ugnet_: Phenomenal !!!!! -JUSTICE PARTY
JUSTICE PARTY http://www.dfwa-u.tk http://www.edelstein.org/tripweb/files/africa/Uganda1/salon.jpg
ugnet_: 3,000 Flee to Sudan
3,000 Flee to Sudan New Vision (Kampala) July 14, 2003 Posted to the web July 14, 2003 Chris Ochowun Kampala OVER 3,000 residents of Olego village, Bibia parish in Atiak sub-county, Gulu have fled to Nimule in Southern Sudan. This follows repeated attacks in the area by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, sources said on Friday. Atiak LC3 chairman George Odong confirmed that residents were fleeing to Southern Sudan and that others had fled to Adjumani district. The sources said the LRA had threatened to kill more than 100 residents in an attack similar to that of 1994, when the rebels massacred over 260 residents in cold blood. Odong said the residents fled due to lack of security. He said they were willing to return if a UPDF detachment was set up in the area. He said at the time the area had few UPDF soldiers. Odong said the Catholic Relief Services commissioner based in Southern Sudan had recently gone to Bibia to discuss with the local leaders the plight of the displaced people. Odong said the displaced were faced with acute food and water shortages coupled with poor sanitation facilities. "Our people are liable to getting diseases like cough, dysentery and measles due to the poor conditions," Odong said. However, the UPDF 4th Division commander in Gulu, Col. Nathan Mugisha, said he was not aware of such a big number of people displaced from Bibia to Nimule.
Re: ugnet_: 3,000 Flee to Sudan
It is the land, the vast amount of land that will be freed once the biological substances have been removed. We have enough evidence to this effect. Ochan Otim At 08:30 PM 7/14/2003 +0100, you wrote: Netters,this story sounds a contradiction in adjunction!.Why would people flee to the place whence the rebels who we are often told are their erstwhile tormentors are based?.Is there perchance something fundamentally amiss in this report or should we follow the clues that the longest serving NRM Army Commander General Mugisha Muntu alluded to as to the reasons for the protracted nature of this so called Kony led rebellion? Just wondering aloud. Kipenji. === [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 3,000 Flee to Sudan New Vision (Kampala) July 14, 2003 Posted to the web July 14, 2003 Chris Ochowun Kampala OVER 3,000 residents of Olego village, Bibia parish in Atiak sub-county, Gulu have fled to Nimule in Southern Sudan. This follows repeated attacks in the area by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, sources said on Friday. Atiak LC3 chairman George Odong confirmed that residents were fleeing to Southern Sudan and that others had fled to Adjumani district. The sources said the LRA had threatened to kill more than 100 residents in an attack similar to that of 1994, when the rebels massacred over 260 residents in cold blood. Odong said the residents fled due to lack of security. He said they were willing to return if a UPDF detachment was set up in the area. He said at the time the area had few UPDF soldiers. Odong said the Catholic Relief Services commissioner based in Southern Sudan had recently gone to Bibia to discuss with the local leaders the plight of the displaced people. Odong said the displaced were faced with acute food and water shortages coupled with poor sanitation facilities. Our people are liable to getting diseases like cough, dysentery and measles due to the poor conditions, Odong said. However, the UPDF 4th Division commander in Gulu, Col. Nathan Mugisha, said he was not aware of such a big number of people displaced from Bibia to Nimule. inline: 1e356f56.jpg
Re: ugnet_: 3,000 Flee to Sudan
Netters,this story sounds a contradiction in adjunction!.Why would people flee to the place whence the rebels who we are often told are their erstwhile tormentors are based?.Is there perchance something fundamentally amiss in this report or should we follow the clues that the longest serving NRM Army Commander General Mugisha Muntu alluded to as to the reasons for the protracted nature of this so called Kony led rebellion? Just wondering aloud.Kipenji. ===[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 3,000 Flee to Sudan New Vision (Kampala)July 14, 2003 Posted to the web July 14, 2003 Chris OchowunKampala OVER 3,000 residents of Olego village, Bibia parish in Atiak sub-county, Gulu have fled to Nimule in Southern Sudan.This follows repeated attacks in the area by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, sources said on Friday.Atiak LC3 chairman George Odong confirmed that residents were fleeing to Southern Sudan and that others had fled to Adjumani district.The sources said the LRA had threatened to kill more than 100 residents in an attack similar to that of 1994, when the rebels massacred over 260 residents in cold blood.Odong said the residents fled due to lack of security.He said they were willing to return if a UPDF detachment was set up in the area.He said at the time the area had few UPDF soldiers.Odong said the Catholic Relief Services commissioner based in Southern Sudan had recently gone to Bibia to discuss with the local leaders the plight of the displaced people.Odong said the displaced were faced with acute food and water shortages coupled with poor sanitation facilities."Our people are liable to getting diseases like cough, dysentery and measles due to the poor conditions," Odong said.However, the UPDF 4th Division commander in Gulu, Col. Nathan Mugisha, said he was not aware of such a big number of people displaced from Bibia to Nimule.Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger
ugnet_: The new media rightwing: case of Lord Conrad Black
The new media rightwing: case of Lord Conrad Black African Focus By Tafataona P. Mahoso In the last two instalments we showed that the media are shaped by major events while in turn helping to shape events. In the UK, instead of Prime Minister Tony Blair being forced to resign over the Iraq scandal, it was Robin Cook and Claire Short who resigned; in the US, instead of President Bush being forced to resign over the same scandal, it was a peripheral advisor Richard Perle who resigned. Forms of political corruption and lying far worse than what was exposed in the 1974 Watergate scandal have this time been glossed over, with blatant lies being dismissed as mere exaggerations. But the question does arise: Is there really a rightwing in Western media? When Richard Viguerie announced in his book The New Right: We Are Ready to Lead (1980) that the new right would seek to stop media exposes of rightwing leaders similar to the unmasking of Richard M. Nixon in 1974, did he really mean that the new right had an agenda for the media as well as businessmen ready to invest in such an agenda? Indeed Viguerie was serious. By the 1990s there were enough media moguls benefiting from Reaganiste and Thatcherite rightwing policies to make a clear ideological difference in the coverage of national and international issues in the West itself as well as in the South and East. The rightwing investors benefiting from rightwing deregulation were partly the subject of Robert McChesneys Rich Media: Poor Democracy published in 1999. The magazine Index on Censorship for September/October 1994 also published a special issue on these media moguls emerging from the landscape of rightwing media deregulation. In 1995, Jay G. Blumler and Michael Gurevitch also dealt with the same problem in their book, The Crisis of Public Information. By 2002 the rightwing model of media investment and deregulation had been marketed widely around the globe in the name of media freedom and independence. In one country, Venezuela, for instance, the new media were used to organise a coup detat against the popularly elected government of President Hugo Chavez. According to the president's report to the United Nations on January 16 2003, the media modelled after US rightwing ideology were involved in organising the treasonous acts: Who planned that bloody coup detat? The Venezuelan elite with foreign contacts; the owners of private TV stations in Venezuela; four big TV stations already called by people. You know what the people call them? The four horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the name of freedom of expression, the proprietors of those TV stations trampled on truth and led and continue to lead the conspiracy because it has not ended. I will give you an example of what happened in Venezuela on April 11 2002. I was taken prisoner and taken to a Venezuelan island in the Caribbean. But before that, the only state TV station was taken off the air by the coup plotters, helped by (new) cutting edge technology. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse (free and independent) spread out to the [military] garrisons and places where the civilian and military coup plotters had gathered where you would not find a TV camera, backed by microwaves and satellites ready to go on air. They had their equipment in place at the palace, and even while I was still there they gave orders to the journalists not to let the president of the republic go on air Later on, when I was already imprisoned, they began to broadcast a big lie to the world, one of their many big lies. I refused over and over again to sign the resignation presented to me by the coup plotters. Even though they threatened to kill me I told
ugnet_: Thumbs-up for AU
Thumbs-up for AU By Innocent Gore recently in Maputo, Mozambique ; sundaymail 13/7/2003 THE second African Union heads of state and government summit ended in Maputo, Mozambique, yesterday, with President Mugabe describing it as one of the best conferences of African leaders. Speaking to reporters soon after arrival at Harare International Airport, Cde Mugabe said many issues were tackled at this years summit, the second since the African Unions transformation from the Organisation of African Unity a year ago. Issues discussed included the structure of the union, appointment of people to the unions various structures, the work of the union, conflicts on the continent, economic development, HIV/Aids and other issues. So it was a mammoth conference with mammoth programmes and mammoth details. But it was one of the best conferences, and discussions were very open and there were commitments to the African Union. So it was a happy development, a happy step towards the relations of members. We are happy that there is that commitment and, as was shown by the attendance by heads of state and government, it was the maximum that we have had. The majority came and it was a very happy event indeed, the President said. More than 40 heads of state and government attended the summit and President Mugabe was elected to the unions bureau as one of the five vice-chairmen who represent the continents various regions. Cde Mugabe, who will represent Southern Africa, said his election showed the respect and honour given to Zimbabwe by the AU. It is an honour to us and also serves to put paid to those in hostile circles who think that Zimbabwe is being isolated, said Cde Mugabe, who on Thursday chaired a session which considered a report on the implementation of the New Partnership for Africas Development. Observers said the summit signalled the real operationalisation of the AU and the beginning of the process of implementation and ratification of the unions important protocols. The summit elected people to run the AU Commission, which had been managed by Mr Amara Essy of Cote d'Ivore in an acting capacity. Former Malian president Mr Alpha Omar Konare was elected chairman of the commission and will be deputised by Rwandan Mr Patrick Mazimhaka. Five women and two men were elected as commissioners to the AU Commission. The unions constitution stipulates that at least half of the commissioners should be women. The commissioners represent Africas five regions and they will take up their positions in September. During the summit, Zimbabwe ratified the establishment of the Pan African Parliament, a development the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cde Stan Mudenge, described as important for the country and the development of the union. The Pan African Parliament is expected to be the legislative institution of the AU and the custodian of its democratic values. For three days, the African leaders discussed peace and security on the continent, with particular emphasis on the Comoros, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, the Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia. The establishment of a Peace and Security Council featured high on the agenda and the leaders called for international support to end conflicts on the continent and for reconstruction, development and rehabilitation of refugees in countries ravaged by the conflicts. They also tackled health issues, especially the HIV/Aids scourge, malaria and polio, as well as trade matters and conservation of natural resources on the continent. They
ugnet_: Fwd: NYTimes.com Article: Why People Still Starve
Why People Still Starve July 13, 2003 By BARRY BEARAK The real crisis of hunger in Africa is that it is so widespread, chronic - and intractable. From Malawi, a chronicle of starvation foretold. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/magazine/13AFRICA.html?ex=1059198553ei=1en=83f778536fb77dc5 STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
ugnet_: The Dubious Suicide of George Tenet
The Dubious Suicide of George Tenet By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Monday 14 July 2003 Things have reached a pretty pass indeed when you apologize for making a mistake, but nobody believes your apology. So it is today with CIA Director Tenet, and by proxy George W. Bush and his administration. On Friday evening, CIA Director Tenet publicly jumped on the Niger evidence hand grenade, claiming the use in Bush's State of the Union Address in January 2003 of data from known forgeries to support the Iraq war was completely his fault. He never told Bush's people that the data was corrupted, and it was his fault those "sixteen words" regarding Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Niger for a nuclear program made it into the text of the speech. Problem solved, right? Condoleezza Rice and Don Rumsfeld had been triangulating on Tenet since Thursday, claiming the CIA had never informed the White House about the dubious nature of the Niger evidence. Tenet, like a good political appointee, fell on his sword and took responsibility for the error. On Saturday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the press corps that Bush had "moved on" from this controversy. Not so fast, said the New York Times editorial board. The paper of record for the Western world published an editorial on Saturday entitled "The Uranium Fiction." The last time the Times editors used language this strong was when Bush, in a moment of seemingly deranged hubris, tried to nominate master secret-keeper Henry Kissinger to chair the 9/11 investigation: "It is clear, however, that much more went into this affair than the failure of the C.I.A. to pounce on the offending 16 words in Mr. Bush's speech. A good deal of information already points to a willful effort by the war camp in the administration to pump up an accusation that seemed shaky from the outset and that was pretty well discredited long before Mr. Bush stepped into the well of the House of Representatives last January. Doubts about the accusation were raised in March 2002 by Joseph Wilson, a former American diplomat, after he was dispatched to Niger by the C.I.A. to look into the issue. Mr. Wilson has said he is confident that his concerns were circulated not only within the agency but also at the State Department and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Tenet, in his statement yesterday, confirmed that the Wilson findings had been given wide distribution, although he reported that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other high officials had not been directly informed about them by the C.I.A." The sun came up over Washington DC on Sunday and shined on copies of the Washington Post which were waiting patiently to be read. The lead headline for the Sunday edition read, "CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in October." The meat of the article states: "CIA Director George J. Tenet successfully intervened with White House officials to have a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger removed from a presidential speech last October, three months before a less specific reference to the same intelligence appeared in the State of the Union address, according to senior administration officials. "Tenet argued personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used because it came from only a single source, according to one senior official. Another senior official with knowledge of the intelligence said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegation, which months later turned out to be forged." What do we have here? Here is CIA Director Tenet arguing in October of 2002 against the use of the Niger evidence, stating bluntly that it was useless. He made this pitch directly to the White House. These concerns were brushed aside by Bush officials, and the forged evidence was used despite the warnings in the State of the Union address. Now, the administration is trying to claim they were never told the evidence was bad. Yet between Tenet's personal appeals in 2002, and Ambassador Wilson's assurances that everyone who needed to know was in the know regarding Niger, it appears the Bush White House has been caught red-handed in a series of incredible falsehoods. There are two more layers on this onion to be peeled. The first concerns Secretary of State Powell. One week after the Niger evidence was used by Bush in the State of the Union address, Powell presented to the United Nations the administration's case for war. The Niger evidence was notably absent from Powell's presentation. According to CBS News, Powell said, "I didn't use the uranium at that point because I didn't think that was sufficiently strong as evidence to present before the world." What a difference a week makes. The White House would have us believe they were blissfully unaware of the forged nature of their war
ugnet_: Bill Gates: Killing Africans For Profit Mr. Bush's Bogus Aids Offer
Bill Gates: Killing Africans For Profit Mr. Bush's Bogus Aids Offer By Greg Palast Monday July 14, 2003: Bring back Jayson Blair! The New York Times has eliminated the scourge of plagiarized journalism by eliminating journalism altogether from its front page. Check this Sunday's edition: "Bill Gates is no ordinary philanthropist," gushes a Times reporter named Stephanie Strom, re-writing one of the digital diva's self-loving press releases. Gates has saved 100,000 lives by providing vaccines to Africans, gushes Stephanie, according to someone on the payroll of . Bill Gates. And he's making drugs for Africans, especially for AIDS victims, "cheaper and easier." Stephanie knows because she asked Bill Gates himself! Then we get to the real point of this journalistic Lewinsky: "Those who think of Mr. Gates as a ruthless billionaire monopolist . may find it hard to reconcile that image with one of a humorously self-deprecating philanthropist." Actually, that's not hard at all. Stephanie, let me let you in on a little secret about Bill and Melinda Gates so-called "Foundation." Gate's demi-trillionaire status is based on a nasty little monopoly-protecting trade treaty called "TRIPS" - the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights rules of the World Trade Organization. TRIPS gives Gates a hammerlock on computer operating systems worldwide, legally granting him a monopoly that the Robber Barons of yore could only dream of. But TRIPS, the rule which helps Gates rule, also bars African governments from buying AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis medicine at cheap market prices. Example: in June 2000, at the urging of Big Pharma, Bill Clinton threatened trade sanctions against Argentina for that nation's daring to offer low-cost drugs to Southern Africa. Gates knows darn well that the "intellectual property rights" laws such as TRIPS - which keep him and Melinda richer than Saddam and the Mafia combined -- are under attack by Nelson Mandela and front-line doctors trying to get cheap drugs to the 23 million Africans sick with the AIDS virus. Gate's brilliant and self-serving solution: he's spending an itsy-bitsy part of his monopoly profits (the $6 billion spent by Gates' foundation is less than 2% of his net worth) to buy some drugs for a fraction of the dying. The bully billionaire's "philanthropic" organization is currently working paw-in-claw with the big pharmaceutical companies in support of the blockade on cheap drug shipments. Gates' game is given away by the fact that his Foundation has invested $200 million in the very drug companies stopping the shipment of low-cost AIDS drugs to Africa. Gates says his plan is to reach one million people with medicine by the end of the decade. Another way to read it: he's locking in a trade system that will block the delivery of cheap medicine to over 20 million. The computer magnate's scheme has a powerful ally. "The president could have been reading from a script prepared by Mr. Gates," enthuses the Times' cub reporter, referring to Mr. Bush's AIDS plan offered up this week to skeptical Africans. The US press does not understand why Africans don't jump for Bush's generous offer. None note that the money held out to the continent's desperate nations has strings attached or, more accurately, chains and manacles. The billions offered are mostly loans at full interest which may be used only to buy patent drugs at a price several times that available from other nations. What Africans want, an end to the devastating tyranny of TRIPS and other trade rules, is dismissed by the Liberator of Baghdad. We are all serfs on Microsoft's and Big Pharma's 'intellectual property.' If Gates' fake philanthropy eviscerates the movement to free Africans from the tyranny of TRIPS, then Bill and Melinda's donations could have the effect of killing more Africans than then even their PR agents claim they have saved. And for our own Republic, we can only hope that when the bully-boy billionaire injects his next wad of loot into the Bush political campaign, he uses a condom. Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Subscribe to his writings for Britain's Observer and Guardian newspapers, and view his investigative reports for BBC Television's Newsnight, at www.GregPalast.com.
ugnet_: The Dubious Suicide of George Tenet
William Rivers Pitt mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New York Times best-selling author of two books - "War On Iraq" available now from Context Books, and "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," now available from Pluto Press at www.SilenceIsSedition.com. The Dubious Suicide of George Tenet By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Monday 14 July 2003 Things have reached a pretty pass indeed when you apologize for making a mistake, but nobody believes your apology. So it is today with CIA Director Tenet, and by proxy George W. Bush and his administration. On Friday evening, CIA Director Tenet publicly jumped on the Niger evidence hand grenade, claiming the use in Bush's State of the Union Address in January 2003 of data from known forgeries to support the Iraq war was completely his fault. He never told Bush's people that the data was corrupted, and it was his fault those "sixteen words" regarding Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Niger for a nuclear program made it into the text of the speech. Problem solved, right? Condoleezza Rice and Don Rumsfeld had been triangulating on Tenet since Thursday, claiming the CIA had never informed the White House about the dubious nature of the Niger evidence. Tenet, like a good political appointee, fell on his sword and took responsibility for the error. On Saturday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the press corps that Bush had "moved on" from this controversy. Not so fast, said the New York Times editorial board. The paper of record for the Western world published an editorial on Saturday entitled "The Uranium Fiction." The last time the Times editors used language this strong was when Bush, in a moment of seemingly deranged hubris, tried to nominate master secret-keeper Henry Kissinger to chair the 9/11 investigation: "It is clear, however, that much more went into this affair than the failure of the C.I.A. to pounce on the offending 16 words in Mr. Bush's speech. A good deal of information already points to a willful effort by the war camp in the administration to pump up an accusation that seemed shaky from the outset and that was pretty well discredited long before Mr. Bush stepped into the well of the House of Representatives last January. Doubts about the accusation were raised in March 2002 by Joseph Wilson, a former American diplomat, after he was dispatched to Niger by the C.I.A. to look into the issue. Mr. Wilson has said he is confident that his concerns were circulated not only within the agency but also at the State Department and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Tenet, in his statement yesterday, confirmed that the Wilson findings had been given wide distribution, although he reported that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other high officials had not been directly informed about them by the C.I.A." The sun came up over Washington DC on Sunday and shined on copies of the Washington Post which were waiting patiently to be read. The lead headline for the Sunday edition read, "CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in October." The meat of the article states: "CIA Director George J. Tenet successfully intervened with White House officials to have a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger removed from a presidential speech last October, three months before a less specific reference to the same intelligence appeared in the State of the Union address, according to senior administration officials. "Tenet argued personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used because it came from only a single source, according to one senior official. Another senior official with knowledge of the intelligence said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegation, which months later turned out to be forged." What do we have here? Here is CIA Director Tenet arguing in October of 2002 against the use of the Niger evidence, stating bluntly that it was useless. He made this pitch directly to the White House. These concerns were brushed aside by Bush officials, and the forged evidence was used despite the warnings in the State of the Union address. Now, the administration is trying to claim they were never told the evidence was bad. Yet between Tenet's personal appeals in 2002, and Ambassador Wilson's assurances that everyone who needed to know was in the know regarding Niger, it appears the Bush White House has been caught red-handed in a series of incredible falsehoods. There are two more layers on this onion to be peeled. The first concerns Secretary of State Powell. One week after the Niger evidence was used by Bush in the State of the Union address, Powell presented to the United Nations the administration's case for war. The Niger evidence was notably absent from Powell's presentation. According to CBS
ugnet_: WHEN FRONTIER JUSTICE BECOMES FOERIGN POLICY!!
When Frontier Justice Becomes Foreign Policy (Page 2 of 2) Unlike current efforts, these plots were wrapped in deepest secrecy and vigorously denied until the facts were finally exhumed by a Senate investigation under Senator Frank Church in 1976. The difference now is that the administration has quit arguing the rights and wrongs of killing enemies, and makes plain its determination to kill Mr. Hussein if he can be found. Killing him appears to be the primary task of a secretive military organization known as Task Force 20. Loosely attached to the Army's Fourth Infantry Division, Task Force 20 can and does draw on the resources of the entire American military and intelligence community. On June 18 it conducted a combined air and ground attack on what has been described as a convoy of S.U.V.'s in western Iraq as it allegedly made a dash for the Syrian border. Five Syrian border guards were wounded and briefly detained, but the Pentagon has declined to say how and especially where inside Iraq, or inside Syria? "Removing Saddam" has been the stated goal of the administration for more than a year, and last fall Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said war with Iraq could be avoided at "the cost of one bullet." This open discussion of killing Mr. Hussein marks a profound retreat from the longstanding insistence that the United States did not and would not use assassination as a tool of state. The revelations by the Church committee in 1976 that the C.I.A. had plotted to kill several foreign opponents including Mr. Castro was described as an aberration; supporters of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy insisted they had authorized nothing of the kind, and official efforts to pinpoint responsibility never went further than the words of Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, who told a Senate investigating committee, "I just can't understand how it could have happened." Executive orders banning assassination issued by Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan, prompted by public dismay over the poisoned cigars and exploding seashells intended for Mr. Castro, have never been formally revoked. Mr. Reagan's order flatly states that "no person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination." Taking this order literally, President Bill Clinton's national security adviser, Anthony Lake, asked the F.B.I. in 1995 to investigate possible criminal charges (later dropped) against the C.I.A. officer Robert Baer for his efforts to organize a coup that might have ended with the killing of Mr. Hussein. President Bush, in contrast, personally approved the attempt to kill him, without feeling the need to explain why Mr. Hussein was no longer protected by President Reagan's prohibition and without being asked to do so by Congress. Can it still be called assassination if it is carried out in wartime? Does a White House decision to attack Iraq make it "a war," and thereby turn Mr. Hussein into a legitimate target? Old hands in the intelligence business say that legal questions raised by the deliberate killing of named individuals, the core definition of assassination, are less important than practical matters. In moments of heat during the cold war, many enemies of the United States were suggested as targets of assassination. Wise heads often urged second thoughts because an assassin, once the deed had been committed, would be in a position to extort blackmail or worse, suffer an attack of conscience and go to the newspapers. Two arguments were regularly cited by those who counseled restraint. The first was implicit in the unwritten cold war rule against killing intelligence officers or political leaders: two can play that game, and once started it is hard to control, as Americans learned in the Lockerbie bombing. Mr. Hussein is not the only figure in danger of sudden death in Iraq at the moment, and it is a tossup who is in greater danger Mr. Hussein or Paul Bremer? But the final argument against assassination, often noted by American intelligence officers, was the most practical you might get rid of public enemy No. 1, but who would take his place? Mr. Bremer has cited the survival of Mr. Hussein as a kind of psychological barrier, scaring off some Iraqis who might be willing to work with the Americans, and inspiring others to go on fighting. But how can Washington be sure that killing Mr. Hussein will be a change for the better? Success might only clear the path for another Iraqi leader, just as intransigent but free of Mr. Hussein's terrible burden of decades of crime against his own people. Like most questions in wartime, this one is impossible to answer in advance. The administration clearly thinks there is more to be gained than lost, and the public, so far, appears content to wait and see. Thomas Powers writes frequently about intelligence issues. His most recent book is "Intelligence Wars: American
ugnet_: When Frontier Justice Becomes Foreign Policy
TARGET PRACTICE When Frontier Justice Becomes Foreign Policy By THOMAS POWERS merican intelligence organizations and military forces, once forbidden from attempts to assassinate foreign leaders by the executive orders of two recent presidents, have now embarked on an open, all-out effort to find and kill Saddam Hussein in a campaign with no precedents in American history. Despite three strikes aimed at Mr. Hussein since the opening night of the American war on Iraq, intelligence officials have conceded that a recent broadcast of Mr. Hussein's voice is probably genuine. A concession that the Iraqi leader remains alive is also implicit in Washington's offer of a $25 million reward for his capture or proof of his death. Since President Bush announced the end of major military operations on May 1, it has become increasingly clear that the Iraq war is not over, that there is a concerted campaign of resistance and that Mr. Hussein remains a formidable foe. Over the last 10 days the chief American official in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, has frequently stressed the importance of capturing or killing Mr. Hussein. The campaign to kill him, frankly admitted and discussed by high officials in the White House, Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency, has committed the United States for the first time to public, personalized, open-ended warfare in the classic mode of Middle Eastern violence an eye for an eye, a life for a life. American officials in the White House and Iraq have argued that Mr. Hussein's survival encourages resistance, and killing him is therefore a legitimate act of war. But the United States has never before openly marked foreign leaders for killing. Treating it as routine could level the moral playing field and invite retaliation in kind, and makes every American official both here and in the Middle East a target of opportunity. Realists may scoff that war is war and that things have always been this way, but in fact personalized killing has a way of deepening the bitterness of war without bringing conflict closer to resolution. In April 1986 President Reagan authorized an air raid on the home of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya that spared him but killed his daughter. The Reagan administration never acknowledged that Colonel Qaddafi, personally, was the target, nor did it publicly speculate two years later that Libya's bombing of an American jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, was Colonel Qaddafi's revenge for the death of his daughter. But the administration got the message: after Lockerbie, Washington relied on legal action to settle the score. It is impossible to know how, or if, Mr. Hussein's supporters will find a way to retaliate for the American campaign to kill the deposed Iraqi leader, but that effort inevitably reopens a long-simmering American argument over assassination, never embraced openly in so many words but never repudiated once and for all. Despite much tough talk of killing enemies since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration still shrinks from using the word assassination, and much of the public continues to oppose it as both dangerous and wrong dangerous because it commits the United States to a campaign of murder and countermurder, and wrong because hunting people down, however it plays in the movies, excuses murder by calling it something else. Mr. Hussein himself doubtless understands the first argument, since the man leading the effort to kill him now President Bush is the son of a man Mr. Hussein tried to have murdered a decade ago. In the middle of the last century, at the height of the cold war, the United States often wished, sometimes planned and occasionally took concrete steps to kill foreign leaders. The best known of its targets was Fidel Castro. At least three of the marked men were actually killed Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Abdul Karim Kassem of Iraq but apparently none were killed, or at least not provably, by Washington.
ugnet_: Political death of a usurper
Political death of a usurper An unwinnable war in Iraq and the deceit that led to it have destroyed the credibility of the prime minister George Galloway Monday July 14, 2003: (The Guardian) "Now does he feel/ his secret murders sticking on his hands;/ now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;/ those he commands move only in command,/ nothing in love: now does he feel his title/ hang loose about him, like a giant's robe/ upon a dwarfish thief." Thus Angus spoke of the Scottish usurper Macbeth, whose ambition led him deep into a river of blood. Less poetically, Clare Short, Mo Mowlem and Robin Cook are saying much the same of their former cabinet colleague. I predicted before the war that Iraq would be the political death of Tony Blair, and it is now almost Shakespearean how the pain from his self-inflicted wounds is written across his face. It is as if he is physically diminishing before our eyes as his authority bleeds into the sands of Iraq. Each new day brings another stab at Blair's credibility: former cabinet members in public, current ministers in private, using the round of summer parties to distance themselves from the fading king. From Hans Blix, the BBC and the press, from two former heads of the joint intelligence committee and now, perhaps fatally, from across the Atlantic, fall blow after hammer blow. Suddenly, comparing the two main war leaders to wolves - which has got me into such difficulty with the Labour hierarchy - seems very tame indeed. Always travelling light on ideological baggage, never having won or wanted the affection of the Labour clan, Blair's main asset was his "Trust me, I'm a regular guy" reputation. Now it is gone and will never be recovered. That Iraq was lynched by Bush and Blair has become plain as a pikestaff. Take the saving of Private Jessica. Said at first to have been shot and held hostage by Iraqi doctors, and now revealed to have been in their care after a road traffic accident, her story serves as a metaphor for the mendacity so deep and treacly-black it might be an oil sump: from the 45-minute warning to the banks of the Niger and the sweepings of the internet floor. In their occupation of Iraq, the US and British armies have entered the gates of hell. Soon it will be 100 degrees at midnight in Baghdad, but there will be no respite from the need for full body armour. In two weeks, armed attacks on coalition forces have nearly doubled to 25 per day. More than 200 have been wounded and over 40 killed in combat since "victory" was declared by President Bush. Morale among US forces is dropping towards Vietnam-type levels, with heavy drug consumption, and commanders turning a blind eye to the prostituting of Iraqi women. No doubt the spectre of troops "fragging" overly strict officers is on their minds. So hot is the welcome to these "liberators" that the US has now evacuated its forces from both the vast campus of Baghdad University and from the hub of the sharpest armed action, in Fallujah. The latter gives the lie to the repeated calumny that those fighting the occupation are merely "Saddamist remnants". In truth, Fallujah is the heartland of the Jubbur tribe, arch-enemies of Saddam whose leaders were purged by the Takriti Ba'ath party bosses more than a decade ago. No fighting in this area could take place without the Jubbur, so it must be more than nostalgia for the old regime that is fuelling it. Throughout the Calvary of Vietnam, resistance was routinely described as coming from unrepresentative "hardline elements" or outside the country's borders. The deeper Johnson and Nixon sank into the quagmire, the more they spread the war, to neighbouring Cambodia and new killing fields. Look out for "hot pursuit" operations in the months to come into Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran. In Vietnam, the Americans installed a succession of puppet governments in whose name they could claim to be fighting. Though as bereft of electoral legitimacy as a Jeb Bush Floridian plebiscite, the Vietnamese juntas had a social base. Yesterday's jokers, the "Iraqi Governing Council" - handpicked by Iraq's US governor, Paul Bremer - make South Vietnam's General Thieu look like an authentic national leader. Without hundreds of thousands of foreign troops, they would be swept away in a gale of derision. Iraqis want Britain and America out of their country, that much is abundantly clear. Only independently supervised elections to a constituent assembly can produce Iraqi leaders fit to face the outside world and rebuild their country. Tony Blair can run around the world on grand diplomatic tours. He can bask in the adulation of the Republican right in the US Congress. But he cannot hide from the fact that he has lost the plot at home. He has entered that twilight which saw the departure in tears of Mrs Thatcher in a taxi from the Downing Street she once bestrode like a colossus. The foreign affairs select committee was wrong when it said the jury was out on
ugnet_: What I've Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy: The War Against the Third World.
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ugnet_: Bush Cant Avoid Iraq
Bush Cant Avoid Iraq Rory Carroll The Observer: ABUJA, 14 July 2003 It was the moment the script changed and President George W. Bush was not ready for his new role. The smile became a scowl, the voice moved up an octave and back came the jabbing finger, as if puncturing bubbles. Just seconds earlier, he had been cracking jokes in the assurance that the five-nation African tour was going according to plan. It was day two, a press conference in lush gardens near Pretorias Union Buildings, and Bush was polishing his compassionate credentials as the continents savior. And then the question: Mr President, the White House has admitted it was a mistake to accuse Iraq of trying to buy African uranium... Maybe it was the midday sun, but Bushs eyes narrowed and face reddened before the questioner finished. It was the first time he had been asked about his claim that Baghdad sought nuclear materials from Niger. Washington had disowned part of the evidence that was used to justify invading Iraq and the political storm had crossed the Atlantic to buffet the president on a balmy South African morning. He blustered, coming across as angry and defensive: Look, there is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world peace. Theres no doubt in my mind that, when its all said and done, the facts will show the world the truth. But everyone else seemed to have doubts and the controversy dogged the five-day African swing. What was supposed to be a window on to a kinder, gentler White House that cared about AIDS and poverty cracked into a ragged, ad lib damage limitation exercise. Instead of softening Bushs image, Africa became the stage for questions about his administrations integrity and credibility, which followed him to Uganda, when he implicitly blamed the CIA for allowing faulty intelligence into Januarys State of the Union address. On the way from Botswana to Uganda, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, briefed reporters on Air Force One: The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety, she said, prompting rumors that the agencys director, George Tenet, was for the chop. In the Nigerian capital Abuja, the talk of trade and aid was again eclipsed when Bush felt compelled to back the beleaguered agency. Ive got confidence in George Tenet. Ive got confidence in the men and women who work at the CIA and I ... look forward to working with them as we win this war on terror. Democratic presidential hopefuls are lining up to demand an investigation and trying to chip at Bushs integrity. Instead of engaging in bureaucratic finger pointing, he needs to be honest with the American people. To achieve that goal, we need a full and honest investigation into intelligence failures, said Massachusetts senator John Kerry. The trip started so well. Accompanied his wife Laura and daughter Barbara, the president visited the dungeons of Goree Island, a port off Senegal from which slaves were shipped to America, and denounced slavery in an impassioned speech rich in Christian language. Even cynics who sensed a pitch to black voters praised his eloquence. The White House wanted photo-ops with smiling Africans and, with Colin Powell and Rice at the helm, the tour went well: No heads of state publicly grumbled about US agricultural subsidies that damage African producers, or the dithering over whether to commit US troops to Liberia. Nor did the anti-Bush demonstrations take off, with just a few thousand in Pretoria and Cape Town dispersing without incident, leaving the field clear for the President to trumpet $15 billion to fight HIV AIDS. Adoring crowds were few and far between, but back home Bush was being described as a genuine compassionate Republican. So keen was Bush to keep the mood cosy that South Africas President Thabo Mbeki was not publicly pushed to take a tougher line on Zimbabwe, nor was Ugandas President Yoweri Museveni urged to step down at the end of his second term, as the constitution demands. As Air Force One on Saturday climbed over Abuja, most American commentators agreed that the warrior president was returning home with a more human face, but the talk shows reckoned this trip will be remembered as the great White House squirm.
ugnet_: Has Kony come to tie Teso dogs or dig potatoes?
Has Kony come to tie Teso dogs or dig potatoes?By Chris OboreJuly 15, 2003 Tie your dog otherwise you will be taken to dig potatoes. That was one of the instructions that the defunct Uganda People's Army rebels gave Teso people during the insurgency of the late 1980's. In Ateso language it translates to Owen Ekingok araimam iyangario aibok acok. The message was that nobody in Teso was supposed to tell government troops where the rebels were hiding. If you told them, the rebels would later get you and, of course, kill you. To tie your dog meant to shut up and to dig potatoes meant to dig your own grave where you would be buried. Ordinary Iteso obeyed these instructions but by "tying their dogs", the Iteso attracted the wrath of the government troops. Both the rebels and government soldiers accused the locals of collaborating with the other. The result was that so many innocent people lost their lives. I vividly remember an incident when government troops went for an operation in Kamaca village near Bukedea. They moved a distance of about 10km from the highway and gathered locals at Ojie Primary School. Fellows who were found digging in their gardens and those moving about were declared rebels. They were assembled at the playground, told to lie down and showered with bullets. They died in hundreds. A former schoolmate of mine, one Etoori, survived because blood from the bleeding dead bodies splashed over him. I remember many such atrocities but for the purposes of this article will focus on the recent incursion of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army into Teso sub-region. Again, the Iteso are being told to "tie their dogs". The instruction to tie the dogs has already been issued, this time not by the rebels but by government. The daughter of Teso and minister of state for Disaster Preparedness, Amongin Aporu was the first to issue the instruction. She instructed all FM radio stations in Teso not to broadcast rebel- related news. Radio Kyoga Veritas FM did not tie its dog and was taken to dig potatoes -- It was simply shut down. But the truth must be told and the truth is that some Teso leaders are happy with the LRA invasion of Teso. They are happy not because they want Iteso to die but because this is the opportune time for them to be seen as true bag boys of President Yoweri Museveni. Why on earth would Madam Amongin prevent radios from alerting people of the dangers posed by rebels? Why would Teso leaders continue to deceive the world that LRA has been flushed out of Teso when folks in Kabelebyong, Amuria and especially Obalanga are constantly on the run? Has Kony stopped killing and abducting people since Veritas FM was closed? No. Let Teso leaders seek favours from Museveni when peace is in Teso not when blood is being shed. In the olden days, Teso had strong politicians who stood for integrity. The likes of Cuthbert Obwangor, the late Oguli Oumo, Eria Emokori, the late Ariko, the late Cooper Malinga and the late Aporu Okol not to forget Bishop Gershom Ilukor. These people put Teso's interests before government favours. The reverse appears to be the case today. Ironically, late Aporu Okol was husband to Madam Aporu. While Aporu the man was minister of State for Agriculture and a defender of Teso interests; Aporu the woman is now minister of state for Disaster Preparedness and clearly her interests are elsewhere. Amongin is not alone. The likes of Ben Etonu (MP Amuria) are part of this conspiracy of silence. They fear to speak the truth and annoy government. The talking has been left to newcomers in Parliament Elijah Okupa (Kasilo), Alice Alaso (Soroti woman), Patrick Oboi Amuriat (Kumi) and Francis Epetait (Ngora). The Movement government has cowed Teso leaders but we must remind them that regimes come and go. The Movement never elected them but the ordinary people whom the rebels have displaced and killed did. To appear like speaking and struggling for Iteso when actually the hidden intention is to seek recognition from government is a reflection of an inferiority complex. Why sell your self for a piece of bread? The people of Teso deserve to be told the truth about the strength and operations of the LRA so that they make informed decisions. To talk about rebels being defeated when people cannot access their gardens to get food is a sad mockery. I like minister of state for Health Mike Mukula, who is also MP for Soroti Municipality, for his mobilisation and oratory skills but at times he nauseates me with his hypocrisy and lies. Mukula is telling the world that rebels have been killed and peace is back but even the blind can see locals fleeing as the rebels continue to sow mayhem. If the Iteso want Kony out of the sub-region very fast, truth and nothing but the truth will help. Mobilisastion of ex-UPA rebels was a step in the correct direction but my fear is that these boys might be used to achieve selfish ends of a few opportunistic leaders. Iteso don't want any war, therefore, there is no
