MID-EAST REALITIES - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington, DC - 10/21/01: Much pressure is building at the United Nations to not open itself to still more charges of being complicitous in "genocide", not to mention to do something to stop being seen as "an extension of the American State Department" (the actual private words of a senior U.N. official). While much of the Western world, especially the American "homeland", continues to believe the carefully crafted "war time" propaganda statements coming from the White House, Pentagon, and State Department (as well as from #10 Downing), there are others who recall that two of the highest ranking U.N. officials resigned a few years ago in protest over the "genocide" they believed the U.N. had become complicitous to in Iraq -- on the scale of more than 1 million civilians killed, 5000 babies dying needlessly monthly, and an advanced country reduced to begging. Echos from Rwanda and the Balkans still reverberate at the U.N. as well. And now the warnings are that if a major new food and relief program is not begun within weeks the Anglo-American crusade now underway could result in millions of dead Afghanis by next year, most by famine and disease. Some of the world's best international aid organizations are using a possible figure of 7.5 million!

[The Guardian - UK- Saturday October 20, 2001]: In exile in Switzerland, shortly before the Russian revolution, Lenin opined that "there are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen". We are, it seems, living through such weeks. It is hard to remember a time when political instability, civil strife and the roar of bombs and missiles have so scarred the international landscape. Governments like Norway's fall, others like Australia's cut and run for a khaki election. General Musharraf, Pakistan's self-appointed military strongman, admits he's forcing through a policy rejected by 83% of his compatriots. General Sharon's Israeli government, riven between hawks and superhawks, now appears to have embarked on a doomsday option, possibly including the assassination of Arafat, following the slaying of the world's least attractive "tourism" minister.

The "soft centered" European governments are beginning to squirm and the Labour benches in the British parliament are turning queasy at the slaughter of the world's poorest by the world's richest. Coalition comrades, India and Pakistan, are shelling each other across the line of control in Kashmir. Aid agencies are in "emotional" revolt and, like Mary Robinson, are having to be ordered back into their box by Clare Short. Muslim streets are burning from Gaza to Jakarta. In the House of Commons, former defence ministers, Labour rightwingers like Gwyneth Dunwoody and MPs with large Muslim electorates have swollen the ranks of the usual suspects - those like me, who have opposed all the wars of the new imperialism.

Internationally, the coalition is shakier still. The Arab League, echoing Nato leaders, has declared that any attack on an Arab country will be regarded as an attack against all of them. The Saudis, having denied the US use of their bases and declined a visit by Tony Blair, are now questioning the basis of the whole campaign - even openly doubting the involvement of Bin Laden in the crimes of September 11.

Meanwhile, the phone-in lines to Arab television stations are jammed with opponents of the war and blood-chilling threats of mayhem in revenge. Bush and Blair may not be "at war with Islam", but "Islam" is now at war with them and we will be lucky if that is not soon visible on the streets of northern English cities.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the reaction to the "Middle East fit for heroes" the Anglo-Americans are promising. The Arabs simply don't believe it. Perfidious Albion, after all, has a track record. The Palestinian tragedy was authored here in the building in which I write. During the Great War, while Lawrence of Arabia rallied the tribal hordes to support our jihad on the Turks - with the promise of Arab independence - over in Downing Street Mr Sykes and Monsieur Picot were carving up the area into British and French colonies. And in 1991, Britain and America offered the Arabs a new deal, with Israel forced to implement international legality, if they backed the fight against Iraq. Promises made and broken with a handshake.

Seldom can a western war drum have sounded more hollow. Seldom can the prattle of ministers - Labour ministers, many of whom I can still see sporting their CND badges as they shuttled around looking for safe seats in the 70s and 80s - about command and control centres, air defences and radar capabilities have seemed so obscenely stupid. The Afghans have none. The airport at Kabul is no more than a collection of shacks, whose telephones couldn't even make outgoing calls. And the statement, delivered by our defence secretary with all the gravitas of Captain Mainwaring, that we had achieved "air-superiority" over Afghanistan - over a Flintstones-style air force which couldn't even leave the ground - will live forever as one of those stories you really couldn't make up.

So what are the "allies" bombing? The four UN mine-clearing staff, the shepherds and their families in the village of Khorum, the Red Cross compound in Kabul, the residents of Kandahar, the trucks full of terrified refugees. More of these human and public relations disasters will conspire to "bury" the government's message. An already restless audience here, never mind among the 1.3bn Muslims nursing their wrath, will not sit through this unequal fight with equanimity. And without a change of policy, the winter snows will soon begin to tilt this disaster into an international catastrophe.

Well, what should we do, ask the remaining subalterns of the war party's thin red line. As the Irishman famously replied: "If I wanted to get to Cork, I wouldn't have started from here." The government was repeatedly warned of the grisly consequences of its tango with Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan. I accused it on the eve of the fall of Kabul of having opened the gates to the barbarians and of the long dark night which would follow. Many of us have since described the rising tide of radical Islam, buoyed by our double standards towards Palestine and Iraq, and our buttressing of stooge kings, generals and 99%-of-the-vote presidents of the Muslim world - now laughably lined up behind "operation enduring freedom".

But even for those who have brought us to this terrifying cusp in world events, there were alternatives. The squeeze could have been kept up on the Taliban - three weeks is not a long time to secure extradition on a capital offence, especially without providing evidence to the country concerned. The judicious waving of carrots to tribal chiefs could well have achieved the betrayal of Bin Laden. And if military action was seen as unavoidable, the target should have been the Arab legions in the mountains, not the poor ragged Afghans they've colonised, who never invited them in - we did - and have no way of making them leave. This and a Lockerbie-type trial, in a neutral country and including Muslim jurists, would have been one way to show how "civilised" we were. Instead we've answered savagery with savagery.

On the home front, there are disturbing signs of the Downing Street general staff losing their nerve. Careless talk circulates about members of parliament being carpeted, media appearances vetted, ultimatums issued. This would be the ultimate surrender to democracy's enemies. Throughout the second world war, Aneurin Bevan subjected the line of the Churchill coalition government to excoriating criticism and withering examination - as Churchill himself had done with Chamberlain. Both would have scorned the idea of their actions being licensed by whips, as if we were circus dogs whose duty was to perform tricks for the ringmaster. I too have now been summoned to see the chief whip. Next week, over tea and biscuits at 11 Downing Street, I will have to courteously explain to my old friend Hilary Armstrong that I, for one, will not be gagged. This bombing has to stop - and the war is too important to be left to ministers and generals in conclave.

The US, founded to protect basic freedoms, is now insisting that its critics are its enemies [The Guardian - Tuesday October 16, 2001]: If satire died on the day Henry Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize, then last week its corpse was exhumed for a kicking. As head of the United Nations peacekeeping department, Kofi Annan failed to prevent the genocide in Rwanda or the massacre in Srebrenica. Now, as secretary general, he appears to have interpreted the UN charter as generously as possible to allow the attack on Afghanistan to go ahead. Article 51 permits states to defend themselves against attack. It says nothing about subsequent retaliation. It offers no licence to attack people who might be harbouring a nation's enemies. The bombing of Afghanistan, which began before the UN security council gave its approval, is legally contentious. Yet the man and the organisation who overlooked this obstacle to facilitate war are honoured for their contribution to peace. Endowments like the Nobel Peace Prize are surely designed to reward self-sacrifice. Nelson Mandela gave up his liberty, FW de Klerk gave up his power, and both were worthy recipients of the prize. But Kofi Annan, the career bureaucrat, has given up nothing. He has been rewarded for doing as he is told, while nobly submitting to a gigantic salary and bottomless expense account. Among the other nominees for the prize was a group whose qualifications were rather more robust. Members of Women in Black have routinely risked their lives in the hope of preventing war. They have stayed in the homes of Palestinians being shelled by Israeli tanks and have confronted war criminals in the Balkans. They have stood silently while being abused and spat at during vigils all over the world. But now, in this looking-glass world in which war is peace and peace is war, instead of winning the peace prize the Women in Black have been labelled potential terrorists by the FBI and threatened with a grand jury investigation. They are in good company. Earlier this year the director of the FBI named the chaotic but harmless organisations Reclaim the Streets and Carnival Against Capitalism in the statement on terrorism he presented to the Senate. Now, partly as a result of his representations, the Senate's new terrorism bill, like Britain's Terrorism Act 2000, redefines the crime so broadly that members of Greenpeace are in danger of being treated like members of al-Qaida. The Bush doctrine - if you're not with us, you're against us - is already being applied. This government by syllogism makes no sense at all. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida have challenged the US government; ergo anyone who challenges the government is a potential terrorist. That Bin Laden is, according to US officials, a "fascist", while the other groups are progressives is irrelevant: every public hand raised in objection will from now on be treated as a public hand raised in attack. Given that Bin Laden is not a progressive but is a millionaire, it would surely make more sense to round up and interrogate all millionaires. Lumping Women in Black together with al-Qaida requires just a minor addition to the vocabulary: they have been jointly classified as "anti-American". This term, as used by everyone from the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Daily Mail to Tony Blair and several writers on these pages, applies not only to those who hate Americans, but also to those who have challenged US foreign and defence objectives. Implicit in this denunciation is a demand for uncritical support, for a love of government more consonant with the codes of tsarist Russia than with the ideals upon which the United States was founded. The charge of "anti-Americanism" is itself profoundly anti-American. If the US does not stand for freedom of thought and speech, for diversity and dissent, then we have been deceived as to the nature of the national project. Were the founding fathers to congregate today to discuss the principles enshrined in their declaration of independence, they would be denounced as "anti-American" and investigated as potential terrorists. Anti-American means today precisely what un-American meant in the 1950s. It is an instrument of dismissal, a means of excluding your critics from rational discourse. Under the new McCarthyism, this dismissal extends to anyone who seeks to promulgate a version of events other than that sanctioned by the US government. On September 20, President Bush told us that "this is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom". Two weeks later, his secretary of state, Colin Powell, met the Emir of Qatar to request that progress, pluralism, tolerance and freedom be suppressed. Al-Jazeera is one of the few independent television stations in the Middle East, whose popularity is the result of its uncommon regard for freedom of speech. It is also the only station permitted to operate freely in Kabul. Powell's request that it be squashed was a pre-emptive strike against freedom, which, he hoped, would prevent the world from seeing what was really happening once the bombing began. Since then, both George Bush and Tony Blair have sought to prevent al-Jazeera from airing video statements by Bin Laden, on the grounds of the preposterous schoolboy intrigue that they "might contain coded messages". Over the weekend the government sought to persuade British broadcasters to restrict their coverage of the war. Blair's spin doctors warned: "You can't trust them [the Taliban] in any way, shape, or form." While true, this applies with equal force to the techniques employed by Downing Street. When Alastair Campbell starts briefing journalists about "Spin Laden", it's a case of the tarantula spinning against the money spider. If we are to preserve the progress, pluralism, tolerance and freedom which President Bush claims to be defending, then we must question everything we see and hear. Though we know that governments lie to us in wartime, most people seem to believe that this universal rule applies to every conflict except the current one. Many of those who now accept that babies were not thrown out of incubators in Kuwait, and that the Belgrano was fleeing when it was hit, are also prepared to believe everything we are being told about Afghanistan and terrorism in the US. There are plenty of reasons to be sceptical. The magical appearance of the terrorists' luggage, passports and flight manual looks rather too good to be true. The dossier of "evidence" purporting to establish Bin Laden's guilt consists largely of supposition and conjecture. The ration packs being dropped on Afghanistan have no conceivable purpose other than to create the false impression that starving people are being fed. Even the anthrax scare looks suspiciously convenient. Just as the hawks in Washington were losing the public argument about extending the war to other countries, journalists start receiving envelopes full of bacteria, which might as well have been labelled "a gift from Iraq". This could indeed be the work of terrorists, who may have their own reasons for widening the conflict, but there are plenty of other ruthless operators who would benefit from a shift in public opinion. Democracy is sustained not by public trust but by public scepticism. Unless we are prepared to question, to expose, to challenge and to dissent, we conspire in the demise of the system for which our governments are supposed to be fighting. The true defenders of America are those who are now being told that they are anti-American.

Agency and Military Collaborating at 'Unprecedented' Level; Cheney Says War Against Terror 'May Never End' By Bob Woodward

[Washington Post - Sunday, October 21, 2001; Page 1]: President Bush last month signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake its most sweeping and lethal covert action since the founding of the agency in 1947, explicitly calling for the destruction of Osama bin Laden and his worldwide al Qaeda network, according to senior government officials.

The president also added more than $1 billion to the agency's war on terrorism, most of it for the new covert action. The operation will include what officials said is "unprecedented" coordination between the CIA and commando and other military units. Officials said that the president, operating through his "war cabinet," has pledged to dispatch military units to take advantage of the CIA's latest and best intelligence.

Bush's order, called an intelligence "finding," instructs the agency to attack bin Laden's communications, security apparatus and infrastructure, senior government officials said. U.S. intelligence has identified new and important specific weaknesses in the bin Laden organization that are not publicly known, and these vulnerabilities will be the focus of the lethal covert action, sources said.

"The gloves are off," one senior official said. "The president has given the agency the green light to do whatever is necessary. Lethal operations that were unthinkable pre-September 11 are now underway."

The CIA's covert action is a key part of the president's offensive against terrorism, but the agency is also playing a critical role in the defense against future terrorist attacks.

For example, each day a CIA document called the "Threat Matrix," which has the highest security classification ("Top Secret/Codeword"), lands on the desks of the top national security and intelligence officials in the Bush administration. It presents the freshest and most sensitive raw intelligence on dozens of threatened bombings, hijackings or poisonings. Only threats deemed to have some credibility are included in the document.

One day last week, the Threat Matrix contained 100 threats to U.S. facilities in the United States and around the world -- shopping complexes, specific cities, places where thousands gather, embassies. Though nearly all the listed threats have passed without incident and 99 percent turned out to be groundless, dozens more take their place in the matrix each day.

It was the matrix that generated the national alert of impending terrorist action issued by the FBI on Oct. 11. The goal of the matrix is simple: Look for patterns and specific details that might prevent another Sept. 11.

"I don't think there has been such risk to the country since the Cuban missile crisis," a senior official said.

During an interview in his West Wing office Friday morning, Vice President Cheney spoke of the new war on terrorism as much more problematic and protracted than the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when Cheney served as secretary of defense to Bush's father.

The vice president bluntly said: "It is different than the Gulf War was, in the sense that it may never end. At least, not in our lifetime."

In issuing the finding that targets bin Laden, the president has said he wants the CIA to undertake high-risk operations. He has stated to his advisers that he is willing to risk failure in the pursuit of ultimate victory, even if the results are some embarrassing public setbacks in individual operations. The overall military and covert plan is intended to be massive and decisive, officials said.

"If you are going to push the envelope some things will go wrong, and [President Bush] sees that and understands risk-taking," one senior official said.

In the interview, Cheney said, "I think it's fair to say you can't predict a straight line to victory. You know, there'll be good days and bad days along the way."

The new determination among Bush officials to go after bin Laden and his network is informed by their pained knowledge that U.S. intelligence last spring obtained high quality video of bin Laden himself but were unable to act on it.

The video showed bin Laden with his distinctive beard and white robes surrounded by a large entourage at one of his known locations in Afghanistan. But neither the CIA nor the U.S. military had the means to shoot a missile or another weapon at him while he was being photographed.