Why hasn't anybody in the popular press put together this kind of comparison?

This is another one of those, "That's hilarious!" (laugh until I cry) kind of moments.

By committing our country to years of "nationbuilding" in Iraq, the Shrub is doing exactly what he promised he wouldn't do when he was running for President in 2000.

I suppose the rationale is that 911 changed his mind. (So let's just get that out of the way.)

Anyway here it is. I'm gonna go get a coffee while the high resolution version is crunching. Then it will take a while longer to upload that sucker (it'll be a biggie).

Also note the MP3 of the audio below -- this sounds just as great without the pictures -- and I've also uploaded the uncompressed AIFF file -- so that those of you who are so inclined can do your creative mischief.

Enjoy!

Daily Show: Bush v. Bush (Small - 13 MB)

Uploading as of 10:45 am PST: Daily Show: Bush v. Bush (Hi-res - 160 MB)

Daily Show: Bush v. Bush (MP3 - 8 MB)

Uncompressed AIFF file - Daily Show: Bush v. Bush (45 MB)

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

Two of my readers reminded me to upload Monday night's
"Bush v. Bush" debate that The Daily Show was nice enough to put together for us.

(The Shrub now vs. himself the year he was running for President.)

I'd forgotten about it already when I realized how many other things I promised you guys yesterday.

But it really does deserve to go up first...

Here's a Real Feed of it. (Quicktimes are still on the way.)

Okay so I had time to crunch a bunch of my audio and video from last week, and chop everything up into nice, digestible chunks. But then I didn't have enough brain power to link to it and describe it all until I finished another project that was due today for school.

So that was today. Now I've got my life back for a couple days.

I know you're all just hanging around waiting for the Alan Kay and Howard Rheingold and all the other goodies I promised from E-tech last week.

(Yeah, like, enough yappin' already lady -- kick with the video!)

Well I've got that and more -- Daily Show Clips from last week and last night -- the last week of news stories from other publications around the world that I was too busy to blog while E-teching -- A video news clip of Lawrence Lessig and Zoe Lofgren talking about their new anti-spam bill on last night's news...and....more....

My next deadline isn't till Monday so I basically have the next 48 hours to catch up on everything else before things get ugly again school-wise.

Alright enough talk. Video on the way.

So CNN is having a Larry King Weekend.

I guess that means the war is over.

Aaron Swartz was nice enough to download one of my files and test it on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

Here are links to the players that could run the files.

Thanks Aaron!!

The scoop:

Aaron downloaded http://www.lisarein.com/videos/tvclips/dailyapril2003/4-02-03-shilling-sm.mov and tested it:

Mac: Works in QuickTime.

Win: Should work in QuickTime and VLC
http://videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html.

Lin: Works in VLC
http://videolan.org/vlc/.

I want to make sure that all of these Etech clips are available in a Windows and Linux-compatible format, and I'm told this isn't always the case with Quicktime.

Thanks ahead of time for your help.

So the question of the day seems to be "did I get the incredible Alan Kay presentation that happened Thursday morning at Etech?"

Well yes I did, as a matter of fact :-)

And yes, it WAS absolutely incredible (as you will soon be able to see for yourself)!

I was even able to capture both perspectives (Alice and the Bunny) during the VR demo, and get great close-ups (with direct sound) of all of the historical movies of past interfaces from the 60s!

It's the first presentation I'll be getting up later today!

(After Part Two and the Hi-res versions of Howard Rheingold's Keynote go up.)

If you don't know what movie I'm talking about, don't worry about it :-)

If you do and you know where it is, please let me know so I can download it and add it to my Internet Archive Library.

The page I link to from this post has gone bad.

Thanks!

This is at 444 Washington Street.

More information is below.

See you there!

PROTEST THE REGISTRATIONS, DETENTIONS AND ROUND-UPS OF OUR ARAB, MUSLIM, AND SOUTH ASIAN BROTHERS!

Friday, April 25 – 12pm to 1 pm

PROTEST AND PRESS CONFERENCE
San Francisco INS Office, 444 Washington St @ Sansome, San Francisco

Spread the word about the protest. Please call your friends, family, co-workers and members of the press and tell them why it’s important to stop these arbitrary detentions and scapegoating.

Wear a blue triangle as a symbol of resistance — and in solidarity with those who are in detention. Please visit www.bluetriangle.org

Contact INS District Director David Still at 415-844-5110. Tell him the INS should stop its arbitrary detentions and its special registrations, and to release all detainees now.

Also share this message with your Members of Congress and ask for an inquiry into INS activities since the passage of the USA Patriot Act. The Capitol Switchboard is 202-224-3121 or 800-839-5276

Background:
The U.S. government is requiring Middle Eastern and South Asian visitors, immigrants and students to register with the INS. By singling out a certain group of people for special registration, the government is engaging in racist scapegoating. To make matters worse, hundreds of well-meaning people who went
to be registered have been detained without hearings. This is not only wrong, but also counterproductive, since the government is punishing the very people who have chosen to cooperate. Singling out an entire group of people for harsh treatment is simply racist, and it sets us on a path toward the kind of detentions seen during World War II. Please act today to protect the civil liberties of all people.

ENDORSERS
ADCSF
ACLU
Blue Triangle Network
Global Exchange
Not in Our Name
October 22nd Coalition to Stop
Police Brutality
Refuse & Resist!
South Alameda Peace & Justice Coalition
CodePink

Here's a message from my friend Judith Holm:

JERRY SPRINGER VIEWERS NEEDED FOR RESEARCH

I am working with a professor at San Francisco State University on a research project on reality television. For now we need to find TV viewers who watch The Jerry Springer (TV) Show. Regular and occasional viewers are welcome. If you are (or if you know) a Springer viewer, PLEASE HELP by responding to or forwarding this. We will ask you to complete a short survey with just 10 questions.

As thanks for your participation we will send you a report of of findings.

If you have questions please contact me:

Judith Holm, judithaholm@earthlink.net

Bruce Springsteen has spoken out in support of the Dixie Chicks!

And he did it using his blog (of sorts):

Bruce On The Dixie Chicks

The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American.

The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about - namely freedom. Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create freedom in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and punish people for using that same freedom here at home.

I don't know what happens next, but I do want to add my voice to those who think that the Dixie Chicks are getting a raw deal, and an un-American one to boot. I send them my support.

Bruce Springsteen

I haven't had a chance to post much this week because I've been at Oreilly's Emerging Technology Conference.

So far I've recorded both keynotes (Howard Rheingold and Alan Kay), the bookmobile presentation by Brewster Khale and myself, Ben Hammersley, a DRM panel, a warblogging panel, and I'm about to grab Mitch Kapor talking about his newest software endeavor.

I lost my powercord early on in the conference and that has really cramped my already-impossible production schedule.

However, I did manage to get half of Howard Rheingold's talk ready for viewing and uploaded.

I may get something else up tonight, but otherwise you'll have to wait for the weekend for the goodies!

Half of Howard Rheingold's Keynote At Emerging Technologies (Small - 30 MB)

The dynamic duo of Science Fiction (Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross) are writing their next creation, "Unwirer," using a blog to keep track of the process.

The story's already sold. It will be published in ReVisions when it's finished.

Here's how they describe the story:

...is an alternate history in which the copyright industry's 1995 bid at the National Information Infrastructure hearings to redesign the Internet was successful. Now, America labors under a kind of MiniTel hell, where every online transaction costs a few cents and you can only field a website with the phone company's permission. Meanwhile, the French IT giant Be, Inc., has launched a global revolution with the first WiFi AP, and American guerrilla networkers are running through the hills on the US side of the Canadian and Mexican borders, establishing meshed access-points, working to provide end-to-end meshed IP from sea to shining sea.

Here's a clip from the story itself:

He'd lost his job and spent the best part of six months inside before his attorney plea-bargained them down, from a twenty years-to-life infoterrorism stretch to second degree tarriff evasion. The judge sentenced him to time served plus two years' probation, two years in which he wasn't allowed to program a goddamn microwave oven, let alone admin the networks that had been his trade. Prison hadn't been as bad for him as it could have been -- unwirers got respect -- but while he was inside Janice filed for divorce, and by the time he got out he'd lost everything he'd spent the last decade building -- his marriage, his house, his savings, his career. Everything except for the unwiring.

It was this experience that had turned him from a fun-loving geek into what $NAME [[need credible name for Chairman of the FCC]] called "one of the information terrorists undermining our homeland's security." And so it was with a shudder and a glance over his shoulder that he climbed the front steps and put his key in the lock of the house he and Dan rented.

I'm still not sure if this is a lesson in Free Speech or HR/Public Relations...

I mean, sure, this isn't "right," in terms of it not being "fair" that things happen this way. But it does seem like it could be expected when you criticize or say anything that could be construed as remotely negative about your principal funder in the press.

Don't sweat it Theo. You didn't want any of their dirty money anyway :-)

(It's not like anything useful ever comes out of that DARPA place anyway...except for the Internet itself, I suppose...)

It does mean, of course, that now we'll have to find some alternative funding so that the secure, free operating system that Theo was going to build for DARPA can still be built. Any ideas people?

Peace Talk Halts Defense OS Job
By the Associated Press, as reprinted in Wired News.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency halted the contract less than two weeks after The Globe and Mail of Toronto published a story in which programmer Theo de Raadt was quoted as saying he was "uncomfortable" about the funding source.

"I try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get built," de Raadt told the newspaper.

Within a few days, de Raadt said he received an e-mail from Jonathan Smith, a computer science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the grant's lead researcher, expressing discomfort over the statements.

On Thursday, Smith notified de Raadt of the cancellation.

"A tenured professor was telling me not to exercise my freedom of speech," de Raadt said.

Smith declined to comment on the matter, and DARPA did not return telephone messages Friday. De Raadt's suspicions about the cancellation could not be confirmed.

The $2.3 million grant had funded security improvements to the OpenBSD operating system since 2001 as well as related projects.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,58553,00.html

Peace Talk Halts Defense OS Job

Associated Press Page 1 of 1
02:54 PM Apr. 18, 2003 PT

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The U.S. military's research agency cut off grant money for helping to develop a secure, free operating system after a top programmer made anti-war statements to a major newspaper.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency halted the contract less than two weeks after The Globe and Mail of Toronto published a story in which programmer Theo de Raadt was quoted as saying he was "uncomfortable" about the funding source.

"I try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get built," de Raadt told the newspaper.

Within a few days, de Raadt said he received an e-mail from Jonathan Smith, a computer science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the grant's lead researcher, expressing discomfort over the statements.

On Thursday, Smith notified de Raadt of the cancellation.

"A tenured professor was telling me not to exercise my freedom of speech," de Raadt said.

Smith declined to comment on the matter, and DARPA did not return telephone messages Friday. De Raadt's suspicions about the cancellation could not be confirmed.

The $2.3 million grant had funded security improvements to the OpenBSD operating system since 2001 as well as related projects.

OpenBSD, a variation of Unix designed for use on servers, is touted as so secure that its default installation has had only one bug in the past seven years.

Thousands of copies of OpenBSD have been downloaded in the past six months. It's not clear, however, how many are in use.

De Raadt estimates about 85 percent of the DARPA grant has been spent, with about $1 million being used to pay for OpenBSD developers. Much of the work has been handled by a team of 80 unpaid volunteers.

Another $500,000 of the money funded the work of United Kingdom-based researchers on a related project called OpenSSL, which is used to encrypt data.

DARPA, which oversees research activities for the Pentagon, is best known for developing the network that evolved into the Internet.

End of story

Lewis Black: Coalition of the Schilling (Small - 3 MB)
Lewis Black: Coalition of the Schilling (Hi-res - 33 MB)

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

Some people were having trouble downloading the uncompressed AIFF files, so I've saved them with a .aif extension in a different directory:

Did CNN Modify Its Re-broadcast of Michael Moore's Uppity Oscar Acceptance Speech?.

This is, of course, in reference to this earlier post (Did CNN Turn Up The Boos On Michael Moore?), which, by the way, has a wonderful discussion going on currently about the various technical explanations that could explain the discrepancies between the broadcasts.

I will be presenting with Brewster Khale this Wednesday afternoon from 3:45-4:30 in the Lafayette/San Tomas/Lawrence room at Emerging Technologies Conference going on all week in Santa Clara.

Here's a short film I've just put together of the Internet Bookmobile's first stop of its first voyage.

This was shot on Monday, September 30, 2002, approximately two weeks before the Eldred Argument on October 11, 2002.

Bookmobile Launch (Low-res - 35 MB)
Bookmobile Launch (Hi-res - 72 MB)

The thing I don't get is, if it's so potentially offensive, why not pull it from international distribution? Are Americans the only ones who might be offended?

(It didn't sound very offensive anyway, from Stewart's description of it.)

The Ex-Queen Of Controversy Gets Material (Small - 4 MB)
The Ex-Queen Of Controversy Gets Material (Hi-Res - 57 MB)

Open Letter to Madonna,

What happened Madonna? Were you pressured into this? Are there things going on we'll never get a chance to understand? Well maybe so. But on the outside, it sure looks like you cracked under the pressure. You censored yourself.

Somehow, you were able to express yourself just a few months ago in a certain way, and now, for whatever reason, you don't feel comfortable doing so.

How sad indeed. How completely sad that artists no longer feel like they can express themselves in the U.S. without worrying about the backlash.

I hope you can talk about the experience publicly someday so we can all learn from it.

Sincerely,

Lisa Rein

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

This one speaks for itself guys...

Lewis Black On Dicks That Buy Hummers (Small - 5 MB)
Lewis Black On Dicks That Buy Hummers (Hi-res - 62 MB)

Meanwhile, the rich keep getting richer:

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

Martha Burk, chair of the National Council Of Women's Organizations, was on the Daily Show a few weeks ago. Martha has been protesting and speaking out against the
Male-only policy at the Augusta Golf Club (owned by Augusta National, Inc.).

According to Burk, Augusta members such as Bill Gates and the CEOs of General Electric and Bank of America won't stand up for women's rights because they don't want to cross "Hootie", the President of the Club.

Burk also explains how the Klu Klux Klan have stepped up to support the Club's discriminatory poilcy, saying "This civil rights stuff has gone too far. We support the club. Keep the women out."

She also explains why this battle is one worth fighting.

Audio - Martha Burk On The Daily Show - All (MP3 - 10 MB)

Martha Burk On The Daily Show Part 1 of 2 (Small - 7 MB)
Martha Burk On The Daily Show Part 2 of 2 (Small - 8 MB)

Martha Burk On The Daily Show Part 1 of 2 (Hi-res - 93 MB)
Martha Burk On The Daily Show Part 2 of 2 (Hi-res - 113 MB)

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

Bush's top cultural adviser steps down over looting of Iraqi museum

"The reports in recent days about the looting of Iraq (news - web sites)'s National Museum of Antiquities and the destruction of countless artifacts that document the cradle of Western civilization have troubled me deeply, a feeling that is shared by many other Americans," he wrote.

Calling the looting a "tragedy," Sullivan said that it was not prevented "due to our nation's inaction.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030417/pl_afp/iraq_war_us_culture&cid=1521&ncid=1480

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Martin Sullivan, the head of President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s cultural advisory committee, stepped down this week in protest over the United States failing to stop the looting of Baghdad's museum.

In a letter to Bush dated Monday, Sullivan said he was resigning as chairman of the President's Advisory Committee on Cultural Property, a position he had held since 1995.

"The reports in recent days about the looting of Iraq (news - web sites)'s National Museum of Antiquities and the destruction of countless artifacts that document the cradle of Western civilization have troubled me deeply, a feeling that is shared by many other Americans," he wrote.

Calling the looting a "tragedy," Sullivan said that it was not prevented "due to our nation's inaction.

The 11-member committee is made up of experts and professionals in the art world who are appointed to three-year terms.

Two are museum representatives, two are experts in archaeology and ethnology, three are specialists in worldwide art trade and four others are designated based on their areas of expertise.

A source close to the committee told AFP on condition of anonymity that another committee member, Gary Vikan, was also stepping down.

Sullivan serves as executive director of the Historic Saint Mary's City Commission, dedicated to one of the first British colonies, in the state of Maryland. Vikan is director of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland.

Baghdad's museum, which housed one of the world's great collections of artifacts from early Mesopotamian civilizations, was ransacked by looters on Friday in the upheaval following US troops' entry into the city.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that the United States was offering rewards for the return of items from the museum, or assistance in their recovery.

But critics have faulted US forces for failing to intervene in the extensive pillaging of the capital and other Iraqi cities after President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime collapsed.

Likening the looting to a post-football game riot, Rumsfeld said Tuesday: "No one likes it. No one allows it. It happens and it is unfortunate, and to the extent it can be stopped, it should be stopped."

"To the extent it happens in a war zone, it's difficult to stop," he added.

Update June 23, 2003, the Supreme Court has handed down it's decision on this case upholding Affirmative Action.

Here's a clip from an NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw on April 1, 2003.

I've also collected together a bunch of links on that go with these clips here.

NBC News On Supreme Court Affirmative Action Case (Small - 6 MB)
NBC News On Supreme Court Affirmative Action Case (Hi-res 79 MB)

"At the U.S. Supreme court today, one of the most important civil rights cases in a generation..." -- Tom Brokaw.

Update June 23, 2003, the Supreme Court has handed down it's decision on this case upholding Affirmative Action.

Links:

The cases heard by the Supreme Court on April 1 were Gratz v. Bollinger and
Grutter v. Bollinger (it's two back to back cases).

Audio of the arguments (from CNN):
http://www.cnn.com/LAW/scotus/gratz.bollinger/argument.smil
http://www.cnn.com/LAW/scotus/gratz.bollinger/argument2.smil

Briefs (from FindLaw):
Brief for the United States, Gratz v. Bollinger [Jennifer Gratz (U. Michigan
admissions]:
http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/gratz/gratzum11603brf.pdf

Brief for the United States, Grutter v. Bollinger [(Barbara Grutter (U.
Michigan School of Law admissions)]:
http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/grutter/grutterum11603brf.pdf

Opinions of the lower courts (from FindLaw):
U.S. District Court Opinion:
http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/grutter/grttrbllngr32701ff.pdf

6th Circuit Opinion:
http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/6th/02a0170p.html

The case that started it all, Bakke (from FindLaw)
University of California Regents v. Bakke:
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/438/265.html

NPR says:
"what many observers consider to be the most important civil rights issue to
come before the high court in a generation ... The cases before the
nine-judge panel were compelling enough that the court took a rare step by
allowing news organizations to record oral arguments streamed live from the
bench ... The main case involves the university's law school. Barbara
Grutter, who is white, applied for admission there in 1996. She was
rejected. She investigated and found out that African Americans and ethnic
minorities who had lower overall admissions scores were admitted. Grutter
sued, saying she was a victim of illegal discrimination. ... Grutter and her
supporters won the first round in U.S. District Court, but lost in a close
decision in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ... On Tuesday," [That was
April 1] "the high court will hear oral arguments on Grutter v. Bollinger
and the related lawsuit, Gratz v. Bollinger, that tests the university's
undergraduate affirmative action program ":
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/michigan/

I was just transcribing the lyrics so a friend and I can perform this song at an upcoming peace rally, and I just realized, again, what a nice piece of songwriting Green Day's "Life During Wartime" is.

MP3 of Life During Wartime (5 MB) (Or download it from my archive.)

Sorry ahead of time for not being able to make out a few words of the lyrics...
(Can anybody help out with those?) Think we got 'em now..:-)

Here are the tabs

Life During Wartime
Music and Lyrics by Green Day

yeah we say making changes starts
in the little things you do
revolution begins at home
but for most of us it ends there too

we're doing something
we're making changes
like changing the brand of crap we buy
we say it makes a difference
but that's just another lie

it used to be us and them
and you and me
and now we can't reach our potential
without a common enemy

a real war to fight against
instead of our petty disagreements
how can i rationalize
my life during wartime lie

a call to action
and a reaction
taking our lives in our own hands
instead of sitting around and talking bout
the same old shitty bands

the war's going on right now
and i'm not doing anything about it
without a crowd I'm not so loud
i can't do anything by myself
but that's just another lie

Oh yeah, and be sure to not leave your homes during unauthorized time periods or you may be shot on sight. Proceed with caution.

And have a nice day.

Robert Fisk: For the people on the streets, this is not liberation but a new colonial oppression
America's war of 'liberation' may be over. But Iraq's war of liberation from the Americans is just about to begin

It's going wrong, faster than anyone could have imagined. The army of "liberation" has already turned into the army of occupation. The Shias are threatening to fight the Americans, to create their own war of "liberation".

At night on every one of the Shia Muslim barricades in Sadr City, there are 14 men with automatic rifles. Even the US Marines in Baghdad are talking of the insults being flung at them. "Go away! Get out of my face!" an American soldier screamed at an Iraqi trying to push towards the wire surrounding an infantry unit in the capital yesterday. I watched the man's face suffuse with rage. "God is Great! God is Great!" the Iraqi retorted.

"Fuck you!"

The Americans have now issued a "Message to the Citizens of Baghdad", a document as colonial in spirit as it is insensitive in tone. "Please avoid leaving your homes during the night hours after evening prayers and before the call to morning prayers," it tells the people of the city. "During this time, terrorist forces associated with the former regime of Saddam Hussein, as well as various criminal elements, are known to move through the area ... please do not leave your homes during this time. During all hours, please approach Coalition military positions with extreme caution ..."

So now – with neither electricity nor running water – the millions of Iraqis here are ordered to stay in their homes from dusk to dawn. Lockdown. It's a form of imprisonment. In their own country. Written by the command of the 1st US Marine Division, it's a curfew in all but name.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=397925

Special analysis continued: After 27 days of war, little else is resolved
Robert Fisk: For the people on the streets, this is not liberation but a new colonial oppression
America's war of 'liberation' may be over. But Iraq's war of liberation from the Americans is just about to begin

17 April 2003

It's going wrong, faster than anyone could have imagined. The army of "liberation" has already turned into the army of occupation. The Shias are threatening to fight the Americans, to create their own war of "liberation".

At night on every one of the Shia Muslim barricades in Sadr City, there are 14 men with automatic rifles. Even the US Marines in Baghdad are talking of the insults being flung at them. "Go away! Get out of my face!" an American soldier screamed at an Iraqi trying to push towards the wire surrounding an infantry unit in the capital yesterday. I watched the man's face suffuse with rage. "God is Great! God is Great!" the Iraqi retorted.

"Fuck you!"

The Americans have now issued a "Message to the Citizens of Baghdad", a document as colonial in spirit as it is insensitive in tone. "Please avoid leaving your homes during the night hours after evening prayers and before the call to morning prayers," it tells the people of the city. "During this time, terrorist forces associated with the former regime of Saddam Hussein, as well as various criminal elements, are known to move through the area ... please do not leave your homes during this time. During all hours, please approach Coalition military positions with extreme caution ..."

So now – with neither electricity nor running water – the millions of Iraqis here are ordered to stay in their homes from dusk to dawn. Lockdown. It's a form of imprisonment. In their own country. Written by the command of the 1st US Marine Division, it's a curfew in all but name.

"If I was an Iraqi and I read that," an Arab woman shouted at me, "I would become a suicide bomber." And all across Baghdad you hear the same thing, from Shia Muslim clerics to Sunni businessmen, that the Americans have come only for oil, and that soon – very soon – a guerrilla resistance must start. No doubt the Americans will claim that these attacks are "remnants" of Saddam's regime or "criminal elements". But that will not be the case.

Marine officers in Baghdad were holding talks yesterday with a Shia militant cleric from Najaf to avert an outbreak of fighting around the holy city. I met the prelate before the negotiations began and he told me that "history is being repeated". He was talking of the British invasion of Iraq in 1917, which ended in disaster for the British.

Everywhere are the signs of collapse. And everywhere the signs that America's promises of "freedom" and "democracy" are not to be honoured.

Why, Iraqis are asking, did the United States allow the entire Iraqi cabinet to escape? And they're right. Not just the Beast of Baghdad and his two sons, Qusay and Uday, but the Vice-President, Taha Yassin Ramadan, the Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, Saddam's personal adviser, Dr A K Hashimi, the ministers of defence, health, the economy, trade, even Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Minister of Information who, long ago, in the days before journalists cosied up to him, was the official who read out the list of executed "brothers" in the purge that followed Saddam's revolution – relatives of prisoners would dose themselves on valium before each Sahaf appearance.

Here's what Baghdadis are noticing – and what Iraqis are noticing in all the main cities of the country. Take the vast security apparatus with which Saddam surrounded himself, the torture chambers and the huge bureaucracy that was its foundation. President Bush promised that America was campaigning for human rights in Iraq, that the guilty, the war criminals, would be brought to trial. The 60 secret police headquarters in Baghdad are empty, even the three-square-mile compound headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

I have been to many of them. But there is no evidence even that a single British or US forensic officer has visited the sites to sift the wealth of documents lying there or talk to the ex-prisoners returning to their former places of torment. Is this idleness. Or is this wilful?

Take the Qasimiyeh security station beside the river Tigris. It's a pleasant villa – once owned by an Iranian-born Iraqi who was deported to Iran in the 1980s. There's a little lawn and a shrubbery and at first you don't notice the three big hooks in the ceiling of each room or the fact that big sheets of red paper, decorated with footballers, have been pasted over the windows to conceal the rooms from outsiders. But across the floors, in the garden, on the roof, are the files of this place of suffering. They show, for example, that the head of the torture centre was Hashem al-Tikrit, that his deputy was called Rashid al-Nababy.

Mohammed Aish Jassem, an ex-prisoner, showed me how he was suspended from the ceiling by Captain Amar al-Isawi, who believed Jassem was a member of the religious Dawa party. "They put my hands behind my back like this and tied them and then pulled me into the air by my tied wrists," he told me. "They used a little generator to lift me up, right up to the ceiling, then they'd release the rope in the hope of breaking my shoulder when I fell."

The hooks in the ceiling are just in front of Captain Isawi's desk. I understood what this meant. There wasn't a separate torture chamber and office for documentation. The torture chamber was the office. While the man or woman shrieked in agony above him, Captain Isawi would sign papers, take telephone calls and – given the contents of his bin – smoke many cigarettes while he waited for the information he sought from his prisoners.

Were they monsters, these men? Yes. Are they sought by the Americans? No. Are they now working for the Americans? Yes, quite possibly – indeed some of them may well be in the long line of ex-security thugs who queue every morning outside the Palestine Hotel in the hope of being re-hired by the US Marines' Civil Affairs Unit.

The names of the guards at the Qasimiyeh torture centre in Baghdad are in papers lying on the floor. They were Ahmed Hassan Alawi, Akil Shaheed, Noaman Abbas and Moham-med Fayad. But the Americans haven't bothered to find this out. So Messrs Alawi, Shaheed, Abbas and Fayad are welcome to apply to work for them.

There are prisoner identification papers on the desks and in the cupboards. What happened to Wahid Mohamed, Majid Taha, Saddam Ali or Lazim Hmoud?A lady in a black chador approached the old torture centre. Four of her brothers had been taken there and, later, when she went to ask what happened, she was told all four had been executed. She was ordered to leave. She never saw or buried their bodies. Ex-prisoners told me that there is a mass grave in the Khedeer desert, but no one – least of all Baghdad's new occupiers – are interested in finding it.

And the men who suffered under Saddam? What did they have to say? "We committed no sin," one of them said to me, a 40-year-old whose prison duties had included the cleaning of the hangman's trap of blood and faeces after each execution. "We are not guilty of anything. Why did they do this to us?

"America, yes, it got rid of Saddam. But Iraq belongs to us. Our oil belongs to us. We will keep our nationality. It will stay Iraq. The Americans must go."

If the Americans and the British want to understand the nature of the religious opposition here, they have only to consult the files of Saddam's secret service archives. I found one, Report No 7481, dated 24 February this year on the conflict between Sheikh Mohammed al-Yacoubi and Mukhtada Sadr, the 22-year-old grandson of Mohammed Sadr, who was executed on Saddam's orders more than two decades ago.

The dispute showed the passion and the determination with which the Shia religious leaders fight even each other. But of course, no one has bothered to read this material or even look for it.

At the end of the Second World War, German-speaking British and US intelligence officers hoovered up every document in the thousands of Gestapo and Abwehr bureaux across western Germany. The Russians did the same in their zone. In Iraq, however, the British and Americans have simply ignored the evidence.

There's an even more terrible place for the Americans to visit in Baghdad – the headquarters of the whole intelligence apparatus, a massive grey-painted block that was bombed by the US and a series of villas and office buildings that are stashed with files, papers and card indexes. It was here that Saddam's special political prisoners were brought for vicious interrogation – electricity being an essential part of this – and it was here that Farzad Bazoft, the Observer correspondent, was brought for questioning before his dispatch to the hangman.

It's also graced with delicately shaded laneways, a creche – for the families of the torturers – and a school in which one pupil had written an essay in English on (suitably perhaps) Beckett's Waiting for Godot. There's also a miniature hospital and a road named "Freedom Street" and flowerbeds and bougainvillea. It's the creepiest place in all of Iraq.

I met – extraordinarily – an Iraqi nuclear scientist walking around the compound, a colleague of the former head of Iraqi nuclear physics, Dr Sharistani. "This is the last place I ever wanted to see and I will never return to it," he said to me. "This was the place of greatest evil in all the world."

The top security men in Saddam's regime were busy in the last hours, shredding millions of documents. I found a great pile of black plastic rubbish bags at the back of one villa, each stuffed with the shreds of thousands of papers. Shouldn't they be taken to Washington or London and reconstituted to learn their secrets?

Even the unshredded files contain a wealth of information. But again, the Americans have not bothered – or do not want – to search through these papers. If they did, they would find the names of dozens of senior intelligence men, many of them identified in congratulatory letters they insisted on sending each other every time they were promoted. Where now, for example, is Colonel Abdulaziz Saadi, Captain Abdulsalam Salawi, Captain Saad Ahmed al-Ayash, Colonel Saad Mohammed, Captain Majid Ahmed and scores of others? We may never know. Or perhaps we are not supposed to know.

Iraqis are right to ask why the Americans don't search for this information, just as they are right to demand to know why the entire Saddam cabinet – every man jack of them – got away. The capture by the Americans of Saddam's half-brother and the ageing Palestinian gunman Abu Abbas, whose last violent act was 18 years ago, is pathetic compensation for this.

Now here's another question the Iraqis are asking – and to which I cannot provide an answer. On 8 April, three weeks into the invasion, the Americans dropped four 2,000lb bombs on the Baghdad residential area of Mansur. They claimed they thought Saddam was hiding there. They knew they would kill civilians because it was not, as one Centcom mandarin said, a "risk free venture" (sic). So they dropped their bombs and killed 14 civilians in Mansur, most of them members of a Christian family.

The Americans said they couldn't be sure they had killed Saddam until they could carry out forensic tests at the site. But this turns out to have been a lie. I went there two days ago. Not a single US or British official had bothered to visit the bomb craters. Indeed, when I arrived, there was a putrefying smell and families pulled the remains of a baby from the rubble.

No American officers have apologised for this appalling killing. And I can promise them that the baby I saw being placed under a sheet of black plastic was very definitely not Saddam Hussein. Had they bothered to look at this place – as they claimed they would – they would at least have found the baby. Now the craters are a place of pilgrimage for the people of Baghdad.

Then there's the fires that have consumed every one of the city's ministries – save, of course, for the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Oil – as well as UN offices, embassies and shopping malls. I have counted a total of 35 ministries now gutted by fire and the number goes on rising.

Yesterday I found myself at the Ministry of Oil, assiduously guarded by US troops, some of whom were holding clothes over their mouths because of the clouds of smoke swirling down on them from the neighbouring Ministry of Agricultural Irrigation. Hard to believe, isn't it, that they were unaware that someone was setting fire to the next building?

Then I spotted another fire, three kilometres away. I drove to the scene to find flames curling out of all the windows of the Ministry of Higher Education's Department of Computer Science. And right next to it, perched on a wall, was a US Marine, who said he was guarding a neighbouring hospital and didn't know who had lit the next door fire because "you can't look everywhere at once".

Now I'm sure the marine was not being facetious or dishonest – should the Americans not believe this story, he was Corporal Ted Nyholm of the 3rd Regiment, 4th Marines and, yes, I called his fiancée, Jessica, in the States for him to pass on his love – but something is terribly wrong when US soldiers are ordered simply to watch vast ministries being burnt by mobs and do nothing about it.

Because there is also something dangerous – and deeply disturbing – about the crowds setting light to the buildings of Baghdad, including the great libraries and state archives. For they are not looters. The looters come first. The arsonists turn up later, often in blue-and-white buses. I followed one after its passengers had set the Ministry of Trade on fire and it sped out of town.

The official US line on all this is that the looting is revenge – an explanation that is growing very thin – and that the fires are started by "remnants of Saddam's regime", the same "criminal elements", no doubt, who feature in the marines' curfew orders. But people in Baghdad don't believe Saddam's former supporters are starting these fires. And neither do I.

The looters make money from their rampages but the arsonists have to be paid. The passengers in those buses are clearly being directed to their targets. If Saddam had pre-paid them, they wouldn't start the fires. The moment he disappeared, they would have pocketed the money and forgotten the whole project.

So who are they, this army of arsonists? I recognised one the other day, a middle-aged, unshaven man in a red T-shirt, and the second time he saw me he pointed a Kalashnikov at me. What was he frightened of? Who was he working for? In whose interest is it to destroy the entire physical infrastructure of the state, with its cultural heritage? Why didn't the Americans stop this?

As I said, something is going terribly wrong in Baghdad and something is going on which demands that serious questions be asked of the United States government. Why, for example, did Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence, claim last week that there was no widespread looting or destruction in Baghdad? His statement was a lie. But why did he make it?

The Americans say they don't have enough troops to control the fires. This is also untrue. If they don't, what are the hundreds of soldiers deployed in the gardens of the old Iran-Iraq war memorial doing all day? Or the hundreds camped in the rose gardens of the President Palace?

So the people of Baghdad are asking who is behind the destruction of their cultural heritage: the looting of the archaeological treasures from the national museum; the burning of the entire Ottoman, Royal and State archives; the Koranic library; and the vast infrastructure of the nation we claim we are going to create for them.

Why, they ask, do they still have no electricity and no water? In whose interest is it for Iraq to be deconstructed, divided, burnt, de-historied, destroyed? Why are they issued with orders for a curfew by their so-called liberators?

And it's not just the people of Baghdad, but the Shias of the city of Najaf and of Nasiriyah – where 20,000 protested at America's first attempt to put together a puppet government on Wednesday – who are asking these questions. Now there is looting in Mosul where thousands reportedly set fire to the pro-American governor's car after he promised US help in restoring electricity.

It's easy for a reporter to predict doom, especially after a brutal war that lacked all international legitimacy. But catastrophe usually waits for optimists in the Middle East, especially for false optimists who invade oil-rich nations with ideological excuses and high-flown moral claims and accusations, such as weapons of mass destruction, which are still unproved. So I'll make an awful prediction. That America's war of "liberation" is over. Iraq's war of liberation from the Americans is about to begin. In other words, the real and frightening story starts now.

Britian's Royal Society is very upset that the Shrub Administration misrepresented that it agreed with the assessment that DU wouldn't be dangerous to the inhabitants of the area.

Of course, this means that the dangers to our troops have also been misrepresented.

Scientists urge shell clear-up to protect civilians
Royal Society spells out dangers of depleted uranium
By Paul Brown for the Guardian UK.

Hundreds of tonnes of depleted uranium used by Britain and the United States in Iraq should be removed to protect the civilian population, the Royal Society said yesterday, contradicting Pentagon claims it was not necessary...

The society, Britain's premier scientific institution, was incensed because the Pentagon had claimed it had the backing of the society in saying DU was not dangerous.

In fact, the society said, both soldiers and civilians were in short and long term danger. Children playing at contaminated sites were particularly at risk.

DU is left over after uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and is also recovered after reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. There are thousands of tonnes of it in stores in the US and UK.

Because it is effectively free and 20% heavier than steel, the military experimented with it and discovered it could penetrate steel and concrete much more easily than convential weapons. It burns at 10,000C, incinerating everything as it turns to dust.

As it proved so effective, it was adopted as a standard weapon in the first Gulf war despite its slight radioactive content and toxic effects. It was used again in the Balkans and Afghanistan by the US.

DU has been suspected by many campaigners of causing the unexplained cancers among Iraqi civilians, particularly children, since the previ ous Gulf war. Chemicals released in the atmosphere during bombing could equally be to blame.

Among those against the use of DU is Professor Doug Rokke, a one time US army colonel who is also a former director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project, and a former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University. He has said a nation's military personnel cannot wilfully contaminate any other nation, cause harm to persons and the environment and then ignore the consequences of their actions. He has called on the US and UK to "recognise the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation".

The UN Environment Programme has been tracking the use of DU in the Balkans and found it leaching into the water table. Seven years after the conflict it has recommended the decontamination of buildings where DU dust is present to protect the civilian population against cancer...

Professor Brian Spratt, chairman of the Royal Society working group on depleted uranium, said that a recent study by the society had found that the majority of soldiers were unlikely to be exposed to dangerous levels of depleted uranium during and after its use on the battlefield.

"However, a small number of soldiers might suffer kidney damage and an increased risk of lung cancer if substantial amounts of depleted uranium are breathed in, for instance inside an armoured vehicle hit by a depleted uranium penetrator."

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,938336,00.html

Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Thursday April 17, 2003
The Guardian

Hundreds of tonnes of depleted uranium used by Britain and the United States in Iraq should be removed to protect the civilian population, the Royal Society said yesterday, contradicting Pentagon claims it was not necessary.

The society's statement fuels the controversy over the use of depleted uranium (DU), which is an effective tank destroyer and bunker buster but is believed by many scientists to cause cancers and other severe illnesses.

The society, Britain's premier scientific institution, was incensed because the Pentagon had claimed it had the backing of the society in saying DU was not dangerous.

In fact, the society said, both soldiers and civilians were in short and long term danger. Children playing at contaminated sites were particularly at risk.

DU is left over after uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and is also recovered after reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. There are thousands of tonnes of it in stores in the US and UK.

Because it is effectively free and 20% heavier than steel, the military experimented with it and discovered it could penetrate steel and concrete much more easily than convential weapons. It burns at 10,000C, incinerating everything as it turns to dust.

As it proved so effective, it was adopted as a standard weapon in the first Gulf war despite its slight radioactive content and toxic effects. It was used again in the Balkans and Afghanistan by the US.

DU has been suspected by many campaigners of causing the unexplained cancers among Iraqi civilians, particularly children, since the previ ous Gulf war. Chemicals released in the atmosphere during bombing could equally be to blame.

Among those against the use of DU is Professor Doug Rokke, a one time US army colonel who is also a former director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project, and a former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University. He has said a nation's military personnel cannot wilfully contaminate any other nation, cause harm to persons and the environment and then ignore the consequences of their actions. He has called on the US and UK to "recognise the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation".

The UN Environment Programme has been tracking the use of DU in the Balkans and found it leaching into the water table. Seven years after the conflict it has recommended the decontamination of buildings where DU dust is present to protect the civilian population against cancer.

Up to 2,000 tonnes of DU has been used in the Gulf, a large part of it in cities like Baghdad, far more than in the Balkans. Unep has offered to go to Iraq and check on the quantities of DU still present and the danger it poses to civilians.

Professor Brian Spratt, chairman of the Royal Society working group on depleted uranium, said that a recent study by the society had found that the majority of soldiers were unlikely to be exposed to dangerous levels of depleted uranium during and after its use on the battlefield.

"However, a small number of soldiers might suffer kidney damage and an increased risk of lung cancer if substantial amounts of depleted uranium are breathed in, for instance inside an armoured vehicle hit by a depleted uranium penetrator."

He said the study also concluded that the soil around the impact sites of depleted uranium penetrators may be heavily contaminated, and could be harmful if swallowed by children for example.

"In addition, large numbers of corroding depleted uranium penetrators embedded in the ground might pose a long-term threat if the uranium leaches into water supplies.

"We recommend that fragments of depleted uranium penetrators should be removed, and areas of contamination should be identified and, where necessary, made safe."

He added: "We also recommend long-term sampling, particularly of water and milk, to detect any increase in uranium levels in areas where depleted uranium has been used. This provides a cost-effective method of monitoring sensitive components in the environment, and of providing information about uranium levels to concerned local populations."

The Christian Science Monitor reports that Faith-based relief agencies in Iraq will be serving Christianity up with their meals.

When Bagdad was liberated last week, Iraqi Shiites who had been repressed under Sadam's regime were chanting "At last! We can be a Muslim country!"

I doubt that trading religious oppression under Sadam for mandatory Christianity under faith-based relief organizations is what the Iraqi's had in mind.

This is, of course, the problem with faith-based aid to begin with. If Faith-based organizations want to provide Aid, it should be a requirement of any organization doing work on behalf of our government -- on behalf of the people of the United States -- to leave the religious rhetoric at home. Especially when it known already to conflict with the beliefs of the people we are purportedly trying to help.

A crusade after all?
By Jane Lampman for the Christian Science Monitor.

Yet to many Muslims and Christians alike, proselytizing at this highly volatile moment in the newly liberated country, with Muslims worldwide questioning US motives, could only spur outrage and undermine US policy in the region as well as in Iraq.

"Coming in the wake of a military conquest of an Arab country, and of openly hostile statements by [the Rev. Franklin] Graham and others, it's going to backfire in the worst way for US plans to be seen as a liberator," says Seyyed Hossein Nasr, professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University...

Iraq is particularly volatile, because it has just emerged from a dictatorship and is under military occupation. And those planning to proselytize are known in the region: the former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention has called the prophet Muhammad a "demon-possessed pedophile," and Mr. Graham, head of Samaritan's Purse, has termed Islam "an evil religion."

Their remarks flew across the Muslim world with such effect that a group of Baptist missionaries working in 10 predominantly Muslim countries sent a letter home calling for restraint and saying such comments "heighten animosity toward Christians," affecting their work and personal safety.

Graham's close ties to the administration - he gave the prayer at Mr. Bush's inauguration and is invited to give the Good Friday prayer at the Pentagon - give Muslims the impression, some say, that evangelization efforts are part of US plans to shape Iraqi society in a Western image...

Such efforts reawaken colonialist images of missionaries following British and French troops into the Middle East in the 19th and 20th centuries. And that, critics add, plays directly into the hands of Osama bin Laden, whose missives have predicted a Christian crusade.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0417/p14s01-lire.html

from the April 17, 2003 edition

A crusade after all?
Plans of some Christians to evangelize as they offer aid pose dilemma for Iraqi reconstruction.
By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
When President Bush called his war on terrorism a "crusade," he backtracked quickly in the face of intense reaction at home and abroad. Now many people are worried that, in the case of Iraq, that inopportune choice of words may turn out to hold more than a modicum of truth.

As Christian relief agencies prepare to enter Iraq, some have announced their intent to combine aid with evangelization. They include groups whose leaders have proclaimed harshly negative views of Islam. They are also friends of the president. The White House has shrugged its shoulders, saying it can't tell private groups what to do, though legal experts disagree.
(Photograph)

Yet to many Muslims and Christians alike, proselytizing at this highly volatile moment in the newly liberated country, with Muslims worldwide questioning US motives, could only spur outrage and undermine US policy in the region as well as in Iraq.

"Coming in the wake of a military conquest of an Arab country, and of openly hostile statements by [the Rev. Franklin] Graham and others, it's going to backfire in the worst way for US plans to be seen as a liberator," says Seyyed Hossein Nasr, professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University.

The distress over these plans reflects the increasing contention that surrounds proselytizing around the globe, as the world shrinks and faiths rub elbows and jockey for adherents. Islam and Christianity both make universal claims, and believers have the obligation to spread the message. Converts represent some 30 percent of US Muslims, for example. And within Islam, sects such as the Wahhabis have pressed their particular strain by sponsoring imams, schools, and teaching materials in many nations. Evangelical Christians mounted a global missionary effort in 2000 to reach Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists in targeted regions, including the Middle East.

While religious rights have been set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, issues of proper and improper proselytism have not been resolved. And neither Islamic states nor evangelical Christians fully accept the international role.

Iraq is particularly volatile, because it has just emerged from a dictatorship and is under military occupation. And those planning to proselytize are known in the region: the former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention has called the prophet Muhammad a "demon-possessed pedophile," and Mr. Graham, head of Samaritan's Purse, has termed Islam "an evil religion."

Their remarks flew across the Muslim world with such effect that a group of Baptist missionaries working in 10 predominantly Muslim countries sent a letter home calling for restraint and saying such comments "heighten animosity toward Christians," affecting their work and personal safety.

Graham's close ties to the administration - he gave the prayer at Mr. Bush's inauguration and is invited to give the Good Friday prayer at the Pentagon - give Muslims the impression, some say, that evangelization efforts are part of US plans to shape Iraqi society in a Western image.

History's long reach

Such efforts reawaken colonialist images of missionaries following British and French troops into the Middle East in the 19th and 20th centuries. And that, critics add, plays directly into the hands of Osama bin Laden, whose missives have predicted a Christian crusade.

Aggressive proselytizing has created a tension between rights - the religious-freedom right to proselytize on the one hand, and a liberty-of-conscience right to be free from intrusion on the other, says John Witte, head of the law and religion program at Emory University Law School in Atlanta. This tension is heightened when a territory is newly open and vulnerable because of past oppression. With the collapse of communism, for example, Western religious groups rushed into Russia to provide aid and to proselytize, and eventually met with a backlash from indigenous spiritual and political leaders.

In recent years, evangelicals have targeted as their priority a swath of the world dubbed "the 10/40 window" (North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia between 10 degrees and 40 degrees north latitude). Restrictions in Muslim countries on proselytizing vary from Pakistan, where visas are given to missionaries, to Saudi Arabia, where no activity is allowed, says J. Dudley Woodberry, professor of Islam at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., who has spent years in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mr. Woodberry has experienced two very different responses in the region. "Opposition has intensified as the Israel-Palestine situation has not been resolved and the Iraq war has been building," he says. "But there's also greater receptivity to the gospel as a result of people's disillusionment with various attempts to institute Islamic law."

Christians have been present in the Middle East since the first century, living harmoniously with Muslims for long periods. Some claim the problems are with a more assertive Western Christianity that uses its wealth in manipulative ways.

"There are very sincere missionaries whom Muslims like," says Dr. Nasr. "But what makes them angry is that US proselytizing is combined with worldly advantages: Poor people are wooed with medicine for their children, syringes for their cows, and then are expected to attend services."

There are also charges of deception. Last June, Mother Jones magazine detailed missionary training at a school in South Carolina that prepared workers to go into countries where evangelism is illegal, win people's trust and then evangelize. A teacher tells, for example, of setting up a quiltmaking business to employ and then proselytize Muslims.

Yet missionary agencies provide schools, hospitals, and disaster relief that would otherwise not be available. The challenge, critics say, lies in the ethics of proselytization - deciding how it is done and when.

What might be the implications of Western evangelization in Iraq? Russia's "soul wars" provide some clues, says Dr. Witte, who headed a three-year study of clashes between indigenous and foreign missionizing faiths in several regions of the world. "Iraq is another episode in an ongoing problem of Western religious groups seeing a new field for a marketplace of religious ideas, and the local groups not being ready to receive them," he adds.

'Spiritual bribery'

In Russia, 10 years of ambitious Western evangelizing brought many benefits in charitable facilities and conversions from atheism, he says. But it also introduced "forms of spiritual bribery" and a Western-style notion of religion as easily changeable. This conflicts with Russian Orthodox and Russian Muslim traditions, "where one is born and grows in a religion as part of one's experience in blood, soil, people, and connection," he says. It has bred great resentment among Russians, who feel the West, "having won the cold war, is now engaging in a form of religious pillaging."

"That view prevails amply in Russia, and I can see it perhaps prevailing in Iraq if [evangelism] develops," Witte says. Russia has reacted with new legislation that curtails many religious rights in favor of state-sanctioned groups.

The situation could be compounded in Iraq, he suggests, because the country is under military law, and internal religious and political differences between Sunni and Shiite Muslims need to be worked out. "Time has to be given for that kind of exercise independent of a phalanx of Christian groups providing additional points of conflict," he says. "This is the last place where Christians should be rushing in."

Woodberry, too, is cautious. "Although Christians are called to witness in both word and deed, timing is very important," he says. "Now there is great mistrust of Americans and Christians." Whatever is done, he adds, should be in cooperation with both Iraqi Christians and Arab Christian organizations.

Some say the White House should simply restrain the president's friends to demonstrate that US forces are not in Iraq to open the door for evangelism. Witte says there's a legal basis for doing so: "The notion that these groups have an unencumbered right to march in and evangelize is simply not so in law - in a military law context, severe restrictions are permissible."

Yet it could likely be done by persuasion. During the first Gulf war, Franklin Graham sent thousands of Arabic-language New Testaments to US troops in Saudi Arabia to pass along to local people. This violated Saudi law and an agreement between the two governments that there would be no proselytizing. When Gen. Norman Swarzkopf had a chaplain call Graham to complain, Graham said he was under higher orders. He later told Newsday, however, that had he been explicitly asked, he would have desisted.

A greater concern of some people is that the administration may in fact support the effort, given the president's beliefs and the import of conservative Christians as a political constituency.

Bush has after all moved ahead with his domestic faith-based initiative, although Congress has not passed the authorizing legislation. Meanwhile, the former deputy director of the White House office for faith-based programs has a new job: building nongovernmental institutions in Iraq.

This would almost be funny at this point if our Administration wasn't in the process of following these imaginary WMDs over into Syria.

Now they're saying it could take up to a year to find them. Or not.

Hmmm. I remember three months being too long to let the inspectors do their job. Now we're supposed to wait a year or more for them to tell us if the U.S.'s official reasons for invading Iraq even exist?

Pressure to find weapons mounts
By Bryan Bender for the Boston Globe.

A month after the outbreak of war, arms control specialists and former United Nations weapons inspectors are increasingly critical of the Bush administration for its failure to substantiate prewar claims of a hidden weapons arsenal, the principal argument for going to war against Saddam Hussein...

Several thousand soldiers in Iraq are now dedicated to the US search, being run by the Defense Department. But so far the mission has been plagued by numerous false readings of suspected chemical and biological materials.

Washington's credibility is being eroded further, according to arms specialists, by the continued refusal to include international participation in the search.

Some analysts say the Bush administration could build support for a lengthy, exhaustive search by immediately bringing in either the United Nations weapons inspectors who left Iraq before the war or other international specialists. The UN Security Council next week will discuss the possible resumption of its inspections in Iraq...

''They are not demonstrating much capability,'' said David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. ''It has been run somewhat incompetently. They have to bring the professionals in. They said the UN inspectors were bumbling idiots and can't find anything. Now these guys are looking like bumbling idiots that can't find anything.''

However, the United States has not indicated any willingness to accept UN help in the search. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard B. Myers said Tuesday that ''right now our searches are done under military control, and it's not appropriate to add anyone to that equation.''

Other analysts say the failure to find weapons so far suggests there may be few to find.

''There will be less than we have been led to believe,'' predicted Robert Einhorn, who was the assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation in the Clinton administration. ''There is a good chance that Iraq disposed of some weapons. There was no real security need to keep some of the junk they had stored up.''

If US military forces are unable to locate a ''smoking gun,'' the specialists say, it will raise new questions about whether the UN weapons inspectors could have successfully contained the threat posed by the Hussein regime, without the need for an invasion. The inspectors returned to Iraq in November after a four-year absence, but left again in early March after the United States and Britain said Iraq had failed to meet its obligation to disarm.

''The case was made that there were a lot of weapons,'' said Albright, the former inspector. ''To make its case, the Bush administration has to find a lot - not 20 chemical shells here, or a couple of drums there. If Iraq destroyed any incriminating evidence, people will say that the inspectors could have contained Iraq.''

Administration officials maintain that the search is still in its early stages and point out that at least a dozen suspected weapons sites have been identified and that most are still being investigated.

But some analysts say the slow progress of the search suggests that the US intelligence community widely misjudged the Iraqi weapons program.

''The fact that we haven't found any yet seems to indicate that there were fewer weapons than the administration feared,'' said Joseph Cirincione, a weapons specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ''It would be very difficult to hide a large, ongoing biological or chemical weapons production program [making] hundreds of tons of agents. Janitors who worked in these plants should be able to give us information.''

...Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke has sought repeatedly to ''manage expectations,'' in her words, saying that the search process could take up to a year to complete.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/107/nation/Pressure_to_find_weapons_mountsP.shtml

Boston Globe Online: Print it! Alt Text

THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

Pressure to find weapons mounts

By Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent, 4/17/2003

WASHINGTON - A month after the outbreak of war, arms control specialists and former United Nations weapons inspectors are increasingly critical of the Bush administration for its failure to substantiate prewar claims of a hidden weapons arsenal, the principal argument for going to war against Saddam Hussein.

President Bush and other top US officials repeatedly asserted that a significant stockpile of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons remained unaccounted for, including hundreds of tons of chemical agent production materials, 15,000 artillery rockets that could deliver nerve agents, and 30,000 liters of the biological agent anthrax.

Several thousand soldiers in Iraq are now dedicated to the US search, being run by the Defense Department. But so far the mission has been plagued by numerous false readings of suspected chemical and biological materials.

Washington's credibility is being eroded further, according to arms specialists, by the continued refusal to include international participation in the search.

Some analysts say the Bush administration could build support for a lengthy, exhaustive search by immediately bringing in either the United Nations weapons inspectors who left Iraq before the war or other international specialists. The UN Security Council next week will discuss the possible resumption of its inspections in Iraq.

''It's important to be as transparent as possible,'' said Lee Feinstein, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ''I believe they will find weapons of mass destruction, and I think it's going to be important to get the international community involved.''

Adding international expertise could also address criticism that the US military's weapons hunt has appeared cumbersome.

''They are not demonstrating much capability,'' said David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. ''It has been run somewhat incompetently. They have to bring the professionals in. They said the UN inspectors were bumbling idiots and can't find anything. Now these guys are looking like bumbling idiots that can't find anything.''

However, the United States has not indicated any willingness to accept UN help in the search. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard B. Myers said Tuesday that ''right now our searches are done under military control, and it's not appropriate to add anyone to that equation.''

Other analysts say the failure to find weapons so far suggests there may be few to find.

''There will be less than we have been led to believe,'' predicted Robert Einhorn, who was the assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation in the Clinton administration. ''There is a good chance that Iraq disposed of some weapons. There was no real security need to keep some of the junk they had stored up.''

If US military forces are unable to locate a ''smoking gun,'' the specialists say, it will raise new questions about whether the UN weapons inspectors could have successfully contained the threat posed by the Hussein regime, without the need for an invasion. The inspectors returned to Iraq in November after a four-year absence, but left again in early March after the United States and Britain said Iraq had failed to meet its obligation to disarm.

''The case was made that there were a lot of weapons,'' said Albright, the former inspector. ''To make its case, the Bush administration has to find a lot - not 20 chemical shells here, or a couple of drums there. If Iraq destroyed any incriminating evidence, people will say that the inspectors could have contained Iraq.''

Administration officials maintain that the search is still in its early stages and point out that at least a dozen suspected weapons sites have been identified and that most are still being investigated.

But some analysts say the slow progress of the search suggests that the US intelligence community widely misjudged the Iraqi weapons program.

''The fact that we haven't found any yet seems to indicate that there were fewer weapons than the administration feared,'' said Joseph Cirincione, a weapons specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ''It would be very difficult to hide a large, ongoing biological or chemical weapons production program [making] hundreds of tons of agents. Janitors who worked in these plants should be able to give us information.''

Defending its approach, the Pentagon says it remains convinced that it will find outlawed weapons in Iraq, but it has lowered expectations on what might be found and how soon.

US officials hope the recent capture of two top Iraqi scientists - Jaffar Dhia Jaffar, described as the father of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, and Lieutenant General Amer al-Saadi, Hussein's top science adviser - will provide key insights into the Iraqi weapons program. A raid yesterday on the Baghdad home of Rihab Taha, known as ''Dr. Germ'' for her role in Iraq's biological weapons program, could provide more leads in the search.

''I have every confidence we're going to find them, but I don't think it's unusual that we haven't found them yet,'' said Myers, the Joint Chiefs chairman. He said Iraq had many years to learn to hide evidence of its weapons of mass destruction program. ''It really hasn't been the top priority up until now.''

Moving away from previous assertions that a large arsenal exists in the country, senior officials are now emphasizing the need to find a paper trail and testimony that points to the Hussein regime's capability and intent to develop chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, as opposed to a readily usable stockpile of weapons.

''We have seen chemical protection-related things in a number of areas, chemical defense-related items. We certainly have encountered a number of delivery systems that have been captured or destroyed,'' said Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, Central Command's deputy operations chief. ''The real heavy-duty work of being able to get into sites and getting detailed access to people who have knowledge... that's ongoing. And we're really just in the earliest stages of that.''

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke has sought repeatedly to ''manage expectations,'' in her words, saying that the search process could take up to a year to complete.

Ed Felten On Slashdot

"...I don't think the legislators who support these bills really understand the harm they would do. In my experience, if you can explain to them what the problem is, they will want to do the right thing. (They may not kill a bad bill entirely, but they will at least try to amend it to fix problems.) The hard part is to get their attention, and then to explain the problem in a manner that non-geeks can understand.

The underlying problem, I think, is that geeks think about technology in a different way than non-geeks do. The differences have sunk deeply into the basic worldviews of the two communities, so that their consequences seem to be a matter of common sense to each group. This is why it often looks to each group as if members of the other group are idiots.

Here's an example. Geeks think of networks as being like the Internet: composed of semi-independent interoperating parts, and built in layers. Non-geeks tend to think of networks as being like the old-time telephone monopoly: centrally organized and managed, non-layered, and provided by a single company. It's not that they don't know that the world has changed -- if you ask them what the Internet is like, they'll say that it's decentralized and layered. But the *implications* of those changes haven't sunk deeply into their brains, so they tend not to see problems that are obvious to geeks."

Here is a partial text of the article at:

http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/17/1222220&mode=thread&tid=153&tid=123

-------------------------------------
1) From your discussions with them...
by burgburgburg
...do you perceive that legislators are aware of the extraordinarily
broad negative implications of these new telecommunications laws that
are being proposed/enacted?
Also, if you are aware of it, have the hardware/software manufacturers
who will be affected joined together to fight these laws, or has it
flown under their radar?

Prof. Felten:
Let me take the second part of the question first. Yes, various
manufacturers have opposed the bills. The Consumer Electronics
Association, for example, has opposed them. The MPAA has now changed the
bills in an attempt to make some of the big manufacturers happier.
As to the first part of the question:
No, I don't think the legislators who support these bills really
understand the harm they would do. In my experience, if you can explain
to them what the problem is, they will want to do the right thing. (They
may not kill a bad bill entirely, but they will at least try to amend it
to fix problems.) The hard part is to get their attention, and then to
explain the problem in a manner that non-geeks can understand.
The underlying problem, I think, is that geeks think about technology in
a different way than non-geeks do. The differences have sunk deeply into
the basic worldviews of the two communities, so that their consequences
seem to be a matter of common sense to each group. This is why it often
looks to each group as if members of the other group are idiots.
Here's an example. Geeks think of networks as being like the Internet:
composed of semi-independent interoperating parts, and built in layers.
Non-geeks tend to think of networks as being like the old-time telephone
monopoly: centrally organized and managed, non-layered, and provided by
a single company. It's not that they don't know that the world has
changed -- if you ask them what the Internet is like, they'll say that
it's decentralized and layered. But the *implications* of those changes
haven't sunk deeply into their brains, so they tend not to see problems
that are obvious to geeks.
Geeks will look at proposed network regulation and immediately ask "How
will this affect interoperability?" or "Is this consistent with the
end-to-end principle?" but non-geeks will look at the same proposal and
think of different questions. They know what interoperability is, but
it's just not at the front of their minds.

2) What sort of positive legislation?
by Viperion
Dr. Felten, do you have a suggestion as to what sort of legislation
could be introduced that would soothe the minds of reactionary lawmakers
while preserving the rights that we currently enjoy?

Prof. Felten:
Intellectual property policy is in a crisis right now, caused by
widespread infringement and the excesses of the legal backlash against
it. The biggest problem is hasty legislation that makes the crisis worse
by overregulating legitimate behavior without preventing infringement.
Obviously, it would be a positive step to repeal some of the bad laws
that are already on the books. Part of the problem is a mindset that no
matter what the problem is, the solution must be legislative.
But you asked about positive legislative steps, which is a harder
question. The holy grail here is a non-harmful proposal that reassures
legislators about the continued viability of the music and movie
industries.
If you want positive legislation in this area, the best hope is a
compulsory license, which would charge all users of the Net a small,
mandatory fee. In exchange for this, it would become totally legal to
distribute and use any audio and video content on the Net. The revenue
from the fees would be split up among the creators according to a
formula, based on how many times each work was downloaded or played. If
you do the math, the fees can be pretty small while still replacing the
revenue the music and movie industries would otherwise lose.
This is a controversial proposal. It does have drawbacks, and I'm not
quite endorsing it at this point. But if you want to cut the Gordian
knot and end the piracy wars, a compulsory license is one way to do so.

3) Network Identity
by Rick.C
One of the rumored new restrictions is that you may not mask the
identity of a network connection. In your opinion, does this refer to
the identity of each machine or the identity of the subscriber (who
might be responsible for several machines behind a firewall, e.g.)?
In other words, are we talking about "people" or "boxes"?

Prof. Felten:
Some proposed bills would make it a crime to "conceal the place of
origin or destination of a communication" from "any communication
provider." I'm not sure whether "place" means a geographic location
(such as my house) or a network address (such as my IP address) or an
identifier (such as a DNS address or email address, either of which
might correspond to a person). As far as I know, supporters of these
bills haven't said clearly which meaning they intend.
Under any of these three readings, such a ban would cause huge problems.
Lots of ordinary security and privacy measures, such as firewalls, VPNs,
encrypted tunnels, and various proxies conceal the origin or destination
of messages, either to protect privacy or as a side-effect of what they
do.

4) Prohibition of what got us here?
by Xesdeeni
Do I completely misunderstand the scope of the DMCA, or would it have
actually prohibited the actions of clone manufacturers, starting with
Compaq, when they reverse-engineered the IBM PC BIOS in 1984?
It seems this simple fact alone would highlight the ludicrous nature of
a law which would prohibit precisely the actions that provided the
current state of the industry.

Prof. Felten:
The effect of the DMCA on reverse engineering is complicated. The DMCA
does not flatly ban reverse engineering, but if you have to circumvent a
technical protection measure in order to do your reverse engineering,
then the DMCA will be an issue. The DMCA does have a limited safe harbor
for reverse engineering, but it has been widely criticized as too
narrow.
I hate to dodge your question, but I'm not really qualified to say
whether what the clone makers did would be legal under 2003 law.

5) Signal to Noise
by sterno
One of the problems I see with efforts to try to get the DMCA and
similar legislation revoked and prevented in the future, is a matter of
signal to noise. Most voters don't care about the DMCA or even know
about it, and those who do usually have to worry about more important
priorities like the state of the economy or the war in Iraq. So, my
question is, how can we possibly make the DMCA and its kin important
issues to our legislators? Sure, I can write them, but if they are given
the choice of voting for the DMCA and getting some campaign money, or
voting against and pleasing a handful of constituents, which will they
choose?
It's unlikely that the handful of consitutents is going to vote against
the candidate purely because of their DMCA stance. Personally, I'm very
against the DMCA but when the election time comes around, I'm not voting
for the anti-DMCA candidate, I'm voting for the guy who's going to fix
the economy and patch our international relationships. So how can
somebody like myself really get their voice heard by the right people
when the threat of "voting for the other candidate" isn't credible?

Prof. Felten:
In the short run, I think it's more productive to convince legislators
than to threaten them. As you say, there won't be many single-issue DMCA
voters.
But even if technological freedom issues like the DMCA aren't the only
factor in a voting decision, they still might tip the balance for some
voters in some races. Even that is enough to make a difference.
Legislators do seem to care what their constituents think, and they do
seem to have a fear of doing something that looks stupid afterward.
In the long run, I hope the public comes to see how technological
improvement flows from the freedom of technologists to learn and create.
If average voters view censorship of technologists in the same way they
view other forms of censorship, we'll be in much better shape.

6) DMCA and EUCD
by Brian Blessed
In your opinion, do residents of Europe and other US-friendly
(business-wise) areas have a hope of avoiding being adversely affected
by the DMCA (or superDMCA) or its foreign implementations (e.g. EUCD)
and is technological civil disobedience the best form of activism to
follow?

Prof. Felten:
There is still hope in Europe, but they seem to be heading for the same
kind of regulatory regime we see here in the U.S. Parts of the U.S.
government have been working hard for years to export the U.S. version
of intellectual property law to the rest of the world. All indications
are that Europe will follow us down this path.

7) Our position in the world
by TooTechy
Do you see this new legislation altering our ability to work remotely?
Will these restrictions place undue hardship on US workers when compared
with facilities in other countries? Is it likely that other countries
will evolve faster technologically as a result of these draconian
measures?
Prof. Felten:
The new regulations on technology will impose a drag on our
technological capabilities, and hence on our productivity. If other
countries are foolish enough to impose the same regulations on their
citizens (and it seems that many will be), then we'll come out even from
a competitive standpoint. More importantly, we'll all be worse off than
we could have been had we all followed better policies.

8) Strategy
by Meat Blaster
Our current methods of informing the public and the government about the
evils of the DMCA seem to be reactive and passive -- defending a
lawsuit, writing public responses to the librarian of Congress
periodically about the DMCA, setting up resources where the public if
they were so inclined could stop by and learn about the problem.
Do you feel that it would be a good time for a shift in strategy towards
more active measures such as forming a group to lobby representatives
directly, issuing mailings about the DMCA particularly to those whose
representatives support legislation like the DMCA/UCITA/SSSCA, or
beginning a television ad campaign? Such an endeavor is bound to cost a
bit, but I can't help but feel that particularly with 2004 coming up
having a bit of organized PR on our side of the debate would be quite
helpful.

Prof. Felten:
I agree that positive action is important. I view this as a two-track
process.
The first track is the one you suggest, of building up lobbying muscle
to challenge harmful regulations. This is challenging, given who is on
the other side, and given the tendency of our opponents to buy off
important players with special-purpose exceptions to their legal
regulations. (For example, the DMCA has special carve-outs for ISPs and
device makers.) We're really just starting in this area, but we need to
remember how much progress has been made since the passage of the DMCA,
which met very little organized resistance at the time.
The second track is to get better at explaining ourselves and at
persuading people that they should support our positions. Especially, we
need to do a better job of finding folks out there who are our natural
allies, and convincing them to join us on these issues, even if we
disagree about some other issues.
An example: auto parts manufacturers are worried by recent DMCA
developments, such as the case where Lexmark has successfully (so far)
used the DMCA against a maker of replacement parts for Lexmark printers.
Auto parts manufacturers are worried that the DMCA mindset, which treats
unauthorized analysis and interoperation as improper, will leak into
their world.

9) Roadblocks to IP protections?
by Xesdeeni
Doesn't the DMCA prohibit a company from investigating a violation of
their IP if the violation exists on the other side of encryption?
For example, if company M utilized a software algorithm (putting aside
the argument about software patents for the moment) inside an encrypted
data stream (audio file, video file, etc.) that was actually patented by
company A, wouldn't it be a violation of the DMCA for company A to
investigate this violation of their patent rights? And wouldn't any
evidence they uncovered in violation of the DMCA be inadmissible if they
tried to enforce their patent rights against company M?

Prof. Felten:
This sounds like a likely DMCA violation, but you'll have to consult
your lawyer to be sure.
This is just one instance of a more general problem. Laws like the DMCA
that limit the flow of information will inevitably make it harder to
find out about certain types of misbehavior. Sometimes the misbehavior
will be patent infringement. Sometimes it will be a manufacturer
misleading their customers about the quality of their product.
We value free speech because vigorous public discussion benefits
everybody, though many of those benefits are subtle and indirect. So
far, the legal system has not fully realized that speech about
technology needs to be valued as highly as speech about other topics. I
think the law will eventually catch on, as it becomes clearer to the
average person that their experience of the world, and their interaction
with the world, is mediated by technology.

10) Tell me...
by Dicky
For the love of God, man, why???
Or to put it slightly less sillily, what was (and is!) your motivation
for getting involved in this side of the Computer Science world, say, as
opposed to the nice safe, clean theoretical stuff?

Prof. Felten:
I'm not entirely sure myself. Here's the best answer I can manage:
In deciding what to work on, I really just follow my own quirky sense of
what is interesting and important. If others find the things I do
interesting and important, that's a lucky accident.
But that can't really be the answer to your question, because many of my
colleagues follow the same rule, and they end up working on different
sorts of things than I do. So I must have a different sense of taste
than they do, but I'm not sure why.
The answer doesn't lie in my personal life. When I leave work, I am not
at all a rebel or nonconformist. I have a stable, boring, happy suburban
life, which I wouldn't change for anything.
I should also point out that I do some work that fits into the
traditional academic computer science framework. But you won't read
about that on Slashdot.

Judge questions Bush request to halt Cheney suit
By the Associated Press (in the Houston Chronicle).

A federal appeals court today questioned the Bush administration's request to stop a lawsuit delving into Vice President Dick Cheney's contacts with energy industry executives and lobbyists.

Appeals Judges Harry Edwards and David Tatel suggested the White House had no legal basis for asking them to block a lower court judge from letting the case proceed.

The Bush administration took the unusual step of coming to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the midst of the case.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has ruled that the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch may be entitled to a limited amount of information about the meetings Cheney and his aides had with the energy industry in formulating the White House's energy plan.

The plan, adopted four months after President Bush took office, favored opening up public lands to oil and gas drilling and a wide range of other steps backed by industry.

Among the industry executives that the Cheney energy task force has acknowledged meeting with were former Enron Corp. chief executive Ken Lay.

Tatel, an appointee of President Clinton, said the administration has failed to show that it is suffering legal harm at the hands of the lower court. Edwards, a Carter-era appointee, told a government attorney flatly that "you have no authority" to ask the appeals court to intervene in the middle of the lawsuit.

The government is seeking "a modest extension" of a previous court ruling, responded Gregory Katsas, a deputy assistant attorney general.

The third member of the panel, Appeals Judge A. Raymond Randolph, expressed doubt that the Cheney task force is required to disclose information about its inner workings. However, Randolph, an appointee of Bush's father, also questioned whether the administration should be seeking appeals court intervention.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/1872197

HoustonChronicle.com
HoustonChronicle.com logo HoustonChronicle.com
Section: Business
Section: National
Section: Enron
Current stories in Business:

* Sixel: Saving comp days can be a treat, if it's truly an option
* American's unions cry foul over executive perks
o Delta reports loss; more jobs at stake
* Ford takes detour on promises for efficiency
* FTC accuses operator of disguised porn spam
* Jobs secure for reservists coming back
* Energy firms say penalty is too tough
* Spalding sells namesake line of equipment
* Russia OKs private pipeline
* Bar falls on Web price ploy
* Judges tell White House `no case'
* New military contract big win for truck maker
* CEO got $25.8 million in compensation
* Super Bowl to give boost to business
* Sagging sales in mail order lead to catalog changing hands
* Oil futures climb back over $30 a barrel
* Brother supports sister in lawsuit on Pritzker trust funds
* Jobless claims rise again, but so do markets
* Troubles with credit card debt, slow sales pinch Sears' profit
* NYSE scrutinizes specialist traders
* Toyota adding power to hybrid
* Dell outpaces HP for market share
* Dr. Mac
* Briefs: City & state
* Briefs: Nation & world

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April 17, 2003, 11:01AM
Judge questions Bush request to halt Cheney suit
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court today questioned the Bush administration's request to stop a lawsuit delving into Vice President Dick Cheney's contacts with energy industry executives and lobbyists.

Appeals Judges Harry Edwards and David Tatel suggested the White House had no legal basis for asking them to block a lower court judge from letting the case proceed.

The Bush administration took the unusual step of coming to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the midst of the case.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has ruled that the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch may be entitled to a limited amount of information about the meetings Cheney and his aides had with the energy industry in formulating the White House's energy plan.

The plan, adopted four months after President Bush took office, favored opening up public lands to oil and gas drilling and a wide range of other steps backed by industry.

Among the industry executives that the Cheney energy task force has acknowledged meeting with were former Enron Corp. chief executive Ken Lay.

Tatel, an appointee of President Clinton, said the administration has failed to show that it is suffering legal harm at the hands of the lower court. Edwards, a Carter-era appointee, told a government attorney flatly that "you have no authority" to ask the appeals court to intervene in the middle of the lawsuit.

The government is seeking "a modest extension" of a previous court ruling, responded Gregory Katsas, a deputy assistant attorney general.

The third member of the panel, Appeals Judge A. Raymond Randolph, expressed doubt that the Cheney task force is required to disclose information about its inner workings. However, Randolph, an appointee of Bush's father, also questioned whether the administration should be seeking appeals court intervention.

The Bush administration says it has demonstrated that the two private groups are not entitled to any information about the meetings between industry representatives and presidential aides, including the vice president.

The environmental group and the conservative group allege that participants from industry effectively became members of Cheney's task force in assembling the White House's energy policy.

Daily Show On Fox News (Small - 7 MB)
Daily Show On Fox News (Hi-res 86 MB)

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

Daily Show - Shrub's Message To The Iraqis (Small - 3 MB)
Daily Show - Shrub's Message To The Iraqis (Hi-res 43 MB)

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

I wish I could say I am happy with her response.

Letter To Me From Leader Nancy Pelosi regarding the INS Special Registrations.

I believe that the US government must ensure that immigration laws are not applied in a way that violates fundamental protections against discrimination. Any registration process must be administered fairly, and those facing questioning, detention or other legal proceedings should be given prompt access to lawyers...

There is no doubt that the tragic events of September 11 have changed our country. Some additional security measures and policy changes are necessary to reduce the threat of future attacks. In 2002, Congress passed the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, which authorized the implementation of an entry/exit system in order to track the flow of non-immigrants arriving into, and departing from, the United States. However, NSEERS was not contemplated in the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act and was developed by the Department of Justice without any Congressional consultation or oversight.

In February, the Senate agreed to an amendment (S.Amdt.54) during it's consideration of the FY2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill (H.J.Res.2) that prevented funds from being spend on any NSEERS activity and directed the Attorney General to provide Congress with NSEERS-related documents and materials. The final version of H.J.Res.2, signed into law by President Bush, restored the funds for NSEERS, but required the Attorney General to provide Congress with materials regarding NSEERS by March 1, 2003. To date, the documents have not been provided to Congress.

Here is the full text of the letter in case the link goes bad:

http://www.lisarein.com/peace/pelosi-reply-4-4-03.html

This letter was sent to me in reply to this letter I wrote to Nancy on January 10, 2003.

Note: All underlines were included in the original.

April 4, 2003

Ms. Lisa Rein
(My home address here)

Dear Ms. Rein,

Thank you for contacting me to express your concern about the Department of Justice's "special registration" program. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.

I believe that the US government must ensure that immigration laws are not applied in a way that violates fundamental protections against discrimination. Any registration process must be administered fairly, and those facing questioning, detention or other legal proceedings should be given prompt access to lawyers.

As you know, the Department of Justice has implemented a new system of tracking non-immigrant visa holders in the United States through a process known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS). Under the NSEERS program, all non-immigrant men over the age of 16 from a list of 25 countries must register in person at Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) offices before certain deadlines.

There is no doubt that the tragic events of September 11 have changed our country. Some additional security measures and policy changes are necessary to reduce the threat of future attacks. In 2002, Congress passed the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, which authorized the implementation of an entry/exit system in order to track the flow of non-immigrants arriving into, and departing from, the United States. However, NSEERS was not contemplated in the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act and was developed by the Department of Justice without any Congressional consultation or oversight.

In February, the Senate agreed to an amendment (S.Amdt.54) during it's consideration of the FY2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill (H.J.Res.2) that prevented funds from being spend on any NSEERS activity and directed the Attorney General to provide Congress with NSEERS-related documents and materials. The final version of H.J.Res.2, signed into law by President Bush, restored the funds for NSEERS, but required the Attorney General to provide Congress with materials regarding NSEERS by March 1, 2003. To date, the documents have not been provided to Congress.

Thank you again for taking the time to express your views on this important subject. I hope you will continue to communicate with me on matters of concern to you.

Sincerely,

Nancy Pelosi
Member of Congress

Thanks to Tristan for creating these waveform comparisons of the original ABC feed and the CNN rebroadcast. Thanks so much for putting this up!

Some data extracted from Michael Moore's speech, as transmitted on CNN and ABC

Some data extracted from Michael Moore's speech, as transmitted on CNN and ABC

The audio files were downloaded from http://www.lisarein.com/michaelmoore/michaelmoorecompare.html. I cropped the most controversial 'booh' part in the two versions, when he says tells "...that elected a ficticious president.... we...".
I compiled a stereo file with each version on each channel, submitted it to common analysis tools in a sound-editing program, and ended up with this (click on the images for a high resolution version)...

In the audio version, the stereo file with each version on each channel, you can clearly spot the difference between the two speeches. I let you hear where the booooohs come from. FYI, CNN's channel is on the left.

The conclusion

is as always up to you

Here is the full text of the page in case the link goes bad:

http://asyo.com/michaelmooresspeech/

Some data extracted from Michael Moore's speech, as transmitted on CNN and ABC

The audio files were downloaded from http://www.lisarein.com/michaelmoore/michaelmoorecompare.html. I cropped the most controversial 'booh' part in the two versions, when he says tells "...that elected a ficticious president.... we...".
I compiled a stereo file with each version on each channel, submitted it to common analysis tools in a sound-editing program, and ended up with this (click on the images for a high resolution version) :
Spectrum:

moore's speech ABC retransmission

Notice the strength of the horizontal curve of the (enthusiastic?) whoo.

moore's speech CNN retransmission

Notice the strength of the boo's (red lines), and how the whoo now swims in the background... The noise coming from the public is strangely louder under the two "booooo's"
Waveform:

moore's speech waveform, both channels

CNN's signal is blue, ABC's is red, the overlapping zone is dark.
Sound:

In the audio version, the stereo file with each version on each channel, you can clearly spot the difference between the two speeches. I let you hear where the booooohs come from. FYI, CNN's channel is on the left.
The conclusion

is as always up to you

Attention U.S. Citizens (Yes all of you):

This new and improved Patriot Act will make it legal to strip you of your citizenship without even telling you or anyone else what you're being charged with. You can be denied of ALL your rights (much less your right to due process or a lawyer) and locked up indefinitely.

And what crime might you have committed to cause this to happen?

I'm sorry, that would be classified information. We live in a country of secret laws now. Laws that were voted on by Congress and posted publicly for all to see are a thing of the past.

Everything's changed since 911, you see...

Sure it's unconstitutional. Without a doubt it's unconstitutional.

But it could take years for legislation like this to make its way up through the courts, and if the people being accused and incarcerated under this law aren't allowed to have a laywer and aren't given the right to plead his or her case, how will these cases ever get a chance to work their way anywhere?

Due process and freedom of expression are what used to make the United States "America." We are losing both at a rapid rate.

While we are off "liberating" other countries, our own country and even the most basic of our freedoms are being stolen right out from under our noses.

And all in broad daylight, with everybody watching.

Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act
Center Publishes Secret Draft of ‘Patriot II’ Legislation
By Charles Lewis and Adam Mayle for the Center for Public Integrity.

The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=502&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

The Center for Public Integrity

April 15, 2003

Special Report
Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act
Center Publishes Secret Draft of ‘Patriot II’ Legislation

By Charles Lewis and Adam Mayle

(WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2003) -- The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information.

The Center for Public Integrity has obtained a draft, dated January 9, 2003, of this previously undisclosed legislation and is making it available in full text (12 MB). The bill, drafted by the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft and entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, has not been officially released by the Department of Justice, although rumors of its development have circulated around the Capitol for the last few months under the name of “the Patriot Act II” in legislative parlance.

“We haven’t heard anything from the Justice Department on updating the Patriot Act,” House Judiciary Committee spokesman Jeff Lungren told the Center. “They haven’t shared their thoughts on that. Obviously, we'd be interested, but we haven’t heard anything at this point.”

Senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee minority staff have inquired about Patriot II for months and have been told as recently as this week that there is no such legislation being planned.

RELATED DOCUMENTS
The draft of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (12 MB)
Note: Due to high traffic volume, downloading the whole document might take several minutes. To download it in parts, click the links below:
Parts I (4.9 MB)
Part II (1.9 MB)
Part III (1.8 MB)
Part IV (1.8 MB)
Part V (1.9 MB)

Mirror Location of Document:
www.ire.org

The Office of Legislative Affairs “control sheet” which shows that a copy of the bill was sent to Speaker Hastert and Vice President Cheney (157 KB)
Read the Justice Department's response to this report. (230 KB)

Mark Corallo, deputy director of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs, told the Center his office was unaware of the draft. “I have heard people talking about revising the Patriot Act, we are looking to work on things the way we would do with any law,” he said. “We may work to make modifications to protect Americans,” he added. When told that the Center had a copy of the draft legislation, he said, “This is all news to me. I have never heard of this.”

After the Center posted this story, Barbara Comstock, director of public affairs for the Justice Dept., released a statement saying that, "Department staff have not presented any final proposals to either the Attorney General or the White House. It would be premature to speculate on any future decisions, particularly ideas or proposals that are still being discussed at staff levels."

An Office of Legislative Affairs “control sheet” that was obtained by the PBS program "Now With Bill Moyers" seems to indicate that a copy of the bill was sent to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Vice President Richard Cheney on Jan. 10, 2003. “Attached for your review and comment is a draft legislative proposal entitled the ‘Domestice Security Enhancement Act of 2003,’” the memo, sent from “OLP” or Office of Legal Policy, says.
RELATED LINKS
For additional information, visit the web site of PBS' "Now With Bill Moyers". Read the transcript of Moyers' interview with Charles Lewis.

Comstock later told the Center that the draft "is an early discussion draft and it has not been sent to either the Vice President or the Speaker of the House."

Dr. David Cole, Georgetown University Law professor and author of Terrorism and the Constitution, reviewed the draft legislation at the request of the Center, and said that the legislation “raises a lot of serious concerns. It’s troubling that they have gotten this far along and they’ve been telling people there is nothing in the works.” This proposed law, he added, “would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive ‘suspicion,’ create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups.”

Some of the key provision of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 include:

Section 201, “Prohibition of Disclosure of Terrorism Investigation Detainee Information”: Safeguarding the dissemination of information related to national security has been a hallmark of Ashcroft’s first two years in office, and the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 follows in the footsteps of his October 2001 directive to carefully consider such interest when granting Freedom of Information Act requests. While the October memo simply encouraged FOIA officers to take national security, “protecting sensitive business information and, not least, preserving personal privacy” into account while deciding on requests, the proposed legislation would enhance the department’s ability to deny releasing material on suspected terrorists in government custody through FOIA.

Section 202, “Distribution of ‘Worst Case Scenario’ Information”: This would introduce new FOIA restrictions with regard to the Environmental Protection Agency. As provided for in the Clean Air Act, the EPA requires private companies that use potentially dangerous chemicals must produce a “worst case scenario” report detailing the effect that the release of these controlled substances would have on the surrounding community. Section 202 of this Act would, however, restrict FOIA requests to these reports, which the bill’s drafters refer to as “a roadmap for terrorists.” By reducing public access to “read-only” methods for only those persons “who live and work in the geographical area likely to be affected by a worst-case scenario,” this subtitle would obfuscate an established level of transparency between private industry and the public.

Section 301-306, “Terrorist Identification Database”: These sections would authorize creation of a DNA database on “suspected terrorists,” expansively defined to include association with suspected terrorist groups, and noncitizens suspected of certain crimes or of having supported any group designated as terrorist.

Section 312, “Appropriate Remedies with Respect to Law Enforcement Surveillance Activities”: This section would terminate all state law enforcement consent decrees before Sept. 11, 2001, not related to racial profiling or other civil rights violations, that limit such agencies from gathering information about individuals and organizations. The authors of this statute claim that these consent orders, which were passed as a result of police spying abuses, could impede current terrorism investigations. It would also place substantial restrictions on future court injunctions.

Section 405, “Presumption for Pretrial Detention in Cases Involving Terrorism”: While many people charged with drug offenses punishable by prison terms of 10 years or more are held before their trial without bail, this provision would create a comparable statute for those suspected of terrorist activity. The reasons for presumptively holding suspected terrorists before trial, the Justice Department summary memo states, are clear. “This presumption is warranted because of the unparalleled magnitude of the danger to the United States and its people posed by acts of terrorism, and because terrorism is typically engaged in by groups – many with international connections – that are often in a position to help their members flee or go into hiding.”

Section 501, “Expatriation of Terrorists”: This provision, the drafters say, would establish that an American citizen could be expatriated “if, with the intent to relinquish his nationality, he becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United Stated has designated as a ‘terrorist organization’.” But whereas a citizen formerly had to state his intent to relinquish his citizenship, the new law affirms that his intent can be “inferred from conduct.” Thus, engaging in the lawful activities of a group designated as a “terrorist organization” by the Attorney General could be presumptive grounds for expatriation.

The Domestic Security Enhancement Act is the latest development in an 18-month trend in which the Bush Administration has sought expanded powers and responsibilities for law enforcement bodies to help counter the threat of terrorism.

The USA Patriot Act, signed into law by President Bush on Oct. 26, 2001, gave law enforcement officials broader authority to conduct electronic surveillance and wiretaps, and gives the president the authority, when the nation is under attack, to confiscate any property within U.S. jurisdiction of anyone believed to be engaging in such attacks. The measure also tightened oversight of financial activities to prevent money laundering and diminish bank secrecy in an effort to disrupt terrorist finances.

It also changed provisions of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was passed in 1978 during the Cold War. FISA established a different standard of government oversight and judicial review for “foreign intelligence” surveillance than that applied to traditional domestic law enforcement surveillance.

The USA Patriot Act allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share information gathered in terrorism investigations under the “foreign intelligence” standard with local law enforcement agencies, in essence nullifying the higher standard of oversight that applied to domestic investigations. The USA Patriot Act also amended FISA to permit surveillance under the less rigorous standard whenever “foreign intelligence” was a “significant purpose” rather than the “primary purpose” of an investigation.

The draft legislation goes further in that direction. “In the [USA Patriot Act] we have to break down the wall of foreign intelligence and law enforcement,” Cole said. “Now they want to break down the wall between international terrorism and domestic terrorism.”

In an Oct. 9, 2002, hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher testified that Justice had been, “looking at potential proposals on following up on the PATRIOT Act for new tools and we have also been working with different agencies within the government and they are still studying that and hopefully we will continue to work with this committee in the future on new tools that we believe are necessary in the war on terrorism.”

Asked by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) whether she could inform the committee of what specific areas Justice was looking at, Fisher replied, “At this point I can’t, I’m sorry. They're studying a lot of different ideas and a lot of different tools that follow up on information sharing and other aspects.”

Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy Viet Dinh, who was the principal author of the first Patriot Act, told Legal Times last October that there was “an ongoing process to continue evaluating and re-evaluating authorities we have with respect to counterterrorism,” but declined to say whether a new bill was forthcoming.

Former FBI Director William Sessions, who urged caution while Congress considered the USA Patriot Act, did not want to enter the fray concerning a possible successor bill.

"I hate to jump into it, because it's a very delicate thing," Sessions told the Center, without acknowledging whether he knew of any proposed additions or revisions to the additional Patriot bill.

When the first bill was nearing passage in the Congress in late 2001, however, Sessions told Internet site NewsMax.Com that the balance between civil liberties and sufficient intelligence gathering was a difficult one. “First of all, the Attorney General has to justify fully what he’s asking for,” Sessions, who served presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush as FBI Director from 1987 until 1993, said at the time. “We need to be sure that we provide an effective means to deal with criminality.” At the same time, he said, “we need to be sure that we are mindful of the Constitution, mindful of privacy considerations, but also meet the technological needs we have” to gather intelligence.

Cole found it disturbing that there have been no consultations with Congress on the draft legislation. “It raises a lot of serious concerns and is troubling as a generic matter that they have gotten this far along and tell people that there is nothing in the works. What that suggests is that they’re waiting for a propitious time to introduce it, which might well be when a war is begun. At that time there would be less opportunity for discussion and they’ll have a much stronger hand in saying that they need these right away.”

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I haven't investigated this enough to make a determination one way or the other.

But the evidence looked credible enough that I decided to pass it on to you.

Staged "toppling" of the Iraqi regime was propaganda stunt

April 6th: Iraqi National Congress founder, Ahmed Chalabi is flown into the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah by the Pentagon. Chalabi, along with 700 fighters of his "Free Iraqi Forces" are airlifted aboard four massive C17 military transport planes. Chalabi and the INC are Washington favorites to head the new Iraqi government. A photograph is taken of Chalabi and members of his Free Iraqi Forces militia as they arrive in Nasiriyah.

April 9th: One of the "most memorable images of the war" is created when U.S. troops pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Fardus Square. Oddly enough... a photograph is taken of a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to one of Chalabi's militia members... he is near Fardus Square to greet the Marines. How many members of the pro-American Free Iraqi Forces were in and around Fardus Square as the statue of Saddam came tumbling down?

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=62813&group=webcast

IMC technlogy by cat@lyst
and IMC Geeks Get involved with the indymedia revolution at indymedia-process

email this story | download as PDF | print article

Staged "toppling" of the Iraqi regime was propaganda stunt
by Mutley 10:55am Thu Apr 10 '03 (Modified on 3:57pm Sat Apr 12 '03)

Staged propaganda stunt

This is a annotated version of a previous image, but one that is essential to understand what happened yesterday.

April 6th: Iraqi National Congress founder, Ahmed Chalabi is flown into the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah by the Pentagon. Chalabi, along with 700 fighters of his "Free Iraqi Forces" are airlifted aboard four massive C17 military transport planes. Chalabi and the INC are Washington favorites to head the new Iraqi government. A photograph is taken of Chalabi and members of his Free Iraqi Forces militia as they arrive in Nasiriyah.

April 9th: One of the "most memorable images of the war" is created when U.S. troops pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Fardus Square. Oddly enough... a photograph is taken of a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to one of Chalabi's militia members... he is near Fardus Square to greet the Marines. How many members of the pro-American Free Iraqi Forces were in and around Fardus Square as the statue of Saddam came tumbling down?

The up close action video of the statue being destroyed is broadcast around the world as proof of a massive uprising. Still photos grabbed off of Reuters show a long-shot view of Fardus Square... it's empty save for the U.S. Marines, the International Press, and a small handful of Iraqis. There are no more than 200 people in the square at best. The Marines have the square sealed off and guarded by tanks. A U.S. mechanized vehicle is used to pull the statue of Saddam from it's base. The entire event is being hailed as an equivalent of the Berlin Wall falling... but even a quick glance of the long-shot photo shows something more akin to a carefully constructed media event tailored for the television cameras.

More info on the propaganda ploy:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID66/17554.html#1

add your own comments
Propaganda
by anyone 11:55am Thu Apr 10 '03

PROPAGANDA
I watch this whole thing unfold on TV, it amazing 200 people (mainly US forcses and jornalists) pulled down this statue in the middle of these diserted streets and they compare it to Berlin wall coming. Crap!

US MARINE WA*KERS GO HOME
Just before reaching the stetue sky newses roving reporter film these 2 iraqi's with banner reading Go Home US Marine Wankers. Reminded me of the mixed, if not completly negative response from Iraqi's all over Iraq.

F15
If 200 people can implement regine change, think whatwe can do with " million.
Sharpened photo posted elsewhere in Newswire
by Mutley 12:49pm Thu Apr 10 '03

I have posted a clearet copy of the blurred long shot of the square where Saddam's statue was toppled yesterday. I ran it through Photoshop to sharpen and uses auto-levels to make the contarts and brightness levels better.
Sharper photo of Fardus Square
by Mutley 12:55pm Thu Apr 10 '03

Here is a sharpened image of the long shot of Fardus Square:

http://uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=62845&group=webcast

I ran this Reauters photo through Photoshop to sharpen it and correct the brightness and contrast in order to make it clearer.
I saw it live on a webcam
by sqoo 1:43pm Thu Apr 10 '03

I had a BBC webcam open all day yesterday this is what I saw:

In the morning, the area looked like a fairly normal roundabout with cars going round and people walking round in a leisurely way.

Early afternoon; all of a sudden there is a crowd running through the square apparently away feom something which soon turns out to be US troops in tanks who surround the square. I cant quite make out if there was some shooting at this point, it looked like it, non was reported, but of course that means nothing.

For a while noone enters the square tho there is a number of civilians in the surrounding streets. Suddenly there seem to be a few civilians in the square and they start attacking the statue, it is not long before two are up on the statue hanging a noose round its neck. This continues for quite some time getting nowhere, similarly a sledgehammer fails to do much. By this point there looks to be 50-100 people (i wish i had recorded to footage). The US vehicle finally drives up to the statue, it is slowly attached to the rope and a few more people join the crowd, maybe another hundred or so, ceartainly no huge crowd, they occupied a small section of the roundabout, which in its entirety could probably hold several thousand.

They placed an American flag on it, I didn't see too much jubilation at this particular, insensitive move, and I have noticed a huge gap between arab and western press on reporting this moment. The jubilation I did see was for the old Iraqi flag that was then produced and the statues distruction.

It is interesting that this all occured outside the Palestine Hotel, but rather that a conspiracy, I think this was prolly lazy journalism.
Oh for fucks sake
by dave 1:45pm Thu Apr 10 '03

If you lived under Saddam Hussein you would be celebrating this too, weather you wanted the US there or not. Anything must be better than what was. Stop being so damn cynical, the joy and relief on those people was real. Something good happened in the news yesterday, the only good thing that has happened in 3 weeks. And yes, I do realise some people weren't so happy, but the Shia's certainly were, this remains to be seen in the coming months though.

No I didn't and still don't support this war, but the sooner we accept the toppling of Saddam was a good thing the better. Deal with it.
(sigh)
by kurious oranj 2:23pm Thu Apr 10 '03

I simply don't believe all of the cheering crowds were faked. I'm pleased to see the back of the Ba'ath regime and I suspect many or most Iraqis are too.

Still I think the invasion was wrong, and I worry for the future of Iraq and the world. I suspect many or most Iraqis would agree with that too.
Dave misses the point
by Mutley 2:55pm Thu Apr 10 '03

Dave completely misses the point which is the question of Iraqi self determination. Replacing the brutal Saddam regime with an American colonial stooge is hardly 'something good' is it? Come on--get real.

Is Bosnia a democracy today? Hardly. It is run by a Western-appointed, unelected, governor--a failed British politician and former Special Forces thug--Paddy Ashdown (remember him?). He couldn't get elected to office here, but he is now running Bosnia like a tin-pot despot.

Afghanistam is run by a US puppet in Kabul and warlords everywhere else. Women are still subjected to religious bigotry and oppression. There is no sign of any democracy on the horizon.

Both of these nations are now effectively colonies of the US and Western Europe. The same will now happen in Iraq--followed possibly by Syria and Iran. That is not 'something good'. It is a disaster for the Iraqis and the Middle East. Why do you think that Arabs all over the Middle East were reported yesterday to be turning off the TV because they couldn't bear to watch the so-called 'toppling' of the regime by the US? See today's Guardian and Independent. It was because they knew it was the US that was doing it not the Iraqis. They saw it as a defeat--which it isn't yet--the resistance continues.

Iraqis removing Saddam THEMSELVES to replace him with a Iraqi regime that is democratic and accountable would be one thing--that WOULD be a "good thing". But imperialism and its local hangers-on removing him to replace him with a US colonial stooge is nothing of the sort--and it is completely ridiculous to say so.

The task of overthrowing Saddam is for the Iraqi people themselves with the solidarity and support of the global anti-war movement NOT the hypocritical US and UK warmongers. The only thing the US and UK can usefully do is to get out of Iraq, cancel the debt, and pay reparations. But with Bush and Blair in office there is no chance of that happening.

Conclusion: build a massive, credible political opposition to New Labour and the US Republicans/Democrats. This can only be done by maximising the co-operation of the whole of the left, the anti-racist movement, the women's movement, lesbian and gay movement and the anti-war movement. The World Social Forum might be means of doing this, but it needs to be build locally.

US and UK troops out of Iraq now!

Reparations for Iraq!

Establish branches of the World Social Forum in every region and city NOW!
which "wankers" should go home?
by quizzical 5:14pm Thu Apr 10 '03

"Anyone" mentions Sky roving reporter footage of two iraqis with a banner saying "US marine wankers go home". On British TV news I saw two Iraqis walking around with a banner which said "Human Shields go home now, U.S. wankers", at least that is what I could make out. Is this the same or a different sighting? Can "anyone" or anyone else who see either footage help clarify this?
mutley misses the point
by Brian 8:23pm Thu Apr 10 '03
whatnow@ameritech.net

Mutleys propaganda would make stalin proud.
Let's dismantle your points one by one shall we?
First of all, afghanistan and bosnia are not colonies. Colonies in the past were stripped of their natural resources and slave labour of their people, neither of which is true in either country. If anything we've poured billions of dollars and lives into those hell holes while trying to find small groups of people who like to blow themselves up. Bosnia? roughly the same story. It's being baby sat like afganistan because civil society had broken down and brutal local police forces and paramilitaries ran things. Maybe you're crying for the fall of the taliban and milosivic but not me. And I'd bet not the people they crushed under those brands of ideology.
But here's the funniest part of your post-

"The task of overthrowing Saddam is for the Iraqi people themselves with the solidarity and support of the global anti-war movement NOT the hypocritical .."

The global anti war movement did NOTHING to help the Iraqi people overthrow an autocratic dictator. Not a fucking thing. If anything the "global" anti-war students prolonged Saddams rule by their actions. How many sign did I see at anti war rallies that said hands off Iraq? Tons. I have yet to see anything, ANYTHING from the global anti whatever about doing anything to start a positive change in any autocratic regime. And if you're looking to start, look no further than the purge of human rights workers in cuba. Although I'm not holding my breath.
look
by Dave 10:07pm Thu Apr 10 '03

Brian, the anti-war movement wanted Saddam to go, but with peaceful means, the lifting of sanctions to give the Iraqi people more strength and loosen Saddam's grip, and other creative ways you can get rid of a dictator. If you want to overthrow a tyrant from within (which is possible, see Romania, 1989, as one example) you don't aide them by placing sanctions, then dropping bombs, on the people you are supposed to be helping.

Mutley, my point was the Baath regime going is a good thing, I can't imagine any regime being much worse. Surely you can't disagree with this? The main reason I am against this war is because innocent people died for other people's business interests with the weapons of mass destruction as a smokescreen. I don't think there will be true 'democracy' in Iraq, but whatever it is I doubt it will be on a par with the Baath regime in terms of the terrible ways it operated. So it's ok to bomb a country to give them a government that's a slight improvement on the last one? Of course not, that's not what I'm saying. The thing is, we don't know what is going to happen yet, so we have to keep our cynical eyes open to try and make sure the Iraqi's get what was promised to them. There was relief and joy in Baghdad yesterday, the toppling of Saddam is something that should hearten all of us, while remembering the dead and injured, with thoughts on the future.
Freedom of thought - and illusion at best.
by Captain Joey Lo 1:07am Fri Apr 11 '03
address: MELBOURNE

Let us open our eyes, and really see what there is to see.

With the coming down of the Berlin Wall; or at Tianamen Square; or even at the Oaklahoma Bombing scenario we were all witness to photographs depicting the current state of social unrest and/or change. The photo's had 'action' in them that literally lept off the front pages of the tabloids and cracked your skull, so to speak.

This is definately not the case in Iraq, peoples !
Look at the carefully assembled onlookers, as the statue of an evil dictator is torn from it's tyrannical pearch.
They are neither eleated, nor grieved. This photo lacks just that particular 'spark' in peoples stance and interaction with eachother that was oh so obvious during the events abovementioned.

Are we seriously going to let another Pentagon orchestrated thought manipulation tactic to yet again shape what we all think?

This is bullshit !

The war is bullshit !

Aldous Huxley was right : "...oh, poor brave new world..."
Give them the benefit of the Doubt ?
by Ali 1:41pm Fri Apr 11 '03

This War is unjust. Saddam is unjust. The Baath regime is an elitist club.You will have 500k US troops in Iraq next week. Solution ? I am willing to give Bush/Blair the benefit of the doubt and hope that they go give Iraq and the Middle East democracy. Why ? Because if you " Liberate " and make the Middle East a safe place AND find a solution to the Palestinian problem then indirectly you will margenalize Israel. The Neo-Cons have dropped a bomb on to themselves. They will get more than they bargained for. Welcome to the 21st century. Dave, I agree with your thoughts. Well done.
the Bigger Picture
by Tom 2:55pm Fri Apr 11 '03

Saddam has gone. That is undeniably positive. Whilst I have always opposed this war, those Iraqis who welcome US troops are more qualified than I to credit or discredit their actions.

Yet the felling of Saddam's statue is but one tiny snap-shot from a whirlwind of chaos. We must not forget that the US and UK governments have acted with shameful irresponsibility by waging war on Iraq with no solid humanitarian contingency. Water supplies have been disrupted and food reserves are limited. Telephone systems have been destroyed. Hospitals are overflowing with thousands of severely injured civilians - and US forces have broken the third Geneva convention by failing to protect those hospitals and their patients.

Then there are the delayed, long-term effects of the unexploded cluster-bomb bomblets which now lie dormant in the Iraqi landscape - 4000 civilians have been killed or maimed by such ordnance since the last Gulf War. And worse still is the insidious residue of Depleted Uranium which can increase cancer levels nine-fold.

The destruction of civilian infrastructure and the use of legally questionable weaponry is as much a violation of personal freedom as dictatorship. Neo-conservatives will undoubtedly say that to 'make an omelette you have to break a few eggs.' But what if one of those eggs happens to be you or someone you love?

We should all consider these facts before becoming carried away by highly selective and partially orchestrated scenes of 100 people dancing around a fallen statue.

Tom
every one uses the media to their advantage ,
by Haydee 2:20pm Sat Apr 12 '03
haydeesolana@cox.net

If you think that the US is doing the media circus alone, just take a look back at the Iraqi TV showing almost exclusively pictures of the wounded, in hospitals, and them carrying out dead and wounded people from the bombed buildings. They never show any of the atrocities that they performed on theircitizens and on whoever would be against their political views. It is always the color of the lense we have in front of our eyes that tints the way we see the world, and makes us think we own the truth.
Slice it any which way you want...
by Guest In A Vest 3:57pm Sat Apr 12 '03

Let's get this straight and this is to any US citizens that get their hackles raised when we out here seemingly oppose what is going on here and put forward a few possible agendas...

As I understand it, no right minded person is saying that the Iraqi regime didn't need doing something about. BUT, and this is a BIG but, there are ways of doing things. It is seemingly 'okay' for Saddam Hussein to be personally targeted with a bomb being dropped on his head or sticking a rocket launched grenade up his ass during this conflict (or after) BUT stretch this any which way you want, this is assasination and that is NOT the way the west likes things to be done if it was to happen the other way around.

Capture him, send him to a war tribunial, whatever. That is the way we supposedly tell the rest of the worlkd we like these things dealt with so if you can't see why this is seen as VERY dubious and hipocritical to people outside your 'regime' then I'd pour a coffee and have a good sit down and think about it because it just plain is.

War tribunials may be a joke, the UN may be a joke, etc, etc but these are the frameworks that were set up AND AGREED UPON to deal with such matters and to just decide that the way YOU want things dealt with and bollocks to what the rest of the world thinks is beyond arrogance, trust me it really is and there is no question.

You make rules and you either abide by them or don't be surprised when people point a few fingers when you just up and bend them to suit.

The fall oif this regime will ultimately be a good thing for the Iraqi people and they will hopefully gain from this horrendous conflict, and the horror that goes with it, but others will gain as well and when they do it by saying "screw you, we're doing it our way whatever anyone else wants" it doesn't sit easy with the idea of an alternative regime that spouts the words "democracy", "freedom" and "justice" with the proviso of "we decide what any one of those words mean at any one time and you can stick all other world views up your asses 'cos we are the boss and can ignore any treaties/unions/coallitions we signed up to in the past".

Wow. So there it is.

One month of war = 10,000 years of history down the drain.

Hmmm. I wrote about this on March 18, 2003. You would think that our government and military would have been informed of this threat way before the information trickled down to little old me.
Ancient archive lost in Baghdad library blaze
By Oliver Burkeman for The Guardian

As flames engulfed Baghdad's National Library yesterday, destroying manuscripts many centuries old, the Pentagon admitted that it had been caught unprepared by the widespread looting of antiquities, despite months of warnings from American archaeologists.

But defence department officials denied accusations by British archaeologists that the US government was succumbing to pressure from private collectors in America to allow plundered Iraqi treasures to be traded on the open market.

Almost nothing remains of the library's archive of tens of thousands of manuscripts, books, and Iraqi newspapers, according to reports from the scene.

It joins a list that already includes the capital's National Museum, one of the world's most important troves of artefacts from the ancient Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian civilisations...

In Washington Colin Powell, the secretary of state, said the US "will be working with a number of individuals and organisations to not only secure the facility, but to recover that which has been taken, and also to participate in restoring that which has been broken _ the United States understands its obligations and will be taking a leading role with respect to antiquities in general, but [the museum] in particular".

A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no plans had been made to protect antiquities from looters, as opposed to ensuring that historical sites were not caught up in the fighting itself.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,937094,00.html

Ancient archive lost in Baghdad library blaze

Oliver Burkeman in Washington
Tuesday April 15, 2003
The Guardian

As flames engulfed Baghdad's National Library yesterday, destroying manuscripts many centuries old, the Pentagon admitted that it had been caught unprepared by the widespread looting of antiquities, despite months of warnings from American archaeologists.

But defence department officials denied accusations by British archaeologists that the US government was succumbing to pressure from private collectors in America to allow plundered Iraqi treasures to be traded on the open market.

Almost nothing remains of the library's archive of tens of thousands of manuscripts, books, and Iraqi newspapers, according to reports from the scene.

It joins a list that already includes the capital's National Museum, one of the world's most important troves of artefacts from the ancient Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian civilisations.

Calling the looting of historical artefacts "a catastrophe for the cultural heritage of Iraq", Mounir Bouchenaki, the deputy director-general of the UN cultural body Unesco, announced an emergency summit of archaeologists in Paris on Thursday.

In Washington Colin Powell, the secretary of state, said the US "will be working with a number of individuals and organisations to not only secure the facility, but to recover that which has been taken, and also to participate in restoring that which has been broken _ the United States understands its obligations and will be taking a leading role with respect to antiquities in general, but [the museum] in particular".

A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no plans had been made to protect antiquities from looters, as opposed to ensuring that historical sites were not caught up in the fighting itself.

But the official rejected charges in a letter from nine British archaeologists, published in the Guardian yesterday, that private collectors were "persuading the Pentagon to relax legislation that protects Iraq's heritage by prevention of sales abroad".

The American Council for Cultural Policy, a New York-based coalition of about 60 collectors, dealers and others, had received "no special treatment," the official insisted, despite reports that members of the group met with Bush administration representatives in January to argue that a post-Saddam Iraq should have relaxed antiquities laws.

Last night the group denied that it was lobbying for plundered Iraqi treasures to be traded. "The ACCP will seek _ to find ways to shut off the import of objects that may have been taken from Iraq, and to close the domestic market in such material," Ashton Hawkins, the organisation's president, said.

John Henry Merryman, a law professor at Stanford University and a member of the ACCP, said allowing a private trade in the artefacts would better protect them until they could be returned to Iraq at a later date.

On of the oldest libraries in the world burned to the ground yesterday.

There's nothing left.

"Coalition" troops were five minutes away and did nothing to put out the blaze.

Islamic Library Burned to the Ground
By Robert Fisk for The Independent.

It was the final chapter in the sack of Baghdad. The National Library and Archives — a priceless treasure of Ottoman historical documents including the old royal archives of Iraq — were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the Islamic Library of Qur’ans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment was set ablaze. I saw the looters...

And the Americans did nothing. All over the filthy yard they blew, letters of recommendation to the courts of Arabia, demands for ammunition for Ottoman troops, reports on the theft of camels and attacks on pilgrims, all of them in delicate hand-written Arabic script. I was holding in my hands the last Baghdad vestiges of Iraq’s written history. But for Iraq, this is Year Zero; with the destruction of the antiquities in the Museum of Archaeology on Saturday and the burning of the National Archives and then the Qur’anic library of the ministry, the cultural identity of Iraq is being erased.

Why? Who set these fires? For what insane purpose is this heritage being destroyed? When I caught sight of the Qur’anic library burning — there were flames 100 feet high bursting from the windows — I raced to the offices of the occupying power, the US Marines’ civil affairs bureau, to report what I had seen. An officer shouted to a colleague that “this guy says some Biblical (sic) library is on fire.” I gave the map location, the precise name — in Arabic and English — of the fire, I said that the smoke could be seen from three miles away and it would take only five minutes to drive there. Half an hour later, there wasn’t an American at the scene — and the flames were now shooting 200 feet into the air.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=25219

Islamic Library Burned to the Ground
Robert Fisk, The Independent

BAGHDAD, 15 April 2003 — So yesterday was the burning of books. First came the looters, then came the arsonists. It was the final chapter in the sack of Baghdad. The National Library and Archives — a priceless treasure of Ottoman historical documents including the old royal archives of Iraq — were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the Islamic Library of Qur’ans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment was set ablaze. I saw the looters.

One of them cursed me when I tried to reclaim a book of Islamic law from a boy who could have been no more than 10 years old. Amid the ashes of hundreds of years of Iraqi history, I found just one file blowing in the wind outside: Pages and pages of handwritten letters between the court of Sherif Hussein of Makkah — who started the Arab revolt against the Turks for Lawrence of Arabia — and the Ottoman rulers of Baghdad.

And the Americans did nothing. All over the filthy yard they blew, letters of recommendation to the courts of Arabia, demands for ammunition for Ottoman troops, reports on the theft of camels and attacks on pilgrims, all of them in delicate hand-written Arabic script. I was holding in my hands the last Baghdad vestiges of Iraq’s written history. But for Iraq, this is Year Zero; with the destruction of the antiquities in the Museum of Archaeology on Saturday and the burning of the National Archives and then the Qur’anic library of the ministry, the cultural identity of Iraq is being erased.

Why? Who set these fires? For what insane purpose is this heritage being destroyed? When I caught sight of the Qur’anic library burning — there were flames 100 feet high bursting from the windows — I raced to the offices of the occupying power, the US Marines’ civil affairs bureau, to report what I had seen. An officer shouted to a colleague that “this guy says some Biblical (sic) library is on fire.” I gave the map location, the precise name — in Arabic and English — of the fire, I said that the smoke could be seen from three miles away and it would take only five minutes to drive there. Half an hour later, there wasn’t an American at the scene — and the flames were now shooting 200 feet into the air.

There was a time when the Arabs said that their books were written in Cairo, printed in Beirut and read in Baghdad. Now they burn libraries in Baghdad. In the National Archives were not just the Ottoman records of the caliphate, but even the dark years of the country’s modern history, hand-written accounts of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, an entire library of Western newspapers — bound volumes of the Financial Times were lying on the pavement — and microfiche copies of Arabic newspapers going back to the early 1900s.

U.S. Govt Accused of War Crimes Against Journalists
By Julio Godoy for the Inter Press Service.

International journalists' organizations are accusing the U.S. government of committing war crimes in Iraq by intentionally firing at war correspondents.

The Paris-based journalists' organization 'Reporters without Borders' (RSF, after its French name), called on the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to investigate whether by attacking journalists in Iraq the U.S.-British coalition forces were not violating international humanitarian law.

TV footage shot by France 3 (a French television channel) showing a US Abrams tank firing towards the Palestine hotel in Baghdad killing two journalists(AFP/FRANCE 3)
"A media outlet cannot be a military target under international law and its equipment and installations are civilian property protected as such under the Geneva Conventions," said Reporters without Border secretary-general Robert Ménard.

"Only an objective and impartial enquiry can determine whether or not the Conventions have been violated," Ménard claimed.

It is the first time since its existence that the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission is being petitioned. Set up in 1991 under the First Additional Protocol of the Geneva Conventions, the Commission's task is investigating any alleged serious violation of international humanitarian law.

Similarly, the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists(IFJ) called for an independent inquiry on the U.S. attacks against the Palestine Hotel and the bureaus of Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi television channels.

The New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also called the U.S. attacks against journalists in Iraq "a violation of the Geneva Convention."

In a letter to U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CPJ director Joel Simon wrote on Tuesday: "The Committee is gravely concerned by a series of U.S. military strikes against known media locations in Baghdad today that have left three journalists dead and several wounded."

"We believe these attacks violate the Geneva Conventions," Simon pointed out.

On Tuesday, U.S. troops attacked the Baghdad bureau of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, killing one war correspondent, and wounding another. In another attack, a U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, killing two other reporters and wounding three.

The hotel is well known as the unofficial Baghdadi center of international press. A large number of foreign correspondents covering the war stay there.

Ménard, RSF's secretary-general, said that all independent evidence on the U.S. attacks against the hotel shows that the firing was deliberate.

"Film shot by the French television station France 3, and descriptions by journalists, prove that the neighborhood around the hotel was very quiet at the hour of the attack, and that the U.S. tank crew took their time, waiting for a couple of minutes and adjusting its gun before opening fire," Ménard said.

"This evidence does not match the U.S. version of an attack in self-defense and we can only conclude that the U.S. Army deliberately and without warning targeted journalists," Ménard added...

The Qatar-based television network recalled that prior to the conflict, it had provided the U.S. military authorities with the specific coordinates of its Baghdad offices. This information was confirmed by the Committee to Protect Journalists in the letter to Donald Rumsfeld...

Since the beginning of the Iraqi war on March 20, ten journalists have been killed by the conflicting parties, and two other died in war related accidents. At least eight other correspondents have been wounded. Two other reporters' whereabouts remain unknown.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0410-04.htm

Saturday, April 12, 2003

Published on Thursday, April 10, 2003 by the Inter Press Service
U.S. Govt Accused of War Crimes Against Journalists
by Julio Godoy

PARIS - International journalists' organizations are accusing the U.S. government of committing war crimes in Iraq by intentionally firing at war correspondents.

The Paris-based journalists' organization 'Reporters without Borders' (RSF, after its French name), called on the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to investigate whether by attacking journalists in Iraq the U.S.-British coalition forces were not violating international humanitarian law.

TV footage shot by France 3 (a French television channel) showing a US Abrams tank firing towards the Palestine hotel in Baghdad killing two journalists(AFP/FRANCE 3)
"A media outlet cannot be a military target under international law and its equipment and installations are civilian property protected as such under the Geneva Conventions," said Reporters without Border secretary-general Robert Ménard.

"Only an objective and impartial enquiry can determine whether or not the Conventions have been violated," Ménard claimed.

It is the first time since its existence that the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission is being petitioned. Set up in 1991 under the First Additional Protocol of the Geneva Conventions, the Commission's task is investigating any alleged serious violation of international humanitarian law.

Similarly, the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists(IFJ) called for an independent inquiry on the U.S. attacks against the Palestine Hotel and the bureaus of Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi television channels.

The New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also called the U.S. attacks against journalists in Iraq "a violation of the Geneva Convention."

In a letter to U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CPJ director Joel Simon wrote on Tuesday: "The Committee is gravely concerned by a series of U.S. military strikes against known media locations in Baghdad today that have left three journalists dead and several wounded."

"We believe these attacks violate the Geneva Conventions," Simon pointed out.

On Tuesday, U.S. troops attacked the Baghdad bureau of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, killing one war correspondent, and wounding another. In another attack, a U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, killing two other reporters and wounding three.

The hotel is well known as the unofficial Baghdadi center of international press. A large number of foreign correspondents covering the war stay there.

Ménard, RSF's secretary-general, said that all independent evidence on the U.S. attacks against the hotel shows that the firing was deliberate.

"Film shot by the French television station France 3, and descriptions by journalists, prove that the neighborhood around the hotel was very quiet at the hour of the attack, and that the U.S. tank crew took their time, waiting for a couple of minutes and adjusting its gun before opening fire," Ménard said.

"This evidence does not match the U.S. version of an attack in self-defense and we can only conclude that the U.S. Army deliberately and without warning targeted journalists," Ménard added.

Caroline Sines, a French television correspondent covering the war in Baghdad, confirmed Ménard's accusations against the U.S. troops.

"I was at the Palestine Hotel at the moment of the attack, around one pm, Baghdad time, and my crew filmed everything," Sines said. "Our films shows that the U.S. tank took its time at targeting the 14th floor of the hotel, where many journalists are hosted, at a moment of complete calm," Sines said.

Menard urged the "U.S. forces to prove that the incident was not a deliberate attack to dissuade or prevent journalists from continuing to report on what is happening in Baghdad."

"We are appalled at what happened because it was known that journalists were working both at the Palestine Hotel as well at the Al-Jazeera bureau," Ménard pointed out.

One Al-Jazeera camera operator was also killed on Tuesday by an apparently intentional U.S. bombing of the pan-Arab TV station's offices elsewhere in Baghdad. The nearby premises of Abu Dhabi TV were also damaged by the bombing.

The Qatar-based television network recalled that prior to the conflict, it had provided the U.S. military authorities with the specific coordinates of its Baghdad offices. This information was confirmed by the Committee to Protect Journalists in the letter to Donald Rumsfeld.

"CPJ has seen a copy of Al-Jazeera's February letter to Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke outlining these coordinates," Joel Simon wrote to Rumsfeld.

Simon called Rumsfeld "to launch an immediate and thorough investigation into these incidents and to make the findings public." The CPJ also recalled to the U.S. military authorities that more than 100 independent journalists continue to operate in Baghdad from both the Palestine and the nearby Sheraton hotels.

"The U.S. military has a clear obligation to avoid harming the correspondents while carrying out (war) operations," Simon said in his letter to Rumsfeld.

Aidan White, General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, said, "There is no doubt at all that these attacks could be targeting journalists. If so, they are grave and serious violations of international law."

"The bombing of hotels where journalists are staying and targeting of Arab media is particularly shocking events in a war which is being fought in the name of democracy," White said. "Those who are responsible must be brought to justice".

"The United Nations system and the international media community must be fully engaged in finding out what happened in these cases and action must be taken to ensure it never happens again," White said. "We can expect denials of intent from the military, but what we really want is the truth."

The IFJ says that the global media community, including journalists, media organizations and press freedom campaigners, should join hands under the banner of the newly-formed International News Safety Institute to hold a complete and in depth inquiry.

The INSI is a coalition of more than 100 organizations campaigning for a global news safety program.

The IFJ also condemned "what appears to be Iraqi tactics of using civilians and journalists as a 'human shield' against attack." "The Baghdad authorities are just as culpable as the U.S. with their reckless disregard for civilian lives," White said.

Both the IFJ and RSF recalled that Al Jazeera has become a frequent target of U.S. and British attacks in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Earlier in the war in Iraq, four members of the pan-Arab television crew in the southern city of Basra came under gunfire from British tanks on March 29 as they were filming distribution of food by Iraqi government officials.

One of the station's cameramen went missing and was later found to have been held for 12 hours by U.S. troops. Al-Jazeera reporters were the only journalists in Basra at the time.

The Al-Jazeera offices in Kabul, Afghanistan, were also bombed by U.S. forces during the war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in November 2001.

To have jurisdiction in a war, the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission has to be petitioned by one of the parties in the conflict or by one of the countries that have recognized its jurisdiction.

To conduct an investigation, all the belligerents must accept its authority. Among the countries involved in the Iraq war, only Australia and the United Kingdom have formally recognized it, allowing an investigation to go ahead as far as they are concerned.

Neither the United States nor Iraq have yet accepted the principle of such an enquiry.

Since the beginning of the Iraqi war on March 20, ten journalists have been killed by the conflicting parties, and two other died in war related accidents. At least eight other correspondents have been wounded. Two other reporters' whereabouts remain unknown.

Looters Swarm Into New Areas as Key Bridges Are Opened
By Hamza Hendawi for the Associated Press

Iraqis expressed increasing frustration over the lawlessness that has gripped the capital since the arrival of U.S. troops and the fall of Saddam Hussein. Looters ransacked government buildings, hospitals and schools, and trashed the National Museum, taking or destroying many of the country's archaeological treasures...

The National Museum held artifacts from thousands of years of history in the Tigris-Euphrates basin, widely held to be the site of the world's earliest civilizations. Before the war, the museum closed its doors and secretly placed the most precious artifacts in storage, but the metal storeroom doors were smashed and everything was taken.

"This is the property of this nation and is the treasure of 7,000 years of civilization," said museum employee Ali Mahmoud. "What does this country think it is doing?"

On Baghdad's chaotic streets, it appeared American troops were doing nothing to curb the feverish looting. Troops could be seen waving looters through checkpoints and standing idly in front of buildings while they were being pillaged...

"The Americans have disappointed us all. This country will never be operational for at least a year or two," said Abbas Reta, 51, an engineer and father of five.

"I've seen nothing new since Saddam's fall," he said. "All that we have seen is looting. The Americans are responsible. One round from their guns and all the looting would have stopped."...

The State Department said Friday it was sending 26 police and judicial officers to Iraq, the first component of a team that will eventually number about 1,200. The officers will be part of a group led by Jay Garner, the retired general chosen by the Bush administration to run the initial Iraqi civil administration under American occupation.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAMJ9GIFED.html

Looters Swarm Into New Areas as Key Bridges Are Opened
By Hamza Hendawi
Associated Press

Saturday 12 April 2003

Iraqis Disappointed With U.S. Response

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces reopened two strategic bridges Saturday in the heart of Baghdad and crowds of looters surged across - taking advantage of access to new territory that had not already been plundered. U.S. forces did nothing to stop them.
Iraqis expressed increasing frustration over the lawlessness that has gripped the capital since the arrival of U.S. troops and the fall of Saddam Hussein. Looters ransacked government buildings, hospitals and schools, and trashed the National Museum, taking or destroying many of the country's archaeological treasures.

A museum employee arrived Saturday to find the administrative offices trashed by looters. The only thing she could salvage was a telephone book-sized volume. She refused to give her name. With tears, she said, "It is all the fault of the Americans. This is Iraq's civilization. And it's all gone now."

An elderly museum guard said hundreds of looters attacked Thursday and carried away artifacts on pushcarts and wheelbarrows. The two-story museum's marble staircase was chipped, suggesting looters might have dragged heavier items down on pushcarts or slabs of wood. Glass display cases were shattered and broken pieces of ancient pottery and statues were scattered everywhere.

The National Museum held artifacts from thousands of years of history in the Tigris-Euphrates basin, widely held to be the site of the world's earliest civilizations. Before the war, the museum closed its doors and secretly placed the most precious artifacts in storage, but the metal storeroom doors were smashed and everything was taken.

"This is the property of this nation and is the treasure of 7,000 years of civilization," said museum employee Ali Mahmoud. "What does this country think it is doing?"

On Baghdad's chaotic streets, it appeared American troops were doing nothing to curb the feverish looting. Troops could be seen waving looters through checkpoints and standing idly in front of buildings while they were being pillaged.

Looters swarmed over the Al-Rasheed and the Al-Jumhuriya bridges across the Tigris River, which divides the city. They pushed into several government buildings, including the Planning Ministry, which sits on the edge of the old palace presidential compound on the river's west bank.

Looters were also seen coming out of the Foreign Ministry carrying office furniture, TV sets and air conditioners. Children wheeled out office chairs and rolled them down the street.

U.S. soldiers stood by at the presidential compound as looters some 400 yards away hauled bookshelves, computers and sofas from the Planning Ministry. Bands of men with tools plundered cars nearby for wheels or other parts.

"The Americans have disappointed us all. This country will never be operational for at least a year or two," said Abbas Reta, 51, an engineer and father of five.

"I've seen nothing new since Saddam's fall," he said. "All that we have seen is looting. The Americans are responsible. One round from their guns and all the looting would have stopped."

U.S. Army troops and armor blocked access to the main palace grounds. The Oil Ministry also seemed intact with a heavy U.S. military presence inside. Also intact were some of the power installations, power stations and power grids.

Al-Jazeera's correspondent in Baghdad, Maher Abdallah, described the situation as "tragic," and suggested it could have been prevented.

"They have ousted the regime and the authority, and in such an urban area where there is no tribal authority or rule, chaos should have been expected to break in such a way," Abdallah said.

U.S. officials insist the restoration of law and order will become a higher priority.

The State Department said Friday it was sending 26 police and judicial officers to Iraq, the first component of a team that will eventually number about 1,200. The officers will be part of a group led by Jay Garner, the retired general chosen by the Bush administration to run the initial Iraqi civil administration under American occupation.

Pillagers Strip Iraqi Museum of Its Treasure
By John F. Burns for the New York Times.

The National Museum of Iraq recorded a history of civilizations that began to flourish in the fertile plains of Mesopotamia more than 7,000 years ago. But once American troops entered Baghdad in sufficient force to topple Saddam Hussein's government this week, it took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 50,000 artifacts carried away by looters...

As fires in a dozen government ministries and agencies began to burn out, and as some looters tired of pillaging in the 90-degree heat of the Iraqi spring, museum officials reached the hotels where foreign journalists were staying along the eastern bank of the Tigris River. They brought word of what is likely to be reckoned as one of the greatest cultural disasters in recent Middle Eastern history...

What was beyond contest today was that the 28 galleries of the museum and vaults with huge steel doors guarding storage chambers that descend floor after floor into darkness had been completely ransacked...

As examples of what was gone, the officials cited a solid gold harp from the Sumerian era, which began about 3360 B.C. and started to crumble about 2000 B.C. Another item on their list of looted antiquities was a sculptured head of a woman from Uruk, one of the great Sumerian cities, dating to about the same era, and a collection of gold necklaces, bracelets and earrings, also from the Sumerian dynasties and also at least 4,000 years old...

Mr. Muhammad, the archaeologist, directed much of his anger at President Bush. "A country's identity, its value and civilization resides in its history," he said. "If a country's civilization is looted, as ours has been here, its history ends. Please tell this to President Bush. Please remind him that he promised to liberate the Iraqi people, but that this is not a liberation, this is a humiliation."

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/international/worldspecial/12CND-BAGH.html

Pillagers Strip Iraqi Museum of Its Treasure
By John F. Burns
New York Times

Saturday 12 April 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 12 - The National Museum of Iraq recorded a history of civilizations that began to flourish in the fertile plains of Mesopotamia more than 7,000 years ago. But once American troops entered Baghdad in sufficient force to topple Saddam Hussein's government this week, it took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 50,000 artifacts carried away by looters.

The full extent of the disaster that befell the museum only came to light today, after three days of frenzied looting that swept much of the capital.

As fires in a dozen government ministries and agencies began to burn out, and as some looters tired of pillaging in the 90-degree heat of the Iraqi spring, museum officials reached the hotels where foreign journalists were staying along the eastern bank of the Tigris River. They brought word of what is likely to be reckoned as one of the greatest cultural disasters in recent Middle Eastern history.

A full accounting of what has been lost may take weeks or months. The museum had been closed during much of the 1990's, and like many Iraqi institutions, its operations were cloaked in secrecy under Mr. Hussein.

So what officials told journalists today may have to be adjusted as a fuller picture comes to light. It remains unclear whether some of the museum's priceless gold, silver and copper antiquities, some of its ancient stone and ceramics, and perhaps some of its fabled bronzes and gold-overlaid ivory, had been locked away for safekeeping elsewhere before the looting, or seized for
private display in one of Mr. Hussein's ubiquitous palaces.

What was beyond contest today was that the 28 galleries of the museum and vaults with huge steel doors guarding storage chambers that descend floor after floor into darkness had been completely ransacked.

Officials with crumpled spirits fought back tears and anger at American troops, as they ran down an inventory of the most storied items that they said had been carried away by the thousands of looters who poured into the museum after daybreak on Thursday and remained until dusk on Friday, with only one intervention by American troops, lasting about half an hour, at lunchtime on Thursday.

Nothing remained, museum officials said, at least nothing of real value, from a museum that had been regarded by archaeologists and other specialists as perhaps the richest of all such institutions in the Middle East.

As examples of what was gone, the officials cited a solid gold harp from the Sumerian era, which began about 3360 B.C. and started to crumble about 2000 B.C. Another item on their list of looted antiquities was a sculptured head of a woman from Uruk, one of the great Sumerian cities, dating to about the same era, and a collection of gold necklaces, bracelets and earrings, also from the Sumerian dynasties and also at least 4,000 years old.

But an item-by-item inventory of the most valued pieces carried away by the looters hardly seemed to capture the magnitude of what had occurred. More powerful, in its way, was the action of one museum official in hurrying away through the piles of smashed ceramics and torn books and burned-out torches of rags soaked in gasoline that littered the museum's corridors to find the glossy catalog of an exhibition of "silk road civilization" that was held in Japan's ancient capital of Nara in 1988.

Turning to 50 pages of items lent by the Iraqi museum for the exhibition, he said that none of the antiquities pictured remained after the looting. They included ancient stone carvings of bulls and kings and princesses; copper shoes and cuneiform tablets; tapestry fragments and ivory figurines of goddesses and women and Nubian porters; friezes of soldiers and ancient seals and tablets on geometry; and ceramic jars and urns and bowls, all dating back at least 2,000 years, some more than 5,000 years.

"All gone, all gone," he said. "All gone in two days."

An Iraqi archaeologist who has participated in the excavation of some of the country's 10,000 sites, Raid Abdul Ridhar Muhammad, said he had gone into the street of the Karkh district, a short distance from the eastern bank of the Tigris, at about 1 p.m. on Thursday to find American troops to quell the looting. By that time, he and other museum officials said, the several acres of museum grounds were overrun by thousands of men, women and children, many of them armed with rifles, pistols, axes, knives and clubs, as well as pieces of metal torn from the suspensions of wrecked cars. The crowd was storming out of
the complex carrying antiquities on hand carts, bicycles and in boxes. Looters stuffed their pockets with smaller items.

Mr. Muhammad said he found an American Abrams tank in Museum Square, about 300 yards away, and that five marines had followed him back into the museum and opened fire above the looters' heads. This drove several thousand of the marauders out of the museum complex in minutes, he said, but when the tank crewmen left about 30 minutes later, the looters returned.

"I asked them to bring their tank inside the museum grounds," he said. "But they refused and left. About half an hour later, the looters were back, and they threatened to kill me, or to tell the Americans that I am a spy for Saddam Hussein's intelligence, so that the Americans would kill me. So I was frightened, and I went home."

He spoke with deep bitterness against the Americans, as have many Iraqis who have watched looting that began with attacks on government agencies and the palaces and villas of Mr. Hussein, his family and his inner circle broaden into a tidal wave of looting that targeted just about every government institution, even ministries dealing with issues like higher education, trade and
agriculture, and hospitals.

American troops have intervened only sporadically, as they did on Friday to halt a crowd of men and boys who were raiding an armory at the edge of the Republican Palace presidential compound and taking brand-new Kalashnikov rifles,
rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.

American commanders have said they lack the troops to curb the looting while their focus remains on the battles across Baghdad that are necessary to mop up pockets of resistance from paramilitary troops loyal to Mr. Hussein.

Mr. Muhammad, the archaeologist, directed much of his anger at President Bush. "A country's identity, its value and civilization resides in its history," he said. "If a country's civilization is looted, as ours has been here, its history ends. Please tell this to President Bush. Please remind him that he promised to liberate the Iraqi people, but that this is not a liberation, this is a
humiliation."

Vanishing Liberties -- Where's the Press?
By Nat Hentoff for the Village Voice.

"If Americans win a war (not just against Saddam Hussein but the longer-term struggle) and lose the Constitution, they will have lost everything." –Lance Morrow, Time, March 17

On March 18, the Associated Press reported that at John Carroll University, in a Cleveland suburb, Justice Antonin Scalia said that "most of the rights you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires" because "the Constitution just sets minimums." Accordingly, in wartime, Scalia emphasized, "the protections will be ratcheted down to the constitutional minimum."

I checked with the Supreme Court for a text of this ominous speech and was told Scalia didn't use a text that night, but the quotation appeared to be accurate. I said, would Justice Scalia let me know? My question was relayed, but I've heard nothing since.

Most of the radical revisions of the Constitution that I and others have been writing about will ultimately be ruled on by the Supreme Court. Scalia indicates he will come down on the side of Bush and Ashcroft. A few days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that as a result, we would have to give up some of our liberties. That's two of nine justices we are not likely to be able to depend on...

Meanwhile, in an invaluable new report by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, "Imbalance of Powers: How Changes to U.S. Law and Policy Since 9/11 Erode Human Rights and Civil Liberties" (available by calling 212-845-5200), a section begins: "A mantle of secrecy continues to envelop the executive branch, largely with the acquiescence of Congress and the courts. [This] makes effective oversight impossible, upsetting the constitutional system of checks and balances."

So where is the oversight going to come from? If at all, first from the people pressuring Congress-provided enough of us know what is happening to our rights and liberties. And that requires, as James Madison said, a vigorous press, because the press has been, he noted, "the beneficent source to which the United States owes much of the light which conducted [us] to the ranks of a free and independent nation."

But the media, with few exceptions, are failing to report consistently, and in depth, precisely how Bush and Ashcroft are undermining our fundamental individual liberties...

How many Americans know that if the bill is passed (and Bush certainly won't veto it), they can be stripped of their citizenship if charged with giving "material support" to a group designated by the government as "terrorist"? Sending a check for the outfit's lawful activities-without knowing why it landed on Ashcroft's list-could make you a person without a country and put you behind bars here indefinitely. As Chief Justice Earl Warren said, "you lose the right to have rights" when you lose your citizenship.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://villagevoice.com/issues/0316/hentoff.php

Vanishing Liberties -- Where's the Press?
By Nat Hentoff
Village Voice

Friday 11 April 2003

"If Americans win a war (not just against Saddam Hussein but the longer-term struggle) and lose the Constitution, they will have lost everything." –Lance Morrow, Time, March 17

On March 18, the Associated Press reported that at John Carroll University, in a Cleveland suburb, Justice Antonin Scalia said that "most of the rights you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires" because "the Constitution just sets minimums." Accordingly, in wartime, Scalia emphasized, "the protections will be ratcheted down to the constitutional minimum."

I checked with the Supreme Court for a text of this ominous speech and was told Scalia didn't use a text that night, but the quotation appeared to be accurate. I said, would Justice Scalia let me know? My question was relayed, but I've heard nothing since.

Most of the radical revisions of the Constitution that I and others have been writing about will ultimately be ruled on by the Supreme Court. Scalia indicates he will come down on the side of Bush and Ashcroft. A few days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that as a result, we would have to give up some of our liberties. That's two of nine justices we are not likely to be able to depend on.

And in his 1998 book, All the Laws but One: Civil Liberties in Wartime (Knopf/Vintage), the chief justice of the United States, William Rehnquist, admiringly quoted Francis Biddle, Franklin D. Roosevelt's attorney general: "The Constitution has not greatly bothered any wartime president." And Rehnquist himself, who will be presiding over the constitutionality of the Bush-Ashcroft assaults on the Constitution, wrote in the same book:

"In time of war, presidents may act in ways that push their legal authority to its outer limits, if not beyond." And writing of Lincoln's suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War, Rehnquist said, "It is difficult to quarrel with this decision."

Reacting to Rehnquist's deference to the executive branch in previous wars, Adam Cohen, legal affairs writer for The New York Times, wrote: "The people whose liberties are taken away are virtually invisible" in the pages of Rehnquist's book.

Meanwhile, in an invaluable new report by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, "Imbalance of Powers: How Changes to U.S. Law and Policy Since 9/11 Erode Human Rights and Civil Liberties" (available by calling 212-845-5200), a section begins: "A mantle of secrecy continues to envelop the executive branch, largely with the acquiescence of Congress and the courts. [This] makes effective oversight impossible, upsetting the constitutional system of checks and balances."

So where is the oversight going to come from? If at all, first from the people pressuring Congress-provided enough of us know what is happening to our rights and liberties. And that requires, as James Madison said, a vigorous press, because the press has been, he noted, "the beneficent source to which the United States owes much of the light which conducted [us] to the ranks of a free and independent nation."

But the media, with few exceptions, are failing to report consistently, and in depth, precisely how Bush and Ashcroft are undermining our fundamental individual liberties.

For example, in writing here about the Justice Department's proposed sequel to the Patriot Act (titled inoffensively the Domestic Security Enhancement Act), I noted that it had been kept secret from Congress. A week before it was leaked by
an understandably anonymous member of Ashcroft's staff, a representative of the Justice Department even lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee about its very existence.

A few sections in that chilling 86-page draft were briefly covered in some of the media. But as I predicted after providing more details here ("Ashcroft Out of Control" and "Red Alert for the Bill of Rights"), these invasions of the Constitution were only a one- or two-day story in nearly all of the media.

How many Americans know that if the bill is passed (and Bush certainly won't veto it), they can be stripped of their citizenship if charged with giving "material support" to a group designated by the government as "terrorist"? Sending a check for the outfit's lawful activities-without knowing why it landed on Ashcroft's list-could make you a person without a country and put you behind bars here indefinitely. As Chief Justice Earl Warren said, "you lose the right to have rights" when you lose your citizenship.

How many Americans know that the FBI can get a warrant from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and go to a library or bookstore to find out what books you read or borrow if you are somehow, according to the FBI, connected to "terrorism"?

In the First Amendment Center's "Legal Watch" newsletter (March 11-17), Charles Haynes writes that "a warning sign greets patrons entering all 10 of the county libraries in Santa Cruz, California." It says: "Beware, a record of the books you borrow may end up in the hands of the FBI. And if the FBI requests your records, librarians are prohibited by law from telling you about it." The message to the readers ends: "Questions about this policy should be directed to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. 20530."

Librarians-and bookstore owners-are also forbidden by this section of the law from telling the press of these visits by the FBI to inform John Ashcroft of what people on the list of suspects are reading.

I've checked with the American Library Association and am told that very few other libraries are warning their patrons to be cautious about which books they ask for. Shouldn't the press spread the news of this risk more widely?

And I've seen little in the media about a bill, "The Freedom to Read Protection Act of 2003," introduced in the House by Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) that prevents the government from "searching for, or seizing from, a bookseller
or library . . . materials that contain personally identifiable information concerning a patron of a bookseller or library." Under the bill, a higher standard than mere FBI suspicion will be required.

How many of you know the answer Assistant Attorney General Daniel J. Bryant sent Democratic senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont about our expectation of privacy in bookstores and libraries?

"Any [such] right of privacy," says the Justice Department, "is necessarily and inherently limited since . . . the patron is reposing that information in the library or bookstore and assumes the risk that the entity may disclose it to another."

Have you ever assumed that the librarian or bookstore owner has a right to bypass your First Amendment right to read what you choose by telling "another" (the FBI) whether you read, for example, the Voice? Senator Leahy's office made that Justice Department letter available to the press. Have you seen it before now?

War and Peace: Anarchy in the Streets
In the NY Times

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was understandably defensive but stunningly off message yesterday when he claimed: "Freedom's untidy. And free people are free to commit mistakes, and to commit crimes." That was not the vision of freedom the Bush administration was selling when it began this enterprise, and it is not necessarily one the Iraqi people would welcome...

But there is no alternative for the American military other than to restore order. It must police the streets, and above all make Iraq safe enough for humanitarian aid workers to bring in food, water and medical supplies, and it must work to restore electrical and water utilities. The military, which has performed so brilliantly during the war, is going to have to take up this second, and perhaps harder, challenge. This is not only its obligation under international conventions, but also a necessary step in the dismantling of Mr. Hussein's reign of terror.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/opinion/12SAT1.html

War and Peace: Anarchy in the Streets New York Times

Saturday 12 April 2003

The images of smiling children and cheering crowds in Iraq have been overtaken by a new, much more disturbing portrait of anarchy and fear. Looters, who began by going after the offices and homes of Saddam Hussein's henchmen, have moved on to stores, warehouses and even hospitals. At one site, thugs dragged away heart monitors and baby incubators. A prominent cleric returned from exile only to be murdered in one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines. Frightened citizens have barricaded themselves in their homes in some places, or have begun shooting suspected robbers.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was understandably defensive but stunningly off message yesterday when he claimed: "Freedom's untidy. And free people are free to commit mistakes, and to commit crimes." That was not the vision of freedom the Bush administration was selling when it began this enterprise, and it is not necessarily one the Iraqi people would welcome.

Military officials have reason to be reluctant about performing police duties. Their troops are trained to fight a war, not to arrest bank robbers or stop muggings. They are unfamiliar with Iraqi culture and do not speak Arabic. There are bound to be threatening and unpleasant incidents, and the Arab world is likely to see American street patrols as the first step in a new American dictatorship.

But there is no alternative for the American military other than to restore order. It must police the streets, and above all make Iraq safe enough for humanitarian aid workers to bring in food, water and medical supplies, and it must work to restore electrical and water utilities. The military, which has performed so brilliantly during the war, is going to have to take up this second, and perhaps harder, challenge. This is not only its obligation under international conventions, but also a necessary step in the dismantling of Mr. Hussein's reign of terror.

The most worrisome part of the current crisis is that it seemed to take the American troops somewhat by surprise. Washington apparently presumed that it would be possible to remove Mr. Hussein and his associates while leaving civic structures intact. So far, that has not happened, and the bureaucratic and law enforcement services in Iraqi cities have melted away. From the beginning, the chief concern about the Iraqi invasion has not been the Pentagon's ability to prevail on the battlefield, but the Bush administration's ability to plan for the day after victory. So far, nothing has happened to alleviate that concern.

I wasn't around to participate in any of last weekend's peace rallys, so I'd REALLY love to see whatever footage you guys have.

Please email me with your links so I can post them here.

I'm out of town with crummy connectivity all weekend.

That's why there won't be much going on here 'till Monday.

See you then!

Something to keep you busy over the weekend!

Check out the video and audio from the live ABC broadcast and compare it for yourself to the video and audio of the CNN re-broadcast:

Did CNN Turn Up The Boos During Michael Moore's Speech?
Michael Moore At The Oscars: ABC's Live Audio vs. CNN's Re-broadcast

This is a quote from my introduction:

...I decided to help Ellison Horne out by digitizing and posting his video footage on the internet so the debate over this issue could begin, and so we could all look over the evidence together in order to determine whether or not the audio track was altered in the CNN rebroadcast...

This is a quote from Ellison's introduction:

I'm urgently calling for an investigation of the broadcast by CNN and CNN Headline News's reporting of Michael Moore's acceptance speech last month at the Academy Awards.

CNN and CNN Headline News aired a significantly different audio response to Mr. Moore's speech than was orginally broadcasted on ABC.

It seems that someone has manipulated the audio to give the impression there was constant loud "booing" throughout Moore's speech, when in reality, there was only marginal booing often overridden with cheers and applause.

This needs to be fully investigated.

Free Mike Hawash

His detention, like so many others, appears to be an abuse of a 1984 law that the Bush administration has used with a vengeance to hold people it may (or may not) suspect of being in league with bad folks. Unlike many other such jailings, all shrouded in the kind of secrecy the Bush people love so much, this one has attracted some powerful attention...

On Monday, a federal judge did what the government wouldn't do: acknowledge that Hawash was being held. But he let the government keep holding its prisoner for at least the next three weeks.

If Intel, the company, is doing anything to help Hawash, the assistance isn't apparent. But as I said last week, I hope a prominent immigrant, whose name is almost synonymous with the company, will take note of this situation. His name is Andy Grove.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/000927.shtml#000927

April 09, 2003
Free Mike Hawash
• posted by Dan Gillmor 04:57 AM
• permanent link to this item

Well, at least it's now official information that the federal government is holding Maher (Mike) Hawash, an engineer who has worked for years at Intel, in an Oregon jail. Hawash, a U.S. citizen who was born in the Middle East, has been held since March 20 as a "material witness" -- not charged with a crime -- in a case the feds won't discuss in any way.

His detention, like so many others, appears to be an abuse of a 1984 law that the Bush administration has used with a vengeance to hold people it may (or may not) suspect of being in league with bad folks. Unlike many other such jailings, all shrouded in the kind of secrecy the Bush people love so much, this one has attracted some powerful attention.

One of Hawash's friends is Steve McGeady, a former Intel vice president who was Hawash's boss for years. (Hawash was laid off and had been working as a contractor at Intel, a common situation in today's troubled tech industry.)

McGeady has set up a "Free Mike Hawash" Web site with considerable background on this case. McGeady told me the other day that this case is ``like Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka'' -- and his analogy resonates.

It appears that Hawash is being held in part because he donated money to a charity that was later determined by the federal government -- possibly incorrectly -- to have provided financial aid to terrorists.

On Monday, a federal judge did what the government wouldn't do: acknowledge that Hawash was being held. But he let the government keep holding its prisoner for at least the next three weeks.

If Intel, the company, is doing anything to help Hawash, the assistance isn't apparent. But as I said last week, I hope a prominent immigrant, whose name is almost synonymous with the company, will take note of this situation. His name is Andy Grove.

He shouldn't have received any jail time for this. Drat.

I hope he appeals...
THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW REACHES OUT TO XBOX MOD CHIPS
A hefty fine and harsh jail sentence for Xbox mod chip retailer

David Rocci sold the Enigma mod chips for the Xbox on his site, IsoNews.com, and was found in breach of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act whose draconian rules seized the site, his equipment and set the wheels of unjustice rolling. He pleaded guilty to selling illegal copyright circumvention devices under the Act.

While we don't condone the ability to pirate software, this is surely an outrageous and disproportionate punishment for someone who merely facilitated people to tinker with their own Xbox. It is their Xbox once they bought it isn't it? How many people have a CD-RW in their PC - surely the multinational companies making and distributing these must be party to copying, but I doubt they're quaking in their boots. It's like going to a garage and converting your car to run on LPG, is that wrong?

The whole thing stinks. A mod chip's a mod chip and simply because it can be used for illegal purposes this makes it illegal, and this ruling is from a country that prides itself on its inalienable 'right to bear arms'; weapons which can be used for illegal purposes.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/r/?page=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/news/news_story.php(que)id=89683

Click here for more info

Wednesday 9th April 2003
THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW REACHES OUT TO XBOX MOD CHIPS

A hefty fine and harsh jail sentence for Xbox mod chip retailer

16:55 The long-awaited sentence for David Rocci, who sold Xbox mod chips on his website www.IsoNews.com has come through a month later than expected. And he has been clobbered! A $28,500 fine and five months imprisonment, followed by five months of home detention and three years of probation!

David Rocci sold the Enigma mod chips for the Xbox on his site, IsoNews.com, and was found in breach of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act whose draconian rules seized the site, his equipment and set the wheels of unjustice rolling. He pleaded guilty to selling illegal copyright circumvention devices under the Act.

While we don't condone the ability to pirate software, this is surely an outrageous and disproportionate punishment for someone who merely facilitated people to tinker with their own Xbox. It is their Xbox once they bought it isn't it? How many people have a CD-RW in their PC - surely the multinational companies making and distributing these must be party to copying, but I doubt they're quaking in their boots. It's like going to a garage and converting your car to run on LPG, is that wrong?

The whole thing stinks. A mod chip's a mod chip and simply because it can be used for illegal purposes this makes it illegal, and this ruling is from a country that prides itself on its inalienable 'right to bear arms'; weapons which can be used for illegal purposes.

If I met someone in a dark alley with either a gun or a mod chip, I know who I'd rather bump into - legal or not.

On the bright side, US District Judge James C. Cacheris could have given Mr Rocci the maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $500,000 fine - but we think they did a good enough job of making an example of him!

The sad thing about this case and the Department of Justice running roughshod over anyone involved in Xbox mod chips is that mod chip communities, websites and projects could suddenly disappear. No more nudie DOAXBV skins? Now that would be a tragedy...

Let us know what you think of the ruling on the link below.

Nick Walkland

This is a scene from an old mid-1970's episode of "The Rockford Files" (feel free to help me with any details on this episode. I'm happy to update this posting.)

For those of you who aren't familiar with the show. Jim Rockford is a private investigator (James Garner) that will often drive around and question people for his different clients. He often poses as an Insurance Agent or Gov Official or something (usually with a fake business card and everything) in order to keep his cover.

In this scene, his "client" is actually his own father, because Jim has learned that his dad owned some old claims to some oil wells (er something) that were thought to be worthless before and now, what do ya know, might not be. (This is actually a common thread of western movies/tv shows as far back as I can remember.)

So Jim goes out, in good faith (he's an ex-cop and an ex-con, but he's still a relatively honest guy), to find out who else has a claim on the land (along with his dad) and to verify if his dad's claim is even any good, so he can decide what to do from there.

I'm just guessing (I didn't see the whole episode), but from what I know about the Rockford Files (I grew up watching them because my mom was a big fan), sometime soon after this scene, someone starts threatening or making attempts on his dad's life, forcing Jim to actually get to the bottom of whatever's going on, rather than just find out what him and his dad need to know.

With that, I'll just let the clip speak for itself. I imagine it will mean different things to different people, and that's kind of the point.

Enjoy!

Rockford Files On Wars Over Oil (Small - 7 MB)
Rockford Files On Wars Over Oil (Hi-res- 95 MB)
Jim Rockford (James Garner)


Don't know this guy's name...

Bomb Shelter

I wish I had more time to blog these one at a time or make them display prettier.

But I don't :-)

Here's the scoop for those of you who are interested.

1.

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2523269

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Oakland police fired rubber bullets to disperse about 750 anti-war demonstrators on Monday in what was believed to be the first use of the projectiles against U.S. protesters since the American-led war on Iraq began. ... "I have been to many protests over the years, and I have never seen police resort to shooting people because they didn't like where they were standing," said Scott Fleming, 29, a lawyer hit several times in the back.

"They had loaded guns and started charging."

An Oakland police spokeswoman said officers warned before firing. At least a dozen protesters were arrested.

"We gave our dispersal order, we gave them an order, we gave them ample time to disperse," said police spokeswoman Danielle Ashford. "When we give our dispersal order, that's pretty much it. (If) there are safety issues involved, that's when we step in."

The action is believed to be the first police use of anti-crowd munitions against U.S. demonstrators since President Bush launched an invasion aimed at toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

... Leone Reinbold, a spokeswoman for Direct Action to Stop the War which organized the protest, said she saw a policeman run his motorcycle into one woman and another man get hit with a rubber bullet to the nose.

"We weren't there to confront the police. We set up a peaceful picket line," she said. "The worst injury was to the long, tried-and-true tradition in this country of picketing."

Jerry Drelling, a spokesman for American President Lines, the company that was the object of the protest, said it has some government contracts but declined to provide details. He said no one at the firm had been injured.

"The Oakland police department managed to keep the ingress and egress open so that worked out pretty well," he said. "We're trying to run a business and you want to keep the gates open."

2. http://www.theksbwchannel.com/news/2095292/detail.html

Police Fire 'Sting Balls' At Oakland Protesters Demonstrators Stage Event At Oakland Docks

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Oakland police opened fire Monday morning with wooden dowels, "sting balls" and other non-lethal weapons at more than 500 hundred antiwar protesters.

The demonstrators were trying to block the entrances to the APL pier on the Oakland docks. They claim APL is carrying material to the war in Iraq.

Most of the demonstrators dispersed peacefully, but police used the weapons at two gates where protesters refused to move.

Six longshoremen standing near the protest and six demonstrators were hurt.

The protesters say it's the first time they've been fired on since demonstrations began several weeks ago in the San Francisco Bay area.

Police say at least 10 people were arrested.

Deputy Chief Patrick Haw says the officers fired because some demonstrators were throwing rocks and iron bolts at them.

Trent Willis, a business agent for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, says union workers will not be reporting Monday.

Several demonstrators were also arrested at protests at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, at the federal building in San Francisco and while trying to block an offramp from Interstate 280.

The protests come two weeks after demonstrations sparked hundreds of arrests and brought downtown San Francisco to a standstill.

3. KTVU video: http://www.ktvu.com/news/2094673/detail.html#

still: http://images.ibsys.com/2003/0407/2095726_200X150.jpg

http://www.ktvu.com/news/2094673/detail.html

4.

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/5578918.ht m

San Jose Mercury News

Protesters shot with wooden bullets at Port of Oakland By Dana Hull Mercury News

Protesters and dockworkers were hit with wooden bullets when Oakland police opened fire to clear an anti-war demonstration at the Port of Oakland this morning.

About 400 to 500 protesters tried to disrupt operations at two terminals of companies they say ship military cargo for the Department of Defense.

Most of the protesters dispersed, but when some refused, police began shooting wooden bullets into the crowd.

``I was marching in a circle when the police lowered their guns at us,'' said Oakland resident Scott Fleming, 29, a criminal defense attorney. ``I started to run and kept getting hit in the back.''

Fleming showed reporters five large welts on his back that he said was caused by the wooden dowels fired by police. Several dockworkers were also hit.

``I'm a lawyer and I'm seriously considering filing charges,'' Fleming said. ``They're supposed to shoot at our feet and they were shooting at our backs.''

Oakland Police said at least 24 people were arrested.

5. San Jose Mercury News slideshow: javascript:openWin('/mld/cctimes/slideshow.htm?content_id=5579343&pub_name=c ctimes&language=en&palette_name=blue_dark_standard_cool&site_name=bayarea&co mponent_title=&component_desc=');

Police get aggressive to deter Monday morning protesters CONTRA COSTA TIMES

OAKLAND - A couple of hours after the Oakland Police Department fired wooden bullets and beanbags into a crowd of protesters, Oakland City Council members were calling for hearings into the officers' conduct.

City Councilwoman Jane Brunner stood near an injured protester who had a bloody welt on his back that had swelled to the size of a softball. "It's pretty upsetting to see these big welts," said Brunner.

"We have to investigate this. According to the police chief, a protester threw a rock. My question is: Even if one or two people have been disruptive, do you go in like that with that kind of force in a demonstration?"

Police used wooden bullets, concussion grenades and tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters trying to block the entrance Monday to business that delivers military supplies to troops.

A few people were on the ground bleeding after being shot with the wooden bullets, which expand to the size of a knob on a dresser. As police herded some 500 protesters down a side road, people tried unsuccessfully to get into cars to go to the hospital.

Within a few minutes, at least one ambulance arrived.

One woman lay on the ground with two huge purple welts on her face from the wooden bullets, while another man was on the ground with his face bleeding.

Some protesters said they had been hit with tear gas canisters and bean bag bullets, as well.

The protesters were trying to block two gates of American President Lines, formerly known as APL, which is a Department of Defense contractor that delivers military cargo to troops at war.

The protesters claim police never issued any orders to disperse, but just began shooting wooden bullets and then herding the protesters onto the side road. About two dozen motorcycle officers pushed forward with officers on foot behind them shooting wooden bullets.

Around 8 a.m., police in riot gear and gas masks had backed one group of protesters to Seventh Avenue and Maritime Street right under the BART tracks where traffic was blocked and tensions were mounting. Big rig trucks were backing up in the streets and the sound of honking horns was broken up by the officers firing wooden bullets into the ground.

Police continue to drive protesters away from the Port of Oakland.

6. Utne Reader

http://www.utne.com/web_special/web_specials_2003-04/articles/10439-1.html

Police Use Rubber Bullets Against Oakland Protesters —By Craig Cox -, Utne.com April 2003 Issue

Several anti-war protesters were reported injured this morning after police fired rubber bullets in an attempt to disperse about 750 demonstrators who were blocking access to a shipping company’s offices.

The incident marks the first use of rubber bullets by police against anti-war protesters since the Bush administration’s March 19 invasion of Iraq, reports Reuters.

Activists were protesting in front of the headquarters of American President Lines, which they claim is profiting from the Iraq invasion. Oakland Police spokeswoman Danielle Ashford told Reuters the shots were fired after the crowd refused to disperse. “We gave our dispersal order, we gave them an order, we gave them plenty of time to disperse,” she said.

According to a Reuters photographer on the scene, police continued to fire on about 150 demonstrators who remained after the initial burst of shots. The status of the injured protesters, believed to be longshoremen, was not immediately known.

7. NBC
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/2094743/detail.html

Antiwar Protesters Gather Throughout Bay Area

Demonstrations In San Francisco, Oakland, Concord

POSTED: 7:51 a.m. PDT April 7, 2003 UPDATED: 8:58 a.m. PDT April 7, 2003 SAN FRANCISCO -- Antiwar protesters are gathering in at least three locations in the Bay Area to continue demonstrating against the war in Iraq.

Activists have planned protests at the Federal Building in San Francisco, on the docks in Oakland and at the Concord Naval Weapons Station.

As of 8 a.m. a large group of protesters was reportedly blocking the entrance to the Port of Oakland on Maritime Street.

There are reports that police have used some tear gas -- but no arrests or injuries have been reported.

Several hundred police officers also are on hand.

At one point -- some 15 trucks carrying huge containers are waiting outside the gates for police to clear the way for them to enter.

The protests come barely two weeks after rowdy protests sparked hundreds of arrests and brought downtown San Francisco to a standstill.

San Francisco-based peace group Direct Action to Stop the War says the protests will feature acts of civil disobedience.

The Navy has closed most of the Concord Naval Weapons Station -- but protest organizers say trucks have been seen transporting material out of the facility since the war began.

During the Cold War, the weapons station was the scene of frequent protests. Demonstrators said nuclear weapons were stored there and often tried to block weapons trains.

In 1987 protester Brian Willson lost both legs after he lay down on the tracks and was run over by a train.

8.

MSNBC - good injury photo: http://msnbc.com/news/1855360.jpg

http://msnbc.com/news/895056_asp.htm

9. Daily Californian

http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=11506

Anti-War Protesters Call For Focus on Domestic Issues

Includes photos of Berkeley protesters on the way to link up with Oakland protesters

10. Another Mercury News story

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/5578480.htm
Hundreds protesting in Oakland, other demos planned Associated Press

Oakland --- Oakland police opened fire with non-lethal bullets, tear gas and concussion grenades as hundreds of anti-war protesters tried to block piers at the Oakland docks this morning.

Six longshoremen standing near demonstrators at the S-S-A pier were hit by rubber or wooden bullets and were injured. They were treated by paramedics at the scene, but at least one was being transported to a hospital.

Trent Willis is a business agent for the I-L-W-U. He was extremely angry and said his members would not be going to work today.

The longshoremen were standing on the side of the road and were not involved in the protest.

Some 500 anti-war protesters were moving from pier to pier starting early this morning. They began by barring the way to the AP-L pier. At one point -- some 15 trucks carrying huge containers were waiting outside the gates for police to clear the way for them to enter.

About 100 activists were protesting at the Federal Building in San Francisco and about 30 were at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. Several were arrested in Concord for blocking the entrance to the federal facility.

The protests come two weeks after demonstrations sparked hundreds of arrests and brought downtown San Francisco to a standstill.

11. Monday, April 7, 2003 AP Breaking News Police fire rubber bullets at anti-war protest at port in Oakland

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/04/07/ national1158EDT0617.DTL

Kill The Messenger

David Miller provides a nice collection of eleven articles detailing the events of yesterday's attack on hotels that the U.S. knew contained members of the independent press (read: "non-embedded").

This goes very nicely with his earlier posting: The Embedded Press vs. Freelance Press.

Here is the full text of the articles posted at:

http://www.inourworld.com/archives/001225.html

In Our World
"Our duty toward the people living in barbarism is to see that they are freed from their chains, and we can free them only by destroying barbarism itself." -- Teddy Roosevelt
« Korea Goes Nuclear -- Permanently | Main
April 09, 2003
Kill the messenger

From General Brooks, the American spokesman in Doha... When asked why the US tank shell fired in retaliation (for a sniper shots supposedly fired from the first floor) had landed on the hotel's 14th floor. He said he may have "misspoken" about where the shots had come from and would investigate the incident further. Brig-Gen Brooks said that the Iraqi regime had been using "places like the Palestine Hotel for regime purposes."

He said: "This coalition does not target journalists." He added that the US was aware the hotel was the media's base in Baghdad. "But we have always said the area of combat operations is very dangerous indeed."

Yesterday the U.S. made three seperate attacks on journalists in Baghdad. At least two of them appear to have been intentional. They are part of a pattern of recent U.S. attempts to silence the press in wartime by attacking them. Here are all of the British newspaper reports about the attacks in their entirety.

These photos below go with this article from the Mirror UK (Number 10 in the crop of articles below):
U.S KILLS NEWS MEN IN ATTACK ON HOTEL Apr 9 2003
THE TANK SHELL STRUCK AS THEY FILMED BATTLE

"MERCY DASH: Journalists carry injured collegue from the
Palestine Hotel"

"KILLED: JOSE COUSO"

"CAMERAMAN: Taras Protsyuk"

"BLASTED: Shell damage to the Palestine hotel"

Two of the attacks were against the two Arab satellite networks that were showing what the siege was like in bloody detail. They are now both off the air; there will be no more embarrassing videos from Baghdad. El Jazerra was broadcasting live when their well known reporter was killed by the Americans- on the air. The third attack was on a tall isolated hotel that housed all the foreign reporters. That attack might possibly be the work of either a trigger-happy or angry tank commander, and not be part of a plan to silence the media. Here is a roundup of how the mainstream British press has reported what appears to be the intentional killing of reporters by the U.S. government for policy reasons. You might want to read my previous press blog for previous examples of the U.S. military attacking the press to silence it and stop the pictures and reports the U.S. might not want to be made public. This is a very ugly story.

There are 11 article below, one American and 10 British. Here is a synopsis of each article so you can search for the pieces you would like to read.

Article 1 The AP wire story from Yahoo.com, dated 4/8

Article 2 Is from the renounwed military historian John Keegan writing for the Guardian on 4/8. Keegan is generally in favor of the war and very knowledgable observer. His article is about war coverage in general, but he is deeply disturbed by what he charecterizes in the piece as the intentional killing of journalists.

Article 3 The Guardian report on hotel attacks, dated Iraq 4/9

Article 4 A more detailed Guardian report

Article 5 The Independent report, dated 4/9 by Robert Fisk, who has filed many reports on civilian casualties. He was returning to the hotel when it was attacked. Incidentally, his previous reports from Baghdad are worth reading. Dated 4/9.

Article 6 The London Times- the most old-guard paper in London, writes a scathing article. Dated 4/9.

Article 7 The London Times- writing on Arab reaction to having a reporter killed, live, on the air. Dated 4/9.

Article 8 The Daily Telegraph- a middle of the road paper, dated 4/9

Article 9 From the Financial Times of London; they are the Wall Street Journal of Britain. Dated 4/9. They rarely express annoyance but they do here.

Article 10 From the Mirror dated 4/9. The four pictures at the top of this post are from the Mirror article.

Article 11 From the Guardian 4/3 and 4/4. This last piece is about the ezpulsions of non-embedded journalists by the Americans. The U.S. really doesn't want uncooperative journalists around.

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

Article 1

To: 4/8 Press attacks Subject: 4/8 Press attacks

The 9 pm CST Yahoo news story 4/8

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030409/ap_on_re_mi_ea/wa r_journalists&cid=540&ncid=716

Middle East - AP

Three Journalists Die in Baghdad Attacks 46 minutes ago

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S.-led military strikes in the Iraqi capital Tuesday hit the hotel housing hundreds of journalists and an Arab television network, killing three journalists and injuring three others.

Two Arabic-language television networks said their offices were intentionally targeted by American-led forces — claims military officials denied.

"This coalition does not target journalists," Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said in Qatar.

An American tank fired on the Palestine Hotel early Tuesday, where foreign journalists have been covering the war from balconies and the roof.

Less than a mile away, a reporter for Al-Jazeera television was killed when U.S.-led forces bombed his office. Nearby, coalition artillery battered the Baghdad office of Abu Dhabi television, trapping more than 25 reporters who phoned for help from the basement.

"I'm astonished and shocked," said Art Bourbon, news director of Abu Dhabi, speaking from the network's headquarters in the United Arab Emirates. "We've been in this office for more than 2 1/2 years. Anyone going into military operations would have known our location."

Early Wednesday, the network announced that it had been unable to broadcast live video from Baghdad overnight, saying American tanks were posted outside its offices. Its live shots are often used by television networks, including those in the United States. Al-Jazeera, whose offices are alongside Abu Dhabi television, also did not broadcast live scenes of Baghdad overnight.

On Tuesday, Al-Jazeera chief editor Ibrahim Hilal said the U.S. military has long known the map coordinates and street number of his network's office. Witnesses "saw the plane fly over twice before dropping the bombs. Our office is in a residential area, and even the Pentagon (news - web sites) knows its location," Hilal said in Qatar.

Military officials offered different explanations for the attacks.

Brooks initially said the hotel was targeted after soldiers were fired on from the lobby. Later, he told reporters, "I may have misspoken."

U.S. Army Col. David Perkins, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade, which deployed the tank, said Iraqis in front of the hotel fired rocket-propelled grenades across the Tigris River. Soldiers fired back with a tank round aimed at the Palestine Hotel after seeing enemy "binoculars," Perkins said.

More than 50 news cameras were set up on hotel balconies when the tank fired, according to Associated Press photographer Jerome Delay. "How can they spot someone with binoculars and not (see) cameras?" he asked.

Journalists said they heard no gunfire coming from the hotel or its immediate environs. They had been watching two U.S. tanks shooting across the al-Jumhuriya bridge, more than a half-mile away, when one of the tanks rotated its turret toward the hotel and fired.

The round pierced the 14th and 15th floors of the 17-story hotel, spraying glass and shrapnel across a corner suite serving as Reuters' Baghdad bureau.

Killed were Taras Protsyuk of Ukraine, a television cameraman for the Reuters news agency, and Jose Couso, a cameraman for Spain's Telecinco television. Spain asked its journalists to leave Baghdad following Couso's death.

Tareq Ayyoub of Jordan died at al-Jazeera's office, located in a residential neighborhood fronting the Tigris. In all, 10 journalists have been killed since war began March 20.

The wounded, all Reuters employees, were identified by the company as TV technician Paul Pasquale of Britain, Gulf Bureau Chief Samia Nakhoul of Lebanon and photographer Faleh Kheiber of Iraq (news - web sites).

Pasquale underwent surgery Tuesday at a Baghdad hospital for serious leg injuries, according to colleagues. Nakhoul suffered shrapnel wounds and may require surgery.

Further details weren't immediately available.

"Clearly the war, and all its confusion, has come to the heart of Baghdad," said Reuters Editor in Chief Geert Linnebank. "But the incident nonetheless raises questions about the judgment of the advancing U.S. troops who have known all along that this hotel is the main base for almost all foreign journalists in Baghdad."

In a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it believed the attacks violated the Geneva Conventions concerning likely harm to civilians.

In Belgium, the International Federation of Journalists said it appeared Tuesday's attacks may have deliberately targeted journalists. "If so, they are grave and serious violations of international law," said Secretary-General Aidan White. He also said Iraq, accused of using civilians as human shields during U.S.-led bombing attacks, may also be guilty of war crimes.

In Baghdad, an Abu Dhabi television correspondent asked for help from the Red Cross.

Reporter Shaker Hamed, in a live report, asked aide workers for vehicles "to evacuate us from this area which is being battered beyond belief and is expected to witness major operations tonight," he said. "We are the only civilians in this territory, a heavy battle ground."

At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said she had cautioned news organizations since before the outbreak of war that Baghdad would be dangerous.

"We've had conversations over the last couple of days, news organizations eager to get their people unilaterally into Baghdad," she said. "We are saying it is not a safe place; you should not be there."

............................................. Article 2

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,931733,00.html

Keegan attacks 'abysmal' war media

Ciar Byrne Tuesday April 8, 2003

The Daily Telegraph's veteran defence editor John Keegan today said he supports "100%" the accusation by the commander of the British forces in the Gulf that the UK media are "losing the plot" over the war in Iraq. Air Marshal Brian Burridge launched a scathing attack on news programmes and newspapers in yesterday's Telegraph, accusing the media of turning the conflict into "reality TV" - high on conjecture and low on analysis.

While Keegan praised reporters on the front line in Iraq, he expressed scorn for those sitting in studios trying to make sense of events as they unfold, and singled out Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow as the worst culprit.

"I agree [with Air Marshal Burridge] 100%," Keegan said. "There has been some very, very good reporting from the front, but the level of analysis is abysmal."

"I don't know what people are doing, I think they think with their kneecaps. Military analysis is a perfectly simple business. Newspapers employ City analysts who are expected to know how the City works, why can't they do the same with the military?"

Keegan blamed the lack of analysis on the age and education of today's media commentators. "Because they all did sociology degrees in the 1960s and 70s they have no capacity for analysis," he said.

"It's a generational thing. They're all a product of the touchy-feely world of the 60s and 70s. Jon Snow is the worst. I'd sack him," Keegan added. However, he described Sky News's Francis Tusa as "all right".

The future of military analysis lies in the current generation of reporters who are risking their lives in the field, Keegan predicted.

"We're now getting a new generation who've been out in the field and have been shot at, and they will be the future generation," he said.

According to Keegan, the news that two more journalists have been killed in the conflict, bringing the toll of people working for media organisations to seven, is part of an "unpleasant new development" in the way the press are viewed in conflicts.

"This is a very unpleasant new development which began in the Balkans in the 90s. It's partly that they take risks, but there's also the very unpleasant development of journalists being deliberately killed. It's the first time it's happened," Keegan said.

He described the system of "embedding" journalists with US and British troops as "a good idea", but said that "unilateralism" - journalists working independently of the military - is also understandable.

Newspaper and broadcast news editors - including Sky News' Nick Pollard, Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan and Times foreign editor Bronwen Maddox - rounded on Air Marshal Burridge over his comments, saying the British media was doing the best job it can in difficult and dangerous circumstances.

...................................... Article 3

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,932707,00.html Pandemonium at the hotel reporters called home

Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad Wednesday April 9, 2003 The Guardian

Al-Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayoub was broadcasting live to the satellite station's 7am news bulletin yesterday when US aircraft fired two missiles at the bureau building, killing him and injuring a colleague. Two Iraqi staff are missing. Taras Protsyuk was filming from Reuters' suite on the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel, where foreign journalists are based, when it was hit by a round from a US tank, killing him and Jose Couso, a Spanish cameraman. Four other journalists were injured.

Within the space of five hours, seven journalists were killed and wounded from US army fire in Baghdad yesterday. American forces also opened fire on the offices of Abu Dhabi television, whose identity is spelled out in large blue letters on the roof.

All the journalists were killed and injured in daylight at sites known to the Pentagon as media sites.

The tank shell that hit the Palestine Hotel slammed into the 18-storey building at noon, shaking the tower and spewing rubble and dirt into hotel rooms at least six floors below.

Samia Nakhoul, the Gulf bureau chief of Reuters, was also injured, along with a British technician, Paul Pasquale, and an Iraqi photographer, Faleh Kheiber.

The attack brought pandemonium. Colleagues spattered with blood bundled the wounded into blankets, and took the lifts down. Others hung white sheets out of their windows.

The hotel lies on the east side of the Tigris, across from the official buildings and palaces of Saddam Hussein which have been the main target of the US ground invasions.

It was adopted by journalists a few days before the start of the war, after advice from the Pentagon to evacuate from the western side of the river.

....................... Article 4

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,932745,00.html 4/9 Guardian report

Three die in attacks on media bases

Journalists 'target' as hotel and Al-Jazeera bombed

Rory McCarthy in Doha, Jonathan Steele in Amman and Brian Whitaker Wednesday April 9, 2003 The Guardian

US forces were accused of targeting the news media last night after three journalists died in two separate attacks in Baghdad. Central command in Qatar said its troops had been responding in self-defence to enemy fire but witnesses on the spot dismissed the American claim as false.

Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk, 35, was killed when a US tank fired a shell at the Palestine hotel, where many journalists are staying.

Jose Couso, 37, a cameraman for the Spanish television channel Tele 5, was wounded in the same attack and later died in hospital. Three members of the Reuters team in Baghdad were also hurt.

Earlier yesterday, al-Jazeera cameraman Tarek Ayoub, a 35-year-old resident of Jordan, was killed when two bombs dropped during a US air raid hit the satellite television station's office in the Iraqi capital.

In the hotel attack, according to a Centcom statement, "commanders on the ground reported that coalition forces received significant enemy fire from the Palestine hotel and consistent with the inherent right of self-defence coalition forces returned fire.

"Sadly a Reuters and Tele 5 (Spain) journalist were killed in this exchange. These tragic incidents appear to be the latest example of the Iraqi regime's continued strategy of using civilian facilities for regime military purposes."

But journalists in the hotel, which is well known to the Americans as the main media centre in Baghdad, insisted there had been no Iraqi fire.

Sky's correspondent David Chater said he was on a balcony at the hotel immediately before the shell exploded.

"I never heard a single shot coming from any of the area around here, certainly not from the hotel," he said.

BBC correspondent Rageh Omaar added that none of the other journalists in the hotel had heard any sniper fire.

Chater said he saw a US tank pointing its gun muzzle directly at the hotel and turned away just before the blast.

"I noticed one of the tanks had its barrel pointed up at the building. We went inside and there was an almighty crash. That tank shell, if it was indeed an American tank shell, was aimed directly at this hotel and directly at journalists. This wasn't an accident, it seems to be a very accurate shot."

Geert Linnebank, Reuters editor-in-chief, said the incident "raises questions about the judgment of the advancing US troops who have known all along that this hotel is the main base for almost all foreign journalists in Baghdad".

Centcom also attempted to justify the al-Jazeera attack on the grounds that there had been "significant enemy fire" from the building used by the TV station.

Ibrahim Hilal, al-Jazeera's chief editor at its headquarters in Qatar, said a US warplane was seen above the building before the attack. "Witnesses in the area saw the plane fly over twice before dropping the bombs. Our office is in a residential area and even the Pentagon knows its location," he said.

Maher Abdullah, an al-Jazeera correspondent, said: "One missile hit the pavement in front of us, ripping out windows and doors and then one hit the generator."

One of the station's cameramen was also injured in the attack, along with two staff from Abu Dhabi television nearby.

Al-Jazeera's coverage of the war has set the tone for the Arab world. The channel has frequently been critical of US and British forces and has highlighted the number of Iraqi civilians killed.

The station wrote to the Pentagon in February giving the precise geographical coordinates of its Baghdad office.

Brigadier-General Vince Brooks, deputy director of operations, said: "We certainly know that we don't target journalists. That is not something we do." However, he appeared to imply that the hotel was a legitimate target when he said it was being used "for other regime purposes".

........................................ Article 5 http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=395416

Robert Fisk: The dogs were yelping. They knew bombs were on the way 09 April 2003

Day 20 of America's war for the "liberation" of Iraq was another day of fire, pain and death. It started with an attack by two A-10 jets that danced in the air like acrobats, tipping on one wing, sliding down the sky to turn on another, and spraying burning phosphorus to mislead heat-seeking missiles before turning their cannons on a government ministry and plastering it with depleted uranium shells. The day ended in blood-streaked hospital corridors and with three foreign correspondents dead and five wounded.

The A-10s passed my bedroom window, so close I could see the cockpit Perspex, with their trail of stars dripping from their wingtips, a magical, dangerous performance fit for any air show, however infernal its intent. But when they turned their DU shells – intended for use against heavy armour – against the already wrecked Iraqi Ministry for Planning, the effect was awesome. The A-10's cannon-fire sounds like heavy wooden furniture being moved in an empty room, a kind of final groan, before the rounds hit their target.

When they did, the red-painted ministry – a gaunt and sinister building beside the Jumhuriya Bridge over the Tigris that I have always suspected to be an intelligence headquarters – lit up with a thousand red and orange pin-points of light.

From the building came a great and dense cloud of white smoke, much of which must have contained the aerosol DU spray that so many doctors and military veterans fear causes cancers.

At about this time I noticed the tanks on the Jumhuriya Bridge. Two low-slung M1A1 Abrams, one in the centre of the bridge, the other parking itself over the first stanchion. Just another little probing raid, the Americans announced, but it looked much more than that.

I reached the eastern end of the Jumhuriya Bridge – a wide and deserted four-lane highway that soared out across the river, obscuring the American tanks on the other side – an hour and a half later. It looked grimly like that scene in A Bridge Too Far, Richard Attenborough's epic on the Arnhem disaster, in which a British officer walks slowly up the great span with an umbrella in his hand to see if he can detect the Germans on the other side. But I knew the Americans were on the other side of this bridge and drove past it at great speed.

Which provided a remarkable revelation. While American fighter-bombers criss-crossed the sky, while the ground shook to the sound of exploding ordnance, while the American tanks now stood above the Tigris, vast areas of Baghdad – astonishing when you consider the American claim to be "in the heart" of the city – remain under Saddam Hussein's control. I drove all the way to Mansur, where relatives of the 11 Iraqi civilians killed in Monday's massacre of civilians – the Americans used four 2,000lb bombs to dismember the mainly Christian families in the vain hope of killing President Saddam – still waited to retrieve the last of their dead.

On my way back past the Ahrar Bridge, I found a crowd of spectators standing on the parapet, watching the American tanks with a mixture of amusement and fear. Did they not know what was happening in their city, or – an idea that has possessed me in recent days – are the poor of Baghdad kept in such ignorance of events that they simply do not realise that the Americans are about to occupy their city? Could it be that the cigarette sellers and the bakery queues and the bus drivers just don't know what lies down on the banks of the Tigris?

As I arrived back at the Palestine Hotel, I saw the smoke of the shell that the Americans had just fired into the Reuters office. It was to take two lives, in addition to the reporter from the Arab al-Jazeera satellite channel killed a few hours earlier by an American air attack on his office. Despite two separate assurances from the American government that al-Jazeera's base of operations would not be targeted, it was destroyed.

Just an hour later, one of the tanks on the Jumhuriya Bridge fired a shell into the wreckage. Eighteen civilians – 15 of them women – were reported to be still hiding in the basement last night with no immediate hope of rescue.

The International Red Cross had tried to arrange a convoy out of Baghdad; inexplicably, it was reported that the Americans had refused it passage from the city.

At one point, Red Cross workers hoped to take a severely wounded Spanish television reporter with them – his leg had been amputated after the tank shell exploded below his office in the hotel – but he died during the afternoon. The American infantry divisional commander issued a statement that suggested the Reuters cameramen were sniping at the US tank, a remark so extraordinary – and so untrue – that it brought worldwide protests from journalists.

I don't know what it is about the street dogs of Baghdad, but they always know when the bombers are returning. Is there some change in air pressure, some high technological decibel that we humans can't hear?

The dogs always get it right. Every time they start baying, you know that the bombers are coming back. And they yelped and barked as night fell last night. And within 15 minutes, even we humans could hear the rumble of explosions from southern Baghdad.

................................ Article 6

From the 4/9 Times of London http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-639775,00.html

April 09, 2003

US aims deadly blow at Baghdad's ringside seat From Stephen Farrell in Baghdad

THE crew of the M1 Abrams tank had many enemies in Baghdad, but none was in suite 1501 of the Palestine Hotel. Shortly before noon, and several hours into a bloody firefight across the Tigris river, the American tank changed its aim and fired a high-velocity round directly at the one building in the Iraqi capital that was filled with Westerners.

Scores of journalists had spent the morning hanging over the hotel’s balconies, watching that tank, and a second one, roll on to the Jumuriya bridge to pound artillery and sniper positions in buildings on the opposite bank.

A French television crew captured the moment of the attack. The footage shows the Abrams barrel pointing directly at the 17-storey hotel. The muzzle flashes. There is a brief pause, then the camera rocks as the shell hurtles into the floor above, killing two journalists and injuring three others. Pandemonium erupted as it emerged that the round had smashed into the 15th-floor suite occupied by the Reuters news agency, and scattered shrapnel into adjoining rooms.

Colleagues who rushed to help found the agency’s two balconies a mess of blood, shattered glass and torn wiring with bodies lying half in and half outside the rooms. Two cameramen died from their wounds and three other journalists were injured.US Central Command last night expressed regret at the deaths, but insisted that the tank had fired in self-defence after receiving “significant enemy fire” from the hotel.

“A tank was receiving small arms fire and RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) fire from the hotel and engaged the target with one tank round,” said General Buford Blount, commander of the US 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad.

But that explanation was dismissed with universal scorn by the hundreds of Westerners inside the building. They argued that even if a camera lens had been mistaken for a sniper’s sight, no sniper could pose any threat to a fully-armoured battle tank from 1,500 metres. Earlier, a correspondent for al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite television station, was killed when an American missile hit its building elsewhere in Baghdad. Centcom again insisted its forces had come under “significant enemy fire”.

The battle for control of the city centre had escalated dramatically overnight with a blizzard of tracer fire lighting up the night sky as Iraqi forces engaged Americans who had seized the Republican Palace.

As hopelessly outgunned Iraqi ground forces sought to contain the coalition advance, American jets and tank crews maintained a constant barrage. By midday it appeared that Iraqi command and control in many areas had ceased to function, and there was no sign of the Republican Guard. In streets near the Jumhuriya bridge the only resistance to the tanks across the river were pockets of irregular Fedayin. Most were hostile to the approach of a Westerner but near the Babel Cinema on a deserted shopping street one cluster of irregulars conceded that they were operating virtually autonomously.

Swinging his Kalashnikov over his shoulder, Abbas Mohammed, 38, said: “Our orders are to hold our positions. On every street there is one person responsible with someone else responsible for the next street. We have no radio — my battery is dead — and we only know what is happening in our street. I have been fighting all yesterday and this morning with no sleep.”

........................... Article 7

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-639770,00.html

Iraq

April 09, 2003

Arab fury over al-Jazeera death From Elaine Monaghan in Washington, Nicholas Blanford in Beirut and David Charter at Central Command, Qatar

ARABS reacted with rage and bitterness to the killing yesterday of an al-Jazeera correspondent in an American airstrike, accusing Washington of deliberately attempting to silence the Qatar-based news channel. The death of Tariq Ayoub, a familiar face to millions of Arabs who watch al-Jazeera’s coverage of the war in Iraq, struck a raw nerve and added to the anger already felt across the Arab world at the US-led invasion of Iraq. His death brought the total of media personnel killed in the war to 12.

That attack, and the subsequent shelling by an American tank of a hotel housing journalists in which two people were killed and three others wounded, was condemned throughout the Arab world.

In the evening, al-Jazeera broadcast a moving and powerful interview with Mr Ayoub’s wife, Dima, in which she paid tribute to her husband. “Eventually everyone will forget him, but we will never forget him. He is with God now,” she said with tears streaming down her face.

“American forces, British forces are in a war that was claimed to be clean,” the journalist’s widow said via a satellite link to her home in Amman, Jordan. “I cannot see the cleanness in this war. What I see is blood, destruction and shattered hearts.

“The Americans said it was a war against terrorism. Who is doing the terrorism now? Didn’t their radars tell them this is a press office and these are civilian houses? My message to you is that hatred grows more hatred. The Americans are asking why are there suicide bombers, which we do not consider as such, we consider them as martyrs. Let them ask Bush and Blair who targeted their families and friends.

“We are going to fight back. Let Mr Bush know what he sows in Iraq, what he sows in Palestine, what he is going to see is the tip of the iceberg.”

Zeina Othman, 30, an anthropologist in Beirut, said that it was “a depressing day, topping off a whole depressing month”.

“It was the worst day of the war so far for most of us,” she said. “We haven ’t seen the truth since this war began anyway and now they are deliberately killing the journalists so we can’t see the truth afterwards.”

Sylvia Haddad, a school administrator in Beirut, said that she was “very angry, very disgusted and very disappointed”.

“I think al-Jazeera was targeted deliberately because they are not 100 per cent pro-American,” Mrs Haddad said. “Al-Jazeera are being objective and I don’t think Americans want objectivity.”

Al-Jazeera added that the exact co-ordinates of their Baghdad building had been handed to Washington in February to avoid a repeat of the attack by the US military on the station’s Kabul offices in November 2001.

US Central Command said that its forces had attacked the Baghdad building after coming under “significant fire”.

Later, as journalists huddled around a candlelight vigil in Baghdad, broadcast live to al-Jazeera’s 35 million viewers, it was as if the United States had suffered a self-inflicted wound in its battle for Arab hearts and minds.

“We were targeted because the Americans don’t want the world to see the crimes they are committing against the Iraqi people,” Majed Abdel Hadi, Baghdad correspondent for the station, said. “I will not be objective about this because we have been dragged into this conflict.” Al-Jazeera said that its fellow Arabic-language network, Abu Dhabi Television, housed nearby, was also hit. American bombs also wrecked the Qatar-based station’s office in Kabul in 2001. The US said that that attack was accidental, but many in the Arab world thought it suspicious because the network had drawn such strong criticism for its regular broadcasts of messages from Osama bin Laden.

“It is impossible not to detect a sinister pattern of targeting,” Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, said.

Central Command insisted that its forces did not target journalists, who are protected civilians under international humanitarian law. “We regret the loss of life of correspondents and we extend our condolences to the family of your journalists and families of other journalists who have lost their lives,” Brigadier-General Vince Brooks said at a Central Command briefing in Qatar. .......................................... Article 8

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/09/wcam09.xml&s Sheet=/portal/2003/04/09/ixportaltop.html

Two cameramen killed as US shell hits hotel By Adrien Jaulmes in Baghdad (Filed: 09/04/2003)

An American tank fired a single round into the 15th floor of a hotel packed with foreign journalists yesterday, killing two cameramen.

Facing intense criticism, the Pentagon said snipers had been firing on troops from the Hotel Palestine. But journalists said they had not heard any gunshots.

Jose Couso [left] and Taras Protsyuk

Taras Protsyuk, 35, a Ukrainian based in Warsaw with Reuters, and Jose Couso, 37, who worked for Spain's Tele 5 channel, died in hospital. Both were married with children.

Journalists saw the tank point its turret gun at the hotel, where most of the international media in the Iraqi capital are staying. Seconds later, the single shell slammed with a deafening crash into a room used by Reuters.

The Hotel Palestine had been considered by journalists as perhaps the safest place in Baghdad, although in recent days it has also become a home for Ba'ath Party members and their families.

"We were filming from the balcony when there was a huge jolt and smoke," said a badly shaken cameraman who had escaped injury in the explosion. "My ears were ringing and my two colleagues were covered with blood."

The dying cameramen and three wounded Reuters journalists were carried out of the hotel in bed sheets and taken by car to hospital. Mr Protsyuk died of a haemorrhage. Mr Couso, who had lost a leg, survived for several hours.

David Chater, a correspondent for Sky television, said: "I never heard a single shot coming from any of the area around here, certainly not from the hotel."

Broadcasting from the hotel, Ulrich Tilgner, a Swiss television correspondent, said: "In the three weeks I have worked from this hotel I have not heard a single shot fired from here and I have not seen a single armed person enter the hotel."

As fighting raged all morning, windows trembled with the blast of explosions. Leading Iraqi civilians and the families of Saddam's top brass looked around nervously.

Other guests at the hotel include dozens of Islamic volunteers who have come from the Middle East and also from the Caucasus to fight for Saddam against the infidels. As well, Iraqis in uniform sometimes pass through the lobby. There was even a rumour recently that one of Saddam's sons was seen there one night.

In the hotel lobby yesterday, after the tank shell had hit, a photographer wept with anger while friends of the victims wandered around in a daze.

A few minutes later, the Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Said al-Sahaf, arrived on the scene. "This is war!" he said, barely hiding his smile. "The Americans have become hysterical. They are starting to shoot at journalists."

Despite American troops being no more than a few hundred feet from the hotel, he was still proclaiming victory.

"The Americans are surrounded in their tanks. They can do no more." He then disappeared without giving his daily press conference.

General Bufford Blount, commander of the Third Infantry Division now fighting in central Baghdad, said later: "A tank responded to small-arms fire and rockets coming from the hotel."

He conceded that his troops "were fighting an urban area which the Iraqi regime had decided to defend".

"There were shots coming from high up in the hotel. Perhaps the tank made a mistake".

Pentagon officials expressed their condolences to the wounded and relatives of the dead but were unrepentant. Gen Stanley McChrystal said: "When they [US soldiers] get into combat in the cities, which from the beginning we have specifically said would be dangerous and difficult, you put yourself in their position, they have the inherent right of self- defence.

"When they are fired at, they have not only the right to respond, they have the obligation to respond to protect the soldiers with them and to accomplish the mission at large."

Victoria Clark, a spokesman for Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, said: "We've had example after example reported by the media of the coalition forces going to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties. That is the practice; that is the policy.

"I'd also say, as we have said for a long time, even before we knew whether or not there would be military action in Iraq, a war zone is a dangerous place."

Iraqi radio and television finally ceased broadcasting yesterday after nearly three weeks of American attempts to destroy them.

Adrien Jaulmes is Le Figaro's correspondent in Baghdad ........................ Article 9

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c =StoryFT&cid=1048313572917&p=1012571727088

US forces kill three foreign journalists By Richard McGregor at Central Command in Qatar Published: April 8 2003 20:53 | Last Updated: April 8 2003 20:53

Three foreign journalists were killed and five injured in Baghdad on Tuesday after their offices came under fire from US military forces battling to take control of the city centre.

US armaments landed in succession on the buildings housing the office of the leading Arabic-language satellite channel al-Jazeera, the station from Abu Dhabi, and then the Palestine Hotel.

The hotel is where most of the 130 or so foreign journalists reporting the conflict from Baghdad are based.

Around the same time, the US forces also destroyed Iraqi communications facilities, taking local television off the air.

But US Central Command (Centcom) in Qatar denied last night there had been any co-ordinated attack to attempt to silence the media in Baghdad.

The statement said US forces had come under "significant enemy fire" from the buildings housing the TV station offices and the hotel and had fired back "consistent with the inherent right of self-defence".

The two cameramen who died in the attack on the hotel were José Couso, 37, of Tele 5, the Spanish channel, and Taras Protsyuk, a Ukranian based in Warsaw, who worked with Reuters.

A cameraman/producer from al-Jazeera died in a separate missile strike.

Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks, the US military spokesman at Centcom, said in his daily briefing US tanks had fired at the hotel after coalition forces were shot at from the foyer.

When asked why the US tank shell fired in retaliation had landed on the hotel's 14th floor, he said he may have "misspoken" about where the shots had come from and would investigate the incident further.

Brig-Gen Brooks said that the Iraqi regime had been using "places like the Palestine Hotel for regime purposes".

He said: "This coalition does not target journalists." He added that the US was aware the hotel was the media's base in Baghdad. "But we have always said the area of combat operations is very dangerous indeed."

Their deaths bring the number of journalists killed in the three-week conflict to 14, almost one for every day but the first in Baghdad itself. There were no deaths in the attack on the Abu Dhabi station's office.

.................................................................. Article 10

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12825222&method=full& siteid=50143

U.S KILLS NEWS MEN IN ATTACK ON HOTEL Apr 9 2003

THE TANK SHELL STRUCK AS THEY FILMED BATTLE

Anton Antonowicz In The Hotel Palestine, Baghdad

IT BURST upon us at exactly 11.55am. A crashing explosion which sent seismic tremors through my room. Then the sound of shattering glass and falling masonry.

I ran to my balcony. People were mobbing around the forecourt, nervously looking skywards. As I walked down to join them several "guides" ran past me, yelling: "Bomb, bomb, bomb!"

A shell fired by a US tank had hit a balcony at the end of the 15th floor, Room 1501 of the Hotel Palestine, where I and dozens of other journalists have been staying since the war began.

Anxious colleagues said the room housed the Reuters news agency office. A Spanish reporter was in tears, shaking helplessly.

More people poured out, screaming, yelling. Pushing through, I could see a man, his stomach a mass of blood and guts, being carried in a bedsheet. A second lay in a 4x4, his leg torn open.

Lara Logan, the former GMTV reporter who now works for CBS, reeled back in shock and wept.

I went to Room 1501. Officials were standing gawping. Cameras lay on the wooden desk, covered in dust. Windows were shattered.

There was a patch of blood on a white single bedsheet. And on the balcony a large pool of blood in which the broken glass sparkled like diamonds.

The entry hole was near the top of the concrete spider's web adorning each balcony.

There was another hole where it hit the ceiling, a third on the wall as it ricocheted into the men. John Stephenson, a New Zealand reporter, was watching from his room across the road at the Sheraton Hotel.

"I saw two guys filming from the balcony," he said. "Suddenly there was a shell or something coming straight at them."

Peter Wilson, of The Australian newspaper, was the first to give one man first aid. "I ran to my room for field dressings and tried to put his insides back into his stomach. His eyes were rolling back in his head."

As I walked back through the hotel I saw two men helping to carry a third into a room. His head was swathed in bandages, leaving only one eye with which to see.

Around his neck he wore an orange and blue Reuters ID tag.

The Reuters journalist killed was TV cameraman Taras Protsyuk, 35, a Ukrainian. Spanish TV cameraman Jose Couso, 37, who was on the floor below, died during surgery for his injuries.

The Reuters bureau chief and an Iraqi photographer were treated in hospital for face and head wounds and concussion. Briton Paul Pasquale, a TV satellite dish technician, had leg wounds.

As we came to terms with the chaos, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf was claiming all was well and that his regime would never surrender.

"Don't be afraid for us," he said. "The Americans will have to surrender or be burned in their tanks." As I have said before, his self-denial is absolute.

US Central Command in Qatar insisted their tank came under "significant enemy fire" with small arms and rocket propelled grenades and fired in self defence.

But Sky TV's David Chater said: "I never heard a single shot from any of the area around here, certainly not from the hotel."

Spain said it was told by US commanders that they had warned journalists 48 hours earlier that Iraqi military commanders were using the hotel for meetings.

Journalists said they knew of no such warning.

Swiss TV reporter Ulrich Tilgner said: "In three weeks I have not heard a single shot fired from the hotel and I have not seen a single armed person enter."

In Washington the Defence Department said it regretted the deaths but added: "War is a dangerous, dangerous business.

"We go out of our way to avoid civilians. We go out of our way to help and protect journalists."

But media organisations accused US forces of targeting journalists. Majed Abdel Hadi, of TV station Al Jazeera, said: "They don't want the world to see the crimes they are committing against the Iraqi people."

Khaled al-Maeena, editor of the Arab News, said: "They want to snuff out any media that does not toe their line."

What can I say on a day like this about the Americans? Perhaps the tank crew mistook a cameraman's tripod for a marksman's. Who knows the truth?

But this US arm of the alliance certainly has a strange way of proving its friendship, opening fire on a hotel full of the world's press.

I had been woken at 4.15am by gunfire and mortars. Shortly afterwards planes began bombing.

One target, described by the Pentagon as a "terrible mistake", was the Al Jazeera office. One journalist was killed and four people injured. Yet the station was categorically assured two months ago that its office would be safe.

The Abu Dhabi TV office was also bombed and several staff injured. Bosses last night called on US forces to let the 25 journalists leave the building, which it said was surrounded by tanks.

And so we continue to watch the Americans poke and prod the enemy. To listen to the Iraqi Information Minister denying what is in front of him.

To sit stunned when one more journalist is killed. To bend your head in front of another grieving family. To pray that none of this can go on much longer.

..................... Article 11

http://media.guardian.co.uk/iraqandthemedia/story/0,12823,928254,00.html

Special report: Iraq - the media war | Special report: TV news | Television 8.30am

Independents 'frozen out' by armed forces

Ciar Byrne Thursday April 3, 2003

Iraq: unilateral reporters 'prevented from coming anywhere near the news'

The British and US forces have created a "caste system" of journalists, giving preference to those that accompany troops and freezing out correspondents operating independently, the European Broadcasting Union has claimed. News organisations from countries that have decided not to side with the US and Britain in the Gulf conflict are being particularly disadvantaged, the EBU has claimed in a strongly-worded statement protesting at journalists' treatment in Iraq.

"We have independent information that broadcasters can work safely in many areas, so we do not understand why the military is putting so many obstacles in the path of journalists," said the EBU's head of news, Tony Naets.

"They have created a caste system with embedded journalists - usually from countries in the so-called coalition who can associate with the troops - and the truly unilateral broadcaster who is prevented from coming anywhere near the news."

Naets gave the example of French broadcaster France 2, which shot footage in southern Iraq and then asked the military field press information centre to feed the footage out of Iraq, a request that was denied.

"US central command policy is now actively restricting independent newsgathering from southern Iraq," said Jean Stock, the EBU secretary general.

"Reporters and camera crews who put their lives at risk have been detained by American and British troops and returned to Kuwait," he added.

While the EBU has welcomed the decision of US and British troops to allow journalists to "embed" with troops, the union said that this only enabled a small number of European journalists to report from Iraq, leaving others on the sidelines in locations such as Kuwait City.

Broadcasters who do not have "embeds" are therefore restricted to using third party news or sending "unilaterals" or roving reporters into Iraq, the EBU said.

These unilaterals are now being turned away by armed forces and being forcibly returned to Kuwait, Stock said.

Pictures of April 7, 2003 gathering outside the Federal Courthouse.

Intel Coder Not Going Anywhere
By Leander Kahney for Wired News.

About 100 supporters gathered outside Portland's Federal Courthouse to protest Monday's secret hearing for Mike Hawash. The 38-year-old American citizen of Arab descent, was arrested by the FBI's Terrorist Task Force on the morning of March 20 as he appeared for work at Intel.Hawash will be held until at least the end of April, according to a court order released on Monday afternoon. The Oregon branch of the American Civil Liberties Union condemned Hawash's arrest, which it characterized as an abuse of the material witness statute. The 1984 statute was designed to prevent nervous or hostile witnesses from fleeing before a trial.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link ges bad:

http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,58382,00.html

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Intel Coder Not Going Anywhere

By Leander Kahney | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 2 next »

02:00 AM Apr. 08, 2003 PT

Intel programmer Mike Hawash, detained as a witness by federal authorities in what appears to be a terrorism probe, will be held until at least the end of April, according to a court order released on Monday afternoon.

For the last couple of weeks, Hawash has been held at a federal prison in Sheridan, about 50 miles south of Portland. Hawash, a 38-year-old American citizen of Arab descent, was arrested by the FBI's Terrorist Task Force on the morning of March 20 as he appeared for work at Intel.
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About 100 supporters gathered outside Portland's Federal Courthouse to protest Monday's secret hearing for Mike Hawash. The 38-year-old American citizen of Arab descent, was arrested by the FBI's Terrorist Task Force on the morning of March 20 as he appeared for work at Intel.Hawash will be held until at least the end of April, according to a court order released on Monday afternoon. The Oregon branch of the American Civil Liberties Union condemned Hawash's arrest, which it characterized as an abuse of the material witness statute. The 1984 statute was designed to prevent nervous or hostile witnesses from fleeing before a trial.
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* U.S. vs. Them: Fresh Perspectives

* Today's Top 5 Stories

* Due Process Vanishes in Thin Air
* 'Step Back' for Wireless ID Tech?
* Intel Coder Not Going Anywhere
* Drugs Strain to Resist Resistance
* Sorry, That Stock's Out of Stock

Hawash will continue to be detained as a "material witness" pending a grand jury investigation, the nature of which remains a secret, according to an order issued by federal Judge Robert Jones.

The order compels authorities to present Hawash to a grand jury before April 25, or get a deposition from him.

The order was issued following a secret detention hearing at a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, on Monday morning. Another secret detention hearing will be held on April 29, the order said.

The judge's order is the first confirmation from authorities that Hawash is in custody as a material witness.

Prior to the order, authorities refused to confirm or deny any aspect of the case, citing a gag order. Even Monday's hearing was a secret, which authorities refused to confirm or deny took place, despite the attendance of four character witnesses called on Hawash's behalf and about 100 supporters protesting outside Portland's Federal Courthouse.

Though Judge Jones' order makes no mention of the FBI's Terrorism Task Force, nor provides any clues to the nature of the investigation, it suggests that Hawash is being held in secret to prevent any compromise of a grand jury investigation.

"Based on … my examination of the affidavit supporting Hawash's arrest, I conclude that the detention hearing must be closed to the public because of the potential that the related grand jury proceedings may be compromised," Judge Jones wrote. Later in the order Judge Jones said, "I conclude by clear and convincing evidence that the material witness must be detained, but not indefinitely."

Steven McGeady, a former Intel executive who is spearheading a campaign to free Hawash, said he was very disappointed the judge didn't grant Hawash bail.

"We are outraged that the judge failed to consider the implausibility of Mike as a flight risk," McGeady wrote in an e-mail." The order barely addressed this -- it appears that the judge merely acquiesced to the government's desires."

It also came out on Monday that the day Hawash was arrested, his wife Lisa was served with a subpoena to appear as a material witness before a grand jury.

The subpoena was originally dated for the following day, March 21, but Lisa's attorney managed to get a postponement until this Wednesday, April 9, according to friends of the couple. It isn't clear why Hawash was detained, yet his wife, who is American-born, wasn't.

Despite the secrecy, Hawash's case is drawing increasing attention. Hawash's congressman, Earl Blumenauer, (D-Ore.), will raise Hawash's case later in the week in the House.

"He's very concerned," said Kathie Eastman, Blumenauer's press secretary. "This is just something that should not be happening in this country. Of course, we don't know what it's about, but we want information on why."

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By Leander Kahney | Also by this reporter « back Page 2 of 2

02:00 AM Apr. 08, 2003 PT

On Monday afternoon, Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden requested a confidential briefing about the case from the FBI. As a member of the Senate Intelligence committee, Wyden has the security clearance to hear classified information, said his spokesman Josh Kardon.

Last week, Sen. Wyden wrote a letter to Oregon's U.S. Attorney, but received scant information, again because of the gag order.
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About 100 supporters gathered outside Portland's Federal Courthouse to protest Monday's secret hearing for Mike Hawash. The 38-year-old American citizen of Arab descent, was arrested by the FBI's Terrorist Task Force on the morning of March 20 as he appeared for work at Intel.Hawash will be held until at least the end of April, according to a court order released on Monday afternoon. The Oregon branch of the American Civil Liberties Union condemned Hawash's arrest, which it characterized as an abuse of the material witness statute. The 1984 statute was designed to prevent nervous or hostile witnesses from fleeing before a trial.

"The senator doesn't have enough information on the details to have an opinion," said Kardon. "That's why he's asking questions."

The Oregon branch of the American Civil Liberties Union condemned Hawash's arrest, which it characterized as an abuse of the material witness statute. The 1984 statute was designed to prevent nervous or hostile witnesses from fleeing before a trial.

Oregon ACLU's executive director David Fidanque said the Department of Justice had used the statute to detain dozens of people in anti-terrorist investigations without having enough evidence to charge them with crimes.

"There's no question the Department of Justice has been abusing the material witness statute in their campaign to put pressure on Muslim and Arab Americans," he said. "There's no way to know what the government is after in Mr. Hawash's case, but we're very concerned about the way he's being treated, and dozens of other people in similar situations."

Authorities have detained at least 44 other material witnesses in probes following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to an investigation by The Washington Post.

Okay I guess I have to make a few phone calls before I get to my homework this morning.

The ACLU has just released the following Alerts:

From: Matt Howes, National Internet Organizer, ACLU To: ACLU Action Network Members Date: April 7, 2003

Oppose the Culture War on Raves

Members of both the House and Senate are attempting to pervert proper legislative processes by appending two unrelated provisions to the popular Amber Alert measure. One of the two provisions would target raves -- a social event that mixes electronic music, light shows and dancing; the other provision would seek to limit the discretion of federal judges.

The rave provision would make building owners liable for their tenants' and customers' activities. For example, even if they instituted excellent security precautions, restaurant, bar, nightclub, dance and music venue owners could all be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and forced into bankruptcy if a customer sneaked in drugs. No matter how much security is put in place, they could be held responsible for the actions of just one customer.

The federal sentencing provision would require the Justice Department to report to Congress every time federal judges use their discretion to impose a lower sentence than recommended under federal sentencing guidelines. This would intimidate judges and prevent them from using their judgement when handing down sentences.

These anti-civil liberties amendments should have full legislative review and not be allowed to piggyback on more popular, yet unrelated, legislation.

Take Action! Click here for more information and to urge proper legislative process for these provisions:

http://www.aclu.org/DrugPolicy/DrugPolicy.cfm?ID=12280&c=185

and

*** EMERGENCY - JOE BIDEN TRYING TO SNEAK RAVE ACT INTO S151 Conference *** CALL YOUR SENATOR NOW

Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) is at this very moment attempting to sneak
the RAVE Act into conference committee on the National AMBER Alert
Network Act of 2003 (S151). S151 is a popular bill about child
abduction and has nothing to do with drug issues. S151 has already
been passed by the Senate and House and is now in Conference. In
contrast, the RAVE Act has not passed even one single committee this
year. It did pass a committee last year, but was so controversial
two Senators withdrew their sponsorship after the vote.

This means that if the RAVE Act passes the conference committee, it
is likely to become law without ever having a hearing, a debate or a
vote. Drug Policy Alliance has been told that Senator Biden has told
other conference committee members, incorrectly, that the ACLU is no
longer in opposition to the action. He also has told conferees that
nightclub owners now support him (on the basis of one group that
switched sides). If the act makes it into the conference language it
is likely to become law. It must be stopped now.

PHONE YOUR SENATORS and Conference Committee Members (Background
information below). DO IT NOW. If you do not respond to this alert,
the controversial RAVE Act is likely to become law and it will be
much harder to fix.

ACTIONS TO TAKE:

1. The following Members of Congress are on the conference
committee. They need to hear from you IF AND ONLY IF you live in
their district. Please be polite. Just tell them that you oppose
the RAVE Act, that it is controversial and it should not be included
in the conference language of S151. Don't stay on the phone long.
Ask as many people as you can to call them.

HOUSE:
James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) - 202/225-5101
Howard Coble (R-NC) - 202/225-3065
Lamar Smith (R-TX) - 202/225-4236
Mark Green (R-WI)- 202/225-5665
Melissa Hart (R-PA)- 202/225-2565
John Conyers (D-MI) - 202/225-5126
Bobby Scott (D-VA) - - 202/225-8351

SENATE:
Orrin Hatch (R-UT) - 202/224-5251
Charles Grassley (R-IA) - 202/224-3744
Jeff Sessions (R-AL) - 202/224-4124
Lindsey Graham (R-SC) - 202/224-5972
Patrick Leahy (D-VT) - 202/224-4242
Ted Kennedy (D-MA) - 202/224-4543
Joseph Biden (D-DE) - 202/224-5042

2. Everyone in the U.S. - You have two Senators who can weigh in on
this issue with the conferees. A list of your Senators by state can
be found at
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.
Please call your Senators at the Capitol Switchboard at 202/224-3121 -
please tell them that the RAVE Act is very controversial. Senator
Biden is holding up the AMBER Act by placing controversial bill in
conference. Urge them to oppose the RAVE Act by contacting the
Senate conferees and asking them to leave it off the measure so that
there will at least be a hearing on this issue.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Congress is considering two pieces of legislation that could create
disincentives for club owners to have water, ambulances and
paramedics available at large dance events. The bills might also
threaten live music and dancing. If enacted, either bill could
prevent you from hearing your favorite band or DJ live. Every musical
style would be affected, including rock and roll, Hip Hop, country,
and electronic music. The proposed laws could also shut down hemp
festivals, circuit parties, and other events government officials
don't like. Both bills would allow overzealous prosecutors to send
innocent people to jail for the crimes of others.

The two bills are the RAVE Act (H.R. 718) and the CLEAN-UP Act (H.R.
834). The RAVE Act was first introduced last year in the Senate by
Senator Joe Biden (D-DE). A House version was introduced by Rep.
Lamar Smith (R-TX). Thanks to the support of thousands of voters like
you, Drug Policy Alliance and a coalition of friends and activists
around the country was able to stop both bills last year.
Unfortunately, supporters of the RAVE Act are even more determined to
pass it this year. Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC) is sponsoring a new RAVE
Act in the House. Additionally, Senator Biden has introduced a Senate
version entitled the Illicit Drugs Anti-Proliferation Act.

If enacted, the RAVE Act would make it easier for the federal
government to punish property owners for any drug offense that their
customers commit - even if they work hard to stop such offenses. If
enacted, nightclub and stadium owners would likely stop holding
events - such as rock or Hip Hop concerts - in which even one person
might use drugs.

The CLEAN-UP Act was also first introduced last year, but it failed
to make it out of committee. This year's bill has over 60 co-sponsors
and could become law without your help. Sponsored by Rep. Doug Ose (R-
CA), the Clean, Learn, Educate, Abolish, and Undermine Production
(CLEAN-UP) of Methamphetamines Act is largely an innocuous bill that
provides more money and training for the clean up of illegal
methamphetamine lab. Hidden within the bill, however, is a draconian
section that could make dancing and live music federal crimes.

Section 305 of the CLEAN-UP Act stipulates that:

`Whoever, for a commercial purpose, knowingly promotes any rave,
dance, music, or other entertainment event, that takes place under
circumstances where the promoter knows or reasonably ought to know
that a controlled substance will be used or distributed in violation
of Federal law or the law of the place where the event is held, shall
be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned for not
more than 9 years, or both.'

This provision will allow any concert promoter, event organizer,
nightclub owner and arena or stadium owner to be fined and jailed,
since a reasonable person would know some people use drugs at musical
events.

Under both the RAVE Act and the CLEAN-UP Act, it doesn't matter if
the event promoter and property owner try to prevent people from
using drugs. Nor does it matter if the vast majority of people
attending the event are law-abiding citizens that want to listen to
music not do drugs. If enacted, either bill could be used to shut
down raves, circuit parties, marijuana rallies, unpopular music
concerts, and any other event federal officials don't like.

++++++++++++++++++++++++You received this message because
antikoas@aol.com is a member of the mailing list originating
from alerts@actioncenter.drugpolicy.org.

Please visit
http://actioncenter.drugpolicy.ctsg.com/managesubscription.asp to
learn about other lists you can subscribe to, or to unsubscribe from
individual or all lists.

For problems, please contact Jeanette Irwin at jirwin@drugpolicy.org .

Please join the Drug Policy Alliance:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/join

I'll be finding out more details about this later today.

For now, here are the docs on what happened yesterday.

I have to update my mirror of this site...

At about 4pm on Monday April 7, Federal Judge George Jones released the following document, ordering Mike Hawash's detention for a further 3 weeks. Needless to say, we are very disappointed, confused, and angry. We hope to post an analysis and explanation of the order soon, for those of you who find the legal language too arcane. For now we post simply the document.

Mike Hawash did not get released yesterday.

I've got more on that, yesterday's alleged attacks on protesters and innocent longshoreman by Oakland police, and a bunch of other stuff in the kitty.

But first, I've got to get a good portion finished by mid-morning
(self-imposed deadline) on a Marxist analysis of the Simpsons tv show that's due in a few days in one of my classes.

Anyone know of any good online resources for either subject? :-)

I'll be back here with bells on sometime after 10 am...

I'll have photos and hi-res and audio up soon, but I didn't want to sit on this any longer so here's
My Video Directory for April 5, 2003 in Oakland, CA.

Right now I have a complete ("all") version of Barbara Lee's speech.

An "edited" version of Barbara Lee's speech that includes all of the major quotes without waiting for the crowd to finish clapping and all of the thank you's.

The edited version broken down into two parts for easier download.

and...

Then I have Harry's Belafonte's entire speech in two parts.

The file names should be pretty self-explanatory, but I'll be putting up a better interface up in the morning.

Peace!

For those who care:
Pictures (1-4).

This is referring to this post.

Stephen Colbert takes on the delicate question: "What exactly should the media's role be in covering this war?"
Daily Show - The Role Of Media During Wartime (Small - 8 MB)
Daily Show - The Role Of Media During Wartime (Hi-res - 113 MB)

"As a responsible journalist, I've taken my doubts, fears, moral compass, conscience and all pervading skepticism about the very nature of this war and placed them in this empty Altoids box. That is where they'll stay, safe and sound, until Iraq is liberated."
-- Stephen Colbert, Senior-Senior Media Analyst, The Daily Show.

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

Not only has Rumsfeld had it with the media -- The military has had it with him.
(Or so everyone says. Rummy says "Don't believe it!")

This from the April 3, 2003 show and discusses not only Donald Rumsfeld's frustration with the media, but also, the trouble with using sports analogies when discussing the war.

Rumsfeld's Media Frustration (Small - 6 MB)
Rumsfeld's Media Frustration (Hi-res - 78 MB)

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

For a number of reasons, my protest buddy, Kevin Burton, and I decided not to go to the protests at the Port of West Oakland this morning.

Sure, it was partly because I have ton of homework to do, and he's about to release a new version of his software.

But we also smelled a rat because of an article we'd seen on MSNBC that seemed to mischaracterize the nature of the protest.
(We reached this conclusion after comparing the artcle with the protest website.)

Looks like it was a lucky decision for us, because a number of innocent bystanders were struck by stray rubber bullets, courtesy of the Oakland Police.

Here are two articles about it, one from the SF Chronicle and one from Globe and Mail.

Here's an excerpt from the Globe and Mail and SF Chron articles (looks like variations of the same article):

Police opened fire with non-lethal bullets at an anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland on Monday morning, injuring several longshoremen standing nearby.

Police were trying to clear protesters from an entrance to the docks when they opened fire and the longshoremen apparently were caught in the line of fire.

Six longshoremen were treated by paramedics and at least one was expected to be taken to hospital. It was unclear if any of the protesters was injured.

"I was standing as far back as I could," longshoreman Kevin Wilson said. "It was very scary. All of that force wasn't necessary."

...Police used non-lethal bullets, sandbags and concussion grenades to try to break up about 500 protesters, who split into groups in front of different terminals.

Oakland Police officer James Carroll said police set up a "skirmish line" and ordered the protesters to disperse.

"It escalated pretty quick," he said. "Usually you go to these protests and you wait around for three to four hours. Today, all of a sudden, people were being taken into custody."

He could not confirm that anyone was hit by the bullets.

Protests also took place at the federal building in San Francisco and at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. Seven people were arrested when they temporarily blocked a highway exit ramp.

Here's the full text of the SF Chronicle article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/04/07/national1158EDT0617.DTL

Police fire rubber bullets at anti-war protest at port in Oakland; nearby longshoremen injured

MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer Monday, April 7, 2003

(04-07) 08:58 PDT OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) --

Police open fired Monday morning with rubber bullets at an anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland, injuring several longshoremen standing nearby.

Police were trying to clear protesters from an entrance to the docks when they opened fire and the longshoremen apparently were caught in the crossfire.

Six longshoremen were treated by paramedics and at least one was expected to be taken to a hospital. It was unclear if any of the protesters was injured.

"I was standing as far back as I could," said longshoremen Kevin Wilson. "It was very scary. All of that force wasn't necessary."

Last week, a San Francisco-based peace group, Direct Action to Stop the War, had announced that it would stage a series of protests Monday involving new acts of civil disobedience.

The Port of Oakland was among the targets, organizers had said, because at least one shipping company is handling war supplies.

Here's the full text of the Globe and Mail article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030407.wprot0407/BNStory/International

Bystanders injured at anti-war protest
Associated Press

E-mail this Article E-mail this Article
Print this Article Print this Article

Oakland, Calif. — Police opened fire with non-lethal bullets at an anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland on Monday morning, injuring several longshoremen standing nearby.

Police were trying to clear protesters from an entrance to the docks when they opened fire and the longshoremen apparently were caught in the line of fire.

Six longshoremen were treated by paramedics and at least one was expected to be taken to hospital. It was unclear if any of the protesters was injured.

"I was standing as far back as I could," longshoreman Kevin Wilson said. "It was very scary. All of that force wasn't necessary."

Last week, a San Francisco-based peace group, Direct Action to Stop the War, had announced that it would stage a series of protests Monday involving new acts of civil disobedience.

The Port of Oakland was among the targets, organizers had said, because at least one shipping company is handling war supplies.

Trent Willis, a business agent for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said angrily that dockworkers were leaving the docks after the incident.

"They shot my guys. We're not going to work today," Mr. Willis said. "The cops had no reason to open up on them."

Police used non-lethal bullets, sandbags and concussion grenades to try to break up about 500 protesters, who split into groups in front of different terminals.

Oakland Police officer James Carroll said police set up a "skirmish line" and ordered the protesters to disperse.

"It escalated pretty quick," he said. "Usually you go to these protests and you wait around for three to four hours. Today, all of a sudden, people were being taken into custody."

He could not confirm that anyone was hit by the bullets.

Protests also took place at the federal building in San Francisco and at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. Seven people were arrested when they temporarily blocked a highway exit ramp.

Not only did MSNBC mischaracterize the nature of this morning's protest at the Port of Oakland,
but the website than swapped the original article for an updated (pre-prepared?) version of the
article that ran this morning at the same URL.

Luckily, I had the old article open in a window from last night. (I'll get some screen grabs and try to grab the HTML too.)

Update: 2:40 pm - My browser crashed when I was trying to get the HTML from the cached page to work. Luckily, I had already taken some screen grabs, which I have uploaded here (1-4).

From Direct Action To Stop The War website:

ARREST This is not a civil disobedience action; although we are taking direct action our goal is to maintain the picket line not to get arrested.

Here's what was at the below URL Sunday, April 6 around 8-9 pm:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/895056.asp?cp1=1

Protesters plan to stop war shipments Antiwar group seeks to shut port of Oakland with picket line By Tom Curry MSNBC April 3 — Shifting protests against the war in Iraq to a new level, a San Francisco group says that it will set up a picket line Monday to block supplies being shipped to U.S. forces fighting in Iraq. The group, Direct Action to Stop the War, said will attempt to “shut down the war merchants” at the port of Oakland by urging members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to not cross the picket line.

E-mail This Complete Story

• MORE EXCLUSIVES WEBLOG WEBLOG • Army family journal: A soldier's family copes SLIDESHOW
SLIDESHOW • Demonstrators: For and against war INTERACTIVE INTERACTIVE • Impact on airlines: Guide
to service changes

‘We are trying to send a message to APL that we oppose their profiting off this unjust and illegal war.’ — SASHA WRIGHT Antiwar organizer in Oakland, Calif. THE TARGET OF Monday’s action is American President Lines, a cargo carrier that has contracts with the Defense Department to ship supplies to U.S. forces overseas. The port of Oakland is the fourth-busiest cargo container port
in the United States.

‘UNJUST AND ILLEGAL’ “Whether or not war cargo is there on that day, we are trying to send a message to APL that we oppose their profiting off this unjust and illegal war,” said Sasha Wright, an organizer with Direct Action to Stop the War. “We will hold them accountable.” Patrick Reinsborough, a spokesman for the group, said it hoped that members of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union would respect the picket line, as union members
usually do, and thus shut down APL’s Oakland operations by refusing to work.

• Complete MSNBC coverage • Exclusive: Ansar's terror toxins • The Experts: Iraqi ingenuity •
Iraqi ambush described • U.S. looks for al-Qaida link • Jordan's worries over war • Arab
channels show clout • Dispatches from the field • Video coverage from NBC • Blog: Army family's
journal • Encarta: Detailed Iraq map • WashPost: Special coverage LATEST FROM NEWSWEEK • Special
war section • Saving Private Lynch •
The grunts' war

Asked whether cutting off supplies to American soldiers would jeopardize their lives, Wright said, “We feel like the war is what’s putting their lives in danger. This is an effort to save lives by stopping the war as quickly as possible.” ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone told MSNBC.com “the union is much like the rest of American society, it’s split on the war.” But, he said, “Our contract is that we are supposed to load those ships — and we have every intention of abiding by our contract.” Although the ILWU opposed the Vietnam War in 1960s, its members
continued to load cargo ships carrying military materiel to U.S. forces in Vietnam.

Add local news and weather to the MSNBC home page.

A source at the port who spoke on condition of anonymity said Direct Action’s protest was misplaced. “Ninety-five percent of what’s shipped out of Oakland (to Iraq) is food which is going to help Iraqi citizens,” he said. Reinsborough said that on Monday some antiwar activists would also seek to disrupt shipments at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, which is northeast of Oakland. Across the bay from Oakland, antiwar demonstrators in San Francisco disrupted traffic in
the city’s’ financial district two weeks ago, leading Mayor Willie Brown to criticize them. “Some protesters ... have chosen to specifically try to disrupt this city, rather than gather peacefully to voice their desire for peace, at the expense of the day-to-day lives of ordinary San Franciscans and at a great cost to this city,” Brown said. “It is one of the painful ironies of this war that one of the most anti-war cities in the nation, San Francisco, is being disproportionately harmed by the tactics of anti-war protesters.”

Here is what is up there right now (noon on monday the 7th) at the same URL:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/895056.asp?cp1=1

Police battle with Oakland protesters Officers fire non-lethal projectiles to disperse group

MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS OAKLAND, Calif., April 7 — Police fired wooden dowels and bean-bag pellets Monday at hundreds of antiwar protesters blocking a road near Oakland’s port. Several longshoremen were injured as police tried to disperse the demonstrators, who were trying to block supplies being shipped to U.S. forces fighting in Iraq.

E-mail This Print This Complete Story

• MORE EXCLUSIVES WEBLOG WEBLOG • Army family journal: A soldier's family copes SLIDESHOW
SLIDESHOW • Demonstrators: For and against war INTERACTIVE INTERACTIVE • Impact on airlines: Guide
to service changes

‘We are trying to send a message to APL that we oppose their profiting off this unjust and illegal war.’ — SASHA WRIGHT Antiwar organizer in Oakland, Calif. SEVERAL PEOPLE were injured, including some who suffered large bruises. One man lifted up his shirt to show a welt about the size of a baseball. Most of the 500 demonstrators at the port were dispersed peacefully, but police fired at two gates when protesters refused to move and police said some of them threw rocks
and bolts. The longshoremen, pinned against a fence, were caught in the line of fire. The police fired bean-bag rounds and wooden dowels. They also used “sting balls,” which send out a spray of BB-sized rubber pellets and a cloud of tear gas. “We gave our dispersal order, we gave them an order, we gave them ample time to disperse,” said Oakland police spokeswoman Danielle Ashford.

“When we give our dispersal order, that’s pretty much it. (If) there are safety issues involved, that’s when we step in.” At least six demonstrators and six longshoremen standing nearby were injured. “Oakland police are being the most aggressive of any department I’ve seen in the Bay Area since the war began,” said protester Damien McAnany, a database manager. “The San Francisco Police
Department never used any of this stuff against us.”

ACTION AGAINST CARGO SHIPPER The demonstrators carried signs including “Shut down the war makers.”

• Complete MSNBC coverage • Exclusive: Ansar's terror toxins • The Experts: Iraqi ingenuity •
Iraqi ambush described • U.S. looks for al-Qaida link • Jordan's worries over war • Arab
channels show clout • Dispatches from the field • Video coverage from NBC • Blog: Army family's
journal • Encarta: Detailed Iraq map • WashPost: Special coverage LATEST FROM NEWSWEEK •
Special war section • Saving Private Lynch • The grunts' war

They were trying to block access to the terminal of American President Lines, a cargo carrier that has contracts with the Defense Department to ship supplies to U.S. forces overseas. “Some people were blocking port property and the port authorities asked us to move them off,” said Deputy Police Chief Patrick Haw. “Police moved aggressively against crowds because some people threw rocks and big iron bolts at officers.”

Six longshoremen were treated by paramedics. It was unclear if any of the injured protesters sought medical treatment. “I was standing as far back as I could,” said longshoremen Kevin Wilson.

“It was very scary. All of that force wasn’t necessary.” Trent Willis, a business agent for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said enraged dockworkers were leaving the docks after the incident. “They shot my guys. We’re not going to work today,” Willis said. “The cops had no reason to open up on them.” A group called Direct Action to Stop the War had vowed last week to
“shut down the war merchants” at the port of Oakland by urging members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to not cross its picket line.

‘UNJUST AND ILLEGAL’ “Whether or not war cargo is there on that day, we are trying to send a message to APL that we oppose their profiting off this unjust and illegal war,” Sasha Wright, an organizer with Direct Action to Stop the War told MSNBC.com last week. “We will hold them accountable.” Patrick Reinsborough, a spokesman for the group, said it hoped that members of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union would respect the picket line, as union members usually do, and thus shut down APL’s Oakland operations by refusing to work. Asked whether cutting off supplies to American soldiers would jeopardize their lives, Wright said, “We feel like the war is what’s putting their lives in danger. This is an effort to save lives by stopping the war as quickly as possible.” ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone told MSNBC.com, “Our contract is that
we are supposed to load those ships — and we have every intention of abiding by our contract.”

Although the ILWU opposed the Vietnam War in 1960s, its members continued to load cargo ships carrying military materiel to U.S. forces in Vietnam.

Add local news and weather to the MSNBC home page.

Meanwhile in New York, police arrested several dozen people who blocked the entrance to the Manhattan building of the Carlyle Group, a firm which has a stake in the defense industry. Up to 300 people chanted: “Carlyle gets fat on war” outside the offices of the $14 billion investment group. Police said about two or three dozen demonstrators were arrested outside the Fifth Avenue building and charged with disorderly conduct. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this
report.

Here is the full text from the page on the actagainstwar website that describes the protest (as referenced in my introduction to this post):

http://www.actagainstwar.org/article.php?id=122

CONFRONT THE WAR MERCHANTS AT THE OAKLAND DOCKS

Community Picket of APL

MONDAY APRIL 7, 7AM (Continuing all day-come when you can)
Meet: 7am outside the West Oakland BART

COMMUNITY PICKET We will keep one or more mass high energy moving picket lines at the entrance to APL to confront them for war profiteering. Simultaneous nonviolent direct actions will take place across the US— New York City, Washington DC-and throughout the Bay Area—SF Federal Building and Concord Naval Weapons Station. If the picket is large and lively enough we will impact APL and throw some sand in the gears of the war machine. There is a long history of community pickets successfully confronting shipping lines involved in Apartheid in South Africa, military repression in Central America, union-busting in Liverpool, UK, and the Italian government’s crackdown on the global justice movement in Genoa, Italy. We will have orientation teams to check in with and orient people as they arrive.

ANTI-WAR/PRO-WORKER Many of us in the anti-war movement are trade unionists and active supporters of union fights against corporations, including the recent ILWU fight with the Pacific Maritime Association and the Bush Administration for a decent contract.

ARREST This is not a civil disobedience action; although we are taking direct action our goal is to maintain the picket line not to get arrested.

WHEN/WHAT TO BRING People will be meeting at 7AM on April 7th at West Oakland BART, one mile from the site of the picket. If you can’t come at 7am, come when you can and stay as long as you can-- look for the orientation folks at outside West Oakland BART. Folks can either walk, or shuttles will be available. Bring water, food, and protection from the sun as we will be subject to the elements with very little shade and the action will continue all day. Also prepare for cold and wind, particularly early morning and in the afternoon and evening. APL’s entrances to it’s docks are at 1395 Middle Harbor Rd.

DRIVING Driving Directions: From Hwys 80, 24, or 580; Get on 980 South, exit “11th St” to Bush, right on 7th to 1451 7th, the West Oakland BART Terminal.

PARKING Park in the BART Parking lot, on nearby residential streets (some have two hour limits, though not strictly enforced—be careful) $6 All Day Parking Lot is on Kirkham between 5th and 7th, just past BART, heading east on 7th.

WAR PROFITEERS While services of all kinds are cut, there is endless money for the unjust and illegal war being waged in our name. Those corporations that profit from this war, including San Francisco based Bechtel, Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, Stevedoring Services of America(which was just awarded a contract to manage the Iraqi port of Um Qasir) and must be exposed for their role in fuelling this war and reaping profits from it. Direct Action to Stop the War with Presente Affinity Group initiated actions at Bechtel world headquarters in downtown San Francisco, closing it for two days after the war started. On Monday April 14th Direct Action to Stop the War will use mass nonviolnet civil disobedience to shut down ChevronTexaco World Headquarters in San Ramon, near Walnut Creek in Contra Costa County. This all helps to impose an economic, political and social cost on those who make war and those who profit from it.

APL You are invited to join a community picketline at the Oakland Docks that will be established to confront APL (formerly American President Lines). APL has been a major shipper of military cargo from the port of Oakland. APL is not only a carrier of military cargo; they also operate as a direct arm of the U.S. Department of Defense. APL receives millions of taxpayer dollars every year for shipping military cargo through the Department of Defense Maritime Security Program (MSP). APL makes nine of its vessels available to the Department of Defense in order to move "ammunition and sustainment cargo." Several of these vessels have already been called up to service the military this year. The MSP is authorized to make payments of $2.1 million per vessel per year through the program. Therefore, APL is potentially receiving $18 million dollars of taxpayer money per year from the Department of Defense to be a gunrunner. In fact, according to AsiaWeek, APL was receiving $100 million in subsides from the DOD in 1997.

APL is headquartered in Oakland. It was the second-largest container shipping company in the U.S. until it merged with Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) to become one of the top five cargo carriers in the world with total sales in 2001 of nearly $4.7 billion. On the U.S. West Coast, it operates ocean terminals at Seattle, Oakland and Los Angeles. At Concord Naval Weapons station, APL’s stevedoring company, Eagle Marine Services, provides the stevedoring (a stevedore is another name for longshoreman, loads and unloads cargo) for the military cargo that goes out of Concord.

WMD=Weapons of Mass Destruction

I may look silly putting that up there, but I don't like using acronyms without explaining them first...

Now that we all know what "WMD" means, this article, much like the article I posted earlier would suggest that there may not be any of them to be found in Iraq.

Iraqi Weapons Might Be Hard to Find
Suspicious Sites Provide No Proof Yet
By Barton Gellman for the Washington Post .

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31589-2003Apr4.html

Banned Iraqi Weapons Might Be Hard to Find
Suspicious Sites Provide No Proof Yet

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 5, 2003; Page A19

U.S. forces in Iraq yesterday found sites and substances they described as suspected components of a forbidden Iraqi weapons program. But the discoveries that U.S. troops displayed, and the manner in which they were described at a Central Command briefing, struck experts in and out of government as ambiguous at best.

Iraq has the most extensive petrochemical industry in the Middle East and a wealth of vaccine factories, single-cell protein research labs, medical and veterinary manufacturing centers and water treatment plants. Nearly all of them are dual-use facilities, capable of civilian or military employment, but most were devoted to legitimate activity even at the height of Iraq's secret weapons programs.

Moving warily through that industrial landscape, U.S. and allied ground forces will inevitably find, as U.N. inspectors have found since 1991, thousands of potential weapons sites but few, if any, that could be nothing else. Iraq's continued concealment of such weapons is the allegation at the core of the Bush administration's case for war. If the hunt for them relies on that sort of survey, experienced investigators said, it faces a long road to an uncertain result.

In the first of yesterday's discoveries, the 3rd Infantry Division entered the vast Qa Qaa chemical and explosives production plant and came across thousands of vials of white powder, packed three to a box. The engineers also found stocks of atropine and pralidoxime, also known as 2-PAM chloride, which can be used to treat exposure to nerve agents but is also used to treat poisoning by organic phosphorus pesticides. Alongside those materials were documents written in Arabic that, as interpreted at the scene, appeared to include discussions of chemical warfare.

This morning, however, investigators said initial tests indicated the white powder was not a component of a chemical weapon. "On first analysis it does not appear to be a chemical that could be used in a chemical weapons attack," Col. John Peabody, commander of the division's engineering brigade, told a Reuters reporter with his unit.

U.N. inspectors have surveyed Qa Qaa some two dozen times, most recently last month. But some 1,000 structures there, organized into 10 or more factory complexes, have mainly been devoted to such conventional military industries as explosives and missile fuels. Neither is forbidden under U.N. Security Council mandates. Qa Qaa was last linked to proscribed activity in 1995 -- and somewhat peripherally then.

"Based on [the powder and antidotes] you couldn't form any real judgment," said Terence Taylor of Britain, a former inspector with the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM). "It is a place where there would be a lot of chemicals, not necessarily related to chemical or biological weapons. More likely in that place it would relate to some form of rocket propellant."

"I'm afraid what we're in for," he said, is a "long-term task" pushed forward by "the political concern and pressure to find hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction that you can show."

Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, briefing reporters at Central Command headquarters in Qatar, said he had no details on the suspicious powder but said that "certainly it's an item of interest."

But Brooks volunteered another discovery in western Iraq. Special Operations troops raided a building there "that we think now was probably an NBC training school," he said, referring to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

Brooks said military commanders based that belief on a shelf of clear- and brown-glass bottles with yellow labels.

"Can we bring up the bottles?" he directed, calling for a photograph in his slide show.

"This is what we saw," he said. "One of them had been marked 'Tabun,' " a nerve agent developed during World War II. The bottle, he said, contained a few drops of liquid.

He did not say whether tests showed the liquid to be the deadly chemical.

Iraq was obliged under U.N. resolutions to declare any stocks of nerve agent in its possession. But a quantity measured in milliliters, U.S. government and U.N. experts said, probably would not constitute a material breach of that obligation.

"There will be more and more alarms like this," said an expert on nerve poisons with long experience in Iraq. "If you have a vial marked 'Tabun,' it could be simulant, it could be a sample used for training purpose or for evaluation of protection equipment. . . . The regular procedure is to put one drop on the surface of a material used in the production of a protection suit, and you analyze the penetration of this drop through the material."

Chemical protection gear is permitted under the U.N. restrictions.

A serious find, the expert said, would involve "Tabun in a munition, or in bulk storage, or traces of Tabun in a reaction vessel" of the sort used to manufacture the agent in quantity.

At part of the Qa Qaa facility, where the white powder appeared yesterday, UNSCOM ordered the destruction of reactors, heat exchangers and storage vessels suspected of chemical weapons production.

The weapons work had not taken place at that site, UNSCOM reported in the early 1990s, but Iraq had moved the dual-use equipment from the Muthana chemical weapons site, about 80 miles northwest of Baghdad, without declaring it. Under UNSCOM rules, the equipment was subject to destruction.

The International Atomic Energy Agency also reported, after a 10-day visit in September 1995, that Iraqi scientists acknowledged involvement of the Qa Qaa facility "in support of the development of the implosion package" intended to detonate a nuclear weapon if Iraq acquired highly enriched uranium.

U.S. officials overseeing the weapons hunt generally do not expect to make major finds at sites previously identified as suspicious, noting that Iraq's documented history of concealment relied on constant movement.

"There's lots we don't know about current whereabouts," Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, said in an interview. "That's going to be true until we have full control of the country, and even a time thereafter."

He added: "If you have [custody of] the people who know everything, and they tell you everything they know, then you could learn the whereabouts of everything very quickly. But if those people aren't around, or they're dead, or they've organized things in such a way that nobody has too much knowledge, it's going to take you awhile."

I should have put this up a while ago. It was actually one of the first to come out:

JACOB'S LADDER (NOT IN MY NAME)

(requires Flash)

Here is the lyrics in case the link goes bad:

http://www.peace-not-war.org/Music/Chumbawamba/index.html

Acoustic Mix

JACOB'S LADDER (NOT IN MY NAME)
ACOUSTIC MIX
Composed by Chumbawamba & Davy Graham

Like a sermon on the mountain
hellfire and brimstone
swapped for oil and guns
when we're pushing up daisies
we all look the same
in the name of the father maybe
but not in my name

on this Jacob's ladder
the only way up is down
one step from disaster
two to make the higher ground
Jacob's ladder

a million lifetimes
left dying in the sun
in the streets down in Whitehall
dogs picking at the bones
nine eleven got branded
nine eleven got sold
there will be no one left to water
all the seeds you've sown

on this Jacob's ladder
the only way up is down
one step from disaster
two to make the higher ground
Jacob's ladder

and they sent him to the wars
to be slain to be slain
and they sent him to the wars
to be slain

if you can't hear the music you'll need Flash Player

Here's Why:
Thin Ice.
By Patrick Farley.
(via BoingBoing)

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.e-sheep.com/thinice.html

Thin Ice
Patrick Farley / April 3, 2003 / e-sheep.com

We're on the banks of a FROZEN RIVER on a cold, sunny day. Trees along the riverside drip with melting snow. Far off toward the horizon, almost out of sight, an emaciated OLD WOMAN lies on the ice, moaning feebly for help.

GEORGE W. BUSH stands before a WINNEBAGO and addresses the gathered CROWD.

BUSH: Hey everybody! You remember that old woman who's been stranded on the ice these past 6 months, who we've been ignoring up until now? Today, I'm sending this Winnebago fulla Boy Scouts out there to RESCUE HER!

THE CROWD roars and cheers: WOO!
LET'S GO!
WE'RE GONNA BE HEROES!
LET'S SAVE THAT OLD LADY!

One guy, a PROTESTER, speaks up:

PROTESTER: Umm.. Mr. President... It's the middle of April... You think it might be unwise to drive a Winnebago onto the ice?

THE CROWD snarls with disbelief:

WOULD YOU LISTEN TO THIS GUY?!
HE HATES THE BOY SCOUTS!
HE HATES WINNEBAGOS!
HE HATES GEORGE BUSH!
HE WANTS THAT OLD WOMAN TO FREEZE TO DEATH ON THE ICE!

PROTESTER: I'm just saying... uh... the ice might be thin.

WOLFOWITZ: Then again, it might not be.

CHENEY: We've looked all up and down the river with binoculars, and as far as we can tell, the ice is FIRM!

PERLE: I predict the ice will get even firmer as the Winnebago rolls over it.

RUMSFELD: And even if it doesn't -- this Winnebago has snowchains!

FRANKS: Darn tootin'... This is the most sophisticated Winnebago money can buy! It's got four wheel drive AND a DVD entertainment system, AND electric ass-warmers on the driver's seat!

PROTESTER: I don't see what that has to do with the ice.

POWELL: Listen -- I've driven Winnebagos before, and I tell you, we have no other choice if we want to save that poor woman. Time is running out for her!

PROTESTER: What about using a ladder?

THE CROWD gasps:

A LADDER???!!!!
WHEN WE'VE GOT A FULLY-LOADED WINNEBAGO??!!!
LADDERS ARE FOR FAGGOTS!
WINNEBAGO ALL THE WAY! WINNEBAGO ALL THE WAY!

POWELL: A ladder's already been tried. Last month a Swedish guy attempted to reach the woman with a plastic kitchen stepladder, and failed miserably.

PROTESTER: Of course he failed! It's completely the wrong kind of ladder!

THE CROWD snarls:

YOU HATE BOY SCOUTS!
YOU HATE WINNEBAGOS!
YOU HATE GEORGE BUSH!
YOU WANT THAT OLD WOMAN TO FREEZE TO DEATH!

Shh! The President's speaking!

BUSH: My fellow Americans... The rescue of the old lady on the ice is about to begin. Boy Scout Troop 242 will take the Winnebago. I am personally giving the keys to Eagle Scout Billy Joe Johnson, who just got his learner's permit last week.

BILLY JOE: Golly Mr. President.... You're lettin' ME drive the Winnebago? I won't let you down, sir!

They exchange salutes. BILLY JOE and the rest of the BOY SCOUTS file down into the WINNEBAGO.

BOY SCOUT 1: Dude! We're all gonna get Life Saving merit badges for this!

BOY SCOUT 2: And a full-page spread in Boy's Life!

As they march into the WINNEBAGO one by one, the entire BOY SCOUT TROOP sings:

Lord Baden Powell
Has many friends,
Many friends has Loooord Baden Powell!
You are one of them,
And so am I,
As weee go marching ON!!!

Door slams shut. Engine revs.

PROTESTER: Shit shit shit shit shit shit....

Vroom vroom... The WINNEBAGO half-rolls, half-slides onto the ice, fishtails for a moment, then charges confidently forward.

FOX NEWS COMMENTATOR: And THERE THEY GO, the HEROIC BOYS of SCOUT TROOP 242. They are truly AMERICA'S FINEST. Let's all wave to them and show our support!

CROWD cheers, waves American flags, and holds up teddy bears dressed in Boy Scout uniforms.

PROTESTER: For fuck's sake, what's wrong with you people??? WE'RE SENDING A WINNEBAGO FULL OF BOY SCOUTS ONTO A FROZEN RIVER IN THE SPRINGTIME!

FOX NEWS COMMENTATOR: Heh heh... Looks like we got ourselves a Bush-hating, anti-Boy Scout NUTCASE down there. He must really want that old woman to freeze to death! Hold it -- This just in: neighboring towns are refusing to send their own Boy Scouts or Winnebagos to assist in the rescue effort, but they have offered to stand by with ladders if need be.

A FLAG-WAVING GUY nearby shouts into the microphone: THOSE CHICKENSHITS! WHO NEEDS THEIR LADDERS?! WE CAN DO THIS OURSELVES!

Suddenly, from the river, comes a sickening CRACK...

CROWD: (murmurs fearfully) What was THAT?

PERLE: I'm outta here. (exits quietly)

RUMSFELD steps up to the podium.

CROWD: What's wrong?

RUMSFELD: Nothing's "wrong." Stop saying things are "wrong." The Winnebago's probing the soft spots in the ice. Its tires are designed for that.

FOX NEWS COMMENTATOR: This just in: One of the Boy Scouts has pitched headfirst into the dashboard and now has a bloody nose.

THE CROWD gasps.

FLAG-WAVING GUY points an accusing finger at the PROTESTER and snarls: Hey you! Mr. Naysayer! Ya hear that? A Boy Scout has a BLOODY NOSE. Maybe it's time you shut up now and show some GRATITUDE to those brave boys out there.

PROTESTER: I WANTED TO KEEP THOSE BOYS OFF THE ICE TO BEGIN WITH!!!

FLAG-WAVING GUY: Well it's too late to turn back now, so you better wave a flag and show those boys you're behind 'em ONE HUNNERD PER CENT!

PROTESTER: How is waving a fucking FLAG going to firm up the ICE?

DON'T YOU PEOPLE GET IT?
IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW BRAVE THEY ARE!
IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW GOOD OUR INTENTIONS ARE!
IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW SOPHISTICATED THE WINNEBAGO IS!
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE ICE!!!

Suddenly the FLAG-WAVING GUY lays a meaty hand on PROTESTER's shoulder.

FLAG-WAVING GUY: That's enough, buddy.
The way you keep talkin' bout the ice cracking is demoralizing our boys....
You must really WANT the ice to crack, don't you?
You must really WANT to see our boys drown in freezing water, don't you?
You'd LIKE that, wouldn't you, you SICK FUCK!

LET'S GET HIM BOYS!!!!

A dozen REDNECKS fall on the PROTESTER with fists and baseball bats, beating him to a bloody pulp, while THE CROWD whoops, cheers, and chants WINNEBAGO! WINNEBAGO! over and over.

In the foreground, DONALD RUMSFELD speaks with the FOX NEWS COMMENTATOR:

FOX NEWS COMMENTATOR: Mr. Secretary, would you comment on the progress of the rescue effort?

RUMSFELD: We're making excellent progress! As you can see, the Winnebago is halfway to the old woman, which means the ice must be getting firmer. The closer our boys get to her, the less likely the ice will be to --

The End?
Patrick Farley
April 3, 2003
www.e-sheep.com / webmaster@e-sheep.com

Paul McCartney agrees to take his show down a couple notches because it might be within the Pope's earshot. Then he made a funny about only playing mellow songs that the Pope would like anyway. Like Lady Madonna, which is neither mellow in tempo nor of a subject matter the Pope would necessarily approve of...

This clip is from KTVU Channel 2 News In San Francisco.

Paul McCartney and The Pope Make The News (Small - 2 MB)
Paul McCartney and The Pope Make The News (Hi-res 27 MB)

LADY MADONNA - BEATLES

lady madonna, children at your feet
wonder how you manage to make ends meet
who finds the money when you pay the rent
did you think that money was heaven sent?

friday night arrives without a suitcase
sunday morning creeping like a nun
monday's child has learned to tie his bootlace
see how they run

lady madonna, baby at your breast
wonders how you manage to feed the rest

see how they run

lady madonna, lying on the bed
listen to the music playing in your head

tuesday after is never ending
wednesday morning papers didn't come
thrusday night your stockings needed mending
see how they run

lady madonna, children at your feet
wonder how manage to make ends meet

Wow. This is classic stuff.

In the U.S., some of the best "real news" on TV comes with comedy afterwards.

Just to clarify: yes, he has been asked to leave (all official-like), and, no, he is not leaving.

Part 1 is the headlines report by Jon. Part 2 is a special report by Stephen Colbert on the subject where he does a take off on what got Geraldo fired.

Daily Show On Geraldo's Getting Booted Out of Iraq Part 1 of 2 (Small - 8 MB)
Daily Show On Geraldo's Getting Booted Out of Iraq Part 2 of 2 (Small - 7 MB)

Daily Show On Geraldo's Getting Booted Out of Iraq Part 1 of 2 (Hi-res 102 MB)
Daily Show On Geraldo's Getting Booted Out of Iraq Part 2 of 2 (Hi-res 95 MB)

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

Well at least this only took weeks and not months or years. Let's hope the U.S. will be making similar admissions soon...

Britain Admits There May Be No WMD's in Iraq
By Ruben Bannerjee for Al Jazeera.

Making the startling confession in a radio interview, British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, added in the same breath that he would in any case rejoice the "fall'' of Saddam Hussein and his regime -- regardless of whether any weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq or not.

The confession reconfirms the worst fears of opponents of the war that "weapons of mass destruction'' is only a ruse for the US and the British to go to war against Iraq.

At the very least the admission certainly deals a serious blow to the moral legitimacy that the US and the British have been seeking in prosecuting the war...

UN weapons inspectors, who scoured the country for several months until the US asked them to leave last month, had repeatedly certified that they had found no credible evidence of Iraq possessing any weapons of mass destruction.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://truthout.org/docs_03/040703C.shtml

Britain Admits There May Be No WMD's in Iraq
Ruben Bannerjee
Al Jazeera

Saturday 05 April 2003

Well into the war that was supposed to rid Iraq of its alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, a senior British official admitted on Saturday that no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of mass destruction may after all be found.

Making the startling confession in a radio interview, British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, added in the same breath that he would in any case rejoice the "fall'' of Saddam Hussein and his regime -- regardless of whether any weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq or not.

The confession reconfirms the worst fears of opponents of the war that "weapons of mass destruction'' is only a ruse for the US and the British to go to war against Iraq.

At the very least the admission certainly deals a serious blow to the moral legitimacy that the US and the British have been seeking in prosecuting the war.

Critics of the war across the world have been accusing the US and the British of aiming for regime change in Baghdad under the guise of "unearthing and dismantling weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.''

There have been constant accusations that the US and the British are eyeing Iraq's huge oil wealth, promoting Israeli interests, and that its campaign against "weapons of mass destruction'' is only a convenient cover-up.

Even countries like Germany, Russia and France had been less than impressed with the US-led war against Iraq saying all along that the task of unearthing weapons of mass destruction, if any, is better left to UN weapons' inspectors.

In making the confession in an interview with BBC radio, the British Home Secretary however admitted that the non-discovery of any weapons of mass destruction would "lead to a very interesting debate'' about the war.

"We will obviously have a very interesting debate if there are no biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear weapons or facilities to produce them found anywhere in Iraq once Iraq is free,'' the home secretary added.

The US-led forces stand to face a huge global uproar if no weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq.

US-led forces moving across the Iraqi deserts have been under pressure since the start of the war to find evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But instead of solid evidence, the they have so far raised only false alarms.

From time to time, the US-forces have claimed to have unearthed "suspicious'' substances. And each time, the claim has turned out to be without substance.

Today Saturday 5 April, US Marines were reported to be digging up a suspected chemical weapons hiding place in the courtyard of a school in the southeast of Baghdad.

Western media reported that the US Marines were digging after being tipped off by an Iraqi informer. "We don't have a clue now but we are going to dig it up and check,'' said General James Mattis, the commander of the Marine division at the scene.

Iraq has always insisted that it does not possess any weapons of mass destruction.

UN weapons inspectors, who scoured the country for several months until the US asked them to leave last month, had repeatedly certified that they had found no credible evidence of Iraq possessing any weapons of mass destruction.

(Note: Yeah okay, I've just changed this from "censorship" to "self-censorship", per the comment below. It was self-censorship to begin with. Sorry 'bout that.--lr)

Since when does "Peace" become a political statement.

Is there a flip side to "peace." A time and a place for "peace" now?

Jon mourns accordingly on the Daily Show.
Daily Show On Self-Censorship 4/1/03 (Small - 6 MB)
Daily Show On Self-Censorship 4/1/03 (Hi-res - 78 MB)

BEFORE

AFTER

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

We'll have to learn together about this stuff, because the more I learn about "it", the more I realize I know even less about it than I thought I did.

How interesting that it's tied back in with the Alien Registration Act of 1940.

I was thinking the Shrub Administration has been sucking us back thirty years with regard to foreign policy and nuclear power. But now I realize, regarding our policies at home and the way we've been treating people of color, we've actually gone back sixty years.

As far as separation of church and state go, it feels like gone backwards at least a hundred years!

The bad news is: this isn't an episode of the Twilight Zone. This is the United States.

This is my country. Right here. Right now. April 6, 2003.

I must admit, I'm still in a bit of shock over the last six months.

Who woulda thunk it?

Oh well, time to get over it and fight back...

In the mean time, I promised some history so here's a good start:

McCarthyism.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyism.htm

The Alien Registration Act passed by Congress on 29th June, 1940, made it illegal for anyone in the United States to advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the government. The law also required all alien residents in the United States over 14 years of age to file a comprehensive statement of their personal and occupational status and a record of their political beliefs. Within four months a total of 4,741,971 aliens had been registered.

The main objective of the Alien Registration Act was to undermine the American Communist Party and other left-wing political groups in the United States. It was decided that the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), that had been set up by Congress under Martin Dies in 1938 to investigate people suspected of unpatriotic behaviour, would be the best vehicle to discover if people were trying to overthrow the government.

In 1947 the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), chaired by J. Parnell Thomas, began an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry. The HUAC interviewed 41 people who were working in Hollywood. These people attended voluntarily and became known as "friendly witnesses". During their interviews they named nineteen people who they accused of holding left-wing views.

One of those named, Bertolt Brecht, an emigrant playwright, gave evidence and then left for East Germany. Ten others: Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Samuel Ornitz,, Dalton Trumbo, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson and Alvah Bessie refused to answer any questions.

Known as the Hollywood Ten, they claimed that the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution gave them the right to do this. The House of Un-American Activities Committee and the courts during appeals disagreed and all were found guilty of contempt of congress and each was sentenced to between six and twelve months in prison.

Larry Parks was the only actor in the original nineteen people named. He was also the only person on the list who the average moviegoer would have known. Parks agreed to give evidence to the HUAC and admitted that he had joined the Communist Party in 1941 but left it four years later. When asked for the names of fellow members, Parks replied: "I would prefer, if you would allow me, not to mention other people's names. Don't present me with the choice of either being in contempt of this Committee and going to jail or forcing me to really crawl through the mud to be an informer."

The House of Un-American Activities Committee insisted that Parks answered all the questions asked. The HUAC had a private session and two days later it was leaked to the newspapers that Parks had named names. Leo Townsend, Isobel Lennart, Roy Huggins, Richard Collins, Lee J. Cobb, Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan, afraid they would go to prison, were also willing to name people who had been members of left-wing groups.

In June, 1950, three former FBI agents and a right-wing television producer, Vincent Harnett, published Red Channels, a pamphlet listing the names of 151 writers, directors and performers who they claimed had been members of subversive organisations before the Second World War but had not so far been blacklisted. The names had been compiled from FBI files and a detailed analysis of the Daily Worker, a newspaper published by the American Communist Party.

A free copy of Red Channels was sent to those involved in employing people in the entertainment industry. All those people named in the pamphlet were blacklisted until they appeared in front of the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and convinced its members they had completely renounced their radical past.

Edward Dmytryk, one of the original Hollywood Ten, had financial problems as a result of divorcing his first wife. Faced with having to sell his plane and encouraged by his new wife, Dmytryk decided to try to get his name removed from the blacklist. On 25th April, 1951, Dmytryk appeared before the House of Un-American Activities Committee again. This time he answered all their questions including the naming of twenty-six former members of left-wing groups.

Dmytryk also revealed how people such as John Howard Lawson, Adrian Scott and Albert Maltz had put him under pressure to make sure his films expressed the views of the Communist Party. This was particularly damaging to those members of the original Hollywood Ten were at that time involved in court cases with their previous employers.

If people refused to name names when called up to appear before the HUAC, they were added to a blacklist that had been drawn up by the Hollywood film studios. Over 320 people were placed on this list that stopped them from working in the entertainment industry. This included Larry Adler, Stella Adler, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Joseph Bromberg, Charlie Chaplin, Aaron Copland, Hanns Eisler, Carl Foreman, John Garfield, Howard Da Silva, Dashiell Hammett, E. Y. Harburg, Lillian Hellman, Burl Ives, Arthur Miller, Dorothy Parker, Philip Loeb, Joseph Losey, Anne Revere, Pete Seeger, Gale Sondergaard, Louis Untermeyer, Josh White, Clifford Odets, Michael Wilson, Paul Jarrico, Jeff Corey, John Randolph, Canada Lee, Orson Welles, Paul Green, Sidney Kingsley, Paul Robeson, Richard Wright and Abraham Polonsky.

It was now decided to use the Alien Registration Act against the American Communist Party. Leaders of the party were arrested and in October, 1949, after a nine month trial, eleven members were convicted of violating the act. Over the next two years another 46 members were arrested and charged with advocating the overthrow of the government. Other high profile spy cases at the time involving Alger Hiss, Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, helped to create a deep fear in the United States that a communist conspiracy was taking place.

On 9th February, 1950, Joseph McCarthy, a senator from Wisconsin, made a speech claiming to have a list of 205 people in the State Department known to be members of the American Communist Party. The list of names was not a secret and had been in fact published by the Secretary of State in 1946. These people had been identified during a preliminary screening of 3,000 federal employees. Some had been communists but others had been fascists, alcoholics and sexual deviants. If screened, McCarthy's own drink problems and sexual preferences would have resulted in him being put on the list.

McCarthy also began receiving information from his friend, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). William Sullivan, one of Hoover's agents, later admitted that: "We were the ones who made the McCarthy hearings possible. We fed McCarthy all the material he was using."

With the war going badly in Korea and communist advances in Eastern Europe and in China, the American public were genuinely frightened about the possibilities of internal subversion. McCarthy, was made chairman of the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate, and this gave him the opportunity to investigate the possibility of communist subversion.

For the next two years McCarthy's committee investigated various government departments and questioned a large number of people about their political past. Some lost their jobs after they admitted they had been members of the Communist Party. McCarthy made it clear to the witnesses that the only way of showing that they had abandoned their left-wing views was by naming other members of the party.

This witch-hunt and anti-communist hysteria became known as McCarthyism. At first Joseph McCarthy mainly targeted Democrats associated with the New Deal policies of the 1930s. Harry S. Truman and members of his Democratic administration such as George Marshall and Dean Acheson, were accused of being soft on communism. Truman was portrayed as a dangerous liberal and McCarthy's campaign helped the Republican candidate, Dwight Eisenhower, win the presidential election in 1952.

After what had happened to McCarthy's opponents in the 1950 elections, most politicians were unwilling to criticize him in the Senate. As the Boston Post pointed out: "Attacking him is this state is regarded as a certain method of committing suicide." One notable exception was William Benton, the owner of Encyclopaedia Britannica, and a senator from Connecticut. McCarthy and his supporters immediately began smearing Benton. It was claimed that while Assistant Secretary of State, he had protected known communists and that he had been responsible for the purchase and display of "lewd art works". Benton, who was also accused of being disloyal by Joseph McCarthy for having much of his company's work printed in England, was defeated in the 1952 elections.

In 1952 McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as the chief counsel to the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate. Cohn had been recommended by J. Edgar Hoover, who had been impressed by his involvement in the prosecution of Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg. Soon after Cohn was appointed, he recruited his best friend, David Schine, to become his chief consultant.

McCarthy's next target was what he believed were anti-American books in libraries. His researchers looked into the Overseas Library Program and discovered 30,000 books by "communists, pro-communists, former communists and anti anti-communists." After the publication of this list, these books were removed from the library shelves.

For some time opponents of Joseph McCarthy had been accumulating evidence concerning his homosexual activities. Several members of his staff, including Roy Cohn and David Schine, were also suspected of having a sexual relationship. Although well-known by political journalists, the first article about it did not appear until Hank Greenspun published an article in the Las Vagas Sun in 25th October, 1952. Greenspun wrote that: "It is common talk among homosexuals in Milwaukee who rendezvous in the White Horse Inn that Senator Joe McCarthy has often engaged in homosexual activities."

Joseph McCarthy considered a libel suit against Greenspun but decided against it when he was told by his lawyers that if the case went ahead he would have to take the witness stand and answer questions about his sexuality. In an attempt to stop the rumours circulating, McCarthy married his secretary, Jeannie Kerr. Later the couple adopted a five-week old girl from the New York Foundling Home.

In October, 1953, McCarthy began investigating communist infiltration into the military. Attempts were made by McCarthy to discredit Robert Stevens, the Secretary of the Army. The president, Dwight Eisenhower, was furious and now realised that it was time to bring an end to McCarthy's activities.

The United States Army now passed information about Joseph McCarthy to journalists known to be opposed to him. This included the news that McCarthy and Roy Cohn had abused congressional privilege by trying to prevent David Schine from being drafted. When that failed, it was claimed that Cohn tried to pressurize the Army to grant Schine special privileges. The well-known newspaper columnist, Drew Pearson, published the story on 15th December, 1953.

Dwight Eisenhower also instructed his vice president, Richard Nixon, to attack Joseph McCarthy. On 4th March, 1954, Nixon made a speech where, although not mentioning McCarthy, made it clear who he was talking about: "Men who have in the past done effective work exposing Communists in this country have, by reckless talk and questionable methods, made themselves the issue rather than the cause they believe in so deeply."

Some figures in the media, such as writers George Seldes and I. F. Stone, and cartoonists, Herb Block and Daniel Fitzpatrick, had fought a long campaign against Joseph McCarthy. Other figures in the media, who had for a long time been opposed to McCarthyism but were frightened to speak out, now began to get the confidence to join the counter-attack. Edward Murrow, the experienced broadcaster, used his television programme, See It Now, on 9th March, 1954, to criticize McCarthy's methods. Newspaper columnists such as Walter Lippmann and Jack Anderson also became more open in their attacks on McCarthy.

The senate investigations into the United States Army were televised and this helped to expose the tactics of Joseph McCarthy. One newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Journal, reported that: "In this long, degrading travesty of the democratic process McCarthy has shown himself to be evil and unmatched in malice." Leading politicians in both parties, had been embarrassed by McCarthy's performance and on 2nd December, 1954, a censure motion condemned his conduct by 67 votes to 22.

McCarthy lost the chairmanship of the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate. He was now without a power base and the media lost interest in his claims of a communist conspiracy. As one journalist, Willard Edwards, pointed out: "Most reporters just refused to file McCarthy stories. And most papers would not have printed them anyway." Although some historians claim that this marked the end of McCarthyism, others argue that the anti-communist hysteria in the United States lasted until the end of the Cold War.

Daniel Fitzpatrick, St Louis
Post-Dispatch (23rd February, 1947)

(1) Freda Kirchwey, The Nation (October, 1939)

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of democracy. We have not gone to war, and no excuse exists for war-time hysteria. Neither Communists nor even (German-American) Bundists are enemy agents. They deserve to be watched but not to be persecuted. The real danger is that general detestation of Communists and Bundists will lead to acts of outright repression supported not only by reactionaries but by disgusted liberals. Democracy was not invented as a luxury to be indulged in only in times of calm and stability. It is a pliable, tough-fibered technique especially useful when times are hard. Only a weak and distrustful American could today advocate measures of repression and coercion, or encourage a mood of panic. Now is the time to demonstrate the resilience of our institutions. Now is the time to deal with dissent calmly and with full respect for its rights.

(2) Freda Kirchwey, The Nation (April, 1940)

At what moment does it become necessary to limit the freedom of everyone in order to suppress the danger lurking in a disloyal handful. The moment for drastic repression has not arrived, and the task of liberals in America is difficult but clear. They must fight to preserve the democratic safeguards contained in the Bill of Rights, while applying to Nazis and their supporters the equally democratic methods of exposure, counter-propaganda, and justified legal attack. Otherwise the Nazi invasion of Norway is likely to end in a victory for Martin Dies in America.

(3) Jessica Mitford, A Fine Old Conflict (1977)

The soil for the noxious growth of McCarthyism had been well prepared by the Truman administration, and the anti-Communist crusade was well under way, long before the junior senator from Wisconsin himself appeared on the scene. Joseph McCarthy was virtually unknown outside his home state until 9 February 1950, when he made his celebrated speech alleging that the State Department was in the hands of Communists, which catapulted him into the national limelight he enjoyed for the next five years.

Some signposts on the road to McCarthyism: 1947, Truman establishes the federal loyalty oath, barring alleged subversives from government employment. States and universities follow suit. The Attorney General, under authority of a Presidential executive order, publishes a list of subversive, proscribed organizations. 1948: Ten Hollywood screenwriters sentenced to a year's imprisonment for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities about alleged subversion in the film industry. Mundt-Nixon bill introduced in Senate, requiring registration of Communists and members of 'Communist fronts'. Henry Wallace's campaign for the presidency on the Progressive Party ticket, into which the CP had thrown all its energy and forces, ends in disastrous defeat. 1949: Twelve top Communist leaders found guilty under the Smith Act of conspiring to advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence. Alger Hiss tried and convicted of perjury. Several of the largest left-led unions expelled from CIO.

Four months after McCarthy's opening salvo, the Korean War broke out, bringing Truman's foreign policy into harmony with his domestic drive against the Left and furnishing McCarthy with more ammunition for his anti-Communist crusade. In this climate most liberals turned tail. Senator Hubert Humphrey proposed establishing concentration camps for subversives, and declared on the floor of Congress: "I want them (Communists) removed from the normal scene of American life, and taken into custody." The American Civil Liberties Union, supposed guardian of First Amendment rights, instituted its own loyalty purge excluding from membership those suspected of harbouring subversive ideas.

(4) Archibald MacLeish, letter to Paul H. Buck (1st January 1953)

My radio reports that various Congressional Committees plan to investigate colleges and universities to determine whether they are riddled with Communists. Senator McCarthy is reported as including "Communist thinkers". Since he has already told us that he regards Benny de Vote and young Arthur Schlesinger as - Communist thinkers we have some notion of what that means.

You will recall that I am to be away the second half year. You will recall also that Senator McCarthy has already attacked me as belonging to more Communist front organizations than any man he has ever mentioned. He - or one of the other committees - can be expected to attack me again when he or they get around to Harvard - should be early in the campaign. It I am away in the British West Indies at the time I should like you to have the facts.

But before I set them down I should like to ask a question which must be in your mind and in the minds of many others. Has not the time come for the believers in the American tradition intellectual liberty - above all the believers in positions of responsibility on the faculties of the free universities - to take a firm stand on the fundamental issue? There is no disagreement, I take it, on the issue of Communists in teaching. No man who accepts a prior loyalty to any authority other than his own conscience, his own judgment of the truth, should be permitted to teach in a free society. That view I take it, is held by those responsible for the selection of teachers in all colleges and universities in this country. It is also applied in the case of Communists at least - though it is notoriously not applied in certain cases at the other extreme.

I have not been told what Communist-front organizations the Senator has in mind but I assume they include the League of American Writers and various other organizations of an antifascist character to which I belonged at the time of the Spanish War and during the rise of the Nazi danger and from which I removed myself when I entered the Government as Librarian of Congress in 1939.

My own personal position on the issue of Communism has been clear throughout, and the record is a matter of public knowledge. I was, I think I can say without immodesty, one of the first American writers to attack the Marxists. This was, of course, on the literary front since it was on the literary front I met them. In the early Thirties the Marxist position was, as you know, a fashionable position among the critics. Attacks on Communism were not the pleasant and profitable exercises they are now when all politicians and most publicists fall all over themselves and each other to demonstrate their detestation of everything Communism is or stands for. In the early Thirties, to attack the Communists was to bring the hornets out and the stings could hurt.

(5) Lee J. Cobb was one of those who was originally blacklisted but eventually agreed to do a deal with the HCUA.

When the facilities of the government of the United States are drawn on an individual it can be terrifying. The blacklist is just the opening gambit - being deprived of work. Your passport is confiscated. That's minor. But not being able to move without being tailed is something else. After a certain point it grows to implied as well as articulated threats, and people succumb. My wife did, and she was institutionalized. In 1953 the HCUA did a deal with me. I was pretty much worn down. I had no money. I couldn't borrow. I had the expenses of taking care of the children. Why am I subjecting my loved ones to this? If it's worth dying for, and I am just as idealistic as the next fellow. But I decided it wasn't worth dying for, and if this gesture was the way of getting out of the penitentiary I'd do it. I had to be employable again.

(6) In his autobiography, Timebends, Arthur Miller, wrote about the blacklisting of Louis Untermeyer (1987)

Louis Untermeyer, then in his sixties, was a poet and anthologist, a distinguished-looking old New York type with a large aristocratic nose and a passion for conversation, especially about writers and to become a poet. He married four times, had taught and written and published, and with the swift rise of television had become nationally known as one of the original regulars on What's My Line?, a popular early show in which he, along with columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, publisher Bennett Cerf, and Arlene Francis, would try to guess the occupation of a studio guest by asking the fewest possible questions in the brief time allowed. All this with wisecracking and banter, at which Louis was a lovable master, what with his instant recall of every joke and pun he had ever heard.

One day he arrived as usual at the television studio an hour before the program began and was told by the producer that he was no longer on the show. It appeared that as a result of having been listed in Life magazine as a sponsor of the Waldorf Conference (a meeting to discuss cultural and scientific links with the Soviet Union), an organized letter campaign protesting his appearance on What's My Line? had scared the advertisers into getting rid of him.

Louis went back to his apartment. Normally we ran into each other in the street once or twice a week or kept in touch every month or so, but I no longer saw him in the neighborhood or heard from him. Louis didn't leave his apartment for almost a year and a half. An overwhelming and paralyzing fear had risen him. More than a political fear, it was really that he had witnessed the tenuousness of human connection and it had left him in terror. He had always loved a lot and been loved, especially on the TV program where his quips were vastly appreciated, and suddenly, he had been thrown into the street, abolished.

(7) When Lillian Hellman appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1951 she willing to talk about her own political past but refused to testify against others.

To hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.

(8) Budd Schulberg was interviewed by Victor Navasky when he was writing his book, Naming Names (1982)

These people (those he named), if they had it in them, could have written books and plays. There was not a blacklist in publishing. There was not a blacklist in the theatre. They could have written about the forces that drove them into the Communist Party. They were practically nothing written. Nor have I seen these people interested in social problems in the decades since. They're interested in their own problems and in the protection of the Party.

(9) Whittaker Chambers, was one of those who helped provide evidence to support the idea of a communist conspiracy. However, in a letter to Henry Regnery on 14th January, 1954, he explained why he was having doubts about Joseph McCarthy.

All of us, to one degree or another, have slowly come to question his judgment and to fear acutely that his flair for the sensational, his inaccuracies and distortions, his tendency to sacrifice the greater objective for the momentary effect, will lead him and us into trouble. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that we live in terror that Senator McCarthy will one day make some irreparable blunder which will play directly into the hands of our common enemy and discredit the whole anti-Communist effort for a long while to come.

(10) Max Eastman, The Necessity of Red Baiting, The Freeman (1st June, 1953)

Red Baiting - in the sense of reasoned, documented exposure of Communist and pro-Communist infiltration of government departments and private agencies of information and communication - is absolutely necessary. We are not dealing with honest fanatics of a new idea, willing to give testimony for their faith straightforwardly, regardless of the cost. We are dealing with conspirators who try to sneak in the Moscow-inspired propaganda by stealth and double talk, who run for shelter to the Fifth Amendment when they are not only permitted but invited and urged by Congressional committee to state what they believe. I myself, after struggling for years to get this fact recognized, give McCarthy the major credit for implanting it in the mind of the whole nation.

(11) After a tour of Europe in the summer of 1953, Philip Reed, head of General Electric, wrote to President Dwight Eisenhower (8th June, 1953)

I urge you to take issue with McCarthy and make it stick. People in high and low places see in him a potential Hitler, seeking the presidency of the United States. That he could get away with what he already has in America has made some of them wonder whether our concept of democratic governments and the rights of individuals is really different from those of the Communists and Fascists.

(12) Walter Lippmann, Washington Post (1st March, 1954)

McCarthy's influence has grown as the President has appeased him. His power will cease to grow and will diminish when he is resisted, and it has been shown to our people that those to whom we look for leadership and to preserve our institutions are not afraid of him.

(13) Harry S. Truman, New York Times (17th November, 1953)

It is now evident that the present Administration has fully embraced, for political advantage, McCarthyism. I am not referring to the Senator from Wisconsin. He is only important in that his name has taken on the dictionary meaning of the word. It is the corruption of truth, the abandonment of the due process law. It is the use of the big lie and the unfounded accusation against any citizen in the name of Americanism or security. It is the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spreading of fear and the destruction of faith in every level of society.

(14) Dalton Trumbo, speech to the Screen Writers Guild when accepting the Laurel Award in 1970.

The blacklist was a time of evil, and that no one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil. Caught in a situation that had passed beyond the control of mere individuals, each person reacted as his nature, his needs, his convictions, and his particular circumstances compelled him to. There was bad faith and good, honesty and dishonesty, courage and cowardice, selflessness and opportunism, wisdom and stupidity, good and bad on both sides.

When you who are in your forties or younger look back with curiosity on that dark time, as I think occasionally you should, it will do no good to search for villains or heroes or saints or devils because there were none; there were only victims. Some suffered less than others, some grew and some diminished, but in the final tally we were all victims because almost without exception each of us felt compelled to say things he did not want to say, to do things that he did not want to do, to deliver and receive wounds he truly did not want to exchange. That is why none of us - right, left, or centre - emerged from that long nightmare without sin.

(15) Albert Maltz, one of the Hollywood Ten, was interviewed by the New York Times in 1972.

There is currently in vogue a thesis pronounced by Dalton Trumbo which declares that everyone during the years of blacklist was equally a victim. This is factual nonsense and represents a bewildering moral position.

To put the point sharply: If an informer in the French underground who sent a friend to the torture chambers of the Gestapo was equally a victim, then there can be no right or wrong in life that I understand.

Adrian Scott was the producer of the notable film Crossfire in 1947 and Edward Dmytryk was its director. Crossfire won wide critical acclaim, many awards and commercial success. Both of these men refused to co-operate with the HCUA. Both were held in contempt of the HCUA and went to jail.

When Dmytryk emerged from his prison term he did so with a new set of principles. He suddenly saw the heavenly light, testified as a friend of the HCUA, praised its purposes and practices and denounced all who opposed it. Dmytryk immediately found work as a director, and has worked all down the years since. Adrian Scott, who came out of prison with his principles intact, could not produce a film for a studio again until 1970. He was blacklisted for 21 years. To assert that he and Dmytryk were equally victims is beyond my comprehension.

(16) Archibald MacLeish, The Conquest of America, (1949)

Never in the history of the world was one people as completely dominated, intellectually and morally, by another as the people of the United States by the people of Russia in the four years from 1946 through 1949. American foreign policy was a mirror image of Russian foreign policy: whatever the Russians did, we did in reverse. American domestic politics were conducted under a kind of upside-down Russian veto: no man could be elected to public office unless he was on record as detesting the Russians, and no proposal could be enacted, from a peace plan at one end to a military budget at the other, unless it could be demonstrated that the Russians wouldn't like it. American political controversy was controversy sung to the Russian tune; left-wing movements attacked right-wing movements not on American issues but on Russian issues, and right-wing movements replied with the same arguments turned round about.

All this took place not in a time of national weakness or decay but precisely at the moment when the United States, having engineered a tremendous triumph and fought its way to a brilliant victory in the greatest of all wars, had reached the highest point of world power ever achieved by a single state.

Last updated: 16th August, 2002

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAalien

The Alien Registration Act (also known as the Smith Act) was passed by Congress on 29th June, 1940, made it illegal for anyone in the United States to advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the government. The law also required all alien residents in the United States over 14 years of age to file a comprehensive statement of their personal and occupational status and a record of their political beliefs. Within four months a total of 4,741,971 aliens had been registered. The main objective of the act was to undermine the American Communist Party and other left-wing political groups in the United States. One of the first men to be arrested and imprisoned under the act was James Cannon, the national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party.

After the Second World War it was now decided to use the Alien Registration Act against the American Communist Party. In October, 1949, Eugene Dennis and twelve leaders of the party were arrested and in October, 1949, after a nine month trial, eleven members were convicted of violating the act. Over the next two years another 46 members were arrested and charged of advocating the overthrow of the government.

(1) Statement issued by Eugene Dennis ( March 21, 1949)

We eleven defendants will prove that the very time when we allegedly began this menacing conspiracy we were in fact advocating and organizing all-out support to the Government of the United States. We will prove that all of us taught the duty of upholding the United States Government and of intensifying the anti-Axis war effort and we defendants will put in evidence the honorable war record of the 15,000 American Communists who, in accord with what we taught and advocated, served with the armed forces in the military defense of our country.

We will show with what peaceful intent we taught and advocated, amongst other things, to oppose American support to the unjust and criminal war against the Chinese people waged by the miserable Chiang Kai-shek, to oppose the civil war against the Greeks, waged by the monarchist-fascist puppet of the American masters, with the American people footing the bill, to oppose the Anglo-American oil lords against the new State of Israel, and the people of Indonesia, and to oppose the restoration of the German and Japanese monopolies and war potential under the new management of the American cartelists.

You will see that our Communist Party Constitution acknowledges not only that we learn from Marx and Lenin but that we owe much to and learn from the teachings of men like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, William Sylvis, and Eugene V. Debs.

The prosecution asks this jury for what amounts to a preventative conviction, in order that we Communist leaders may be put under what the Nazis called protective custody. I ask the jury to weigh the prosecution's case against the proof we defendants will offer to establish that we have taught and advocated the duty and necessity to prevent the force and violence of Fascism, imperialists of war and Iynching and anti-Semitism. I ask you to weigh carefully our sincere offer of proof which demonstrates that we Communists are second to none in our devotion to our people and to our country, and that we teach and advocate and practice a program of peace, of democracy, equality, economic security, and social progress.

(2) Louis Budenz, testimony at the trial of Eugene Dennis and the leaders of the American Communist Party (March 29, 1949)

The Communist Party bases itself upon so-called scientific socialism, the theory and practice of so-called scientific socialism as appears in the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, therefore as interpreted by Lenin and Stalin who have specifically interpreted scientific socialism to mean that socialism can only be attained by the violent shattering of the capitalist state, and the setting up of a dictatorship of the proletariat by force and violence in place of that state. In the United States this would mean that the Communist Party of the United States is basically committed to the overthrow of the Government of the United States as set up by the Constitution of the United States.

(3) Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (1980)

In 1940, with the United States not yet at war, Congress passed the Smith Act. This took Espionage Act prohibitions against talk or writing that would lead to refusal of duty in the armed forces and applied them to peacetime. The Smith Act also made it a crime to advocate the overthrow of the government by force and violence, or to join any group that advocated this, or to publish anything with such ideas. In Minneapolis in 1943, eighteen members of the Socialist Workers party were convicted for belonging to a party whose ideas, expressed in its Declaration of Principles, and in the Communist Manifesto, were said to violate the Smith Act. They were sentenced to prison terms, and the Supreme Court refused to review their case.

Last updated: 16th August, 2002

The Bookmobile and it's new crew will be at the Rally Today in downtown Oakland.

I'll be there filming the event too! See you there!

Red Cross horrified by number of dead civilians
From the Canadian Press.

Red Cross doctors who visited southern Iraq this week saw "incredible" levels of civilian casualties including a truckload of dismembered women and children, a spokesman said Thursday from Baghdad.

Roland Huguenin, one of six International Red Cross workers in the Iraqi capital, said doctors were horrified by the casualties they found in the hospital in Hilla, about 160 kilometres south of Baghdad.

"There has been an incredible number of casualties with very, very serious wounds in the region of Hilla," Huguenin said in a interview by satellite telephone.

"We saw that a truck was delivering dozens of totally dismembered dead bodies of women and children. It was an awful sight. It was really very difficult to believe this was happening."

Huguenin said the dead and injured in Hilla came from the village of Nasiriyah, where there has been heavy fighting between American troops and Iraqi soldiers, and appeared to be the result of "bombs, projectiles."

"At this stage we cannot comment on the nature of what happened exactly at that place . . . but it was definitely a different pattern from what we had seen in Basra or Baghdad.

"There will be investigations I am sure."

Baghdad and Basra are coping relatively well with the flow of wounded, said Huguenin, estimating that Baghdad hospitals have been getting about 100 wounded a day.

Most of the wounded in the two large cities have suffered superficial shrapnel wounds, with only about 15 per cent requiring internal surgery, he said.

But the pattern in Hilla was completely different.

"In the case of Hilla, everybody had very serious wounds and many, many of them small kids and women. We had small toddlers of two or three years of age who had lost their legs, their arms. We have called this a horror."

At least 400 people were taken to the Hilla hospital over a period of two days, he said -- far beyond its capacity.

"Doctors worked around the clock to do as much as they could. They just had to manage, that was all."

The city is no longer accessible, he added...

The Red Cross expects the humanitarian crisis in Iraq to grow and is calling for donations to help cope. The Red Cross Web site is: www.redcross.ca

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1049413227648_10/?hub=SpecialEvent3

Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Red Cross doctors who visited southern Iraq this week saw "incredible" levels of civilian casualties including a truckload of dismembered women and children, a spokesman said Thursday from Baghdad.

Roland Huguenin, one of six International Red Cross workers in the Iraqi capital, said doctors were horrified by the casualties they found in the hospital in Hilla, about 160 kilometres south of Baghdad.

"There has been an incredible number of casualties with very, very serious wounds in the region of Hilla," Huguenin said in a interview by satellite telephone.

"We saw that a truck was delivering dozens of totally dismembered dead bodies of women and children. It was an awful sight. It was really very difficult to believe this was happening."

Huguenin said the dead and injured in Hilla came from the village of Nasiriyah, where there has been heavy fighting between American troops and Iraqi soldiers, and appeared to be the result of "bombs, projectiles."

"At this stage we cannot comment on the nature of what happened exactly at that place . . . but it was definitely a different pattern from what we had seen in Basra or Baghdad.

"There will be investigations I am sure."

Baghdad and Basra are coping relatively well with the flow of wounded, said Huguenin, estimating that Baghdad hospitals have been getting about 100 wounded a day.

Most of the wounded in the two large cities have suffered superficial shrapnel wounds, with only about 15 per cent requiring internal surgery, he said.

But the pattern in Hilla was completely different.

"In the case of Hilla, everybody had very serious wounds and many, many of them small kids and women. We had small toddlers of two or three years of age who had lost their legs, their arms. We have called this a horror."

At least 400 people were taken to the Hilla hospital over a period of two days, he said -- far beyond its capacity.

"Doctors worked around the clock to do as much as they could. They just had to manage, that was all."

The city is no longer accessible, he added.

Red Cross staff are also concerned about what may be happening in other smaller centres south of Baghdad.

"We do not know what is going on in Najaf and Kabala. It has become physically impossible for us to reach out to those cities because the major road has become a zone of combat."

The Red Cross was able to claim one significant success this week: it played a key role in re-establishing water supplies at Basra.

Power for a water-pumping station had been accidentally knocked out in the attack on the city, leaving about a million people without water. Iraqi technicians couldn't reach the station to repair it because it was under coalition control.

The Red Cross was able to negotiate safe passage for a group of Iraqi engineers who crossed the fire line and made repairs. Basra now has 90 per cent of its normal water supply, said Huguenin.

Huguenin, a Swiss, is one of six international Red Cross workers still in Baghdad. The team includes two Canadians, Vatche Arslanian of Oromocto, N.B., and Kassandra Vartell of Calgary.

The Red Cross expects the humanitarian crisis in Iraq to grow and is calling for donations to help cope. The Red Cross Web site is: www.redcross.ca

I think the Freemikehawash.org web site is having technical difficulties for some reason, because many of you have not been able to access it. (Although I am still able to access it without any problems.)

I've set up a
mirror of it here, so as not to hold up distribution of the information.

For journalists and researchers trying to read everything you can on this case in a hurry, here is a quick list of links to every article available so far -- that I know of, at the time of this writing, of course.

Free Mike Hawash Website
http://www.freemikehawash.org

FAQ On Free Mike Hawash Website
http://www.freemikehawash.org/press/genfaq.html

Mike Hawash's Bio
http://www.freemikehawash.org/press/fullbio.htm

Steven McGaedy's Bio
http://www.mcgeady.com/mcg/prof/mcgbio.htm

Free Mike Hawash Mailing List Info
http://www.freemikehawash.org/hostmaster.htm

March 20, 2003 FBI Press Release
http://portland.fbi.gov/pressrel/2003/searches.htm

ACLU CRITICIZES USE OF MATERIAL WITNESS
LAW TO DETAIN HILLSBORO MAN
http://www.aclu-or.org/issues/terrorism/Hawashcase.html

FBI jails ex-Intel worker
By Matthew Yi for the SF Chronicle.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/02/BU291043.DTL

Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee
By Leander Kahney for Wired News.
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,58326,00.html

Joint Terrorism agents search home in Hillsboro
By Mark Larabee and Les Zaitz for the Oregonian
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/104825159914540.xml?oregonian?lcps

Terrorism Task Force
Detains an American Without Charges
By Timothy Egan for the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/worldspecial/04DETA.html

Senator Ron Wyden
(Said he'd bring up Mike's case with the FBI)
http://wyden.senate.gov/contact.html

Background on the Material Witness Law (November 2002 - Not specifically abot Hawash's case)
Material Witness Law Has Many In Limbo
Nearly Half Held in War On Terror Haven't Testified
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31438-2002Nov23

Terrorism Task Force Detains an American Without Charges
By Timothy Egan for the NY Times.

The case has drawn the attention of civil liberties groups nationwide, who say Mr. Hawash's case is an example of how the Bush administration is holding a handful of American citizens without offering them normal legal protection.

Although at least two American citizens are being held without normal legal rights as "enemy combatants," Mr. Hawash has not been categorized as such. As a material witness, he is being held to compel testimony. But supporters say he has not been told anything about what the government may want from him...

Civil liberties groups say material witness statutes are being abused by the Bush administration to hold people like Mr. Hawash indefinitely. "The government doesn't have and should not have the power to arrest and detain someone without charging them," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants Rights Project. "If this kind of thing is permitted, then any United States citizen can be swept off the street and locked up without being charged."

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the courts have made conflicting rulings on the legality of holding material witnesses without charging them. A federal judge in Manhattan, Shira A. Scheindlin, said such detentions were "an illegitimate use of the statute," but another ruling in the same court, by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey, said detaining witnesses to compel testimony was a legitimate investigative tool.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/worldspecial/04DETA.html

The New York Times A Nation at War April 4, 2003

Terrorism Task Force Detains an American Without Charges
By TIMOTHY EGAN

PORTLAND, Ore., April 3 — For the last two weeks, Maher Hawash, a 38-year-old software engineer and American citizen who was from the West Bank and grew up in Kuwait, has been held in a federal prison here, though he has not been charged with a crime or brought before a judge.

Relatives and friends of Mr. Hawash, who works for the Intel Corporation and is married to a native Oregonian, say he has no idea why he was arrested by a federal terrorism task force when he arrived for work at the Intel parking lot in Hillsboro, a Portland suburb. The family home was raided at dawn on the same day by nearly a dozen armed police officers, who woke Mrs. Hawash and the family's three children, friends said.

Mr. Hawash, who is known as Mike, has yet to be interrogated and is being kept in solitary confinement, his supporters say.

Federal officials will not comment on Mr. Hawash, though they have been pressed by Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and by a group of supporters led by a former Intel vice president, for basic information about why he is being detained.

In a statement after his arrest, the F.B.I. said he was being held as a material witness in an "ongoing investigation" by the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Federal search warrants in the case are sealed.

The case has drawn the attention of civil liberties groups nationwide, who say Mr. Hawash's case is an example of how the Bush administration is holding a handful of American citizens without offering them normal legal protection.

Although at least two American citizens are being held without normal legal rights as "enemy combatants," Mr. Hawash has not been categorized as such. As a material witness, he is being held to compel testimony. But supporters say he has not been told anything about what the government may want from him.

"Our friend has fallen into some kind of `Alice in Wonderland' meets Franz Kafka," said Steven McGeady, the former Intel executive, who started a legal defense fund and a Web site for Mr. Hawash.

"You hear about this happening in other countries and to immigrants and then to American citizens," Mr. McGeady went on. "And finally you hear about it happening to someone you know. It's scary."

Mr. Hawash's family thought at first that his arrest was connected to two donations he made three years ago to an Islamic charity, Global Relief Foundation, whose assets were frozen last year when federal authorities said it was linked to terrorism. But now relatives say the contributions may not be related to his arrest, and he may be asked to testify about six people charged here last year with aiding terrorism.

Asked about the charitable donations — which totaled a little more than $10,000 — Mr. Hawash told the local newspaper, The Oregonian, in November: "We believed that they are doing good work. It's a well-known organization."

Civil liberties groups say material witness statutes are being abused by the Bush administration to hold people like Mr. Hawash indefinitely. "The government doesn't have and should not have the power to arrest and detain someone without charging them," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants Rights Project. "If this kind of thing is permitted, then any United States citizen can be swept off the street and locked up without being charged."

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the courts have made conflicting rulings on the legality of holding material witnesses without charging them. A federal judge in Manhattan, Shira A. Scheindlin, said such detentions were "an illegitimate use of the statute," but another ruling in the same court, by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey, said detaining witnesses to compel testimony was a legitimate investigative tool.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has defended the tactic, saying it is "vital to preventing, disrupting or delaying new attacks."

The Justice Department has not said how many Americans have been held without charges in terrorism investigations since Sept. 11. Civil liberties groups say they believe the number is about 20, though most are not American citizens.

Mr. Hawash, who was born in Nablus in the West Bank, first came to the United States in 1984, his family said, and graduated from the University of Texas. He became an American citizen in 1988. He is married to Lisa Hawash, a native of Roseburg, Ore. The Web site set up by supporters, freemikehawash.org, founded by two former Intel executives, shows a picture of Mr. Hawash's wife and three children.

Mr. Hawash has worked at Intel since 1992, though he was laid off in 2001 and rehired as a contract employee. Mr. McGeady, his boss there, said Mr. Hawash went back to Nablus to visit his family several years ago and had trouble returning to the United States until Intel officials intervened.

Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee
By Leander Kahney for Wired News.

Hawash, a U.S. citizen, was arrested last month by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. For nearly two weeks, he has been held as a so-called "material witness" in solitary confinement in a federal lockup in Sheridan, Oregon. The designation allows authorities to hold him indefinitely without charging him with a crime.

The Department of Justice has required a federal court to seal Hawash's case. He has only limited access to his family and lawyer.

A friend and former colleague at Intel, Steven McGeady, is championing Hawash's case. McGeady, a former vice president at the chipmaker who hired Hawash as a programmer in 1992, was a high-profile witness in the Microsoft antitrust trial.

"People say this doesn't happen in this country," McGeady said, "but one of my neighbors has been disappeared. It's not what he might have done that matters to me -- they disappeared him. They need to question him and let him go, or charge him. It's like Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka."

..."I'm completely puzzled," he said. "He has family in the West Bank, but he's not political. He worked at Intel Israel for two years, for heck's sake. His most political act was setting up an ISP on the West Bank, and in my opinion that's not political. I don't know. Maybe it's a case of mistaken identity. Maybe it's something beyond my comprehension."

Hawash, 38, was born in the West Bank but became a U.S. citizen in 1988. His wife, two of his children and his stepchild are all American-born.

Hawash co-authored a book on multimedia programming. He was laid off from Intel in 2001, but was later rehired as a contract programmer.

Here's the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,58326,00.html

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Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee

By Leander Kahney | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 2 next »

02:00 AM Apr. 03, 2003 PT

Friends of an Intel programmer who is being held in a federal prison can't help but shake their heads in disbelief. They've also launched a website pushing for his release and collecting donations for his defense.

The most salient explanation for the arrest seems to be a link between the programmer, Maher "Mike" Hawash, and a charitable organization to which he donated a fairly large sum three years ago. The U.S. government has subsequently tagged the charity as having ties to terrorism.

Hawash, a U.S. citizen, was arrested last month by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. For nearly two weeks, he has been held as a so-called "material witness" in solitary confinement in a federal lockup in Sheridan, Oregon. The designation allows authorities to hold him indefinitely without charging him with a crime.

The Department of Justice has required a federal court to seal Hawash's case. He has only limited access to his family and lawyer.

A friend and former colleague at Intel, Steven McGeady, is championing Hawash's case. McGeady, a former vice president at the chipmaker who hired Hawash as a programmer in 1992, was a high-profile witness in the Microsoft antitrust trial.

"People say this doesn't happen in this country," McGeady said, "but one of my neighbors has been disappeared. It's not what he might have done that matters to me -- they disappeared him. They need to question him and let him go, or charge him. It's like Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka."

McGeady set up a website, Free Mike Hawash, that urges supporters to write politicians and donate to a legal defense fund. The site is drawing considerable attention online, climbing the charts on Daypop and Blogdex.

Because of the campaign, the office of Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has promised to contact the FBI about the case, McGeady said.

Authorities have detained at least 44 other material witnesses in probes following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to an investigation by The Washington Post.

Hawash, an Arab American, was arrested by FBI agents at about 7 a.m. March 20 as he arrived for work at the Intel plant in Hillsboro, Oregon. During his arrest, a squad of armed agents in bulletproof vests stormed his home, seizing computers and files. His wife, Lisa, and their three children were asleep at the time.

Neither the FBI, which arrested Hawash, nor the U.S. Marshals office, which is responsible for his detention, would provide any information about the case, citing a gag order.

"Due to court rules I can't answer any questions," said Beth Ann Steele, a spokeswoman in the FBI's Portland office.

Calls to the U.S. Attorney's office in Portland requesting comment were not returned.

An FBI press release concerning Hawash's arrest says simply that four federal search warrants were executed in the Hillsboro area as part of an "ongoing investigation." There are no hints about the nature of the investigation, except that it is unrelated to the war in Iraq, or the number of people detained.

Though he's guessing, McGeady said it was possible Hawash was targeted because of charitable donations he made in 2000 to the Global Relief Foundation, a Muslim charity that purported to fund mosques and schools in the United States, as well as West Bank medical facilities.

However, two years after Hawash made his donations, the Illinois-based charity was accused of links to terrorist organizations, and the Treasury Department froze its assets. The charity denies the accusations and is fighting the pending extradition of one of its founders.

Story continued on Page 2 »

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Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee

By Leander Kahney | Also by this reporter « back Page 2 of 2

02:00 AM Apr. 03, 2003 PT

According to a story in The Oregonian newspaper, Hawash donated about $10,000, which the paper uncovered by examining the foundation's federal tax returns.

Hawash made the donations after a representative solicited funds at a local mosque or Islamic center, the paper said. "The organization is legit," Hawash told a reporter. "We believed that they are doing good work. It's a well-known organization."

Maher (Mike) Hawash was arrested as a 'material witness' by the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force in the parking lot of Intel's Hawthorne Farms parking lot on March 20, 2003. Since then, Hawash has been held in the Federal Prison at Sheridan, Oregon. He has been a U.S. citizen for 14 years.

But McGeady said Hawash's detention could easily be related to something else.

"I'm completely puzzled," he said. "He has family in the West Bank, but he's not political. He worked at Intel Israel for two years, for heck's sake. His most political act was setting up an ISP on the West Bank, and in my opinion that's not political. I don't know. Maybe it's a case of mistaken identity. Maybe it's something beyond my comprehension."

Hawash, 38, was born in the West Bank but became a U.S. citizen in 1988. His wife, two of his children and his stepchild are all American-born.

Hawash co-authored a book on multimedia programming. He was laid off from Intel in 2001, but was later rehired as a contract programmer.

According to The Washington Post's November investigation, at least 44 people have been arrested and detained as material witnesses in post-Sept. 11 terrorist probes. The paper was unable to determine hard numbers because of secrecy surrounding the cases.

The 1984 material witness statute was designed to coax testimony from unwilling witnesses or those likely to flee the country. But since Sept. 11, authorities have made widespread use of the statute to detain suspects indefinitely without charging them with any crime.

According to the Post, none of the 44 witnesses held was charged, and nearly half were not called to testify before a grand jury. Most were held in maximum security for periods ranging from days to "several months or longer." At least seven were U.S. citizens, the Post reported.

In early 2002, Jose Padilla was detained as a material witness for allegedly plotting to explode a "dirty" nuclear device. The U.S. government subsequently designated him an "enemy combatant" and has held him in a Navy brig in South Carolina. Padilla has not been tried and is denied access to a lawyer.

End of story

So at first glance, the punishment seems fitting enough: life imprisonment for acts of terrorism.

Trouble is, this law would effectively reduce the definition of "terrorism" to "blocking traffic in front of a government building."

A BILL FOR AN ACT

Relating to terrorism; creating new provisions; and amending
section 19, chapter 666, Oregon Laws 2001.

Be It Enacted by the People of the State of Oregon:
SECTION 1. { + (1) A person commits the crime of terrorism if
the person knowingly plans, participates in or carries out any
act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to
disrupt:
(a) The free and orderly assembly of the inhabitants of the
State of Oregon;
(b) Commerce or the transportation systems of the State of
Oregon; or
(c) The educational or governmental institutions of the State
of Oregon or its inhabitants.
(2) A person commits the crime of terrorism if the person
conspires to do any of the activities described in subsection (1)
of this section.

Here is the full text of this crazy bill in case the link goes bad:

http://www.leg.state.or.us/03reg/measures/sb0700.dir/sb0742.intro.html

72nd OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2003 Regular Session

NOTE: Matter within { + braces and plus signs + } in an
amended section is new. Matter within { - braces and minus
signs - } is existing law to be omitted. New sections are within
{ + braces and plus signs + } .

LC 2695

Senate Bill 742

Sponsored by Senator MINNIS


SUMMARY

The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the
measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to
consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor's
brief statement of the essential features of the measure as
introduced.

Creates crime of terrorism. Punishes by life imprisonment.

A BILL FOR AN ACT
Relating to terrorism; creating new provisions; and amending
section 19, chapter 666, Oregon Laws 2001.
Be It Enacted by the People of the State of Oregon:
SECTION 1. { + (1) A person commits the crime of terrorism if
the person knowingly plans, participates in or carries out any
act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to
disrupt:
(a) The free and orderly assembly of the inhabitants of the
State of Oregon;
(b) Commerce or the transportation systems of the State of
Oregon; or
(c) The educational or governmental institutions of the State
of Oregon or its inhabitants.
(2) A person commits the crime of terrorism if the person
conspires to do any of the activities described in subsection (1)
of this section.
(3) A person may not be convicted of terrorism except upon the
testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or upon
confession in open court.
(4)(a) A person convicted of terrorism shall be punished by
imprisonment for life.
(b) When a person is convicted of terrorism under this section,
the court shall order that the person be confined for a minimum
of 25 years without possibility of parole, release to post-prison
supervision, release on work release or any form of temporary
leave or employment at a forest or work camp.
(c) At any time after completion of a minimum period of
confinement pursuant to paragraph (b) of this subsection, the
State Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision, upon the
petition of a prisoner so confined, shall hold a hearing, the
sole issue of which is to determine whether the prisoner is
likely to be rehabilitated within a reasonable period of time.
The board shall conduct the proceeding in the manner prescribed
for a contested case hearing under ORS 183.310 to 183.550 except
that:
(A) The prisoner has the burden of proving by a preponderance
of the evidence the likelihood of rehabilitation within a
reasonable period of time; and
(B) The prisoner has the right, if the prisoner is without
sufficient funds to employ an attorney, to be represented by
legal counsel, appointed by the board, at board expense.
(d) If, upon hearing all of the evidence and upon a unanimous
vote of all of its members, the board finds that the prisoner is
capable of rehabilitation within a reasonable amount of time and
that the terms of the prisoner's confinement should be changed to
life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, release to
post-prison supervision or work release, the board shall enter an
order to that effect and convert the terms of the prisoner's
confinement to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole,
release to post-prison supervision or work release and may set a
release date. Otherwise, the board shall deny the relief sought
in the petition.
(e) Not less than two years after the denial of the relief
sought in a petition under paragraph (c) of this subsection, the
prisoner may petition again for a change in the terms of
confinement. Further petitions for a change may be filed at
intervals of not less than two years thereafter. + }
SECTION 2. { + Notwithstanding ORS 181.575 and 181.850, a law
enforcement agency shall cooperate with any federal or state
agency that is investigating an act of terrorism, and a law
enforcement agency may retain any information relating to an
investigation of terrorism as long as the investigation remains
open. The Attorney General shall adopt rules governing the
retention of such information. + }
SECTION 3. Section 19, chapter 666, Oregon Laws 2001, as
amended by section 5, chapter 696, Oregon Laws 2001, is amended
to read:
{ + Sec. 19. + } The crimes to which section 1 (11)(b),
chapter 666, Oregon Laws 2001, applies are:
(1) Bribe giving, as defined in ORS 162.015.
(2) Bribe receiving, as defined in ORS 162.025.
(3) Public investment fraud, as defined in ORS 162.117.
(4) Bribing a witness, as defined in ORS 162.265.
(5) Bribe receiving by a witness, as defined in ORS 162.275.
(6) Simulating legal process, as defined in ORS 162.355.
(7) Official misconduct in the first degree, as defined in ORS
162.415.
(8) Custodial interference in the second degree, as defined in
ORS 163.245.
(9) Custodial interference in the first degree, as defined in
ORS 163.257.
(10) Buying or selling a person under 18 years of age, as
defined in ORS 163.537.
(11) Using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct,
as defined in ORS 163.670.
(12) Encouraging child sexual abuse in the first degree, as
defined in ORS 163.684.
(13) Encouraging child sexual abuse in the second degree, as
defined in ORS 163.686.
(14) Encouraging child sexual abuse in the third degree, as
defined in ORS 163.687.
(15) Possession of materials depicting sexually explicit
conduct of a child in the first degree, as defined in ORS
163.688.
(16) Possession of materials depicting sexually explicit
conduct of a child in the second degree, as defined in ORS
163.689.
(17) Theft in the second degree, as defined in ORS 164.045.
(18) Theft in the first degree, as defined in ORS 164.055.
(19) Aggravated theft in the first degree, as defined in ORS
164.057.
(20) Theft by extortion, as defined in ORS 164.075.
(21) Theft by deception, as defined in ORS 164.085, if it is a
felony or a Class A misdemeanor.
(22) Theft by receiving, as defined in ORS 164.095, if it is a
felony or a Class A misdemeanor.
(23) Theft of services, as defined in ORS 164.125, if it is a
felony or a Class A misdemeanor.
(24) Unauthorized use of a vehicle, as defined in ORS 164.135.
(25) Mail theft or receipt of stolen mail, as defined in ORS
164.162.
(26) Laundering a monetary instrument, as defined in ORS
164.170.
(27) Engaging in a financial transaction in property derived
from unlawful activity, as defined in ORS 164.172.
(28) Burglary in the second degree, as defined in ORS 164.215.
(29) Burglary in the first degree, as defined in ORS 164.225.
(30) Possession of burglar's tools, as defined in ORS 164.235.
(31) Unlawful entry into a motor vehicle, as defined in ORS
164.272.
(32) Arson in the second degree, as defined in ORS 164.315.
(33) Arson in the first degree, as defined in ORS 164.325.
(34) Computer crime, as defined in ORS 164.377.
(35) Robbery in the third degree, as defined in ORS 164.395.
(36) Robbery in the second degree, as defined in ORS 164.405.
(37) Robbery in the first degree, as defined in ORS 164.415.
(38) Unlawful labeling of a sound recording, as defined in ORS
164.868.
(39) Unlawful recording of a live performance, as defined in
ORS 164.869.
(40) Unlawful labeling of a videotape recording, as defined in
ORS 164.872.
(41) A violation of ORS 164.877.
(42) Endangering aircraft, as defined in ORS 164.885.
(43) Interference with agricultural operations, as defined in
ORS 164.887.
(44) Forgery in the second degree, as defined in ORS 165.007.
(45) Forgery in the first degree, as defined in ORS 165.013.
(46) Criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second
degree, as defined in ORS 165.017.
(47) Criminal possession of a forged instrument in the first
degree, as defined in ORS 165.022.
(48) Criminal possession of a forgery device, as defined in ORS
165.032.
(49) Criminal simulation, as defined in ORS 165.037.
(50) Fraudulently obtaining a signature, as defined in ORS
165.042.
(51) Fraudulent use of a credit card, as defined in ORS
165.055.
(52) Negotiating a bad check, as defined in ORS 165.065.
(53) Possessing a fraudulent communications device, as defined
in ORS 165.070.
(54) Unlawful factoring of a credit card transaction, as
defined in ORS 165.074.
(55) Falsifying business records, as defined in ORS 165.080.
(56) Sports bribery, as defined in ORS 165.085.
(57) Sports bribe receiving, as defined in ORS 165.090.
(58) Misapplication of entrusted property, as defined in ORS
165.095.
(59) Issuing a false financial statement, as defined in ORS
165.100.
(60) Obtaining execution of documents by deception, as defined
in ORS 165.102.
(61) A violation of ORS 165.543.
(62) Cellular counterfeiting in the third degree, as defined in
ORS 165.577.
(63) Cellular counterfeiting in the second degree, as defined
in ORS 165.579.
(64) Cellular counterfeiting in the first degree, as defined in
ORS 165.581.
(65) Identity theft, as defined in ORS 165.800.
(66) A violation of ORS 166.190.
(67) Unlawful use of a weapon, as defined in ORS 166.220.
(68) A violation of ORS 166.240.
(69) Unlawful possession of a firearm, as defined in ORS
166.250.
(70) A violation of ORS 166.270.
(71) Unlawful possession of a machine gun, short-barreled
rifle, short-barreled shotgun or firearms silencer, as defined in
ORS 166.272.
(72) A violation of ORS 166.275.
(73) Unlawful possession of armor piercing ammunition, as
defined in ORS 166.350.
(74) A violation of ORS 166.370.
(75) Unlawful possession of a destructive device, as defined in
ORS 166.382.
(76) Unlawful manufacture of a destructive device, as defined
in ORS 166.384.
(77) Possession of a hoax destructive device, as defined in ORS
166.385.
(78) A violation of ORS 166.410.
(79) Providing false information in connection with a transfer
of a handgun, as defined in ORS 166.416.
(80) Improperly transferring a handgun, as defined in ORS
166.418.
(81) Unlawfully purchasing a firearm, as defined in ORS
166.425.
(82) A violation of ORS 166.429.
(83) A violation of ORS 166.470.
(84) A violation of ORS 166.480.
(85) A violation of ORS 166.635.
(86) A violation of ORS 166.638.
(87) Unlawful paramilitary activity, as defined in ORS 166.660.
(88) A violation of ORS 166.720.
(89) Prostitution, as defined in ORS 167.007.
(90) Promoting prostitution, as defined in ORS 167.012.
(91) Compelling prostitution, as defined in ORS 167.017.
(92) Exhibiting an obscene performance to a minor, as defined
in ORS 167.075.
(93) Unlawful gambling in the second degree, as defined in ORS
167.122.
(94) Unlawful gambling in the first degree, as defined in ORS
167.127.
(95) Possession of gambling records in the second degree, as
defined in ORS 167.132.
(96) Possession of gambling records in the first degree, as
defined in ORS 167.137.
(97) Possession of a gambling device, as defined in ORS
167.147.
(98) Possession of a gray machine, as defined in ORS 167.164.
(99) Cheating, as defined in ORS 167.167.
(100) Tampering with drug records, as defined in ORS 167.212.
(101) A violation of ORS 167.262.
(102) Research and animal interference, as defined in ORS
167.312.
(103) Animal abuse in the first degree, as defined in ORS
167.320.
(104) Aggravated animal abuse in the first degree, as defined
in ORS 167.322.
(105) Animal neglect in the first degree, as defined in ORS
167.330.
(106) Interfering with an assistance, a search and rescue or a
therapy animal, as defined in ORS 167.352.
(107) Involvement in animal fighting, as defined in ORS
167.355.
(108) Dogfighting, as defined in ORS 167.365.
(109) Participation in dogfighting, as defined in ORS 167.370.
(110) Unauthorized use of a livestock animal, as defined in ORS
167.385.
(111) Interference with livestock production, as defined in ORS
167.388.
(112) A violation of ORS 167.390.
(113) A violation of ORS 471.410.
(114) Failure to report missing precursor substances, as
defined in ORS 475.955.
(115) Illegally selling drug equipment, as defined in ORS
475.960.
(116) Providing false information on a precursor substances
report, as defined in ORS 475.965.
(117) Unlawful delivery of an imitation controlled substance,
as defined in ORS 475.991.
(118) A violation of ORS 475.992, if it is a felony or a Class
A misdemeanor.
(119) A violation of ORS 475.993, if it is a felony or a Class
A misdemeanor.
(120) A violation of ORS 475.994.
(121) A violation of ORS 475.995, if it is a felony or a Class
A misdemeanor.
(122) A violation of ORS 475.999 (1)(a).
(123) Misuse of an identification card, as defined in ORS
807.430.
(124) Unlawful production of identification cards, licenses,
permits, forms or camera cards, as defined in ORS 807.500.
(125) Transfer of documents for the purposes of
misrepresentation, as defined in ORS 807.510.
(126) Using an invalid license, as defined in ORS 807.580.
(127) Permitting misuse of a license, as defined in ORS
807.590.
(128) Using another's license, as defined in ORS 807.600.
(129) Criminal driving while suspended or revoked, as defined
in ORS 811.182, when it is a felony.
(130) Driving while under the influence of intoxicants, as
defined in ORS 813.010, when it is a felony.
(131) Unlawful distribution of cigarettes, as defined in
{ - section 3 of this 2001 Act - } { + ORS 323.482 + }.
{ + (132) Terrorism, as defined in section 1 of this 2003
Act.
+ } { - (132) - } { + (133) + } An attempt, conspiracy or
solicitation to commit a crime in subsections (1) to
{ - (131) - } { + (132) + } of this section if the attempt,
conspiracy or solicitation is a felony or a Class A misdemeanor.
----------

There seems to be quite a flurry of activity over the last few weeks.

McCarthyism Watch

FBI jails ex-Intel worker
By Matthew Yi for the SF Chronicle.

Hawash was picked up by FBI agents at about 7 a.m. on March 20 as he arrived at the parking lot for his job at Intel's Hawthorne Farms office in Hillsboro, Ore., said Steven McGeady, Hawash's former boss and friend, in a telephone interview with The Chronicle on Tuesday.

At about the same time, armed federal agents wearing bullet-proof vests stormed into Hawash's home and seized his computers and files, said McGeady, who spoke with Lisa Hawash about the incident.

Hawash's wife and their three young children were asleep when authorities arrived at their home, McGeady said.

"Lisa wasn't taken into custody, but they seized all their computers, files and left her with a grand jury subpoena," he said.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said FBI agents also have searched Hawash's cubicle and computer system at work.

Although Lisa Hawash has been able to visit her husband a couple of times a week, neither of them has been told by authorities why he is being detained, McGeady said...

Hawash, born in the West Bank city of Nablus, grew up in Kuwait, McGeady said. He arrived in the United States in 1984 to attend the University of Texas at Arlington, where he earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering.

Hawash became a U.S. citizen in 1988, a year before he graduated and landed his first job at Compaq Computers in Houston. He was soon transferred to Seattle.

In 1992, he was hired to work at Intel's Multimedia Software Technology Group, said McGeady, who was Hawash's boss at the time.

Hawash was laid off in 2001 but has since been working at Intel as a contract software engineer, he said.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/02/BU291043.DTL

FBI jails ex-Intel worker

Matthew Yi, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, April 2, 2003

A contract worker for Intel Corp. is being held in a federal prison in Oregon as part of an investigation by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Maher Mofeid Hawash, 38, on Tuesday remained in federal prison in Sheridan, Ore., as a material witness, said Sheila Meyer, investigative research specialist for the U.S. marshal's office in Portland.

FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele in Portland declined to comment on the case.

Telephone messages left at the U.S. attorney's office in Portland as well as with lawyers representing Hawash and his wife, Lisa Hawash, were not returned Tuesday.

Hawash was picked up by FBI agents at about 7 a.m. on March 20 as he arrived at the parking lot for his job at Intel's Hawthorne Farms office in Hillsboro, Ore., said Steven McGeady, Hawash's former boss and friend, in a telephone interview with The Chronicle on Tuesday.

At about the same time, armed federal agents wearing bullet-proof vests stormed into Hawash's home and seized his computers and files, said McGeady, who spoke with Lisa Hawash about the incident.

Hawash's wife and their three young children were asleep when authorities arrived at their home, McGeady said.

"Lisa wasn't taken into custody, but they seized all their computers, files and left her with a grand jury subpoena," he said.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said FBI agents also have searched Hawash's cubicle and computer system at work.

Although Lisa Hawash has been able to visit her husband a couple of times a week, neither of them has been told by authorities why he is being detained, McGeady said.

The only thing the couple can think of is a pair of donations that Hawash made in 2000 to Global Relief Foundation, he said. The Illinois Islamic charity came under FBI scrutiny after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. In December 2001, the Treasury Department froze the foundation's bank accounts and confiscated its computers.

"This is really complete speculation on our part . . . but we can't think of any other reason," McGeady said.

He said he isn't sure exactly how much was donated, but the Oregonian newspaper recently reported that Hawash made donations of $5,165 and $5,050, citing the foundation's federal tax return for 2000.

"They made (the donations), but they thought it was a legitimate organization," McGeady said.

Hawash, born in the West Bank city of Nablus, grew up in Kuwait, McGeady said. He arrived in the United States in 1984 to attend the University of Texas at Arlington, where he earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering.

Hawash became a U.S. citizen in 1988, a year before he graduated and landed his first job at Compaq Computers in Houston. He was soon transferred to Seattle.

In 1992, he was hired to work at Intel's Multimedia Software Technology Group, said McGeady, who was Hawash's boss at the time.

Hawash was laid off in 2001 but has since been working at Intel as a contract software engineer, he said.

McGeady is spearheading efforts to free Hawash and has set up a Web site (www.freemikehawash.org) encouraging people to write letters to senators and representatives.

"We're also raising money to help pay for their legal expenses," McGeady said. "We're trying to provide (Lisa Hawash) with some support. One of the hardest things is the fact that she doesn't know if there is anything she can do."

E-mail Matthew Yi at myi@sfchronicle.com.

ACLU Criticizes Use Of Material Witness Law To Detain Hillsboro man

The American Civil Liberties Union today criticized the U.S. Justice Department’s detention of Maher (Mike) Hawash of Hillsboro. FBI agents and members of the Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested Hawash on March 20 and he is reportedly being held in solitary confinement at the federal prison in Sheridan.

Oregon ACLU Executive Director David Fidanque noted that Hawash is a U.S. citizen with strong ties to the local community. At the same time Hawash was arrested in a parking lot at Intel, other agents searched his home and served his wife, Lisa Hawash, with a grand jury subpoena.

“The use of material witness warrants and attorney gag orders has been part of the Justice Department’s campaign of detention and secrecy targeting Muslim and Arab-Americans during the past 18 months,” Fidanque said. “The material witness process was designed to be used in cases where there is a great risk that a witness may flee the jurisdiction to avoid testifying. It’s designed to preserve evidence, not to indefinitely detain individuals who haven’t been charged with a crime...”

...“All of this has been shrouded in secrecy,” Fidanque said. “Since the Justice Department won’t release any information and the lawyers of those who have been detained are under gag orders, there is no way for the public to evaluate whether these unprecedented measures are justified.

"What we do know is that our Constitution was designed to prevent government officials from secretly snatching individuals, holding them in isolation for weeks and frightening their families. If someone is suspected of a crime, go ahead and arrest them if you have the evidence. If you need someone to testify before a grand jury, give them a subpoena and let them testify.”

...Mike Hawash was born in Nablus on the West Bank and was raised in Kuwait before emigrating to the U.S. in 1984. He became a citizen in 1988 after receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas. He has lived in Hillsboro since 1992 and has been a software design employee and contractor for Intel since that time. He and his wife are raising three children.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.aclu-or.org/issues/terrorism/Hawashcase.html

Oregon

Safe and Free:
Misuse of Material Witness Law
Home Get Involved Email About ACLU

APRIL 3, 2003

ACLU CRITICIZES USE OF MATERIAL WITNESS LAW TO DETAIN HILLSBORO MAN

PORTLAND – The American Civil Liberties Union today criticized the U.S. Justice Department’s detention of Maher (Mike) Hawash of Hillsboro. FBI agents and members of the Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested Hawash on March 20 and he is reportedly being held in solitary confinement at the federal prison in Sheridan.

Oregon ACLU Executive Director David Fidanque noted that Hawash is a U.S. citizen with strong ties to the local community. At the same time Hawash was arrested in a parking lot at Intel, other agents searched his home and served his wife, Lisa Hawash, with a grand jury subpoena.

“The use of material witness warrants and attorney gag orders has been part of the Justice Department’s campaign of detention and secrecy targeting Muslim and Arab-Americans during the past 18 months,” Fidanque said. “The material witness process was designed to be used in cases where there is a great risk that a witness may flee the jurisdiction to avoid testifying. It’s designed to preserve evidence, not to indefinitely detain individuals who haven’t been charged with a crime.”

According to a November 2002 Washington Post story on the use of material witness warrants, more than 40 people have been detained by the Justice Department since September 11, 2001. As of that time, seven of those were U.S. citizens. Federal trial courts have differed on whether the Justice Department’s actions comply with the law or the Constitution. (See link at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31438-2002Nov23 )

Fidanque said the ACLU believes the Justice Department is using the law to “bring the full weight of the U.S. government down on individuals and their families to coerce them into doing whatever the government wants.”

“All of this has been shrouded in secrecy,” Fidanque said. “Since the Justice Department won’t release any information and the lawyers of those who have been detained are under gag orders, there is no way for the public to evaluate whether these unprecedented measures are justified.

"What we do know is that our Constitution was designed to prevent government officials from secretly snatching individuals, holding them in isolation for weeks and frightening their families. If someone is suspected of a crime, go ahead and arrest them if you have the evidence. If you need someone to testify before a grand jury, give them a subpoena and let them testify.”

Friends and co-workers of Hawash have established a website related to his case which can be found at: http://www.freemikehawash.org

Mike Hawash was born in Nablus on the West Bank and was raised in Kuwait before emigrating to the U.S. in 1984. He became a citizen in 1988 after receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas. He has lived in Hillsboro since 1992 and has been a software design employee and contractor for Intel since that time. He and his wife are raising three children.

FBI, Joint Terrorism agents search home in Hillsboro
By Mark Larabee and Les Zaitz for the Oregonian.

A software designer was being held Thursday as a material witness in a terrorism investigation after FBI agents searched his Hillsboro home and his office at Intel.

According to neighbors and co-workers, Maher Mofeid Hawash, 38, was the target of Thursday's searches by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Hawash was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center on Thursday afternoon and put on a "material witness hold" at the request of the U.S. Marshal's Service, a sheriff's department spokesman said. A material witness designation allows the government to hold someone in order to compel testimony.

The FBI issued a short statement Thursday morning saying that in an "ongoing investigation," the Joint Terrorism Task Force had executed four federal search warrants in the Hillsboro area and that the Hillsboro Police Department assisted in the searches.

Prosecutors and investigators refused to say who the target of their search was or what they were looking for. The federal search warrants filed in the case are sealed, meaning the information in them is secret. Asked whether anyone was taken into custody as a result of the searches, officials said they could not answer the question because of a court order.

Hawash's neighbors on Northeast Aurora Drive said they saw several FBI agents arrive about 7 a.m. Thursday. They said the agents were there about four hours, removed several boxes from Hawash's house and canvassed surrounding homes asking fairly routine questions about Hawash and his activities.

Two women who asked not to be identified said they've known Hawash and his wife, Lisa, for four years and consider them friends. They said the couple have three children and are good neighbors who socialize regularly at neighborhood functions, such as barbecues. The women said they never noticed anything out of the ordinary.

An Intel engineer contacted by The Oregonian said agents came to the company's Hillsboro offices looking for Hawash on Thursday morning. He said he did not know why the agents were there.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/104825159914540.xml?oregonian?lcps

FBI, Joint Terrorism agents search home in Hillsboro

03/21/03
MARK LARABEE

and LES ZAITZ
From Our Advertiser

A software designer was being held Thursday as a material witness in a terrorism investigation after FBI agents searched his Hillsboro home and his office at Intel.

According to neighbors and co-workers, Maher Mofeid Hawash, 38, was the target of Thursday's searches by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Hawash was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center on Thursday afternoon and put on a "material witness hold" at the request of the U.S. Marshal's Service, a sheriff's department spokesman said. A material witness designation allows the government to hold someone in order to compel testimony.

The FBI issued a short statement Thursday morning saying that in an "ongoing investigation," the Joint Terrorism Task Force had executed four federal search warrants in the Hillsboro area and that the Hillsboro Police Department assisted in the searches.

Prosecutors and investigators refused to say who the target of their search was or what they were looking for. The federal search warrants filed in the case are sealed, meaning the information in them is secret. Asked whether anyone was taken into custody as a result of the searches, officials said they could not answer the question because of a court order.

Hawash's neighbors on Northeast Aurora Drive said they saw several FBI agents arrive about 7 a.m. Thursday. They said the agents were there about four hours, removed several boxes from Hawash's house and canvassed surrounding homes asking fairly routine questions about Hawash and his activities.

Two women who asked not to be identified said they've known Hawash and his wife, Lisa, for four years and consider them friends. They said the couple have three children and are good neighbors who socialize regularly at neighborhood functions, such as barbecues. The women said they never noticed anything out of the ordinary.

An Intel engineer contacted by The Oregonian said agents came to the company's Hillsboro offices looking for Hawash on Thursday morning. He said he did not know why the agents were there.

Hawash, who also goes by the name "Mike," could not be reached for comment. Messages left at his home and office went unanswered.

According to a short biography on the Addison-Wesley Web site, Hawash has been a multimedia software engineer at Intel for the past five years, focusing on video technologies. The bio states that he is a graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington, is a lead engineer on the MMX technology software team at Intel and has co-authored a book on the software.

Bill MacKenzie, an Intel spokesman, said Hawash is not an Intel "blue badge," or full-time, employee. When asked Thursday morning if the FBI had searched Intel, MacKenzie declined to say, then referred all questions to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Unconnected to the investigation of Hawash are his donations three years ago to an Islamic charity now under FBI scrutiny. Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department shut down Illinois-based Global Relief Foundation, saying some money was used to support terrorist activities. One of Global Relief's founders, Rabih Haddad, is in federal custody in Michigan, fighting deportation after a judge ruled he was an associate of terrorists.

Attached to Global Relief Foundation's federal tax return for the year 2000 is a list of about 120 donations of $5,000 or more, including two from Hawash. The first was a $5,165 donation from "Mike & Lisa Hawash" listing their Hillsboro address. The second was a $5,050 donation by "Maher Hawash" listing the same address. The dates of the donations weren't listed.

The donors included individuals, Islamic charities across the country and mosques. Masjed As-Saber, the Islamic Center of Portland, was the eighth-largest donor that year to Global Relief Foundation, giving $38,935, the records show.

The Oregonian interviewed Hawash by phone last November about his donations to the Global Relief Foundation. He said he made the donations after someone from Global Relief came to town to make a presentation at either the Bilal Mosque or Islamic Center of Portland. He said he couldn't recall the name of the GRF speaker.

"The organization is legit," he said. "We believed that they are doing good work. It's a well-known organization."

He said at the time that no investigators had questioned him about the foundation. Ted Sickinger of The Oregonian staff contributed to this report

Oregonians: Show Your Support For Mike Hawash Monday Morning

I just spoke to Steven McGeady, the friend and former employer of Mike Hawash, a long-time US citizen who has been imprisoned under a secret warrant as a material witness by the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Portland, Oregon.

So far Mike has been held for over 14 days (since Thu, March 20) in Oregon's Sheridan Federal Prison.

He has been a U.S. citizen for 15 years, and lived in the U.S. for nearly 20 years.

Mike is 38, and is married to a Roseberg, Oregon woman. They raise their three children in Hillsboro, Oregon where Mike worked as a software engineer at Intel Corp up until his arrest.

Mike's finally getting a hearing this Monday morning at Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.

Mike's friends and family ask that you show your support by gathering in front of the Federal Courthouse for a peaceful demonstration of support.

Important Note: It is important to not block the entrance to the Courthouse or get in the way of the cars driving in the street -- because of anti-war protests, the police are on heightened alert, and we don't want anyone to get in trouble.

A peaceful rally by well-mannered friends and supporters will show the Justice Department and media the depth of support for Mike, and our outrage over the trampling of his civil rights.

We expect Mike's wife, Lisa, to come through on her way into the Courthouse.

Day: Monday, April 7, 2003
Time: 8:15-8:30 AM or so until about 9:15.

Mark Hatfield U.S. Courthouse
100 SW 3rd Ave
Corner of SW Salmon/3rd
Portland, OR

Parking is available nearby at 4th and Yamhill.

For those of you that don't live in the Oregon area (like me), I'll be posting a letter soon that you can FAX to your Reps and local newspapers over the weekend. Thanks!

For those of you who aren't sure yet what all of the fuss is about, stay tuned on this blog-channel: much documentation to follow!

Boy oh boy are there a whole lotta letters that need to be written to our representatives this coming week. And fast!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a great Legislative Directory where such contact information can be obtained easily.

I'll be preparing drafts letters on the various issues that you can use as a starter page to save time.

Note: This time we need to take an extra step and send a copy of the emails/faxes we sent to our representatives to a local newspaper or two as well.

These letters can really matter when there are a lot of them.

Let's make this week the week that our Reps start talking about all the mail they are getting.

Chris Rock On The Daily Show (Small - 3 MB)
Chris Rock On The Daily Show (Hi-res - 36 MB)

Here's the scoop on the "Broadband and Digital Future- Who is in Control" conference. Wish I could make it.

Access: Broadband and Digital Future- Who is in Control? (4/5/03)

Saturday, April 5, 2003
Stanford University
Jordan Hall in Main Quad building
Palo Alto, California
9:00AM - 6:00PM

Registration Fee - $15-$25
(Sliding scale)
Student $10

Schedule

(Speakers' organization for identification only)

9:00 - 9:30 Registration (Morning refreshments)

9:30 - 10:30 Welcome & Introduction
mic Mylen - Free Radio Berkeley
Steve Zeltzer - LaborNet, LaborTech
Walter Johnson - Secretary Treasurer/SF Labor Council

Keynote speakers
Mark Cooper - Consumer Federation of America
Peter B. Collins - Exec. Board/AFTRA
Ken Hamidi - Faceintel.com

10:30 - 11:20 Workshops I: (Room # to be announced)
1) Privatization and Municipalization of Telecommunications
Bruce Lusignan- Stanford University
Wes Brain - SEIU 503, Oregon Public Employees Union

2) Privacy, Spying and Censorship
Jeramie Scott - Coalition for Labor Justice, Stanford
Todd Davies - Stanford University
Peter Neumann - CPSR
Jake Appelbaum

11:30 - 12:20 Workshops II: (Room # to be announced)
1) Public Access Cable and Interconnect
Joseph Partansky - Concord Cable Access
Steve Zeltzer - LaborNet, Labor Video Project
David Miles - Skating Place / PPNSF

2) The "Digital Divide" and Discrimination
Art McGee - Project Change/ AntiRacismNet
mic Mylen - Free Radio Berkeley
Raj Jayadev - Silicon Valley DEBUG

12:30 - 1:20 Lunch (sandwiches and drink provided)
Videos
Music - Larry Shaw - solddowntheriver.org

1:30 - 2:20 Workshops III: (Room # to be announced)
1) Workers' Right in the New Technology
Joshua Sperry - CWA 9423
Karin Hart - CWA 9415
Raj Jayadev - Silicon Valley DEBUG
Peter B. Collins - Ex. Board/AFTRA
Carolyn Bowden - IATSE

2) Wireless Networks (Wi-Fi) and Micro Radio
John Parulis - brightpathvideo.com
mic Mylen / Stephen Dunifer - Free Radio Berkeley
Sarah Olsen - SF Liberation Radio

2:30 - 3:20 Workshops IV : (Room # to be announced)
1) Defending Access to Alternative Media
Jeff Pearlstein - Media Alliance
Sarah Olsen - SF Liberation Radio
Steve Zeltzer - LaborNet, Labor Video Project
Ken Hamidi - Faceintel.com

2) Global Internet Governance (ICANN, the WSIS, etc.)
Dorothy Kidd - University of San Francisco
Art McGee - Project Change/AntiRacismNet
Peter Neumann - CPSR
Karl Auerbach - ICANN

3) Open Source
Jake Appelbaum - appelbaum.net
(More speakers to be announced)

3:30 - 4:20 Workshops V : (Room # to be announced)
1) Cable Internet Access and Regulation
Dorothy Kidd - University of San Francisco
Mark Cooper - Consumer Federation of America
Jeff Pearlstein - Media Alliance

2) Labor Video and a Labor channel
Carl Bryant - NALC 214, Letter Carriers Today
Wes Brain - SEIU 503, Oregon Public Employees Union
John Anderson - Workers Independent News Service (WINS)

4:30 - 6:00 Report Back, Proposals

Okay sorry for the light postings yesterday. Sometimes it's easier for me to crunch more video clips if I do a bunch of them at once and kind of get into a rhythm of sorts.

In the kitty: Chris Rock on the Daily Show, Paul McCartney chills out a bit for the Pope (but gets in a funny), more Daily Show updates on my country's beligerent Secretary of Defense and new found McCarthyesque trends, and a clip from a 1974 Rockford Files episode that won't need any explaination once you see it for yourself.

I've got a bit of reading to do for school (that I won't do if I don't do it before I start posting because I know how I am) and then the games will begin...

For those of you who are so inclined:

March for Peace and Justice in Oakland!

March for Peace and Justice in Oakland!

Saturday
April 5th

Gather: 10:30 AM in Mosswood Park
(Broadway and MacArthur, close to MacArthur BART) and march downtown

-or-

10:00 AM at UC Berkeley, Sproul Plaza and march to Mosswood, then downtown

1:30 PM Gather for rally and music
Frank Ogawa Plaza near Oakland City Hall
(12th St. BART Station)

For more information, contact:

Greenaction

(415) 248-5010

I've been working for the last two weeks helping to set up a warblog for a very knowledgable guy I met at SXSW 2003.

Introducing: David Miller and what I think will be one of the most insightful warblogs in existence to date:

In Our World.

David is currently working on a book based on Letters written to President Johnson from the relatives of soldiers who had died in the Vietnam War.

Proof (as if we needed any more) that history tends to repeat itself.

So this category was called "NeoMcCarthyism," but then I realized there was nothing new about this -- It's the same old thing. Perhaps it all happened just long enough ago that many of us don't remember exactly how or why it happened. And that's why I've decided it's so important to revisit history a bit, in order to better evaluate the current events of this modern age.

I think I held off on creating this category for the last few weeks because I didn't want to believe myself that this was really happening.

I first thought I recognized "it" when the Dixie Chicks were banned from all Clear Channel stations for expressing their views. "Gee, isn't that like being blacklisted?" I thought to myself.

I was sure the stench was present when I learned that the actors and actresses presenting and accepting at the Academy Awards had been instructed to not make comments against the Shrub War at this year's awards ceremony. Suddenly, there was a time and a place for such discussion -- and the Academy Awards wasn't it. I can remember when I was a little girl and Vanessa Redgrave accepted her award for "Julia." She sure had a thing or two to say about something that was important to her.

I didn't really understand what was going on, and I asked my mom what she was saying.

"It's complicated," she said. "They always get political in their speeches when they accept their awards. It happens every year."

Her voice was filled with both distain and acceptance, but the message was clear to me: people can say what they want in their speeches, and this is the case because we live in a free country.

Yesterday morning, I heard two acts of self-censorship that helped to clarify the absoluteness of the whole situation:

KTVU On Madonna and "What A Girl Wants" Censorship (Small - 3 MB)
KTVU On Madonna and "What A Girl Wants" Censorship (Hi-res - 36 MB)

I guess I forgot to post this earlier. It's my scene in the movie
Monsturd:

My Little Scene In Monsturd.

This will be on DVD later this month!

I sing the theme song too...

That'll teach em for thinking.

UK troops sent home for questioning war

The soldiers were returned to Britain on the eve of the war when they expressed concerns the offensive was in breach of the United Nations charter and it might be illegal for them to follow certain orders, their lawyer Gilbert Blades said.

"They expressed doubts about the legality of the war, about whether they should be called upon to shoot innocent civilians," Blades, a Lincolnshire-based military lawyer, told Reuters. "As soon as they expressed these views to other soldiers they were then removed."

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L01605437.htm

01 Apr 2003 16:15:52 GMT
UK troops sent home for questioning war -lawyer
By Andrew Hay

LONDON, April 1 (Reuters) - Two British soldiers who questioned the legality of the U.S.-led war in Iraq have been sent home from the Gulf and may now face disciplinary action, their lawyer said on Tuesday.

The soldiers were returned to Britain on the eve of the war when they expressed concerns the offensive was in breach of the United Nations charter and it might be illegal for them to follow certain orders, their lawyer Gilbert Blades said.

"They expressed doubts about the legality of the war, about whether they should be called upon to shoot innocent civilians," Blades, a Lincolnshire-based military lawyer, told Reuters. "As soon as they expressed these views to other soldiers they were then removed."

The case could prove embarrassing to the government, which ordered the military into action in the face of heavy public opposition and without a clear mandate from the United Nations.

British authorities in Qatar on Sunday said two of their soldiers were sent home from Kuwait in February on "medical and/or compassionate grounds" but denied the two had refused to fight.

The Ministry of Defence in London said on Tuesday it was not aware of any British soldiers who had expressed concerns about the legality of the war and had been sent home as a result.

"I know the number of people who've been sent back and the reasons for it and that doesn't tie in with any of them," an MoD spokeswoman said.

Blades said the two soldiers had been returned to normal duties at Colchester garrison in southern England and were waiting to hear from the MoD whether they would be charged.

"I don't suppose for one moment when they joined the services they thought they might have to obey an order which might be illegal," Blades said. "The question is whether the order is illegal or not."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair waged a campaign to convince Britons it was legal to enter a U.S.-led war in Iraq without an express resolution from the U.N. Security Council.

Blades said the soldiers had not refused a specific order because they had been removed from the campaign before they were put in a position where they might have to take such an action.

"Naturally the MoD would want to nip in the bud any dissident voices within the service," Blades said.

British newspapers have identified the soldiers as a private and an air technician from 16 Air Assault Brigade -- a frontline unit that has been engaged in heavy fighting in southern Iraq. Blades declined to identify the soldiers.

An official at 16 Air Assault Brigade, which is garrisoned in Colchester, declined to comment on the case.

The Daily Show On Donald Rumsfeld (Small - 5 MB)
The Daily Show On Donald Rumsfeld (Hi-res - 57 MB)

"We're in the middle of a war -- He's starting another war."

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

The Daily Show On Peter Arnett (Small - 7 MB)
The Daily Show On Peter Arnett (Hi-res - 98 MB)

The Daily Show -- the best news on television.

According to an interview with the New Jersey director of the office of counter-terrorism in the the South Jersey Courier Post Online, a red alert means that "all non-critical functions cease."

Red alert? Stay home, await word

Sunday, March 16, 2003

By TOM BALDWIN
Gannett State Bureau
TRENTON

If the nation escalates to "red alert," which is the highest in the color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home, the state's anti-terror czar says.

"This state is on top of it," said Sid Caspersen, New Jersey's director of the office of counter-terrorism.

Caspersen, a former FBI agent, was briefing reporters, alongside Gov. James E. McGreevey, on Thursday, when for the first time he disclosed the realities of how a red alert would shut the state down.

A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate.

"Red means all noncritical functions cease," Caspersen said. "Noncritical would be almost all businesses, except health-related."

A red alert means there is a severe risk of terrorist attack, according to federal guidelines from the Department of Homeland Security.

"The state will restrict transportation and access to critical locations," says the state's new brochure on dealing with terrorism.

"You must adhere to the restrictions announced by authorities and prepare to evacuate, if instructed. Stay alert for emergency messages."

Caspersen went further than the brochure. "The government agencies would run at a very low threshold," he said.

"The state police and the emergency management people would take control over the highways.

"You literally are staying home, is what happens, unless you are required to be out. No different than if you had a state of emergency with a snowstorm."

Here's text on what a red alert is from the Homeland Security website:

5. Severe Condition (Red). A Severe Condition reflects a severe risk of terrorist attacks. Under most circumstances, the Protective Measures for a Severe Condition are not intended to be sustained for substantial periods of time. In addition to the Protective Measures in the previous Threat Conditions, Federal departments and agencies also should consider the following general measures in addition to the agency-specific Protective Measures that they will develop and implement:
1. Increasing or redirecting personnel to address critical emergency needs;
2. Assigning emergency response personnel and pre-positioning and mobilizing specially trained teams or resources;
3. Monitoring, redirecting, or constraining transportation systems; and
4. Closing public and government facilities.

Update: 6:43 pm - Thanks, Sheila, for the heads up that I had "CNN" instead of "NBC". (More on the details of this soon.)

Here's a clip showing a bit of what he said and what happened as a result.

The Daily Show also just did a bit on this that I've made available.

Peter Arnett Fired From CNN - KTVU 2 (Small - 3 MB)
Peter Arnett Fired From CNN - KTVU 2 (Hi-res - 33 MB)