Category: Politics

From Palestine, Steve has left messages saying that he is fine, but, because of logistical and technical (phone) problems, we don’t yet have another real report or live conversation. We expect one soon.

I was going to say, “Geez, is air next, but I immediately realized the air has already been sold to the polluters.

Around the world there is a growing social movement to protect water as a common resource. Because many large corporations have realized that water scarcity and pollution are going to define the next century, a tremendous surge of activity is taking place around the world to commodify and privatize water. Many public interest groups are mobilizing in opposition. One of the most active is Public Citizen, which is campaigning to protect universal access to clean and affordable drinking water by keeping it in public hands.

So reads The Nation email alert. The Jim Hightower piece within the current edition elaborates.

… dozens of American communities presently find themselves under assault by foreign powers with names like RWE, Suez, Vivendi and Perrier. These global corporate raiders are grabbing for our most essential public resource: water. In just the past few years, such transnational conglomerates (along with such US players as Bechtel, T. Boone Pickens, Monsanto and, until recently, Enron) have quietly privatized all or part of the water delivery systems in Atlanta, Berlin, Bolivia, Buenos Aires, Casablanca, Chattanooga, Houston, Jacksonville, Jersey City, Lexington, Ky., Peoria, San Francisco and many other places (some of which have reverted to public ownership), plus laid claim to whole bodies of water, including the Midwestern Ogallala Aquifer, Blue Lake in Alaska and Canada’s huge James Bay.

Henry Kissinger committed crimes against humanity in his support of the Argentine military dictatorship’s self-described “war on terrorism” in the seventies, when military and paramilitary units were systematically killing, torturing and kidnapping suspected leftists–including several American citizens–during the summer and fall of that year.
Newly declassified documents show the frustration of the American ambassador, Robert Hill, during those months.

“When he had seen Secy of State Kissinger in Santiago, [Kissinger] had said he hoped the Argentine govt. could get the terrorist problem under control as quickly as possible,” Mr. Hill wrote. “Guzzetti [the Argentine foreign minister] said that he had reported this to President Videla and to the cabinet, and that their impression” had been that the United States’ “overriding concern was not human rights” but rather that Argentina ” `get it over quickly.’ ”
Mr. Kissinger did not return phone calls from a reporter seeking comment.

This is the real reason the current administration is fighting the International Criminal Court; its concern is not for Private Ryan.

I can’t say anything more or better than Barry does on this subject.

As someone who thinks a pre-emptive strike on a country that few people other than Bush believe is a significant threat to us, I just signed Move On’s petition. This group got started during the horrors of the Clinton impeachment/Republican coup.
I will not feel safe in a world, as an American and a New Yorker, that justifiably believes that force is the only way to convince the USA of anything.
A Republican administration that has Kissinger telling it this is a bad idea is a danger to us all.

Please sign today.

Oh, yuck.
The White House sends Sharon to Miami to help two Bushes. That’s certainly what it looks like, but the move might just backfire.

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, will appear in South Florida with Gov. Jeb Bush on Sept. 9 — the day before Mr. Bush’s would-be challengers meet in the Democratic primary — at a pro-Israel rally where international affairs will share a stage with domestic political concerns.
Israeli consular officials in Miami said today that Mr. Sharon’s appearance had nothing to do with the re-election campaign of President Bush’s brother. But Florida Democratic leaders denounced the appearance as the latest instance of what they described as White House intervention on behalf of Governor Bush’s campaign. They argued that the visit would help the governor this November and enhance the prime minister’s standing with the White House at a time when the administration is torn by conflicting demands from Israeli and Arab leaders.

Now we really do have a reason to go to war. Coca Cola is being attacked by arabs abroad. And the source of the terrorism? Iran, one of the members of the “axis of evil.” One problem. The enemy is actually all of our allies in the Middle East. How does that happen?

An Iranian soft drink named after a holy spring in Mecca is said to have won an enthusiastic reception in Saudi Arabia.
Zamzam Cola, an alternative to US brands Coca Cola and Pepsi, has gone on sale at the same time as a campaign to boycott American goods gathers momentum.

A problematic name, but the website is a worthy enterprise nevertheless.

Definition
A chickenhawk is a term often applied to public persons – generally male – who (1) tend to advocate, or are fervent supporters of those who advocate, military solutions to political problems, and who have personally (2) declined to take advantage of a significant opportunity to serve in uniform during wartime.
Some individuals may qualify more for their political associations than for any demonstrated personal tendency towards bellicosity. Some women may be included for exceptional bellicosity.
There is another, less savory definition of the term chickenhawk. It is not relevant to this discussion; we intend no such associations to be drawn here.
This list is provisonal. The management of the Gazette is proud to have served the vital public function of assembling the best known list of American chickenhawks, but we confess – we declare and emphasize – that we have not the resources to tend to it properly. Therefore we declare it provisional: we acknowledge there may be faults – hell, we know there are.

The site has garnered kudos all the way across the pond.

The US is now mainly governed by men in their mid-50s, ie the Vietnam generation – except that this lot missed being the Vietnam generation. [They ducked service.] The enterprisingly original New Hampshire Gazette (www.nhgazette.com) maintains a “Chickenhawks” database to tell their stories. Most of the allegations fit with facts recorded elsewhere.

On to Baghdad, son!

[This is a report of Donald’s latest communication from Steve in Palestine, written this morning in New York.]

In the last report, I mentioned that the army was occupying a large
house in Nablus, with the original 20 occupants confined to a single
apartment. Outside this house were two Palestinian trucks that the
army had impounded. The army had taken one of the driver’s ID
papers. Internationals were advocating for the trucks and the ID to
be released.
I spoke with Steve this morning 8/20 around 7 am New York Time. He
was in the Askar refugee camp outside Nablus.
He had stayed for a long time with other members of JATO outside the
abovementioned house, advocating for the truck drivers, while JATO
members also brought food and medicine for the people in the house.
The area was under curfew, but the presence of so many internationals
encouraged other neighbors to come out of their homes. They brought
food for the JATO folks. This ticked off the army, and soldiers
ordered all Palestinians out of the area, including a representative
from the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees. The
soldiers did not order the internationals out of the area. Steve
left at that time.
Over the time they stayed in front of the house, JATO people
witnessed blindfolded prisoners brought to the house. One of them
was obviously beaten up.
Late at night, about 25 soldiers left the house in various armored
vehicles, as Steve put it “to go out capturing and murdering”. When
the soldiers came back around 3 am, they had something in writing
identifying the area outside the house as a “military area” and told
the internationals to beat it.
The truck driver whose ID was taken eventually got it back, as well
as his truck. The other truck driver still hasn’t gotten his truck
back. This truck is filled with vegetables, which will rot, and
Nablus is full of people who are hungry.
Steve was in Nablus today for a meeting, and heard gunfire as
soldiers deployed in the Kasbah.
ISM is working to put together some strategy around dealing with
occupied homes. Right now everything they are doing at occupied
homes is ad hoc.
Steve says he has heard about an apartment building in a nearby
village where several apartments are occupied by the army, and the
other residents of the building are locked into their apartments.
They have to pound on their own doors for up to two hours to get food
or medicine (like in prison).
I forgot to ask Steve if occupying homes was common throughout the
West Bank, or was a practice isolated to Nablus.
Steve says that it serves no purpose except to harass Palestinians
and make life difficult for them. Nablus is completely encircled by
the army, and they could run their operations from their camps, but
choose to take over homes because it is more intimidating and
offensive. Paraphrasing a remark made by Moshe Dayan regarding
harassment of Palestinians 30 years ago “Let them live like dogs.
They can leave if they don’t like it”
End of report
dsg

And is this the kind of democratic dialogue we could expect from the nice Iraqi opposition groups the Whitehouse is courting?

BERLIN (Reuters) – German police said Tuesday two people had been injured and shots fired as four or five members of an obscure Iraqi opposition group occupied the Iraqi embassy in Berlin, taking hostages.
“Iraqi opposition members tried to force their way into the embassy and then there were shots from the embassy,” a police spokesman told Reuters by telephone.
Another police spokesman at the scene said two people had been injured and said that the number of hostages taken at the embassy was believed to be less than 10, but among those held was thought to be the Iraqi ambassador.
The spokesman said police did not have any more information about the identity of the opposition group. He said German special forces had been informed about the incident.
A group calling itself the Democratic Iraqi Opposition of Germany issued a statement earlier in German saying it was launching a “peaceful and temporary” action to press its demands for an end to the rule of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

On a much lighter note, check out the hot German special forces guy pictured in the NYTimes story. Jeans and t-shirt–don’t they need armor to be brave?

And this is from Reuters, not the alternative media!

President Bush used to call him “the evil one” but in recent months Osama bin Laden has become the unmentionable one, replaced by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as the chief enemy of the United States.
….
“They didn’t find him, they don’t know where he is and it’s not in the administration’s interest to keep reminding the American people of that,” said Michael Sherry, a historian at Northwestern University in Chicago.
“Every time bin Laden is mentioned, it’s a reminder that they don’t have a clue and it’s a reminder of their failure to fulfill their own stated war aims and it’s a reminder that the war on terrorism has become directionless and not very effective,” Sherry said.
….
The problem for Bush is, without an invasion of Iraq, there is no clear next step in a global war on terrorism, which Bush declared after Sept. 11 would be the defining mission for his generation for the foreseeable future.
“With no Osama bin Laden and no Saddam Hussein, the war on terrorism becomes a metaphorical abstraction, like the war on poverty,” said Keith Shimko, a political scientist at Purdue University in Indiana.
“Clearly we ought to be rebuilding Afghanistan and securing its future. But we as a people have a short attention span and it’s hard to keep a focus on nondramatic things that cost money and don’t provide the immediate satisfaction you get from blowing things up,” he said.