Peaceniks lost the war but changed the shape of battle
By Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, March 22, 2003
The anti-war movement transformed the landscape and our leaders have had to respond -- The peace movement may have lost the war, but it is fighting on. Indeed, it even seems to have won the odd battle. For in ways that few could have predicted, the anti-war campaign has helped shape the way the war itself is being fought. Start with the evidence that the peace camp is refusing to wave the white flag, in Britain and beyond. As promised, the first day of military action brought protesters on to the streets in every major city in the land. In London, police found themselves stretched to capacity as they dealt with one sit-down protest after another, sprouting all over the capital. Yesterday, peaceniks got on their bikes, holding up traffic in London and Sheffield. Today there will be another anti-war demo in London. No one expects the gargantuan figures achieved on February 15, but the commitment is still there. As it is around the world. US embassies have been besieged with protesters from Quito to Bangkok, Buenos Aires to Cairo, with a candlelit vigil in Berlin and a general strike in Athens. The German protest was led by schoolchildren, a sign that the phenomenon of youth protest which has surprised so many here is not confined to Britain: if anything, this war seems to have politicised a whole new generation. Those kids who skipped school to protest against a faraway war, whether in Bristol or Berlin, will never forget the experience.

The reformist illusion
By Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 20 - 26 March 2003
The Palestinian leadership hoped the appointment of a prime minister would smooth the road to peace. But the road is still going nowhere. --  Writing recently in the Palestinian newspaper Al- Ayyam, editor and former PLO negotiator, Akram Haniyya, explained why the Palestinian leadership had embarked on the road of reform, including the decision to appoint a Palestinian prime minister. Dismissing all talk that the move had been made under international duress, he insisted "reform has been a national demand long before it was confiscated by the Americans, who do not really care about eliminating corruption or respecting the rule of law." He also elucidated the national strategy underpinning the reformist turn. "Appointing a PM with jurisdictions and responsibilities is a step on the roadmap which should be implemented to end the occupation and pave the way to negotiations based on a two-state solution. We believe it is a step that will end the political siege imposed on President Arafat," he wrote. In expressing such sentiments Haniyya is being true to the political philosophy of his mentor and the Palestinian PM-in-waiting, Mahmoud Abbass or Abu-Mazen. Ever since Israel's reoccupation of the West Bank in June last year, Abbass has led a stream within Fatah that believes there are now only two ways to thwart Ariel Sharon's ambition to bury all things Oslo, including the existing Palestinian Authority leadership.

America's Wars: Inventing Demons
By Philip S. Golub, CounterPunch, March 21, 2003
There is a coalition of the radical right in the United States, including the odd Democrat, that has long held that patriotic mobilisation is important in holding American society together. When detente broke out in the 1970s, these hawks worried about any reduction in international tension, however slight. Since 11 September 2001 they have had no more worries. The neo-conservative right has been attempting, with varying success, to establish itself as the dominant ideological force in the United States for more than 25 years, especially in the definition of foreign policy. Long thwarted by democratic process and public resistance to the national security state, it is now on the brink of success, thanks to George Bush's disputed electoral victory in 2000, and to 11 September 2001, which transformed an accidental president into an American Caesar. President Bush has become the neocon vehicle for a policy that is based on unilateralism, permanent mobilisation and "preventive war". War and militarisation would have been impossible without 11 September, which tipped the institutional balance in favour of the new right. There were other possible responses that would have had a less destabilising effect on the world. One would have been to strengthen multilateral cooperation to contain the stateless trans-national terrorist threat, and seek to reduce tensions and resolve conflicts in areas at risk, notably the Middle East. Another would have been Keynesian-style regional development on Marshall Plan lines. This would have encouraged local forces for democracy, and would undoubtedly have been more effective than war in stimulating the US and global economies.

Sparing the public the horrors of war
By Firas Al-Atraqchi, YellowTimes.org, March 22, 2003
(YellowTimes.org) – Day three of Operation Iraqi Freedom resulted in bombing the hell out of the Iraqis. Massive protests have broken out all over the world, particularly violent ones in the Arab world. Four Yemenis were killed in clashes with police in Sana'a. For the first time, the Union Jack was being burned alongside U.S. and Israeli flags in those protests. Arab TV networks, notably Abu Dhabi TV, Al-Jazeerah, and Al-Arabiya have shown scores of Iraqi civilians -- women and children -- as they are brought into hospitals and triage units for treatment. In the early hours of the aerial assault, the casualties were light. However as the hours turned into days, the pictures of Iraqi wounded became more disturbing, more grotesque. None of these images were shown on U.S. networks. Not CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, NBC, etc. The question is why? The answer: support for the war may drop markedly. The answer: to spare the U.S. viewing public an assault on their sensitivities. The pictures of planes crashing into the World Trade Center are horrific and infringe on a person's sense of reality and humanity; however, the incredible, awesome firepower unleashed on downtown Baghdad is considered just and moral, a liberation, if you will. Instead of the humanitarian toll, we were witness to hours upon hours of videophone coverage of U.S. armor roving through the barren desert. Critics will say that U.S. ordnance is pinpoint and precise, that no civilians are likely to have been injured in the latest "shock and awe" chapter.

Oldest Human History is at Risk
By Holland Cotter, Truthout, March 22, 2003
Iraq has hundreds of thousands of archaeological sites. Some 10,000 have been identified, but only a fraction have been explored. Any of them could change what we know about human history, as past excavations have done. Some have already revealed the world's earliest known villages and cities and the first examples of writing. The country is also one of the prime centers of Islamic art and culture. It is home to some of the earliest surviving examples of Islamic architecture -- the Great Mosque at Samarra and the desert palace of Ukhaidar -- and it is also a magnet for religious pilgrimage. The tombs of Imam Ali and his son Husein, founders of the Shiite branch of Islam, at Najaf and Karbala, are two of the most revered in the Muslim world. During the Persian Gulf war in 1991 at least one major archaeological monument, the colossal ziggurat of Ur, was bombed. Shock from explosions damaged fragile structures like the great brick vault at Ctesiphon, and the 13th-century university called the Mustansiriya in Baghdad. These are among the sites most at risk from war..

Colleen Rowley Letter to FBI Director
By Colleen Rowley, Truthout, March 6, 2003
Dear Director Mueller: In June, 2002, on the eve of my testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, you told me that you appreciate constructive criticism and that FBI agents should feel free to voice serious concerns they may have about senior-level FBI actions. Since then I have availed myself twice of your stated openness. At this critical point in our country’s history I have decided to try once again, on an issue of even more consequence for the internal security posture of our country. That posture has been weakened by the diversion of attention from al-Qaeda to our government’s plan to invade Iraq, a step that will, in all likelihood, bring an exponential increase in the terrorist threat to the U.S., both at home and abroad. In your recent testimony to the Senate, you noted that “the al-Qaeda network will remain for the foreseeable future the most immediate and serious threat facing this country,” adding that “the prevention of another terrorist attack remains the FBI’s top priority.” You then noted that a “U.S.-Iraq war could prompt Baghdad to more directly engage al-Qaeda and perhaps provide it with weapons of mass destruction.” But you did not connect these very important dots. Your recent briefings of field management staff have thrown light on the immense pressures you face as you try to keep the FBI intact and functioning amid persistent calls for drastic restructuring. You have made it clear that the FBI is perilously close to being divided up and is depending almost solely upon the good graces of Attorney General Ashcroft and President Bush for its continued existence. Clearly, this tense environment poses a special challenge to those like you who are responsible for providing unbiased, objective intelligence and national security advice to the country's leaders. But I would implore you to step out of this pressure-cooker for a few minutes and consider the following..

Now, I Am the Terrorist
By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout, March 21, 2003
The city of Baghdad, founded in 762 A.D. under the name Madinat as-Salam – 'City of Peace' – is this day a lake of fire.  The opening stage of the Bush administration's "Shock and Awe" attack plan began as night fell on Iraq, and lived terribly up to its terrible name.  CBS news is reporting that great swaths of residential neighborhoods within Baghdad have been engulfed in flames.  One can trust, perhaps, the ability of a cruise missile to hit a bullseye from many miles away. One cannot be so precise in predicting which way the resulting fires will blow. In the great earthquake in San Francisco in 1906, people were not killed so much by the shaking. They were killed by the firestorm that sucked the air from their lungs and reduced them to ash before they could flee.  So it seems to be today in Baghdad. Baghdad is a city of 5 million people, half of whom are under the age of fifteen, most of whom are too poor to flee.  Now, a great many of those people are dead, burned in their homes and on their streets. The American television media provided all of us with a Dresden-eye view of the attack.  Huge mushroom clouds bloomed from the streets as buildings blazed and fell. The thunder of the explosions was so loud that television speakers became distorted with the sound of the concussion. The sky lit up as though the sun was rising.  It was a fitting image, for a new day in world history has dawned.