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first, the bad news

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2974045,00.html

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's parliament on Thursday passed a new law that would force Palestinians who marry Israelis to live separate lives or move out of Israel.

..."We see this law as the implementation of the transfer policy by the state of Israel," said Jafar Savah from Mossawa, an advocacy center for Israeli Arabs, referring to a plan by far right groups to transfer Israeli Arabs to other Arab countries.

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now, the good news

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wokore023399177aug02,0,7404510.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines

Beijing - The United States agreed to hold informal one-on-one discussions with North Korea next month during multilateral talks about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, a U.S. concession requested by China that helped break the deadlock holding up negotiations, according to Western and Asian diplomats briefed by both the Chinese and the Americans... A spokesman said, "Some time ago, the U.S. informed the DPRK [North Korea] through a third party that the DPRK-U.S. bilateral talks may be held within the framework of multilateral talks."

...The shift in the administration's position, while seemingly arcane, is significant.

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nuclear standoff ended in u.s.!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1009497,00.html

A US department of energy panel of experts which provided independent oversight of the development of the US nuclear arsenal has been quietly disbanded by the Bush administration, it emerged yesterday.

The decision to close down the national nuclear security administration [NNSA] advisory committee - required by law to hold public hearings and issue public reports on nuclear weapons issues - has come just days before a closed-door meeting at a US air force base in Nebraska to discuss the development of a new generation of tactical "mini nukes" and "bunker buster" bombs, as well as an eventual resumption of nuclear testing.

...An NNSA spokesman, Bryan Wilkes said: "The advisory committee was created to assist the NNSA administrator during the creation of the NNSA... Clearly the NNSA is up and running and it is not needed any more." ...However the NNSA committee's charter stipulates "The Committee is expected to be needed on a continuing basis."

Former members of the advisory committee said they had the impression that the new administrator, Linton Brooks, appointed last year, was not interested in its work, and decided not to renew its charter. Sidney Drell, a leading American physicist and a former committee member said: "It was not renewed. I presume they did not value us or found us a nuisance. An independent, tough advisory board is very important in having a strong (nuclear) stockpile programme."

The committee's charter said that it's meetings "will be held approximately four times each year". In fact, it was not summoned at all in the last year of its existence. "They just didn't call us. We didn't hear from them," Prof Drell said.

...The statute establishing federal advisory committees requires their dissolution to be officially gazetted in the federal register but in the end, the NNSA panel was abandoned quietly, by a simple email to its members.

[you might want to mention this to your local elected representative --mrs. henry]

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detention: it's not just for david nelson anymore

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=430073

After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list... entirely separate from the relatively well-publicised "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000 people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could endanger the safety of their fellow passengers.

...The TSA acknowledged the existence of the list in response to a Freedom of Information Act request concerning two anti-war activists from San Francisco who were stopped and briefly detained at the airport last autumn and told they were on an FBI no-fly list. The activists, Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams, work for a small pacifist magazine called War Times and say they have never been arrested, let alone have criminal records. Others who have filed complaints with the ACLU include a left-wing constitutional lawyer who has been strip-searched repeatedly when travelling through US airports, and a 71-year-old nun from Milwaukee who was prevented from flying to Washington to join an anti-government protest.

It is impossible to know for sure who might be on the list, or why. The ACLU says a list kept by security personnel at Oakland airport ran to 88 pages. More than 300 people have been subject to special questioning at San Francisco airport, and another 24 at Oakland, according to police records. In no case does it appear that a wanted criminal was apprehended.

The ACLU's senior lawyer on the case, Jayashri Srikantiah, said she is troubled by several answers that the TSA gave to her questions. The agency, she said, had no way of making sure that people did not end up on the list simply because of things they had said or organisations they belonged to. Once people were on the list, there was no procedure for trying to get off it. The TSA did not even think it was important to keep track of people singled out in error for a security grilling. According to documents the agency released, it saw "no pressing need to do so".

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dance dance dance

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/01/international/worldspecial3/01CND-GORDON.html?ex=1060838446&ei=1&en=ce457797cc2650d1

CAMP DOHA, Kuwait, Aug. 1 — ...Saddam Hussein, the theory holds, ordered the destruction of his weapon stocks well before the war to deprive the United States of a rationale to attack his regime and to hasten the eventual lifting of the United Nations sanctions. But the Iraqi dictator retained the scientists and technical capacity to resume the production of chemical and biological weapons and eventually develop nuclear arms... What the theory offers... is a new way to make sense of the testimony of captured Iraqi officials who claim that weapons stocks were eliminated, Mr. Hussein's pattern of grudging and partial cooperation with United Nations weapons inspectors and his longstanding ambitions in the region... And it means the decision to use military force to pre-empt that threat was not an urgent necessity but a judgment call, one that can be justified as the surest way to put an end to Iraq's designs but still one about which ardent defenders of the United States' security can disagree.

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http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm

The Pentagon adopted a new strategy in its search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It is called the "big impact" plan. The plan calls for gathering and holding on to all the information now being collected about the weapons. Rather than releasing its findings piecemeal, defense officials will release a comprehensive report on the arms, perhaps six months from now.

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what else will happen six months from now?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A64211-2003Apr20¬Found=true

As always, the 2004 nomination process will begin in Iowa and New Hampshire, which will hold their contests in late January. But in contrast to four years ago, when there was a five-week gap between voting in those two states and the next round of events, at least a dozen states -- most of them small or medium-sized -- will hold primaries or caucuses in February.

...Feb. 3: South Carolina, Delaware, Missouri, Arizona, New Mexico and possibly Oklahoma. Feb. 7: Michigan and possibly Washington. Feb. 8: Maine. Feb. 10: Virginia. Feb. 17: Wisconsin. Feb. 24: Idaho. Feb. 27: Utah. Then, on the first Tuesday in March, a dozen states, including New York, California, Maryland and possibly Ohio, will weigh in on what is likely to be the decisive day of the nomination battle.

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i'm helping to re-elect al gore - ask me how!

http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArID=79159&SecID=2

Fundraisers will help will fill President Bush's schedule during his month-long working [sic] vacation at his ranch near Crawford. In August, Bush will mix public policy events with six fund-raisers -- in Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington and Minnesota. The practice allows the administration, in certain cases, to bill taxpayers for half the travel costs of the political activity.

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does *anyone* remember the truckloads of gold at the syrian border?

http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-gold2aug02,0,5553837.story

WASHINGTON — Gold-colored bars seized by U.S. forces in Iraq appear to be melted-down shell casings made mostly of copper, not gold, the White House said in a report obtained Friday. The U.S. military announced the discovery of truckloads of the bars in May. One truckload had been estimated to be worth as much as $500 million. In a report to Congress detailing U.S. reconstruction efforts, the White House budget office said that 1,100 gold-colored bars were recovered in Iraq and that samples were taken to Kuwait for testing. "Analysis of the initial sampling of ingots revealed they were [composed] of approximately 64% copper and 34% zinc. Consultation with metallurgists indicates the bars analyzed to date are most likely melted-down shell casings," the report said.

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debka - the rightwing israeli intelligence magazine - was all over this story: archived from june 15th, 2003

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=506 [also cached at http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:hFqDJqEfpvQJ:www.debka.com/article.php%3Faid%3D506+iraq+syria+trucks+gold+may+2003&hl=en&ie=UTF-8]

There is evidence of money continuing to flow from Iraq to Syria. The new money-spinning venture for the Assad regime is run by the same Firas Tlas. In May, American forces intercepted two trucks laden with gold bullion worth hundreds of millions of dollars heading for the Syrian border – one west of Mosul and the second at al Qaim. DEBKAfile’s sources report that the treasure came from hideouts in which Saddam Hussein and his sons and agents salted away their cash and other valuables before the war broke out. There is every reason to believe that most of the gold trucks went through to their destination and the amount captured by US forces was a pittance in comparison.

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life in liberated iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13434-2003Aug1.html

RAMADI, Iraq, Aug. 1 -- With a mix of rocket-propelled grenades, mines and ambushes, guerrillas launched at least eight attacks against U.S. forces in western Iraq overnight and this morning, breaking a relative calm in towns along the Euphrates River... "That's been the most in a 24-hour period that I'm aware of," said O'Donnell, a public affairs officer for the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which patrols western Iraq. He said the Army was "trying to find out if there's a link between all these attacks. They could have been random, but it's suspicious, all of those happening at the same time."

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mad dogs and englishmen

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2593714a12,00.html

LONDON: A British soldier serving in Iraq tried to escape from the sweltering heat by sleeping in a walk-in fridge but ended up being treated for hypothermia. The lance corporal, an army medic in his 20s, had sought shelter from the blazing summer sun but was found asleep in a dangerous condition by a colleague and was taken to hospital, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported on Saturday.

...A fellow soldier told the Mirror, "...It's so hot here that most people kind of understand what was behind his bizarre logic." An army spokesman told the paper the soldier had recovered but was embarrassed.

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where have all the flowers gone

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s915843.htm

The US Army has dispatched a team of medical experts to Iraq to investigate a spate of serious pneumonia cases among its troops. Military officials say two soldiers have died of the pneumonia and more than 100 are ill. Army medical authorities say they are concerned because the pneumonia is attacking healthy, young soldiers, which means it is likely to be a virulent strain... SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] has... been ruled out.

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gone for soldiers every one

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0728militaryletter1.html

Brett Hunt, a 2nd lieutenant with the Army's 11th Signal Brigade and a Globe native, sent this note to his parents a week ago. His unit is north of Baghdad.

Hey Mom and Dad, Things are fine here. It is soooooooooooo hot and nasty, but what are you going to do? It is just getting worse every day. I think I may have lice or fleas or something... I wake up with all of these tiny red bites... The mosquitoes laugh at me when I put OFF on. You have to put on the straight DEET and hope you will not have cancer in a year.

We have been hit 18 of the last 19 days... Luckily, "only" about 45 people have been hurt... It is wearing on me along with the constant oppressive heat, no sleep, no food (yeah, they shut off our food resupply without any warning, things are getting slim, we are fine but it is not a good feeling to have so little spare food and water) and spending every night and day now trying to dodge mortars. More than half a month under siege... They have frozen all redeployments, so no one is going anywhere anytime soon, and our Congress goes on vacation July 25 so nothing is going to happen until mid fall. Not what we all want to hear out here. We are under siege out here, without supplies, without a mission and we can only roll the dice so many times... More and more body bags and amputees will be coming home.

Really, though, I am not in bad shape... I love you guys. Brett

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note to presidential candidates, and an article from the ny times magazine

http://wanniski.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=2793

As the situation in Iraq qets stickier, candidates, more of you are joining Howard Dean in questioning the reasons for the pre-emptive war and its consequences. If there are serious congressional hearings ahead, the probing will get down to issue of why the Iraqi people suffered through a dozen years of sanctions if Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction during all those years.

...If there is one thing every citizen of Iraq today agrees upon, it is that the sanctions were wrong... The decision was made by the U.S. foreign policy establishment in 1991 that the sanctions could not and would not be lifted until Saddam Hussein was deposed. That is, no matter how much he cooperated with the UN inspectors, the standards for compliance had to be continually raised in order to keep the pressure on the Iraqi people -- hoping their suffering would cause them to overthrow Saddam. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright now admits it was "stupid" for her to say that it was "worth" the lives of the 500,000 Iraqi children who died because of the sanctions (according to the United Nations) to "contain" Saddam. Now it turns out Saddam was almost certainly "contained" as early as 1991. What were the UN inspectors doing all that time? They were not really looking for WMD, but trying to verify that they had been destroyed.

This fact helps understand why the American military was not welcomed as "liberators"... [Iraqis] are glad Saddam is gone if only because the sanctions have been lifted, but it is most unlikely they will forget their own holocaust.

* * * * *

Were Sanctions Right? They saved the world from Saddam Hussein. Or they killed 500,000 innocent children. Or both. A postwar Inquiry. By David Rieff July 27 New York Times Magazine

As the war in Iraq recedes... it is becoming clear... that Iraq's devastation is not primarily the result of American bombing during the war or of the looting that followed it, but of the economic crisis that befell the country before the first shot was fired... For officials in Washington and London and for American administrators now in Iraq, that country's postwar woes are essentially the legacy of Saddam Hussein's tyrannical, cruel and corrupt rule... But others argue that the fundamental reason Iraq is in such terrible shape is... the comprehensive regime of economic sanctions that the United Nations Security Council imposed on Iraq for almost 13 years, sharply restricting all foreign trade. It was these sanctions, they claim, that brought this once rich country to its knees.

For many people, the sanctions on Iraq were one of the decade's great crimes, as appalling as Bosnia or Rwanda. Anger at the United States and Britain, the two principal architects of the policy, often ran white hot. Denis J. Halliday, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Iraq for part of the sanctions era, expressed a widely held belief when he said in 1998: ''We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that.''

...Many of the diplomats who constructed and administered the sanctions policy still defend them steadfastly. Richard Holbrooke, who served as ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton, says: ''The concept of sanctions is not just still valid; it's necessary. What else fills in the gap between pounding your breast and indulging in empty rhetoric and going to war besides economic sanctions?''

...These observations do not answer the question of whether any policy, no matter how strategically sound, is worth the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children -- a figure that originated in a Unicef report on infant mortality in sanctions-era Iraq and became the rallying cry of anti-sanctions campaigners. And the argument against sanctions on Iraq went beyond even this single, horrifying statistic. Sanctions, their opponents insist, transformed a country that in the 1980's was the envy of the developing world in terms of investments in health, education and physical infrastructure into a place where everyone (except the half-million or so members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and their families and cronies) was dependent on United Nations food aid, where infant mortality rates had skyrocketed, educational outcomes had collapsed and diseases that had disappeared were reappearing, sometimes at epidemic levels.

American officials may quarrel with the numbers, but there is little doubt that at least several hundred thousand children who could reasonably have been expected to live died before their fifth birthdays. The damage, according to those who fought against sanctions, was terrible, medieval. It was, in the literal sense, unconscionable, since those who died had not themselves developed weapons of mass destruction or invaded Kuwait. Rather, they were the cannon fodder for Hussein's war and the victims of his repression.

Madeleine Albright was widely excoriated in 1996 for telling a television interviewer who asked her about the deaths of Iraqi children caused by sanctions, ''This is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it.'' She says now that she regrets the comment... Sanctions like the ones that were imposed on Iraq, she said, ''are a blunt instrument. That's their tragedy. What was so terrible for me was that I did see the faces of the people who were suffering -- even if I thought then and think now that the sufferings of the Iraqi people were Saddam's doing, not ours. There's a terrible price you pay. A terrible price.''

The actual history American sanctions on Iraq is fairly straightforward. On Aug. 2, 1990, in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 661, imposing comprehensive multilateral international sanctions on Iraq and freezing all its foreign assets. Iraq was no longer free to import anything not expressly permitted by the United Nations, and companies were forbidden from doing business with Iraq, with very limited exceptions. Before the conflict started, Iraq had imported roughly 70 percent of its food, medicine and chemicals for agriculture. Although its oil reserves, and hence its wealth, were virtually limitless, it was nonetheless a country that without international trade could not feed itself or sustain the modern developed society it was becoming.

On Feb. 28, 1991, Iraq, defeated on the battlefield, capitulated to American-led forces. The sanctions remained in place. On Aug. 27, 1992, the United Nations declared ''no fly'' zones over the Shiite areas of southern Iraq and the Kurdish areas of the country's north.

...The premise of the oil-for-food program, which was administered by the United Nations, was that Saddam Hussein would be allowed to sell a certain amount of oil. With the proceeds, Hussein's government would be permitted to buy essential humanitarian supplies, including food, medicine and materials needed to keep Iraq's crumbling infrastructure running... The program sought to bar the Iraqi government from obtaining any materials that could be used for military purposes, and as Albright points out, that was problematic: items like chlorine or chemical fertilizer can be used to make poison gas or explosives even if their ostensible use is in water purification or agriculture. ''Even shoes can be considered 'dual use' items,'' Albright told me, ''since it all depends on whether they are going to the general population or to the military.''

...Although the Security Council agreed to the oil-for-food program in April 1995, Saddam Hussein at first refused to participate, holding out for a total lifting of sanctions. It seems to have been during this period... that the worst human suffering in Iraq took place. It was only in December 1996 that Hussein accepted the oil-for-food program.

...Meanwhile, at the General Assembly, governments of a majority of the countries in the developing world were actively denouncing sanctions as wantonly brutal -- as a policy that in effect punished the Iraqi people in the cruelest possible manner without weakening Saddam Hussein's grip on power in the slightest... You can still see the effects of sanctions everywhere in Baghdad. It's not only in the degradation of the infrastructure of daily life; it's also in the remnants of the food-rationing program that Hussein's government instituted to deal with sanctions.

In every neighborhood of every Iraqi city and town, there are a number of small stores, approximately one for every 50 or 60 families, that warehoused the monthly government ration of food staples on which most Iraqis depended for their physical survival. Essential items like flour, sugar, rice, cooking oil, lentils and beans were distributed to these ''agencies'' -- the term English-speaking Iraqis customarily use to describe them -- by Saddam Hussein's Ministry of Trade... Food was the area in which Saddam Hussein's government coped best with sanctions.

...Every Iraqi head of household had to have such a ration book, issued by the Ministry of Trade, which named every immediate family member and listed the precise quantities of foodstuffs to which the bearer was entitled. Every food agent had a computerized list from the Ministry of Trade of the people he was supposed to supply with these staples. What this meant in practice was that the regime could maintain a database on every Iraqi citizen and constantly update it... all provided, however inadvertently, by the sanctions.

...The reform of sanctions embodied in the oil-for-food process only partly alleviated the Iraqi people's sufferings. Although Saddam Hussein clearly exaggerated the effects of the sanctions, the 661 Committee was so hampered by American worries over Iraqi imports of dual-use materials, as well as by the patent corruption of the process, that it soon became something of a laughingstock -- to everyone, that is, except the Iraqi people... Most Iraqis I met knew all too well that the European, Middle Eastern and Asian private companies that the United Nations used as contractors to provide Iraqis with medical supplies routinely bought from third- and fourth-tier suppliers in India, Pakistan and Indonesia. They know how many contractors got rich off Iraq's predicament. In pharmacies all over the towns and cities of Iraq, it is commonplace to see medicines stamped with the World Health Organization logo along with the phrase ''Not for Commercial Sale.'' These drugs were intended for hospitals. Instead, they were routinely sold to private pharmacists by the Ministry of Health.

...''Everyone traded here,'' the scion of an important Arab business family told me, asking that I conceal his identity. ''Gulfis, Saudis, Egyptians, Russians, Chinese -- they all made money out of Iraq and out of sanctions. The poor U.N. didn't have a clue about what was going on. They were just idiots. It was a bazaar. Every contract was marked up by 10 percent. But Saddam controlled it all, and until the war started, he, not the Americans, was the big winner.'' He hardly needed to add who the big loser had been.

...And yet as new rogue states emerge and new international crises flare up, the appeal of sanctions remains. They are relatively cheap and virtually cost-free for those who impose them -- though they can be terribly costly for those upon whom they are imposed. Symbolically, they can be highly resonant and emotive. ''See, we're doing something about Saddam, or Fidel, or Kim Jong Il,'' policy makers can say to the public and to themselves. The problem is that there is little or no evidence that sanctions do real damage to regimes that are willing to allow their people to suffer and die... ''I detest the Americans and want them to leave Iraq now, immediately,'' one Shiite notable told me. ''But they got rid of Saddam, and now they have lifted the sanctions. That's good. Otherwise, who knows how long this slow death by water torture, which the sanctions were for us, would have gone on?''

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and now, the punchline: sanctions renewed.

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=July&x=20030731181136namfuaks0.694668&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html

President Bush has continued for one year the national emergency with respect to Iraq, citing continued instability in the country, as well as the need to "ensure the establishment of a process leading to representative Iraqi self-rule." Former President George Bush first imposed sanctions on Iraq on August 2, 1990. Following is the text of the Federal Register notice:

...On August 2, 1990, by Executive Order 12722, [former] President Bush declared a national emergency with respect to Iraq pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States constituted by the actions and policies of the Government of Iraq -- the Saddam Hussein regime.

By Executive Orders 12722 of August 2, 1990, and 12724 of August 9, 1990, the President imposed trade sanctions on Iraq and blocked Iraqi government assets.

Additional measures were taken with respect to this national emergency by Executive Order 13290 of March 20, 2003. Because of the continued instability in Iraq... the national emergency declared on August 2, 1990, and the measures adopted on August 2 and August 9, 1990, and March 20, 2003, to deal with that emergency must continue in effect beyond August 2, 2003.

Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency with respect to Iraq. This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress. GEORGE W. BUSH, THE WHITE HOUSE, July 31, 2003.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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yet another "presdiential" decree

http://www.earthrights.org/news/eo13303.shtml

President Bush has issued an Executive Order, so far completely unreported, that purports to grant broad legal immunity to oil companies operating in Iraq... Executive Order 13303 [http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2003/pdf/03-13412.pdf], issued on May 22, 2003... [confers] virtual impunity for any activities undertaken relating to Iraqi oil... Under this Order, an oil company complicit in human rights violations, or one that causes environmental damage, would be immune from lawsuits.

...In 13303, President Bush declares a national emergency as the basis for protecting the Development Fund for Iraq (an entity intended to fund reconstruction efforts with oil proceeds, overseen by an international board including World Bank officials) as well as all Iraqi petroleum, petroleum products, “interests”, proceeds, and contracts related to Iraqi petroleum. Claiming that interference with Iraqi petroleum, petroleum products, and “interests therein” jeopardizes reconstruction efforts in Iraq, EO 13303 offers a wide range of protections to certain persons, entities and assets associated with the Iraqi oil industry. The document is apparently intended as a sweeping grant of immunity to individuals, corporations, agencies and others involved in Iraqi oil sales, marketing, or other oil-related activities.

...The Order provides protection at both the front end—the activities that generate the oil—as well as the back—the profits and proceeds that ensue. U.S. companies engaged in petroleum-related work in Iraq are purportedly given broad immunity from suits for environmental damage, workplace harms, contractual disputes, and numerous other wrongs.

...The title of the EO, “Protecting the Development Fund for Iraq and Certain Other Property in Which Iraq Has an Interest,” is a sham... There is nothing at all [in the executive order] about protecting humanitarian organizations, communications, computer or electrical companies, or other industries that are critical to Iraq’s reconstruction.

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war cimes r us

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/international/europe/02BELG.html?ex=1060861970&ei=1&en=4dbf2cd232095caf

BRUSSELS, Aug. 1 — The Belgian Senate gave final approval today to a scaled-down war crimes law that the government hopes will repair relations with the United States... The bill passed on a vote of 39 to 4 with 20 abstentions.

...The bill changes a law initiated in 1993 that gave Belgian courts the power to try foreigners for war crimes and human rights violations regardless of where they had been committed. In the past two years, the court system had become strained by a huge number of such complaints, including politically embarrassing claims against President Bush, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. Tensions rose to the point where Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld threatened in June to move the NATO headquarters out of Brussels unless the law was scrapped.

...The new law allows cases to be brought only if the victim or suspect is a Belgian citizen or long-term resident at the time of the alleged crime. It also guarantees diplomatic immunity for world leaders and other government officials visiting Belgium.

[the article notes that rwanda is a former colony of belgium and that the tutsi genocide was the initial impetus for the law. -mrs.henry]

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speaking of rwanda

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3117915.stm

Some 100,000 genocide suspects are currently in jails in the central African state awaiting trial, and the authorities have resorted to mass trials... Rwanda's state prosecution service says 6,500 people have so far been convicted of genocide crimes. More than 600 have received death sentences, and according to public prosecutor Gerald Gahima, 23 death sentences have been carried out.

More than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by armed militias in 100 days of violence in 1994.

A United Nations war crimes tribunal for Rwanda, based in neighbouring Tanzania and set up in 1995... has worked very slowly and so far only 12 people have been convicted of genocide-related crimes, and one person has been acquitted.

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more exciting developments in the war-crimes industry!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/03/nguan03.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/08/03/ixnewstop.html

The Government has told America that it does not want the Britons held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to be returned for trial in Britain.

...The decision comes after advice from government lawyers that it would be very hard to mount a successful prosecution in Britain because of the difficulty in obtaining evidence that is admissible in court.

...A Whitehall aide said: "The Prime Minister made clear... that it could be embarrassing if [the suspects] were released on their return after the US had branded them as major players in a terrorist network."

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16525

To judge from the excited build-up, Saddam Hussein will be killed very soon. Once his location is identified, the spectacle of his death can soon be orchestrated. To have the greatest impact, perhaps it will be televised in all time zones on a weekday, avoiding the competition of weekend sports. There must be burnt offerings and a triumphal revelation of the corpse. For an insecure America, this killing will be a "ritual of blood," a "compact of fellowship" – terms used by West Indian sociologist Orlando Patterson in the context of ritual lynchings in the Old South.

"American military confidence has increased notably since the deaths of Mr. Hussein's sons in a shootout in the northern city of Mosul," reports the New York Times. So has the confidence of the neo-conservatives, none of whom has served in combat, as well as that of the chattering classes.

Most important, the coming televised ritual death of Saddam Hussein is meant to console the families of the 116 GIs who have been killed in Iraq since Apr. 9, the day of the ritual destruction of Saddam's statue in Baghdad. They will be encouraged to feel that their sons have not died in vain. The Iraqi people, on the other hand, are seen by the Pentagon as the frightened villagers in "The Wizard of Oz." Once they sing "Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead," they will shake off their fears and sign up for their duties in the new order: to work happily for Bechtel and Halliburton and start policing their malcontents.

...But what if the master plan is left unfulfilled? It seems unlikely, but Saddam may elude the Delta posse or already be dead. Or what if the pursuit climaxes in Saddam's ritual death, but the chaos in Iraq continues unabated? What if Saddam, living or dead, is not the deux ex machina behind the daily shootings and woundings of American soldiers? What if the occupiers are facing a vengeful Iraqi nationalism, not the remnants of the old regime?

...If the ritual symbolizes victory, why shouldn't the American troops come home and leave the rest to the Iraqis? Why shouldn't Paul Bremer III declare victory, set a date for a national Iraqi election and a parallel American troop withdrawal? Or are American troops dying for purposes other than overthrowing the dictatorship?

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bob "call me cassandra" fisk

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk08022003.html

In theory, the news is all great. Oil production is up to one million barrels a day; Baghdad airport is preparing to reopen; every university in Iraq is functioning again and the health services are recovering rapidly. And an Iraqi Interim Council is up and hobbling. But there's a kind of looking-glass fantasy to all these announcements from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

...Take the oil production figures. Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander in Iraq, even chose to use these statistics... But Sanchez was talking rubbish. Although oil production was indeed standing at 900,000 barrels per day in June (albeit 100,000bpd fewer than the Sanchez version), it fell last month to 750,000. The drop was caused by power cuts and export smuggling. The result? Iraq, with the world's second-highest reserves of oil, is now importing fuel.

Then comes Baghdad airport. Sure, it's going to reopen. But it just happens that the airport, with its huge American military base and brutal US prison camp, comes under nightly grenade and mortar attack. No major airline would dream of flying its aircraft into the facility in these circumstances.

...Open universities are good news. And few would blame Bremer for summarily firing the 436 professors who were members of the Baath Party... But then it turned out that there wouldn't be enough qualified professors to go round. Quite a number of the 436 were party men in name only and received their degrees at foreign universities. So at Mustansiriyah University, for example, the very same purged professors were rehired after filling out forms routinely denouncing the Baath Party.

...Having triumphantly announced that he'd sacked the entire Iraqi Army, [Bremer] was humiliatingly forced to put them back on rations in case they all decided to attack US soldiers in Iraq.

...The new Iraqi health service is being encouraged to rehabilitate the country's hospitals and clinics. But a mysterious American company called Abt Associates has turned up in Baghdad to give "Ministry of Health Technical Assistance" support to the US Agency for International Development and "rapid response grants to address health needs in-country". It has decreed that all medical equipment must accord with US technical standards and modifications--which means that all new hospital equipment must come from America, not from Europe.

...Bremer has officially made "incitement to violence" an excuse to close down any newspaper or TV station he doesn't like. Indeed, newspapers that have offended the Americans have been raided by US troops in the same way that the Americans have conducted raids on the offices of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose leader, Ayatollah Mohammed al-Hakim, is a member of the famous Interim Council--not exactly a bright way to keep a prominent Shia cleric on board.

But the [Interim] Council itself is already the subject of much humour in Baghdad, not least because its first acts included the purchase of cars for all its members; a decision to work out of a former presidential palace; and... the declaring of a national holiday every April 9 to honour Iraq's "liberation" from Saddam... But Iraqis, a proud people who have resisted centuries of invasions, realised their new public holiday would mark the first day of their country's foreign occupation. And so there has begun to grow the faint but sinister shadow of a different kind of "democracy" for Iraq, one in which a new ruler will have to use a paternalistic rule-- moderation mixed with autocracy, a la Ataturk-- to govern Iraq and allow the Americans to go home.

...Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum think tank, which promotes American interests in the region... now argues that "democratic-minded autocrats can guide [Iraq] to full democracy better than snap elections". What Iraq needs, he says, is "a democratically minded (sic) strongman who has real authority", who would be "politically moderate" but "operationally tough" (sic again).

...What does "operationally tough" mean, other than secret policemen, interrogation rooms and torturers to keep the people in order--which is exactly what Saddam set up when he took power, supported as he was at the time by the US and Britain? What does "strongman" mean other than a total reversal of the promise of "democracy" which Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair made to the Iraqi people?

...Today Bremer is the strongman, and under his rule US troops are losing hearts and minds by the bucketful with each new, blundering and often useless raid against the civilians of Iraq... Anarchic violence is now being embedded in Iraqi society in a way it never was under the genocidal Saddam. Scarcely a day goes by when I do not encounter the evidence of this in my daily reporting work. Visiting the Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad to seek the identity of civilians killed by American troops in Mansour this week, I came across four bodies lying out in the yard beside the building in the 50C heat. All had been shot. Three days earlier, on a visit to a supermarket, I noticed that the woman cashier was wearing black. Yes, she said, because her brother had been murdered a week earlier. No one knew why. Trying to contact an ex-prisoner illegally held by the Americans at his home in a slum suburb of Baghdad, I drove to the mukhtar's house to find the correct address. The mukhtar is the local mayor. But I was greeted by a group of long-faced relatives who told me that I could not speak to the mukhtar--because he had been assassinated the previous night. So if this is my experience in just the past four days, how many murders and thefts are occurring across Baghdad--or, indeed, across Iraq?

...Only a few days ago, I sat in the conference hall that the occupation authorities use for their daily press briefings... which record only a fraction of the violence of the previous 24 hours-- violence which, of course, is well known to the authorities... Charles Heatley, the British spokesman from the Foreign Office... talked about the reports of abduction and rape in Iraq. He acknowledged that there had been some cases, but then-- I enjoyed the beautiful way in which he tried to destroy any journalistic interest in this terrible subject-- talked about the number of "rumours" that turned out to be untrue when checked out. But this is not the experience of [the u.k. daily paper] The Independent, which in just one day recently discovered the identity of one young woman who had been kidnapped, raped and then freed--only to attempt suicide three times.

Why don't the occupation authorities realise that Iraq cannot be "spun"? ...For the people of Iraq, the next stage in their long suffering is under way. For us, a new colonial humiliation, the like of which may well end the careers of Bush and Blair, is coming. Of far more consequence is that it is likely to end many innocent lives as well.

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colonial humiliation narrowly averted by advertising brainstorm

http://www.statesman.com/nationworld/content/news/080103/0801antius.html

Bush administration officials say they are stepping up efforts to market America throughout the world. Polls indicate that international opinion of the United States has plummeted in the last year, and worldwide sympathy for the United States after Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has all but dissipated... Harold Pachios, a member of the congressional Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy... blamed U.S. public relations problems for the soured international opinion.

...Mark Helmke, an aide to Senate Foreign Relations committee chair Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said inadequate funding has hampered the U.S. voice abroad, and diplomats need better training to learn to face cameras.

...Stuart Holliday, the State Department official who oversees U.S. public relations abroad... said the State Department is now broadcasting pictures of soldiers working to rebuild Iraq... Funding... may get a boost if Congress approves a proposed Middle East Television Network. The 24-hour network was devised to counter anti-American news sources, said Holliday... Congress has appropriated $30 million for the venture and is considering allocating $60 million more.

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harshing your mellow

http://www.counterpunch.org/goff08012003.html

There are no longer any American troops being wounded in Iraq. Now they are "injured." Listen closely to the news and you will be hard pressed to hear the word "wounded."

...Yesterday, while preparing some onions and butternut squash, I got carried away with the knife and injured myself. That injury was treated with cold running water and a band aid... If I had been hit in the same hand in my kitchen with a 7.62 X 39mm bullet traveling in excess of 700 meters per second, I would have lost several fingers and possibly my whole hand. That's the difference between being injured and wounded.

...Now you have your leg. Now you don't. Get your head around that, and you've got your head around war... Well over 1,000 of our sons, husbands, fathers, and even a few daughters, wives, and moms have been wounded. They likely would be alright if they had not been there in the first place. This is an embarrassing fact. Almost as embarrassing as the fact that all this maiming and killing - which by the way includes thousands of Iraqis - was started for no nobler purpose than plunder and power.

I'm not even going to go into the questions of Gulf War Syndrome, depleted uranium, or the more insidious post traumatic stress disorder that is transformed into a pathogen that attacks loved ones and society... Perhaps the first casualty we need to inflict on the Bush junta is to wound decorum.

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16520

When Vice President Dick Cheney comes out of seclusion to brand critics "irresponsible," you know the administration is running scared. The last time Cheney was enlisted to do so was in the spring of 2002, amid reports that intelligence warnings given to President Bush prior to Sept. 11, 2001 should have prompted preventive action. Cheney branded such reporting "irresponsible," and critics in the press and elsewhere were successfully intimidated.

...The vice president came off the bench on July 24 in an attempt to hit two birds with one speech: one, distract attention from the highly embarrassing 9/11 report released that day; and two, stem the erosion of the administration's credibility on Iraq... In the words of one Cheney aide, "We had to get out of the hole we were in."

But, alas, thanks to Cheney's speech, they have dug themselves in deeper. The centerpiece of the speech was his selection of quotes from the intelligence community's most authoritative assessment of the Iraqi threat: a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) dated Oct. 1, 2002, and titled "Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction." ...Cheney cited four statements from the NIE: "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons, as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions. If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade." ... "All key aspects – the R&D, production, and weaponization – of Iraq's offensive (biological weapons) program are active and most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War." ... "Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons; in the view of most agencies, Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." ...The intelligence community has "high confidence" in the conclusion that "Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN Resolutions."

The logical conclusion of Cheney's speech is not the urgency of the Iraqi threat but rather the inescapable reality that "high confidence" judgments can be dead wrong.

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carry me back, wayne madsen

http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen08012003.html

...After spending three weeks in Donald Rumsfeld's "Old Europe," I am happy to report that Old Europe is ringing the klaxons about the expansionistic goals of the Bush regime. Europe is free from the "Matrix" of perception management that has permeated the political and social life of America.

...Bush, it will be recalled, tried to emulate the fictional President Whitmore, played by actor Bill Pullman in the Fox movie "Independence Day." By landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier within eyesight of the San Diego skyline, Bush's spin team was trying to suggest that Bush... was somehow acting out the same sort of scene in which... at the conclusion of [the film], Pullman, bedecked in a flight suit, celebrates victory over the aliens. Bush, clad in a flight suit, celebrated the end of "military operations" in Iraq.

Honestly, the Pullman scene in a science fiction movie was more believable than the charade on the USS Lincoln. But the clever ad people at the BBC must have picked up on the obvious links between Independence Day and the Bush publicity stunt. In its preview of its special on the United States, huge dark shadows appears over major world landmarks: the Arch de Triomphe in Paris, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, a busy street in Beijing with curious Chinese pedestrians looking skyward, the pyramids of Egypt, the African Serengetti (with animals fleeing the menacing shadow), and finally, the Houses of Westminster in London, where a BBC reporter nervously looks into the sky as a shadow comes over Big Ben.

Are the shadows an invading fleet of alien spaceships? After the BBC reporter begins to describe the special report, the viewers finally are made aware that the huge shadow is an American flag descending around the world.

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16491

...On July 23rd... the Pentagon finally announced a troop-rotation plan... A new Army brigade (about 5,000 troops) "built around the high-tech 'Stryker' armored vehicle" will be sent and the plan "also calls for activating thousands more Army National Guard soldiers," according to Reuters. Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Jack Keane told a Pentagon briefing that the replacements are likely to face one-year deployments.

Eight days before, thousands of soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division learned that they wouldn't be heading home anytime soon... This reversal by Maj. Gen. Blount happened just days after he said "he hoped the division's 1st and 2nd Brigade Combat Teams of roughly 9,000 soldiers could return home to Fort Stewart within the next six weeks." ... "The units have been ordered to stay 'due to the uncertainty of the situation in Iraq and the recent increase in attacks on the coalition forces,'" Blount informed the families of the troops in an e-mail message that had been obtained by The Associated Press.

..."It pretty much makes me lose faith in the Army," Pfc. Jason Punyhotra of the 3rd Infantry told ABC News in Fallujah, Iraq. "I don't really believe anything they tell me. If they told me we were leaving next week, I wouldn't believe them." "I've got my own 'Most Wanted' list," a sergeant at the 2nd Battle Combat Team Headquarters referring to the Administration deck of most wanted Iraqis, told ABC News' Jeffrey Kofman. "The aces in my deck are Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush and Paul Wolfowitz," he said.

Going public with these comments quickly became a story within a story. In a classic attempt to kill the messenger, a White House official allegedly passed along information to Matt Drudge, of the very popular online Drudge Report, that reporter Kofman is not only gay, but he is also a Canadian.

...A recent editorial in Army Times shed light on a series of homeland developments... Proposals that would have added "various pay-and-benefits incentives to the 2004 defense budget" are now considered "wasteful and unnecessary" by the Republican-controlled Congress. According to Army Times, the GOP-controlled Congress has:

- Canceled a "modest proposal" to increase the benefit from $6,000 to $12,000 to families of soldiers who die on active duty;

- "Roll[ed] back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones";

- Refused to consider "military tax relief... that would be a boon to military homeowners, reservists who travel long distances for training and parents deployed to combat zones, among others";

- Passed pay raises for "some [higher] ranks," but "cap[ped] raises for E-1s, E-2s and O-1s at 2 percent, well below the average raise of 4.1 percent";

- Accepted a $1,500,000,000.00 cut in the military construction request for 2004

- A proposal... to restore $1 billion of the $1.5 billion cut by "cover[ing] that cost by trimming recent tax cuts for the roughly 200,000 Americans who earn more than $1 million a year... [who would receive $83,500] instead of... $88,300," was defeated.

...With so little financial support for their families, it's not surprising that the death and destruction the soldiers experience on foreign soil frequently follow them home.

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http://65.110.67.200/

Hello, thanks for visiting my site, JobforJohn.com. Last Thursday, July 24th I was "downsized" from my job of 3 years at a software company. Later the same day I heard that President Bush's economic team would be doing a bus tour through Wisconsin and Minnesota this week touting Bush's tax cut and its prosperous economic effects... I packed up the minivan and decided to follow their bus around the countryside.

...Tuesday, July 29th: ...The final stop of the day was a Culvers fast food restaurant in Wausau, WI. Now I'll have my chance, I said to myself: this is a restaurant, a public place, where I can walk in and order a burger and fries (much needed) and finally have a sane conversation with the economic advisors. Well, I did get an ice cream cone - through the drive-through - but I couldn't go into the restaurant - the "greeter" (who look surprising like another Secret Service agent) told me that the restaurant was full and that no one else could come in.

...So I do what any good American does when a restaurant is full - I go through the drive-thru. A few times. Several times. Ok, many, many times. Each time I'm hoping at least that Snow et. al. would see the messages on my minivan ['jobs for americans,' '8500 jobs lost per day,' etc. --mrs. h, from site photos] and maybe, out of a shred of decency, come out to talk to me. I ordered and drank 15 Diet Cokes (this should be illegal).

Now here begins the truely weird part: my car is totally out of cupholders at this point so I park and walk around to the back to throw a Target bag full of soda containers in the dumpster... and what do I see? It's like Madison Avenue! Snow and the whole team is doing interviews BEHIND the restaurant, behind the garbage bin, totally out of the public eye. For God's sake … and the SS agents wouldn't even let me use the dumpster!

...Anyway, returning to my car and my Merry-Go-Round-Culvers routine, I was two cars back from another Diet Coke when a fleet of agents suddenly come out from behind the dumpster followed by none-other than Treasury Secretary John Snow. I quickly roll down my passenger side window, motion and holler "Hi! How are ya?" A half dozen agents surround my minivan and John walks right up and stands outside my passenger window... "What's your story?" Snow says.

I tell him I was laid off last week... "What industry were you in?" "Most recently the software industry." "That's a particularly vulnerable part of the economy." "Yes, well, I need a new job & it doesn't look good." "Just wait," he said. "The first tax cuts haven't really taken effect. So just wait - the second tax cut - well, it won't hit the economy for several months, but I'm sure you'll get a job."

"But, but - we've already lost over 900,000 jobs just since March first - a job at Wall-Mart just won't support my family." "Just wait, I'm sure you'll find a job." At that moment the car in front of me pulled ahead for their order and John stepped back from my window. The SS agents signalled for me to pull ahead.

...Boy I'd like to see those words on a PR banner behind Snow at the podium: Jobs and Growth: Just Wait. Man, I could tell you more but I am tired... Stay connected - stay real - find me a job ;) --John

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business? mankind was my business... -j.marley

http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:QgYvSMQNVxcJ:www.counterpunch.org/schaefer07262003.html+%22standard+schaefer%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

On July 23, 2003 Bloomberg news reported that IBM is planning to move thousands of jobs to India and China to reduce costs. While the exact number is not known yet, Bloomberg reports the move is part of larger, long-term trend of relocating jobs to Asia. The story is not exactly news... What is news is the way Bloomberg and other media outlets have learned to report the bad news in such away as to obscure the long term trend.

In the past two years, the trend of exporting jobs has picked up momentum... India, unlike countries in South East Asia, has both low wages and workers well-trained in the latest technology. The savings produced from such a move is estimated to range from 30% to 70%, according to the New York Daily News.

...A widely circulated, recent report by Forrester Research, a firm dedicated to studying technology trends... estimates that in the next 15 years, 3.3 million U.S. service-industry jobs, including 472,000 in computer services, will move to other countries like India. Along with it, $136 billion in wages will be "outsourced"... [But in reporting this,] Bloomberg chose to say "American workers and companies need to realize that the trend of outsourcing to India is 'unstoppable'". The term "unstoppable" was attributed to Atul Vorha, president of India-based Majesco Software... Vorha goes on to say that the money an American company saves by outsourcing projects to India will get reinvested in the United States, creating "even more and better jobs."

This sounds terrific - as long as one does not consider how the money gets "reinvested" in the United States. Some of the money will come back in the way of gross profits, obviously... [but] what Vohra calls "better jobs" are those in upper management where people spend their time dreaming up "outsourcing" schemes.

Also missing from Bloomberg-Vohra's '"explanation" is the record amount of corporate debt on Wall Street and in tech firms... Essentially, the money saved by exporting jobs to India is going to the investment banking branches of such convicted felons as Merrill Lynch and Citigroup. These organized crime operations are run by people like Citigroup CEO Sandy Weil who was recently barred from speaking to his investment bankers without his attorney in the room... The "better jobs" are in all in financial engineering and the services that feed off of them.

It is, therefore, not simply a matter of corruption. It is much more serious and much more deeply a matter of exploitation on a new systematic level. A nexus of debt and financial engineering has become as tyrannical as old-fashioned exploitation of wage workers. The old "value theory of labor" that was embraced by socialists is insufficient to explain the new financial domination of all except the most elite. What has occurred is an enormous fundamental change in the economy that did in fact begin, as Vohra-Bloomberg says, with the overseas movement of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

The change is this: outsourcing does not lead simply to lost wages. The wages are indeed lost, but profits continue. They continue not simply into the coffers of the corporations that are guilty of outsourcing. They go into the hands of financiers who will use it perpetuate the cycle of debt and speculation.

...[Compare Bloomberg's account with] Wired's reportage of the jobs going to India. Since Wired's readers tend to be techies, possibly even members of the communications worker's union, the magazine does not promise "better jobs". Its readers know better. Many have been laid off. Instead, Wired trots out Debashish Sinha, a principal analyst for Gartner's IT services group, another source... with a stake in boostering the technology industry... "It seems the overseas outsourcing market is being used more as a scapegoat for the troubles the U.S. IT industry is going through," Sinha is reported to have said, noting that the vast majority of job losses stem from slowing demand for services as the economy struggles to recover... Thus, the long term fundamental trend is rendered not just "unstoppable" but altogether invisible.

The press, following the financial elite, seems to want the public to believe that these trends are part of a cyclical slow down, but in the same breath insist that the economy is fundamentally sound. On July 14, 2003 for example, several media reports announced that the recession of 2001 was over and that it had ended in November of that year. It had lasted only eight months, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research... The fact that unemployment is at a nine year high-well above where it when the recession supposedly ended does not fit the criteria of a recession.

If the National Bureau of Economics Research, however was composed of out-of-work economists, the ruling class might not be able to inoculate the people against revolt.

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16507