posted 09-23-2002 10:34 PM            

Almost a year after Sept. 11 where are we? In the last year the Bush Administration and the financial, economic and oil interests which it serves, have proved their continued ability to move forward into totalitarianism and naked aggression faster than any forces of either domestic or international opposition could organize -- either behind them or in front of them. Optimistic and valiant, but inexperienced efforts to fight the juggernaut have started, swirled, eddied and drifted as the Blitzkrieg war that "will not end in our lifetimes" has not even so much as looked sideways. Overwhelming evidence of the regime's crimes in a dozen arenas has been brought to the surface, and yet each new revelation only spurs the Empire to accelerate its long-conceived plans rather than slow down.
As FTW predicted in May 2001 with Citigroup's overt purchase of known drug money laundering institution Banamex -- and its placement of the bank's owner, Roberto Hernandez, on the board of directors with former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and former CIA director John Deutch -- the criminality of the economic elites has been so overt as to seem careless about what they did, and who saw it. That was four months before 9-11.

The middle path between optimism and pessimism is realism. And the fact is that nothing has appeared in the form of any organized effort which, based upon past experience, offers any likelihood of success in challenging the Bush Administration or those who direct it. It is the past experience issue that is so diligently ignored by those newly awakened voices of opposition who expend needless energy debating whether explosives were placed in the towers, whether the planes were remote controlled, whether an airliner really hit the Pentagon, or whether maybe Congress will actually do something about any of it. These debates are worse than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. They are expediting the demise of people who could otherwise be constructing life rafts. The proof already exists that the government lied.

When I was a young policeman I responded to a dead body call. The victim was a fresh victim of a homicide and his throat had been slashed so badly that his head was nearly decapitated. This was new to me, horrifying. I knelt and started to take a pulse and my training officer stopped me. He said, "When you see someone with their head cut off, it is not necessary to take a pulse." I responded that my training in the Los Angeles police academy had said that you should do this on a dead body call. He said, "When you have a dead body like this and someone seriously asks you whether you took their pulse or not, arrest them for 5150." Section 5150 of the California Health and Safety Code covers persons who are mentally ill and a danger to themselves or others.

Like those who still debate the arcane details of the JFK assassination, some 39 years later -- having never corrected the crimes that were committed then -- none of these efforts will have the slightest impact on a brutal agenda being waged to control the last remaining oil reserves on the planet, an agenda that is leading directly to a genocide of Islamic peoples all over the world, and perhaps into Armageddon itself.

Some will cheer foolhardily because the ultra-secret court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has just embarrassed John Ashcroft, our demented attorney general, by releasing a decision showing that the FBI and the Justice Department have provided false and inaccurate information to the court to obtain warrants in criminal cases -- a function that court was never intended to fulfill. They will whistle in the dark and pat themselves on the back as a portion of the USA Patriot Act has been ruled unconstitutional in a lower court and somehow forget that most of the entire act, which was never read by members of Congress before they passed it, is unconstitutional anyway. They will forget who controls the highest court where Ashcroft will now appeal.

They will take comfort in their immature beliefs that a champion will arise to save them and they will, as so many who have come before them, ignore, deny and insult the sacrifices and lessons of so many people who have fought against this criminal tyranny only to be defeated, worn out or even killed. Here, I refer to all of the Americans who spent every molecule of soul, money, physical and emotional strength they had in the cases of the assassinations of JFK, MLK and RFK; Vietnam-era POWs; Agent Orange; the Contra War; CIA drug trafficking; the train deaths in Arkansas; the Savings and Loan scandals; Iraqgate; Gulf War Syndrome; the Drug War; Waco; Oklahoma City; 109 mysterious suicides in the military during the 1980s and '90s; TWA 800; and a dozen other cases. Has anyone noticed that very few of these potential teachers have shown up on the front lines since 9-11?

I have.

These people know that no one cares to listen to their lessons in the same way that each of them entered into their own struggles -- believing that their case would be different, that something would work, that right and truth must certainly prevail in their fantastic and naïve belief in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.

In the meantime:
Suits have been filed by groups of victims' families against the government or the airlines asking legitimate questions about what happened on 9-11. These suits will fail completely as the government has already intervened to control what records are released in court. Certain members of the classes will be approached quietly and offered payoffs of one kind or another to fragment unity, and the lawyers will likely be compromised or worn out. A possibility exists that one suit was filed by a lawyer posing as a friend of the victims who will ultimately sabotage the case and the victim's hopes with it. That happened before with the Christic Institute in the 1980s. Those who go along with the government will be used and may get something. Those who hold out will be worn down, exhausted, intimidated and left with nothing.

Even while Congress is in recess, the FBI has stepped up a probe of certain members of the Senate to find out who dared to leak to the American people the damning fact that the National Security Agency had intercepted warnings on Sept. 10 that the attack was going to occur the next day. Ashcroft's G-Men have moved to make Senators and their staffs hand over calendars, phone records and other information that should -- by right -- be privileged information under the separation of powers. Voluntary compliance by Senate leaders like Bob Graham, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, only adds to the covert and overt intimidation of Congress that has taken place since 9-11.

Two members of Congress, Democrat Cynthia McKinney and Republican Bob Barr, who offered open criticism of various parts of the administration's illegal activities, have been booted out of the House in a very well planned and executed conspiracy. As different as night and day politically, the two had one thing in common -- they dared to criticize or question the administration's actions in the wake of 9-11. They will forever remain an object lesson to any members who would oppose Caesar.

The administration has already deployed and committed more than 100,000 combat troops in preparation for the invasion of Iraq, which will certainly result in tens of thousands of civilian casualties. That invasion may find it convenient for the U.S. to also occupy our newest declared (sort of) enemy, Saudi Arabia. Together, those two countries own 36 percent of all the known oil on the planet.
It has been decided that President Bush need not seek congressional approval before launching the invasion.

From the start FTW has been right, and we continue to be proven right, about our analysis of what led up to 9-11, and especially about the fact that the world stands at the brink of a global event which may perhaps be the most significant event in human history. The world is running out of oil. And oil is more than what you put in your car. It is the ability to do work and, most importantly, to eat. To quote Colin Campbell, Ph.D., "Mankind is not going to become extinct. But the subspecies, 'petroleum man,' is most certainly going to become extinct very soon."

When the Iraqi invasion takes place the U.S. government may have the benefit of U.N. or international support, perhaps as a result of secret documents conveniently obtained from the Iraqi embassy in Berlin during a recent temporary occupation by an unheard-of dissident group. Those documents will show Iraqi government connections to many of the 9-11 hijackers who lived in Germany before the attacks. It makes no difference whether the documents are real or not. Such tactics have been used before, for example, in the 1982 "liberation" of the Polish embassy in Bern, Switzerland.

What will be given to European governments and to the American people is a fragile pretext to sanction something that is going to happen anyway. At that moment, everything that America once represented to the world as good will be lost and the U.S. will be, and in some cases already is, viewed as nothing more than a new Roman Empire -- naked in its power, unabashed in its greed, and brutal in the imposition of its wishes. We will have reached that unique common denominator which has spelled the decline and fall of every totalitarian empire in human history -- might makes right.

And most of the American people, with their bankrupt and corrupt economy, will welcome cheap oil, while it lasts, and they will engage in a multitude of psychological and sickening rationales that will, in the end, amount to nothing more than saying, "I don't care how many women and children you kill. Just let me keep my standard of living."

If this is the best that the human race has to offer, then perhaps we need an apocalypse. I, for one, am ashamed of my government and most of my fellow citizens. One year after 9-11 the only ones who really got it right are the recent demonstrators in Portland, Ore. who took peacefully to the streets against George W. Bush on Aug. 23, only to be spayed with pepper spray and shot with rubber bullets. And I'm not sure that even they understand what is at stake yet.

Michael C. Ruppert
FTW Publisher/Editor

posted 09-24-2002 10:33 AM            

What are we fighting for? That is a crucial question when going off to a war - and certainly before initiating one. The Bush administration has no solid grounds for waging war on Saddam Hussein and the arguments about the variety of risks Saddam poses are exaggerated.

The interpretation of the threat Saddam poses, and the way it is being presented are deficient, because the U.S. administration is attributing the same megalomaniac ideas and ambitions to the Iraqi leader as he had before the Gulf War.

Despite his bombastic lying declarations, Saddam is well aware he was defeated. It is clear to him that he cannot take on the might of America, and it is no accident that he he has folded now on the issue of the nuclear weapons inspectors. Before the war he had built up hopes of gaining hegemony in the Gulf vis-a-vis Iran and his Arab "sisters," and he was ready even to challenge the United States. This does not seem to be the situation now. His ambitions since the war are curtailed. His limited aims are to protect Iraq and deter others from harming it and - of course - to survive.

Specifically he is striving to remove the burdensome economic sanctions and the humiliating inspection regime. It is doubtful if he has concrete desires to expand in the region or beyond it, if only because it is clear to him what its immediate cost would be. However, to achieve his limited purposes he needs power to back them, especially its non-conventional components, for they are the only things which give his power an added value. A brutal and crafty despot, Saddam has proved to be careful and sane in his moves. He might wish to return to his megalomaniac desires, but his capability is restricted.

Iraq today has no nuclear power, mainly because it has no fissile material like plutonium or enriched uranium, although it has a general potential to manufacture an atomic bomb. Before the war Iraq was, indeed, about six months away from manufacturing a bomb, but this is because it had the use of the fissile material in the reactors transferred to it by the Soviet Union and France and which were "under the inspection" of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

This material was taken away from Iraq, and today it does not have the capability to enrich uranium with centrifuges (which have been destroyed) or in other ways. Attempts to buy fissile material in the quality and quantity required for a bomb have failed in the past and it is doubtful whether the could succeed in the future.

It is also doubtful that post-war Saddam is striving wholeheartedly to build a nuclear bomb, because the moment he approaches it, this will not go unnoticed in United States and he would be sentencing himself to an immediate liquidation attempt. This would also be the case if he transferred nuclear arms of any kind to terrorists.

On the other hand, Saddam probably has chemical and biological weapons which are easy to manufacture and conceal. But even when he used chemical weapons in the Iraq-Iran war, he restricted himself, and even when his army was defeated and driven out of Kuwait, he did not dare to use those weapons.

The risks of non conventional weapons depend on having the means to launch them - mainly airplanes, pilotless drones and missiles. And here the Iraqi Air Force, even before the war in 1991, did not demonstrate any considerable attacking power - never mind after the war when it was very much weakened. However, even a single plane can carry out an infiltration and attack. Iraq has had drones for years, intended among other things to spray chemical and biological agents from the air. But their range and the abilities of the control systems are unclear - controlling drones across hundreds of kilometers or a thousand kilometers is not an easy matter to be taken for granted.

The ballistic missile issue also has two sides - there is no evidence that Iraq, (even since getting rid of the inspectors in December 1998) has many launchers and missiles, especially in the middle range. Their operational condition, and that of the war heads - especially the presumably hidden non-conventional heads - is not at all clear. Judging by the condition of chemical weapons the inspectors found in the past, such doubts are well placed. There is also the question of whether they could be operated freely in western Iraq as they were in 1991 to hit Israel and Saudi Arabia.

It seems one may establish that the risks from Saddam Hussein are not so bad as they are made to appear. Moreover, certain threats - and much more acute ones - are presented by others in the region, like Iran and Hezbollah. But these are not high on the U.S. list of priorities.

It is not desirable that the United States, so important to the free world, should pitch its power against a danger that is not first rate.

Brigadier General (res.) Levran is the author of "Israeli Strategy after Desert Storm," published by Frank Cass.

posted 09-24-2002 07:13 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yodabreath:
You people must really love deluding yourselves. You think that just repeating these tired, worn out liberal Democrat lies, that it will make it any more true?

Whatever floats your boat. I prefer actual truth.

---

Deluding ourselves? - Democrat lies? - Truth?

The first time I went to the Gulf, I pretty much saw one of the most untrained, incompetant, couldn't surrender fast enough armies that I had ever seen. The Republican Guard had pretty much left the field and left a bunch of easy targets behind. Now some years later, after thinking that we hadn't suffered many casualties, some 200,000 of our troops are now sick according to some accounts. Of those 200,000 troops, some 20,000 of them were reported to have died mysteriously. I'm sure you remember that they were expecting us to have a high fatality rate. - I remember reading all those articles concerning body bags and stuff after I got home and wondered what the hell was going on.

This time around, based on the recent exercise that was conducted on the Nevada border, they're expecting us to have heavy casualties even with all our new technology. - Like I said before, our forces are spread way too thin for us to be conducting any type of large scale operation. - Our strength was cut by 50% during the last administration and we haven't recovered. If China, Russia, North Korea or any other country decides to flex its muscles, then we're gonna have a serious problem on our hands.

FYI, Yodabreath - If I remember correctly, I didn't vote for Forest, I voted for Bush.

posted 09-25-2002 03:47 PM            

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle on Wednesday accused President Bush ( news - web sites) of seeking to politicize the debate over war with Iraq and demanded that he apologize for implying that Democrats were not interested in the security of the American people.

AP Photo

"That is wrong," Daschle said in an impassioned speech on the Senate floor. "We ought not politicize this war. We ought not politicize the rhetoric about war and life and death."

"You tell those who fought in Vietnam and World War II they are not interested in the security of the American people" because they are Democrats, Daschle said. "That is outrageous. Outrageous."

Sen. Daniel Inouye ( news, bio, voting record), D-Hawaii, who lost an arm in World War II, also spoke on the Senate floor: "It grieves me when my president makes statements that would divide this nation," he said.

Daschle cited a string of actions by the administration including a comment by Bush that the Democratic-controlled Senate is "not interested in the security of the American people."

Daschle made his comments as congressional leaders negotiated in private with the administration over the terms of a resolution that would authorize the president to use force to eliminate Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

Despite misgivings by some rank-and-file Democrats, Daschle and House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt have both signaled support for such legislation, to be passed before Congress adjourns for the midterm elections.

At the same time, Democratic political strategists have expressed concern that the national debate over Iraq is overshadowing domestic issues in the campaign.

Senate Republican leader Trent Lott said he thought he, Daschle, Gephardt and House Speaker Dennis Hastert would come to an agreement on the resolution by the end of this week. "I think it's word-tweaking, I don't think there's broad disagreement on terms."

The quote Daschle referred to came during a visit that Bush made earlier this week to Trenton, N.J.

Speaking at a public event that preceded his appearance at a fund-raiser for Republican Senate candidate Doug Forrester, the president said, "The House responded, but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people. I will not accept a Department of Homeland Security that does not allow this president and future presidents to better keep the American people secure."

Bush was speaking to reporters in the Oval Office at the same time that Daschle leveled his criticism Wednesday. The president said he is determined to battle terrorism on two fronts — Saddam's Iraq and Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites)'s al-Qaida network because "they're both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive."

At one point, Bush was asked whether he now believes that Saddam is a bigger threat to Americans than the al-Qaida terror network.

After a long pause, he replied: "That is an interesting question. I'm trying to think of something humorous to say, but I can't when I think about al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites)."

"... The danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al-Qaida becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world. Both of them need to be dealt with. You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."

Democrats say the draft proposal that Bush sent to Congress last week is far too broad in giving the president open-ended authority to use military force against Iraq, unilaterally if necessary, to disarm the country, drive Saddam from power and secure peace in the region.

"We should be dealing with a coalition here rather than going it alone," said Sen. Richard Durbin ( news, bio, voting record), D-Ill. "If we don't have a coalition we run the risk of expanding opportunities for terrorism around the world against the United States."

House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., offered a compromise proposal that made clear that any use of force to restore regional security should come in conjunction with U.N. resolutions.

posted 09-25-2002 06:26 PM            

Is AMERICAS alliance creating more terrorism?

Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Head of state: Pervez Musharraf (replaced Mohammad Rafiq Tarar in June)
Head of government: Pervez Musharraf
Capital: Islamabad
Population: 145 million
Official languages: English and Urdu
Death penalty: retentionist
2001 treaty ratifications/signatures: Optional Protocol to the UN Children's Convention on the
involvement of children in armed conflict
Pakistan
The military government completed phased elections to local bodies in August and continued the crack-down on corruption. The ban on public political activities enacted in 2000 remained in force and restricted the activities of political parties; hundreds of people were detained for contravening the ban. Political violence increased after the Pakistan government decided to support military action in Afghanistan by the USA and its allies. Islamist groups responded to this decision with violent demonstrations. Women and members of religious minorities continued to face high levels of violence throughout the year. The death penalty continued to be imposed and at least 13 people were executed.

Background

In June, General Pervez Musharraf, the Chief Executive since 1999, replaced Mohammad Rafiq Tarar as President. A meeting in Agra, India, in July between the Indian Prime Minister and President Musharraf failed to produce a joint statement because of President Musharraf's insistence that Kashmir was a central issue in bilateral relations.

The separation of the judiciary from the executive was completed in August when the office of district commissioner/district magistrate was eliminated. Its judicial functions were transferred to judicial magistrates working under the supervision of district judges. However, under an ordinance issued in August, some functions were transferred to the police, and confessions made before police officers were made admissible in court.

'Anti-terrorism' legislation

In August, the Anti-Terrorism Ordinance of 1997 was amended to empower the government to ban organizations ''involved in terrorism'' and to ban media distribution of materials ''conducive to terrorism''. It also provided for trials behind closed doors and required religious organizations to disclose their funding.

In September, a state of emergency was declared giving the government sweeping powers to maintain law and order.

Political arrests and detention

The ban on public political rallies continued to be enforced. Hundreds of political activists were arrested for breaking the ban; most were released within hours or days. Some Islamist leaders were held in preventive detention under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance (MPO) which allows for up to three months' detention without trial.

* In April, several hundred people, including women and children, were arbitrarily detained for a short period of time for peacefully demonstrating in Lahore and Karachi against water shortages.
* In October, dozens of Islamist protesters, including many Afghan refugees, were arrested during violent protests against Pakistan's support for US military action in Afghanistan. Several Islamist leaders including Fazlur Rahman of Jamiat-e-Ulema-Islam and Qazi Hussain of the Jamaat-e-Islami, were placed under house arrest under the MPO.

Freedom of expression

Several journalists were detained solely for their work.

* In June, four journalists at the daily newspaper Mohasib of Abbotabad in Punjab province were arrested on charges of blasphemy. The charges related to the publication of an article discussing whether pious Muslim men must wear beards. They were released on bail in mid-July.

Anti-corruption trials

In April, following protests by national and international human rights organizations, the Supreme Court of Pakistan struck down several provisions of the 1999 National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance. Among the changes were the shortening of the permitted period of detention by NAB from 90 to 15 days and the easing of bail restrictions. By August, 356 corruption cases had been filed, of which 148 had led to convictions.

In April, the Supreme Court set aside the conviction for corruption in 1999 of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari and ordered a retrial, ruling that the judge had been biased. In May, a court ordered Benazir Bhutto's arrest to stand trial and one month later sentenced her to three years' imprisonment for failing to appear before it.

Torture and deaths in custody

In April, police officials acknowledged that torture, particularly of members of disadvantaged groups, continued to be practised. In May, Law Minister Shahida Jamil criticized the previous governments' failure to invest in police training, stating that police frequently had no other investigative techniques but the use of force to extract confessions. Several attempts were made to outlaw torture. In October, the Sindh Inspector General of Police issued standing orders not to use torture and stated that he would hold senior police officers criminally responsible for torture and deaths in custody in their jurisdiction.

Prolonged solitary confinement was sometimes unlawfully used to punish detainees or extort money. Several detainees in Faisalabad Central Prison were reportedly held in continuous solitary confinement for several months longer than the three-month maximum permitted in Pakistan law; one had reportedly been held in solitary confinement for three years.

Deaths in custody

In the first three months of the year, nine detainees died in Faisalabad Central Prison when health care was denied despite instructions by the prison doctor.

At least 40 people died in police custody or in prison as a result of torture during 2001. In the first nine months of the year, 12 deaths in custody were recorded in Lahore alone. According to police officials, about a dozen police officers were suspended and charged with criminal offences in connection with the deaths. At the end of the year, no details were available about charges or arrests.

* In October, Mian Arshad, a businessman detained at the beginning of October, died in the custody of the NAB in Lahore. He had been interrogated in connection with an allegation of corruption against a leader of the Pakistan People's Party. NAB officials stated that Mian Arshad had died of heart failure. However, the autopsy report listed four injuries to his body, along with bruises and swellings. Police delayed registering a complaint filed by relatives. An investigation was ordered but its findings were not known at the end of the year.

Freedom of religion

Several cases of blasphemy were reported, both against members of religious minorities and Muslims.

* A Christian teacher, Pervez Masih, was charged with blasphemy in April. He said that police officers beat him with rifle butts and kicked him until he almost lost consciousness. His trial began in May.
* In August, Yunus Sheikh, a doctor and lecturer, was convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death in Rawalpindi. His appeal was pending at the end of the year.

The government failed to provide adequate protection to religious minorities against attacks by Islamist groups. In particular Shi'a professionals were openly and with impunity targeted by Sunni militants in Karachi. Few of those responsible for sectarian killings were prosecuted as witnesses and the families of victims feared revenge attacks, and judges were afraid to convict.

* In October, the government ordered a judicial inquiry and payment of compensation after 17 Christians were shot dead in a church in Bahawalpur by unidentified Islamists.

Women

The state failed to take adequate measures to protect women from abuse. Several hundred girls and women were killed for allegedly shaming their families. Their supposedly immoral behaviour included marrying men of their own choice or seeking a divorce. The non-governmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that 62 women had been killed in such ''honour'' crimes in the first quarter of 2001 in Sindh Province alone. Although widely reported, abuses were routinely ignored by the state.

* In April, 21-year-old Fakhra Younus had acid thrown in her face by her husband, a well-known former parliamentarian. Her face, shoulders and chest were extensively burned, her lips were fused together and one eye was damaged. Although her family managed to register a complaint, her husband was not arrested. The authorities reportedly refused to issue her with travel documents when she sought reconstructive surgery abroad. She eventually left the country in July.

The authorities also continued to ignore practices resembling slavery.

* In June, a jirga (tribal council) in Thatta district, Sindh Province, handed over two girls to ''settle'' a tribal feud arising from a murder. The 11-year-old daughter of the accused was forced to marry the 46-year-old father of the murder victim and the six-year-old daughter of the other accused was married to the eight-year-old brother of the victim. Although the arrangement was reported in the local media the authorities took no action to rescue the children.

Children

Over 4,000 juvenile detainees were held during the year. Many were detained for minor offences such as vagrancy and theft. They were often detained awaiting trial for longer than the maximum possible sentence for the alleged offence. Despite the requirement of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000, legal aid was not provided to all juveniles. As most prisons did not have separate cells for juveniles, many young detainees were held with adult suspects or convicts. Special courts to try juveniles were not set up, but regular courts were empowered to act as special courts.

Refugees

In May, the authorities closed the border with Afghanistan to refugees. Afghans seeking refuge who managed to enter Pakistan faced refoulement, arbitrary arrest, intimidation and deportation, particularly in the North West Frontier Province.

* In June, an Afghan refugee, Sallahuddin Samadi, was picked up by police in Islamabad. When the police discovered that neither he nor his relatives could pay the bribe they demanded, Sallahuddin Samadi was thrown from the moving car. He died 12 days later of his injuries. Two police officers were reportedly arrested and charged with criminal offences and an investigation was announced into the incident. It was not known if anyone had been brought to trial by the end of the year.

At the end of the year, the border remained closed to all those without valid visas. As a result, thousands of Afghans seeking refuge from the US-led military strikes in Afghanistan which began in October were forced to try to enter Pakistan at isolated points on the porous border.

During a meeting with AI's Secretary General in Islamabad in December, General Musharraf gave assurances that no Afghan refugee would be forcibly returned to Afghanistan.

Death penalty

At least 50 people were sentenced to death during 2001, some after apparently unfair trials. At least 13 people were executed.

* In July, an Afghan tribesman was executed after a tribal council in North Waziristan, a designated tribal area, found him guilty of murder. The father of the victim shot the Afghan dead in front of thousands of tribesmen.

* In November, Sher Ali was hanged in Timergarah for a murder committed in 1993 when he was 13 years old. The Supreme Court had earlier rejected an appeal which argued that in 1993 the death penalty could not be imposed in the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas where he had lived.

During a meeting with AI's Secretary General in Islamabad in December, General Musharraf announced the commutation of death sentences of juveniles imposed before the death penalty for children was abolished in July 2000.

****UPDATE******

Seven shot dead in Karachi office

KARACHI (Pakistan) - Gunmen entered the offices of a Christian welfare organisation in the southern port city of Karachi yesterday and shot and killed seven people at point-blank range.

One of the seven died in hospital.

The killings occurred in the third-floor offices of the Institute for Peace and Justice, or Idara-e-Amn-o-Insaf, a Pakistani Christian charity in operation for 30 years.

Victims were tied up in chairs with their hands behind their backs and their mouths taped before being shot in the head, according to Karachi police chief Kamal Shah.

It was not clear who was behind the attack.

He said police were questioning an office assistant who was tied up and beaten by the attackers, but not shot.

The shooting was the latest in a string of violent attacks against Christians and Westerners, who have been increasingly targeted since President Pervez Musharraf's decision to crack down on Islamic extremist groups and join the United States war against the Taleban and Al-Qaeda in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Pakistani Information Minister Nisar Memon condemned the attack, saying those who carried it out were 'enemies of Pakistan'.

The violence shattered a growing sense of confidence among Pakistani leaders that a sweeping crackdown had broken the back of extremist groups which have targeted Christians and Westerners.

posted 09-25-2002 07:04 PM               

Ky. Soldiers Prepare for Deployment

By KIMBERLY HEFLING

ASSOCIATED PRESS

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky.- When soldiers from Fort Campbell last left for the Middle East, small businesses went bankrupt and the strip of road that is the post's main shopping area was deserted. Some 5,500 soldiers were deployed to Afghanistan last year. Almost all have returned, but business owners and other community members are bracing for another, potentially bigger exodus - this time to Iraq.

Stores on what is known as "the strip" cater almost exclusively to the military - barber shops offer buzz cuts, dry cleaners are stocked with cleaned and pressed uniforms, and tattoo parlors offer a variety of patriotic body art.

"If anyone on this block is not preparing, they are stupid," said video-store owner Bill Anderson.

Fort Campbell is home to the 15,000-strong 101st Airborne Division, as well as the much smaller 5th Special Forces Group and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Almost 20,000 soldiers from the post - nearly the entire population of Fort Campbell - took part in Operation Desert Storm, leaving by the planeload in 1990. It's unclear if or when soldiers will leave for Iraq.

"It's my job, so we're ready to go," said 2nd Lt. Brandon Friedman, 24. "Thirty-six hours is all the notice we need."

Anderson said he thinks he could weather a mass deployment to Iraq, but if no one is walking in the door, "I may as well shut down until they come back."

Chelsea Harknis, military affairs director of the chamber of commerce for Hopkinsville Christian County, about 20 miles north of Fort Campbell, said local officials have been in touch almost daily with the post.

She said it is not clear what role the 101st would play if the United States decides to fight Iraq.

"Fort Campbell is so important to both surrounding communities on the Tennessee side and the Kentucky side, because we are so close to them personally and through our business, it's going to affect us in several ways during any type of deployment," Harknis said.

Becky Cox, manager at Pal's Shop Ezy, said she learned a long time ago not to worry about deployments. The store is across from the post and soldiers frequently come in to buy Kentucky lottery tickets. "We take the good with the bad," Cox said.

---

On the Net: Fort Campbell: http://www.campbell.army.mil/campbell.htm --

posted 09-25-2002 08:45 PM            

...How about we send Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Blair instead of these poor souls!

posted 09-26-2002 12:18 AM            

Introducing the amazing new Penta-Lawn 2000!
The most resilient lawn ever!
Exclusively tested at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
It's skid proof! It's fire proof! It even repels plane debris! On September 11, 2001, a bunch of mean nasty Arab terrorists hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 fully loaded with fuel, and
crashed it at ground level into the west side wall of the Pentagon.

"Some eyewitnesses believe the plane actually hit the ground at the base of the Pentagon first, and then skidded into the building." -CBS
"As eyewitnesses described and photographs demonstrate, the hijacked airliner dived so low as it approached the Pentagon that it actually hit the ground first, thereby dissipating much of the energy that might otherwise have caused more extensive damage to the building." -Snopes.com
"But I think the blessing here might have been that the airplane hit before it hit the building, it hit the ground, and a lot of energy might have gone that way. That's what it appeared like." -CNN
"What -- or who -- caused Flight 77 to hit ground first, diffusing most of its destructive energy before it slammed into the Pentagon?" -ESPN / MSN

"NBC's Jim Miklaszewski explains that the sequence of five photos, taken from a Department of Defense security camera, shows the Boeing 757 hitting the ground an instant before it plows into the building and explodes in a deadly fireball." -MSNBC
"Then he caught an edge of his wing on the ground." There is a helicopter pad right in front of the side of the Pentagon. The wing touched there, then the plane cartwheeled into the building. -Time
"According to one witness, 'what looked like a 747' plowed into the south side of the Pentagon, possibly skipping through a heliport before it hit the building." -Stars and Stripes
Patrick: "The plane hit the ground first, then slid into the building."
Just think what this would do to your lawn after an explosion like this.

Plane debris, skid marks, fire burns, jet fuel, luggage, body parts, yuck!

You would have to shell out thousands of dollars to clean up this mess!

But wait, this is not your ordinary lawn!
This is the Penta-Lawn 2000!

Do you think just any lawn would hold up like this after a plane crashed on it?

No Way!

Only the Penta-Lawn 2000! can withstand the sheer punishment
from the crash of a fully-fueled 100 ton commercial airliner!

This is how an ordinary lawn looks after a commercial airliner crashes on it..

What a mess!

But look how marvelous the Penta-Lawn 2000! held
up moments after a Boeing 757 crashed on it...

Not a Scratch!

Not even a dent!

Superb!

Simply amazing!

Even your spouse will be impressed!



And look how nice and neat the Penta-Lawn 2000! looks after the roof collapses...

Astonishing!
Absolutely fabulous!

Wish we could say the same about the Pentagon!

So don't just settle for any lawn.
Demand the best, most resilient lawn money can buy today!

posted 09-26-2002 08:01 AM            

Nations Vent Quietly Over U.S.
Thu Sep 26, 3:14 AM ET

By SONYA ROSS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Germany is not alone in its irritation with the United States.

A small community of nations, strained by U.S. pressure to support war with Iraq, have been quietly taking out their frustrations on other aspects of President Bush's agenda.

Saudi Arabia turned aside U.S.-backed suggestions that the market should set the price of oil. European nations, annoyed by tax breaks given to U.S. corporations overseas, are threatening to impose $4 billion in sanctions the World Trade Organization (WTO) said it could impose on American products.

No major European allies have signed onto a U.S. request that they shield Americans from a new international criminal court for war crimes. Brazil, which flatly said it would not back unilateral U.S. action in Iraq, upped its steel exports to offset high U.S. tariffs imposed by Bush.

"They are shipping more and making less," said Jeffrey Schott, a global trade expert with the Institute for International Economics. "Nobody's going to be inclined to grin and bear it."

At the core of this resistance is a sense of powerlessness against the Bush administration's insistence that it can, and will, act alone against Baghdad if the United Nations won't.

"I think there is residual resentment," said John Hulsman, European affairs expert at the Heritage Foundation. "If they don't negotiate with the United States and reach some kind of deal, they will look impotent. That reminder of impotence, I think, has got to grate on people."

Many nations were peeved well before Bush went to the United Nations and advocated prying Saddam Hussein from power in Baghdad. They were taken aback by Bush's decided disdain for international treaties; Russia, for one, felt very let down by that, even as it was buoyed by its warm new U.S. partnership, said Anatol Lieven, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"It expected America would reach a real arms limitation. It was expected that America would move very quickly to give Russia a new relationship with NATO ," Lieven said. "All of this creates a very unfortunate impression in Russia," he said, that the United States has "disregard for other people's interests."

Determined to keep Americans beyond the reach of the International Criminal Court, the United States threatened to end U.N. peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and other hot spots, then launched an effort to strike independent agreements with nations.

So far, agreements have been reached with 12 countries. By contrast, 78 nations signed the treaty that created the court, including NATO allies Britain, France, the Netherlands and Germany.

The U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes, Pierre-Richard Prosper, said nations "recognize this is an issue on the side" and don't link it to Iraq policy. But he also acknowledged that it could come up eventually, saying, "We do not want this as a talking point in our relations with states."

Bush made it an issue on Wednesday with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. But foreign minister Maria Carolina Barco said no new pact was necessary, because an agreement on this matter was reached 40 years ago.

"I don't think the rest of the world is about to balance against the United States, because they get too many benefits," Hulsman said. "They'll grumble, they'll sit in cafes and complain about us, but they'll continue to go along grudgingly with the order of power."

posted 09-26-2002 06:47 PM            

The Dishonesty of This So-Called Dossier

by Robert Fisk

Tony Blair's "dossier" on Iraq is a shocking document. Reading it can only fill a decent human being with shame and outrage. Its pages are final proof – if the contents are true – that a massive crime against humanity has been committed in Iraq. For if the details of Saddam's building of weapons of mass destruction are correct – and I will come to the "ifs" and "buts" and "coulds" later – it means that our massive, obstructive, brutal policy of UN sanctions has totally failed. In other words, half a million Iraqi children were killed by us – for nothing.

Let's go back to 12 May 1996. Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, had told us that sanctions worked and prevented Saddam from rebuilding weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Our Tory government agreed, and Tony Blair faithfully toed the line. But on 12 May, Mrs Albright appeared on CBS television. Leslie Stahl, the interviewer, asked: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" To the world's astonishment, Mrs Albright replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it."

Now we know – if Mr Blair is telling us the truth – that the price was not worth it. The price was paid in the lives of hundreds of thousands of children. But it wasn't worth a dime. The Blair "dossier" tells us that, despite sanctions, Saddam was able to go on building weapons of mass destruction. All that nonsense about dual-use technology, the ban on children's pencils – because lead could have a military use – and our refusal to allow Iraq to import equipment to restore the water-treatment plants that we bombed in the Gulf War, was a sham.

This terrible conclusion is the only moral one to be drawn from the 16 pages that supposedly detail the chemical, biological and nuclear horrors that the Beast of Baghdad has in store for us. It's difficult, reading the full report, to know whether to laugh or cry. The degree of deceit and duplicity in its production speaks of the trickery that informs the Blair government and its treatment of MPs.

There are a few tidbits that ring true. The new ammonium perchlorate plant illegally supplied by an Indian company – which breached those wonderful UN sanctions, of course – is a frightening little detail. So is the new rocket test stand at the al-Rafah plant. But this material is so swamped in trickery and knavery that its inclusion becomes worthless.

Here is one example of the dishonesty of this "dossier". On page 45, we are told – in a long chapter about Saddam's human rights abuses – that "on March 1st, 1991, in the wake of the Gulf War, riots (sic) broke out in the southern city of Basra, spreading quickly to other cities in Shia-dominated southern Iraq. The regime responded by killing thousands". What's wrong with this paragraph is the lie is in the use of the word "riots". These were not riots. They were part of a mass rebellion specifically called for by President Bush Jr's father and by a CIA radio station in Saudi Arabia. The Shia Muslims of Iraq obeyed Mr Bush Sr's appeal. And were then left to their fate by the Americans and British, who they had been given every reason to believe would come to their help. No wonder they died in their thousands. But that's not what the Blair "dossier" tells us.

And anyone reading the weasel words of doubt that are insinuated throughout this text can only have profound concern about the basis for which Britain is to go to war. The Iraqi weapon program"is almost certainly" seeking to enrich uranium. It "appears" that Iraq is attempting to acquire a magnet production line. There is evidence that Iraq has tried to acquire specialized aluminum tubes (used in the enrichment of uranium) but "there is no definitive intelligence" that it is destined for a nuclear program"If" Iraq obtained fissile material, Iraq could produce nuclear weapons in one or two years. It is "difficult to judge" whether al-Hussein missiles could be available for use. Efforts to regenerate the Iraqi missile program"probably" began in 1995. And so the "dossier" goes on.

Now maybe Saddam has restarted his WMD program Let's all say it out loud, 20 times: Saddam is a brutal, wicked tyrant. But are "almost certainly", "appears", "probably" and "if" really the rallying call to send our grenadiers off to the deserts of Kut-al-Amara?

There is high praise for UN weapons inspectors. And there is more trickery in the relevant chapter. It quotes Dr Hans Blix, the executive chairman of the UN inspection commission, as saying that in the absence of (post-1998) inspections, it is impossible to verify Iraqi disarmament compliance. But on 18 August this year, the very same Dr Blix told Associated Press that he couldn't say with certainty that Baghdad possessed WMDs. This quotation is excised from the Blair "dossier", of course.

So there it is. If these pages of trickery are based on "probably" and "if", we have no business going to war. If they are all true, we murdered half a million Iraqi children. How's that for a war crime?

posted 09-27-2002 09:32 AM            

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration's push for a congressional expression of support for disarming Saddam Hussein is being slowed by Democratic concerns about a blank check to wage war.

Trouble brewed for the administration at the United Nations, as well. There, a tough resolution prepared by the United States and Britain to threaten Iraq faces stiff opposition from France, Russia and China, who hold veto power in the U.N. Security Council.

``We are a long way from getting an agreement, but we are working hard,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as he stepped up U.S. diplomacy internationally.

On the home front, three Democratic senators, Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, told Powell the White House was asking Congress for unprecedented backing.

The senators did not question a need to get tough with Iraq for blocking U.N. weapons inspections for nearly four years and refusing to disarm.

But they said the congressional resolution the president proposed was far too broad.

For instance, Sarbanes said, it would authorize force against Iraq for refusing to return Kuwaiti prisoners held since the Persian Gulf war in 1990-91.

Kerry told Powell ``you are asking for blanket authority'' and Feingold said ``we are hearing shifting justifications for using force in Iraq.''

Powell tried to placate them, saying the Bush administration was unlikely to use force except if Iraq continued to refuse to get rid of weapons of mass destruction.

In an op-ed article in Friday's New York Times, House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt criticized Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other Republicans for injecting politics into the debate on Iraq.

Gephardt said that earlier this week the president ``went so far as to say that the Democrat-led Senate is 'not interested in the security of the American people.'''

Gephardt also said it was wrong that some Republicans would question Democrats' patriotism for insisting that Congress fully discuss the administration policy. He was also critical of Cheney for saying the country's security efforts would be stronger with more Republicans in Washington.

Democrats, he said, are committed to working with the administration to produce a final measure that will have broad bipartisan support.

``But the statements by the president and vice president only serve to weaken that process, undermine trust and thwart cooperation,'' he wrote. If Republicans ``continue to use the war as a political weapon, our efforts to address the threat posed by Iraq will fail.''

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said the Senate would begin its debate next week, but he said the White House proposal was unacceptable.

A resolution giving the president the authority to go to war should be backed by the broadest coalition possible, Daschle said after meeting with Senate Democrats. ``We've come some distance. We've got a long way to go before that can be achieved,'' the South Dakota Democrat said.

Senate Republicans said they strongly backed the proposal offered by the White House and felt the president had gone far enough in meeting Democratic concerns about its scope. ``Any further erosion, I think, is going to be a problem,'' Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi said.

On the international front, Powell sent Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman to Paris and Moscow to try to persuade France and Russia to agree to the proposed U.S.-British resolution.

Powell met with Chinese officials and telephoned the foreign ministers of France, China and Russia and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan as part of the difficult U.S. campaign.

``We expect there will be an agreement on a number of elements and disagreement on others,'' Powell said.

France, Russia and China, as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have the right to kill any resolution by vetoing it.

All three countries are inclined to take up Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on his offer to admit weapons inspectors before threatening military action.

Hinting that the administration was willing to compromise to some extent, Powell said the United States and Britain wanted a single resolution that told Iraq what it must do and warn of consequences if it refused.

But French President Jacques Chirac has proposed two resolutions - the first calling for new and unfettered inspections of suspect weapons sites and only threatening force in a second resolution if Iraq was still defying the Security Council.

As the administration built its case against Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said there was evidence senior members of the al-Qaida terror network had been in Baghdad ``in recent periods.''

And Powell told the Senate committee that there was evidence of linkage between Iraq and al-Qaida. He said there was ``no smoking gun'' that linked Iraq to the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States.

posted 09-27-2002 03:40 PM               

BTW, could there be a link here?

NESARA
____________________________________________________________________

Report: U.S will need 40,000 troops in post-Saddam Iraq

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Friday, September 27, 2002

The United States will require at least 40,000 troops to ensure its war aims in a post-Saddam Iraq, according to a new report by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

The report said that the troops would not help rebuild Iraq but would be required to ensure that neither President Saddam Hussein nor his supporters would try to seize power, Middle East Newsline reported.

The United States would require 100,000 troops to topple the Saddam regime, the report said. A post-Saddam U.S. military presence would require 40,000 U.S. troops. Such a force would need to be bolstered by allied troops.

"The post-combat U.S. military presence augmented by allied forces should require roughly 40,000 U.S. troops to destroy the terrorist networks and cells, eliminate Iraq's WMD arsenal and infrastructure, protect its energy resources, and block Iranian hegemony in the region," the report said.

"The post-war military force in Iraq would be tasked primarily with confronting any remnant elements of Saddam's deposed regime and deterring other regional powers from exploiting the situation for purposes injurious to the interests of the United States and its allies."

Authors Baker Spring and Jack Spencer asserted that the U.S. force would require up to 5,000 special operations troops to locate and destroy Iraqi's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

Another 30,000 troops would be required to be deployed to protect Iraq against neighoring Iran.Washington must also plan for the deployment of an additional 5,000 troops and another 5,000 allied forces to protect Iraq's energy infrastructure. Such a force must be capable of turning from a combat to a police force.

"The U.S. contribution to the post-war effort should include two divisions, one light and one heavy [armored], with the ability to patrol Iraq's border with Iran, along with other specialized units for destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and securing its energy sector," the report said.

The report said U.S. military planners must maintain any post-war military presence on securing war aims rather than turn into a peacekeeping force.

Such post-war activities in Iraq should not be subject to what the report termed "arbitrary deadlines."

posted 09-27-2002 07:54 PM            

Saturday September 28, 2002 1:40 AM

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) - Ending a vigorous week of daily fund-raising that dumped nearly $15 million in Republican coffers, President Bush on Friday sought to drive a wedge between Senate Democrats and their labor allies on a new homeland security department.

Bush blasted union leaders, arguing they have already hindered the administration's post-Sept. 11 efforts to ramp up border security. The Senate has been considering Bush's proposal to create a superagency for weeks, but is stalemated because of a dispute over worker protections that many Democrats favor but the president has refused to accept.

Previously, Bush has taken the Senate to task for failing to enact the measure, in language that provoked counteraccusations from Democratic leaders that he was politicizing the war on terror and the situation in Iraq.

On Friday, he dropped that tactic.

Instead, Bush looked to expose the flaws in the Democratic proposal by criticizing union protests of Customs Service efforts to get emergency contact numbers for its workers and require those inspecting shipping containers at the nation's 301 ports to wear radiation detectors.

While declaring himself in favor of workers' rights and collective bargaining, Bush said union demands for negotiations over those new worker requirements have delayed such ``sensible'' steps. That, he suggested, only benefits those still plotting to harm Americans.

``We don't have a year to resolve issues like that,'' the president told a $1.7 million dollar luncheon in Denver for Colorado GOP House candidate Bob Beauprez. ``We're in a different time in America.''

With November's elections set to decide which party controls Congress for the rest of his term, Bush has ramped up his already record-breaking campaign money chase, in which he has now scooped up over $130 million this year. He has raised so much cash in so many places - with six appearances in four cities over five days - that even he seemed to lose track of his schedule on Friday.

``I want to thank the folks who've organized this dinner, or lunch, however you want to call it,'' he said at midday.

Friday found him changing time zones three times as he crisscrossed the West in search of money for fellow Republicans. He stumped for his party's contenders in two tossup congressional contests - Beauprez in Colorado and Rick Renzi in Arizona - and one tight gubernatorial race.

From Colorado, Bush flew to Flagstaff to rally Republican faithful alongside Renzi - who, like Beauprez, had transported himself to the previous stop in order to be seen emerging with the president from Air Force One on home turf. But White House organizers' hopes for a picturesque mountain backdrop for the outdoor event were ruined by a near-constant, freezing rain.

``Well, we're working on the drought,'' Bush quipped.

Later at a Phoenix civic center - where the temperature hovered around 100 - Bush headlined a $2.1 million early-bird dinner to benefit Renzi, the Arizona GOP and Matt Salmon, the party's choice for governor. He then headed back to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, for a weekend respite.

``I want to thank the host of the dinner for organizing an early dinner,'' Bush said, clearly looking forward to the weekend at his central Texas spread. ``I'm going to spend a little quality time on the ranch.''

Mindful that more friendly statehouses would make his re-election bid in 2004 that much easier, Bush has spent significant time helping gubernatorial candidates like Salmon - especially in states such as Arizona that he barely won in 2000. Bush's schedule next week includes more money-raising for Republican governor hopefuls in Maryland and Massachusetts.

The four-day Western trip allowed the president to escape Washington, its downtown streets filled for the weekend with thousands of protesters railing against meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

But Bush didn't escape protesters. In downtown Denver, at least 2,000 people rallied against a possible war in Iraq and marched to the hotel where Bush spoke, though only a smattering of demonstrators could be seen from his motorcade. In Flagstaff, a woman shouted, ``What's your reason, Mr. President? Oil money,'' during his remarks. She was escorted from the fairgrounds as the audience waved small flags and cheered.

----------

posted 09-27-2002 07:59 PM            

IN THE INEVITABLE TAKEOVER.

Hundreds Arrested at D.C. Protest

Thousands protest Bush war agenda and neoliberalism in Wasington, DC

Saturday September 28, 2002 1:40 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) - Protesters opposed to war, capitalism and global trade policies clashed with police Friday as finance ministers from around the world began a weekend of meetings. More than 600 people were arrested, and one protester was slightly injured.

The protesters had threatened to shut down the nation's capital but caused only minimal disruptions to the morning rush as they snaked through the city on foot and on bicycles, waving signs that said ``End Corporate Greed'' and ``Drop Bush not bombs.'' Police Chief Charles Ramsey estimated that 1,500 to 2,000 people participated in the rolling demonstrations.

``The whole world is watching,'' some protesters chanted as they were being arrested.

All the protests occurred blocks away from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund buildings, where meetings began inside a cocoon of fences, closed streets and police.

Of the 649 demonstrators taken into custody, five were charged with destruction of property; the rest were charged with failing to obey a police officer or parading without a permit, Ramsey said.

Police on motorcycles and horses corralled hundreds of protesters in a grassy area a few blocks from the White House. Demonstrators and legal observers said police made no effort to disperse the crowd and refused to let people leave before beginning the arrests. ``They took out not just activists, they took out bystanders, they took out tourists,'' said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer with the Partnership for Civil Justice, which sued the city over police tactics during demonstrations two years ago.

Among those arrested was the executive director of Greenpeace, John Passacantando, who said he was just riding his bicycle to work near the demonstration. Passacantando spoke Thursday at an environmental rally outside the World Bank.

Ramsey said the arrests were justified. ``We gave warnings,'' he said. ``We followed everything by the book.''

Other demonstrators were arrested after windows were broken at a downtown Citibank office.

In the afternoon, a dozen protesters stripped to their underwear while standing on the stump of a redwood tree they had placed across from a Gap store in Washington's Georgetown district. The self-described ``Gaptivists'' chanted ``we'd rather wear nothing than wear Gap'' and accused the company's owners of being involved in logging and running sweatshops.

``There are injustices going on all around the world, and the Gap and the IMF and the World Bank are all a part of it,'' said Anna Gennari, 21, from St. Louis. ``It would be worth getting arrested if the message came across.''

Gap Inc. did not immediately return calls seeking comment Friday.

Patrick Reinsborough, an organizer with the Mobilization for Global Justice, said plans were moving forward for a larger rally and march Saturday. The group wants the financial institutions to cancel Third World debt and end economic policies they say harm the poor.

``We've called for peaceful, dignified, nonviolent, creative actions,'' Reinsborough said.

Ramsey said officials were expecting 10,000 to 20,000 demonstrators Saturday.

Many commuters heeded officials' advice to avoid driving into the downtown area Friday, leaving many streets empty and silent.

At one downtown intersection, protesters chained themselves together to block traffic. Other demonstrators danced in the street with mud and leaves smeared on their hair and clothes. Firefighters put out a few tires set ablaze on the outskirts of town. Police also contended with a barrage of fake 911 calls.

In April 2000, police arrested about 1,300 people during demonstrations opposing the financial institutions and their policies.

Guardian Newspapers 2002

posted 09-27-2002 08:50 PM               

China’s Military Planners Took Credit for 9/11

John O. Edwards

Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2002

Soon after the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, two high-ranking Chinese military planners took credit for the 9/11 attacks – and were even hailed as national heroes in China.

In fact, three years before 9/11, the Chinese colonels had proposed the attacks and cited Osama bin Laden by name in their book "Unrestricted Warfare.”

The authors of "Unrestricted Warfare” are Senior Cols. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, and in 1999 they wrote that an attack by bin Laden on the World Trade Center would be just the type of "unrestricted warfare” that could bring down America.

The book was published by China’s People’s Liberation Army and had the endorsement of the Chinese government. "Unrestricted Warfare” makes clear its purpose: offering China and other "weak” countries a strategy to destroy the U.S. without a full-scale invasion, using unusual or "asymmetrical” warfare.

NewsMax has recently obtained the CIA translation of this astounding book and has made it available with an introduction by Al Santoli, editor of the prestigious China Reform Monitor. The importance of this book was highlighted soon after 9/11, when the Chinese colonels were treated as national heroes.

In one interview with the Chinese government-owned Ta Kung Pao newspaper in Hong Kong, the colonels offered little sympathy for the Americans killed in 9/11. They told the paper, "The series of attacks taking place in the United States were very dreary and terrifying, but they must not be viewed from a single perspective” – that is, the U.S. as victims. The colonels then added coldly that the Americans "were victims of U.S. foreign policy.”

The colonels were quick to take credit for the attacks on the World Trade Center, telling the paper their strategy had worked and that "September 11, 2001 very likely is the beginning of the decline of the United States, as a superpower."

Qiao and Wang offer in "Unrestricted Warfare” several new methods for destroying the U.S. – from manipulating U.S. media, to homicide-suicide bombing, to using immigrants as a fifth column, and even employing cyber attacks to destroy America’s critical infrastructure.

Both colonels agreed that the unconventional attacks of 9/11 were right from the pages of their book, and they demonstrated their theory works. "The attacks demonstrated the United States' fragility and weakness and showed that essentially it is unable to stand attacks. ...

The United States, a giant tiger, has been dealing with mice; unexpectedly, this time it was bitten by mice – it has been wielding a large hammer but has been unable to find the flea.

"From a short-term perspective, the attacks in the United States will very likely have some effect on China's economy – they might affect China's economic growth. However, from a long-term viewpoint, they could be favorable to China."

"Unrestricted Warfare” has set off alarm bells among several high-ranking U.S. officers. Adm. Thomas Moorer, former chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, warns, "

'Unrestricted Warfare' reveals China’s game plan in its coming war with America.” He adds ominously, "China thinks it can destroy America by using these tactics.” Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub, former chief of staff of U.S. Forces Korea, shares Adm. Moorer’s view.

"The 9/11 attacks may just be the beginning. Many terrorist nations and groups will try to imitate this operation,” Gen. Singlaub said, noting "China’s war book 'Unrestricted Warfare' will be their text.”

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/9/24/143618.shtml

posted 09-27-2002 09:05 PM            

"............His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believin