|
|
Tuesday, August 20th, 2002
|
|
|
icki and I used to use this space to discuss politics while he was at work and me, wherever. But since he's been blissfully unemployed for the summer, we haven't had to mediate our news exchanges with this new-fangled technology, and we fell out of the habit. But never fear, with graduate school looming on the horizon for icki, and a dissertation which refuses to be written on mine, we anticipate some action here soonest. Meanwhile, go check out our sites, which are finally updated with photos and words:
http://www.lipstickkillers.com
http://www.worsethanqueer.com
|
|
Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | Last Day |
| Time: | 11:54 am. |
|
It's my last day of work. I quit to take the summer off before going to grad school in the fall. Fuck yeah...
Today I have two very disturbing stories. One involves the U.S. Government breaking international laws regarding bio-weapons production and research (imagine that!). The other is fucked up on a whole other level...a Sacramento cop has been arrested for raping a 16 year old girl in the back of his patrol car. FUCKED UP.
(VillageVoice.com):
. Military Proposes Illegal Bioweapons Research
by Russ Kick
Acording to documents unearthed by a nonprofit government watchdog, the United States military has proposed the development of biological weapons that would violate international treaties and federal law. In fact, they may have already developed some of these illegal, treaty-busting bioweapons. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Sunshine Project has recently pried loose some damning documents from the Marine Corps, which seems to be overseeing this area of research.
Exhibit A is a 1997 proposal from the Naval Research Laboratory to create genetically engineered bacteria and fungi that will corrode and degrade enemy matériel, such as roads, runways, vehicles, weapons, and fuel.
Then we have the document from Armstrong Laboratories at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas. The flyboys propose much the same thing as the navy—engineered microbes that can destroy enemy equipment, including explosives and chemical weapons.
The military scientists take great care to point out that the germs they want to create would be "nonlethal." But this doesn't matter. The international Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention treaty absolutely bans member nations from possessing or developing microbes, toxins, or any other biological agents for use in battle or other hostile situations. (Under the treaty, bioweapons can only be developed for defensive purposes, which is what lets the U.S. government brew anthrax with the supposed goal of developing a vaccine.) The U.S. was one of the original signatories, putting its John Hancock on the treaty in 1972.
Yet the navy lab is advocating these super-bugs for blatantly offensive purposes, saying they will "degrade opposing forces' mobility, logistical support and equipment maintenance programs prior to or during military engagements." Likewise, the air force proposal is for bioweapons that would be used to attack enemy forces: "Catalysts can be developed to destroy whatever war matériel is desired. All [military] Services would have an interest."
Both proposals claim that the destructive germs wouldn't violate the biological weapons treaty. "That's completely false," says Edward Hammond, a co-founder of the Sunshine Project. He notes that the convention makes no distinction between bioweapons that target humans and those that take out equipment or other targets. "If the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention was limited to humans, it would be disastrous. Weapons that target animals, like livestock, would be legal. Destroying crops would be legal."
And let's not forget that the actual use of biological weapons, as opposed to their development, was outlawed way back in 1925 by the Geneva Convention.
The military's proposed germ research would violate more than just international treaties. "U.S. federal law explicitly states that biological weapons that attack matériel are illegal," Hammond says. "The penalty is life in federal prison. If they lifted a finger to do this research, they have violated the [Biological and Toxin Weapons] Convention and federal law."
Which leads to another crucial point. The military's proposals from five years ago reveal that they already had developed similar bioweapons. The navy lab says it has a fungus that breaks down polyurethanes. In the air force document, Armstrong Laboratories brags that it's been doing "biotechnological research at the molecular level" for eight years. Specifically, it's cooked up a bio-agent that quickly destroys rocket fuel, plastic, and other organic and artificial polymers "without fire or explosion."
Does this mean that the military has already violated the bioweapons treaty and U.S. law? "I don't want to comment on that right now," Hammond says. "We're discussing it with lawyers."
***
(Sacramento Bee):
Teen: Rape was in cop car
Afidavit outlines accusations against Sacramento officer.
By Ralph Montaño -- Bee Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 8, 2002
A Sacramento police officer charged with multiple sexual assaults raped a 16-year-old girl in the back seat of his patrol car before taking her to Juvenile Hall, where he assaulted her again, according to a court affidavit obtained Tuesday.
The document provided details of the accusations made by the girl and five other women against Officer Darryl George Rosen, 26, who faces 17 felony and misdemeanor charges that include rape, sexual battery, assault by a public officer and false imprisonment.
Rosen, who has declined to comment, was arrested Monday and is expected to be arraigned today. He remains in jail without bail.
The women's statements to Internal Affairs investigators paint a disturbing pattern of an officer who, while patrolling northern Sacramento on the graveyard shift, apparently used his authority to abuse the young women between fall 2000 and December 2001.
Some were being arrested by him. Others were victims trying to report crimes. Each said they were forced to comply with his sexual demands because he was a police officer, according to the documents.
The 16-year-old told detectives she was afraid of Rosen because he warned her "he knew where to find her if she told anyone" about the rape.
That officer doesn't sound like the tall, shy young man who dreamed of becoming a cop while bagging groceries at Albertsons in Granite Bay a decade ago.
"He was so excited about becoming a police officer, completely gung-ho. He was always that way, completely excitable about everything he was into," said a friend of Rosen's, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I have to wonder if this isn't a case where being in a position of power went to his head."
Rosen comes from a law enforcement family and always wanted to be a cop, said the friend.
He was always going to movies and was a fan of the nocturnal comic-book crime fighter Batman.
Rosen attended Roseville High School, but officials contacted there Tuesday said they didn't remember him as a student who stood out; they only recalled that he was tall, about 6-foot-4.
The friend characterized him as being chronically shy.
"You had to put a lot of beer in him before he would even approach a woman in a bar," the friend said. "He always said he was going to be single forever."
The friend saw less of Rosen after he became an officer and began dating another Sacramento police officer. They were married last May and moved to Lincoln.
But according to court records, his assaults on women while on duty had already begun.
On Dec. 14, 2001, a woman complained to the Police Department that Rosen came to her house for a burglary report five days earlier and made her unzip her sweater before he fondled her breast.
The woman said she felt she had to comply because she was on probation.
Police were investigating the complaint when another officer was told by two women that Rosen had assaulted them. That officer, unaware of the ongoing investigation, reported the complaints.
Detectives interviewed the two women who told them that in July 2001, Officer Rosen forced both women to fondle him as he sat in his patrol car. Rosen reportedly knew one of the women because he had arrested her on suspicion of burglary earlier that year, records said.
Rosen was placed on paid leave Dec. 28, 2001, and the department expanded its investigation to all the cases he handled.
While looking at the officer's previous arrests, they found two more women who claimed they were sexually battered by Rosen. One victim allegedly was assaulted on at least two occasions while Rosen conducted probation searches of a house; the other said she was stopped while working as a prostitute, the court records said.
The investigators also found the 16-year-old, who was arrested May 29, 2001, for an unspecified warrant. Rosen raped the girl in the back of his patrol car after pulling to the side of the road, according the the affidavit.
Once at Juvenile Hall, according to the record, he told the girl whose hands were cuffed behind her to fondle him. When she resisted, he tightened the handcuffs until she complied and then told her to touch him again while inside the booking room, according to the record.
While on paid leave, Rosen called his longtime friend and characterized the complaints against him as harassment claims. "He said it was the department trying to get rid of him," the friend said.
|
|
Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | Member of the U.N. Jenin team speaks out |
| Time: | 11:37 am. |
|
William Nash was one of the military specialists assigned by the U.N. to assess the damage in Jenin. In today's Internation Herald Tribune, he writes about the formation and make-up of the fact-finding team, as well as why the mission would have helped the Israelis as well as the Palestinians.
Finding the facts on Jenin could help both sides
William L. Nash - International Herald Tribune
Thursday, May 9, 2002
GENEVA The first call came during a Saturday morning drive in the Virginia countryside. It was the chief of staff to the secretary-general of the United Nations. Would I serve as the senior military member of a fact-finding team reviewing the events in Jenin?
By Wednesday, I was on my way to Geneva with a ticket to fly to Tel Aviv on Thursday. It felt like the army again. And like the army, it was "hurry up and wait."
The first day or two in Geneva were useful. Within days my military team added British and French officers with experience in Northern Ireland, the Balkans and Africa. The Irish police team had counterterrorist and investigative experts who had worked in Cambodia, Namibia and Yugoslavia. Our Finnish forensic pathologist was renowned for her work in Bosnia and Kosovo. This was a collection of seasoned veterans who had seen war as well as ethnic and civil conflicts throughout the world.
We began an extensive review of published accounts to develop a thorough understanding of the larger war as it applied to Jenin. We also received briefings from representatives of the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations who had been on the ground in Jenin before, during and after the fighting. We developed a comprehensive plan for collecting information in the field that was designed to avoid the possibility of preconceived conclusions.
However, by the end of the first week, the stall by Israel was in the process of turning from clarification to obstruction to blockage. Our mood shifted from bemusement to frustration to anger. There was so much misinformation about our intentions, about who we were and whether our backgrounds predisposed us to misunderstand military necessities or the tragic circumstances of urban war.
From time to time we were consulted on how to deal with the Israeli concerns about procedures and the substance of our mission. The replies given by our team leader, former President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, were always balanced and intended to resolve the confrontation. But it soon became clear that the Israeli arguments were fundamentally hostile to the very concept of finding out what happened in Jenin. The Israeli process seemed designed to stop our mission.
The UN Security Council could not or would not help the secretary-general fulfill its resolution on finding the facts of Jenin. The role of the U.S. government in not supporting the resolution it sponsored was a disappointment to me.
What is most interesting is that when the ongoing public debate in Israel is added to reports from the international media and nongovernmental organizations, a fairly consistent picture begins to emerge. It appears that the leadership of the Israeli Defense Forces is concerned that the conduct of the battle of Jenin is being questioned on both professional and legal grounds. This seems to make sense for two reasons.
First, there are many indications that the units sent into battle were hastily assembled and given little time to plan, prepare and rehearse for their attack. Their intelligence about the Jenin refugee camp was insufficient to support the deliberate, measured attack that the circumstances required. Inadequate measures were established to handle the 13,000 persons living in the camp, some armed and dangerous; some unarmed, but sympathetic to and supportive of the fighters; and some true noncombatants. The IDF seems also to have underestimated the intensity of the resistance that they would face.
Second, I believe from the multiple sources I have read and listened to in the last two weeks that there is reasonable cause to pursue a thorough examination of the facts concerning a number of alleged violations of the laws of war, as provided in the Hague Convention of 1907, the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1977 Protocols to those Geneva Conventions. (MORE)
***
On a different topic, with the death of Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands and the rise of Le Pen in France, lots of ink has been used commenting, hand-wringing on the rise of the far-right in Europe.
WHAT ABOUT IN THE U.S.? Geez...
George Bush. Dick Cheney. Karl Rove. Ted Olson. John Ashcroft. Donald Rumsfeld. Alberto Gonzales. Karen Hughes. Dick Armey. Tom Delay. Jesse Helms. Trent Lott. Otto Reich. Gale Norton. John Walters. Andrew Card. Denny Hastert. And on and on...
From the Bush administration throughout Congress, the federal government is littered with far-right Republicans. Where's the concern about the U.S. falling into the hands of fundamentalist, xenophobic creeps here in the States?
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | Regarding the Sharon Quote |
| Time: | 9:55 am. |
| Music: | Can. |
|
I took it down. I don't think it's true and I don't want to spread rumors on the Internet.
That is *so* 1990s.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | Three To Go |
| Time: | 3:56 pm. |
|
The numbness creeps up my arms from my fingers to my elbows to my shoulders and it keeps going into my brain. There in my skull, the numbness meets head-on with boredom, which has taken up permanent residency. The two clash in the way cold and warm air currents collide, creating impressive, oppressive storms across the midwest. Thunder, lighting, rain, hail and tornadoes rip through my head. Then a terrifying calm. It's the emptiness of a deserted town, of a place so wrecked, so damaged that anything left alive is still disoriented and far too frightened to come out of hiding. All the neatly organized thoughts, ideas, lists of things to do, memories, sparks of interest, projects and plans have all been dislodged, scattered, thrown about in a way that feels like images of disaster areas. Earthquakes, avalanches, bombs, tornadoes, floods. Take your pick. Everything's still there, sure, but it's lost in a cacophony of white noise. Static, that's all I get all across the dial. The boredom. The numbing pain. Then the boredom again.
I try to stay busy. The more I work, the faster the day passes. But when you're moving dirt from one hole to the other, never really getting anything done, just passing time the best you can, time fucks with you. Two minutes pass in the space of what feels like 20. The minute hand has an especially hard time making its was up the clock once it passes 4:30. 5:00 is quittin' time. One minute forward, two backward. All the while, the boredom spreads like a hungry cancer, eating every bit of inspiration, each morsel of life left in sight.
Just two days and 45 minutes left until I'm totallyfuckingfree.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | More on the Coup... |
| Time: | 10:40 am. |
|
The Washington Post ran a lengthy article Sunday about the U.S. role in the Venezuelian coup that took place last month. President Chavez has started investigating and found, surprise, surprise that most of the evidence points north, to the U.S.A.
Chavez Raises Idea Of U.S. Role in Coup
Interview Suggests Rocky Road Ahead
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 5, 2002; Page A20
CARACAS, Venezuela, May 4 -- President Hugo Chavez, who is settling back into governing this oil-rich but socially divided country, raised questions in an interview about a possible U.S. role in a coup last month that he says was an attempt on his life.
His return to the presidential palace three weeks ago has energized his mostly poor supporters, frightened the country's mostly wealthy opposition and left much of Latin America relieved by the resilience of democracy in a part of the world not known for that trait.
Yet the response from the Bush administration, which stood nearly alone in blaming Chavez for provoking his own removal on April 12, has been chilly. There have been no conciliatory phone calls from Washington, leaving a friendly congressional delegation to serve as an intermediary between an angry Chavez and a State Department that has never shown much tolerance for his leftist leanings or his opposition to a number of U.S. policies.
Chavez has begun his own investigation into the four days that saw him toppled, then returned to power, in a spate of political violence that left more than 60 people dead. In an interview late Friday, Chavez said "worrying details" have emerged that point to a foreign hand behind his temporary ouster -- perhaps, he suggested, one guided by the United States. (MORE)
Ach...more later. There's so much shitty news.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | Sunday Morning Haze |
| Time: | 7:13 am. |
|
There's so much news this morning. I can't even begin posting the links. In the Washington Post, Mary McGrory writes about the ridiculous resolutions passed in both the House and Senate this past Thursday. McGrory calls Congress to the carpet (especially Democrats) for stepping behind DeLay in passing these resolutions which were written by the Israeli lobby and allowed the Republicans to crack the long-held Democrate-voting Jewish block. All shitty politics.
Also in the Washington Post, author and historian Robert Dallek writes that "Declaring War is More Than a Formality." Mr. Dallek is of course talking about the Bush administration's knife-sharping moves towards Iraq. Being a historian, Mr. Dallek points out at every moment in U.S. history when discussion was curtailed in favor of immediate military action, the U.S. found itself in a mess, both militarily and politically. Korea and Vietnam stand out as two especially strong examples, but let's not forget any of the many smaller actions in the Western hemisphere over the past twenty years. It's a good article and a welcome change in tone from what has been getting bantered around so much lately.
Does anyone else find it stunning that so many media outlets are not even questioning what justification Bush has for his wet-dream invasion of Iraq? The legal implications or the behind-the-scene manueverings going on by the Bush team to curtail all efforts to solve the weapons inspector dilemma that is supposedly at the root of the Iraqi isssue? There's a HUGE story there! The piece are laying on the table. They aren't even hard to put together. Argh.
The Observer does have a piece this morning about the efforts of British Labour party MPs to put an end to Bush's would-be war in Iraq. Ah...the good ol' Observer.
That's just the tip of the iceberg this morning...
***
Mimi and I have seen Spider-Man twice already. It's one of the best superhero movies ever. Tobey Maguire makes a perfect Peter Parker. Watching the movie I can both totally identify with Parker and also wish I was Maguire's friend. Beyond that, the Spider-Man action was very well done...I don't know...it was an all-around awesome movie. I'm sure Mimi will have more to say about it. I think she liked it even more than I did. The movie revived my longtime fascination with Spidey. I highly recommend going to see it.
That's it for now.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | Dick Armey = Piece of Shit |
| Time: | 7:10 am. |
|
From the UK Guardian...Dick Armey calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. No joke. This was noticiably absent from the US media...
Senior Republican calls on Israel to expel West Bank Arabs
Matthew Engel in Washington
Saturday May 4, 2002
The Guardian
The most senior Republican in the House of Representatives has called for Palestinians to be expelled from the West Bank, which should be annexed in its entirety by the state of Israel.
Dick Armey, majority leader in the House, shocked a primetime television audience when he said in a chat-show interview, that East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza - all occupied by the Israeli army since the 1967 war - should be considered a part of Israel proper. He was "content to have a Palestinian state", but argued that such an entity could be set up inside other Arab countries.
"There are many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land and soil and property and opportunity to create a Palestinian state. I happen to believe the Palestinians should leave."
Mr Armey later backed down slightly and said he did not believe "peaceful Palestinian civilians should be forcibly expelled" but only those who supported terrorist acts.
His original extremist comments underline the extent of President Bush's dilemma of plotting a balanced course.
On the one hand, Mr Bush is keen to get Middle East peace talks back on track, hence this week's plan, announced by the secretary of state Colin Powell on Thursday night, to hold a peace conference this summer.
On the other, he is aware that if he adopts a stance seen as too close to the Palestinians he risks alienating public and political sentiment which has shifted significantly in favour of Israel.
Mr Armey's views have been scarcely reported in America. The only mention was a passing reference in the deepest recesses of yesterday's New York Times and Washington Post.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called Mr Armey's views "beyond belief". Spokesman Jason Erb said that "even the most extreme Israelis are reluctant to publicly advocate such an insane policy". When Ari Fleischer, Mr Bush's spokesman, was asked for the president's view on what appeared to be an argument for ethnic cleansing, he changed the subject.
However, Mr Armey's views were not far out of line with on Thursday night's debate in the House, which overwhelmingly passed a 920-word resolution entirely in favour of Israel, save for a call to pursue peace and a reference to the "humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people" - tacked on at the White House's request.
Both the House and the Senate voted for motions which started by saying that "the US and Israel are now engaged in a common struggle against terrorism".
"Let every terrorist know, the American people will never abandon freedom, democracy or Israel," Mr Armey's deputy, Tom DeLay, said in the debate. "All free people must recognise that Israel's fight is our fight."
The Senate resolution, promoted by Joe Lieberman, Al Gore's running-mate who is in creasingly talked about as a possible Democratic candidate in 2004, resolved to "stand in solidarity with Israel".
Mr Fleischer said the president respected the right of Congress to pass non-binding resolutions, but warned that he could not operate with "535 secretaries of state".
Since his party lost control of the Senate, Mr Armey has become arguably President Bush's most-important ally on Capitol Hill.
Although Mr Armey retires after elections this year and is likely to be succeeded by the arguably more extreme Mr DeLa, he is unlikely to spend his retirement seeing the world: "I've been to Europe once," he said, in 1998. "I don't have to go again."
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | What's Round on the End, Hi in the Middle? |
| Time: | 1:28 pm. |
|
Devo: `We Put Subliminal Messages In TV Commercials'
LOS ANGELES (Wireless Flash) -- If you're wearing blue jeans right now, blame Devo. Lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh freely admits the group imbeds subliminal messages in its music -- including telling people to buy jeans because they're "the uniform of the proletariat."
Devo's members also write soundtracks for commercials and TV shows like "Rugrats," and Mothersbaugh admits he has snuck secret messages such as "Question Authority" into those tunes.
He also says it's "entirely possible" he put the words, "sugar is bad for you" into a cereal commercial.
But why? Mothersbaugh claims Devo has been imbedding messages in songs for 30 years because the band likes to be subversive.
Devo's latest project is less subliminal. It's a cover version of Neil Young's "Ohio," that appears on a new CD, "When Pigs Fly."
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | Tutu Speaks Out on Israel's Apartheid, compares Sharon to Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet... |
| Time: | 7:23 pm. |
|
From the BBC:
Monday, 29 April, 2002, 11:55 GMT 12:55 UK
Tutu condemns Israeli 'apartheid'
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused Israel of practising apartheid in its policies towards the Palestinians.
The Nobel peace laureate said he was "very deeply distressed" by a visit to the Holy Land, adding that "it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa".
In a speech in the United States, carried in the UK's Guardian newspaper, Archbishop Tutu said he saw "the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about".
The archbishop, who was a leading opponent of apartheid in South Africa, said Israel would "never get true security and safety through oppressing another people".
Archbishop Tutu said his criticism of the Israeli Government did not mean he was anti-Semitic.
"I am not even anti-white, despite the madness of that group," he said.
Jewish lobby
The archbishop attacked the political power of Jewish groups in the United States, saying: "People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful. Well, so what?
"The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists.
"Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust," he said.
Speaking at a conference called Ending the Oppression in Boston, Archbishop Tutu told delegates Jewish people had been at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
He asked: "Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?
"Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions?"
The archbishop said that while he condemned suicide bombings by Palestinian militants against Israel, Israeli military action would not bring security to the Jewish state.
Israel must "strive for peace based on justice, based on withdrawal from all the occupied territories, and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state on those territories side by side with Israel, both with secure borders," he said.
***
Today's Chronicle had an insightful look behind the scenes in Washington, comparing the lobbying power of Israel (huge) and Palestine (non-existent), examing the effects that has on Congress, the President and U.S. Policy.
Might or right
Marc Sandalow
HERE'S HOW one-sided the battle is between the pro-Israel and pro- Palestinian lobby's in the nation's capital.
A gathering of the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC last week drew more than 100 members of the House and half of the U.S. Senate to dinner in Washington's largest hotel ballroom. Speakers included an elite lineup of national leaders from both political parties.
Fortune magazine ranks AIPAC -- the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- as the nation's fourth-most powerful lobbying group, ahead of the National Trial Lawyers Association and the AFL-CIO. Although AIPAC does not contribute to politicians, pro-Israeli political action committees over the past seven national elections, have contributed $17.5 million to federal candidates.
Across town, representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization are searching for new offices after being evicted from their headquarters for failing to pay rent. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has introduced legislation to seize their assets, restrict their travel and forbid their leaders from entering the country. Over the same seven national elections, pro- Arab committees as a whole have contributed $295,000, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.
In the United States, the nation in the strongest position to broker a Mideast peace settlement, the battle to influence hearts, minds -- and foreign policy -- is a lop-sided affair. The pro-Israel lobby is established, wealthy and enormous. The Palestinian lobby, by comparison, is disorganized, poor and largely overlooked.
On this, almost everyone agrees. However, just like everything else in the Middle East dispute, the two sides interpret the same set of facts in two completely different ways.
Arab Americans, by and large, view AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups in the same light as gun control advocates see the National Rifle Association -- a shrewd interest group that yields disproportionate power by its manipulation of the political system.
"Israel, for well over a half century, has been able to shape this discourse," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, discounting polls that show most Americans support Israel.
"The Israeli media machine has been able to successfully portray Israel as behaving in self-defense," said Hussein Ibish, a spokesman for the American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee in Washington.
Israel's defenders see the lobby's strength coming from its embrace of a righteous and very popular cause.
An ad sponsored by the American Jewish Committee prominently featured in newspapers and magazines last week displays quotations from every American president from Harry Truman through George W. Bush celebrating the special bond between Israel and the United States.
Polls show that nearly twice as many Americans blame the Palestinians for the most recent violence rather than the Israelis, numbers that have not changed during the past six weeks as the violence has escalated. "The lobby is successful because the cause is right, because supporting the only democracy in the Mideast is the right thing to do," said AIPAC spokesman Josh Block.
Members of Congress do not agree on energy, taxes, trade, immigration, Social Security, health care, prescription drugs, environmental protection, gay rights, judicial nominations or even the congressional calendar.
But they agree on Israel.
Israel receives more foreign aid than any other nation (about $3 billion a year.) There is talk of increasing that budget this year. A resolution affirming the nation's commitment to Israel -- sponsored by an unlikely duo of Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, and Tom DeLay, R-Texas -- now on hold at President Bush's request -- would pass overwhelmingly.
Many of those sympathetic to the Palestinian side concede that they have done a terrible job of influencing American policymakers. Some are working to correct that.
But the fact remains that today, everyone on Capitol Hill knows about AIPAC (60,000 members, more than 100 staff in Washington) which is just one of numerous pro-Israel organizations. Many would be hard pressed to name a single pro-Palestinian lobbyist.
Marc Sandalow is The Chronicle's Washington bureau chief. E-mail him at msandalow@sfchronicle.com
|
|
Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | Straight from the Horse's Mouth |
| Time: | 9:41 am. |
| Music: | The Hospitals. |
|
As the Israeli incursions into Palestinian areas wind down somewhat, more Israeli soldiers are speaking out about what happened in Jenin. Today's Washington Post features an interview with two sergeants from the Israeli army. While they don't support claims of a massacre, both say Israeli commanders did little to target combatants over civilians.
Ill-Prepared For a Battle Unexpected:
Israeli Reservists Tell Of Jenin Camp Assault
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 26, 2002; Page A01
JERUSALEM, April 25 -- It was the second day of the battle for the Jenin refugee camp, and things were going badly for the Israelis. Palestinian gunmen, firing from sandbags hidden behind curtained windows, had pinned down advancing Israeli troops on the camp's western edge. Two Israelis had already died.
To a young Israeli army sergeant watching from a nearby rise known as Antennae Hill, perhaps 400 yards above the camp, it was clear that his commanders had been wrong when they had confidently predicted a few days earlier that the Palestinians would surrender at the first sight of approaching tanks.
That's when he heard the orders to open fire.
"The orders were to shoot at each house," recalled the sergeant, a member of a heavy weapons company in the Yoav regiment of the army's Fifth Brigade, a reserve unit that did the bulk of the fighting in Jenin. "The words on the radio were to 'Put a bullet in each window.' "
The sergeant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was troubled by the orders, which did not require soldiers to actually see the gunmen they were trying to kill. But he said the Israeli soldiers didn't hesitate. They pounded a group of cinder-block homes -- the apparent source of Palestinian sniper fire -- with .50-caliber machine guns, M-24 sniper rifles, Barrett sniper rifles and Mod3 grenade launchers.
"It's not true there was a massacre, because guys did not shoot at civilians just like this," the sergeant recalled. "However -- and this is terrible -- it is true that we shot at houses, and God knows how many innocent people got killed." (MORE)
***
After waiting all day to hear about the outcome of the meeting between the Saudi prince and George Bush, all Bush has to say about their meeting is this:
"One of the really positive things out of this meeting was that the crown prince and I established a strong personal bond...We spent a lot of time alone."
That's IT?!?
They meet for over five hours and all Bush has to say is that they spent time alone? NO SHIT you spent time alone. It just never ends. Never. If that's the only positive thing to come of the meeting, we're in trouble.
Both the Washington Post and New York Times have articles about the growing rift between Powell/the State Department and the Defense Department, Cheney, and congressional Republicans. It's interesting to note how very differently the two papers play the story.
The Washington Post:
Policy Divide Thwarts Powell in Mideast Effort
Defense Dept.'s Influence Frustrates State Dept.
By Alan Sipress - Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 26, 2002; Page A01
State Department officials say Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has been repeatedly undercut by other senior policymakers in his effort to break the Middle East deadlock, warning this has left U.S. diplomacy paralyzed at an especially volatile moment.
These officials say that Powell's return from the Middle East a week ago with few concrete results has left them more discouraged than at any time since the Bush administration took office.
They partly fault what they said was the administration's unwillingness to stand behind Powell, especially in pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw his forces from West Bank cities and hold accelerated talks with the Palestinians. Department officials said they continue to face objections as they seek to fashion a diplomatic initiative aimed at creating a Palestinian state.
Powell has displayed little public frustration. But his employees' complaints, reflecting their own exasperation and deep loyalty to him, reveal the depth of divisions inside the administration, especially between the State Department and the Pentagon. (MORE)
And the New York Times (this story raises another troubling issue as well...):
April 26, 2002
Republicans Schedule Vote on Unity With Israel
By ALISON MITCHELL
WASHINGTON, April 25 — Rejecting a personal plea from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to hold off, House Republican leaders today set a vote for next week on a resolution of "solidarity" with Israel that condemns "the ongoing support and coordination of terror" by Yasir Arafat.
Senior Republican aides said the move reflected the overwhelming impulse among lawmakers to stand with Israel, as well as Republican disillusionment with Secretary Powell. Some conservatives accuse Secretary Powell of being too inclined to seek middle ground in the Middle East, undercutting the moral clarity of President Bush's stand against terrorism.
"Colin Powell is not necessarily the best messenger at this point," said one senior GOP leadership aide who spoke on condition he not be identified. "Powell has taken on water with Republicans."
Some Republicans held open the possibility that the planned Tuesday vote on the resolution would be delayed and that its very presence on the House calendar could spur the White House to negotiate over what kind of Congressional action on Israel it could live with.
"We are working with the White House on how best to procede with the resolution supporting Israel in the fight against terror," said Stuart Roy, a spokesman for Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority whip, who is one of the resolution's lead sponsors. Another senior Republican leadership aide said, "There's a lot of pro-Israel pressure from the members of Congress and they need to express themselves."
But the White House sounded resigned to House action. "I would just say that it's nonbinding," one administration official said.
The machinations in the House came as the president was meeting with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and just a day after Secretary Powell privately briefed the senior lawmakers on the Middle East.
Secretary Powell was asked twice by Democrats what Congress should or should not do to help the administration, according to an official in the meeting. Several officials said he told lawmakers that he did not believe any legislation would be useful.
Democratic leaders, who face strong pro-Israel sentiment from their own ranks as well, appeared willing to support Secretary Powell even as members of his own party refused to heed him. (MORE)
***
In the lead editorial in the New York Times this morning, they take the unusual step of criticizing Ariel Sharon. Woah. Are they trying to break in a new mail person or something?
***
Did you hear about the three teenage boys who tried to attack a Jewish settlement? Well, not only were the three knife-welding boys shot by the Israelis, but the bodies were then run over by armored personnel carriers!
Teenagers shot by Israelis, then run over with a tank
After their mutilated bodies are returned, families of three teenagers struggle to understand why they attacked Jewish settlers
By Robert Fisk in Gaza City
Two of the schoolboys were 14, the other was 15; they were internet surfers in the local cyber cafe, one of them idling his hours away drawing children's cartoons; all three were football enthusiasts. Hours after they had been shot dead by the Israeli army near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, their fathers received the three young bodies. They had been driven over by an armoured vehicle which in 14-year-old Ismail Abu-Nadi's case cut his corpse in half. (MORE)
There's a lot more...this doesn't even really touch all the domestic news happening. Sorry I haven't had any good bad jokes. Wait! I do have one. It's one of my all-time favorites:
Q:Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?
A: Because it was dead!
Um...okay, back to work.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Thursday, April 25th, 2002
|
| Subject: | Presidential Papers |
| Time: | 9:46 am. |
|
I love Buzzflash.com. The headlines they give to story are sometimes better than the articles themselves. Take this one for instance:
Ridge Says "Foreigners" Are The Threat At Airports. Wonder Who is a Threat at Airports in Foreign Cities? Is This Guy Getting Paid for Being a Nitwit? 4/24
Buzzflash also provide the link for this story from The Hill
House GOP challenges Bush on records’ gag
By Alexander Bolton
Republicans on the House Government Reform Committee are moving to rescind a 6–month-old order by President Bush blocking the release of 68,000 pages of confidential communications between former President Ronald Reagan and his advisers.
If successful, their efforts would reestablish the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which called for a president’s records to enter the public domain 12 years after the end of that administration.
Those who would be impacted by the legislation include Mitch Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget who was the White House political director under Reagan. In addition, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell, among others, were top advisors to President George H.W. Bush.
The action would be the latest volley in a growing dispute between lawmakers on the panel and the Bush administration over the thorny issue of executive privilege, a dispute that has centered on the records of past administrations but nevertheless could prove politically damaging to the president.
The reform panel’s subcommittee on intergovernmental relations will hold a hearing today on H.R. 4187, legislation that would reverse Bush’s order and speed the release of the records. (MORE)
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | Jenin (again) and the real meaning behind the Crown Prince's visit to Texas |
| Time: | 9:09 am. |
| Music: | "History In 3 Chord" Milwaukee Punk comp. |
|
At least the English papers care. This morning's edition of the Independent has three pointed pieces about Jenin. The Independent reports that at least half of the 50 bodies found in Jenin so far are of civilians, including a woman in a nurse uniform shot in the heart and a man in a wheel chair. And of course, that number is likely to rise once heavy equipment is brought in to excavate the rubble of demolished buildings.
Once upon a time in Jenin
What really happened when Israeli forces went into Jenin? Just as the world is giving up hope of learning the truth, Justin Huggler and Phil Reeves have unearthed compelling evidence of an atrocity
The thought was as unshakable as the stench wafting from the ruins. Was this really about counterterrorism? Was it revenge? Or was it an episode – the nastiest so far – in a long war by Ariel Sharon, the staunch opponent of the Oslo accords, to establish Israel's presence in the West Bank as permanent, and force the Palestinians into final submission?
A neighbourhood had been reduced to a moonscape, pulverised under the tracks of bulldozers and tanks. A maze of cinder-block houses, home to about 800 Palestinian families, had disappeared. What was left – the piles of broken concrete and scattered belongings – reeked.
The rubble in Jenin reeked, literally, of rotting human corpses, buried underneath. But it also gave off the whiff of wrongdoing, of an army and a government that had lost its bearings. "This is horrifying beyond belief," said the United Nations' Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, as he gazed at the scene. He called it a "blot that will forever live on the history of the state of Israel" – a remark for which he was to be vilified by Israelis. Even the painstakingly careful United States envoy, William Burns, was unusually outspoken as he trudged across the ruins. "It's obvious that what happened in Jenin refugee camp has caused enormous suffering for thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians," he said. (MORE)
Then the Independent's lead editorial piece today focuses on the U.N. investigation of Jenin.
Israel must not be allowed to upset the Jenin investigation
25 April 2002
Israel's delays and objections to the UN panel of investigation into Jenin are looking more and more like an attempt to emasculate the entire exercise. If this is so, then it will only add to the impression that the country has something to hide. What happened in Jenin was bad enough, as our report in the Review section suggests, without Jerusalem playing games with the international community.
One should also question the wisdom of Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, in bowing to this pressure, delaying the visit of the panel and, worse, considering changing its personnel to accommodate Sharon's demands for more military members.
Establishing the facts of Jenin, in so far as this is possible, is of crucial importance. The Palestinians feel that a massacre was committed by Israeli soldiers in the refugee camp. The Israelis declare that what happened was no more than heavy fighting in which most of the casualties were Palestinian gunmen. Unless there is objective investigation, Jenin will enter the world of corrosive myth, in a region already overburdened with mythology. (MORE)
***
A frontpage story in today's New York Times inadvertently brings up ulterior motives, secret-behind-the-scenes work going on with Crown Prince Abdullah's visit to Texas.
The article states:
On Tuesday President Bush's father had lunch with the Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, and the kingdom's longtime ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Their specific message could not be learned, but in the familial setting, where Barbara Bush was also the hostess for Princess Haifa, Prince Bandar's wife, the strong strategic and personal ties of the Persian Gulf war that characterized Saudi-American relations a decade ago was a message in itself.
On Wednesday, Abdullah met with Vice President Dick Cheney in Houston. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, also flew to Houston to join in last-minute discussions before the summit meeting. A senior official in Washington said Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers were dispatched to brief the prince personally on the American accomplishments in Afghanistan and in the broader war on terrorism.
"The idea was, if he thought we were strong in Desert Storm, we're 10 times as strong today," one official said. "This was to give him some idea what Afghanistan demonstrated about our capabilities."
Those three paragraphs are buried in a story that otherwise is about how the Prince plans on pressuring Bush about the Israeli-Palestine conflict (more on that in a minute). It's that last paragraph that really draws it out:
"The idea was, if he thought we were strong in Desert Storm, we're 10 times as strong today," one official said. "This was to give him some idea what Afghanistan demonstrated about our capabilities."
Why does the U.S. need to proves its military might in solving the Israeli-Palestine conflict? It doesn't. This is obviously part of a meeting regarding Iraq. It's absolutely frightening how singularly focused the Bush administration is on taking down Saddam.
According the article, the Crown Prince has come to school lil' George Bush about the gravity of the situation he helped create in the Middle East. Aids to Abdullah report that this meeting could be the end of the line, the last chance for Bush to fix this foul-up.
In a bleak assessment on Wednesday, the person close to the crown prince said there was talk within the Saudi royal family and in Arab capitals of using the "oil weapon" against the United States, and demanding that the United States leave strategic military bases in the region.
Such measures, he said, would be a "strategic debacle for the United States..."
"It is a mistake to think that our people will not do what is necessary to survive," the person close to the crown prince said, "and if that means we move to the right of bin Laden, so be it; to the left of Qaddafi, so be it; or fly to Baghdad and embrace Saddam like a brother, so be it. It's damned lonely in our part of the world, and we can no longer defend our relationship to our people."
Whatever the possibility of bluster, it is also clear that Abdullah represents not just Saudi Arabia but also the broader voice of the Arab world, symbolized by the peace plan he submitted and that was endorsed at an Arab summit meeting in March.
Those familiar with the prince's "talking points" said he would deliver a blunt message that Mr. Bush is perceived to have endorsed — despite his protests to the contrary — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's military incursion into the West Bank.
Abdullah believes Mr. Bush has lost credibility by failing to follow through on his demand two weeks ago that Mr. Sharon withdraw Israeli troops from the West Bank and end the sieges of Yasir Arafat's compound in Ramallah and of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem...
"If Bush freed Arafat and cleared Bethlehem, it would be a big victory, show a stiffening of spine," the person close to Abdullah said. "But incremental steps are no longer valid in these circumstances," meaning that Mr. Bush would have to follow up with a major push to fulfill the longstanding expectation of the Palestinians for statehood...
But the person close to the prince said that if the summit talks went badly, Abdullah might not complete his stay in Texas. Instead, he might return directly to Riyadh and call for a summit meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to report to its 44 leaders, who represent 1.2 billion Muslims.
"He wants to say, `I looked the president of the U.S. in the eye and have to report that I failed,' " this person said. His message to the Arabs will be, "Take the responsibility in your own hands, my conscience is clear, before history, God, religion, country and friends."
The person close to Abdullah pointed out that Saudi Arabia's recent assurances that it would use its surplus oil-producing capacity to blunt the effects of Saddam Hussein's 30-day suspension of Iraqi oil exports could quickly change.
That Saudi pledge "was based on a certain set of assumptions, but if you change the assumptions, all bets are off," he said. "We would no longer say what Saddam said was an empty threat, because there come desperate times when you give the unthinkable a chance."
Abdullah is reported to be bitter over the White House's assertion that the president is taking a balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he wants to evaluate in person whether Mr. Bush understands how his actions are being perceived in the Arab world.
This, the last paragraph is the best part. The Saudis call Bush on the carpet:
"This is not a mistake or a policy gaffe," the person close to Abdullah said, referring to Mr. Bush's approach. "He made a strategic, conscious decision to go with Sharon, so your national interest is no longer our national interest; now we don't have joint national interests. What it means is that you go your way and we will go ours, economically, militarily and politically — and the antiterror coalition would collapse in the process."
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Wednesday, April 24th, 2002
|
| Subject: | From the Washington Post's editorial page |
| Time: | 1:15 pm. |
|
Tying in to what I wrote below...I don't agree with everything said in this editorial, but it's good to refreshing to hear such criticisms coming from the U.S.
Terrorism and Nationalism
Wednesday, April 24, 2002; Page A28
ISRAELI PRIME Minister Ariel Sharon has insisted that his army's offensive in the West Bank has been aimed at uprooting the infrastructure of Palestinian terrorism, in the same way that the United States has used military force to drive al Qaeda from Afghanistan. That seems a worthy goal, and to some a valid comparison -- and yet it doesn't explain why Israeli troops would have raided and deliberately destroyed the civilian ministries of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. At the Ministry of Higher Education, the Israelis stripped all the computers of their hard drives, then piled them together and blew them up. They also destroyed Palestinian television studios, knocked down radio antennas and looted Palestinian banks. Perhaps some of these acts were carried out by undisciplined troops. But the pattern of destruction also suggests a crucial distinction between Israel's campaign and that of the United States. Both invasions are aimed at crushing terrorist organizations that have carried out savage attacks on innocent civilians. But Israel also has another target: the Palestinian national movement, which aims at ending the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and creating a Palestinian state in its place.
The problem with equating Israel's campaign against terrorism with that of the United States, as Mr. Sharon and some of his American supporters do, is that it overlooks this contest for territory and sovereignty underlying the Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed. Though it has been contaminated by suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism, the Palestinian national cause and its goals are recognized as legitimate by the Bush administration and the United Nations, and they were tacitly accepted by Israel when it signed the Oslo accords of 1993. Mr. Sharon and most of the rest of his government, however, have never accepted Oslo; on the contrary, they have devoted most of their lives to the dream of permanently establishing Israel's control over most, if not all, of the territories it occupied during the 1967 Six Day War. Few outside of Israel support that plan, but Mr. Sharon and his allies have for decades argued that Israeli occupation and settlement of the Arab lands were necessary to control the Palestinian threat to Israel.
The disastrous decision of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat not to accept a negotiated settlement of Palestinian claims and his subsequent encouragement of a violent uprising against the Israeli occupation have justified an Israeli response. But they have also given Mr. Sharon and other Israeli nationalists the cover to pursue their own unacceptable ambitions. In the name of uprooting terrorism, they have systematically destroyed the institutions and infrastructure of Palestinian self-government. To back the Israeli invasion, as the Bush administration has mostly done, is not just to back the cause of counterterrorism; it is also to abet Mr. Sharon's drive to suppress Palestinian national rights.
The Bush administration's uncompromising opposition to terrorism following Sept. 11 is politically and morally powerful and has yielded impressive results, both in Afghanistan and in many other parts of the world. Nevertheless, if counterterrorism is to remain an effective cause, the administration must discriminate between terrorism and the sometimes legitimate political causes it is used for; and it must also differentiate between legitimate defenses against terrorism and attempts to use counterterrorism to justify unacceptable aims. The Israeli writer Amos Oz has observed that Israel is engaged in two separate campaigns against the Palestinians -- a legitimate war against terrorism and an "unjust and futile" bid for control of the West Bank and Gaza. The Bush administration needs a policy that can tell the difference between the two.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | A few thoughts... |
| Time: | 10:43 am. |
|
Since Sharon still objects to the U.N. team being sent into Jenin, and accuses the existing make-up of bias against Israel, I can't help but think Sharon is setting up a defense in case (when) the team finds evidence of a massacre or lesser breaches of the Geneva Conventions. Sharon plants the seed now. When the team turns up facts that support the accusations made by Palestinians (and the media, and Amnesty International and the Red Cross and...the rest of the world) he will simply say, "See! I told you, they are biased against us."
The facts say one thing, Sharon says something else.
Interestingly, this mirrors the tactics used by Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic has long claimed a U.S., EU and U.N. bias against the Serbian people. That has been a key point in his defense and served as the platform that helped him rise to power. Milosevic tapped into a sense of nationalism, "us against them," that helped to rally the Serbs, playing the victim: "We are only trying to defend ourselves." It's a game played in Rwanda in the early '90s. George W. Bush's administration has been playing it since 9/11. Sharon has proved himself exceptionally adept at the manipulative game. He's had decades of practice.
This raises an interesting question. What happens if Israel is found guilty of having committed war crimes? Already a majority of countries around the world, a number of international humanitarian agencies and the media across the board (except Fox) have found evidence that the Geneva Conventions have been grossly disregarded. Will Israel claim (while the majority of the U.S. agrees) that it's simply a matter of the EU, the U.N., the Red Cross and the media harboring a bias against them? It's beginning to sound like a crackpot conspiracy theory.
It looks as if the Bush administration and Congress (who are strongly rallying behind Israel) are backing the U.S. into an increasingly tight corner. If Israel is found to have committed war crimes and the U.S. stands behind Israel, where does that put the U.S.? Does the equation of "us against them" become the U.S. and Israel against the world (well, most of it; Australia seems to be rallying hard behind Israel too)?
The U.N. commission stated that it will be investigating Jenin in the same manner in which it conducted investigations in the Balkans. Very fitting.
If Sharon claims the whole world is simply biased against him, his country, his people, how is that different that Milosevic's similar claims?
|
|
Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
|
|
|
The International Committee of the Red Cross and Amnesty International both accused Israel of breaching the Geneva Conventions by recklessly endangering civilian lives and property during its assault on the Jenin refugee camp, and by refusing the injured access to medical personnel for six days. Professor Derrick Pounder, forensic pathologist at Dundee University, who visited Jenin hospital, near the camp, for Amnesty, was struck by the absence of severely injured people. Normally the severely injured would outnumber the dead by three to one, he said. "The question to the Israeli army is: where are the severely injured?" he said. "No seriously injured persons arrived at the hospital. We draw the conclusion that they were allowed to die where they were." (READ MORE HERE)
The IDF also destroyed the civil infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority: "It's a scene that is repeating itself in hundreds of Palestinian offices taken over by IDF troops for a few hours or days in the West Bank: smashed, burned and broken computer terminals heaped in piles and thrown into yards; server cabling cut, hard disks missing, disks and diskettes scattered and broken, printers and scanners broken or missing, laptops gone, telephone exchanges that disappeared or were vandalized, and paper files burned, torn, scattered, or defaced - if not taken. And it's all in rooms full of smashed furniture, torn curtains, broken windows, smashed-in doors, walls full of holes, filthy floors and soiled bathrooms. Here and there, the soldiers left obscene graffiti or letters full of hatred, but compared to the data that was destroyed or taken, the insults read like poetry. Even the overflowing toilets look more like human weakness compared to the organized vandalism reflected in the piles of smashed computers." (READ MORE HERE)
And tragically, the Bush administration was successful in their move to force the departure of Jose Bustani, director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, who had previously angered the US government by a) negotiating with Iraq to bring an inspection team into the country, which would destroy the basis of the Bush rationale for invading, and b) daring to argue with the US administration's own stubborn refusal to allow inspections of American plants. George Monbiot details the hows and whys of Bustani's removal, and it's frightening. (READ MORE HERE)
Oh, and look! The United States is seeking to block efforts to strengthen an international treatyoutlawing torture. Surprise, surprise. (READ MORE HERE)
And did I already mention that Israel tried to block the UN fact-finding team to Jenin? Thank goodness UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said, "Well, we're sending them anyway." In my head I imagine him adding, under his breath, "What are they going to do to stop us? Shoot the UN too?" (READ MORE HERE)
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
|
|
Oh my god, there's a Floridian Democratic website called All Hat No Cattle (http://www.allhatnocattle.net) which aims to skewer (duh) the Bush administration. The best part is the name! They also call Bush "President Monkey in a Man Suit." Tee hee!
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
|
No time to chit-chat, but there's a slew of articles and essays at http://www.commondreams.org about the Bush administration's role in the failed Venezuelan coup. What the hell are the US media outlets covering instead of this? Hours and hours of coverage of Robert Blake's arrest for murdering his wife -- I think they've dug up every "acquaintance" the couple ever had for their "special reports." Argh.
Published on Sunday, April 21, 2002 in the Observer of London
Venezuela Coup Linked to Bush Team: Specialists in the 'dirty wars' of the Eighties encouraged the plotters who tried to topple President Chavez
by Ed Vulliamy in New York
The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the 'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time.
Washington's involvement in the turbulent events that briefly removed left-wing leader Hugo Chavez from power last weekend resurrects fears about US ambitions in the hemisphere.
It also also deepens doubts about policy in the region being made by appointees to the Bush administration, all of whom owe their careers to serving in the dirty wars under President Reagan.
One of them, Elliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair.
The Bush administration has tried to distance itself from the coup. It immediately endorsed the new government under businessman Pedro Carmona. But the coup was sent dramatically into reverse after 48 hours.
Now officials at the Organization of American States and other diplomatic sources, talking to The Observer, assert that the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success.
The visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona himself, began, say sources, 'several months ago', and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich.
Reich is a right-wing Cuban-American who, under Reagan, ran the Office for Public Diplomacy. It reported in theory to the State Department, but Reich was shown by congressional investigations to report directly to Reagan's National Security Aide, Colonel Oliver North, in the White House.
North was convicted and shamed for his role in Iran-Contra, whereby arms bought by busting US sanctions on Iran were sold to the Contra guerrillas and death squads, in revolt against the Marxist government in Nicaragua.
Reich also has close ties to Venezuela, having been made ambassador to Caracas in 1986. His appointment was contested both by Democrats in Washington and political leaders in the Latin American country. The objections were overridden as Venezuela sought access to the US oil market.
Reich is said by OAS sources to have had 'a number of meetings with Carmona and other leaders of the coup' over several months. The coup was discussed in some detail, right down to its timing and chances of success, which were deemed to be excellent.
On the day Carmona claimed power, Reich summoned ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean to his office. He said the removal of Chavez was not a rupture of democratic rule, as he had resigned and was 'responsible for his fate'. He said the US would support the Carmona government.
But the crucial figure around the coup was Abrams, who operates in the White House as senior director of the National Security Council for 'democracy, human rights and international operations'. He was a leading theoretician of the school known as 'Hemispherism', which put a priority on combating Marxism in the Americas.
It led to the coup in Chile in 1973, and the sponsorship of regimes and death squads that followed it in Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and elsewhere. During the Contras' rampage in Nicaragua, he worked directly to North.
Congressional investigations found Abrams had harvested illegal funding for the rebellion. Convicted for withholding information from the inquiry, he was pardoned by George Bush senior.
A third member of the Latin American triangle in US policy-making is John Negroponte, now ambassador to the United Nations. He was Reagan's ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 when a US-trained death squad, Battalion 3-16, tortured and murdered scores of activists. A diplomatic source said Negroponte had been 'informed that there might be some movement in Venezuela on Chavez' at the beginning of the year.
More than 100 people died in events before and after the coup. In Caracas on Friday a military judge confined five high-ranking officers to indefinite house arrest pending formal charges of rebellion.
Chavez's chief ideologue - Guillermo Garcia Ponce, director of the Revolutionary Political Command - said dissident generals, local media and anti-Chavez groups in the US had plotted the president's removal.
'The most reactionary sectors in the United States were also implicated in the conspiracy,' he said.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
|
Published on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 in the Guardian of London
Chemical Coup D'Etat: The US Wants to Depose the Diplomat Who Could Take Away Its Pretext for War With Iraq
by George Monbiot
On Sunday, the US government will launch an international coup. It has been planned for a month. It will be executed quietly, and most of us won't know what is happening until it's too late. It is seeking to overthrow 60 years of multilateralism in favor of a global regime built on force.
The coup begins with its attempt, in five days' time, to unseat the man in charge of ridding the world of chemical weapons. If it succeeds, this will be the first time that the head of a multilateral agency will have been deposed in this manner. Every other international body will then become vulnerable to attack. The coup will also shut down the peaceful options for dealing with the chemical weapons Iraq may possess, helping to ensure that war then becomes the only means of destroying them.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) enforces the chemical weapons convention. It inspects labs and factories and arsenals and oversees the destruction of the weapons they contain. Its director-general is a workaholic Brazilian diplomat called Jose Bustani. He has, arguably, done more in the past five ears to promote world peace than anyone else on earth. His inspectors have overseen the destruction of 2 million chemical weapons and two-thirds of the world's chemical weapon facilities. He has so successfully cajoled reluctant nations that the number of signatories to the convention has
risen from 87 to 145 in the past five years: the fastest growth rate of any multilateral body in recent times.
In May 2000, as a tribute to his extraordinary record, Bustani was re-elected unanimously by the member states for a second five-year term, even though he had yet to complete his first one. Last year Colin Powell wrote to him to thank him for his "very impressive" work. But now everything has changed. The man celebrated for his achievements has been denounced as an enemy of the people.
In January, with no prior warning or explanation, the US state department asked the Brazilian government to recall him, on the grounds that it did not like his "management style". This request directly contravenes the chemical weapons convention, which states "the director-general ... shall not seek or receive instructions from any government". Brazil refused. In March the US government accused Bustani of "financial mismanagement", "demoralization" of his staff, "bias" and "ill-considered initiatives". It warned that if he wanted to
avoid damage to his reputation, he must resign.
Again, the US was trampling the convention, which insists that member states shall "not seek to influence" the staff. He refused to go. March 19 the US proposed a vote of no confidence in Bustani. It lost. So it then did something unprecedented in the history of multi lateral diplomacy. It called a "special session" of the member states to oust him. The session begins on Sunday. And this time the US is likely to get what it wants.
Since losing the vote last month, the United States, which is supposed to be the organization's biggest donor, has been twisting the arms of weaker nations, refusing to pay its dues unless they support it, with the result that the OPCW could go under. Last week Bustani told me, "the Europeans are so afraid that the US will abandon the convention that they are prepared to sacrifice my post to keep it on board". His last hope is that the United Kingdom, whose record of support for the organization has so far been exemplary, will make a stand. The meeting on Sunday will present Tony Blair's government with one of the clearest
choices it has yet faced between multilateralism and the "special relationship".
The US has not sought to substantiate the charges it has made against Bustani. The OPCW is certainly suffering from a financial crisis, but that is largely because the US unilaterally capped its budget and then failed to pay what it owed. The organization's accounts have just been audited and found to be perfectly sound. Staff morale is higher than any organization as underfunded as the OPCW could reasonably expect. Bustani's real crimes are contained in the last two charges, of "bias" and "ill-considered initiatives".
The charge of bias arises precisely because the OPCW is not biased. It has sought to examine facilities in the United States with the same rigor with which it examines facilities anywhere else. But, just like Iraq, the US has refused to accept weapons inspectors from countries it regards as hostile to its interests, and has told those who have been allowed in which parts of a site they may and may not inspect. It has also passed special legislation permitting the president to block unannounced inspections, and banning inspectors from removing samples of its chemicals.
"Ill-considered initiatives" is code for the attempts Bustani has made, in line with his mandate, to persuade Saddam Hussein to sign the chemical weapons convention. If Iraq agrees, it will then be subject to the same inspections - both routine and unannounced - as any other member state (with the exception, of course, of the United States). Bustani has so far been unsuccessful, but only because, he believes, he has not yet received the backing of the UN security council, with the result that Saddam knows he would have little to gain from signing.
Bustani has suggested that if the security council were to support the OPCW's bid to persuade Iraq to sign, this would provide the US with an alternative to war. It is hard to see why Saddam Hussein would accept weapons inspectors from Unmovic - the organization backed by the security council - after its predecessor, UNSCOM, was found to be stuffed with spies planted by the US government. It is much easier to see why he might accept inspectors from an organization which has remained scrupulously even-handed. Indeed, when UNSCOM was thrown out of Iraq in 1998, the OPCW was allowed in to complete the destruction of the weapons it had found. Bustani has to go because he has proposed the solution to a problem the US does not want solved.
"What the Americans are doing," Bustani says, "is a coup d'etat. They are using brute force to amend the convention and unseat the director-general." As the chemical weapons convention has no provisions permitting these measures, the US is simply ripping up the rules. If it wins, then the OPCW, like UNSCOM, will be fatally compromised. Success for the United States on Sunday would threaten the
independence of every multilateral body.
This is, then, one of those rare occasions on which our government could make a massive difference to the way the world is run. It could choose to support its closest ally, wrecking multilateralism and shutting down the alternatives to war. Or it could defy the United States in defense of world peace and international law. It will take that principled stand only if we, the people from whom it draws its power, make so much noise that it must listen. We have five days in which to stop the US from bullying its way to war.
|
|
Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
|
| Subject: | Friday, with the Weekend on My Mind |
| Time: | 9:40 am. |
|
It's Friday morning. I'm sitting at work, wondering if there's some holiday I forgot about. Hardly anyone is here. Not much work is gonna get done today.
Scouring the morning news, I've run across a few interesting things today.
The Irish Times (Ireland) found clear evidence that the U.S. military was behind the coup in Venezuela. Not a surprise, but it does offer concrete proof that what the Bush administration has been saying is not true. Of course, concrete evidence doesn't seem to mean as much as it used to. Lies, the repeated words of the president and his followers somehow have more weight of "truth" than facts.
US military attache implicated in Venezuela coup
The US military attache in Caracas was with the planners of last week's aborted coup against Venezuela's President Mr Hugo Chavez in the hours beforehand, a source in the president's office, it emerged tonight.
The US Embassy in Caracas had no immediate reaction to the allegations.
Meanwhile US President George Bush said today that Mr Chavez should learn from the turmoil that led to his brief ouster last week and take steps to address it.
"It (is) very important for President Chavez to do what he said he was going to do, to address the reasons why there was so much turmoil on the streets," Mr Bush said after meeting Colombian President Mr Andres Pastrana at the White House.
"It's very important for him to embrace those institutions which are fundamental to democracy, including freedom of the press and freedom for the ability of the opposition to speak out," Mr Bush told reporters.
"And if there's lessons to be learned, it's important that he learn them," he said.
On a related note, the AP reports a Spanish judge (the same one who indicted Pinochet) is trying to question Kissinger about his role in supporting South American dictatorships in the 1970s and '80s.
Judge Wants to Question Kissinger
MAR ROMAN - Associated Press Writer
MADRID, Spain (AP) - A Spanish judge is seeking to question former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in London about crimes committed during the military dictatorships that ruled several South American countries in the 1970s and 1980s.
Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has been investigating former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's human rights abuses in Chile, has filed a request with British authorities to allow him to question Kissinger when the American arrives to attend a convention, Juan Garces, a lawyer involved in the Pinochet investigation, said Wednesday.
Garzon, a National Court investigative magistrate, is known for his pursuit of drug traffickers and terrorists in Spain and abroad.
He attracted international attention when he ordered the arrest in London of Pinochet in 1998, kicking off an ultimately unsuccessful bid to have him extradited to Spain for trial on charges of human rights violations. (MORE)
***Back to the Middle East***
The BBC confirms what Palestinians have been saying for weeks: That Israelis are using human shields.
Israel accused of using 'human shields'
By Sebastian Usher
BBC Middle East analyst
A leading human rights group has accused the Israeli army of routinely using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
Human Rights Watch said the tactic could be considered a war crime.
Israel has rejected the accusations.
In a 24-page report, based on the testimony of more than 50 witnesses, Human Rights Watch documents how Israeli soldiers have forced Palestinians at gunpoint to open suspicious packages, knock on suspects' doors and search the houses of Palestinians wanted by Israel.
The report concentrates on four separate raids between late last year and the first months of this year.
But it says the practice has continued in the current Israeli offensive. (< A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1937000/1937599.stm">MORE</a>)
***
I have to get to work, but I wanted to quickly mention a movie called War Photographer that will be opening in the U.S. this June. It follows the life of James Nachtwey, one of the absolute best (anti)war photographers ever. Swiss filmmaker Christian Frie attached tiny cameras to Nachtwey's own cameras, so you see and hear everything going on as Nachtwey is out shooting. I'll write more about it later. I'm incredibly excited to see it.
Work!
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
whatawaytodie's journal