date:20020427


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

[From the ostensibly 'leftist' Guardian/Observer. The
Euro-elites have their tongues stuck deeply up the
arse of Washington and Brussels yet complain because
their voices aren't heard.
Small wonder.
Their major complaint? They aren't cut in for a big
enough share of the new global colonial carve-up.
These comic opera imperialists deserve each other.
Good riddance to the whole lot.]

 

The World Today Essay
How to save the western alliance 
Washington and Europe's disagreements are weakening
and endangering NATO. But America's trend toward
unilateralism and Europe's preference for
coalition-building are both necessary parts of an
effective western strategy.
Henry R. Nau
Sunday April 28, 2002
The Observer
Washington is vilified for acting alone on a range of
issues. Europe is being asked to do more on defence.
This peevish debate risks weakening NATO just at the
moment it should be agreeing to create a stronger
alliance to fight terrorism.
Europe is once again outraged by American
unilateralism. Since George Bush entered office early
last year, Europeans have carpet-bombed Washington
with charges of unilateral action on, among other
things, the development of missile defences, global
warming, banning landmines, the international criminal
court, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the
biodiversity treaty, a verification mechanism for
controlling biological weapons, the 'axis of evil'
speech, and, most recently, steel import restrictions.
Psychological infirmity
The North Atlantic allies have been through this
battle many times before. One might wonder if the
charges and countercharges have more to do with the
psychological infirmities of the western allies than
the issues that divide them. America needs to shatter
the moral lassitude it associates with western Europe,
and Europe needs to ridicule the lack of subtlety and
sophistication it associates with America. Politics,
of course, adds fuel to the firestorm. Republican
President George Bush crashed the cosy party of 'third
way' social democrats that governed the major western
countries throughout much of the 1990s.
The allies should get beyond their emotions and
politics. America's trend toward unilateralism and
Europe's preference for multilateralism are not in
opposition to one another. Indeed, both are necessary
to carry out an effective alliance strategy. 
America's unilateralism expresses the need of free
nations within a democratic alliance to act
independently when their vital interests are at stake.
Just as national democracies depend on the initiatives
of individual citizens and groups, international
democratic communities depend on national initiatives.
Such initiatives are inherently unilateral. At least
initially, they fly in the face of conventional wisdom
and prevailing consensus. Otherwise, there would never
be any change or innovation. 
On the other hand, Europe's tendency toward
multilateralism expresses the place where free people
and free nations are committed to end up. They make
decisions by consensus, or in some cases, as
democratic countries grow closer - for example the
European Union (EU) - by the will or vote of the
majority. Democracy requires both leadership and
eventual consensus or majority decision-making.
Paradoxically, the unilateral/multilateral debate is a
sign of democratic development within the North
Atlantic community, not demagogic neurosis.
In the lead
America acts unilaterally more often than Europe
because its military forces are more prominent and
vulnerable around the world. And Europe acts
multilaterally more often than the United States
because it lacks independent military capabilities and
thus seeks to influence the use of US might.
America is the first target in the crosshairs of
terrorist groups and states. When conflicts turn nasty
around the world, it is American forces that are
exposed on the frontline in Korea, Taiwan, Southeast
Asia, the Gulf and now Southwest Asia. 
European forces are not available to deploy in large
numbers around the world or to fight sustained
conflicts outside Europe. They play a more central
role after the serious fighting is over, as in Bosnia
and Kosovo. Until Europe spends far more on defence
and convinces its people to support action beyond the
continent, it will have to acknowledge America's
greater vulnerability to terrorist resentment and
concede a leadership role to Washington.
If Europe provided the major forces for the defence of
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, would it be as relaxed as
it is today about Iraq and Saddam Hussein? If Europe
had thirty seven thousand troops on the 38th parallel
in Korea and another forty thousand in Japan, would it
be as eager to appease North Korea, abolish landmines,
which protect US ground forces there, or forego
theatre missile defence to protect American forces
abroad? 
Europe had a substantial military role in the NATO
area during the Cold War. But it has since played a
much weake

Bush Letter to Kostunica Read on RTS>... [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Bush Presses Yugoslavia on Tribunal

By SCOTT LINDLAW
.c The Associated Press

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - President Bush said Saturday that Yugoslavia's president should cooperate more fully with the U.N. war crimes tribunal and said such help is critical to the country's integration with Europe.

Bush praised recent steps by Yugoslavia ``to meet its international obligations'' but appealed for President Vojislav Kostunica, a moderate nationalist who opposes the tribunal, to do more.

``To continue on the path to European integration, Yugoslavia's full cooperation with the court and your leadership on the issues is essential,'' Bush wrote in a letter dated Saturday, sent to mark the country's Statehood Day.

White House officials declined to release a copy. Excerpts were provided by a Bush administration official. A translation of the letter was read Saturday evening on Serbian state television.

A law adopted by the Yugoslav government this month allows for the extradition of suspected war criminals to the tribunal in The Hague. Authorities last week delivered a list of suspects to a Belgrade court in preparation for arrests and handovers. Some 24 Serbs are wanted by the U.N. court for alleged Balkan war crimes.

Former army chief of staff Col. Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic pleaded innocent to war crimes charges Friday. Five other Serb suspects have promised to surrender, while 18 other suspects included on the Yugoslav government list now face arrest and extradition.

The United States has threatened to withdraw millions of dollars in badly needed aid unless Yugoslavia extradites the suspects.

Bush typically sends letters to government leaders to mark national holidays, but such letters do not usually carry the kind of demands Bush made to Yugoslavia, an administration official said.

When they do, Bush offers the type of ``carrot and stick'' approach in Saturday's letter - an expression of gratitude for action on the one hand, pressure for more action on the other, the official said.

In the letter, Bush praised Yugoslavia for ``great progress'' over the past year and a half.

``Only a short time ago, the leadership in Belgrade was a major source of suffering and war in the Balkans,'' Bush said. ``Today, Yugoslavia is increasingly a force for peace, stability and economic development.''

Nonetheless, ``Important strides in terms of economic reform need to be matched by progress in such areas as democratic control of the military,'' Bush said.

The cable was sent while Bush was spending a long weekend on his Crawford, Texas, ranch. Government offices were closed in Belgrade Saturday, and no officials were available to respond.

By ``European integration,'' Bush meant greater links with Europe's economic, political and transportation institutions, and possibly eventual membership in the European Union, an administration official said. There is also financial aid at stake.

Yugoslavia has applied to join the Council of Europe, the continent's top human rights-monitoring body, and hopes membership will be approved by this summer. Bosnia, Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia are already members.

This is the first step toward eventual membership in the European Union, and possibly NATO.

Yugoslavia also has outstanding loans from the Slobodan Milosevic era and earlier. It is seeking favorable treatment, such as easier repayment terms, from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and other major international finance groups.

Bush's letter came two weeks after his administration failed to block the creation of the United Nations' first permanent war crimes tribunal. Despite U.S. opposition, the tribunal this month received the necessary international backing to come into force on July 1.

The United States fears American citizens would be subject to frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions. It is the only vocal opponent of the court.

The United States campaigned unsuccessfully to exempt U.S. soldiers and officials from the court's jurisdiction. The administration is currently reviewing its position on the court.

04/27/02 17:28 EDT

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Democracy Strangled in Pakistan [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

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---

[This is pretty macabre. Musharaff is holding an "election" to legitimate his military rule and to enforce a "constitutional role for the military...not unlike in Turkey." Note AP can't get the spin right even: is it an election, a poll, or a referendum? What do you call a one party, one man election that will be unmonitored? BTW note the following passage: "Musharraf has decreed that each voter is to receive a mark with an indelible pen on a thumbnail. The mark is supposed to take two weeks to wear off, government officials say." While there will be no voter rolls, I've noticed that this "marking" technology is being pushed in the Third World countries by neoliberal regimes engaged in pivotal election contests. I don't know what the purpose of it is exactly other than to scare off voters who mistrust anything that is imposed by the West (thus helping to reduce the anti-Western vote presumably and establishing a precedent for "marking" or "tagging" Third World peoples maybe?). In fact I remember that this technology - never applied in the West to date to my knowledge - caused quite a bit of controversy in Yugoslavia when it was first applied in the DOS-administered elections for the government of Serbia in December 2000. Many refused to be "marked" and where thus denied the right to vote. After being bombed with depleted uranium, and having toxic substances released in the atmosphere and water as a result of NATO bombing (expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions - EVEN IF SUCH TARGETS ARE MILITARY IN NATURE!) is it wonder that many Yugoslav's mistrusted such a technology? Anyway, the AP dispatch below says everything pretty clearly, although the moral outrage over the subversion of democracy so evident in its dispatches on Zimbabwe in March is notable for its absence...]

Pakistanis Ready for Key Referendum
By KATHY GANNON
.c The Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - When voters go to the polls on Tuesday they will be deciding more than just whether Gen. Pervez Musharraf will be Pakistan's president for the next five years.

A vote for Musharraf, a strong ally of the United States in its war against terrorism, is also certain to guarantee the military a more permanent role in civic affairs, probably one enshrined in the constitution.

It's no coincidence that Musharraf is seeking his five-year mandate as president while still in uniform as army chief of staff, the implication being that a vote for him is also a vote for the army.

His banners drive home that point.

``Be Patriotic. Vote Musharraf,'' reads one, accompanied by a picture of the presidential candidate in full uniform resplendent with his many medals.

Musharraf took power in a bloodless coup in 1999, throwing out democratically elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. From the outset Musharraf has been clear that he wants a more constitutionally authorized role for the army -- a setup not unlike Turkey's.

Pakistan's army has ruled this poor nation of 140 million people for more than half of the country's 55-year history. Each time Pakistan's democratically elected government falls into chaos, the army either outright takes power or orchestrates a change of government from behind the scenes.

Usually the military takes over in the name of saving the country from collapse. It was no different this time. Musharraf charged widespread corruption by Sharif, whom he exiled to Saudi Arabia. He also has prohibited another deposed prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, from participating in October's general elections.

But in this referendum, Musharraf has made it easy for ordinary Pakistanis to vote.

There are no election rolls or voters' lists. Any citizen 18 years old or over can vote anywhere in the country. The lack of voters' registration raises the possibility that one person might vote more than once, but Musharraf has decreed that each voter is to receive a mark with an indelible pen on a thumbnail. The mark is supposed to take two weeks to wear off, government officials say.

There will be more than 100,000 polling stations at a cost of more than $28 million. That figure doesn't include the cost of the security forces being deployed for the referendum conducted by an administration that is completely in the hands of the army. An army officer even runs state-owned corporations such as those that provide power and light.

The military government justifies the expense.

``The referendum will end uncertainty about the reform process, bring stability and restore investors' confidence,'' said Nisar Memon, information minister in Musharraf's government.

``Compared to the expenses, the positive economic fallout of referendum would be much higher.''

The last two bouts of military rule have been strongly condemned by the United States only to be later embraced by Washington, both times because of Afghanistan.

Gen. Zia-ul Haq, who seized power in 1977 and hanged the

Afghanistan: Fireworks Celebrate Pax NATOana [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Afghan warlord rains hundreds of rockets on Gardez  
Sat Apr 27,11:56 AM ET 
By Sayed Salahuddin 
KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan warlord rained hundreds of
rockets on the main eastern Afghan town of Gardez on
Saturday killing 25 people in the biggest outbreak of
fighting between rival Afghan forces for several
months, the governor of the area said. 
Governor Taj Mohammad Wardak of Paktia Province, scene
of last month's biggest U.S.-led ground battle of the
Afghan war, blamed the attack on former governor
Padshah Khan Zadran who was ousted from power last
February. 
"He has fired about 500 rockets into Gardez today,"
Wardak told Reuters by telephone from the city. "There
are at least 25 dead and more than 100 wounded. They
are all civilians. He is trying to take over Gardez." 
The fighting broke out on the day U.S. Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Kabul and several
hours after the Afghan capital's airport was hit by
several rockets. There were no casualties in the
airport attack. 
In late January, around 50 fighters were killed in
fighting between Padshah Khan and rival commander Haji
Saifullah Khan who heads Gardez's tribal council. 
Padshah Khan, who has thousands of troops under his
control, had been considered one of the main allies of
U.S. forces in Paktia and neighbouring Khost province,
once major strongholds of the Taliban near the
Pakistan border. 
The rivalry between Padshah Khan and Saifullah became
so intense that interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai
appointed Wardak as governor in February to try to
calm the situation. 
On Wardak's appointment, Padshah Khan retreated to the
outskirts of Gardez but has vowed to take back the
city. 
His attack on Gardez on Saturday was regarded as the
biggest challenge to Karzai's authority since he took
over as Afghanistan's interim leader last December
with the ouster of the Taliban by U.S.-led forces. 
Padshah Khan's brother, himself a minister in
Afghanistan's interim government, offered a
dramatically different view of events, blaming
remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda for attacking his
brother. 
DIFFERENT VERSION 
Amanullah Zadran, Minister for Frontiers and Tribal
Affairs, told Reuters that his brother had fought off
an attack on Saturday morning by Taliban and al Qaeda
forces and captured several tanks and armoured
personnel carriers. 
"His (Padshah Khan Zadran) posts came under the attack
of the Taliban and al Qaeda. The attack was launched
from south of Gardez town," Amanullah Zadran said. 
Gardez was a main staging base for Afghan forces
during heavy U.S.-led fighting in the region against
the Taliban and al Qaeda last month. 
In a two-week-long battle, the U.S. military said
hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda rebels were killed.
However Afghan officials said many escaped to adjacent
areas of Pakistan. 
Padshah Khan has already been accused of calling in
U.S strikes on his rivals in neighbouring Khost
province, by claiming they were al Qaeda or Taliban.
More than 50 people were killed in the Khost bombing
at the end of last year. 
Tension is also high this week in the town of Khost,
capital of the province. On Saturday, residents said a
tense stand-off was in effect after fighting between
Padshah Khan and a rival warlord earlier in the week
killed four people. 
An Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman said they were
closely monitoring the situation in Khost and Gardez
but had no plans at this stage to intervene. 
The U.S. military has a special forces camp on the
outskirts of Khost which has been the target of at
least two rocket attacks in recent weeks. 


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Balkans: Battle for the Bunkers? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

Hey all,

just had a "crazy" idea that slipped into my mind as I've been working on a 
paper about the EC's recognition policy viz. Yugoslav republics regarding 
another important geostrategic aspect of the Balkans.  It is a well-known 
fact that both Albania and Yugoslavia pursued largely independent foreign 
policies during the Cold War (Yugoslavia by becoming dependent on both blocs 
and Albania by cutting itself off from both).  Needless to say there was a 
somewhat justifiable paranoia in both Belgrade and Tirana of defending 
themselves from attacks or invasions carried out by either super-power.  To 
this end both regimes constructed EXTENSIVE networks of anti-nuclear bunkers 
and tunnel systems that would preserve guerrilla forces in case of a nuclear 
attack.  We know that the United States has been developing "bunker busting" 
bombs since at least the aggression on Yugoslavia in 1999, with little effect 
to date.  This is obviously a tough technology to develop, especially 
considering that many of these sites were built to withstand nuclear attack.  
But knowledge of bunker technology raises another question.  Is it possible 
to defend from "nuclear" counter-attacks by employing sophisticated bunker 
defences resistant to such offensive technologies?  Is the United States 
seeking to seize and establish military presence precisely in those regions 
and countries where relatively sophisticated bunkers have already been 
established (Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, ex-Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, where 
else?)?  This would fall into line with our broader, well-founded, and 
explicitly acknowledged thesis of the quest for American global military 
domination and especially the subjugation of Russia, China, etc.  It is not 
inconceivable that US forces are building up and reinforcing these bunkers to 
provide strategic defensive positions flanking Russia from all corners, from 
which limited nuclear tactical strikes can be launched while withstanding a 
nuclear counter-attack against US forces deployed in the regions around 
Russia.  Remember JA MiG-fighters took off after the NATO aggression from 
such underground bunkers as well (a perfect place to hide US long-range 
tactical bombers), as Yugoslavia had built reinforced underground 
air-hangars.  I remember my grandfather (who had friends in Yugo-commie and 
military circles, a veritable whose who of Yugo-commie life, including 
Milosevic's uncle and even the now infamous Mahmut Bakalli among others), 
when I was little, telling me about an JNA installation near the Adriatic 
that he had visited.  According to him there was tons of Yugoslav made 
Super-Galeb Mig-fighters underground in such installations.  I never knew if 
this was true or not - he had a penchant for exageration sometimes when it 
came to Cold War issues and as a former soldier was easily exited by talk of 
military technologies - but after the NATO aggression when those Yugo planes 
took off from underground hangars I was suprised to see that my grandfathers 
story on this issue wasn't maybe so far off.   This all isn't that big of a 
deal really, something we already know, but I've never thought about this 
aspect of Washington's engagement in the Balkans or Afghanistan for a mother. 
 Given the Bush administrations recent shift in nuclear policy towards a more 
ready nuclear posture, this aspect becomes somewhat terrifying (as if having 
a Moronic Nuclear Age Napoleon at the helm of the world's most aggrisively 
expanionist power wasn't enough!!!). 

Oh yeah! Almost forgot, I also came upon another interesting factoid as well. 
 Yugoslavia was the PRESIDENT of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1991, i.e. 
exactly the year when it was dismembered by the NATO alliance. Its 
dismemberement thus wasn't just a message to Russia, but to the entire 
non-aligned world.  Rereading Security Council and UN documents from the era 
I was struck by the support that non-Aligned states were giving to 
Yugoslavia, which ITSELF asked for the imposition of an arms-embargo to stem 
the flow of arms coming from the FORMER COLONIAL POWERS of AUSTRIA and 
GERMANY.  Countries like Cuba, China, Zimbabwe, India, Yemen, Cote d'Ivoire, 
etc. - all on the UN Security Council in 1991 - expressed an incredible 
degree of solidarity with the Yugoslav delegates.  

Remember, one of the guiding principles of the post-WWII order and of the 
decolonizations struggles was the principle that the borders achieved upon 
decolonization became sancrosanct (i.e. the principle of UTI POSSEDETIS).  
Although never portrayed in these terms in the West, Yugoslavia's borders 
where the result of a 150 year decolonization struggle against Ottoman and 
Austro-Hungarian empires, and the second Yugoslavia was the product of the 
national liberation struggle of Yugoslav peoples against the German Third 
Reich.  In fact this was the official narrative of the Yugoslav communists 
justifying

Slovenia: 'Freedom in, NATO out' [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Sunday, Apr. 28, 2002 
April 27, 2002  
'Freedom in, NATO out': Slovene view of alliance sours

LJUBLJANA (AP) -- It's been a Slovene political mantra
for more than a decade: the ultimate goal is to join
NATO. 
 Now, just when membership seems like a sure thing,
Slovenes are no longer certain they want to tie their
future to the alliance.
 "Freedom in, NATO out!" says fresh graffiti in the
capital Ljubljana. Slovene news media have begun
openly questioning the benefits of NATO membership and
anti-NATO activists are regularly being given a say in
public debates and television shows. 
 For the first time, support for NATO membership has
dropped below 50 per cent, said a government-financed
survey last month. 
 It's all happening just six months before the former
Yugoslav republic may finally be invited to join the
alliance at a November summit on NATO expansion in
Prague. Up to 10 Baltic and East European countries
are expected to join the alliance, which took in
Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic in 1999. 
 Slovene Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel calls the
sudden shift a "striking paradox." 
 "We are one of the top candidates for entry, yet we
seem to have the least public support for this goal,"
he said recently. 
 Ever since gaining independence in 1991, Slovenia's
pro-western leadership has worked hard to make the
country of two million people, bordered by Italy,
Hungary and Croatia, a part of the European Union and
NATO. 
 For Balkan and southern European countries, the EU
and NATO long have been seen as a ticket to wealth,
success -- and the West. 
 Slovenia's first victory came with associate
membership in the EU in 1996; the first blow with NATO
rejection a year later. Since then, Slovenia has
initiated a flurry of measures and diplomatic efforts
in hopes of making sure an invitation to join is a
sure thing in November. 
 The last thing the government needed -- or expected
-- was to see public support erode. 
 Rupel acknowledged anti-NATO activists have created a
"noise that's heard far away." 
 "NATO's member states and its leadership are now
asking us whether we really want to become a member,"
he said. 
 Opponents of NATO membership are not well-organized.
There are some students and professors and several
prominent journalists and sociologists. They haven't
staged a single demonstration -- but they're speaking
up and the mainstream media have given them a stage. 
 But opponents of membership insist it's too expensive
because the government will have to spend money on
weaponry and military reorganization and they contend
tiny Slovenia will never be heard among the big NATO
players. 
 Others wonder: what's the point? Slovenia enjoys
peaceful relations with its neighbours, they argue and
not even NATO could thwart the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. 
 Miso Alkalaj an anti-NATO activist, said the attacks
on the United States, a mighty NATO force, showed
"there was no real defence against terrorism, the No.
1 threat of today's world." 
 In many ways, Slovenia already belongs to the West. 
 It has a vigorous economy and a stable government.
Support for the EU, which unlike NATO promises
concrete economic benefits, remains high. 
 Even so, the government has realized it must fight to
ensure NATO membership doesn't slip from its grasp. 
 Rupel has publicly urged President Milan Kucan to
engage opponents. Government officials are preaching
the benefits of membership at every opportunity. The
NATO question dominates TV talk shows and a special
phone line has been set up to give Slovenes more
information about the alliance. 
 "We haven't used all our ammunition yet," Rupel said.

 


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Shocks and Stares! [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

2002-04-27 Thread Bill Howard


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Dow Slides Below 10,000, Nasdaq Plunges 2.9%.

Stocks plunged Friday, shoving major market gauges toward the biggest weekly
losses since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, as dreary forecasts from
companies intensified fears of a tepid recovery in corporate profits.


Stocks plunged Friday, shoving major market gauges toward the biggest weekly
losses since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, as dreary forecasts from
companies intensified fears of a tepid recovery in corporate profits.
Investors ignored news that the economy snapped back in the first quarter,
sending the Dow Jones industrials below 10,000 for the first time in more
than two months. Tech stocks had the biggest losses in volatile trading,
with the Nasdaq composite index closing at levels not seen since October.
The Dow closed down 124.34, or 1.2%, at 9910.72. The index last closed lower
on Feb. 21, when it stood at 9834.68. The technology-centered Nasdaq plunged
49.81, or 2.9%, to 1,663.89 ¡ª the lowest finish since Oct. 18 when the
index 1,652.72. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 15.16, or 1.4%, to
1,076.32.

The decline capped a dismal week for stocks, and extended a losing streak
that has seen the Dow fall six out of the last eight sessions, and the
Nasdaq, seven out of eight.

For the week, the Dow fell 3.4%; the blue chips have now closed down five of
the last six weeks amid investors' ongoing disillusionment with company
earnings and outlooks.

The Nasdaq lost 7.4% for the week. It last closed lower on Oct. 31, at
1,059.78. The S&P lost 4.3% over the week.


.
.
Matter in Motion through Space and Time ...
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NYT: US plans 'big invasion' in Iraq in 2003 [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

2002-04-27 Thread Barry Stoller


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---


NYT. 28 April 2002. U.S. Blueprint to Topple Hussein Envisions Big
Invasion Next Year. Excerpts.

WASHINGTON --The Bush administration, in developing a potential approach
for toppling President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, is concentrating its
attention on a major air campaign and ground invasion, with initial
estimates contemplating the use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops.

The administration is turning to that approach after concluding that a
coup in Iraq would be unlikely to succeed and that a proxy battle using
local forces there would be insufficient to bring a change in power.

But senior officials now acknowledge that any offensive would probably
be delayed until early next year, allowing time to create the right
military, economic and diplomatic conditions. These include avoiding
summer combat in bulky chemical suits, preparing for a global oil price
shock, and waiting until there is progress toward ending the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Until recently, the administration had contemplated a possible
confrontation with Mr. Hussein this fall, after building a case at the
United Nations that the Iraqi leader is unwilling to allow the kind of
highly intrusive inspections needed to prove that he has no weapons of
mass destruction.

Now that schedule seems less realistic. Conflict in the Middle East has
widened a rift within the administration over whether military action
can be undertaken without inflaming Arab states and prompting
anti-American violence throughout the region.

In his public speeches, President Bush still sounds as intent as ever
about ousting Mr. Hussein, making it clear that he will not let the
Middle East crisis obscure his goal. But he has not issued any order for
the Pentagon to mobilize its forces, and today there is no official "war
plan."

Instead, policy makers and operational commanders are trying to sketch
out the broad outlines of the confrontation they expect.

Among the many questions they must address is where to base air and
ground forces in the region.

Even before Mr. Bush's tense meeting with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia on Thursday, the Pentagon was working on the assumption that it
might have to carry out any military action without the use of bases in
the kingdom.

The planning now anticipates the possible extensive use of bases for
American forces in Turkey and Kuwait, with Qatar as the replacement for
the sophisticated air operations center in Saudi Arabia, and with Oman
and Bahrain playing important roles.

As to any war plan itself, the military expects to be asked for a more
traditional approach than the unconventional campaign in Afghanistan.

Such an approach would resemble the Persian Gulf war in style if not in
size and would be fought with even more modern weapons and more dynamic
tactics.

"The president has not made any decisions," a senior Defense Department
official said. "But any efforts against Iraq will not look like what we
did in Afghanistan."

In terms of diplomatic reaction from the region, Vice President Dick
Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and their senior aides
contend that Arab leaders would publicly protest but secretly celebrate
Mr. Hussein's downfall -- as long as the operation were decisive -- and
that ousting him would actually ease the job of calming violence between
Israel and the Palestinians.

"It has been the consistent drumbeat from our friends in the region that
if we are serious, they will be with us," said one administration
official in this camp.

Senior administration, Pentagon and military officials say that
consensus has emerged that there is little chance for a military coup to
unseat Mr. Hussein from within, even with the United States exerting
economic and military pressure and providing covert assistance.

Officials said the nascent plans for a heavy air campaign and land
assault already included rough numbers of troops, ranging from a minimum
of about 70,000 to 100,000 -- one Army corps or a reinforced corps -- to
a top of 250,000 troops, which still would be only half the number used
in the gulf war.

Other than troops from Britain, no significant contribution of allied
forces is anticipated.

The military requirements for changing the government in Baghdad would
be vastly different than the gulf war mission, which was to drive an
entrenched enemy from a large occupied area, senior military officers
said.

"We would not need to hold territory and protect our flanks to the same
extent," one officer said. "You would see a higher level of maneuver and
airborne assault, dropping in vertically and enveloping targets -- less
slogging mile by mile through the desert."

Even so, officers said, moving tens of thousands of troops to a region
with access more limited than in the gulf war could be a logistical
challenge.

The modern American military has never fought the kind of dangerous and
complicated urban battles that might be needed to oust the Husse

Re: Good Morning Nuremberg [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

2002-04-27 Thread Bill Howard


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Nuremberg, is that where a certain country
was punished for "war crimes" and yet no
mention was made of Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
the fire bombing of Dresden...

Courtly,

Bill.

---
ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST

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Palestinian flag flies at Euro bank chief's home [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=49109

Dubai:Saturday, April 27, 2002

Palestinian flag flies at Euro bank chief's home
Amsterdam |Reuters | 27-04-2002

  A Palestinian flag flew from the home of the European Central Bank
president yesterday, raised by his wife in protest against
Israel's actions in the West Bank.

The red, black, green and white standard was draped over the
railings of Wim Duisenberg's second-floor balcony in Amsterdam,
clearly visible from the street in the affluent neighbourhood
where the ECB chief lives when not at work in Frankfurt.

  Gretta Duisenberg made no excuses for a gesture that is unlikely
to go down well in Israel and is at odds with the officially
even-handed approach being taken to the Middle East conflict by
her husband's employers at the European Union.

  "My main feeling is that Europe and especially Holland are
terrible because we all sit still and no one does anything and
(Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon can get away with it and I
don't like it," she said in a television interview.

  "So I want to show what my feeling is and that is why I hang the
flag in my study on my balcony. My husband has a position but it
is not my position. I am a free woman and I am allowed to do
whatever I like and he agrees with that," she said.

  Duisenberg, who was also present at the interview on the couple's
terrace, declined to comment. The EU, keen to mediate in the
Middle East alongside the United States, condemns violence on both
sides.

  But Israel has long complained of what it sees as Europe's
pro-Palestinian bias, particularly among politicians on the left
who have been critical of Israel's latest West Bank offensive.

  As head of the independent central bank, Duisenberg tends to keep
his political opinions to himself though he was previously a
socialist minister. His wife has a reputation in the Dutch media
as an outspoken and feisty campaigner for charity.

  At ECB headquarters in Frankfurt, a bank spokesman said the issue
was a "private matter" for Gretta Duisenberg.


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Somalia: German Military Vessel Fired On [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2002 
THE TIMES OF INDIA 

-Some 1,300 German Marines, along with a dozen boats,
medical corp personnel and paratroopers are involved
in the US-led campaign off the Horn of Africa


German frigate comes under fire off Somalia 
AFP [ SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2002  2:22:40 AM ]
BERLIN: A German Navy frigate taking part in the
US-led campaign against terrorism off the coast of
Somalia came under fire earlier this month from two
small ships, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported
Sunday. The two boats were apparently involved in
illegal activities on the night of April 3, when the
Emden frigate happened upon them as it was patrolling
the coastal waters of Somalia, the weekly paper
reported. The frigate turned on its searchlights and
subsequently came under fire from the boats, and
responded with a warning shot across their bows. The
two boats then fled the area. The paper said the
German defense ministry had confirmed the information.
A spokesman for the German army told the paper that
"the shots clearly targeted the frigate." Some 1,300
German Marines, along with a dozen boats, medical corp
personnel and paratroopers are involved in the US-led
campaign off the Horn of Africa, notably to oversee
shipping traffic in the area. Somalia has in the past
been mentioned as a possible target in the campaign
because of alleged connections to Osama Bin Laden's
al-Qaeda organisation, blamed for the September 11
attacks in the United States.
 

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Hu Jintao: Mystery man, ordinary guy [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

2002-04-27 Thread Barry Stoller


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---


AFP. 27 April 2002.  Mystery man or just ordinary guy? Hu Jintao keeps
the world guessing.

BEIJING -- Less is known about Hu Jintao, the likely next leader of
China, than any prospective head of a major power since Kremlinologists
pored over top-level reshuffles in the Soviet empire.

As the current vice president visits the United States this week in a
diplomatic coming-of-age, the hopes are he will start showing the man
behind the youthful looks and the modest smile.

During the Malaysian leg of his trip, Hu took a first step in the
direction of more candor by depicting himself as just an ordinary guy
and dismissing portrayals of him as "mysterious."

"That description is not fair to me," he told reporters while
sightseeing on the Malaysian resort island of Penang.

Maybe not, but precious little is known about the 59-year-old who is
expected to be put at the helm of the Chinese communist party this fall
and become his nation's president about a year from now.

Even the place where Hu was born in December 1942 remains open to
dispute.

The official Chinese biography lists him as a native of eastern Anhui
province, a claim now largely taken to mean this is his ancestral home.

Other sources say his place of birth is Shanghai, and others again point
to the city of Taizhou, 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Shanghai.

Sir Winston Churchill's famous description of the Soviet Union as "a
riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" could be usefully applied
to Hu.

If the riddle is the opaque political system that plucked Hu from the
communist ranks, the mystery is his personality. The enigma -- and the
biggest question of all -- is what he intends to do with China once in
power.

The first part of the story, on how Hu was elevated to the highest rungs
of power from among thousands of potential candidates, had very little
to do with his personal qualities, according to observers.

What happened, observers say, was that one day in 1992, three communist
party bigwigs, including Jiang Zemin, went to see then-paramount leader
Deng Xiaoping with a list of promising middle-aged cadres.

New members of the standing committee of the party's politburo -- the
handful of people who decide virtually everything in China -- had to be
picked, and when Hu's name came up, Deng's reaction was simple, but
decisive.

"He is a good comrade," the aging patriarch reportedly said.

That settled it.

Many rumors have circulated as to why Deng was so sure he had found the
right man to lead the world's most populous nation for at least a
decade.

One explanation is that Hu was friendly with Deng's children, powerful
representatives of the "princeling" faction of spoiled offspring
produced by China's revolutionary generation.

The second big question -- "Who's Hu?" -- usually elicits answers that
offer little solid fact.

"He is very good, outstanding," said Wang Dazhong, president of Qinghua
University in Beijing, where Hu graduated with a degree in hydraulic
engineering in 1965.

"He is very methodical and has a remarkable memory," said a diplomat who
has met him. "He has a firm grasp of international culture and great
facilities on the economic level."

Although Hu's formative years were in the turbulent 1960s, when the
Cultural Revolution swept across China, this has not made him a dogmatic
politician, experts say.

"He is cautious, but open-minded," said Cheng Li, a professor at New
York's Hamilton College, who recently published a book on China's
leaders.

"He is very realistic, which means both liberals and conservatives and
even the military like him," he said.

Which leads to the third question, about what kind of place will China
become as Hu serves out his likely two five-year terms at party general
secretary and president.

Foreign observers have tried to glean nuggets about Hu's political
views, but with little success, a phenomenon observers say is
intentional.

"He is very cautious with the Western media," said Li.

"If the Western media portray him as a hardliner, that's not good for
him, but if they depict him as China's Gorbachev, it would be downright
disastrous."

One of the few clues is provided by the Central Party School, a
secretive institution in the northern outskirts of Beijing designed to
groom senior cadres, which Hu has headed for almost a decade.

Ancient Chinese art, not busts of Marx and Lenin, greets the visitors to
the campus' brand new auditorium, where students get lectures in
capitalism and the intricacies of World Trade Organization rules.

"You can pick market economics as an optional course," a student
recently told AFP.

According to observers, the school is a miniature version of what all of
China may look like under Hu -- culturally conservative, but willing to
use modern ideas to improve the economy.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Barry Stoller
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews

---

Henry Kissinger: Hero or villain? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

2002-04-27 Thread Bill Howard




HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---




  
  

Friday, 26 April, 2002, 
  15:04 GMT 16:04 UK 
  Henry Kissinger: Haunted by his 
  past
   
  He was arguably the most influential architect of 
  US foreign policy since the war, but, as Bob Chaundy of the BBC's News 
  Profiles Unit reports, attempts to question Henry Kissinger about 
  terrorist crimes have put the darker side of his career under the 
  spotlight. 
  Henry Kissinger once said that "90% of politicians give the other 10% a 
  bad reputation". 
  Throughout his career, this German Jewish emigré who began his working 
  life in a shaving brush factory in New York, rose to become a Harvard 
  professor and then assumed control of America's foreign policy under 
  Presidents Nixon and Ford, has bitterly divided opinion over which of 
  these two percentage categories he belongs to. 
  
  


  
 
He had a hold over President 
NixonKissinger became Richard Nixon's national security 
  adviser in 1969. It was testament to his mastery of political in-fighting 
  and his increasing hold over the president that, in all but the final year 
  of the Nixon presidency, he ran foreign policy over the head of the 
  Secretary of State, William Rogers. 
  By this policy, say his supporters, he made the world a safer place. He 
  was the man who effected détente with the Soviet Union. He opened up the 
  way to Nixon's visit to China. He negated the Communist threat in 
  America's back yard, most notably in Chile. 
  With his famous "shuttle diplomacy" after the 1973 Yom Kippur war in 
  the Middle-East, he brokered the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. 
  He was the secret negotiator at the Paris peace talks which ended the 
  Vietnam War for which he was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize. And he 
  was the man who kept American foreign policy on the rails after the 
  Watergate scandal and maintained its momentum under President Ford. 
  
  


  
 
He assumed almost complete control of 
foreign affairs during the Nixon 
  yearsHis wisdom is still sought after. His punditry on 
  the current state of American foreign policy is aired by TV networks 
  everywhere, and he is a regular on the highly lucrative lecture circuit. 
  Of course, say his defenders, there were times when American policy 
  under Kissinger was more motivated by global balance of power and national 
  interest at the expense of human rights, but, as the Times put it in a 
  recent editorial, "the world was polarised, and fighting communism 
  involved hard choices and messy compromises". 
  This messy business, though, is what has made him a highly 
  controversial figure. His critics refer to Kissinger's complicity in the 
  illegal carpet-bombing of neutral Cambodia, designed to deprive North 
  Vietnam of troops and supplies, but which sowed the seeds for the 
  murderous Pol Pot regime. 
  Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Seymour Hersh, in a 1983 biography, 
  Kissinger, the Price of Power, argued that this bombing, moreover, 
  jeopardised America's atomic security. 
  
  


  
 
Kissinger sanctioned the illegal bombing 
of CambodiaBritish writer, Christopher Hitchens, in his recent 
  book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, argues that Kissinger is a war 
  criminal. He claims he connived with brutal regimes, allied to the US, 
  most notably Pakistan, Greece and Indonesia, to embark on savage acts of 
  repression. 
  Most notably, charges relating to Latin America have returned to haunt 
  Henry Kissinger. The CIA's involvement in the coup which toppled the 
  elected Chilean leader Salvador Allende and brought General Pinochet to 
  power, has been long well-documented. 
  "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist 
  due to the irresponsibility of its people," Kissinger once famously 
  uttered. 
  But a number of factors have brought these old chestnuts back into 
  public prominence. 
  
  


  
 
Chileans demonstrating against the 
brutality of the Pinochet 
regimeDocuments recently released by the CIA, strengthen 
  previously-held suspicions that Kissinger was actively involved in the 
  establishment of Operation Condor, a covert plan involving six Latin 
  American countries including Chile, to assassinate thousands of political 
  opponents. 
  At the same time, the success of international tribunals in bringing 
  suspected war criminals such as Yugoslavia's former leader Slobodan

David Horovitz: Don't blame Israel. All we ever wanted was peace [WWW.STOPNATO.O

Title: Message



HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---


David Horovitz: Don't blame Israel. All we ever wanted was 
peace
27 April 2002


Internal links
Gaza 
braces for Sharon to send in tanks in next phase of war 
Freed 
youths tell of hunger and death in Church of the Nativity
Today, in a world turned upside-down, Israel stands accused by the 
international diplomatic and journalistic community of war crimes; the European 
Parliament votes for trade sanctions against it; and purported humanitarians 
call for Yitzhak Rabin's fellow peace trailblazer – not Yasser Arafat, but the 
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres – to be stripped of his Nobel prize.
But the real cause of the collapse of the Oslo process, and the root cause of 
Israel's unprecedented military incursions into areas of the West Bank it had 
long since relinquished to Mr Arafat's control, is terrorism – the terrorism 
that Mr Arafat initially chose not to confront and, more recently, encouraged, 
initiated and financed.
Contrary to the pervasive myth now routinely peddled by too many ill-informed 
Middle East commentators, Ehud Barak offered Mr Arafat everything short of 
Israeli national suicide in his failed attempt to secure that accord at the July 
2000 Camp David summit and subsequent rounds of negotiations. It is an 
astounding testament to Israelis' desire for peace that even now, after the 
month of March saw 126 of its people killed in acts of terrorism stoked by Mr 
Arafat, a majority are telling pollsters that they support the Saudi peace 
initiative – which envisages "normal ties" between Arab states and Israel after 
a complete Israeli withdrawal from territory it captured in the 1967 war. Israel 
is desperate to end the occupation. It just needs a Palestinian partner, unlike 
Mr Arafat, who doesn't seek to end Israel.
Slick Palestinian spokesmen assert daily, from the platforms granted to them 
by the deferential news channels, that Ariel Sharon's aggression is the cause of 
the current Middle East malaise – trusting interviewers and viewers alike to 
overlook the fact that the intifada was hatched under Mr Barak's watch. They 
blame Mr Sharon for the curfews and the blockades and the incursions – trusting 
interviewers and viewers to forget that there were no such crippling long-term 
curfews or blockades or incursions before the intifada was ignited and Israel 
searched for ways to intercept the bombers.
Had Mr Arafat, armed by Israel with what must be the highest proportion of 
security personnel of any regime in the world, chosen to frustrate terrorism 
rather than fund it, Israel would have had no need and certainly no desire to 
re-enter areas, such as the Jenin refugee camp, which it happily relinquished in 
late 1995.
Yet in a world turned upside-down, again, it now finds itself charged with 
the "massacre" of terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Mr Arafat's own 
Fatah faction who had despatched 23 suicide bombers from the camp.
Terrorists who had publicly bragged that they would fight to the last bullet, 
and who publicly delighted in ambushing 13 Israeli reservists – fathers and 
husbands called to the battle against the extremists that the cowardly Mr Arafat 
refused to fight, heads of families who will never return.
Thousands of civilians in the Jenin camp have, appallingly, lost their homes 
– because Israel was left with no choice but to confront the bombers where they 
thought they were immune, where Mr Arafat had allowed them to flourish. In a 
world turned upside-down, Israel is now pressured by the international community 
to "act with restraint" when the bombers blow up its civilians in restaurants 
and buses and wedding halls – and branded the aggressor when, betrayed by Mr 
Arafat, it attempts to thwart the bombers itself.
The extent of Israeli disillusionment with Mr Arafat is such that even Mr 
Peres, his fellow Nobel Peace laureate, can no longer find words for his 
defence. At an address on Sunday night in Washington, Mr Peres sighed with utter 
despair as he recounted that the US Secretary of State Colin Powell had merely 
asked Mr Arafat to pick up a microphone and denounce terrorism, and make a phone 
call to the heads of the 30,000 or more men he still has under arms to tell them 
to start clamping down on the bombers. But Mr Arafat was not prepared even to do 
this.
He has reverted utterly to type. Financing the Karine A shipment of 
Iranian arms, captured by Israel in January. Signing off on payments to 
murderers like Raed Karmi, the self-acknowledged killer of two Israelis whose 
crime was to sit down and eat at a Tulkarm restaurant. Using his tightly 
controlled media to broadcast on TV the Friday sermons of radical preachers 
urging the killing of Jews "everywhere". Exhorting his own people to 
"martyrdom". Again, not because Israel is intransigently rejecting compromise. 
He knows how untrue that is, even if the naïve journalists and governments do 
not. But becau

Gaza braces for Sharon to send in tanks in next phase of war [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.U

Title: Message



HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---


Gaza braces for Sharon to send in tanks in next phase of 
war
Palestinians build sand barricades as Israel again defies Bush 
By Robert Fisk in Gaza
27 April 2002


Internal links
Freed 
youths tell of hunger and death in Church of the Nativity
David 
Horovitz: Don't blame Israel. All we ever wanted was peace 
They are coming. That's what most Gazans tell you. The Israelis are coming. 
But the sand barricades are pathetic. Even a mile from the Erez "safe crossing'' 
point constructed during the early days of the mad dream of Oslo, the best that 
Yasser Arafat's legions can do is erect a 15ft rampart of earth and sandbags, 
with a 12ft gap for local cars – and for Israeli Merkava tanks when Ariel Sharon 
decides to drive in.
But the cops go on waving the donkey carts past the traffic lights, and the 
Palestinian Authority guards slumber with their Kalashnikov rifles in their tin 
shack, ready for part two of the Sharon War on Terror.
The odd thing is that if the Israeli Prime Minister really wants to dismantle 
the "network of terror'' of which he speaks so frequently, Gaza – the one place 
the Israeli army has not yet dared to reoccupy – should perhaps have been his 
first target. For here are militias aplenty, Palestinians who know how to 
destroy Merkava-3 tanks, who can manufacture short-range rockets and mortars and 
know the principles of booby traps better than the refugee gunmen of Jenin. As 
one local put it yesterday: "This place is wired.''
Its people are certainly preparing for the worst. The banks report massive 
withdrawals. Human rights groups are duplicating their files. Everyone knows 
what happened to the computerised archives of the Palestinian ministries in 
Ramallah and Nablus and Jenin; they were stolen by the Israeli soldiers because, 
in the imperishable words of one Israeli officer: "Documents have a very 
important value.''
But this is "Palestine".
"They say they've copied all their papers,'' a western human rights worker 
said. "But I don't think they've finished making CDs of all the files in our 
office and the paper archives are too large to photocopy now. They simply 
haven't started to get the work done.''
Yet there is a grim determination to accept the future. Raja Sourani, a human 
rights lawyer with the most eloquent, if pessimistic, view of the coming weeks – 
or days – has few illusions. "I think it's going to be bleak, black and bloody 
and I can see the blood that will be shed will be Israeli as well as 
Palestinian. The Palestinians are not ready to be good victims any more. They 
have nothing to lose.
"The Israelis have opened Pandora's Box. I never in my life have felt our 
morale and determination to be as high as it is now. I'm very proud – and I'm 
scared to death.''
So are the women of Gaza. Many are burying their jewels in their gardens or 
backyards. "We heard what happened to women in Ramallah who had thousands of 
dollars of jewellery stolen by the Israeli troops who entered their homes,'' a 
middle-class married woman in Gaza City said without emotion. "One friend of 
mine in Ramallah hid thousands of dollars in a big bowl of rice in the kitchen 
when the Israelis came to take over his house. He reckoned he would lose the 
money when he was searched. But when he came back, the rice was overturned and 
the money had gone.''
The graffiti warns of reoccupation. A hand grenade on one wall, a drawing of 
a wired bomb on another predict the doom of occupiers. Homes I entered were 
stuffed with food, water, blankets, in some cases sandbags. As the sea flopped 
on to the Gaza beach in the sultry afternoon, a few fishing boats glided over 
the water. But the catch doesn't count for much when four-hour power cuts – 
unannounced as usual by the corrupt Palestinian Authority – cut off deep freezes 
and fridges.
As one Palestinian militant remarked – how easily one falls into these 
categories to avoid identifying someone who may soon be in a prison cage – an 
Israeli assault is "as certain as I am seeing you". It was a matter of time, he 
said. "I don't trust the Arabic news. I listen to the news in Hebrew from 
Israel. Gaza sets the tone there – the Israelis can't complete their objectives 
without Gaza. It's here that Palestinian history has been decided for the past 
54 years.''
True, up to a point. The Palestine National Council first proclaimed 
Palestinian independence in Gaza on 1 October 1948, adopting the old green, 
white, black and red banner of the Arab Revolt as the flag. But then the Gaza 
Strip became a slum backyard of Egypt while the Mayor of Hebron handed over the 
West Bank to the Jordanian monarchy at a ceremony in Jericho. If Gaza is the 
last bit of unoccupied "Palestine" left, it's a midden.
"I think everything depends on three things,'' Mr Sourani said. "It's about 
what's going on back in Washington. It's about how far the Europeans will 
involve themselves. And it's abo

Good Morning Nuremberg [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Bill Clinton in running for job as TV talk show host:
US television  
AFP  
Washington, April 27 
Former US President Bill Clinton could soon start a
gig as the co-host of a morning television programme,
US media reported on Saturday. 
ABC-TV's gossip show "Extra" reported that Clinton is
a candidate to succeed retiring television host Bryant
Gumbel as the co-anchor of "The Early Show" - a
breakfast news programme on rival network CBS-TV. 
The ex-President, who left office 15 months ago,
already has been busy in retirement: his William J
Clinton Foundation is assembling teams of business
experts to provide financial, marketing and other
technical advice to owners of small businesses in
Harlem, where he maintains an office. 
Earlier this month hs took on a new job as a senior
advisor to two investment funds run by a cut price
grocery store tycoon, the Los Angeles-based Yucaipa
Companies said. 
And he is in the process of penning his memoirs, set
for publication in 2003, for publishing house Alfred A
Knopf, which paid him an advance of more than 10
million dollars - the largest ever for a non-fiction
book published in the United States.  

   


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John Pilger: VENEZUALA - THE LIES GO ON [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

Title: Message



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---



  
  

  VENEZUALA - THE 
  LIES GO ONIn his newest piece for The New Statesman, John Pilger 
  examines the response of Britain's media to the conspiracy in Venezuela. 
  The coverage provided an object lesson in how censorship works in free 
  societies: an 'unbiased' media has once again been used to promote the 
  interests of the powerful. The episode was a journalistic 
  disgrace.
   
  


   : John Pilger : 26 Apr 2002 
  
  

  

  


  
Last month, I wrote about Venezuela, pointing out 
that little had been reported in this country about the achievements 
of Hugo Chávez and the threat to his reforming government from the 
usual alliance of a corrupt
local elite and the United States. When the 
conspirators made their move on 12 April, the response of the 
British media provided an object lesson in how censorship works in 
free societies.
The BBC described Chávez as "not so much a democrat 
as an autocrat", echoing the Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane, 
who abused him as "a ranting demagogue". Alex Bellos, the Guardian's 
South America correspondent, reported, as fact, that "pro-Chávez 
snipers had killed at least 13 people" and that Chávez had requested 
exile in Cuba. "Thousands of people celebrated overnight, waving 
flags, blowing whistles . . ." he wrote, leaving the reader with the 
clear impression that almost everybody in Venezuela was glad to see 
the back of this "playground bully", as the Independent called 
him.
Within 48 hours, Chávez was back in office, put 
there by the mass of the people, who came out of the shanty towns in 
their tens of thousands. Defying the army, their heroism was in 
support of a leader whose democratic credentials are extraordinary 
in the Americas, south and north. Having won two presidential 
elections, the latest in 2000, by the largest majority in 40 years, 
as well as a referendum and local elections, Chávez was borne back 
to power by the impoverished majority whose "lot", wrote Bellos, he 
had "failed to improve" and among whom "his popularity had 
plummeted".
The episode was a journalistic disgrace. Most of 
what Bellos and others wrote, using similar words and phrases, 
turned out to be wrong. In Bellos's case, this was not surprising, 
as he was reporting from the wrong country, Brazil. Chávez said he 
never requested asylum in Cuba; the snipers almost certainly 
included agents provocateurs; "almost every sector of society 
[Chávez] antagonised" were principally members of various 
oligarchies he made pay tax for the first time, including the media, 
and the oil companies, whose taxes he doubled in order to raise 80 
per cent of the population to a decent standard of living. His 
opponents also included army officers trained at the notorious 
School of the Americas in the United States.
In a few years, Chávez had begun major reforms in 
favour of the indigenous poor, Venezuela's unpeople. In 49 laws 
adopted by the Venezuelan Congress, he began real land reform, and 
guaranteed women's rights and free healthcare and education up to 
university level.
He opposed the human rights abuses of the regime in 
neighbouring Colombia, encouraged and armed by Washington. He 
extended a hand to the victim of an illegal 40-year American 
blockade, Cuba, and sold the Cubans oil. These were his crimes, as 
well as saying that bombing children in Afghanistan was terrorism. 
Like Chile under Allende and Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, 
precious little of this was explained to the western public. Like 
the equally heroic uprising in Argentina last year, it was 
misrepresented as merely more Latin American chaos.
Last week, the admirable Glasgow University Media 
Group, under Greg Philo, released the results of a study which found 
that, in spite of the saturation coverage of the Middle East, most 
television viewers were left uninformed that the basic issue was 
Israel's illegal military occupation. "The more you watch, the less 
you know" - to quote Danny Schechter's description of American 
television news - was the study's conclusion.
Take US secreta

From The Halls Of Montezuma To The Sands Of Uzbekistan [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

[...We will fight our ruling elites' battles, in air,
sea, space and land.]

Stars And Stripes
Saturday, April 27, 2002
Iwakuni Marines setting up to aid mission in
Uzbekistan
Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, April 27, 2002
STRONGHOLD FREEDOM, Uzbekistan  U.S. Marines from
Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station, Japan, are deployed
here to establish air traffic control services and
provide base protection for U.S. and coalition
aircraft.
About 230 Marines from two Marine Air Control
Squadrons  one based in Iwakuni and the other from
Cherry Point, N.C.  are preparing for operations to
begin within the next few weeks, a Marine spokesman in
Uzebekistan told Stars and Stripes.
Further details on the Iwakuni unit were unavailable.
Iwakuni public affairs spokesman Gunnery Sgt. John
Olmstead would not provide details Wednesday about the
squadron in Uzbekistan, referring all questions to the
3rd Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa. A 3rd MEF
spokeswoman, 2nd Lt. Amy E. Malugani, referred
questions to the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla. A
spokesman from the U.S. Central also refused to
provide details on the deployment.
Marines at Stronghold Freedom said the mission is
unique.
"It's two squadrons working under the same hat,"
Marine Lt. Col. Laura Muhlenberg said. "It's the first
time we've executed a mission together."
The Marines plan to stay about six months, Muhlenberg
said.
Some of the Marines had little time to prepare for
Uzbekistan, said Marine Maj. George Williams, because
they pulled security duty at the Winter Olympics near
Salt Lake City, setting up radar.
"We went through an amazing amount of work to get here
in a short time," he said.
The former Soviet air base had little to offer the
Marines, who are waiting on Army engineers to improve
base facilities.
"Normally, we're on the ground and operating within a
couple days," Muhlenberg said. "It's being phased in.
Over the next few weeks, we will progressively provide
more services."
Last weekend, Cpl. Mark Kopanski, 20, of Coatsville,
Pa., and Lance Cpl. Frank Candiloro, 21, of Readsboro,
Vt., strung cables along an access road to the flight
line.
"We're running fiber optic wire to the Army switch,"
Kopanski said. "It's so the flight line can
communicate with the base camp."
Part of the Marine mission also is to set up
anti-terror force protection.
U.S. Special Forces are setting up a weapons range for
Marines to familiarize themselves with heavy machine
guns. Marine mentality dictates that all troops,
regardless of their job specialty, are basic
infantrymen.
Still, Lance Cpl. Scott Duncan, 20, from Raleigh,
N.C., was glad to train with the Green Berets before
taking his guard post.
"We all know to stand post," Duncan said. "This is an
opportunity to build up experience. I see it as an
opportunity."
Greg Tyler contributed to this report.


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Returning To The Scene Of The Crime [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

[Operation Desert Storm, Operation Allied Force.
Fighting for, then against terrorism; to preserve and
then to override national sovereignty; to drive the
Yugoslavs out of Yugoslavia; to preserve order in
Kosovo by turning the Serbian province over to crime
syndicate and ethnic cleansing KLA auxilliaries.
Must be hard for the poor GIs to sort out. Good thing
all the black and green suit brigades back in
Washington have time between press conferences and
white tie and tail dinner parties to think these
things through.]



Stars and Stripes
Saturday, April 27, 2002
1st ID is first infantry unit to return to Kosovo
By Steve Liewer, Würzburg bureau
European edition, Saturday, April 27, 2002
SCHWEINFURT, Germany  With a bit of ceremony and a
pep talk from its commander, the first infantry unit
to enter Kosovo three years ago is now the first unit
to return to the battle-scarred region.
The soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division's 1st
Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment formed near the
flagpole at Schweinfurt's Ledward Barracks on Tuesday
afternoon. They listened as their officers handed out
awards and saluted as a color guard lowered the flag.
Lt. Col. Wayne Grigsby, the battalion commander, told
the troops they are well prepared for their six-month
peacekeeping mission in the Balkan province. He
praised them for their performance during three months
of rigorous training, the quality of the unit's
noncommissioned officers and the work of their family
readiness group in helping to care for loved ones left
behind.
"There's a lot of pride," Grigsby said. "We're not
going to let the Big Red One down."
The first few soldiers left Tuesday night, Grigsby
said, and most of the rest of the unit will fly to
Kosovo in the next week. About 10 percent of the
battalion will stay in Germany as a rear detachment to
guard the posts at Schweinfurt and to keep families in
touch with the deployed soldiers.
The deployment is another historic moment for the
unit. On D-Day, its soldiers stormed Omaha Beach.
Three years ago, it was the first U.S. unit to arrive
in Kosovo after the end of the NATO bombing campaign
that drove Yugoslavian forces from the province. Now,
it is the first infantry unit to return.
One big difference between the two missions: In 1999,
the battalion had only three days' notice before it
left for Kosovo. Its members have known about this one
for more than a year.
"Because we knew we were in the rotation, we started
[preparing] six months early," said Jo Eells, director
of Schweinfurt's Army Community Service Center, which
trains the family readiness groups.
Following Tuesday's ceremony, Grigsby and unit leaders
briefed the troops one final time about the
deployment. Grigsby said the unit's rear detachment
will send daily e-mail updates to every family. The
readiness group has also established a free cyber cafe
in Schweinfurt so families can keep in touch via
e-mail even if they don't have home computers.
"When I was in Desert Shield, the first contact I had
with my loved ones was after 90 days. Ninety days!"
Grigsby said. "In Kosovo, immediately we have
connectivity with our loved ones. That is huge."
Still, no one doubts a six-month separation will be
stressful.
Pfc. Luis Aguilo, 23, has served in the Army for eight
months. He arrived in Germany with his wife and two
children just two weeks ago. This is his first
deployment.
"I'm a little nervous," Aguilo said. "[My wife] has
adapted very quickly. There's always the feeling like
'I miss you,' but I know she's pretty tough. She
understands, and she knows it's my job."
The battalion will take over for the 10th Mountain
Division's 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment at
Camp Monteith, in Gjilane. During the next two weeks,
more 2nd Brigade units from Schweinfurt will join
them: the 1st Battalion, 77th Infantry Regiment; the
1st Battalion, 77th Armored Regiment; the 1st
Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment; the 9th
Engineering Battalion; and the 299th Field Support
Battalion. A team of medical personnel from the
Würzburg-based 67th Combat Surgical Hospital has been
downrange since early April.
Some members of the 1st ID staff and the 101st
Military Intelligence Battalion, both from Würzburg,
also will head downrange in May to join Task Force
Falcon. So will elements of the 121st Signal Battalion
from Kitzingen, the 2nd Battalion 1st Aviation
Regiment from Katterbach, and the 709th Military
Police Battalion from Hanau.
These units are scheduled to remain in Kosovo until
late November, when more 1st ID units  this time from
the 3rd Brigade, based in Vilseck, Germany  are
scheduled to relieve them.


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EASY UN

Yemeni Protesters Demand US Military Leave [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

Yemen Protesters Want U.S. Ties Cut  By AHMED AL-HAJ :
Associated Press Writer
Apr 26, 2002 : 9:12 pm ET 
SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- Yemeni police dispersed about
2,000 anti-American demonstrators who called on their
government Friday to break diplomatic ties with the
United States. 
The protesters gathered following noon prayers in the
capital, San'a, and began to march on the U.S.
Embassy, but police blocked their path. 
Demonstrations against the United States and Israel
also took place in Jordan, Bahrain and Egypt. 
The Yemeni protesters carried signs that read "We ask
for the expulsion of American military experts doing
anti-terrorism work." 
Organizers distributed a statement in the name of
"Supporters of Palestine" that condemned Yemen's
cooperation with the United States in security matters
and the U.S. training of Yemeni military and
anti-terrorism units. 
The statement asked for the U.S. Embassy to be closed,
its ambassador to be expelled and for the recall of
Yemen's ambassador to the United States. 
Yemen and the United States are cooperating in a
number of security fields, including training and the
exchange of intelligence information. The United
States is helping Yemen to modernize its immigration
computer system. 
Security in Yemen, a poor nation at the southern tip
of the Arabian peninsula, has been a top concern of
the United States since the attack on the destroyer
USS Cole in October 2000 that killed 17 American
sailors in Aden harbor. 
U.S. investigators believe the al-Qaida terrorist
group was responsible for both the Cole bombing and
the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. 
Yemen's government has said there may be members of
al-Qaida in the country, but says their number is
limited. 
 
 
  
 
 

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Yemeni Protesters Demand US Military Leave [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

Yemen Protesters Want U.S. Ties Cut  By AHMED AL-HAJ :
Associated Press Writer
Apr 26, 2002 : 9:12 pm ET 
SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- Yemeni police dispersed about
2,000 anti-American demonstrators who called on their
government Friday to break diplomatic ties with the
United States. 
The protesters gathered following noon prayers in the
capital, San'a, and began to march on the U.S.
Embassy, but police blocked their path. 
Demonstrations against the United States and Israel
also took place in Jordan, Bahrain and Egypt. 
The Yemeni protesters carried signs that read "We ask
for the expulsion of American military experts doing
anti-terrorism work." 
Organizers distributed a statement in the name of
"Supporters of Palestine" that condemned Yemen's
cooperation with the United States in security matters
and the U.S. training of Yemeni military and
anti-terrorism units. 
The statement asked for the U.S. Embassy to be closed,
its ambassador to be expelled and for the recall of
Yemen's ambassador to the United States. 
Yemen and the United States are cooperating in a
number of security fields, including training and the
exchange of intelligence information. The United
States is helping Yemen to modernize its immigration
computer system. 
Security in Yemen, a poor nation at the southern tip
of the Arabian peninsula, has been a top concern of
the United States since the attack on the destroyer
USS Cole in October 2000 that killed 17 American
sailors in Aden harbor. 
U.S. investigators believe the al-Qaida terrorist
group was responsible for both the Cole bombing and
the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. 
Yemen's government has said there may be members of
al-Qaida in the country, but says their number is
limited. 
 
 
  
 
 

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Closer US Military Ties Could Threaten Canadian Sovereignty, Lives [WWW.STOPNATO


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---

Canadian Press
April 27, 2002

Closer military ties to U.S. threaten sovereignty,
even lives: report  
JOHN WARD
OTTAWA (CP) - Closer military ties to the United
States could threaten Canada's sovereignty and even
the lives of its soldiers, says an academic report
released Friday.  
The document was written by Michael Byers, a Canadian
who teaches law at Duke University in North Carolina.
It was done for the Liu Centre for the Study of Global
Issues, a Vancouver think-tank led by Lloyd Axworthy,
the former foreign affairs minister. It looks at
America's new Northern Command, a military
headquarters to be set up next fall to co-ordinate
defence of North America.  
Byers says that if Canada is drawn into Northern
Command and tighter links with the American military
command, it will be risking a lot.  
He questions whether Canada might lose its freedom of
action on the international scene. He suggests Canada
might become a puppet of American foreign policy and
be forced into massive defence spending under American
pressure. 
Defence Minister Art Eggleton dismissed the concerns,
saying there's no intention of integrating the
military of the two countries. 
"A lot of these comments are 'if we're doing this,' or
'if we're doing that,' there's a concern about this,"
he said. "There's a lot of ifs." 
He said the Northern Command is purely an internal
command structure for the American military. 
Canadian officials have held informal talks on the new
command but only to look for practical ways of
co-operation, he added. 
Axworthy, though, said the whole issue of closer
military links needs to be thoroughly debated. 
"This is an issue . . . that carries with it the same
weight and significance, in fact, as the free trade
debate did over 10 years ago," he said. 
"It needs to be carefully looked at, prudently
considered and publicly debated." 
Byers, who said he considers himself pro-American,
said there are many potential dangers in moving into a
closer military relationship. 
"One has to examine, in careful detail, through
rigorous analysis, all of the various implications for
Canadian policy, both domestic and foreign, of any
move of this kind," he said. "This report is designed
to pose some of the questions that Canadians need to
ask." 
Among his questions: 
-Could Canadian Arctic jurisdiction be threatened? 
-Might a unified command prevent Canadian troops from
taking part in a peacekeeping mission Washington
dislikes? 
-Might American commanders use Canadian troops as
cannon fodder to protect their own soldiers? 
In the Commons, the Bloc Quebecois fretted about
closer ties with the United States. 
Michel Guimond said this might hamper Canadian efforts
to promote nuclear disarmament. 
"We have a lot of differences with the Americans," he
said. 
Stephane Bergeron wondered if Canada might be pushed
into far higher defence spending. 
Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham waved off these
concerns. 
"Right now, there is no threat to sovereignty, to
Canadians or Canada because we have no agreement with
the United States on this topic," he said. 
"The Americans have established certain provisions for
their own security. We will examine them and we will
take the measures necessary to protect ourselves." 
Eggleton said the informal talks with the United
States don't contemplate any sort of military
integration. 
"Let's not try to confuse day-to-day operational
improvements with something that relates to the
integration of the two militaries," he said. "We're
not talking about that." 
While Byers seems leery about a closer defence
relationship, another study released this week by the
Institute for Research on Public Policy, praises the
way the Canadian navy has been able to mesh with
American sea operations. 
"The world-class capabilities of the Canadian Navy,
combined with careful and continual political
oversight can make interoperability with the United
States navy a mainstay of Canada's national security
policy, says the report by Joel Sokolsky, of the Royal
Military College. 


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KOSOVO-NATO'S FATAL ERROR -ANNIVERSARY OF SHAME [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG

Title: Message



HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---


 
KOSOVO-NATO’S FATAL ERROR –ANNIVERSARY OF 
SHAME: MARCH 1999-MARCH 2002 
 
Ambassador Bissett 
 
http://www.deltax.net/bissett
 


  
  

  


  ANNIVERSARY OF SHAME: MARCH 1999-MARCH 
2002

  

  Bayronica, March 
2002

  

  On March 24 Serbian people around the world will recall with 
horror the shameful destruction of their country by the US led NATO 
Alliance. Three years ago, for 78 days and nights, NATO aircraft 
pounded Yugoslavia inflicting terrible damage on the civilian 
infrastructure of the country.
  

  

  

  
The use of cluster bombs 
  and weapons containing depleted uranium caused hundreds of civilian deaths 
  and injuries. The psychological scars inflicted on the people may never be 
  reconciled. This was an illegal and unjustified act of blatant aggression. 
  That it was carried out by the democratic nations of Western Europe and 
  North America only added to the bewilderment and horror.
  

  

  

  
The ongoing trial of the 
  former Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, can only be seen as a 
  desperate attempt to justify NATO’s criminal actions. It will not succeed. 
  The legacy of Madeline Albright’s war will be the dishonour it has brought 
  to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Kosovo was NATO’s fatal 
  error.
  

  

  

  
For more than forty 
  years, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization protected the West from the 
  very real threat of aggressive Soviet communism. It was an organization 
  respected and admired by all free men. NATO was more than just a powerful 
  military alliance. It was founded on a bedrock of morality and high 
  principle. It stood for the principles of the United Nations Charter. It 
  stood for democracy, for the rule of law and for all of those things our 
  fathers and grandfathers had fought for in two cataclysmic World Wars. All 
  of this changed in the spring of 1999 when NATO bombers launched its 
  unprovoked and illegal assault against the sovereign state of 
  Yugoslavia.
  

  

  

  
The idea for NATO grew out of a 
  suggestion proposed in 1948 by the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
  Louis St. Laurent, that the European Defense Alliance of five European 
  countries be expanded to include the United States and Canada. A year 
  later in April 1949 the treaty was signed in Washington and NATO was 
  born.
  

  

  

  
NATO was a defensive 
  alliance. The first article of the Treaty made this clear. Article 1 read 
  in part, “ The parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the 
  United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be 
  involved, by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and 
  security and justice are not endangered…and to refrain in their 
  international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner 
  inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”
  

  

  

  
After the collapse of 
  the Soviet Union and the demise of the Warsaw Pact forces in Eastern 
  Europe the reason for NATO’s continuing existence began to come under 
  serious scrutiny. Why maintain such a large and expensive military 
  organization in Western Europe when any threat from the former Soviet 
  Union had evaporated? Before this question could be resolved, however, a 
  new role for the Alliance was discovered. The violent breakup of the 
  Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s provided NATO with a 
  new mission- that of peace keeping.
  

  

  


  
  

  


  As violence and bloodshed spread in 
Croatia and Bosnia, the peacekeeping role turned into direct 
military action. Under the leadership of the United States, NATO 
intervened in the civil war in Yugoslavia and carried out air 
strikes against Serbian forces in Croatia and Bosnia. These air 
strikes were not conducted for defensive purposes. None of the NATO 
countries was threatened by the Yugoslav conflict. 



  

  

  

  
However, the strikes 
  were carried out with the authority and approval of the Security Council 
  of the United Nations. Therefore, while clearly in violation of the spirit 
  of Article 1 of NATO’s Treaty, it could be argued the military action was 
  in keeping with the purposes of the United Nations. 
  After Bosnia there was no further talk about dismantling NATO. On 
  the contrary, the air s

News, 27.4.2002, 16:00 UTC [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---



   Deutsche Welle
   English Service News
   April 27th, 2001, 16:00 UTC
 
--
   Today's highlight on DW-WORLD:

   Germany Mourns

   After Friday's school massacre in the eastern German city of Erfurt,
   a time of soul searching has begun. The Gutenberg High School
   shooting left 17 people dead.

   To read this article on the DW-WORLD website, just click on the
   internet address below:

   http://dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1430_A_507765_1_A,00.html
 
--

   Germany in shock as 17 die in school shooting

   German police said that 19-year-old pupil Robert Steinhaeuser
   responsible for the country's worst post-war mass killing was a
   registered gun club member. The recently expelled young man had
   returned to his local school with a pump-action shotgun and a handgun
   and killed 13 teachers, two pupils, a police officer and then
   himself. Police said that Mr. Steinhaeuser, dressed in black and
   masked had access to enough ammunition to kill hundreds of people.
   His rampage was ended when a teacher grabbed and unmasked him and
   pushed him into a room, locking the door. It was then that he took
   his own life. Mr. Steinhaeuser had to repeat his final year, but was
   expelled before the school-leaving examination, required for
   university studies, because he forged absentee excuse notes. Flags
   through-out Germany are flying at half-mast this weekend.


   Gunmen kill 5 in Jewish settlement after UN Middle East mission is
   delayed

   Five people have been killed when gunmen attacked an Israeli
   settlement in the West Bank in the first such assault since Israel
   launched a four-week-old military sweep through Palestinian-ruled
   cities. The attack on Adora, northwest of the divided city of Hebron,
   came a day after U.S. President George W. Bush again insisted Israel
   immediately end its military offensive, after another Israeli raid
   defied his earlier demands. In another development the United Nations
   has agreed to delay a mission to the West Bank Palestinian refugee
   camp of Jenin, where it will now arrive on Sunday. U.N. Secretary-
   General Kofi Annan agreed to the delay at the request of Israeli
   Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who said it would give the Israeli
   cabinet time to discuss the mission before its arrival.


   Afghan warlord kill at least 25 people

   An Afghan warlord rained hundreds of rockets on the main east Afghan
   city of Gardez on Saturday killing at least 25 people in the biggest
   outbreak of fighting between rival Afghan forces for several months.
   Governor Taj Mohammad Wardak of Paktia province, scene of the biggest
   U.S.-led ground battle of the Afghan war last month, blamed the
   attack on former governor Khan Zadran, who was ousted from power in
   February. He said the former governor was trying to take over Gardez.
   The fighting broke out on the day U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
   visited Kabul and several hours after the Afghan capital's airport
   was hit by several rockets. There were no casualties in the airport
   attack.


   Madagascar governors threaten to split the island

   Five of Madagascar's six governors loyal to embattled Madagascan
   President Ratsiraka said on Saturday they would set up an independent
   state if a recount of disputed December polls declared rival Marc
   Ravalomanana the winner. The island off southeast Africa has been in
   political crisis since the elections, which Ravalomanana, the popular
   mayor of the capital, says he won. Mr. Ratsiraka denies that the
   election was rigged and says neither man won. The two men, who both
   now claim to be president, agreed in Dakar earlier this month to
   allow a recount of the polls to determine the victor. If neither was
   shown to have a majority, a referendum would be held to let the
   people decide. The High Constitutional Court began re-analysing the
   votes last week and says it will announce the results on Monday.


   Pakistan Supreme Court upholds Musharraf's referendum

   A nine member bench of the Pakistan Supreme Court Saturday
   unanimously rejected a host of petitions questioning the legality of
   the referendum being held on April 30th to extend President Pervez
   Musharraf's term by five years. The Court held that the referendum is
   legal. The referendum has been termed as unconstitutional and illegal
   by the mainstream political and religious parties.


   North Korean asylum seekers leave China

   Three North Koreans who entered Western embassy compounds in Beijing
   in the latest in a series of asylum bids have left China. A North
   Korean man climbed over a wall into the German Embassy grounds on
   Thursday. The next day, two North Koreans entered the U.S. Embassy
   compound seeking asylum. Diplomatic sour

Month 8: US-NATO Bring Peace & Stability To Afghanistan [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

Sydney Morning Herald
April 28, 2002
 
Explosions hit capital, new fighting erupts
April 28 2002
AAP
Kabul's international airport has been hit by three
explosions, in what is believed to be a series of
rocket attacks. Military sources say there are no
injuries. 
British and French troops based near the airport have
been put on full alert following the blasts. 
The explosions came just hours before US Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is due to arrive at Bagram
Air Base, 50 kilometres north of Kabul. He is expected
to travel to the Afghan capital to hold talks with
interim leader Hamid Karzai. 
Meanwhile remnants of Taliban and al-Qaeda forces have
attacked the main eastern Afghanistan town of Gardez
near where the biggest US-led ground battle of the
Afghan war was fought last month.
The Afghan Islamic Press says artillery and rockets
were used in yesterday's fighting which killed four
and wounded nine. 
Gardez has been the scene of bitter infighting between
rival warlords from the majority ethnic Pashtun
community since the beginning of the year.


__
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Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness
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NATO: Boondoggle For Death Merchants [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

[For anyone still in doubt about the true purpose of
the expanded, post-Cold War NATO alliance, this
feature will put any such doubt to rest.
The small Czech Republic, which needs 24 supersonic
fighters (at a cost of $2billion) like Afghanistan
needs a navy, backs out of an arms purchase contract
with Sweden because - Sweden is not yet a NATO member.
What is the ineluctable message given to Gripen and
other Swedish firms, ones with great influence over
Sweden's elected officials?]
 

The Washington Times
www.washtimes.com
  
Analysis: Big Czech arms deal on hold
Martin Walker
Chief international correspondent
Published 4/27/2002
 PRAGUE, Czech Republic, April 27 (UPI) -- One of
Europe's biggest and most controversial arms deals,
the Czech government's decision to buy 24 supersonic
Gripen fighters from Sweden at a cost of nearly $2
billion, is on hold after the Czech parliament this
week refused to approve the spending commitment. 
 Officials say the deal may not survive scheduled
June elections. 
 The purchase has contained some oddities from the
beginning. The Czechs decided to buy the planes as a
symbol of their commitment to the NATO alliance, which
the country joined in 1999. But the Swedes who
manufacture the Gripen are not NATO members, and there
is some question how well the fighters would operate
within the rest of NATO's air fleet. 
 The three other bidders for the deal, the
American Lockheed-Martin group offering F-16s, the
Eurofighter group whose aircraft is being bought by
Britain and Germany, and the French Dassault company,
all made the unusual decision to withdraw their offers
at the last minute, amid swirling rumors of
questionable procurement practices. 
 The Czech government has dismissed the concerns,
saying that the Gripen is a joint venture of the
Swedish group and Britain's BAe group, whose 35
percent participation in the Gripen deal is sufficient
guarantee that the fighter will be able to operate
with other NATO air forces. But although British prime
minister Tony Blair made a strong pitch for the Gripen
deal on a recent visit to Prague, raising some
eyebrows back home, the fact remains that Britain's
Royal Air Force has no intention of buying the Gripen.

 The deal has far-reaching implications for NATO,
because all three new members, Poland, Hungary and the
Czech Republic, have decided to upgrade and Westernize
their formerly Soviet-made air forces at the same
time. The prospect of a major sales bonanza attracted
massive interest from the world's combat aircraft
manufacturers. So far, the Hungarians and Czechs have
gone for the Gripen, and the Poles remain undecided. 
 With NATO now expected to bring in seven
additional new members from Eastern Europe at the
alliance summit in Prague in November, the promise of
the enlarged NATO arms market is even more tempting.
But the high cost of advanced fighter jets is a major
problem for the Eastern European economies still
making the difficult transition from Soviet-style
central planning to free enterprise. Czech critics of
the Gripen deal say the cost will derail more urgent
plans to modernize the military. 
 "The purchase will only add to the present
paralysis of the Czech military budget -- with effects
on the procurement system that will continue for the
next three decades," Petr Vancura, director of the
Prague Institute for National Security, told United
Press International. "The real Czech priority is to
modernize the army, not to buy a small number of
high-performance fighters. The net result could be net
weakening of the Czech military contribution to NATO
-- which makes the British aspect of the deal all the
harder to understand." 
 BAe is the only non-American defense group to be
treated by the Pentagon as virtually a U.S. national
in defense procurement matters, and is a close partner
of Lockheed-Martin in the development of the new
"joint strike fighter". The BAe role in the Gripen
deal has provoked some tension in the relationship
between BAe and Lockheed-Martin, industry sources have
told UPI. 
 "The Czech Republic is already lagging in the
fulfillment of its NATO obligations to modernize the
army because of previous irresponsible purchases and
other financial commitments of the Ministry of
Defense," Vancura added. 
 The Gripen team made a highly attractive offer,
which included promises to invest more money into the
Czech economy than the initial purchase price of the
fighters, including promises to transfer technology
that would upgrade the small Czech aeronautic
industry. This aspect of the deal convinced the Social
Democrat-led government to go ahead with the deal. The
government has so far been unable to get parliamentary
approval for the first batch of payments, however, and
looks to be running out of time before scheduled
elections, now just two months away. 
 One factor in the parliament's reluctance to
approve the

The case against the Hague court [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

2002-04-27 Thread The Elegant

Title: Message



HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---



MILOSEVIC IN THE 
DOCK
The case against the 
Hague court
by CATHERINE 
SAMARY

"We knew the Milosevic trial was going to be 
difficult but who could have imagined that, from the very beginning, it would be 
such a disaster for the International Criminal Tribunal?" This comment from 
Stojan Cerovic, a reporter on the weekly news magazine Vreme 
(1), well known in Belgrade for hostility to Slobodan Milosevic, confirmed what 
people were saying, not without pride, on the streets of the Serbian capital 
after the first few days of what was to be a "historic trial". 
Until the trial opened on 12 February, it had looked 
as though Milosevic and his defenders were going to challenge the legal standing 
of the tribunal and boycott the trial (2). Milosevic had been held in Belgrade 
at the time and his supporters claim that his forcible removal to The Hague was 
unlawful. Indeed, the Yugoslav constitutional court had just refused to grant 
extradition on the ground that there was - and still is - no legal basis for 
cooperation with the ICTY. 
In the event, Milosevic opted to use this public 
arena to present his own defence, declaring that "the people and public opinion 
should be his judges." In Belgrade, there was intense interest in the opening of 
the trial. The proceedings were broadcast live on three channels, viewers kept a 
daily tally of the points scored by the defendant and his popularity began to 
recover. But it was not to last. 
CNN stopped broadcasting when he produced pictures 
of the collateral damage caused by the Nato bombing. Since 19 February, when he 
undermined the principal witness for the prosecution, Mahmut Bakalli, in 
cross-examination, even the ICTY website no longer publishes transcripts of the 
proceedings. The Serbian radio and television service Radiotelevizija Srbije 
(RTS) stopped broadcasting the trial on 8 March, on the ground that it was too 
costly, and the federal TV channel YuInfo followed suit on 13 March. The 
independent radio station B92, which has good technical links with the ICTY, 
still covers the trial, but subscribers may decide to call a halt at any time. 

President Vojislav Kostunica's view is that "much of 
the evidence is true but much is also superficial, truncated and manipulated. It 
is being politicised and there is an element of hypocrisy" (3). In fact, despite 
the tribunal's attempts to appear impartial, the prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, 
has largely helped to bring the ICTY into disrepute by refusing to investigate 
the claim that Nato was guilty of war crimes against civilians. And the 
defendant, Milosevic, whatever one may think of his policies and his one-sided 
interpretation of events, has been helped by the paranoid theory - rightly 
condemned by Stojan Cerovic - that "the whole disaster in former Yugoslavia was 
the result of a criminal conspiracy among members of his entourage" (4). 
Sociologist Srdjan Bogosavljevic, interviewed in 
Belgrade during the first week of the trial, explained the general unwillingness 
to admit that crimes had been committed in the name of Serbia: "Most people say 
they could not bring themselves to commit a crime and they believe the same is 
true of Serbs in general. But the main reason for this collective blind spot is 
that there are about 600,000 Serbian refugees from Croatia and Bosnia in the 
country, so people are more aware of the crimes of others." 
The jokes circulating in Belgrade about the Kosovar 
Albanian witnesses are sometimes thought to be a bit racist. In fact, Mahmut 
Bakalli, a former apparatchik of the League of Communists, was president of 
Kosovo in 1981 and in that sense he is emblematic of the prosecution's 
weaknesses. He made a very poor showing as a witness for the prosecution because 
he was desperately anxious to attribute the start of the crisis in Kosovo to a 
speech Milosevic made in 1989. He was equally poor as a spokesman for the 
Albanian cause because, as the defendant did not fail to point out, this was the 
man who had ordered the tanks out in 1981 to crush demonstrations by young 
Kosovars seeking republican status for the province. Milosevic quoted an 
interview with Bakalli at the time, in which he had rejected their claim. 
The responsibility for evidence of this type lies 
with the tribunal machinery, which has tried to justify bringing a case against 
Milosevic for the events in Kosovo during the Nato bombing, while glossing over 
the nature of the real conflicts that were tearing the province apart and 
overlooking the civil war underlying the expulsions, which was made worse by the 
bombing. Will the ICTY be accused of "revisionism" because it withdrew the 
charge relating to the notorious Operation Horseshoe (5), which turned out to be 
a fabrication? The constant bombardment, actual and verbal, ("Auschwitz", 
"genocide", "deportation") has caused intoxication; a cool look at the evidence 
is

New Bush Appointment [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---



Bush Picks Albanian Ambassador

.c The Associated Press 

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - President Bush nominated James Franklin Jeffrey on Thursday to be ambassador to Albania.
 
Jeffrey is a career member of the Foreign Service.
 
Bush made the announcement at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.
 

   04/25/02 17:56 EDT
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Fwd: on the acquittal of "Dr. Death" [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

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---

In a message dated 26/04/02 23:05:46 Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Subj:on the acquittal of "Dr. Death"
Date:26/04/02 23:05:46 Eastern Daylight Time
From:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
File:image001.gif (54 bytes) DL Time (41333 bps): < 1 minute
Sent from the Internet

[the trial dealt not only with “the South African Army's long, dirty war against its own people” as Finnegan puts it, but also with said army’s long, dirty war against the people and liberation movements of Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, and Mozambique – jy]

The New Yorker 4/22/02

A Verdict in South Africa

by William Finnegan

Issue of 2002-04-22
Posted 2002-04-22

The trial of Dr. Wouter Basson, the head of the South African apartheid regime's top-secret chemical- and biological-warfare program, ended this month, after two and a half years, with acquittals on all charges. Prosecutors quickly said they would appeal, but the government's last hope of convicting even one high military officer (Basson was a brigadier) for crimes committed during the South African Army's long, dirty war against its own people in the years before democracy now seems lost.

In "The Poison Keeper" (January 15, 2001), I reported on the trial, which was then at its midpoint. Basson originally faced sixty-seven counts of murder, conspiracy to murder, drug offenses, and fraud. In the course of the proceedings, Judge Willie Hartzenberg (the sole adjudicator; there was no jury) eliminated twenty-one of those charges—including six of the most serious, one of which involved the murder by lethal injection of two hundred prisoners—before concluding, in a judgment that took him nine hours to read out, that the state had failed to prove any of the remaining charges. The Pretoria courtroom was full of Basson supporters, including a former Minister of Defense, a former chief of the armed forces, and other top military officials from the apartheid era, who applauded when the verdict was read. Basson smiled, said nothing, and drove away in his red BMW.

What did the verdict mean? According to the former Defense Minister, it exonerated the apartheid military of all war crimes. To the former armed-forces chief, it affirmed that Basson was "a good man who did exactly what was expected of him." To most black South Africans, it is safe to say, the verdict meant something different—that, despite the negotiated transition to a nonracial democracy, some things hadn't changed. The spokesman for the ruling party, the African National Congress, called it "outrageously bad." Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it was "a sad day" for the South African judicial system.

Much of the testimony had been astonishing. The prosecution had called a hundred and fifty-three witnesses, including smugglers, death-squad operatives, and a number of scientists who worked on Project Coast, as the top-secret program was known. They described research into a race-specific bacterial weapon; large-scale production of dangerous drugs; the fatal poisoning of anti-apartheid leaders, captured guerrillas, and suspected security risks; plans to spread cholera through the water supply; a plot to poison Nelson Mandela in his cell; and even a project to find ways to sterilize the country's black population. Macabre biological and toxic weapons came to light: chocolate spiked with anthrax or botulinum; cigarettes spiked with anthrax; beer spiked with thallium and botulinum; deodorant infected with paratyphoid; anthrax spores sprinkled on the gum of envelope flaps. The defense produced only one witness: Basson, who spent nine weeks on the stand and denied involvement in anything illegal.

In his testimony, Basson had regaled the court with tales of his exploits as soldier, scientist, physician, spy, biowarrior, and sanctions-buster for the old white-minority regime. He told yarn after yarn about his adventures in far corners of the globe in pursuit of allies, ingredients, and information for his secret weapons program. His terrible stint in a Swiss jail was even worse, he assured the judge, than his stay in a Libyan jail. When it came to the more brutal aspects of his work as a soldier—to incidents that could not be denied—Basson's explanation was timeless: he was only following orders. "I am a dedicated and committed medical practitioner and very proud to have served my country during what was a war," Basson declared. Judge Hartzenberg, a fellow-Afrikaner who has been on the South African bench for nearly two decades, believed him.

Within a day of the verdict, Basson was reinventing himself again. He held a press conference, which was broadcast live on South African TV—just as the reading of the verdict had been—and there cast himself as a victim. His treatment had been "a gross abuse of human rights," he said, and the government would do far better to use the money that it would spend on appealing the verdict to pay for drug treatme

Fwd: The Development Set [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

In a message dated 26/04/02 13:56:29 Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

The Development Set

Excuse me, friends, I must catch my jet-
I'm off to join the Development Set;
My bags are packed, and I've had all my shots,
I have travellers' cheques, and pills for the trots.

The Development Set is bright and noble,
Our thoughts are deep and our vision global;
Although we move with the better classes,
Our thoughts are always with the masses.

In Sheraton hotels in scattered nations,
We damn multinational corporations;
Injustice seems so easy to protest,
In such seething hotbeds of social rest.

We discuss malnutrition over steaks
And plan hunger talks during coffee breaks.
Whether Asian floods or African drought,
We face each issue with an open mouth.

We bring in consultants whose circumlocution
Raises difficulties for every solution-
Thus guaranteeing continued good eating
By showing the need for another meeting.

The language of the Development Set
Stretches the English alphabet;
We use swell words like 'epigenetic',
'Micro', 'Macro'. and 'logarithmetic'.

Development Set homes are extremely chic,
Full of carvings, curios and draped with batik.
Eye-level photographs subtly assure
That your host is at home with the rich and the poor.

Enough of these verses -- on with the mission!
Our task is as broad as the human condition!
Just pray to God the biblical promise is true:
The poor ye shall always have with you.
Ross Coggins

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--- Begin Message ---
The Development Set
Excuse me, friends, I must catch my jet- I'm off to join the Development Set; My bags are packed, and I've had all my shots, I have travellers' cheques, and pills for the trots.
The Development Set is bright and noble, Our thoughts are deep and our vision global; Although we move with the better classes, Our thoughts are always with the masses.
In Sheraton hotels in scattered nations, We damn multinational corporations; Injustice seems so easy to protest, In such seething hotbeds of social rest.
We discuss malnutrition over steaks And plan hunger talks during coffee breaks. Whether Asian floods or African drought, We face each issue with an open mouth.
We bring in consultants whose circumlocution Raises difficulties for every solution- Thus guaranteeing continued good eating By showing the need for another meeting.
The language of the Development Set Stretches the English alphabet; We use swell words like 'epigenetic', 'Micro', 'Macro'. and 'logarithmetic'.
Development Set homes are extremely chic, Full of carvings, curios and draped with batik. Eye-level photographs subtly assure That your host is at home with the rich and the poor.
Enough of these verses -- on with the mission! Our task is as broad as the human condition! Just pray to God the biblical promise is true: The poor ye shall always have with you.
Ross CogginsJoin the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. Click Here
--- End Message ---

Spies get off easy in Greece... [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Court Convicts Euro Aviation Buffs

By DEREK GATOPOULOS
.c The Associated Press

KALAMATA, Greece (AP) - Fourteen aviation buffs were convicted on misdemeanor espionage charges Friday and ordered to serve one to three years in prison for taking notes on aircraft at Greek military bases.

But the court suspended the sentences after the ``plane spotters'' appealed, ending - at least for the time being - a case that caused considerable friction between Greece and Britain.

The 12 British and two Dutch aviation enthusiasts were released pending an appeals hearing. As no hearing was immediately scheduled, all 14 planned to leave Greece on Saturday.

The group was arrested after an air show on Nov. 8 in Kalamata, about 150 miles southwest of Athens, and accused of being spies. They said they were merely practicing their hobby but spent five weeks in prison before they were freed on bail.

Originally charged with a felony carrying a maximum of 20 years in prison, the charges were later reduced to a misdemeanor.

Police initially said they were photographing aircraft but during the trial, prosecution witnesses admitted the group had taken no pictures at any of the six air bases they visited.

A three-judge panel, however, dismissed the defendants' arguments, and convicted them Friday on the basis of the notes found in their possession.

Eight were convicted of gathering illegal information and the six others of complicity. The eight were then sentenced to three years in prison; the six others to one year.

Richard Howitt, a British member of the European Parliament, who testified on the group's behalf, called the result ``diabolical'' and pledged to take the case to the European Court.

Other British lawmakers in London also expressed their shock.

``It just seems absolutely incredible and unbelievable that a Greek court should come to this decision,'' said Conservative deputy Gerald Howarth, a pilot for 35 years. ``It is a very popular occupation in this country among people interested in aviation. I just cannot believe that the Greeks have taken this attitude toward them.''

Plane spotters, as they are known in Britain, observe, photograph and take notes such as the serial numbers of military and civilian aircraft. The hobby is virtually unknown in Greece, which has a tradition of tight military controls because of long-standing territorial disputes with neighboring Turkey.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair ``continues to follow this case closely,'' his spokesman said, adding that Blair has in the past brought it up with his Greek counterpart Costas Simitis.

``The government has always believed that the response to this case has been disproportionate and will continue to give the defendants and their families as much help as it can,'' the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.

Defense lawyers and witnesses argued that the information they were accused of gathering on the planes was freely available in books and on the Internet.

But prosecutor Panagiotis Poulios said the group knew the information was supposed to be secret.

``They knew they gathered it illegally, and they knew that it could damage national security if it fell into the wrong hands,'' he said in his closing statement.

04/26/02 15:51 EDT

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Tens of Thousands Due in Anti-Le Pen Rally in Paris [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

Title: Message



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---



  
  

  Published on Saturday, April 27, 2002 by Agence France Presse 
  

  Tens of Thousands Due in Anti-Le 
  Pen Rally in Paris 
  

  
  
 
  
With a week to go to the second round 
  of France's presidential election, tens of thousands of people were 
  expected to take to the streets of Paris for a new demonstration against 
  the far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. 
  The march, organized by around 60 left wing organizations, human rights 
  groups, political parties and trade unions, was to leave the Place de la 
  Republique on the capital's right bank at around 3.00 p.m. (1300 GMT).
  Other 
  demonstrations were planned in cities round the country. In the southern 
  town of Montauban around 1,000 people marched Saturday morning, chanting, 
  "Montauban, awake! Fascism will not pass!" 
  Saturday's protests were being seen by police as a dry-run for the 
  demonstrations for and against Le Pen due to take place in the capital on 
  May 1, which the authorities fear could easily descend into violence.
  "It is a good-natured movement," said an unnamed police commander in 
  the Liberation daily, "but all these young people in the street -- no one 
  is controlling them, and the gangs from the suburbs could come and join 
  in. It could easily degenerate."
  Officials warned that violence at the demonstrations would play into 
  the hands of Le Pen, who is running a campaign based round the themes of 
  crime and immigration.
  The 73 year-old leader of the National Front (FN) stunned France on 
  Sunday when he won through to the second round of the presidential 
  election against incumbent President Jacques Chirac, beating Socialist 
  Prime Minister Lionel Jospin into third place.
  Throughout the week high-school and university students have led a 
  campaign of protests against Le Pen, culminating Thursday when more than 
  300,000 people were on the streets. 
  But Le Pen accused his political opponents of orchestrating the 
  protests and said they might even be illegal.
  "They are not in the least spontaneous," he said. "The political 
  superstructure is making use of our youth and our children as a political 
  shield. I am not sure it is very legal to allow children to be launched in 
  demonstrations that are built around slogans of hate." 
  The first opinion poll to be published since last Sunday gave a clear 
  victory in the May 5 second round to Chirac, with 81 percent to Le Pen's 
  19.
  According to the CSA survey for Le Parisien newspaper, 29 percent of 
  those questioned said they would abstain or spoil their ballot papers.
  French polling institutes have been widely attacked for failing to 
  predict Le Pen's victory over Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
  Critics said polls indicating Chirac and Jospin were the only two with 
  a chance of qualifying encouraged a sense of complacency which led to high 
  abstention and let Le Pen squeeze through.
  And they warned that a similar phenomenon could recur in round two if 
  Chirac is consistently shown to be uncatchable in the polls.
  On Friday one leading company BVA said it would publish no opinion 
  samples before the second round because of the "extraordinarily fluid" 
  situation.
  Copyright 2002 AFP
  ###
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CHEWING THE FAT WITH TERRORISTS?.....JOE BIDEN, OUT TO LUNCH IN NEW YORK [WWW.S


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---



CHRIS SODA wrote:

 jpm preface:

Before the USA attack on Serbia in 1999, Joe Biden demanded on US TV :a
German-Japanese style occupation of Serbia."



 CHEWING THE FAT WITH TERRORISTS?.JOE BIDEN, OUT TO LUNCH IN NEW 
 YORK
 Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 11:39:08 -0700 (PDT)
 From: CHRIS SODA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 Mr Biden, thank you for taking the time to read this
 short note before attending to other obligations. Your
 name has come to my attention regarding a 12th
 anniversary dinner at the Sheraton Hotel sponsored by
 the Albanian American Civic League this coming April
 28, 2002, in which you are scheduled to be the
 'keynote speaker'. This anniversary, apparently, marks
 the twelfth year since a handful of people, sponsored
 by the League, testified before Congress in 1990
 concerning the Serbian province of Kosovo in
 Yugoslavia.

 My first question to you, Mr Biden, is this: when US
 Customs in 1990 allowed that handful of people to
 enter your country, what 'point of origin/departure'
 or 'country of citizenship' do you suppose was listed
 on their respective passports? (I'm presuming up to
 this point, of course, that those handful of people
 were carrying authentic documents, left their own
 country legally and entered the US legally, and were
 in fact registered citizens of an actual country, with verified 
 borders, under relevant and applicable international statutes and 
 treaties, when they left to make this trip. If I have erred in my 
 assumption, Mr Biden. please feel free to correct me)

 Since the current advertisement from the Albanian
 American Civic League lists those handful of people
 from 1990 as credible eye-witness testifiers on actual circumstances 
 in Kosovo at that time (and since your Congress thought similarly in 
 1990 by making time to hear them), the only logical conclusion is to 
 infer that for many of these 'witnesses', their 'point of
 origin/departure' and/or their 'country of
 citizenship' would have to have been Yugoslavia. And
 as you know, Mr Biden, the corroborated historical
 record is quite clear and unambiguous- the actual
 circumstance of Kosovo in 1990 was that it was a
 province of Serbia in the country of Yugoslavia.

 As this is in fact the case, Mr Biden, I am wondering
 how the Albanian American Civic League in 1990, and
 those handful of people who testified then before
 Congress, yourself, Joe DioGuardi, and others (all
 then and now) refer to 'Kosova' rather than Kosovo.
 You see, Mr Biden, that handful of travellers must
 ALSO have recognized the territorial sovereignty and integrity of 
 Yugoslav borders in 1990. (if not, why were these people carrying 
 documentation issued from a country that they do not accept or 
 recognize?) I'm sure Mr Biden that you realize that one cannot
 willingly accept or recognize documentation from a
 country while at the same time refusing to accept or
 recognize what that country is composed of, especially
 in terms of latitudinal and longitudinal borders.
 Since it is universally recognized and corroborated by
 all persons of sound mind that the province of Kosovo
 was an integral part of both Serbia and Yugoslavia in
 1990 (verified by many atlases, encyclopaedias and
 international treaties), I'm wondering why no one in
 Congress, the League, nor yourself and Mr DioGuardi,
 have questioned the usage of the term 'Kosova'. No one
 in the world in 1990 (nor now) can travel on
 documentation registered with 'Kosova' any more than
 someone could travel with documentation registered
 with "Canado' or "The United States of Americo'- or
 "The Third Reich' for that matter

 It is puzzling to see a reference to a fictitious
 political entity ("Kosova') being accepted as an
 actual existing place with defined borders. It is
 equally puzzling to believe that the US Congress in
 1990 would not have asked the same questions being
 asked here. Perhaps you can provide an answer for me,
 Mr Biden. How is accepting and using documentation
 from a country consistent with not recognizing the
 exact and corroborated borders of that country??

 Equally puzzling is the fact that Congressmen/women
 would hear testimony from people who literally 'don't
 know where they are coming from- or going to'.
 ('kosova' being listed in encyclopediae as an African
 tribe in Kenya, rather than an imaginary, nonexistent political or 
 geographical entity. See here, Mr Biden, for a brief analysis by one 
 of the world's leading linguists and historians in this regard:
 http://opinionleaders.htmlplanet.com/koskosova.html)

 Many people of similar mind have been locked up in institutions for 
 their own, and the general public's, safety. Apparently, many more are 
 somehow left uninstitutionalized, finding their way into the
 highest levels of your government, as well as finding
 their way into Congressional meetings and keynote
 speakers' lists...

 My second quest

Re: People who equate Slobodan Milosevic with Ariel Sharon[WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK

2002-04-27 Thread putnik1915




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Dear Nancy,
 
An enlightened and well read friend of mine and I 
were discussing this very topic earlier and we came to the following 
conclusions:

  Milosevic, as opposed 
  to Sharon, was conducting legitimate anti-terrorist operations ON THE 
  SOVEREIGN AND CONSTITUENT TERRITORY OF JUGOSLAVIA (Kosovo).  Sharon, on 
  the other hand, has been carrying out his bloody deeds ON OCCUPIED LANDS (in 
  contravention of a plethora of UN resolutions) IN FURTHERANCE OF THAT ILLEGAL 
  OCCUPATION AND THE FURTHER EXPANSION OF THE TERRITORY OF ISRAEL AT THE EXPENSE 
  OF THOSE LANDS SO ILLEGALLY OCCUPIED.
 

  The charge against Milosevic was the 
  'indiscriminate "slaughter"' of Albanian 'civilians' during the above cited 
  anti-terrorist operations.  True, Albanian civilians were occasionally 
  'caught in the crossfire' during these anti-terrorist operations.  
  However, Milosevic's anti-terrorist operations could hardly be said to have 
  been aimed at THE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF THE KOSOVAR ALBANIAN CIVILIANS AND 
  INFRASTRUCTURE.  Sharon's bloody operations, on the other hand, are 
  self-evidently DESIGNED TO COMPLETELY DESTROY THE CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE OF 
  THE PALESTINIANS MAKING THE ALREADY MARGINAL EXISTENCE OF THE PALESTINIANS 
  IMPOSSIBLE.
 

  When Milosevic made an agreement with the 
  'murderous asshole' Holbrooke to withdraw JNA and Serbian anti-terrorist 
  forces from Kosovo, he held to that agreement and with dispatch withdrew those 
  forces.  Sharon, on the other hand, HAS HEMMED, HAWED, DAWDLED AND 
  DELAYED AT EVERY JUNCTURE.  In spite of the Shrub's 'insistence' that 
  Sharon withdraw his forces from the West Bank, every such 'withdrawal' hailed 
  by the mainline media is nothing more than a strategic pullback to just 
  outside the Palestinian towns and cities accompanied by numerous and repeated 
  'sweeps' through yet more Palestinian towns and cities.  All without even 
  the hint of any US military pressure (as opposed to virtually every step in 
  the US initiated wars of Jugoslav dissolution).
There I believe you have 3 rather dramatic 
and distinct points of difference between the policies of Milosevic and 
Sharon.
 
Cossack
- Original Message - 
From: "Nancy Hey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 08:22
Subject: People who equate Slobodan Milosevic with 
Ariel Sharon [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
> HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK> 
---> > Dear friends,> > I've 
noticed a very disturbing trend recently at pro-Palestinian rallies> that 
I've been to, and that is the tendency of certain people to carry signs> 
with slogans on them like "Sharon = Milosevic", and "Hitler, Milosevic,> 
Sharon, United They Stand".> > I'm disturbed by this trend, 
because these people don't seem to realize that> Slobodan Milosevic, 
unlike Ariel Sharon, never was a tool of American> imperialism, in fact, 
he is a victim of it through his prosecution at the> "kangaroo" court in 
the Hague, and whether or not one agrees with all of his> policies, one 
should recognize this fact, and condemn that court more than> Mr. 
Milosevic, for being a tool of American and NATO imperialism.  I 
fear> that people, by carrying these signs, are just giving legitimacy to 
the> imperialists' campaign of demonizing Mr. Milosevic and by extension 
the> whole Serbian people.  When they claim to be opposed to 
American imperialism> by opposing US support for Israel, they should not 
make their point by> legitimizing imperialism in its other forms.  
Would they try to make their> point that Ariel Sharon is bad by comparing 
him to Fidel Castro?> > I've tried to approach people carrying 
these signs, but they've always just> responded by saying that they 
believe "Milosevic is a war criminal" or "he's> killing Muslims".> 
> I'd like to know what can be done to make poeple like this see the 
light,> any kind of literature we can give them that might clarify the 
error of this> analogy?  Any suggestions, anyone?> > 
Peacefully yours,> Nancy Hey> > 
---> ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST> > 

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- Human Rights meeting ends amid criticism [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

Title: Message



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---


2002-04-27 05:07 MSK - Human Rights meeting ends amid criticism
GENEVA - The annual six-week 
meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission wound down Friday amid criticism 
that it was protecting the oppressors rather than the 
oppressed. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, 
described the meeting as "very difficult" and "very worrying" and said she was 
concerned about trends within the 53-nation body to weaken its role as a 
defender of liberties. The commission - which is the top U.N. rights watchdog - 
failed even to discuss the situation in China. It dropped its criticism of 
Russian abuses in Chechnya; voted to end a long-running investigation into Iran; 
and blocked moves to examine allegations of abuses in Zimbabwe. "This is a time 
to remind ourselves of the essential role of the Commission on Human Rights in 
protecting human beings against gross violations through highlighting and 
publicizing those violations; providing a forum for victims to raise their 
grievances; heeding the voice of conscience from different parts of the world," 
Robinson said in a closing speech. She named no names, but made it clear that 
she disagreed with developing countries that argue they are unfairly singled out 
by rich countries. Non-governmental groups said they were scandalized. "The 
Commission on Human Rights has become hostage to human rights abusers," said 
Rory Mungoven of Human Rights Watch. "They're dedicated to protecting themselves 
from scrutiny rather than upholding human rights." "The Commission's most 
important tool - its capacity to name and shame human rights violators - is 
being eroded," Mungoven said. He said the European Union spent more time trying 
to find common ground among its 15 members than putting pressure on violators 
like China. The United States was not a member this year and 
so took a lower-profile role than usual, but still lobbied behind the scenes to 
undermine initiatives like protecting human rights in the war against terrorism, 
he said. Membership of the commission rotates, with each geographical 
region allocated a certain number of seats. This year included an unusually high 
number of countries which stand accused by advocacy groups of abusing their 
citizens' rights, including China, Cuba, Congo, Kenya, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, 
Saudi Arabia and Sudan. 
-AP
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Possibilities for the future of Cyprus [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

Title: Message



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The Washington Timeswww.washtimes.com


Possibilities for the future of CyprusBenjamin TyreePublished 4/26/2002 



 The U.N.-monitored, cloaked-from-the-media, 
discussions regarding the divided island nation of Cyprus may yet provide an 
example of how estranged ethnic communities can become 
reconciled. At present, tiny Cyprus, with 3,500 
square miles, or less than half the size of Israel, is making slow and uncertain 
but occasionally perceptible progress in a healing dialogue between the leaders 
of its once violently torn Orthodox Greek and Muslim Turkish groups, totaling 
less than 800,000 people. The internationally 
recognized Republic of Cyprus controls less than two-thirds of the island, and a 
large majority of its population, chiefly those of Greek origin and 
culture. The less populous Turkish Republic of 
Northern Cyprus (TRNC) is officially recognized only by Turkey. Turkish troops 
have occupied this area as a protectorate for their Turkish Cypriot compatriots 
since 1974, following a decade of intermittent ethnic clashes between factions 
of the indigenous Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot 
communities. Four decades ago, many Greek 
Cypriots sought "enosis," or union with Greece. Today, the Republic of Cyprus 
seeks reunification of the island as a "bicommunal, bizonal, federated state," 
with a single international identity. The TRNC's Turkish Cypriot population has 
been diminished by emigration but augmented by citizens of Turkey (estimates 
range between 40,000 and 115,000) settled there over the objections of the 
Republic of Cyprus. The TRNC remains skittish about reunification, and has 
sought recognized sovereignty for itself and a looser 
confederation. Held out to Turkish Cypriots and 
to Turkey are the benefits of Turkish-speaking communities becoming part of the 
European Union, after the Republic of Cyprus is finally admitted — perhaps by 
the end of this year. Trade, tourism and EU aid would flow to both Cypriot 
communities. The relationship between the two ethnic communities would be 
managed in the larger context of EU human-rights assurances and other 
rules. But Turkish Cypriots express worries 
about a reprise of the strife-ridden past and possible economic domination by 
the Greek Cypriots. Property-rights issues are another 
hurdle. Greek Cypriots argue that Turkey's 
prospects for eventual EU membership would be facilitated by Turkish becoming an 
official EU language (as one of the languages of Cyprus), and by ending the 
island's division. Resolving the Cyprus question would, moreover, augur well for 
continued, closer rapprochement between NATO members Greece and Turkey and could 
provide a democratic example for a civil settlement of the longstanding tensions 
between the Orthodox Christian and Islamic populations throughout the nearby 
Balkan region. Thus far, the Republic of Cyprus 
has held the cards of recognition and support by international organizations and 
has assumed a modern stance supportive of full rights for all citizens of Cyprus 
— Greek and Turkish Cypriot alike. The TRNC has 
held the cards of old injuries and grievances and of support by Turkey. But 
these may be diminishing assets as all parties look expectantly toward accession 
to the pan-ethnic EU and a wider 
future. American sources familiar with the 
Cyprus question say key obstacles to its resolution include Turkey's security 
concerns — plausible or not — regarding any future role on the island by parties 
unfriendly to Turkish interests. One U.S. 
source agreed that the issues involving post-1974 Turkish settlers from Anatolia 
could prove more difficult than Cypriot officials like to think. The Republic of 
Cyprus views the settlers as part of an illegal and internationally opposed 
occupation of the north by Turkey. But Greek 
Cypriot officials display no disposition for wrenching expulsions. In recent 
discussions with journalists, former Cyprus President George Vassiliou 
emphasized financial incentives to facilitate repatriation of the settlers to 
Turkey. A right of settlement is evidently acceptable for those who have 
intermarried with the indigenous 
population. There have been vague suggestions, 
difficult to pin down, that place of birth might provide a basis for certain 
rights. However, Demetris Christofias, president of the Cyprus House of 
Representatives, emphasized during a mid-April Washington visit that parentage 
would be the decisive element in citizenship. Mr. Vassiliou earlier mentioned 
limited residency rights or work permits might be possible for settlers who 
prove to be economic assets. American observers 
note that financial commitments to Cyprus upon its accession to the EU — 
involving hundreds of millions of euros — will result in major development of 
the island's infrastructure with huge economic implications for a n

US Pushes for Ojdanic "Trial Deal" [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

Title: Message



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---


US Pushes for Ojdanic "Trial Deal" 
America may have offered lenient tribunal treatment to 
Milosevic's most trusted general in exchange for testifying against his old 
boss 
By Zeljko Cvijanovic in Belgrade (BCR No 333, 26-Apr-02) 
American diplomats have been working hard to persuade one 
of Milosevic's top generals to testify against the former Yugoslav president, 
IWPR sources say. 
Retired general Dragoljub Ojdanic, 61, accused of crimes in Kosovo, 
surrendered voluntarily to The Hague on Thursday, following intense pressure 
from the Serbian authorities. He is one of six war crimes suspects to have 
publicly agreed to hand themselves into the tribunal. The other five are 
expected to leave for the tribunal next week. 
Washington has a particular interest in Ojdanic because it believes he could 
provide vital testimony in the ongoing Milosevic trial. 
Before he flew to The Hague, the general swore that he would never give 
evidence against the ex-Yugoslav president. But IWPR sources suggest he may 
change his mind in exchange for favourable treatment by the tribunal. 
Pierre Richard Prosper, US ambassador for war crimes, is known to have spoken 
to Ojdanic as a possible Milosevic witness in mid-March. Prosper played a key 
role in orchestrating the pressure on Belgrade to start full cooperation with 
The Hague over suspects. 
Nebojsa Covic, deputy Serbian prime minister, told the Belgrade media that he 
arranged the meeting with Prosper and William Montgomery, the US ambassador to 
Yugoslavia, at a Belgrade villa. "General Ojdanic asked us to provide the 
contact and that is what we did. The conversation was very correct," he said, 
without elaborating. 
IWPR has learnt from an army officer close to Ojdanic that the Americans 
tried to persuade the general to get him to testify against Milosevic. The 
officer, who wishes to remain anonymous, said Ojdanic revealed that Montgomery 
promised him that "we will put a word in for your case" on his next visit to The 
Hague. 
Sources in the Serbian government say a second meeting with the Americans 
took place on April 5. The precise nature of discussions there are not known, 
but the fact that Ojdanic subsequently told his family that he was now prepared 
to give himself up strongly suggests that some sort of deal was struck. 
Analysts in Belgrade have been speculating that Washington will press the 
tribunal to allow the general to return to Belgrade pending the start of his 
case. 
There appears to be a clear precedent for this. The former Bosnian Serb 
politician Biljana Plavsic was persuaded by the Americans to surrender 
voluntarily in January 2001 with what seemed to be a guarantee of pre-trial 
release. 
Ojdanic was indicted on May 24, 1999 for atrocities committed in Kosovo. 
Milosevic and three other high officials from the Milosevic era - Milan 
Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic and Vlajko Stojiljkovic - are indicted for the same 
crimes. 
Stojiljkovic committed suicide earlier this month after the Yugoslav 
parliament passed a law on cooperation with the tribunal. 
According to his indictment, Ojdanic is accused of taking part in a "joint 
criminal enterprise" whose aim was to "expel a great part of the Albanian 
population from Kosovo in order to establish permanent Serbian control over the 
province". 
The most important section talks of Ojdanic's command responsibility for the 
crimes of his subordinates, as head of Serbia's military and police forces in 
the Kosovo conflict. Ojdanic, however, denies he controlled the police, who were 
widely blamed for the worst atrocities in the war. 
"I did not have any command responsibility over the ministry of interior," he 
said last Friday. Although he officially supervised all the armed forces, 
Ojdanic insisted that "this power was never implemented in reality" over the 
police. 
Whether Ojdanic will testify against Milosevic is not clear. Until now, he 
has always insisted on his loyalty to his old chief. Throughout his career, he 
showed great devotion to Milosevic, who, in turn, demonstrated enormous trust in 
his abilities. 
Ojdanic earned that trust in the early 1990s as head of the Yugoslav Army's 
Uzice Corps, when he supervised a brutal Serbian takeover in Visegrad, eastern 
Bosnia, in 1992, committing numerous crimes against the local Muslim population. 
There was some surprise later that he was not indicted for his activities in 
Bosnia. 
He was rewarded with promotion to the rank of commander of the prestigious 
First Belgrade division in 1993. From 1996 he was deputy to the army's chief of 
staff, General Momcilo Perisic. Ojdanic became close to the Yugoslav United 
Left, JUL, the party led by Milosevic's wife, Mira Markovic. Violating the 
army's official code of neutrality, he even appeared at a JUL meeting in army 
uniform. 
His close ties to the Milosevic clan culminated in his nomination as chief of 
staff in Novemb

DEPLETED URANIUM IN BUNKER BOMBS [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

2002-04-27 Thread Sandeep Vaidya


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DEPLETED URANIUM IN BUNKER BOMBS

America's big dirty secret
 (Le Mode diplomatique, March 2002)

   The United States loudly and proudly 
boasted this
   month of its new bomb currently 
being used against
   al-Qaida hold-outs in Afghanistan; 
it sucks the air
   from underground installations, 
suffocating those
   within. The US has also admitted 
that it has used
   depleted uranium weaponry over the 
last decade
   against bunkers in Iraq, Kosovo, and now
   Afghanistan.
   by ROBERT 
JAMES PARSONS *


   "The immediate concern for medical 
professionals and employees of aid
   organisations remains the threat of 
extensive depleted uranium (DU)
   contamination in Afghanistan." This 
is one of the conclusions of a 130-page
   report, Mystery Metal Nightmare in 
Afghanistan? (1), by Dai Williams, an
   independent researcher and 
occupational psychologist. It is the result of more
   than a year of research into DU and 
its effects on those exposed to it.

   Using internet sites of both NGOs 
(2) and arms manufacturers, Williams has
   come up with information that he has 
cross-checked and compared with
   weapons that the Pentagon has 
reported  indeed boasted about  using
   during the war. What emerges is a 
startling and frightening vision of war, both
   in Afghanistan and in the future.

   Since 1997 the United States has 
been modifying and upgrading its missiles and
   guided (smart) bombs. Prototypes of 
these bombs were tested in the Kosovo
   mountains in 1999, but a far greater 
range has been tested in Afghanistan. The
   upgrade involves replacing a 
conventional warhead by a heavy, dense metal one
   (3). Calculating the volume and the 
weight of this mystery metal leads to two
   possible conclusions: it is either 
tungsten or depleted uranium.

   Tungsten poses problems. Its melting 
point (3,422°C) makes it very hard to
   work; it is expensive; it is 
produced mostly by China; and it does not burn. DU
   is pyrophoric, burning on impact or 
if it is ignited, with a melting point of
   1,132°C; it is much easier to 
process; and as nuclear waste, it is available free
   to arms manufacturers. Further, 
using it in a range of weapons significantly
   reduces the US nuclear waste storage 
problem.

   This type of weapon can penetrate 
many metres of reinforced concrete or rock
   in seconds. It is equipped with a 
detonator controlled by a computer that
   measures the density of the material 
passed through and, when the warhead
   reaches the targeted void or a set 
depth, detonates the warhead, which then has
   an explosive and incendiary effect. 
The DU burns fiercely and rapidly,
   carbonising everything in the void, 
while the DU itself is transformed into a fine
   uranium oxide powder. Although only 
30% of the DU of a 30mm penetrator
   round is oxidised, the DU charge of 
a missile oxidises 100%. Most of the dust
   particles produced measure less than 
1.5 microns, small enough to be breathed
   in.

   For a few researchers in this area, 
the controversy over the use of DU
   weapons during the Kosovo war got 
side-tracked. Instead of asking what
   weapons might have been used against 
most of the targets

Iran: Radical Warmongers Drive US Policy [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

AFP
Saturday April 27, 4:35 PM 
Khatami says "radical warmongers" drive US policy

-Iran is thought to be alarmed at the foothold the
United States has secured in Central Asia since
September 11, with US and allied troops now stationed
in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.


Iranian President Mohammad Khatami blasted US Middle
East policy in an interview published here, saying it
was driven by "radical warmongers."
Khatami, whose nation was lumped with Iraq and North
Korea in George W. Bush's "axis of evil," said the US
president was acting against the best interests of the
United States.
"After the tragic September 11 events the United
States abused world sympathy, and Israel activated its
lobby and took advantage of Bush's lack of
experience," he told the International Herald Tribune.
He said the Bush administration "fell victim to this
trap, against US interests."
Bush's "axis of evil" speech in February appeared to
put on a hold a thaw between Washington and Tehran's
Islamic regime, who have not had diplomatic relations
since 1980.
Iran assisted the US drive to topple the Taliban
regime in neighbouring Afghanistan as part of its war
on terrorism after the September 11 attacks in the
United States.
But Khatami's comments reflected the outrage in the
Muslim and Arab worlds over US backing for Israel's
assault on the Palestinians, which Israel also calls a
war on terrorism.
The paper reported that he said a "radical warmonger"
group was willing to risk an escalating conflict in
the Middle East in order to back Israel and install US
military power in the region.
He said Bush's hardline stance against Tehran had
hardened "national solidarity" in Iran, where Khatami
has led a reform movement kept at heel by the regime's
powerful conservatives.
An Iranian opposition leader told AFP in Tehran
earlier this month that Bush's "axis of evil" speech
had set off "national reconciliation" between Iran's
sparring political movements.
Tehran has denied US allegations that it has been
selling arms to the Palestinians or harbouring
al-Qaeda fighters who fled Afghanistan.
Khatami told the paper that Iran was ready for better
relations with the United States if Bush would move
away from "the language of evil."
He was speaking in Kazakhstan during a Central Asia
tour as Tehran vies with the United States for
influence over the region's vast gas and oil reserves.
Iran is thought to be alarmed at the foothold the
United States has secured in Central Asia since
September 11, with US and allied troops now stationed
in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.


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Rumsfeld In Kyrgyz Colony: We were successful - to a certain extent [WWW.STOPNAT


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---

The ghost of Robert McNamara must be haunting him.


AFP
Saturday April 27, 10:14 AM 
Rumsfeld visits central Asia troops, warns of long
haul
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew to
Kyrgyzstan at the start of a Central Asian tour and
warned international troops based there that the
military effort in nearby Afghanistan was far from
over.
"Your task, I'm afraid, is going to last for a while.
It is not to end soon," he told US and other troops
deployed at the Manas air base in the former Soviet
republic, 1,000 kilometres (630 miles) north of
Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld, who heads to Afghanistan on Saturday for
talks with interim government leader Hamid Karzai,
said coalition forces would remain in Kyrgyzstan "as
long as necessary."
"Your role is important. You stand against evil, mass
murderers," the defense secretary told a meeting with
400 mostly American troops stationed at Manas, now
renamed the "Ganci Air Base" after Peter Ganci, New
York's former fire chief who was killed on September
11.
Describing the US-led war against terrorism as "a
difficult task really," Rumsfeld told the troops in
Kyrgyzstan: "We were successful -- to a certain
extent."
A total of 1,900 from the United States, Australia,
France, South Korea, Denmark, Spain, Norway and
Holland, are based at the Manas base, which Rumsfeld
hailed as a "model" of the new international
partnership.
"We are working with coalition forces, literally all
over the world," added the hawkish defense secretary,
who was greeted with loud applause when he arrived at
Manas in time to see six French Mirage jets and six
F/A-18 Hornets take off for missions over Afghanistan.
It is Rumsfeld's second visit to the region since the
September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States,
and the start of the military campaign in Afghanistan
on October 7 which quickly brought down the Taliban
regime. 
In December Rumsfeld was the first member of President
George W. Bush's cabinet to go to Afghanistan and meet
the new authorities.
"I hope to meet with elements and people working with
that issue (security)," he told journalists, referring
to his talks Saturday with representatives of the
interim Afghan government headed by Hamid Karzai.
The Pentagon is concerned about possible stepped-up
guerrilla activities by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda
network and the Taliban in coming months, when winter
snows melt in the region.
"My guess is as spring comes and the weather improves
they will try to communicate with each other, they
will try to attack the interim authority as well as US
and coalition forces... they will try to create an
environment which is inhospitable to anyone else (but
themselves)," Rumsfeld told journalists earlier.
The Americans and their Afghan and foreign allies
would continue to carry out raids, arresting people
and seeking concentrations of al Qaeda and Taliban
members, the defense secretary said.
Rumsfeld did not want to comment on press reports
about US military operations in Pakistan in regions
bordering on Afghanistan, saying he would not speak
about activities in other countries.
However he indirectly confirmed that the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence
Agency had taken part in raids on terror suspects in
Pakistan which resulted in the arrest last month of
bin Laden adjutant Abu Zubeida.
"Agencies of the US government are cooperating with
agencies in Pakistan, coordinating..." he explained.
The New York Times reported that US advisors had been
given the go-ahead to accompany local troops in
Pakistan's tribal regions to look for enemy fighters.
Clandestine operations by US special forces had
started weeks ago, the Washington Post said Thursday,
talking of a new strategy. It said elite commandos
were trying to get fundamentalist militants to attack
and thus unmask themselves.
Rumsfeld was due to hold talks early Saturday with
President Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan, which has
pledged to host up to 5,000 coalition troops if
necessary.
"The countries on the periphery with Afghanistan are
very important to the US, and to the security of
Afghanistan," the defense secretary said. Some are in
the Partnership for Peace program with NATO and they
authorize overflights.
But "there are no plans for permanent bases," he
added.
After visiting Afghanistan and Central Asia, Rumsfeld
will meet Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov in
Moscow.


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Rumsfeld Gets Explosive Reception In Kabul [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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Saturday April 27, 3:50 PM 
Rumsfeld arrives in Afghanistan as bomb blasts rock
Kabul airport
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in
Afghanistan for talks with military leaders
coordinating the war against remaining Taliban and
al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.
He was greeted by Major General Frank Hagenbeck, the
US commander of coalition forces, at this former
Soviet base some 50 kilometres (31 Miles) north of the
Afghan capital Kabul where three explosions had rocked
the international airport overnight.
He was also met by Brigadier Roger Lane, the head of
the British task force which began deploying here last
month.
Rumsfeld was due to address some of the 3,000 American
troops based at Bagram and was then expected to fly to
Kabul to hold talks with interim cabinet leader Hamid
Karzai and Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim.
It is his second trip to Afghanistan since the Taliban
regime collapsed in November and came just hours after
three explosions rocked Kabul's international airport.

"There were three explosions at the airport last night
(Friday). There were no injuries," said Major Karen
Daly, a British spokeswoman for the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
Anonymous ISAF sources told AFP that the explosions
were caused by three rockets launched close to the
airport late Friday.
The sources said the target of the attack was not
clear, but British and French troops based near the
airport had been put on full alert following the
blasts.
Two of the rockets, which were all fired within the
space of five minutes, passed over an ISAF base, the
sources said, adding that ballistic studies were
underway to determine their origin.
"They probably came from several kilometres (miles)
from the airport," they said.
Rumsfeld had arrived in Afghanistan from Kyrgyzstan
where he had thanked President Askar Akayev for his
country's support to the US-led anti-terrorist
operation in Afghanistan.
"Thank you for the wonderful cooperation we are
receiving with the use of the base in Manas," Rumsfeld
said, referring to the military airbase near the
Kyrgyz capital Bishkek where 1,900 anti-terrorist
coalition troops are based.
The base, 1,000 kilometres (630 miles) north of
Afghanistan, was particularly helpful as it allowed
regular flight missions to make their way to that
country, he added.
"From Manas, aircraft are able to fly to Afghanistan,
refuel and conduct operations to prevent al-Qaeda and
Taliban from threatening the Afghan government," he
said.
Akayev praised the anti-terrorist operation in Central
Asia, which "would make the new process (in
Afghanistan) irreversible."
This was "an important aspect of regional security"
for Central Asia, he added.
On Friday, Rumsfeld warned international troops based
in Kyrgyzstan that the military effort in Afghanistan
was far from over.
"Your task, I'm afraid, is going to last for a while.
It is not to end soon," he told US and other troops
deployed at the Manas air base.
Rumsfeld said coalition forces would remain in the
former Soviet republic "as long as necessary."
A total of 1,900 soldiers from the United States,
Australia, France, South Korea, Denmark, Spain, Norway
and the Netherlands are based in Kyrgyzstan, a Central
Asian country near Afghanistan although they do not
share a common border.
US and coalition troops are also based in two other
Central Asian states, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.


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Rumsfeld Gets Explosive Reception In Kabul [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Saturday April 27, 3:50 PM 
Rumsfeld arrives in Afghanistan as bomb blasts rock
Kabul airport
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in
Afghanistan for talks with military leaders
coordinating the war against remaining Taliban and
al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.
He was greeted by Major General Frank Hagenbeck, the
US commander of coalition forces, at this former
Soviet base some 50 kilometres (31 Miles) north of the
Afghan capital Kabul where three explosions had rocked
the international airport overnight.
He was also met by Brigadier Roger Lane, the head of
the British task force which began deploying here last
month.
Rumsfeld was due to address some of the 3,000 American
troops based at Bagram and was then expected to fly to
Kabul to hold talks with interim cabinet leader Hamid
Karzai and Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim.
It is his second trip to Afghanistan since the Taliban
regime collapsed in November and came just hours after
three explosions rocked Kabul's international airport.

"There were three explosions at the airport last night
(Friday). There were no injuries," said Major Karen
Daly, a British spokeswoman for the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
Anonymous ISAF sources told AFP that the explosions
were caused by three rockets launched close to the
airport late Friday.
The sources said the target of the attack was not
clear, but British and French troops based near the
airport had been put on full alert following the
blasts.
Two of the rockets, which were all fired within the
space of five minutes, passed over an ISAF base, the
sources said, adding that ballistic studies were
underway to determine their origin.
"They probably came from several kilometres (miles)
from the airport," they said.
Rumsfeld had arrived in Afghanistan from Kyrgyzstan
where he had thanked President Askar Akayev for his
country's support to the US-led anti-terrorist
operation in Afghanistan.
"Thank you for the wonderful cooperation we are
receiving with the use of the base in Manas," Rumsfeld
said, referring to the military airbase near the
Kyrgyz capital Bishkek where 1,900 anti-terrorist
coalition troops are based.
The base, 1,000 kilometres (630 miles) north of
Afghanistan, was particularly helpful as it allowed
regular flight missions to make their way to that
country, he added.
"From Manas, aircraft are able to fly to Afghanistan,
refuel and conduct operations to prevent al-Qaeda and
Taliban from threatening the Afghan government," he
said.
Akayev praised the anti-terrorist operation in Central
Asia, which "would make the new process (in
Afghanistan) irreversible."
This was "an important aspect of regional security"
for Central Asia, he added.
On Friday, Rumsfeld warned international troops based
in Kyrgyzstan that the military effort in Afghanistan
was far from over.
"Your task, I'm afraid, is going to last for a while.
It is not to end soon," he told US and other troops
deployed at the Manas air base.
Rumsfeld said coalition forces would remain in the
former Soviet republic "as long as necessary."
A total of 1,900 soldiers from the United States,
Australia, France, South Korea, Denmark, Spain, Norway
and the Netherlands are based in Kyrgyzstan, a Central
Asian country near Afghanistan although they do not
share a common border.
US and coalition troops are also based in two other
Central Asian states, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.


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URGENT JOINT STATEMENT BY INDIAN GROUPS [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

2002-04-27 Thread Sandeep Vaidya


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 10:17:06 +0530

Muslim and Christian Organisations defy Atal, Government statements on
Gujarat, assert Genocide is a global concern

URGENT JOINT STATEMENT BY MAJSLIS E MUSHAWARRAT, CATHOLIC UNION AND
CHRISTIAN COUNCIL

New Delhi, April 25th 2002

In a joint statement today, prominent Muslim and Christian organisations
have decried the Indian and Gujarat state Government efforts to whitewash
the Gujarat carnage through provocative statements by the Foreign office and
cynical and misleading advertisements by the state administration in
newspapers.

The All India Muslim Majlis e Mushawarat, the All India Catholic Union and
the All India Christian Council in a joint statement said the genocide in
Gujarat, which has been violence widely compared to during the Nazi regime
in Europe, is not a mere internal matter of India, but an issue of concern
to every compassionate and democratic human being on the globe.

Mushawarat secretary Navaid Hamid and Dr John Dayal, vice president of the
Catholic Union and secretary general of the Christian Council in the joint
statement said: "India believes in the concept of the world as one village,
Vasudeva Kutumbakam as the ancient Texts put it. In such a global village,
made more cohesive in the cyber age, the gang rape of hundreds of Muslim
women, the murder of thousands of innocent children and adults in Gujarat in
the past 58 days -- amounting to a carefully planned genocide by the
Hindutva parivar with state connivance -- cannot go unchallenged.

   "We firmly believe that the entire United Nations system is on test. India
is a signatory to the UN Charter, as also to the Human Rights Declaration
and the Special Resolution on Religious Freedom. Neither India nor the
United Nations members can run away from their responsibility in this case.
India's record shows its interventions in many different countries which
faced similar situations of racial and religious violence of such
magnitude."

   "The motives of the Indian government have been exposed in the Ministry of
External Affairs statement alleging that European Union and others are
`interfering and taking sides in the on-going highly politically charged
internal debate.'  The killings and rape are not an issue of debate - they
are the bitter and shameful reality. By turning the killings into a
political debate, the government mocks not just the dead, but also insults
Indian democracy and the rule of law", the joint statement said.

"The Gujarat government has rubbed salt in the wounds of the victims by its
cynical, callous and coercive advertisements in newspapers claiming it has
brought the situation under control. The daily killings and the travails of
the victims are proof that the state government is lying to fool
international public opinion.

   "We join the many organisations that have demanded an international
investigation into the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal and all other
organisations of the Hindutva parivar whose actions threaten not just the
minorities of India and civil society, but also endanger international
peace."

For further details, please contact Navaid Hamid Ph 3261369 and John dayal
9811021072, 2722262

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Gujarat victims were 'stripped, burned and hacked' [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

2002-04-27 Thread Sandeep Vaidya


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Gujarat victims were 'stripped, burned and hacked'

By Peter Popham in Delhi

27 April 2002, The Independent

Two months after the event that triggered Gujarat's 
pogrom,
Muslims in the western Indian state are still 
counting the cost.
Yesterday, 40 survivors came to Delhi to tell 
journalists and
parliamentarians how their relatives and friends 
had been stripped,
raped, burned and mutilated.

A boy of 11, Raja Bundubhai, recalled seeing his 
mother and sister
stabbed then burned alive. A woman identified as Reshma
recounted how she saw a heavily pregnant woman 
called Kausar
Bano "being brutally raped ... Her stomach was 
carved open, her
baby flung into the fire before she was sexually 
abused, cut up and
burnt."

On 27 February, a mob of Muslims in the town of 
Godhra attacked
a train carriage full of Hindu activists returning 
from the temple town
of Ayodhya, killing 59. Hindu retaliation in the 
days that followed left
hundreds of Muslims dead inpogroms that shamed 
India and
appalled the world.

And although the scale of violence has slackened, 
peace has yet to
return to the state, famed as the home of Mahatma 
Gandhi and as
an economic powerhouse before it became a byword 
for savagery.

At least 35 people have been killed in Ahmedabad, 
the commercial
capital, in the past week. "They [Hindus] provoke 
us by yelling
insults and bursting crackers during the night," 
said Iqbal Kansara,
who lives in Juhapura, a large Muslim area. 
"Youngsters who can't
stand the insults come out to retaliate and police 
fire at them."

The state government says some 850 people have died 
in the
violence, but a secret report by British diplomats 
leaked this week
to the BBC says at least 2,000 died. The report 
claims that far from
being a spontaneous eruption of Hindu anger after 
the Godhra
outrage, the violence was pre-planned and carried 
out with the
support of the state government.

The British officials said the violence had all the 
marks of ethnic
cleansing, and that reconciliation between Hindus 
and Muslims was
impossible while the controversial chief minister, 
Narendra Modi,
was in place. Mr Modi heads the Hindu nationalist 
BJP government,
and Gujarat is now the only sizeable state where 
the party that
leads the ruling coalition in Delhi is in power. 
For this reason the
central government is accused by the opposition of 
doing nothing to
bring about normality. A censure motion on the 
government's
performance on Gujarat will be debated next week.

Delhi claims Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, has 
apologised for
the leaking of the report, but there have been many 
European
rebukes.A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said some 
governments
were interfering and could damage relations. The 
"interference",
however, is unlikely to end as long as the 
government ignores the
worst communal bloodletting in 10 years.

Tens of thousands of Muslims in Gujarat remain 
crammed into
squalid camps, too scared to return to their homes. 
Some
commentators believe cold political calculation by 
the BJP is to
blame. The Indian Express said: "Because of the 
severe beating
that the Muslims have taken ... no Hindu is safe unless
governments ... partial to us are put in place."

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Rumsfeld Firms Up US Military Buildup In Central Asia [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

Houston Chronicle
April 25, 2002, 11:14PM

Rumsfeld firming ties in Central Asia 
By MICHAEL HEDGES 
SHANNON, Ireland -- On a mission to shore up alliances
that a decade ago were unimaginable, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld visits Central Asia today for meetings
with leaders of former Soviet republics. 
The sessions are designed to further military ties
made quietly, but aggressively, by the Bush
administration as part of its war on terrorism. 
The 'Stans, as diplomats informally call the states,
stretch across a sparsely populated region of steppes,
deserts and mountains, but they have become a key
crossroads where several U.S. interests converge. 
The United States has entered deals to build military
facilities in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. 
And earlier this month, Kazakhstan's defense minister
announced that the Pentagon had agreed to a $5 million
allocation to strengthen the security of oil pipelines
and other facilities near the Caspian Sea. 
"We care about Central Asia not just because of the
war on terrorism, or even because of the oil and gas
in the region," said Zeyno Baran, a scholar at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It is
important because of geography." 
In an interview en route to Central Asia on Thursday,
Rumsfeld said, "The countries on the periphery of
Afghanistan are of course very important in and of
themselves. They are also important to Afghanistan." 
A series of bases in the region could become critical
in future crises from the Persian Gulf to the volatile
border between India and Pakistan, experts said. 
But as the American presence grows in the area,
countries such as Russia, China and Iran, which have
considered Central Asia part of their sphere of
influence, are getting nervous, experts said. 
"There is building opposition in Russia to allowing
the United States to develop and expand its presence
in Central Asia," said Andrew Hess, a professor of
diplomacy at Tufts University. 
"The Chinese would be very concerned if the United
States appeared to be an economic rival in the
region," he said. "And the Iranians have considered
Central Asia as part of their sphere of influence
since the fifth century B.C." 
Rumsfeld will be visiting several Central Asian states
on his four-day trip, meeting with military and
political leaders. 
He also will visit U.S. troops and Afghan officials,
including interim leader Hamid Karzai, during a
one-day trip to Afghanistan. He will meet with Russian
defense officials at a stopover in Moscow to discuss
nuclear arm cuts. 
Pentagon aides styled Rumsfeld's swing through Central
Asia as a chance to express appreciation to nations
that have helped in the war against terrorism and the
search for terrorist Osama bin Laden. 
"He will visit with some of our coalition partners in
the region. It has been the strength of those
coalitions, their willingness to participate, that has
contributed so much to our success thus far. So he is
also looking forward to that," said spokeswoman
Victoria Clarke. 
Some analysts said the Pentagon hopes U.S. interest in
Central Asia will be temporary and will remain
grounded in the short-term tactical requirements of
the war on terrorism. 
"I suspect the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff want to get
out of there as quickly as possible," said Anthony
Cordesman, a senior analyst with the CSIS. 
"We don't have any particular plans for permanent
bases," Rumsfeld said Thursday. "It is too soon to
decide or characterize exactly how long we would want
to keep a capability in a particular country." 
But Baran said it may not be simple for the United
States to just leave the region once short-term goals
are accomplished. 
"All of the countries that are now cooperating with
the United States have sought assurances that this
will not just be about getting bin Laden and his top
associates and pulling out," she said. "They now feel
they have a commitment from the United States." 
That commitment extends to helping fight Islamic
fundamentalism, providing assistance in securing
borders, and even economic assistance, she said. 
Experts said the murky future of the war on terrorism
made it difficult for U.S. military and political
leaders to predict how long a presence will be
necessary in Central Asia. 
That has caused Russia, Iran and others to express
some concern that a new "Great Game" was afoot --
echoing the 19th-century imperialist struggle between
Great Britain and Russia in Central Asia. The struggle
led to several small wars. 
The most concerned are Russian nationalists opposed to
President Vladimir Putin's policy of working with the
United States in the war on terrorism and accepting
U.S. troops in the region, experts said. 
But in background interviews, U.S. officials said
concerns in Russia, Iran and China that America has
longer-term interests in the region are groundless.
"This is about winning the war on terrorism and aiding
stability in the regio

UC/Berkeley suspends Students for Justice in Palestine [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=04-26-02&storyID=11582

UCB suspends pro-Palestine student group over Wheeler Hall takeover
By David Scharfenberg, Daily Planet staff (04-26-02)

UC Berkeley has suspended Students for Justice in Palestine while
officials investigate the groups April 9 takeover of Wheeler Hall.
Under the terms of the suspension the group, which has called on the
university to divest from Israel, will lose certain privileges 
including the ability to reserve rooms for meetings and set up a table
on Sproul Plaza at the heart of the campus.

We think this is a specific attack on activists and free speech, said
Snehal Shingavi, an SJP leader. Shingavi said the move was particularly
disturbing on a campus with a history of student activism.

This is Berkeley, for goodness sake, he said.

In no way are we trying to silence the group or individuals, replied
Dean of Students Karen Kenney, noting that SJP members will still have
the right to speak out and distribute leaflets during the suspension.

University police arrested 79 protesters April 9, including 41
students, several from SJP. Kenney said the students, after going
through a lengthy student judicial process, could face penalties
ranging from probation to a year-long suspension. 

Assistant Chancellor John Cummins said suspension is an appropriate
penalty for SJP, and individual students, because they disrupted
classes during the Wheeler Hall occupation.

The basic mission of the university is to educate students, Cummins
said. For any group, for any individual, no matter how noble the
cause, to interfere with the rights of other students (is
unacceptable).

But Shingavi argued that the university has never suspended a group for
civil disobedience in the past, even if that disobedience disrupted
student life, and that targeting SJP is unfair.

Cummins said university officials explicitly warned SJP leaders that
suspension was a possibility if they violated university rules during
their protest. He said the university had never provided that type of
warning to another group, making SJP a special case.

Adam Weisberg, executive director of Berkeley Hillel, a hub of Jewish
student life, said he agrees with the universitys approach.

Every student group has a right to demonstrate and articulate its
concerns to the larger community, he said. But civil disobedience
invites the kind of action that the university is now taking.

Will Youmans, an SJP leader, said the group plans to stage a protest
the first week of May, calling for university divestment from Israel. 

All attempts by the university to silence this movement are futile,
because there is such widespread support on campus for divestment, he
said.

Kenney said the group will not be able to reserve Sproul Plaza in
advance of the event, as a group with full privileges might. But she
said the university will not block any attempt to march or protest.



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Making stubborn prisoners talk /Army interrogation schools methods push tactica


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

http://www.msnbc.com/news/743825.asp?cp1=1

Making stubborn prisoners talk 
 
Army interrogation schools methods push tactical envelope 
 
By Jess Bravin
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 
 
FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz., April 26  Has anybody talked to you about
lying? instructor John Giersdorf asks his freshman class. We expect
you to lie a lot. Your job is to convince someone to do something that
could get him executed for treason. 
 
  THIS IS THE U.S. ARMYS interrogation school, and Staff Sgt.
Giersdorf, a veteran intelligence-operative who speaks Arabic, Czech
and Russian, is teaching new recruits to extract information from al
Qaeda and other captive foes. The job, he tells his students, is just
a hairs-breadth away from being an illegal specialty under the Geneva
Convention.

  Interrogators  the Pentagon renamed them human intelligence
collectors last year  are authorized not just to lie, but to prey on
a prisoners ethnic stereotypes, sexual urges and religious prejudices,
his fear for his familys safety, or his resentment of his fellows.
Theyll do just about everything short of torture, which officials say
is not taught here, to make their prisoners spill information that
could save American lives.

  Each year, 200 to 300 students enter the 16-week program at Fort
Huachuca, an outpost in the Sonoran Desert that once housed U.S.
cavalrymen pursuing Geronimo and Pancho Villa. Tallmadge Hall, a drab
classroom building named for a Revolutionary War officer who spied on
the Redcoats, houses 21 interrogation booths, where students practice
their art as instructors watch on video monitors and grade them.   
 
  The U.S. is facing a shortage of experienced interrogators, as well
as intelligence officers trained in Middle Eastern and South Asian
languages. As of last September, says the forts deputy commander, Col.
John M. Custer (a distant relative of Gen. George Custer), there were
only a handful of instructors here who could speak Pashto or Urdu,
languages common in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
   
A DIFFERENT BREED

  Interrogators also are finding that al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners,
with their fanatical hatred of the U.S. and apparent readiness to
commit suicide for their cause, are a different breed than theyve
encountered in past conflicts. Some have responded, including Abu
Zubaydah, the reputed al Qaeda leader who officials say prompted last
Fridays terrorism alert for Northeastern banks. But after months of
interrogating prisoners in Afghanistan and at the U.S. Navy base at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials concede that its difficult to obtain
information they can corroborate.

  The Fort Huachuca course culminates in 10 days of field exercises
using generic foreign powers: a fictitious U.S. ally, the Republic of
Arizona, and its totalitarian nemesis, the Peoples Republic of New
Mexico. On five outdoor acres, students recruit counteragents,
interview sources and capture enemies and grill them, while
occasionally dealing with distractions such as visiting reporters and
human-rights groups  all played by fellow soldiers.

  The students, many under 20 years old, often enter Fort Huachuca
fresh from basic training. About 80% pass the course, and then go on to
language school.

  Instruction begins by making students aware of the
intelligence-gathering skills they already have. Sgt. First Class
Anthony Novacek likes to use a romantic example: Youre down at
Jimbos Beach Shack, approaching unknown females, he tells recruits.
Success involves assessing the target, speaking her language, learning
her needs and appearing to be the only way she can satisfy them.   

  Soldiers then study 30 techniques to make prisoners crack. One is the
simple incentive approach. Around the world, everyone smokes, Sgt.
Giersdorf tells students. If youve ever talked to a captured Arab who
hasnt smoked for two hours, a pack of smokes can get you a long way.

  Some incentives, however, can be pure deceptions. Sgt. Giersdorf says
prisoners may be told they could be repatriated if they cooperate, or
that their wounded friends might get the best medical care, even though
interrogators know that neither would happen. Other techniques involve
considerably more pressure.

  Fear-up employs heavy-handed, table-banging violence, an Army
field manual says. The interrogator behaves in a heavy, overpowering
manner with a loud and threatening voice and may throw objects across
the room to heighten the sources implanted feelings of fear.
   
THREAT: A U.S. PRISON

  Interrogators can suggest plenty of things to frighten prisoners. One
Federal Bureau of Investigation official says likely scenarios include
being sent to a U.S. prison, where inmates might view terrorists as
lower than a child molester. Equally threatening: repatriation to
Afghanistan, to face justice under the new regime in Kabul.

  Fear-down, in contrast, targets terrified prisoner

Oil giants Wild West fight over petrol stations in China [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---

from
chinabiz newsletter 


Oil giants Wild West fight over petrol stations
26/04/2002

Shanghai - China's two oil giants Sinopec
  and Petrochina
  are involved in violent
battles over control of petrol stations along important highways,
Financial Times (FT) reported on Thursday.

  The companies, who have the exclusive rights to build new petrol
stations in China, are using armed gangs to secure their position, FT
writes. In the central Henan province, gangs backed by Sinopec
attacked seven different stations and stopped work at sixteen others.
One of the worst battles occurred late last month, when Sinopec
employees with iron rods attacked Petrochina workers who were
renovating 50 new stations along a new highway. 

  A police officer who witnessed one of the battles at a petrol station
told FT: "It was the most violent scene I have ever seen in my life.
The fighters smashed windows, doors, took away equipment and also drove
construction workers out of their rooms with fire extinguishers and
beat them with iron rods."

  According to the report, Sinopec is furious over an agreement between
Petrochina and the local highway construction company to place its
franchises along the road. Currently Sinopec rules the market in
Henan, where it owns half of the province's 8,000 stations.

  The retail market is a promising market to both companies. Local
media estimated sales had a potential annual net profit of around 200
million Renminbi (US$24 million) in the 50 stations, which were center
of the fight in Henan.

  Sinopec and Petrochina, both listed in New York, together own about
half of the 80,000 or more petrol stations in China. The firms are
involved in setting up joint ventures with other international giants.
Sinopec has agreements to build 500 stations with BP Amoco, Exxon Mobil
and Royal Dutch Shell. A possible deal between Petrochina and BP Amoco,
which are currently negotiating plans to manage 800 stations in a
separate joint venture, might affect the Sinopec-BP Amoco agreement,
FT reports.

  The government granted Petrochina and Sinopec sole rights to build
new petrol stations before the market becomes open to foreign investors
by 2005.

  The companies declined comment on the violent struggle, saying both
the police and local and central government are investigating the
incident. 
_  

Copyright (C) 2002 Chinabiz.org. 
All rights reserved.
http://www.chinabiz.org
_  


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Oakland.  Starts & ends at the colonnade between Grand & Lakeshore Avenues, 3 P.M., 
every Sunday.  Info:  (510)763-8712, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or http://www.webwm.com/LMNOP

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Yet another Ugly American [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200204/25/eng20020425_94700.shtml

Interesting People's Daily commentary on rude behavior by foreigners in
China & the Chinese attitude towards them.  I'm only sending the URL
'cause you won't want to miss the pics!  - Steve


=
Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace.  Weekly peace walks around Lake Merritt in 
Oakland.  Starts & ends at the colonnade between Grand & Lakeshore Avenues, 3 P.M., 
every Sunday.  Info:  (510)763-8712, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or http://www.webwm.com/LMNOP

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China will protect nations from bullies, says Hu [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

from
The News
Internet Edition
Thurs. April 25, 2002

WORLD NEWS

http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2002-daily/25-04-2002/world/w9.htm

China will protect nations from bullies, says Hu

KUALA LUMPUR: China's heir apparent, Hu Jintao, said on Wednesday his
country would retain an independent foreign policy and would resist any
attempts by strong nations to force their interests on the weak.

Hu, speaking in Malaysia en route to the United States, is the
favourite to succeed Jiang Zemin as head of the Communist Party this
year and as China's president in 2003. "(China) opposes the strong
lording it over the weak and the big bullying the small and has long
pledged not to seek hegemony, not to join any military bloc, and not to
pursue its own spheres of influence," Hu said in a speech to the Asian
Strategy and Leadership Institute in Kuala Lumpur. He was to meet Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad and deputy Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for talks
expected to address everything from trade and investment to terrorism.
Both China and Malaysia joined the U.S.-led war on terror after the
September 11 attacks on New York and Washington and have arrested
Islamic militants at home. But they also share doubts about U.S.
unilateralism. The 58-year-old Hu makes his first official visit to the
United States from April 27 to May 3. He will visit Honolulu, San
Francisco, New York and Washington, where he is expected to meet
President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

ASIAN PARTNERS: Before that, on April 26, he visits Singapore, the
largely ethnic Chinese city state whose business community, like the
sizable, wealthy ethnic Chinese minority in Malaysia, is looking for
investment opportunities in the ancestral homeland. In his speech, Hu
praised Malaysia's achievements brought about by Mahathir's policy of
rapid industrialisation during his 21 years in power. He later went on
a walkabout through Kuala Lumpur's ritziest shopping mall beneath the
Petronas Twin Towers, the world's tallest building.

Hu emphasised that China's emergence as an economic power should be
viewed positively by Southeast Asian nations who have seen more foreign
investors attracted to China. "History has continued and will continue
to prove that China is a positive force making for an economically
stronger and more stable Asia," he said. China signed an accord with
the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in
November to establish a giant free-trade zone within 10 years. But the
export-oriented ASEAN members fear being undercut by China's low-cost
producers while China needs Southeast Asia's resources, notably oil,
gas and forest products, to fuel its rapid industrialisation.

"Our conclusion, therefore, is clear: China's development would be
impossible without Asia, and Asia's prosperity without China," Hu said.
Southeast Asian firms are eyeing investment opportunities in China.
Malaysian automaker Proton this year bought a 49 percent stake in
China's Goldstar Heavy Industrial Co. Ltd, helping it gain a presence
in the Chinese market. Hu visits Penang, the home of Malaysia
electronics export industry, on Thursday.



=
Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace.  Weekly peace walks around Lake Merritt in 
Oakland.  Starts & ends at the colonnade between Grand & Lakeshore Avenues, 3 P.M., 
every Sunday.  Info:  (510)763-8712, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or http://www.webwm.com/LMNOP

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ADL found guilty of spying by California court [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]


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---

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=14650
Thursday, April 25, 2002 / 12 Safar 1423

ADL found guilty of spying by California court
By Barbara Ferguson, Arab News Correspondent

WASHINGTON, 25 April  The San Francisco Superior Court has awarded
former Congressman Pete McCloskey, R-California, a $150,000 court
judgment against the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

McCloskey, the attorney in the case, represented one of three civil
lawsuits filed in San Francisco against the ADL in 1993. The lawsuit
came after raids were made by the San Francisco Police Department and
the FBI on offices of the ADL in both San Francisco and Los Angeles,
which found that the ADL was engaged in extensive domestic spying
operations on a vast number of individuals and institutions around the
country.

During the course of the inquiry in San Francisco, the SFPD and FBI
determined the ADL had computerized files on nearly 10,000 people
across the country, and that more than 75 percent of the information
had been illegally obtained from police, FBI files and state drivers
license data banks.

Much of the stolen information had been provided by Tom Gerard of the
San Francisco Police Department, who sold, or gave, the information to
Ray Bullock, ADLs top undercover operative.

The investigation also determined that the ADL conduit, Gerard, was
also working with the CIA.

Two other similar suits against ADL were settled some years ago, and
the ADL was found guilty in both cases, but the McCloskey suit
continued to drag through the courts until last month.

In the McCloskey case, the ADL agreed to pay (from its annual
multi-million budget) $50,000 to each of the three plaintiffs  Jeffrey
Blankfort, Steve Zeltzer and Anne Poirier  who continued to press
charges against the ADL, despite a continuing series of judicial
roadblocks that forced 14 of the original defendants to withdraw.
Another two died during the proceedings.

The ADL, which calls itself a civil rights group, continued to claim it
did nothing wrong in monitoring their activities. Although the ADL
presents itself as a group that defends the interests of Jews, two of
three ADL victims are Jewish.

Blankfort and Zeltzer were targeted by the ADL because they were
critical of Israels policies toward the Palestinians.

The third ADL victim in the McCloskey case, Poirier, was not involved
in any activities related to Israel or the Middle East. Poirier ran a
scholarship program for South African exiles who were fighting the
apartheid system in South Africa.

At the time, the ADL worked closely with the then anti-apartheid
government of South Africa, and ADLs operative Bullock provided ADL
with illegally obtained data on Poirier and her associates to the South
African government.

But the conclusion of McCloskeys case does not mean the end to the
ADLs legal problems.

On March 31, 2001, US District Judge Edward Nottingham of Denver,
Colorado, upheld most of a $10.5 million defamation judgment that a
federal jury in Denver had levied against the ADL in April of 2000.

The jury hit the ADL with the massive judgment after finding it had
falsely labeled Evergreen, Colorado residents  William and Dorothy
Quigley  as anti-Semites. The ADL is appealing the judgment.


=
Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace.  Weekly peace walks around Lake Merritt in 
Oakland.  Starts & ends at the colonnade between Grand & Lakeshore Avenues, 3 P.M., 
every Sunday.  Info:  (510)763-8712, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or http://www.webwm.com/LMNOP

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Bosnian Serbs Get A Few Marks For Recent NATO Destruction [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]