Afghan Villagers Say 200 Killed [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[TOOLGT]

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

 Afghan Villagers Say 200 Killed 
By Chris Tomlinson
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, December 1, 2001; 8:12 PM JALALABAD, Afghanistan –– Coalition 
bombing raids in eastern Afghanistan struck three villages and killed scores 
of civilians, witnesses and anti-Taliban commanders said Saturday. The U.S. 
military said it has no evidence any of its airstrikes hit 
civilians.Witnesses and survivors at a nearby hospital said between 100 and 
200 villagers were killed Saturday when warplanes dropped more than 25 bombs 
in four passes over the village of Kama Ado, 30 miles south of 
Jalalabad.Witnesses and provincial officials also reported bombing in the 
nearby village of Agom, saying at least five people had died there. And 
Hazrat Ali, the security chief for Nangarhar province where the bombing 
occurred, said at least 50 people were killed Friday night when bombs fell on 
Khan-e-Muirajuddin, another village 15 miles southwest of Jalalabad.Another 
provincial official, defense chief Mohammed Zeman, said local anti-Taliban 
authorities had complained to the Americans that they were bombing in the 
wrong place.Marine Corps Maj. Brad Lowell, a spokesman from U.S. Central 
Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., said Saturday that the military has no 
evidence any of its airstrikes in the area hit civilians. Lowell said 
officials reviewed gun camera and surveillance footage going back to Thursday 
and found nothing resembling what the Afghans described."All of our rounds 
are accounted for, and the images show the caves and tunnel systems and the 
rounds hitting those targets," Lowell said.Referring to an initial report of 
one village bombed, Lowell had earlier said: "It just did not happen."Lalgul, 
a 33-year-old farmer who claimed he witnessed the attack on Kama Ado from a 
neighboring village and helped rescue four survivors, said all 30 mud brick 
and wooden homes in the mountain village were flattened. Other witnesses gave 
the same account. Like many Afghans, Lalgul uses one name.Lalgul said that on 
his way to the hospital, he passed through Agom, he was told five people died 
and more than 25 were injured. Others from the area gave higher estimates. 
Zeman and Ali said bombs did fall on Agom, but they could not confirm the 
death toll.Ali said the death toll in the Khan-e-Muirajuddin bombing could 
rise."Fifty people were confirmed dead, it's possible that 100 or 200 were 
killed," he said. "We are very sad about the bombing of civilians, but it is 
the fault of our own people, because they are giving false reports that there 
are al-Qaida camps there." Ali refused to elaborate.Pentagon officials have 
said they are bombing in the mountains south of Jalalabad because they 
believe more than 600 non-Afghan Taliban fighters and members of Osama bin 
Laden's al-Qaida network are hiding in mountain caves.Kama Ado is located in 
the foothills of the White Mountains, where the hide-outs are reportedly 
located. The area is nominally under the control of the anti-Taliban Eastern 
Shura, led by former guerrillas in the war against Soviet occupiers in the 
1980s.Zeman said he fully supports U.S. airstrikes in the mountains, but that 
U.S. planes were hitting the wrong places."We talked to the authorities in 
the United States ... and we told them, 'Your bombing is not to the mark. 
There are civilians there. Stop bombing that area,'" Zeman said.Lalgul 
brought one of the survivors to Jalalabad Public Health Hospital. The 
10-year-old boy, Iqhaluddin, suffered lung damage and broken ribs. Doctors 
said he was expected to recover fully."After the bombs stopped falling, we 
heard the voices of children and people and we were very frightened. We 
didn't know what to do at first, then we decided to save them," Lalgul said. 
"Out of a family of 40, only this boy and his grandmother survived." 
© 2001 The Associated Press 
 

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Re: Fw: [CubaNews] Discrete Fascism [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[Aaron]

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

Unless I'm badly misunderstanding the intended meaning, the correct word here is 
'discreet', not 'discrete'.

 - Aaron



>To: com-int <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED],
>   [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
>   "People's Voice" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>   Dawn-Michele Gould <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>   Vicki Andrada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED],
>   "Mrs. Jela Jovanovic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: mart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Fw: [CubaNews] Discrete Fascism [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
>Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 11:32:07 -0500
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>Forward from mart.
>Please distribute.
> 
>- Original Message -
>From: Nathan M. Gant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 4:16 AM
>Subject: [CubaNews] Discrete Fascism
>
>Discrete Fascism, American-style
[SNIP]

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Iraq under embargo - A photo essay by Allan Pogue [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[mart]

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

Forward from mart.
Please distribute widely.

Iraq under the embargo -A photo essay by Allan Pogue

http://www.documentaryphotographs.com/iraq00.htm

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Fw: Chamber of Horrors in Iraq -the legacy of Depleted Uranium [WWW.STOPNATO.O

[mart]

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

Forward from mart.
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY.

Chamber of Horrors in Iraq 
The legacy of Depleted Uranium!

- Original Message - 
From: Vicki Andrada 
To: mailto:Undisclosed-Recipient:@mx7-rwc.mail.home.com 
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2001 11:40 PM
Subject: Fw: CANESI: [GNAA] Chamber of Horrors in Iraq [please forward]





A chamber of horrors so close to the 'Garden of Eden'

In Foreign Parts in Basra, Southern Iraq

Andy Kershaw

01 December 2001

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=107715

I thought I had a strong stomach - toughened by the minefields and foul
frontline hospitals of Angola, by
the handiwork of the death squads in Haiti and by the wholesale butchery
of Rwanda. But I nearly lost
my breakfast last week at the Basrah Maternity and Children's Hospital
in southern Iraq.

Dr Amer, the hospital's director, had invited me into a room in which
were displayed colour photographs
of what, in cold medical language, are called "congenital anomalies",
but what you and I would better
understand as horrific birth deformities. The images of these babies
were head-spinningly grotesque -
and thank God they didn't bring out the real thing, pickled in
formaldehyde. At one point I had to grab
hold of the back of a chair to support my legs.

I won't spare you the details. You should know because - according to
the Iraqis and in all likelihood the
World Health Organisation, which is soon to publish its findings on the
spiralling birth defects in southern
Iraq - we are responsible for these obscenities.

During the Gulf war, Britain and the United States pounded the city and
its surroundings with 96,000
depleted-uranium shells. The wretched creatures in the photographs - for
they were scarcely human -
are the result, Dr Amer said.

He guided me past pictures of children born without eyes, without
brains. Another had arrived in the
world with only half a head, nothing above the eyes. Then there was a
head with legs, babies without
genitalia, a little girl born with her brain outside her skull and the
whatever-it-was whose eyes were below
the level of its nose.

Then the chair-grabbing moment - a photograph of what I can only
describe (inadequately) as a pair of
buttocks with a face and two amphibian arms. Mercifully, none of these
babies survived for long.

Depleted uranium has an incubation period in humans of five years. In
the four years from 1991 (the end
of the Gulf war) until 1994, the Basrah Maternity Hospital saw 11
congenital anomalies. Last year there
were 221.

Then there is the alarming increase in cases of leukaemia among Basrah
babies lucky enough to have
been born with the full complement of limbs and features in the right
place. The hospital treated 15
children with leukaemia in 1993. In 2000 it was 60. By the end of this
year that figure again will be
topped. And so it will go on. Forever.

(Depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.1 billion years. Total
disintegration occurs after 25 billion years, the
age of the earth.)

In any other country, in which the vital drugs are available, 95 per
cent of these infant leukaemia cases
would be treated successfully. In Basrah, the figure is 20 per cent.
Most heartbreakingly, many children
on the road to recovery go into relapse part way through treatment when
the sporadic and meagre supply
of drugs runs out. And then they die.

By the United Nations' own admission 5,000 Iraqi children die every
month because of a shortage of
medicines created by sanctions imposed by ... the United Nations.

Tony Blair, on numerous occasions, has misled Parliament and the country
(perhaps unwittingly) by
saying that Saddam Hussein is free to buy all the medicines Iraq needs
under the oil-for-food programme.
This is not true. Oil for food amounts to just 60 cents (40p) per Iraqi
per day and everything - food,
education, health care and rebuilding of infrastructure - has to come
out of that. There simply is not
enough to go around.

And has Mr Blair heard of the UN Security Council 661 Committee? If he
has, then he keeps quiet about
it. The committee was certainly unknown to me until I toured the shabby
hospitals of Basrah.

This committee, which meets in secret in New York and does not publish
minutes, supervises sanctions
on Iraq. President Saddam is not free to buy Iraq's non-military needs
on the world market. The
country's requirements have to be submitted to 661 and, often after
bureaucratic delay, a judgement is
handed down on what Iraq can and cannot buy. I have obtained a copy of
recent 661 rulings and some
of the decisions seem daft if not peevish. "Dual use" is the most common
reason to refuse a purchase,
meaning the item requested could be put to military use.

So how does the 661 committee expect Saddam Hussein to wage war with
"beef extract powder and
broth"? Does 661 expect him to turn on the Kurds again by spraying them
with "malt extract"? Or to
send his presidential gua

Fw:ProLibertad Activity/Mumia Activity [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[mart]

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


- Original Message - 
From: benjamin ramos 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2001 5:28 PM
Subject: [Cuba SI] ProLibertad Activity/Mumia Activity


The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign is organzing a special Holiday gathering for Dec. 
15th, 2001!!

Please join us on this special occasion and help us raise Money for the 
ProLibertad Commissary Fund for the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners!!  we 
have FUN, MUSIC, FOOD, AND SPECIAL ARTISAN AUCTIONS!!

JOIN US AND MAKE THE PUERTO RICAN POLITICAL PRISONERS HOLIDAYS A LITTLE 
BETTER!!

Saturday Dec. 15th, 2001 at 7pm
The Brecht Forum 122 w27th St. (6-7th Avenues)on the 10th fl
$10 donation, but no one will be turned away
For more info. contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bronx 718-601-4751, manhattan 212-927-9065, New Jersey 201-435-3244

___

A Tribute to 20 Years of Resistance from Death Row

Sunday, December 9
2 PM
NYU Law School
Vanderbilt Hall, Room 206
(corner of West 4th & MacDougal)
Donation requested

Refuse & Resist! invites you to join with:

Amy Goodman
journalist and host of Deomcracy Now!

Terry Bisson
author of Mumia's biography, on a move: The Story of
Mumia Abu-Jamal

Frances Goldin
literary agent for Mumia Abu-Jamal

Debra Sweet
Refuse & Resist!

Chris Martin
National Lawyer's Guild, NY Law School Chapter

December 9, 2001, will mark 20 years since the
incarceration of Mumia Abu-Jamal, with most of this
time spent locked down on death row.  To be held for
20 years, in conditions of isolation and under
constant threat of execution, is itself a form of
cruel and degrading torture.  To have this happen as
the result of a trial that Amnesty International has
called a travesty of justice is an outrage against
human rights.

Already targeted by police and the FBI from the age of
15 for his opposition to racism and concern for
justice, Mumia has championed the people, exposed
police brutality and countless other injustices, and
became known as "the voice of the voiceless".  This
was true in 1981 when he was targeted by police in the
first place, and it's even more true now. From death
row Mumia, through his voice, his writings and his
firm stand has come to represent the aspirations of
people for a better world. In today's political
climate with all of the government's attempts to
suppress dissent, Mumia, the voice of the voiceless,
is more precious than ever to the people.

Stop the Execution! Overturn the Conviction!
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

Contact Refuse & Resist! at www.refuseandresist.org or
email the NY chapter at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
or call 212-713-5657.

The event is cosponsored by National Lawyers Guild chapters at NY Law
and NYU Law Schools.

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Iraq: A Chamber Of Horrors - Independent [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[Stasi]

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

"The wretched creatures in the photographs - for they were scarcely human - are the 
result, Dr Amer said.
He guided me past pictures of children born without eyes, without brains. Another had 
arrived in the world with only half a head, nothing above the eyes. Then there was a 
head with legs, babies without genitalia, a little girl born with her brain outside 
her skull and the whatever-it-was whose eyes were below the level of its nose.

Then the chair-grabbing moment - a photograph of what I can only describe 
(inadequately) as a pair of buttocks with a face and two amphibian arms. Mercifully, 
none of these babies survived for long."

A chamber of horrors so close to the 'Garden of Eden'
In Foreign Parts in Basra, Southern Iraq
Andy Kershaw
01 December 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=107715
I thought I had a strong stomach - toughened by the minefields and foul frontline 
hospitals of Angola, by the handiwork of the death squads in Haiti and by the 
wholesale butchery of Rwanda. But I nearly lost my breakfast last week at the Basrah 
Maternity and Children's Hospital in southern Iraq.

Dr Amer, the hospital's director, had invited me into a room in which were displayed 
colour photographs of what, in cold medical language, are called "congenital 
anomalies", but what you and I would better understand as horrific birth deformities. 
The images of these babies were head-spinningly grotesque - and thank God they didn't 
bring out the real thing, pickled in formaldehyde. At one point I had to grab hold of 
the back of a chair to support my legs.

I won't spare you the details. You should know because - according to the Iraqis and 
in all likelihood the World Health Organisation, which is soon to publish its findings 
on the spiralling birth defects in southern Iraq - we are responsible for these 
obscenities.

During the Gulf war, Britain and the United States pounded the city and its 
surroundings with 96,000 depleted-uranium shells. The wretched creatures in the 
photographs - for they were scarcely human - are the result, Dr Amer said.

He guided me past pictures of children born without eyes, without brains. Another had 
arrived in the world with only half a head, nothing above the eyes. Then there was a 
head with legs, babies without genitalia, a little girl born with her brain outside 
her skull and the whatever-it-was whose eyes were below the level of its nose.

Then the chair-grabbing moment - a photograph of what I can only describe 
(inadequately) as a pair of buttocks with a face and two amphibian arms. Mercifully, 
none of these babies survived for long.

Depleted uranium has an incubation period in humans of five years. In the four years 
from 1991 (the end of the Gulf war) until 1994, the Basrah Maternity Hospital saw 11 
congenital anomalies. Last year there were 221.

Then there is the alarming increase in cases of leukaemia among Basrah babies lucky 
enough to have been born with the full complement of limbs and features in the right 
place. The hospital treated 15 children with leukaemia in 1993. In 2000 it was 60. By 
the end of this year that figure again will be topped. And so it will go on. Forever.

(Depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.1 billion years. Total disintegration occurs 
after 25 billion years, the age of the earth.)

In any other country, in which the vital drugs are available, 95 per cent of these 
infant leukaemia cases would be treated successfully. In Basrah, the figure is 20 per 
cent. Most heartbreakingly, many children on the road to recovery go into relapse part 
way through treatment when the sporadic and meagre supply of drugs runs out. And then 
they die.

By the United Nations' own admission 5,000 Iraqi children die every month because of a 
shortage of medicines created by sanctions imposed by ... the United Nations.

Tony Blair, on numerous occasions, has misled Parliament and the country (perhaps 
unwittingly) by saying that Saddam Hussein is free to buy all the medicines Iraq needs 
under the oil-for-food programme. This is not true. Oil for food amounts to just 60 
cents (40p) per Iraqi per day and everything - food, education, health care and 
rebuilding of infrastructure - has to come out of that. There simply is not enough to 
go around.

And has Mr Blair heard of the UN Security Council 661 Committee? If he has, then he 
keeps quiet about it. The committee was certainly unknown to me until I toured the 
shabby hospitals of Basrah.

This committee, which meets in secret in New York and does not publish minutes, 
supervises sanctions on Iraq. President Saddam is not free to buy Iraq's non-military 
needs on the world market. The country's requirements have to be submitted to 661 and, 
often after bureaucratic delay, a judgement is handed down on what Iraq can and cannot 
buy. I have obtained a copy of recent 661 rulings and some of the decisions seem daft 

Athens: anti-war demo [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[Barry Stoller]

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


AFP. 1 December 2001. Anti-war demonstration held in Athens.

ATHENS -- Almost 800 Greek anti-war protesters gathered in front of the
US embassy in Athens Friday night to demonstrate against NATO and the
war in Afghanistan following calls from the Greek communist party (KKE)
and an anti-globalisation organisation.

Some 300 young followers of the "Genoa Initiative 2001" movement marched
through the city centre to celebrate the second anniversary of the first
anti-globalisation demonstrations in Seattle in 1999.

They were later joined near the embassy by almost 500 KKE supporters.

Speeches and concerts continued all night, dominated by anti-American
and anti-military slogans.

"We resist war and racism," "Close down NATO, open the borders," "No
troops in Afghanistan," "Cyprus, Palestine, Irak, Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan: American assasins" were among the slogans on the banners
brandished by protesters.

Police closed one of Athens' main streets because of the protests.  No
incidents were reported.

Several similar demonstrations have been held in Athens since the US-led
air strikes on Afghanistan began on October 7.


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

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

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Out War Movies [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[TOOLGT]

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

Out War Movies
The News - Pakistan
12-1-1

LOS ANGELES - US troops cornered in Somalia, a US pilot down over Bosnia, 450 US soldiers hemmed in by enemies in Vietnam: These are Hollywood's quick answer to the public's hunger for war movies while the real thing rages in Afghanistan.   John Moore's "Behind Enemy Lines" will hit movie screens on Friday, the first in a series of war flicks Hollywood has been busily producing since the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan began October 7. Based on the story of real-life US pilot Scott O'Grady, who was shot down over Bosnia on June 2, 1995, "Behind Enemy Lines" was originally scheduled for release in spring 2002, until Washington's unexpected war on terrorism convinced 20th Century Fox studios otherwise.   "We screened the picture and audiences were cheering, and we said, my goodness, we shouldn't be so nervous for this subject matter because people seem to love it -- and we opted to push it up," the distributor's president, Bruce Snyder, told AFP. Movies with terrorist-related themes, on the other hand, suffered the opposite fate after the shocking September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "Collateral Damage," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others, was promptly shelved.   "After September 11, it is very difficult to tell what works and what doesn't work; the world has changed so considerably and we couldn't really tell whether this kind of subject matter would play," Snyder said. The movie executive said the studio at first also considered delaying the release of "Behind Enemy Lines," which he described as "very heroic and patriotic." Similarly, Sony Pictures opted for the early release of Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down," which tells the story of the 1993 US military fiasco in Somalia that cost the lives of 18 US servicemen.   Initially scheduled for release in March 2002, "Black Hawk Down" will hit theaters in Los Angeles and New York in late December, and in the rest of the country in January. "We saw the film in October and we were able to get it ready by January, and we felt this was the best place for the film," said Mai Joyce of Revolution Studios, which bankrolled the 90-million-dollar production distributed by Sony.   "It's definitely a heroic tale, a tale of these boys sent in this UN mission, and it's a tale of the heroism of these individuals and what they had to go through," Joyce said. The UN-led humanitarian relief mission in 1993 in war-torn and hunger-ridden Somalia turned into a nightmare when some US troops dropped out of Black Hawk helicopters to seek and capture warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid. Two choppers were downed and the soldiers came under enemy fire. "Black Hawk Down" and "Behind Enemy Lines" are only the beginning.   Hollywood is preparing a veritable avalanche of war movies for next year. They include "We Were Soldiers," a Hollywood rendition of Vietnam's Ia Drang battle, starring Mel Gibson; and "Hart's War" and "Windtalkers," both set in World War II. "We Were Soldiers" was scheduled for release in the summer of 2002, but Paramount Pictures thought it best to move it up to March. 


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The Clash of Civilizations' - A Questionable Thesis [WWW.STOPN

[Miroslav Antic]

Title: Message



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






  

  Perspective




  


‘The Clash of Civilizations’ - A Questionable 
Thesis 

 
by Syed Arif 
Hussaini
As the war in Afghanistan nears the end of its 
shooting phase, questions are being raised afresh on the validity of the thesis 
of Harvard professor, Samuel Huntington, on the inevitability of a clash between 
the Muslim civilization of the East and the Christian civilization of the West. 

Osama Bin Ladin’s call to Muslim countries to 
rise in a holy war (Jihad) against America, appeared to provoke such a clash and 
provide substance to Huntington’s contention. The hawks, jingoists, pro-Israel 
lobbyists and media-men started quoting like scripture his 1996 book on the 
subject, betraying an underlying wish for the fulfillment of his prediction. 

The more the Muslim states are hamstrung, it was 
perhaps felt, the less likely would be their support to Palestine. The US being 
the sole super-power, the time was perhaps considered opportune by these 
tendentious hawks to expand the battlefield to include Iraq and other oil-rich 
countries of the region. The anthrax-bearing letters appear to goad the 
administration’s attention to the units in Iraq suspected of producing chemical 
and biological weapons. 
Developments on the ground have, however, negated 
a confrontation between the Muslim and Christian civilizations. Almost all 
Muslim countries have condemned the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, joined the 
US-led coalition, and offered assistance to the campaign. The Organization of 
Islamic Countries (OIC) and the Arab League have also endorsed the campaign 
against terrorism. 
Osama’s call for a Jihad has been ignored with 
contempt. It did however stir emotionally some bigots belonging to the lunatic 
fringe. These ill-equipped volunteers swelled the rag-tag Taliban ranks to 
commit aimless suicide. 
The Taliban have deserted several fronts to 
dissolve into the civilian population. Some have defected to the Northern 
Alliance. Fifteen thousand Taliban, Arabs, Pakistanis, Chechens, others remain 
surrounded in Kunduz city in northern Afghanistan. Negotiations continue between 
the US-backed Northern Alliance and the Taliban on the terms of surrender. 

That is the situation at the time of writing 
(Nov. 23). It would be appropriate now to take a look at Huntington’s thesis. 

“It is my hypothesis”, he writes, “that the 
fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily 
ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the 
dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the 
most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global 
politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The 
clash of civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.” 
Almost all prominent world historians have sought 
cogent patterns in the rise and fall of nations and in international relations. 
The first such study was made by Ibn-e-Khaldun in his work called Maqaddama - 
‘Introduction’. He found the inherent cohesion and strength of a nation, which 
he called ‘asbeyet’, to be the deciding factor. The rise and fall of a nation is 
conditioned by the curve of its ‘asbeyet.’ 
Numerous Arab, Persian and Western historians 
have viewed the phenomenon from various angles. Among the latest, Francis 
Fukuyama thought that with the demise of the Soviet Union, history itself had 
come to an end as ideological conflict had ended. Samuel Huntington disagreed 
contending that a conflict between the Western and Islamic civilizations was 
building up. Civilizations, he maintains, are differentiated from each other by 
history, language, culture, tradition and, most important, religion. 
Interaction of peoples of different civilizations 
enhance the differences and not decrease them. The victory of liberal democracy 
over communism ended ideology-based conflicts; civilization-based groupings of 
states are filling the vacuum, he maintains. 
Huntington’s thesis is vastly flawed. Conflicts 
are rarely rooted in civilizational differences. Contacts between two different 
civilizations have not always embittered their relations. The have often 
contributed to positive developments and a cross-fertilization of ideas and 
knowledge. 
The advent of information technology, the 
internet in particular, and the 1996 formation of World Trade Organization 
leading to globalization of world economy, the lowering of customs’ barriers, 
have set in fast motion the development of a world civilization. Cultural 
differences are conceding place to uniform cultural values. 
Over the past two-three years, I have traveled to 
India, Malaysia, Arabia, Turkey, and Mexico. I found everywhere the same blue 
jeans, T-shirts, joggers, and fast food chains serving burgers, fried chicken, 
French-fries, and pizzas. In urban areas you find a lot of men and

US forces behind war crimes at Mazar-i-Sharif [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[Miroslav Antic]

Title: Message



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




US forces behind war crimes at Mazar-i-Sharif: 
Media covers up 


 

by Stephen Gowans
There are two levels of deception being practiced 
in connection with the horrible slaughter of Taliban prisoners at the Qaila 
Jangi fortress near Mazar-i-Sharif. 
The first is the hear no evil, see no evil, speak 
no evil approach of the US media. You’ll find little mention of the atrocity in 
US newspapers or newscasts. "A computer database search of US newspapers from 
recent days reveals an almost total absence of stories examining the issue," 
says Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, in its Nov. 30 
edition.
Cowed by letters and phone calls from jingoistic 
mouth-beraters branding even the mildest criticism a 
sign of sedition, anxious to avoid charges of being a fifth column, the US media 
hews to an uncritically patriotic line, which means leaving atrocities committed 
by "our side" unmentioned or under-reported. As Richard Hartung, director of the 
New York based World Policy Institute says, "I don't know whether they’ve been 
intimidated or whether they have just been drawn into the war." Here’s a clue: 
Above all else, the media is a business, and the trusted stewards of 
shareholders’ interests are smart enough not to let some dumb-ass idea of the 
public’s right to know get in the way of keeping an audience and turning a 
profit. Free, independent, critical -- that’s all public relations mumbo-jumbo. 
The bottom line is what drives the US media, and if that means covering up, 
toeing the line, passing off official press releases are original copy, so be 
it..
Another level of deception is being practiced by 
the Canadian media. Just as much under the yoke of shareholders as American 
concerns, Canadian outlets have a little more leeway. Canadians aren’t as happed 
up about seeing Afghans killed as their southern neighbors are, so Canadian 
reporters can get away with a little more. So it is that they’re ready to 
acknowledge that the Mazar-i-Sharif story is being suppressed in the US, indeed, 
happy to, since it makes them seem all the more open by comparison. But there’s 
something the Canadian press, for all its self-congratulatory openness, also 
can’t help but suppress -- who the perps are and who the mastermind is. Sure, 
it’s willing to say the atrocity happened, it’s even willing to pin the blame on 
Washington’s allies, the Northern Alliance. But it’s not willing to say who was 
also directly involved. In fact, it’s drawing attention away from the 
co-culprits entirely, saying their biggest crime was to stand by and watch a 
massacre happen, without intervening. Except, in reporting the massacre, they 
also show there were three culprits. It’s only in the headlines and conclusion 
that two mysteriously disappear. 
Remember what happened? Foreign Taliban troops -- 
Pakistanis, Chechens and Arabs mostly, are being held at the ancient Qaila Jangi 
fortress outside Mazar-i-Sharif. They had negotiated a surrender with Northern 
Alliance General Rashid Dostum, who says they’ll be allowed passage to Pakistan. 
Afghan Taliban troops have already be allowed to return to their home villages 
or have been integrated into Northern Alliance units. A skirmish erupts inside 
the fortress walls. Why, is unclear. The official story, to be developed later 
into the bizarre pseudo-dichotomy that "this wasn’t a massacre, it was a battle" 
(it was both) is that some Taliban have smuggled arms into the prison. The story 
stinks. Why would fighters lay down their arms, allow themselves to herded into 
a fortress, surrounded on all sides by Northern Alliance troops and US and 
British special forces, and then, when they’re at their weakest and most 
vulnerable, without weapons expect those they can scrounge, dozens of them with 
their hands bound behind their backs, resume the battle? 
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had said 
days earlier he didn’t want to see foreign Taliban fighters go free. Dead or 
confined to a prison, was the outcome he preferred. But dead or confined to a 
prison wasn’t the outcome that was going to happen if Dostum kept his word. Who 
was going to prevail: Dostum or Rumsfeld?
The question doesn’t even need to be asked. US 
forces were in control at Qaila Jangi, indeed in control of the Northern 
Alliance, and much of the country, a point that may have suddenly and shockingly 
have occurred to the prisoners inside the fortress walls. They weren’t going to 
Pakistan. Indeed, they probably weren’t going to live. Did they realize they had 
been double crossed, that there was nothing left to lose, but to fight? 

Whatever the case, once the uprising had begun, 
the Taliban’s jailers had two options. Kill everyone, or bring the riot under 
control. They chose to hand Rumsfeld his wish. 
US special forces called in air strikes. And not 
just jet fighters to drop bombs, but low-flying Hercules aircraft, 
special

Russia to open Kabul humanitarian center [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[Miroslav Antic]

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

 Russia to open Kabul humanitarian center

MOSCOW - Russia plans to open a hospital and a center for coordinating
humanitarian aid in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday, a news report
said. "First Russian doctors will help the people of Kabul and in the
future mobile brigades will go to other regions," Deputy Emergency
Situations Minister Valery Vostrotin was quoted as saying Friday by the
news agency Interfax. The hospital is expected to be able to treat up to
300 people a day and 33 doctors have arrived to staff it, Interfax
reported. The aid center's main task is to be coordination of shipments
of humanitarian aid to people in Afghanistan, the report said. The
return of Russians to Kabul following their pullout in 1989 at the end
of a disastrous 10-year war has raised questions about whether Russia
aims to pull Afghanistan into its sphere of influence. Russia intends to
establish full diplomatic relations with post-Taliban Afghanistan,
Russian envoy Alexander Oblov was quoted as telling Interfax in Kabul.
"We must restore the whole range of bilateral relations in the
political, economic, humanitarian and cultural areas as well as in the
sphere of military-technical cooperation," Oblov said, according to the
report. -AP

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Law Faculty Denounces Hague 'Tribunal' [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[Miroslav Antic]

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


The URL for this article is 

http://www.icdsm.org/more/faculty.htm

  Send this article to a
friend

===
Letter from 20 Members of Belgrade Faculty of Law on Illegal Use of
Amicus Curiae by Hague 'Tribunal'
[posted 29 November 2001] ===

  Certified Translation

From: Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade   

Bulevar Revolucije, 67

11000 Belgrade Tel:(381-11) 32 41 501 and:(381-11) 32 30 116

Fax:(381-11) 32 21299 

To:  Bars of Serbia, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands and Great Britain 

Dear Sirs,

The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for former
Yugoslavia issued, in the case No.IT-99-37 against the accused Slobodan
Miloševi*, at the status conference held 30 August 2001, the order
inviting the Registrar to designate counsels to appear before it as
amicus curiae, pursuant to Article 74 of the Rules of Procedure and
Evidence of the Tribunal. Further to the order, the following lawyers
were designated to act in such a capacity: Mr. Branislav Tapuškovi*, of
FR of Yugoslavia, Mr. Michail-Mischa Vladimiroff of the Netherlands and
Mr. Steven Kay, QC, of Great Britain.  

We are of the view that the appointed personalities are top class
lawyers, highly experienced who could provide a valuable assistance to
the Tribunal in pursuit of its mandate provided Article 74 of its Rules
of Procedure and Evidence were correctly applied. 

However, although the order of the Trial Chamber, mentioned above,
described the task of the persons to be designated to act in the
capacity of amicus curiae "not to represent the accused but to assist in
the proper determination of the case" with the view to "securing a fair
trial", which is in keeping with the institute of amicus curiae, the
elaboration of the stated task in the first three of totally four items
is quite contrary to the meaning of this institute and constitutes, de
facto forcing of counsels upon the accused, ex officio, in an evasive
but awkwardly disguised way, and annihilation of the concept of
self-defense opted by the accused. Such a conduct constitutes a serious
breach of his right to defense guaranteed under Article 14 of the
International Covenant of Civil Rights and a series of other
international documents and constitutional and legal provisions in the
national legal systems of the civilized world. 

The three items mentioned set out that "amicus curiae is to assist the
Trial chamber by: 

1.  Making any submissions properly open to the accused by way of
preliminary or other pre-trial motion; 

2.  Making any submissions or objections to evidence properly open
to the accused during the trial proceedings and cross-examining
witnesses as appropriate; 

3.  Drawing to the attention of the Trial Chamber any exculpatory or
mitigating evidence..." 

The above assignments, obviously enough, pertain not to those who are to
assist the court, but fall within the realm of entitlements of the
accused and his counsels, exclusively. 

The Statute of the Hague Tribunal (Article 21) and the Rules of
Procedure and Evidence (Articles 44 and 45) stipulated on one hand, the
right of the accused to chose his counsel himself, meaning that he
cannot be imposed a counsel whom he did not want, and on the other, they
set out no possibility of designating ex officio counsel, providing lee
way to the accused to defend himself on his own, which Slobodan
Miloševi* opted for.  

Designation of de facto counsel of the accused, as mentioned, and
moreover the individuals he doesn't want, entrusted with the tasks,
which belong to the accused and his counsels only, all under the mask of
the institute of amicus curiae constitutes but a breach of both the
stated provision of the Statute and the Rules of Procedure and Evidence,
and Article 14, Par 3, items b), d) and e) alike of the International
Covenant of Civil and Political rights. The right to defense, protected
by the mentioned provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights has been violated also by the fact that the designation
of de facto counsel to the accused and with the assignments mentioned
diluted his defense concept, based on repudiation of legality of the
foundation of the Tribunal itself and denial of the accused to
recognize, by his own conduct, so disputed legality. The accused is
entitled to such repudiation, the more so as he invokes the UN Charter
and suggested that the establishment of the Tribunal was in violation of
the Charter. 

Without contesting the benefits of a duly applied institute of amicus
curiae we find it unacceptable, illegal, contrary to

SCMP: Washington & Beijing Seek To Ease Missile Row [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[Stasi]

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

Saturday, December 1, 2001
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Washington and Beijing seek to ease missile row 

AGENCIES 
The United States and China have launched a new bid to ease a row over Beijing's 
missile sales, as a senior Chinese envoy embarked on meetings with top officials 
including Secretary of State Colin Powell. 

The US had renewed a demand that the Chinese curb missile co-operation with Pakistan, 
a senior US official said. 

Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Guangya's programme included a short meeting with Mr Powell 
on Thursday, before more detailed and extensive discussions between US Undersecretary 
of State John Bolton and Mr Wang, US and Chinese sources said. 

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said both sides discussed non-proliferation 
and arms-controls issues. 

"In addition to those discussions, we'll also have discussions with his delegation on 
counter-terrorism co-operation and the situation in Afghanistan along with other 
issues of concern," Mr Boucher said. 

The September 11 attacks have added urgency to the goal of halting the spread of 
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons that could fall into the hands of extremists. 

If there was time, the United States also hoped to use the meeting to voice concern 
about China's biological weapons programme. 

But expectations were low that Washington and Beijing could reach an agreement that 
would justify the lifting of US sanctions imposed on September 1 on a Chinese 
state-owned firm after the US accused China of funnelling missile technology to 
Pakistan. "We don't have any reason to believe the Chinese position has changed," the 
senior US official said. "But we'll be interested to hear what they say." 

As for the American position, he said: "We've told them before. We haven't changed in 
five months. It's still the same." 

China's priorities were to talk about lifting the sanctions and to learn the status of 
US missile defence negotiations with Russia, the senior US official said. 

The US preference would be to deal with Beijing's "proliferation behaviour" across a 
range of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. 

In private talks, China argued that sanctions should be waived in return for a new 
pledge that missile technology transfers would not take place and Beijing would 
finally carry out an old promise to tighten export controls. 

But the US administration lost patience. In the past two decades, China has promised 
six times not to transfer missiles and missile technology, yet has broken each pledge 
by arming Pakistan, Syria, North Korea and possibly Libya, according to US Senate and 
intelligence sources. 

China has denied the charges and Pakistan said it received no missile components. But 
the United States has refused to lift the sanctions, which have hit Chinese hopes of 
its satellites being launched on US rockets. 

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