten flight records of US military aircraft that sprayed Agent Orange over Vietnam has shed unexpected light on one of the darkest episodes of that conflict. The study1 revises previous estimates of the quantity of the herbicide sprayed during the Vietnam War sharply upwards. Together with the earlier use of other herbicides - known as Agent Purple and Agent Pink - it finds that the total amount of dioxin contaminant sprayed in the war was up to four times as great as was previously estimated.

US Marines Looting or `Liberating' Iraqi Gold (April 16)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2973.htm

Halliburton's History Supporting Terrorist Regimes (April 16)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0304/S00160.htm
Kellogg Brown & Root, the company chosen last month by the Pentagon to extinguish oil well fires in Iraq, has a long history of supporting the same terrorist regimes vilified by the Bush administration and on at least one occasion defrauded the United States government to the tune of $2 million, according to public documents. Halliburton, headed by Dick Cheney before he became vice president, and it's KBR subsidiary did business with some of the world's most notorious governments and dictators - in countries such as Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria.

CIA death squads operating in Iraq
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/cia-a08_prn.shtml
(...) Revealing cover-up at Pentagon briefing - At an April 4 Pentagon media briefing, Army Major General Stanley McChrystal boasted that the contribution of special forces to the US operation had been "unprecedented." Another senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said more than 10,000 special operations troops were involved in Iraq-the largest number for any US war since Vietnam. The methods being used in Iraq will soon become as notorious as the CIA-backed coup in Iran in 1953 to install the cruel regime of the Shah, the "Operation Phoenix" killing program in Vietnam, and the 1973 overthrow of the Allende government in Chile, to name but a few of US imperialism's crimes.

Illegal War Evokes Deafening Silence from US Law Schools
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/helenthomas/2101990/detail.html

Activists Begin Global Boycott of US Products
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=17505
Around the world, boycotts are underway against the most visible US brands: Coke, Pepsi, KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, Chevrolet, Tesco Lotus, Caltex and Monsanto. "In Mexico, a group of students and professors used street theatre to get spread the boycott message at a Wal Mart store in Mexico City on Mar 25. They blocked the cash registers for a half-hour by filling shopping carts with U.S. products but then said they would not pay 'because every foreign item we buy is a bullet fired against an Iraqi civilian... In Brazil, anti-war protesters are using the Internet to get their message out, showing a photo of Iraqi women crying over a dead child, alongside the logos of U.S.-based corporations, accompanied by a text. 'Remember these children and these crying mothers every time you drink a coke, or eat the poison of McDonald's, or fill your car's gas tank at Shell, Esso or Texaco. They paid for the death and destruction of the Iraqi people," says the text.

Noam Chomsky Interviewed (April 13) Why did the U.S. invade Iraq, in your view?
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=3450§ionID=41
(...) The question of who rules Iraq remains the prime issue of contention. The US-backed opposition demands that the UN play a vital role in post-war Iraq and rejects US control of reconstruction or government (Leith Kubba, one of the most respected secular voices in the West, connected with the National Endowment of Democracy). One of the leading Shi'ite opposition figures, Sayed Muhamed Baqer al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), just informed the press that "we understand this war to be about imposing US hegemony over Iraq," and perceive the US as "an occupying rather than a liberating force." He stressed that the UN must supervise elections, and called on "foreign troops to withdraw from Iraq" and leave Iraqis in charge. US policy-makers have a radically different conception. They must impose a client regime in Iraq, following the practice elsewhere in the region, and most significantly, in the regions that have been under US domination for a century, Central America and the Caribbean. That too is well-understood. Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser to Bush I, just repeated the obvious: "What's going to happen the first time we hold an election in Iraq and it turns out the radicals win? What do you do? We're surely not going to let them take over." The same holds throughout the region. Recent studies reveal that from Morocco to Lebanon to the Gulf, about 95% of the population want a greater role in government for Islamic religious figures, and the same percentage believe that the sole US interest in the region is to control its oil and strengthen Israel. Antagonism to Washington has reached unprecedented heights, and the idea that Washington would institute a radical change in policy and tolerate truly democratic elections, respecting the outcome, seems rather fanciful, to say the least. CLIP

Arcata - The defiant town ordinance penalizes officials who cooperate with Patriot Act...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/13/BA283270.DTL
Arcata, that tiny North Coast bastion of the robustly liberal, has quietly made itself the first city in the nation to outlaw voluntary compliance with the USA Patriot Act. Town leaders know their new law outlawing the bigger law is probably illegal. And they don't know anyone local who's had troubles because of the Patriot Act. But the very existence of the sweeping federal policy -- passed by Congress swiftly after Sept. 11, 2001, to expand powers to search, conduct surveillance and throw people in jail during terrorism probes -- so rubbed them the wrong way that they felt they had to make a stand. CLIP

Palestine: the world looks away
http://MondeDiplo.com/2003/04/10palestine
While international attention is on Iraq, Israel is taking the chance to expand army operations in the West Bank and Gaza, demolishing their structure and infrastructure, totally unconcerned about the deaths it causes.



1.

From: http://www.exile.ru/163/163020001.html
Or from: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2809.htm

America Faces Israel Scenario

By Mark Ames ( editor@exile.ru )

A reporter for the Israeli daily Ha‚aretz, traveling with the US forces as they pushed up from Kuwait towards Baghdad, compared the American soldiers‚ shocked and bewildered reaction to unexpected Iraqi resistance to the opening phase of the war in Lebanon, where seemingly invincible IDF troops met unexpectedly fierce resistance in 1982.

The comparison is significant for a lot of reasons. Israeli eventually lost that war and was driven out of Lebanon. The goal to drive out Yasser Arafat and his PLO from Lebanon also failed; within fifteen years, Arafat had taken over parts of the occupied territories. Lebanon was not only a military defeat, it shattered Israel's brief Golden Age, its paradigm of moral righteousness and military invincibility. Specifically, it brought terror to Israel in a way never dreamed of before the invasion. It brought the suicide bomber, courtesy of the Shiite Hezbollah.

The Lebanon war, although battle-by-battle a victory for Israel, was a PR disaster. The Israelis bombed Beirut, killing thousands of civilians in their drive to oust Arafat. Whereas before much of the world admired Israel for its Holocaust beginnings and its idealistic struggle to create a lasting social- democracy in a sea of brutal autocracies, now the world saw Israel as brutal, militaristic and the inverse of the ideals that had once won it so much sympathy.

Israel became increasingly isolated from the world, including the West. At the same time, its military vulnerability inspired the once-docile Palestinians living under occupation to rebel like never before. Today, Israelis are easily the most isolated citizens of a democratic government in the world. They have problems traveling to most countries in the world. They are not safe wherever they travel. They are not safe on their own streets, in their buses or cafes. Most of the world's public opinion is strongly against Israel's policies towards the Palestinians. The more Israel has become isolated, the more it has swung to the right, voting for policies that further isolate it, which in turn further fuel support for the far-right. At the same time, small chinks in Israel's military armor exposed in the Lebanon war, however slight, were an inspiration to terrorists on a scale Israel had never had to deal with before. The result: Palestinian suicide terror, which led an increasingly isolated and right-leaning Israeli public to lurch even farther to the right. The farther right, the harder the crackdown. The harder the crackdown, the more sense of injustice, which fuels more terror, and at the same time, more public scorn from the international community.

This vicious cycle of increasing isolation and militarism, the Israel Scenario, is exactly where America is headed. Military superiority exhibited in Afghanistan and in the generally successful war against Al Qaeda, along with world sympathy following 9/11, gave the Bush Administration hawks far too much confidence in their invincibility (mirroring the position Israel was in on the regional and world stage before Lebanon). The Bush Administration has since managed to make America the most loathed, isolated democracy in the world˜after Israel. Americans in all parts of the world are reporting increasing harassment, while in entire regions it is too dangerous to even travel.

Now the military part of the equation is unfolding: sucked into a quagmire that was supposed to be easy, the US has already faced its first suicide bomber and thousands more are promised. TV images of the victims of American bombing are beamed around the world, further increasing anti- American rage. Even though the war is technically being won so far by the US, the first chinks in its armor were revealed after more than a decade of awesome invincibility. The Arabs are overcoming their fear and disunity. In response, Donald Rumsfeld has already announced that Syria may be targeted next. Syria: which controls Lebanon and the Hezbollah, who introduced the art of suicide bombing to the Arabs, including the Iraqi officer who blew up four American soldiers on Sunday.

The enemies of both America and Israel use terror to instill fear in the hope that they will either force their enemies to change their policies, or destroy them. As a rule, terrorists work to radicalize both the aggrieved population and the perceived oppressor. The oppressor is forced into becoming ever more brutal, and through its brutality, the local population (in this case the Iraqis) becomes further radicalized until the situation becomes unbearable for the occupier. This is what drove out the Israelis from Lebanon.

But it is the broader effect in the home country that is more frightening. I remember the first time I went to Israel how surprised I was by the lack of enthusiasm most of the young Israelis I met had for Israel. They were tired of war, tired of isolation. They wanted to lead normal lives, not to be pariahs of the world. That was in 1991, during the first Intifadah. The salad days by comparison. When I returned to Israel last May, the deterioration was incredible. Now the Israelis barely venture outside of their homes. They live in a constant state of siege. Moreover, they have lost all moral legitimacy in the eyes of basically every country on earth except for America. Most of the world views them as something between an apartheid regime and the Gestapo, the very inverse of everything Israel was supposed to stand for. Israelis and their supporters defensively label their critics anti-Semites; the isolation is furthered, the positions even more hardened.

Wherever you stand on the issue, if there's one thing America does not and should not want to become it's Israel. Isolated, loathed, fearful, under siege...

Or does America want that? Put it this way: why does the Bush Administration seem to have such an unusually cozy, warm relationship with Sharon? As Israeli prime ministers go, he certainly stands least for the liberal values that America was founded on. Sharon was always considered an anathema to mainstream American politicians.

The far-right always prospers from the fear promoted by terror and the war against terror. Without terror, fear, a state of siege and isolation, Sharon and his coalition of racist freaks could not count on staying in power. On the other hand, without Sharon and his ethnic cleansing ministers, the terrorists would have a hard time growing their own power base. The two complement each other. Even economic decline under Sharon hasn't dampened his support, in the same way that America's economic decline hasn't hurt Bush, so long as fear keeps his support strong.

Bin Laden creates the fear that heats the Bush Administration's popularity. The Bush people have become addicted to that fear, and addicted to feeding it to its citizens. When America grossly mishandled the diplomacy leading up to the Iraq War and wound up isolated, Americans, like Israelis, lashed out at former allies, accusing them of being "anti-American." Boycotts started. The more isolation, the more the population finds itself in bed with the Bush Administration.

It's no coincidence that the Bush Administration is leading America into the Israel scenario. The strategy was designed, literally, by Americans working for the Israeli right.

The leading architects of the new war in Iraq - Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser - were hired in 1996 by Sharon's Likud government (then headed by Benjamin Netanyahu) to devise policy papers under the auspices of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The policy paper the three helped pen, titled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," recommended exactly the current administration's policy: "Israel can shape its strategic environment... by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq... Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly." The paper went on to advocate breaking off peace talks with Arafat, launching "hot pursuit" strikes into Palestinian territory and "reestablishing the principle of preemption." It was too much for Netanyahu; he rejected it.

Today, Richard Perle, until recently the chairman of the Pentagon's highly- influential Defense Policy Board, is widely acknowledged as the prime architect of the war on Iraq. Feith is undersecretary of defense for policy and Wurmser is a State Department special assistant.

What they couldn't sell to Netanyahu, they pushed on Bush, who bought it hook, line and sinker. Under Sharon, parts of the plan have been implemented; the big jobs - the conquests of Iraq and Syria - have been left to America.

The Israel Scenario is already here for Americans. As anyone who has traveled to Israel and witnessed its dark slide into increasing isolation and siege will recognize, America's descent has just begun. It can get a hell of a lot worse. And it will. Which isn't so bad, so long as you're part of the American Right.

---

See also:

Jewish mini-state to give Washington instructions for Middle East, Israel to U.S.: Now deal with Syria and Iran (April 14)
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=283271@contrassID=1
JERUSALEM––Two of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior aides will go to Washington for separate talks this week. National Security Advisor Efraim Halevy will discuss the regional implications of the Iraq war and the fall of the Ba'ath regime, and the prime minister's bureau chief Dov Weisglass will bring the White House Israel's comments on the "road map" plan for a peace settlement. Israel will suggest that the United States also take care of Iran and Syria because of their support for terror and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Israel will point out the support of Syria and Iran for Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers an important target in the war against international terrorism.

Background / Shock and Assad - Israel's wish list (April 15)
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=284105&displayTypeCd=1&sideCd=1&contrassID=2
(...) Israel gave signs of what it would like to see Washington do to bring Damascus to heel, and what the Jewish state could gain from the effort.

Israel simply has no right to exist
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4111684,00.html
Peace might have a real chance without Israelis' biblical claims. (...) This then is the potted history of the iniquities surrounding its own birth that Israel must acknowledge in order for peace to have a chance. After years of war, peace comes from forgiving, not forgetting; people never forget but they have an extraordinary capacity to forgive. Just look at South Africa, which showed the world that a cathartic truth must precede reconciliation. Far from being a force for liberation and safety after decades of suffering, the idea that Israel is some kind of religious birthright has only imprisoned Jews in a never-ending cycle of conflict. The "promise" breeds an arrogance which institutionalises the inferiority of other peoples and generates atrocities against them with alarming regularity. It allows soldiers to defy their consciences and blast unarmed schoolchildren. (...) However, take away the biblical right and suddenly mutual coexistence, even a one-state solution, doesn't seem that far-fetched. What name that coexistence will take is less important than the fact that peoples have forgiven and that some measure of justice has been restored. Jews will continue to live in the Holy Land - as per the promise - as equals alongside its other rightful inhabitants. If that kind of self-reproach is forthcoming, Israel can expect the Palestinians to be forgiving and magnanimous in return. The alternative is perpetual war.

Unnatural disaster
http://www.guardian.co.uk/famine/story/0,12128,908639,00.html
Malnourishment in the occupied Palestinian territories is getting worse, and it is an entirely man-made problem.

Palestine: the world looks away
http://MondeDiplo.com/2003/04/10palestine
While international attention is on Iraq, Israel is taking the chance to expand army operations in the West Bank and Gaza, demolishing their structure and infrastructure, totally unconcerned about the deaths it causes.



2.

HERE IS A PERSPECTIVE WITH WHICH I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE

From: http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpzin133217156apr13.story

A Kinder, Gentler Patriotism

By Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn is a professor emeritus at Boston University and author of "The People's History of the United States."

April 13, 2003

At some point soon the United States will declare a military victory in Iraq. As a patriot, I will not celebrate. I will mourn the dead - the American GIs, and also the Iraqi dead, of which there will be many, many more. I will mourn the Iraqi children who may not die, but who will be blinded, crippled, disfigured, or traumatized, like the bombed children of Afghanistan who, as reported by American visitors, lost their power of speech.

We will get precise figures for the American dead, but not for the Iraqis. Recall Colin Powell after the first Gulf War, when he reported the "small" number of U.S. dead, and when asked about the Iraqi dead, Powell replied: "That is really not a matter I am terribly interested in."

As a patriot, contemplating the dead GI's, should I comfort myself (as, understandably, their families do) with the thought: "They died for their country?" But I would be lying to myself. Those who die in this war will not die for their country. They will die for their government.

The distinction between dying for our country and dying for your government is crucial in understanding what I believe to be the definition of patriotism in a democracy. According to the Declaration of Independence - the fundamental document of democracy - governments are artificial creations, established by the people, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed", and charged by the people to ensure the equal right of all to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Furthermore, as the Declaration says, "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."

When a government recklessly expends the lives of its young for crass motives of profit and power (always claiming that its motives are pure and moral ("Operation Just Cause" was the invasion of Panama and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in the present instance) it is violating its promise to the country. It is the country that is primary - the people, the ideals of the sanctity of human life and the promotion of liberty. War is almost always (one might find rare instances of true self defense) a breaking of those promises. It does not enable the pursuit of happiness but brings despair and grief.

Mark Twain, having been called a "traitor" for criticizing the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, derided what he called "monarchical patriotism." He said: "The gospel of the monarchical patriotism is: 'The King can do no wrong.' We have adopted it with all its servility, with an unimportant change in the wording: 'Our country, right or wrong!' We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had: the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism."

If patriotism in the best sense (not in the monarchical sense) is loyalty to the principles of democracy, then who was the true patriot, Theodore Roosevelt, who applauded a massacre by American soldiers of 600 Filipino men, women and children on a remote Philippine island, or Mark Twain, who denounced it?

With the war in Iraq won, shall we revel in American military power and - against the history of modern empires - insist that the American empire will be beneficent?

Our own history shows something different. It begins with what was called, in our high school history classes, "westward expansion" - a euphemism for the annihilation or expulsion of the Indian tribes inhabiting the continent - all in the name of "progress" and "civilization." It continues with the expansion of American power into the Caribbean at the turn of the century, then into the Philippines, and then repeated marine invasions of Central America and long military occupations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

After World War II, Henry Luce, owner of Time, Life and Fortune, spoke of "the American Century", in which this country would organize the world "as we see fit." Indeed, the expansion of American power continued, too often supporting military dictatorships in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, because they were friendly to American corporations and the American government.

The American record does not justify confidence in its boast that it will bring democracy to Iraq. It will be painful to acknowledge that our GIs in Iraq were fighting not for democracy but for the expansion of the American empire, for the greed of the oil cartels, for the political ambitions of the president. And when they come home, they will find that their veterans' benefits have been cut to pay for the machines of war. They will find the military budget growing at the expense of health, education and the needs of children. The Bush budget even proposes cutting the number of free school lunches.

I suggest that patriotic Americans who care for their country might act on behalf of a different vision. Do we want to be feared for our military might or respected for our dedication to human rights? With the war in Iraq over, if indeed it is really over, we need to ask what kind of a country will we be. Is it important that we be a military superpower? Is it not exactly that that makes us a target for terrorism? Perhaps we could become instead a humanitarian superpower.

Should we not begin to redefine patriotism? We need to expand it beyond that narrow nationalism which has caused so much death and suffering. If national boundaries should not be obstacles to trade - we call it globalization - should they also not be obstacles to compassion and generosity?

Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own? In that case, war, which in our time is always an assault on children, would be unacceptable as a solution to the problems of the world. Human ingenuity would have to search for other ways.

Tom Paine used the word "patriot" to describe the rebels resisting imperial rule. He also enlarged the idea of patriotism when he said: "My country is the world. My countrymen are mankind."



3.

From: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n6p24_Weber.html

Institute for Historical Review

Israel is Developing 'Ethnic Bomb' for Growing Biological Weapons Arsenal

Mark Weber

Israel is working on an "ethnically targeted" biological weapon that would kill or harm Arabs but not Jews, according to Israeli military and western intelligence sources cited in a front-page report in the London Sunday Times, November 15, 1998 ("Israel Planning 'Ethnic' Bomb as Saddam Caves In," by Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin).

In developing this "ethno-bomb," the British paper went on, Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying distinctive genes carried by some Arabs, and then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus. The goal is to use the ability of viruses and certain bacteria to alter the DNA inside the host's living cells. The scientists are trying to engineer deadly microorganisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes.

The secret Israel program is based at the Institute for Biological Research in Nes Tsiona, a small town southeast of Tel Aviv, the main research facility for Israel's clandestine arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.

A scientist there said the task is very complicated because both Arabs and Jews are of Semitic origin. But he added: "They have, however, succeeded in pinpointing a particular characteristic in the genetic profile of certain Arab communities, particularly the Iraqi people." Diseases could be spread by spraying organisms into the air or putting them in water supplies.

Some experts have commented that while an ethnically targeted weapon is theoretically feasible, the practical aspects of creating one are enormous. All the same, a confidential Pentagon report warned last year that biological agents could be genetically engineered to produce new lethal weapons.

US Defense Secretary William Cohen revealed that he had received reports of countries working to create "certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic-specific." A senior western intelligence source confirmed that Israel is one of the countries Cohen had in mind, the Sunday Times report added.

Reliable Record

The Sunday Times report is all the more credible given the prestigious paper's past record of reliable reporting. In a detailed front-page report published on June 19, 1977, the Sunday Times first revealed to the world that Israeli authorities had been torturing Palestinian prisoners, that this torture was "widespread and systematic," and that it "appears to be sanctioned at some level as deliberate policy." At the time Israeli officials and Jewish-Zionist leaders in the United States protested the Sunday Times revelations, and denied the charge. Later, though, Israeli torture of prisoners was independently verified by Amnesty International, and others.

Another recent Sunday Times article revealed that Israeli jets have been equipped to carry chemical and biological weapons. "There is hardly a single known or unknown form of chemical or biological weapons ... which is not manufactured at the [Nes Tsiona] Institute," a biologist who is a former Israeli intelligence official told the newspaper. And the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, citing a foreign report, has told readers that hundreds of bottles of deadly anthrax toxin are stored at the Institute.

The "ethnic bomb" claims have been given further credence in Foreign Report, an authoritative Jane's publication that closely monitors security and military matters. It cites unnamed South African sources as saying that Israeli scientists, in trying to develop an "ethnic bullet" against Arabs, have made use of similar biological studies conducted by South African scientists during the Apartheid era (and later revealed in testimony before that country's "Truth and Reconciliation Commission"). Foreign Report also says that Israelis have gained insights into the Arab genetic make-up by conducting research on "Jews of Arab origin, especially Iraqis."

The British Medical Association has become so concerned about the lethal potential of genetically-based biological weapons that it has opened an investigation. Dr. Vivienne Nathanson, who organized the research, said: "With an ethnically targeted weapon, you could even hit groups within a population. The history of warfare, in which many conflicts have an ethnic factor, shows how dangerous this could be."

A spokesman for Britain's biological defense establishment confirms that such weapons are theoretically possible. "We have reached a point now where there is an obvious need for an international convention to control biological weapons," he said.

The Anti-Defamation League lost no time denouncing the Sunday Times "ethnic bomb" report. Abraham Foxman, national director of the influential Jewish-Zionist organization, called it "irresponsible and dangerous." The ADL official went on: "This sensational story is reminiscent of the age-old anti-Semitic blood libel myth of Jews deviously targeting non-Jews with poison." Question: How does Foxman know that this report is not true? Do high-level Israeli officials routinely inform the ADL of the Zionist government's top-secret military programs?

A senior Israeli government official similarly rejected the Sunday Times report, saying "this is the kind of story that does not deserve denial." Such Israeli declarations are virtually worthless, however, considering that the Zionist state refuses officially to acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons, a fact that even authoritative American sources have confirmed.

'Human Guinea Pigs'

Victor Ostrovsky, a former case officer of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, recalled in his book The Other Side of Deception how he first learned of the Zionist state's secret weapons center:

It was Uri who enlightened me regarding the Nes Zionna [Tsiona] facility. It was, he said, an ABC warfare laboratory -- ABC standing for atomic, biological and chemical. It was where our top epidemiological scientists were developing various doomsday machines. Because we were so vulnerable and would not have a second chance should there be an all-out war in which this type of weapon would be needed, there was no room for error. The [captured] Palestinian infiltrators came in handy in this regard. As human guinea pigs, they could make sure the weapons the scientists were developing worked properly and could verify how fast they worked and make them even more efficient.

As most of the world recognizes, United States policy toward countries that develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is sanctimonious and brazenly hypocritical.

Recently, for example, the US government sharply condemned India and Pakistan for testing nuclear weapons. Of course, the only country ever to have actually used nuclear weapons is the United States. In August 1945, American forces instantly killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians with atomic bombs, first in Hiroshima and then in Nagasaki -- even though America's most competent military leaders held that there was no military need to use the horrific weapon. (See: "Was Hiroshima Necessary," in the May-June 1997 Journal, pp. 4-12).

To prevent the government of Iraq from developing "weapons of mass destruction" (to use the currently fashionable phrase), the United States regularly bombs the hapless Arab country, and enforces an economic embargo that (according to authoritative estimates) has already claimed the lives of more than 200,000 Iraqi children.

For decades, though, America's political and intellectual leaders -- reflecting their obsequious subservience to Jewish-Zionist interests -- condone Israel's growing arsenal of sophisticated nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.





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