Ivo Skoric on Fri, 8 Aug 2003 20:19:23 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> ivogram [x5]: families, protestors, immigrants, gotovina, heritage |
[ digested @ nettime ] "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Family Issues Blacklisting in the Land of the Free [raccoon-announce] NYTimes.com Article: Jailing Immigran Gotovina Call Heritage! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 10:17:54 -0400 Subject: Family Issues Saddam Hussein tried to immitate his great idol Joseph Visarionovich Stalin in almost every other aspect - brutality, secretiveness, backstabbing, manipulation, fear - except for the chilly manner in which the old Georgian, trained by Jesuit priests, treated his family. Saddam, au contraire, was a warm father, encouraging his bratty offspring to participate and even enjoy in such adult pleasures as torture and mutilation of ones political enemies. And trying to pass a dictatorship on ones kids proved many times too often to be a bad idea, with North Korea and Iraq being just the most recent examples. The heirs lack the superb survival skills, because they never had to fear anybody, and their habits are just too much even for the constituency that is well trained into submission, because they could always do whatever they want. Even passing a democracy on ones child may be a bad idea, as the situation in the U.S. suggests now. On a different scale, of course, GW is as removed from GH, as Qusay (or, worse, Uday...) was from Saddam. He just did coke, drove drunk, and dodged military duty. Compared to Uday, Bush is an apostle. But compared to his Democratic opponents he is a lowlife hoodlum. On the other hand, Saddam might have done better if he had recognized that among his children, girls were the smarter ones. With a reason. True, Iraq was a modern Arab Muslim state. But it was still an Arab Muslim state. Women migh have been as free as it goes, but men were still more free. Uday and Qusay could do what they pleased. Sisters had to behave more modestly. As the rest of the women, they learned how to moderate themselves, and how to apply brains to get what they wanted, since the brawn was not as available to them as it was to their infamous brothers. First, they fled Iraq, with their not-so-bright husbands who spilled the beans to the West, when they arrived in Jordan. Then, they followed them back, as the hubbies swallowed the bait (that nothing is going to happen to them, yeah, right), and saw them executed by the big bro. I don't believe little sisters really liked Uday or Qusay that much, particularly not after that. One of them appeared on CNN after the brothers were wacked Hollywood style. She looked a little amused and quite tired of answering questions about her dad's whereabouts. When she said that she doesn't know where Saddam is, it looked like she might have known where the brothers were. So, they are dead, and sister is getting global air-time. Nice job. There are 3 sisters, and there were 2 brothers. Brothers were $15 million each, that makes 30, $10 million per sister. If Macciavelli lives today, and in the Arab Muslim world (which needs renessaince badly, anyway) he would be a she, I guess. ivo - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 12:00:29 -0400 Subject: Blacklisting in the Land of the Free So there is a "no-fly" list containing names of people FBI suspects may hi-jack planes in the future, and obviously they don't want them near a plane. And there is also "no-easy-fly" list containing names of thousands of people that government wants to give some 'third degree' treatment in response to their outspoken opposition to certain government policies. That list, containing the alphabet soup of the US human rights and peace activists, seems to be established solely for the purpose of harassment and persecution of the political opponents. As such, it is contradictory to American values enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, and needs to be abandoned as illegal, the sooner the better. ivo ------- Forwarded message follows ------- http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0803-03.htm Published on Sunday, August 3, 2003 by the Independent/UK [http://www.independent.co.uk/] US Anti-War Activists Hit by Secret Airport Ban by Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles 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, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports. The list had been kept secret until its disclosure last week by the new US agency in charge of aviation safety, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And it is entirely separate from the relatively well-publicized "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 strong suspicion of such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is suing the government to try to learn more, is that the second list has been used to target political activists who challenge the government in entirely legal ways. 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 traveling 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 organizations 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". It is not just left-wingers who feel unfairly targeted. Right-wing civil libertarians have spoken out against the secret list, and at least one conservative organization, the Eagle Forum, says its members have been interrogated by security staff. The complaints by the ACLU form part of a pattern of protest since the 11 September attacks, with the Bush administration repeatedly under fire for detaining people on the flimsiest of grounds in the name of the "war on terror". Many Muslims have had a hard time, especially if they have a surname such as Hussein. © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd ### - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2003 00:15:13 -0400 Subject: Re: today's www.washingtonpost.com Since Racan can find 60 in Croatia, I am sure Zivkovic can find 1000 people in Serbia happy to kill Muslims. And I have no doubts they would be more efficient than Americans against the guerilla war in Iraq. Still, this would be a very dangerous idea for two reasons. First, the U.S. would mix up 'angry men' from two so far separated conflict areas, creating the danger of those two conflict situations to merge in one big mess. Second, there is no guarantee that those 1000 Serbs would actually be loyal to the U.S., that bombed their country just 4 years ago. Why wouldn't they just help Iraqis organize their insurgence better? The Trojan horse metaphor comes up vividly when thinking of such a scenario. ivo On 4 Aug 2003 at 10:47, anthony margan wrote: To all: this is incredulous (mypersoanl letter to the editor is at the very bottom): washingtonpost.com Europe's Last Hard Cases By Jackson Diehl Monday, August 4, 2003; Page A15 Almost lost among the foreign favor-seekers who crowded Washington last month was the leader of a nation the United States went to war against just four years ago. For most of the 1990s U.S. policymakers were preoccupied with containing Serbia -- the main component of a country then called Yugoslavia and recently renamed Serbia and Montenegro. Now its new prime minister, Zoran Zivkovic, is but one of the heads of government seeking to forge a "strategic alliance" with the Bush administration -- and as a teaser, he's offering to send the army crushed by U.S. air power to support American soldiers in Iraq. It's not an easy sell, despite the need for troops. Zivkovic is a democrat and a reformer, but by his own account his country is still plagued by economic dysfunction and criminal gangs, including some linked to extreme nationalists and criminals of the last decade's wars. One of the worst, Ratko Mladic, is believed by prosecutors at a Balkan war crimes tribunal in the Hague still to be at large in the country. Zivkovic's predecessor was assassinated by the gangsters, and it's not clear that the army has reformed very much since it fought the wars of the Balkans. Yet here was Zivkovic, meeting with Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and outlining a strategy for his country that is pinned on integration with the central institutions of the West -- the European Union and NATO, the alliance whose first shooting war was waged in 1999 to drive the Serbian army out of Kosovo. As a first step, Serbia is hoping for an invitation to the Partnership for Peace, NATO's program for friends and prospective members. "Serbia is looking for an ally in the United States, and in return Serbia can offer to be a reliable partner in the Balkans," the prime minister said at a meeting at The Post. To prove he means it, he told Rice that Serbia would contribute 1,000 troops to any U.S. mission -- including Afghanistan or Iraq. It would be easy enough to dismiss the proposed partnership -- yet Zivkovic represents not just his historically troublesome corner of Europe but a much larger piece of unfinished business for the West. Though NATO and the EU have undertaken big expansions since the fall of the Berlin Wall, they have yet to cope with a dozen countries and some 170 million people who consider themselves European. They range from bits and pieces of the former Yugoslavia and the former hermit state Albania in the Balkans, to former Soviet possessions such as Armenia and Georgia in the Caucasus, to the newly independent states that lie between Central Europe and Russia -- from giant Ukraine and impoverished Moldova to Belarus, the continent's last dictatorship. The easy part of reconstructing Europe after the Cold War was expanding the West to include countries such as the Czech Republic and Poland, which had Western traditions and a history of democracy. States such as Romania and Bulgaria have since been nursed toward free-market capitalism and democracy by the promise of membership in the transatlantic alliance. But what to do with Ukraine, a country the size of France with a population of 50 million, which teeters between democracy and autocracy, as well as between alignment with Moscow and with Washington? Or Turkey, a country that forms Europe's border with the Arab Middle East and belongs to NATO but not the EU? Or, indeed, Serbia, the most frequent starting point for European wars in the past 100 years? "Where this part of Europe finds itself five years from now is where we will be for the next 50 years," predicts Bruce Jackson, a well- connected former Pentagon official and advocate of NATO expansion, who has made it his mission to call attention to Europe's last hard cases. The alternatives are stark in their range -- countries such as Serbia and Ukraine could be coaxed into becoming democracies, U.S. military allies and part of a federal Europe; they could fall under the suzerainty of a resurgent Russian empire; they could drift along as unstable buffer states, home to drug and arms traffickers, terrorist groups and presidents-for-life. Jackson, who recently founded the Project on Transitional Democracies, has been trying to persuade policymakers in Washington and Brussels to aim for the first alternative, even if it means tutoring some unsavory characters -- or in Europe's case, subsidizing more poor farmers. "These are the last victims of communism, fascism and nationalism," Jackson says. "They imagine themselves part of Europe, and allies of the United States. Not all of them will necessarily make it -- but we will be judged by how many of them we can save." His strategy meets resistance in Paris and parts of Brussels, which would prefer to keep Turkey out of the EU and exclude Ukraine and the Caucasus from the West altogether. But it seems to be gaining traction in the Bush administration, which is pushing hard for Turkey's EU membership and accepted Ukraine's offer of troops for Iraq despite the problematic record of President Leonid Kuchma. Zivkovic, too, got a warm reception from Rice and Powell. As for his troop offer -- officials say they are thinking about it. =A9 2003 The Washington Post Company Dear Editor, The Bush Administration must be absolutely desperate for troops for Iraq if, as Jackson Diehl notes,the US State Dept is "thinking about" an offer of troops from Serbia ("Europe's Last Hard Cases," op- ed, August 4).Has the Bush Administration stooped so low, as to now consider this offer from a government that, according to the UN and otherorganizationsthat monitor Serbia,still offers safe harbor tothe world's two top war criminals -General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, both wanted for, among other things, executing8,000 unarmed men and boys eight years ago at Srebrenica, Bosnia? Mr. Diehl also fails to mention that it was only last November and December when The Postheadlined stories that illustrated, in detail, how Serbian companies were actively aiding and abetting Saddam Hussein's regime, and how Serbian companies and indivudualspropped up hismilitary. Even though those ties were severed with the fall of Saddam, there's no evidence to suggest that theindividualsresponsible for propping up Saddam havebeen removed from power in the Serbianmilitary, secret services or society. So, The Bush Adminsitration isnow "thinking about"stationing Serbian troops in Iraq?Is it fair to ask ifGeneral Mladic, or if one of his close associates,willbe commanding this detachment? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 00:18:54 -0400 Subject: [raccoon-announce] NYTimes.com Article: Jailing Immigran Here is an enterpreneurial Montenegrin Albanian, father of an American child, fleeing persecution in his home country, who managed to open and run a succesful restaurant in Upstate NY, before getting all his immigration red tape in order. He gets pulled over for speeding in another State, and they arrest him for violation of his immigrant status, and keep him in jail for NINE (9) months now. That's a long stretch. Particularly, because it is not exactly clear where did he wronged himself against the immigration laws after he paid the $1000 penalty to the INS. Where is the moral compass behind the post-9/11 legislation in the U.S.? What kind of values does such arrest protect? ivo ------- Forwarded message follows ------- to: "RACCOON, Inc." <raccoon-announce@yahoogroups.com> from: Selma Subasic <blondie_ss@yahoo.com> date sent: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 07:35:42 -0700 (PDT) subject: [raccoon-announce] NYTimes.com Article: Jailing Immigrants send reply to: raccoon-announce@yahoogroups.com [ Double-click this line for list subscription options ] > Jailing Immigrants > > August 4, 2003 > By BOB HERBERT > > CONGERS, N.Y. - The Al Laghetto Restaurant on Route > 9W is a well-regarded family operation that until recently was run by Elizabeta Markvukaj, her fiancé, Vaso Nikpreljevic, and his brother Mario. > > Ms. Markvukaj is a friendly, formidable woman from > Albania who carries with her the disturbing memories of her years in a Communist internment camp. Vaso, Mario and other members of the close-knit Nikpreljevic clan settled in the U.S. after fleeing Montenegro in the 1990's. > > After the violence, hatreds and atrocities they > witnessed in their homelands, these refugees had managed to knit together a life in quiet upstate Rockland County that seemed very good indeed. Elizabeta and Vaso had a baby girl 18 months ago and were making plans for their wedding. They belonged to a local church, paid their taxes promptly, contributed to charity and participated in Sept. 11 relief efforts. > > It's hard to imagine a family that is less of a threat to the peace and well-being of the United States. And yet everything the family has worked toward is unraveling. > > On Nov. 30, 2002, Mr. Nikpreljevic was pulled over > for speeding on the Connecticut Turnpike. A computer > check revealed that his immigration papers were not in order. A nightmare scenario ensued. He was handcuffed and arrested, and has not been out of custody since. The government has ordered him deported. And under current law he would be > barred from any realistic chance of returning. > > "He hasn't done anything wrong," said Ms. Markvukaj. > Tears streamed down her face during an interview on a > large, covered patio behind the restaurant. She described how she took the baby, Nina, to visit Vaso in prison ("She recognized him!"), how business has fallen off in the restaurant and how the family is fighting with everything it has to block Vaso's deportation. > > Mr. Nikpreljevic's immigration history is > complicated. His lawyers, Theodore Cox and Joshua Bardavid, said that back in the early-90's when he first came to the U.S., Mr. Nikpreljevic's mother submitted a petition on his behalf requesting authorization to apply for a green card. That > petition was approved. But Mr. Nikpreljevic submitted a request for asylum. That was denied and he was deported. > > He returned to the U.S. illegally, through Canada. > But, according to the lawyers, he paid a $1,000 penalty and was permitted to apply for a green card and remain in the U.S. pending a decision on his application. > > As he had never been in trouble, and his relatives > and fiancée had all been able to secure citizenship or permanent residency status, he did not anticipate a > problem. > > But times (and the treatment of immigrants) have > changed since Sept. 11. After his arrest in Connecticut, Mr. Nikpreljevic was told that his application had been "terminated." No reason was given, his lawyers said. Mr. Nikpreljevic has been held in a number of prisons in Connecticut and Massachusetts since then, the latest being the Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, Conn. > > > When he is being moved from one prison to another, his family said, officials just show up in the middle of the night and take him away - a very frightening > procedure. Thousands of men and women, many of them completely innocent, are ensnared in this system, which is fundamentally uncaring and frequently cruel. Many of the immigrants never even see an attorney. > > In Mr. Nikpreljevic's case, the lawyers have > challenged the decision by immigration authorities to "terminate" his application for permanent residency status. If their effort is unsuccessful he will be deported, and there is little doubt his family will be devastated. > > Mr. Nikpreljevic and his relatives are exactly the > kinds of productive individuals who help a society to thrive. They have been a boon to their local community and are assets to the U.S. as a whole. But the law, especially in times of great fear, does not always leave room for wise decisions. And where immigrants are concerned, the system becomes more > of a crapshoot than ever. > > So the extended family that is anchored by the Al > Laghetto Restaurant is holding its collective breath, hoping for a merciful ruling from the courts. > > The speeding charge, by the way, was dismissed. > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/04/opinion/04HERB.html?ex=1061026629& > ei=1&en=726780c273989fde - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 12:38:40 -0400 Subject: Gotovina Interesting developments regarding Gotovina case. Is The Hague ready to drop it? http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030804-090706-1701r.htm ivo - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 12:38:44 -0400 Subject: Call Heritage! 1-800-546-2843 Call Heritage and ask them what did they do with rent controled tenants of the 70 year old apartment building, adjoining their headquarters, three blocks from Capitol Hill, that was donated to them by that building's owner! In the recent solicitation letter, Edwin Feulner, Heritage president, brags about acquiring that property, about the ability to house there 66 interns ("farm team") - the future conservative leaders of America - are they going to sleep in rooms from which low-income minority tenants had been evicted? He is also bragging about the media-ready 200-seat auditorium, practically on the steps of the Senate, already funded for, expecting to double the impact of their messages. And what exactly are those messages? Underlined for emphasis, there is a sentence in the letter: "Heritage is still tiny compared to the forces of liberalism who are out to defeat us." Is there any liberal foundation so close to the White House and commandeering such a large pool of money? But this goes on: "This LIBERAL foundations spent over $ 7 billion last year alone in their CONTINUING EFFORT TO IMPOSE SOCIALISM on America..." This guy got his apples and oranges completely mixed up. Since when would liberals want to impose socialism? "And OF COURSE, we're up against the full force and funding of the federal government - your tax dollars and mine at work, against us!" Excuse me? Just a couple of paragraphs before Edwin wrote: "In answer to the Senator's question, the President suggested she 'Call Heritage'." Call Heritage, and ask them why are they lying in their solicitation letter telling you that they're up against the full force of the federal government, if in the same letter they readily acknowledge that the president of the same government is directing people to call them for advice! In search for more messages that will get higher prominence with the new building and the new auditorium, I, also, browsed the Heritage web page. They supported U.S. military adventure in Iraq, yet they oppose sending American boys to Liberia. Although, they do say that the U.S. has a "special relationship with Liberia" and that America has "historical and cultural ties with much of that continent" [Africa]. The US literally established Liberia as a country. It is a country established by former African slaves from the U.S., so much for historical and cultural ties between the US and Africa, squeezed between two other failed states: former British colony, Siera Leone, now under control of the British (again), and former French colony, Cote D'Ivoire, now under control of the French (again). I guess the world just expects the US to do its fiduciary duty. Call Heritage and ask them why they think that is wrong. ivo - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net