Landmark Theatre Corporation
2222 South Barrington Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90064
310.312.2300P 310.473.8622F
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-Noam Chomsky
Opens on January 24 at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles
We re delighted to announce a special one-week engagement of the timely new film POWER AND TERROR: NOAM CHOMSKY IN OUR TIMES at Landmark s Nuart Theatre on Friday, January 24. This will be your only chance to see this film in Los Angeles.
Listen to KPFK (90.7 FM) to wi= n free passes to see POWER AND TERROR: NOAM CHOMSKY IN OUR TIMES.
"One of the great voices of reason of our time!"
- Jami Bernard, NY Daily News
"A lively introduction to the highly articulate political dissident and to his controversial views on 9/11. A glimpse of the tireless patience, passion and openness of the man behind the words."
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- Ronnie Scheib, Variety
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- A.O. Scott, NY Times
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- Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
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- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
Chomsky reviews the history of war crimes and delivers his now-famous analysis of the double standards and hypocrisy of Western media and intellectuals, but he arrives at a surprisingly optimistic conclusion. Seen from the perspective of his four decades of political activism, the world is a far more civilized place than it was in the past, largely through the dedicated, painstaking, often unacknowledged but brave participation of ordinary citizens. It is perhaps this optimism that sustains his life-long mission: to bring the facts to the public, in the faith that, armed with knowledge, they will not fail to act.
Noam Chomsky s new book PIRATES AND EMPERORS, OLD AND NEW: INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM IN THE REAL WORLD from South End Press will be available in bookstores in April. This updated edition of Chomsky s classic dissection of terrorism includes new chapters covering the Palestinian intifada that began in October 2000; an analysis of September 11 s impact on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East; and a deconstruction of depictions and perceptions of terrorism since that date, as well as the original sections on Iran the U.S. bombing of Libya.
Listen to KCRW (89.9 FM) on Friday morning, January 24, to win copies of Noam Chomsky s new book PIRATES AND EMPERORS, OLD AND NEW: INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM IN THE REAL WORLD.
POWER AND TERROR: NOAM CHOMSKY IN OUR TIMES, a film by John Junkerman (director of the Academy Award-nominated Hellfire: A Journey From Hiroshima and the Emmy winner Dream Window: Reflections on the Japanese Garden) and featuring the music of IMAWANO Kiyoshiro, will have an exclusive one-week engagement at: Landmark s Nuart Theatre located on 11272 Santa Monica Boulevard (at the 405 freeway) in West Los Angeles. For showtime information please call 310.478.6379 or visit our website at www.landmarktheatres.com= .
Please feel free to forward this email to your friends and colleagues.
Regards,
Bernardo Rondeau
To receive updates about upcoming special engagements, advance screening invitations and other information about films playing at a Landmark Theatre near you, please join our mailing list:
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If you do not want to receive these updates, please send an email from the address you wish to delete to bernardor@landmarktheatres.com and make sure the word "Remove" is included in the subject line.
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AAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARBRMTExMTExMTExMTExMT ExMTExMTAxEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEBMTExMTExMTExMTExMTExMTExMTEwcAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAABg4QEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEAcAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABEAEREAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAEQARABEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN --=====================_1312306==_.REL-- From gggonzal@uci.edu Thu Jan 23 01:38:14 2003 From: gggonzal@uci.edu (Gilbert G. Gonzalez) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:38:14 -0800 Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Fwd: The Perils of the Pax Americana (fwd) Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030122173804.00ad6550@pop.uci.edu> > >Subject: The Perils of the Pax Americana > >http://www.counterpunch.org/kolko01152003.html > >CounterPunch January 15, 2003 > >The Perils of the Pax Americana > >by Gabriel Kolko > >Policies virtually identical to President George W. Bush's national security >strategy paper of last September, with its ambitious military, economic and >political goals, have been produced since the late 1940s. > >After all, the US has attempted to define the contours of politics in every >part of the world for the past half-century. Its many alliances, from NATO >to SEATO, were intended to consolidate its global hegemony. And Washington >rationalised its hundreds of interventions--which have taken every form, >from sending its fleet to show the flag, to the direct use of US >soldiers--as forestalling the spread of communism. But that ogre has all but >disappeared and US armed forces are more powerful and active than ever. > >After the September 11 terrorist attacks compelled him to create >"coalitions", Bush minimised somewhat the initial aggressive unilateralism >that he and many of his key advisers believe the US's overwhelming military >capability justifies. > >But his disregard of America's allies in the past year is only the logical >culmination of the much older conviction that Washington must define the >missions of whatever alliance it creates. The world has changed >dramatically, but the US still retains its historical ambitions to shape the >political destinies of any region or nation it deems important to its >interests. Bush's visions are only the logical culmination of policies that >began with president Harry Truman in 1947. > >The dilemma that the US has confronted since then is that the political and >social outcome of its interventions cannot be predicted. Vietnam was the >longest war in US history, to cite one of many examples, and in Iran in >1953, as well as Central America, it seemed able to get its way for decades. >Many tyrants it supported--as in the case of Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran >war of 1980-87 or the fundamentalist Muslim mujahidin against the Soviets in >Afghanistan in the '80s--subsequently became its enemies. Others are simply >venal and unreliable--Marcos in the Philippines or Suharto in Indonesia were >typical. > >The US can never attain the world order it idealises. Innumerable successes >notwithstanding, it has also failed to create many of the preconditions >essential to achievement of that goal. The world since 1990 has become much >more fissiparous economically and politically. Bipolarity in world military >relations ended with the demise of communism but the world is more unstable >and dangerous than ever. More nations have great firepower--aided in part by >US exports accounting for more than two-fifths of the world's arms trade >since the late '90s--and the spread of weapons of mass destruction has >continued unabated. > >Before September 11, 2001, China was the principal justification for the >US's vast military expenditures. But since then a fear and a sense of danger >from indefinable enemies, now located everywhere, has sufficed to expand >them further. Terrorism is indeed abetted by the necessity of the weak to >find vulnerabilities in the very strong; it is relatively very cheap, and >the religious fanaticism that encourages it has flourished in the misery and >ignorance that prevails in much of the Third World. Terrorism will not >disappear. > >Yet there are innumerable situations where arms are not merely irrelevant >but, as Vietnam proved, counterproductive. As we know from a growing number >of memoirs as well as experience, the CIA and various officials have >futilely attempted since the late '40s to make US policies adapt to facts, >however uncomfortable they were. Conservative former US senior foreign >policy leaders and military men--such as president George Bush Sr's national >security adviser Brent Scowcroft and Ronald Reagan's navy secretary James >Webb--have publicly deplored a war against Iraq. Things go wrong for every >great nation whose ambitions exceed its power and reality, and the US is no >exception. > >The war in Afghanistan has destabilised Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Last >month's comprehensive Pew Report on public opinion in 42 nations, which >former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright chaired, revealed that >anti-Americanism has grown in at least 19 countries since 2000 and that the >French, Germans, Turks, and Russians--to name but a few--oppose a war >against Iraq. In South Korea and Pakistan, anti-Americanism has already >caused the politics of those nations to change dramatically. Many of >Washington's traditional allies fear its belligerent unilateralism as much >as terrorism. > >The US has always had global priorities, but Europe was invariably ranked as >the most important. Protracted wars in Korea and Vietnam confirmed that the >US has often lost control of these priorities and that by attempting too >much it not merely accomplishes far less, but also destabilises crucial >areas. A half-century after the fighting ended, 37,000 US troops remain in >South Korea and the dangerous security situation there is still unresolved. >And there is mounting political instability in Latin America, where poverty >is rampant. > >The US now confronts a similar dilemma in the Persian Gulf. The stakes are >awesome and could preoccupy the world for years to come. Will the >geopolitical consequences of making war against Iraq far outweigh the >world's realisation that the Pentagon still retains "credible" military >power and that the Bush administration is ready to employ it, whatever the >ultimate political, economic, and human costs? > >Will the Kurds in Iraq proclaim de facto independence and risk civil war? >What will the Turks then do? How long must US troops occupy that nation and >how will they relate to its mercurial political context? > >Osama bin Laden and his key aides are still free, and Afghanistan is a >highly unstable, divided country. Will Iran, which is militarily far >stronger than Iraq, emerge as strategically dominant in the oil-rich >Gulf--thereby undoing the reasons Washington supported Hussein in the '80s? >And will a US military victory in Iraq have any bearing on the war against >terrorism, not the least because al-Qaida detests Hussein's secularism? > >There have always been limits to US power, and the question today is when >and how the US will acknowledge this reality. > > >Gabriel Kolko, research professor emeritus at York University in Toronto, is >author, most recently, of Another Century of War? (The New Press, 2002). He >can be reached at: kolko@counterpunch.org From gggonzal@uci.edu Thu Jan 23 00:40:43 2003 From: gggonzal@uci.edu (Gilbert G. Gonzalez) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:40:43 -0800 Subject: Fwd: [Ethnicstudies] Daily Mirror (UK) publishes leaked British military plans to seize Iraqi oil Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030122164028.0217dc68@pop.uci.edu> > > > >From the Daily Mirror (UK) > >http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12554272&method=full&siteid=50143 > >WE'RE GOING FOR OIL > >Jan 21 2003 > >Our troops set to seize wells > >Exclusive By Gary Jones, Tom Newton Dunn and Bob >Roberts > >BRITISH troops will seize control of Iraq's oilfields >under a secret invasion plan already agreed with >America. > >Yesterday the government ordered another 26,000 >soldiers to the Gulf, taking the total towards 40,000. > >It could mean the biggest land operation since Suez in >1956. > >Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon continued to insist war >with Saddam Hussein was "not inevitable". > >But a battleground blueprint has already been drawn >up, the Daily Mirror has learned, with Britain >earmarked to secure Saddam's fuel supplies and squash >suggestions of a US "oil grab". > >Today, with many Labour MPs convinced the war decision >has been taken, we ask YOU the readers to sign our >Page One petition opposing any action not sanctioned >by the United Nations. > >Labour MP and Father of the Commons Tam Dalyell - >echoing growing anti-war anger - said of the >task-force order: "I think this means war is >inevitable now but that should not stop us doing >everything, day and night, to oppose it. > >"Because the Americans are concerned not to take body >bags back home, there will be tremendous bombing. God >knows how many casualties that will lead to. The Arab >world will explode." > >Details learned from defences show President Bush is >determined to avoid accusations that deposing Saddam >is about oil, not weapons of mass destruction. > >Pentagon chiefs have told the Ministry of Defence: >"You take the oilfields. We're not going to take the >flak for taking the oil." > >The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991 ended with its >oil ablaze and it took eight months to quench the >flames. > >Now the US wants to stop Saddam torching his huge >reservoirs - and the 4,000 marines of 3 Commando >Brigade have been assigned the task. > >They are already en route to the region - and Mr >Hoon's Commons announcement yesterday will take the >British presence to one quarter of our armed forces. >Four thousand sailors also on their way in the Ark >Royal convoy will join 1,000 pilots and ground crew >stationed around the Middle East. > >Twenty-six thousand Army soldiers - including two >regiments of Paras - will make up a huge land force, >involving heavy armour and giving commanders every >fighting option. It is highly likely the total will >swell to 40,000, 10,000 of whom will be combat >soldiers and marines. > >The editor of Jane's World Armies, Major Charles >Heyman, said: "This is an enormous deployment." The US >has massed 100,000 troops in the Gulf. British >strategists have been told that a full-scale invasion >force must be in place by February 15. > >The Daily Mirror has learned there will be 14 days of >intensive air strikes against military installations >before the spearhead marines of 40 and 42 Commando are >ordered in. > >It will be a two-pronged attack by land and sea. The >600 riflemen of 40 Commando will make an amphibious >landing along Iraq's 60-kilometre coastline in the >north Arabian Gulf. > >The four sabre companies of 42 Commando will dash >across the Kuwaiti border up to the Euphrates. > >Basra, the strategically-vital southern port where >Saddam's Republican army is based, will be targeted >first. It is regarded as crucial to the success of the >invasion. > >The commandos will be backed by a full squadron of >artillery and specialist engineers. > >Thousands of men will be deployed across land from >Kuwait to "ring-fence" oil installations in the >southern tip of Iraq and in the south west and north >east. Once Basra is isolated and the oilfields >secured, the US will push towards Baghdad, > >Speed is the key to prevent Saddam destroying key >assets. > >Battle orders will be to "surround and contain", in >the hope that Iraqi forces will quickly ditch Saddam. > >Power supplies and roads will be left intact. A senior >officer involved in planning, said: "Saddam is >desperate for us to fight him in the cities and we're >not going to fall into his trap." > >The first marines are already in Kuwait and preparing >for the full brigade's arrival in two weeks. > >Military chiefs here are committed to "winning at >minimum cost to life" although they are sceptical >about the reasons for the conflict. > >The source said: "We take our orders from 10 Downing >Street but that doesn't mean we aren't aware that this >is mostly about oil. > >"This war will cost billions and someone must pick up >the tab. Iraqi oil is going to pay for it all." > >US officials stress that the oilfields will remain the >property of Iraq. > >They have told the MoD: "We don't mind Iraqi flags >flying over them as long as Saddam is not in power." > >Military chiefs have little idea how the Iraqi people >will respond. The source added: "There's a degree of >optimism that Iraq can be taken within days and >without mass bloodshed. How realistic this is, is >anyone's guess." An invasion would be the biggest >occupation of a country since the seizure of Japan and >Germany in 1945. > >Special forces are already operating inside Iraq and >air assaults are taking their toll. > >The lead headquarters elements of 16 Air Assault >Brigade will be the first of the land force to leave, >flying to Kuwait this week. > >Mr Hoon told MPs yesterday that the deployment was "no >ordinary measure". But he added: "A decision to employ >force has not been taken, nor is such a decision >imminent or inevitable." > >Ex-minister Glenda Jackson said pledges that war was >avoidable now rang hollow. She added: "In principle >the decision has been taken." > > > >__________________________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. >http://mailplus.yahoo.com > > > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From jafujii@uci.edu Thu Jan 23 04:43:59 2003 From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 20:43:59 -0800 Subject: [Ethnicstudies] update Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030122203650.019d6728@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu> --=====================_19666979==_.ALT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Dear Ethnicstudies Subscribers, Sometime in January the ethnicstudies list, along with all other un-moderated uci lists were effectively made null by new software. After inquiring about this, I was told by "Con" at the postmaster's address that the only way to keep the ethnicstudies list going was for someone to take responsibility for "managing" it. For now I have agreed to do so, and I believe this means that when you send a message to the list, I end up having to designate it as "approved" and then it gets sent to the list. I will NOT exercise any editorial decisions about this and will just approve whatever email list members send. Today there was a business solicitation for ink cartridges sent to the list, and I denied that one. I will see how this goes, but if anyone else on this list cares to assume this role, I would be glad to relinquish it. Best, Jim --=====================_19666979==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Dear Ethnicstudies Subscribers,
Sometime in January the ethnicstudies list, along with all other un-moderated uci lists were effectively made null by new software. After inquiring about this, I was told by "Con" at the postmaster's address that the only way to keep the ethnicstudies list going was for someone to take responsibility for "managing" it. For now I have agreed to do so, and I believe this means that when you send a message to the list, I end up having to designate it as "approved" and then it gets sent to the list. I will NOT exercise any editorial decisions about this and will just approve whatever email list members send. Today there was a business solicitation for ink cartridges sent to the list, and I denied that one.
I will see how this goes, but if anyone else on this list cares to assume this role, I would be glad to relinquish it.
Best,
Jim --=====================_19666979==_.ALT-- From jafujii@uci.edu Thu Jan 23 17:10:00 2003 From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 09:10:00 -0800 Subject: [Ethnicstudies] European leaders hear anti-war cry -- and listen Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030123090951.01a09c28@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu> --=====================_189021==_.ALT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Chicago Tribune January 21, 2003 European leaders hear anti-war cry -- and listen U.S. intervention in Iraq questioned By Tom Hundley LONDON -- After a weekend of anti-war demonstrations across the continent, political leaders in European capitals appear resolved to slow the Bush administration's drive toward a military confrontation with Iraq. "We will not take part in a military intervention in Iraq, and that is exactly how our voting behavior will be in all international bodies," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in a weekend speech. German Defense Minister Peter Struck said that a "yes" vote by Germany was "no longer conceivable." In Paris, senior French officials said that France will use its seat on the Security Council and all of its influence to restrain U.S. militarism. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Bush administration's most steadfast ally in the confrontation with Iraq, has been warned by members of his Labor Party that he faces a full-scale revolt within the ranks if he attempts to take Britain to war without the political fig leaf of a second UN resolution. Blair has said he prefers a UN solution but that Britain is committed to act alongside the United States. On Monday, British Defense Minister Geoff Hoon told Parliament that up to 26,000 more troops soon would be following the 5,000 British troops already on their way to the Persian Gulf region. Hoon said that the deployment did not mean war was inevitable but that the military buildup was the only way to convince Saddam Hussein that the international community is serious about disarming Iraq. The reason for the growing qualms of European political leaders is simple: It mirrors the mood of voters. Opinion polls across Europe show little enthusiasm for military intervention and deepening skepticism about the Bush administration's motives for going to war. In France, a new poll published by the left-wing newspaper L'Humanite showed 82 percent against a war with Iraq and 75 percent in favor of France's using its veto on the UN security council to block a new UN resolution. A poll conducted by the weekly Journal du Dimanche showed similar results. The German polling group Infratest-Dimpa showed that 76 percent of the population opposed a war with Iraq even if it had UN backing. The Italian daily La Repubblica published a poll that showed 61 percent against war and only 30 percent in favor. The latest opinion surveys in Britain showed a slim majority backing war, but only if UN weapons inspections have been allowed to run their course and a new UN resolution is secured. Chris Patten, the European Union's commissioner for external relations, warns that the EU, the world's largest aid donor, could withhold contributions for the reconstruction of postwar Iraq if the U.S. failed to seek UN sanction for military intervention. But he also said that if the U.S. worked through the UN, it stood a good chance of winning European backing. "If you go down the UN route, there are obligations on both sides," he said. The Bush administration, he said, has an obligation to give the weapons inspections a chance to succeed. "But if Saddam Hussein is still challenging the inspections, then there is an obligation on [the UN membership] to face up to its responsibilities," he said. European leaders also lent their voices to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's call for Hussein to avert war by going into voluntary exile. "It would be unpalatable to see any degree of immunity being offered to the Saddam Hussein regime," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Monday. "But if the alternative is war, I think most people would swallow hard and accept it." Most leaders thought it unlikely Hussein would accept exile. "What do you think will happen to the first person in Baghdad who goes up to Saddam Hussein and tells him it's time to spend a bit more time with his family?" said Patten. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0301210220jan21,1,3950432 .story --=====================_189021==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
Chicago Tribune January 21, 2003
European leaders hear anti-war cry -- and listen
U.S. intervention in Iraq questioned
By Tom Hundley
LONDON -- After a weekend of anti-war demonstrations across the continent,
political leaders in European capitals appear resolved to slow the Bush
administration's drive toward a military confrontation with Iraq.
"We will not take part in a military intervention in Iraq, and that is
exactly how our voting behavior will be in all international bodies," German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in a weekend speech.
German Defense Minister Peter Struck said that a "yes" vote by Germany was
"no longer conceivable."
In Paris, senior French officials said that France will use its seat on the
Security Council and all of its influence to restrain U.S. militarism.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Bush administration's most steadfast
ally in the confrontation with Iraq, has been warned by members of his Labor
Party that he faces a full-scale revolt within the ranks if he attempts to
take Britain to war without the political fig leaf of a second UN
resolution. Blair has said he prefers a UN solution but that Britain is
committed to act alongside the United States.
On Monday, British Defense Minister Geoff Hoon told Parliament that up to
26,000 more troops soon would be following the 5,000 British troops already
on their way to the Persian Gulf region. Hoon said that the deployment did
not mean war was inevitable but that the military buildup was the only way
to convince Saddam Hussein that the international community is serious about
disarming Iraq.
The reason for the growing qualms of European political leaders is simple:
It mirrors the mood of voters. Opinion polls across Europe show little
enthusiasm for military intervention and deepening skepticism about the Bush
administration's motives for going to war.
In France, a new poll published by the left-wing newspaper L'Humanite showed
82 percent against a war with Iraq and 75 percent in favor of France's using
its veto on the UN security council to block a new UN resolution. A poll
conducted by the weekly Journal du Dimanche showed similar results.
The German polling group Infratest-Dimpa showed that 76 percent of the
population opposed a war with Iraq even if it had UN backing.
The Italian daily La Repubblica published a poll that showed 61 percent
against war and only 30 percent in favor.
The latest opinion surveys in Britain showed a slim majority backing war,
but only if UN weapons inspections have been allowed to run their course and
a new UN resolution is secured.
Chris Patten, the European Union's commissioner for external relations,
warns that the EU, the world's largest aid donor, could withhold
contributions for the reconstruction of postwar Iraq if the U.S. failed to
seek UN sanction for military intervention. But he also said that if the
U.S. worked through the UN, it stood a good chance of winning European
backing.
"If you go down the UN route, there are obligations on both sides," he said.
The Bush administration, he said, has an obligation to give the weapons
inspections a chance to succeed.
"But if Saddam Hussein is still challenging the inspections, then there is
an obligation on [the UN membership] to face up to its responsibilities," he
said.
European leaders also lent their voices to Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld's call for Hussein to avert war by going into voluntary exile.
"It would be unpalatable to see any degree of immunity being offered to the
Saddam Hussein regime," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Monday.
"But if the alternative is war, I think most people would swallow hard and
accept it."
Most leaders thought it unlikely Hussein would accept exile.
"What do you think will happen to the first person in Baghdad who goes up to
Saddam Hussein and tells him it's time to spend a bit more time with his
family?" said Patten.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0301210220jan21,1,3950432
.story
--=====================_189021==_.ALT-- From msawaya@att.net Thu Jan 23 17:07:11 2003 From: msawaya@att.net (msawaya@att.net) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 17:07:11 +0000 Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Teach-in with Ronald Takaki, Jan. 27 (fwd) Message-ID: <20030123170711.BFGZ2583.mtiwmhc13.worldnet.att.net@mtiwebc21> --NextPart_Webmail_9m3u9jl4l_13822_1043341631 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ---------------------- Forwarded Message: --------------------- From: Derek Luan Ming Wong
I AM AN AMERICAN!
A Teach-in on Why Multiculturalism Matters in a Post 9/1=
1 America.
January 27th (Monday)
12PM - 1:30PM
McKinney Theatre
Fine Arts Complex
Saddleback College
Mission Viejo, California
Issues about race, diversity, and multiculturalism have never been more imp=
ortant. The issue of affirmative action is being hotly debated, Arab and Ira=
nian immigrants have been detained and deported by the INS, and the growing =
communities of Asians and Latinos have become a constant concern among Calif=
ornians. It is projected that by 2050, our diversity will be reflected in Ca=
lifornia's population, as all races will become minorities. How are all thes=
e issues affected by our understanding of other cultures and our values for =
diversity? Exactly who is an American? What color is an American? What relig=
ion is American?
News Release January 29, 2003
To help broaden our understanding of who is an American, Ronald Takaki will=
be delivering a lecture at Saddleback College, entitlted Why Multicultur=
alism Matters in a Post 9/11 America. Class Action invites you to come t=
o the lecture so that we may all gain a greater cross-cultural understanding=
and help fulfill the potential of America's multi-ethnic democracy.
The lecture will take place from 12 noon until 1:30 in the McKinney Theatre=
at Saddleback College. We will have Dr. Takaki's books available for sale a=
t the event for a special book signing. Profit from the sales will go toward=
s helping Class Action continue to organize events in Orange County. CDs, mo=
vies, books and other educational merchandise will also be available for sal=
e.
A free audio CD of Dr. Cornel West's "Race Matters" lecture will =
be given out at the teach-in.
RONALD TAKAKI
Ronald Takaki is the nation=B9s preeminent scholar of multicultural studies. =
He holds a Ph.D. in American History from UC Berkeley, where he has been a p=
rofessor of Ethnic Studies for three decades. He has lectured in many countr=
ies, including Japan, Russia, Armenia, Austria, and South Africa.
Takaki debated Nathan Glazer four times since 1980 and Arthur Schlesinger, =
Jr. at a 1997 conference sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. He a=
lso advised Bill Clinton for his major speech on race in America.
Takaki is the author of eleven books. Strangers from a Different Shore: A H=
istory of Asian Americans was selected by the New York Times as a Notable Bo=
ok of the Year and by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the best 100 non=
-fiction books of the 20th century. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicu=
ltural America was hailed by Publishers=B9 Weekly as =B3a brilliant revisionist =
history of America that is likely to become a classic of multicultural studi=
es.=B2
EVENT SUMMARY
WHEN: Monday, January27th, 12PM -1:30PM
WHERE: Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo, =
CA 92692. The event will be taking place in the McKinney Theatre (located at=
the Fine Arts Complex)
ADMISSION: Free and open to the public; Parking is $5 for a daily pe=
rmit or $0.25/ hour at the parking meters. There is also free parking areas =
around the campus.
Please invite anyone who might be interested and forward this invitation fr=
eely (especially if you are on any list-serves).
DIRECTIONS:
1) Take the 5 Freeway
2) Exit Avery (make a left off the exit if you're taking the 5 South and ma=
ke a right if you're taking the 5 North).
3) Make a left on Marguerite.
4) Make a right on Saddleback Road (you will see a marquee at the entrance)=
.
5) Pass College Drive.
6) Make left on Theatre Circle. You will see a parking lot on your right. P=
lease park in the metered parking spots and pay for 4 hours ($1 cost).
7) The McKinney theatre is just up the hill. It is very easy to spot.
For a map of Saddleback, please visit:
http://www.saddleback.cc.ca.us/maps/
For more information, please contact Derek at dlmw=
ong@pacbell.net or call Saddleback College Associated Student Gov=
ernment office: (949) 582-4517 and ask for Derek.
Thank you and we hope you can join us!=20
--NextPart_Webmail_9m3u9jl4l_13822_1043341631--
From jafujii@uci.edu Fri Jan 24 02:19:22 2003
From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii)
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:19:22 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Emergency response to the threat of war
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030123181909.01a2b008@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
--=====================_1729416==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Dear ,
Thank you for your support of the Not In Our Name statement of conscience
against war and repression (see www.nion.us).
The war now being planned against Iraq is a further terrible step in the
deadly trajectory of events described in the NION statement. But it can be
stopped.
This next week things are coming to a head. On Monday, January 27, the
United Nations receives the report of the weapons inspectors and on Tuesday
President Bush delivers his state of the union address. This is likely to
be a call to war.
With your help, we will make our voices heard first. The Not In Our Name
statement is going to be published Monday morning in the New York Times as
a two-page spread. The statement has now been signed by 45,000 people
across the country. This publication will speak for you. This war is not in
the interests of the people of world and not in the interests of the great
majority of the American people. We can and must stop it.
You can help make this possible by sending your contribution to Not In Our
Name, 158 Church St., PMB 9, New York, NY 10007.
There will also be protests across the country on Monday. Please check our
web site on the weekend for information on protests and information on the
40 papers in which the NION statement has been published.
The web address is www.nion.us.
--=====================_1729416==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
Dear ,
Thank you for your support of the Not In Our Name statement of conscience
against war and repression (see www.nion.us).
The war now being planned against Iraq is a further terrible step in the
deadly trajectory of events described in the NION statement. But it can
be stopped.
This next week things are coming to a head. On Monday, January 27, the
United Nations receives the report of the weapons inspectors and on
Tuesday President Bush delivers his state of the union address. This is
likely to be a call to war.
With your help, we will make our voices heard first. The Not In Our Name
statement is going to be published Monday morning in the New York Times
as a two-page spread. The statement has now been signed by 45,000 people
across the country. This publication will speak for you. This war is not
in the interests of the people of world and not in the interests of the
great majority of the American people. We can and must stop it.
You can help make this possible by sending your contribution to Not In
Our Name, 158 Church St., PMB 9, New York, NY 10007.
There will also be protests across the country on Monday. Please check
our web site on the weekend for information on protests and information
on the 40 papers in which the NION statement has been
published.
The web address is
www.nion.us.
--=====================_1729416==_.ALT--
From gggonzal@uci.edu Fri Jan 24 03:28:50 2003
From: gggonzal@uci.edu (Gilbert G. Gonzalez)
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 19:28:50 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Fwd: Call to conscience from vets to active duty troops and
reservists (fwd)
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030123192837.0219fdb8@pop.uci.edu>
>
>Subject: Call to conscience from vets to active duty troops and reservists
>
>http://www.calltoconscience.net/
>
>Call to conscience from vets to active duty troops and reservists
>
>We are veterans of the United States armed forces. We stand with the
>majority of humanity, including millions in our own country, in opposition
>to the United States' all out war on Iraq. We span many wars and eras, have
>many political views and we all agree that this war is wrong. Many of us
>believed serving in the military was our duty, and our job was to defend
>this country. Our experiences in the military caused us to question much of
>what we were taught. Now we see our REAL duty is to encourage you as members
>of the U.S. armed forces to find out what you are being sent to fight and
>die for and what the consequences of your actions will be for humanity. We
>call upon you, the active duty and reservists, to follow your conscience and
>do the right thing.
>
>In the last Gulf War, as troops, we were ordered to murder from a safe
>distance. We destroyed much of Iraq from the air, killing hundreds of
>thousands, including civilians. We remember the road to Basraa - the Highway
>of Death - where we were ordered to kill fleeing Iraqis. We bulldozed
>trenches, burying people alive. The use of depleted uranium weapons left the
>battlefields radioactive. Massive use of pesticides, experimental drugs,
>burning chemical weapons depots and oil fires combined to create a toxic
>cocktail affecting both the Iraqi people and Gulf War veterans today. One in
>four Gulf War veterans is disabled.
>
>During the Vietnam War we were ordered to destroy Vietnam from the air and
>on the ground. At My Lai we massacred over 500 women, children and old men.
>This was not an aberration, it's how we fought the war. We used Agent Orange
>on the enemy and then experienced first hand its effects. We know what Post
>Traumatic Stress Disorder looks, feels and tastes like because the ghosts of
>over two million men, women and children still haunt our dreams. More of us
>took our own lives after returning home than died in battle.
>
>If you choose to participate in the invasion of Iraq you will be part of an
>occupying army. Do you know what it is like to look into the eyes of a
>people that hate you to your core? You should think about what your mission
>really is. You are being sent to invade and occupy a people who, like you
>and me, are only trying to live their lives and raise their kids. They pose
>no threat to the United States even though they have a brutal dictator as
>their leader. Who is the U.S. to tell the Iraqi people how to run their
>country when many in the U.S. don't even believe their own President was
>legally elected?
>
>Saddam is being vilified for gassing his own people and trying to develop
>weapons of mass destruction. However, when Saddam committed his worst crimes
>the U.S. was supporting him. This support included providing the means to
>produce chemical and biological weapons. Contrast this with the horrendous
>results of the U.S. led economic sanctions. More than a million Iraqis,
>mainly children and infants, have died because of these sanctions. After
>having destroyed the entire infrastructure of their country including
>hospitals, electricity generators, and water treatment plants, the U.S.
>then, with the sanctions, stopped the import of goods, medicines, parts, and
>chemicals necessary to restore even the most basic necessities of life.
>
>There is no honor in murder. This war is murder by another name. When, in an
>unjust war, an errant bomb dropped kills a mother and her child it is not
>"collateral damage," it is murder. When, in an unjust war, a child dies of
>dysentery because a bomb damaged a sewage treatment plant, it is not
>"destroying enemy infrastructure," it is murder. When, in an unjust war, a
>father dies of a heart attack because a bomb disrupted the phone lines so he
>could not call an ambulance, it is not "neutralizing command and control
>facilities," it is murder. When, in an unjust war, a thousand poor farmer
>conscripts die in a trench defending a town they have lived in their whole
>lives, it is not victory, it is murder.
>
>There will be veterans leading protests against this war on Iraq and your
>participation in it. During the Vietnam War thousands in Vietnam and in the
>U.S. refused to follow orders. Many resisted and rebelled. Many became
>conscientious objectors and others went to prison rather than bear arms
>against the so-called enemy. During the last Gulf War many GIs resisted in
>various ways and for many different reasons. Many of us came out of these
>wars and joined with the anti-war movement.
>
>If the people of the world are ever to be free, there must come a time when
>being a citizen of the world takes precedence over being the soldier of a
>nation. Now is that time. When orders come to ship out, your response will
>profoundly impact the lives of millions of people in the Middle East and
>here at home. Your response will help set the course of our future. You will
>have choices all along the way. Your commanders want you to obey. We urge
>you to think. We urge you to make your choices based on your conscience. If
>you choose to resist, we will support you and stand with you because we have
>come to understand that our REAL duty is to the people of the world and to
>our common future.
>
>Veteran signers as of January 31, 2003:
>
>Ed Armas, Army, 1962-1965
>Peter B. AShaw, Marine Corps, 1951-1954
>Tarik Aziz, Army, 1970-1975
>Niall Aslen, Royal Air Force, 1962-1986
>Aram Attarian II, Air Force, 1965-1966
>Collin Baber, Air Force, 1994-1998
>David E Baker, Army, 1988-1991
>Philip L. Bereano, USPHS, 1966-1970
>Anton Black, Navy, 1977-1984
>Dave Blalock, Army 1968-1971
>Michael Blankschen, Army, 1972-1973
>David Bledsoe, Air Force, 1987-1997
>Louis Block, Army, 1966-1972
>Blase Bonpane, Marine Corps Reserve, 1948-1950
>Fr. Bob Bossie, SCJ, Air Force, 1955-1959
>Don Broadwell, Marine Corps, 1960-1966
>Roger W Brown, Marine Corps, 1957-1960
>Greg Busby, Air Force, 1980-2000
>Rick Campos, Air Force, 1969-1971
>William J. Cavanaugh, Army, 1951-1953; Army Reserve, 1953-1982
>Fredy Champagne, Army, 1965-1966
>Elwood A. Chirrick, Navy, 1970-1972
>Debra J. Clark, Army, 1976-1984
>Rockney Compton, Army, 1967-1974
>James M. Craven, Army, 1963-1966
>Charlotte Critcher, Army, 1964-1971
>Carl Dix, Army, 1968-1972
>Barry Donnan, British Army, 1987-1993
>Pat Driscoll, Navy, 1972-1975
>Kenneth Dugan, Navy, 1984-1988
>Jake Elkins, Marine Corps, 1965-1969
>Marcus Eriksen, Marine Corps, 1985-1991
>T. Patrick Foley, Navy, 1997-2000
>Dr. Ray Foster, Army, 1972-1975
>Lou Fox, Army, 1965
>Dean Friend, Marine Corps, 1981-1985
>India Mahdi Gamboa, Air Force, 1985-1987
>Ernest Goitein, Army, 1943-1945
>Jay R Goodman, Army, 1969-1970
>Todd Greenwood, Marine Corps, 1993-2001
>James F. Harrington, Air Force, 1966-1967
>Rev. Richard K. Heacock, Jr., Navy, 1944-1946
>Glenn Helkenn, Army, 7 yrs
>Dud Hendrick, Air Force, 1963-1967
>Rodger Herbst, Army, 1969-1971
>Andres Hernandez, Navy Reserve, 1979-1985
>John Hockman, Army, 1963-1965
>Walter Hrozenchik, Navy, 1951-1955
>Eric Edward Johansson, Army, 1989-1992
>James Michael Kearney, Army, 1963-1965
>Keith Keller, Air Force, 1966-1972
>Ron Kovic, Marine Corps, 1964-1968
>Robert Krezewinski, Navy, 1973-1977
>Marty Kunz, Navy, 1970-1976
>Krystal Kyer, Navy, 1993-1997
>Neal Liden, Navy, 1965-1969
>Mark McCleary, Navy, 1996-2002
>Teresa Media, Navy, 1972-1977
>Jack Minassian, Army, 1943-1945
>Michael Moore, Army, 1975-1979
>Paul S. Moorhead, Navy, 1943-1946
>Catherine Morris, Marine Corps, 1981-85 & Army Nat Guard, 1989-96
>Paul Pat Morse, Air Force, 1965-1968
>Bryan Morrison, Air Force, 1994-1998
>Stan Nishimura, Army, 1964-1967
>Bruce McFarland, Navy, 1982-1986
>Rob Moitoza, Navy, 1965-1971
>Dale L. Morgan, Air Force, 1956-1960
>David Rees Morgan, British Royal Air Force, 1948-1950
>John J. Pagoda, Air Force, 1965-1968 and 1985-1998
>Todd A. Papasadero, Army, 1983-1989
>John Pappademos, Naval Reserves, 1943-1946
>Jeff Paterson, Marine Corps, 1986-1990
>Wilson M. Powell, Air Force, 1950-1954
>Erwin Rommel, Army, 22 yrs
>Randy Rowland, Army, 1967-1970
>Rodney A Rylander, Air Force, 1962-1967
>Lee Santa, Army, 1965-1968
>Nikko Schoch, Army, 1968-1970
>Betty R. Scott, Navy, 1943-1945
>Charles T. Smith, Army, 1969-1971
>John Steinbach, Coast Guard, 1965-1969
>Darnell S. Summers, Army, 1966-1970
>Thomas Swift, Army, 1953-1955
>Harold Taggart, Air Force, 1959-1964
>Toby Tahja-Syrett, Army, 1992-1996
>Tom Trigg, Army, 1967-1975
>Joe Urgo, Air Force, 1967-1968
>Gerald Waite, Army, 1967-1982
>William H. Warrick III MD, Army Security Agency, 1968-1971
>Joel Wendland, Army, 1991-1993
>David Wiggins MD, Army, Gulf War
>John P. Wirtz, Army, 1943-1946
>Mike Wong, Army, 1969-1975
>Howard Zinn, Air Force, 1943-1945
>
>Please reprint and forward to other veterans.
From dtsang@lib.uci.edu Sat Jan 25 00:10:40 2003
From: dtsang@lib.uci.edu (Dan Tsang)
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 16:10:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Farmworkers avail to speak to classes (fwd)
Message-ID:
The Independent 21 January 2003
War journalists should not be cosying up to the military
By Robert Fisk
It looks like a rerun of the 1991 Gulf War. Already American journalists
are
fighting like tigers to join "the pool", to be
"embedded" in the US military
so that they can see the war at first hand - and, of course, be
censored.
Eleven years ago, they turned up at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, already
kitted
out with helmets, gas capes, chocolate rations and eyes that narrowed
when
they looked into the sun, just like General Montgomery. Half the
reporters
wanted to wear military costume and one young television man from
the
American mid-west turned up, I recall well, with a pair of
camouflaged
boots. Each boot was camouflaged with painted leaves. Those of us who
had
been in a desert -- even those who had only seen a picture of a desert -
did
wonder what this meant.
Well, of course, it symbolised fantasy, the very quality upon which
most
viewers now rely when watching "live" war - or watching death
"live" on TV.
Thus, over the past four weeks, the massed ranks of American
television
networks have been pouring into Kuwait to cosy up to the US military,
to
seek those coveted "pool" positions, to try on their army or
marine costumes
and make sure that - if or when the day comes - they will have the kind
of
coverage that every reporter and every general wants: a few facts,
good
pictures and nothing dirty to make the viewers throw up on the
breakfast
table. I remember how, back in 1991, only those Iraqi soldiers
obliging
enough to die in romantic poses - arm thrown back to conceal the
decomposing
features or face down and anonymous in the sand - made it on to
live-time.
Those soldiers turned into a crematorium nightmare or whose corpses
were
being torn to pieces by wild dogs - I actually saw an ITV crew film
this
horrific scene - were not honoured on screen. ITV's film, of
course,
couldn't be shown - lest it persuade the entire world that no one should
go
to war, ever, again.
The Americans are actually using the word "embedded". Reporters
must be
"embedded' in military units. The fears of Central Command at
Tampa,
Florida, are that Saddam will commit some atrocity - a gas attack
on
Shiites, an air bombardment of Iraqi civilians - and then blame it on
the
Americans. Journalists in the "pool" can thus be rushed to the
scene to
prove that the killings were the dastardly work of the Beast of
Baghdad
rather than the "collateral damage" - the Distinguished Medal
for
Gutlessness should be awarded to all journalists who even mention
this
phrase - of the fine young men who are trying to destroy the triple
pillar
of the "axis of evil".
Already, the "buddy-buddy" relationship - that's actually what
the Ministry
of Defence boys called it 11 years ago -- has started. US troops in
Kuwait
are offering courses in chemical and biological warfare for reporters
who
might be accompanying soldiers to "the front", along with
"training" on the
need to protect security during military operations. CNN is, of
course,
enthusiastically backing these seemingly innocuous courses - forgetting
how
they allowed Pentagon "trainees" to sit in their newsroom
during the 1991
Gulf War.
So here's a thumbnail list of how to watch out for mendacity and
propaganda
on your screen once Gulf War Two (or Three if you include the
1980-88
Iran-Iraq conflict) begins. You should suspect the following:
Reporters who wear items of American or British military costume -
helmets,
camouflage jackets, weapons, etc.
Reporters who say "we" when they are referring to the US or
British military
unit in which they are "embedded".
Those who use the words "collateral damage" instead of
"dead civilians".
Those who commence answering questions with the words: "Well, of
course,
because of military security I can't divulge..." Those who,
reporting from
the Iraqi side, insist on referring to the Iraqi population as
"his" (ie
Saddam's) people.
Journalists in Baghdad who refer to "what the Americans describe as
Saddam
Hussein's human rights abuses" - rather than the plain and simple
torture we
all know Saddam practices.
Journalists reporting from either side who use the god-awful and
creepy
phrase "officials say" without naming, quite specifically, who
these often
lying "officials" are.
Stay tuned.
--=====================_43241477==_.ALT--
From jafujii@uci.edu Sat Jan 25 07:48:45 2003
From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii)
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 23:48:45 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] An unacceptable helplessness - Edward Said
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030124234837.01a09d88@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
--=====================_43315234==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/621/op2.htm
6 - 22 January 2003 Issue No. 621 Al Ahram Weekly
An unacceptable helplessness
Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights? Edward Said urges
an Arab alternative to the wreckage that is about to engulf our world
One opens The New York Times on a daily basis to read the most recent
article about the preparations for war that are taking place in the United
States. Another battalion, one more set of aircraft carriers and cruisers,
an ever-increasing number of aircraft, new contingents of officers are being
moved to the Persian Gulf area. 62,000 more soldiers were transferred to the
Gulf last weekend. An enormous, deliberately intimidating force is being
built up by America overseas, while inside the country, economic and social
bad news multiply with a joint relentlessness. The huge capitalist machine
seems to be faltering, even as it grinds down the vast majority of citizens.
Nonetheless, George Bush proposes another large tax cut for the one per cent
of the population that is comparatively rich. The public education system is
in a major crisis, and health insurance for 50 million Americans simply does
not exist. Israel asks for 15 billion dollars in additional loan guarantees
and military aid. And the unemployment rates in the US mount inexorably, as
more jobs are lost every day.
Nevertheless, preparations for an unimaginably costly war continue and
continue without either public approval or dramatically noticeable
disapproval. A generalised indifference (which may conceal great over-all
fear, ignorance and apprehension) has greeted the administration's
war-mongering and its strangely ineffective response to the challenge forced
on it recently by North Korea. In the case of Iraq, with no weapons of mass
destruction to speak of, the US plans a war; in the case of North Korea, it
offers that country economic and energy aid. What a humiliating difference
between contempt for the Arabs and respect for North Korea, an equally grim,
and cruel dictatorship.
In the Arab and Muslim worlds, the situation appears more peculiar. For
almost a year American politicians, regional experts, administration
officials, journalists have repeated the charges that have become standard
fare so far as Islam and the Arabs are concerned. Most of this chorus
pre-dates 11 September, as I have shown in my books Orientalism and Covering
Islam. To today's practically unanimous chorus has been added the authority
of the United Nation's Human Development Report on the Arab world which
certified that Arabs dramatically lag behind the rest of the world in
democracy, knowledge, and women's rights. Everyone says (with some
justification, of course) that Islam needs reform and that the Arab
educational system is a disaster, in effect, a school for religious fanatics
and suicide bombers funded not just by crazy imams and their wealthy
followers (like Osama Bin Laden) but also by governments who are supposed
allies of the United States. The only "good" Arabs are those who appear in
the media decrying modern Arab culture and society without reservation. I
recall the lifeless cadences of their sentences for, with nothing positive
to say about themselves or their people and language, they simply
regurgitate the tired American formulas already flooding the airwaves and
pages of print. We lack democracy, they say, we haven't challenged Islam
enough, we need to do more about driving away the specter of Arab
nationalism and the credo of Arab unity. That is all discredited,
ideological rubbish. Only what we, and our American instructors, say about
the Arabs and Islam -- vague re-cycled Orientalist clich=E9s of the kind
repeated by a tireless mediocrity like Bernard Lewis -- is true. The rest
isn't realistic or pragmatic enough. "We" need to join modernity, modernity
in effect being Western, globalised, free-marketed, democratic -- whatever
those words might be taken to mean. (If I had the time, there would be an
essay to be written about the prose style of people like Ajami, Gerges,
Makiya, Talhami, Fandy et. al., academics whose very language reeks of
subservience, inauthenticity and a hopelessly stilted mimicry that has been
thrust upon them).
The clash of civilisations that George Bush and his minions are trying to
fabricate as a cover for a preemptive oil and hegemony war against Iraq is
supposed to result in a triumph of democratic nation-building, regime change
and forcible modernisation =E0 l'am=E9ricaine. Never mind the bombs and the
ravages of the sanctions which are unmentioned. This will be a purifying war
whose goal is to throw out Saddam and his men and replace them with a
re-drawn map of the whole region. New Sykes Picot. New Balfour. New
Wilsonian 14 points. New world altogether. Iraqis, we are told by the Iraqi
dissidents, will welcome their liberation, and perhaps forget entirely about
their past sufferings. Perhaps.
Meanwhile, the soul-and-body destroying situation in Palestine worsens all
the time. There seems no force capable of stopping Sharon and Mofaz, who
bellow their defiance to the whole world. We forbid, we punish, we ban, we
break, we destroy. The torrent of unbroken violence against an entire people
continues. As I write these lines, I am sent an announcement that the entire
village of Al-Daba' in the Qalqilya area of the West Bank is about to be
wiped out by 60- ton American-made Israeli bulldozers: 250 Palestinians will
lose their 42 houses, 700 dunums of agricultural land, a mosque, and an
elementary school for 132 children. The United Nations stands by, looking on
as its resolutions are flouted on an hourly basis. Typically, alas, George
Bush identifies with Sharon, not with the 16-year-old Palestinian kid who is
used as a human shield by Israeli soldiers.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority offers a return to peacemaking, and
presumably, to Oslo. Having been burned for 10 years the first time, Arafat
seems inexplicably to want to have another go at it. His faithful
lieutenants make declarations and write opinion pieces for the press,
suggesting their willingness to accept anything, more or less. Remarkably
though, the great mass of this heroic people seems willing to go on, without
peace and without respite, bleeding, going hungry, dying day by day. They
have too much dignity and confidence in the justice of their cause to submit
shamefully to Israel, as their leaders have done. What could be more
discouraging for the average Gazan who goes on resisting Israeli occupation
than to see his or her leaders kneel as supplicants before the Americans?
In this entire panorama of desolation, what catches the eye is the utter
passivity and helplessness of the Arab world as a whole. The American
government and its servants issue statement after statement of purpose, they
move troops and material, they transport tanks and destroyers, but the Arabs
individually and collectively can barely muster a bland refusal (at most
they say, no, you cannot use military bases in our territory) only to
reverse themselves a few days later.
Why is there such silence and such astounding helplessness?
The largest power in history is about to launch and is unremittingly
reiterating its intention to launch a war against a sovereign Arab country
now ruled by a dreadful regime, a war the clear purpose of which is not only
to destroy the Baathi regime but to re-design the entire region. The
Pentagon has made no secret that its plans are to re-draw the map of the
whole Arab world, perhaps changing other regimes and many borders in the
process. No one can be shielded from the cataclysm when it comes (if it
comes, which is not yet a complete certainty). And yet, there is only long
silence followed by a few vague bleats of polite demurral in response. After
all, millions of people will be affected. America contemptuously plans for
their future without consulting them. Do we reserve such racist derision?
This is not only unacceptable: it is impossible to believe. How can a region
of almost 300 million Arabs wait passively for the blows to fall without
attempting a collective roar of resistance and a loud proclamation of an
alternative view? Has the Arab will completely dissolved? Even a prisoner
about to be executed usually has some last words to pronounce. Why is there
now no last testimonial to an era of history, to a civilisation about to be
crushed and transformed utterly, to a society that despite its drawbacks and
weaknesses nevertheless goes on functioning. Arab babies are born every
hour, children go to school, men and women marry and work and have children,
they play, and laugh and eat, they are sad, they suffer illness and death.
There is love and companionship, friendship and excitement. Yes, Arabs are
repressed and misruled, terribly misruled, but they manage to go on with the
business of living despite everything. This is the fact that both the Arab
leaders and the United States simply ignore when they fling empty gestures
at the so-called "Arab street" invented by mediocre Orientalists.
But who is now asking the existential questions about our future as a
people? The task cannot be left to a cacophony of religious fanatics and
submissive, fatalistic sheep. But that seems to be the case. The Arab
governments -- no, most of the Arab countries from top to bottom -- sit back
in their seats and just wait as America postures, lines up, threatens and
ships out more soldiers and F-16's to deliver the punch. The silence is
deafening.
Years of sacrifice and struggle, of bones broken in hundreds of prisons and
torture chambers from the Atlantic to the Gulf, families destroyed, endless
poverty and suffering. Huge, expensive armies. For what?
This is not a matter of party or ideology or faction: it's a matter of what
the great theologian Paul Tillich used to call ultimate seriousness.
Technology, modernisation and certainly globalisation are not the answer for
what threatens us as a people now. We have in our tradition an entire body
of secular and religious discourse that treats of beginnings and endings, of
life and death, of love and anger, of society and history. This is there,
but no voice, no individual with great vision and moral authority seems able
now to tap into that, and bring it to attention. We are on the eve of a
catastrophe that our political, moral and religious leaders can only just
denounce a little bit while, behind whispers and winks and closed doors,
they make plans somehow to ride out the storm. They think of survival, and
perhaps of heaven. But who is in charge of the present, the worldly, the
land, the water, the air and the lives dependent on each other for
existence? No one seems to be in charge. There is a wonderful colloquial
expression in English that very precisely and ironically catches our
unacceptable helplessness, our passivity and inability to help ourselves now
when our strength is most needed. The expression is: will the last person to
leave please turn out the lights? We are that close to a kind of upheaval
that will leave very little standing and perilously little left even to
record, except for the last injunction that begs for extinction.
Hasn't the time come for us collectively to demand and try to formulate a
genuinely Arab alternative to the wreckage about to engulf our world? This
is not only a trivial matter of regime change, although God knows that we
can do with quite a bit of that. Surely it can't be a return to Oslo,
another offer to Israel to please accept our existence and let us live in
peace, another cringing crawling inaudible plea for mercy. Will no one come
out into the light of day to express a vision for our future that isn't
based on a script written by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, those two
symbols of vacant power and overweening arrogance? I hope someone is
listening.
--=====================_43315234==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/621/op2.htm
6 - 22 January 2003 Issue No. 621 Al Ahram Weekly
An unacceptable helplessness
Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights? Edward Said
urges
an Arab alternative to the wreckage that is about to engulf our world
One opens The New York Times on a daily basis to read the most
recent
article about the preparations for war that are taking place in the
United
States. Another battalion, one more set of aircraft carriers and
cruisers,
an ever-increasing number of aircraft, new contingents of officers are
being
moved to the Persian Gulf area. 62,000 more soldiers were transferred to
the
Gulf last weekend. An enormous, deliberately intimidating force is
being
built up by America overseas, while inside the country, economic and
social
bad news multiply with a joint relentlessness. The huge capitalist
machine
seems to be faltering, even as it grinds down the vast majority of
citizens.
Nonetheless, George Bush proposes another large tax cut for the one per
cent
of the population that is comparatively rich. The public education system
is
in a major crisis, and health insurance for 50 million Americans simply
does
not exist. Israel asks for 15 billion dollars in additional loan
guarantees
and military aid. And the unemployment rates in the US mount inexorably,
as
more jobs are lost every day.
Nevertheless, preparations for an unimaginably costly war continue
and
continue without either public approval or dramatically noticeable
disapproval. A generalised indifference (which may conceal great
over-all
fear, ignorance and apprehension) has greeted the administration's
war-mongering and its strangely ineffective response to the challenge
forced
on it recently by North Korea. In the case of Iraq, with no weapons of
mass
destruction to speak of, the US plans a war; in the case of North Korea,
it
offers that country economic and energy aid. What a humiliating
difference
between contempt for the Arabs and respect for North Korea, an equally
grim,
and cruel dictatorship.
In the Arab and Muslim worlds, the situation appears more peculiar.
For
almost a year American politicians, regional experts,=20
administration
officials, journalists have repeated the charges that have become
standard
fare so far as Islam and the Arabs are concerned. Most of this
chorus
pre-dates 11 September, as I have shown in my books Orientalism and
Covering
Islam. To today's practically unanimous chorus has been added the
authority
of the United Nation's Human Development Report on the Arab world
which
certified that Arabs dramatically lag behind the rest of the world
in
democracy, knowledge, and women's rights. Everyone says (with some
justification, of course) that Islam needs reform and that the Arab
educational system is a disaster, in effect, a school for religious
fanatics
and suicide bombers funded not just by crazy imams and their=20
wealthy
followers (like Osama Bin Laden) but also by governments who are
supposed
allies of the United States. The only "good" Arabs are those
who appear in
the media decrying modern Arab culture and society without reservation.
I
recall the lifeless cadences of their sentences for, with nothing
positive
to say about themselves or their people and language, they simply
regurgitate the tired American formulas already flooding the airwaves
and
pages of print. We lack democracy, they say, we haven't challenged
Islam
enough, we need to do more about driving away the specter of Arab
nationalism and the credo of Arab unity. That is all discredited,
ideological rubbish. Only what we, and our American instructors, say
about
the Arabs and Islam -- vague re-cycled Orientalist clich=E9s of the
kind
repeated by a tireless mediocrity like Bernard Lewis -- is true. The
rest
isn't realistic or pragmatic enough. "We" need to join
modernity, modernity
in effect being Western, globalised, free-marketed, democratic --
whatever
those words might be taken to mean. (If I had the time, there would be
an
essay to be written about the prose style of people like Ajami,
Gerges,
Makiya, Talhami, Fandy et. al., academics whose very language reeks
of
subservience, inauthenticity and a hopelessly stilted mimicry that has
been
thrust upon them).
The clash of civilisations that George Bush and his minions are trying
to
fabricate as a cover for a preemptive oil and hegemony war against Iraq
is
supposed to result in a triumph of democratic nation-building, regime
change
and forcible modernisation =E0 l'am=E9ricaine. Never mind the bombs and
the
ravages of the sanctions which are unmentioned. This will be a purifying
war
whose goal is to throw out Saddam and his men and replace them with
a
re-drawn map of the whole region. New Sykes Picot. New Balfour. New
Wilsonian 14 points. New world altogether. Iraqis, we are told by the
Iraqi
dissidents, will welcome their liberation, and perhaps forget entirely
about
their past sufferings. Perhaps.
Meanwhile, the soul-and-body destroying situation in Palestine worsens
all
the time. There seems no force capable of stopping Sharon and Mofaz,
who
bellow their defiance to the whole world. We forbid, we punish, we ban,
we
break, we destroy. The torrent of unbroken violence against an entire
people
continues. As I write these lines, I am sent an announcement that the
entire
village of Al-Daba' in the Qalqilya area of the West Bank is about to
be
wiped out by 60- ton American-made Israeli bulldozers: 250 Palestinians
will
lose their 42 houses, 700 dunums of agricultural land, a mosque, and
an
elementary school for 132 children. The United Nations stands by, looking
on
as its resolutions are flouted on an hourly basis. Typically, alas,
George
Bush identifies with Sharon, not with the 16-year-old Palestinian kid who
is
used as a human shield by Israeli soldiers.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority offers a return to peacemaking,
and
presumably, to Oslo. Having been burned for 10 years the first time,
Arafat
seems inexplicably to want to have another go at it. His faithful
lieutenants make declarations and write opinion pieces for the
press,
suggesting their willingness to accept anything, more or less.
Remarkably
though, the great mass of this heroic people seems willing to go on,
without
peace and without respite, bleeding, going hungry, dying day by day.
They
have too much dignity and confidence in the justice of their cause to
submit
shamefully to Israel, as their leaders have done. What could be=20
more
discouraging for the average Gazan who goes on resisting Israeli
occupation
than to see his or her leaders kneel as supplicants before the Americans?
In this entire panorama of desolation, what catches the eye is the
utter
passivity and helplessness of the Arab world as a whole. The
American
government and its servants issue statement after statement of purpose,
they
move troops and material, they transport tanks and destroyers, but the
Arabs
individually and collectively can barely muster a bland refusal (at
most
they say, no, you cannot use military bases in our territory) only
to
reverse themselves a few days later.
Why is there such silence and such astounding helplessness?
The largest power in history is about to launch and is=20
unremittingly
reiterating its intention to launch a war against a sovereign Arab
country
now ruled by a dreadful regime, a war the clear purpose of which is not
only
to destroy the Baathi regime but to re-design the entire region.=20
The
Pentagon has made no secret that its plans are to re-draw the map of
the
whole Arab world, perhaps changing other regimes and many borders in
the
process. No one can be shielded from the cataclysm when it comes (if
it
comes, which is not yet a complete certainty). And yet, there is only
long
silence followed by a few vague bleats of polite demurral in response.
After
all, millions of people will be affected. America contemptuously plans
for
their future without consulting them. Do we reserve such racist derision?
This is not only unacceptable: it is impossible to believe. How can a
region
of almost 300 million Arabs wait passively for the blows to fall
without
attempting a collective roar of resistance and a loud proclamation of
an
alternative view? Has the Arab will completely dissolved? Even a
prisoner
about to be executed usually has some last words to pronounce. Why is
there
now no last testimonial to an era of history, to a civilisation about to
be
crushed and transformed utterly, to a society that despite its drawbacks
and
weaknesses nevertheless goes on functioning. Arab babies are born
every
hour, children go to school, men and women marry and work and have
children,
they play, and laugh and eat, they are sad, they suffer illness and
death.
There is love and companionship, friendship and excitement. Yes, Arabs
are
repressed and misruled, terribly misruled, but they manage to go on with
the
business of living despite everything. This is the fact that both the
Arab
leaders and the United States simply ignore when they fling empty
gestures
at the so-called "Arab street" invented by mediocre
Orientalists.
But who is now asking the existential questions about our future as
a
people? The task cannot be left to a cacophony of religious fanatics
and
submissive, fatalistic sheep. But that seems to be the case. The
Arab
governments -- no, most of the Arab countries from top to bottom -- sit
back
in their seats and just wait as America postures, lines up, threatens
and
ships out more soldiers and F-16's to deliver the punch. The silence
is
deafening.
Years of sacrifice and struggle, of bones broken in hundreds of prisons
and
torture chambers from the Atlantic to the Gulf, families destroyed,
endless
poverty and suffering. Huge, expensive armies. For what?
This is not a matter of party or ideology or faction: it's a matter of
what
the great theologian Paul Tillich used to call ultimate=20
seriousness.
Technology, modernisation and certainly globalisation are not the answer
for
what threatens us as a people now. We have in our tradition an entire
body
of secular and religious discourse that treats of beginnings and endings,
of
life and death, of love and anger, of society and history. This is
there,
but no voice, no individual with great vision and moral authority seems
able
now to tap into that, and bring it to attention. We are on the eve of
a
catastrophe that our political, moral and religious leaders can only
just
denounce a little bit while, behind whispers and winks and closed
doors,
they make plans somehow to ride out the storm. They think of survival,
and
perhaps of heaven. But who is in charge of the present, the worldly,
the
land, the water, the air and the lives dependent on each other for
existence? No one seems to be in charge. There is a wonderful
colloquial
expression in English that very precisely and ironically catches=20
our
unacceptable helplessness, our passivity and inability to help ourselves
now
when our strength is most needed. The expression is: will the last person
to
leave please turn out the lights? We are that close to a kind of
upheaval
that will leave very little standing and perilously little left even
to
record, except for the last injunction that begs for extinction.
Hasn't the time come for us collectively to demand and try to formulate
a
genuinely Arab alternative to the wreckage about to engulf our world?
This
is not only a trivial matter of regime change, although God knows that
we
can do with quite a bit of that. Surely it can't be a return to
Oslo,
another offer to Israel to please accept our existence and let us live
in
peace, another cringing crawling inaudible plea for mercy. Will no one
come
out into the light of day to express a vision for our future that
isn't
based on a script written by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, those
two
symbols of vacant power and overweening arrogance? I hope someone=20
is
listening.
--=====================_43315234==_.ALT--
From gggonzal@uci.edu Sat Jan 25 21:31:56 2003
From: gggonzal@uci.edu (Gilbert G. Gonzalez)
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 13:31:56 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Fwd: War journalists should not be cosying up to the military
(fwd)
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030125133112.0227d058@pop.uci.edu>
>
>Subject: War journalists should not be cosying up to the military
>
>http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=371412
>
>The Independent 21 January 2003
>
>War journalists should not be cosying up to the military
>
>By Robert Fisk
>
>It looks like a rerun of the 1991 Gulf War. Already American journalists are
>fighting like tigers to join "the pool", to be "embedded" in the US military
>so that they can see the war at first hand - and, of course, be censored.
>Eleven years ago, they turned up at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, already kitted
>out with helmets, gas capes, chocolate rations and eyes that narrowed when
>they looked into the sun, just like General Montgomery. Half the reporters
>wanted to wear military costume and one young television man from the
>American mid-west turned up, I recall well, with a pair of camouflaged
>boots. Each boot was camouflaged with painted leaves. Those of us who had
>been in a desert -- even those who had only seen a picture of a desert - did
>wonder what this meant.
>
>Well, of course, it symbolised fantasy, the very quality upon which most
>viewers now rely when watching "live" war - or watching death "live" on TV.
>
>
>Thus, over the past four weeks, the massed ranks of American television
>networks have been pouring into Kuwait to cosy up to the US military, to
>seek those coveted "pool" positions, to try on their army or marine costumes
>and make sure that - if or when the day comes - they will have the kind of
>coverage that every reporter and every general wants: a few facts, good
>pictures and nothing dirty to make the viewers throw up on the breakfast
>table. I remember how, back in 1991, only those Iraqi soldiers obliging
>enough to die in romantic poses - arm thrown back to conceal the decomposing
>features or face down and anonymous in the sand - made it on to live-time.
>Those soldiers turned into a crematorium nightmare or whose corpses were
>being torn to pieces by wild dogs - I actually saw an ITV crew film this
>horrific scene - were not honoured on screen. ITV's film, of course,
>couldn't be shown - lest it persuade the entire world that no one should go
>to war, ever, again.
>
>The Americans are actually using the word "embedded". Reporters must be
>"embedded' in military units. The fears of Central Command at Tampa,
>Florida, are that Saddam will commit some atrocity - a gas attack on
>Shiites, an air bombardment of Iraqi civilians - and then blame it on the
>Americans. Journalists in the "pool" can thus be rushed to the scene to
>prove that the killings were the dastardly work of the Beast of Baghdad
>rather than the "collateral damage" - the Distinguished Medal for
>Gutlessness should be awarded to all journalists who even mention this
>phrase - of the fine young men who are trying to destroy the triple pillar
>of the "axis of evil".
>
>Already, the "buddy-buddy" relationship - that's actually what the Ministry
>of Defence boys called it 11 years ago -- has started. US troops in Kuwait
>are offering courses in chemical and biological warfare for reporters who
>might be accompanying soldiers to "the front", along with "training" on the
>need to protect security during military operations. CNN is, of course,
>enthusiastically backing these seemingly innocuous courses - forgetting how
>they allowed Pentagon "trainees" to sit in their newsroom during the 1991
>Gulf War.
>
>So here's a thumbnail list of how to watch out for mendacity and propaganda
>on your screen once Gulf War Two (or Three if you include the 1980-88
>Iran-Iraq conflict) begins. You should suspect the following:
>
>Reporters who wear items of American or British military costume - helmets,
>camouflage jackets, weapons, etc.
>
>Reporters who say "we" when they are referring to the US or British military
>unit in which they are "embedded".
>
>Those who use the words "collateral damage" instead of "dead civilians".
>
>Those who commence answering questions with the words: "Well, of course,
>because of military security I can't divulge..." Those who, reporting from
>the Iraqi side, insist on referring to the Iraqi population as "his" (ie
>Saddam's) people.
>
>Journalists in Baghdad who refer to "what the Americans describe as Saddam
>Hussein's human rights abuses" - rather than the plain and simple torture we
>all know Saddam practices.
>
>Journalists reporting from either side who use the god-awful and creepy
>phrase "officials say" without naming, quite specifically, who these often
>lying "officials" are.
>
>Stay tuned.
From gggonzal@uci.edu Sat Jan 25 21:27:00 2003
From: gggonzal@uci.edu (Gilbert G. Gonzalez)
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 13:27:00 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Fwd: Daniel Ellsberg on Iraq (fwd)
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030125132647.021a6d80@pop.uci.edu>
>
>Subject: Daniel Ellsberg on Iraq
>
>http://www.ellsberg.net/weblog/1_23_03.htm
>
>Daniel Ellsberg on Iraq
>Weblog Entry
>January 23, 2003
>
>Daniel Ellsberg answers questions on Iraq for Metall (Germany Metalworkers
>Union newspaper) and Freitag
>
>1. "What threat does Iraq now pose or could pose in the future to essential
>US objectives in the Middle East or globally?"
>
>No threat at all, so long as Saddam is not faced with overthrow or death by
>attack or invasion. Saddam has been weakened by a decade of sanctions,
>contained and deterred by the readiness and even strong desire of the US to
>attack Iraq on any excuse. Unattacked, he poses no threat at all to his
>neighbors or the US. To call him "the number one danger to US security and
>interests" is not just questionable, it's absurd. On any reasonable list of
>outstanding dangers, he isn't on the list.
>
>This would remain true even if he acquired more gas and biological weapons
>than he may now have (or could soon have), and even if he acquired nuclear
>weapons! He would be better equipped to deter unprovoked attack than now,
>but to a reasonable opponent his ability to deter attack should be strong
>now (see below). But invading Iraq, however desirable in the eyes of
>American oil-men, is not an "essential" US objective. Otherwise, it is
>absurd to say that it is less feasible to contain or deter Saddam, even
>armed with nuclear weapons, from aggression than to seek to do the same with
>Stalin, Mao or the two Kims.
>
>If he is attacked with the prospect of overthrow and death, that's another
>matter. Then he goes up near the top of the list, given his probable
>willingness to launch nerve gas on invading US troops (produced under
>bombing, if necessary; Scott Ritter believes he can and will do this, though
>he believes that Iraq has no such weapons operational now), his possible
>ability to launch such weapons on Israel (Ritter believes he has no delivery
>ability for this now, given the effectiveness of past inspections, but
>perhaps he's wrong), and the likelihood that he would give such weapons or
>their precursors to Al Qaeda or other terrorists as a legacy (not
>otherwise). The first two contingencies have a strong possibility of evoking
>US (or Israeli) first-use of nuclear weapons. That might arise also from a
>strong city-fighting defense of Baghdad, with large US casualties and
>stalemate.
>
>2. "What, in your opinion, are the objectives of the Bush administration in
>pursuing its current policy toward Iraq?"
>
>(a) oil.
>
>(b) oil.
>
>(c) oil.
>
>(d) US elections: distraction and rally-round-the-President in November 2002
>and November 2004; and with the hope of
>
>(e) shifting American Jews from the Democrats to the Republicans,
>semi-permanently, by total backing of Sharon's (Greater Israel) policy,
>while gratifying the Christian Right by the same policy, in their current
>alliance with Likud and Likud-supporters in the US, reflecting the Christian
>Right's bizarre apocalyptic beliefs (about the necessary in-gathering of
>Jews in Israel as a precursor to Armageddon: at which time, incidentally,
>the Jews either convert, belatedly, or are doomed along with other
>unbelievers).
>
>Control of Iraq's oil, by US occupation, is seen as instrumental to a number
>of other desiderata by the oilagarchy that is the dominant influence on US
>foreign policy: control of the rest of the oil reserves of the Middle East
>and the Caspian: Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.; this to the end, not only of
>assuring access to cheap oil for the American market but to control the oil
>needed by Germany, Japan, China, etc., as a basis for all kinds of
>diplomatic and economic leverage; direct profits from development and sale
>of oil and gas in the region; assurance of the regime of petrodollars, to
>sustain the US economy.
>
>3. "How united is the administration/Bush government about this war?"
>
>Not united at all. Large parts of the government—unprecedentedly large, in
>dissent from White House policy—indicate great skepticism, reservations,
>even fear of the risks of the policy. Unprecedented leaks about the plans
>and about internal dissent indicate that large parts, perhaps large
>majorities, of the State Department (not only Powell), the CIA and the JCS
>do not believe in the necessity or prudence or even legitimacy of this war,
>and do not want it. That doesn't mean they won't obey orders and do their
>part for the President when he orders it. It does mean that a journalistic
>search for heroes who would not only leak but testify against it, at the
>cost of their careers, might be rewarded.
>
>4. "What do you think about the planned military strategy?"
>
>We don't know that much about it. It might be quickly successful, as Cheney,
>Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle, and others who, like these, have never been
>near a war, appear to expect with high confidence. It is certainly possible
>that Saddam (including all his doubles) will quickly be assassinated, by us
>or his officers, that the Revolutionary Guard will quickly defect along with
>the regulars and draftees, that command and control will be totally
>disrupted, that city-fighting in Baghdad will prove unnecessary, that
>Saddam's efforts to launch gas attacks will be preempted or that they will
>fail, perhaps because our protective clothing will prove effective, that
>Saddam will be preempted or prevented from destroying or setting on fire the
>oil-fields of Iraq (and perhaps Kuwait and Saudi Arabia), and that there
>will be no major terrorist attacks on our occupation troops after we take
>Baghdad. In other words, everything could go right, fast, and the war could
>be quick and cheap in American lives (and even, relatively speaking—i.e. no
>more than 10 to one—in Iraqi lives, not that the administration cares).
>
>I don't think this is very likely. Certainly, to have high confidence in
>this, as the top Administration officials appear to possess (except for
>Powell and the JCS, the only ones with experience of war), bespeaks
>ignorance and foolishness. To gamble on it, which is the best that can be
>said for them, even if it had a likelihood as high as 80 or 90%, is reckless
>and irresponsible, given the actual stakes in terms of lives and American
>interests (including control of oil).
>
>5. What kind of scenario do you envision: what kind of weapons will be used,
>will there be urban warfare? Some military strategists talk about a
>'cakewalk.' Are they underestimating the Iraqi forces?
>
>I think I've just answered this above, pretty adequately. I will add only
>that I fear there is a significant chance (2% would be significant, and I
>think it is well above that) that the US will use nuclear weapons at some
>point: in response to nerve gas, or (to set a precedent for the future, with
>an apparently "legitimate" and "limited" use) against "deep underground
>bunkers for production or storage of chemical or biological weapons" or for
>black-out effects on command and control (high-altitude low-yield bursts).
>
>No one can say that there will not be heavy urban fighting. City-fighting is
>something that no one does well. The movies "Black Hawk Down" (Somalia) and
>"The Pianist" (Warsaw) give a good depiction of what this means for cities,
>civilians, and for the casualties on both sides among fighters. (Recall also
>"Full Metal Jacket" for a depiction of the battle for Hue in 1968). The
>chickenhawks simply have no answer for how we deal with this; nor do the
>real military, which is doubtless one reason they do not want this war.
>
>6. Who or what could prevent the Bush administration from going to war?
>
>I would be happy to see Saddam yield to inducements from his Arab neighbors
>and others to seek asylum somewhere, with assurance against war crimes
>prosecution if necessary. It would mean a success for threats of US
>aggression, but it would be a much better prospect for all than a war.
>France's warning that it might veto a UN-authorized attack for at least the
>next several months, while the inspections proceed, is both appropriate and
>could be effective; it should be joined by Russia and China (it would be too
>much to expect of Blair), while other members of the Security Council,
>starting with Germany, should warn in advance of a "no" vote in the absence
>of obstruction of inspection by Sadddam or positive findings of forbidden
>weapons (not empty casings) by the inspectors.
>
>Even one to three vetoes would not guarantee that the US would not attack on
>the basis of a claimed "provocation"—a Tonkin Gulf incident, manufactured or
>simply claimed—but it might actually slow down the US attack by months, long
>enough for the illegality and recklessness of the whole project to become a
>matter of consensus, even in the US. The chance of this is small, but not
>zero: definitely worth pursuing.
>
>I hope that officials with access to official documentation—IN ANY
>COUNTRY—which gives the lie to official US/UK rationales for war, including
>a possible Tonkin Gulf incident, will consider doing what I wish I had done
>on August 5, 1965, or soon thereafter before the bombs had started falling:
>Go to the world press, WITH DOCUMENTS, and reveal the truth. This is a
>global crisis; many, many individuals in many countries could do more than
>has been done to avert it, if they are willing to risk or sacrifice their
>own careers to do so. They might save a war's worth of lives, and avert a
>downward worldwide spiral. This applies above all to averting a first-use of
>nuclear weapons, under any circumstances whatever: by the US, Israel, UK
>(whose soldiers will also be at risk in Iraq), Pakistan, India, Al Qaeda
>(far more likely to acquire nuclear weapons—the worst possible prospect—from
>Russia's inadequately-guarded hoards, or from Pakistan or even North
>Korea-than from Iraq, UNLESS Iraq is attacked!), or from any other nuclear
>weapons state, currently or in the future.
>
>With or without first-use in this conflict, I fear that an attack on Iraq
>will spur other nations into acquiring nuclear weapons for deterrence in the
>future. In the guise of averting proliferation in Iraq, this bullying attack
>by the world's preeminent nuclear power will accelerate proliferation
>dramatically. (It may already have had that effect in North Korea). The
>black market price for Russian (or Pakistani, or North Korean) nuclear
>materials or, better, operational nuclear weapons, will skyrocket. If a
>market and international trade in such materials and weapons does not
>develop in response to this, then the assumptions underlying the theory of
>markets and free trade need radical overhaul.
>
>7. "How great is the danger Hussein poses?"
>
>Answered above, in question 1. In sum: unattacked: negligible (externally);
>attacked: great.
>
>8. "How should he be dealt with?"
>
>I won't give a general answer to how the international community should
>"deal" with tyrannous, brutal regimes (such as China—to mention one
>permanent member of the Security Council—or Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan).
>Pre-emprive war is NOT the answer, any more than it was for the Soviet
>Union, though even that had its advocates, including some nut-cases who say
>now that that's what we should have done then.
>
>The inspection process, perhaps continued indefinitely, is quite reliable in
>preventing Iraq from developing nuclear weapons, even from proceeding with
>that development. That's certainly desirable, though not the highest
>priority in the world. Keeping al Qaeda from getting nuclear weapons is an
>infinitely higher priority, and attacking Saddam will make it much much more
>likely that this will come to pass. Keeping al Qaeda from getting nuclear
>material goes hand in hand with two other top security priorities for the
>US, safeguarding Russian weapons and materials, and ending the North Korean
>program by negotiation (in effect, meeting their not-unreasonable terms!)
>The Pakistani program and stockpile is also very dangerous in this respect.
>So: keep inspecting! And meanwhile, while the inspections keep coming up
>negative, end the sanctions on non-military imports entirely.
>
>One danger posed by the planned war against Iraq is not raised by your
>questions. The notion that a war against Iraq is any way part of a "war
>against terror" is a dangerous hoax. On the contrary: the war against Iraq
>inevitably conflicts with the supposed campaign against terrorism, to the
>point of virtually nullifying the latter. The inevitable spectacle of
>massive US and UK killing of Muslim civilians—and for that matter, draftees,
>defending against an aggressive invasion—will, I believe, mean surrendering
>to the prospect of endless, escalating stalemate (not unlike Vietnam, but
>with less prospect of an eventual end or lessening, and with much higher
>consequences for the US civilian population) in the "war on terrorism."
>
>This will happen for three reasons: 1) the number of recruits for suicide
>bombing against the US and its allies (including, possibly, Germany) will
>increase a hundredfold; 2) regimes with sizeable Muslim populations
>(including Indonesia, the Philippines, France and Germany, not only in the
>Middle East) will find it politically almost impossible to be seen
>collaborating with the US on the anti-terrorism intelligence and police
>operations that are essential to lessening the terrorist threat (to which
>Saddam Hussein is not even contributing); 3) Iraq, under attack (and
>conceivably segments of the Pakistani Army) will finally share directly with
>Al Qaeda and others a capability for "weapons of mass destruction."
>
>The only prospect of avoiding all of these effects, or minimizing them, is
>if the most wishful hopes of the warhawks are all realized, and the war
>really is very quick; and, what is most unlikely, this would have to
>preclude not only any city-fighting, but any sizeable killing of Iraqis.
>That's not impossible. But the likely military plans will probably be
>designed to minimize US and UK military casualties, with heavy air
>bombardment (possibly from high altitudes), and that points toward heavy
>Iraqi casualties, military and civilian, even if there is an inclination of
>the Iraqi military to defect early. Thus, the price of this reckless policy
>is likely to be measured in civilian lives in America and its allied
>homelands, as well as in lives of innocent Iraqis. We should not, must not,
>imitate US (and Israeli Likud) policy in answering terrorism with terrorism,
>nor seek to prevent terroristic aggression with terrorism. On the other
>hand, no non-violent measures of opposition could come too soon, or be too
>"extreme," if they held any prospect—at whatever personal or institutional
>costs—of averting the disastrous risks of this war.
From jafujii@uci.edu Sun Jan 26 00:35:11 2003
From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii)
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 16:35:11 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Daggers out as Davos turns on U.S.
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030125163502.01d790f8@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
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Globe and Mail Saturday, January 25, 2003
Daggers out as Davos turns on U.S.
Washington flayed at Swiss summit for its Iraq policies and role in world
By ALAN FREEMAN
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND -- Harsh criticism of U.S. policy over Iraq and heated
discussion about the United States' role as the world's only superpower
dominated the normally polite seminars of the World Economic Forum
yesterday.
Again and again, world leaders and other participants in the prestigious
five-day talk shop criticized U.S. plans to topple the regime of Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein and they charged the United States with hypocrisy
for its policies on human rights and refusing to sign international
treaties.
It was a dramatic change in the tone of the forum, which has been dominated
in the past by U.S. chief executives, academics and Washington
policy-makers, and whose sessions frequently were used to tout U.S.
solutions to world problems.
Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized Washington for maintaining
its own stock of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons while insisting
that Iraq must stop its development of weapons of mass destruction.
"No one is interested in eliminating their weapons of mass destruction," Mr.
Erdogan said. "I mean all the countries in the world, the U.S. included.
"When you talk about WMD, you cannot [distinguish] between small and large
states."
Earlier, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad warned U.S.
Attorney-General John Ashcroft during a debate that, "if you do start [a war
against Iraq] you will kill a lot of innocent people. You are going to make
a lot of people very angry, certainly a lot of Muslim people."
The Bush administration was also charged repeatedly with fomenting racism by
singling out people from Middle Eastern countries or with dark complexions
for extra screening at airports and border points as part of its campaign
against terrorism.
These kinds of criticisms were too much for Senator Joe Biden, a Democrat
who is frequently critical of U.S. President George W. Bush but clearly
resented repeated criticism of the United States, especially from Europeans.
"I understand why the resentment exists," he told a forum session on U.S.
foreign policy.
But he added: "We are not as bad as you make us out to be and in comparison
with your own country we're pretty damn good."
Although he said his own views on civil liberties were diametrically opposed
to those of the Bush administration, he lashed out at the French and Germans
for thinking they were a model of how Americans should behave.
"Tell me about the acceptance of your French Arab brothers in France," he
said sarcastically.
Mr. Biden also said that if the United States had not decided to intervene
in Bosnia in the mid-1990s, the Europeans would never have stepped in to
stop the genocide.
"All I'm asking for is balance," the senator said. "I'm sick and tired of
the lectures."
Mr. Biden agreed that the United States had to work on its image abroad and
its policies. "But I don't think that anybody likes the big guy on the
block, ever."
Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School
of Public Administration, said Washington exacerbates the problem by
constantly reminding others that it is the world's only superpower.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that what the
United States needed was "better behaviour" rather than "a better sales
job."
He said that he could not understand the Bush administration's attitude on
many international issues, including its recent vote against a UN resolution
that called on countries involved in the battle against terrorism to respect
human rights.
"People want a leadership role from America," he said.
In his appearance with Mr. Mahathir, Mr. Ashcroft clashed with fellow
panelists on several occasions.
He took particular exception to a statement from the moderator that "one
man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
"I respectfully disagree with the idea that these terrorists should be
endowed with the dignity of freedom fighters," Mr. Ashcroft said. "Frankly,
they're fighting freedom."
He said that the Sept. 11 terrorists hated freedom and did not want women to
take an equal place in society.
"I'm not willing to say that in order to avoid terrorism we have to give up
values that are fundamental and downplay them to appease the terrorists,"
Mr. Ashcroft said.
Klaus Schwab, founder of the forum, said he wasn't shocked by the sometimes
anti-American tone of the discussions.
"We cannot hide away different opinions," he said, expressing the hope that
it would create more mutual understanding between Americans and the rest of
the world.
--=====================_750639==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
Globe and Mail
Daggers out as Davos turns on U.S.
Washington flayed at Swiss summit for its Iraq policies and role in
world
By ALAN FREEMAN
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND -- Harsh criticism of U.S. policy over Iraq and
heated
discussion about the United States' role as the world's only
superpower
dominated the normally polite seminars of the World Economic Forum
yesterday.
Again and again, world leaders and other participants in the
prestigious
five-day talk shop criticized U.S. plans to topple the regime of
Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein and they charged the United States with
hypocrisy
for its policies on human rights and refusing to sign international
treaties.
It was a dramatic change in the tone of the forum, which has been
dominated
in the past by U.S. chief executives, academics and Washington
policy-makers, and whose sessions frequently were used to tout U.S.
solutions to world problems.
Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized Washington for
maintaining
its own stock of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons while
insisting
that Iraq must stop its development of weapons of mass
destruction.
"No one is interested in eliminating their weapons of mass
destruction," Mr.
Erdogan said. "I mean all the countries in the world, the U.S.
included.
"When you talk about WMD, you cannot [distinguish] between small and
large
states."
Earlier, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad warned U.S.
Attorney-General John Ashcroft during a debate that, "if you do
start [a war
against Iraq] you will kill a lot of innocent people. You are going to
make
a lot of people very angry, certainly a lot of Muslim
people."
The Bush administration was also charged repeatedly with fomenting racism
by
singling out people from Middle Eastern countries or with dark
complexions
for extra screening at airports and border points as part of its
campaign
against terrorism.
These kinds of criticisms were too much for Senator Joe Biden, a
Democrat
who is frequently critical of U.S. President George W. Bush but
clearly
resented repeated criticism of the United States, especially from
Europeans.
"I understand why the resentment exists," he told a forum
session on U.S.
foreign policy.
But he added: "We are not as bad as you make us out to be and in
comparison
with your own country we're pretty damn good."
Although he said his own views on civil liberties were diametrically
opposed
to those of the Bush administration, he lashed out at the French and
Germans
for thinking they were a model of how Americans should behave.
"Tell me about the acceptance of your French Arab brothers in
France," he
said sarcastically.
Mr. Biden also said that if the United States had not decided to
intervene
in Bosnia in the mid-1990s, the Europeans would never have stepped in
to
stop the genocide.
"All I'm asking for is balance," the senator said. "I'm
sick and tired of
the lectures."
Mr. Biden agreed that the United States had to work on its image abroad
and
its policies. "But I don't think that anybody likes the big guy on
the
block, ever."
Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson
School
of Public Administration, said Washington exacerbates the problem
by
constantly reminding others that it is the world's only
superpower.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that what
the
United States needed was "better behaviour" rather than "a
better sales
job."
He said that he could not understand the Bush administration's attitude
on
many international issues, including its recent vote against a UN
resolution
that called on countries involved in the battle against terrorism to
respect
human rights.
"People want a leadership role from America," he
said.
In his appearance with Mr. Mahathir, Mr. Ashcroft clashed with
fellow
panelists on several occasions.
He took particular exception to a statement from the moderator that
"one
man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
"I respectfully disagree with the idea that these terrorists should
be
endowed with the dignity of freedom fighters," Mr. Ashcroft said.
"Frankly,
they're fighting freedom."
He said that the Sept. 11 terrorists hated freedom and did not want women
to
take an equal place in society.
"I'm not willing to say that in order to avoid terrorism we have to
give up
values that are fundamental and downplay them to appease the
terrorists,"
Mr. Ashcroft said.
Klaus Schwab, founder of the forum, said he wasn't shocked by the
sometimes
anti-American tone of the discussions.
"We cannot hide away different opinions," he said, expressing
the hope that
it would create more mutual understanding between Americans and the rest
of
the world.
--=====================_750639==_.ALT--
From jafujii@uci.edu Mon Jan 27 01:52:58 2003
From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii)
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 17:52:58 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] The Japanese Model for Iraq Revisited
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030126175227.01e59d80@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
--=====================_29920012==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
H-JAPAN
January 26, 2003
Subject: The Japanese Model for Iraq Revisited
The Japanese Model for Iraq Revisited
In both Japan and the U.S., significant discussion of the U.S.
invasion of Iraq has pivoted on the analogy of the U.S. occupation of
Japan. As David Sanger and James Dao report on the basis of high
level off the record interviews in the January 6, New York
Times: "Though Mr. Bush came to office expressing distaste for
using the military for what he called nation building, the Pentagon
is preparing for at least a year and a half of military control of
Iraq, with forces that would keep the peace, hunt down Mr. Hussein's
top leaders and weapons of mass destruction and, in the words of one
of Mr. Bush's senior advisers, "keep the country whole."
A civilian administrator - perhaps designated by the United
Nations - would run the country's economy, rebuild its schools and
political institutions, and administer aid programs. Placing those
powers in nonmilitary hands, administration officials hope, will
quell Arab concerns that a military commander would wield the kind of
unchallenged authority that Gen. Douglas MacArthur exercised as
supreme commander in Japan.
The administration plan says, "Government elements closely
identified with Saddam's regime, such as the revolutionary courts or
the special security organization, will be eliminated, but much of
the rest of the government will be reformed and kept."
While publicly saying Iraqi oil would remain what one senior
official calls "the patrimony of the Iraqi people," the
administration is debating how to protect oil fields during the
conflict and how an occupied Iraq would be represented in the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, if at all. . . .
Administration officials insist American forces would not stay in
Iraq a day longer than is necessary to stabilize the country.
"I don't think we're talking about months," one of Mr.
Bush's top advisers said of the planned occupation. "But I don't
think we're talking a lot of years, either."
On January 24, 2003, a group of Japanese and international
specialists on the U.S. occupation of Japan held a press conference
at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo to challenge the Bush
administration's premises with respect to the Japanese occupation
analogy and the logic of invasion. Their statement follows.
U.S. PLANS FOR WAR AND OCCUPATION IN IRAQ ARE A HISTORICAL MISTAKE
An Urgent Appeal from Students of the Allied Occupation of Japan
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has
announced plans to occupy Iraq, following "pre-emptive"
military strikes, based on the so-called Japanese model--the
post-World War II Allied occupation of Japan. As students of the
Japanese occupation, we protest this reckless and self-serving
misreading of history and strongly urge the U.S. government to
reconsider its ill-conceived project of war and occupation.
A careful look at the Japanese example suggests many reasons why that
experience is inapplicable to U.S. plans for a post-invasion Iraq.
The occupation of Japan (1945-52) derived its legitimacy from a
broad Allied consensus, as expressed in the Potsdam Proclamation,
issued by Britain and the United States on July 26, 1945. Emperor
Hirohito and the Japanese government agreed to accept the Potsdam
terms, surrender unconditionally, and dismantle the Imperial armed
forces. As a result, during the six years and eight months of the
Allied presence, there were no armed clashes or serious incidents
between American military forces and the Japanese people. The
occupation was able to proceed peacefully and in a spirit of relative
good will.
The Allied army of occupation relied on a staff composed largely
of American civilian administrators who induced democratic reform by
working indirectly through already existing governmental institutions
and agencies. As a result, the emperor, the Japanese government, and
the people cooperated in demilitarizing and democratizing the
country.
The framework proposed for a post-invasion Iraq is radically
different. There is no broad legal or moral consensus for the Bush
administration's Iraq project, which is opposed by world opinion and
by most of America's close allies. An occupation probably would be
carried out unilaterally by U.S. armed forces acting solely on
Washington's authority. It is difficult to imagine Saddam Hussein
doing a volte face and cooperating with the occupying power, as did
Emperor Hirohito. Indeed, that is why President Bush is determined to
overthrow the Iraqi dictator. The destruction of Hussein's
government, however, may also preclude the possibility of a peaceful
occupation.
Japan's Asian neighbors, victims of Japanese wartime aggression,
supported the Allied occupation. Some, such as China and the
Philippines, also participated in the Far Eastern Commission, the
Allied policy-making body for post-defeat Japan. Iraq's neighbors are
Muslim societies sharing a common Islamic culture and history. They
are strongly against American plans to topple Saddam Hussein and
replace his government with a pro-Western regime and will oppose even
more fiercely the presence of a large non-Muslim garrison force.
Moreover, a U.S. occupation may further inflame the Palestinian
problem, making peace in the Middle East difficult, if not
impossible, to attain.
If U.S. plans for Iraq bear no resemblance to the Japanese
example, why, then, does the Bush administration persist in such a
spurious comparison? The Allied occupation of Japan not only reformed
the nation's political institutions, insuring the rapid transition
from militarism to democracy, but revitalized the economy, laying the
foundation for Japan's emergence as an industrial superpower. At the
same time, however, it subordinated the new political system and
Japan's foreign policy to U.S. strategic interests in Asia,
producing, after the return of sovereignty, a long-term
"subordinate independence." This appears to be the real
significance of the Bush administration's disingenuous effort to
resurrect the "Japanese model." The current U.S. occupation
project, as conveyed by the media, appears to be a cynical attempt to
justify Washington's bellicose Iraq policy and promote its
post-invasion plans for the region.
The success of an American military occupation in Iraq is highly
problematic. In Japan, the reform program moved ahead relatively
smoothly due to a prewar democratic tradition, the absence of armed
conflict, the maintenance of internal social order, and the survival
of governing institutions, including the emperor. Iraq does not have
a similar history of democratic governance. U.S. plans to kill or
overthrow Saddam Hussein and place top Iraqi leaders on trial could
lead to protracted fighting and internal disorder. Even Iraqis who
hate Hussein may not welcome the destruction of their political and
social institutions. In a worst-case scenario, the American attack is
expected to kill or maim hundreds of thousands of civilians, ruin the
economy, and disrupt food delivery, health services, and sanitation.
Far from "democratizing" Iraq, U.S. military rule most
likely will intensify tribal, ethnic, and religious conflicts. Lack
of popular support and wartime control under conditions of
belligerency will necessitate continuing authoritarian governance.
Moreover, the Pentagon has recommended the use of nuclear arms
against Iraq in a battlefield emergency. Contingency plans for the
use of weapons of mass destruction mock any suggestion of legitimacy
for a "pre-emptive" war and occupation and further erode
America's claims to moral authority. Remembering Japan's experience
of atomic holocaust, we deplore such thinking in the strongest
possible terms.
An occupation of Iraq seems destined to fail for another reason.
Whereas Japan possessed few natural resources, Iraq has the world's
second largest proven reserves of petroleum. Iraqis may well conclude
that the U.S. invasion and occupation are designed mainly to gain
unrestricted access to their oil fields. Few are likely to
collaborate with an occupation authority that is believed to covet
this prime resource for its own use.
American occupying forces will encounter yet another obstacle. U.S.
policy planning for postwar Japan began three years before the
defeat. Thousands of Americans studied Japan's history and language
and, in the last year of the war, underwent intensive training in
civil administration. The occupation succeeded due in part to the
detailed knowledge these administrative experts acquired about
Japan's social and political institutions and culture. There is no
evidence that the United States is now preparing a similar group of
experts or developing comparable post-invasion policies consonant
with Iraq's history, political system, and culture.
Another striking difference is the preponderant role played by
General Douglas MacArthur in effecting a positive outcome. The
charismatic Allied Supreme Commander had an understanding of Japan's
history and cultural traditions. He earned the respect of ordinary
people, enabling him to wield enormous civil authority effectively
and implement liberal reforms quickly. MacArthur also attempted to
propagate Christianity in hopes that Japan would become a Christian
nation, but not even he was able to challenge traditional religious
beliefs. Despite MacArthur's best efforts, the small Christian
community failed to grow during the occupation.
We see no military figure of comparable moral or intellectual
stature in the United States today. With or without such an
individual, however, it is absurd to imagine that an American
military occupation can, in a short period of time, win the
confidence and cooperation of the Iraqi people, bridge ethnic and
religious differences, overhaul their national institutions, and
bring about a change in thinking based on American political values
and ideological beliefs.
Japan has a special obligation to warn its American ally against
such folly. Yet, instead of offering wise counsel, the Japanese
government is at work on a new law that will skirt the Constitution's
war-renouncing Article 9 and send Self-Defense Forces to provide
"humanitarian support" for American soldiers and sailors in
the Persian Gulf. We call on the Japanese people and their elected
representatives to remember Japan's own tragic experience of war and
occupation and to decide for themselves the most appropriate way to
assist the Iraqi people.
If history is not to repeat itself, we who have lived through
the horrors of this "century of war" have a moral duty to
transmit its painful lessons to those who inherit the new century.
As students of the Japanese occupation, we believe that the Bush
administration's plans for war and occupation in Iraq are a
historical mistake and strongly urge the United States to seek a
peaceful solution to the present crisis.
January 24, 2003
AWAYA Kentaro (Professor, St. Paul's University, Japan)
Hans H. BAERWALD (former Occupation official, Professor Emeritus,
UCLA, U.S.)
Herbert P. BIX (Professor, Binghamton University, U.S.)
Bruce CUMINGS (Professor, University of Chicago, U.S.)
John W. DOWER (Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
U.S.)
Norma FIELD (Professor, University of Chicago, U.S.)
FURUKAWA Atsushi (Professor, Senshu University, Japan)
Andrew GORDON (Professor, Harvard University, U.S.)
Laura E. HEIN (Professor, Northwestern University, U.S.)
Glenn D. HOOK (University of Sheffield, U.K.)
HOSOYA Masahiro (Professor, Doshisha University, Japan)
KOSEKI Shoichi (Professor, Dokkyo University, Japan)
J. Victor KOSCHMANN (Professor, Cornell University, U.S.)
C. Douglas LUMMIS (Political scientist and writer, Okinawa, Japan)
Gavan McCORMACK (Professor, Australian National University, Australia)
Richard M. MINEAR (Professor, University of Massachusetts, U.S.)
MIYAGI Etsujiro (Professor Emeritus, Ryukyu University, Japan)
Michael MOLASKY (Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, U.S.)
Joe B. MOORE (Professor, University of Victoria, Canada)
NAKAMURA Masanori (Professor Emeritus, Hitotsubashi University, Japan)
Robert RICKETTS (Professor, Wako University, Japan)
Mark SELDEN (Professor, Binghamton University, U.S.)
SODEI Rinjiro (Professor Emeritus, Hosei University, Japan)
TAKEMAE Eiji (Professor Emeritus, Tokyo Keizai University, Japan)
TANAKA Toshiyuki (Professor, Hiroshima Peace Research Institute, Japan)
TOYOSHITA Narahiko (Professor, Kansei Gakuin University, Japan)
YUI Daizaburo (Professor, Tokyo University, Japan)
Mark Selden
ms44@cornell.edu
********************************************************
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SEND MAIL TO
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Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
H-JAPAN
January 26, 2003
Subject: The Japanese Model for Iraq Revisited
The Japanese Model for Iraq Revisited
In both Japan and the U.S., significant discussion of the U.S.
invasion of Iraq has pivoted on the analogy of the U.S. occupation
of
Japan. As David Sanger and James Dao report on the basis of high
level off the record interviews in the January 6, New York
Times: "Though Mr. Bush came to office expressing distaste for
using the military for what he called nation building, the Pentagon
is preparing for at least a year and a half of military control of
Iraq, with forces that would keep the peace, hunt down Mr.
Hussein's
top leaders and weapons of mass destruction and, in the words of
one
of Mr. Bush's senior advisers, "keep the country
whole."
A civilian administrator - perhaps designated by the United
Nations - would run the country's economy, rebuild its schools and
political institutions, and administer aid programs. Placing those
powers in nonmilitary hands, administration officials hope, will
quell Arab concerns that a military commander would wield the kind
of
unchallenged authority that Gen. Douglas MacArthur exercised as
supreme commander in Japan.
The administration plan says, "Government elements closely
identified with Saddam's regime, such as the revolutionary courts
or
the special security organization, will be eliminated, but much of
the rest of the government will be reformed and kept."
While publicly saying Iraqi oil would remain what one senior
official calls "the patrimony of the Iraqi people," the
administration is debating how to protect oil fields during the
conflict and how an occupied Iraq would be represented in the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, if at all. . . .
Administration officials insist American forces would not stay in
Iraq a day longer than is necessary to stabilize the country.
"I don't think we're talking about months," one of Mr.
Bush's top advisers said of the planned occupation. "But I
don't
think we're talking a lot of years, either."
On January 24, 2003, a group of Japanese and international
specialists on the U.S. occupation of Japan held a press conference
at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo to challenge the Bush
administration's premises with respect to the Japanese occupation
analogy and the logic of invasion. Their statement follows.
U.S. PLANS FOR WAR AND OCCUPATION IN IRAQ ARE A HISTORICAL MISTAKE
An Urgent Appeal from Students of the Allied Occupation of
Japan
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has
announced plans to occupy Iraq, following "pre-emptive"
military strikes, based on the so-called Japanese model--the
post-World War II Allied occupation of Japan. As students of the
Japanese occupation, we protest this reckless and self-serving
misreading of history and strongly urge the U.S. government to
reconsider its ill-conceived project of war and occupation.
A careful look at the Japanese example suggests many reasons why
that
experience is inapplicable to U.S. plans for a post-invasion
Iraq.
The occupation of Japan (1945-52) derived its legitimacy from a
broad Allied consensus, as expressed in the Potsdam Proclamation,
issued by Britain and the United States on July 26, 1945. Emperor
Hirohito and the Japanese government agreed to accept the Potsdam
terms, surrender unconditionally, and dismantle the Imperial armed
forces. As a result, during the six years and eight months of the
Allied presence, there were no armed clashes or serious incidents
between American military forces and the Japanese people. The
occupation was able to proceed peacefully and in a spirit of
relative
good will.
The Allied army of occupation relied on a staff composed largely
of American civilian administrators who induced democratic reform
by
working indirectly through already existing governmental
institutions
and agencies. As a result, the emperor, the Japanese government,
and
the people cooperated in demilitarizing and democratizing the
country.
The framework proposed for a post-invasion Iraq is radically
different. There is no broad legal or moral consensus for the Bush
administration's Iraq project, which is opposed by world opinion
and
by most of America's close allies. An occupation probably would be
carried out unilaterally by U.S. armed forces acting solely on
Washington's authority. It is difficult to imagine Saddam Hussein
doing a volte face and cooperating with the occupying power, as did
Emperor Hirohito. Indeed, that is why President Bush is determined
to
overthrow the Iraqi dictator. The destruction of Hussein's
government, however, may also preclude the possibility of a
peaceful
occupation.
Japan's Asian neighbors, victims of Japanese wartime aggression,
supported the Allied occupation. Some, such as China and the
Philippines, also participated in the Far Eastern Commission, the
Allied policy-making body for post-defeat Japan. Iraq's neighbors
are
Muslim societies sharing a common Islamic culture and history. They
are strongly against American plans to topple Saddam Hussein and
replace his government with a pro-Western regime and will oppose
even
more fiercely the presence of a large non-Muslim garrison force.
Moreover, a U.S. occupation may further inflame the Palestinian
problem, making peace in the Middle East difficult, if not
impossible, to attain.
If U.S. plans for Iraq bear no resemblance to the Japanese
example, why, then, does the Bush administration persist in such a
spurious comparison? The Allied occupation of Japan not only
reformed
the nation's political institutions, insuring the rapid transition
from militarism to democracy, but revitalized the economy, laying
the
foundation for Japan's emergence as an industrial superpower. At
the
same time, however, it subordinated the new political system and
Japan's foreign policy to U.S. strategic interests in Asia,
producing, after the return of sovereignty, a long-term
"subordinate independence." This appears to be the real
significance of the Bush administration's disingenuous effort to
resurrect the "Japanese model." The current U.S.
occupation
project, as conveyed by the media, appears to be a cynical attempt
to
justify Washington's bellicose Iraq policy and promote its
post-invasion plans for the region.
The success of an American military occupation in Iraq is highly
problematic. In Japan, the reform program moved ahead relatively
smoothly due to a prewar democratic tradition, the absence of armed
conflict, the maintenance of internal social order, and the
survival
of governing institutions, including the emperor. Iraq does not
have
a similar history of democratic governance. U.S. plans to kill or
overthrow Saddam Hussein and place top Iraqi leaders on trial could
lead to protracted fighting and internal disorder. Even Iraqis who
hate Hussein may not welcome the destruction of their political and
social institutions. In a worst-case scenario, the American attack
is
expected to kill or maim hundreds of thousands of civilians, ruin
the
economy, and disrupt food delivery, health services, and
sanitation.
Far from "democratizing" Iraq, U.S. military rule
most
likely will intensify tribal, ethnic, and religious conflicts. Lack
of popular support and wartime control under conditions of
belligerency will necessitate continuing authoritarian
governance.
Moreover, the Pentagon has recommended the use of nuclear arms
against Iraq in a battlefield emergency. Contingency plans for the
use of weapons of mass destruction mock any suggestion of
legitimacy
for a "pre-emptive" war and occupation and further
erode
America's claims to moral authority. Remembering Japan's experience
of atomic holocaust, we deplore such thinking in the strongest
possible terms.
An occupation of Iraq seems destined to fail for another reason.
Whereas Japan possessed few natural resources, Iraq has the world's
second largest proven reserves of petroleum. Iraqis may well
conclude
that the U.S. invasion and occupation are designed mainly to gain
unrestricted access to their oil fields. Few are likely to
collaborate with an occupation authority that is believed to covet
this prime resource for its own use.
American occupying forces will encounter yet another obstacle. U.S.
policy planning for postwar Japan began three years before the
defeat. Thousands of Americans studied Japan's history and language
and, in the last year of the war, underwent intensive training in
civil administration. The occupation succeeded due in part to the
detailed knowledge these administrative experts acquired about
Japan's social and political institutions and culture. There is no
evidence that the United States is now preparing a similar group of
experts or developing comparable post-invasion policies consonant
with Iraq's history, political system, and culture.
Another striking difference is the preponderant role played by
General Douglas MacArthur in effecting a positive outcome. The
charismatic Allied Supreme Commander had an understanding of
Japan's
history and cultural traditions. He earned the respect of ordinary
people, enabling him to wield enormous civil authority effectively
and implement liberal reforms quickly. MacArthur also attempted to
propagate Christianity in hopes that Japan would become a Christian
nation, but not even he was able to challenge traditional religious
beliefs. Despite MacArthur's best efforts, the small Christian
community failed to grow during the occupation.
We see no military figure of comparable moral or intellectual
stature in the United States today. With or without such an
individual, however, it is absurd to imagine that an American
military occupation can, in a short period of time, win the
confidence and cooperation of the Iraqi people, bridge ethnic and
religious differences, overhaul their national institutions, and
bring about a change in thinking based on American political values
and ideological beliefs.
Japan has a special obligation to warn its American ally against
such folly. Yet, instead of offering wise counsel, the Japanese
government is at work on a new law that will skirt the
Constitution's
war-renouncing Article 9 and send Self-Defense Forces to provide
"humanitarian support" for American soldiers and
sailors in
the Persian Gulf. We call on the Japanese people and their elected
representatives to remember Japan's own tragic experience of war
and
occupation and to decide for themselves the most appropriate way to
assist the Iraqi people.
If history is not to repeat itself, we who have lived through
the horrors of this "century of war" have a moral duty to
transmit its painful lessons to those who inherit the new
century.
As students of the Japanese occupation, we believe that the Bush
administration's plans for war and occupation in Iraq are a
historical mistake and strongly urge the United States to seek a
peaceful solution to the present crisis.
January 24, 2003
AWAYA Kentaro (Professor, St. Paul's University, Japan)
Hans H. BAERWALD (former Occupation official, Professor Emeritus,
UCLA, U.S.)
Herbert P. BIX (Professor, Binghamton University, U.S.)
Bruce CUMINGS (Professor, University of Chicago, U.S.)
John W. DOWER (Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
U.S.)
Norma FIELD (Professor, University of Chicago, U.S.)
FURUKAWA Atsushi (Professor, Senshu University, Japan)
Andrew GORDON (Professor, Harvard University, U.S.)
Laura E. HEIN (Professor, Northwestern University, U.S.)
Glenn D. HOOK (University of Sheffield, U.K.)
HOSOYA Masahiro (Professor, Doshisha University, Japan)
KOSEKI Shoichi (Professor, Dokkyo University, Japan)
J. Victor KOSCHMANN (Professor, Cornell University, U.S.)
C. Douglas LUMMIS (Political scientist and writer, Okinawa, Japan)
Gavan McCORMACK (Professor, Australian National University,
Australia)
Richard M. MINEAR (Professor, University of Massachusetts, U.S.)
MIYAGI Etsujiro (Professor Emeritus, Ryukyu University, Japan)
Michael MOLASKY (Associate Professor, University of Minnesota,
U.S.)
Joe B. MOORE (Professor, University of Victoria, Canada)
NAKAMURA Masanori (Professor Emeritus, Hitotsubashi University,
Japan)
Robert RICKETTS (Professor, Wako University, Japan)
Mark SELDEN (Professor, Binghamton University, U.S.)
SODEI Rinjiro (Professor Emeritus, Hosei University, Japan)
TAKEMAE Eiji (Professor Emeritus, Tokyo Keizai University, Japan)
TANAKA Toshiyuki (Professor, Hiroshima Peace Research Institute,
Japan)
TOYOSHITA Narahiko (Professor, Kansei Gakuin University, Japan)
YUI Daizaburo (Professor, Tokyo University, Japan)
Mark Selden
ms44@cornell.edu
********************************************************
TO POST A
MESSAGE TO THE H-JAPAN LIST
SEND MAIL TO
h-japan@h-net.msu.edu
********************************************************
--=====================_29920012==_.ALT--
From jafujii@uci.edu Mon Jan 27 15:35:14 2003
From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii)
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 07:35:14 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Fwd: Film tonight at Whittier LS (Costa Mesa)
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030127073412.01e73f10@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
--=====================_79256114==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Dear Friends,
This is very short notice and I apologize, but sometimes I don't even know
about our events much in advance. Tonight, our student chapter of the
Guild is showing "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" at 4:30 at the school, and
open to the public.
No RSVP required, popcorn (fancy) and drinks will provided, and event and
parking are free. Just show up at 4:30 pm in Room 7. Make sure to
exchange the parking ticket you'll get at the gate for a token (ask one of
us).
Film Showing: "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm"
Whittier School of Law
3333 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa (right off the 405, exit Harbor north, across
from AAA and near the LA Times bldg) -- right after So. Coast Dr. on left
TODAY, JAN 27th
4:30 pm sharp (really, several of us have class immediately afterwards)
ROOM 7
Event and parking are free.
A documentary film basing itself on documents never seen before on
television and backed by interviews of such prominent personalities as
Desert Storm Commander General Norman Schwarzkopf, former US Attorney
General Ramsey Clark, former UN Iraq Program Director Denis Halliday,
former UNSCOM team-leader Scott Ritter and many others. Grand-Prize winner
at the 2000 Cine Eco International Film Festival in Seia,
Portugal. 'Hidden Wars' emerges as an uncommonly sober, well researched
film of its type.' --- The New York Times.
--=====================_79256114==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
Dear Friends,
This is very short notice and I apologize, but sometimes I don't even
know about our events much in advance. Tonight, our student chapter
of the Guild is showing "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" at 4:30
at the school, and open to the public.
No RSVP required, popcorn (fancy) and drinks will provided, and event and
parking are free. Just show up at 4:30 pm in Room 7. Make
sure to exchange the parking ticket you'll get at the gate for a token
(ask one of us).
Film Showing: "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm"
Whittier School of Law
3333 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa (right off the 405, exit Harbor north,
across from AAA and near the LA Times bldg) -- right after
So. Coast Dr. on left
TODAY, JAN 27th
4:30 pm sharp (really, several of us have class immediately afterwards)
ROOM 7
Event and parking are free.
A documentary film basing itself on documents never seen before on
television and backed by interviews of such prominent personalities as
Desert Storm Commander General Norman Schwarzkopf, former US Attorney
General Ramsey Clark, former UN Iraq Program Director Denis Halliday,
former UNSCOM team-leader Scott Ritter and many others. Grand-Prize
winner at the 2000 Cine Eco International Film Festival in Seia,
Portugal. 'Hidden Wars' emerges as an uncommonly sober, well
researched film of its type.' --- The New York Times.
--=====================_79256114==_.ALT--
From dtsang@falco.kuci.uci.edu Mon Jan 27 22:31:04 2003
From: dtsang@falco.kuci.uci.edu (Dan Tsang)
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 14:31:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] [Subv] Howard Zinn et al on Anti-war Movement (fwd)
Message-ID:
ZNet | Iraq
The USA Is At War
by Eduardo Galeano; January 14, 2003
Translation. coorditrad@attac.org volunteer translators (*)
Times of fear.
The world is living in a state of terror, terror in disguise: some say
it
comes from Saddam Hussein, now tired of being enemy number one, or
from
Osama bin Ladin, professional fear merchant.
The real cause of this planetary panic is called the Market. This
individual
has nothing to do with your friendly local grocers where you're used
to
picking your fruit and vegetables up. This is a faceless
all-powerful
all-present terrorist acting as god, and just like god, the Market
thinks
it's eternal. Its many disciples cry, "the Market is nervous"
and warn,
"don't upset the Market".
The criminal record of this Market strikes fear into the hearts of many.
It
has spent its entire life robbing food, destroying jobs, holding
countries
hostage and starting wars.
To sell war, the Market spreads fear.
And fear spreads fear. The twin towers of New York collapse daily on
our
television screens. What happened to the anthrax scare? Not only was
an
official investigation launched finding little or nothing out about
these
mortal letters, but the military debt of the United States went up
spectacularly. The amounts spent by this country on its war machine
make
chins drop. Barely one and a half months spending would allow the
entire
world to be fed, if we can trust the figures of the United Nations.
Every time the Market says go, the dangerometer jumps into the red zone
and
all suspicions become reality. Wars kill in the name of prevention
and
doubt, proof not needed. This time it's Iraq's turn, condemned once
again.
It's a simple equation: Iraq contains the second largest reserve of
petrol
in the world, just what the Market needs for the fuel needs of a
spendthrift
consumer society.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the scariest of them all?
The world powers monopolise arms of massive destruction as their
natural
right. Whilst America was being conquered, whilst this global market
was
just emerging, small pox and influenza were killing far more local
populations than swords or guns. The successful European invasion had a
lot
to thank for bacterium and viruses. Centuries later, these natural
allies
have become a means of destruction in the hands of world powers. A
handful
of countries control the world's biological arsenal. Mere decades ago,
the
United States allowed Saddam Hussein to launch biological weapons
against
the Kurds. At the time Saddam Hussein was the pet of the Western world
and
the Kurds weren't liked. These weapons were produced with ceps
purchased
from a company in Rockville, Maryland, U.S.A.
In military terms, as in any terms, the Market calls for liberalisation,
but
not for everybody. Supply remains in the hands of a mere few, in the name
of
global security. Saddam Hussein scares people. The world is scared. A
great
threat planes: Iraq could use bacteriological weapons or, much more
serious,
he may have nuclear weapons. The human race cannot allow this danger
to
exist, claims the President of the only country in the world to have
used
nuclear weapons on civilians. Was it Iraq that killed the elderly, women
and
children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Just take a look at the new millennium: populations wonder whether they
will
eat tomorrow or if they will have a roof over their heads, how will
they
survive if they fall ill or have an accident? Populations ask if they
will
still have a job tomorrow, if they will have to work twice today's hours
or
if their pension will be destroyed by the foibles of the stock market or
the
gremlins in inflation? Town dwellers fear attacks either tomorrow or at
the
street corner, will their homes be robbed or their throats cut?
Country
dwellers hope to keep their land another day and fishermen are not
sure
whether they will find uncontaminated rivers and seas tomorrow.
Individuals
and countries don't know how they will pay their debts multiplied
by
profiteers tomorrow.
Is all this the work of Al Qaeda?
The economy makes assassinations that don't appear in the newspapers:
12
children die of hunger every minute. In the terrorist organisation of
the
world, protected by military power, a thousand million people suffer
from
chronic hunger and six hundred million people are overweight.
Strong
economy, low standard of living: Ecuador and El Salvador have adopted
the
dollar as their national currency, but their populations are fleeing.
Never
has so much poverty and emigration been seen in these countries. The sale
of
human meat abroad creates disturbance, sadness and divides. In 2001,
the
people of Ecuador obliged to seek work elsewhere sent more money back
home
than the amount of exports in bananas, shrimp, tuna, coffee and cacao.
Uruguay and Argentina are excluding their young men. Emigrants,
grandchildren of immigrants, turn their backs on destroyed families
and
memories that hurt "Doctor, my soul hurts": which hospital has
the cure
please? En Argentina, a television show allows watchers to win a top
prize:
a job. The waiting lists are eternal. The program chooses candidates and
the
public votes. The candidate spilling enough tears to make the public
cry
wins. Sony Pictures is selling the successful program throughout the
world.
Which job? Whatever. How much? you'll see.
The desperation of those looking for work and the fear of losing the job
you
have forces people to accept the unacceptable. Throughout the world
the
"WalMart model" exists. The number one company in the United
States forbids
Unions and expects overtime without expecting to pay for it. The
Market
exports the lucrative system. The worse the state of the national
economy,
the easier it is to turn labour rights into dust. Other rights fly out
the
window on the way to top it off. The seeds of chaos bear order as
fruit.
Poverty and boredom spread delinquency, leading to panic and providing
a
breeding ground for the worst. Argentine soldiers, which are well up
on
crime, are being asked to combat crime: come and save us from
delinquency
cries out Carlos Menem, civil servant on the Market, who knows a lot
about
delinquency due to extensive experience as President.
Low costs, high profits, no control: a tanker carrying oil splits in
half
spilling a deadly black mass into the sea aiming straight for the coast
of
Galicia and beyond.
The most profitable commerce in the world leads to fortune and
"natural"
disasters. The toxic gases produced by petrol are the main cause of
climate
change and the hole in the ozone. This hole is roughly the size of
the
United States. In Ethiopia and other African countries drought has let
to
millions of people suffering from the worst famine in the last twenty
years
whilst Germany and other countries in Europe have been hit by the
worst
floods in the last fifty years. Petrol also causes wars. Poor Iraq.
Brecha, Uruguay, December 2002.
--=====================_118650600==_.ALT--
From gggonzal@uci.edu Tue Jan 28 01:24:11 2003
From: gggonzal@uci.edu (Gilbert G. Gonzalez)
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:24:11 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Fwd: Playing hide-and-seek with Saddam (fwd)
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030127172358.021ed4f8@pop.uci.edu>
>
>Subject: Playing hide-and-seek with Saddam
>
>http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=371877
>
>The Independent 23 January 2003
>
>Playing hide-and-seek with Saddam
>
>Mark Steel
>
>Has anything ever been such a complete waste of time as these weapons
>inspections? Does anyone believe that Bush might announce, "Well, we've
>looked absolutely everywhere and fair's fair, there's nothing there. I
>didn't think Saddam had it in him to scrap the lot, but it just shows what
>even the worst of us can achieve when we really try. So thank you to all the
>frigates and airborne divisions and tens of thousands of ground troops and
>forces in Kuwait and battalions of strategists in the Pentagon, but you can
>all go home."
>
>Blair admitted how pointless the inspections are when he justified military
>action by saying "The inspections can't go on forever." Which seems to miss
>out the point that the reason the inspectors are asking for more time is
>they haven't found anything. So another way for Blair to have put this would
>have been to say, "Saddam continues to try and hold up this war by not
>having weapons of mass destruction, and that is something we simply cannot
>allow. He consistently flouts the inspectors by not having a secret cave
>full of chemical warheads, with Tariq Aziz laughing loudly next to a giant
>map with a ring drawn round Chicago while a digital clock counts down, and
>that is, frankly, intolerable."
>
>Blair went on to say he wasn't prepared to play "hide-and-seek" with Saddam,
>which again assumes the only possible reason why stuff hasn't been found is
>Saddam must be hiding it. You could apply this to anywhere and come up with
>a reason for war. After Iraq, Blair could send weapons inspectors into the
>Blue Peter Garden, and after six weeks announce that as no nuclear devices
>have been found, the only way to ensure peace was a full-scale invasion.
>Then, when the presenters started running round the studio with rifles and
>shouting "We're ready to make you die," Blair could say "See, it's working
>because they're rattled."
>
>Admittedly the inspectors did find something, that pile of shells under the
>floorboards, but they can't be planning to launch war on account of those.
>I'm no expert on military hardware, but don't weapons lose a good deal of
>their potency once they're empty? Or are we going to have a war against
>packaging of mass destruction? Even then, the inspectors checked to see
>whether they'd been recently emptied of chemical weapons, as if the Iraqi
>army is like a group of students at a party when the police arrive. Every
>now and then a general shouts, "Hey, shut up everyone, it's Hans Blix.
>Quick, flush all your gear down the toilet." Then everyone opens the windows
>and desperately blows to clear away the smell of anthrax.
>
>Whatever the inspectors turn up, even if it's nothing, it will be deemed
>enough to go to war. Saddam might as well have had a laugh with them. When
>they found the shells, he should have said, "Oh there they are, we've been
>looking all over the place for them. Hang on, there's a couple missing."
>
>The march to this war has been relentless ever since the twin towers were
>knocked over. Not that Iraq had anything to do with that, but it created the
>perfect environment for the US military to do what they wanted to do anyway.
>As such, the war is unjustified whether or not it gets backing from the
>United Nations. I can see why many people are attracted to the idea that the
>conflict should be placed under the authority of the UN Security Council, as
>a brake on Bush and Blair, but adding Vladimir Putin's signature would be a
>highly limited brake. It would be like someone in the East End of London in
>the Sixties saying they would only support the Krays giving someone a
>knee-capping if they also got the backing of Mad Frankie Fraser.
>
>A headline in The Financial Times recently stated "Putin demands share of
>post-Saddam oil", which suggests his support can be bought if needed, and
>most world leaders can be bribed or bullied into line if necessary. Imagine
>the uproar if a trade union held votes in the manner of the UN, and members
>who'd voted for strike action received a $4bn loan package and were given
>backing to bombard Chechnya.
>
>Bush and Blair agreed to take the war to the UN and to send in weapons
>inspectors because of pressure from the genuine obstacle to their
>warmongering: a worldwide mass movement. But since then international
>opposition has continued to grow, as countless people dispute whether any
>good can come from ever-increasing US domination of the planet.
>
>The question now is how much of that opposition becomes active opposition.
>The Pentagon can probably ignore passive opposition - Donald Rumsfeld is
>hardly likely to call off his plans because millions of people are watching
>the news going "Tut, isn't it dreadful." But he will be concerned on 15
>February, when globally co-ordinated demonstrations will result in the
>greatest ever number of demonstrators around the planet on one day in all
>history. Which means as a day out it offers the unique opportunity of
>preserving your sanity and saving the planet in one short walk.
From gggonzal@uci.edu Tue Jan 28 01:21:03 2003
From: gggonzal@uci.edu (Gilbert G. Gonzalez)
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:21:03 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Fwd: The USA Is At War - Eduardo Galeano (fwd)
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030127172051.02262220@pop.uci.edu>
>
>Subject: The USA Is At War - Eduardo Galeano
>
>http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=2868
>
>ZNet | Iraq
>
>The USA Is At War
>
>by Eduardo Galeano; January 14, 2003
>
>Translation. coorditrad@attac.org volunteer translators (*)
>
>Times of fear.
>
>The world is living in a state of terror, terror in disguise: some say it
>comes from Saddam Hussein, now tired of being enemy number one, or from
>Osama bin Ladin, professional fear merchant.
>
>The real cause of this planetary panic is called the Market. This individual
>has nothing to do with your friendly local grocers where you're used to
>picking your fruit and vegetables up. This is a faceless all-powerful
>all-present terrorist acting as god, and just like god, the Market thinks
>it's eternal. Its many disciples cry, "the Market is nervous" and warn,
>"don't upset the Market".
>
>The criminal record of this Market strikes fear into the hearts of many. It
>has spent its entire life robbing food, destroying jobs, holding countries
>hostage and starting wars.
>
>To sell war, the Market spreads fear.
>
>And fear spreads fear. The twin towers of New York collapse daily on our
>television screens. What happened to the anthrax scare? Not only was an
>official investigation launched finding little or nothing out about these
>mortal letters, but the military debt of the United States went up
>spectacularly. The amounts spent by this country on its war machine make
>chins drop. Barely one and a half months spending would allow the entire
>world to be fed, if we can trust the figures of the United Nations.
>
>Every time the Market says go, the dangerometer jumps into the red zone and
>all suspicions become reality. Wars kill in the name of prevention and
>doubt, proof not needed. This time it's Iraq's turn, condemned once again.
>It's a simple equation: Iraq contains the second largest reserve of petrol
>in the world, just what the Market needs for the fuel needs of a spendthrift
>consumer society.
>
>Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the scariest of them all?
>
>The world powers monopolise arms of massive destruction as their natural
>right. Whilst America was being conquered, whilst this global market was
>just emerging, small pox and influenza were killing far more local
>populations than swords or guns. The successful European invasion had a lot
>to thank for bacterium and viruses. Centuries later, these natural allies
>have become a means of destruction in the hands of world powers. A handful
>of countries control the world's biological arsenal. Mere decades ago, the
>United States allowed Saddam Hussein to launch biological weapons against
>the Kurds. At the time Saddam Hussein was the pet of the Western world and
>the Kurds weren't liked. These weapons were produced with ceps purchased
>from a company in Rockville, Maryland, U.S.A.
>
>In military terms, as in any terms, the Market calls for liberalisation, but
>not for everybody. Supply remains in the hands of a mere few, in the name of
>global security. Saddam Hussein scares people. The world is scared. A great
>threat planes: Iraq could use bacteriological weapons or, much more serious,
>he may have nuclear weapons. The human race cannot allow this danger to
>exist, claims the President of the only country in the world to have used
>nuclear weapons on civilians. Was it Iraq that killed the elderly, women and
>children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
>
>Just take a look at the new millennium: populations wonder whether they will
>eat tomorrow or if they will have a roof over their heads, how will they
>survive if they fall ill or have an accident? Populations ask if they will
>still have a job tomorrow, if they will have to work twice today's hours or
>if their pension will be destroyed by the foibles of the stock market or the
>gremlins in inflation? Town dwellers fear attacks either tomorrow or at the
>street corner, will their homes be robbed or their throats cut? Country
>dwellers hope to keep their land another day and fishermen are not sure
>whether they will find uncontaminated rivers and seas tomorrow. Individuals
>and countries don't know how they will pay their debts multiplied by
>profiteers tomorrow.
>
>Is all this the work of Al Qaeda?
>
>The economy makes assassinations that don't appear in the newspapers: 12
>children die of hunger every minute. In the terrorist organisation of the
>world, protected by military power, a thousand million people suffer from
>chronic hunger and six hundred million people are overweight. Strong
>economy, low standard of living: Ecuador and El Salvador have adopted the
>dollar as their national currency, but their populations are fleeing. Never
>has so much poverty and emigration been seen in these countries. The sale of
>human meat abroad creates disturbance, sadness and divides. In 2001, the
>people of Ecuador obliged to seek work elsewhere sent more money back home
>than the amount of exports in bananas, shrimp, tuna, coffee and cacao.
>
>Uruguay and Argentina are excluding their young men. Emigrants,
>grandchildren of immigrants, turn their backs on destroyed families and
>memories that hurt "Doctor, my soul hurts": which hospital has the cure
>please? En Argentina, a television show allows watchers to win a top prize:
>a job. The waiting lists are eternal. The program chooses candidates and the
>public votes. The candidate spilling enough tears to make the public cry
>wins. Sony Pictures is selling the successful program throughout the world.
>
>
>Which job? Whatever. How much? you'll see.
>
>The desperation of those looking for work and the fear of losing the job you
>have forces people to accept the unacceptable. Throughout the world the
>"WalMart model" exists. The number one company in the United States forbids
>Unions and expects overtime without expecting to pay for it. The Market
>exports the lucrative system. The worse the state of the national economy,
>the easier it is to turn labour rights into dust. Other rights fly out the
>window on the way to top it off. The seeds of chaos bear order as fruit.
>Poverty and boredom spread delinquency, leading to panic and providing a
>breeding ground for the worst. Argentine soldiers, which are well up on
>crime, are being asked to combat crime: come and save us from delinquency
>cries out Carlos Menem, civil servant on the Market, who knows a lot about
>delinquency due to extensive experience as President.
>
>Low costs, high profits, no control: a tanker carrying oil splits in half
>spilling a deadly black mass into the sea aiming straight for the coast of
>Galicia and beyond.
>
>The most profitable commerce in the world leads to fortune and "natural"
>disasters. The toxic gases produced by petrol are the main cause of climate
>change and the hole in the ozone. This hole is roughly the size of the
>United States. In Ethiopia and other African countries drought has let to
>millions of people suffering from the worst famine in the last twenty years
>whilst Germany and other countries in Europe have been hit by the worst
>floods in the last fifty years. Petrol also causes wars. Poor Iraq.
>
>Brecha, Uruguay, December 2002.
From gggonzal@uci.edu Tue Jan 28 01:18:50 2003
From: gggonzal@uci.edu (Gilbert G. Gonzalez)
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:18:50 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Fwd: US churches are preparing for civil disobedience against
war (fwd)
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030127171838.021cb090@pop.uci.edu>
>
>Subject: US churches are preparing for civil disobedience against war
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,881282,00.html
>
>Guardian January 24, 2003
>
>The spirit of Martin Luther King
>
>US churches are preparing for civil disobedience against war
>
>Giles Fraser
>
>Designated a place of prayer "for national purposes", Washington National
>Cathedral is as close as church and state get in the US. It was here, three
>days after 9/11, that an emotional president rose into the pulpit and
>declared war. As the Battle Hymn of the Republic rang out, Bush initiated
>his crusade to "rid the world of evil".
>
>This week, to celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday, bishops and church
>leaders from across the theological spectrum met to claim the cathedral back
>for the Christian priorities of peace and non-violence. The symbolism was
>unmistakable. For it was from this same pulpit, a few days before his
>assassination, that Dr King delivered his last sermon: "It is no longer a
>choice, my friends, between violence and non-violence. It is either
>non-violence or non-existence. This is why I felt the need of raising my
>voice against that war and working wherever I can to arouse the conscience
>of our nation."
>
>Dr King's opposition to the war in Vietnam won him few friends. Former
>allies said that a perceived lack of patriotism would damage the whole civil
>rights movement. The churches were also slow to follow him in opposing the
>war. But it's not like that this time and, with the exception of the
>Southern Baptists, all the major denominations are on board. After a weekend
>that saw the largest anti-war demonstration in Washington since Vietnam, a
>packed cathedral of more than 3,500 spilled out on to Massachusetts Avenue.
>Stopping for prayers outside Dick Cheney's residence, then outside the
>British Embassy, the congregation marched towards the White House, where the
>Bishop of Washington led a candlelit vigil for peace. Police looked on
>bemused.
>
>What is remarkable about the coalition of churches opposing war with Iraq is
>how broad their political sympathies are. It is not just the left that is
>making the noise. Take Peter Gomes, Baptist minister, Plummer professor of
>morals at Harvard, and die-hard Republican. He gave the blessing at Reagan's
>second inauguration and preached at George Bush Senior's inauguration
>service. Here is Gomes in a recent sermon: "I demand a better excuse than
>revenge or oil for the prosecution of a war that is likely to do more harm
>than good, that will destabilise not only the region but also the world for
>years to come, and that will confirm ... our country's reputation as an
>irrational and undisciplined bully."
>
>The senior Anglican bishop in the US, Frank Griswold, put it stronger still:
>"We are loathed, and I think the world has every right to loathe us, because
>they see us as greedy, self-interested and ... unconcerned about poverty,
>disease and suffering."
>
>In the 16th Street Foundry United Methodist Church, the preacher invoked Dr
>King's memory to draw another unflattering contrast with Bush. For, whereas
>Dr King fought discrimination, Bush has attacked affirmative action, in
>particular the racially weighted admissions policy of the University of
>Michigan. Here, Bush finds himself on the other side of the argument to
>Colin Powell, who is "a strong believer in affirmative action". Dr King's
>memory is challenging Bush in two areas of increasing vulnerability - race
>and war. No wonder one headline spoke of Bush "straining at credibility" as
>he appeared in a church to proclaim Dr King "a great American".
>
>Bush, himself a Methodist, cannot remain deaf to a faith community so united
>in its opposition to war. Until 9/11, the faith-based initiative was the
>signature issue of his presidency. As Bush has insisted, the government can
>only sign the cheques; it cannot change hearts or lives. Hence his
>commitment to fund faith-based social welfare schemes. But this is as far as
>his faith takes him, for his theology is one of self-help; his God the God
>who helped him kick the booze.
>
>Speakers at the cathedral urged him to expand his theological horizons. "We
>appeal to President Bush, to a fellow brother in Christ, to win this battle
>without war, to transform our swords into ploughshares and, yes, to
>persevere in disarming the world of weapons of mass destruction, including
>our own - but without the killing of more innocents." Jim Wallis of the
>Washington-based Sojourners movement concluded: "Mr President, what we need
>from you is a faith-based initiative."
>
>So far, this has been all very friendly. But if Bush were to choose war
>there is talk of churches planning for civil disobedience. Again, Dr King is
>invoked as justification and precedent. As he put it in April 1967: "If we
>do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful
>corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion,
>might without morality, and strength without sight."
>
>· The Rev Dr Giles Fraser is the vicar of Putney and lecturer in philosophy
>at Wadham College, Oxford
From jafujii@uci.edu Tue Jan 28 18:29:51 2003
From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii)
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:29:51 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] EDWARD SAID: When will we resist?
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20030128102915.01b1d688@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
--=====================_1185484==.ALT
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Subject: [freeiraq] EDWARD SAID: When will we resist? (a MUST read)
When will we resist?
Edward Said: The US is preparing to attack the Arab world, while the Arabs
whimper in submission
Saturday January 25, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,881869,00.html
One opens the New York Times on a daily basis to read the most recent
article about the preparations for war that are taking place in the United
States. Another battalion, one more set of aircraft carriers and cruisers,
an ever-increasing number of aircraft, new contingents of officers are
being moved to the Persian Gulf area. An enormous, deliberately
intimidating force is being built up by America overseas, while inside the
country, economic and social ba! d news multiply with a joint
relentlessness.
The huge capitalist machine seems to be faltering, even as it grinds down
the vast majority of citizens. None the less, George Bush proposes another
large tax cut for the 1% of the population that is comparatively rich. The
public education system is in crisis and health insurance for 50 million
Americans simply does not exist. Israel asks for $15bn in additional loan
guarantees and military aid. And the unemployment rates in the US mount
inexorably, as more jobs are lost every day.
Nevertheless, preparations for an unimaginably costly war continue without
either public approval or, at least until very recently, dramatically
noticeable disapproval. A generalised indifference among the majority of
the population (which may conceal great overall fear, ignorance and
apprehension) has greeted the administration's warmongering and its
strangely ineffective response to the challenge forced o! n it recently by
North Korea. In the case of Iraq, with no weapons of mass destruction to
speak of, the US plans a war; in the case of North Korea, it offers
economic and energy aid. What a humiliating difference between contempt
for the Arabs and respect for North Korea, an equally grim and cruel
dictatorship.
In the Arab and Muslim worlds, the situation appears more peculiar. For
almost a year American politicians, regional experts, administration
officials and journalists have repeated the charges that have become
standard fare so far as Islam and the Arabs are concerned. Most of this
predates September 11. To today's practically unanimous chorus has been
added the authority of the UN human development report on the Arab world,
which certified that Arabs dramatically lag behind the rest of the world
in democracy, knowledge and women's rights.
Everyone says (with some justification, of course) that Islam needs reform
and! that the Arab educational system is a disaster - in effect, a school
for religious fanatics and suicide bombers funded not just by crazy imams
and their wealthy followers (such as Osama bin Laden) but also by
governments who are the supposed allies of the US.
The only "good" Arabs are those who appear in the media decrying modern
Arab culture and society without reservation. I recall the lifeless
cadences of their sentences for, with nothing positive to say about
themselves or their people and language, they simply regurgitate the tired
American formulas already flooding the airwaves and pages of print. We
lack democracy, they say, we haven't challenged Islam enough, we need to
do more about driving away the spectre of Arab nationalism and the credo
of Arab unity. That is all discredited, ideological rubbish. Only what we
and our American instructors say about the Arabs and Islam - vague,
recycled Orientalist clich=E9s repeated by ti! reless mediocrities such as
Bernard Lewis - are true, they insist. The rest isn't realistic or
pragmatic enough. "We" need to join modernity - modernity in effect being
western, globalised, free marketed, democratic, whatever those words might
be taken to mean. There would be an essay to be written about the prose
style of licensed academics like Fuad Ajami, Fawwaz Gerges, Kanan Makiya,
Shibli Talhami, Mamoon Fandy, whose very language reeks of subservience,
inauthenticity and the hopelessly stilted mimicry that has been thrust
upon them.
The clash of civilisations that George Bush and his minions are trying to
fabricate as a cover for a pre-emptive oil and hegemony war against Iraq
is supposed to result in a triumph of democratic nation-building, regime
change and forcible modernisation =E0 l'Am=E9ricaine. Never mind the bombs=
and
the ravages of the sanctions, which are unmentioned. This will be a
purifying war whose goal is to thro! w out Saddam and his men and replace
them with a redrawn map of the whole region. New Sykes Picot. New Balfour.
New Wilsonian 14 points. New world altogether. Iraqis, we are told by the
Iraqi dissidents, will welcome their liberation, and perhaps forget
entirely about their past sufferings. Perhaps.
Meanwhile, the soul-and-body destroying situation in Palestine worsens all
the time. There seems no force capable of stopping Ariel Sharon and his
defence minister Shaul Mofaz, who bellow their defiance to the whole
world. We forbid, we punish, we ban, we break, we destroy. The torrent of
unbroken violence against an entire people continues.
As I write these lines, I am sent an announcement that the village of
Al-Daba' in the Qalqilya area of the West Bank is about to be wiped out by
60-tonne American-made Israeli bulldozers: 250 Palestinians will lose
their 42 houses, 700 dunums of agricultural land, a mosque and an
elementary sc! hool for 132 children. The UN stands by, looking on as its
resolutions are flouted on an hourly basis. Alas, George Bush identifies
with Sharon, not with the 16-year-old Palestinian kid who is used as a
human shield by Israeli soldiers.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority offers a return to peacemaking and,
presumably, to Oslo. Having been burned for 10 years, Arafat seems
inexplicably to want to have another go at it. His faithful lieutenants
make declarations and write opinion pieces for the press, suggesting their
willingness to accept anything, more or less. Remarkably, though, the
great mass of this heroic people seems willing to go on, without peace and
without respite, bleeding, going hungry, dying day by day. They have too
much dignity and confidence in the justice of their cause to submit
shamefully to Israel, as their leaders have done. What could be more
discouraging for the average Gazan who goes on resisting Israelioccupation=
=20
than to see his or her leaders kneel as supplicants before the
Americans?
In this entire panorama of desolation, what catches the eye is the utter
passivity and helplessness of the Arab world as a whole. The American
government and its servants issue statement after statement of purpose,
they move troops and material, they transport tanks and destroyers, but
the Arabs individually and collectively can barely muster a bland refusal.
At most they say no, you cannot use military bases in our territory, only
to reverse themselves a few days later.
Why is there such silence and such astounding helplessness? The largest
power in history is about to launch a war against a sovereign Arab country
now ruled by a dreadful regime, the clear purpose of which is not only to
destroy the Ba'ath regime but to redesign the entire region. The Pentagon
has made no secret that its plans are to redraw the map of the whole Arab
world, p! erhaps changing other regimes and borders in the process. No one
can be shielded from the cataclysm if and when it comes. And yet, there is
only long silence followed by a few vague bleats of polite demurral in
response. Millions of people will be affected, yet America contemptuously
plans for their future without consulting them. Do we deserve such racist
derision?
This is not only unacceptable: it is impossible to believe. How can a
region of almost 300 million Arabs wait passively for the blows to fall
without attempting a collective roar of resistance? Has the Arab will
completely dissolved? Even a prisoner about to be executed usually has
some last words to pronounce. Why is there now no last testimonial to an
era of history, to a civilisation about to be crushed and transformed
utterly, to a society that, despite its drawbacks and weaknesses,
nevertheless goes on functioning?
Arab babies are born every hour, children go! to school, men and women
marry and work and have children, they play and laugh and eat, they are
sad, they suffer illness and death. There is love and companionship,
friendship and excitement. Yes, Arabs are repressed and misruled, terribly
misruled, but they manage to go on with the business of living despite
everything. This is the reality that both the Arab leaders and the US
ignore when they fling empty gestures at the so-called "Arab street"
invented by banal Orientalists.
Who is now asking the existential questions about our future as a people?
The task cannot be left to a cacophony of religious fanatics and
submissive, fatalistic sheep. But that seems to be the case. The Arab
governments - no, most of the Arab countries from top to bottom - sit back
in their seats and just wait as America postures, lines up, threatens and
ships out more soldiers and F-16s to deliver the punch. The silence is
deafening.
Years of sac! rifice and struggle, of bones broken in hundreds of prisons
and torture chambers from the Atlantic to the Gulf, families destroyed,
endless poverty and suffering. Huge, expensive armies. For what?
This is not a matter of party or ideology or faction: it's a matter of
what the great theologian Paul Tillich used to call ultimate seriousness.
Technology, modernisation and certainly globalisation are not the answer
for what threatens us as a people now. We have in our tradition an entire
body of secular and religious discourse that treats of beginnings and
endings, of life and death, of love and anger, of society and history.
This is there, but no voice, no individual with great vision and moral
authority seems able now to tap into that and bring it to attention.
We are on the eve of a catastrophe that our political, moral and religious
leaders can only just denounce a little bit while, behind whispers and
winks and closed doors, th! ey make plans somehow to ride out the storm.
They think of survival, and perhaps of heaven. But who is in charge of the
present, the worldly, the land, the water, the air and the lives dependent
on each other for existence? No one seems to be in charge.
There is a wonderful expression that very precisely and ironically catches
our unacceptable helplessness, our passivity and inability to help
ourselves now when our strength is most needed. The expression is: will
the last person to leave please turn out the lights? We are that close to
a kind of upheaval that will leave very little standing and perilously
little left even to record, except for the last injunction that begs for
extinction.
Hasn't the time come for us collectively to demand and formulate a
genuinely Arab alternative to the wreckage about to engulf our world? This
is not only a trivial matter of regime change, although God knows that we
can do with quite a bit o! f that. Surely it can't be a return to Oslo,
another offer to Israel to please accept our existence and let us live in
peace, another cringing, crawling, inaudible plea for mercy? Will no one
come out into the light of day to express a vision for our future that
isn't based on a script written by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz,
those two symbols of vacant power and overweening arrogance? I hope
someone is listening.
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--=====================_1185484==.ALT--
From info@war-times.org Tue Jan 28 18:23:59 2003
From: info@war-times.org (War Times)
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:23:59 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] UN Weapons Inspectors' report - a War Times Analysis
Message-ID: <20030128182359.ECEAA19634@m02.m1e.net>
*****************************************************************************************
Mark your calendars for the International Day of Action against war in Iraq: Saturday, February 15 in New York City and Sunday, February 16 in San Francisco!
*****************************************************************************************
Here are some comments from War Times' Hany Khalil about the UN weapons inspectors' report released yesterday, January 27, 2003. We hope you find them useful:
The media's spin on the inspectors' weapons report has focused very narrowly on the question of whether Iraq is cooperating with or lying to the inspectors. They're missing the main story, which is that they have no proof Iraq has those weapons in the first place. Here is another reading of the weapons inspectors report:
For months the Bush administration has claimed that Iraq possesses banned weapons of mass destruction and poses an imminent threat to the U.S. and its neighbors.
But in their reports to the U.N. Security Council on January 27, chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei confirmed that their teams had found no evidence that Iraq has any weapons of mass destruction or has revived prohibited weapons programs.
Mr. ElBaradei's report punched wide holes in Bush's case for war. Bush claims satellite photos reveal Iraq is rebuilding facilities used in nuclear arms production, but inspectors found no evidence of prohibited activity at those sites. Bush accuses Iraq of trying to buy aluminum tubes used in enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, but inspectors say the tubes can only be used in conventional rockets, not nuclear ones.[1]
According to ElBaradei, inspections were extremely effective at eliminating Iraq's nuclear weapons program in the 1990s. If allowed to continue, they would pose "an effective deterrent and insurance" against the resumption of such programs.[2]
Mr. Blix reported that weapons inspectors had found no hard evidence that Iraq has, or is developing, biological and chemical weapons either. He confirmed that, in accord with U.N. Resolution 1441, "access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect," but called upon Iraq to be more proactive in providing information.[3]
Notes:
[1] Michael R. Gordon and James Risen, "Findings of U.N. Group Undercut U.S. Assertion," New York Times January 28, 2003. "Nuclear Inspection Chief Reports Finding No New Weapons," New York Times January 28, 2003.
[2] "Nuclear Inspection Chief Reports Finding No New Weapons," New York Times January 28, 2003.
[3] "Report to the U.N. by the Chief Inspector for Biological and Chemical Arms," New York Times January 28, 2003.
****************************************************************************************
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From colorlines@arc.org Tue Jan 28 21:59:34 2003
From: colorlines@arc.org (colorlines@arc.org)
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 22:59:34 +0100
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] CTWO - Immediate Job Openings
Message-ID: <200301282159.h0SLxY430699@sylconia.com>
CTWO IMMEDIATE JOB OPENINGS__________________________________________
CENTER FOR THIRD WORLD ORGANIZING is seeking dynamic individuals who
wish to build a stronger movement for racial justice. CTWO promotes
racial justice ideas and campaigns with community organizations and
grassroots leaders by:
TRAINING the next generation of race conscious organizers of color.
BUILDING organizing capacity in communities of color that lead with race.
GENERATING public support for racial justice principles and policies.
The following staff positions are open until filled. Please send a resume
and writing sample to:
Mark Toney - CTWO - 1218 E. 21st Street - Oakland, CA 94606 - mtoney@ctwo.org
People of color, women, and LGBT persons are strongly encouraged to apply.
PROJECT COORDINATOR, Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program
For 16 years, MAAP has been the preeminent training school for young
organizers of color. The MAAP Coordinator is responsible for
recruiting participants and host organizations, coordinating weekend
long Community Action Trainings, as well as some curriculum
development and conducting trainings. The position also involves
fundraising and writing reports.
Qualifications: Applicant must have at least 2 years experience doing
social justice work. Ability to handle multiple tasks and prioritize
while maintaining attention to detail is preferred. Must have
excellent writing and verbal skills. Proficiency in Microsoft Word,
Excel, and Filemaker is a plus. Involves travel.
Salary range is $30-36,000/year plus generous benefits.
LEAD ORGANIZER, Grassroots Organizing for Welfare Leadership
The GROWL organizer will work closely with a national network of
community-based organizations developing actions and trainings around
welfare rights issues. The GROWL Coordinator will be responsible for
the recruitment of allies, organizing of gatherings, coordinating
state-level campaigns, research, fundraising and administrative
duties.
Qualifications: Applicant must have at least 5 years experience as an
organizer with a community or labor organization working directly with
low-income communities. Ability to deal with multiple tasks and
deadlines is helpful. Strong written and verbal communication skills a
must. Bilingual (Spanish/English) helpful. Travel will be required.
Salary range is $35,000-42,000/year plus generous benefits.
LEAD ORGANIZER, Alliance for Post-Prison Education, Advocacy and Leadership
APPEAL is a criminal justice/racial justice project that seeks to
develop organizing and leadership skills for people coming out of
prison in order to break down barriers to a full and dignified re-entry
into our communities. The APPEAL Lead Organizer is in charge of
strengthening community re-entry coalitions, coordinating research on
barriers to community re-entry, and developing leadership training
sessions for ex-prisoners.
Qualifications: Applicant must have at least 7 years experience as an
organizer with a community or labor organization working directly with
low-income communities. Experience supervising staff and crafting
organizing campaigns is required for this position. Strong written and
verbal communication skills a must. Bilingual (Spanish/English)
helpful. Involves travel.
Salary range is $38-44,000/year plus generous benefits.
Mark Toney - CTWO - 1218 E. 21st Street - Oakland, CA 94606 - mtoney@ctwo.org
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From jafujii@uci.edu Wed Jan 29 06:29:45 2003
From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii)
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 22:29:45 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Academy snubs fine Palestinian movie
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030128222927.01bac240@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
--=====================_1478195==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-01-23-muzher_x.htm
USA TODAY January 24, 2003
Academy snubs fine Palestinian movie
By Sherri Muzher
On Feb. 11, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will nominate
films for the Oscars. One highly acclaimed Palestinian film, which premiered
Jan. 17 in New York City, will not be considered, however. It seems that
Middle East politics has found its way into a ceremony committed to
recognizing excellence in filmmaking.
Divine Intervention, a comedy about the Israeli occupation, has captivated
critics and audiences, winning a special jury prize at the Cannes Film
Festival and best foreign film at the European Film Awards.
The film follows a Palestinian Jerusalemite filmmaker (director Elia
Suleiman) and his relationship with his Palestinian West Bank girlfriend.
Because she is not allowed into Jerusalem, their relationship consists of
meetings at a lot next to a checkpoint. The film, which demonstrates the
lunacy that has become everyday life for Palestinians, glosses up its
profound messages with comic relief, from the way the attractive
stiletto-heeled Palestinian struts past an Israeli checkpoint to the balloon
of Yasser Arafat's smiling face that freely floats from the occupied
territories into Israel.
The academy told the American distributor of Divine Intervention that it's
ineligible for Oscar considerations because ''Palestine'' is not a country
recognized by its rules. But the academy has accepted entries from Taiwan
and Hong Kong, and neither are states. Further, Palestine has had observer
status at the United Nations since 1974 and is recognized by more than 115
countries.
Sadly, the academy's refusal to consider Divine Intervention shows that it
is far from being an impartial, apolitical body. Although Hollywood is no
stranger to world events and free speech, controversy at the Oscars should
never include such censorship.
Of course, the brutality of Israel's occupation wouldn't dissipate if the
academy recognized a Palestinian film on its merits. But Palestinians should
be encouraged to use cinematography as a peaceful avenue to express their
sentiments.
''Cinema is the negation of the notion of nationalism,'' Suleiman told The
New York Times. ''Of course, if there's a denial of Palestinianism as a
cultural or national entity, then you fight for it. But, in fact, cinema is
yearning to cross those boundaries all the time.''
Unfortunately, the motion picture academy seems to feel otherwise.
Sherri Muzher is a media analyst in Mason, Mich.
--=====================_1478195==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-01-23-muzher_x.htm
USA TODAY January 24, 2003
Academy snubs fine Palestinian movie
By Sherri Muzher
On Feb. 11, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will
nominate
films for the Oscars. One highly acclaimed Palestinian film, which
premiered
Jan. 17 in New York City, will not be considered, however. It seems
that
Middle East politics has found its way into a ceremony committed to
recognizing excellence in filmmaking.
Divine Intervention, a comedy about the Israeli occupation, has
captivated
critics and audiences, winning a special jury prize at the Cannes
Film
Festival and best foreign film at the European Film Awards.
The film follows a Palestinian Jerusalemite filmmaker (director
Elia
Suleiman) and his relationship with his Palestinian West Bank
girlfriend.
Because she is not allowed into Jerusalem, their relationship consists
of
meetings at a lot next to a checkpoint. The film, which demonstrates
the
lunacy that has become everyday life for Palestinians, glosses up
its
profound messages with comic relief, from the way the attractive
stiletto-heeled Palestinian struts past an Israeli checkpoint to the
balloon
of Yasser Arafat's smiling face that freely floats from the
occupied
territories into Israel.
The academy told the American distributor of Divine Intervention that
it's
ineligible for Oscar considerations because ''Palestine'' is not a
country
recognized by its rules. But the academy has accepted entries from
Taiwan
and Hong Kong, and neither are states. Further, Palestine has had
observer
status at the United Nations since 1974 and is recognized by more than
115
countries.
Sadly, the academy's refusal to consider Divine Intervention shows that
it
is far from being an impartial, apolitical body. Although Hollywood is
no
stranger to world events and free speech, controversy at the Oscars
should
never include such censorship.
Of course, the brutality of Israel's occupation wouldn't dissipate if
the
academy recognized a Palestinian film on its merits. But Palestinians
should
be encouraged to use cinematography as a peaceful avenue to express
their
sentiments.
''Cinema is the negation of the notion of nationalism,'' Suleiman told
The
New York Times. ''Of course, if there's a denial of Palestinianism as
a
cultural or national entity, then you fight for it. But, in fact, cinema
is
yearning to cross those boundaries all the time.''
Unfortunately, the motion picture academy seems to feel otherwise.
Sherri Muzher is a media analyst in Mason, Mich.
--=====================_1478195==_.ALT--
From gggonzal@uci.edu Wed Jan 29 17:40:33 2003
From: gggonzal@uci.edu (Gilbert G. Gonzalez)
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 09:40:33 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Fwd: Gen. Schwarzkopf is skeptical about U.S. action in Iraq
(fwd)
Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20030129094009.023b44d0@pop.uci.edu>
>
>Subject: Gen. Schwarzkopf is skeptical about U.S. action in Iraq
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52450-2003Jan27.html
>
>Washington Post January 28, 2003
>
>Desert Caution
>
>Once 'Stormin' Norman,' Gen. Schwarzkopf is skeptical about U.S. action in
>Iraq
>
>By Thomas E. Ricks
>
>Tampa--Norman Schwarzkopf wants to give peace a chance.
>
>The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn't
>seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney,
>Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now.
>He thinks U.N. inspections are still the proper course to follow. He's
>worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the
>potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq.
>
>And don't get him started on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
>
>In fact, the hero of the last Gulf War sounds surprisingly like the man on
>the street when he discusses his ambivalence about the Bush administration's
>hawkish stance on ousting Saddam Hussein. He worries about the Iraqi leader,
>but would like to see some persuasive evidence of Iraq's alleged weapons
>programs.
>
>"The thought of Saddam Hussein with a sophisticated nuclear capability is a
>frightening thought, okay?" he says. "Now, having said that, I don't know
>what intelligence the U.S. government has. And before I can just stand up
>and say, 'Beyond a shadow of a doubt, we need to invade Iraq,' I guess I
>would like to have better information."
>
>He hasn't seen that yet, and so -- in sharp contrast to the Bush
>administration -- he supports letting the U.N. weapons inspectors drive the
>timetable: "I think it is very important for us to wait and see what the
>inspectors come up with, and hopefully they come up with something
>conclusive."
>
>This isn't just any retired officer speaking. Schwarzkopf is one of the
>nation's best-known military officers, with name recognition second only to
>his former boss, Secretary of State Powell. What's more, he is closely
>allied with the Bush family. He hunts with the first President Bush. He
>campaigned for the second, speaking on military issues at the 2000 GOP
>convention in Philadelphia and later stumping in Florida with Cheney, who
>was secretary of defense during the 1991 war.
>
>But he sees the world differently from those Gulf War colleagues. "It's
>obviously not a black-and-white situation over there" in the Mideast, he
>says. "I would just think that whatever path we take, we have to take it
>with a bit of prudence."
>
>So has he seen sufficient prudence in the actions of his old friends in the
>Bush administration? Again, he carefully withholds his endorsement. "I don't
>think I can give you an honest answer on that."
>
>Now 68, the general seems smaller and more soft-spoken than in his Riyadh
>heyday 12 years ago when he was "Stormin' Norman," the fatigues-clad
>martinet who intimidated subordinates and reporters alike. During last
>week's interview he sat at a small, round table in his skyscraper office,
>casually clad in slacks and a black polo shirt, the bland banks and hotels
>of Tampa's financial district spread out beyond him.
>
>His voice seems thinner than during those blustery, globally televised Gulf
>War briefings. He is limping from a recent knee operation. He sometimes
>stays home to nurse the swelling with a bag of frozen peas.
>
>He's had time to think. He likes the performance of Colin Powell -- chairman
>of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War, now secretary of state.
>"He's doing a wonderful job, I think," he says. But he is less impressed by
>Rumsfeld, whose briefings he has watched on television.
>
>"Candidly, I have gotten somewhat nervous at some of the pronouncements
>Rumsfeld has made," says Schwarzkopf.
>
>He contrasts Cheney's low profile as defense secretary during the Gulf War
>with Rumsfeld's frequent television appearances since Sept. 11, 2001. "He
>almost sometimes seems to be enjoying it." That, Schwarzkopf admonishes, is
>a sensation to be avoided when engaged in war.
>
>The general is a true son of the Army, where he served from 1956 to 1991,
>and some of his comments reflect the estrangement between that service and
>the current defense secretary. Some at the top of the Army see Rumsfeld and
>those around him as overly enamored of air power and high technology and
>insufficiently attentive to the brutal difficulties of ground combat.
>Schwarzkopf's comments reflect Pentagon scuttlebutt that Rumsfeld and his
>aides have brushed aside some of the Army's concerns.
>
>"The Rumsfeld thing . . . that's what comes up," when he calls old Army
>friends in the Pentagon, he says.
>
>"When he makes his comments, it appears that he disregards the Army,"
>Schwarzkopf says. "He gives the perception when he's on TV that he is the
>guy driving the train and everybody else better fall in line behind him --
>or else."
>
>That dismissive posture bothers Schwarzkopf because he thinks Rumsfeld and
>the people around him lack the background to make sound military judgments
>by themselves. He prefers the way Cheney operated during the Gulf War. "He
>didn't put himself in the position of being the decision-maker as far as
>tactics were concerned, as far as troop deployments, as far as missions were
>concerned."
>
>Rumsfeld, by contrast, worries him. "It's scary, okay?" he says. "Let's face
>it: There are guys at the Pentagon who have been involved in operational
>planning for their entire lives, okay? . . . And for this wisdom, acquired
>during many operations, wars, schools, for that just to be ignored, and in
>its place have somebody who doesn't have any of that training, is of
>concern."
>
>As a result, Schwarzkopf is skeptical that an invasion of Iraq would be as
>fast and simple as some seem to think. "I have picked up vibes that . . .
>you're going to have this massive strike with massed weaponry, and basically
>that's going to be it, and we just clean up the battlefield after that," he
>says. But, he adds, he is more comfortable now with what he hears about the
>war plan than he was several months ago, when there was talk of an assault
>built around air power and a few thousand Special Operations troops.
>
>He expresses even more concern about the task the U.S. military might face
>after a victory. "What is postwar Iraq going to look like, with the Kurds
>and the Sunnis and the Shiites? That's a huge question, to my mind. It
>really should be part of the overall campaign plan."
>
>(Rumsfeld said last week that post-Saddam planning "is a tough question and
>we're spending a lot of time on it, let me assure you." But the Pentagon
>hasn't disclosed how long it expects to have to occupy Iraq, or how many
>troops might be required to do that.)
>
>The administration may be discussing the issue behind closed doors,
>Schwarzkopf says, but he thinks it hasn't sufficiently explained its
>thinking to the world, especially its assessment of the time, people and
>money needed. "I would hope that we have in place the adequate resources to
>become an army of occupation," he warns, "because you're going to walk into
>chaos."
>
>The Result of a Bad Ending?
>
>Just as the Gulf War looks less conclusive in retrospect, so has
>Schwarzkopf's reputation diminished since the glory days just after the war,
>when, Rick Atkinson wrote in "Crusade," Schwarzkopf "seemed ubiquitous,
>appearing at the Kentucky Derby, at the Indianapolis 500, on Capitol Hill,
>in parades, on bubblegum cards."
>
>Twelve years and two American presidents later, Saddam Hussein is still in
>power, and the U.S. military is once again mustering to strike Iraq.
>
>Some strategic thinkers, both inside the military and in academia, see
>Schwarzkopf's past actions as part of the problem. These experts argue that
>if the 1991 war had been terminated more thoughtfully, the U.S. military
>wouldn't have to go back again to finish the job.
>
>"Everyone was so busy celebrating the end of the Vietnam syndrome that we
>forgot how winners win a war," says one Gulf War veteran who asked that his
>name not be used because he hopes to work in the administration.
>
>Schwarzkopf in particular draws fire for approving a cease-fire that
>permitted the Iraqi military to fly helicopters after the war. Soon
>afterward, Iraqi helicopter gunships were used to put down revolts against
>Hussein in the Shiite south and the Kurdish north of Iraq. Only later were
>"no-fly zones" established to help protect those minority populations.
>
>"It's quite clear that however brilliant operationally and technologically,
>the Gulf War cannot be viewed strategically as a complete success," says
>Michael Vickers, a former Special Forces officer who is now an analyst for
>the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense think tank.
>
>Added one Pentagon expert on Iraq, "With benefit of hindsight, the victory
>was incomplete, and the luster of the entire operation has faded."
>
>When Army colonels study the Gulf War at the Army War College nowadays,
>notes one professor there, "a big part of the class is discussing war
>termination."
>
>For all that, few experts contend that Schwarzkopf is really the one to
>blame for the way the Gulf War ended. "Insofar as Gulf War 1 didn't finish
>the job, blame is more likely and appropriately laid on Bush 41 and, to a
>somewhat lesser extent, on Colin Powell," says John Allen Williams, a
>political scientist who specializes in military affairs at Loyola University
>Chicago.
>
>Schwarzkopf himself doesn't entirely disagree with the view that the war was
>ended badly. "You can't help but sit here today and, with 20/20 hindsight,
>go back and say, 'Look, had we done something different, we probably
>wouldn't be facing what we are facing today.' "
>
>But, he continues, Washington never instructed him to invade Iraq or oust
>Saddam Hussein. "My mission, plain and simple, was kick Iraq out of Kuwait.
>Period. There were never any other orders." Given the information available
>back then, the decision to stop the war with Saddam Hussein still in power
>was, he says, "probably was the only decision that could have been made at
>that time."
>
>'Tell It Like It Is'
>
>Schwarzkopf was never as lionized in military circles as he was by the
>general public. Like a rock star, he shuns commercial air travel mainly
>because he can barely walk through an airport without being besieged by
>autograph seekers and well-wishers. But his reputation inside the Army has
>"always been a bit different from the outside view," notes retired Army Col.
>Richard H. Sinnreich, who frequently participates in war games and other
>military training sessions.
>
>Sinnreich doesn't think that many in the armed forces blame Schwarzkopf for
>the inconclusive ending of the Gulf War. "I know of no Army officer, active
>or retired, who holds such a view," he says. "The decision to suspend
>offensive operations clearly was a political decision that I suspect the
>relevant principals now profoundly regret, even if they're loath to admit
>it."
>
>But what did sour some in the Army on Schwarzkopf, says Sinnreich, was his
>"rather ungracious treatment of his Gulf War subordinates."
>
>Schwarzkopf raised eyebrows across the Army when, in his Gulf War memoir, he
>denounced one of his generals, Frederick Franks, for allegedly moving his
>7th Corps in a "plodding and overly cautious" manner during the attack on
>the Iraqi military. He elaborated on that criticism in subsequent rounds of
>interviews. This public disparagement of a former subordinate rankled some
>in the Army, which even more than the other services likes to keep its
>internal disputes private.
>
>"I think his attack on Franks was wrong," says Army Maj. Donald Vandergriff,
>in a typical comment.
>
>"It wasn't meant to be an attack on Fred Franks," Schwarzkopf responds in
>the interview. Rather, he says, he was trying to provide an honest
>assessment, in the tradition of the Army's practice of conducting brutally
>accurate "after-action reviews." "No matter how painful it is, [when] you do
>your after-action review, tell it like it is."
>
>The other behavior that bothered some was Schwarzkopf's virtual absence from
>the Army after the Gulf War. Many retired generals make almost a full-time
>job of working with the Army -- giving speeches at West Point and at the
>Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., visiting bases to mentor up-and-coming
>officers, sitting on Pentagon advisory boards, writing commentaries in
>military journals.
>
>"The fact that Schwarzkopf . . . did not make himself available to speak to
>the many, many Army audiences anxious to listen to him won him no friends in
>the Army," notes retired Army Brig. Gen. John Mountcastle.
>
>Adds Earl H. Tilford Jr., a former director of research at the War College's
>Strategic Studies Institute: "You never saw him at Carlisle, never."
>
>Likewise, a professor at West Point recalls repeatedly being brushed off by
>Schwarzkopf's office.
>
>Schwarzkopf says he avoided those circles for good reason. After the Gulf
>War, he says, he decided to take a low profile within the Army because he
>didn't want to step on the toes of the service's post-Gulf War leaders.
>There were sensitivities about overshadowing those generals, he says,
>especially after word leaked that he had been considered for the post of
>Army chief of staff but had declined the position.
>
>Seeing that "open wound," he says, "I purposely distanced myself for a
>reasonable time."
>
>The Army War College's location in rural Pennsylvania makes it difficult to
>reach from his home in the Tampa area, he says. And he notes that he has
>done much other work behind the scenes on behalf of the Army, including
>meeting with presidential candidate Bush to lobby him on military readiness
>issues.
>
>He also has been busy with nonmilitary charities. After a bout with prostate
>cancer in 1994, he threw himself into helping cancer research; no fewer than
>10 groups that fight cancer or conduct other medical research have given him
>awards in recent years.
>
>No More Heroes?
>
>Perhaps the real reason that Schwarzkopf's reputation has shrunk has more to
>do with America and less to do with Schwarzkopf's actions. American wars
>used to produce heroes such as Washington, Grant and Eisenhower, whose names
>were known by all schoolchildren, notes Boston University political
>scientist Andrew Bacevich.
>
>But in recent decades, Bacevich says, "military fame has lost its
>durability." Sen. John McCain may appear to be an exception, he says, but he
>is someone noted less for what he did in the military than for what he
>endured as a prisoner of war.
>
>More representative, Bacevich notes, may be Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the
>officer who would lead U.S. forces in any new war with Iraq. Franks "has not
>ignited widespread popular affection," says Bacevich, himself a retired Army
>colonel.
>
>It may be that American society no longer has an appetite for heroes,
>military or otherwise, says Ward Carroll, a recently retired naval aviator
>and author of "Punk's War," a novel about patrolling the no-fly zone over
>southern Iraq. American society may not be making the kinds of sacrifices
>that make people look for heroes to celebrate. "You don't have rationing,
>you don't have gold stars in the window, and the other things that made [war
>heroes] a part of the fabric of American life" in the past, he says.
>
>Even Schwarzkopf's own Gulf War memoir was titled "It Doesn't Take a Hero."
>
>Or it just may be that America no longer puts anyone up on a pedestal. "Even
>our sports heroes aren't heroes anymore, in the way that Lou Gehrig and
>Mickey Mantle were," says Carroll. "The picture is a lot more blurred
>nowadays."
>
>
>Washington Post researcher Rob Thomason contributed to this report.
From jafujii@uci.edu Wed Jan 29 19:25:26 2003
From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii)
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:25:26 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Stop right-wing court packing: call Sen. Feinstein
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030129112516.015dcb68@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
--=====================_48019558==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Dear MoveOn member in California,
This Thursday, Senator Dianne Feinstein is likely to cast a vote
crucial to protecting democracy and equal justice under the law. You
can help make sure she does the right thing by calling her now.
The White House is aggressively working to pack our courts with right-
wing ideologues. It recently nominated 30 people, many of them
extremely conservative, to America's most powerful courts. Federal
judges can determine the law in key areas including reproductive
choice, the environment, elections, civil & constitutional rights,
health care, and privacy. If confirmed for lifetime appointments,
these nominees will impact our lives for decades to come.
The first of these nominees, Miguel Estrada, will be considered by the
Senate Judiciary Committee this Thursday, January 30th. He's been
nominated for a seat on the Federal Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia, a court considered by many experts to be the second most
powerful in America. Feinstein sits on the Judiciary Committee, and
her vote is likely to determine the outcome.
Miguel Estrada has never served as a judge, so he's never issued a
written opinion on a case. Nonetheless he has a reputation as a right-
wing ideologue. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund have both written
to the Senate expressing serious concerns about the Estrada nomination,
and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has announced its opposition.
Estrada has taken pains to hide his conservative views from Congress
and the public. During hearings held in the last Congress, Estrada
refused to answer Senators' questions about his legal and judicial
philosophy. His reticence is designed to make Senators like Feinstein
reluctant to oppose him.
If confirmed to the Appeals Court, Estrada would become eligible for a
seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. He's widely thought to be the White
House's top choice for a Supreme Court nomination, in the likely event
of a vacancy on the top court this spring or summer.
Feinstein's vote is very much in doubt, yet in the past she has
credited her decisions to oppose John Ashcroft (as Attorney General)
and Priscilla Owen (another conservative judicial nominee) to enormous
numbers of phone calls made by people like us.
Please call Senator Feinstein now, at:
Washington, DC (202) 224-3841
San Francisco (415) 393-0707
Los Angeles (310) 914-7300
San Diego (619) 231-9712
Fresno (559) 485-7430
Make sure her staff members know you're a constituent. Then urge her to:
"Please vote AGAINST confirmation for Miguel Estrada."
Explain in your own words that Senators and all of us have a right to
know where he stands before he's confirmed for a lifetime appointment.
Please let us know you're making this call at:
http://www.moveon.org/callmade2.html
Keeping a count helps make our work more effective.
Here's some more information on Estrada and why he's important:
Paul Bender, a former Deputy Solicitor General who once supervised
Estrada's work, said he found Estrada so "ideologically driven that he
couldn't be trusted to state the law in a fair, neutral way."*
"Miguel is smart and charming, but he is a right-wing ideologue. He has
an agenda that's similar to Clarence Thomas'," according to Bender, who
also says Estrada "lacks the judgment... to be an appeals court judge."**
On the campaign trail, President Bush promised to nominate judges in the
mold of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court's two most
conservative members. It shouldn't surprise us if Estrada fits that mold.
Estrada is just the tip of the iceberg -- there are 29 other nominees
behind him, and 59 open seats on our federal courts. The White House is
testing us, seeing whether we have the will to stand up to its plans for
right-wing dominance over every aspect of our lives. And it is trying
to position Estrada as an unstoppable first nominee to the Supreme Court.
The Senate has the power to confirm or reject federal judges. Their
response now could set a decisive precedent for years to come. If we
can persuade our Senators to stop or slow down Estrada and other early
right-wing nominees, we'll send a strong signal to the White House that
it must nominate moderates, not ideologues, if it wants them confirmed.
If we win this early round, we can change the entire game.
The right wing has not hesitated to hold up judicial nominations --
they blocked 35 percent of President Clinton's appeals court nominees
from 1995 to 2001. We must be every bit as firm in our resolve.
Please call Senator Feinstein now.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
- Peter Schurman
Executive Director
MoveOn.org
January 29, 2003
P.S. Here are excerpts from a recent Washington Post piece on the
Estrada nomination:
Showdown Over Judicial Picks Looms: Senate Committee Schedules Vote
By Helen Dewar
Saturday, January 25, 2003; Page A09
The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday edged toward its first
showdown over judicial nominees since Republicans took over the Senate
this month, as Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) scheduled a vote next
week on Miguel Estrada for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the
District of Columbia.
...
Estrada drew most of the Democratic fire yesterday as the committee met
to schedule his nomination for a vote Thursday. Estrada, who has been
mentioned as a possible choice to become the first Hispanic justice on
the Supreme Court, would tilt the evenly divided D.C. circuit court
toward the right.
At yesterday's meeting, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), ranking Democrat
on the committee, submitted a statement saying that, after a hearing on
Estrada's nomination last year, Leahy was "left with more questions
than answers after all of the steps Mr. Estrada took to avoid answering
questions." He said Estrada's nomination has "generated tremendous
controversy -- in part because he appears to have been groomed to be an
activist appellate judge by well-placed conservatives."
---
* Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2002: "Stakes Are High in Push for
Latino Court Nominee"; David G. Savage, Janet Hook.
** Washington Post, May 23, 2001: "Appeals Court Nominees Share
Conservative Roots"; Bill Miller.
________________
This is a message from MoveOn.org. To remove yourself from this list,
please visit our subscription management page at:
http://moveon.org/s?i=1005-319753-KNJKZAl161VkBDB.YHr.WA
--=====================_48019558==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
Dear MoveOn member in California,
This Thursday, Senator Dianne Feinstein is likely to cast a vote
crucial to protecting democracy and equal justice under the law.
You
can help make sure she does the right thing by calling her now.
The White House is aggressively working to pack our courts with
right-
wing ideologues. It recently nominated 30 people, many of them
extremely conservative, to America's most powerful courts. Federal
judges can determine the law in key areas including reproductive
choice, the environment, elections, civil & constitutional rights,
health care, and privacy. If confirmed for lifetime
appointments,
these nominees will impact our lives for decades to come.
The first of these nominees, Miguel Estrada, will be considered by
the
Senate Judiciary Committee this Thursday, January 30th. He's been
nominated for a seat on the Federal Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia, a court considered by many experts to be the second most
powerful in America. Feinstein sits on the Judiciary Committee, and
her vote is likely to determine the outcome.
Miguel Estrada has never served as a judge, so he's never issued a
written opinion on a case. Nonetheless he has a reputation as a
right-
wing ideologue. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education
Fund
and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund have both
written
to the Senate expressing serious concerns about the Estrada nomination,
and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has announced its opposition.
Estrada has taken pains to hide his conservative views from Congress
and the public. During hearings held in the last Congress, Estrada
refused to answer Senators' questions about his legal and judicial
philosophy. His reticence is designed to make Senators like
Feinstein
reluctant to oppose him.
If confirmed to the Appeals Court, Estrada would become eligible for a
seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. He's widely thought to be the White
House's top choice for a Supreme Court nomination, in the likely event
of a vacancy on the top court this spring or summer.
Feinstein's vote is very much in doubt, yet in the past she has
credited her decisions to oppose John Ashcroft (as Attorney General)
and Priscilla Owen (another conservative judicial nominee) to enormous
numbers of phone calls made by people like us.
Please call Senator Feinstein now, at:
Washington, DC (202) 224-3841
San Francisco (415) 393-0707
Los Angeles (310) 914-7300
San Diego (619) 231-9712
Fresno (559)
485-7430
Make sure her staff members know you're a constituent. Then urge her
to:
"Please vote AGAINST confirmation for Miguel
Estrada."
Explain in your own words that Senators and all of us have a right to
know where he stands before he's confirmed for a lifetime
appointment.
Please let us know you're making this call at:
http://www.moveon.org/callmade2.html
Keeping a count helps make our work more effective.
Here's some more information on Estrada and why he's important:
Paul Bender, a former Deputy Solicitor General who once supervised
Estrada's work, said he found Estrada so "ideologically driven that
he
couldn't be trusted to state the law in a fair, neutral
way."*
"Miguel is smart and charming, but he is a right-wing
ideologue. He has
an agenda that's similar to Clarence Thomas'," according to Bender,
who
also says Estrada "lacks the judgment... to be an appeals court
judge."**
On the campaign trail, President Bush promised to nominate judges in the
mold of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court's two most
conservative members. It shouldn't surprise us if Estrada fits that
mold.
Estrada is just the tip of the iceberg -- there are 29 other nominees
behind him, and 59 open seats on our federal courts. The White
House is
testing us, seeing whether we have the will to stand up to its plans for
right-wing dominance over every aspect of our lives. And it is
trying
to position Estrada as an unstoppable first nominee to the Supreme
Court.
The Senate has the power to confirm or reject federal judges. Their
response now could set a decisive precedent for years to come. If
we
can persuade our Senators to stop or slow down Estrada and other early
right-wing nominees, we'll send a strong signal to the White House that
it must nominate moderates, not ideologues, if it wants them
confirmed.
If we win this early round, we can change the entire game.
The right wing has not hesitated to hold up judicial nominations --
they blocked 35 percent of President Clinton's appeals court
nominees
from 1995 to 2001. We must be every bit as firm in our resolve.
Please call Senator Feinstein now.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
- Peter Schurman
Executive Director
MoveOn.org
January 29, 2003
P.S. Here are excerpts from a recent Washington Post piece on the
Estrada nomination:
Showdown Over Judicial Picks Looms: Senate Committee Schedules Vote
By Helen Dewar
Saturday, January 25, 2003; Page A09
The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday edged toward its first
showdown over judicial nominees since Republicans took over the Senate
this month, as Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) scheduled a vote next
week on Miguel Estrada for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the
District of Columbia.
...
Estrada drew most of the Democratic fire yesterday as the committee met
to schedule his nomination for a vote Thursday. Estrada, who has been
mentioned as a possible choice to become the first Hispanic justice on
the Supreme Court, would tilt the evenly divided D.C. circuit court
toward the right.
At yesterday's meeting, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), ranking Democrat
on the committee, submitted a statement saying that, after a hearing on
Estrada's nomination last year, Leahy was "left with more questions
than answers after all of the steps Mr. Estrada took to avoid answering
questions." He said Estrada's nomination has "generated
tremendous
controversy -- in part because he appears to have been groomed to be an
activist appellate judge by well-placed conservatives."
---
* Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2002: "Stakes Are High in Push for
Latino Court Nominee"; David G. Savage, Janet Hook.
** Washington Post, May 23, 2001: "Appeals Court Nominees Share
Conservative Roots"; Bill Miller.
________________
This is a message from MoveOn.org. To remove yourself from this
list,
please visit our subscription management page at:
http://moveon.org/s?i=1005-319753-KNJKZAl161VkBDB.YHr.WA
--=====================_48019558==_.ALT--
From dtsang@lib.uci.edu Wed Jan 29 23:17:32 2003
From: dtsang@lib.uci.edu (Dan Tsang)
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 15:17:32 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] OC County Human Relations Commission faces phaseout
Message-ID:
The
Guardian
Stronger than Ever
Far from fizzling out, the global justice movement is growing in numbers
and
maturity
by George Monbiot
Mr Bush and Mr Blair might have a tougher fight than they anticipated.
Not
from Saddam Hussein perhaps - although it is still not obvious that they
can
capture and hold Iraq's cities without major losses - but from an
anti-war
movement that is beginning to look like nothing the world has seen
before.
It's not just that people have begun to gather in great numbers even
before
a shot has been fired. It's not just that they are doing so without
the
inducement of conscription or any other direct threat to their welfare.
It's
not just that there have already been meetings or demonstrations in
almost
every nation on Earth. It's also that the campaign is being
coordinated
globally with an unprecedented precision. And the people partly
responsible
for this are the members of a movement which, even within the past
few
weeks, the mainstream media has pronounced extinct.
Last year, 40,000 members of the global justice movement gathered at
the
World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This year, more than
100,000,
from 150 nations, have come - for a meeting! The world has seldom seen
such
political assemblies since Daniel O'Connell's "monster
meetings" in the
1840s.
Far from dying away, our movement has grown bigger than most of us
could
have guessed. September 11 muffled the protests for a while, but since
then
they have returned with greater vehemence, everywhere except the US.
The
last major global demonstration it convened was the rally at the
European
summit in Barcelona. Some 350,000 activists rose from the dead. They
came
despite the terrifying response to the marches in June 2001 in Genoa,
where
the police burst into protesters' dormitories and beat them with
truncheons
as they lay in their sleeping bags, tortured others in the cells and
shot
one man dead.
But neither the violent response, nor September 11, nor the indifference
of
the media have quelled this rising. Ever ready to believe their own
story,
the newsrooms have interpreted the absence of coverage (by the newsrooms)
as
an absence of activity. One of our recent discoveries is that we no
longer
need them. We have our own channels of communication, our own websites
and
pamphlets and magazines, and those who wish to find us can do so
without
their help. They can pronounce us dead as often as they like, and we
shall,
as many times, be resurrected.
The media can be forgiven for expecting us to disappear. In the past, it
was
hard to sustain global movements of this kind. The socialist
international,
for example, was famously interrupted by nationalism. When the nations
to
which the comrades belonged went to war, they forgot their common
struggle
and took to arms against each other. But now, thanks to the
globalization
some members of the movement contest, nationalism is a far weaker
force.
American citizens are meeting and debating with Iraqis, even as
their
countries prepare to go to war. We can no longer be called to heel.
Our
loyalty is to the principles we defend and to those who share them,
irrespective of where they come from.
One of the reasons why the movement appears destined only to grow is that
it
provides the only major channel through which we can engage with the
most
critical issues. Climate change, international debt, poverty, the
hegemony
of the G8 nations, the IMF and the World Bank, the depletion of
natural
resources, nuclear proliferation and low-level conflict are major themes
in
the lives of most of the world's people, but minor themes in almost
all
mainstream political discourse. We are told that the mind-rotting
drivel
which now fills the pages of the newspapers is a necessary
commercial
response to the demands of younger readers. This may, to some extent,
be
true. But here are tens of thousands of young people who have less
interest
in celebrity culture than George Bush has in Wittgenstein. They have
evolved
their own scale of values, and re-enfranchised themselves by pursuing
what
they know to be important. For the great majority of activists - those
who
live in the poor world - the movement offers the only effective means
of
reaching people in the richer nations.
We have often been told that the reason we're dead is that we have
been
overtaken by and subsumed within the anti-war campaign. It would be
more
accurate to say that the anti-war campaign has, in large part, grown out
of
the global justice movement. This movement has never recognized a
distinction between the power of the rich world's governments and
their
appointed institutions (the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade
Organization) to wage economic warfare and the power of the same
governments, working through different institutions (the UN
security
council, Nato) to send in the bombers. Far from competing with our
concerns,
the impending war has reinforced our determination to tackle the
grotesque
maldistribution of power which permits a few national governments to
assert
a global mandate. When the activists leave Porto Alegre tomorrow, they
will
take home to their 150 nations a new resolve to turn the struggle
against
the war with Iraq into a contest over the future of the world.
While younger activists are eager to absorb the experience of people
like
Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Lula, Victor Chavez, Michael Albert and
Arundhati
Roy, all of whom are speaking in Porto Alegre, our movement is, as yet,
more
eager than wise, fired by passions we have yet to master. We have yet
to
understand, despite the police response in Genoa, the mechanical
determination of our opponents.
We are still rather too prepared to believe that spectacular marches
can
change the world. While the splits between the movement's marxists,
anarchists and liberals are well-rehearsed, our real division - between
the
diversalists and the universalists - has, so far, scarcely been
explored.
Most of the movement believes that the best means of regaining control
over
political life is through local community action. A smaller faction
(to
which I belong) believes that this response is insufficient, and that
we
must seek to create democratically accountable global institutions.
The
debates have, so far, been muted. But when they emerge, they will be
fierce.
For all that, I think most of us have noticed that something has
changed,
that we are beginning to move on from the playing of games and the
staging
of parties, that we are coming to develop a more mature analysis, a
better
grasp of tactics, an understanding of the need for policy. We are, in
other
words, beginning for the first time to look like a revolutionary
movement.
We are finding, too, among some of the indebted states of the poor world,
a
new preparedness to engage with us. In doing so, they speed our
maturation:
the more we are taken seriously, the more seriously we take ourselves.
Whether we are noticed or not is no longer relevant. We know that, with
or
without the media's help, we are a gathering force which might one day
prove
unstoppable.
--=====================_71876963==_.ALT--
From chrp-owner@yahoogroups.com Thu Jan 30 19:40:45 2003
From: chrp-owner@yahoogroups.com (chrp-owner@yahoogroups.com)
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 14:40:45 EST
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] [chrp] US troops on their way to the Philippines
Message-ID: <177.158fc27e.2b6ad9bd@aol.com>
--part1_177.158fc27e.2b6ad9bd_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
News Release January 29, 2003
(Ina Alleco Silverio, Media Liaison Officer (paggawa@edsamail.com.ph)
US troops should keep out of local counter-insurgency operations
Bayan Muna Representative Crispin Beltran today said that US troops
in the country should not be allowed to join the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) in counter-insurgency campaigns such as that against the
New People's Army (NPA). He said that if the US troops participate in the
operations against the NPA, a Vietnam war-like situation could erupt. He
pointed out that the Vietnam war, which claimed the lives of hundreds of
thousands of Vietnamese civilians, began as a result of the US government's
"messianic complex" and intrusion into Vietnam's internal political affairs.
"American troops have no right to join the AFP in actual combat
operations. The AFP has been committing countless atrocities and human
rights abuses in the conduct of their war operations; the US troops are
capable of worse violations," he said.
Beltran reiterated his position opposing the presence of the US troops, and
said that there was no legal or moral justification for their continued
stay in the country. He said that the argument that they were to help
train the AFP in fighting and defeating the Abu Sayyaf was already
washed-out.. "The Abu Sayyaf bandits are still very much around, wreaking
havoc. Could it be possible that the AFP is deliberately giving the bandits
leeway because they continually give the government an excuse to intensify
militarization in Mindanao and to allow the continued training exercises
with the US troops?" he said.
He expressed skepticism anew about the assertions of US military officials
that the deployment of US troops in the country and the continuation of the
military exercises have nothing to do with the impending war against Iraq.
He said that there were clear indications and signs that the US was
preparing to launch its full-scale war, and the Philippines is among the
countries it intends to use as a launching pad for the attacks.
Golez on a need-to-know basis; Filipinos in Iraq
The activist solon also opined that National Security Adviser Roilo Golez
should be upfront with his knowledge of the plans of the US military
command in the country. This was his reaction to Golez' report that the US
will give the Philippine government advance notice on the war.
"Golez is acting like a spokesperson for the US forces and the US embassy,
the way he's reporting the statements made by the American officials.
Unless Golez is really just small fry in the eyes of his American
counterparts, he's not being informed on a need-to-know basis and is in
fact privy to the American's immediate politico-military agenda. This
agenda most likely includes not just plans to expand counter-insurgency
operations and intensified militarization in the country; but also plans on
how the Philippine government can assist the US in its pending war of
aggression against Iraq," he said. "The Filipino people should not be kept
in the dark on these matters."
He also expressed severe worry for the plight of the 118 overseas
Filipino workers in Iraq and the over 1.7 million other Filipinos in the
Middle East.
Beltran, also chairperson of the International League of Peoples Struggles
(ILPS) which has over 900 member organizations in 37 countries all over the
world, said that the Philippine government should not drag the country and
the Filipino people in a most immoral, unjust and inhumane war against
Iraq. "President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's name will be even more infamous
in history if she pushes through with her plans to support the US war
against Iraq. She will be party to a most vicious campaign against civilians
and guilty of abetting crimes against humanity," he concluded. #
********
Office of Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo
Mike Ac-ac (information officer), tels. 9315911 or (0917)4244312
January 29, 2003
Media Release
What are 'terms-of-reference' of new RP-US war games?
Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo today warned the Macapagal-Arroyo government
against using the upcoming 10-month RP-US military exercises as a staging
ground for the actual deployment of American soldiers for counter-insurgency
operations in the country. He added that such actions would amount to
foreign interference in open violation of Philippine independence and the
1987 Constitution.
At the same time, the party-list solon challenged the administration to
produce a terms-of-reference (TOR) or a set of guiding principles that
would govern the $78-million, 10-month war games which is scheduled to
begin next month in Zamboanga [in a predominantly Moro Muslim area of the
southern Philippines--ed].
"The TOR should act as a safeguard that US soldiers will not be directly
involved in actual combat operations against local revolutionary groups
such as the New People's Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front,"
explained Ocampo. He noted that a TOR was executed for the Balikatan 02-1
military exercises last year when nationalists and militant groups
questioned
its legality and constitutionality.
"Recent pronouncements made by Col. Douglas Lengenfelder to the effect that
visiting US troops were willing to be deployed anywhere in the country and
against any rebel group smacks of foreign interference in the country's
internal affairs," Ocampo said in reaction to remarks made by the commander
of the US-RP Special Operations Task Force.
"The US officer's posturing raises a lot of questions on the real objectives
of
US Special Forces instructors and soldiers that have started to arrive in
the
country in recent weeks."
He added that a photograph which appeared in today's issue of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer showing Lengenfelder briefing reporters on
counter-insurgency strategy at the US Embassy last Tuesday indicated that
the American military is very much involved in the government's handling of
the country's internal concerns.
"The burden of proof lies with the Macapagal-Arroyo government to show to
the people that its decision to hold a total of 17 joint military exercises
with the US military this year is still not in violation of the
Constitutional ban
on the presence of foreign troops in the country," he said.
"A major clarification is also necessary in light of the government's
position
not to work for the withdrawal of the terrorist tag on the NPA by Washington
and the European Union, as well as pronouncements that the government is
shifting the focus of this year's war games from counter-terrorism to
counter-insurgency." #
--part1_177.158fc27e.2b6ad9bd_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
My Groups |
chrp Main Page
(Ina Alleco Silverio, Media Liaison Officer (paggawa@edsamail.com.ph)
US troops should keep out of local counter-insurgency operations
Bayan Muna Representative Crispin Beltran today said that US troops
in the country should not be allowed to join the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) in counter-insurgency campaigns such as that against the
New People's Army (NPA). He said that if the US troops participate in the
operations against the NPA, a Vietnam war-like situation could erupt. He
pointed out that the Vietnam war, which claimed the lives of hundreds of
thousands of Vietnamese civilians, began as a result of the US government's
"messianic complex" and intrusion into Vietnam's internal political affairs.
"American troops have no right to join the AFP in actual combat
operations. The AFP has been committing countless atrocities and human
rights abuses in the conduct of their war operations; the US troops are
capable of worse violations," he said.
Beltran reiterated his position opposing the presence of the US troops, and
said that there was no legal or moral justification for their continued
stay in the country. He said that the argument that they were to help
train the AFP in fighting and defeating the Abu Sayyaf was already
washed-out.. "The Abu Sayyaf bandits are still very much around, wreaking
havoc. Could it be possible that the AFP is deliberately giving the bandits
leeway because they continually give the government an excuse to intensify
militarization in Mindanao and to allow the continued training exercises
with the US troops?" he said.
He expressed skepticism anew about the assertions of US military officials
that the deployment of US troops in the country and the continuation of the
military exercises have nothing to do with the impending war against Iraq.
He said that there were clear indications and signs that the US was
preparing to launch its full-scale war, and the Philippines is among the
countries it intends to use as a launching pad for the attacks.
Golez on a need-to-know basis; Filipinos in Iraq
The activist solon also opined that National Security Adviser Roilo Golez
should be upfront with his knowledge of the plans of the US military
command in the country. This was his reaction to Golez' report that the US
will give the Philippine government advance notice on the war.
"Golez is acting like a spokesperson for the US forces and the US embassy,
the way he's reporting the statements made by the American officials.
Unless Golez is really just small fry in the eyes of his American
counterparts, he's not being informed on a need-to-know basis and is in
fact privy to the American's immediate politico-military agenda. This
agenda most likely includes not just plans to expand counter-insurgency
operations and intensified militarization in the country; but also plans on
how the Philippine government can assist the US in its pending war of
aggression against Iraq," he said. "The Filipino people should not be kept
in the dark on these matters."
He also expressed severe worry for the plight of the 118 overseas
Filipino workers in Iraq and the over 1.7 million other Filipinos in the
Middle East.
Beltran, also chairperson of the International League of Peoples Struggles
(ILPS) which has over 900 member organizations in 37 countries all over the
world, said that the Philippine government should not drag the country and
the Filipino people in a most immoral, unjust and inhumane war against
Iraq. "President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's name will be even more infamous
in history if she pushes through with her plans to support the US war
against Iraq. She will be party to a most vicious campaign against civilians
and guilty of abetting crimes against humanity," he concluded. #
********
Office of Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo
Mike Ac-ac (information officer), tels. 9315911 or (0917)4244312
January 29, 2003
Media Release
What are 'terms-of-reference' of new RP-US war games?
Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo today warned the Macapagal-Arroyo government
against using the upcoming 10-month RP-US military exercises as a staging
ground for the actual deployment of American soldiers for counter-insurgency
operations in the country. He added that such actions would amount to
foreign interference in open violation of Philippine independence and the
1987 Constitution.
At the same time, the party-list solon challenged the administration to
produce a terms-of-reference (TOR) or a set of guiding principles that
would govern the $78-million, 10-month war games which is scheduled to
begin next month in Zamboanga [in a predominantly Moro Muslim area of the
southern Philippines--ed].
"The TOR should act as a safeguard that US soldiers will not be directly
involved in actual combat operations against local revolutionary groups
such as the New People's Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front,"
explained Ocampo. He noted that a TOR was executed for the Balikatan 02-1
military exercises last year when nationalists and militant groups
questioned
its legality and constitutionality.
"Recent pronouncements made by Col. Douglas Lengenfelder to the effect that
visiting US troops were willing to be deployed anywhere in the country and
against any rebel group smacks of foreign interference in the country's
internal affairs," Ocampo said in reaction to remarks made by the commander
of the US-RP Special Operations Task Force.
"The US officer's posturing raises a lot of questions on the real objectives
of
US Special Forces instructors and soldiers that have started to arrive in
the
country in recent weeks."
He added that a photograph which appeared in today's issue of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer showing Lengenfelder briefing reporters on
counter-insurgency strategy at the US Embassy last Tuesday indicated that
the American military is very much involved in the government's handling of
the country's internal concerns.
"The burden of proof lies with the Macapagal-Arroyo government to show to
the people that its decision to hold a total of 17 joint military exercises
with the US military this year is still not in violation of the
Constitutional ban
on the presence of foreign troops in the country," he said.
"A major clarification is also necessary in light of the government's
position
not to work for the withdrawal of the terrorist tag on the NPA by Washington
and the European Union, as well as pronouncements that the government is
shifting the focus of this year's war games from counter-terrorism to
counter-insurgency." #
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--part1_177.158fc27e.2b6ad9bd_boundary--
From jafujii@uci.edu Fri Jan 31 02:55:35 2003
From: jafujii@uci.edu (Jim Fujii)
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 18:55:35 -0800
Subject: [Ethnicstudies] Anti War Confronting Empire - Arundhati Roy
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030130185524.015c1d30@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
--=====================_1628882==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=3D2919=A7ionID=3D51
ZNet | January 28, 2003
Anti War Confronting Empire
by Arundhati Roy
I've been asked to speak about "How to confront Empire?" It's a huge
question, and I have no easy answers.
When we speak of confronting "Empire," we need to identify what "Empire"
means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites), the
World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization,
and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?
In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some
dangerous byproducts - nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of
course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate
globalization.
Let me illustrate what I mean. India - the world's biggest democracy - is
currently at the forefront of the corporate globalization project. Its
"market" of one billion people is being prized open by the WTO.
Corporatization and Privatization are being welcomed by the Government and
the Indian elite.
It is not a coincidence that the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the
Disinvestment Minister - the men who signed the deal with Enron in India,
the men who are selling the country's infrastructure to corporate
multinationals, the men who want to privatize water, electricity, oil, coal,
steel, health, education and telecommunication - are all members or admirers
of the RSS. The RSS is a right wing, ultra-nationalist Hindu guild which has
openly admired Hitler and his methods.
The dismantling of democracy is proceeding with the speed and efficiency of
a Structural Adjustment Program. While the project of corporate
globalization rips through people's lives in India, massive privatization,
and labor "reforms" are pushing people off their land and out of their jobs.
Hundreds of impoverished farmers are committing suicide by consuming
pesticide. Reports of starvation deaths are coming in from all over the
country.
While the elite journeys to its imaginary destination somewhere near the top
of the world, the dispossessed are spiraling downwards into crime and chaos.
This climate of frustration and national disillusionment is the perfect
breeding ground, history tells us, for fascism.
The two arms of the Indian Government have evolved the perfect pincer
action. While one arm is busy selling India off in chunks, the other, to
divert attention, is orchestrating a howling, baying chorus of Hindu
nationalism and religious fascism. It is conducting nuclear tests, rewriting
history books, burning churches, and demolishing mosques. Censorship,
surveillance, the suspension of civil liberties and human rights, the
definition of who is an Indian citizen and who is not, particularly with
regard to religious minorities, is becoming common practice now.
Last March, in the state of Gujarat, two thousand Muslims were butchered in
a State-sponsored pogrom. Muslim women were specially targeted. They were
stripped, and gang-raped, before being burned alive. Arsonists burned and
looted shops, homes, textiles mills, and mosques.
More than a hundred and fifty thousand Muslims have been driven from their
homes. The economic base of the Muslim community has been devastated.
While Gujarat burned, the Indian Prime Minister was on MTV promoting his new
poems. In January this year, the Government that orchestrated the killing
was voted back into office with a comfortable majority. Nobody has been
punished for the genocide. Narendra Modi, architect of the pogrom, proud
member of the RSS, has embarked on his second term as the Chief Minister of
Gujarat. If he were Saddam Hussein, of course each atrocity would have been
on CNN. But since he's not - and since the Indian "market" is open to global
investors - the massacre is not even an embarrassing inconvenience.
There are more than one hundred million Muslims in India. A time bomb is
ticking in our ancient land.
All this to say that it is a myth that the free market breaks down national
barriers. The free market does not threaten national sovereignty, it
undermines democracy.
As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to corner
resources is intensifying. To push through their "sweetheart deals," to
corporatize the crops we grow, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and
the dreams we dream, corporate globalization needs an international
confederation of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in poorer
countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies.
Corporate Globalization - or shall we call it by its name? - Imperialism -
needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to
dispense justice.
Meanwhile, the countries of the North harden their borders and stockpile
weapons of mass destruction. After all they have to make sure that it's only
money, goods, patents and services that are globalized. Not the free
movement of people. Not a respect for human rights. Not international
treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons or
greenhouse gas emissions or climate change, or - god forbid - justice.
So this - all this - is "empire." This loyal confederation, this obscene
accumulation of power, this greatly increased distance between those who
make the decisions and those who have to suffer them.
Our fight, our goal, our vision of Another World must be to eliminate that
distance.
So how do we resist "Empire"?
The good news is that we're not doing too badly. There have been major
victories. Here in Latin America you have had so many - in Bolivia, you have
Cochabamba. In Peru, there was the uprising in Arequipa, In Venezuela,
President Hugo Chavez is holding on, despite the U.S. government's best
efforts.
And the world's gaze is on the people of Argentina, who are trying to
refashion a country from the ashes of the havoc wrought by the IMF.
In India the movement against corporate globalization is gathering momentum
and is poised to become the only real political force to counter religious
fascism.
As for corporate globalization's glittering ambassadors - Enron, Bechtel,
WorldCom, Arthur Anderson - where were they last year, and where are they
now?
And of course here in Brazil we must ask who was the president last year,
and who is it now?
Still many of us have dark moments of hopelessness and despair. We know that
under the spreading canopy of the War Against Terrorism, the men in suits
are hard at work.
While bombs rain down on us, and cruise missiles skid across the skies, we
know that contracts are being signed, patents are being registered, oil
pipelines are being laid, natural resources are being plundered, water is
being privatized, and George Bush is planning to go to war against Iraq.
If we look at this conflict as a straightforward eye-ball to eye-ball
confrontation between "Empire" and those of us who are resisting it, it
might seem that we are losing.
But there is another way of looking at it. We, all of us gathered here,
have, each in our own way, laid siege to "Empire."
We may not have stopped it in its tracks - yet - but we have stripped it
down. We have made it drop its mask. We have forced it into the open. It now
stands before us on the world's stage in all it's brutish, iniquitous
nakedness.
Empire may well go to war, but it's out in the open now - too ugly to behold
its own reflection. Too ugly even to rally its own people. It won't be long
before the majority of American people become our allies.
Only a few days ago in Washington, a quarter of a million people marched
against the war on Iraq. Each month, the protest is gathering momentum.
Before September 11th 2001 America had a secret history. Secret especially
from its own people. But now America's secrets are history, and its history
is public knowledge. It's street talk.
Today, we know that every argument that is being used to escalate the war
against Iraq is a lie. The most ludicrous of them being the U.S.
Government's deep commitment to bring democracy to Iraq.
Killing people to save them from dictatorship or ideological corruption is,
of course, an old U.S. government sport. Here in Latin America, you know
that better than most.
Nobody doubts that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator, a murderer (whose
worst excesses were supported by the governments of the United States and
Great Britain). There's no doubt that Iraqis would be better off without
him.
But, then, the whole world would be better off without a certain Mr. Bush.
In fact, he is far more dangerous than Saddam Hussein.
So, should we bomb Bush out of the White House?
It's more than clear that Bush is determined to go to war against Iraq,
regardless of the facts - and regardless of international public opinion.
In its recruitment drive for allies, The United States is prepared to invent
facts.
The charade with weapons inspectors is the U.S. government's offensive,
insulting concession to some twisted form of international etiquette. It's
like leaving the "doggie door" open for last minute "allies" or maybe the
United Nations to crawl through.
But for all intents and purposes, the New War against Iraq has begun.
What can we do?
We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to
build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar.
We can turn the war on Iraq into a fishbowl of the U.S. government's
excesses.
We can expose George Bush and Tony Blair - and their allies - for the
cowardly baby killers, water poisoners, and pusillanimous long-distance
bombers that they are.
We can re-invent civil disobedience in a million different ways. In other
words, we can come up with a million ways of becoming a collective pain in
the ass.
When George Bush says "you're either with us, or you are with the
terrorists" we can say "No thank you." We can let him know that the people
of the world do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the
Mad Mullahs.
Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it.
To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music,
our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer
relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are
different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are
selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons,
their notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need
them.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can
hear her breathing.
-Arundhati Roy
Porto Alegre, Brazil
--=====================_1628882==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
ZNet | January 28, 2003
Anti War Confronting Empire
by Arundhati Roy
I've been asked to speak about "How to confront Empire?" It's a
huge
question, and I have no easy answers.
When we speak of confronting "Empire," we need to identify what
"Empire"
means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites),
the
World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade
Organization,
and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?
In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some
dangerous byproducts - nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and,
of
course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of
corporate
globalization.
Let me illustrate what I mean. India - the world's biggest democracy -
is
currently at the forefront of the corporate globalization project.
Its
"market" of one billion people is being prized open by the
WTO.
Corporatization and Privatization are being welcomed by the Government
and
the Indian elite.
It is not a coincidence that the Prime Minister, the Home Minister,
the
Disinvestment Minister - the men who signed the deal with Enron in
India,
the men who are selling the country's infrastructure to corporate
multinationals, the men who want to privatize water, electricity, oil,
coal,
steel, health, education and telecommunication - are all members or
admirers
of the RSS. The RSS is a right wing, ultra-nationalist Hindu guild which
has
openly admired Hitler and his methods.
The dismantling of democracy is proceeding with the speed and efficiency
of
a Structural Adjustment Program. While the project of corporate
globalization rips through people's lives in India, massive
privatization,
and labor "reforms" are pushing people off their land and out
of their jobs.
Hundreds of impoverished farmers are committing suicide by=20
consuming
pesticide. Reports of starvation deaths are coming in from all over
the
country.
While the elite journeys to its imaginary destination somewhere near the
top
of the world, the dispossessed are spiraling downwards into crime and
chaos.
This climate of frustration and national disillusionment is the
perfect
breeding ground, history tells us, for fascism.
The two arms of the Indian Government have evolved the perfect
pincer
action. While one arm is busy selling India off in chunks, the other,
to
divert attention, is orchestrating a howling, baying chorus of=20
Hindu
nationalism and religious fascism. It is conducting nuclear tests,
rewriting
history books, burning churches, and demolishing mosques.
Censorship,
surveillance, the suspension of civil liberties and human rights,
the
definition of who is an Indian citizen and who is not, particularly
with
regard to religious minorities, is becoming common practice now.
Last March, in the state of Gujarat, two thousand Muslims were butchered
in
a State-sponsored pogrom. Muslim women were specially targeted. They
were
stripped, and gang-raped, before being burned alive. Arsonists burned
and
looted shops, homes, textiles mills, and mosques.
More than a hundred and fifty thousand Muslims have been driven from
their
homes. The economic base of the Muslim community has been devastated.
While Gujarat burned, the Indian Prime Minister was on MTV promoting his
new
poems. In January this year, the Government that orchestrated the
killing
was voted back into office with a comfortable majority. Nobody has
been
punished for the genocide. Narendra Modi, architect of the pogrom,
proud
member of the RSS, has embarked on his second term as the Chief Minister
of
Gujarat. If he were Saddam Hussein, of course each atrocity would have
been
on CNN. But since he's not - and since the Indian "market" is
open to global
investors - the massacre is not even an embarrassing inconvenience.
There are more than one hundred million Muslims in India. A time bomb
is
ticking in our ancient land.
All this to say that it is a myth that the free market breaks down
national
barriers. The free market does not threaten national sovereignty,=20
it
undermines democracy.
As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to
corner
resources is intensifying. To push through their "sweetheart
deals," to
corporatize the crops we grow, the water we drink, the air we breathe,
and
the dreams we dream, corporate globalization needs an international
confederation of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in=20
poorer
countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies.
Corporate Globalization - or shall we call it by its name? - Imperialism
-
needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend
to
dispense justice.
Meanwhile, the countries of the North harden their borders and
stockpile
weapons of mass destruction. After all they have to make sure that it's
only
money, goods, patents and services that are globalized. Not the=20
free
movement of people. Not a respect for human rights. Not
international
treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons=20
or
greenhouse gas emissions or climate change, or - god forbid - justice.
So this - all this - is "empire." This loyal confederation,
this obscene
accumulation of power, this greatly increased distance between those
who
make the decisions and those who have to suffer them.
Our fight, our goal, our vision of Another World must be to eliminate
that
distance.
So how do we resist "Empire"?
The good news is that we're not doing too badly. There have been
major
victories. Here in Latin America you have had so many - in Bolivia, you
have
Cochabamba. In Peru, there was the uprising in Arequipa, In
Venezuela,
President Hugo Chavez is holding on, despite the U.S. government's
best
efforts.
And the world's gaze is on the people of Argentina, who are trying
to
refashion a country from the ashes of the havoc wrought by the IMF.
In India the movement against corporate globalization is gathering
momentum
and is poised to become the only real political force to counter
religious
fascism.
As for corporate globalization's glittering ambassadors - Enron,
Bechtel,
WorldCom, Arthur Anderson - where were they last year, and where are
they
now?
And of course here in Brazil we must ask who was the president last
year,
and who is it now?
Still many of us have dark moments of hopelessness and despair. We know
that
under the spreading canopy of the War Against Terrorism, the men in
suits
are hard at work.
While bombs rain down on us, and cruise missiles skid across the skies,
we
know that contracts are being signed, patents are being registered,
oil
pipelines are being laid, natural resources are being plundered, water
is
being privatized, and George Bush is planning to go to war against Iraq.
If we look at this conflict as a straightforward eye-ball to
eye-ball
confrontation between "Empire" and those of us who are
resisting it, it
might seem that we are losing.
But there is another way of looking at it. We, all of us gathered
here,
have, each in our own way, laid siege to "Empire."
We may not have stopped it in its tracks - yet - but we have stripped
it
down. We have made it drop its mask. We have forced it into the open. It
now
stands before us on the world's stage in all it's brutish,
iniquitous
nakedness.
Empire may well go to war, but it's out in the open now - too ugly to
behold
its own reflection. Too ugly even to rally its own people. It won't be
long
before the majority of American people become our allies.
Only a few days ago in Washington, a quarter of a million people
marched
against the war on Iraq. Each month, the protest is gathering momentum.
Before September 11th 2001 America had a secret history. Secret
especially
from its own people. But now America's secrets are history, and its
history
is public knowledge. It's street talk.
Today, we know that every argument that is being used to escalate the
war
against Iraq is a lie. The most ludicrous of them being the U.S.
Government's deep commitment to bring democracy to Iraq.
Killing people to save them from dictatorship or ideological corruption
is,
of course, an old U.S. government sport. Here in Latin America, you
know
that better than most.
Nobody doubts that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator, a murderer
(whose
worst excesses were supported by the governments of the United States
and
Great Britain). There's no doubt that Iraqis would be better off
without
him.
But, then, the whole world would be better off without a certain Mr.
Bush.
In fact, he is far more dangerous than Saddam Hussein.
So, should we bomb Bush out of the White House?
It's more than clear that Bush is determined to go to war against
Iraq,
regardless of the facts - and regardless of international public opinion.
In its recruitment drive for allies, The United States is prepared to
invent
facts.
The charade with weapons inspectors is the U.S. government's
offensive,
insulting concession to some twisted form of international etiquette.
It's
like leaving the "doggie door" open for last minute
"allies" or maybe the
United Nations to crawl through.
But for all intents and purposes, the New War against Iraq has begun.
What can we do?
We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue
to
build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar.
We can turn the war on Iraq into a fishbowl of the U.S.=20
government's
excesses.
We can expose George Bush and Tony Blair - and their allies - for
the
cowardly baby killers, water poisoners, and pusillanimous
long-distance
bombers that they are.
We can re-invent civil disobedience in a million different ways. In
other
words, we can come up with a million ways of becoming a collective pain
in
the ass.
When George Bush says "you're either with us, or you are with
the
terrorists" we can say "No thank you." We can let him know
that the people
of the world do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and
the
Mad Mullahs.
Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to
it.
To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our
music,
our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our=20
sheer
relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that
are
different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they
are
selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their
weapons,
their notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we
need
them.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I
can
hear her breathing.
-Arundhati Roy
Porto Alegre, Brazil