Israelis play sickening game of 'Bingo'
By Linda Bevis, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 7, 2003
Going to the Palestinian Territories occupied by Israel for my winter vacation, I never dreamed that I'd be playing bingo. Arriving at a muddy roadblock, I saw 20 Palestinian men crouching in the rain. The Israeli soldiers were taking their time checking every Palestinian ID by telephone. Occasionally, the soldiers allowed one or two people who approached the roadblock to pass through immediately. Unfortunately, this persuaded more Palestinians to venture up to the roadblock. They had little choice but to try; their three villages were cut off from jobs, hospitals and food in the nearby city of Nablus because the Israelis had built a massive roadblock across their only access road, then surrounded the villages with a deep moat. In four days of roadblock watch, we found that the vast majority of Palestinians, including men, women and the occasional donkey were stopped and held for two to seven hours. Younger children or very old or sick people were allowed through with minimal hassle. The soldiers explained, "This is a game of Palestinian Bingo: We gather all the IDs and sometimes we have a 'bingo' and find a terrorist."

Open letter to West & Westerners
By Dr. Ibtissam Al-Bassam, Arab News, February 7, 2003
Allow me to introduce myself. I am a Muslim woman from Saudi Arabia. I practice Islam, a religion of peace, goodwill and good faith. Islam teaches its followers to respect Virgin Mary, peace be upon her, to believe in the Torah and in the Bible and to respect Jesus and Moses, peace be upon them, and to believe in the messages they brought to the world. My religion teaches me to believe in all the prophets that came before Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. God’s revelation as a whole throughout the ages is the Book. The Law of Moses and the Gospel of Jesus are portions of the Book. The Qur’an completes the revelation and is the Book of God. God’s revelations being continuous, all people are invited (not forced) to accept its completion in Islam. My religion teaches me that killing one person is the same as killing all humanity and saving one life is the same as saving all humanity. It tells me that God created us as nations and tribes so that we could learn to know each other, that men and women are equal before Almighty Allah (Allah is Arabic for the same God that Muslims, Christians and Jews worship). It tells me to be kind and generous to my neighbors, to protect and assist them, regardless of their race, faith or nationality. Islam has taught me to respect you, to be your friend, to work with you, to eat with you, to help you when you need help, to respect your faith, your values and your culture. And that is precisely what I have been doing and will continue to do, in keeping with the tenets of Islam.

A male solo symphony
By Wajeha Howaider, Arab News, February 7, 2003
“Sir, a simple signal from you is all we need to make the American people quake, afraid even to go out on the street, turn their night into day and their day into an eternal hell” — Qusai, Saddam Hussein’s youngest son, addressed his father thus at a party meeting last year. However, it appears that the tables have been turned and Iraq has become the sleepless nation — dreading the light of day and fearing the darkness of night. On the day the UN inspectors made public their historic report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, Saddam and his military leaders held a televised meeting. The reasons for the meeting: One — to launch a psychological war on the enemy, and two — for Saddam to show his military leadership to the world thus ensuring that if any of them even thought of running away or of betraying him they would find no shelter anywhere...Marginalizing women’s political role leads to society’s decay and their absence to its destruction. The situation today makes it imperative that we have female decisionmakers. We are in dire need of more women, such as the Belgians who raised their voices against Israel and demanded an economic embargo of that country because of the massacre of Palestinians.

They Call This Evidence
By Jimmy Breslin, Newsday, February 6, 2003
The firefighter was in the World Trade Center wreckage when he found a perfectly knotted necktie. He took it to a cop who was running his section of recovering things and the cop was unimpressed and the firefighter got mad, left the tie and walked off. On a Saturday morning, he was at Our Lady of Hope Church in Middle Village for the funeral of Mike Weinberg, a fellow firefighter. After it, the firefighter was across the street, still talking about the necktie. "You know what it means when you find a knotted necktie, don't you?" he said. I waited. "Somebody's neck and head were inside it," he said. That was his smoking gun. I thought of that yesterday when Colin Powell was so sure of everything he was saying about Iraq, and sitting behind him, as incontrovertible proof, was George Tenet, the head of the CIA. The CIA was a floor full of incompetents who did not warn the people of the nation's and the world's most important city that they were going to be hit by an attack on the Trade Center by Osama bin Laden's suicide bombers. We now have our knotted neckties. The CIA, as Tenet's presence said yesterday, now is sure it knows everything, or what passes as everything for them, about Iraq, knows it right down to the 18 trucks that suddenly threaten us and the world.

US has not made its case for war
By Amir Taheri, Arab News, February 7, 2003
Anyone with some knowledge of the science of war would know that its military aspect constitutes a small part of a far more complex whole. The military may win or lose battles. But when it comes to war, politicians, not generals, determine victory or defeat. In World War II, the German army won more battles than their British, Russian and American adversaries. German generals such as von Papen and von Rundstedt achieved battleground victories that would have made Cyrus or Alexander proud. But Germany lost the war, nonetheless. The reason was that its leaders ignored one fact: war is an instrument of politics, not the other way round, a fact spelled out by Aristotle over 2,000 years ago. No other human activity requires the deployment of so much moral energy, political ingenuity, and intellectual prowess as war. Kavus Voshmgir, the 10th century Persian theoretician of war, wrote about the triple rule of armed conflict. The first phase consists of material, moral, and political preparation. One should move into the second phase only after winning the first. The second phase consists of the actual fighting, which is the least important of the three. Finally, there is the postfighting phase in which you either translate your military victory into political gains or, if you have been defeated, try to minimize your losses.

Voting Under Lockdowns: Israeli Elections
By Saree Makdisi, CounterPunch, February 7, 2003
Surely the most remarkable thing about last week's election in Israel was the fact that, even as Israeli citizens were enjoying their right to vote, their army was enforcing a lockdown that kept 3.6 million Palestinians confined to their homes for three days. Few Israelis seemed to notice the irony that the central act of their participatory democracy required for its execution the collective punishment of millions of people in total disregard for international humanitarian law. And by choosing to grant Likud its handsome victory-doubling its seats in the parliament from 19 to 37--the Israeli electorate has given its strong endorsement to the open--ended policy of violence and brutalization represented by the Sharon government. Taken together, these facts remind us again that one of the keys to peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is held by the Israeli voters, who are free to exercise a right that their occupation denies to the Palestinians, and hence free to determine, up to a point, the immediate future that both peoples must share. The Palestinians have never chosen to live under military occupation; the Israelis have now chosen to extend that occupation, to strengthen it, and to feed it with the misery, suffering and humiliation that it requires on a daily basis. Most Palestinians have no choice but to continue their legitimate resistance, though in the meantime others will probably vent their rage in those mindless and bankrupt gestures-of which suicide bombing is the ultimate expression-which only the most impossibly desperate circumstances could produce. In response the Israelis will undoubtedly make those circumstances more desperate still.

Gassing Iraq
By Edward Hammon, CounterPunch, February 7, 2003
Pentagon Plans to US Biochemical Weapons -- Top US military planners are preparing for the US to use incapacitating biochemical weapons in an invasion of Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeldt and Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed the plans in February 5th testimony before the US House Armed Services Committee. This is the first official US acknowledgement that it may use (bio)chemical weapons its crusade to rid other countries of such weapons. The Sunshine Project and other nonprofits have warned since late 2001 that the "War on Terrorism" may result the United States using prohibited biological and chemical armaments, thereby violating the same treaties it purports to defend. The US announcement creates grave concerns for the future of arms control agreements, particularly the Chemical Weapons Convention. Rumsfeldt stated that plans are being made for multiple applications, including use of gas or aerosols on unarmed Iraqi civilians, in caves, and on prisoners. Rumsfeldt reiterated the confusing, typical US official language about so-called "non-lethal" biochemical weapons, which is at odds with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Rumsfeldt described applications of a "riot control agent" that clearly imply the complete incapacitation of victims, combatant and non-combatant, in armed conflict - a definition and usages that are at odds with the CWC. Rumsfeldt acknowledged US ratification of the CWC but expressed "regret" about its restrictions, stating that the US has "tangled itself up badly" on policy for use of incapacitating biochemical weapons. Rumsfeldt indicated that - in his opinion - if President Bush signs a waiver of long-standing restrictions on US use of incapacitating chemicals, that the US will be able to legally field them in Iraq and elsewhere.

Seeing the Pen Not as Mightier, but as More Honest
By Chris Hedges, New York Times, February 6, 2003
CHRISTIAN BAUMAN says that when he has time, he watches the commercials, the ones that got him into war in the first place. He remembers what it was like, his daughter born before he graduated from high school, the series of dead-end jobs as a cook and a house painter, the bills from collection agencies he could not pay and the struggle to get by without health insurance. And he remembers the Army recruiter, with the promise of travel and another life, of adventure and a decent paycheck. "I joined the Army for the same reason most people join the Army," he said, hunched over a hamburger on his lunch break as a copy editor for a company that prepares pharmaceutical advertising. "I joined because my marriage was not working out. I was young and poor. I had a child to support and no real job prospects. I wanted to escape. But what clinched it was when I found out the Army would pay for the operation my daughter needed." He said that the birth of his daughter "saved my life because I couldn't be too much of an idiot." But it was the Army that gave him the discipline to put his life in order, and to write a book. Still, he says, there are two Armies. There is the Army of motivated, elite units, which Mr. Bauman calls the "killing machines." He has a wry smile when he says it. And then there is the Army of poor and disenfranchised soldiers, the ones he said see the Army as a way out, the ones he wrote about in his novel "The Ice Beneath You" (Scribner, 2002). "This Army of robots that you see on television doesn't exist," he said, referring to the way elite units are depicted. "What percentage of soldiers are in elite units? Almost none. The real Army is made up of people like me, people who had no choice, people trapped and suffocating without enough education and a real job. It is this Army, I explain, along with what happens to it when it is sent into countries where we don't understand what is going on."

The Sketch: General Hoon denies rumours that even the canteen cat knows to be true
By Michael Brown, The Independent, February 7, 2003
The drums of war were beating, yesterday, outside in Parliament Square. Well, actually they were the drums of peace from a demonstration that sounded as muscular and aggressive as the sound of imminent gunfire, for which Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, was preparing us. For the third time in less than a month General Hoon came to the House to make a statement on the build-up of forces in the Gulf. He has already announced the deployment of maritime forces, the Royal Marines, and land forces – including an armoured division and an armoured brigade. Yesterday, he set out details of the air forces that would be deployed. By the time Mr Hoon has finished, there won't be a soldier left to man Horseguards Parade, and it will be sea scouts changing guard at Buckingham Palace. He said: "I recognise this may tempt some people into speculation about the likelihood or timing of military action", while his nod in the direction of "no final decisions have been taken" reassured no one who was still rooting for peace. What could not have been clearer, from his words, is that war is now a certainty. Outside the chamber, Labour's Jimmy Hood was overheard to say that "even the canteen cat knows we are going to war". This under-scored the seething anger from most Labour backbenchers who exploded when Mr Hoon refused to give them an undertaking that there would be an opportunity, beforehand, for a vote on a substantive motion. His words: "I do not anticipate the necessity of a vote before deployment" were met by a hail of verbal bullets and he was carpet-bombed with a chorus of "why not?"

Environmental Catastrophe in Iraq
By Aisha El-Awady, Islam Online, October 7, 2002
The Gulf War and the subsequent economic sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council in 1990 have had an overwhelming effect on all aspects of the environment in Iraq. The water, soil and air have all been seriously polluted. Basic needs for life such as potable drinking water are now so contaminated that they pose as serious health risks. The simple act of breathing may lead to dreadful consequences. It may therefore come as a surprise to some that Iraq had one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East prior to the Gulf War. According to UNICEF's Donor Update of 31 August 2000, a UN report in 1991 described Iraq in the early mid-1980s as a state rapidly approaching the standards of developed countries. The country had an elaborate health care system, a modern telecommunications network, 24 electrical power generation stations, sophisticated water treatment plants and potable water for the large majority of the population, including an elaborate health care system...Drinking Water Poses Health Risk / Desert Storm Dumps Tons of Uranium / Iraqi Oil: Blessing or Curse?