http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55178-2003Mar30.html

MARINE COMBAT HEADQUARTERS, Iraq, March 30 -- U.S. forces have started rounding up Iraqi men in civilian clothes... and may ship some of them to the detention center at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military officers said today. Marines patrolling Nasiriyah and other areas of heavy fighting have already detained more than 300 men in civilian clothes... "You round them up -- that way they're not a threat," said a senior Marine officer.

...U.S. officers are also trying to enlist Iraqis who are estranged from the government to help root out the militias in the towns along the highways leading to Baghdad. U.S. helicopters have been dropping leaflets over Nasiriyah soliciting assistance, and the top Marine commander in Iraq said today that he might eventually distribute captured weapons to Iraqi civilians to help them rise against President Saddam Hussein.

It is "incumbent upon us to eliminate the death squads keeping the people under their boot," said Lt. Gen. James T. Conway... "we hit them, overtly and covertly."

...Iraqi guerrillas are stringing wire across roads at a height where it would decapitate machine gunners standing on top of passing military vehicles. "These are bad guys and it would be insane to let them roam the battlefield," said a senior officer who did not want to be identified. "If we get a few who are innocent, I'm sorry." ..."Seeing young, healthy males in the middle of a firefight makes you wonder what they're doing there," said the senior officer. "They're the only well-fed Iraqis in the area."

...The detainees will be treated like POWs, but without official status, until a hearing is held under Article 5 of the Geneva Conventions, officers said... "We're still figuring this out," said the senior officer, "because we thought we'd have mass surrenders, not this crap."

..."In Nasiriyah, we have gotten a lot of support from the local population," said Lt. Col. David Pere, the senior watch officer at Marine headquarters here. "People are walking up to our line saying, 'You want to blow up that house three doors down.' " Marines tried to encourage that sentiment by handing out food, water and medical supplies, and commanders said they experienced less sniping. "Love is breaking out all over Iraq," Pere joked.

========================================================================

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49385-2003Mar29?language=printer

Shortly before the first bombs fell on Baghdad earlier this month, special operations teams from the United States, Britain and Australia... set down at camouflaged structures believed to house chemical warheads, Scud missiles and eight-wheeled transporter-erector launchers, known as TELs... But the mission turned up nothing. There were "no missiles, no TELs and no chemicals" where blueprints and scale-model terrain tables had directed the teams to look, one knowledgeable official said.

...There are nearly 300 sites [to be searched]... The 10 sites reached by Friday were among the most urgent... "All the searches have turned up negative," said a Joint Staff officer who is following field reports. "The munitions that have been found have all been conventional." Two disarmament planners said the Bush administration is determined to conduct the weapons hunt without the U.N. agencies that hold Security Council mandates for the job. Administration officials distrust the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency... The White House will consider "a role for an international entity" to verify U.S. discoveries after the fact, two officials said, but that augurs another clash in the Security Council. Hans Blix, UNMOVIC's executive chairman, said in an interview Wednesday that the commission would not accept "being led, as a dog" to sites that allied forces choose to display... The United States and Britain have said "they should deliver the anthrax, while we would say they should present any anthrax," Blix said. "Now that's a very basic difference in the attitude to the evidence."

He added, speaking of the U.S.-led search teams: "Good luck to them. We are also damned interested in learning if they find something."

=================================================

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/iraq_nochemweapons_030330.html

March 30 — U.S. Special Forces troops went on the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in northeastern Iraq Saturday but came up empty-handed. The site they hit was identified by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his argument for war before the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5 as a base for the radical group Ansar al-Islam. Powell said the group linked Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network to Saddam Hussein, and had plotted chemical attacks across Europe... Intelligence officials... were so concerned about the facility that plans were drawn up to attack it long before the war, although they were not carried out... ABCNEWS was the only news organization allowed to join them.

The base had been secured just hours earlier, after fierce combat against Ansar al-Islam fighters. "We weren't able to take any POWs because once we got close, they would detonate explosives on their bodies or kill themselves with a grenade," one of the American troops said.

============================================

Patrick Cockburn in Sherawa, northern Iraq 31 March 2003

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=392445

US special forces working with Kurdish militia have over-run the base camps of Ansar al-Islam, a small Kurdish Islamic group...About 100 US Special Forces and 6,000 Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) peshmerga started their attack last Friday... Ansar has been a thorn in the side of the PUK government, fiercely defending its handful of villages close to the border with Iran.

...It came to international attention when Colin Powell... said an al-Qa'ida member called Abu Musab Zarqawi had established a "poison and explosive training factory" on Ansar territory.

==================================================

http://www.balochistanpost.com/item.asp?ID=3631

BASRA (The Independent) British journalists covering the war in Iraq said yesterday their lives were being put at risk because the Ministry of Defence has decided to hinder correspondents who are not attached to its units. Not only have officials decided that journalists not in their official pool ought not to receive assistance but, in some cases, reporters who have made their own way into the country are being forced to sleep in their vehicles in unsafe streets rather than being allowed to park in army bases.

..."My job is to make your lives as difficult as possible. You will get no help whatsoever," a senior army spokesman allegedly told one group of journalists. Another senior officer involved in organising facilities for the press said he wanted Kuwaiti authorities to arrest reporters seeking to enter Iraq and have them deported.

...The British Army has long enjoyed a reputation for having an excellent relationship with the media, providing assistance and often vital information on conditions in the field. While individual officers in combat zones in southern Iraq have continued this tradition, they admit they are under orders to deny assistance to non-pool or "unilateral" journalists... A group of Australian journalists travelling independently were told that the military wanted to rounded them up and take their visas from them. It seems that Washington and London are not keen for their actions to be scrutinised.

=================================================================

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6206538%5E1702,00.html

US troops in southern Iraq detained and beat up two public RTP television journalists from Portugal travelling in the company of two Israeli colleagues after accusing the four of spying, the RTP news director said today... Luis Castro and his cameraman Victor Silva are well and now staying in Kuwait, dos Santos told Lusa news agency. Castro was kicked around and Silva was brutalised, he added. They were held inside a jeep for 36 hours, accused of spying and forbidden to contact anybody until they were freed by an officer.

..."The American soldiers said we were terrorists and spies and treated us as such ... in spite of our explanations they threatened us for hours with their arms," said Scemama. The four were not given any food... Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Dave Lapan said the journalists were "unilaterals" who "showed up on the battlefield and posed a security threat to forces there... We don't have any indication they were mistreated."

==================================================================

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1085684,00.html

Crowds of Iraqi civillians forced their way through Coalition checkpoints on the outskirts of the embattled southern city of Basra on Saturday to bring food and water to desperate relatives. Around 2,000 Iraqis flooded across the bridge into the city as cars, trucks, taxis and carts loaded with supplies were eventually given permission to pass through Coalition lines... The city has had no water supply since the first days of the war... Patrick Nicholson of the Catholic Food Agency told Sky News that "the biggest relief effort in living memory" would be needed to avert a massive humanitarian disaster in southern Iraq. But agencies cannot currently get into Iraq.

==============================================

http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=375832003

AMERICAN special forces have assassinated several senior Iraqi officials in a series of bomb and sniper attacks in Baghdad and other cities, it was revealed yesterday... The covert teams... are also searching for weapons of mass destruction that would help swing the tide of world opinion behind the war... America has a policy going back more than 20 years which bans political killings, but the Bush administration has concluded that it does not prevent the president from lawfully singling out a terrorist for death by covert action.

...Meanwhile, Germany’s foreign intelligence agency said yesterday it had been unable to find any evidence that Saddam uses a series of doubles.

===================================================

http://www.notonthebox.com/weapon.htm

Military planners were expecting to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it was of course the reason that they were there. They had considered chemical weapons the most likely to be used, so they had equipped their soldiers with chemical defense suits. They were unprepared however for what they found. They found the most deadly weapon of them all. The weapon that is cheap, easy to ignite, and that can be spread quickly through any population...They found hate. It is strange that they seemed so unprepared for it.

============================================================

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-628258,00.html

My footsteps felt heavy on the hot, dusty asphalt as I walked slowly towards the bridge at Nasiriya. A horrific scene lay ahead. Some 15 vehicles... were riddled with bullet holes. Some had caught fire and turned into piles of black twisted metal. Others were still burning. Amid the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying in the road or in nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave this southern town overnight... Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial to the coalition’s supply lines.

...One man’s body was still in flames. It gave out a hissing sound. Tucked away in his breast pocket, thick wads of banknotes... Down the road, a little girl, no older than five and dressed in a pretty orange and gold dress, lay dead in a ditch next to the body of a man... Half his head was missing... A US Abrams tank nicknamed "Ghetto Fabulous" drove past the bodies.

...A father, baby girl and boy lay in a shallow grave. On the bridge itself... the carcass of a donkey. As I walked away, Lieutenant Matt Martin, whose third child, Isabella, was born while he was on board ship en route to the Gulf, appeared beside me. “Did you see all that?” he asked, his eyes filled with tears. “Did you see that little baby girl? I carried her body and buried it as best I could but I had no time.”

...Martin’s distress was in contrast to the bitter satisfaction of some of his fellow marines as they surveyed the scene. “The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy,” said Corporal Ryan Dupre. “...Wait till I get hold of a friggin’ Iraqi. No, I won’t get hold of one. I’ll just kill him.” Only a few days earlier these had still been the bright-eyed small-town boys with whom I crossed the border... They had expected a welcome.

...“I was shooting down a street when suddenly a woman came out and casually began to cross the street with a child no older than 10,” said Gunnery Sergeant John Merriman, another Gulf war veteran. “...She then crossed back again with the child and went behind a wall. Within less than a minute a guy with an RPG came out and fired at us from behind the same wall... I thought, ‘Okay, I get it. Let her come out again’. She did and this time I took her out with my M-16.”

...Mike Brooks was one of the commanders who had given the order to shoot at civilian vehicles. It weighed on his mind... He told me he had been writing a diary, partly for his wife Kelly, a nurse... When he came to jotting down the incident about the two babies getting killed by his men he couldn’t do it... I offered to let him call his wife on my satellite phone to tell her he was okay. He turned down the offer and had me write and send her an e-mail instead. He was too emotional. If she heard his voice, he said, she would know that something was wrong.

===================================================================

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,926135,00.html

Three British soldiers in Iraq have been ordered home after objecting to the conduct of the war. It is understood they have been sent home for protesting that the war is killing innocent civilians. The three soldiers... are from 16 Air Assault Brigade... protect[ing] oilfields... [and] face court martial.

...Any refusal of soldiers to obey orders is highly embarrassing to the government... It is also causing concern to British military chiefs who are worried about growing evidence of civilians being killed.

=====================================

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-629644,00.html

THREE wounded British soldiers described yesterday how they survived a terrifying attack by an American anti-tank aircraft that killed one of their troop and destroyed two armoured vehicles. One of the survivors criticised the American pilot for showing “no regard for human life” and accused him of being a cowboy who had gone out on a jolly. Another survivor said that he had stumbled out of the burning wreckage of his light tank and waved frantically to the pilot of the low-flying A10 to try to halt his “friendly fire”... [which] left one soldier missing, presumed dead, and another in intensive care.

...They spoke of their bewilderment and anger that, despite flying very low over their heads, the A10 pilot apparently failed to recognise the coalition identification markings...

“All this kit has been provided by the Americans. They’ve said if you put this kit on you won’t get shot,” LCoH Gerrard said from his hospital bed on the Argus. “...I can command my vehicle. I can keep it from being attacked. What I have not been trained to do is look over my shoulder to see whether an American is shooting at me.”

...LCoH Gerrard criticised the A10 for shooting when there were civilians so close to the tanks. He said: “There was a boy of about 12 years old. He was no more than 20 metres away when the Yank opened up. There were all these civilians around. He had absolutely no regard for human life. I believe he was a cowboy... [He] was on his own when he attacked us. He’d just gone out on a jolly. I’m curious about what’s going to happen to the pilot. He’s killed one of my friends and he’s killed him on the second run.”

=========================================================

http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20030330225227144

LONDON - Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who resigned from the government in opposition to Iraq invasion, lashed out at the British government Sunday, March 30, demanding that British troops be pulled out from Iraq. "I have already had my fill of this bloody and unnecessary war. I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed," Cook wrote in the mass-circulation newspaper the Sunday Mirror, adding that twenty-three British soldiers have died so far in the 10-day old conflict.

...He said that Bush only sat on his cosy armchair in his ranch flanked by a sea of body guards...He also mocked the fictitious promises made by the hawkish U.S. officials before war... “We were told the Iraqi army would be so joyful to be attacked that it would not fight. We were told Saddam's troops would surrender. A few days before the war, Vice-President Dick Cheney predicted that the Republican Guard would lay down their weapons. We were told that the local population would welcome their invaders as liberators. Paul Wolfowitz, No.2 at the Pentagon, promised that our tanks would be greeted ‘with an explosion of joy and relief,’” he said.

"Personally, I would like to volunteer Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz to be ‘embedded’ that would give them a chance to hear what the troops fighting for every bridge over the Euphrates think about their promises."

...“Having marched us up this cul-de-sac, Donald Rumsfeld has now come up with a new tactic. Instead of going into Baghdad, we should sit down outside it until Saddam surrenders. There is no more brutal form of warfare than a siege. People go hungry. The water and power to provide the sinews of a city snap. Children die," Cook wrote. He said the Iraqis have found nothing but to drink from the contaminated water of the river into which sewage empties, triggering a fertile ground for deadly diseases such as cholera. “You can catch a glimpse of what would happen in Baghdad under siege by looking at Basra."

"...Last week President Bush promised that ‘Iraqis will see the great compassion of the U.S.’. They certainly do not see it now... What they see are women and children killed when missiles fall on market places,” Cook added... "There will be a long-term legacy of hatred for the West if the Iraqi people continue to suffer from the effects of the war we started,” he said.

...Cook resigned as Leader of the House of Commons, the lower house of parliament, on March 17, three days before Britain went to war alongside the United States.

===================================================================

http://www.unknownnews.net/insanity6.html

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A Bush administration program to add at least three bioweapons labs is troubling many scientists and arms control experts... The field is suddenly awash with billions of dollars to combat bioterrorism and much more is promised under President Bush's Project BioShield plan... At least six universities and the New York State Department of Health are competing for contracts to build one or two labs, where scientists can infect research monkeys and other animals with such lethal agents as the Ebola, Marburg and Lassa viruses... They'll also likely create new classes of toxins — including genetically engineered ones.

...Many believe the anthrax attacks that killed five people and briefly paralyzed Capitol Hill in 2001 were launched by a scientist [Steven Hatfill*] with access to one of the government's high-security facilities — called Biosafety Level 4 labs, or BSL-4 for short.

...Government officials insist that the labs will be secure and serve only defensive purposes. But the U.S. military has a history of dabbling in biological agent programs... Most recently, it was revealed that researchers at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah have been developing anthrax for use in testing biological defense systems.

===========================================================

who is steven hatfill? undoubtedly a high-level government official, administering these billions, by this time. archived from 2002. i recommend re-reading it if you are interested in bioweapons and in bush's sudden fascination with them.

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2002/06/rozen-l-06-27.html

=====================================================

http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/cn/Qiraq-war-oil-un-us.RTQf_DMU.html

CAIRO, March 30 (AFP) - The United States and Britain will place Iraq's future oil revenue in a UN-supervised account, said British Prime Minister Tony Blair in an article published Sunday in Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, "...To benefit the people of Iraq and renew a once great nation," wrote Blair.

=========================================================

http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=245575&lang=e&dir=news

Invasion forces have bombed the headquarters of Iraq's South Oil Co (SOC) in the oil-rich region of Basra, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said on Sunday.

==================================================

http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,925309,00.html

Jay Garner, the retired US general who will oversee humanitarian relief and reconstruction in postwar Iraq, is president of an arms company... which provides technical services and advice on the Patriot missile system being used in Iraq... Defence analyst David Armstrong of the Washington-based National Security News Service says: 'It seems inappropriate.'

==============================================================

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/business/30AIR.html?ex=1050072105&ei=1&en=564111de8c2fe55a

DETROIT, March 29 — On the eve of its planned emergence from bankruptcy, US Airways notified employees today that it would immediately impose a 5% cut in wages. The company said a drop in bookings in the wake of war with Iraq left it no alternative... The cuts... come on top of $1,800,000,000.00 in concessions granted by its employees as part of its restructuring plan... The airline told employees that the cuts would not necessarily be restored immediately after war ceases.

================================================================

http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/ns03282003a.cfm?RenderForPrint=1

The Bush administration proposed new rules March 27 that would erode the 40-hour workweek and could deny overtime pay protections to millions of workers. The proposed changes to Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations would affect a wide range of the more than 80,000,000 workers protected by the FLSA.

FLSA’s current overtime rules protect workers from employers who do not now require workers to unreasonably long hours because they are required to pay overtime. The Bush rules could mean that many workers would face... an increased demand for extra hours for which employers would not have to pay time-and-half.

...The Bush administration’s proposed changes in workers’ job definitions and duties that must be met to allow an employer to classify workers as “exempt” and thus ineligible for overtime would affect many more hundreds of thousands of workers... The Bush overtime proposal: Excludes previously protected workers by reclassifying them as managers, administrative or professional employees who are not eligible for overtime pay... [and] removes from overtime protection large numbers of workers in aerospace, defense, health care, high tech and other industries.

======================================================

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,925008,00.html

President George Bush has been accused of quietly extending secrecy restrictions while the country is preoccupied with Iraq. He has signed an executive order that will delay the release of millions of government documents and make it easier for presidents to keep secret the details of their activities when in power. There is concern that for the first time the vice-president, Dick Cheney, has been given the power to classify information. Mr Cheney is not known for his commitment to open government... The administration has given itself more discretion to keep information classified indefinitely under a broad definition of national security.

==========================================================

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2899823.stm

The New Yorker magazine quotes unnamed Pentagon sources as saying that Mr Rumsfeld insisted at least six times before the conflict on the proposed number of troops being reduced. In an article to be published on Monday, the magazine says Mr Rumsfeld overruled advice from the war commander, General Tommy Franks, to delay the invasion of Iraq... The article quotes a former intelligence official as saying the war was now a stalemate... [because] the army is running out of cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs.

...A senior Pentagon planner said Mr Rumsfeld wanted to "do war on the cheap" and thought precision bombing would bring victory.

...Our correspondent says Mr Rumsfeld and his team desperately need some decisive victories in battle if the American people are to continue to believe what the White House is telling them.

======================================================

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/30/sprj.irq.arnett/

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. war plan has "failed," veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett told Iraqi TV in an interview that aired Sunday. "The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan," Arnett said.

Arnett-- who is reporting for National Geographic Television and NBC News-- ...told the Iraqi TV interviewer... that President Bush is facing a "growing challenge" about the "conduct of the war" within the United States. "President Bush says he is concerned about the Iraqi people, but if Iraqi people are dying in numbers, then American policy will be challenged very strongly," he said.

...NBC News issued a statement supporting Arnett, saying that Arnett gave the interview to Iraqi TV as a "professional courtesy" and that his remarks "were analytical in nature and were not intended to be anything more."

===================================================================

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/31/sprj.irq.arnett/

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- NBC announced Monday that both NBC and National Geographic severed their relationships with veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett.

...On Sunday, NBC News had issued a statement supporting Arnett... But a day later, NBC issued a different statement. "It was wrong for him to grant an interview to state-run Iraqi TV, especially in a time of war." National Geographic issued a statement that read: "The Society did not authorize or have any prior knowledge of Arnett's television interview with Iraqi television, and had we been consulted, would not have allowed it."

...Monday morning, Arnett appeared on NBC's Today Show with Today co-host Matt Lauer and apologized for his comments.

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http://timesargus.nybor.com/Story/62976.html

BARRE — An alleged assault on a female National Guard officer in central Vermont has stirred up citizens around the country. The story appeared on Burlington’s WCAX-TV, and was picked up by Fox News and The Associated Press... The National Guard has suggested its members avoid wearing their uniforms in cities where there are frequent anti-war protests. A Norwich University memorandum issued Friday stated the following: “… I strongly recommend members of the Corps of Cadets and faculty to be watchful when traveling off campus in areas known for anti-war demonstrations. Be proud, but also be safe.”

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http://timesargus.nybor.com/Archive/Articles/Article/62911

MONTPELIER — There are more questions than answers after the Vermont National Guard says one of its members was pelted with rocks a week ago by teenagers in central Vermont. Officials with the Vermont National Guard said that on Friday, March 21, a uniformed female non-commissioned officer was confronted by a group of teenagers at a “Plainfield area convenience store.” Lt. Col. Scott Stirewalt, director of security for the Vermont National Guard, said... “As she came out, the kids had sort of blocked the door a little bit. She said ‘Excuse me,’ and sort of wormed her way out through.” ...Stirewalt said the teenagers hurled insults and obscenities at the woman... "She turned around and continued to her car, and that’s when she realized they were throwing rocks and she was struck by rocks.” ...She returned home without reporting the incident to authorities, later contacting him by e-mail. He then relayed the information to other Guard members by e-mail.

...Under Vermont’s anti-discrimination law, a crime like simple assault can be modified by an additional two years in prison and $2,000 in fines if motivated by a person’s membership in the armed forces.

===============================================

http://timesargus.nybor.com/Story/62977.html

MONTPELIER — The Vermont National Guard said the alleged harassment of an off-duty soldier last week took place in Montpelier, not Plainfield as was earlier reported... A number of students from Twinfield Union High School were in town for a protest that day and were featured in a news account. No evidence, however, linked the teenagers who allegedly threw stones at the guard member to Twinfield Union School. Employees of Shaw’s and nearby businesses, as well as the Montpelier Police, said they had no knowledge of the incident and hadn’t seen anything on the date in question... Across the street at O’Brien’s Salon, workers said they didn’t witness anything out of the ordinary... Manager Sheryl Bellavance of Barre [said,] “We usually see when the protesters are out there because they line up right out there by those bushes.”

...Montpelier City Manager William Fraser said officials were still trying to determine if the incident had occurred as described, but were condemning it if it had.

========================================================

http://www.blackcommentator.com/35/35_guest_commentator.html

There's been a lot of talk in the progressive community, that is, in the mostly white progressive community, that Black people are not pulling their weight in opposing Bush's war on Iraq... Let's look at these allegations.

...Last year, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., a Black woman, was the only House member who voted against a resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against anyone associated with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks... She was one of several members of the Congressional Black Caucus who took to the House floor to address the conflict with Iraq on the Tuesday before the U.S. attack.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Chairman of the Black Caucus, tried unsuccessfully to meet with President Bush to address the war. Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J. asked that we seek everything in our power to find a peaceful solution to the situation in Iraq. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif....said, "Yes, every country should be able to defend itself, but we're in no danger from Iraq. Striking Saddam is not fighting terrorism." Former Washington, DC Congressman Walter Fauntroy, just back from a 10-day peace mission to Iraq, said... "We know that every bomb that explodes is robbing our children and their families of five things: Income, education, health care, housing and justice."

OK, it seems that Black politicians unlike White politicians (except for the voice of Presidential Hopeful Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)... are speaking out against the war. Well, then it must be the Black person on the street who won't speak out against the war.

...On March 5, 2003 the Southwest Wave in Los Angeles asked this question of Black people: "Do you favor this war?" The answer was 100% "No". ...Maybe it's not the people on the street that we're talking about. It must be the Black newspapers.

..."It is now time for us as citizens to get involved to express our views on this expensive war issue. If you believe we are going to take care of soldiers after the war, ask any veteran standing on freeways asking for money for food and standing on street corners waving you down to get your car washed." - Hardy Brown, Editor, Black Voices.

"Some of the most important anti-war efforts - the city council resolutions opposing war - have taken place in cities where whites are a minority. In fact, of the 25 cities with population of over 100,000 that have passed anti-war resolutions, 15 have white minorities. Of these 15, six have an African American majority and six an African American plurality. For the past four decades, Black elected officials and mass organizations have expressly linked issues of domestic social justice and peaceful international relations. Polling evidence is conclusive over two generations: Anti-war politics is mainstream Black politics." - The Black Commentator.

"Congress should repeal [the] Iraq Resolution, Bush should come before Congress if he seeks to go to war." - Exodus Newsmagazine.

"...Just 44 percent of African Americans favor military action in Iraq, compared with 67 percent of Hispanics and 73 percent of Whites." - The Sacramento Observer.

"At the National Student Strike and Peace March in Oakland, California on March 5th, aggressive police attacked the peaceful, singing crowd of young and elderly people of color with their motorcycles and weapons. Two reporters from the SF Bay View newspaper were injured and then also arrested." - San Francisco Bay View.

...Black people are not represented in demonstrations in numbers approaching our proportion of the population. And for good reason!

1. Black people remain under the prison industrial complex in proportions far greater than our proportion of the population.

2. White activists do not share leadership with, and are not willing to follow the lead of, people and organizations of color.

3. The movement against the war on Iraq fails to recognize the continuing war on communities of color. White activists continue to ignore issues that speak to the experiences and struggles of people of color.

4. Current demonstrations, disproportionately white and middle class, are done by those who can most easily take the time and expense to travel to major anti-war events.

...A more intelligent question needs to be asked, "Why don't African Americans rally to Black-led causes more often and in greater numbers?" ...Whites could have prevented the social harms in this country to people of color - the prison industrial complex, the death penalty, the lack of education, housing, and medical care. Yet, these movements are not led by the millions of anti-war protesters who march for another "community of color" thousands of miles away. Don't misunderstand me. The war on Iraq is important, very important, but it is not more important than the war on communities of color that whites have condoned and promoted for the last 30 years... In much of Black America, police state conditions have existed for some time and people of color are disproportionately subjected to poor schools, inadequate jobs, poor health care, and poor housing. The White anti-war movement needs to recognize these facts, and work with Black activists to bring an end to America's war on our communities.

[author] Donna Jo Warren is a native of South Central Los Angeles and a former Green Party candidate for Lt. Governor of California (www.donnawarren.com).

===============================================================

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED01Ak05.html

AMMAN - There are two options for Washington to win this war: the Gaza option or the Grozny option. The suicide bombing near Najaf is proof that the "Palestinization" of Iraq is in full swing... By choosing the Gaza option - a war of attrition - Washington falls into Saddam Hussein's trap: it will serve him on a plate the explosive image he is seeking, that of an Israeli tank in the streets of Gaza juxtaposed with a US tank in the streets of Baghdad. By choosing the Grozny option - a scorched-earth policy - Washington will have to level Baghdad to win the war.

...The winner may yet be the one side able to prevent a humanitarian disaster. Baghdad is actually competing with the British on which side will be the first to alleviate the plight of the besieged Shi'ite population of Basra.

...At least in these initial stages of the war, Saddam's regime has interplayed four larger themes: the internal cohesion of a police state; Arab nationalism; Shi'ite mistrust of Christians; and Sunni Islam and the imperative of defensive jihad when under attack by a foreign power. The Iraqi resistance to date has had a powerful psychological impact among the Arab masses... The war has helped lionize Saddam in the Arab world as he is being seen as the only Arab leader capable of resisting what many see as "American imperialism". Saddam has managed to personify to Arabs the capacity to resist.

...Russian intelligence stresses that "near Basra, the British forces in essence are laying a Middle Ages-style siege of a city with the population of 2,000,000". The British, though, appear confident "that the situation in the city can be destabilized and lack of food, electricity and water will prompt the local population to cause the surrender of the defending forces... the capture of Basra is viewed by the coalition command as being exceptionally important and as a model for the future 'bloodless' takeover of Baghdad". But a bloodless takeover is now out of the question... Watever the option to be chosen - Gaza or Grozny - the quick, decisive victory initially sketched in Washington is not going to happen, and the eruption of a Middle East volcano could yet cover Pax Americana in ash.

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Bill and Kathleen Christison are former CIA analysts who worked for a combined 44 years in the agency before retiring in 1979.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1309.shtml

East Jerusalem: Jeff Halper… is an Israeli anthropologist, until his retirement a year ago a professor at Ben Gurion University, a transplant 30 years ago from Minnesota, a harsh critic of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and, as founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), perhaps the leading peace and anti-occupation activist in Israel.

…Speaking about the U.S., Halper says it has actually not joined the world. It is and has always been isolationist, and Americans are disconnected from everyone else's reality. This leads to a revealing discussion of Zionism and how it has molded the Israeli people and their thinking. Halper touches on political territory so sensitive that probably only an Israeli could venture in. Zionism, he says, "is a very compelling narrative, but it is totally self-contained, a bubble in which Israelis separate themselves from all others." Israelis regard everyone else as irrelevant. When it is suggested that fear motivates this self-absorption, Halper disagrees. "It's not so much fear," he says; Israelis "just don't give a damn. They make everyone else a non-issue. They see themselves as the victim, and if you're the victim, you're not responsible for anything you do." ..."If you combine three elements: the idea that we are right, with the notion that we're the victim, and with our great military power," he says, you have a lethal combination. "It's like being autistic with power. You don't care about other people because you've cast the others as the aggressors. You create a situation where Israel is off the hook." Israel can act with brutality, but the responsibility, the fault, lies elsewhere.

"Why was there so ferocious a reaction to the intifada?" Halper asks rhetorically. It cannot be explained by what the Palestinians did, he says, since in the early days after the intifada began, the Palestinians used no arms and no Israelis were killed, while large numbers of Palestinians were shot to death by Israeli soldiers. But, he says, "they had the chutzpah to call into question our right to have the whole country," and Israel could not let this stand... "You'll notice," he says, "that Israelis refer to the Palestinians as Arabs, not Palestinians. For Israelis, all Arabs are the same, they're undifferentiated. If you point out that Palestinians are distinct from other Arabs, they brush it off with a dismissive 'whatever.' They say this is our country, there's a bunch of Arabs here, they should go live with other Arabs."

Halper tries to be upbeat. He sees the "roadmap" drawn up by the U.S. and its Quartet partners as a promising document because, among a few other straws to grasp at, it actually uses the word "occupation," which Israel itself refuses to use... "It's not fear," he says. "We're just pissed off, the way whites were with blacks in the southern United States. They just don't know their place."

With such a prevailing Israeli mindset, as well as a U.S. president clearly unwilling to pay the heavy political cost necessary to move Israel, and an Israeli government clearly unwilling ever to relinquish any settlements or any territory, it is exceedingly difficult to share Halper's tentative sense of hope. But if anyone can make it work, Halper can.

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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20030330224506295

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (IOL & News Agencies) - At least 30 Israelis were injured Sunday, March 30, at 1 pm (Tel Aviv local time) when a Palestinian carried out a new bombing operation, blowing himself up outside a cafe in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya, north of Tel Aviv, Israeli police said. The attack was claimed by the Islamic Jihad, identifying the bomber as a 20-year-old student from the Tulkarem area of the West Bank, just 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Netanya, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. The statement said the attack was a gift for the embattled people of Iraq, and to mark the Arab Israeli Land Day commemorating the death of six people protesting against the confiscation of Arab lands on March 30, 1976.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2902909.stm

Israel's security service, Shin Bet, says it has arrested three Israeli Arabs after the discovery of an explosives laboratory - the first to be found inside Israel. The Shin Bet said in a statement that the three men, from the town of Jaljulya near the West Bank, were detained on suspicion of planning bomb attacks on behalf of the militant Palestinian group, Islamic Jihad. The group claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya, in which a suicide bomber blew himself up and injured up to 30 people. However, the three suspects had no connection with the Netanya attack, according to Israeli officials.

...More than 2,000 Palestinians and more than 700 Israelis have been killed since the start of the uprising, according to official figures.

==================================

http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20030330195419144

AMMAN - The US military has been asking the Israeli Army for advice on fighting inside cities, and studying in particular fighting in the West Bank city of Jenin last April, it has emerged. Unnamed US and Israeli sources have confirmed that the American military asked for, and was given, details of Israeli tactics in built-up areas. There have been unconfirmed reports — quickly denied — that US troops trained with Israeli forces for street-to-street fighting. A US Defense official, who spoke to the Associated Press, confirmed the Pentagon had asked Israel for advice on fighting inside cities.

If the US Army believes the road to Baghdad lies through Jenin, there is reason to be concerned for Iraqi civilians. During fighting in the Jenin refugee camp last April, more than half the Palestinian dead were civilians... Israeli soldiers blocked ambulances from reaching the wounded and refused the Red Cross access. Using bulldozers, the Israeli Army demolished an entire neighborhood — home to around 800 Palestinian families — reducing it to dust.

Martin van Creveld*, professor of military history and strategy at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, has told reporters that, following his advice to US Marines, the American military bought nine of the converted bulldozers used in the Jenin demolitions from Israel. Professor van Creveld said he gave advice to Marines last year in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He said he was questioned about Israeli tactics in Jenin, and told them that the giant D9 bulldozers, manufactured for civilian use in the US but fitted with armor plating in Israel, were one of the most useful weapons.

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archived from a year ago

http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s511530.htm

*Professor Martin van Creveld, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is Israel's most prominent military historian... "The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. [The IDF] are in a lose/lose situation. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel. If you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape. Now the Israeli army has not by any means been the worst of the lot. It has not done what for instance the Americans did in Vietnam, it did not use napalm, it did not kill millions of people. So everything is relative, but by definition, to return to what I said earlier, if you are strong and you are fighting the weak, then anything you do is criminal."

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http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=278593&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

The Israel Defense Forces have decided to release a considerable number of reservists who were called up at the start of the war with Iraq, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the cabinet yesterday. The defense establishment does not want to keep large numbers of reservists on hand because it has repercussions on the economy, he said. According to government sources, about half of the soldiers called up to the Home Front with emergency orders will be released.

...The head of military intelligence, Brigadier General Aharon Ze'evi, said there would be significant developments in Iraq in the next few days... Turning to the Israeli-Palestinian question, Mofaz said a growing number of foreign countries were making a problematic connection between Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and the Iraqi offensive...Mofaz also expressed concern over the support shown for Iraq by thousands of Palestinians in the territories.

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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_29-3-2003_pg7_43

PESHAWAR: The MMA leadership on Friday said that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals would serve as deterrence for the defence of the entire Muslim world if their party came to power. Speaking at an anti-war rally here, the MMA leaders and parliamentarians said Pakistan was a nuclear power but the “coward leaders” were reluctant to use the nuclear deterrence for the protection of the Muslim world. “After coming to power the MMA will use the nuclear deterrence for the defence of all the Muslim countries,” said Mufti Kifayatullah, the chairman of the Nifaz-e-Sharia Council (NSC), which is formed to forward viable recommendations to the NWFP government for the Islamisation of the province... The MMA leaders lamented that America was out to eliminate Islam and occupy its holy places in the Arab world, but the Muslim rulers were not showing courage to oppose its aggression.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2901203.stm

There has been another big anti-war demonstration in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. Estimates put the crowds at between 100,000 and 150,000 - making it the biggest rally in Pakistan since the war began just over a week ago. People arrived in buses, tractors and horse-drawn carts for the march. They blocked the Peshawar-Islamabad road for more than two kilometres, chanting slogans and burning effigies of US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Children in military uniform carrying toy guns took part in the march, along with protestors carrying posters of the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. "The US is heading for a collapse, it will meet the same fate which the Soviet Union faced in Afghanistan," said local political leader Shabbir Ahmed. "We will destroy America. We will fight jihad against America. I will be the first to die," he said.

...The Pakistani government has deplored what it calls the destruction of fellow Muslims and their country.

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http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2003/3/26/world/kpgerma&sec=world

Germany will oppose any new world order based on the US unilaterally determining the international agenda, said its Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer. “A new world order in which the superpower decides on military strikes based only on its own national interest simply cannot work,” he told Der Spiegel magazine. “In the end the same rules must apply for the big, middle-sized and small countries.”

...The issue of deep divisions over Iraq and the long-term implications of this split with the United States were also addressed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Commons on Monday. His confidence that the recent EU summit had clearly set out the UN’s role in post-conflict Iraq was questioned by commentators, who noted that the United States saw no political role for the world body.

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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_31-3-2003_pg3_3

War and peace exist in Africa for reasons that are not always internal to Africa. Conflicts in other parts of the world often have huge repercussions across Africa. Four times as many Kenyans as Israelis died in November 2002 in the terrorist attack on the Paradise, an Israeli hotel in my hometown of Mombasa.

...We must distinguish between national and international terrorism. Much of the terrorism in Africa in the second half of the 20th century targeted the colonial powers and the European minority regimes that were their legacy.... Kenya’s Mau Mau war delivered independence in 1963; the Algerian revolution liberated that country in 1962; anti-colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau destroyed the Portuguese empire in 1974; the anti-UDI struggle in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) ended white rule; and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa finally triumphed against the apartheid racial order.

...Anti-American and anti-Zionist terrorism in the Middle East has led nowhere. Yet its brutality has often caught Africa in the crossfire. In order to kill 12 Americans in an attack on the US Embassy in August 1998, Middle Eastern terrorists killed some 200 Kenyans in Nairobi. Far more Tanzanians than Americans were killed and wounded when the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam was targeted at the same time. Sudan bore the brunt of US retaliation, when President Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of an apparently harmless pharmaceutical factory near Khartoum as retaliation for an Osama bin Laden sponsored terrorist attack.

Indeed, violence between Americans and Middle Easterners has been spilling over into Africa for decades. Before Clinton, President Ronald Reagan ordered the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya in 1986 in retaliation for the bombing of a German disco in which several Americans were killed... The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington of September 2001 and their aftermath may exacerbate tensions not only between pro-Western and anti-Western schools of thought in Africa, but also between Christians and Muslims. A demonstration by Nigerian Muslims in Kano against the US war in Afghanistan provoked stone throwing by Nigerian Christians. Churches and mosques were soon being burned in communal riots.

Moreover, efforts by the US to unite African governments against terrorism may merely bolster authoritarianism. The pressure on African governments to enact legislation against terrorism may pose new threats to civil liberties at the very moment when democratisation is gathering momentum... Speedy action is needed to restore the sense of dignity of Coastal and Muslim Kenyans before Kenyan Islam is radicalised into a Black Intifada.

Even speedier action is needed to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both for its own sake, and because its repercussions destabilise other parts of the world.But will American resources help to strengthen Pax Africana, or will American power simply turn it into a handmaiden of Pax Americana? ...One solution is for the African states to evolve a common position and shared rules of engagement in the war on terrorism. Ideally, the US should deal with a South Atlantic Treaty Organisation, consisting of African states that are allied against terrorism, rather than cutting bilateral deals with individual African countries. Above all, if Africa is to escape the crossfire of international terrorism, the trend towards establishing US military bases on the continent must be stopped.

Ali A. Mazrui is Director, Institute of Global Cultural Studies and Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities State University of New York.

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http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=12170

A decision Wednesday by Ohio's 4th District Court of Appeals, in a case involving the Athens Police, has upheld the right of citizens to bark at a police dog -- provided they're far enough away.

... A Zanesville man was arrested for "taunting" a police dog... around 3 a.m. on Sept. 29, 2001. Gilchrist, who had been drinking, was walking with friends on Court Street when they saw police searching a car. The police dog "Pepsie" was shut in a police cruiser, and barking. Gilchrist began barking back at it, causing it to become frenzied... When someone barks at a trained police dog, [police] said, the animal becomes highly excited and cannot do its work such as sniffing out drugs.

...The judge noted that Gilchrist was across the street from the animal, never had physical contact with it, and was not warned to stop barking before police arrested him.

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http://www.hoosiertimes.com/stories/thisday/nationworld.0331-HT-A7_BFH01486.sto

In the summer of 2000, during the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles... Los Angeles police arrested 71 cyclists staging a rolling rally to call attention to alternative modes of transportation and the creation of a more bike-friendly nation... While in jail, Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies ordered 23 of the female cyclists to strip and subjected them to visual body cavity searches. In California, it's illegal to strip-search people charged with simple misdemeanors... Last week, the L.A. Board of Supervisors agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the cyclists for $2,750,000.00— that's $70,000 each for the 23 women and $5,000 each for the 48 men.

...None of the riders was charged.

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/30008.html

Much-loved computer columnist Henry Norr has been suspended by the Hearst Corporation - owners of The San Francisco Chronicle - for expressing political views on his day off. Along with two thousand other citizens, including the former head of the Pacific Stock Exchange, Norr was arrested in San Francisco last week as he was protesting the US-British invasion of Iraq. He emailed the paper to say he would be late the next day. But the cowardly Chronicle insisted on calling creating a time card dispute, and Norr is currently suspended without pay.

...Norr doesn't even do political reporting. "I write about things like (e-mail) spam," he told Reuters... Norr's shabby treatment highlights one of the absurdities of the US media: it requires its staff to behave like eunuchs. This strange hangover from the days of the Puritan ducking stool baffles visitors, but keeps a mini-industry of "Journalism Schools" and ethics committees busy.

...Reporters without Borders, an international organization which tries to measure coercion against the free press, ranks the USA at17th in its estimation of press freedom - behind Costa Rica.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,922542,00.html

It's drive time with WABC's rightwing talkshow host, Curtis Sliwa, and Bill is on the line from the Poconos in Pennsylvania with a tale so funny he can hardly share it for giggling. He was carrying an American flag and yelling support for the troops in a delayed St Patrick's Day parade over the weekend when he saw one woman carrying a sign saying: "No blood for oil". "She was wearing black and she was an older lady," says Bill. "And then our sheriff saw her and she didn't have a permit. So they put her in the back of the truck car and hauled her away."

On its own, Bill's story would be aberrant... Increasingly though it is becoming consistent. The harassment, arrest, detention and frustration of those who are against the war is becoming routine... And while they have not received the state's imprimatur, Bush's administration has certainly created the climate in which they can thrive. Under Big Brother monikers like the Patriot Act and Operation Liberty Shield, the state has stepped up the scope of its surveillance and the wiretapping of American citizens and will authorise the indefinite detention of asylum seekers from certain countries. Last year, surveillance requests by the federal government under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - originally intended to hunt down foreign spies - outnumbered all of those under domestic law for the first time in US history. Under a proposed new bill, entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement act, the government could withhold the identity of anyone detained in connection with a terror investigation and their names would be exempt from the Freedom of Information act, according to the centre for public integrity, a Washington-based advocacy group. Barry Steinhardt, director of the American civil liberties union programme on technology and liberty, told the New York Times that authorities have been demanding records from internet providers and libraries about what books people are taking out and which websites they're looking at.

The result is a symbiotic relationship between the mob and the legislature, whereby official repression provides the framework for public scapegoating with each gaining momentum from the other. Most vulnerable are those who are most vulnerable anyway - Arab immigrants and non-white Americans. Men from countries regarded as potential sources of terrorism and who do not have a green card, are now required to be registered, fingerprinted and photographed by the immigration service. Many who have committed no crime but simply have their applications for a work permit pending are routinely arrested. "Basically, what this has become is an immigration sweep," said Juliette Kayam, a terrorism expert at Harvard. "The idea that this has anything to do with security, or is something the government can do to stop terrorism, is absurd," she told the Washington Post. The growing surveillance compounded by discrimination adversely affects black Americans too. "It places those of us of colour under increased scrutiny and we get caught up in the web of racial profiling," says Jean Bond, of the Radical Black Congress... Terrorism is the new communism. Even before the first body bags have arrived, the war has already reached the home front.

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15480

February was an unusual month at Vive La Casa shelter in Buffalo, NY, and not only because its aid workers helped process three times the normal number of applications for people from the U.S. seeking asylum in Canada. It was unusual because of the applicants' composition: Of the 952 people who came to ask the non-profit for help with their paperwork and a place to stay while it was being processed, some 550 were Pakistani, about 50 were Egyptian, and the rest were a mosaic of Indonesians, Bangladeshis, Colombians and others – all trying to leave the United States to seek safe haven in Canada. A similar scenario unfolded at border crossings into Ontario in January, when 871 people sought Canadian asylum, double November's figure. The New York Times reported that half of them were Pakistani.

Prompting them was a Feb. 19 INS special registration deadline for nationals of seven countries: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan and Kuwait. Under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) program, men over the age of 16 from 25 countries – all of them Muslim except for North Korea – must report to immigration officials to show their papers and be fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed... Those who don't show up, if caught later, face arrest and possible deportation.

...The NSEERS program is not helping the United States' image in Pakistan.

...Liz Woike, assistant manager at Vive La Casa, says going back home is not an option for many of them. "Lots of people don't want to go back to Pakistan – they're from opposition parties or from persecuted social groups. We have women fleeing gender persecution," she says... To make matters worse, the U.S. and Canada signed a "safe third country" agreement in December declaring each other to be so safe for refugees that people living on one side of the U.S.-Canadian border have no need to seek asylum on the other side – and soon won't be allowed to.

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amnesty international reports

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/irq-engmde140572003

Since the military action by the USA, UK and their allies began in Iraq on 20 March, a backlash against certain human rights has been witnessed around the world. These include: attacks on the rights to freedom of expression and assembly; excessive use of force by police against anti-war demonstrators; restriction of asylum rights. With the spotlight focused on the theatre of war, such abuses of human rights have been largely ignored. The following are just a few of many examples recorded by Amnesty International.

Belgium: Since early March, police have placed more than 450 anti-war demonstrators under administrative arrest...