Israelis Curfew All Palestinians - Concentration Camp Mentality Everywhere Now|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44757-2002Aug5.html||special|
Saudis As Enemy of US - 'Give Them an Ultimatum!'|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47913-2002Aug5?language=printer|The Saudis -- terribly mislead by their despised Ambassador Bandar bin Sultan, and terribly misadvised <br>for personal gain by such cronies as James Zogby and company about the real ways of Washington -- <br>have played their considerable cards miserably, squandering billions of dollars not to mention their <br>heritage, Jerusalem, Arab unity, and the Palestinians along the way.  And so now it has come to this, with <br>the Israeli/Jewish lobby whipping up a great storm destined to either bring the 'Royal Family' to heel on <br>their knees or to take their oil, along with that of Iraq, from their control:<br>------------------<br><br><br>Briefing Depicted Saudis as Enemies <br>Ultimatum Urged To Pentagon Board <br><br>By Thomas E. Ricks<br>Washington Post Staff Writer<br>Tuesday, August 6, 2002; Page A01 <br><br><br>A briefing given last month to a top Pentagon advisory board described Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States, and recommended that U.S. officials give it an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and its financial assets invested in the United States.<br><br>"The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader," stated the explosive briefing. It was presented on July 10 to the Defense Policy Board, a group of prominent intellectuals and former senior officials that advises the Pentagon on defense policy.<br><br>"Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies," said the briefing prepared by Laurent Murawiec, a Rand Corp. analyst. A talking point attached to the last of 24 briefing slides went even further, describing Saudi Arabia as "the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" in the Middle East.<br><br>The briefing did not represent the views of the board or official government policy, and in fact runs counter to the present stance of the U.S. government that Saudi Arabia is a major ally in the region. Yet it also represents a point of view that has growing currency within the Bush administration -- especially on the staff of Vice President Cheney and in the Pentagon's civilian leadership -- and among neoconservative writers and thinkers closely allied with administration policymakers.<br><br>One administration official said opinion about Saudi Arabia is changing rapidly within the U.S. government. "People used to rationalize Saudi behavior," he said. "You don't hear that anymore. There's no doubt that people are recognizing reality and recognizing that Saudi Arabia is a problem."<br><br>The decision to bring the anti-Saudi analysis before the Defense Policy Board also appears tied to the growing debate over whether to launch a U.S. military attack to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. The chairman of the board is former Pentagon official Richard N. Perle, one of the most prominent advocates in Washington of just such an invasion. The briefing argued that removing Hussein would spur change in Saudi Arabia -- which, it maintained, is the larger problem because of its role in financing and supporting radical Islamic movements.<br><br>Perle did not return calls to comment. A Rand spokesman said Murawiec, a former adviser to the French Ministry of Defense who now analyzes international security affairs for Rand, would not be available to comment.<br><br>"Neither the presentations nor the Defense Policy Board members' comments reflect the official views of the Department of Defense," Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said in a written statement issued last night. "Saudi Arabia is a long-standing friend and ally of the United States. The Saudis cooperate fully in the global war on terrorism and have the Department's and the Administration's deep appreciation."<br><br>Murawiec said in his briefing that the United States should demand that Riyadh stop funding fundamentalist Islamic outlets around the world, stop all anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli statements in the country, and "prosecute or isolate those involved in the terror chain, including in the Saudi intelligence services."<br><br>If the Saudis refused to comply, the briefing continued, Saudi oil fields and overseas financial assets should be "targeted," although exactly how was not specified.<br><br>The report concludes by linking regime change in Iraq to altering Saudi behavior. This view, popular among some neoconservative thinkers, is that once a U.S. invasion has removed Hussein from power, a friendly successor regime would become a major exporter of oil to the West. That oil would diminish U.S. dependence on Saudi energy exports, and so -- in this view -- permit the U.S. government finally to confront the House of Saud for supporting terrorism. <br><br>"The road to the entire Middle East goes through Baghdad," said the administration official, who is hawkish on Iraq. "Once you have a democratic regime in Iraq, like the ones we helped establish in Germany and Japan after World War II, there are a lot of possibilities."<br><br>Of the two dozen people who attended the Defense Policy Board meeting, only one, former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger, spoke up to object to the anti-Saudi conclusions of the briefing, according to sources who were there. Some members of the board clearly agreed with Kissinger's dismissal of the briefing and others did not.<br><br>One source summarized Kissinger's remarks as, "The Saudis are pro-American, they have to operate in a difficult region, and ultimately we can manage them."<br><br>Kissinger declined to comment on the meeting. He said his consulting business does not advise the Saudi government and has no clients that do large amounts of business in Saudi Arabia.<br><br>"I don't consider Saudi Arabia to be a strategic adversary of the United States," Kissinger said. "They are doing some things I don't approve of, but I don't consider them a strategic adversary."<br><br>Other members of the board include former vice president Dan Quayle; former defense secretaries James Schlesinger and Harold Brown; former House speakers Newt Gingrich and Thomas Foley; and several retired senior military officers, including two former vice chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired admirals David Jeremiah and William Owens.<br><br>Asked for reaction, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, said he did not take the briefing seriously. "I think that it is a misguided effort that is shallow, and not honest about the facts," he said. "Repeating lies will never make them facts."<br><br>"I think this view defies reality," added Adel al-Jubeir, a foreign policy adviser to Saudi leader Crown Prince Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz. "The two countries have been friends and allies for over 60 years. Their relationship has seen the coming and breaking of many storms in the region, and if anything it goes from strength to strength."<br><br>In the 1980s, the United States and Saudi Arabia played major roles in supporting the Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, pouring billions of dollars into procuring weapons and other logistical support for the mujaheddin.<br><br>At the end of the decade, the relationship became even closer when the U.S. military stationed a half-million troops on Saudi territory to repel Hussein's invasions of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Several thousand U.S. troops have remained on Saudi soil, mainly to run air operations in the region. Their presence has been cited by Osama bin Laden as a major reason for his attacks on the United States.<br><br>The anti-Saudi views expressed in the briefing appear especially popular among neoconservative foreign policy thinkers, which is a relatively small but influential group within the Bush administration.<br><br>"I think it is a mistake to consider Saudi Arabia a friendly country," said Kenneth Adelman, a former aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is a member of the Defense Policy Board but didn't attend the July 10 meeting. He said the view that Saudi Arabia is an adversary of the United States "is certainly a more prevalent view that it was a year ago."<br><br>In recent weeks, two neoconservative magazines have run articles similar in tone to the Pentagon briefing. The July 15 issue of the Weekly Standard, which is edited by William Kristol, a former chief of staff to Quayle, predicted "The Coming Saudi Showdown." The current issue of Commentary, which is published by the American Jewish Committee, contains an article titled, "Our Enemies, the Saudis."<br><br>"More and more people are making parts of this argument, and a few all of it," said Eliot Cohen, a Johns Hopkins University expert on military strategy. "Saudi Arabia used to have lots of apologists in this country. . . . Now there are very few, and most of those with substantial economic interests or long-standing ties there."<br><br>Cohen, a member of the Defense Policy Board, declined to discuss its deliberations. But he did say that he views Saudi Arabia more as a problem than an enemy. "The deal that they cut with fundamentalism is most definitely a threat, [so] I would say that Saudi Arabia is a huge problem for us," he said.<br><br>But that view is far from dominant in the U.S. government, others said. "The drums are beginning to beat on Saudi Arabia," said Robert Oakley, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan who consults frequently with the U.S. military.<br><br>He said the best approach isn't to confront Saudi Arabia but to support its reform efforts. "Our best hope is change through reform, and that can only come from within," he said.<br>|special|
An FBI We Can Trust?  Chicken Little and 'The Internet is Falling!'|http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,54382,00.html||off|
Indyk and the Israeli/Jewish Lobby Strike Again|http://www.middleeast.org/world/nytimes25.htm|First he was involved in intelligence work in Australia and Israel.  Then he was brought to the US to head up the Israeli/Jewish lobby.  Then when Clinton ran for office he was tasked to the Little Rock Campaign HQ of the maybe President to be.  Then, upon Clinton's election, his Australian citizenship was rush-changed to American and he was put in the National Security Council - a reward for all the help from 'the lobby'.  After that it was on to the State Department - Assistant Secretary of State for the 'Near East' and then Ambassador to Israel.  Sounds 'too good' to be true, we know; but in fact this is the sorry history of US policies infiltrated by a small cabal of personalities all closely affiliated with 'the lobby'.  Now, Dennis Ross heading up the official lobby think tank, Indyk has taken over Middle East affairs at The Brookings Institution.  What a tale...and it continues.|special|
Fear Dominates Arab-American Community|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39673-2002Aug3?language=printer||off|
US War Plans to use Qatar Rather Than Saudi|http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020806-iraq1.htm|Plans Advance for War Against Iraq <br>By NILES LATHEM <br><br><br>Al Udeid Airbase,<br>Qatar<br>Picture of the Week  <br><br> Dramatic satellite photos show just how far U.S. preparations for war with Iraq have advanced. <br><br>They are images of the state-of-the-art al Udeid air base in Qatar, which has been significantly upgraded over the last six months and is expected to be used as America's base for military operations against Saddam Hussein. <br><br>The images, taken by the commercial satellite company Digital Globe, show that between January and June, Qatar - with the help of the United States - has quietly expanded the base to put it on a war footing. <br><br>It built a 13,000-foot runway to handle heavy bombers, as well as new ammunition dumps and large storage buildings for tanks. <br><br>Also under construction are hardened aircraft shelters that can hide hundreds of warplanes. And in recent months, a giant tent city has been erected to house as many as 3,800 troops. <br><br>The photos also reveal what appears to be a sophisticated command and control center. <br><br>Tim Brown of the defense think tank Globalsecurity.org which has published an extensive analysis of the latest satellite imagery on its web site, said the base "looks like it is being designed to replace the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia so we don't have to rely on the Saudis for this operation." <br><br>Pentagon officials last night refused to discuss details of the preparations at al Udeid. One added that planners are "not happy" the images are floating around on the Internet - "but [we] realize there's nothing we can do." <br><br>Pentagon sources also said al Udeid is one of a handful of bases in the Persian Gulf region where extensive work is being done in advance of military operations against Iraq. <br><br>Massive expansion and equipment pre-positioning is also taking place at a secret base in southern Kuwait as well as a NATO base in Incirlik, Turkey, the sources said. <br><br>Bush administration officials have insisted that final decisions on launching military strikes have not yet been made. <br><br>Military officials said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has recently rejected two competing plans for toppling Saddam: one, modeled on Operation Desert Storm, involves a massive invasion by 250,000 troops and the other, modeled on the war in Afghanistan, envisions extensive use of Special Forces troops alongside Iraqi opposition groups. <br><br>Gen. Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, is said to be nearing completion of a third option involving a quick-strike force of 75,000 troops aimed at separating Saddam from his armies, capturing Baghdad and preventing Iraq from launching weapons of mass destruction against U.S. troops or Israel. <br><br>Franks briefed President Bush on the war plans at the White House yesterday. <br><br>Although the timing of the operation has not yet been set, it is generally believed the Bush administration wants it to begin sometime in the spring. <br><br>Defense experts warn, however, that the widely reported timetable could be a deception so that Saddam has as little time as possible to prepare for the attack. <br><br>Meanwhile, Iraq made some diplomatic moves apparently designed to derail or delay U.S. war plans. <br><br>Saddam invited the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, to Baghdad for talks, hinting this might result in renewing the hunt for illicit weapons that was suspended in December 1998. <br><br>But the Bush administration rejected the offer. It also rejected an invitation to members of Congress to tour suspected biological, chemical and nuclear weapons sites, accompanied by arms experts of their choice, during a three-week visit. <br><br>"I can't think of anything funnier than a handful of congressmen walking around. They'd have to be there for the next 50 years trying to find something,' said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "It's a joke." <br>-----------------<br><br>U.S., Britain prepare logistics in Gulf for military campaign <br> <br><br><br>SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM<br>Wednesday, August 7, 2002<br>LONDON — The United States and Britain are taking steps to ensure logistical support in the Persian Gulf for any military campaign against Iraq.<br><br>Gulf defense sources said the two countries are seeking facilities for fuel and water as well as ports for warships in Gulf Cooperation Council states, Middle East Newsline reported. <br><br>The United States has been building its supply stockpile, the sources said. They said the U.S. Central Command's logistics unit, based in Kuwait, has been ordering what the sources term vast quantities of aviation fuel and mineral water.<br><br>The sources said Oman and Qatar have become the key areas of supplies and logistics for U.S. and British forces. But they said other countries are being approached as well including Saudi Arabia, regarded as the most ardent GCC opponent of a U.S. attack on Baghdad.<br><br>[On Wednesday, the London-based Al Hayat daily quoted witnesses as saying the United States is completing a project to refurbish an abandoned military air base in northern Iraq. The newspaper said trucks from the Turkish border have been transporting everything from metal and cement to radar components over a 60-day period.]<br><br>So far, Saudi Arabia has refused repeated U.S. requests to allow for the deployment of up to 50,000 troops as well as the use of the kingdom's air bases as launching pads for an attack on the regime of President Saddam Hussein. But the sources said Saudi Arabia could allow France or Britain naval facilities.<br><br>A U.S. defense delegation is expected to begin a Gulf tour later this month. The delegation will consist of officials from the Defense Department and State Department and will seek financial assistance from the GCC for the war against Iraq as well as logistics assistance from Gulf Arab states.<br><br>Bahrain and Qatar have been asked to store U.S. ammunition and other supplies. In addition, the sheikdom is said to have been asked to host thousands of U.S. troops as well as store ammunition.<br><br>The London-based Al-Quds Al Arabi daily said the U.S. purchases are taking place in Saudi Arabia. The newspaper said the goal is for the U.S. military to have enough supplies and fuel for several months of operations. <br><br>Britain has sought to obtain Saudi support for naval facilities, the sources said. A British delegation has been sent to the Gulf for talks with Kuwait and the Saudi kingdom. The sources said London has asked Riyad for additional port facilities to facilitate the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the region.<br><br>|special|
US Secret 'Special Ops' To Expand WorldWide Unilaterally|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38165-2002Aug2?language=printer||off|
US Defense Secretay States Flatly Israel Should Not 'Return' 'Occupied Territories'|http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=195184|Ha'aretz: Wednesday, August 07, 2002<br><br>Rumsfeld departs from U.S. policy, slams PA<br><br>By Ha'aretz Service and Associated Press<br><br>On the eve of the arrival of three Palestinian cabinet ministers for <br>Washington talks set for Thursday and Friday, Secretary of Defense <br>Donald H. Rumsfeld departed from traditional U.S. policy on the <br>Middle East conflict, signaling disagreement with Secretary of State <br>Colin Powell's call on Israel to stop building settlements in and <br>withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, which Rumsfeld termed <br>"so-called occupied territory."<br><br>Speaking to Pentagon employees Tuesday, Rumsfeld slammed the <br>Palestinian Authority, calling it entangled with terror, and said he <br>doubted Israel could turn over territory to it.<br><br>Powell and Condoleezza Rice, President George W. Bush's national <br>security adviser, are due to meet Thursday and Friday with a <br>delegation headed by Saeb Erekat, longtime adviser to Palestinian <br>leader Yasser Arafat. Accompanying Erekat are Economy Minister Maher <br>el Masri and Interior Minister Abdel Raza Yehiyeh, both of whom were <br>appointed by Arafat and have been praised by Powell for trying to <br>transform the Authority<br><br>"Our focus is working with Palestinians with whom we think we can <br>have constructive discussions about the way to move forward," said <br>State Department deputy spokesman Philip T. Reeker.Bush has denounced <br>Arafat and said democratic reform must precede establishment of a <br>Palestinian state. Arafat has not been invited to the White House and <br>has been shunned by Powell and other American diplomats, but the <br>United States and Israel are holding talks with other senior <br>Palestinian officials.<br><br>In his remarks, Rumsfeld declined to call on Israel to abandon <br>settlements. Indicating that he does not share the Bush <br>administration's view of Israel's presence on the land, Rumsfeld <br>said, "My feelings about the so-called occupied territories are that <br>there was a war. Israel urged neighboring countries not to get <br>involved in it once it started. They all jumped in and they lost a <br>lot of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in the <br>conflict."<br><br>It would be different "if you are giving it to an entity that has a <br>track record," as he signaled disagreement with Secretary of State <br>Colin Powell's call on Israel to stop building settlements in and <br>withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza.<br><br>The U.S.-Palestinian talks coincide with Arab and European pressure <br>on the Bush administration to force Israel out of the West Bank, Gaza <br>and part of Jerusalem, and to step up U.S. peacemaking efforts.<br><br>The State Department's Reeker said "progress on political dialogue" <br>was on the agenda for the talks with the Palestinians, along with <br>civil reform efforts and cooperation on security.<br><br>Rumsfeld was apparently referring to Jordan, which held the West Bank <br>and east Jerusalem until it joined Egypt and Syria in the 1967 Middle <br>East war. Israel won and Jordan lost the territory.<br><br>Since then, Rumsfeld said, Israel repeatedly has offered to pull back <br>but "at no point has it been agreed upon by the other side."At some <br>point, the defense secretary said, "there will be some sort of an <br>entity that will be established" which Israel can deal with securely.<br><br>"Maybe it will take some Palestinian expatriates coming back into the <br>region and providing the kind of responsible government that would <br>give confidence that you could make an arrangement with that would <br>stick," he said.<br><br>Referring to settlements on the West Bank, Rumsfeld said "it's hard <br>to know" whether they would be given up by Israel.<br><br>The State Department, meanwhile, criticized Israel for demolishing <br>the homes of terror suspects and for deporting family members to Gaza.<br><br>"We certainly understand the need for Israel to take steps to ensure <br>its self-defense," Reeker said. "And we've been very clear about the <br>need for Palestinian action against violence and terror." But, he <br>said, "the displacement of people through the demolition of homes and <br>property can undermine trust and confidence."<br><br>The spokesman also announced that the State Department plans to move <br>the consular, visa and press offices of the U.S. consulate in East <br>Jerusalem to a more secure site. He said the new location had not <br>been selected. The consulate serves Palestinians who live in <br>Jerusalem, on the West Bank and in Gaza.<br><br>The Palestinians view largely Arab East Jerusalem, captured from <br>Jordan in the 1967 war, as the capital of a future Palestinian state.<br>|off|
NYTimes Lets the Hebron Settlers do the talking on the Op Ed Page||In Hebron, Death and Life<br>By JUNE LEAVITT<br><br>EBRON, West Bank — After almost two years of the second intifada, after the murders of 600 Israelis and the crippling and wounding of thousands more, existence in Israel has become painfully surreal. Without our willing it or wanting it, at every moment, the unexpected comes.<br><br>And so it was with the funeral of Elazar Leibovich, who was shot and killed last Friday by terrorists as he was driving his friends, a newly married couple, around the Hebron hills. <br><br>Before he died, Elazar, a friend of my sons, tried to shoot at the terrorist who was firing from the roadside. Nerry Ben Yitzhak, married for two days, with his young bride sitting in the back seat, pushed Elazar aside and took over the wheel. As Nerry sped for help, a car with two parents and their children came down the road from the opposite direction on their way to a peaceful Sabbath at the settlement of Maon. Nerry signaled at the father to stop. But not understanding Nerry's motions, the father drove into the ambush; the parents and one son were killed, with nine children orphaned. <br><br>Sunday at noon, Elazar's flag-draped body was laid before the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron where our forebears — Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Rebecca and Jacob and Leah — are buried. Up the hill is the Jewish cemetery and the pit was waiting for Elazar. My daughters and I had been to many funerals there, friends and neighbors all murdered by terrorists: Rafael killed on the Hebron-Beersheba Road; Yigor the Russian immigrant who was on guard duty at a construction site when he was killed by Arabs; Mordecai and Shalom, father and son gunned down at the gate of Qiryat Arba; little Shalhevet Pas, the infant shot to death in Hebron last year as her parents pushed her in her stroller.<br><br>After the rabbi of Qiryat Arba delivered his eulogy, Elazar's friends grabbed the podium. "No more eulogies. Elazar's last will and testament is revenge!" they said. "Kill innocent Arabs! So that our innocent people shouldn't die." <br><br>When Elazar's brother approached the microphone, we expected him to ask people to control themselves. We all understood the anger: at God for still killing us off after the Holocaust, even in our own country; at the world for its rising wave of anti-Semitism, for believing there is just cause for our being killed; at the leftist Israeli government that had given rifles to the Arabs; at the Arabs for using them against us.<br><br>But Elazar's brother shocked us when he cried out: "My brother knew his blood would be spilt. He said, `When I'm killed don't stand by my body and cry!' He didn't want talk and tears. He wanted song and revenge!"<br><br>The bereaved are forbidden to hear music for a year; one never sees musical instruments at religious Jewish funerals. Yet in an act of defiance, a young guitarist took the microphone, singing a verse from Psalms, "the ground will be renewed." Some in the crowd became angry and impassioned. Elazar's body was then put in the military ambulance (Elazar was a soldier though not on duty when he was killed) and thousands of mourners walked slowly behind it through the streets of Hebron to the cemetery on the hilltop where King David first had his kingdom. The rocks that the Arabs hurled from nearby rooftops on the funeral procession fell like sparks on a keg of gasoline.<br><br>Young settlers responded to the rock throwing by exploding through lines of Israeli soldiers, swinging punches, grabbing at their helmets, converging on Arab houses, tearing off doors and climbing up to rooftops to crumple satellite dishes. Many of us stood frightened and angry. A man shouted: "If you don't like revenge, this funeral is not for you." <br><br>A friend said to me: "A new generation. They know of their deaths. They plan their funerals. Shouldn't we respect the wishes of the murdered? Shall we try to get to the graveyard?"<br><br>There, I expected to see people crying, and I did. But I did not expect to hear a cry louder than the lamenting — "The police are arresting Jews! To the streets!" People raced around the tombs and out the gate to lie down in protest so that the police could not get through. The screams, the blood-soaked clothing of soldiers and settlers, this was all different.<br><br>And then I heard the rumor that an Arab girl had been killed in the rioting, though I did not hear any shooting. The city of our forefather Abraham was writhing, the ground boiling; Elazar's family, in a gesture of mourning that I had never seen, came barefoot down the searing pavement of the street. "Maybe something will come out of this," his father said. "The ground will be renewed."<br><br>A few hours later, my daughters and I met again at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. In the silence, a girl in a white, ankle-length gown rested her head against one monumental wall. King David's Psalms in her hand, she prayed.<br><br>"Why do you look so surprised?" my younger daughter said to me. "Happy things come unexpectedly too. That's Tertza. Another bride. She's getting married tonight." <br><br><br>June Leavitt is author of the forthcoming ``Storm of Terror: A Hebron Mother's Diary.''<br>|off|
Americans now nervous and anxious about everyone and everything|http://ctnow.com/news/local/hc-bradtexan0803.artaug03.story?coll=hcheadlineslocal||special|
How the Settlers Do It|http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=182180&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y||off|
Pentagon Orders: 'Kill Them Faster!'|http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020802-6570074.htm||off|
Pentagon Told To Do More Secretly and Otherwise|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38165-2002Aug2?language=printer||off|
US To Israel - Go Get 'Em|http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020802-537151.htm|It's now leaking out that since coming to office the Bush Administration has supplied Israel with large quantities of missiles, Blackhawk attack helicopters, and other advanced offensive armaments.  Britain has also been involved even though an embargo on arms to the region, and to Israel, is supposed to be in place|off|
'Democracy or Dictatorship?' Federal Judge Asks?|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36767-2002Aug2?language=printer|"...The first priority of the judicial branch must be to ensure that our government always operates within the statutory and constitutional constraints which distinguish a democracy from a<br>dictatorship."<br><br><br>JUDGE RULES U.S. MUST Release Detainees' Names <br><br>By Steve Fainaru and Dan Eggen<br>Washington Post Staff Writers<br>Saturday, August 3, 2002; Page A01 <br><br>A federal judge in Washington yesterday ordered the Justice Department to release the names of more than 1,000 people<br>detained in the investigation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying the information was essential to verifying that the<br>government is "operating within the bounds of the law."<br><br>If upheld, the decision would reverse a central tenet of the Bush administration's secrecy policy, which also has included closed<br>court hearings and prohibitions on release of otherwise routine criminal justice information. Authorities have said release of the<br>names could aid future terror plots, affect the ongoing investigation and violate the detainees' privacy.<br><br>Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia gave the Justice Department 15 days to release the<br>names of the detainees and their attorneys. The government can leave out the names of any detainees who request in writing<br>that their names be kept private, Kessler ruled.<br><br>The government does not have to disclose when and where people were arrested and jailed -- "or in the bloodless language of<br>the law 'detained,' " Kessler said in her ruling. She also ordered the government to disclose the names of all "material witnesses"<br>-- people who the government says may possess information critical to the probe -- but said authorities could ask her to make<br>exceptions.<br><br>"The Court fully understands and appreciates that the first priority of the executive branch in a time of crisis is to ensure the<br>physical security of its citizens," Kessler wrote. "By the same token, the first priority of the judicial branch must be to ensure<br>that our government always operates within the statutory and constitutional constraints which distinguish a democracy from a<br>dictatorship."<br><br>The Justice Department, which usually withholds comment on judicial rulings, issued a statement charging that Kessler's<br>decision heightened the dangers posed by terrorists.<br><br>"The Department of Justice believes today's ruling impedes one of the most important federal law enforcement investigations in<br>history, harms our efforts to bring to justice those responsible for the heinous attacks of September 11 and increases the risk of<br>future terrorist threats to our nation," Assistant Attorney General Robert D. McCallum Jr. said in the statement.<br><br>Justice officials declined to say whether the government would appeal the ruling, but a government source said an appeal is<br>likely. The Justice Department is also expected to request a stay preventing the names from being released.<br><br>McCallum said only that Justice Department lawyers would be "evaluating all options."<br><br>Kate Martin, the lead attorney in the case for the Center for National Security Studies, called the decision "a total rejection of<br>the attorney general's rationale for secretly arresting over 1,000 people. It's a vindication of the proposition that the courts will<br>stop abuses even in times of crisis."<br><br>The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for National Security Studies and 21 other organizations, including<br>Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American Islamic<br>Relations. Under the Freedom of Information Act, the organizations requested the names of the detainees, the identities of their<br>lawyers, the identities of courts presiding over their cases and all government documents relating to the policy.<br><br>In June, a New Jersey appellate court rejected a similar lawsuit filed there. Most of those arrested for immigration violations<br>have been held in New Jersey jails.<br><br>From the beginning of the investigation, the government's handling of the detainees has been the focal point of the conflict<br>between national security and civil liberties. More than 1,200 people, most of Arab and South Asian descent, have been<br>detained in the Sept. 11 terror dragnet, including 751 held on immigration violations, according to the most recent figures<br>released by the Justice Department.<br><br>Most were arrested by federal agencies, but some were detained by state and local authorities. It is unclear whether Kessler's<br>ruling applies to those detainees.<br><br>As of June 11, when the government released its latest figures, 74 people were still held on immigration violations and 73 were<br>in custody on criminal charges. None of the people detained since Sept. 11 has been charged with terrorism.<br><br>The vast majority have been released or deported, though an unknown number are still held as material witnesses. Kessler<br>called the government's use of the material witness statute "deeply troubling" and said the public "has no idea whether there are<br>40, 400 or possibly more people in detention on material witness warrants."<br><br>Kessler wrote that the identities of 26 material witnesses have been disclosed publicly and questioned whether the witnesses<br>were actually being held to testify before grand juries investigating terrorism, as the government has claimed. At least eight such<br>material witnesses were released "and never testified before a grand jury," she wrote.<br><br>The government has argued repeatedly that releasing the detainees' names could undermine the terror investigation and national<br>security. Disclosure would subject the detainees to possible intimidation or coercion, the government argued, and provide a<br>potential "road map" of the investigation to terrorists.<br><br>Kessler, a Clinton appointee who has come under fire from conservatives for previous decisions, including a February ruling<br>that ordered the release of thousands of pages of records about Vice President Cheney's energy task force, called the<br>government's argument "unpersuasive.<br><br>"Unquestionably," she wrote, "the public's interest in learning the identities of those arrested and detained is essential to verifying<br>whether the government is operating within the bounds of the law."<br><br>Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Kessler's order "puts the rule of law over the<br>Justice Department's unilateralism." Leahy and other Judiciary Committee members have frequently complained about a lack of<br>information about the Bush administration's strategies to combat terrorism since Sept. 11.<br><br>But Ruth Wedgwood, a Yale University law professor and terrorism expert, said Kessler's ruling is open to criticism on several<br>grounds. Legislators and the courts have staked out relatively broad exceptions to the Freedom of Information Act based on<br>threats to national security, she noted.<br><br>"If you asked whether Congress intended FOIA to be used to undermine the conduct of a war, I doubt that the answer would<br>be yes," she said.<br>|special|
Civil Liberties Eroding fast in New American at 'war with terrorism'|http://www.middleeast.org/world/nytimes22.htm|Osama bin laden and those who truly hate the US hvae indeed had a massive negative political, economic, and cultural impact; and the struggle is only in mid-stream.|off|
The Wait of Success - Cheesecake Factory|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38908-2002Aug3.html||hidden|
US to try Image Repairing In Permanent Way|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18822-2002Jul29?language=printer|Bush to Create Formal Office To Shape U.S. Image Abroad <br><br><br>By Karen DeYoung<br>Washington Post Staff Writer<br>Tuesday, July 30, 2002; Page A01 <br><br><br><br>The Bush White House has decided to transform what was a temporary effort to rebut Taliban disinformation about the Afghan war into a permanent, fully staffed "Office of Global Communications" to coordinate the administration's foreign policy message and supervise America's image abroad, according to senior officials.<br><br>The office, due to be up and running by fall, will allow the White House to exert more control over what has become one of the hottest areas of government and private-sector initiatives since Sept. 11. Known as "public diplomacy," it attempts to address the question President Bush posed in his speech to Congress the week after the terrorist attacks: "Why do they hate us?"<br><br>At the time, Bush was referring to the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "They hate our freedoms," he has repeatedly said since then. But as demonstrations, boycotts and other expressions of anti-Americanism have spread across the Islamic world and beyond, the question has taken on broader meaning -- and the need for a broader response.<br><br>A senior administration official said the goal of the office was not to supplant the State Department, which has primary responsibility for "telling America's story" overseas, or replace other agencies with international outreach functions. The office, he said, would add "thematic and strategic value," along with presidential clout, to their efforts.<br><br>"If you were to ask people representing the government who travel, who serve overseas -- even leading Americans -- 'What does America want to say to people in the world? What are the top three points? What is the answer?' that has to come from the top," the official said.<br><br>Headed by a yet-to-be-named "counselor to the president," the office would expand many of the responsibilities of the White House Coalition Information Center, established shortly after the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan began last fall. <br><br>High-ranking officials from here and Britain made scores of Arab media appearances in what the White House considers one of the most successful efforts to assure the Arab world that the United States has not launched a global anti-Muslim campaign. Even as it was booking guests on Qatar-based al-Jazeera, the White House Coalition Information Center was laying out a uniform, daily message to communicate across high- and low-tech media outlets. It is that level of management, undertaken quickly and effectively across the administration, that the White House thinks it will be able to continue.<br><br>The new office is the brainchild of senior Bush adviser Karen P. Hughes, architect of the administration's efforts to ensure a uniform message on domestic policy. Although Hughes returned to live in Texas early this month, officials said she will remain closely involved in the new operation.<br><br>Charlotte Beers, the advertising agency executive Bush appointed last year to the State Department's top public diplomacy job, said one of the September lessons still being learned "is that we can and should do more to educate, and influence the attitudes of, foreign audiences toward our country."<br><br>Graham E. Fuller, a former vice chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council and a longtime Near East analyst for the agency, said that during years of living and traveling in the Middle East, "I have never felt such an extraordinary gap between the two worlds. . . . Clearly, in a region where we desperately need friends and supporters, their number is dwindling, and we are increasingly on the defensive."<br><br>"How has this state of affairs come about?" House International Relations Committee Chairman Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) said in a speech last month to the Council on Foreign Relations. "How is it that the country that invented Hollywood and Madison Avenue has allowed such a destructive and parodied image of itself to become the intellectual coin of the realm overseas?"<br><br>Hyde shares a widespread conviction that a major part of the problem has been poor salesmanship. In this view, the best way to fight a negative image is to increase the flow of positive information, using every tool at the United States' command, including the most modern information technology, student exchanges and placement of overseas American libraries.<br><br>Some critics question whether expanding and improving delivery will help if there is no change in the message. "If fundamental policies are seen to be flawed, a prettied-up package will not make a difference," Fuller told a recent meeting of the bipartisan U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.<br><br>The problem is particularly acute in the Middle East, he said, a part of the world where U.S. support for Israel and for non-democratic regimes are seen as fundamental tenets of wrongheaded American policy. "Immense interest in American culture" remains, along with approval of the U.S. political system and domestic freedoms, Fuller said. But he said "there is a sense of double standards" among Arab youth who say: " 'We want your political values. It is you we perceive as not applying them in any consistent way.' "<br><br>Through polling, focus groups and fact-finding missions, the administration has been exploring how to enhance the image of the United States.<br><br>Among the first ventures is Radio Sawa, a 24-hour U.S. government radio station that began broadcasting to the Arab world last spring. A far cry from the wordy, editorializing Voice of America that has been the centerpiece of U.S. government broadcasting since World War II, Radio Sawa is modeled after Top-100 FM stations in this country.<br><br>Sawa, which means "together" in Arabic, uses market research to select a frequently updated playlist of American and Arab pop music that will appeal to young Arab listeners. Although there are plans to add more substantive programming, its current editorial content is a brief news bulletin twice an hour.<br><br>In a promotional prototype of future programming, Mohammed, an Arab youth, calls a radio talk show to say: "I want to know why the United States is fighting a war against Islam." In response, the station plays an excerpt from one of many Bush speeches on the peaceful nature of Islam and the ways in which terrorists have perverted it.<br><br>The State Department has begun producing what Beers calls "mini-documentaries on Muslim life in America" to air on satellite stations in the Middle East. Having dismantled, for budgetary and security reasons, most of the once-ubiquitous American Cultural Centers and libraries around the world, the State Department plans to expand the "American Room" concept begun in Russia in the early 1990s. Corners of Americana established with local staff in existing local libraries or other cultural sites, the "rooms" are considered less appealing as terrorist targets.<br><br>With these efforts in their infancy, it is unclear how effective they will be. "We're reinventing the wheel," Walter R. Roberts, a veteran of high posts in public diplomacy efforts in previous administrations and a consultant to the advisory commission, said of the American Rooms at a recent commission meeting.<br><br>One Arab American who has closely followed public diplomacy developments said, "We need to ally ourselves with the right people. Our embassies need to go out and mingle. They hang out with the elites and don't engage those who resent us" but who have not turned to violence. "It's like a campaign," said this observer. "You've got to go after the swing voters."<br><br>Beers says this is precisely the attitude she is trying to instill. She has pledged that all U.S. diplomats, no matter what their rank, will receive more extensive training in the American "message" of democracy, personal freedom and free markets and learn how to spread it through local societies. Recruitment programs now emphasize public affairs, long considered near the bottom of the diplomatic career ladder, as an increasingly important specialty. Early this year, Beers brought U.S. embassy public affairs officers from around the world to Washington for a morale-boosting conference.<br><br>Congress has also moved into the public diplomacy arena. The House last week passed, with no opposition, a Hyde-sponsored bill that eventually would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the public diplomacy budget, expand the responsibilities of Beers's office, establish civilian exchange programs in the Muslim world and fund round-the-clock satellite television to the Middle East. Similar efforts are underway in the Senate.<br><br>Hollywood has signed on to help, although early flag-waving has evolved in most cases into nervousness about being drawn into a less clear-cut propaganda effort.<br><br>Almost every public policy think tank, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution, has held symposiums and offered advice. Today, the Council on Foreign Relations will weigh in with the release of "Strategy for Reform," the result of a month-long public diplomacy study by a private-sector task force.<br><br>But while there is a torrent of new attention, concern over how the United States is perceived abroad and what the government should do to influence foreign attitudes is a well-worn subject in Washington.<br><br>President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first to identify a target audience overseas with his Office of War Information, which created the Voice of America and established American Information Centers in liberated areas of Europe.<br><br>During the Cold War, President Harry S. Truman launched a "Campaign of Truth" that he said was "as important as armed strength or economic aid" in the battle against communism. Its most memorable creation was the U.S. International Information Administration, which established overseas libraries and foreign exchange programs. Under Dwight D. Eisenhower, it became the United States Information Agency.<br><br>Eisenhower rejected placing the agency under presidential control, and direct White House involvement was not revived until Ronald Reagan took office. In a classified, January 1983 National Security Decision Directive, Reagan placed responsibility for "overall planning, direction, coordination and monitoring of implementation of public diplomacy activities" under the National Security Council.<br><br>Relative global peace and a search for cuts in the federal bureaucracy made USIA a natural target for the Clinton administration, and there were few complaints when it was eliminated as a separate agency in 1999. By September 2001, the White House viewed public diplomacy as a back-burner enterprise for a superpower with unilateral interests and responsibilities.<br><br>Christopher Ross, a State Department specialist in Middle Eastern affairs who returned to government last year as "special coordinator" in Beers's office, said, "In the 10 years between the Cold War and September 11, we had forgotten about the outside world." The harsh anti-American rhetoric and images that had begun to overtake initial responses of international sympathy and support, he said, "showed us what people think of us, and we were shocked."<br><br>|off|
It's 'Gaza First' Time Again - Another Quisling Palestinian Group to be created||'Gaza First' was the cry from the Israeli 'left' before Oslo.  Now it's the cry from the Sharon-led Israeli government.  In common was and is the plan to create a quisling, controlled, armed, and financed 'Palestinian regime' to control the increasingly isolated Palestinian population, especially those in the concentration camp called Gaza.<br>-----------------------<br><br><br>Sharon gives the nod to `Gaza first' plan <br> <br>By Aluf Benn <br> <br> <br> <br> <br>Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday authorized a "Gaza first" plan proposed by Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. The plan is designed to promote quiet in the territories, particularly in areas that have witnessed relatively little violence, in coordination with Palestinian Authority security officials. <br><br>Ben-Eliezer is expected to present the plan to PA Interior Minister Abed Razek Yehiyeh. This meeting, however, is likely to be delayed, owing to yesterday's terror attack in Jerusalem. <br><br>According to an Israeli security official, the plan features steps to be undertaken by Israel and the PA without a fixed timetable. The results of each step are to be reviewed before subsequent ones are carried out. Israel proposes to implement the plan first in the Gaza Strip, where PA security mechanisms have not been disrupted, along with selected cities on the West Bank (Jericho, Hebron and Bethlehem). <br><br>Palestinian security men are to take responsibility for security affairs in areas in which the plan is implemented. Initial phases will aim at the attainment of quiet, even by way of talks with local terror operatives. "Should they [PA officials] attain quiet under an agreement, we will not oppose it," the Israeli official said, alluding to such talks. <br><br>The Palestinian security men will also be asked to take steps against terrorists, including arrests and the confiscation of weapons. But the Israeli official emphasizes: "the goals aren't overly ambitious. We don't seek objectives that will not be fulfilled; we're looking for things that can be done." <br><br>In exchange for Palestinian action, Israel will reduce troop deployments, and eventually withdraw its army from A areas (which were under full PA control under the Oslo Accords) in which the plan is in effect. Also, Israel will dismantle roadblocks, and allow Palestinian laborers to cross the Green Line. The scope of such alleviation measures will conform to the scope of anti-terror steps taken by the PA security men under the agreement, explained the Israeli source.<br> <br>|special|
Palestinians Moving Toward Chemical Weapons?|Pentagon: Hamas experimenting with chemical weapons |Who knows at this point what is real and what is propaganda...  That said the following report leaked in Washington:<br><br>Pentagon: Hamas experimenting with chemical weapons <br> <br><br><br>SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM<br>Wednesday, July 31, 2002<br>WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has determined that the Hamas terrorist organization has been conducting research in the use of chemical weapons for suicide bombers.<br><br>U.S. officials said the Islamic militant group has experimented with explosives and chemicals that could spread lethal agents over a wide area.<br><br>"Some of the groups, like Hamas, are exploring ways to utilize WMD," Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Marshall Billingslea said. "Hamas is working with poisons and chemicals and an effort to coat suicide bomber fragments."<br><br>In testimony to the Senate International Security subcommittee on Monday, Billingslea said Hamas's efforts represent a growing focus by Islamic insurgency groups to develop biological and chemical weapons. The Pentagon official said Hamas and other group could be obtaining help from such countries as Iran, Iraq and Syria, who are themselves pursuing WMD programs.<br><br>Hamas might be obtaining help in the WMD effort from other Islamic groups as well as such state terror sponsors as Iran and Syria, the officials said.<br><br>They said Hamas has benefited from the use of commercial and dual-use material for their development of weapons of mass destruction.<br><br>"With increasing frequency since the mid-1980s, we have seen a steady growth in the awareness of, and interest in, WMD by terrorist groups," Billingslea said. "These groups are aggressively trying to procure the necessary materials to conduct such an attack."<br><br>U.S. officials said the equipment required for the production of biological and chemical weapons are small and can fit into a small auditorium. They said WMD can be constructed or adapted from commonly-available materials or systems, such as pesticide sprayers.<br><br>Billingslea said Hamas and other Islamic groups might have obtained training facilities from such countries as Iran, Iraq and Syria to pursue the development of biological and chemical weapons. Hamas has offices in Lebanon, Syria and Iran.<br><br>"First, these countries give wide latitude to terrorist groups that operate within their borders," Billingslea said. 'Terrorists are able to establish training and research camps where they are free to develop WMD and to perfect their plans for delivery." <br><br>[On Tuesday, a Palestinian blew himself up in downtown Jerusalem, injuring five Israelis. The ruling Fatah movement claimed responsibility for the attack.]<br><br><br><br>|off|
Israeli father of murdered son denouces and exposes Israelis policies||An Israeli father whose son was kidnapped and murdered by <br>Hamas, speaks out against Israelis policies and the myth of "major" concession made at Camp David.  <br><br>MSNBC News<br>Transcript of  'Donahue' for August 1  <br><br>Guest: Jesse Jackson, Yitzhak Frankenthal, Steven Flatow,<br><br><br>       DONAHUE: When the smoke finally settled from yesterday's explosion at <br>the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, seven were left dead, five of whom held <br>American citizenships. Here's how President Bush reacted today.<br>       (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)<br>       GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm just as angry as <br>Israel is right now. I'm furious that innocent lives were lost. However, <br>through my fury, even though I am mad, I still believe peace is possible. <br>       (END VIDEO CLIP)<br>       DONAHUE: Any time a parent loses a child who's barely out of their <br>teens, beyond grief. But it's even more tragic when the children are innocent <br>victims of the crossfires of war. <br>       Jewish American Stephen Flatow is here. He lost his 20-year-old <br>daughter, Alisa, to a suicide bomber in 1995. <br>       And we are joined by Yitzhak Frankenthal, an orthodox Jew from Israel. <br>He's on the satellite from Jerusalem. He lost his 19-year-old son when he was <br>kidnapped and murdered by Hamas in 1994. <br>       Well, Mr. Frankenthal, your son was killed at age 19. <br>       YITZHAK FRANKENTHAL, ISRAELI PEACE ACTIVIST: Yes. <br>       DONAHUE: This is so tough to just try. I appreciate both of you being <br>here. You are here to honor the memory of your children, your young adult <br>children. May I share with our audience, Mr. Frankenthal, part of a speech <br>you gave just last Saturday in front of the prime minister's residence? <br>       Here is part of what you said: "My beloved son, my own flesh and <br>blood, was murdered by Palestinians. My tall, blue-eyed, golden-haired son, <br>who was always smiling with the innocence of a child and the understanding of <br>an adult. My son."<br>       "If to hit his killers, innocent Palestinian children and other <br>civilians would have to be killed, I would ask the security forces to wait <br>for another opportunity. If the security forces were to kill innocent <br>Palestinians as well, I would tell them they were no better than my son's <br>killers." <br>       "The Palestinians cannot drive us away," you said. "They have long <br>acknowledged our existence. They have been ready to make peace with us. It is <br>we who are unwilling to make peace with them. It is we who insist on <br>maintaining our control over them. It is we who escalate the situation in the <br>region and feed the cycle of bloodshed. I regret to say, but the blame is <br>entirely ours."<br>       "I do not mean to absolve the Palestinians and by no means justify <br>attacks against Israeli civilians. No attack against civilians can be <br>condoned." <br>       Well, Mr. Frankenthal, sir, how were you received with that speech? <br>       FRANKENTHAL: It's very difficult. I think that the situation in the <br>Middle East, it's worse day by day. And unfortunately, you cannot see that <br>it's going to stop. There is only one way to stop the hatred, by making <br>reconciliation and peace. There's no other way. <br>       DONAHUE: But I would have to guess that you are-your views were not <br>well-received by fellow Jews. <br>       FRANKENTHAL: I will tell you that during the last two years, of <br>course, most of the Israelis got completely the other view. Two years before, <br>most of the Israelis, the majority, they have been ready to make compromises <br>with the Palestinians, the same views that I got. <br>       And unfortunately, since September 2000, the people have lost the <br>view. And they're thinking that we can get peace with the Palestinians. So <br>I'm talking with a Palestinian and we are sitting with the Palestinian. We <br>are over 200 Israeli parents working together, with 200 Palestinian bereaved <br>parents. We are working together to try to establish reconciliation.<br>       Let's look at Mr. Flatow. Your daughter, the prime of her life, <br>20-year-old. You feel about her as he feels about his son. May we have your <br>response? <br>       STEPHEN FLATOW, DAUGHTER KILLED IN '95 BUS BOMBING: I'm mad at the <br>Palestinian parents that Yitzhak has been dealing with, who have taken to the <br>street. Who have let their children become the buffer between militiamen and <br>Israeli soldiers, who have turned their children into suicide bombers, and <br>who now are planting bombs in college cafeterias. <br>       If there's going to be a change in the Palestinian-Israeli relations, <br>it has to start with the Palestinians. They have to stop feeding their <br>children a diet of hatred and unrealistic promises. If Yitzhak is correct in <br>his assessment, then I think he just might as well put the key under the <br>doormat, leave the door open and shut the lights out and go someplace else. <br>       DONAHUE: Mr. Frankenthal?<br>       FRANKENTHAL: Stephen is talking about the Palestinians like they need <br>to do steps. But unfortunately, the situation is that we are the conqueror. <br>We are those people got all those Palestinian cities and all those <br>occupation. And if we would like to see that the Palestinians will stop what <br>they are doing, we need to stop the occupation. <br>       There's no way to have on one side the occupation, and from the other <br>side to tell the Palestinians, stop what you are doing. We need to stop the <br>occupation, then the Palestinians will stop what they're doing. There is no <br>other way. <br>       You know, Yitzhak Rabin was not stupid. He said, I will fight against <br>the terror like I am not talking peace. And I will make peace like I am not <br>fighting the terror. Why Ariel Sharon is not doing this? <br>       FLATOW: I'm not going to speak for Ariel Sharon, Yitzhak. You know, <br>you and I are both still grieving parents. But I will tell you that we cannot <br>allow people to blow up children on buses or in pizza parlors. We cannot <br>allow kidnapers to grab your son off a road and murder them. <br>       Your son did nothing wrong. My daughter did nothing wrong. The people <br>at the Hebrew University yesterday did nothing wrong. And that's what has to <br>be stopped. And if it requires a military response by the Israeli government <br>to do it, then that's what must be done to eliminate these terrorists that <br>are in your midst. <br>       FRANKENTHAL: Stephen, I agree with you 100 percent that our children <br>should have stayed alive. And there is no excuse for those suicide bombers, <br>and there is no excuse for these terror attacks. I agree with you 100 <br>percent. There is no question about it. <br>       But the question is, why those people have got such motivation, to be <br>suicide bombers? What pushed them? What makes 3.5 million people to be crazy? <br>There is only one answer, no other. The occupation. <br>       FLATOW: I don't buy it, Yitzhak. Look, Israel did not occupy the West <br>Bank until 1967. The PLO was formed before then. Terrorist attacks began <br>before then. I'm just afraid that what we're being lulled into, if we accept <br>your position, is that we're going to create a state on the other side that <br>has nothing in their goal but to destroy the state of Israel. <br>       DONAHUE: I regret, I cannot...<br>       FRANKENTHAL: Stephen...<br>       DONAHUE: You had one more thing to say.<br>       FRANKENTHAL: You are going to the past. In the past, you are right 100 <br>percent. It was the fighting against the Israelis and unfortunately, look <br>what's happened. <br>       But the question is, what do you like to do? To go to the past and to <br>lose the future? To lose our children's lives? Now in the present, the <br>Palestinians are ready to make peace with us. So let's do peace. <br>       Even the Egyptians. In the past, they didn't want to make peace. And <br>look what's going today with the Egyptians. Why to live in the past? Why not <br>to do today what we need to do? <br>       DONAHUE: Stephen will have an opportunity to say, and then I must <br>break. Sir. <br>       FLATOW: Yitzhak, Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians everything they <br>wanted and more. And not only did they say no, they didn't come back with a <br>concrete proposal. And if you think that there's peace between Israel and <br>Egypt at this time, it is the coldest peace in the history of mankind. <br>       DONAHUE: I thank you both, gentlemen, and hope we'll have a chance to <br>revisit with both of you. Your views are very respected. <br>       And we'll be back with Jesse Jackson in just a moment. <br>       (COMMERCIAL BREAK)<br>       DONAHUE: Stephen Flatow is with us. As you have been told, he lost his <br>daughter in April of 1995. She was 20 and she was killed in a bombing of a <br>public bus. Yitzhak Frankenthal is on the line, an orthodox Jew who lives in <br>Jerusalem, whose 19-year-old son, Eric, was kill by Hamas gunmen in 1994. <br>       Reverend Jackson, sir, you're on the line from Chicago. You just got <br>back from the Middle East. You've heard this very painful conversation <br>between these two grieving fathers. Life will never be the same for them <br>again. What do you think, as you listened in? <br>       REV. JESSE JACKSON, URGES NON-VIOLENCE IN MIDEAST: You know, last <br>night I went to the hospital in Jerusalem. I watched children lying there <br>with faces burned up beyond recognition, and nails shot through their bodies. <br>And so I'm sensitive to the pain that both of them share. <br>       The question is, shall we engage in more retaliation, which begets <br>retaliation? Or shall somebody stop retaliation, move toward reconciliation <br>and reconstruction and negotiation? And I would hope that the going forward <br>of a reconciliation, and the cease-fire would be our objective. <br>       Because if Israel responds with one more round, it will be met with <br>one more round. There will just be more children dead. <br>       DONAHUE: There is, however, Mr. Flatow has got to be respected for his <br>anguish at the failure of the-you know, do we believe Arafat really wants to <br>stop these suicide bombers? Do we see the sincerity? <br>       JACKSON: See, that might be the simplistic analysis. You know, we met <br>with Arafat after having met with Mr. Peres and Ben-Eliezer twice in <br>Jerusalem. And Arafat and his council met, make an appeal for a cease-fire, <br>end terror, end suicide bombers, reaching out to Hamas. Apparently, had <br>gotten them to agree on agree some kind of tentative cease-fire. Within four <br>hours, the F-16 American-made plane and the bombs dropped. <br>       Then Hamas said, we will retaliate. And of course, they did. What <br>amazes me is that when they said, we will retaliate, we have not talked with <br>them to ask them to not retaliate. <br>       We have not said to them, there's a way out. Let's stop it now. Let's <br>choose negotiation and reconciliation over more confrontation. We've taken <br>pride in not talking. If you don't talk, you don't act, you don't change <br>things, ever. <br>       DONAHUE: Yes. Did you want to say briefly...<br>       FLATOW: What I want to say is that Chairman Arafat has aggregated his <br>responsibility to destroy the Hamas and Islamic Jihad infrastructure that <br>exists under his jurisdiction. <br>       Reverend Jackson, my daughter's killers are walking free in the West <br>Bank and the Gaza Strip. Why hasn't he arrested them? Why hasn't he brought <br>them on trial? <br>       And according to the Oslo Accords, the Israelis demanded their <br>extradition to Israel. He has refused. The man is not committed to destroying <br>the very groups that are looking to destroy...<br>       DONAHUE: Reverend Jackson answers Mr. Flatow's question, when we <br>return in just a moment. <br>       (COMMERCIAL BREAK)<br>       DONAHUE: Can you wear this T-shirt to high school? Can you make fun of <br>the president in your high school newspaper? Two teenagers fighting for their <br>rights as Americans step forward on DONAHUE after the news, from MSNBC News <br>headquarters.<br>       (NEWS BREAK)<br>       DONAHUE: Talking with two Jewish fathers who paid the ultimate price, <br>lost children to the Middle East conflict. Stephen Flatow is here. His <br>daughter was killed with the bus she was riding was hit by a suicide bomber. <br>>From Israel, Yitzhak Frankenthal, whose 19-year-old son Ara (ph) was <br>kidnapped and murdered by Hamas in 1994. We're also joined by the Reverend <br>Jesse Jackson, who just returned from a peace mission to Israel.<br>       When we last were with you, Mr. Flatow had asked Reverend Jackson why <br>are his daughter's killers still out there? In other words, he is entitled to <br>some evidence that there is a response by the Palestinians to this kind of <br>heinous behavior.<br>       JACKSON: Well, there must be a response, but the question really is <br>twofold here, a retaliation which will begat a retaliation, or some move back <br>toward the bargaining table, rather than battlefield. Now there is tank <br>movement to Nablus tonight, I understand for example.<br>       DONAHUE: That is correct. Dozens of Israeli tanks have moved into <br>Nablus to, it is reported, remove relatives of those who have been aggressing <br>or creating acts of terrorism against Israelis.<br>       JACKSON: Well, when I was there, Nablus had already been under curfew. <br>People have been denied their work permits. People, eight and ten living in <br>two rooms without electricity, some dying because they can not get the <br>dialysis machines to work. Some children could not take their exams to go to <br>college. <br>       And so, you have despair on the Palestinian side and in some sense of <br>fear on the Israeli side, but as you recycle despair and you recycle fear, we <br>need hope and hope is above fear and despair and that's why we need an honest <br>broker.<br>       I think Israelis and Palestinians are trapped in a death grip and <br>neither can turn the other loose because of recycling. That's why the U.S. <br>should be involved to be the honest broker. If in fact a U.S. plane dropped <br>that bomb in the Gaza and killed innocent people: a) we should have said that <br>we're sorry if that's not our policy. If Hamas said we're going to retaliate, <br>we should try to convince them to not retaliate.<br>       DONAHUE: Yes.<br>       JACKSON: Again, we choose not to talk.<br>       DONAHUE: Mr. Frankenthal, you're listening.<br>       FRANKENTHAL: I must say a few things. Number one, if the Palestinians <br>will watch on their people as terrorists and not as soldiers, that will <br>happen only after it will be peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians <br>and then the matter of the daughter of Stephen Flatow, there will be rest. <br>But in the time being, they can not see those people who have reacted against <br>the Israelis, against the people here in Israel as terrorists. They are <br>looking at them, watching them as soldiers as a conqueror, number one.<br>       Number two, Mr. Flatow has said that Ehud Barak gave almost everything <br>to Arafat, but it's not correct. It's (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's something that <br>we need to understand that we the Israelis we got the red line but the <br>Palestinians got also a red line. So we didn't come to the red lines of the <br>Palestinians, but we came to the red line of the Israelis and the <br>Palestinians were ready to accept the red lines of the Israelis, but we <br>haven't been ready to accept the red lines of the Palestinians.<br>       And number three, you know we are, as Israeli patriots, we are doing <br>what we are doing only because we believe that there is only one way to stop <br>what's going in the Middle East. It's to make reconciliation and to make <br>compromises, and there is only one way to achieve peace and security. There <br>is no other way, only this way to sit together and look Sharon, he didn't sit <br>even one time with Arafat, so what do you expect from Arafat?<br>       DONAHUE: Let's give Stephen a chance here.<br>       FRANKENTHAL: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Arafat.<br>       DONAHUE: Yes, go ahead.<br>       FLATOW: Yitzhak, when I hear Palestinian parents talking as eloquently <br>as you have just spoken about reconciliation, then I will believe there's a <br>chance. You're very fortunate. You live...<br>       FRANKENTHAL: No problem. You can hear them. You can hear them all day.<br>       FLATOW: Let them say it in Nablus. Let them say it in Ramallah. Let <br>them say it in Gaza. We just don't see that (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...<br>       FRANKENTHAL: We've got it taped. The Israelis we've got it taped in <br>the video. We can send it to you.<br>       (CROSSTALK)<br>       FLATOW: I want to see it on Al-Jazeera. I want to see it...<br>       FRANKENTHAL: Last March it has been in the United States and they talk <br>to the Americans like I'm talking.<br>       FLATOW: That's correct, and that's not Al-Jazeera and it's not the <br>West Bank and it's not Jordan.<br>       FRANKENTHAL: This is the situation.<br>       FLATOW: I understand what you're saying, Yitzhak, and I still, like I <br>said before, I grieve with you over your loss, but we can't leave the door <br>open and walk away from the country.<br>       FRANKENTHAL: Phil, no one would like to go out of the country. It's my <br>country. I would like to stay here. I would like my children to stay here. I <br>would like you to come here to visit here whenever you go.<br>       FLATOW: My son will be there in August.<br>       FRANKENTHAL: It's our country.<br>       FLATOW: My son will be there in August to study.<br>       FRANKENTHAL: Welcome. Welcome.<br>       DONAHUE: Yes. We certainly can not challenge Mr. Flatow's devotion and <br>allegiance to the State of Israel; five children, all five studying in Israel <br>including a son that's going upcoming.<br>       FLATOW: In August.<br>       DONAHUE: Well, dad...<br>       JACKSON: Phil. Phil.<br>       DONAHUE: Yes.<br>       JACKSON: Phil, it seems to me that if we can step up a step above the <br>pain just for a moment, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) an end game, coexisting states for <br>Palestinians and Israelis, end the occupation, end the settlements, end the <br>Intifada, and bring relief to the Palestinian despair and some hope for the <br>Israeli fear. That's the end game. <br>       But the U.S. is not there at the tunnel to get to the end of the game. <br>We take the position now; we would not talk and negotiate for the end unless <br>Arafat is no longer their leader. Well, democratically he was elected by them <br>or recognized by the Arab states, by the European Union, by the United <br>Nations. We can not not negotiate based upon an undemocratic recommendation.<br>       FLATOW: Reverend Jackson.<br>       JACKSON: The Israelis - yes.<br>       FRANKENTHAL: You're 100 percent right.<br>       FLATOW: Do you believe that...<br>       FRANKENTHAL: You're 100 percent right.<br>       FLATOW: ...the Israelis are wrong in asking for a cessation of terror <br>attacks before they go back to the table with the Palestinians?<br>       JACKSON: They are right to ask for cessation of terror attacks but you <br>have kind of two simultaneous things. One, on the one hand the reason we <br>appeal so fervently to Arafat and the council, come public in Arabic and <br>English to be against terror attacks, against suicide bombings and ceasefire.<br>       FLATOW: But sir, yesterday Arafat blamed Ariel Sharon for the attack. <br>He said "I condemn it but it's Sharon's fault."<br>       JACKSON: But he condemned it but his point was that the extreme <br>repressive measures are creating a basic ration-and we must not make the <br>Palestinian Council and Hamas the same. When we were fighting in the South <br>African thing, there was Mandela and ANC. There was PAC. There were <br>distinctions between various groups. <br>       Hamas is a very different group. They are philosophically opposed to <br>Israel's right to exist. That's a very different group. They've said that <br>when their leader was killed in that bombing, we're going to get you back. <br>What amazed me, we did not talk with the people who said they were going to <br>retaliate and they did. We got to talk even with our enemies if we're going <br>to seek some reconciliation. We must talk even with our enemies if we see <br>reconciliation.<br>       DONAHUE: Right, but you were going to meet with Hamas, were you not?<br>       JACKSON: I was and I was going to meet with them because they said we <br>will retaliate. We wanted to convince them to choose negotiation over <br>retaliation, to join a ceasefire and give peace a chance, because war had <br>failed.<br>       DONAHUE: Yes.<br>       JACKSON: But when the bomb blew up we chose to go the hospital to <br>visit the injured children and the dead instead.<br>       DONAHUE: Yes. Mr. Flatow, the suggestion is that your understandable <br>response will just lead a spiral down, down, down, more deaths, more young <br>people, and I guess what Yitzhak and what Reverend Jackson are trying to do <br>is stop that cycle and see if we can't in the memory of your daughter and all <br>those who died reach some kind of cooling off period where peace will have a <br>chance.<br>       FLATOW: The United States is waging a war of terror at the present <br>time. The State of Israel should not be held to a double standard when it <br>comes to their fight to survive.<br>       DONAHUE: Let me get you one more time, Mr. Frankenthal, give you an <br>opportunity to make your point. You've been listening in. What would you want <br>to say before we break here?<br>       FRANKENTHAL: I would like to say that there is only one way to stop <br>the hatred and to stop the bloodshed and to stop the terror and both side <br>terror. It's not only the Palestinian terror. It's also from the Israeli side <br>unfortunately, I must say it, because if you are conquered, you can not <br>accept those people to live under the occupation and to be ready to lose <br>2,000 people of them since September, over 2,000 people of them since <br>September, 2000, and to ask them to be a good people and to be ready to pay <br>more and more price because we are conqueror. Now there is only one way to <br>stop it, sit together and make reconciliation, make compromise and make <br>peace. This is the only way.<br>       DONAHUE: Reverend Jackson, I'll throw you a short pass here before we <br>break. Iraq's foreign minister has sent a letter to U.N. Secretary General <br>Kofi Annan asking that Chief Inspector Hans Blix (ph) a U.N. weapons expert <br>come to Baghdad at the earliest agreed upon time. Did you know about that?<br>       JACKSON: I did not but it's a step in the right direction. To attack <br>Iraq is to further destabilize the region. I hope that in that case <br>containment and negotiation prevails over some isolationist preemptive <br>strike. That's hopefully a breath of fresh air.<br>       DONAHUE: OK, let's understand these latest developments now, Israeli <br>tanks rolling into Nablus reportedly to seek out the relatives of those who <br>have been killing Israelis, and also we have Iraq apparently saying U.N. <br>inspectors, come in, we'll talk. Well, these are hardly small issues but we <br>have to wait to see.<br>       JACKSON: Phil.<br>       DONAHUE: Yes.<br>       JACKSON: Phil, one of my concerns now is that the U.S. has become the <br>new theater for this war. It's not just the Israeli-Palestinian war. We're so <br>invested in the area financially and militarily, now we're becoming the <br>object of the vilification, so we have a national interest at reconciliation <br>and reconstruction and negotiation. America's absence in this debate between <br>these two pained fathers is what's troubling to me. Our absence in this, in <br>the center of this debate, is a void that must be filled in a meaningful way <br>and early on.<br>       DONAHUE: We thank you all very much for this contribution to a dialog <br>that we hope will at least make a small step forward toward what we all want <br>and that is safety for our children in everybody's neighborhood. <br><br>|special|
More about the Jenin 'Massacre' - Call it what you will||<br>The devastation [in Jenin] was horrifying, and far larger than the 100m by 100m which the Israeli army subsequently defined as the area of damage. Among the first people we met were two small Palestinian children, inside a half-bulldozed house which was in danger of collapsing on their heads. Other children were wandering around Jenin's now notorious field of ruins, which turned out to be littered with unexploded munitions, leading people to buildings containing fetid-smelling corpses. I was – I freely admit this – both appalled and furious. I felt then, as I do now, that Israel's actions would in the long run only lead to more suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. (These did not take long to resume). I felt then, as I do now, that it was an act of collective punishment against many innocent civilians. And I felt, as I do now, that the horrendous attacks against Israelis by Palestinian suicide bombers do not absolve Israel's government from its responsibility to respect international law.<br><br><br>The Independent (U.K.)<br><br>Saturday, August 3, 2001<br><br>Commentary<br><br>Phil Reeves: Even journalists have to admit they're wrong sometimes<br>03 August 2002<br><br>One of the hardest aspects of covering the Middle East is admitting to a mistake. A veteran commentator once told me that it was usually best to fudge the issue. This was not because of any desire on his part to be dishonest, but because of the risk that such an admission will be exploited and distorted by the region's many propagandists.<br><br>He has a powerful point. Foreign correspondents who have been covering the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians have grown used to working under constant verbal assault from lobbyists who quote their work out of context.<br><br>Yet I disagree with him. Impartial readers of serious newspapers are well aware that errors of fact and judgement happen in journalism, especially amid the hectic pace, horror and confusion of a war. Contrary to popular belief, most journalists dislike getting it wrong – and prefer to set the record straight.<br><br>Two days ago, one of my mistakes came back to haunt me. I was travelling in a taxi through Cambridge when the news began on the car radio. A United Nations report into Israel's offensive against the main Palestinians towns in the West Bank last Spring has found that there was no massacre in Jenin refugee camp, said the headline. The driver gave a bored sigh and turned off the radio in favour of a CD.<br><br>But, to me, it was a jolt. It was clear that the debate over the awful events in Jenin four months ago is still dominated by whether there was a massacre, even though it has long been obvious that one did not occur.<br><br>Other crucial issues – the evidence, for example, of individual atrocities committed by the Israeli army, and the question of whether Israel's major military offensive in the West Bank was either a legitimate or an effective response to the (utterly unjustifiable) murder of Israeli civilians by Palestinian suicide bombers – have generally been overshadowed. This is precisely what Israel's government publicists must have hoped would happen.<br><br>Palestinian officials must bear much blame for this. Some days after the fighting subsided in Jenin – after claiming the lives of 23 Israeli soldiers and an estimated 52 Palestinian fighters and civilians – I telephoned a very senior Palestinian official to see whether he would now at least privately concede that claims of a massacre were untrue. "No," he replied, "There is no question there was a massacre. It definitely happened." By then, I was sure he was wrong. I suspect he did, too.<br><br>But, regrettably, I also made a contribution. On 15 April, I was among a small number of foreign correspondents who sneaked into Jenin refugee camp at considerable personal risk. The Israeli army had declared the camp, which is on land which is supposed to be under Palestinian autonomous rule, to be a "closed military zone" and were barring access to the press, ambulances and aid agencies.<br><br>It is a day that I prefer not to remember, but will never forget. The devastation was horrifying, and far larger than the 100m by 100m which the Israeli army subsequently defined as the area of damage. Among the first people we met were two small Palestinian children, inside a half-bulldozed house which was in danger of collapsing on their heads. Other children were wandering around Jenin's now notorious field of ruins, which turned out to be littered with unexploded munitions, leading people to buildings containing fetid-smelling corpses.<br><br>I was – I freely admit this – both appalled and furious. I felt then, as I do now, that Israel's actions would in the long run only lead to more suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. (These did not take long to resume). I felt then, as I do now, that it was an act of collective punishment against many innocent civilians. And I felt, as I do now, that the horrendous attacks against Israelis by Palestinian suicide bombers do not absolve Israel's government from its responsibility to respect international law.<br><br>My report that day – written by candle-light in the damaged refugee home in the camp, where we spent the night – was highly personalised. Its intention was to try to convey a sense of what it was like inside the camp from which the outside world had, for days, been barred.<br><br>In the preceding days, Israeli army officials and the Palestinians had been talking about three-figure casualties. We – wrongly – said the same. The reality has turned out to be closer to 75. Palestinian allegations that there was a mass grave in the camp also failed to stand up.<br><br>Ten days later, my colleague Justin Huggler and I, produced a 3,000 word article – after five days of exhaustive interviews conducted alongside Human Rights Watch (HRW) – saying there was no proof to substantiate allegations of a massacre, but plenty of evidence of atrocities, including the death of more than 20 Palestinian civilians.<br><br>By then, the pro-Israel lobby in the United States was pounding out articles condemning much of the European press, especially the British media, whom it accused of hysteria. . Only a few brave Israelis on the left – notably, Uri Avnery – continued to challenge the legitimacy and purpose of the army's conduct in the West Bank irrespective of the fact that the massacre allegations were false.<br><br>It is to this issue – as the killing of nine Palestinian children in an Israeli air strike proved so horribly last week – still remains unresolved. It – and not false charges of massacres – is what the international community should be address |off|
1370244755  - Lexar 128MB Memory Stick*+*30GIG Laptop HD*  ||Lexar 128MB Memory Stick*+*30GIG Laptop HD*  <br>Item # |hidden|
Fixed Congressional Hearings Push US to 'Regime Change' ME War|http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020805-97599692.htm|You gotta love the Democrats on Capitol Hill these days.  Lieberman seems to have an open line to Sharon in Jerusalem and is hawk than the Republicans.  And Biden wrings his hands now and then all the while in reality crafting fake hearings that only let the good-old-boys testify; refusing to hear from any serious opposition experts such as Robert Fisk, John Philger, Noam Chomsky, etc.|special|
Israelis Now Play 'We Were Duped' Card||Ha'aretz: Israeli intelligence was duped by Arafat -assumed he embraced<br>peace process in first years of Oslo<br>====<br><br>Wild card - Yossi Melman Ha'aretz 9 August 2002<br><br>In January 2002, when his name was mentioned as one of the candidates for<br>army chief of staff, Moshe Ya'alon was interviewed by the Intelligence<br>Heritage Center journal. As early as summer 1995, he said, when he became<br>director of Military Intelligence (Ya'alon started in June 1995), he<br>"suspected" that the Palestinians did not intend to stop terror attacks,<br>despite the Oslo accords. He told the interviewer that he warned then prime<br>minister Yitzhak Rabin, saying that Yasser Arafat ought to be given an<br>ultimatum that would force him to act against Hamas and Islamic Jihad.<br><br>"The intelligence picture at the time," Ya'alon related in the interview,<br>"held that the Palestinian Authority was aware of terror's potential, was<br>acquainted with the players, including Yihye Ayash [known in Israel as `the<br>engineer'] and Mohammed Deif [a commander of Hamas' military wing], and knew<br>where weapons were stored - and yet did nothing to act against the<br>terrorists."<br><br>These comments in the interview suggest that Military Intelligence,<br>including its research branch, and (in particular) its head at the time,<br>Major General Ya'alon, held to a solid assessment of developments in the PA.<br>It analyzed matters correctly, presented accurate, penetrating surveys, and<br>warned the policy makers. If there was a problem reading the writing on the<br>wall, it was the political leadership which was short-sighted. The prime<br>minister and his cabinet did not heed intelligence estimates forwarded by<br>the professionals.<br><br>But to what extent was intelligence information gathering and assessment of<br>trends in the PA during the first years after the Oslo accords really<br>accurate and reliable?<br><br>In March 1997, after the terror attack at Cafe Apropos in Tel Aviv, IDF<br>intelligence concluded that Arafat had given a "green light" to limited<br>terror attacks which would serve its political ends. Army intelligence<br>clearly analyzed the PA chairman's moves, and the fact that he had not<br>completely forsworn the use of terror (in particular, attacks perpetrated by<br>Hamas and Islamic Jihad), and had not abandoned the demand for a right of<br>refugee return (up to the year 2000, Shin Bet security service officials<br>insisted that Arafat would give up on the right of return).<br><br>This article has no intention of discussing political issues and the<br>question of whether the Oslo accord was warranted or not. Nor will it tackle<br>the question of whether the Oslo agreements were cooked up behind the back<br>of the intelligence community, without its knowledge (it's true, top IDF<br>intelligence officers say, we didn't know about the first stages of the<br>formulation of the accord - but if we were surprised about anything, it was<br>the fact that Israel's government accepted it).<br><br>The cardinal question is whether the intelligence community did its duty, or<br>was blinded by pressures and false expectations. Did it miss the mark with<br>its analyses, as happened in the past on several occasions, particularly on<br>the eve of historic events of war and peace? Twenty years after the tragic<br>intelligence mishap in the Yom Kippur War, did the intelligence community<br>drop the ball once again? If so, how did it happen?<br><br>The terror option<br><br>Did intelligence officials insist that the PLO and Arafat (who was weakened<br>by his support of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, the collapse of the<br>Soviet Union and the hegemonic ascendance of the U.S.) had taken the road of<br>peace, and abandoned the use of violence (the "armed struggle," in<br>Palestinian liberation rhetoric, "terror" in Israel's idiom)? Did<br>intelligence experts believe that the PLO had lost the terror option due to<br>its precarious position in the early 1990s?<br><br>Ya'alon's interview did not stir much public response or media attention,<br>apparently because it was published in a relatively obscure periodical. Yet<br>the article did raise a few eyebrows among seasoned journal staff members<br>and intelligence community readers; and this small, but influential group<br>included persons who, in the mid-'90s, were members of the Knesset's Foreign<br>Affairs and Defense Committee, and heard briefings given by officials from<br>the intelligence community. As they remember it, Ya'alon and others whistled<br>a rather different tune in the summer of `95.<br><br>In June `95, Arafat preached hellfire and jihad in the Gaza Strip. "We all<br>seek a martyr's death, on the road of truth and righteousness, the road to<br>Jerusalem, capital of Palestine," he declared. "We will continue with this<br>long, hard jihad struggle, the path of sacrifices..."<br><br>An assessment survey entitled "Arafat's statements in front of Palestinian<br>audiences - their meanings," which was drafted in August `95 by IDF Military<br>Intelligence's research division, pronounced: "In its broad sense, the<br>concept of jihad signifies the investment of resources and special means<br>(various instruments of struggle - political, economic, psychological,<br>emotional, and more) on behalf of some specified goal; it does not [in this<br>sense] specify an intention of violent war. In the context in which these<br>statements are made, it is reasonable to conclude that Arafat evoked the<br>term in this general sense; yet it is clear that he is aware of the dual<br>significance of his statements." The survey concluded: "An examination of<br>aspects of his activity and declarations (public and non-public ones) does<br>not furnish support for the contention that Arafat is not displaying<br>commitment to the Oslo accord, and to the peace process with Israel."<br><br>If Arafat indeed demonstrated commitment to the Oslo agreement and the peace<br>process with Israel, as the IDF's intelligence branch wrote in its survey,<br>how could Ya'alon claim in January 2002 that intelligence concluded years<br>before that "in actual fact, nothing was done against the terror<br>infrastructure?" Is there not a contradiction at play here? How can the gap<br>between IDF Intelligence's 1995 survey, in which Arafat was said to<br>"demonstrate commitment to the Oslo agreement and peace process," and<br>Ya'alon's statement that "in actual fact, nothing was done against the<br>terror infrastructure," be explained? For the cessation of terror (the<br>"armed struggle") and the campaign against the terror infrastructure<br>represented the cornerstones of the Oslo accords, and the peace process<br>engineered by those agreements.<br><br>Ya'alon did not respond to queries about this apparent contradiction which<br>were posed to him via the IDF Spokesman. The IDF Spokesman also rejected<br>repeated requests to interview officers from the research division of the<br>IDF Intelligence Branch.<br><br>No indicating signs<br><br>The Intelligence Heritage Center journal's interview with Ya'alon also<br>featured a new disclosure. "The emergence of the Palestinian Authority on<br>the ground in May 1994," Ya'alon stated, "and the ascendance of acts of<br>terror in the years 1994-1996 forced intelligence to furnish answers about<br>terror. Military Intelligence analyzed at the time signs which pointed to<br>such an eruption [of terror]; among other things, these included incitement<br>in the Palestinian media."<br><br>Implied in Ya'alon's words are two apparent disclosures. First, for more<br>than two years after the signing of the Oslo agreements, IDF Intelligence<br>did not build a construct of "Indicating Signs" - the intelligence term that<br>refers to a series of possible future events red-flagged by intelligence<br>officials in advance; should one such development, or a number of them, or<br>all of them together, be identified on the enemy's side and occur, then the<br>sequence will augur real danger. In such a case, it is the intelligence<br>community's duty to alert the political leadership that real danger is<br>afoot.<br><br>This concept of intelligence indicators took shape as a lesson drawn in the<br>aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War disaster. Since then, IDF Intelligence<br>defines indicating signs on every front, and with regard to each enemy.<br><br>The second implication is that Ya'alon formulated his words with the aim of<br>deflecting responsibility for the absence of a model of warning signs toward<br>his predecessor, Major General Uri Saguy.<br><br>In response, Saguy says: "I'm afraid of people who always know the truth,<br>who invent everything. After I left my post in June 1995, I heard things<br>from IDF Intelligence which are the opposite of what Ya'alon said in the<br>interview ... The question of whether Military Intelligence warned about the<br>problematic aspect of the Oslo accords merits discussion. And the answer is<br>yes, we warned about it. It is not the intelligence community's job to tell<br>the government what is good and bad to do, as intelligence heads have done<br>in recent years."<br><br>Yet the question remains: why wasn't a model of warning signs constructed?<br>Does the failure to build such a model mean that IDF Intelligence officers<br>reasoned throughout the first two years after the signing of the Oslo<br>accords that no such construct was needed? Did they conclude that the PA and<br>the PLO would want to go back to the path of terror; or did they believe<br>that the Palestinians would be unable to do so?<br><br>"In fact, IDF Intelligence did not build an indicating signs model for the<br>PLO, as it would do for a foreign army," confirms Colonel (res.) Dr. Eran<br>Lerman.<br><br>Lerman, today the American Jewish Committee's Middle East office director,<br>served for several years in IDF Intelligence; in his last post, he was a<br>deputy (in charge of assessment) to the head of MI's research division,<br>Brigadier General Amos Gilad. Prior to that, he held a number of posts in<br>the research division.<br><br>Threat to PA authority<br><br>As early as March 1995, Saguy indeed raised the possibility that a "division<br>of labor" with respect to terror had taken shape among the Palestinians. As<br>he says, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and Islamic Jihad undertook<br>contacts designed to attain a modus vivendi whereby terror would continue,<br>but the PA would not serve as an address responsible for acts of terror to<br>be perpetrated.<br><br>But despite information compiled about the Palestinians and terror, the fact<br>that no model of indicating signs was constructed regarding the PA might<br>convey a hint that Israeli intelligence, particularly Military Intelligence,<br>and also the Shin Bet, fell victim to a misbegotten "conception"<br>(reminiscent of unwarranted assumptions which preceded the 1973 war).<br><br>Such a conception held that the Palestinian Authority had abandoned the use<br>of terror because it wanted to promote the peace process, and because it had<br>no viable military capability. For these reasons, the PA would not allow<br>armed militias such as Hamas, which would try to initiate actions, to grow<br>stronger - after all, such strengthened militias would erode the PA's<br>authority. MI and the Shin Bet reasoned that the PA had an interest in<br>effectively combating such armed organizations, and combating terror.<br><br>A clear majority of IDF Intelligence estimates and surveys from the mid-'90s<br>period reflected this perception. Indeed, MI did not conclude until 1996<br>that Arafat was preserving the terror infrastructure intact, in order to use<br>it for his own purposes; and until September of that year, IDF Intelligence<br>did not believe that Arafat would use his soldiers to shoot at IDF soldiers<br>(as happened in the Western Wall tunnel incident). Furthermore, IDF<br>Intelligence believed in this period that the PLO was likely to abandon the<br>demand that refugees return to their homes, and that it would be willing to<br>annul or revise the Palestinian covenant.<br><br>Array of dangers<br><br>A top officer in IDF Intelligence from that period, Colonel (res.) Dr.<br>Shmuel Even, who served as deputy to the head of the research division<br>during the years 1992-1994, insists that intelligence findings were<br>genuinely precise. "The level of accuracy was so high that in retrospect we<br>have been surprised by the precision of these estimates," he says. As Even<br>sees it, "we emphasized the terror threat posed by Arafat during all stages<br>of the Oslo process. After the Oslo signing, in 1994, we released an<br>intelligence document and circulated it relatively widely; recipients<br>included the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. In the document<br>we described possible dangers, including risks of terror and assistance<br>tendered to the Palestinians by hostile states such as Iraq and Iran. True,<br>we didn't delve into definitions of the probability of the dangers, and when<br>they were likely to transpire; but we definitely described the array of<br>dangers. We described the terror threat posed by the PA as a clear,<br>immediate danger which had a high probability of coming to the fore during<br>all stages of the Oslo process."<br><br>IDF Intelligence estimates during the first 30 months of the Oslo process<br>were formulated in a hesitant, meandering style which some would liken to<br>the half full part of the glass; critics would call it the empty half.<br>Intelligence officers call it the schleikas [suspenders] culture - like<br>suspenders on trousers, MI estimates were formulated to ensure that<br>officials' forecasts could never be proven wrong. The important thing was<br>for the intelligence gang to keep its pants up, so that it would not be<br>exposed and left naked by future events.<br><br>Criticism of the intelligence community's estimates is shared by Benny<br>Begin, MK Yossi Sarid and Minister Dan Meridor, who served as members of the<br>Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and cabinet ministers.<br>Briefings and surveys provided by Israel's intelligence community,<br>particularly the IDF's MI, were "very watery," as one government minister<br>puts it. "MI's estimates at the time," he adds, "didn't grasp the enormous<br>gap yawning between Israel's maximum and the Palestinian minimum. MI did<br>issue a warning, but in a very faint voice."<br><br>Division of labor<br><br>Under a division of labor which was arranged after the 1967 Six-Day War, the<br>three branches of Israel's intelligence services, the Shin Bet, the IDF<br>Intelligence Branch and the Mossad, provided information about the<br>Palestinians.<br><br>The Shin Bet had clearly defined responsibility for thwarting terror. It<br>carried out this task mainly by collecting information from human sources.<br>As a result of lessons learned during the first intifada, a research branch<br>was formed in the Shin Bet; its job was to supply information useful to<br>anti-terror operations, and not for analysis of political-strategic trends.<br>Nonetheless, during the Oslo process period, the Shin Bet carried out a<br>central role in devising intelligence estimates; this was because its<br>directors, Ya'akov Perry, Carmi Gillon and Ami Ayalon, were involved in<br>contacts with PA officials, and coordination with the PA security apparatus.<br><br>Under the division of labor, the IDF's Military Intelligence (Aman is the<br>Hebrew acronym) was responsible for collecting information about the<br>Palestinians that did not necessarily pertain to thwarting terror attacks -<br>terror prevention was not its main objective. It relied largely on<br>electronic surveillance. It also deployed a team of agents, the 504 unit,<br>that sometimes worked in the territories; but the brunt of its missions were<br>carried out beyond Israel's borders.<br><br>MI's main role with respect to the Oslo process was to carry out research.<br>Its research division was the major instrument available to political<br>leaders for the analysis of processes and developments in the Palestinian<br>camp.<br><br>The third branch, the Mossad, is less relevant in this context. It was<br>responsible for activity outside Israel's borders; so its contribution<br>toward the understanding of developments in the Oslo process was limited.<br>(Y.M.)<br>|off|
Sharon Hawks Down|http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020429&s=corn||hidden|
Jordan's once 'Crown Prince Hassan' is Looking for another throne in Baghdad||The Jerusalem Report<br>August 12, 2002<br>page  23<br><br>Heidi Kingstone<br><br>The Prince of Baghdad<br><br>Insiders moot the idea of reviving the Hashemite Union of Jordan and Iraq <br><br>ANALYSIS / Heidi Kingstone London<br><br>THERE'S NO DOUBT THAT the surprise appearance of Prince Hassan of Jordan at the opposition Iraqi Military Alliance conference in London in mid-July overshadowed everything else on the agenda of the three-day meeting. But its potentially fiery significance for the rest of the Middle East is yet to be digested.<br><br>Far beyond being just a personal gesture of goodwill on the prince's part, say Iraqi and Western sources from London and Washington, Hassan's sudden arrival signals nothing short of a possible revival of the short-lived "Hashemite Union" of Jordan and Iraq that the two neighboring countries signed in early 1958. That Union, between Jordan's King Hussein and his cousin and close friend King Faisal II of Iraq, was supposed to form a federation, with Faisal at its helm and Hussein as his deputy. But the merger was practically stillborn. In July 1958, Faisal was gruesomely murdered in the revolution that threw out the monarchy and brought in the Iraqi republic.<br><br>The conference, held at the Kensington Town Hall, was attended by the mostly graying, mostly mustachioed rebels of the Iraqi National Congress, the main opposition umbrella group in exile, along with several dozen former Iraqi army officers, all determined to have a hand in Saddam Hussein's demise. The event came in the wake of President Bush's pledge to work for regime change in Baghdad. Also in attendance were a representative from U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney's office in Washington, another from the Pentagon and a smattering of diplomats. <br><br>However, when Prince Hassan turned up, the conference took on a whole new dimension beyond the original mission, described by INC leader Ahmed Chalabi as "sending a message to the Iraqi military that there is life for them after Saddam." Hassan, 55, a brother of the late king Hussein, was the designated heir to the throne of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for nearly 30 years. But in a surprise move from his deathbed in 1999, Hussein appointed his son, Abdullah, then aged 37, to succeed him. <br><br>Hassan's appearance at the conference, and the fact that he chose to address the forum, is taken by informed observers as a definitive personal and political statement in favor of resurrecting the Union. Hassan stressed that he had come in a purely personal capacity, with no agenda and carrying no signals. His speech, however, focused on the historical links between Iraq and Jordan.<br><br>It is assumed that Hassan attended without the official blessing of his nephew, King Abdullah. Formally, Jordan treads a fine diplomatic line between Washington and Baghdad. Dependent on Iraq for its oil, and in economic dire straits, Jordan has never openly backed the Iraqi opposition. <br><br>Hassan, though, is said to have been close to Saddam's opponents for years. His arrival in London was the culmination of weeks of informal chats between him and Chalabi, the "man with the plan" as a Pentagon source describes him. But Hassan only made the decision to attend on the day, aware of the ripples his act could cause.<br><br>THE IDEA OF A RENEWED Hashemite Union has been envisioned by many politicians and individuals in both Jordan and Iraq, sources say. The Iraqi opposition, notoriously divided, is far from united behind the proposal but those who do support it say it is a legitimate point of departure. Publicly, the INC maintains that the future of a post-Saddam Iraq must be decided at the ballot box. The appearance of Prince Hassan on the scene simply puts him in the race, insiders say, as one option for the Iraqi people. The practical form that any revival of the Hashemite Union would take is so far being left largely to the imagination.  <br><br>Those who support the resurrection of the Union describe Prince Hassan as a known quantity. An experienced statesman and a man of peace and vision, he is considered an ideal candidate to champion such a strategic alliance. The supporters of the Union envision it as a pro-Western democratic entity that would contribute to regional peace and stability. Hassan has stood openly against violence and terrorism, has worked for inter-religious dialogue and has staunchly supported Arab-Israeli attempts at peacemaking. A role for Hassan in Iraq, experts believe, could change the face of the region.<br><br>But Hassan is not the only candidate to be king of Baghdad. His appearance at the conference seems to have come as a shock to his distant cousin, Sharif Ali bin Hussein, the 46-year-old head of the Iraqi opposition Monarchist Party and a member of the INC's leadership council. Sharif Ali's main claim to the throne comes through his mother, who was Faisal II's aunt.  <br><br>Hassan's lineage as a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad on his father's side gives his claim to the throne much more legitimacy. <br><br>That lineage is also seen as a potential unifying factor in a multi-ethnic post-Saddam Iraq that many fear will fall apart. "The monarchy is the glue that will keep the system together," says one American source close to the prince, who is said to be respected by Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds alike. Hassan, he suggests, could play a particularly important role of inclusion for the Shi'ites of Iraq, who make up some 60 percent of the population. Hassan hinted at this when he described himself in his speech as being "responsible for all Muslims." <br><br>In a little noticed speech in 1996, the late King Hussein of Jordan hinted at resurrecting the Hashemite claim to the Iraqi crown, describing the Iraqi republic since 1958 as "an experiment." <br><br>Perhaps Prince Hassan, once destined to be king, will find a throne after all. |special|
BluePrint for War from the NYTimes|http://www.MiddleEast.Org/world/nytimes26.htm|Presented in a way that seems to call for hesitation and rethinking; it is really a masked blueprint for War from the NY establishment and the Council on Foreign Relations types.|off|
Qatar Base Now Central to US War|http://www.middleeast.org/world/nytimes27.htm|Al-Jazeera kept quiet about this for awhile; but in recent weeks this huge and still fast-growing American base designed to 'replace' the one in Saudi Arabia has been getting much attention.|off|
CNN To Be Pushed Off the Air in Israel|http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=193288&contrassID=1&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0|Kosher, but not orthodox, enough, the Israelis push forward their propaganda war and amazing, even with Sharon at the helm and ongoing war crimes the agenda, they are winning; but even so at a significant cost.<br>--------------------------<br><br>Cable companies get authorization to remove CNN from their programming <br> <br>By Anat Balint, Ha'aretz Correspondent <br> <br> <br> <br> <br>The Satellite and Cable Commission decided Thursday to allow Israeli cable companies to remove CNN from their programming. The decision was approved by a large majority, following a stormy discussion on the issue. <br><br>The central argument for the deciison was the availability of three foreign news networks other than CNN: BBC, Fox News and Sky News. <br><br>About a week ago, three cable companies filed separate requests to the Commission to end the CNN broadcasts. The cable companies wrote that they were unable to reach an agreement with CNN on payment rates for the news broadcasts. <br><br>The current contract btween CNN and the cable companies will end in November, but for the last eight months the two sides were unable to reach an agreement on a new contract. <br><br>CNN: Cable companies exploiting political situation <br>A senior CNN official harshly criticized the cable companies' tactics in the negotiations, which he said included attacks on the network's coverage of Israel and the conflict with the Palestinians, while taking advantage of the sensitive political situation. <br><br>Prior to the Commission's decision, the official said that the cable companies were given "a very fair offer at a rate we didn't make available anywhere else in the world." <br><br>CNN is currently a part of the cable companies' basic programming package which every subscriber receives without paying extra fees. A few weeks ago, some cable companies began broadcasting Fox News, a competitor of CNN<br> <br><br>|special|
Top Special Ops General Told to 'Kill Them Faster' by Rumseld|http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020802-6570074.htm|It's the top story across the whole front page with the Special Ops General pictured<br>---------------------------------<br><br>Rumsfeld toughens terror fight <br><br>  By Rowan Scarborough <br>  THE WASHINGTON TIMES <br><br><br>                           Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has ordered his<br>                      top special-operations general to accelerate covert missions<br>                      in the war on terrorism because he is impatient with the pace<br>                      at which al Qaeda terrorists are captured or killed, The<br>                      Washington Times has learned. <br>                           Administration officials say<br>                      Gen. Charles R. Holland, who<br>                      leads U.S. Special Operations<br>                      Command, has completed an initial<br>                      war plan referred to inside the<br>                      Bush administration as "the first 30<br>                      percent."<br>                           The highly classified plan calls<br>                      for new types of clandestine<br>                      operations that could be initiated<br>                      against terrorist targets at a<br>                      moment's notice, outside<br>                      restrictions of traditional law enforcement.<br>                           Gen. Holland's draft is circulating inside the Pentagon. He<br>                      was scheduled to brief Mr. Rumsfeld soon, perhaps as early<br>                      as today.<br>                           Gen. Holland's command will also gain new<br>                      responsibilities in the global war, although regional combatant<br>                      commanders, such as Gen. Tommy Franks, head of U.S.<br>                      Central Command, will retain overall control of their area of<br>                      responsibility.<br>                           Some officials inside the administration view Mr.<br>                      Rumsfeld's moves as somewhat of a rebuke to Gen. Franks,<br>                      who is running the war in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater.<br>                           Three administration sources said Mr. Rumsfeld is not<br>                      happy at the rate at which al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are<br>                      being found and eliminated in Gen. Franks' theater. Some of<br>                      Mr. Rumsfeld's senior advisers view the four-star Army<br>                      general as too cautious.<br>                           One source said Gen. Holland will have a bigger say in<br>                      which type of special-operations missions are run in<br>                      Afghanistan.<br>                           In recent weeks, Mr. Rumsfeld asked Gen. Holland and<br>                      other senior military officials to devise a new plan for<br>                      attacking terrorist cells around the world, primarily using<br>                      covert warriors. The "30 percent" plan is so named because it<br>                      reflects about one-third of the total plan Gen. Holland is now<br>                      developing. <br>                           Mr. Rumsfeld is giving Special Operations Command new<br>                      powers to organize specific missions. The Pentagon<br>                      designates its combatant commands as either "supported,"<br>                      such as Central Command, or "supporting," such as Special<br>                      Operations Command. These two key words describe the<br>                      general relationship between combatant commanders.<br>                           Sources said Special Operations Command will now be a<br>                      "supported command" in some circumstances.<br>                           Sources said Mr. Rumsfeld has not always been happy<br>                      with Gen. Franks' planning in Afghanistan or for a possible<br>                      war against Iraq. Still, Gen. Franks has important supporters<br>                      inside the administration, including Secretary of State Colin L.<br>                      Powell, a former Army general and Joint Chiefs chairman.<br>                      President Bush is described as especially fond of the fellow<br>                      Texan.<br>                           Mr. Rumsfeld publicly supports Gen. Franks and says the<br>                      9-month-old Afghanistan mission is on track but still<br>                      open-ended.<br>                           Officials familiar with the "30 percent plan" say Mr.<br>                      Rumsfeld wants ideas on how to expand the use of<br>                      special-operations forces, including elite Army Delta Force<br>                      commandos and Navy SEALs. <br>                           Mr. Rumsfeld, one of the Bush Cabinet's most hawkish<br>                      members, wants these covert warriors to capture or kill<br>                      terrorists outside civilian law enforcement, where operations<br>                      can take months to win approval.<br>                           "Rumsfeld wants to stay as far away from law<br>                      enforcement as possible," said one source, who adds that, as<br>                      is usual for the defense secretary, he wants "new thinking."<br>                           The defense secretary seeks a new operating plan<br>                      whereby special-operations forces can be deployed<br>                      extremely rapidly against a terrorist target. He wants Gen.<br>                      Holland to design different types of operations, perhaps with<br>                      new tactics, to disrupt or destroy terrorist cells, officials told<br>                      The Times.<br>                           Whatever final plan Mr. Rumsfeld approves must be<br>                      approved by Mr. Bush. The president is said to share the<br>                      defense secretary's thinking on the need to eliminate al Qaeda<br>                      members at a faster rate.<br>                           Gen. Holland in October 2000 assumed command of<br>                      Special Operations Command at McDill Air Force Base in<br>                      Florida.<br>                           The general, who oversees all the branches' covert<br>                      warriors, has flown more than 100 combat missions, including<br>                      79 in the AC-130 during the Vietnam War. <br>                           The AC-130, armed with two cannons, has played a<br>                      major role in Afghanistan, backing ground troops on night<br>                      operations.<br>                           Mr. Rumsfeld is already relying heavily on<br>                      special-operations troops in the global war declared by Mr.<br>                      Bush after al Qaeda terrorists flew hijacked jetliners into the<br>                      World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11,<br>                      killing more than 3,000 people.<br>                           Commandos are training anti-terror units in the<br>                      Philippines, Yemen and Georgia. In Afghanistan, they turned<br>                      the tide of battle by organizing anti-Taliban forces and<br>                      pointing out targets for strike pilots.<br>                           Now, Delta Force and SEALs, part of a special Task<br>                      Force 11, are hunting down senior al Qaeda and Taliban<br>                      leaders in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.|off|
Jewish Attorney Talks of Israel 'The Real Terrorist State'|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57038-2002Aug7.html||off|
Massive US Supply of Advanced Arms to Israel||According to the well-known British journalist John Pilger writing in the 7/29/02 edition of the New Statesman, <br>since 11 September [2001] "Bush has shipped 228 guided missile systems to the Israeli air force, along wiht 24 state-of-the-art Black Hawk helicopter <br>gunships and 50 F-16 fighter bombers, with British parts."|special|
Israeli Court Upholds Blowing Up Houses|http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/07/international/middleeast/07MIDE.html|And the telling arrest of a young Palestinian girl, handcuffed, and in apparent prayer.|off|
Donahue Takes on Shimon Peres and the 'Peace Process'||‘Donahue’ for July 30 <br>---------------------------------<br>Read the complete transcript of Tuesday’s show. Guests: Shimon Peres, Eliot Spitzer, Dennis Kucinich, Richard Perle<br>       THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.<br>       PHIL DONAHUE, HOST: Good evening. Today in Jerusalem, another suicide bombing that injured four civilians and killed a bomber, leaving us to wonder when and how will it ever end. Joining me now from Aspen, Colorado, at the World Forum Economic Conference is Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. <br>       Welcome, Mr. Foreign Minister. Sir, I don’t know where to begin with you. I’m left to wonder about how you get through the day. Do you shake Ariel Sharon’s hand when you go into those meetings? <br>       SHIMON PERES, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, we are working together, and our aim is really to achieve peace. Though we may have some differences, what is the best way to do it? <br>       DONAHUE: Well, the differences are very, very severe, sir. <br>       Incidentally, “Der Spiegel,” the German magazine, this current issue, says <br>       ” quotes you as saying you have doubts about Ariel Sharon’s commitment to peace. Did you say that? <br>       <br>       PERES: No, it was a translation from German language to French, from French to English. <br>       DONAHUE: All right, you didn’t say it. <br>       PERES: What I said is, they didn’t ask me if Mr. Sharon wants peace, but if he’s able to do it. And I says, I have my doubts because it doesn’t depend upon him alone. There are other parties to it. That was the mistake. <br>       DONAHUE: Yes. Can anybody believe that Ariel Sharon wants a Palestinian state? He doesn’t. I don’t think he wants it in his lifetime. He doesn’t want it ever. And whatever he says, it looks like we’re playing a great big, hypocritical game for the public stage, making it more depressing when you think about whether we’re ever going to achieve peace. <br>       Would you agree with my assessment of the prime minister? <br>       PERES: No, I would not. Because I think Sharon is able to read a political map like anybody else. And, you know, peace is the only alternative for the future of Israel, for the future of the Palestinians. And we have to have two states, otherwise democracy will make out of us a bi-national state with a non-Jewish majority. <br>       And also, time is running out. So all told, we have to reach the same goal. <br>       DONAHUE: Yes, time is running out. And following Oslo and you receiving the Nobel prize, what a wonderful, wonderful honor. What mother wouldn’t want her son, the Nobel prize? And since Oslo, we’ve had a doubling of Israeli settlers. Now, how is there possibly light at the end of this tunnel? <br>       PERES: Well, I didn’t work to get a Nobel prize. I worked for peace, and I’m continuing to work for peace. And I think peace remains the real option for the future. <br>       Now, what happened is that both parties, particularly the Palestinian one, has committed some mistakes because the Oslo agreement lasted only for three years, instead of five years. I believe would it last for the whole five years, we would have already peace. <br>       I do believe also that the vision of President Bush is a continuation of the Oslo Agreement. It’s actually the same way, the same purpose, the same attempt. <br>       DONAHUE: All right. I want to show you the tape of the president announcing his plan for peace, and what we have to do-what Arafat should do. Now, watch this, it’s very brief. The president speaks. <br>       (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)<br>       GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born. <br>       (END VIDEO CLIP)<br>       PERES: I agree that that is what is needed for the Palestinians. And they have to do it. And there is a growing demand among the Palestinians themselves, either to change the leadership or to change the government, the system of governance among the Palestinians. <br>       They do a great deal of harm to themselves. Terror brought practically an end to the Palestinian credibility in the eyes of the United States, the Europeans. The terrorists are killing the Palestinians politically. They may cause us some troubles physically, but politically, they are killing themselves. <br>       DONAHUE: A major Israeli newspaper has you watching the president’s <br>       speech and saying, quoting you, sir-”He is making”-he, President Bush <br>       ” “is making a fatal mistake. Making the creation of a Palestinian state dependent on a change in the Palestinian leadership is a fatal mistake.” Shimon Peres, did you say that? You were misquoted again? <br>       <br>       PERES: You have an expression, read my lips. In that case, the journalists have read my face, which is very hard to read, by the way. <br>       DONAHUE: You wouldn’t say that? <br>       PERES: But I think I said something else. I said that until now, we have had a tunnel without seeing the light at the end of it. Now we have a light, we have to build a tunnel. In other words, I told that we have now a great deal of work to be done by all of us in order to reach the vision of the president, which I agree completely with, namely to have a solution of two states in a matter of three years, giving the Palestinians respect and independence. Because I believe that a good neighbor is better than a good gun. <br>       DONAHUE: Yes. You have condemned the bombing in Gaza City that killed the bad guy and got nine babies with it. Ari Fleischer used the euphemism “heavy-handed” to describe this action. You think it was worse than that, don’t you? <br>       PERES: Unfortunately, in every war, you have mistakes. The greatest mistake is war itself. <br>       (CROSSTALK)<br>       DONAHUE: We knew-that was an F-16. It was an apartment building. Mr. Foreign Minister, I respect you, sir, and I do not want to badger you, especially since we give you so little time. That is not a mistake, to fire a missile into an apartment building at midnight. <br>       What, this terrorist is the only guy sleeping in that building? It is not a mistake. It was a direct action that you knew would cause civilian deaths. <br>       PERES: I don’t feel as lonely as you are trying to say, because most of our leaders and most of our generals did say, would they know the results of the bombing, they would never do it. And mistakes happened in Kosovo, elsewhere. I mean, I wish we would have-we wouldn’t have a war. And if we have a war, we could have done it in such a way that no mistakes occur. <br>       DONAHUE: In the seconds we have left, another unfairness heaped upon you by media, Yitzhak Rabin’s daughter has resigned-has resigned her post in the Israeli government, in protest over Sharon’s policy. Why don’t you do that? <br>       PERES: Because I am asking myself, where can I serve better our people and peace, in the parliament as delivering speeches of opposition, or in the cabinet trying to improve things, or to add elements to the present situation. <br>       Right now we are talking with the Palestinians. And in spite of all the terror, the death, the dangers, we are having a dialogue with the Palestinian people to improve the conditions in the territories and to build carefully, maybe, parallel to the war against terror, a new world of understanding. <br>       DONAHUE: Mr. Foreign Minister, I have only time to thank you. Shimon Peres, a public servant, to be sure. And a Nobel laureate at that. Thank you, sir, for giving us your time. <br>       PERES: Thank you very much. <br>|special|
US Supports Israel and Its Settlements More Than Ever||"They could develop a two-prong policy" said Ehud Sprinzak, an Israeli <br>visiting professor at Georgetown University. "It's not enough to mention that <br>settlements must stop. President Bush actually has to remind everyone of the <br>American position that the vast majority of settlements are illegal and <br>should be removed."<br><br>Washington Post (USA)<br>Sunday, July 28, 2002<br>Page A23]<br><br>Bush Won't Press End to Israeli Settlements <br><br>White House Stance Leaves Palestinians Cold By Peter Slevin<br>Washington Post Staff Writer<br><br> As President Bush develops his latest approach to the Israeli-Palestinian <br>conflict, the administration does not intend to make a significant effort to <br>curb the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, one of <br>the most troubling irritants to Palestinians.<br>The White House routinely calls on the Israelis to stop settlement activity, <br>but U.S. officials have concluded that there is nothing to be gained in <br>further pressing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, an impassioned promoter and <br>defender of a settler population that has grown by two-thirds during the past <br>decade.<br>Yet, as Bush confronts criticism from European and Arab governments that <br>consider him overly supportive of Sharon, some Middle East specialists say a <br>stronger stand on settlements would send a welcome signal to the Palestinians <br>and improve the administration's credibility.<br>"The symbolism of the settlements cannot be underestimated," said Judith <br>Kipper, a Middle East specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations. Many <br>Palestinians interpret the ongoing construction as evidence that Israel <br>intends to defy calls for the return of land captured in the 1967 Middle East <br>war.<br>In recent comments, however, the White House has said it views the settlement <br>issue as a matter to be resolved only after progress on other fronts. "It <br>comes down importantly to a question of timing," a senior administration <br>official said yesterday.<br>Former Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell, who helped draft the <br>confidence-building measures Bush has endorsed, is an advocate of a tougher <br>line on settlements. In recent Washington appearances, Mitchell emphasized <br>that demands cannot be made of the Palestinians alone. He credited Bush's <br>June 24 speech on the Middle East with requiring action from Sharon's <br>government but made clear the administration must follow through.<br>"The problem always is the first step," Mitchell told the Brookings <br>Institution. "And it's clear in my view that they have to be relatively <br>simultaneous, that they have to be relatively reciprocal, that they must be <br>of equal, relatively equal, weight. You can't ask someone to take a step of <br>10 yards in response to a step of 10 inches."<br>The Palestinians' first step should be a halt in violence, Mitchell wrote in <br>the 2001 report, before violence intensified and the Israeli government <br>clamped down in Palestinian areas. The Israelis' first step, he said, should <br>be a settlement freeze. "A cessation of Palestinian-Israeli violence will be <br>particularly hard to sustain unless the government of Israel freezes all <br>settlement construction activity," the report said.<br>Opposition to settlements has been official U.S. policy for more than 20 <br>years. But the Israeli population in the West Bank has steadily increased, <br>topping 200,000 in the most recent count, plus about 175,000 who live on <br>territory annexed by the city of Jerusalem. Israeli governments usually <br>describe expansion as the "natural growth" of existing communities, but <br>Sharon's government appears to have made a priority of increasing the size <br>and number of settlements.<br>Monitors from the Israeli group Peace Now, which opposes settlements, say <br>more than 40 settlements have been created since Sharon took office, many of <br>them far from any land inhabited by Israelis. Old and new settlements tend to <br>take up land for roads and attract additional Israeli security, multiplying <br>the Israeli presence and angering Palestinians.<br>The Israeli government pledged this month to dismantle some outposts, but <br>Sharon has said Israel will never withdraw from areas it considers part of <br>the Jews' ancestral homeland. The difficulty of budging him is a factor in <br>the administration's reluctance to intervene, officials say.<br>Bush made headlines on April 4 by calling on Israel to take swift action to <br>lift the pressure on Palestinians. He said the Sharon government should halt <br>its military occupation of urban areas and stop settlement activity. Bush has <br>repeated the settlement wording since, but the words have not been matched by <br>anything like the action of his father, former president George H.W. Bush, <br>who withheld $400 million in loan guarantees to Israel.<br>Administration officials and policy analysts attribute the choice to several <br>things. They say Bush views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict largely through <br>the prisms of terrorism and domestic politics, and thinks the United States <br>should not pressure Sharon's government while Palestinian violence continues.<br>According to this view, Israelis are suffering at the hands of a Palestinian <br>leadership that has repeatedly angered the White House by failing to live up <br>to its promises. While Palestinian extremists continue to strike, the <br>thinking goes, the Israeli government should not face U.S. dictates, <br>especially when Congress and politically active Christian conservatives think <br>Sharon deserves a free hand.<br>An exception is the State Department, where Secretary of State Colin L. <br>Powell has argued that the administration should make more substantial <br>demands on Israel. Officials say Powell worked to ensure that Bush's speeches <br>included references to settlement activity, military withdrawal and other <br>reciprocal actions by Israel.<br>Following Bush's speeches, Powell made a point of emphasizing Israeli <br>responsibilities. He told reporters Thursday that the problem of new and <br>existing settlements must be solved "in order for there to be coherence to <br>the Palestinian state." As for timing, he said solutions would come "in due <br>course."<br>If the administration chose, commentators say, it could increase its <br>opposition to Israeli settlements while continuing to condemn terrorism and <br>the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. The idea would be to provide an <br>incentive for Palestinians to end their attacks.<br>"People in the State Department and elsewhere say we're looking at various <br>steps that do not have a security downside, that can show the Israelis are <br>serious," said Edward Abington, a political consultant for the Palestinian <br>Authority in Washington. Abington thinks a vigorous response to Israeli <br>settlements would fit such a goal, but he sees no sign the administration is <br>prepared to act.<br>"They could develop a two-prong policy" said Ehud Sprinzak, an Israeli <br>visiting professor at Georgetown University. "It's not enough to mention that <br>settlements must stop. President Bush actually has to remind everyone of the <br>American position that the vast majority of settlements are illegal and <br>should be removed."|off|
Israel to pay Turkey $1billion for water |http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=194890&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y||off|
The Iraqi Opposition - Made in the USA, Confused About Themselves|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1179-2002Aug9?language=printer||off|
Kashmir Fighting Threatens Again To Escalate into all out war||Fighting continues in Kashmir - 8-3/02  <br> <br>Pakistani forces have beaten back an Indian attempt to establish a military post along the line dividing Kashmir, Pakistan says. Indian forces suffered "considerable casualties" before pulling back from the fighting in the Neelum Valley region, says a statement from Islamabad. Tensions have escalated in Kashmir over the past week as Indian and Pakistani forces pound each other with heavy artillery and bursts of small arms fire.   <br> <br>|special|
Saudi History, Past and Present|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1067-2002Aug9?language=printer|Fitting and true to character.  A former NYTimes reporter, now with the Council on Foreign Relations, writes an interesting article with obvious slants about Saudi Arabia -- past, present, and future -- and doesn't even mention the influence Israel has had in bringing about today's conundrum and the 'Clash of Civilizations'.  It is precisely this kind of deception by ommission which characterizes so much of American journalism today; and causes Americans not to know what is really going on and why.|special|
Dead at Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28812-2002Jul31?language=printer|When speaking extemporaneously George W tends to reveal things in his simplictic black and white world.  Remember of course his references to the "crusades" in the early post-9/11 days.  And now he reveals in a few words why he has ended Arafat's White House visits (with an implicit warning for all the other 'client regimes' in the area as well.  Here's the key sentence in the following article:  "Bush urged the Palestinian Authority to shed 'officials who haven't been able to deliver' -- a group that Bush has said should include Arafat himself."<br>----------------------<br><br><br>3 Americans Killed in Jerusalem <br>Bombing at University Leaves 4 Others Dead, More Than 60 Hurt <br><br>By John Ward Anderson<br>Washington Post Foreign Service<br>Thursday, August 1, 2002; Page A01 <br><br><br>JERUSALEM, July 31 -- Three U.S. citizens were among seven people killed when a large bomb exploded here today in a busy cafeteria at Hebrew University's Frank Sinatra International Student Center, spraying shards of glass and metal across a lunchtime crowd. The Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, asserted responsibility, calling it revenge for an Israeli bombing raid that killed its military leader.<br><br>A fourth U.S. citizen was missing and presumed dead, although the victim's identity was not firmly established, and four U.S. citizens were among the more than 60 people wounded in the blast, a State Department official said in Washington. One of the Americans killed had just arrived for studies in Israel on Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy here reported. Two of the Americans killed were women. <br><br>One of the victims, Janis Ruth Coulter, 36, worked as assistant director of academic affairs in New York for Hebrew University's Rothberg International School. She left the United States on Monday to accompany a group of American students who were enrolling at the university, according to Amy Sugin, an official at the New York organization. Coulter had been expected to return to New York at the end of the week.<br><br>The explosion left pools of blood and debris around the cafeteria and charred some walls. Tables, chairs, plants and garbage containers were overturned inside and on a cafe-style patio outside, which was carpeted with pieces of glass large and small. Wires dangled from spots in the ceiling where tiles and insulation were blown to shreds. Shoes and blood-drenched clothing littered the area.<br><br>"I was eating in the cafeteria with two friends and all at once everything exploded," said David Kosok, 35, a rabbinical student from Los Angeles studying Hebrew at the university. "At first I thought that an oven had exploded or something, but then there were all these things flying through the air. If I can say that I was lucky in this attack, I'll say it. I was really lucky."<br><br>Police said preliminary evidence suggested the explosion came from a bomb left in a bag on a table inside the cafeteria, rather than from a suicide bomb -- the trademark weapon used by Palestinian radicals in their 22-month uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.<br><br>The Hamas military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said it organized the blast to avenge the July 22 killing of its leader, Salah Shehada. Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas spiritual leader and one of its founders, also linked it to the killing of Shehada, in which Israel bombed a house where he was spending the night with his family in a crowded Gaza City neighborhood. The 2,000-pound bomb killed Shehada and 14 other people, including nine children.<br><br>Several thousand Palestinians participated in a march through Gaza streets tonight organized by Hamas to celebrate the bombing in Jerusalem, the Reuters news agency reported.<br><br>The Palestinian Authority, headed by Yasser Arafat, condemned today's bombing "absolutely." But the authority's leadership, in a statement also alluding to the Gaza attack, added that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is "responsible for this cycle of terror."<br><br>President Bush, speaking after a Cabinet meeting in Washington, criticized the bombing "in the strongest possible terms" and charged that the people who organized it are "clearly killers who hate the thought of peace." As he has before, Bush urged the Palestinian Authority to shed "officials who haven't been able to deliver" -- a group that Bush has said should include Arafat himself.<br><br>"Israel is fighting a pitched battle against terror and for the right to walk down the street, take a bus or sit in a cafeteria without the fear of being decimated by Palestinian terrorism," an official in Sharon's office, David Baker, told reporters.<br><br>Today's blast was the most serious in Jerusalem since June 18 and 19, when 26 Israelis were killed in back-to-back suicide bombings on a bus and at a crowded intersection. Those attacks led Sharon to launch a massive crackdown in the West Bank, erecting new roadblocks and checkpoints, reoccupying seven of the eight largest Palestinian cities with thousands of Israeli soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles, and imposing curfews that have left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians confined to their homes for weeks at a time.<br><br>Despite those efforts, the violence has continued. Analysts and Israeli security officials had warned of an upswing in attacks in retaliation for the Gaza bombing. On Tuesday, the director of Shin Bet, the domestic security service, warned that 60 suicide bombings against Israeli targets were being planned.<br><br>Frustrated by the attacks, Sharon's security cabinet moved today to deport to the Gaza Strip any family members who could be linked directly to terrorists, a tactic that drew intense international criticism when it was proposed earlier this month. Israeli press reports said the first to be deported would be a relative of a Palestinian who ambushed a bus outside the West Bank settlement of Emmanuel on July 16, killing 10 Israelis and injuring 20.<br><br>The cabinet also decided to formalize a policy of destroying the homes of suicide bombers and other attackers, which the Israeli military has already been doing, according to Israeli media reports. In addition, the security cabinet -- which did not announce its decisions -- reportedly recommended cutting off government assistance to families of alleged terrorists, punishing Islamic religious leaders who incite violence through their preaching and banning funeral processions for suicide bombers.<br><br>The bloody cycle of bombings and other killings has left more than 1,600 Palestinians and about 570 Israelis dead since the current uprising began in September 2000. But today's incident was the first violent attack against an institution of higher learning and one of the few times that attackers detonated a bomb inside a building rather than recruiting a suicide bomber.<br><br>Many of those injured at the Sinatra center, named for the late American crooner, a donor to the school, were exchange students from overseas here for summer classes. Hospital officials said they included the four Americans, a French tourist, an Italian man, two people from East Asia and several Arabs. Many of the injuries were burns, rather than the shrapnel wounds typically caused by suicide bombs, which are often loaded with nails and other sharp objects.<br><br>"There was a huge boom and then a fire," said Arye Edrei, 46, a law professor at Tel Aviv University who was eating lunch on the far side of the cafeteria when the explosion occurred at 1:45 p.m. "There was fire, everything was destroyed, people were lying on the ground bleeding all over, and people started helping everyone get out. People were crying, screaming."<br><br>The bombing at one of Israel's oldest and most prestigious universities, attended by Jews and Arabs, shattered what students and university officials said was the illusion that they were in an enclave of tolerance nestled on Mount Scopus in northern Jerusalem.<br><br>Some student leaders said on Israeli television tonight that they had complained to university officials several months ago about lax security. But most said they had few worries as they attended classes, ate meals and strolled across the campus, which has strict security checks at all entrances.<br><br>About 23,000 students attend the university, officials said, including about 1,700 Arabs.<br><br>Students said, however, that they have avoided trips to the bars, shops, restaurants and malls in downtown Jerusalem, where eight suicide bombings have occurred in the past 16 months. The most recent was Tuesday, when a 17-year-old from the Bethlehem area blew himself up at a popular falafel stand, injuring five Israelis.<br><br>"We felt the university was safe. After all, people learn there," said Sawalha Asad, 27, a dental student. "I thought that it was a place of peace, a place where Jews and Arabs could meet and be together."<br><br>Many students said that rather than shaking their confidence, the attack strengthened their resolve to stay at the university.<br><br>"I told my family that I'd come home if something happened, but I just went over and wrote them an e-mail that I'm fine, and I don't want to come home," said Sophia Aron, 19, a student from Los Angeles who arrived last month.<br><br>"Too many kids didn't come this year because they were scared," she said. "But this is Israel, I'm Jewish, and it's important to me that Israel exists. If you're going to come to Israel, you should come, good or bad."<br><br>|special|
Expect Iraq War to commence on November 6 - London Daily Mirror|http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12102997&method=full&siteid=50143|       IT'S A NOVEMBER 6 WAR<br>    Daily Mirror - Aug 9 2002<br><br> By Tom Newton Dunn and Ben Taylor <br><br>  <br>AMERICA will attack Iraq on November 6, US defence experts believe.<br><br>They are so sure of the date that they have posted an Iraq Countdown clock on the internet to show the minutes ticking away.<br><br>Five of the US Navy's aircraft carriers will be close to the Gulf region. Weather and<br> political factors also favour the date picked by international think tank<br> GlobalSecurity.org for the start of the campaign to topple Saddam Hussein.<br><br> Respected commentator John Pike, director of the Washington-based organisation,<br> told the Daily Mirror: "Iraq is going to happen a lot sooner than most people think."<br><br> The eight key pointers are:<br><br> - President Bush must have resolved the Iraq situation when his re-election<br> campaign begins in under 18 months, and a war and clean-up will take at least a<br> year;<br><br> - Delaying an attack will give Saddam more time to prepare his defences;<br><br> - A war in the desert would be almost impossible before October because it is too<br> hot for troops to wear protective bio-chemical suits;<br><br> - In December and January, temperatures are low enough to freeze diesel oil, cloud<br> hinders air visibility, and desert snow can hamper tanks;<br><br> - Elections to the US Congress finish on November 5. President Bush cannot fight a<br> war in the month-long run-up;<br><br> - Media speculation and government leaks had all predicted an invasion in<br> February or March 2003, so early November might have given the US an element<br> of surprise;<br><br> - The military will have time to replenish stocks of smart bombs that were depleted<br> by the Afghanistan campaign;<br><br> - Five US aircraft carriers will be close by, together with Royal Navy carrier Ark<br> Royal, providing an invasion base under the cover of routine deployment.<br><br> Aircraft carriers are expected to play a key role in any assault on Iraq.<br><br> Several allies, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, that gave facilities in the 1991<br> Gulf War have ruled out the same support for America's drive to oust the Iraqi<br> dictator. <br><br> Each American carrier will have a full complement of F18 Hornet fighter-bombers<br> and a strike force of up to 1,000 Marines. All five will be battle ready and within five<br> days sailing from the region on manoeuvres by the beginning of November.<br><br> Ark Royal's war games mission in the Mediterranean, announced this week, is due<br> to finish on November 5.<br><br> Mr Pike said: "The opportunity to attack without having to announce new<br> deployments to the world beforehand is likely to be far too good for Pentagon<br> war-planners to ignore.<br><br> "You can go to war within three weeks of making a decision about it, and within one<br> week of the world finding out.<br><br> "The President is under a lot of political pressure for results and his window is pretty<br> tight.<br><br> "If I was a betting man, November 6 is where all my money would be."|special|
Bush Admits Plan to Destroy al-Qaeda and 'Regime Change' Afghanistan pre-dates 9/11|http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/ns/story.jsp?floc=FF-PLS-PLS&id=404604346&dt=20020804191700&w=RTR&coview=||special|
US War Plans Proceeding with plans to seize Iraq oil and use future sales to pay for war|http://library.northernlight.com/FB20020804410000012.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#doc||special|
Israelis Link Hamas and Al-Qaeda To Prepare the Way||As the Israelis prepare to invade Gaza, decimate all Palestinian opposition, and establish a new quisling Palestinian regime...the following:<br><br>Al Qaida operating through Hamas, Israel warns <br><br>SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM<br>Tuesday, August 6, 2002<br>JERUSALEM — Israeli officials said Al Qaida has given the green light for the recruitment of Palestinians and the financing of attacks in both Israel and against Jewish targets abroad. <br><br>The officials said Al Qaida is operating through the Hamas organization.<br><br>Meanwhile, authorities have reported scores of intelligence alerts of suicide attacks over the last week.<br><br>The Cabinet has been briefed on Al Qaida's efforts, officials said. They said Al Qaida has been given permission to recruit and organize insurgency cells in the Palestinian Authority, Middle East Newsline reported.<br><br>"It has recently been found that Bin Laden's organization has been investing efforts into attacking Israeli/Jewish targets in Israel and around the world, and the organization has attempted to recruit and establish an operational infrastructure in the PA areas," a Cabinet statement said on Sunday.<br><br>The government has outlawed Al Qaida and declared it a terrorist group. This enables authorities to prosecute any member or supporter of the organization.<br><br>Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer outlawed Al Qaida in October 2001. But the Cabinet decided on Sunday to declare Al Qaida a terrorist organization to expand the range of legal measures.<br><br>"In order to complete the said declaration and to expand the range of possible legal actions against it, Bin Laden's organization has been declared a terrorist organization," the Cabinet statement said.<br><br>On Monday, Israeli forces imposed a siege on the southern city of Rafah in an attempt to stop traffic to and from Rafah, particularly arms smuggling.<br><br>Officials said the siege on Rafah and other Palestinian cities are meant to stop suicide bombers against Israeli targets. <br><br>On Monday, a Palestinian suicide bomber entered Israel from the West Bank and forced his way into a car driven by an Israeli Arab motorist. The bomber demanded that he be driven to the nearby city of Afula, but his explosive belt blew up. The suicide attacker was killed and the motorist was injured.<br><br>Further south, Israeli troops pursued five Palestinians near the West Bank city of Kalkilya. The Palestinians fled and left behind a bag that contained five Kalashnikov rifles, grenades and ammunition.<br><br>Israeli AH-64A attack helicopters also attacked a suspected metal workshop in Gaza City. The workshop was said to been used for the production of Palestinian rockets and anti-tank missiles.<br><br>On Tuesday, Israeli attack helicopters and ground forces completed a search-and-destroy operation for a Fatah military commander. Israeli and Palestinian sources said Ali Ajuri, Fatah's commander in the Jenin region, and an aide was killed. Ajuri was said to have been responsible for sending suicide bombers to Israel.<br><br>Israel's military has summoned thousands of aging reservists who have not been drafted for several years. Officials said the soldiers are aged 40 who have already been retired from the military.<br><br>The mobilization is meant to bolster the military amid its intensive police mission in the West Bank. The mission has been conducted with the standing army. <br><br>|special|
Federal Judge Tells Bush Admin - 'Don't Believe You, Cough Up'|http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=564&u=/nm/20020802/ts_nm/attack_names_dc_3&printer=1||special|
US and Israel More Closely Connected than Ever|www.middleeast.org/world/nytimes23.htm||off|
No More Trucks Anywhere Near the White House or OEOB|http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=544&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_security_1&printer=1|    <br>  <html><br><head><br><title><br>Yahoo! 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News</span> &nbsp; <span class=regs><br>Thursday, August 08, 2002<br></span></td><br><td align=right nowrap valign=bottom><br><table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr valign=middle><br><form action="http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news"><br><td valign=bottom><br></td><br><td nowrap class=sectiontitled valign=bottom><span class=regs style="font-weight:bold">Search</span></td><br><td nowrap class=sectiontitled>&nbsp;<select name=c><option value="">News Stories<option value=news_photos>News Photos<option value=av>Audio/Video<option value=fullcov>Full Coverage<option value=news_nytp>The New York Times<option value=all>All of Yahoo!</select></td><td nowrap class=sectiontitled>&nbsp;<span class=regs>for</span>&nbsp;</td><br><td nowrap valign=bottom><input size=15 name=p value="">&nbsp;<input type=submit value="Search"><br></td><br><td></td><br></form><br><td class=sectiontitled valign=bottom>&nbsp;<a class=regs href="http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/options?p="><font face=arial size=-2 color=ffffff>Advanced</font></a></td></tr></table></td><br></tr><br></table><br><table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height=8></td></tr></table><br><table width=750 border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><br><tr valign=top><br><td width=100% class=article><br><div class=storyheadline>White House Security Tightened<br></div><br><!-- Yahoo TimeStamp: 1028824601 --><br><div class=timedate>Thu Aug  8,12:36 PM ET</div><br><p><br><!-- TextStart --><br><font size=-1><i></i></font><br><p><br>WASHINGTON (AP) - <br>The Secret Service (<br>                <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_go_pr_wh/inlinks/*http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=%22The%20Secret%20Service%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw"><br>            news</a> - <br>                <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_go_pr_wh/inlinks/*http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?cs=nw&p=The%20Secret%20Service"><br>            web sites</a>), fearing the possibility of truck bombs, is banning trucks and all street parking on several blocks that run alongside the White House complex.<br><p><br><table width="1%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 align=left><br>    <tr valign=top><br>    <td width=99%><br> <br></td><td width=5></td></tr></table><br><p><br>Beginning at 6 a.m. EDT Friday, eight blocks of downtown Washington's 17th Street &#151; between H Street and Constitution &#151; will be closed to trucks, said Secret Service spokesman John Gill. Also, on the four blocks closest to the White House, Gill said, "No parking, no stopping, no standing."<br><p><br>Gill described the abrupt change as a "regular adjustment to security measures" around the White House and said it was not a response to any specific threat.<br><p><br>But the changes are designed to protect the White House from the kind of large-scale explosives that could be packed into a truck, he said. "The measures we're putting into place here are meant to reduce the size of a charge from any explosive-laden vehicle."<br><p><br>The parking ban is limited to the area that borders the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where most White House aides have their offices.<br><p><br>Parking will still be allowed closer to Constitution Avenue, another major capital thoroughfare, so that souvenir, T-shirt and hot dog vendors who sell from trucks typically parked in that area will not be affected, Gill said.<br><p><br><!-- TextEnd --><br><br clear=all><br>        <table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=0><br><tr valign=bottom><br><td width=25%><span class=regblk><&nbsp;Previous Story</span></td><br><td width=25%><center><img<br>src=http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/buzz/mail.gif width=16 height=16 align=bottom alt="Mail to Friend">&nbsp;<br><a href="http://mtf.news.yahoo.com/mailto?url=http%3a//story.news.yahoo.com/news%3ftmpl=story2%26u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_security_1&title=White+House+Security+Tightened%0a&prop=dailynews&locale=us" class=reg>Email Story</a></center></td><br><td width=25%><center><img src=http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/fifa/gen/printer.gif width=15 height=20 align=bottom alt="Printer Version">&nbsp;<br><a<br>href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_security_1" class=reg>Formatted Story</a><br></center></td><br><td align=right width=25%><a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/prevnext/next/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_pr_wh/democrats_1&e=1&ncid=" class=reg>Next Story&nbsp;></a></td><br></tr><br></table><br><br><br><table width=100% cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0 border=0><br><tr valign=top><br><td width=100%><br><center><br><img<br>src=http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/md/boards_mini.gif width=16 height=16 alt="Message Boards">&nbsp;<a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/newsresources/mesg/*http://news.messages.yahoo.com/index.html" class=regb>Message Boards:</a>&nbsp;<a href="http://post.news.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=NEWS&action=l&ft=1&board=37138469&sid=37138469&title=White%20House%20Security%20Tightened%0A&tid=apwhitehousesecurity&date=08-08-2002&url=story.news.yahoo.com%2Fnews%3Ftmpl%3Dstory%26u%3D%2Fap%2F20020808%2Fap_on_go_pr_wh%2Fwhite_house_security_1" class=reg>Post/Read Msgs</a><br><font face="Arial,Helvetica" size=1 color=#ff0000>(1453 msg Aug  8,  6:03 PM ET)</font></center><br></td></tr></table><br><br clear=all><br><hr size=1 noshade><br><table width=100% cellpadding=2 border=0 cellspacing=0><br><tr><td><br> <span class=regblk>More</span> <a href="/news?tmpl=index2&cid=693" class=reg>White House</a> <span class=regblk>Stories</span><br> </td></tr></table><br><table width=100% cellpadding=2 border=0 cellspacing=0><br>        <br> <br>        <br>   <br>  <tr valign=top><td width=1%><b>·</b></td><br> <td><br> <a href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/u_s__iraq_polls_1&e=1">Poll: 2/3 Want Congress Role in Iraq<br></a>&nbsp;<br><span class=timedate>(AP)</span><br> </td><br> </tr><br>     <br>        <br>   <br>  <tr valign=top><td width=1%><b>·</b></td><br> <td><br> <a href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/customs_missing_inventory_2&e=2">Thefts, Losses Hurt Customs Service<br></a>&nbsp;<br><span class=timedate>(AP)</span><br> </td><br> </tr><br>     <br>        <br>   <br>  <tr valign=top><td width=1%><b>·</b></td><br> <td><br> <a href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_14&e=3">Iraqi Groups Claim Unified Stand<br></a>&nbsp;<br><span class=timedate>(AP)</span><br> </td><br> </tr><br>     <br>        <br>   <br>  <tr valign=top><td width=1%><b>·</b></td><br> <td><br> <a href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_mideast_39&e=4">Bush Admin. 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All JUNE Articles|http://www.middleeast.org/launch/viewarchives.cgi?num=7||special|
Jordanians Beginning to Panic|http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=195305|Last week NBC DATELINE gave the Jordanians considerable free advertising with Katie Couric interviewing King Abdullah and Queen Rania and she toured Petra with them.  NBC, owned by corporate giant GE, gave the journalistic store away in favor of the special access accorded to Couric.  But even so, the Hashemite throne is wobbling now in Jordan; and today's reaction to Al-Jeezera shows just how nervous the Royal Palace and the Jordanian elite have become.  The Israelis may well seize the opportunity and get rid of Al-Jazeera next.<br>-----------<br><br>Jordan pulls plug on Al-Jazeera for harming government image<br>AMMAN - The Jordanian government Wednesday shut down the office of the Al-Jazeera satellite news channel, accusing the Qatar-based station of provoking "sedition" by airing views critical of the kingdom's rulers. <br><br>Information Minister Mohammad Affash Adwan said the license allowing the station to operate in Jordan and accreditation of Al-Jazeera's correspondents were revoked. <br><br>There was no immediate comment from Al-Jazeera. <br><br>The closure comes one day after Al-Jazeera aired a talk-show program in which a U.S.-based Palestinian university professor, Assad Abu-Khalil, rebuked Jordan's late King Hussein and his grandfather, King Abdullah I. <br><br>Abu-Khalil accused Jordan of pro-Israeli stances even before it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. He also claimed that Hussein, who died of cancer in 1999, had cooperated with the U.S. intelligence apparatus. <br><br>The program, "Opposite Direction," has often stirred controversy in Arab capitals because of its liberal and critical approach to Arab politics and leadership. Al-Jazeera has run into problems with authorities in other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Bahrain. Unlike state-run media, the station often airs views of local opposition figures and their criticisms of the countries' rulers. Open criticism of ruling families is unusual in the Arab world. <br><br>Adwan said Al-Jazeera "continuously intends to harm Jordan and its national stands whether directly or indirectly." <br><br>"This station has exceeded all professional and moral values in dealing with many national issues," he said in remarks carried by the official Petra news agency. <br><br>He said the station had targeted Jordan "in a way which confirms that its main goal is to create disturbance... and provoke sedition." <br><br>Implicitly referring to Tuesday's talk-show program, Adwan said the station had surpassed "all kinds of decency in its programs by attacking the nation's leaders and its nobilities."<br><br><br>|special|
'Radio Sawa' broadcast from Hashemite Jordan Aims to Please||"Oh kiss me beneath the milky twilight" goes one of the popular songs played on Radio Sawa, the new American radio programme for the Middle East, which combines music with a light infusion of news. No doubt many are tuning in to this attractive fare, but there are limits to what can be achieved by such means in the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world. Kanan Makiya, the author of The Republic of Fear, who attended the launch of the Foreign Policy Centre's report, suggested that things were too far gone in the Middle East for soft power to do much good. Only hard power, by which he meant an attack on Iraq, could bring about a "sea change" in the political culture of the region. <br><br><br>The Guardian (U.K.)<br><br>Friday August 2, 2002<br><br>'Soft power' can win the battle for hearts and minds <br><br>The US must embrace true multilateralism in the Middle East <br><br>Martin Woollacott<br><br><br>George Washington has become such a faded figure in the consciousness of American young people that an effort is now being made at Mount Vernon, his house near Washington, to relaunch him. Out goes the middle-aged man with wooden false teeth and a large kitchen garden, in comes the war hero and ladies' man. It is a story that perhaps has more than national implications, for America's revolutionary heritage shaped its international reputation until very recent times. Now the US is rarely seen as a liberator, even when it is, as in the case of Kosovo. Yet within living memory Asians, Arabs and Africans all looked to America for inspiration and help. <br>A generation ago, the best-seller The Ugly American tried to explain why the US had, through mistaken policies in part, but largely through arrogance and insensitivity to the feelings of others, alienated those who might have been its friends in south-east Asia. It is true that whenever an analysis suggests that policy is sound, or nearly so, but that presentation is terrible, it is natural to suspect wishful thinking. Supposed deficiencies in presentation are often a way of avoiding admitting that the policies themselves are at fault. Yet there clearly is much that countries can do to engage and persuade other societies, and much to be lost if little effort is made to do so. <br><br>The US, and to a lesser extent the west as a whole, once again found themselves in this situation after September 11. The Bush administration woke up to what it saw, in a rather overdone way, as a world of resentment, censure and even hatred of which they had been largely unaware. Bush declared that they had to "do a better job" of explaining America and its policies. He appointed Charlotte Beers as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. She was a public relations specialist who had advised on Uncle Ben's rice. <br><br>Now, unsatisfied with the results of the effort to remake America's image, the president has ordered that the campaign be run from the White House rather than the State Department. The announcement was made on the same day as the Council on Foreign Relations brought out a report saying that America is widely seen as self-absorbed and contemptuous of others, and, of course, in the same week that military action against Iraq was being intensely discussed. <br><br>Edward Walker, a former assistant secretary of state for the Near East, told the Washington Post last year that the "basic reason" America is not very effective at putting across its point of view is that "we don't even try". Now America is trying. Other plans include, according to the recent study by the Foreign Policy Centre in London, Public Diplomacy, video programmes on Muslim Americans, much more translated material, tours for foreign journalists and a scheme for satellite broadcasting to the Middle East to compete with al-Jazeera and other stations. <br><br>The Foreign Policy Centre's report, which looks at public diplomacy in a range of countries, offers many pointers to more effective public relations. One is that politicians can no longer assume their messages are for a national audience alone. Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech was crafted with Americans in mind but had an unexpectedly explosive impact on the wider international audience. At a different level, television pictures of Tony Blair in protective clothing during the foot-and-mouth crisis worked inside Britain because they showed the prime minister on the frontline, but outside of Britain they had the unhappy effect of making the crisis seem worse than it was. <br><br>Another strong point in the Foreign Policy Centre's report is that western nations engage in much unnecessary competition in public diplomacy in countries where they do not have strong separate interests. Mark Leonard, the main author of that report, also argues for what he calls "rapid reaction diplomacy" for the swift formation and execution of new policies in the wake of an emergency like that of September 11. <br><br>There are degrees of skill with which the policies of a country or a group of countries can be projected. But there are limits to the difference which expertise can make to policies that are fundamentally unilateralist or simply objectionable to those they will affect, and this is the problem that the Bush administration faces. In the larger conception of public diplomacy or "soft power", good public relations and news management are part of an approach to international relations which stresses continuous engagement with other countries and a readiness to take their interests into account as well as an intent to persuade them, if possible, "to want what you want". <br><br>This last phrase comes from Joseph Nye, whose recent book is a plea for attention to soft power as the third pillar of policy for the US, along with military and economic power. This requires, as he argues, much more money for aid, information, educational, cultural and other programmes. But it also requires an attitude which sees the world as a complex arena in which a nation's purposes are worked out in constant interaction with others. You change them, they change you and the process never stops. Even a country as militarily and economically strong as the US cannot achieve its aims by fiat or by force alone. Multilateralism, for Nye, is not a choice but a necessity for America. <br><br>"Oh kiss me beneath the milky twilight" goes one of the popular songs played on Radio Sawa, the new American radio programme for the Middle East, which combines music with a light infusion of news. No doubt many are tuning in to this attractive fare, but there are limits to what can be achieved by such means in the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world. Kanan Makiya, the author of The Republic of Fear, who attended the launch of the Foreign Policy Centre's report, suggested that things were too far gone in the Middle East for soft power to do much good. Only hard power, by which he meant an attack on Iraq, could bring about a "sea change" in the political culture of the region. <br><br>Most Europeans, whose impact on that region has been largely through the soft power of the EU programme to economically sustain the Palestinian Authority, would disagree. It may be, however, that the most effective soft power policies in the region have been neither American nor European. Saudi Arabia's decades-long effort to spread its form of Islam to every point of the compass was an example of very successful soft power, if not of the benign form usually envisaged. George Washington gets short shrift in such circumstances. Just because one country neglects soft power, it does not mean that others will also do so. <br><br>· Public Diplomacy, Mark Leonard with Catherine Stead and Conrad Smewing (The Foreign Policy Centre) <br>|off|
America's Super Weapons of Mass Destruction|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57159-2002Aug7?language=printer|Powerhouse H-Bomb Heads For Graveyard <br>Soviet-Aimed Bunker-Buster Joins Energy Dept.<br><br>By Walter Pincus<br>Washington Post Staff Writer<br>Thursday, August 8, 2002; Page A10 <br><br><br>The United States will soon begin to dismantle the 35 remaining B-53s, the most powerful thermonuclear bombs it ever built, 40 years after the weapons first became operational and five years after they were withdrawn from active service, according to Energy Department officials.<br><br>With a yield of 9 megatons (the equivalent of 9 million tons of TNT), each B-53 has the power of more than 400 Hiroshima atomic bombs. The weapon was originally designed to destroy the Soviet Union's deeply buried bunkers built during the Cold War to protect top Communist Party leaders and Moscow's military command posts.<br><br>The 9,000-pound bomb remained in the active stockpile until 1997 because it was the only giant thermonuclear weapon, or H-bomb, that Strategic Command planners felt confident could destroy Russian, North Korean and Iraqi hardened targets hidden in mountains or buried underground, according to active and retired Defense and Energy department specialists.<br><br>It was only in 1997, when the newer B-61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb, with a special earth-penetrating warhead, became operational, that the Strategic Command during the Clinton administration put the B-53 into secure storage warehouses.<br><br>An unplanned lag has developed over the years in the Energy Department's ability to dismantle its older, retired nuclear weapons at its Pantex plant in Texas, the only facility where U.S. nuclear weapons have been assembled and disassembled. Like the B-53, a line of other nuclear weapons has developed waiting to be taken apart in a highly technical and potentially dangerous process.<br><br>This little-publicized delay, along with the growing number of refurbished nuclear bombs and warheads in line to go through the Pantex plant and be returned to operational status, is the reason there will be no immediate dismantling of the warheads removed under the new Bush administration strategic reduction treaty with Russia.<br><br>For example, the W-79, the eight-inch nuclear artillery shell that in the 1970s was to provide a neutron radiation effect that would kill people but leave buildings intact, still has not been completely dismantled.<br><br>The 500 so-called neutron artillery shells were retired in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush, but there still is "ongoing dismantlement work" on the W-79 "that's been under[way] for several years," Everet H. Beckner, deputy administrator for defense programs of the National Nuclear Security Administration, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.<br><br>The W-79 program was supposed to have been completed in August 2000 but was held up when complications developed.<br><br>Another weapon retired by Bush and still being dismantled is the W-56, the warhead for the Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The 500 W-56 warheads were supposed to have been dismantled by September, but Beckner told the committee the process "will continue through fiscal year 2005."<br><br>Also in line to begin disassembly soon are the tactical B-61 nuclear bombs that first came into the inventory in 1963.<br><br>Dismantling nuclear bombs and warheads takes years of planning, Beckner told the committee, "since we must safely and securely handle the thousands of parts that will be generated by the process." Radiation hazards must be analyzed and safety standards approved. Transportation from secure storage areas must be programmed; storage at Pantex arranged; and each weapon radiographed to see if its critical safety components are operational, all before any dismantling.<br><br>Each weapon has to be taken apart in a separate, secure work bay. The primary chemical high explosive must carefully be separated from the plutonium and special radioactive materials that cause the thermonuclear blast.<br><br>The chemical high explosives are burned at Pantex and the plutonium is stored there because no plant exists to take that section apart. Other special nuclear materials can be disposed of under the existing material disposition programs. Some other subassemblies can be retained for use in other weapons, while highly enriched uranium from the dismantled bombs and warheads could be sent to the Energy Department's Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn., for storage or further processing.<br><br>The dismantling system is so complex and the plans for refurbishing weapons so large that the Pantex plant, with its limited number of secure work bays, will not be able to take on new dismantling without expanding the workforce, Beckner told the senators.<br><br>"We have some room . . . between now and about 2005," Beckner said. "From about 2005 to 2012 or so, we have a large workload in the life extension program," he added.<br><br>The B-53 experience shows how weapons needs can affect the dismantling process.<br><br>In the mid-1980s, plans were made to retire and dismantle the B-53 and replace it with the lower-yield B-83. But in 1987, after accidents caused the Pentagon to deactivate the Titan II liquid-fueled ICBM force, which used a 9-megaton warhead, the decision was made to halt B-53 retirements and keep 50 operational.<br><br>At the time, it was disclosed that the giant bomb was the only weapon with the ability to destroy deeply buried hard targets. A life extension program for the B-53 was undertaken in the late 1980s to give it additional safety equipment. But even when the Cold War ended, Strategic Command planners continued to need a giant nuclear warhead to attack underground facilities. As the 1990s progressed, additional "target sets" required retention of the B-53, which was no longer considered as safe as other nuclear weapons.<br><br>Even when the new earth-penetrating B-61 became operational in January 1997, the B-53 was initially to be retained as part of the hedge stockpile, according to an announcement at the time.<br><br>|off|
Israel Prepares 'Iron Wall' for War with Iraq||"Iron Wall" indeed.  This is the Israeli way of referring to the ideological founder of 'Revisionist Zionism', Vladimir Jabotinsky, the fascist-like founder of Ariel Sharon's political party and ideological convictions.<br><br><br><br>--------------<br>Israel Prepares for Iraq War - 'Iron Wall' To Be Alert Code in Event of<br>Missile Attack<br><br>Report by Yo'av Limor -  Ma'ariv July 30, 2002  [FBIS Translated Text]<br><br>"Homat Barzel" [Iron Wall] -- this will be the alert code to be used by the<br>IDF Home Front Command to warn the population of a missile attack on Israel.<br><br>The IDF has recently stepped up the preparation of the home front in<br>anticipation of the expected US attack on Iraq.   Security officials<br>estimate that Saddam Husayn will order his army to fire long-range missiles<br>at Israel, including some outfitted with chemical and biological warheads,<br>already at the beginning of the US strike.<br><br>In "quiet contacts" held recently with the heads of the US Administration,<br>Israel asked a forewarning of several days prior to the strike to be able to<br>prepare for the possibility of missiles being fired on Israel's civilian<br>population.   The issue was raised by the prime minister, the defense<br>minister, and the chief of staff in their visits to Washington.<br><br>Sources in Israel affirmed that a forewarning of a mere several hours --as<br>prior to the US attack on Afghanistan -- would be insufficient.   The IDF<br>foresees a public "avalanche" on the gas mask distribution centers in case<br>of an emergency. Therefore, it has trained some 3,000 reservists, who would<br>be called up at once to help the centers increase distribution to over<br>50,000 gas masks a day.<br><br>The IDF has also finished drafting the procedures for updating and informing<br>the public.   The moment the report is received of a missile having been<br>fired, a siren will be activated throughout the country, broadcasts on all<br>television and radio stations will stop, and the public will be notified of<br>the new alert code (replacing "Nahash Tzefa" of Gulf War fame), which will<br>be read out by Oded Ben-Ami, a former IDF spokesman.<br>|special|
All of West Bank turned into Giant Ghetto as Israeli Pogroms Continue|http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020804-105328-2056r||special|
No More Trucks Anywhere Near the White House||    <br>  <html><br><head><br><title><br>Yahoo! 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News</span>   <span class=regs><br>Thursday, August 08, 2002<br></span></td><br><td align=right nowrap valign=bottom><br><table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr valign=middle><br><form action="http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news"><br><td valign=bottom><br></td><br><td nowrap class=sectiontitled valign=bottom><span class=regs style="font-weight:bold">Search</span></td><br><td nowrap class=sectiontitled> <select name=c><option value="">News Stories<option value=news_photos>News Photos<option value=av>Audio/Video<option value=fullcov>Full Coverage<option value=news_nytp>The New York Times<option value=all>All of Yahoo!</select></td><td nowrap class=sectiontitled> <span class=regs>for</span> </td><br><td nowrap valign=bottom><input size=15 name=p value=""> <input type=submit value="Search"><br></td><br><td></td><br></form><br><td class=sectiontitled valign=bottom> <a class=regs href="http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/options?p="><font face=arial size=-2 color=ffffff>Advanced</font></a></td></tr></table></td><br></tr><br></table><br><table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height=8></td></tr></table><br><table width=750 border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><br><tr valign=top><br><td width=100% class=article><br><div class=storyheadline>White House Security Tightened<br></div><br><!-- Yahoo TimeStamp: 1028824601 --><br><div class=timedate>Thu Aug  8,12:36 PM ET</div><br><p><br><!-- TextStart --><br><font size=-1><i></i></font><br><p><br>WASHINGTON (AP) - <br>The Secret Service (<br>                <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_go_pr_wh/inlinks/*http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=%22The%20Secret%20Service%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw"><br>            news</a> - <br>                <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_go_pr_wh/inlinks/*http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?cs=nw&p=The%20Secret%20Service"><br>            web sites</a>), fearing the possibility of truck bombs, is banning trucks and all street parking on several blocks that run alongside the White House complex.<br><p><br><table width="1%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 align=left><br>    <tr valign=top><br>    <td width=99%><br> <br></td><td width=5></td></tr></table><br><p><br>Beginning at 6 a.m. EDT Friday, eight blocks of downtown Washington's 17th Street — between H Street and Constitution — will be closed to trucks, said Secret Service spokesman John Gill. Also, on the four blocks closest to the White House, Gill said, "No parking, no stopping, no standing."<br><p><br>Gill described the abrupt change as a "regular adjustment to security measures" around the White House and said it was not a response to any specific threat.<br><p><br>But the changes are designed to protect the White House from the kind of large-scale explosives that could be packed into a truck, he said. "The measures we're putting into place here are meant to reduce the size of a charge from any explosive-laden vehicle."<br><p><br>The parking ban is limited to the area that borders the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where most White House aides have their offices.<br><p><br>Parking will still be allowed closer to Constitution Avenue, another major capital thoroughfare, so that souvenir, T-shirt and hot dog vendors who sell from trucks typically parked in that area will not be affected, Gill said.<br><p><br><!-- TextEnd --><br><br clear=all><br>        <table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=0><br><tr valign=bottom><br><td width=25%><span class=regblk>< Previous Story</span></td><br><td width=25%><center><img<br>src=http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/buzz/mail.gif width=16 height=16 align=bottom alt="Mail to Friend"> <br><a href="http://mtf.news.yahoo.com/mailto?url=http%3a//story.news.yahoo.com/news%3ftmpl=story2%26u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_security_1&title=White+House+Security+Tightened%0a&prop=dailynews&locale=us" class=reg>Email Story</a></center></td><br><td width=25%><center><img src=http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/fifa/gen/printer.gif width=15 height=20 align=bottom alt="Printer Version"> <br><a<br>href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_security_1" class=reg>Formatted Story</a><br></center></td><br><td align=right width=25%><a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/prevnext/next/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_pr_wh/democrats_1&e=1&ncid=" class=reg>Next Story ></a></td><br></tr><br></table><br><br><br><table width=100% cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0 border=0><br><tr valign=top><br><td width=100%><br><center><br><img<br>src=http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/md/boards_mini.gif width=16 height=16 alt="Message Boards"> <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/newsresources/mesg/*http://news.messages.yahoo.com/index.html" class=regb>Message Boards:</a> <a href="http://post.news.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=NEWS&action=l&ft=1&board=37138469&sid=37138469&title=White%20House%20Security%20Tightened%0A&tid=apwhitehousesecurity&date=08-08-2002&url=story.news.yahoo.com%2Fnews%3Ftmpl%3Dstory%26u%3D%2Fap%2F20020808%2Fap_on_go_pr_wh%2Fwhite_house_security_1" class=reg>Post/Read Msgs</a><br><font face="Arial,Helvetica" size=1 color=#ff0000>(1453 msg Aug  8,  6:03 PM ET)</font></center><br></td></tr></table><br><br clear=all><br><hr size=1 noshade><br><table width=100% cellpadding=2 border=0 cellspacing=0><br><tr><td><br> <span class=regblk>More</span> <a href="/news?tmpl=index2&cid=693" class=reg>White House</a> <span class=regblk>Stories</span><br> </td></tr></table><br><table width=100% cellpadding=2 border=0 cellspacing=0><br>        <br> <br>        <br>   <br>  <tr valign=top><td width=1%><b>·</b></td><br> <td><br> <a href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/u_s__iraq_polls_1&e=1">Poll: 2/3 Want Congress Role in Iraq<br></a> <br><span class=timedate>(AP)</span><br> </td><br> </tr><br>     <br>        <br>   <br>  <tr valign=top><td width=1%><b>·</b></td><br> <td><br> <a href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/customs_missing_inventory_2&e=2">Thefts, Losses Hurt Customs Service<br></a> <br><span class=timedate>(AP)</span><br> </td><br> </tr><br>     <br>        <br>   <br>  <tr valign=top><td width=1%><b>·</b></td><br> <td><br> <a href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_14&e=3">Iraqi Groups Claim Unified Stand<br></a> <br><span class=timedate>(AP)</span><br> </td><br> </tr><br>     <br>        <br>   <br>  <tr valign=top><td width=1%><b>·</b></td><br> <td><br> <a href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_mideast_39&e=4">Bush Admin. Meets Arafat Ministers<br></a> <br><span class=timedate>(AP)</span><br> </td><br> </tr><br>     <br>        <br>   <br>  <tr valign=top><td width=1%><b>·</b></td><br> <td><br> <a href="/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20020808/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/pentagon_weapons_2&e=5">Weapons Chief Skeptical of Osprey<br></a> <br><span class=timedate>(AP)</span><br> </td><br> </tr><br>  </table><br><hr size=1 noshade><br></td></tr></table><br><table width=750 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><br><tr><td class=regsblk><center><br><hr width=750 size=1 noshade><br>Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.<br><br><br><table width=750><tr><td valign=top align=center><span style="font-size:8pt">Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. 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Iraq Readying Preemptive Strike Against Israel?||Very difficult to know these days what is propaganda and what is real.  But with all the US talk about a 'preemptive' strike against Iraq; by the very same reasoning an Iraqi 'preemptive' strike against Israel is hardly to be dismissed as a possibility.  Moreover the Americans are known to be furiously preparing the region for war with major new air bases being built and supplied and considerable American military and CIA personnel already arriving.  <br>-------------------------<br><br><br>Israel prepares for Iraqi strike 'at any moment' <br> <br>SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM<br>Monday, August 12, 2002<br><br>JERUSALEM — Israel has determined that Iraq is preparing a missile strike that could be launched at any time.<br><br>Officials said the government has prepared a series of plans to defend against and retaliate for any Iraqi missile attack on Israel. They said the plans were discussed and endorsed by the United States.<br><br>"Israel should be prepared to face an Iraqi attack at any moment," Israeli Science Minister Matan Vilnai said. <br><br><br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>Why Gamble With Your Family's Health?: Special offer<br><br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>Israel's plans include the deployment of additional assets to defend against any Iraqi missile attack. Officials said Israel wants to deploy two Arrow-2 missile defense batteries, Middle East Newsline reported.<br>One Arrow-2 battery has been operational at an air force base in southwestern Israel. A second Arrow-2 battery is meant for deployment at Ein Shemer, east of the coastal city of Hadera.<br><br>So far, officials said, the Ein Shemer site contains the Green Pine early-warning radar. They said the Arrow-2 battery and interceptors will be deployed when the prospect of a U.S. attack on Baghdad is imminent.<br><br>A military statement said the second Arrow-2 battery is being deployed as part of a multi-year test program. The statement said the deployment was planned "a long time ago."<br><br>The officials said Iraq could decide to preempt any U.S. attack on the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with a missile barrage against Israel. They said such an Iraqi attack could be aimed at foiling U.S. plans to use Jordan and Gulf states as launching pads for a military campaign against Baghdad.<br><br>Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel is well-prepared for any U.S. war against Iraq. Ben-Eliezer said the Arrow-2 is ready to defend against missile attacks and authorities have prepared enough gas masks to protect Israelis from nonconventional weapons.<br><br>Officials said authorities have tested masks for the protection of Israeli civilians against Iraqi chemical weapons attacks. The Defense Ministry said the gas masks kits, produced by Even Sapir, passed their latest round of tests, conducted at a naval base in Haifa.<br><br>Production of the masks are expected to begin later this year. The kits are expected to replace masks distributed by authorities since 1992. The new masks, which will not require batteries for operation, will come in two sizes and is meant to fit anyone above the age of eight.<br><br>Officials said the Defense Ministry wants to sell the production rights for Even Sapir masks to U.S. contractors. They said this would guarantee a production line for the masks during any war. The kit is estimated at costing $60. <br><br>|special|
India Relents and lets Destitute Pakistani Woman Go|http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020805-75882722.htm||hidden|
All JULY Articles|http://www.middleeast.org/launch/viewarchives.cgi?num=8||special|
Official Egyptians Twist and Deceive; making themselves look foolish|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57402-2002Aug7?language=printer||off|
Some Closet American Jews are 'Coming Out'||Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)<br>July 29, 2002<br><br>"Feeling out of sync with mainstream,<br>left-wing Jews carve out Israel niche"<br>By Matthew E. Berger<br><br>WASHINGTON, July 29 (JTA) — Bruce Robbins is not sure how he became a<br>leader in a grass-roots movement of American Jews urging the United States <br>to pressure Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.<br><br>The Columbia University English professor was one of a handful of people who <br>received an e-mail in the spring from a man he hardly knew, a physics <br>professor at New York University with strong views on the Middle East.<br><br>Among Alan Sokal’s comments was a call for the U.S. government to make aid <br>to Israel conditional on Israel’s acceptance of a two-state solution that <br>includes a return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders and an evacuation of all <br>Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.<br><br>One of the original 10 people to get that e-mail, Robbins signed on to the <br>statement.<br><br>The next thing he knew, he was seeking additional supporters for an open <br>letter from American Jews to the U.S. government, and working to place a <br>half-page ad in The New York Times.<br><br>Now, Robbins is appearing on television, offering what he considers an<br>“alternative” American Jewish view of Israel’s military operations against <br>Palestinian terrorism.<br><br>Last week, a day after an Israeli airstrike killed Hamas’ military commander <br>and at least 14 civilians in the Gaza Strip, Robbins appeared on MSNBC’s <br>“Donahue” program.<br><br>He appeared together with a PLO legal adviser and Israel’s consul general in <br>New York, Alon Pinkas, arguing that the attack was not in Israel’s interest.<br><br>“The Hamas is certainly going to retaliate after the attack,” Robbins said. <br>“And the Israelis are going to retaliate. And the retaliation will go back <br>and forth.”<br><br>Robbins’ group, made up mostly of academics, does not have a name or a<br>budget, but it is getting attention.<br><br>Since a second, full-page ad ran in the Times in July, more than 1,700 <br>people have signed Robbins’ letter, and he is looking for more venues for <br>his views.<br><br>“The idea is to make it clear to people in the United States that Jewish <br>people are not a monolithic” bloc that always supports the Israeli <br>government, Robbins said.<br><br>“There are a lot of us out there who are constructively critical.”<br><br>A growing number of American Jews are seeking to voice opinions about the <br>path to Middle East peace that are at odds with those of the Israeli <br>government, the U.S. government and mainstream American Jewish groups.<br><br>With some Jews feeling left out and afraid to speak up, several grass-roots <br>organizations are forming to articulate left-wing opinions and create an <br>alternative to mainstream Jewish groups.<br><br>Since the Palestinian intifada against Israel began in September 2000, some <br>Jewish groups that had pushed hard for the Oslo peace process found it <br>increasingly difficult to speak up for peace with the Palestinians when <br>suicide bombers and other terrorists were targeting Israelis.<br><br>For their part, leaders of mainstreams organizations, even on the left, say <br>they are largely speaking with one voice these days because that view <br>represents the vast majority of American Jews during the intifada.<br><br>“There has been substantial unity because there has been substantial unity,” <br>said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Reform movement’s Union of American <br>Hebrew Congregations, which has not hesitated to criticize the Israeli <br>government in the past when it felt its policies were wrong .<br><br>“Our community remains supportive of” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s <br>government, “although some may not be happy with that” he said of the Reform <br>movement.<br><br>That has left many left-wing Jews feeling they have no one to represent <br>their views to the White House or Congress.<br><br>Specifically, they want American Jews to criticize what they consider to be <br>heavy-handed actions the Israeli government has taken, such as incursions <br>into the West Bank, sieges of Palestinian Authority President Yasser <br>Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters and the alleged expansion of settlements in <br>the West Bank and Gaza Strip.<br><br>“I don’t know when it happened, but I think the Sharon government crossed a <br>line with people,” Robbins said. “A lot of people said, ‘Not in my name.’ ”<br><br>In addition to ads, activists have taken to the streets, protesting outside <br>Israeli consulates and holding vigils for Palestinian victims.<br><br>Last week’s Israeli airstrike in Gaza was a prime example of the type of <br>move left-wingers want American Jewish groups to criticize.<br><br>“It’s part of the hypocrisy and double standards,” said Rabbi Michael <br>Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, who has started to meet with lawmakers.<br><br>“We yell and scream when our own people are being killed, but are deathly <br>silent when civilians are targeted on the other side.”<br><br>Israeli officials have said they approved the attack based on intelligence <br>information that no civilians were with the Hamas warlord, and that the <br>massive bomb employed would cause little collateral damage.<br><br>Organizers say the grass-roots movements aim to give American Jews who<br>are critical of Israeli actions and U.S. policy the feeling that they are <br>not alone.<br><br>“We represent Jews who feel that it is not right for Israel to be occupying <br>another people,” said Josh Ruebner, founder of Jews for Peace in Palestine <br>and Israel.<br><br>“We represent Jews who feel Israel has a right to exist behind safe and <br>secure, internationally recognized borders, but does not have the right to <br>suppress its neighbors.”<br><br>Ruebner and others claim the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the <br>pro-Israel lobby, and other Jewish groups try to keep alternative Jewish <br>voices from being heard on Capitol Hill.<br><br>Even when more left-wing voices do get through, Ruebner contends,<br>lawmakers hesitate to act because of AIPAC’s influence and fear that they <br>will lose American Jewish political donations or be labeled anti-Semitic.<br><br>For its part, AIPAC says it, too, is a grass-roots organization and <br>represents the views of most American Jews.<br><br>AIPAC officials say the organization’s policy derives from an executive <br>committee made up of leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major <br>American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella group of 54 Jewish organizations <br>from across the ideological spectrum.<br><br>“AIPAC has always had critics,” AIPAC spokeswoman Rebecca Needler said. <br>“There are some that say AIPAC is too left and some that say it is too <br>right.”<br><br>There are clear differences between the mainstream American Jewish groups <br>and the grass-roots movements, which tend to be on the far left.<br><br>On its report card for lawmakers, for example, Jews for Peace in Palestine <br>and Israel gives a negative rating to any lawmaker that supported a <br>congressional resolution — backed by most American Jewish groups — <br>expressing solidarity with Israel. Jews for Peace claims the bill blamed <br>ongoing violence entirely on the Palestinians.<br><br>Lerner, who has started a new grass-roots organization called Tikkun<br>Community, sent an e-mail to supporters earlier this month suggesting that <br>Jews send political contributions or help the campaign of Rep. Cynthia <br>McKinney (D-Ga.). Other Jewish groups have called McKinney virulently <br>anti-Israeli, if not outright anti-Semitic.<br><br>The grass-roots leaders say their movements are being taken seriously by <br>Congress.<br><br>“There’s a big re-evaluation going on in Congress right now,” Ruebner said. <br>“They are saying we need a more balanced policy.”<br><br>More mainstream groups on the left, such as Americans for Peace Now and the <br>Israel Policy Forum, say they already have been expressing similar <br>sentiments on Capitol Hill, seeking an end to Israeli settlement <br>construction and demanding that Israel release frozen tax revenues to the <br>Palestinians.<br><br>They note that their vision for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict <br>is close to that of the grass-roots activists, including a two-state <br>solution that would leave the Palestinians in control of virtually all of <br>the West Bank and Gaza Strip.<br><br>Indeed, one congressional staffer suggested the newer grass-roots<br>movements were wasting time and money by repeating the sentiments they<br>already hear from groups such as Peace Now and Israel Policy Forum.<br><br>“If they were bringing anything new to the table, they’d have value,” the <br>staffer said of the new movements.<br><br>“But they are spending a lot of money to say things we already know.”<br><br>In addition, he said, information is viewed a bit skeptically when it comes <br>from unfamiliar groups.<br><br>A White House official, too, said a New York Times ad might catch his<br>attention, but he is not sure whom the grass-roots movements are<br>representing.<br><br>The grass-roots movements acknowledge that they have minimal influence<br>now, but they hope their efforts may gain steam.<br><br>Indeed, Theodore Mann, a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of <br>Major American Jewish Organizations and a founder of the Israel Policy <br>Forum, says some grass-roots movements historically have had an impact.<br><br>Some of the new organizations may thrive on their own, he said, but it’s <br>more likely that their existence could embolden people within the <br>established Jewish organizations to speak out — assuming the grass-roots <br>leaders really speak for large numbers.<br><br>For their part, the activists compare themselves to those who opened the <br>fight for women’s rights or against the Vietnam War.<br><br>“Our side is not going to become the prominent side next year,” Lerner said. <br>“There is no prospect of people coming to this in the short run.”|off|
If only the King spoke such good Arabic!|http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=320955|Abdullah, the king on a mission to prevent war<br><br>By Robert Fisk in Beirut<br>03 August 2002<br><br><br>It's the accent that does it. Middle-English, upper middle- class, a touch of Oxford and Sandhurst, both of which he attended. If only, some Jordanians say, their king spoke Arabic as well as he does English. But King Abdullah of Jordan is improving his fluency in his native language just as he is able to touch the heart of the House of Commons or even a slightly more difficult undertaking, the heart of Tony Blair.<br><br>Don't invade Iraq is his message. Don't start yet another war in the region. Stop the first one – the one in Palestine – before starting a second. Alas, George Bush Jnr doesn't want to know.<br><br>There was a telling moment last month when King Abdullah, or Lieutenant-General Abdullah as the Plucky Little King Mark II is in his army, set off for Russia. He had told his prime minister to make clear in his absence that Jordan was not, repeat NOT, going to serve as a launching pad for America's legions in the event of a US-Iraqi war.<br><br>As the King met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, his premier in Amman obeyed the king's orders. No way, he said, would Jordan allow itself to be a jump-off point for an American attack on Iraq. Next day, The New York Times announced on its front page that 250,000 US troops might be used to invade Saddam Hussein's fiefdom. And one of the principal launching points? Why Jordan, of course.<br><br>The king, like many other Middle East leaders who are supposed to be America's allies in the region, is growing ever more fearful of the US administration. Dick Cheney's blind, hopeless attempts to garner support among Arabs for an Iraqi war had no effect on Washington's enthusiasm for a "regime change" in Baghdad.<br><br>The pro-Israeli advisers around Mr Bush seem to have blinded the American President to the realities of the Middle East. In the eyes of King Abdullah and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, US Middle East policy is Israeli policy. Or vice versa. Which is what President Saddam has been saying for years.<br><br>King Abdullah of Jordan might be able to persuade Mr Blair to express his worries about an Iraqi war but Mr Bush will not be dissuaded by a look-alike Englishman even if the King did take a masters at Georgetown. An attack on Iraq may be "somewhat ludicrous" in King Abdullah's eyes but the US President wants that "regime change" and says: "I haven't changed my mind" with a speed that suggests reflection is not a part of the Bush fabric. If Abdullah thought he could rein in the White House, he knows better now.<br><br>But Mr Bush might have done better to listen to King Abdullah with a little more attention. For this is a king who probably knows more about armoured warfare than his highly militaristic father, King Hussein, who was Britain's Plucky Little King Mark I. Abdullah trained as a paratrooper in a British armoured brigade and, four years before he died, Hussein appointed his son head of the Jordanian Special Forces, a unit that includes two "counter-terrorism" battalions and an airborne brigade and which trains regularly in desert terrain remarkably similar to the land Americans would have to fight across in western Iraq.<br><br>Yet it's a militaristic leader slightly closer to home that worries King Abdullah. Ariel Sharon was among the first to suggest Jordan should be Palestine, and his de facto destruction of the Palestinian Authority, his demand for the exile, if not the life, of Yasser Arafat and his continued Jewish colonisation of Palestinian land makes him the King's most dangerous neighbour.<br><br>When Mr Bush was giving further encouragement to Mr Sharon to hit the Palestinians this week – expressing his "fury" at the Palestinian bomb that killed seven students at the Hebrew University but merely chiding Israel for "heavy-handedness" when it killed nine children as well as a Hamas leader in Gaza – King Abdullah must have drawn in his breath.<br><br>His disenchantment with any coup d'état was made all too clear this week when he publicly chided his brother Hassan for attending the meeting of Iraqi opposition figures in London. Hassan, of course, was King Hussein's original choice as successor, a decision Hussein changed only days before his death, to the permanent distress of Hassan and the all-too obvious delight of Abdullah. If Hassan thought he could indulge himself in Jordan's foreign affairs (he was regarded as "America's man" in the Jordanian royal family after King Hussein) it was a serious mistake.<br><br>For King Abdullah can afford to trust few men. He cannot trust Ariel Sharon, or George Bush. He cannot seriously trust Tony Blair. He can expect little support from President Mubarak or the Saudis, however sympathetic they may be. And in a country where more and more Palestinian citizens of Jordan are asking why the King even maintains a peace treaty with Israel, selling a US-Iraqi war to his own people will be an impossibility. Which is why King Abdullah's throne remains the shakiest in the lop-sided, dictator-rich landscape of the Middle East. <br><br>|off|
'War on Terrorism is Bullshit' - Another Hollywood Actor Screams About American Terrorism and the War|http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12103357&method=full&siteid=50143|WOODY'S ON SIDE - US actor defends George Michael's anti-Bush single<br> <br>He's one of Hollywood's hottest actors and, with Natural Born Killers among his starring roles, is no stranger to controversy.<br><br>But now Woody Harrelson has taken another brave step - he's passionately defended George Michael over his anti-Bush and Blair single Shoot The Dog.<br><br>The 41-year-old star - currently appearing in On An Average Day opposite Kyle MacLachlan at the Comedy Theatre in London - has hit out at the backlash against the song's lyrics which criticise George Bush, Tony Blair and the war on terror since September 11.<br><br>At his play's after-show party on Wednesday night, Woody told Jessica: "I saw the Daily Mirror's front page on George Michael and I thought it was brilliant. I've always been a fan but he's right up there now. I think he's a great guy.<br><br>"I haven't seen the video for his song but I was fascinated by what he had to say.<br><br>"He's incredibly brave to have done that song. Especially when doing something like that could be considered very dangerous in today's world."<br><br>Harrelson - who is famous for his role as the dim barman Woody in Cheers and who stunned audiences with his powerful portrayal of a murderer in Natural Born Killers - is the first American to stand up and defend the 39-year-old British singer.<br><br><br> <br><br>DEFENDER: Harrelson talks to the Mirror's Jessica Callan<br><br>The former Wham! star caused outrage by using the Daily Mirror's Howdy Poodle front page, which poked fun at the special relationship between Britain and the US, on the single's cover.<br><br>"I can't believe he got so criticised in America for it. It's so unfair," said Woody. "I hear he's too scared to go over to the States now. What a joke. I'd really like to meet George.<br><br>"I want to congratulate him on standing up and speaking out.<br><br>"I totally support him and wish him all the best. It would really make my day if you could set up a meeting with me and George. I just want to shake that guy by the hand."<br><br>He also had nothing but praise for the Daily Mirror.<br><br>"I have one thing to say about the Mirror - it's amazing," he said. "The paper's stance on the war against terrorism is just right. It's so bold.<br><br>"The war against terrorism is terrorism. The whole thing is just bullsh*t. What you guys have done is very brave."<br><br>Woody - who was with his wife Laura and their two daughters Deni, nine, and five-year-old Zoe at the party at Adam Street private members' club - has been living in London for two months. He has homes in Hawaii and Costa Rica and proclaims to be a vegan, although he was gobbling up the canapes at the party.<br><br>"I love it over here, man," he grinned, sipping a pint of beer.<br><br>"I've been really busy but now the play has started I want to have a little fun. There's a little spot I go to but I'd rather not tell you where it is."<br><br>London cab driver Les Dartnell also attended the play.<br><br>In June Woody was wrestled to the ground by policemen and arrested after he went berserk in the back of Les's taxi. The cabbie said the star acted like a "caged animal".<br><br>Within minutes of Les picking the actor up from Chinawhite at 2am, Woody had trashed the cab. He then booted the door open and made a run for it.<br><br>Les dropped the charges after Woody paid him £542.96 and the two men shook hands after the play. "He said, 'No hard feelings'," said Woody. "He seemed like a nice guy. It's just one of those terrible circumstances."<br> <br>|special|
Impromptu Bush Tells A Bit Too Much - 'Deliver or else'||Speaking off the cuff, that's when we get the real hard black & white tell-it-like-it-is George W. Bush.  That's what he did a few days after 11 Sept when he blurted out the no-no word 'Crusade' (it hadn't yet been explained to him that they are still smarting over there in the Middle East from the Christian invasion of yesteryear).  Today, Bush let it be known what the Arafat Authority (as well as other 'client regimes') were put there by the Americans to do in the first place; and what happens if they don't make good.  In a cabinet meeting today while reporters were allowed in:<br>   <br>"Bush urged the Palestinian Authority to shed 'officials who haven't been able to delivery' - a group that Bush has said should include Arafat himself."<br><br>(Washingto Post, 1 August 2002, pA21)|off|
Toyota Corolla 2003|http://www.washtimes.com/autoweekend/20020802-99050152.htm||hidden|
Massive Arms Sales to Israel||Actually there have been additional arms provided, sold, or made available in one way or another -- from the US as well as from European countries.  But here are the bare publicly available facts and numbers.  Moreover, since the US requires that Israel purchase most of its arms from the US with the more than $2billion yearly provided for that purpose, what is also involved is a kind of subsidy by the American Congress to the US arms industry:<br><br><br>---------------------<br>In the past 10 years the US has sold Israel $7.2bn worth of weaponry and military equipment, including: <br><br>Equipment Cost (per unit) <br><br>Fighter planes <br><br>50 F-4E Phantoms $18.4m <br><br>98 F-15 Eagles $38m <br><br>237 F-16 Fighting Falcons $34.3m <br><br>Helicopters <br><br>42 AH-64 Apache Attacks $14.5m <br><br>57 Cobra Attacks $10.7m <br><br>25 Blackhawks $11m <br><br>Missiles <br><br>AGM 65 Mavericks $17,000-$110,000 <br><br>AGM 114 Hellfires $40,000 <br><br>Aim 7 Sparrows $125,000 <br><br>Aim 9 Sidewinders $84,000 <br><br>Aim 120B Amraams $386,000 <br><br>Harpoon anti-ship missiles $720,000 <br><br>The US also gives weapons and ammunition free of charge. Between 1994 and 2001 this included 64,744 M-16A1 rifles, 2,469 M-204 grenade launchers, 1,500 M-2 .50 calibre machine guns and .30 calibre, .50 calibre, and 20mm ammunition <br><br>Source: World Policy Institute. Research department: Linda MacDonald |special|
Pygmies Indeed!||What can you expect from the Washington establishment.  For years the Washington Post and its regular columnists have been spouting pseudo-liberal jargon about the Middle East, backing apartheid-like 'peace plans', and even now refusing to realize both where we have really so sadly been and where we are so tragically going.  The idea that the U.S. is now the true champion of 'democracy in the Middle East' after many decades supporting the very regimes now being criticized, is truly ludicrous.  As for 'pygmies', they reside, admittedly in drag, more comfortably among the Washington power elite -- politicians and journalists alike -- as well as among the 'client regime leaders' the US continues to prop up in the region amidst the fiendously deceptive drone of 'democracy' for all.<br>------------------------<br><br><br><br>The Mideast's Political Pygmies <br>By Jim Hoagland<br><br>[Washington Post Op Ed Page; 1 August 2002):  In a time of Middle Eastern turmoil that calls for giants of spirit and of <br>vision, the region is afflicted with pygmies who cannot see beyond their own <br>immediate interests. They capitulate to moral obtuseness shaped by decades of <br>conflict and corruption.<br>The Bush administration -- more by circumstance than design -- has come to a <br>giant-sized ambition for the region: Washington now anchors its plans for the <br>removal of Iraq's Saddam Hussein and for the creation of an independent, <br>responsible Palestinian state in an American commitment to promoting <br>democracy in the Middle East. That noble goal justifies the expenditure of <br>American treasure, effort and perhaps lives in the region.<br>This is progress in at least one way: President Bush and his advisers <br>implicitly acknowledge that the removals of Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat <br>are necessary but not sufficient conditions for stabilizing the Middle East. <br>What and who follows them is vital to American interests. It must not be left <br>to chance. I would add: It must not be left to the pygmies, either.<br>The administration cannot rely on local leaders who show no commitment to <br>democratic change to be the instruments of that change. Nor can it rely on a <br>now-discredited peace process to overcome the political hatreds and cultural <br>backlash that roil the region. Only a level and clarity of American <br>commitment to democratic change that forces choices upon reluctant partners <br>will calm an ever more deadly conflict.<br>We are not there. President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have yet <br>to demonstrate they can agree with each other on the hows and whens of <br>achieving peace in the Middle East. They seem to follow rather than to lead <br>when they deal with Israel's Ariel Sharon, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Saudi <br>Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah and their colleagues.<br>In that confused atmosphere, meetings about meetings have proliferated and <br>replaced action. Arab rulers travel to the White House every few weeks to <br>plead with Bush to do something that will chase images of Israeli-Palestinian <br>slaughter off the television screens of the Arab world. The dream of evasion <br>-- not of democracy or a better life for their subjects -- is the goal of the <br>autocratic dynasties of the Arab world.<br>Israel meanwhile sinks deeper into an understandable but dangerous rage over <br>suicide bombers and their glorification in Palestinian society. Israel's <br>military establishment "is angry in a way that it has never been angry <br>before, in any previous war," Israel's premier defense analyst, Zeev Schiff, <br>says with open concern. "The result is that when the location of the head of <br>the military wing of Hamas becomes known, the decision not to let him slip <br>away" -- by dropping a one-ton bomb in a crowded Gaza area -- "is made, <br>whatever the consequences." It becomes a technical matter decided by <br>munitions experts.<br>Down this road lies greater loss of control and greater disaster. Washington <br>cannot simply wait until the time is right for action against Saddam Hussein <br>or until Arafat keels over. Only pygmy-sized visions are coming from <br>America's traditional partners in the region. These leaders must be <br>challenged rather than comforted or coddled.<br>This is particularly true of the Arab regimes that receive special treatment <br>from Washington but do not even offer lip service to Bush's stated goals.<br>Egypt's sclerotic government has been raking in more than $2 billion a year <br>in U.S. economic aid for two decades and wasting much of it. The regime <br>demonstrated its growing anti-democratic drift with the sentencing this week <br>of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a democracy advocate and a dual Egyptian-American <br>citizen, to seven years in jail on trumped-up charges. Bush cannot <br>simultaneously ignore this outrage, enlist Egypt to help clean up the <br>Palestinian Authority and champion democracy in the Middle East. He must <br>choose, and make Egypt choose.<br>The administration will also have the opportunity this month to support <br>Palestinian and Iraqi groups that are committed to democratic change rather <br>than to autocracy as usual. A meeting of anti-Hussein organizations in <br>Washington should showcase and offer support to Iraqis such as Ahmed Chalabi <br>who have fought for democracy rather than for power.<br>The State Department should also push for the inclusion of grass-roots <br>Palestinian organizations, such as Omar Karsou's Democracy in Palestine, at <br>the scheduled Aug. 19 conference of international donors of economic aid for <br>Palestine. Breaking the monopoly that Arafat's corrupt Palestinian Authority <br>has established on aid funds is a key step to beginning the change that Bush <br>and others have promised.|special|
Who Will Stand Up to Israeli 'War Crimes'?||The position of the international community on extra-judicial killings was summarised by Sir Crispin Tickell, the UK's former permanent representative to the United Nations, in relation to the assassination by Israelis of Abu Jihad: "it is a betrayal of the natural expectation of the international community that governments will uphold the rule of law."...The fact that the Israeli supreme court is looking into the legality of Israel's policies implicitly recognises that no situation is outside the law and that no victim, in war or peacetime, should be wholly beyond the protection of the law. Prime Minister Sharon should take heed that the era of impunity for war crimes is rapidly drawing to a close. <br><br>The Guardian (U.K.)<br><br>Saturday July 27, 2002<br><br>Comment<br><br>Toothless in Gaza <br><br>Was Israel's assassination of Salah Shehada a war crime and, if so, can any court try it?<br><br>John Jones<br><br>Israel's "targeted killing" of the head of the military wing of Hamas in Gaza this week unleashed a storm of protest, for the missile fired into a densely packed residential block at midnight killed not only Salah Shehada but also 15 other people, including nine children, and injured some 150 others. The result could hardly have been unexpected. <br><br>The Bush administration and other governments have criticised the attack for the effect it would have on the tottering "peace process". Far from being the "major success" that the Israelis claim, many argued, Israel may be sowing dragon's teeth for a future harvest of suicide bombers. As usual, the discussion has focused on the political and military effectiveness of Israel's action. But what of its legality? Even if Israel could solve its problems by killing wanted Palestinians and innocent Palestinian civilians alike, what of the rule of law? And if attacks like this are illegal under international law, what are the implications, in particular now that the international criminal court (ICC) has been established, for possible prosecutions? <br><br>While some governments seem reluctant to ask (let alone answer) this question, in some cases from a justified fear that their own actions may come under scrutiny, the Israeli supreme court is curious. It has now accepted that it has jurisdiction to look into the legality of Israel's policy of "targeted killings" and, in a case brought by a Palestinian NGO, an Israeli NGO and victims' relatives against Israel, Prime Minister Sharon and others, has posed this question: which legal system applies in this case - the laws of war, the law applicable to internal conflict or some other branch of law? <br><br>The simple answer is that no body of law applied consistently can be invoked to justify Israel's assassinations of wanted Palestinians. The laws of war, the law applicable to internal conflict, and human rights law in peacetime converge on the principle of the sanctity of human life; all prohibit taking human life when the person killed presents no imminent threat to life or limb and when less drastic means exist for reducing or eliminating the threat they pose. <br><br>The legal system which should be applied to the Israeli assassination policy is that of international armed conflict and occupation, with international human rights law providing a background level of protection. <br><br>The four Geneva conventions of 1949, which Israel has ratified, apply not only to international armed conflicts but also to occupation. That the occupied Palestinian territories (OPTs) are under occupation is almost tautological, yet Israel has often denied that the Geneva conventions, in particular the fourth (civilian) convention, apply to the annexed and occupied territories. Israel maintains that the OPTs never "belonged" to any Arab state and are thus not "occupied" but "administered" and, as such, not subject to the civilian convention. The applicability of the civilian convention does not, however, depend on such niceties but on the reality of the situation, and its applicability to the OPTs has been confirmed by the declaration adopted in December 2001 by the parties to the convention. <br><br>What are the consequences, then, of the civilian convention applying to the OPTs? Since Palestinians are not citizens of Israel, they fall within the definition of "protected persons", being "in the hands of ... the occupying power of which they are not nationals". The convention prohibits the "wilful killing" of protected persons; anyone committing such a killing is guilty of a "grave breach", or war crime. <br><br>Each party to the civilian convention is obliged, under article 146, "to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and [to] bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts". Any state which has signed the Geneva conventions has not only the right, but also the duty, to prosecute perpetrators of "grave breaches". This is referred to as universal jurisdiction. <br><br>Israel has argued that suspected Palestinian terrorists are not protected by the civilian convention because they have taken up arms and therefore are not entitled to be regarded as civilians. Nor are they to be treated as combatants, because they carry arms covertly and do not openly engage Israel's armed forces. However, the convention provides for trial of people who lose their protected status by engaging in activities hostile to the state. So the correct procedure is for Israel to arrest wanted Palestinians and bring them to trial. Killing a person without trial, and many other innocent persons in the process, has no legal justification under the Geneva conventions. <br><br>It would also be disingenuous for Israel to claim that it cannot make arrests because it does not have the authority to do so in the OPTs. It has demonstrated that it exercises effective control in the territories and can enter at will. <br><br>The position of the international community on extra-judicial killings was summarised by Sir Crispin Tickell, the UK's former permanent representative to the United Nations, in relation to the assassination by Israelis of Abu Jihad: "it is a betrayal of the natural expectation of the international community that governments will uphold the rule of law." <br><br>Coexisting with the laws of war is international human rights law, which applies at all times. This body of law is set out in particular in the international covenant on civil and political rights (ICCPR), to which Israel is a party. Human rights law applies during military occupation, so Palestinians in the occupied territories fall within the ambit of Israel's human rights obligations. The right to life is a fundamental human right guaranteed by the ICCPR. It is considered so fundamental that no derogation is permitted, even when there is a "public emergency which threatens the life of the nation". <br><br>Israel has invoked the notion of necessity. In the context of international armed conflict, the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia established that a plea that it was necessary, and therefore legal, to kill a person can only be raised where the target presented an imminent threat - for example, he was about to detonate a bomb - and where the action taken is proportionate to the evil to be averted. There is no justification for killing a person because he is suspected of past or future involvement in terrorist activities, but where he poses no immediate threat, nor where there will be many civilian casualties, as was bound to be the case in this week's attack. <br><br>If in carrying out this week's attack, and other assassinations, Israel has indeed committed war crimes, which court can try the crimes? The international criminal court, which came into being on July 1, is able to judge such crimes under its war crimes provision, for example as "intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects ... which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military objective to be anticipated". Israel has not, however, ratified the ICC statute, so that court cannot act unless the security council refers the situation to it. Such a referral could be blocked by the veto of any permanent member of the security council. <br><br>Thus, perversely, the much-awaited ICC, set up to try war crimes, cannot in this case do anything. This suggests that it will be toothless at precisely the moment that it is needed. That is only partly true, however; Israel, as a non-party to the ICC, with a powerful ally in the security council, is a special case. <br><br>Moreover, it is always open to national courts to step into the breach on the basis of universal jurisdiction. The Pinochet case has shown the potential for national prosecutions of international crimes, although factors such as immunity (which brought an end to Belgium's investigation of Sharon earlier this year), not to mention pure politics, have stood in the way. <br><br>The fact that the Israeli supreme court is looking into the legality of Israel's policies implicitly recognises that no situation is outside the law and that no victim, in war or peacetime, should be wholly beyond the protection of the law. Prime Minister Sharon should take heed that the era of impunity for war crimes is rapidly drawing to a close. <br><br>· John Jones is a barrister specialising in war crimes and extradition. He has worked for the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and was assisted in writing this piece by Olivia Holdsworth, a barrister with expertise in international humanitarian law. The views expressed here are those of the authors. <br><br><br>|off|
Israeli Court Upholds Blowing Up Houses||<br><br> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"/><html><head> <!--PLS_META--> <!--Knews2 Document --> <script src="/js/csssniff.js"></script><br><script language="JavaScript"><br><!--<br> <br>function nameIt() {<br>    window.name = 'nytimesmain';<br>    if (navigator.appName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer") {<br>document.all.globalsearchform.style.visibility = "visible";<br>        }<br>    }<br>     <br>function pop_me_up(pURL,features){ <br>new_window = window.open(pURL, "popup_window", features);<br>new_window.focus();<br>}<br><br>function pop_me_up2(pURL,name,features){<br>new_window = window.open(pURL,name,features);<br>new_window.focus();<br>}<br><br>function changeImage(image_name,image_src) {<br>   document.images[image_name].src = image_src;<br>}<br><br>function goToPage(form){<br>    var url = form.date.options[form.date.selectedIndex].value<br>    window.open(url);<br>}<br><br>//--><br></script><br><meta  http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html"><meta  http-equiv="charset" content="iso-8859-1"><br><meta  name="NYT_HEADLINE" content="Israeli Court Upholds Blowing Up Houses"><br><meta  name="hdl" content="Israeli Court Upholds Blowing Up Houses"><br><meta  name="BY_LINE" content="By JOHN KIFNER"><br><meta  name="byl" content="By JOHN KIFNER"><br><meta  name="FIRSTPAR" content=" Saying Israel is in the middle of a war, the Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the army approval to destroy without notice the homes of 43 families related to suicide bombers. 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bombers, while fearful and frustrated Israelis struggled to find a way to end a new wave of Palestinian attacks.</p><P> Israeli helicopter gunships and troops on the ground killed two Palestinian militants — one held responsible for dispatching two suicide bombers to a foreign workers' district of Tel Aviv — in a West Bank village near Jenin before dawn. </p><!--Middle ad type : bigad --><table width="336" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="center"> <tr> <td width="336" align="left"><div align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif" color="#999999" size="-2">Advertisement</font></div><!-- ADXINFO classification="bigad" campaign="csfbhd04d-nyt1"--><br><SCRIPT LANGUAGE=JavaScript>  <br><!--  <br>var ShockMode = 0;    <br>// checking for flash 4  <br>var plugin = (navigator.mimeTypes && navigator.mimeTypes["application/x-shockwave-flash"]) ? navigator.mimeTypes["application/x-shockwave-flash"].enabledPlugin : 0; <br>if (plugin 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The Washington Post - Such A Bunch of Pseudo-Liberals Masquerading as Middle East experts|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44038-2002Aug4?language=printer|You really have to love these guys at the Washington Post; especially the ones who know nearly nothing about the real Middle East.  Just imagine, this columnist really thinks that all an American President has to do is say something reasonable and thoughtful and all is forgiven, all the past doesn't matter, and most of all what the Americans actually do regardless of what they so craftily at times say, is overlooked and of no significance.  Oy vey!<br><br>That said, Diehl is a little bit right about the situation regarding Saad Eddin Ibrahim though he clearly has no real idea who the man really is nor why the U.S. is saying and doing so little in this case as well.|special|
Generals and Bush Politicos At Odds about Iraq and ME War|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28740-2002Jul31?language=printer||off|
When Japan prepared bio weapons; and the US coverup||Historians say that few details of the Unit 731's activities came to light after the war, because the US wanted to use the research of what was then the world's leading biological warfare research team in the subsequent cold war. <br><br>The Guardian (U.K.)<br>Wednesday July 31, 2002<br><br>Japanese veteran apologises for germ warfare <br><br>Jonathan Watts in Tokyo<br><br>A self-confessed Japanese war criminal called on the government to apologise for testing biological weapons on thousands of Chinese prisoners yesterday in advance of a legal ruling on the activities of a germ warfare unit during the second world war <br><br>Yoshio Shinozuka, a veteran of the top-secret Unit 731, told reporters he had done what no man should do in developing bubonic plague viruses and conducting vivisections on captives near Harbin in China. <br><br>"These human beings were called logs. We said we have chopped one log, two logs," the frail and bespectacled 78-year-old said. "This unit cruelly murdered human beings, first by caging them and then by killing them." <br><br>Mr Shinozuka is a key witness in a case in the Tokyo district court in which 180 Chinese plaintiffs are demanding compensation and an apology from the Japanese government for the death of relatives they say were killed by Unit 731. <br><br>Historians say that few details of the Unit 731's activities came to light after the war, because the US wanted to use the research of what was then the world's leading biological warfare research team in the subsequent cold war. <br><br>The case is the most detailed and longest-running of more than a dozen war-related suits against the Japanese government. It has produced witnesses who have detailed how the Japanese army dumped fleas infected with bubonic plague near Harbin in 1940, in a deadly trial of germ warfare. <br><br>Up to 3,000 Chinese are believed to have died as a direct result of Unit 731's experiments to make weapons of mass destruction from diseases such as typhoid, dysentery, cholera, bubonic plague and anthrax. <br><br>Mr Shinozuka described how he participated in the vivisection of five Chinese prisoners, and in the mass production of deadly pathogens. <br><br>His role was to hose the prisoners down and scrub them with a brush before the operations. Once they were cleaned, army surgeons would check that the captives' hearts were still beating and then cut them open with a scalpel, he said. <br><br>"This lawsuit is to question the conscience of Japan as a whole," Mr Shinozuka said. "If you admit that you have done something wrong, you apologise." <br><br>The government, which only recently acknowledged the existence of Unit 731, has rarely challenged the evidence provided during the five-year long case, but has not put anyone involved on trial. <br><br>As in previous actions brought by former prisoners of war and women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops, the government is expected to have the case rejected on a technicality: that all claims were settled by the 1951 San Francisco treaty. <br><br>But the mass of uncontested facts presented are an embarrassment, and will add to the country's difficulties in laying to rest its bitter wartime legacy. <br><br><br>Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002|off|
Palestine, Iraq, and Bio-Weapons|http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-373053,00.html||special|
Bush' Political Kiss of Death - Iran Style|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38398-2002Aug2.html||off|
From Warsaw Ghetto to Palestinian Ghettos|http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=195737&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y|Ha'aretz 9.8.2002<br><br>Warsaw Ghetto leader's letter to `Palestinian partisans' raises a storm among uprising survivors and Zionists<br><br>Many internationally renowned figures have asked the Palestinians to end violence and terrorism, but a letter from the deputy commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising is causing a particular fuss. <br><br>Dr. Marek Edelman, the last of the uprising leaders still living, wrote an "open letter" to Palestinians this week, asking them to stop the bloodshed and enter into peace negotiations. But the letter has prompted a dispute among the remaining survivors of the uprising and their families, since in his letter Edelman does not mention the word "terrorism." <br><br>Moreover, the letter is filled with hints of comparisons between the Palestinians' fight and that of the ghetto residents. He addresses "the commanders of the Palestinians armed organizations and the partisan organizations, and the soldiers of the armed Palestinian organizations." <br><br>Edelman, who still lives in Poland, sent his letter via his old friend, Simha Rotem - known as "Kazik," a well-known fighter in the uprising. Edelman starts his letter with an overview of the uprising against the Nazis, hinting at the difference between the Jews' struggle, and that of the Palestinians. <br><br>"In 1943, we fought for the life of Jewish society in Warsaw. We fought solely for life, not for territory and not for national identity ... our weapons were never aimed at a defenseless civilian population. We did not kill women and children." <br><br>He goes on to say that, "to this day, a partisan struggle in cities has never succeeded anywhere in the world, but the armies we fought against also never won. This war also will not lead to any solution. Once again, blood will be spilled needlessly and people on both sides will lose their lives." <br><br>Edelman further "rebukes" the Palestinians by comparing their deeds to those of the Jewish fighters by saying, "we never gambled with our lives. We never sent our soldiers to a certain death; after all, you only live once. A man must not take another's life. It is time for everyone to understand that." <br><br>He advises the Palestinians to learn from the Irish, where "ardent enemies sat round the same table," and from the fall of the Communist regime in Poland, "which was brought down without a single shot." <br><br>Edelman then addresses both sides: "You and the state of Israel must alter your approach ... You must want peace in order to save the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people to create a better future for your relatives and children." He explains that his decision to write to "the commanders of the armed organizations" comes from his experience which has found that they have the biggest influence, compared to that of civil and political elements. <br><br>Edelman says that a possible mediator does not have to be "a politician. A man with an unshakeable moral authority, who puts living in peace and honorably above all political goals, is preferable." <br><br>In this, Edelman is perhaps hinting at a hidden desire to be called upon as such a mediator, an idea that his friend Rotem does not reject altogether. "I don't think he would refuse to being a mediator, and as a non-Zionist Jew, he also has the right talents," says Rotem. <br><br>Edelman, a caridologist by profession, is now in his eighties. He was a member of the Bund, the Marxist-Jewish party that opposed Zionism, and represented the movement within the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) when he joined it in 1942. <br><br>He viewed Poland as his homeland and remained there after the war and after Israel's independence. Edelman maintained contact with his fellow resistance leaders who moved to Israel, though there was always an ideological clash. <br><br>Edelman told Ha'aretz his use of the word "partisan" was not meant to draw comparisons between the Palestinians and the ghetto fighters, nor to put a positive light on their activities. "The word `partisan' denotes all war by citizens, and is not necessarily an expression of honor," he said. <br><br>Despite his views, Edelman has visited Israel on numerous occasions, especially after the collapse of the Polish Communist regime, the latest visit being just a few months ago. <br><br>Pnina Frymer-Greenspan, who fought under Edelman's command in the uprising, criticized the comparisons drawn between the Jewish fighters and the Palestinian terrorists. "There is no need for such a comparison," she said, "it pains me. I also think its very problematic that he does not call them `terrorists.'" She does however back his call for negotiations. <br><br>Prof. Israel Gutman, one of Israel's foremost historians on the Holocaust and himself a participant in the uprising, was far more critical. "Edelman has been filled with hate for Israel for years," he said. "At the time, he claimed that [former prime ministers Menachem] Begin and [Yitzhak] Shamir has massacred Arabs and that [David] Ben-Gurion was `a little Jew from a poor town' unworthy of being considered a statesman." <br><br>Gutman links Edelman's sentiments to his days with the Bund which he says was "so hostile to Zionism and stood out with their provocations against anything Jewish - opening soup kitchens even on Yom Kippur." <br><br>Rotem said Edelman met Palestinian representatives at his Lodz home yesterday. "The Palestinians telephoned Ramallah from his home and the response was, `we'll see soon.' He hopes this means they will agree to a meeting soon, and assumes that the Israelis will not refuse such a meeting," said Rotem.<br>By Yair Sheleg<br>|off|
Israel's Orchestra Cancels Tour - Well...not quite||<br>Israeli Orchestra Cancels U.S. Tour<br><br>By TALLIE LIEBERMAN<br>.c The Associated Press <br><br>JERUSALEM (AP) - The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra won't be going on a U.S. concert tour because it has been unable to find an American security firm to guard its 100 musicians, an orchestra official said Monday.<br><br>``We did not cancel the tour, they canceled us,'' said orchestra chief executive Avi Shoshani.<br><br>The orchestra was scheduled to perform next month in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, but called off the U.S. leg of its international tour when it couldn't organize a security company to protect its musicians.<br><br>``All I know is that we signed a contract with our agent and that he could not find a security company for us,'' said Shoshani. According to Shoshani, orchestra agent Allen Sviridoff had called a number of security firms to request their services at the outdoor concerts, but all had returned with the same answer: they were unwilling to take on the risk of terror attack.<br><br>Zeev Dorman, chairman of the orchestra, said, ``We have never before experienced a cancellation of this kind. Usually cancellations are the result of funding problems - as in they could not sell enough tickets.<br><br>``But in this case, security is the official reason they gave us,'' he told Israel Radio.<br><br>Shoshani said the orchestra performed in the United States in January without any problems.<br><br>The orchestra intends to play at other concerts scheduled in Australia in August and Taiwan in September, Dorman said.<br><br>|off|
Clinton Pledges to Fight and Die for Israel!|http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/46092.htm|We always told you who and what Bill Clinton was when it came to the Middle East.<br>Now, with his wife seeking the top job he once held, Clinton is coming out of the closet more than ever.|off|
Hamas in the Drivers Seat as Regional War Approaches|http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=192940&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y|Analysis / Bombing When Israel blames Arafat, Hamas wins <br> <br>By Zvi Bar'el <br> <br> <br> <br> <br>The speed with which the Hamas military wing managed to pull off a "quality attack" in response to Israel's assassination of the Iz a Din Al-Kassam's founder, Salah Shehadeh, and the movement's utter rejection of the PA's pleas not to conduct revenge attacks for the assassination, are a sign of the new front facing Israel. <br><br>According to an Israeli intelligence source, Hamas and its military wing has a "target bank" in Israel, just as the IDF has a "target bank" in the territories. "There's nothing random about their choice of targets," said the source, "with each bomber and each bomb having a known target that is not improvised at the last minute. This is the fruit of ongoing intelligence work that knows the security arrangements and the ways to reach every target." <br><br>The bombing yesterday at the Hebrew University shows that assessments saying the Palestinian terrorist organizations are having difficulties getting hold of effective munitions, does not meet the test of reality and that their ability to recruit bombers has not been reduced by the mass arrests during the IDF's operations in the territories. <br><br>Hamas' military capabilities and its full integration in what has become known as the Palestinian resistance movement - the same name used by the Hezbollah in Lebanon - has become a threat not only to Israel but to the Palestinian Authority's ability to find its way toward any political process. In effect, the PA realizes that it can only get cooperation with Hamas in those areas that are compatible with the Hamas ideology - and not the contrary. Therefore, when Israel strikes at Hamas targets, like Salah Shehadeh, or if it hits other Hamas targets, the PA cannot prevent the Hamas from undertaking vengeance attacks of its own. Thus, the question becomes whether there is any point to the efforts for coordination and dialogue between the PA and Hamas and Islamic Jihad with regard to reactions to Israeli moves. <br><br>PA sources believe that in the balance of forces in the territories, Hamas has achieved legitimacy because it is regarded as an integral part of the Palestinian movement against Israel. Hamas today is no longer perceived as an isolationist, religious movement working against the PA's agenda or against the agreements the PA signed with Israel, but rather as part of the struggle. <br><br>"Hamas' stature is similar to that of Hezbollah in Lebanon before the IDF withdrew," said a senior Palestinian official. "Just as Lebanon had to grit its teeth in light of the Hezbollah's activities, there are more and more elements who oppose Hamas' actions but they cannot speak out because we are all in the same struggle." <br><br>That leads to the conclusion that in order to retain and sustain its legitimacy, Hamas will be ready to coordinate with Arafat because Arafat remains the source of authority of that legitimacy. Until he announces an end to the armed resistance, Hamas has no tactical problem lining up with him, even if it means a temporary halt to the attacks. <br><br>Revenge attacks, in any case, are not counted in the overall balance, and despite PA condemnations, such as yesterday's, the revenge attacks are always justified by the Palestinians as retaliations for Israeli attacks. <br><br>The Hamas dilemma will begin if a tactical halt to the bombings leads to a renewal of the political process, which could once again divide the PA's agenda from that of Hamas, or if Israel starts sending money to Palestinians in the territories and allows work inside Israel in exchange for security cooperation from the PA against Hamas activists. <br><br>In both cases, Hamas will try to prove its relevance and its ability to set the agenda by basing itself on the Israeli doctrine that continues to blame Arafat for all the acts of terror against Israel. As long as that doctrine remains fixed, Hamas can continue gaining legitimacy at Arafat's expense, and at the same time, with relative ease, prevent the renewal of any negotiations.<br> <br>|special|
ABdullah II Warns Americans Big Time|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28716-2002Jul31?language=printer|This is what he says in public from his Four Seasons Suite.  But with such a long long history of collusion and treachery, who knows what this Hashemite King is really saying when he is together alone with top US and Israeli leaders.|off|
Dr. Eyad Sarraj Lashes Out From Gaza|http://www.gcmhp.net/File_files/Artienglishaug122k2.html|"THE SO CALLED"!! <br>By Dr. Eyad El Sarraj <br><br>12 August 2002<br>Mr. Rumsfield is one of the signs of tragedy in our time. The world has become a cold and lonely place when such people as Bin Laden, Bush - and his entourage of the likes of Rumsfield - and Sharon entered the scene, each with a deserved bang. They represent failure. Collectively Bin Laden is a representation of Arab Muslims who failed in entering the modern times of democracy and the rule of law, and continue to be hostage to demagogy slogans, police states, and a tribal system. Muslims generally failed to protect their religion from being hijacked by the few extremists. <br><br>The Zionist project failed. Instead of turning Palestine into a safe haven for Jews, Israel became just another Ghetto and a slaughter house for Jews and others. The failure of Israel is partly due to its military dictatorship, arrogance of power, and paranoia. <br><br>Extremism is an expression of Paranoia. People like Bin Laden and Rumsfield have the world divided in their paranoid eyes between the good and the evil. According to Bin Laden you have to be a Muslim to be good, and according to Rumsfield you have to be pro-American, preferably white and Christian. They are mirror images of each other. Sharon' world was already divided, between Jews and Goyim. <br><br>The tragedy of our time is that it is the Bin Laden's, Bush's, Rumsfield's, and Sharon's who decide for our future and the future of our children. <br><br>Extremism flourishes in an environment of poverty and hopelessness. Palestinians have failed in liberating their land. Their desperate resort to violent suicide bombings has only served to strengthen Sharon and to cost them the morality of their just cause. Earlier failures were as spectacular, from black September, to Lebanon, to the second Gulf war, and to the Oslo process. The Palestinian leadership never understood the Israeli Jewish psychology or political environment. Arafat is not an extremist, nor a terrorist. Today he is impotently squeezed between extremists who decide his own fate and ours. As in the rest of the Arab land-with the exception of Sadat-Arafat has failed in war and in peace. It is open for speculations if he ever had a strategy for either. The big failure was when the Palestinian Authority prevented the Palestinian society from transforming into democracy and the rule of law. Instead they exploited the tribal structural map to divide and rule, and thus encouraged nepotism and corruption. Arafat's regime could not stand the pressure from inside or outside. The traditional argument that we should all unite against the common enemy could not lead to unity behind Arafat. His real demise came when he did not put up a fight against Sharon when Israeli forces took over his headquarters. He let down the excited masses who were longing for a hero. The romance with Arafat was over. <br><br>Perhaps Britain is the biggest failure in modern history as it left disasters behind her savagely exploitive colonial rule. Britain who has contributed through its mandate over Palestine to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has failed to address its colonial brutal past. <br><br>But worst of all is the failure of the U.S. to provide itself and the world with a moral leadership equivalent to its economic and military power. It is truly a sad time to see ultra-Zionist Christian fundamentalists like Cheny and Rumsfield in control of America. <br><br>Perhaps an illustration of the global failure is Kofi Anan, the so called Secretary-General of the United Nations. Anan is a miserable man who, under American pressure, only helps to deprive his organization of its morality. The latest of his achievements was his so called report on events in Palestine in which he equated the Israeli occupation policies of murder and destruction with the legitimate Palestinian resistance. <br><br>Today The Palestinian scene is a testimony to the failure of all. It is wide open and pregnant with dire possibilities. Rumsfield's shocking remark about the "so called occupied West Bank" is a signal of one scenario in which Israel will not leave the "so called" occupied West bank. Instead she will withdraw from Gaza, which is where the future Palestine is planned to be. Such a possibility will certainly bring defiance and more murder for thousands of people. But would Mr. Rumsfield, the so called Secretary of Defense, care? <br>|off|
Europeans Splitting with US - Chicago Tribune 4-part Series||A Fraying Alliance<br>Allies diverge on vision for world<br>U.S. unilateralism helps weaken ties<br><br>First of four parts <br>By R.C. Longworth<br>Tribune senior correspondent<br><br><br>BERLIN - 28 July 2002 - The Atlantic alliance between the United States and Europe, the most successful international bonding of all time, is breaking down amid starkly differing visions of a changing world and both sides' proper place in it.<br><br>The alliance, a mesh of military, economic, cultural and historic ties, was born in the ashes of World War II, the coupling of a young superpower and old nation-states devastated by conflict. The alliance produced the Marshall Plan and NATO, fought and won the Cold War and created the most prosperous and peaceful assembly of democracies in history. Its dramatic erosion, which is not a priority in a Washington fixated on terrorism, has become an obsession in Europe.<br><br>No total rupture is likely, nor are former friends about to become foes. Economic ties, both trade and investment, will stay strong. NATO, the institutional cornerstone of the alliance, probably will survive, but in a reduced and less military role.<br><br>The alliance's trend is not toward hostility but toward irrelevance, with the United States, by far its dominant member, dealing with threats beyond Europe and less interested in what the Europeans think and do. The Europeans, for their part, are preoccupied with their own continent and offended by what they see as American unilateralism.<br><br>For both sides, the Atlantic alliance has been the anchor of foreign policy since World War II. So for both, its fraying means a basic shift in the way they deal with the world.<br><br>"I know Germans and Americans share values and experiences," Robert Zoellick, the chief U.S. trade negotiator and one of the more multilateral members of the administration, told a German Marshall Fund meeting in Berlin. "Yet the question we must address now is whether we have shared interests as well.<br><br>"Many recent Euro-Atlantic squabbles . . . reflect America's reassessment of its national interests in a changed world and Europe's conservatism in adjusting," Zoellick told the Germans. "Will there be a basis for a trans-Atlantic unity absent the intense cohesion of shared dangers?"<br><br>The 50-year history of the alliance is filled with spats and hard words--over trade, missiles, Cold War strategy, American saber rattling, European appeasement, Disney movies and Big Macs. But these were fights within the family, between allies who always seemed to kiss and make up.<br><br>In a Tribune examination of the state of the alliance, leading European foreign policy and defense officials, and political analysts from Berlin to Paris to London and Brussels agree that what's happening now is different.<br><br>"It's normal to criticize each other, and normal for Americans to be very tough in defending their interests," said Gilles Andreani, a French foreign policy scholar. "But this is a new attitude, a contempt toward Europeans that we never saw before.<br><br>"Americans can have their way on this planet without Europe," Andreani said. "For the first time, you hear Americans saying that we don't want to be in a position where we need Europeans."<br><br>The next big flash point, and the most crucial one, is expected to involve any U.S. decision to invade Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. European leaders, all of whom backed the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, say they will support an attack on Iraq only if Bush makes a solid case that it is aiding terrorism and if the United States first wins UN Security Council support. Otherwise, Europeans may well oppose any attack, which could help hasten the collapse of the alliance.<br><br>European officials see the new relationship as the result of three separate but interlocking trends:<br><br>The end of the Cold War. In the Soviet-American struggle, Europe was the front line and the focal point of U.S. policy. That ended 11 years ago, with the collapse of communism. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 only dramatized this shift of American attention from Europe to more global threats.<br><br>The unprecedented power of the United States, coupled with the unilateralism of the Bush administration. American officials are making it clear that European consultation and cooperation is more hindrance than help. A Europe devoted to international law and institutions faces a Washington that rejects any international restraint on its power. A half-century habit of trans-Atlantic conversation has been replaced by an unconcealed scorn in Washington for the Europeans.<br><br>The success of the European Union in creating a zone of peace in which war is virtually unthinkable. This success has led to sharp cuts in European military spending over the last decade and a relative military weakness. As a result, the United States has stopped counting on European help in battle.<br><br>U.S. contempt alleged<br><br>Some of this, like the fallout from the end of the Cold War, is inevitable. Some, like the replacement of a war-torn Europe by a continent at peace, is positive and has active U.S. support.<br><br>But some seems almost deliberate. Many European officials admit that Europe, in its single-minded construction of the EU, has turned inward, away from global issues, and has not kept up its end of the military balance. But the same Europeans say that the Bush administration's open contempt for Europeans' positions is widening the gap and is squandering the political sympathy that the United States enjoyed across Europe after Sept. 11.<br><br>NATO, the military alliance that won the Cold War, is not strong enough to bridge this gap.<br><br>"Europe is not willing to be bullied, but the United States is not willing to be restrained," said Mark Leonard, director of the Foreign Policy Centre, a London think tank with ties to the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.<br><br>"The continents are without doubt drifting apart," agreed Hugo Young, a leading British political columnist, in the Guardian. "They have interests in common, but also interests around which America, as now led, has the power and the hardness to insist on non-negotiable policies that we can take or leave."<br><br>American officials fanned out across Europe this summer to spread the word that U.S. priorities and interests have changed, post Sept. 11. The Europeans are being told that, if they want to change their worldviews, too, then they are welcome to stay in the alliance. If not, America will go on without them.<br><br>The European reaction to this varies from country to country. European officials seem baffled and confused by the U.S. policy and are wary of alienating Washington, loath to criticize the Bush administration for fear of making matters worse.<br><br>Germany, grateful for U.S. support through the Cold War and anxious to keep the alliance, has been reluctant to criticize Washington. Blair prides himself on working quietly with Bush to influence U.S. policies: Political sources in London say part of this is "damage control," to limit the extremes of U.S. unilateralism.<br><br>The French, as usual, are more ready to say what the rest of the continent is thinking.<br><br>"Very few European countries are used to saying no to the United States," a French diplomat said. "France has a long history of debate with America, but other countries aren't so used to this."<br><br>Split more apparent<br><br>European officials agree that the U.S.-European split has become more visible and bitter under Bush. The Clinton administration riled Europeans with its post-Cold War triumphalism, rubbed in its military superiority in Kosovo, and refused to ask Congress to sign the Kyoto treaty on global warming.<br><br>But the real shocks to the system have come thick and fast under Bush, including the total rejection of Kyoto, the breaching of the anti-missile treaty and the pursuit of a missile defense system, the "axis of evil" speech that named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as global villains, among others. But several recent events have hardened Europeans' concerns into a real fear of where the United States is going.<br><br>The first was the American reaction when its NATO allies, immediately after Sept. 11, invoked NATO's Article 5 for the first time in its history. That article says, in effect, that an attack on one NATO nation is an attack on all of them, and the allies' action was intended as an act of solidarity with Americans and offer of all-out help in the fight against terrorism. The United States never accepted the offer and has made relatively little use of European military help since then.<br><br>The second shock was the war on terrorism itself, or rather the overwhelming U.S. focus on the war on terrorism and its tendency to see other world problems in the anti-terrorism context.<br><br>Then came differences of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, with the Europeans condemning one-sided U.S. support for Israel and the Americans seeing anti-Semitism in Europe's more balanced approach.<br><br>More recently has come the administration's attempt to undermine the new International Criminal Court, which all European nations see as a first step toward a global rule of law.<br><br>Part of the trans-Atlantic problem is a failure on each side to understand the deep emotions that drive the other.<br><br>Chris Patten, the EU commissioner, has been a leading critic of American unilateralism. But he admits that Europeans just don't grasp "the consequences of 9/11 for American policymaking and the American psyche. I think that we in Europe have to make a greater effort to comprehend the impact of that atrocity.<br><br>"We in Europe have had to live with instability for most of the last century," from two world wars to the postwar wave of domestic terrorism in most European nations, Patten said. For that reason, he said, it is too easy for Europeans to see terrorism as part of the landscape, a problem like many others, rather than as an unprecedented assault on a nation that always considered itself invulnerable.<br><br>But the Europeans feel that Americans don't understand their devotion to non-military solutions or their pride over the consensual if bureaucratic way they have built their continent. Nor, they feel, do Americans understand that Europe's support for the ICC, Kyoto and other international treaties is not a spasm of political correctness but a reflection of deep values.<br><br>"There's one fundamental difference, and it's not just Kyoto or the ICC," said Christoph Bertram, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "It's whether truly international issues should be met with a truly international approach. This is a deeply held view in Europe. On this point, we need to quarrel."<br><br>The European press is full of criticism of Bush as a gun-happy cowboy--cartoons in The Guardian of London regularly portray him as a monkey wrapped in an American flag--and Europeans laugh at him. But European officials shun these caricatures, aware that some of America's most effective leaders also lacked the kind of polish and sophistication that impresses continentals.<br><br>"This atmosphere doesn't depend on Bush as a person," said Hubert Vedrine, until recently the French foreign minister. "[Ronald] Reagan and [Harry] Truman weren't sophisticated either, but they were very effective."<br><br>But Europeans also see the triumph of a provincial, conservative, overtly Christian part of America that is alien from the United States they once knew.<br><br>Europe today is basically a secular society, Andreani said, and has a hard time dealing "with a government that may be pragmatic but has its values--religion, a certain order of society--so upfront. For our secular society, the idea that a presidential candidate would explain how he feels about Jesus is bizarre."<br><br><br><br>A Fraying Alliance<br>Allies are worlds apart in war on terrorism<br><br>Second of four parts<br>By R.C. Longworth<br>Tribune senior correspondent<br><br>July 29, 2002<br><br>LONDON -- On the day terrorists attacked New York and the Pentagon, the leading French newspaper, Le Monde, published a now-famous headline: "Nous sommes tous Americains." We are all Americans. And it meant it.<br><br>Eight months later, a poll published in the German magazine Der Spiegel asked Europeans whether the attacks were against the entire Western world, as Le Monde's headline implied, or just against the United States. By a 3-1 margin, the Europeans said it was an attack on Americans. Nothing to do with Europe.<br><br>Nothing sums up better the deep divide between Europe and America and how they see the world.<br><br>The United States is fighting a war against terrorism. Europe says there is no war on terrorism.<br><br>The U.S. government says terrorism is an evil to be eradicated. European governments believe it is one problem among many--a serious problem, to be sure, but not an obsession and probably one that can be controlled but not solved.<br><br>"Americans do feel they are at war," said Gilles Andreani, a French foreign policy analyst. "Europeans feel there's a problem at hand, part of which requires a military action."<br><br>From this flow the different views, even goals, of the Atlantic alliance over how the world should be run. An alliance that once cooperated in the defense of Western values against the threat of communism cannot even agree today on what the threat is and frequently is at odds over values.<br><br>On Sept. 11, an outpouring of sympathy and grief across Europe united Americans and Europeans. The emotion was genuine. In Brussels, the 19 NATO nations met and, for the first time in the bloc's 53-year history, invoked their treaty's Article 5, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. If America wanted to strike back at the terrorists, Europe was ready to help.<br><br>The trauma of that day remains vivid in America. But, perhaps inevitably, it has faded in Europe, 5,000 miles away. Much of the sympathy remains, but European governments, unlike the U.S. government, are unwilling to subordinate all aspects of policy to the fight against terrorism.<br><br>There are many reasons for this.<br><br>First, the Bush administration publicly welcomed but privately put little stock in the NATO offer of help. The American response, according to one diplomat, was "don't call us, and we probably won't call you." In the end, some NATO nations contributed peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan, but the alliance itself was sidelined.<br><br>"When the Pentagon turned down our offers of help, that was the turning point," said Hubert Vedrine, who was French foreign minister at the time. "Many Europeans were demoralized. The military alliance doesn't make much sense any more."<br><br>Second is the passage of time. Most Europeans seem to believe that the Americans must put the attacks, like any catastrophe, into the perspective of other events, and then get on with their lives. Europe doesn't understand that Americans have found this emotionally impossible.<br><br>Allied to this is the European refusal to elevate the struggle against terrorism to the status of "war," demanding the total resources of government. In addition, the Europeans reject the Bush administration's reliance on military action as the best way to fight terrorism. Virtually all European officials argue that military action must be coupled with "soft" solutions to fight poverty and disease, to ease the conditions that they believe breed terrorism.<br><br>Different views of war<br><br>Moreover, Europeans and Americans take a starkly different historical view of war.<br><br>For Europe, war over the past century has produced only losers, devastation and horror. As a result, Europeans feel a deep revulsion for civilian casualties of armed conflict that the U.S. minimizes as "collateral damage."<br><br>For the United States, war has long helped advance national interests. In the 19th Century, wars made America a continental power. The Spanish-American War enabled the U.S. to project its military strength. World War II led directly to superpower status, without nearly the death and devastation and suffering at home that afflicted Europe. Much of America's predominance in the world today rests on its military power, which the Europeans cannot match.<br><br>Europeans concede their relative military weakness, but they say it has helped them focus more on non-military means, making them better and more patient when it comes to programs aimed at aid and development.<br><br>"The United States can stop the Taliban," said Karl Kaiser, director of the Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Affairs, "but it can't create the conditions so the Taliban won't come back. We can do this."<br><br>Terrorism in Europe<br><br>Another reason is rooted in Europe's own history with terrorism--the Irish Republican Army in Britain, the Baader-Meinhof Gang in Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy, Basque terrorists in Spain, Arab terrorists in France and Austria.<br><br>None launched a single attack as destructive as the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. But over the years, they assassinated Cabinet ministers in Britain, leading bankers in Germany, the prime minister of Italy, generals, police officers and hundreds of citizens.<br><br>The Basque terrorists are still active in Spain. But in other European countries, years of patient police work, plus dogged diplomacy in places like Northern Ireland, have largely ended the threats, without the need to put any of the countries on a war footing.<br><br>Repeatedly, European officials argue that it is not anti-American to suggest that the Bush administration is fighting terrorism the wrong way.<br><br>"I had two of my friends blown up by [IRA] terrorists and spent part of my life, when I had a young family, wondering whenever I turned the ignition on, if it would blow all of us to smithereens," said Chris Patten, the European Union's commissioner for external affairs and a former British Cabinet minister. "So I know the difference between right and wrong.<br><br>"Terrorism is never under any circumstances justified," Patten said. "But I also know there's a political context in which terrorist acts take place, and unless you address that context seriously and adroitly, terrorism is likely to continue.<br><br>"You don't have to curb your moral principles to make that point."<br><br>In addition, Patten said, "I don't believe that the world is a more dangerous place this summer than last, nor that nation-states have suddenly become more vulnerable. I do think that there's a dark side to globalization that we've ignored at our peril."<br><br>Feeling removed from threat<br><br>The irony is that, at this moment when Americans feel more vulnerable than ever, many Europeans feel safer.<br><br>"You sense that the United States is at war," said Klaus Scharioth, political director of the German foreign minister. "Nobody here feels at war.<br><br>"Why? Germany spent all those years on the front line of the Cold War. We lived with this threat. We knew Germany would be the battlefield. Before Sept. 11, we never had this feeling of security, so it couldn't be taken away from us.<br><br>"But since the [Berlin] Wall came down," Scharioth said, "we don't live under the threat of missiles. Our situation has improved. Even with the terrorist threat, our situation has improved."<br><br>Across Europe, this feeling of being removed from the Soviet threat exists.<br><br>"Brezhnev had thousands of warheads facing us," Patrice de Beer, a commentator for Le Monde, said of the late Soviet leader. "That's a lot different from some guy in a cave."<br><br>Many Europeans see a post-Sept. 11 America lashing out "like a wounded bear," in the words of David Held, a professor at the London School of Economics, "which risks making itself more vulnerable. This reaction is a weakness, not a strength."<br><br>The test of these conflicting trans-Atlantic attitudes will come if the Bush administration decides to attack Iraq and tries to unseat Saddam Hussein.<br><br>Conversations across Europe reveal two conflicting attitudes. Almost no European leader thinks Hussein has ties to Al Qaeda or any direct relationship to the war on terrorism. All believe that any attack on Iraq is likely to destabilize the Middle East and cause more harm than good. But all are alarmed by Hussein's development of weapons of mass destruction. And most believe that if any U.S. attack has a chance to succeed, it is going to need the military and diplomatic support of a broad coalition.<br><br>"Iraq will be hard to do without international support," a NATO official in Brussels said. "It's a state and an Arab state, not a black hole of anarchy.<br><br>"When the U.S. has done this unilaterally--Vietnam springs to mind--it hasn't been so successful," the official said. "The United States could single-handedly get rid of Saddam Hussein, but in the long term, you're going to want to have your allies there."<br><br>Looking to avoid precedent<br><br>In addition, there is a feeling in Europe that a unilateral U.S. attack would give Washington the right to intervene militarily anywhere in the world, a precedent that Europeans desperately want to avoid.<br><br>And the Europeans know that, if they actively oppose U.S. action toward Iraq, it could destroy what's left of the alliance.<br><br>For these reasons, most European analysts believe that European governments will give either active or passive support to a U.S. attack on Iraq, if Washington makes a case that the Europeans can sell to their voters and parliaments.<br><br>"The attitude in France and in Europe toward intervention in Iraq is changing," said Jacques Beltran, an analyst with the French Institute on International Relations in Paris. "Before, there was opposition, a fear that it would destabilize the whole region. Now [President Jacques] Chirac says that all options are on the table.<br><br>"There's a feeling that if the Americans are going to go anyway, it's better to be with them than not," Beltran said.<br><br>"But the United States has to make an effort to build the alliance," said Germany's Kaiser. "It's very much a matter of style. To do this unilaterally--that's wrong."<br><br>The key to support on Iraq<br><br>There must be an all-out effort through the United Nations to persuade or force the Iraqi leader to readmit UN weapons inspectors, all analysts say. If he does this, any European support for an attack will evaporate. If he refuses, the European governments can argue that he is a threat and should be eliminated.<br><br>"If Bush tackles Iraq the Rumsfeld way, if it just does it, Europeans will be very angry," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in London. "Blair might send troops, but the others won't.<br><br>"But if Bush goes the UN inspectors route, a multilateral solution, then the other Europeans will support it," Grant said.<br><br>"The United States is the leader in this," Kaiser said. "You have to persuade the allies to go along and contribute according to their means.<br><br>"We're just not in the same mood as the U.S.," he said. "We've had no attack here. Bush has to help democratically elected politicians here to go along." American saber-rattling by leaders like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld makes "life difficult for politicians here like [German Chancellor Gerhard] Schroeder."<br><br>Even so, Europeans hope that any attack will be a unique event, not the basis for a "doctrine of pre-emption" that gives the U.S. the right to attack any nation it suspects of harboring evil intent.<br><br>"This doctrine of pre-emption is dangerous because it's a symbol of the different ways we look at the world," said Philip Stephens, columnist for the Financial Times of London. "Attacking Iraq--that's one thing. But a doctrine of pre-emption, with you deciding who to attack--that's setting off alarm bells here."<br><br><br><br>A Fraying Alliance<br>U.S. sidestepping NATO in post-Cold War world<br><br>Third of four parts.<br>By R.C. Longworth<br>Tribune senior correspondent<br><br>July 30, 2002<br><br>BRUSSELS -- Lord Ismay, the first secretary general of NATO, used to say that the alliance's purpose was "to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down."<br><br>Fifty years after Ismay's quip, a post-communist Russia is a partner of NATO's, if not yet a member. A post-reunification Germany is the most powerful nation in Europe. And a post-Sept. 11 America is wondering whether it wants or needs its Europeans allies anymore.<br><br>As a result, NATO is in a first-class crisis, uncertain of its role or its future.<br><br>Is NATO's purpose mainly military, as the Western spearpoint in an unruly world? Or mainly political, a place where like-minded nations can talk together, even if the real decisions are made in Washington?<br><br>Should the alliance expand its membership to take in more former communist countries of Eastern Europe? Or would that expansion burden it with weak and ill-armed ex-satellites that will only dilute its fighting capacity?<br><br>What kind of military alliance can it be when one member, the United States, spends more than twice as much on defense as the other 18 allies combined and sees all its current military threats outside the North Atlantic area, which NATO was formed to defend?<br><br>How much defensive unity can there be when that same lead partner, America, is changing its whole concept of defense, and its partners disagree?<br><br>What happens to an alliance when its members offer to help fight the war in Afghanistan and the U.S. spurns their help?<br><br>"We're redefining what it is to have national security," said Philip Zelikow, a former National Security Council official and a member of President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, at a meeting in Berlin. "We are redefining it in range, beyond the homeland; and in time, making it pre-emptive; and in its basis, which are moral values."<br><br>Europeans have different goals, Zelikow said, but that doesn't bother Washington much.<br><br>"There's a difference of perspectives in World Cup matches between spectators and the goalie," he told German members of parliament, who were left in no doubt that they are the spectators and Washington the goalie.<br><br>With differences such as this, it's no wonder that NATO "is no longer the place where trans-Atlantic relations are thrashed out," said Christoph Bertram, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.<br><br>"The United States is less interested in NATO, so the United States is less interested in providing leadership at the very time when it is taking in new members," Bertram said.<br><br>As a result, he said, "the one institution we have isn't doing its job toward a trans-Atlantic dialogue."<br><br>When Bertram called NATO "the one institution we have," he was speaking literally. Since its founding in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been the sole institutional link among the United States, Canada and Western Europeans. A dense mesh of other ties--economic, educational, political--link these nations, through contracts or bilateral treaties or informal agreements. But the Treaty of Washington that created NATO is the only trans-Atlantic agreement committing the nations to work, talk and fight together to defend democracy and promote economic cooperation.<br><br>Evolved into political alliance<br><br>NATO was set up basically as a defense alliance to protect Western Europe against the Soviet Union, which had established its military control over Eastern Europe. But over the years, the alliance has become as much political as military, an expression of common democratic values as much as military might.<br><br>NATO had 12 members when it was founded and has 19 now, including three former communist countries: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. At a Prague summit meeting this autumn, NATO is expected to agree to take in at least five more ex-communist countries. Russia will not be among them, but the post-communist government in Moscow already has struck a deal with the alliance that gives it a seat at NATO's table and a voice, if not a veto, in the organization's planning.<br><br>All NATO nations have embassies inside the alliance's sprawling headquarters on the airport road outside this Belgian capital. The ambassadors form the NATO Council, which is the one place where the Americans and the Europeans meet regularly to discuss mutual problems. When presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers get together, NATO often is where they do it.<br><br>Any weakening of NATO, then, means a weakening of the only institutional bridge across the Atlantic Ocean.<br><br>Many European analysts believe that the Bush administration, and particularly the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, see no serious military role for NATO or the NATO allies in America's war on terrorism. Instead, they believe the administration sees NATO more as an obstacle to effective action, a talk shop where the United States can only get bogged down in a search for consensus and compromise.<br><br>These analysts say the U.S. believes now in a unilateral approach to defense, signing up allies on the spot--such as Afghanistan and its Central Asian nations--in temporary "coalitions of the willing," while letting a permanent alliance like NATO wither.<br><br>NATO, in the meantime, is moving toward a more political role, a way to bring Russia and the other former communist countries into a united and peaceful Europe. The analysts say this is a useful task, so far as it goes, but it risks eroding NATO's role as a defensive alliance to the point that it loses its military bite and becomes just another organization of European nations, with the United States largely on the sidelines.<br><br>President Bush has actively supported NATO membership for Slovenia, Slovakia and the three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, despite fears from military experts that those countries would add little to European defense and might make a 24-nation alliance too unwieldy to be effective. Some in Europe fear that Bush's support for expansion means he doesn't care whether NATO is effective.<br><br>The U.S. view of NATO as bureaucratic and slow-moving baffles the Europeans. It also reveals much about the differing priorities on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The U.S. wants temporary coalitions to get specific jobs done; the Europeans want permanent alliances embodying basic principles.<br><br>Europeans see NATO as an American-dominated alliance, the "hardest, sleekest, least deliberative institution imaginable," said Mark Leonard, director of the Foreign Policy Centre in London. "So you'd think the Americans would like it. But for the Americans, it's seen as terminally bureaucratic."<br><br>For Europeans, Rumsfeld is the problem more than Bush. European officials castigate Rumsfeld, himself a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, as the apostle of unilateralism who goes out of his way to scorn America's allies in Europe.<br><br>"The bad mood music comes out of the style of the people in the Pentagon," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in London.<br><br>Grant said European officials are finding that Rumsfeld's Defense Department goes out of its way to be rude to Europeans. Pentagon officials with old friends in European defense ministries will exchange pleasantries, he said, while refusing to talk business with them.<br><br>As a result, when the Europeans want to talk to Washington, they deal almost exclusively with Secretary of State Colin Powell and the State Department, which is seen in Europe as fighting the multilateralist battle in the struggle for policy supremacy within the Bush administration.<br><br>"We all know that the U.S. administration is not united on many things," said Jacques Beltran of the French Institute for International Relations. "We know that Powell especially is open to our views."<br><br>But the same Europeans who support Powell know it would be a political kiss of death in Washington for the secretary of state to be seen as a mailman for European views.<br><br>`One player ... that counts'<br><br>A key to NATO's troubles is the huge gap in military spending and power between the United States and everybody else. The U.S. is spending $343 billion on defense this year, more than twice as much as all 17 European members put together. Congress has just added another $48billion--an increase greater than the total defense spending of any NATO ally.<br><br>Yale University professor Paul Kennedy, in a much-cited article in the Financial Times of London, said that "in military terms, there is only one player on the field that counts."<br><br>The United States, Kennedy noted, has 12 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, all with their own battle groups. By contrast, the French government wanted to send its only carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, to help in the Indian Ocean after Sept. 11, but it was tied up for repairs in the port of Toulon.<br><br>Even before the current conflict in Central Asia, the battle for Kosovo had dramatized U.S. military superiority and embarrassed the Europeans into accelerating plans for joint military efforts that might rival the Americans in efficiency. Three years later, those plans remain mostly plans, not achievements.<br><br>The European Union nations hope to field a Rapid Reaction Force within a year. That force would enable the Europeans to deploy 60,000 troops within 60 days and keep them deployed for up to a year--enough to deal with crises in the Balkans or the Mediterranean region without U.S. help.<br><br>At the moment, however, that force consists of a Finnish general in Brussels with a staff of about 150 aides. Even if the force becomes a reality, the Europeans still lack the transport and other logistics to support it.<br><br>The force is part of a more ambitious dream of a European Security and Defense Policy, which would give the EU a defense capability to match its common foreign policy--also mostly still on the drawing board--and would bring the EU closer to a true single government.<br><br>Whether the Europeans can achieve this is open to question. Officials in France and Britain, the two leading military powers in Europe, said both governments want to keep control of their militaries and are unlikely to cede authority to deploy them to other countries. Any European defense force will be "not a European army but a coalition of European armies," said Beltran of the French Institute for International Relations.<br><br>But as many Europeans concede, their governments, intent on building a Europe without war or power politics, have not pulled their weight on defense spending since the Cold War ended.<br><br>The European NATO members spend an average of 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, down from 3.2 percent in 1989. Many individual European nations spend even less--1.5 percent in Germany, 1.9 percent in Italy, 1.2 percent in Spain. France spends the most, 2.6 percent. Turkey and Greece each devote about 5 percent of their GDP to the military, but that is mostly for defense against each other.<br><br>(U.S. defense spending has gone down since 1989 as a percentage of GDP, to 3 percent from 6, but has stayed steady in dollar terms and is about to rise to 3.3 percent.)<br><br>Even this sparse spending in Europe is largely wasted through duplication and lack of coordination--"too many countries trying to do too many things badly," a NATO source said.<br><br>Despite that, Europeans hotly deny that they are as weak or feckless as the Pentagon and American unilateralists paint them.<br><br>Europe supplies fully 85 percent of NATO troops in the Balkans and half the allied troops in Afghanistan. British special forces get high marks from military experts, as do Italy's Alpine forces and the Czech Republic's biological and chemical response unit. European planes patrol the Horn of Africa and do other useful chores, freeing U.S. resources for crisis spots.<br><br>Chris Patten, the European Union's commissioner for external affairs, concedes that "the technical military imbalance between the United States and Europe is sufficiently large to risk being destabilizing. That's a worry. Europe has do more to secure its own future.<br><br>"But," Patten said, "if increasing defense spending as much as the U.S. has done is the price of joining this club, this is not a price that European voters will pay."<br><br>A division of labor<br><br>In this atmosphere, support is growing in Europe for a division of labor, with the U.S. doing the fighting and the Europeans mopping up later with aid and economic programs and peacekeeping missions.<br><br>Many analysts oppose this because it would make the Americans a sort of global mercenary force and turn the Europeans into international social workers. Or, as many Europeans put it in a phrase heard around the continent, "the Americans get to cook the meal and we get to do the dishes."<br><br>"But this is reality," Britain's Grant said. "The United States likes to spend money on high-tech weapons. Not even the most hawkish Europeans think you have to spend that much money.<br><br>"But you [Americans] do hate peacekeeping," he said, "and you're not very good at it. We're good at peacekeeping. And doing the dishes does give us some sway over your decision-making.<br><br>"I think that some division of labor like this is becoming a fact of life."<br><br><br><br>A Fraying Alliance<br>Europe asks why U.S. can't see its 'miracle'<br><br>Final of four parts.<br>By R.C. Longworth<br>Tribune senior correspondent<br><br>July 31, 2002<br><br>PARIS -- The issue before the court was dear to the heart, or stomach, of every European--food. In this case, Parmigiano Reggiano, or Parmesan, the hard sharp cheese from the area around the Italian city of Parma.<br><br>The case went all the way to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the European Union's highest court, which ruled in June that only cheese made in Parma to a high, fixed standard could be sold-- not just in Italy but anywhere in Europe--under the Parmesan trademark. Inferior competitors had to give their cheese some other name.<br><br>Score one for the cheesemakers of Parma. And score one more for the European Union and the process that, over the years, has built--case by case, decision by decision, negotiation by negotiation--a continental structure that may be the great international success story of the post-World War II years.<br><br>Through small steps, like the cheese verdict, and big ones, like the creation of a single currency, Europe today is less than a United States of Europe but much more than a loose group of nations doing business with each other.<br><br>The European Union is unique in history, and its success has emerged only gradually through a system so complex that it is barely understood by many Europeans and almost not at all by Americans.<br><br>This success and this American incomprehension are causing real trans-Atlantic problems. The EU has emerged at age 45 as a partner and rival to the United States, potent in some areas such as trade and incomplete in other areas such as defense. The way it operates, through tortuous negotiations and compromise, baffles and frustrates the hard-driving unilateralists of Washington, who are increasingly intolerant of the slow-motion decision-making of their closest allies.<br><br>European officials say they want to keep Washington happy. But they aren't willing to abandon a union and a process that has turned their continent from a war-flattened wasteland to a landscape of peace and prosperity unprecedented in European history, just to please the Americans.<br><br>"Europeans have done something that no one has ever done before: create a zone of peace where war is ruled out, absolutely out," said Karl Kaiser, director of the Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Affairs in Berlin. "Europeans are convinced that this model is valid for other parts of the world."<br><br>"Europe has evolved into a system of collaborative governance that is unique and invaluable," agreed David Held, a political scientist at the London School of Economics. "Who would have imagined that in 50 years we would have created this?"<br><br>The United States backed this process diplomatically and politically every step of the way, seeing it as the best means to end the ruinous European wars that twice involved U.S. troops in the 20th Century. Most Europeans acknowledge that without the U.S. military guarantee and nuclear umbrella, they never could have used the Cold War years to build their union.<br><br>But like many elders, the Americans are not always happy with their trans-Atlantic handiwork.<br><br>Decade of difference<br><br>"Since 1989," Held said, "the U.S. and Europe have woken up to real differences. Europe doesn't pull its weight [on defense]. Europe is obsessed with itself. And Europe is becoming competitive.<br><br>"So the U.S. sees it now as less necessary and more of a thorn in the flesh," Held said.<br><br>"I know that Europe is very frustrating," added Anthony Cary, chief aide to the EU's external affairs commissioner, Chris Patten. The EU has achieved unity in many economic areas--trade, antitrust, currency--that compete with the United States, but it is only beginning to work on common foreign and defense policies at a time when the United States is demanding knee-jerk loyalty from its allies in these areas.<br><br>Despite this, "Europe is the most developed experiment so far in trying to manage a region through the pooling of the sovereignty of nations," Cary said. "The United States has always been a champion of a united Europe but, before now, it had the luxury of not having to deal with a united Europe."<br><br>Part of the trans-Atlantic tensions stem from the competition that a united Europe with its own currency offers to the powerful U.S. economy and its once all-powerful dollar. Part of it is the EU's ability to set global standards, for genetically modified foods for instance, that American exporters must honor its power to block mergers, such as the proposed linkup of General Electric and Honeywell, involving even the mightiest U.S. corporations.<br><br>But in this era of foreign policy rivalry between unilateralists and multilateralists, the greatest tension arises from the key to Europe's success--its way of governing itself.<br><br>The European Union began in 1951 as the European Coal and Steel Community, which blossomed six years later into the European Common Market, with six members: Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. It now calls itself the European Union and has 15 members, which could grow to 25 in two or three years with the admission of 10 ex-communist countries, plus Greek Cyprus.<br><br>The purpose of the EU's founders was to prevent another war in Europe by uniting the economics of the member nations into such a web of interdependence that they could never again do battle with each other. The technique was a brick-by-brick approach, an amassing of one agreement after another in a multitude of areas--farming, trade, transport, energy, taxation, product standards and the like--in the hope that all these bricks would build "a common European house."<br><br>It has taken a half-century, but that is pretty much what happened, at least in the economic area, where the EU often behaves like a single government. This has required constant pooling of sovereignty, as decisions normally made by national governments have been transferred to EU headquarters in Brussels. The most dramatic was the decision by 11 of the EU nations to abandon their national currencies, one of the symbols of nationhood, and adopt a single currency, the euro.<br><br>This hasn't been easy. Over the years, EU members have learned to advance a step at a time, often through endless meetings involving tedious negotiation and careful compromise. It has involved the building of multilateral institutions, laws, regulations and cooperation. The process is bureaucratic often boring--but it works.<br><br>"This miracle of Europe is under-perceived in America," said Klaus Scharioth, political director of the German Foreign Ministry. "Once, we were a continent of borders and of wars. Now you can go from Denmark to Portugal without being stopped once or having to change your money. I think it's a miracle. Why is it that this European miracle is under-perceived?"<br><br>Style of doing business<br><br>One reason is that the European way of doing business--through talk, patience, compromise and pooled sovereignty--is exactly opposite to the new American unilateralist thirst for action, quick results, no compromise with enemies, a suspicion of multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and a refusal to give any sovereignty to new institutions like an International Criminal Court.<br><br>Philip Zelikow, a University of Virginia historian and former National Security Council official, listed these differences between the United States and Europe:<br>·  Europeans want permanent institutions to embody general principles, while Americans want temporary institutions to solve particular problems.<br>·  Europeans favor neutrality and consensus, while American make judgments about right and wrong.<br>·  Europeans want to limit sovereignty while Americans rely on it.<br><br>The result, Zelikow told a Berlin audience this summer, is that Americans feel like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, a giant tied down by strings of treaties and rules.<br><br>"We feel very strongly about political accountability of decision-making," Zelikow said. "That's why we like the nation-state."<br><br>But Europe, having seen nationalism twice devastate the continent, has gone far toward eroding the nation-state, making accountability sometimes hard to find. There are EU commissioners for trade and anti-trust regulation with real power, and the U.S. government knows who they are.<br><br>But decision-making in foreign policy and defense is just beginning to move from the European nations to Brussels, and Americans never know whether to go to Brussels or to Paris or London or Berlin to get a decision in these crucial areas.<br><br>The EU's Cary urges patience. The original 13 American colonies, he said, "started with a foreign policy, to face a common enemy. Besides that, they shared cultural and language, and saw themselves as sub-national states. The EU started as an economic entity, with long-established nations. So foreign policy, which goes to the heart of what it means to be a nation, is our most difficult part."<br><br>"All polls say that Europeans want a common foreign and defense policy, but we aren't there yet,' said Christoph Bertram, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "We want to be respected as though we are there, and we're not. We want to be taken seriously, but we aren't serious yet.<br><br>"Unfortunately," Bertram went on, "the United States moves without much regard for these sensitivities, so we see it as pushy and unilateralist and Texan."<br><br>With this uneven development, the European Union is only half-finished. Finishing the other half "is a massive undertaking, and there's only so much time in the world," said British commentator John Lloyd. "The movers and shakers in Europe are consumed by this."<br><br>Keeping progress going<br><br>The result is an inward-looking Europe, obsessed with its own development and enlargement. At the moment, the EU has just launched a constitutional convention, a huge chore that will determine the union's future structure and power balance.<br><br>All this leaves European leaders with relatively little time and energy to devote to the rest of the world, a fact that both frustrates Washington and gives it a free hand in this wider world.<br><br>This is the stage where the debate between European multilateralism and U.S. unilateralism is played out.<br><br>Hubert Vedrine, the former French foreign minister, said that "in Europe, people believe in multilateral negotiations, conflict prevention--what's enshrined in the UN Charter. Americans are less inclined to this, and this is a result of the power that the United States has. When you reach that much power, you don't want to waste your time negotiating with others.<br><br>"Europeans have developed a new Utopia, a world not ruled by power," Vedrine said. "Americans are applying the usual power politics."<br><br>"But Europeans played power politics for centuries and all we got was war," added Philip Stephens, a columnist for the Financial Times of London. "Europeans see talk and compromise as a reason for the absence of war. All our differences are worked out through negotiations, so the European commitment to institutions is a deep cultural one."<br><br>The EU decided 10 years ago to have a common foreign and defense policy, but is finding unity in these areas much harder than building a single currency or economy. Most foreign policy still lies with national capitals. Brussels has two foreign policy supremos--Patten, a commissioner with power over foreign economy policy, and Javier Solana, the EU's high representative for the largely non-existent common foreign policy.<br><br>In the meantime, the Bush administration, seeing itself at war and impatient with delays, is barely bothering to tell its European allies what it is going to do, much less waiting for their approval.<br><br>American intolerance<br><br>"They don't give a damn about these internal European problems," Vedrine said. When Europe gets its foreign and defense policy in place, "then we can turn to the U.S. and say that we have our own ideas that we want to discuss with you."<br><br>But until then, he said, "relations are going to be choppy."<br><br>Beyond Europe, most Europeans are strong supporters of global multilateral institutions like the International Criminal Court or the Kyoto Convention on global warming. Because of their commitment to multilateralism, Europeans say that U.S. opposition to these projects translates into hostility for the entire consensus-based European project.<br><br>Because of American power, "the new world order depends on the United States," explained Mark Leonard, director of the Foreign Policy Centre in London. "So every time that the U.S. does something unilateral or arrogant, it undermines the legitimacy of these projects, and this threatens the legitimacy of our project, of the European dream."<br>|special|
'War Crimes' Policies Again Upheld by Israeli Supreme Court||Israelis Kill Palestinian Militant<br><br>By NICOLE WINFIELD<br><br>JERUSALEM (AP) - A West Bank militia leader accused of dispatching suicide bombers was killed Tuesday in what witnesses said was an attack by Israeli troops, and Israel's Supreme Court upheld the practice of demolishing homes of Palestinian terror suspects without warning.<br><br>Despite the ongoing violence, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer met the Palestinian interior minister, Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, late Monday to discuss cease-fire proposals that could lead to Israeli troops leaving some Palestinian areas. The Gaza Strip and several West Bank towns were mentioned as possible starting points. Yehiyeh and other top Palestinian officials are to meet later this week with Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington.<br><br>In Egypt, meanwhile, President Hosni Mubarak complained that Ariel Sharon has no peace plan and suggested the Israeli prime minister was being driven by a strong dislike of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.<br><br>``Sharon hates Arafat. So what? Arafat doesn't like Sharon either,'' Mubarak told a group of Israeli reporters in Cairo. ``Should Israelis and Palestinians pay with their lives for this mutual hatred? Especially you, the strong side, must find a way to move forward and put an end to this misunderstanding between Sharon and Arafat. Arafat, I tell you, is not the issue. Negotiations can be held without the leaders.''<br><br>Mubarak made the unusually frank comments to the Israeli reporters who covered a Monday meeting between the Egyptian president and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. The remarks were published in Israeli newspapers Tuesday. Sharon's advisers declined comment.<br><br>Also Tuesday, Israel's interior minister threatened to revoke the citizenship of Israeli Arabs involved in carrying out attacks on Israelis, and Sharon called it a ``correct, judicious and balanced decision.''<br><br>Interior Minister Eli Yishai, from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, told Army Radio that ``if I stop one terrorist from killing one Jew, not to mention more than that, it will be worthwhile to revoke the citizenship of 10 or more and to stop this terrible plague.''<br><br>Israeli Arab leaders and dovish opposition politicians denounced the proposed measure as racist. Peres said he believed such a policy would be struck down by Israel's Supreme Court. However, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein ruled that the minister was acting legally.<br><br>Near the northern West Bank town of Jenin, the two Palestinian militiamen were tracked by Israeli forces as they left a home in the village of Ja'a around midnight Monday, relatives said. Israeli armored vehicles and helicopters both moved into the area, and there was sustained fire, according to residents.<br><br>Walid Hafez, a grocery store owner, said he and other members of the village on Tuesday found the two bodies under a tree and behind a rock, where they apparently tried to take cover. ``We found a lot of bullet casings near the bodies,'' Hafez said.<br><br>Both were members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah movement. One was Ali Ajouri, 23, accused by Israel of having sent two suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Tel Aviv on July 17. Three foreign workers and two Israelis were killed in the attack.<br><br>The military recently demolished the home of Ajouri's family in the Askar refugee camp near Nablus. A brother and sister of Ajouri have been ordered deported to the Gaza Strip, but the order is being challenged in court.<br><br>In Jerusalem, Israel's Supreme Court rejected a petition by Palestinian relatives of terror suspects whose homes are slated for demolition by the Israeli military. Petitioners asked for 48 hours notice to give them time to go to court to stop demolitions. The military said soldiers would be put at risk if warning was given.<br><br>Israeli troops on Sunday demolished nine homes of terror suspects, a controversial practice that Israel abandoned several years ago but has recently revived. Human rights groups say house demolitions constitute collective punishment and violate international law. The Israeli government said it is engaged in a war against terrorism, and that house demolitions are an important deterrent.<br><br>In the Gaza Strip, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a suspected weapons factory late Monday, slightly injuring four people and damaging three buildings. It was the first airstrike against Gaza since July 22 when a one-ton bomb dropped by an F-16 killed 15 Palestinians, including the Hamas military leader and nine children.<br><br>The Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at a spare parts factory in Gaza City's Zeitouni neighborhood, which is known as a Hamas hub. Salim Bahtiti, 25, son of the factory owner, denied the shop was used to make weapons.<br><br>Since the July 22 airstrike, the Islamic militant group Hamas has claimed responsibility for two deadly attacks: a bombing at Jerusalem's Hebrew University last Wednesday that killed seven people, five of them Americans; and a suicide bombing on a bus Sunday that killed nine passengers.<br><br>In all, Sunday's death toll reached 13, with shooting attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Three assailants were also killed.<br><br>Following the attacks, Israel on Monday said it would bar Palestinian travel in much of the northern West Bank and it sent tanks to seal off the town of Rafah and a nearby refugee camp in southern Gaza.<br><br>The measures broaden the already tight restrictions Israel has imposed on seven major West Bank cities and towns it occupied in June in a bid to stop terror attacks, including rolling curfews that keep Palestinians at home for days on end.<br><br>Under the new travel ban, Palestinians will not be able to drive in the northern half of the West Bank, between the towns of Nablus, Jenin, Qalqiliya, Tulkarem and Ramallah, the army said. Some movement will be permitted in the southern West Bank, including the towns of Hebron, Bethlehem and Jericho.|off|
Iraq Close to Having Nukes?|http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,767235,00.html|Actually Israel was first in this category, quite some time ago.  And now has an arsenal estimated at some 400 nuclear devices, some missiles, and 3 submarines (courtesy of the Germans).  Then of course India and Pakistan.  Add to that Saudi and Egyptian 'interest'.  And the proliferation continues; considerably stimulated by the ferocious arming and militarist policies of the U.S. and Israel.<br><br>As for these hearings, very heavily stacked anti-Iraq and pro-US/Israel.  More propaganda and 'educatational' in the public sessions for sure than anything else.|special|
Iraqi Opposition Groups|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63807-2002Aug9?language=printer|They've never amounted to much; but now that the U.S. is funding and backing them, one or more of them will be pushed forward to take control when the U.S. imposes 'democracy' on the Iraqis.|off|
Sharon Knew Very Well He Was Unleashing the Tiger - 'the straw that broke the camel's back'||"A missile attack on an apartment building, after midnight, when children and adults are asleep in their beds, is no more justifiable than a suicide bombing."...The Gaza attack was "the straw that broke the camel's back".<br><br>Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)<br>July 26, 2002<br><br>GAZA ATTACK CONDEMNED BY ISRAELI PRESS OFFICER HERE<br><br>By Deaglan de Breadun<br>Foreign Affairs Correspondent<br><br>The position of the press officer at the Israeli Embassy in Dublin, Dr. Noreen O'Carroll, is in doubt following her public condemnation of last Monday's Gaza City air strike in a letter to Irish newspapers.<br><br>An Israeli F-16 warplane bombed a building in Gaza, killing the military chief of Hamas and 13 civilians, including nine children.<br><br>In her letter, which appears in today's Irish Times, Dr. O'Carroll says she wishes to add her voice to that of Israel's President Katsav in utterly condemning what she describes as the "horrific" attack.<br><br>Writing in her capacity as embassy press officer, she continues: "A missile attack on an apartment building, after midnight, when children and adults are asleep in their beds, is no more justifiable than a suicide bombing."<br><br>She was "appalled and ashamed" at the "cold-hearted response" of the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Ariel Sharon, when he described the attack as "one of our greatest successes". <br><br>Dr. O'Carroll told The Irish Times that a senior embassy official told her she "had to go", since she was a representative of the Israeli Government abroad, and he would have to consult the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem.<br><br>"I am not a diplomat, I am an Irish citizen, doing an administrative job," she said.<br><br>She was "very much a supporter" of Israel's right to exist and the right of Palestinians to a state of their own.  She was "revulsed" by suicide bombings but did no think state force should be used against civilians.  "Error is too benign a word to use in a context like this."<br><br>When asked why she had signed the letter in her official capacity, she said: "I don't think it would make the slightest bit of difference if I had signed it with my home address."<br><br>The letter, published in the Irish Examiner yesterday, expressed her "personal view".  The Gaza attack was "the straw that broke the camel's back".  She recalled the words of the writer, Primo Levi, that "Silence is complicity."<br><br>Dr. O'Carroll, a former teacher, provided a copy of a complimentary reference from the former Israeli ambassador, Mr. Mark Sofer, dated July 5th, which describes her as "highly intelligent" with "well-thought-out and thought-provoking views on all issues under her purview".<br><br>An embassy spokesman declined to comment on the dispute.<br><br>|off|
Coming Bio Terrorism?  What A Coincidence Indeed|http://www.MiddleEast.Org/world/nytimes24.htm||off|
Egyptian Police State Puts 'Democracy' Acadamic Back in Prison||Egyptian Academic Convicted Again<br><br>By NADIA ABOU EL MAGD<br>.c The Associated Press <br><br>CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - An Egyptian-American academic and human rights activist was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison after being convicted of misusing European Union grants and tarnishing Egypt's image.<br><br>The verdict was quickly criticized by the United States, Amnesty International and defendant Saad Eddin Ibrahim.<br><br>During the trial, the European Union said in an affidavit it did not believe its grants were mishandled and a main defendant said he was forced to falsely accuse the 63-year-old Ibrahim.<br><br>Moments after the State Security Court's verdict and sentencing, Ibrahim told The Associated Press he would appeal again.<br><br>His wife, Barbara, said, ``The rule of law died today in Egypt.''<br><br>Their daughter, lawyer Randa Ibrahim, said the verdict came right after defense attorneys finished their arguments Monday.<br><br>``It's outrageous,'' Randa Ibrahim said.<br><br>The verdict concluded a three-month retrial ordered by an appeals court on procedural grounds. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo and an outspoken human rights and democracy advocate, was sentenced last year to seven years on the same charges.<br><br>In Washington, the Bush administration and the State Department expressed disappointment about the verdict. White House spokesman Sean McCormack said the administration made the Egyptian government aware of its opposition to the trial and its resulting verdict.<br><br>Egypt is a close ally of Washington, which considers it an important Arab voice of moderation in the Arab-Israeli confrontation. But the United States occasionally has chided Egypt for its poor human rights record.<br><br>In closing arguments last week, prosecutor Sameh Seif said Saad Eddin Ibrahim used funds raised through his Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies for personal gain and lured his staff into an embezzlement scheme.<br><br>At the heart of the case were about $252,000 in European Union democracy-building grants that included money to monitor and encourage participation in Egypt's legislative elections in 2000.<br><br>That monitoring include creating a documentary whose script argued that election fraud, which observers say has marred Egyptian voting, is less likely when citizens participate. Prosecutors claimed the documentary's references to fraud tarnished Egypt's image.<br><br>Prosecutors also say Saad Eddin Ibrahim spread false statements about religious persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, saying such comments could undermine the country's reputation abroad.<br><br>Chief Egyptian government spokesman Nabil Osman refused to comment on the case.<br><br>Sara Hamood, a London-based Amnesty International official, said the verdict was ``quite a shock. From the beginning of the case we were saying the charges were politically motivated.''<br><br>Negad Borai, a leading Egyptian lawyer and political reform advocate, said the verdict revealed ``that Egyptian laws are autocratic by nature.''<br><br>Saad Eddin Ibrahim, sweating in the un-air conditioned courtroom with temperatures Monday topping 100, was composed as the verdict was read.<br><br>Twenty-seven co-defendants, most of them think-tank staff members, were convicted of bribery and fraud and received sentences ranging from one-year suspended sentences to three years Monday.<br><br>Most of the 24 given one-year suspended sentences received similar sentences in the last trial and were not attending the retrial hearings.<br><br>Saad Eddin Ibrahim and the three co-defendants who did not receive suspended sentences were transferred to a Cairo prison Monday. Saad Eddin Ibrahim has served 8 1/2 months of his sentence.<br><br>Barbara Ibrahim expressed concern about her husband's health, saying he did not have his medication in court because he did not expect a verdict. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who walked with the aid of a cane, suffers from a neurological disorder that prevents sufficient oxygen from reaching his brain.<br><br>He earlier requested permission to travel abroad for treatment but never received a response from judicial authorities, who seized his Egyptian and U.S. passports after he first charged two years ago.<br>|off|
UK Strongly Warns US About Attacking Iraq|http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=322769||special|
Israelis Now Preparing for 'Mega-Attack'|http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=194909&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y|PM to hold talks on `mega-terror' attack<br><br>Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will convene a meeting today of high-level government and defense personnel to discuss Israel's plans in case of a `mega-terror' attack involving many casualties. <br><br>Various scenarios will be presented and possible reactions will be examined. <br><br>Prior to the meeting, Sharon will meet with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Finance Minister Silvan Shalom for a discussion of Israel's available methods of strategic deterrence. Sharon apparently wants to examine various ongoing projects in light of current security restraints and the economic crisis. Public Security Minister Uzi Landau will join the group for the mega-terror discussion. <br><br>Today's discussions are part of a series of consultations and study tours that Sharon has undertaken this week in order to formulate a national security policy for the near future. On Monday, Sharon brought in Ben-Eliezer and the top echelons of the army and the Shin Bet security service for a situation assessment in light of the wave of recent terror attacks, and he also toured the seam line by helicopter. Yesterday he visited troops from the Binyamin Brigade. <br><br>Sharon has accepted the defense establishment's position that Israel should continue its current policies in the conflict with the Palestinians, despite the difficulties caused by the failure to find an immediate solution for the terror problem. The Israel Defense Forces will continue its operations against the terrorist infrastructure and preventive measures such as closures, curfews and arrests, integrated with humanitarian measures to make life easier for the Palestinian population and a renewal of diplomatic contacts with "an alternative leadership to Arafat" in the Palestinian Authority. The aim is to achieve local cease-fires. Sharon does not want the army to resume control of Palestinian cities, and he opposes a renewed conquest of the entire West Bank, which would require reestablishing the military government and the Civil Administration. <br><br>IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon has adopted the position that the current conflict is a "war of attrition" in which victory is achieved by "points," gradually, and not in one decisive blow. Defense sources said yesterday that the security policy is based on the idea of "accumulating points" through many small, limited operations that will add up to a process of change in which the Palestinians recognize that they will not achieve anything with terror. But the sources said that "the process needs time to reach fruition," and meanwhile a chance should be given to the security channel that Ben-Eliezer has opened with Mohammed Dahlan, former head of the PA's Preventive Security Service in Gaza, and the new Palestinian Interior Minister, Abdel Razak Yehiyeh. On Monday, Ben-Eliezer decided to move ahead with easing conditions for the Palestinians, even while banning Palestinian vehicular traffic in the northern West Bank. <br><br>There is also another reason for the decision to avoid any escalation: The IDF is taking much more care in gathering intelligence and planning operations due to the civilian deaths caused by its assassination of Hamas military commander Salah Shehadeh. <br><br>Ben-Eliezer's meeting with Yehiyeh, Dahlan and Amin al-Hindi on Monday ended with a disagreement. The defense minister proposed that the Palestinians take responsibility for security in Gaza and fight terror there, and in exchange, the IDF would withdraw from Area A in Gaza and start implementing a series of economic and security abatements for the Palestinians. Israel chose Gaza as a pilot because it believes that PA forces there have been largely unhurt by IDF operations and because the risk to Israel is less than it would be in the West Bank. Ben-Eliezer said that if the plan works in Gaza, it would be expanded to include the Judea area, meaning Bethlehem, Jericho and Hebron. <br><br>According to the Israelis, the Palestinians turned down the plan, saying they prefer the Israeli withdrawal to begin in Ramallah, seat of the PA's government in the West Bank and the office of the PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. Ben-Eliezer turned that down, saying "first let's see how you do in Gaza." Now Israel awaits a formal answer from the Palestinians, with both sides agreeing to continue the discussions. A response may be forthcoming after Yehiyeh's meetings later this week in Washington, as part of a Palestinian delegation for talks with U.S. officials. <br><br>Palestinian sources hinted strongly yesterday that the PA is ready for an arrangement under which Israeli troops would gradually withdraw to their positions of September 28, 2000 in Gaza, Jericho and another city in the West Bank - probably Bethlehem. Palestinian officials said that was the instruction given to the Palestinian team that met with Ben-Eliezer. According to the Palestinians, they did not turn down a Gaza first process, but wanted it to coincide with a withdrawal from Jericho and at least one other city in the West Bank. They said they proposed Ramallah, but when Ben-Eliezer turned that down, they were ready to accept Bethlehem instead. <br><br>However, there are discrepancies between various Palestinian versions of their position. One source said that the PA is "studying" Ben-Eliezer's proposal, while another said the PA would insist on a Ramallah withdrawal as part of the deal. <br><br>Islamic groups have already announced their opposition to what they called "the staged withdrawals from the cities." <br><br>Senior Palestinian officials said yesterday that any Israeli-Palestinian agreement for a staged withdrawal of any sort would also require internal Palestinian arrangements for a cease-fire that would include Hamas. An Israeli-Palestinian agreement cannot be implemented in an atmosphere of "civil war," they said; it will only work if the change in Israeli positions on the ground persuades the public that the arrangement is worthwhile, thus making it possible to convince Hamas to cease attacks on Israeli civilians. <br><br>Meanwhile, Palestinian security officials in Bethlehem were already beginning to discuss internal security arrangements in the city last night to prepare for an Israeli withdrawal. <br><br>Israel now feels that it has relatively free room to maneuver politically. A senior Israeli official who returned from talks in Washington reported that the White House does not appear to be interested in a solution to the conflict now, and that as long as it can be contained, avoiding any outbreak of major violence, the U.S. will not intervene. The State Department is still trying to develop ideas that would give content to the "political horizon" outlined by President George W. Bush on June 24, when he called for a Palestinian state within three years. But there are no instructions from the White House to make progress on the political track, as the administration is now focused on another issue - the plan to change the regime in Iraq. <br><br>U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer met yesterday with Sharon's bureau chief, attorney Dov Weisglass, for a meeting termed as "routine." Weisglass, who concentrates on the political and diplomatic sphere for Sharon, has recently institutionalized a working channel with Kurtzer. <br><br>U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld yesterday lashed out at the Palestinians, saying that "there is no doubt that the PA is indeed involved in terror activity, despite its promise to provide security." Speaking publicly with Pentagon workers, Rumsfeld said that he doubts Israel will be able to negotiate with the PA and hand over territories to it, due to the PA's problematic reputation. His speech was strongly pro-Israel, referring to the "so-called occupied territories," and saying that Palestinians from the diaspora might need to go to the territories in order to establish a government that could negotiate with Israel.<br>|special|
The Israeli-Palestinian Cancer|http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3232--278484-,00.html |Analysis: The Israeli-Palestinian Cancer <br><br>by Edgar Morin, Sami Naïr and Danièle Sallenave <br><br>The French social scientists Edgar Morin, Sami Naïr and Danièle <br>Sallenave have published in the French newspaper Le Monde (3 June, <br>2002) a comprehensive historical analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian <br>conflict. In "Israël-Palestine : le cancer", the authors use the <br>metaphor of cancer to describe vividly the radicalization of the <br>conflict and the international implications of the spreading of <br>hatred and violence. They expose a terrifying landscape of a "seismic <br>zone" that could destabilize the whole planet. Edgar Morin is an <br>emeritus professor of sociology, author of more than fifty books and <br>one of the most renowned  French intellectuals, Sami Naïr is a <br>university professor and a deputy in the European Parliament <br>(vice-president of the French political party "Mouvement des <br>Citoyens"), and Danielle Sallenave is a writer and a researcher at <br>the university of Paris-X-Nanterre. <br><br>In the first instance, the authors remind us that the <br>Israeli-Palestinian cancer has been formed from a territorial <br>pathology in which two nations have developed two political <br>pathologies originated from domination by Israel on one hand and from <br>privation of the Palestinians on the other hand. Consequently two <br>peoples are tragically confronted, one persecuted in the past and <br>anguished about its geographical insecurity, and one persecuted in <br>the present and denied political right. <br><br>In this historical context, the second Intifada awakened a collective <br>anguish in Israel that has put in power the "reconquistador" Ariel <br>Sharon. During March and April  2002, twenty years after the invasion <br>of Lebanon and the massacre of Sabra and Chatila, Sharon has <br>pretended to conduct a war in the Occupied territories for the <br>survival of Israel. During this war, he allowed the destruction of <br>schools, archives, land registers, houses, canalizations. This <br>systematic destruction of civil infrastructure and equipment has <br>oppressed the Palestinian population more and more. Morin, Naïr and <br>Sallenave consider that it is Sharon's policy which compromises <br>Israel chances for survival by assuring in the very short term its <br>security by terror. Sharon's triumph today could mean tomorrow's <br>suicide. In the short term, it is probably Hamas which reinforces <br>Sharon's policy but in the middle term, it is certainly Sharon who <br>paves the way for Hamas' policy. <br><br>With respect to the right of return of the Palestinians, the authors <br>also question the general attitude which consists to disapprove it, <br>since it has been presented as a major cause of the failure in the <br>peace process. The right of return of Palestinian refugees is not <br>seen as a right symmetric to the right of return of  Jews who never <br>lived in Palestine, but both as a sacrilege and a demand of <br>demographic suicide by Israel. The authors consider that this right <br>of return should be put on the peace agenda and not considered as an <br>obstacle but rather as a reparation with negotiable modalities. <br><br>Regarding the intensity of violence, the authors note that the number <br>of Palestinian civil victims is 15 to 20 times higher than that of <br>Israeli civil victims. Consequently pity and compassion should not be <br>reserved to only one side when on the other hand Israel sees only <br>terrorism in the Palestinian resistance to occupation. <br><br>Morin, Naïr and Sallenave qualify a "sinister hoax" the political <br>tactic which consists to demand of Arafat to prevent suicide attacks, <br>when at the same time the Palestinian leader is prevented to act. The <br>authors regret that only an "admirable minority" in Israel refuses to <br>participate in the infernal dialectic of repression-suicide attacks. <br><br>The authors also criticize the use of the term "terrorist" which is <br>now a cliché utilized by occupants, conquerors and colonialists to <br>qualify national resistances. The French social scientists see no <br>common measure between a terrorism of clandestine groups and a state <br>terrorism using massive arms provided by the US under the framework <br>of their military assistance to Israel. Should horror and indignation <br>in front of civil victims massacred by a human bomb suddenly <br>disappear when these victims are Palestinian and massacred by inhuman <br>bombs? the authors asked. In their viewpoint, a human bomb is an <br>extreme existential act for a teenager but it is also a political act <br>for an extremist organization. <br><br>The French social scientists also raise this "incredible paradox" of <br>the Israeli-Palestinian cancer. Jewish people from Israel, <br>descendants of victims of an apartheid called ghetto, ghettoize <br>Palestinians. Jewish people, who in the past were humiliated, <br>despised, persecuted, today humiliate, despise, persecute <br>Palestinians. Jewish people, who were scapegoats and blamed for all <br>the evils on earth, are now blaming Arafat and the Palestinian <br>authority who become Israel's scapegoats, responsible of suicide <br>attacks that they are concretely prevented to prevent. <br><br>The authors denounce the new antijewish resentment, emanating from <br>the Israel-Palestine cancer, which is propagating in the Arab world <br>as well as the antiarab resentment which is spreading into the Jewish <br>world. The Israeli-Palestinian cancer is developing new tumors in <br>North America, Europe and the Arab world. Furthermore, the current <br>American "war on terrorism" has allowed Sharon to include the <br>Palestinian resistance among the terrorist enemies of the West, so <br>that the Israel-Palestine confrontation becomes a confrontation not <br>only between two nations but between religions and civilizations. <br><br>The Middle-East is a seismic zone where East meets West, where North <br>and South are confronted, riches and poors, Secularism and Religion, <br>religions between themselves. All these antagonisms risk to be <br>exacerbated by the Israeli-Palestinian cancer. Its metastasis are <br>already pervading Islamic, Jewish and Christian cultural spheres. The <br>world is in danger of major cascading catastrophes, Edgar Morin, Sami <br>Naïr and Danielle Sallenave predict. <br><br>In spite of this tragic situation, the authors observe that an <br>unexpected electroshock came from the Saudi offer of a definitive <br>recognition of Israel by all Arab states in exchange of the <br>territories occupied in 1967, in conformity with UN resolutions and <br>international right. They believe there are also reasons to hope for <br>a peace based on justice and on cultural ingredients - which are <br>essential factors in the Mediterranean context - since more than 40% <br>of Israelis come from the Arab world. <br><br>Abstract prepared by Reda Benkirane <br>|special|
UN GA Once Again Demands Israeli Withdrawal|http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=321966||off|
Israel Adds 'Family Punishment' to Apartheid restrictions and ethnic cleansing|http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAADJANN4D.html|Gee...imagine if the power and wealthy Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia were subjected to Israel 'family punishment' policies.  Or for that matter just imagine the uproar if anything even beginning to be perceived of as 'family punishment' were to happen in any other 'democracy' in our world.|special|
Now Egypt pushes ahead with Nuclear Power||EGYPT PLANS TO BUILD NUKE PLANT NEAR ALEXANDRIA<br><br>      CAIRO [MENL] -- Egypt plans to construct a nuclear power plant west of<br>the port city of Alexandria despite U.S. disapproval.<br><br>      Officials said the Alexandria-area plant will be one of eight nuclear<br>reactors being planned until 2012.<br><br>      Egyptian Electricity Minister Hassan Yunes said the Alexandria plant<br>is at the top of his ministry's agenda. Yunes said the construction schedule<br>has already been presented for approval and implementation.<br><br>      During a meeting with Egyptian parliamentarians, Yunes denied reports<br>that Egypt has been pressured to delay launching its nuclear program.<br>Egyptian officials have acknowledged U.S. pressure to stop China and Russia<br>from helping Cairo design and construct the nuclear facilities.<br>|off|
How the Israelis Torture Palestinians - young and old||For the next 24 hours the boy, 15, says he was systematically beaten and questioned by a team of eight interrogators who wanted to know what he was doing on the street after dark. During interrogation, Assem says he was blindfolded and his hands were tied. He was struck with what he says felt like a metal pole and dragged by his bound hands up and down stairs. He was left standing for hours at a time then told to lie face down on the floor while a dog circled his body, sniffing his face and genitals.<br><br><br>Christian Science Monitor<br>Friday, July 26, 2002<br><br>Israel's 'arbitrary' detention of Palestinians condemned<br>Human-rights watchers warn that recent detentions violate the Geneva Convention.<br>By Catherine Taylor | Special to The Christian Science Monitor <br><br>JERUSALEM - Assem Shaqain was walking home one evening after closing his father's carpentry shop when he was stopped by Israeli soldiers. He was told to get into a military jeep and taken to an interrogation center near his home.<br><br>For the next 24 hours the boy, 15, says he was systematically beaten and questioned by a team of eight interrogators who wanted to know what he was doing on the street after dark. During interrogation, Assem says he was blindfolded and his hands were tied. He was struck with what he says felt like a metal pole and dragged by his bound hands up and down stairs. He was left standing for hours at a time then told to lie face down on the floor while a dog circled his body, sniffing his face and genitals.<br><br>After many hours Shaqain was forced to sign a confession, written in Hebrew, admitting he had "attempted to throw stones." He was brought before a military court and sentenced to three months prison, periods of it served in solitary confinement.<br><br>"This experience has changed me a lot," Assem says. "I feel nervous all the time, and I dream I am still in the prison. I have started to hate the occupation more and more. I did nothing to deserve this treatment."<br><br>Israel says the policy of detaining Palestinians – some 600,000 since Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 – is a crucial part of gaining intelligence and disabling militant networks.<br><br>But human rights advocates, including Amnesty International, have condemned the policy as a gross abuse of human rights that violates the Geneva Convention.<br><br>Their concerns are twofold. The arbitrary nature of the detentions – which target all males of a certain age regardless of whether Israel has any reason to suspect them – violates Article 33 of the fourth Geneva Convention which states that "no protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed."<br><br>Secondly, human rights advocates say, once in detention, Palestinian prisoners are not informed of the reasons for arrest, are denied access to lawyers and are prevented from informing family of the arrest and place of detention – also a violation of the Geneva Convention. But because the current conflict is not considered a war, human rights conventions covering the treatment of prisoners of war do not apply.<br><br>In recent months, the policy – justified by Israel according to a series of Military Orders – has been significantly stepped up. Figures from Amnesty International, released in May, state that since Feb. 27 more than 8,500 Palestinians have been arbitrarily detained.<br><br>Most have since been released, but as many as 2,000 remain in Israeli custody, many under administrative detention, which allows Israel to hold Palestinians without charge for blocks of six months. Those who are charged with specific crimes are tried in military courts where evidence is kept secret from both the prisoner and his or her lawyer.<br><br>Israel's Ministry for Justice referred all questions to the Israel Defense Force (IDF). The IDF avoided answering questions about human rights violations. An IDF spokesman did say: "It's true the people are inconvenienced, but this is the best way to do it. We are in a situation of a certain type of war; we try our best under difficult circumstances."<br><br>Israel uses military justice to drive the policy. In the past, Military Order 378, written in 1970, has been used to detain Palestinians. But new military orders have been added that allow Palestinians to be held without any evidence against them and without charge for up to six weeks "for the purposes of investigation."<br><br>A'azem Bishara, an Israeli-Arab lawyer who represents detainees for The Palestin- ian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment calls the policy "mass detention without any grounds."<br><br>"Being Palestinian and male is enough to make you suspicious," Mr. Bishara says. "We are talking about almost an entire generation that has been arrested and humiliated."<br><br>Mohammed Yousef, 18, says he was ambushed in his home one night after refusing to attend the local mosque for questioning. "It was raining, and we were left outside without anything to protect us," he says. "We didn't even have any blankets or enough to eat. We were given one apple and one tub of yogurt to share between 10 of us." He was subsequently released but admits he has thrown stones at Israeli soldiers in the past.<br><br>Bishara says most detainees are held in makeshift quarters – usually large tents, with 22 prisoners per tent. Mattresses, described as thin, are issued. Sometimes two or three prisoners share one mattress.<br><br>Up to 10 percent are children under 18, according to Defense for Children International (Palestine Section), an aid group that provides free legal advice to minors.<br><br>To cope with the increased number of detainees, Israel has reopened an isolated prison in the Negev Desert.<br><br>Yoni Fighel, a retired IDF colonel and analyst at the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism in Herzliya, says the detention policy is an essential part of fighting terror activity. "If you want to intercept terrorism before it occurs, you must detain people, whether it is based on intelligence, inquiries, or interrogation."<br><br>Yet Mr. Fighel agrees that "an in-built tension exists between civil rights and combating terrorism.<br><br>"Of course, it would be better [that detainees] are those where we have 100 percent evidence of a connection to terrorism, whether passive or active," Fighel says. "The possibility of excessive detention can't be excluded, but some of these detentions are necessary to increase [Israel's] intelligence capability."<br><br>After the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 and Israel withdrew from the main population centers in the West Bank and Gaza, a decrease in intelligence-gathering capacity followed. "We were out of the business," says Fighel. "Now we face a situation where ... we have to build again our intelligence capabilities. This can be done during interrogation of detainees."<br><br>Fighel says Palestinians are offered "opportunities" to collaborate with Israel during interrogation.<br><br>"It's not Club Med, that's true," he says of the conditions facing detainees. "But I would be very critical of any evidence of torture. It's not in the [guidelines governing detention policy]."<br><br>Amnesty International has requested an independent inquiry to investigate arbitrary detentions and reports of abuse.<br><br>Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links<br>|special|
Egypt and Saudi Arming - Missiles and Nuclear on the way||Sooner or later the Arab regimes had to respond in some way to their own predicament and the expectations of their own people; rather than totally follow the dictates of Washington.  Provoked by Israel, and let down by the U.S., the Egyptians and the Saudis are now arming more than ever before.<br><br><br>U.S. report confirms Saudi-Pakistan nuke contacts <br> <br>SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM<br>Thursday, August 1, 2002<br>U.S. officials have confirmed reports that senior Saudi officials have discussed the prospect of nuclear weapons cooperation with Pakistan.<br><br>A U.S. report published in the State Department's strategic journal cited Saudi interest and stressed that the Saudi kingdom does not have nuclear weapons, Middle East Newsline reported.<br><br>"Saudi Arabia does not have weapons of mass destruction," the report, authored by former Pentagon official Anthony Cordesman, said. "It did, however, buy long-range CSS-2 ballistic missiles from China. Very senior Saudi officials have held conversations with officials involved in the Pakistani nuclear program, and possibly with similar officials in other countries." <br><br><br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>Good News For College Graduates with Federal Loans - Special Offer <br><br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>The report appears in the latest issue of the State Department's "U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda." The journal was published on the department's web site and focused on the topic "Weapons of Mass Destruction: The New Strategic Framework."<br>U.S. officials said Saudi leaders have also discussed the procurement of new Pakistani intermediate-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. They said Saudi officials were invited to tour Pakistan's nuclear weapons facilities and that no sale has been concluded.<br><br>The report by Cordesman, a senior fellow of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, also supports assertions that Egypt has been developing an intermediate-range missile based on North Korea's No-Dong. Congress has been told that Egypt obtained 24 No-Dong missiles over the last year.<br><br>The State Department publication said Egypt has "Scud missiles and is seeking to create extended-range Scud missiles similar to North Korean designs. Has sought to develop longer-range missiles in the past." <br>|special|
How Many Bin-Ladens Are Being Created - Israeli Journalist Asks|http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=194889|"Saudi Arabia holds a quarter of the world's oil reserves (compared to 11 percent in Iraq) and, according to the U.S. Depertment of Energy, the demand for oil will only increase. By 2025, the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, will have to increase their output by 125 percent over the current figure. And there still are two tiny questions the Rand experts did not answer: if the United States does take over the Saudi oil fields, will the remaining Gulf states continue supplying oil, or will the world be plunged into an energy crisis? And how many bin Ladens will be created from that crisis?"<br>Zvi Barel - Ha'aretz - 7 Aug 2002<br>|special|
It's the Settlements, Stupid!||Lunch with Rev. Jessie Jackson<br><br>written by Ghassan Andoni<br><br><br>I had the privilege to be invited to join Rev. Jessie Jackson at lunch in the Arab Rehabilitation society-Beit Jala during his visit to Bethlehem.  Rev. Jackson and his "Peace Mission" group of Christian, Moslem, and Jewish leaders have been touring Palestine-Israel and meeting with people and politicians. <br><br> <br><br>While Rev. Jackson looked tired after going through an overloaded program and an extensive experience and was apparently looking for a little period to gather his strength, I could not resist the temptation of hearing his account after such an experience. <br><br> <br><br>I took the first opportunity and asked him: "after being in this area for a while, and after such an experience, are you more optimistic, less optimistic, or what?"  <br><br> <br><br>To my surprise, and after taking a long breath, Rev. Jackson said: "I am clearer, especially about settlements"  <br><br> <br><br>I will not go to the details of the long discussion we had. As important as it was, my mind was much occupied with his first statement. <br><br> <br><br>The question that kept knocking my head was: why even influential and interested people from the United States and maybe from other western countries are unclear about settlements until they come personally and visit?  <br><br> <br><br>Is it because we failed to clarify how dangerous settlements are? <br><br>Is it because the Israeli powerful media managed to twist facts and create a positive image of settlements and settlers?<br><br>Is it because the term "settlement" and "settler" echoes positively in the American history?<br><br>Is it because occupation, expansionism, and resistance are very confused in societies that enjoyed stability and prosperity without any interruption for the past 50 years?  <br><br> <br><br>How can people realize, without witnessing through their own eyes that "positive acts" like building nice villas and accommodating families can be lethal to others? <br><br>How "legal orders" of expropriations and building equipment can be turned into a lethal weapon that can exterminate and transfer a whole nation?<br><br> <br><br>How can people understand that each nice Villa built is an added stone to an apartheid system in process? <br><br> <br><br>I guess there is no way but to come and see for your self. <br><br> <br><br>A week ago, one American visitor told me: "the only place in which settlers were defeated is Africa, they won everywhere else" <br><br> <br><br>I promised my visitor that settlers in Palestine will never win. We need the efforts of each and every one of you to prevent settlers from destroying the people of Palestine. Might be mission impossible but never forget that if they are allowed to win in Palestine, you will be living in an entirely different world, where facts will always overrides rights and were the jungle law will govern us all. <br><br>Regards<br><br>Ghassan - 7-31-02<br><br> <br>|off|
Bush Sr's National Security Adiser Issues Blunt Public Warning|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43744-2002Aug4?language=printer|Imagine what people must be saying and arguing about in private, if this is what is leaking out now into the public "bi-partisan foreign policy" debate.|special|
Report from Ground Zero - An Israeli Journalist who cares and tries to understands||Report from ground zero in Gaza <br><br>Ha'aretz Magazine<br>Friday, August 2, 2002<br><br>At the Salah Shehadeh home in Gaza City  <br> <br>By Gideon Levy <br><br> <br> The Saidi family with one of their dead canaries: "The American bomb killed <br>our birds," whispers a child, clutching a cage. <br>(Photo: Miki Kratsman) <br> <br>The pilot who pressed the button and dropped the bomb; the commanding officer <br>who gave him the order; the Shin Bet agent who reported the houses <br>uninhabited; the engineering expert who promised limited casualties; the Air <br>Force commander who pushed for it and the new chief of staff who supported <br>it; the minister who gave the okay from abroad to drop a one-ton bomb on a <br>house in the heart of a densely populated residential neighborhood in the <br>dead of night and later claimed that he didn't realize what would ensue and <br>boasted that Israel had already dropped 47 bombs just like that one, as if <br>numbers could somehow sanctify the unthinkable; the minister who knew or did <br>not know, and only said in hindsight that it was "100 percent a mistake"; and <br>the prime minister who knew, who made the decision and gave the order, <br>congratulating himself afterward for "one of the most successful actions" <br>ever - none of these people will ever see what he wrought. Not one of them <br>will ever come to the dusty Daraj neighborhood in Gaza to see the horror he <br>caused. More than likely it does not overly concern any of them, aside from <br>the minor "damage to our image" that was quickly shrugged off. <br><br>None of these people will have to look Mohammed Matar in the eye: A man who <br>labored for 30 years in Israel, and who this past Sunday lay prostrate on the <br>floor amid the ruins of his house - his eyes and arm bandaged, his daughter <br>and daughter-in-law and four of his grandchildren killed, three of his <br>children wounded; wondering aloud, "Why have they done this to us?" The <br>pilot, the commanding officer, the agent, the expert, the minister and the <br>head of the government will not visit the dozens of apartments destroyed <br>along with everything inside them, entire chapters of entire lives, totally <br>destroyed. They won't see the survivors, whose only sin was in being <br>neighbors of the wrong man, who wander among the ruins of their homes, <br>grieving, bandaged, limping, unable to believe their eyes - everything they <br>had, reduced to dust. <br><br>The first thing you notice at the bomb site is the color gray. Gray rubble. <br>Gray apartments, the exposed bricks gray, the broken cement gray, a film of <br>gray dust everywhere. Many of the buildings surrounding the home of the <br>targeted Salah Shehadeh remain standing, only their contents destroyed u<br>tterly, from the force of the explosion. You walk through the apartments, <br>stepping on the layers of destruction, barely recognizable bits and pieces <br>debris: Was that a closet? That over there, a television? And this the bed? <br><br>Of the house where Shehadeh, head of the military wing of Hamas, was hiding <br>out, nothing remained but three columns of concrete, from one of which the <br>green flag of Hamas now flutters. This was a smart bomb nonpareil: It left no <br>trace of the wanted man or anyone in his near vicinity: Shehadeh, his wife, <br>his daughter and his companions. Bricks, bones, all gone. Nothing left. <br><br>Houses here are all jammed together. Three multi-family buildings of three <br>stories each, nearly contiguous, where most of the deaths occurred, 15 in <br>all. Two more apartment buildings nearby were also destroyed, and they <br>weren't shacks either, as the defense establishment tried to claim the day <br>after the bombing, attempting to rationalize the killings. These were <br>permanent dwellings with corrugated tin roofs, and three people from the <br>Al-Hweiti family were killed in them: Mona, a young woman of 22, Subhi, 5, <br>and Mohammed, 3. Nearby buildings on all sides were also damaged by the <br>explosion. <br><br>On the third floor of the Matar family home, where seven people died, six of <br>them infants and children (the highest toll of any of the families involved), <br>iron supports are already in place to keep the ceiling from collapsing on the <br>surviving residents still living there. "This is the Israeli peace," and <br>"These are American weapons," wrote someone on the wall in English. <br><br>Four days after the bombing, nearly everyone's gone but the residents <br>themselves, who are easy to identify: they're still bandaged, in shock. The <br>Saidi family's home, across from the wanted man's: No deaths here, only <br>wounded. The remains of a green doorway lead to the remains of a living room <br>which opens on the remains of a bedroom. Twenty children were sleeping in <br>this house when the bomb was dropped. Their grandmother, Amna Saidi, 55, was <br>already asleep when the bomb fell on the neighbors. She says she woke up <br>suddenly to tremendous noise and a huge ball of flame. No, there was no big <br>boom, but everything shook. She was sure it was an earthquake. Her grandson <br>Lwai, 40 days old, fell out of his cradle but he's fine now, safe in his <br>mother Mirfat's arms. <br><br>On the night of the bombing, Mirfat was in her apartment on the third floor, <br>watching a late-evening broadcast from Dubai on television. Her husband, <br>Khalil, went up to the roof to escape the unbearable heat. Their five <br>children were asleep. One of them now retrieves the pieces of a doll from the <br>debris and puts it back together again. Mirfat, her face pale, says that <br>everything was forced into the apartment by the blast. She finds it hard to <br>describe. <br><br>What will you do? <br><br>"We have nowhere to go," she says faintly. Their neighbors are helping in the <br>meantime, with clothing and food. <br><br>There were injuries in the Bughdadi family and the Suq family and the Hijazzi <br>family. The latter's home was half wrecked as was the television repair <br>workshop in front of it. The dead came from the Matar, Al-Hweiti and A-Shawwa <br>families, and of course the Shehadeh family. <br><br>Green canaries are dead in their cages. "The American bomb killed our birds," <br>whispers a child, clutching one of the cages. Khaled Saidi, in his <br>mid-thirties, had a hobby: raising songbirds. His house is full of cages, <br>large and small. Now they're all jumbled up on the floor, the little corpses <br>inside. Khaled is gone. Here's his picture on the wall. No one knows where <br>Khaled is. Maybe he couldn't stand the sight of his dead birds. A plaster <br>bas-relief with the words "Our Jerusalem" is broken in two. The destruction <br>on the third floor is worse. <br><br>The house on the other side of the destroyed Shehadeh hideout was the Matar <br>family's home. The deaths aren't self-evident now in the partially destroyed <br>appearance of the house. Ra'ed Matar from the second floor lost his wife and <br>his three children here: Iman, 27, Dalia, 5, Mohammed, 3, and Aiman, 18 <br>months. Ra'ed's brother Rami, on the third floor, lost his baby daughter <br>Dina, two months old. Mohammed Matar, Rami's and Ra'ed's father, on the first <br>floor, lost his daughter Alaa, 10, his daughter-in-law and four <br>grandchildren. He and three of his own children were hospitalized with <br>injuries. All this in one multi-story building. <br><br>A bloodstained white T-shirt lies in the very narrow yard that separates the <br>Matar house from its neighbor. This is where they found the body of the <br>infant Aiman, two days after the bombing. Aiman, eighteen months old, who was <br>on the second floor, was blown away, together with his crib, and landed in <br>this narrow yard, where his body was buried under the rubble. Only the stench <br>from the yard drew the rescuers there, to find his corpse. <br><br>Mohammed Matar, the bereaved father and grandfather, was three days in the <br>hospital. Only on his release did they tell him the extent of his <br>bereavement: his daughter, his daughter-in-law and four grandchildren. A <br>large man wearing a dirty gray jalabiyya, he is lying on the ground, his <br>strength nearly gone, leaning on one arm. He was asleep when the bomb fell. <br>He says he woke up and saw things flying every which way, burying him. Blood <br>dripped from one eye. He managed to rescue his grandson Ibrahim, cold, <br>barefoot, his clothing in tatters, who was buried by debris and clings now to <br>his injured grandfather. Today they operated on his son Mohammed, who was <br>also injured. His son Ra'ed, bandaged, is walking around in the rubble and <br>soon Rami will arrive, due to be released today from the hospital. <br><br>Mohammed worked for 30 years at the Yakhin canned goods factory in Ashkelon <br>until the current closure. He tells proudly of the letters of commendation he <br>received over the years for his work there, and now he can't find them under <br>all the debris. "This is what we got from them in the end," he mumbles. <br><br>What should the Palestinians do now? <br><br>"God knows; I don't. Just like they (the Israelis) want to live, we also want <br>to live. The day before, there was almost an agreement with Hamas and the <br>next day they attacked us." <br><br>Do you want revenge? <br><br>"God takes revenge. Only God does that. What can I say? Fifty years and <br>there's no peace. We hear about peace, but look at us." <br><br>A young man comes into the yard, pale and trembling, walking unsteadily, his <br>arm bandaged. This is Ra'ed. Rami has come home from the hospital but he <br>doesn't yet know that his daughter was killed. Please, no one tell Rami, <br>requests Ra'ed: He wants to do that. Let's take Rami to a friend's house, <br>Ra'ed tells his father: a house some distance away from here. Then Ra'ed, who <br>lost his wife and three children, will somehow tell his brother that he has <br>lost his baby daughter.<br> <br><br>|off|
Now we learn...US was preparing to attack al-Qaeda when al-Qaeda struck US|http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,333835,00.ht|Now we learn:<br>BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S LENGTHY REVIEW PROCESS DELAYED U.S. PLAN TO ATTACK AL QAEDA -- UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE<br><br>Draft Presidential Directive to Eliminate al Qaeda Approved By National Security Principals Sept. 4, 2001 — One Week Before 9/11<br><br>Plan Developed in Last Days of Clinton Administration, Presented to Bush Administration in January 2001<br><br>----------------------<br><br>Proposals Were "Everything We’ve Done Since 9/11" <br><br>New York – A bold plan for the U.S. to attack al Qaeda was delayed by a Bush administration "policy review process" and was approved just a week before September 11, a TIME special report reveals. The plan, developed in the last days of the Clinton administration, was passed along to the Bush administration in January 2001 by Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Richard Clarke, a career bureaucrat who had served in the first Bush administration and risen during the Clinton years to become the White House’s point man on terrorism. In the words of a senior Bush administration official, the proposals amounted to "everything we’ve done since 9/11." <br><br>TIME’s special report offers the fullest account of how ambitious the plan was, and how the Bush administration delayed the plan. <br><br>On Dec. 20, 2000, Clarke presented a strategy paper to Berger and the other national security "principals." But Berger and the principals decided to shelve the plan and let the next administration take it up. With less than a month left in office, they did not think it appropriate to launch a major initiative against Osama bin Laden. "We would be handing [the Bush Administration] a war when they took office on Jan. 20," says a former senior Clinton aide. "That wasn’t going to happen." "If we hadn’t had a transition," says a senior Clinton Administration official, "probably in late October or early November 2000, we would have had [the plan to go on the offensive] as a presidential directive." Now it was up to Rice’s team to consider what Clarke had put together. <br><br>The plan became a victim of the transition process, turf wars and time spent on the pet policies of new top officials. The Bush administration chose to institute its own "policy review process" on the terrorist threat. Clarke told TIME that the review moved "as fast as could be expected." And Administration officials insist that by the time the review was endorsed by the Bush principals on Sept. 4, it was more aggressive than anything contemplated the previous winter. The final plan, they say, was designed not to "roll back" al-Qaeda but to "eliminate" it, TIME reports. <br><br>By last summer, many of those in the know—the spooks, the buttoned-down bureaucrats, the law-enforcement professionals in a dozen countries—were almost frantic with worry that a major terrorist attack against American interests was imminent. And in a bureaucratic squabble, nobody in Washington could decide whether a Predator drone—the best possible source of real intelligence on what was happening in the terror camps—should be sent to fly over Afghanistan. So the Predator sat idle from October 2000 until after Sept. 11, TIME reports. <br><br>TIME’s Special Report also reveals: <br><br>Ž Berger wanted Ground Troops: On Nov. 7, 2000, Berger met with William Cohen, then Secretary of Defense, in the Pentagon. Berger wanted "boots on the ground"—U.S. special ops forces deployed inside Afghanistan on a search-and-destroy mission targeting bin Laden. Cohen said he would look at the idea, but he and General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were dead set against it. They feared a repeat of Desert One, the 1980 fiasco when special ops commandos crashed in Iran during an abortive mission to rescue American hostages. <br><br>Ž Bush official denies being handed a formal plan: A senior Bush Administration official denies being handed a formal plan to take the offensive against al-Qaeda, and says Clarke’s materials merely dealt with whether the new Administration should take "a more active approach" to the terrorist group. (Rice declined to comment, but through a spokeswoman said she recalled no briefing at which Berger was present.) Other senior officials from both the Clinton and Bush administrations dispute that account, saying that Clarke had a set of proposals to "roll back" al-Qaeda. In fact, the heading on Slide 14 of the Powerpoint presentation reads, "Response to al Qaeda: Roll back." <br><br>Ž Clinton frustrated: By early 2000, Clinton was becoming infuriated by the lack of intelligence on bin Laden’s movements. "We’ve got to do better than this," he scribbled on one memo. "This is unsatisfactory." <br><br>Ž Submarines were ready to attack bin Laden: For all of 2000, Clinton ordered two U.S. Navy submarines to stay on station in the northern Arabian sea, ready to attack bin Laden if his coordinates could be determined, sources tell TIME. <br><br>Ž CIA attempted to recruit tribal leaders in Afghanistan: The CIA attempted to recruit tribal leaders in Afghanistan who might be persuaded to take on bin Laden; contingency plans had been made for the CIA to fly one of its planes to a desert landing strip in Afghanistan if he was ever captured. (Clinton had signed presidential "findings" that were ambiguous on the question of whether bin Laden could be killed in such an attack.) <br><br>Ž Plans to capture bin Laden tied up in politics: After the U.S.S. Cole was bombed, the secretive Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., drew up plans to have Delta Force members swoop into Afghanistan and grab bin Laden. But the warriors were never given the go-ahead; the Clinton Administration did not order an American retaliation for the attack. In fact, despite strong suspicion that bin Laden was behind the attack in Yemen, the CIA and FBI had not officially concluded that he was, and would be unable to do so before Clinton left office. That made it politically impossible for Clinton to strike—especially given the upcoming election and his own lack of credibility on national security. "If we had done anything, say, two weeks before the election, we’d be accused of helping Al Gore," a former senior Clinton aide told TIME. <br><br>|special|
USAid Report About Palestinians|http://www.usaid.gov/wbg/nutritional_report.pdf|USAid-Report about Palestinians<br><br>Comprehensive Nutritional Assessment of the Palestinian Population. On August 5, USAID released the findings of a comprehensive nutritional assessment of the Palestinian population living in the West Bank and Gaza. The assessment was carried out by Care International, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and Al Quds University School of Public Health, and the Global Management Consulting Group. Read the report ... (PDF format -- 282 kb) : http://www.usaid.gov/wbg/nutritional_report.pdf<br><br>Ha'aretz 8/6/2002<br>USAID reports hunger crisis in territories<br>WASHINGTON - The U.S. Agency for International Development yesterday released a report on hunger in the territories, saying that a humanitarian emergency grips the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The report cites an increase in malnutrition in the territories; increasing numbers of families, it says, are unable to obtain basic foodstuffs, particularly foods rich in proteins. <br><br>Prepared for USAID by several universities and research groups over an eight-week period, the report examined the Palestinian population's access to food in the territories. <br><br>The researchers found that 9.3 percent of Palestinian children in the territories suffer from a temporary form of malnutrition while 13.2 percent of children are chronically under-nourished. The situation on the Gaza Strip is manifestly worse than that of the West Bank: While 3.5 percent of children on the West Bank suffer from chronic malnutrition, the figure for Gaza is 17.5 percent. <br><br>The study concludes that these malnutrition statistics warrant classification (according to standards used by health officials) as a "humanitarian emergency," particularly in the Gaza Strip. <br><br>In Jerusalem yesterday, Israel tried yesterday to soften the diplomatic-public relations damage caused by the report's publication. At a press conference held a few hours before the official release of the study, Israeli officials said that the Palestinian population does not face starvation, and that responsibility for malnutrition problems in the territories rests with Palestinian Authority institutions, and the population itself. <br><br>The officials were careful not to reject its findings outright. However, they questioned the research methodology used by the American organization. Dr. Yaakov Eldar, adviser to the IDF coordinator of activities in the territories on health matters, and Dr. Yitzhak Sever, who addresses international relations and Palestinian affairs for the Health Ministry, noted that the investigators who actually carried out the survey were Palestinians, even though the research was funded by an American organization. <br><br>The report also finds that children who live in rural areas in the territories face much more severe hunger problems than those who live in urban settings. <br><br>The study also found that 19.7 percent of children in the territories suffer from anemia, which is classified as a "moderate" level health problem. Anemia is generally a function of poor diet. A relatively high level (10.8 percent) of anemia was also found among women ages 15-49. <br><br>USAID researchers who investigated the availability of foodstuffs in stores serving the Palestinian population in the territories found a serious shortage of foods that contain protein. Researchers found that dairy products, particularly milk powder and milk products for infants, are lacking in more than half of the food shops in the territories, with a particularly severe shortage in the Gaza Strip. The report concludes that the major reason for food shortages in the territories is roadblocks put up by Israelis, along with closures and curfews in the territories. <br><br>The report's main conclusion is that a food emergency prevails in the territories, but that this situation is reversible if there is immediate humanitarian relief. <br><br>In Gaza City yesterday, Palestinian Authority Health Minister Dr. Riyad Al Zanoun declared that an emergency policy is in effect in clinics that care for women and children. He explained that special orders have been relayed to health institutions to clarify procedures for youngsters and adults who suffer from malnutrition and anemia. These clinics will counsel patients about dietary habits. <br><br>The USAID report stirred mixed feelings yesterday in the territories. On the one hand, Palestinians noted that the fact that a U.S. governmental agency stands behind the findings guarantees increased international attention to the health and hunger situation in the territories. On the other hand, Palestinian health officials are exasperated that warnings delivered over the past year did not generate an adequate response. <br><br>Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, from Medical Relief Committees, a non-government Palestinian health organization, said yesterday that his group demanded a year ago that the territories be declared a health disaster area. Referring to health, water and food problems in Nablus, Barghouti said: "This is an unprecedented humanitarian disaster ... resulting from a decision of the Israeli occupation authorities.<br>By Nathan Guttman and Yair Ettinger<br><br>http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=194490&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y<br><br>|off|
A History Lesson for the West - from the days of Lawrence of Arabia||We need to go back to the First World War, when Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill were imposing the first regime changes on the Middle East, to see how we have reached the situation we face today....A commission set up by President Wilson warned that independence for states such as Palestine, Syria and Iraq, should be granted as soon as possible. And the idea of making Palestine into a Jewish commonwealth should be dropped. The report was ignored, even in Washington, and it took a further two years for the Allies to finalise their carve-up of the Middle East. The Arabs were stunned to learn that the whole Arab rectangle lying between the Mediterranean and the Persian frontier, including Palestine, was to be placed under mandates to suit the foreign policies of Britain and France. The Arabs had simply exchanged one imperial ruler, Turkey, for another, the West. Revolution began almost immediately. The Iraqis tried to kick us out by raiding British establishments and killing British troops. The British army retaliated with collective punishment, burning to the ground every village from which any such attack was mounted. Lawrence of Arabia wrote to The Times suggesting, with heavy irony, that burning villages was not very efficient. "By gas attacks, the whole population of offending districts could be wiped out neatly, and as a method of government, it would be no more immoral than the present system."...The regime changes continued. In Jordan, we made Feisal's brother Abdullah king, and provided him with money and troops in return for his promise to suppress anti-Zionist activity. Their father, Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca, the man who had started the Arab revolt against Turkey, was offered £100,000 a year not to make a nuisance of himself. And that was that.<br><br>The Sunday Independent (U.K.)<br>04 August 2002<br><br>Philip Knightley<br><br>Iraq chose Saddam for good reason. The West needs a history lesson<br><br>They've been bombed, lied to, manipulated. They will neither forgive nor forget. Just watch how the next generation reacts<br><br>Before Tony Blair joins the new crusaders trying to impose a "regime change", a Western "settlement" on Iraq, he should at least look at the historical facts that explain the rise of nationalist leaders such as Saddam Hussein. And while he is at it, since he is good at empathy, he might try looking at Britain through Iraqi eyes. Seen from Baghdad, the British have bombed and invaded their country, lied to them, manipulated their borders, imposed on them leaders they did not want, kidnapped ones they did, fixed their elections, used collective terror tactics on their civilians, promised them freedom and then planned to turn their country into a province of India populated by immigrant Punjabi farmers. Small wonder that the author Said Aburish said to me recently: "If you think Saddam Hussein is a hard man to deal with, just wait for the next generation of Iraqi leaders."<br><br>In view of Saddam's ruthlessness in dealing with the Kurds in Iraq, his war with Iran and his invasion of Kuwait, it is hard to conceive that there are younger Iraqi leaders who believe Saddam has not been tough enough, and that, although the United States has the most powerful armed forces in the world, Americans do not have the stomach for the sacrifices an all-out war in the Middle East would entail.<br><br>These young Iraqis take the Islamic long view of history, which suggests that the Middle East never favours the foreigner and always takes its revenge on those who, like the British and Americans, insist on seeing the region through their own eyes.<br><br>We need to go back to the First World War, when Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill were imposing the first regime changes on the Middle East, to see how we have reached the situation we face today. In 1919, the recently concluded war had made everyone realise the strategic importance of oil, and in any future major skirmish a secure supply of oil would be an essential weapon. Britain already had one source: British Petroleum, owned in part by the British government, had been pumping oil at Masjid-i-Salamn, in Iran's Zagros Mountains, since 1908. But it was not enough.<br><br>So even before the peace conference began in Paris in 1919 some underhand oil trading took place. France, for example, gave Britain the oil-rich area around Mosul in Iraq, in exchange for a share of the oil and "a free hand" in Syria. Unfortunately, Britain had already promised Syria to the Syrians. It was obvious to the smarter Arab leaders that guarantees of freedom and independence made during the war by Britain and France in return for their support against Germany's ally, Turkey, would now mean nothing.<br><br>This was confirmed at the peace conference when the oil companies pressed their governments to renounce all wartime promises to the Arabs. The oil companies saw only too well that oil concessions and royalties would be easier to negotiate with a series of rival Arab states, lacking any sense of unity, than with a powerful independent Arab state in the Middle East. Ironically – in that President George W Bush now leads the new crusaders – the only country to protest at the betrayal of the Arabs was the United States.<br><br>A commission set up by President Wilson warned that independence for states such as Palestine, Syria and Iraq, should be granted as soon as possible. And the idea of making Palestine into a Jewish commonwealth should be dropped. The report was ignored, even in Washington, and it took a further two years for the Allies to finalise their carve-up of the Middle East. The Arabs were stunned to learn that the whole Arab rectangle lying between the Mediterranean and the Persian frontier, including Palestine, was to be placed under mandates to suit the foreign policies of Britain and France. The Arabs had simply exchanged one imperial ruler, Turkey, for another, the West.<br><br>Revolution began almost immediately. The Iraqis tried to kick us out by raiding British establishments and killing British troops. The British army retaliated with collective punishment, burning to the ground every village from which any such attack was mounted. Lawrence of Arabia wrote to The Times suggesting, with heavy irony, that burning villages was not very efficient. "By gas attacks, the whole population of offending districts could be wiped out neatly, and as a method of government, it would be no more immoral than the present system."<br><br>The grim truth was that something along these lines was being considered. Churchill, then Secretary of State for Air and War, suggested that the RAF should take on the job of subduing Iraq: "It would ... entail the provision of some kind of asphyxiating bombs calculated to cause disablement of some kind but not death ... for use in preliminary operations against turbulent tribes." In the end the RAF stuck to conventional high-explosive bombs, a method we are still using today.<br><br>When Churchill appointed Lawrence to clear up the mess the Middle East had become, Lawrence began by offering to make Feisal, the man he had chosen as military leader of the Arab revolt, King of Iraq. The problem was that there were several other candidates.<br><br>The most popular was an early version of Saddam Hussein, the nationalist leader Sayid Taleb, who had gained popular support by threatening a nationwide revolt if the Iraqis were not allowed to choose their own leader. Our solution was simple. We kidnapped him, and dispatched him to Ceylon.<br><br>By the time Taleb was allowed to return, Feisal had been elected king by one of those suspiciously high majorities – 96.8 per cent. The regime changes continued. In Jordan, we made Feisal's brother Abdullah king, and provided him with money and troops in return for his promise to suppress anti-Zionist activity. Their father, Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca, the man who had started the Arab revolt against Turkey, was offered £100,000 a year not to make a nuisance of himself. And that was that. Britain regarded this as redemption in full of her promises to the Arabs. The Arabs, particularly the Iraqis, did not see it that way. They have been in revolt ever since.<br><br>Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979 on a platform of Arab unity and resistance to Western influence in the Middle East. He continues to have a following in the Arab world because he is seen as one of the few Arab leaders prepared to stand up to the West, particularly the United States, whose interest in the area is comparatively recent. (The British Arabist, St John Philby, father of the notorious KGB spy Kim Philby, negotiated a deal between the Standard Oil Company of California and the Saudis, and commercial production began in March 1938.)<br><br>Whether we accept that Saddam Hussein poses a threat or not, and whether this threat is so great that we can justify attacking Iraq again, we should first ask the crunch question: if the new crusaders defeat and occupy Iraq, what then? A United Nations mandate, something like that imposed on the country after the First World War, allowing the victorious army to remain in control of the conquered land? Or perhaps a new "Feisal" inserted as a token ruler of a reluctant population? Either course spells disaster. The cynical disposition of other people's countries and their leaders – no matter how frightful they may appear to us – will surely bring a bloody reckoning.<br><br>That great Arabist Gertrude Bell once warned that the catchwords of revolution – equality and fraternity – would always have great appeal in the Middle East because they challenged a world order in which Europeans were supreme, or in which those Europeans and their client Arab leaders treated ordinary Arabs as inferior beings.<br><br>And so a new cycle of anger, frustration and bloodshed will begin because 800 years after the crusades there will still be foreigners occupying Arab lands.<br><br>Phillip Knightley is the author of 'The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia' |special|
Stung and Frightened, Saudis Say More Loudly 'No' to more US Troops|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54295-2002Aug7?language=printer|Behind the scenes, for some time now, tensions have been growing.  The Americans have built-up huge military capabilities in 'Saudi Arabia'; hundreds of billions of dollars in the past two decades -- though of course most of that has actually been paid for by the Saudis themselves.  Now the regime is further weakening in the aftermath of yesterday's bombshell revelations that top Pentagon officials consider Saudi Arabia an "enemy" Saudi investments in the US will begin to diminish and Saudi investments at home will begin to be drained off to still more secret foreign bank accounts.|special|
AARP Comes Calling|http://www.washtimes.com/business/20020617-97073704.htm||hidden|
Musharraf (and CIA) Trying To Make Permanent Military Regime Called 'Democracy'|http://www.feer.com/articles/2002/0208_01/p012region.html |Is Terror Worse Than Oppression? <br><br>Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has profited from the American view that the world's greatest threat today is terrorism. But within his country there is growing anger that U.S. support is allowing his military regime to delay the promise of democracy <br><br><br>-------------------------------------- <br><br>By Ahmed Rashid/LAHORE <br><br>Issue cover-dated August 01, 2002 <br><br><br>FROM THE MOMENT last September that President Pervez Musharraf declared that his country would no longer support the Taliban, the world has wondered if Pakistan's own Islamic extremists would somehow rise and topple him. That threat echoed again on July 15, as extremist groups threatened to assassinate government leaders over the conviction and death sentence of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh for the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl. <br><br>After a Hyderabad court sentenced him to death and three accomplices to life imprisonment, Saeed issued a direct threat to Musharraf through his lawyer: 'I will see whether who wants to kill me will first kill me or get himself killed.' <br><br>Police officials believe Saeed's supporters have even created a new terrorist group named after him--Lashkar-e-Omar, or the Army of Omar--with links to the Al Qaeda terrorist network and recruits from at least three Pakistani groups who have fought in Afghanistan and Kashmir. <br><br>Saeed's lawyers have appealed against the judgment, ensuring that tension over the case could go on for months. Security was tightened across the country, especially in Karachi and the capital Islamabad, where five terrorist attacks against Westerners have taken place in the past four months. <br><br>But there is little public support for Saeed, and the threat of assassination is nothing new to Musharraf. In fact, ask any citizen what the greatest threat is to Pakistan today and chances are they will say it is Musharraf himself. <br><br>Pakistan's entire political spectrum, its media and its middle classes are protesting against Musharraf's attempts to ensure a permanent political role for the military before general elections, mandated by the Supreme Court, are held on October 10. The question of whether civilians or soldiers are going to prevail in the new post-October political set-up will have far-reaching implications, not just for Pakistan but for the entire region. <br><br>As long as Musharraf can ignore his critics, he has little to fear. He and his military regime have so far been able to manage international pressures, and can bank on the continued backing of the United States because of its commitment to fighting terrorists like Saeed. <br><br>Of course, Washington is less concerned about Pakistani politics than it is about Al Qaeda, and ensuring that Musharraf prevents Islamic militants from crossing into Indian-controlled Kashmir and provoking a war. But the U.S., by backing Musharraf in his efforts to repress a small minority of extremists in Pakistan, is allowing him to ignore the pleas of the larger majority. <br><br>The military has introduced for public discussion new amendments to the 1973 constitution that will virtually turn Pakistan's parliamentary form of government into a presidential system headed by Musharraf, who won a controversial referendum in April making him president for five years. The amendments would give Musharraf the power to sack the prime minister and the cabinet, and make all senior appointments in the provinces, the judiciary and the bureaucracy. A National Security Council dominated by the armed services chiefs would override the cabinet and parliament. The U.S. State Department has not commented on the constitutional amendments. <br><br>As elections approach, Musharraf is determined that the army will prevail--putting his popularity at its lowest ebb since he seized power in a coup in 1999. Already, civil and military intelligence agencies are hard at work in the districts influencing the polls by offering their favoured candidates government support. Through a raft of new laws, known as presidential ordinances, the army can control who can stand for the elections. <br><br>The goal of the army's strategy is to ensure that former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and their followers do not stand for elections. The two largest parties in Pakistan today are Sharif's faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), even though their leaders are in exile and barred from returning home. <br><br>The new laws prohibit any prime minister from seeking a third term in office--effectively barring Bhutto and Sharif. More than half of the last parliament, which was dismissed by Musharraf after he ousted Sharif in a coup in October, 1999, will be ineligible to stand in the elections. <br><br>Every major political party in the country has vigorously opposed these moves. 'It's the murder of democracy,' Nawabzada Nasrullah, head of the 16-party opposition Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, which includes the PML and the PPP, told reporters in Lahore recently. 'The majority of the people now hate Musharraf and he should step aside.' <br><br>Civic groups, lawyers and businessmen have joined the chorus. 'Why bother having an election when the army sets the rules and the candidates and will rig the outcome?' asks Hina Jilani, secretary-general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. <br><br>The media is almost entirely hostile. 'The central problem facing the military is how to inject some enthusiasm into the charade being planned in the name of the October elections,' columnist Ayaz Amir wrote in the Dawn newspaper. <br><br>Even the small group of minor parties that were once supporting Musharraf are now desperately trying to distance themselves from him. Three months ago the army cobbled together the National Alliance, a group of minor parties, to contest the elections; since then their leaders have either abandoned the alliance or left on long holidays in London to avoid being pressured by the intelligence agencies. <br><br>An attempt by the army to split Bhutto's PPP failed, and while Sharif's PML has split into many factions, Sharif's loyalists are holding firm. <br><br>Musharraf addressed the nation on television on July 12 in an effort to sway public opinion. 'It's not enough just to restore democracy, you have to have a sustainable democracy,' he said. 'We need checks and balances.' But his speech carried little credibility, given the amendments. Likewise, his claim that 'I am not power hungry and I want to give power to the people and not take it away,' prompted scathing editorials in the Pakistani press. <br><br>Public anger is not reserved for Musharraf: The Americans get their share as well, as in many peoples' eyes Musharraf is only getting away with his plans because of unstinting U.S. support due to his cooperation in tracking down Al Qaeda. <br><br>Islamic parties are taking advantage of public sentiment by beating the anti-U.S. drum. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the head of the powerful Jamaat-e-Islami party, says Musharraf is allowing the U.S. to 'de-Islamize, demilitarize and de-nuclearize Pakistan.' The fundamentalists are fuming at attempts to bring the religious schools, or madrassas, under state control, and called the Pearl trial a set-up. <br><br>Even secular parties and civic groups believe that Washington is supporting the continuation of quasi-military rule after October. Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to visit Islamabad at the end of July, to try to cool down another bout of rising tensions between India and Pakistan. <br><br>Some politicians are privately urging the U.S. that Powell should also try and rein in the army's ambitions. 'Powell's visit is going to be critical, not just for Indo-Pak relations but for the future of Pakistan and how the entire region is going to perceive America's role--propping up dictatorships or supporting democracy,' says a European diplomat in Islamabad. <br><br> <br>|special|
That 'Little Washington Leak'; and coverup of reality by THE NATION|http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=94|THE NATION magazine is usually a little off when it comes to the Middle East.  It supported the Oslo Peace Process, until the apartheid-nature of the whole thing became too visible.  And it's bent is very much political-correct Jewish liberal when it comes to matters Israeli; with a sprinkling of the Edward Said type of commentary as a pretense that it is giving voice to Palestinians and Arabs (of which Said in truth barely qualifies).  And so, imagine this, on a matter of possible major historical significance THE NATION manages primarily to focus on 'the leak', rather than the real policies that are rolling along, and doesn't even mention that Washington is dominated on matters Middle Eastern by the Israeli/Jewish lobby -- not even a single mention -- whose fingerprints are all over this one (though the non-Washington readers of THE NATION) will have to figure that out all by themselves.|off|
US Readies War Cries On Iraq|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38908-2002Aug3.html||special|
Israelis Leaks Story of Preparations for War with Iraq|Israel intelligence projects Iraqi missile strike if Saddam is cornered ||off|
Saddam Heads Underground; Mimics Churchill||SADDAM IS 160FT UNDER; TYRANT'S DEFIANT MESSAGE AS HE MOVES TO A BUNKER<br><br>LONDON DAILY MIRROR - Mon Aug 12 2002 <br><br>SADDAM Hussein is moving his Government into underground bunkers to prepare for a US and British attack.<br><br>From his hideout 160ft down, the Iraqi tyrant yesterday sent out a defiant message to the West. "If they come, we are ready," he said. "We will fight them on the streets, from the rooftops, from house to house. We will never surrender. "That is what Churchill promised the invaders threatening England. And that is what we can promise the crusaders if they come here."<br><br>The warning was delivered through Labour MP George Galloway during an interview an hour's drive from Baghdad.<br><br>Entire ministries are thought to be leaving their permanent headquarters, likely to be targeted for cruise missile attack, and moving into command bunkers.<br><br>Mr Galloway said communications between ministries and Saddam were being relayed by word of mouth to beat high-tech US eavesdropping.<br>|special|
'In the end, the Europeans will probably fall into line'|http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0812/p01s02-uspo.htm||off|
MUSLIMS IN WESTERN EUROPE - The Economist||Muslims in Western Europe <br><br>08-08-2002<br><br>The Economist: <br><br>AT THE end of the street stands the church, its steeple rising high above the roofs of the neighbouring terraces. The roads on either side are named after English county towns—Cambridge, Stafford, Warwick and so on—and in the pub on the corner of Warwick Street the pints are being pulled. Oh, to be in England. But this is not quite the England of Robert Browning; this is Oldham, a decaying cotton town just outside Manchester, where litter blows in the street, buddleia sprouts from the brickwork of the factories that made 19th-century Lancashire rich—and the children running into the building opposite the pub are Muslims arriving for their daily measure of Koranic instruction. <br><br>Similar scenes can be found in many towns in Western Europe these days. It is hardly a novelty to see women in saris, men wearing turbans, or signs written in strange scripts. Even the riots that erupted in a part of Oldham last summer seem a bit familiar: mass immigration has been a fact of life for West Europeans for several decades now, and so have its concomitant problems. What is new is not concern about immigrants in general but about Muslim immigrants in particular. <br><br>September 11th and Osama bin Laden's justification of violence in the name of Islam were enough to arouse all sorts of worries about the Muslim world, where theocracies flourish, women tend to be downtrodden, zealots chop off limbs for breaches of the law and adulterers may be stoned to death. That several of the perpetrators of the attacks on the twin towers had apparently lived for years in western countries raised further worries about the enclosed societies that seemed to exist within the West, societies in which hate could be preached and treachery plotted while all around non-Muslims remained utterly unaware. <br><br>Then, in May, came the Dutch general election and the bewildering success, until his murder, of Pim Fortuyn, the gay critic of the Netherlands' consensual political establishment. Part of Fortuyn's message was simply anti-immigration: the country was “full up”. But it was not only racists who responded to his views about Islam. It was, he said, a “backward religion”, intolerant of homosexuals and women's rights. This struck a chord well beyond the Netherlands, as may be judged by some remarks of Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister, at the end of May. It was necessary, said Mr Fischer, whom no one would consider illiberal, to find out whether Islamic traditions and teachings were compatible with the values of modern western societies. <br><br>Up in Oldham, Riaz Ahmad could be forgiven for feeling a bit hurt. Having been elected mayor of this town of 220,000 people, 11% of them Muslim, only three weeks earlier, he had just started to use his new position to bring people together. He considers the main problems of everyone in Oldham to be the scarcity of jobs and decent housing and all the other handicaps associated with poverty. These afflict immigrants even more severely than longer-established citizens. <br><br>The immigrants who arrived in Oldham in the 1970s and 1980s came to work in the textile industry, expecting to go home to the Indian subcontinent in due course. The Turks who went to Germany as “guest-workers” from the 1960s onwards, and the North Africans who went to France around the same time, all had similar reasons for leaving home, and similar hopes of returning. But, for most of them, the return has never happened. Meanwhile, they have failed to learn English (or German or French) very well and, to make matters worse, most of their original jobs have gone. Now, in Oldham at least, any work to be had is in offices or banks or dry cleaners, where a command of the language is far more important than in a textile mill. So Asians find it hard to get jobs, while their children, held back by poor English, often fare poorly at school. Some schools are over 90% Asian. <br><br>Mr Ahmad mentions other difficulties faced by Oldham's newcomers. Many grew up in rural areas in Bangladesh and Pakistan, a far cry from urban England, and they were unskilled. Moreover, some brought their feudalism with them, and also the loyalty to the clan associated with it. This means that today an extended family of up to 500 people may vote as one. <br><br>This kind of behaviour is not confined to Oldham: as many as 600,000 of the 2m or so people in Britain who originated in the Indian subcontinent came from just one region, Mirpur, in the Pakistani part of Kashmir. Like others from South Asia, Mirpuris congregate together, bring girls and boys to Britain to marry their sons and daughters in arranged (and occasionally forced) marriages and thus help to constitute the “parallel society”—the term is used in an official report into last year's riots—which exists in Oldham. <br><br>Such habits obviously make it harder for these communities to fit into British society as a whole—and Britain has been quicker than, say, France or Germany to come to terms with the idea of integration, whereby immigrants may keep the culture and religion of their homeland, rather than assimilation, whereby they are indistinguishable, except perhaps by colour, from the natives. In themselves, these habits have little to do with Islam. Yet some aspects of Islam do reinforce the isolation of Muslims in Western Europe. <br><br>The position of women is a case in point. Whether for cultural or for religious reasons, women tend to come a poor second to men in Islamic societies. After marriage, they often spend much of their time indoors, cut off from the sorts of activities that might bring them into contact with their non-Muslim neighbours. Another consequence, says Pierre Bédier—who, until he became a government minister in June, was mayor of Mantes-la-Jolie outside Paris—is that they spend much of their time watching television, and not just the standard diet devoured by most people in France. The television beamed into the homes of French Muslims comes from the Middle East or North Africa, with programmes that constantly dwell on the tribulations of the Palestinians and the “victimhood” of the Arabs in general. In the main square of Le Val Fourré, the Muslim quarter of Mantes-la-Jolie, where an electioneering President Jacques Chirac was spat upon by youths earlier this year, few women are to be seen, and in the café the people drinking mint tea are all men. <br><br>That is not to say that all women are subjugated. Far from it: Le Val Fourré's hammam—Turkish bath—is run by Fatima Jaadane, a successful entrepreneuse from Morocco, and several young women are serving beer in the recently opened nightclub nearby. Such behaviour would not go down well in Oldham, though. A few girls do go clubbing there, says Zaffer Ullah, a 28-year-old community worker, but they probably do not tell their parents, and many do not drink. He says he is “not religious”—he goes to the mosque once a week—but, unlike Oldham's whites, “We don't like to go to pubs.” <br><br>Phil Woolas, a local MP, says Islam's ban on alcohol was a significant contributor, along with testosterone, to last year's riots. If you're an unemployed youth, with dim prospects, sharing a bedroom with five brothers and forbidden by your parents to go out with girls or have a drink, and along come some provocative white racists, you're tempted to take them on. <br><br>Most of Germany's Muslims are Turks, whose attitude to Islam is much more relaxed than that of Pakistanis. But in Germany, as in Turkey, some Muslims are becoming more devout, and even more are choosing to assert their Muslim identity as a form of self-expression, a way of saying that they are not ashamed of their origins. Many women do this by wearing the headscarf, an act no more objectionable, you might think, than Sikhs wearing the turban or Jews the yarmulke, but one that is a constant reminder to those around them that they are not going to reject their background. <br><br>Cem ?zdemir, one of only three members of the Bundestag of Turkish origin, sees no problem with this. So long as Muslims respect the German constitution, speak a bit of the language and accept the values of society—which are universal, he notes, not specifically Christian—their readiness to fit in should not be questioned. Yet he admits that Muslims have sometimes been responsible for attacks on gays and lesbians in Germany, to their dismay as well as injury, since homosexuals have often been in the forefront of campaigns against all kinds of discrimination. <br><br>Certainly, some Islamic practices seem jarring to Europeans. The ritual slaughter of tens of thousands of sheep at the annual feast known as Aid al-Adha draws a shocked response each year in France. Less upsetting but still awkward are Islamic burial requirements, some of which (the ban on coffins) conflict with public-health laws. Since exhumation is also strictly forbidden under Islam, and bodies must be buried as soon as possible, 90% of Germany's Muslims are flown home to be buried once they die. France has only one Muslim cemetery, at Bobigny, and Germany none, though land at Tempelhof in Berlin may yet be used. In Le Val Fourré, the bodies of older Muslims are also sent home, though the young are usually buried in the Catholic cemetery. <br><br>Such practices serve to perpetuate the links with the homeland. So does the reluctance of many states to grant citizenship to their immigrants, sometimes even to the children of immigrants born in Europe. But nothing perpetuates these links as worryingly as the Muslim organisations that exist in Europe and the mosques in which Europe's Muslims worship. <br><br>In Germany, for example, the biggest organisation for immigrants is DITIB, an arm of the Turkish government's office for religion. Turkey is a secular state, thoroughly hostile to fundamentalism, so DITIB is far from Islamist, but it does not do much for integration. On the contrary, since its main concern is the pursuit of Turkey's national interest, it encourages Turks in Germany to think of themselves as Turks. So do Turkish-language press and television. The German edition of the Turkish paper Hurriyet is, in Mr ?zdemir's words, “more nationalist than the Turkish one”. <br><br>Only a small fraction of Germany's 3.2m Muslims belong to the country's 19 Islamist groups but, according to the authorities, they add up to nearly 32,000 people. The largest organisation, Milli Gorus, is linked to the main Islamist party (whose name changes according to the latest banning order) in Turkey. It does not preach violence, but its 27,500 members are likely to be taught that integration into western societies is treason under Islam. Other fundamentalists may belong to the Islamic Cultural Centres, a group headquartered in Cologne that operates in half a dozen other West European countries. Or they may, if they are brave, belong to the Caliphate State, banned last December, with 1,100 members in Germany. <br><br>Many Islamic organisations perform vital tasks neglected by others—for instance, helping immigrants to find housing or work (the unemployment rate among Berlin's 180,000 Turks is over 40%, compared with 17% among Berliners at large). But both the number and the structure of these groups make it difficult for outsiders, whether the government or Christian churches or others seeking to build bridges, to know whom to deal with. <br><br>This pattern, or rather absence of pattern, is mirrored in the mosques. Most in Berlin are organised on a national basis. Most do good work, organising programmes for women about health care or child welfare. They win praise for their anti-drug activities. But what is taught by their imams, both in the mosque and in the school (or madrassa) that is generally attached, is often unknown to outsiders. <br><br>It may be well known that venomous sermons are preached in the Finsbury Park Mosque in London by Abu Hamza al-Masri, a one-eyed sheikh with a special distaste for America. It may be that the Italian police have long known, as George Bush said last year, that the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan harboured a terrorist cell. But for most people what goes on in Europe's mosques—which are usually flats or halls or garages, not the domed and minareted buildings of the Levant—is a matter for conjecture. That inevitably turns to suspicion when news breaks, as it did recently, that leading imams in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague had apparently been inciting their congregations to violence. <br><br>Europe's imams are usually sent and paid for by the governments of Muslim countries. Secular Turkey, through DITIB, sends imams and provides Islamic lessons for children in Germany. Morocco and Algeria do the same in France. In Le Val Fourré the mosque, a handsome affair by any standards, was built by Saudi Arabia, and for a while, until the French intelligence service “organised a change”, had a fundamentalist imam. Why do governments believe it their duty to provide mosques and imams in a foreign country? Perhaps to stop their expatriates falling prey to radicalism; perhaps because the distinction between church and state is never clear for theocratic Muslims. <br><br>A fear of extremism is not confined to non-Muslims. Ghoul Moulay, an imam in Marseilles, frankly expresses his fear of fundamentalists not just from Somalia or Yemen but also from Britain. Soheib Bencheikh, the grand mufti of Marseilles, says “Muslims must become immunised against outside radicalisation.” Like many others, they believe it essential that imams should be trained in Europe, not in the Middle East, the Maghreb or Pakistan. <br><br>But where will the money come from to build and run the necessary colleges? Secular, anti-clerical France is constitutionally forbidden to give state money to religions, though the long-established Christian churches and their Jewish counterparts receive tax benefits. Mr Bédier, the ex-mayor of Mantes-la-Jolie, thinks a solution could be found. First, government buildings could be rented out to Muslim groups for peppercorn sums. Second, a state school could be set up to train imams in Alsace-Lorraine, which was not a part of France when the crucial law on separation of church and state was enacted. <br><br>A similar effort is needed in Germany to promote suitable Islamic education in schools. The German constitution says all children have the right to religious education, and in L?nder (states) such as North Rhine-Westphalia about half of all kindergartens are organised by the church, though they are 60% financed by the state. Jewish children receive teaching overseen by the Central Council of Jews, but the country's 3.2m Muslims receive no Islamic education from the state—leaving the field wide open to the unsupervised madrassas. In Germany, the Central Council of Muslims may fill the breach, and one institute to train teachers is getting going in Münster, but many more are needed. Spain lags even further behind, chiefly because the government is still searching for a Muslim authority with which to reach agreement. <br><br>Generalisations about Europe's Muslims need heavy qualification: their cultural and national backgrounds, which vary enormously, may play a bigger part in their ability to integrate than their religion. So may the culture and politics of the countries they now live in: all Commonwealth citizens enjoy the vote in Britain, for instance, which means that Muslims from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and parts of Africa can vote in British elections as soon as they arrive. Their children, moreover, are British if they are born in Britain. In France and Germany, by contrast, citizenship has been granted only grudgingly. <br><br>One broad conclusion is clear. Pim Fortuyn was wrong: nothing in Islam makes it impossible for Muslims to fit into West European society, as the successful integration of many thousands already attests. In particular, he was wrong to think Islam was necessarily, and therefore immutably, intolerant. It is true that some Muslims are intolerant of homosexuality and treat women badly, but homosexuality was a crime in most western countries until recently, and women did not have full voting rights in Britain until 1929. In France they were not allowed to sign cheques until 1962. Given time, and effort on all sides, most Muslims will lose their censoriousness, as well as their insistence on marrying within their communities. And anyway, how many Catholics would still prefer their children to marry a Catholic rather than a Protestant? <br><br>But integration is hindered both by cultural and, to some extent, by religious factors. The critical mass of the Muslim immigrant communities, which makes it easier for individuals to survive unintegrated, is a serious impediment, just as it is for Latinos in the United States. So, in one respect, is the strength of Islam as a religion. That strength brings several benefits. Muslims are generally good, law-abiding citizens. They tend to have strong family values. Their children who have gone through religious education often gain a self-confidence that helps them in their other school work. But Islam is a religion that is readily open to extremist distortion, as all religions are to some extent, and it is ill-equipped to impose restraint on its wilder followers: 70% of the imams in France are self-proclaimed, laments Imam Moulay in Marseilles. If an association wants a fundamentalist, no one can stop it. <br><br>The lesson is that, if integration is the aim, everyone must work at it. In Britain, the most residentially segregated of all immigrant groups are the Bangladeshis, many of whom are crowded into a single borough, Tower Hamlets, in East London. The next-most-segregated are the Pakistanis, followed by the Indians, with the Caribbean population relatively well integrated. Indeed, Ceri Peach of Oxford University argues that the Caribbeans are following an “Irish”, assimilationist path, whereas the predominantly Muslim South Asians are following a “Jewish”, pluralist path in which they are economically integrated but socially encapsulated. It would be wrong to assume that what happens in Britain will necessarily happen elsewhere, just as it would be wrong to attribute the South Asian Muslims' lack of progress in society only to their religion. But it would be odd if Islam had nothing to do with it. <br><br>|special|
Washington's MASTER PLAN to spy on everyone|http://villagevoice.com/issues/0232/hentoff.php|Ashcroft's Master Plan to Spy on Us <br>Nat Hentoff <br>Village Voice <br><br>Friday, 2 August, 2002 <br><br>'Citizens Will Not Become Informants' <br><br>The July 17 editorial in The Boston Globe--not one of my columns in the Voice--was headlined, "Ashcroft vs. Americans." It began: "Operation TIPS--The Terrorism Information and Prevention System--is a scheme that Joseph Stalin would have appreciated. Plans for its pilot phase, to start in August, have Operation TIPS recruiting a million letter carriers, meter readers, cable technicians, and other workers with access to private homes as informants to report to the Justice Department any activities they think suspicious." <br><br>This newest John Ashcroft battle plan in the war on civil liberties would have us join the citizens of China, Cuba, Kazakhstan, and other countries where there is ubiquitous surveillance for signs of disloyalty to the state. Not only Joseph Stalin but also George Orwell would have understood what John Ashcroft had in mind. As The Boston Globe went on to say, "Ashcroft's informant corps is a vile idea not merely because it violates civil liberties . . . or because it will sabotage genuine efforts to prevent terrorism by overloading law enforcement officials with irrelevant reports about Americans who have nothing to do with terrorists. Operation TIPS should be stopped because it is utterly anti-American." I was first alerted to Operation TIPS by Matt Olson in Isthmus, a lively alternative paper from Madison, Wisconsin. Then the May issue of The Progressive--a national monthly magazine also out of Madison--ran the full story by Bill Berkowitz, a regular contributor to Working Assets' workingforchange.com. <br><br>This time, John Ashcroft was so confident of public applause for his plan to smoke out the lurking terrorist "sleepers" among us that he didn't keep it secret. On May 29, on the government Web site (www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html) there it was! Meet Big Brother: <br><br>"A nationwide program giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity. Operation TIPS, a project of the U.S. Department of Justice, will begin as a pilot program in 10 cities that will be selected. . . . Everywhere in America, a concerned worker can call a toll-free number and be connected directly to a hotline routing calls to the proper law enforcement agency or other responder organizations." <br><br>By July 16, that government Web site had removed the listing of specific kinds of worker-informants who would be watching us, but it noted that all the tipsters had to do was "use their common sense and knowledge of their work environment to identify suspicious or unusual activity." There was no definition of "suspicious" or "unusual." The president endorsed Operation TIPS, as did Homeland Security's Tom Ridge and Senate Republican Minority Leader Trent Lott. The ACLU, of course, opposed Operation TIPS. As usual, there was no word of alarm from Tom Daschle or Dick Gephardt. But Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich, ranking Democrat on the Government Oversight Committee's National Security Oversight Subcommittee, told Bill Berkowitz in The Progressive: "It appears we are being transformed from an information society to an informant society." <br><br>Where were Al Gore, John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Charles Schumer, and Hillary Rodham Clinton? <br><br>Suddenly, however, Operation TIPS seemed to crash. On July 19, Ellen Sorokin reported in The Washington Times that a prominent conservative, "House Majority Leader Dick Armey, in his markup of legislation to create a Homeland Security Department . . . scrapped a program that would use volunteers in domestic surveillance." <br><br>The Postal Service, in part because of the pressure from its unions, had already refused to permit its letter carriers to participate in Operation TIPS. <br><br>What follows is from Dick Armey's markup on the "Freedom and Security" section of the Homeland Security Bill. He wrote: "Because the [Homeland Security] Department has a singular mission of protecting the freedoms of Americans, specific legal protections will ensure that freedom is not undermined. . . . Citizens Will Not Become Informants. To ensure that no operation of the Department can be construed to promote citizens spying on one another, this draft will contain language to prohibit programs such as ŒOperation TIPS.'" <br><br>Armey also canceled a cherished Bush-Ashcroft anti-terrorism weapon, a national ID card. Wrote Armey: "The federal government will not have the authority to nationalize drivers' licenses and other ID cards. Authority to design and issue these cards shall remain with the states. The use of biometric identifiers and Social Security numbers with these cards is not consistent with a free society." <br><br>Also, Armey--described in The Almanac of American Politics 2002 as often driving a pickup truck, wearing cowboy boots, and quoting country music lyrics--established, in his markup of the Homeland Security Department bill, "A Privacy Officer. Working as a close adviser to the Secretary, this officer will ensure technology research and new regulations from the Department respect the civil liberties our citizens enjoy. This is the first-ever such officer established by law in a cabinet department." (Emphasis added). <br><br>Despite Dick Armey's rejection of the Bush-Ashcroft plan for what conservative Republican Bob Barr calls an official "snitch system," the Department of Justice declared that Operation TIPS will continue. I called Ashcroft's spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, and she explained that since the Senate was still debating its version of the Homeland Security Department bill, Armey's revisions had not become law; and until--if and when--they are enacted, Operation TIPS will go forward. <br><br>Next week: How Vermont senator Patrick Leahy tried to get Armey's rejection of Big Brother into the Senate bill, but was betrayed by Joseph Lieberman and Tom Daschle. We may not know until September, when the Senate returns, if we are all under government surveillance. <br>|off|
Haaretz Report about USAid Report|http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=194490&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y||off|