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| Iraq + war on terrorism + Middle East conflict + critical perspectives |
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End the nuclear danger: An urgent call Jonathan Schell, Randall Caroline Forsberg, David Cortright, The Nation A decade after the end of the cold war, the peril of nuclear destruction is mounting. The great powers have refused to give up nuclear arms, other countries are producing them and terrorist groups are trying to acquire them [The complete article] Rumsfeld: NATO can't wait for proof to fight terror Tabassum Zakaria, Reuters, June 6, 2002 "The only way to defend against individuals or groups or organizations or countries that have weapons of mass destruction and are bent on using them against you...is to take the effort to find those global networks and to deal with them as the United States did in Afghanistan," he said. "Now is that defensive or is it offensive? I personally think of it as defensive." [The complete article] Spying and lying: The FBI's dirty secrets Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet, June 6, 2002 It seems that the FBI is likely to be rewarded for the missed warnings, fumbled intelligence, and bureaucratic foul-ups that preceded Sept. 11. Attorney General John Ashcroft has announced that the FBI is changing its rules so that it can spy on domestic organizations, even where there is no evidence of specific criminal activity. [The complete article] Why small scale war may quickly go nuclear Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, June 7, 2002 A war over Kashmir is most likely to start with limited Indian strikes against Islamist militant bases in Pakistani-controlled territory, military analysts and intelligence sources said yesterday. But these could quickly escalate into a wider military conflict, even leading to Pakistan using nuclear weapons, they warn. [The complete article] No war has been declared. But in the border villages it has already begun Luke Harding, The Guardian, June 7, 2002 For the Indian villagers of Garkwal, it is not a question of when war will break out. It already has. The moment came just over three weeks ago when Jagther Singh was dozing in the courtyard of his bungalow. [The complete article] The Bush doctrine makes nonsense of the UN charter Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, June 7, 2002 [At West Point last week,] President Bush launched his new concept of pre-emption. His speech can claim to be the most chilling statement of his presidency so far. In effect, he retroactively approved the Israeli strike on Osirak and said the US has the right to strike, pre-emptively, at any nation which it decides is developing weapons of mass destruction or supporting terrorism. It is carte blanche for a war on the world. [The complete article] Mideast pattern, now in Kashmir Peter Grier, Christian Science Monitor, June 6, 2002 Bitter disputes over territory. Suicide bombings. Threats of retaliation. International attempts to calm roiled passions. The Middle East? Yes – and South Asia. Although there are important differences between the Israeli–Palestinian struggle and the standoff between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, the similarities between the situations are striking. And perhaps the most important similarity is this: In both cases, the stronger party has had some success in defining its aim as the defeat of terrorists. [The complete article] Militant's claim that Arafat can't end attacks Tim Golden, New York Times, June 6, 2002 If there is one thing that the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad does not fear, one of its leaders said today, it is the repressive force of Yasir Arafat and his Palestinian Authority. "The Palestinian Authority is broken; its institutions are destroyed," the leader, Sheik Abdallah al-Shami, said calmly as he sat in the living room of his home here. "How can the Palestinian Authority assure the security of the Israelis when it cannot even protect its own people?" [The complete article -registration required] Surviving a bombing, day by day How an Israeli mother altered her life after an attack Cameron W. Barr, Christian Science Monitor, June 6, 2002 She once felt she could see an answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: A Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a shared Jerusalem, intertwined economies. Now she feels that she and many of her fellow Israelis had deluded themselves about the true nature of the other side. [The complete article] A-bomb survivors fear new Hiroshima Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, June 6, 2002 Survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs expressed a growing sense of foreboding yesterday about the increasing tension between the nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. [The complete article] FOREIGNERS I was once an immigrant Luciana Bohne, Democratic Underground, June 5, 2002 I am one of those people whom President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft have warned Americans to be on the alert about, to report on--to put on notice, in other words. I am different, possibly un-American. [The complete article] Rights groups condemn visa plan Ashcroft says crackdown is essential for U.S. security Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle, June 6, 2002 The Justice Department's new plan to fingerprint and periodically register an estimated 100,000 visa holders mainly from the Middle East is but the beginning of a major tightening of immigration rules spawned by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. [The complete article] How can Israel find security? Martin Asser, BBC News, June 6, 2002 Clearly, Israel's massive Operation Defensive Shield in April to "root out the terrorist infrastructure" in the West Bank has failed to prevent determined suicide bombers hitting their targets. In fact the ever-harsher military operations in the Palestinian-ruled territories has had the effect of provoking ever-more-frequent and ferocious Palestinian attacks to terrorise the Israeli public. [The complete article] India plans war within two weeks Rahul Bedi, The Telegraph, June 6, 2002 Most senior Indian officers expect that the conflict would last about a week before pressure from America and other powers forced a ceasefire. One officer said he believed there was only the "slimmest chance" of nuclear weapons being used. "We will call Pakistan's nuclear bluff," he said. It [the nuclear factor] cannot deter us any more." [The complete article -registration required] A conservative takes on Ashcroft John Nichols, The Nation, June 4, 2002 There are those who wrongly believe that the debate over civil liberties in this country breaks along ideological grounds. It's an easy mistake to make: Especially when Attorney General John Ashcroft, a certified -- and, arguably, certifiable -- conservative is treating the Constitution like it was a threat to America. [The complete article] Gephardt endorses ousting Hussein Ronald Brownstein, Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2002 Gephardt explicitly endorsed the use of military force to remove Hussein, as the administration has been considering. "We should use diplomatic tools where we can, but military means when we must to eliminate the threat he poses to the region and our own security," Gephardt said. Gephardt's comments could help Bush build congressional support for an attack on Iraq if the president chooses that option. [The complete article - registration required] The trial of John Ashcroft A year of right-wing ideology and rollbacks on civil liberties People for the American Way Foundation, TomPaine.com, June 4, 2002 The September 11 terrorist attacks were a watershed for the nation in many ways, and for John Ashcroft as well. Ashcroft's response to those attacks has been marked by a troubling willingness to amend our laws and Constitution by executive fiat and by a consistent disrespect for the role of the Congress and the courts in reviewing executive branch actions. He proposed legislation to grant extraordinary new powers to federal agencies and attempted to stifle congressional consideration of its impact. He then initiated or supported executive branch orders, without consulting Congress, that expanded executive branch powers even beyond those granted in the sweeping anti-terrorism legislation. [The complete article] Kashmir, terrorism, and hypocrisy Peter Beinart, New Republic, June 3, 2002 Conservatives had better hope The Wall Street Journal and National Review aren't read closely in New Delhi. Because if they are, some angry Indian nationalist is going to point out the glaring contradiction between the American right's line on the crisis between India and Pakistan and its line on the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians. [The complete article] East Jerusalem exiles Kareem Fahim, Village Voice, June 5, 2002 "The Israeli plan is, first, to have Jewish territorial continuity stretching from the university to what we call Highway 1, over there," he says, gesturing west. "They don't want Hebrew University to be an isolated enclave." "Secondly," he says, "they want to destroy the Clinton plan, which says the solution in Jerusalem should be that wherever there are Palestinians, it will be Palestinian land and sovereignty, and wherever there are Jews, it's Israeli land and sovereignty. So the settlers are trying to penetrate houses, to establish 'facts on the ground.' When the Clinton plan is reviewed later, they will say, we can't really divide this land anywhere, because even in Palestinian neighborhoods you have Jewish settlers. The point is endless fragmentation of the land." [The complete article] Intelligence test Michael Crowley, New Republic, June 3, 2002 With Democrats pressing their case (albeit more subtly than at first) for tough investigations of the Bush administration's pre-9/11 failures, the White House is determined to depict the criticism as cheap election-year partisanship. Which is why the most irritating figure to the Bushies right now is not Dick Gephardt, Hillary Clinton, or Tom Daschle--it's Richard Shelby. [The complete article] We've had enough witch hunts Robert Sheer, Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2002 Nothing succeeds like failure. Suddenly, everyone wants to grant the FBI and other intelligence agencies even more power despite the fact that they failed so spectacularly to utilize the expansive powers they had to head off terrorism before Sept. 11. In a sign of mass impotent rage, liberal columnists and politicians are joining right-wing talk show blatherers in insisting the FBI not be "hamstrung" by the restraints of civil liberty. First to go? Freedom from discrimination based on ethnicity, race or nationality. Racial profiling, popular since the Dark Ages, is again in vogue. [The complete article - registration required] Wage peace, not war George Monbiot, The Guardian, June 4, 2002 There is something dreamlike about our contemplation of the drift to war in Kashmir. While India and Pakistan move their missiles into position, in Britain our concerns are focused on the evacuation of our own citizens, the destination of the likely refugees, and the possibility that the Indian cricket team might be prevented from visiting England at the end of this month. That 12 million people could be vaporised if the war begins in earnest is viewed as regrettable, but nothing to do with us. [The complete article] A fight to feed hungry Afghanistan Philip Smucker, Christian Science Monitor, June 3, 2002 Afghan administrators – from doctors to warlords – here in the country's drought belt, agree on one thing: The country's unchecked poverty is feeding the angry tirades of Islamic fundamentalists who charge that the West does not really care about the Afghan people. A new report commissioned by the US Agency for International Development and based on interviews with 1,100 households across Afghanistan has found that the level of "diet security," a measurement of vulnerability to famine, has plummeted from nearly 60 percent in 2000 to just 9 percent now. [The complete article] J. Edgar Mueller William Safire, New York Times, June 3, 2002 To fabricate an alibi for his nonfeasance, and to cover up his department's embarrassing cut of the counterterrorism budget last year, Attorney General John Ashcroft — working with his hand-picked aide, F.B.I. Director "J. Edgar" Mueller III — has gutted guidelines put in place a generation ago to prevent the abuse of police power by the federal government. They have done this deed by executive fiat: no public discussion, no Congressional action, no judicial guidance. If we had only had these new powers last year, goes their posterior-covering pretense, we could have stopped terrorism cold. Not so. They had the power to collect the intelligence, but lacked the intellect to analyze the data the agencies collected. The F.B.I.'s failure to absorb the Phoenix and Minneapolis memos was compounded by the C.I.A.'s failure to share information it had about two of the Arab terrorists in the U.S. who would become hijackers (as revealed by Newsweek today). Thus we see the seizure of new powers of surveillance is a smokescreen to hide failure to use the old power. [The complete article - registration required] Indians scorn worry and love the bomb Catherine Philp, The Times, June 3, 2002 Scientists have predicted that a nuclear exchange would kill 12 million people, half of them in India, but all over the country people are baying for war, nonetheless. About 82 per cent believe that Pakistan would use nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict, but 74 per cent believe that India should attack. [The complete article] Nuclear neighbours teeter on brink of Armageddon Jason Burke and Peter Beaumont, The Observer, June 2, 2002 One man with a Kalashnikov and some dynamite could set off a blast that will make the entire world tremble. [The complete article] Too much, not enough - the failings of the National Security Agency James Bamford, Washington Post, June 2, 2002 Amid all the questions about possible intelligence failures at the CIA and FBI related to Sept. 11, one spy group -- the National Security Agency (NSA) -- has largely escaped the public spotlight. But a congressional joint intelligence committee, which will examine those questions in closed hearings beginning Tuesday, will give particular attention to missed opportunities at the secretive NSA -- the largest of all such agencies and the one specifically created to warn America of surprise attack at home. In one of the greatest ironies of Sept. 11, the NSA, which intercepts massive amounts of signals intelligence from all over the world, did not know that some of the terrorists had set up shop literally under its nose. It is now clear that NSA officials passed within feet of the terrorists who were on their way to blow up the Pentagon. An al Qaeda cell had improbably chosen to live in Laurel, the Maryland bedroom community just outside the NSA's gates, while they planned their attack. For months, theterrorists and the NSA employees exercised in some of the same local health clubs and shopped in the same grocery stores. Finally, as the terrorists pulled out of the Valencia Motel on Route 1 on their way to Dulles Airport and American Flight 77, they crossed paths with many of the electronic spies who were turning into Fort Meade, home of the NSA, to begin another day hunting for terrorists. [The complete article] THE FBI WAS LAST WEEK'S FALL GUY - THIS WEEK THE CIA NEEDS TO COME CLEAN The hijackers we let escape Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, Newsweek, June 10, 2002 The CIA tracked two suspected terrorists to a Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000, then looked on as they re-entered America and began preparations for September 11. [The complete article] Time to clean up the battlefield of a dirty war Jonathan Cook, The Guardian, June 3, 2002 After the week-long frenzy of concern in mid-April, the current silence of the international community is truly scandalous. One cannot but suspect that the world has chosen to forget Jenin. Two related factors contributed to this rapid loss of interest. The first occurred with the west's supine acceptance of Israel's decision to block a UN fact-finding mission. There is little doubt that the UN lost its nerve to push for an inquiry. The fierce criticism UNWRA now faces in the US has increased its reluctance to publicise the camp's plight. The second factor was the hasty claims - made by Palestinian and Israeli spokesmen in the absence of concrete facts - that hundreds of Jenin's inhabitants had been killed. Given the world's inflated expectations, the talk of a massacre seemed grossly disproportionate once the camp was opened to scrutiny. The casualties sustained by the Israeli army, including 23 soldiers killed, only fed the view that Jenin was a messy but essentially fair fight. [The complete article] Under the nuclear shadow Arundhati Roy, The Observer, June 2, 2002 This week as diplomats' families and tourists quickly disappeared, journalists from Europe and America arrived in droves. Most of them stay at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi. Many of them call me. Why are you still here, they ask, why haven't you left the city? Isn't nuclear war a real possibility? It is, but where shall I go? If I go away and everything and every one, every friend, every tree, every home, every dog, squirrel and bird that I have known and loved is incinerated, how shall I live on? Who shall I love, and who will love me back? Which society will welcome me and allow me to be the hooligan I am, here, at home? We've decided we're all staying. We've huddled together, we realise how much we love each other and we think what a shame it would be to die now. Life's normal, only because the macabre has become normal. While we wait for rain, for football, for justice, on TV the old generals and the eager boy anchors talk of first strike and second strike capability, as though they're discussing a family board game. My friends and I discuss Prophecy, the film of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the dead bodies choking the river, the living stripped of their skin and hair, we remember especially the man who just melted into the steps of the building and we imagine ourselves like that, as stains on staircases. [The complete article] HOME | ABOUT | CONTACT | Copyright © 2002-2004 Paul Woodward 
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