Intro to Clarke 101

A few days ago, a friend of mine forwarded a message from her right-wing brother, insisting that anything former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke says which is in any way hurtful to the President is some sort of partisan Democratic conspiracy.

Her brother was blissfully unaware that Clarke is Republican, apparently.

She asked me to compile a few links that might educate a guy who relies on White House press releases for information, emphasizing the recent historic pattern within this administration of lying. And so this is what I sent:

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...I haven't seen the original comments [she sent to her brother], but I assume it relates to R. Clarke's reporting on what went on in the Bush White House.

Clarke has served 7 U.S. Presidents and has a 30 year career in government service, his book comes out at about the right amount of time (1 year of work after his resignation) both in terms of how long it took to write and when it's most likely to sell, and his complaints are reinforced by similar complaints made by former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, a man who was considered to have impeccable conservative/business credentials prior to his firing for disagreeing that tax cuts for the wealthy were a good idea.

Clarke's testimony to the 9/11 commission will be FASCINATING.

SO. While conservatives aren't big on facts (his facts will probably be White House Press Releases!!) My recommendations would be:

Clarke to Testify Wednesday (9/22/04, page with NPR audio file) About Clarke's reputation and allegations. Clarke was "Intensely loyal and mostly apolitical." Includes gripes by Bush Administration about the timing. "One of the nation's finest public servants."

BEST: 9/11 Commission Set to Convene (9/22/04, page with NPR audio file) Clarke issued repeated warnings to the Bush Administration, and was not allowed to brief Bush until after 9/11. "On 1/24/01 I wrote a memo to [Condi] asking for - URGENTLY, underlined, URGENTLY - a cabinet level meeting to deal with the impending Al Queda attack. And that urgent memo wasn't acted on." The response was basically that Bush had a plan anyway, and took Al Queda "seriously," and that was enough. (Condi has basically said this in her recent responses.) Clarke also says he was pushed to find a link to Iraq. Includes gripes by Bush Administration about the timing.

Audio interview with investigative reporter Michael Elliott on The World. January 2001 proposals to stop Al Queda didn't please Bush Administration, so they took a very long time to come up with new, grander proposals to eliminate Al Queda. Bush was skeptical about what he was told, and Condi wasn't impressed by the briefings. This is a non-partisan critique of the systemic transition problem.

Paul O'Neill, who was fired for publicly disagreeing with Bush over the merits of tax cuts, made statements supporting Clark's assertion that Bush's people only cared about Iraq. (BBC) Small excerpt:

The author of the new book, Ron Suskind, told CBS that he had received documents from Mr O'Neill and others which showed that during Mr Bush's first 100 days in office his officials were already looking at military options to remove Saddam from power.

O'Neill has also said he never saw evidence of the existence of WMDs - and he was in the cabinet! (This one is also fun, just for its harshness: [comments about dysfunctional administration]. (BBC))

Perhaps things would have gone smoother if Bush hadn't been on vacation so much: Ask Yahoo points out that "Bush has taken 250 days off as of August 2003. That's 27% of his presidency spent on vacation." (ask.yahoo.com) (The appropriate right-wing defense to this, by the way, is 'at least it wasn't with an intern.' Because THAT is a meaningful response, hee hee...)

If your brother chooses to use any White House statements to refute Clarke, he'll have a hard time, considering all the documented lies that Bush has been caught telling:

pantsonfire.net Catalogs of lies
Caught On Film (a good catalog)
Bushlies.com (yes, there's a BOOK full of them)
whodies.com
bushwatch.com
buzzflash.com's compilation (July 2003 chart of lies known at that time)
Alterman's comments on how the press is shy about calling Bush a liar, but were fine with saying so about Clinton (thenation.com)
an example of the press being unwilling to call Bush a liar, yet listing some of his "flights of fancy" which aren't true (Washington Post)

And if you want to torment him with opinion, this is short and sweet: Paul Krugman's "Weak on Terror" points out that Bush has given Al Qaeda huge amounts of time to regroup while focusing on non-threatening, WMD-less Iraq. (originally in the NY Times, now at dailystar.com and elsewhere)

The two stories that have dominated the U.S. news in recent days, are the change of government in Spain, and the revelations by a counter-terrorism expert who has worked for four presidents that Bush ignored his warnings that could have prevented the September 11th attacks.

The dramatic loss by Spain's ruling party and rise of socialists there (BBC) is widely seen as a reaction to the recent terrorist train attack there, in the context that the ruling party created new enemies by siding with Bush on Iraq over 90% public opposition.

"It's the first time I voted. I feel very happy because the government had to change... because of the Iraq war," a Spanish law student told the BBC.

In the United States, the Spanish results have been met with surprise: culturally, Americans believe that it's disloyal to let such an event impact local decisions. One colleague told me that they shouldn't have 'changed their minds just because they got hit,' and found it unlikely that decisions unpopular with 90% of the populace made more than a year ago could have been influential. (!)

If the U.S. were attacked again, "the traditional effect is a rally," unless people blame the Administration for failing to protect them. (seattletimes) [There's a new poll that theoretically supports this position, but I can't find it.]

And then there are the revelations by Richard Clark that the Bush Administration was so obsessed with Iraq that they virtually ignored Al Queda. (BBC) A friend watched Clark's recent appearance on television, and couldn't figure out why his story wasn't on the front page of all our papers. A day later, it largely was: recent coverage includes this live chat in the Washington Post with GREAT links about Clark's allegations, Bush's non-action on counter-terrorism information put forward by Clinton's people, and links to documents elsewhere and on the Post's own site. Also see this BBC article.

As Clark partly predicted, the Bush Administration is harmed by his statements, and so had to attempt to discredit him. As I joked with friends, the Administration had to decide whether to allege that Clark is either a) a disgruntled former employee; b) a pedophile; c) a Clinton-lover trying to cover for Clinton's own failure to pre-emptively kill bin Laden (really, this is a turn some right-wing blogs have taken, perhaps to make excuses for Bush's inaction in what Franken called Operation Ignore); d) a member of Al Qaeda; or e) a complete nutcase. a) appears to be their working plan, questioning the motives of anyone who would publish such a thing during the election season. They have to defend this situation with energy, because this is the second departed official with criticism, former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill having also been harsh on the Administration, despite his own conservative/business credentials.

The Invasion of Iraq: One Year of War and Occupation

The promised 'cakewalk' for control of Iraq turned into a war that cost more than 10,000 civilian lives (Iraqbodycount.net), more than 500 U.S. soldier's lives (washingtonpost.com), and the maiming of thousands more (Iraqometer.com). The weapons of mass destruction which were supposedly an imminent threat to Americans do not appear to exist. The former US ally-turned-monstrous threat turned out to be an old man hiding in a dirty hole rather than an all-powerful arch-villain with his finger on a red button. Many of the Iraqi people are relieved that their tyrannical ex-ruler is gone (aside from those who benefitted from his rule, of course), but fear that they are now being occupied by a stronger tyrant - the US military and the US Provisional Authority which are busy privatizing Iraqi public assetts.

On March 20th, the anniversary of the US' invasion of Iraq, people around the world expressed their opposition to the use of war and to the occupation.

Selected news and images:
-San Francisco peace march photos (by me); SF peace march photos 2 and 3; Scenes from arrests at an SF breakaway march; March and Bikes Not Bombs; and scary stuff: video of police attacking people on sidewalk
-German Indymedia's compilation of M20 protest images from around the world
-International Indymedia's compilation of links to demonstration news and images as reported from around the world, including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Belgium, Chicago, Crawford (Texas), Dublin (Ireland, not our Dublin), Goeteborg (Sweden), East Timor, London, and 9 other locations.
-New York peace march photos
-Iraq anti-occupation demonstration photos (featuring lively commentary on the fact that the Iraqis are allowed to protest means everything is fine, and so all those pesky civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings must be okey dokey)
-Barcelona for peace
-Phillipines (Manila) protest photos
-BBC worldwide protest overview and photos from around the globe. According to the BBC, there were protests in New York, Rome (300,000), London (25,000), New York, Chicago, SF, Los Angeles, Budapest, Mardrid (100,000), Barcelona (200,000), Sydney, Tokyo (30,000), and unspecified locations in Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, Thailand, the Phillipines, Hong Kong, and various Middle Eastern capitals. (This article insists there were no protests in Baghdad; the Indymedia image collection suggests otherwise.)
-SF Chronicle coverage of local protests.

Nerve

It takes a lot of nerve to try to take credit for being a protector of people your government virtually ignored while they were being massacred, but that's not a problem for U.S. Administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer. Bremer visited the memorial to the massacre at Halabja (BBC), which commemmorates the mass murder of 5000 Kurdish people by Saddam Hussein 16 years ago, which Bremer says justifies last year's Iraq war. (!)

There's a catch, of course. The Kurdish prime minister comments in the same article on the topic:

Just before Mr Bremer spoke, the Kurdish prime minister in the Halabja region, Barham Salih, criticised the United States.

He said that US and world indifference to Saddam Hussein at the time of the Halabja attack was the reason the Iraqi leader remained in power for so long.

I think the Kurdish PM is being diplomatic. After all, the US Administration at the time didn't object to the gas attack.

[Context-free comments regarding dropping] sanctions are removed from the larger and more precise context that has the United States befriending, arming, and providing intelligence to Saddam Hussein during the time of his bloodiest endeavors -- the invasion of Iran, the use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, and the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds. All of these were events, literally tens of thousands of times more bloody and vile than the relatively innocuous invasion of Kuwait, with which the United States essentially oversaw and found no problem. The Halabja incident, now invoked in somber tones typically reserved for such horrifying events as the Jewish Holocaust as well as being exploited by President Bush, wasn't even condemned at the time it took place in 1988. (globalpolicy.org)

The chemical weapons that the US fusses over now as proof of Saddam Hussein's inherent evil led to some public condemnations, but in terms of policy and relations were not objectionable at all when used against the Iranians in the years prior to the Halabja massacre, either. At the time, the US was actively courting Saddam Hussein by having Donald Rumsfeld make personal trips there to try to improve relations with him.

Rumsfeld returned to Baghdad in late March 1984. By this time, the U.S. had publicly condemned Iraq's chemical weapons use, stating, "The United States has concluded that the available evidence substantiates Iran's charges that Iraq used chemical weapons" [Document 47]. Briefings for Rumsfeld's meetings noted that atmospherics in Iraq had deteriorated since his December visit because of Iraqi military reverses and because "bilateral relations were sharply set back by our March 5 condemnation of Iraq for CW use, despite our repeated warnings that this issue would emerge sooner or later" [Document 48]. Rumsfeld was to discuss with Iraqi officials the Reagan administration's hope that it could obtain Export-Import Bank credits for Iraq, the Aqaba pipeline, and its vigorous efforts to cut off arms exports to Iran.... (National Security Archive, Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984)

[I very much recommend the National Security Archive as the source of all sorts of great information. On a related note, read Iraq: Declassified Documents of U.S. Support for Hussein With Joyce Battle, Middle East Analyst, National Security Archive at George Washington University, a discussion session at washingtonpost.com.]

The use of chemical weapons is either evil, or it's not -- it shouldn't matter what the ethnicity or nationality of the victims are. US objections to chemical attacks against one group (Kurds) yet not another (Iranians) is self-serving, but neither moral nor ethical.

[To hear Bremer's comments and some additional criticism from Kurds, listen to The World's 3/16/04 audio report. (theworld.org)]

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Bechtel was the subject of yesterday's 'Shut Down the War Profiteers' Action at Bechtel HQ in downtown San Francisco (link to my photos at sf.indymedia.org; see also a short article in the Chronicle (sfgate.com)). From Kosovo to Iraq, Bechtel appears to have used its political connections and heavy political contributions to land work (www.warprofiteers.com), rather than relying on its experience alone.

Government watchdogs noted that all six of the companies bidding on the contract Bechtel won Thursday donated heavily to American politicians -- $3.6 million between 1999 and 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Most of the money went to Republicans. Bechtel and its employees contributed $1.3 million to federal campaigns and candidates over the past three years, with 59 percent going to Republicans and the rest to Democrats.(warprofiteers.com)

"...within days of the American occupation of Iraq, Bechtel of San Francisco, California, was hired to repair the power system, telephone exchanges and hospitals, weeks after multi-billionaire Riley Bechtel, the principal shareholder, was sworn in as a member of President Bush's Export Council to advise the government on how to create markets for American companies overseas." (warprofiteers.com)

Bechtel has a long history of immoral behavior in Iraq: After the US Senate passed the "Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988" to put economic sanctions in place against Iraq for gassing 5000 Kurds, "Bechtel representatives said that if economic sanctions contained in Senate Act are signed into law, Bechtel will turn to non-U.S. suppliers of technology and continue to do business in Iraq." (PDF (Document 11) from Saddam Hussein: More Secret History at Georgetown's National Security Archive) "...the U.S. corporation, now part of President George W. Bush's project to bring democracy to post-Saddam Iraq, courted the dictatorial regime with full knowledge of Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and the Kurds -- with the approval of U.S. diplomats." (commondreams.org)

All this, yet Bechtel representatives had the nerve to accuse those who protested outside it's offices that the protesters were aiding and abetting the enemy, despite its own history of doing business with a regime that was gassing its people!! (Answering machine recording within the documentary We Interrupt This Empire (videoactivism.com))

Nerve. And nerve gas, but mainly nerve.

The New Pentagon Papers by Karen Kwiatkowski (salon.com) is a lengthy essay from a longtime career employee of an intelligence department, providing an inside scoop on the intelligence community's actions in the run up to the Iraq war. She observed the erosion of intelligence information in favor of political posturing under the influence of Bush appointees. Her initial scene-setting (telling us who everyone was and whether or not they were an appointee) is dry, but it gets better.

(My favorite line isn't actually substantive, but I find it entertaining: "Neoconservatives are fairly easy to study, mainly because they are few in number, and they show up at all the same parties.")

She makes many educational observations:

The talking points were a series of bulleted statements, written persuasively and in a convincing way, and superficially they seemed reasonable and rational. Saddam Hussein had gassed his neighbors, abused his people, and was continuing in that mode, becoming an imminently dangerous threat to his neighbors and to us -- except that none of his neighbors or Israel felt this was the case. Saddam Hussein had harbored al-Qaida operatives and offered and probably provided them with training facilities -- without mentioning that the suspected facilities were in the U.S./Kurdish-controlled part of Iraq. Saddam Hussein was pursuing and had WMD of the type that could be used by him, in conjunction with al-Qaida and other terrorists, to attack and damage American interests, Americans and America -- except the intelligence didn't really say that. Saddam Hussein had not been seriously weakened by war and sanctions and weekly bombings over the past 12 years, and in fact was plotting to hurt America and support anti-American activities, in part through his carrying on with terrorists -- although here the intelligence said the opposite....

Kwiatkowski details the changes made to assignments when experienced intelligence officers kept insisting on using the supported facts that they had, rather than the political speculation and fearmongering that was desired of them. There were times when Kwiatkowski heard statements on TV from politicians' mouths which had no basis in the information intelligence officers like herself had access to, and while she wished to assume they were based on facts unavailable to her, that wasn't necessarily the case.

Some bullets were softened, particularly statements of Saddam's readiness and capability in the chemical, biological or nuclear arena. Others were altered over time to match more exactly something Bush and Cheney said in recent speeches.

Yes, you read that right: the intelligence reports had to be changed to reflect what speechwriters were putting into administration speeches, rather than the other way around.

This is a short review of a very long article, but I recommend that you go to Salon and read an insider's view of the Bush Administration's failure to use the intelligence community and its skills in favor of a pre-existing political agenda to manipulate public opinion.

The first Guantanamo detainee to speak to the press, Jamal Udeen, a web designer and father of three, describes inhumane conditions , beatings, and psychological torture used against detainees. (BBC)

Finally it's becoming clear(er) to me why the US doesn't want to participate in international bodies that punish flouters of international law...

The US has decided to try a bit harder to capture bin Laden. (news.yahoo.com) And, consistent with the 'kill 'em first and ask questions later' approach the US has been on for some time, they are killing lots of suspects. From the same item:

An Afghan army commander in southern Kandahar province, Haji Granai, told The Associated Press that U.S. aircraft killed 12 suspected Taliban in a pickup truck there Thursday.

Granai said the planes struck in Maruf district, some 160 miles east of Kandahar city, where suspected Taliban killed seven Afghan soldiers in a March 3 raid on a border post.

That's kind of convenient: it saves all that messy fact finding and justice system work that would ordinarily be associated with depriving a dozen individuals of their lives...

Today I saw on the front page of our local paper a HUGE photograph of the demonstrations in Spain against terrorism. (SFGate.com) Now that I've read the accompanying article, I find it odd that the paper didn't contest attendance, happy to accept that 2.5 million people participated.

Odd, that. And there was no insinuation that the demonstrators were not patriotic. And there was no attribution of any violence or crime in the region being blamed automatically on the demonstrators.

It was such a contrast to the sort of reporting we get about our own local demonstrations. 'Quite amazing.

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(As a related aside, one of the same central squares in Madrid was the site of a huge anti-war protest prior to the US' attack on Iraq. THAT didn't make the front pages here, unlike the assembly in that same square this time.)

How long has it been since I mentioned the possibility of the US starting to draft soldiers? Too longer, perhaps. The US Government is considering a 'special skills' draft of people with computer and language skills. (sfgate) The article notes that a draft is "far off" because the effort "is strictly in the planning stage" and could take two years.

I think the people who don't think two years is far off are well over the age limit for draftees...

The US holds about 640 people without charge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As of Tuesday, 105 people have now been released from Guantanamo Bay without charges. (audio file - theworld.org) While members of the British government note that two years of life has been stolen without cause for the 5 Britons just released, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld would rather imply that everyone captured is guilty of something, even if the US can't figure out what that is, perhaps in hopes of limiting sympathy for those wrongly held.

In this audio clip, Rumsfeld acknowledges a very poor statistic to justify wrongly holding hundreds of people:

"...I've been told by senior people in this department that of the people who have been released, we know of at least one who has gone back to being a terrorist. So life isn't perfect! In other words, you can make mistakes in evaluating these people. Let's hope that none of these do."

(Transcription mine.) Yes, even after holding hundreds of people for two years, the US has released 105, and believes that just one of those people it released has become a terrorist! Less than 1 percent of those RELEASED!! So 104 of 105 people released were... well, how shall I put this... innocent of any crime they could be charged for.

More disturbing language from Rumsfeld:

The goal was to take these people off a battlefield, and keep they away from killing other people. And that's been accomplished. That's a good thing, for two years, that's not a bad thing. Second, the goal was to interrogate them, find out what do they know...so they get interrogated for a couple of years, then at some point you say, 'we think we got what we need out of this crowd' of 5 people, and let's move 'em along, we don't want to keep everybody at Guantanamo...

(transcription again mine) THIS is what repressive governments have always done: sloppy work that denies individuals of liberty and human rights, for NOTHING.

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The follow up interview with human rights attorney Clive Stafford-Smith is very informative. (audio file, theworld.org) A $4500 bounty was offered to anyone in Afghanistan who could hand over "Taliban" members, which resulted in some greedy people abducting foreigners for the money. (I'd never heard that before.) He also points out that several Britons were abducted from other countries, such as Pakistan and the Zambia, and there is documentation of this, but the Bush Administration's line still remains that everyone swept up was captured on a battlefield in Afghanistan.

Stafford-Smith notes that even perpetrators of Nazi war crimes got TRIALS, had lawyers, and went through a proper process to establish their guilt or innocence, and that the US isn't bothering to meet any similar justice standard.

Why is the US government afraid to do things right? (Does that less than 1% non-success rate of correctly identifying terrorists have anything to do with it?)

There have been some very sad suggestions on the 'home front' that the U.S. government is sliding into totalitarian modes of thinking.

President Bush's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called American Teacher's Unions "terrorist organizations" for suggesting that education is underfunded. (firepaige.org) We all KNOW that education is underfunded in this country, so why the overreaction? Why the implication that wanting to be sure our kids all have books and learn in safe buildings has somehow become a threat to national security? Are Bush officials using the Cranky Soviet Communist Playbook to choose their statements?

Perhaps more classically self serving, Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma said "...if George Bush loses the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election, it's that simple." (news.yahoo.com) In a lovely version of Orwell-speak, "The lawmaker from Bush's Republican Party added, however, that 'the patriotism of candidates and voters who oppose the president is not in question.'"

Yeah, right.

Democracy is losing ground quickly here.

A whole new meaning for "customer service"

There are a variety of links to radio stories I haven't been awake enough to locate again. So for today's entry, I turn to a message from a friend, who has given me permission to reprint his thoughts here.

Ok, here is something that I meant to follow up on personally, but forgot last year. It's been a tick in my ear for the past few months because of the keywords on the television news: "private contractors" and "foreign fighters". The United States, and many other countries, use mercenary forces to do things that are politically, and sometimes humanitarily, incorrect.

In my interpretation, "private contractors" are U.S. hired mercenaries and "foreign fighters" are enemy-hired mercenaries. These mercenaries can possibly be the same company!

...check out the links when you get a chance. This is important now and will become important as this year progresses. I'm going to pick up this guy's book...At least listen to the Fresh Air interview in the link below.

Yes... I like to keep up with mercenary firms [:(]

-07/09/03 P.W. Singer interview (on Fresh Air); [he is the] author of "Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry" (2003).

-In Brief 02/26/04, Washington Post [information on DynCorp and other military contractors]. This is VERY recent. They are big money, man! $1.75 Billion over 5 years.

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In general:

-Links to what appears to be the major Western paramilitary articles. (betterworldlinks.org)

-FORTUNE REPORT: THE PENTAGON'S PRIVATE ARMY: "If America goes to war, private companies will play a bigger role than ever before, LONDON: 11 March 2003." (fortune.com) Short article from 2003; skims the surface but easy read.

-They have 401k and *accidental* death and dismemberment insurance! MPRI (mpri.com) (Excerpt: "Incorporated by eight former senior military officers in 1987, MPRI is operated primarily by former military personnel and staffed by a wide range of other professionals required to provide customers the best in support and assistance....The company's business services range from strategic planning, law enforcement expertise and democracy transition to leadership development in both the public and private sectors....")

-Dyncorp, is now a subsidiary of CSC, "Computer Sciences Corporation", but they really do this kind of stuff: policemission.com. (Excerpt: "DynCorp ... is seeking individuals with appropriate experience and expertise to participate in an international effort to re-establish police, justice and prison functions in post-conflict Iraq. Interested applicants must be active duty, retired or recently separated sworn police officers, correctional officers or experienced judicial experts.") This is where they even give the salary ranges for potential contractors. Do I have to bring my own guns?

-Even Wired Magazine had an article a while back: This Gun For Hire, By Dan Baum, 02/03. (wired.com)

-DynCorp Disgrace, 01/14/02 [By Kelly Patricia O Meara at insightmag.com. An expose on allegations of corruption, mafia dealings, and trafficking in young girls by DynCorp employees and management.]

This came up in the google search and is kinda left of center, but it hits on the symptom of putting people with guns outside of anyone's laws.

That Fortune article is especially informative, in a spooky way.

Thanks to my friend for providing his thoughts, and his encouragement to think carefully whenever we hear the phrase "private contractor" in the context of Iraq, or just about anyplace else.

It keeps coming up in casual conversation, so I'll just mention the possibility of an 'October Surprise' here. You know what I mean. All the little blurbs in foreign papers quoting Pakistani authorities who insist that Osama Bin Laden has already been captured, who seem concerned that they're not getting credit for helping. There have been several of these stories. The officials have always been rapidly discredited by their bosses.

We Americans, used to our melodramatic films, know that IF the story were true and IF the US Gov't wasn't yet making an appropriately grandiose announcement right now, that the most theatrical stating of his capture possible could only occur in October, just before the November presidential elections.

I'm cynical enough to think it's possible. So I read the stories, but keep my thoughts on the matter to myself.

And now, there are new stories!

Hours ago, the US denied new stories of bin Laden's capture broadcast on Iranian State Radio. (Atlanta Journal Constitution, ajc.com)

The report was carried by Iran radio's external Pushtun service. The director of Iran radio's Pushtun service, Asheq Hossein, said he had two sources for the report that bin Laden had been captured.

Iranian state radio quoted its reporter as saying the arrest happened a long time ago.

``Osama bin Laden has been arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda maneuvering in the presidential election,'' he said.

Pakistan's foreign minister has sort-of denied that bin Laden has been captured, sort of.(news.xinhuanet.com/english)

"I am not in position to confirm or contradict that Osama bin Laden is captured," Kasuri told reporters in Islamabad.

"I will not confirm the report that Osama is being captured by the Pakistan Army during the operation in South Waziristan," he said when asked about the confirmation of the report.

That has to be one of the LAMEST denials I've yet read.

It makes some of Rumsfeld's comments seem more cryptic (suntimes.com):"Clearly there's pressure being put on terrorists all over the world, but most recently, and certainly with a great deal of energy and some success, in Pakistan, for which we are very grateful.'' I see.

(There's another story: Australia's Sunday Telegraph is reporting that England's Sunday Express is reporting that bin Laden is surrounded, with the US just waiting for the right moment to swoop in and grab him (sundaytelegraph.news.com.au) This is less worthy of consideration, because it's a story about a story. But still interesting: the first item references comments from military sources that bin Laden's whereabouts are known and he could be captured at any time.)

Speaking of the draft, the former US interim administrator of in Iraq, believes the US military should remain in there for "the next few decades." (govexec.com)

Noting how establishing U.S. naval bases in the Philippines in the early 1900s allowed the United States to maintain a "great presence in the Pacific," Garner said, "To me that's what Iraq is for the next few decades. We ought to have something there ... that gives us great presence in the Middle East. I think that's going to be necessary."

It appears that the US can't invade anyone else without more soldiers. I suppose that's the good news (for the world) and the bad news (for everyone who doesn't want to be drafted). There's more on the topic of military expansion at this part of the ever wonderful thismodernworld.com.

So, last September the Pentagon started staffing up draft boards. (salon.com) You know, draft boards. The people who sent out draft letters to send reluctant American youth to fight in Vietnam. THOSE draft boards.

After the alternative and foreign press (including the BBC) noticed the announcement to staff draft boards, the US Government removed the announcement from its website, which was luckily mirrored by thememoryhole. (thememoryhole.org) An excerpt:

If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men, who submit a claim, receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service, based on Federal guidelines.

Positions are available in many communities across the Nation.

Obscure sources

Today I'd like to sing the praises of an obscure source of some very interesting news: Engineering News Record magazine. (enr.com) As a professional formerly employed in the field of architecture, and currently employed in the area of commercial and institutional construction law, ENR provides me with news about my clients and fascinating projects around the world.

It also provides me with insights into topical news items that I would have been blissfully unaware of if I relied solely on the mainstream media. For example, it was in ENR that I read about the contracts awarded to American countries to rebuild the bridges, schools, and hospitals bombed by the US and NATO during the Balkan conflict. (IAC.org) As the proud winning contractors provided the details, I thought, "Wait - we bombed SCHOOLS?? We bombed HOSPITALS?? Why haven't I heard that we bombed schools before?"

ENR continues to provide fascinating information. For example, I learned that the US expects to be less popular in the future than it is already. In U.S. Army of the Future Will Need Bases To Match (12/1/2003) by Tom Sawyer there is information on changes anticipated to military bases. California has historically had many bases, which are surrounded by barbed wire and generally not very friendly. But in the future, according to this article, "Bases are expected to become holistic support facilities, capable of sustaining their units and supporters independently from surrounding communities, if security issues arise to make it necessary to close them off." I already assumed they were that way. I note that the article isn't differentiating between foreign and local bases, or basis in allied nations, and... well... It's a bad sign.

(On a less political note, the corrupt influence of money on common sense is clear in
Nationwide Chemical Sites Are Targets of Opportunity, (12/1/2003) by Kathleen McFall, in which industry bemoans demands to improve the security and safety of plants near major population centers for homeland security reason. Industry rejects this request and has lobbied against bills that make them responsible for their own private property because... they think it's an environmentalist conspiracy! Yes! They do! These people should not be in charge of a frozen yogurt stand, let alone major hazardous material facilities...)

Also, I learned that the US plans to spend $3.5 million on courthouses and "interrogation facilities" in Cuba, which won't even open until after December of 2004. Which means the U.S. government intends to abduct and detain plenty of additional foreign nationals while dodging the Geneva Convention and other international laws in 2005 and beyond. *shudder*

Do you remember the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City? (CNN) Do you remember the subsequent war on Montana and other states that harbor terrorists? How about the war on extremist groups living here in the U.S.?

You don't remember those, because the US government didn't attack Montana and didn't declare war on domestic extremist groups. They're still there. Montana is still a relatively infertile northern state. Those domestic terrorist groups are still suspected of causing the anthrax deaths in 2001. Those domestic terrorist groups are suspected of mailing the toxin ricin to to the government in recent months. Yet, the government's discussions of terrorism only appear to apply to foreigners.

Salim Muwakkil discusses this disparate treatment in Homegrown Terrorists in the March 15th issue of In These Times. His article provides the frightening details of domestic terrorist plots involving biological weapons - which, unlike Saddam Hussein, some of these domestic terrorists actually have. A list of weapons possessed by some plotters who were foiled by investigators included "a cyanide bomb, chemicals and components for additional biological weapons, half a million rounds of ammunition, 65 pipe bombs and briefcases that could be detonated by remote control."

Perhaps the fact that the terrorists are white, American, and Christian somehow excludes their threats against Americans from newsworthiness. Perhaps the fear of foreigners is much easier to manipulate the public with. But the fact that there are extremists already in the United States who are stockpiling lethal weapons and sending biological agents through the mail makes it appear that domestic terrorists are just another domestic issue that is currently being ignored in favor of lucrative foreign contracts and concern over unsubstantiated foreign threats.

If the US government is really serious about fighting actual terrorism, the race and religion of the terrorists shouldn't be an issue.

Women in Afghanistan and Iraq and what they have in common

Afghanistan. I can't stop bringing it up, because it keeps looking like a preview of what will happen in Iraq.

Here's an excerpt from a comment from RAWA printed in the Guardian UK and titled Rule of the Rapists on the current situation:

However, Amnesty International paints a rather different picture: "Two years after the ending of the Taliban regime, the international community and the Afghan transitional administration, led by President Hamid Karzai, have proved unable to protect women. The risk of rape and sexual violence by members of armed factions and former combatants is still high. Forced marriage, particularly of girl children, and violence against women in the family are widespread in many areas of the country."

...In the western province of Herat, the warlord Ismail Khan imposes Taliban-like decrees. Many women have no access to education and are banned from working in foreign NGOs or UN offices, and there are hardly any women in government offices. Women cannot take a taxi or walk unless accompanied by a close male relative. If seen with men who are not close relatives, women can be arrested by the "special police" and forced to undergo a hospital examination to see if they have recently had sexual intercourse.

...One international NGO worker told Amnesty International: "During the Taliban era, if a woman went to market and showed an inch of flesh she would have been flogged; now she's raped."

(There's also a BBC article with additional commentary from Amnesty International (BBC).) RAWA, whose videos filmed at great risk from within burqas helped galvanize Western opposition to the Taliban, cannot open an office in "liberated" Kabul. Rawa's news archive site (updated regularly) features items that repeatedly fail to make the mainstream US news, such as news that the Afghan Supreme Court has banned the broadcast of women singing on television. Liberation indeed!

*

Which brings us to Iraq.

Iraqi women had equal rights under Iraq's 1979 constitution (soros.org) and lived in one of the more opportunity-providing Middle Eastern societies prior to Saddam Hussein's reign:

In 1979, the Iraqi constitution declared all women and men equal before the law. Compulsory education through age 16 enabled women in Iraq to become the most educated and professional in the region, and working outside the home became the norm. Iraqi mothers received generous maternity leave, and in 1980 women could vote and run for election. In the early 80s, women made up 40 percent of the nation’s work force. The Unified Labor Code called for equal pay, benefits and promotions for men and women.

Hussein eroded women's rights to gain favor from neighboring nations, but maintained societal order so that many rights were preserved. The constant presence of repressive police forces maintained order and allowed women to travel safely from common thugs, if not from Hussein's own forces.

But that societal order has broken down completely during the war and occupation. Women have given up jobs and school to hide in their homes. (english.aljazeera.net) Iraq's governing council has already dropped secular family law in favor of religious codes which local women find regressive. (feminist.org)

Zakia Ismael Hakki, a female judge, stated, "This new law will send Iraqi families back to the Middle Ages. It will allow men to have four or five or six wives. It will take away children from their mothers. It will allow anyone who calls himself a cleric to open an Islamic court in his house and decide who can marry and divorce and have rights," reports the Washington Post.

The group Equalityiniraq.com reports that a local human rights leader has been threatened with death for opposing the imposition of sharia law upon women.

I'm not the only one who sees parallels between women's conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq. "This will send us home and shut the door, just like what happened to women in Afghanistan," said Amira Hassan Abdullah, a Kurdish lawyer quoted in the Washington Post.

There have been reports of the disproportionately hard impact of civil disorder on women since last year (commondreams.org). A horrifying NY Times Article called "Rape (and Silence About It) Haunts Baghdad" by Neela Banerjee (nytimes.com, subscription/payment required) from last July detailed the cost of the civil disorder on Baghdad's most vulnerable residents, including young children who have been abducted, raped, and who are now at risk of being murdered by fathers or brothers because their lack of virginity is deemed a dishonor to their male relatives.Schoolgirls are forced to choose between getting an education in school and safety (Guardian UK), and those whose safety is lost lose everything:

"We know of a lot of cases against women," says Nidal Husseini, a nurse at Baghdad's forensic institute. "When a girl is kidnapped and raped and returned to her family, of course the family will take her to a special doctor. The majority of doctors - without a test - will tell her family she is not a virgin, so the family will kill the girl because of the shame. Of course, they will bring the body to us."

Later in this article, an authorities in charge of rape claims brought by women who aren't killed by their families insist that "Most women are liars."

Women's lack of security and safety will prevent them from rebuilding their country. (Commondreams.org)

It isn't merely 'foreign fighters' or 'Baathists' or the regime's former loyalists that pose a threat to the rebuilding and stability of the nation: it is the lack of order that prevents more than half of Iraq's population from meaningfully participating in that country's civil society. It's been demonstrated in many situations that women tend to be less extreme than men, and can have a moderating influence on extremist factions - governments with women participating in them are more politically and religiously moderate. Iraqi women can't provide a moderating influence in their current situation. And that, more than any alleged foreign troublemakers, will prevent Iraq from becoming stable and peaceful.

Much like in Afghanistan...

Like the groundhog, the blogger resurfaces, sees shadows, and predicts more bad news before hiding in her burrow

Weren't things in Iraq supposed to be great by now? I turned away from the daily news for a few weeks, only to resurface to news of terrible attacks and mass casualties of civilians.

I suspect this means that some wings of the anti-war movement, which were criticized for demanding the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, were right: the occupation is not providing the safety, stability, and order that were supposed to justify its presence.

No one wants to be proven right in such an ugly way. But there it is. The headlines I've been skimming contain a litany of complaints: the steady erosion of women's rights, the increasing power of fundamentalists who survived Hussein's tyrannical, partly-US-sponsored rule, and the widespread non-local conviction that the country (created by the British who forced together various groups between somewhat arbitrary borders) must be forced to remain unified, even if a somewhat oppressive majority group may oppress regional and ethnic minorities just as this majority was previously oppressed, all while under a US-influenced system that seeks to dilute the majority's power in hopes of patching together a government which won't kick the US out.

Meanwhile, the US government is letting contracts for a massive expansion of its leased Cuban terrorism prison facilities, including contracts for courthouses (kangaroo logos optional) and execution chambers.

Not good. Not good. Not good.

I'll write in more detail once I've digested some more of the changes, some of which are obscured by US political news...

[The author of the blog is recovering from 30 hours of overtime performed in about 10 days. Posting will resume shortly.]