<nettime> iraq file #1: 29 aug 26 oct 2002

["nettime's_closet_case" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

     [for historical perspective, here are the iraq-related messages that 
      accumulated at nettime over the last several months. as noted last
      week ('ecology of nettime,' 12 mar 03) the mods tried to keep this
      issue to a peculiar minimum on the list. oh well. -- cheers, t]

   ...attack on Iraq would be illegal 
Phil Duncan <PDuncan@AggregateStudio.com>  
   The War has already begun........! 
"Han Speckens" <h.speckens@wanadoo.nl>  
   Only more democracy can save democracy  
ronda@ais.org (Ronda Hauben)  
   John Ross: Mexico vs. Iraq in Upcoming US Resource War 
"ricardo dominguez" <rdom@thing.net>    
   Bombing Iraq 
"Jason Handby" <jasonh@pavilion.co.uk>  
   a sign of things to come: Wolf Blitzer for the Defense (Department)   
"geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl> 
   The recolonisation of Iraq cannot be sold as liberation (The Guardian)
"geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl> 
   fueling and winning the war against terror 
"up" <up@treerunner.com> 
   IRAQ JOURNAL 
"geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl> 
   Silence Is Betrayal 
ernie yacub <yacinfo@mars.ark.com> 
   Manifesto of International Surrealists against the war in Iraq 
Zazie <zazie@zazie.at> 

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 12:04:33 -0700
From: Phil Duncan <PDuncan@AggregateStudio.com>
Subject: ...attack on Iraq would be illegal

It would seems that there are some who are trying to counter-balance 
presidential appointee Bush's sabre rattling with legal realities:

from: 
http://www.euronews.net/create_html.php?page=detail_info&lng=1&option=2,info&PHPSESSID=a14a8b82440009f869374d0ce22439f9

Ex-U.S. Attorney Gen. warns Bush attack on Iraq would be illegal

With speculation about a U.S. military strike against Iraq gathering 
momentum the country's President Saddam Hussein has told his generals to 
put the nation on a war footing.

He held a special meeting with his military advisors to draw up plans for 
dealing with an American assault. The Iraqi leader has received a boost 
from a former a U.S. attorney general who is now a leading peace campaigner.

Ramsey Clarke is in Baghdad for talks with Iraqi officials. He has 
described President George Bush's claim that Iraq is developing weapons of 
mass destruction as a complete fraud.

And he dealt a heavy personal rebuke to the President.

"President Bush, you must not attack Iraq. You have to understand that you 
are not above the law, the United States is not above the law, you cannot 
attack a country, that you cannot declare a war on terrorism and say that 
you can strike anybody, anytime, at any place on suspicion that they are a 
terrorist. That is criminal under the laws of the United States, it 
violates the constitution of the United States and it violates 
international law and the American people and the American government and 
the American constitution are too good for that and you mustn't do it".



------------------------------

Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2002 15:11:35 +0200
From: "Han Speckens" <h.speckens@wanadoo.nl>
Subject: The War has already begun........!

Hello Nettime

We find many interesting information on:
www.antiwar.com

and:

Democracy NOW!

http://www.2600.com/offthehook/hot2.ram

PressGallery NL


- ------=_NextPart_000_0059_01C26E13.D3A5FD20


------------------------------

Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2002 15:40:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@ais.org (Ronda Hauben)
Subject: Only more democracy can save democracy

Following are some thoughts about the US governments activities to wage war
against the Iraqi people despite the opposition to the war in the US 
and around the world.

If there is no democracy in the US, how can the US be calling for
a regime change in other countries to make them more democratic?
(And if there were democracy in the US, the US wouldn't be calling 
for a regime change in any other country, but setting a good 
example in the US.)

I called the NY Senators and their local phones were either busy 
or not taking messages.

Hilary Clinton's local number 688-6262 tells you it is a voice mail box
and you have to hang up and dial 212 and the number again.
I did that and got the same message.

Charles Schumer's number was busy (212-486-4430) and I couldn't get
through.

I decided to call the White House (202-456-1111) I had to wait
about 15 minutes to speak to someone on the comment lines.
I asked what we could do since the neither the President nor 
Congress appear to have any concern that the people in the US 
don't want a war and that millions of people around the world 
don't want a war against Iraq. 

The person I spoke with just asked what State I was from. Then
she gave me the telephone numbers of the Senators from NY.

I called Hilary Clinton's office (202-224-4451). When a staffer
picked up the phone I asked what people could do as people don't
want a war against Iraq but it seems the President and Congress
are intent on attacking Iraq. 

I was told that he would put me through to Charles Schumer's office
in Washington. He did and I got a busy signal.

I called back using the number I had gotten from the Comment line
at the White House for Charles Schumer(202-224-6542)

After several rings and then being put on hold for several minutes,
a staffer answered the phone. I asked his name. He said Kevin.
I asked what the Senator's position was on the war. He said he
is undecided. He said he would pass on what I said to the Senator.
I expressed the concern that there seems no democracy in the US
but that the Internet was created through a collaborative and 
democratic process. That we need to be supporting more democracy
not threatening other countries and the UN if they don't join
the US government in waging an illegitimate war against another
country. Also that there is the need for more democracy here in
the US as the real issues like the corporate corruption, and the 
lack of universal health care and lack of prescription drugs for
elderly and lack of labor rights, etc are making life very difficult
for many sectors of the population in the US. If the US were  
interested in advocating democracy around the world, it would
set a good example here at home. While the opposite is happening.

The staffer said he would convey my sentiments to the Senator.
I didn't see how he could since he didn't seem to be asking
any questions or taking any notes.

So that was the best America's representative form of democracy
seems to offer its citizens. Not very adequate to the problems
facing the people in the US and around the world.

What are we to do to have more democracy?

That is the question that needs to be raised and somehow answered.

And how do the people of the US and around the world prevent the
US government from attacking Iraq and offering other countries the
Iraq oil reserves etc?

This is a serious problem the peoples of the world are faced with.

The German people spoke up through their elections and the British
people through their demonstrations in London and then the Italian
people by demonstrating around Italy. In the US there are demonstrations
as well like the one in Central Park NY yesterday. And at church
services there were speeches against making a war against Iraq.

We have been given challenges in the past. Hopefully we will
find some means to take on this challenge.

Cheers

Ronda

ronda@ais.org

Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook


------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 11:06:44 -0500
From: "ricardo dominguez" <rdom@thing.net>
Subject: John Ross: Mexico vs. Iraq in Upcoming US Resource War

Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 19:01:57 -0700

Mexico vs. Iraq in Upcoming US Resource War
by John Ross

MEXICO CITY (Oct. 10) --

Mexico vs. Iraq? No, it's not a contemplated first round 
match-up in the next World Cup but rather part and parcel 
of the global configuration being squeezed together by 
George W. Bush for the next unilateral US aggression
against a sovereign nation.

Mexico's foreign minister, Jorge G. Castaneda, a target of
blistering criticism here for his affinity towards Washington,
let the cat out of the bag when he tipped off leftwing
legislators Sept. 19 that Mexico would cast its vote on the
United Nations Security Council to greenlight the use of US
military force against Saddam Hussein despite this nation's long-
standing anti-interventionist stance.

 "All countries incline to Washington for one reason or
another, and Mexico is not going to be the exception," Castaneda
warned the leftists. "We are not going to pay the price of going
against the United States."

Castaneda then took his pro-war show on the road, winging
off to London for a tete-a-tete with his British counterpart Jack
Straw "to hear the UK's side of the [Iraqi] story." Last week
(Sept. 28), the Mexican foreign minister huddled with US
Secretary of State Colin Powell ("We have an excellent personal
relation," Castaneda boasts), and the footage of the two emerging
from behind locked doors with major grins on their mugs seemed to
confirm that Mexico's support for the annihilation of Iraq is a
done deal--although, like Bush, Castaneda promised the
legislators he would "consult" with them before the bombing
begins, presumably to fine-tune Mexico's role in the impending
massacre. "Mexico's goals and ideals must not be confused with
geopolitical realities," the foreign minister reminded the
lawmakers.

Castaneda's--and presumably his boss Vicente Fox Quesada's--
endorsement of the massive bombing of a sovereign nation marks
the first time since Mexico entered World War II in 1942 that it
has backed military intervention, and is a stunning turnaround
from the country's traditional "Estrada Doctrine" (named for a
19th-century statesman) of nonintervention in world conflicts--
but follows in lock-step the current administration's pattern of
snuggling up to Washington.

Despite the snuggling, the attentions Mexico has lavished on
the Bush White House have gone largely unrequited. The 9/11/01
terror attacks on New York and Washington torpedoed a budding
immigration reform accord that has been the real object of
Mexico's affections, and no negotiations have taken place since.

 Now the Bushites are batting their eyes and hinting that
Mexico's support for their Iraqi "war" might well result in
getting that long-desired agreement back on track. "I love
Mexico," advertised Laura Bush when she arrived here in late
September for a summit of First Ladies of the Americas hosted by
Marta Sahagun de Fox, the Mexican president's better half.
Although Laura Bush acknowledged that both presidents were "very
busy right now," she hoped that her husband and Vicente Fox
"could sit down soon to focus on the very vital issue of
immigration."

 But the immigration agreement is not the only bait being
dangled on the hook of Mexico's support for George W. Bush's
announced revenge against Saddam Hussein for "trying to kill my
dad." Mexican oil is expected to gas up both the Bush war machine
and keep the US economy from floundering long enough at least to
insure Bush's re-election with a solid majority in a Republican-
dominated Congress.

 Although some alarmists predict the Bush war will bring
economic chaos, with high budget overruns and sky-rocketing
deficits, the White House braintrust anticipates it can destroy
Iraq, clean up the dead and rebuild the country under a new
corporate logo for a cool short-war $27 billion. But each month
Bush bogs down in Baghdad will cost the US another $9 billion,
and the strain tempts economic malaise, the experts say. This is
certainly not good news for Mexico. Should the US crumble into
double-dip recession as a result, Fox's promised economic
recovery, soldered as it is to US consumer demand, is kaput.
     US invasion is expected to boost oil prices $6 USD a barrel
from an already soaring $30 plus. But if Saddam blows up his oil
fields, as he did 10 years ago in Kuwait, or if the Arab-
dominated OPEC responds with an embargo on US deliveries, prices
are apt to zoom to $100 per barrel, a short-term bonanza for
Mexico's PEMEX, the world's fourth largest producer (as of July),
and the US's number one supplier, having replaced not-to-be
trusted Saudi Arabia this summer.

To emphasize his tacit support for the US's designs to crush
Iraq, Fox, like now-reviled ex-president Carlos Salinas de
Gortari during the first Bush's adventure in the Persian Gulf,
has already ordered production increases--Mexico's daily output
is expected to jump 13% in 2003 to 4 million barrels daily, 1.8
million of which are destined for export, 95% to El Norte.

The downside of this prospective boom, figures John Saxe-
Fernandez, who directs the Strategic Resources Institute at the
National University (UNAM), is that Mexico is pumping out its oil
future (52 billion barrels in proven reserves, down 8 billion
from previous estimates) to fuel what amounts to a global
resource war that does not favor this country's interests.

Mexico's support for Bush's bellicosity could very well turn
out to be self-defeating, Saxe-Fernandez projects. Should George
Bush "liberate" Iraq, as seems likely, and parcel out its oil
fields to his friends (Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburtan
Corporation will be a big winner), the flood of Iraqi oil,
bottled up for a decade by food-for-oil UN sanctions, could sink
petroleum prices to record lows and critically wound PEMEX, the
source of financing for one-third of the Mexican government's
budget.

Despite persistent rumors that he is a dark horse candidate
to succeed Fox in 2006, Castaneda's servility to Washington has
not made him a popular figure back home. Sometimes likened to
General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna--who gave away half of
Mexico's original territory to the North Americans--the foreign
minister has a proclivity for blurting out blunt assessments of
his colleagues and his enemies that earns him acid-dipped
headlines whenever he opens his mouth. "Ambassadors are my
employees," he snarled recently, summarily firing Ricardo Pascoe
from his posting to Cuba after Pascoe had complained that the
foreign ministry had cancelled Mexican Independence Day
ceremonies in Havana.

Castaneda's spats with Mexico's ambassador to the United
Nations, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, a one-time bosom buddy, also
occupy press attentions. When Aguilar Zinser recently voted
against granting US peacekeeper troops immunity from prosecution
by the newly created World Criminal Court as the White House had
demanded, Castaneda hit the ceiling and threatened to fire
Aguilar Zinser, a move Washington would no doubt applauds
although Aguilar Zinser was sometimes known as Mexico's
Condoleezza Rice when he served Fox as national security adviser.
"Adolfo spends too much time giving interviews to La Jornada [the
leftwing paper]," the foreign minister snapped to reporters.

Two days later, Aguilar Zinser saw the error of his ways and
Mexico reversed its vote in the Security Council to accommodate
the US.

In the past, Mexico has shied away from membership on the
Security Council because rotating members are constant targets
for US pressures, and has rather advocated a strengthened General
Assembly, a position strongly backed by Castaneda's own father,
also once Mexico's foreign minister.

 But it is Mexico's souring relations with Cuba where
Castaneda's slavish attachment to Washington is most blatant.
Last March, during a United Nations development summit in
Monterrey, he virtually forced Fidel Castro to abandon the
country because George W. Bush refused to land while the Cuban
president's feet were still planted on Mexican soil. Former
ambassador Pascoe accuses Castaneda of bringing diplomatic
relations with Cuba to "the threshold of rupture" in accordance
with White House strategies. Castaneda, he charges, deliberately
set in motion a Havana embassy takeover last February when he
told Miami anti-Castro "gusano" leaders that "Mexico's doors are
always open" to dissident Cubans. Pascoe also suggested an
investigation into Miami financing of Vicente Fox's winning 2000
campaign.

Despite Fox-Castaneda backing of Bush's impending genocidal
attack on Iraq, there is little support for such bloodletting in
Mexico. Nightly television polls have been running about 85%
against US aggression. Carlos Fuentes, the nation's premier
literary light, compares Bush to Hitler and Stalin (presumably
rolled into one), and even this reporter's barber, Lalo Miranda,
is appalled by the US president's homicidal plans. "He's going to
kill all those children just so he can get re-elected!" Lalo
snorts as he trims hair in his central city market stall.

Up in the ivory towers, Dr. Rene Drucker, the rector of the
UNAM's medical school, deplores how Fox and Castaneda have
attached Mexico to "Bush's fascist craziness." As thousands of US
intellectuals and cultural workers have recently voiced, Drucker
protests that the actions of the Mexican government are being
taken "not in my name."

Mexican opponents to the Fox-Castaneda fixation with
Washington's aggressions, such as anthropologist and
counterinsurgency war expert Gilberto Rivas y Lopez, underscore
that Mexico's enlistment in Washington's twin wars on terrorism
and Iraq makes this country into a terrorist target. Moreover,
points out Rivas y Lopez, Bush's new national security program
championing the US's self-proclaimed "right" to attack any
country anywhere on the planet that is adjudged to threaten
Washington's--and the free market's--interests, also threatens
Mexico. Under the new US national security guidelines, should
Mexican oil be considered vulnerable to terrorist assault,
intervention--or even invasion--is not an unlikely scenario. In
fact, this Oct. 1, the US military's North Command, concocted
after 9/11 to defend North American territory, was officially
inaugurated--the North Command prioritizes surveillance of Mexico
as a US "security perimeter."

Since 9/11, Mexico has been the object of intense scrutiny
in the Bush terror war. Both southern and northern borders have
been virtually locked down to prevent supposed infiltrators, and
the FBI now openly conducts investigations here.

 Bush's Iraqi adventure can only increase such vigilance.
Mexico has been a frequent route for Iraqis trying to enter the
US--a group of 60 Iraqi Christians were turned away by US
immigration authorities when they reached Tijuana soon after the
New York and Washington attacks. Although the Iraqi community in
Mexico is tiny, it wields considerable commercial and political
power--longtime PRI (the once-ruling Institutional Revolutionary
Party) honcho Jose Murat Kasab, the son of Iraqi immigrants, is
the governor of the key southern state of Oaxaca.

[John Ross, whose latest volume, The War Against Oblivion,
chronicles seven years of Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, will
speak on struggles in southern Mexico Oct. 29 at Cal State, Los
Angeles, and again the next noon at Cal Poly-Pomona. On Nov. 9,
he will present his newest work, Murdered by Capitalism, a memoir
of 150 years of life and death on the US Left, in Eureka,
California, and on Nov. 20, the anniversary of the Mexican
revolution, will assess the health of that landmark upheaval, at
Cal State Hayward.]


Copyright 2002 by John Ross. 


------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 12:35:59 -0000
From: "Jason Handby" <jasonh@pavilion.co.uk>
Subject: Bombing Iraq

This just arrived in my inbox...



Jason Handby
Brighton, UK.


- --------8<--------

(Sung to the tune: "If You're Happy And You Know It Clap Your Hands")

If we cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets hurt your Mama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are Saudi
And the bank takes back your Audi
And the TV shows are bawdy,
Bomb Iraq.

If the corporate scandals growin', bomb Iraq.
And your ties to them are showin', bomb Iraq.
If the smoking gun ain't smokin'
We don't care, and we're not jokin'.
That Saddam will soon be croakin',
Bomb Iraq.

Even if we have no allies, bomb Iraq.
>From the sand dunes to the valleys, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections;
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.

While the globe is slowly warming, bomb Iraq.
Yay! the clouds of war are storming, bomb Iraq.
If the ozone hole is growing,
Some things we prefer not knowing.
Though our ignorance is showing!
Bomb Iraq.

So here's one for dear old daddy, bomb Iraq,
>From his favourite little laddy, bomb Iraq.
Saying no would look like treason.
It's the Hussein hunting season.
Even if we have no reason,
Bomb Iraq.


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 11:21:31 +1100
From: "geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>
Subject: a sign of things to come: Wolf Blitzer for the Defense (Department)

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting
http://www.fair.org/extra/0301/blitzer.html

Wolf Blitzer for the Defense (Department)

Making sure the official line is the last word

By Jim Naureckas

On the rare occasion when a mainstream news program interviews a forthright
critic of U.S. policy, the interviewer often seems less like a journalist
and more like a government spokesperson. That's what happened when CNN's
Wolf Blitzer (11/7/02) interviewed Dr. Helen Caldicott, a nuclear critic
(and a member of FAIR's advisory board), about the connection between the
U.S.'s use of so-called depleted uranium in anti-tank shells during the 1991
Gulf War, and the dramatic rise in birth defects in southern Iraq.

Blitzer at first challenged her facts, appropriately enough: "Dr. Caldicott,
let me interrupt and point out what the Pentagon has said repeatedly over
these years. That in all of their testing of these depleted uranium shells,
they found no scientific evidence whatsoever that any rates of cancer, any
kinds of cancer are higher when subjected to these areas as any other
areas."

Caldicott responded by pointing to evidence in her recent book, The New
Nuclear Danger, that the Pentagon was well aware of the dangers of depleted
uranium: "You'll find in the chapter on Iraq, Pentagon documents that were
written before they went into Iraq, warning that none of the troops should
be exposed to radiation from these depleted uranium shells. They had to wear
total body suits, respirators--the whole thing. They shouldn't go near it,
because it's carcinogenic, can cause cancer of the bladder, the lung, the
kidney, and the like."

The CNN anchor then moved the topic to the question of sanctions, which
Caldicott had mentioned as making it more difficult to treat birth defects.
Blitzer again presented the official line: "The Pentagon also points out,
the Bush administration also points out very, very strongly that the Iraqi
regime itself is to blame for all of these problems. If they simply complied
with U.N. Security Council resolutions and disarm, there would be no
sanctions, there would be no problem getting medical supplies, doctor,
pediatricians, to all parts of Iraq."

When Caldicott tried to tell Blitzer that the main issue with birth defects
was not the sanctions but the fact that the U.S. left radioactive uranium
238 all over Iraqi battlefields, he cut her off and pointed out that the
Iraqi government has used torture. "Do you feel comfortable, in effect,
going out there and defending the Iraqi regime?," he asked--a line similar
to CNN colleague Connie Chung's suggestion (10/7/02) that a congressmember
who questioned George W. Bush was telling people to "believe Saddam Hussein"
(Extra! Update, 12/02).

After Caldicott's last answer, Blitzer made an unusual closing rebuttal to
her interview. After ending the interview-- "we have to unfortunately, Dr.
Caldicott, leave it right there, because we are all out of time"--he
returned to the assertion he had made earlier about sanctions: "Let me just
repeat what the U.S. government has said on many occasions. If the Iraqi
regime were to comply with U.N. resolutions, none of these problems would
exist. If the Iraqi government would not have invaded Kuwait in 1990, none
of these problems would have existed. We have to leave it right there, Dr.
Helen Caldicott."

Wrong on the facts

While it's odd enough for a TV host to insist on making a government denial
the final word in an interview, it's particularly disturbing that the
assertion Blitzer used twice to dismiss what his guest was saying was simply
inaccurate. It's not true that sanctions would automatically be lifted if
Iraq disarmed; shortly after the sanctions were imposed, President George
Bush the first declared, "My view is we don't want to lift these sanctions
as long as Saddam Hussein is in power" (Washington Post, 5/21/91). And his
secretary of state James Baker concurred: "We are not interested in seeing a
relaxation of sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power" (St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, 5/21/91).

President-elect Bill Clinton made a point of saying that his policy toward
Iraq was exactly the same as his predecessor's (New York Times, 1/15/93).
His secretary of state Madeleine Albright stated in her first major foreign
policy address in 1997 (Federal News Service, 3/26/97): "We do not agree
with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations
concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted. Our
view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful
intentions.... And the evidence is overwhelming that Saddam Hussein's
intentions will never be peaceful." (See Institute for Public Accuracy,
11/13/98.)

It's rarely pretty when an interviewer insists on getting the last word.
When that last word is a distortion of facts in defense of the official
line, it's downright ugly.




------------------------------

Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 07:14:34 +1100
From: "geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>
Subject: The recolonisation of Iraq cannot be sold as liberation (The Guardian)

(I somehow liked this piece, it pretty sums up what everyone knows.
Enlightened, cynical knowledge for the 21st century. Geert)

The recolonisation of Iraq cannot be sold as liberation
Of course most Iraqis don't want their country invaded and occupied
Seumas Milne
Wednesday January 29 2003
The Guardian

Tony Blair's government is running scared of the British people and their
stubborn opposition to war on Iraq. The latest panic measure is to try to
ban what has been trailed as the biggest demonstration in British political
history from Hyde Park, where a giant anti-war rally is planned for February
15. As the US administration accelerates its drive to war, its most faithful
cheerleader is having to run ever faster to keep up.

Never mind that every single alleged chemical or biological weapons storage
site mentioned in Blair's dossier last year has been inspected and found to
have been clean; or that the weapons inspectors reported this week that Iraq
had cooperated "rather well"; or that most UN member states regard Hans
Blix's unanswered questions as a reason to keep inspecting, rather than
launch an unprovoked attack. Jack Straw nevertheless rushed to declare Iraq
in material breach of its UN obligations and fair game for the 82nd
airborne.

Most people have by now grasped that regime change, rather than disarmament,
is the real aim of this exercise and that whatever residual "weapons of mass
destruction" Iraq retains are evidently not sufficient to deter an attack -
as they appear to be in North Korea. Since both the US and Britain have said
they will use force with or without United Nations backing, the greatest
impact of any new resolution blackmailed out of the security council is
likely to be damage to the UN's own credibility.

To harden up public support, the US has now promised "intelligence" to
demonstrate the supposed links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, along
with evidence that the Iraqis have been secretly moving weapons to outwit
the inspectors. Since this will depend entirely on US sources and
prisoners - including those we now know have been tortured at the US
internment camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - it may not prove quite the
breakthrough "Adlai Stevenson moment" the US is hoping for either.

But if none of this seems likely to make a decisive difference to public
attitudes to an invasion of Iraq, there is one argument which is bound to
resonate more widely in the weeks to come. This is the case made by
President Bush in his state of the union speech on Tuesday that war against
Iraq would mean the country's "day of liberation" from a tyrannical regime.
A similar point was made by a British soldier heading for the Gulf, when
asked whether he wasn't concerned about the lack of public support for war.

"Once people know what Saddam has done to his own people," Lance Corporal
Daniel Buist replied, "they will be fully behind us." It is a theme taken up
most forcefully by liberal war supporters in Britain and the US - the
celebrated laptop bombardiers - who developed a taste for "humanitarian
intervention" during the Yugoslav maelstrom. The Iraqi people want a US
invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, they claim, while the anti-war movement is
indifferent to their fate. Where was the "left movement against Saddam" 20
years ago? one critic demanded recently.

In fact, leftwingers were pretty well the only people in the west
campaigning against the Iraqi regime two decades ago - left activists were
being imprisoned and executed in their hundreds by Saddam Hussein at the
time - while the US and British political establishments were busy arming
Iraq in its war against Iran and turning a blind eye to his worst human
rights abuses, including the gas attacks on the Kurds in the late 1980s.

What changed after 1991 was that the greatest suffering endured by Iraqis
was no longer at the hands of the regime, but the result of western-enforced
sanctions which, according to Unicef estimates, have killed at least 500,000
children over the past decade.

Nor is there any evidence that most Iraqis, either inside or outside the
country, want their country attacked and occupied by the US and Britain,
however much they would like to see the back of the Iraqi dictator.
Assessing the real state of opinion among Iraqis in exile is difficult
enough, let alone in Iraq itself. But there are telling pointers that the
licensed intellectuals and club-class politicians routinely quoted in the
western media enthusing about US plans for their country are utterly
unrepresentative of the Iraqi people as a whole.

Even the main US-sponsored organisations such as the Iraqi National Congress
and Iraqi National Accord, which are being groomed to be part of a puppet
administration, find it impossible directly to voice support for a US
invasion, suggesting little enthusiasm among their potential constituency.
Laith Hayali - an Iraqi opposition activist who helped found the
British-based solidarity group Cardri in the late 1970s and later fought
against Saddam Hussein's forces in Kurdistan - is one of many independent
voices who insist that a large majority of Iraqi exiles are opposed to war.
Anecdotal evidence from those coming in and out of Iraq itself tell a
similar story, which is perhaps hardly surprising given the expected scale
of casualties and destruction.

The Iraqi regime's human rights record has been grim - though not uniquely
so - over more than 30 years. If and when US and British occupation forces
march down Baghdad's Rashid Street, we will doubtless be treated to footage
of spontaneous celebrations and GIs being embraced as they hand out sweets.
There will be no shortage of people keen to collaborate with the new power;
relief among many Iraqis, not least because occupation will mean an end to
the misery of sanctions; there will be revelations of atrocities and war
crimes trials.

All this will be used to justify what is about to take place. But a foreign
invasion which is endorsed by only a small minority of Iraqis and which
seems certain to lead to long-term occupation, loss of independence and
effective foreign control of the country's oil can scarcely be regarded as
national liberation. It is also difficult to imagine the US accepting
anything but the most "managed" democracy, given the kind of government
genuine elections might well throw up.

The danger of military interventions in the name of human rights is that
they are inevitably selective and used to promote the interests of those
intervening - just as when they were made in the name of "civilisation" and
Christianity. If war goes ahead, the prospect for Iraq must be of a kind of
return to the semi-colonial era before 1958, when the country was the pivot
of western power in the region, Britain maintained military bases and an
"adviser" in every ministry and landowning families like Ahmad Chalabi of
the INC's were a law unto themselves. There were also 10,000 political
prisoners, parties were banned, the press censored and torture commonplace.
As President Bush would say, it looks like the re-run of a bad movie.

s.milne@guardian.co.uk

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited



------------------------------

Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 11:23:59 -0700
From: "up" <up@treerunner.com>
Subject: fueling and winning the war against terror

If the below can be indicative of any progress, you can be rest 
assured we are steadfastedly on course. by next election time we 
can dance in streets. Invest in party(sponsered) favors now.

- --kevin

Hacker groups declare war on US.gov

<snip>
The number of malicious hacking attempts made this month is 
higher than the numbers recorded in any previous month, 
according to security specialists Mi2g. 
Mi2g has recorded 9,011 digital attacks to date in September, 
following previous record highs of 4,904 and 5,830 recorded in 
July and August of this year respectively. 

This pattern stands in stark contrast to last year, when the July and 
August figures of 3,499 and 2,820 were followed by a precipitous 
drop in digital attacks in September. The fall in malicious hacking 
activity to 816 attacks is attributed to the effects of the attack on the 
World Trade Centre. 

Mi2g attribute the increase in attacks to rising antagonism against 
the US in response to its policy on Iraq and support for Israel. US 
government on-line computers belonging to the House of 
Representatives, Department of Agriculture, Department of 
Education, National Park Service, NASA and the US Geological 
Survey were attacked in September, Mi2G said. 

The report named malicious hacker groups such as 
S4t4n1c_S0uls, USG, WFD, EgyptianHackers, Arab VieruZ, MHA, 
The Bugz and FBH, as responsible for many of the anti-US, anti-
Israeli and anti-Indian attacks. 

US registered domains suffered the most, with 4,157 attacks, well 
ahead of the number two nation on the list Brazil who suffered only 
835 attacks. The UK, Germany and India were next most popular 
victims, with less than 400 attacks each. 

Mi2g also reported that systems running Microsoft Windows 
suffered more attacks than all other operating systems combined, 
with only 1,740 attacks on Linux, 933 attacks on BSD and 229 
attacks on Solaris. 

"Many hacker groups, in anonymous interviews with Mi2g, have 
said that they prefer attacking Linux systems and very rarely target 
anything running Windows, simply because to do so is far too 
easy," claimed Jan Andresen of Mi2g. "Those hacking for 
intellectual gain or fun will generally be attracted to the greater 
challenge associated with hacking Linux systems." 

"Hacker groups with political motivations target country or content 
specific on-line systems regardless of operating systems and this 
is where Windows comes under maximum fire." 

DK Matai, chairman and chief executive officer of Mi2g, noted in the 
report that an increasing number of vulnerabilities are being found 
in generic operating systems, server software, applications and 
libraries deployed on mission critical systems. These flaws are 
often time consuming to patch and as a result, fixes on these 
holes are often delayed. "Applying patches was traditionally 
relegated to the weekend. Invariably some mission critical 
machines don't get patched in time despite the best will to do so," 
said Matai. "Those are perfect doorways for hackers and they are 
being exploited ruthlessly." 

Mi2g projected that there would be over 45,000 digital attacks 
globally in 2002, up from 31,322 in 2001, 7,821 in 2000; 4,197 in 
1999 and only 269 in 1998. 
</snip>

article at: http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=8633950




------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 15:34:45 +1000
From: "geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>
Subject: IRAQ JOURNAL

From: "dhalleck" <dhalleck@weber.ucsd.edu>
 
There were some delays with visas and transport,
but Jeremy Skahill and Jacquie Soohan are now in Iraq and
just posted their first report from the road to Baghdad.
It was broadcast on Democracy Now this morning. Other reports
will be coming regularly in the next few weeks.

Madison's radio station WORT has provided a web site for
Jeremy's project, which will also include reports from many other
independent journalists.
It is available at http://www.iraqjournal.org/
Please spread the word about this important news source.


DeeDee Halleck



------------------------------

Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 09:01:34 -0700
From: ernie yacub <yacinfo@mars.ark.com>
Subject: Silence Is Betrayal

I think this quote by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright should be 
understood for the horror it sanitises and should be memorised by every human 
being on this planet.  To see what it really means....
http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html
Warning - the images on this site are extremely shocking and disturbing.

ernie yacub

>>>
Much of the responsibility for this rests on the shoulders of the Clinton
administration, which knew what was happening to Iraq's children. In 1996,
Leslie Stahl of CBS asked Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "We have
heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more than died
in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" Albright replied: "I
think this is a very hard choice, but price, we think the price is worth
it."
>>>

Silence Is Betrayal
by Conn Hallinan; Foreign Policy In Focus; October 25, 2002

Dan Handelman is haunted by two images of Iraq that most Americans never see
on television.

One is a frail two-year-old slowly dying of dehydration in a Basra hospital
while his mother sits next to him, helpless to stop the ravages of diarrhea
and infection. He is, according the World Health Agency, one of the 5,000
Iraqi children who die of water-borne diseases and malnutrition each month.

The other is a group of children begging in the streets. "There were no
beggars in Baghdad before the Gulf War, and now many of them have to beg
rather than be in school," he says. Indeed, Iraq used to have the highest
literacy rate in the Arab world--95%--but according to UNICEF, 30% of its
children no longer attend school.

Handleman, a member of Friends of Voices in the Wilderness, is from
Portland, Oregon, and along with a handful of other Americans, has traveled
to Iraq to witness first hand the ravages of war and sanctions--and to
record what is being done in our name.

The young boy in Basra is dying because the U.S. systematically targeted
water purification plants and electrical generators in the 1991 Gulf War. We
certainly didn't bomb those targets by accident. According to Col. John
Warden, the deputy director of strategy, doctrine, and plans for the U.S.
Air Force, the purpose of the attacks was "to accelerate the effects of
[economic] sanctions" and increase "long-term leverage."

The bombing knocked out almost 97% of the country's electrical capacity, a
disaster in a highly mechanized and electricity dependent society like Iraq.
In the first eight months following the war, 47,000 children died of
diseases like cholera, typhoid, and gastroenteritis. More than a half
million have followed them in the past decade, and infant mortality has
tripled.

Much of the responsibility for this rests on the shoulders of the Clinton
administration, which knew what was happening to Iraq's children. In 1996,
Leslie Stahl of CBS asked Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "We have
heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more than died
in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" Albright replied: "I
think this is a very hard choice, but price, we think the price is worth
it."

Such bombing is in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, which
explicitly states that "It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or
render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian
population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water
installations and supplies, and irrigation works."

There is a cruelty in all this that most Americans would recoil from. "The
sanctions let water pumps in," says Handleman (which are essential for
combating water-borne diseases), "but not the ball bearings that they need
to function." He adds the sanctions let in syringes, "but not needles. You
can get IV (intravenous) bags for combating dehydration, but not the needles
that allow you to put the fluids into a child."

The so-called "Food for Oil" program has been a flat-out failure, and not,
according to the UN, because of the Hussein government. "The magnitude of
the humanitarian needs is such," states a 1999 UN report, "that they cannot
be met within the parameters set forth in Resolution 986,"(the Security
Council resolution that set up Food for Oil).

Malnutrition is spreading, in large part according to the UN, because of the
"massive deterioration of the basic infrastructure, particularly in the
water supply and disposal system." Besides the deliberate destruction of the
civilian infrastructure, the backwash of war also continues to take a steady
toll on Iraqi civilians. Southern Iraq was saturated with almost a million
rounds of Depleted Uranium Ammunition, which has raised radioactive levels
150 to 200 times over background levels.

Basra Hospital Director Akram Abed Hassan says, "Our cancer incidence has
increased 10 times during the past few years. Before, we had very few
patients under 30, now we're operating on 10-year-old girls with breast
cancer." Leukemia and kidney failure rates have also risen sharply.

The Bush administration says we are after Saddam Hussein, but for the past
10 years, as Handelman points out, the victims have been "the 23 million
people of Iraq." A new war, he argues, will immeasurably worsen an already
terrible situation.

Iraq lost several thousand civilians in Gulf War I, and the Pentagon
Projects Gulf War II will kill another 10,000, not counting those who will
die from the consequences of bombing. Of course, in a sense, we are already
at war with Iraq. The U.S. and Britain have dropped more bombs on Iraq since
1999 than were dropped on Serbia in the Kosovo War, and have sharply stepped
up the air campaign over the past two weeks.

That bombing has taken a steady toll on civilians, as it has in Afghanistan.
For all the hype about "smart bombs" and "surgical strikes," more than 3,000
Afghan civilians have died from U.S, bombs, and it is scary to contemplate
what an aerial assault on Baghdad, a city of five million, will do.

All of this will be carried out in our name unless Americans do something to
stop it. "A time has come when silence is betrayal," Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. said about Vietnam, another war that targeted civilians, "that time is
now."

(Conn Hallinan <connm@cats.ucsc.edu> is provost at the University of
California at Santa Cruz and a foreign policy analyst for Foreign Policy In
Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)


------------------------------

Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 18:00:46 +0200
From: Zazie <zazie@zazie.at>
Subject: Manifesto of International Surrealists against the war in Iraq




Manifesto of International Surrealists against the pending war in Iraq




War Metamorphosis: Friendly Spooks Into Invaluable Monsters

“Can we be asked to toss onto the dunghill this unlimited capacity to say 
NO which is the entire secret of human progress in order to watch and 
wonder at what is going on without us at the other end of the world?” – 
André Breton, Preface to “The Political Position of Surrealism”

War is not “inevitable.” Surrealism has always known that the worst is 
NEVER inevitable. Liberated imagination, unbound by profit and power, can 
reintegrate a world divided by cynical conspiracies. Does the parade of 
rotting suits in the White House REALLY know something we don’t, besides 
how to make crime pay? When America’s friends – Israel, Indonesia, Turkey, 
and the rest of the pack – invade neighbors or feed their own people to the 
mangle, the U.S. cries “encore,” and showers the stage with gifts of money 
and guns. Thus with Iraq when Saddam Hussein was America’s Friendly Spook. 
But time made the lovers restless, and now Iraq is a blood-clotted doormat 
on the path to future conquests. Some 200,000 killed in the orgy of Desert 
Storm, perhaps a million and a half more (mostly children under the age of 
5; but we LOVE the children!) felled by genocidal sanctions, and yet more 
by persistent air strikes that form the decade’s wallpaper: What is the 
U.S. without its objects of corrupt desire?

And being pals with the U.S. is as slippery a proposition as being a Mafia 
stoolie. Since Hussein passed from being a Friendly Spook to being an 
Invaluable Monster his days have been numbered, and now his number is up. 
The U.S. smokes all proposals for a non-violent resolution (as it had 
barricaded all routes to a peaceful settlement in 1990.) Even as we write, 
another Iraqi proposal for the unconditional return of weapons inspectors 
is angrily denounced as a “stalling” tactic before it is even considered. 
It will quickly be forgotten amid the banquet of oily sensationalism 
scented with patriotic spices, that the White House feeds its media 
teat-suckers to regurgitate, lap up, and regurgitate again. Imagine trying 
to stall the war! Brazen! Incomprehensible!

SO WE WILL NOT BUY THE INEVITABLE!

Remember: The U.S. is NOT some “new kid on the block” who must 
over-compensate for his anonymity by pissing bullets at each social 
“slight,” but THE practitioner of concentrated power, the Big Boy. 
Expedient “provocations” are exploited at regular intervals as a diversion 
for a bored audience.. Here and there, dreams have been flattened to a 
desert where peace cannot exist even as a mirage, where decency “digs in” 
underground and predators nourish themselves on what is most abandoned. We 
know (without any “experts”) that a politician’s mouth is a spigot of lies; 
AND we do not wish to drown! It will take many hands DREAMING IN UNION to 
turn off that filthy fountain. AND it is not too early to begin.

WE DEMAND A CHANGE IN TARGETS!

We know the U.S. indulges periodically in scratching its itches, not 
bothered by where the infection actually lies. Iraq constitutes a threat to 
imperial complacency: the West dreams it is on the right side, demanding a 
revolving collection of those on the wrong side. Yet WHO passes out weapons 
like flowers? WHO mugs world labor? WHO houses the most corporate thieves 
and killers? WHO is afraid to see itself as it passes a shop window? WHO 
holds the deepest and most dangerous myths about itself and kills 
religiously for those delusions? The answer is clear: if the U.S. is to 
bomb nations based upon their potential for damage, then it should begin at 
home, as an act of charity to the world about which it pretends to care.
But what hands feed this beast? You already know the answer, though you are 
moving into denial: the oil companies, the military/industrial complex and 
the rest of the usual suspects that bankroll the White House joined in this 
murderous game of red light/green light by an anaesthetized servant class 
of pundits and intellectuals, whom we single out for blame because of the 
betrayal of a particular trust. InfoContainment has become the greatest 
tool for the maintenance of power, and those Ministries of Truth, which 
were historically dedicated to countering government and business 
malfeasance, now dine with the Swine and lick up slop fallen from their 
lips. THAT (only slightly digested) becomes our breakfast news. But we 
demand full disclosure, by force if necessary, and (as always) array 
ourselves against the forces of miserablism and the trivialization of desire.

So, we are suspended in permanent crisis by our Invaluable Monsters. It is 
past time to return to our senses and reason our way our of this mess.

SO WE HAVE SOME GENTLE PROPOSITIONS FOR THE PIMP AND ITS TARTS!

BEING THAT…

…Complacency and obedience are untenable positions when war is prospected;
…War on Iraq is not inevitable unless the U.S. demands it be; The U.S. is 
contemptuous of any peace which threatens profit and power;
…The U.S. breathes war, being the largest arms dealer in the world, being 
the world’s strongest military force, being an economy that relies on 
military spending for the development of its technology sector, and being 
the club-happy cop that readily employs violence to expand the economic 
prospects for itself and its partners-in-crime;
…The U.S. has a bloodlust for Iraq, having made it the first spectacular 
casualty of the New World Order, crushing it underfoot for a decade, and 
mechanically plotting to rain yet more horror on its people;
…The U.S. is deceitful, having opportunistically presented Saddam Hussein 
as a friend and then again as a monster, having exploited and brutally 
dashed the hopes of Iraq’s Shi’ites and Kurds, having sabotaged the UNSCOM 
weapons inspection team by loading it with spies, and having supplied 
disinformation to its own media for the sole purpose of advancing war;
…The U.S. has perversely accomplished all this while claiming to command a 
moral high ground;
…America’s sidekick Britain is just as reprehensible;
…Australia or any other country which fails to oppose the war does so to 
their escalating disgrace;
…Bush and Blair pretend to hold the positions of ultimate responsibility 
and so should be held responsible even though they are puppets of their 
respective political machines;

WE DECLARE

that it is no longer enough to denounce the murderous policies of Bush and 
Blair. We demand these men be bodily dragged from their seats of power, 
weighed down with a red stone for every lost life that can be laid at their 
feet, and thrown into the most unforgiving depths of the sea.

And then the free radicals of imagination shall refresh that sea.


Authors :
John Quincy Adams(USA), Hannah Cadaver(Australia), Thomas Clarkson(USA), 
Barrett John Erickson(USA), Brandon Freels(USA), Parry Harnden(Canada), 
Dale Houstman(USA), Stuart Inman(UK), Rob Marsden(USA), Vernon 
Masterson(Germany), Evi Möchel(Austria), Pierre Petiot(France), 
Ribitch(USA), M.K. Shibek(USA), Andrew Torch(USA), Jay Woolrich(UK), 
Xtian(Australia)

To sign our statement please go to :
http://www.zazie.at

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