U.S. Middle East Academics Driven Underground
By Jacques Kinau, Academics For Justice, April 26, 2003
There is an old saying, that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can also point a gun at the head of a professor, but don't think that will stop their flow of ideas and contributions to critical debates. Many are moving underground in an attempt to keep a role in U.S. policy formation. Across America, networks of misguided activists, foreign agents, and pandering politicians are targeting U.S. professors, academic institutions, and student bodies. Protest a war, and lose your funding for software development. Criticize U.S. Middle East foreign policy, and see federal grants stop flowing to the university. Try to contribute to national policy making, and be edged out by the public relations department of D.C. based think tanks with vested interests to promote. Write an op/ed piece for the local paper, and expect an interest group armed with lawyers, threats, and a de-funding strategy to visit the university president next Monday. In the 1950's we called this McCarthyism. In 2003 we still have no exact label for the organized stifling of academic debate, raiding and diversion of funding sources, and efforts to discredit and cut academia out of the debate of American interests. U.S. professors without tenure, or wanting to avoid placing their university at risk are casting about for alternatives to distribute their insite.

No questions asked
By James Zogby, Middle East Online, May 6, 2003
During the past two months the White House's communications team has used both carefully crafted messages and skillfully created scenarios designed to win public support for the President and his war effort. -- One can't fault the White House for trying to sell the war and the President. What is troublesome, however, is the way the American media has been such an uncritical conveyor of these White House efforts. Selling is what politicians always do, but never before has an administration been blessed with such willing buyers. During the past two months the White House's communications team has used both carefully crafted messages and skillfully created scenarios designed to win public support for the President and his war effort. The campaign to build support for the war with Iraq was ultimately presented as being linked to the war on terror, a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, an effort to enforce UN Security Council Resolutions ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and a divinely ordained mandate to topple a cruel dictator and spread liberty. As the campaign grew, what the White House campaign managers focused on were venues and stage effects and the emotional impact of their message. They either took the daring risk that their efforts would not be challenged or they were extremely lucky in this regard. Because, with the exception of a few daring souls, the Administration was given a free ride by the US's major media. When weapons inspectors challenged US information, in one case categorizing US leads as "pure rubbish and a waste of time", they were ignored.

Israeli Major: Saying No to Israel's Occupation
By Ishai Menuhin, Yesh-Gvul, March 9, 2003/IndyMedia, May 6, 2003
JERUSALEM - In this past week of madness and carnage, hope for peace between Israel and the Palestinians appears impossible. After 35 years of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the two sides seem only to have grown accustomed to assassinations, bombings, terrorist attacks and house demolitions. Each side characterizes its own soldiers as either "defense forces" or "freedom fighters" when in truth these soldiers take part in war crimes on a daily basis. Daily funerals and thoughts of revenge among Israelis tend to blur the fact that we, the Israelis, are the occupiers. And as much as we live in fear of terrorism and war, it is the Palestinians who suffer more deaths hourly and live with greater fear because they are the occupied. Twenty years ago, when I was first inducted into the Israeli Army, to serve as a paratrooper and officer for four and a half years, I took an oath to defend Israel and obey my commanders. I was young, a patriot, probably naive, and sure that as a soldier my job was to defend my home and country. It did not occur to me that I might be used to carry out an occupation or asked to fight in military engagements that are not essential for the defense of Israel. It took me one war - the Lebanon war - many dead friends, and some periods of service in the occupied territories to find that my assumptions were wrong. In 1983, I refused to serve in acts of occupation, and I spent 35 days in military prison for my refusal. Today, as a major in the reserves of the Israel Defense Forces, I still defend my country but I will not participate in a military occupation that has over the decades made Israel less secure and less humane.

The blame game
By Dina Ezzat, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 1 - 7 May 2003
A closer look at the current state of the debate on the Arab League and its secretary-general -- Speculation is rife about the endgame of the Kuwaiti campaign against the Arab League's secretary-general -- "We are going to get rid of him. Within six months Amr Moussa will not be the secretary-general of the Arab League. Mark my words. We do not want him and you have no idea what Kuwait could do." With these words, an informed Kuwaiti source who is close to the Kuwaiti government, explained the endgame of a tough media campaign carried out by the Kuwaiti press against Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly from Kuwait, the source said that leading Kuwaiti officials are now "working on this matter and are talking to Arab states about it". She added that "the Kuwaiti campaign will intensify. It will also be backed by American complaints about Moussa. Americans do not like Moussa. They never liked him as a foreign minister and they believe he is [opposing them ]." In two weeks, Moussa will have completed two of his first five-year term as secretary-general of the pan-Arab organisation. Moussa, Egypt's astute and popular foreign minister throughout the 1990s, was elected to the job with the support of all 22 member states of the Arab League during the Amman Summit in 2001. At the time, Kuwait had failed to lobby enough Arab states to extend the second term of former Arab League Secretary- General Esmat Abdel-Meguid. They reluctantly expressed support for Moussa but voiced concern, mostly behind closed doors. In particular, they were not happy that Moussa would not adopt the declared Kuwaiti policy of maintaining sanctions on Iraq in order to weaken the Saddam Hussein regime. "He knew all along that he should not have opposed the war. He opposed it. He went to Iraq and to the UN and did everything he could to stop the war. He should not have done this. He should have known better," the Kuwaiti source added.

Selective Intelligence
By Seymour M. Hersch, The New Yorker, May 12, 2003
Donald Rumsfeld has his own special sources. Are they reliable? -- They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal—a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans. In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts, who began their work in the days after September 11, 2001, have produced a skein of intelligence reviews that have helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq. They relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C., the exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi. By last fall, the operation rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda. As of last week, no such weapons had been found. And although many people, within the Administration and outside it, profess confidence that something will turn up, the integrity of much of that intelligence is now in question. The director of the Special Plans operation is Abram Shulsky, a scholarly expert in the works of the political philosopher Leo Strauss. Shulsky has been quietly working on intelligence and foreign-policy issues for three decades; he was on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Com-mittee in the early nineteen-eighties and served in the Pentagon under Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle during the Reagan Administration, after which he joined the Rand Corporation. The Office of Special Plans is overseen by Under-Secretary of Defense William Luti, a retired Navy captain. Luti was an early advocate of military action against Iraq, and, as the Administration moved toward war and policymaking power shifted toward the civilians in the Pentagon, he took on increasingly important responsibilities. W. Patrick Lang, the former chief of Middle East intelligence at the D.I.A., said, “The Pentagon has banded together to dominate the government’s foreign policy, and they’ve pulled it off. They’re running Chalabi. The D.I.A. has been intimidated and beaten to a pulp. And there’s no guts at all in the C.I.A.”

'A Troubling Speech'
Remarks by U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, US Senate Chamber, Common Dreams, May 6, 2003
In my 50 years as a member of Congress, I have had the privilege to witness the defining rhetorical moments of a number of American presidents. I have listened spellbound to the soaring oratory of John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. I have listened grimly to the painful soul-searching of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Presidential speeches are an important marker of any President's legacy. These are the tangible moments that history seizes upon and records for posterity. For this reason, I was deeply troubled by both the content and the context of President Bush's remarks to the American people last week marking the end of the combat phase of the war in Iraq. As I watched the President's fighter jet swoop down onto the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, I could not help but contrast the reported simple dignity of President Lincoln at Gettysburg with the flamboyant showmanship of President Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. President Bush's address to the American people announcing combat victory in Iraq deserved to be marked with solemnity, not extravagance; with gratitude to God, not self-congratulatory gestures. American blood has been shed on foreign soil in defense of the President's policies. This is not some made-for-TV backdrop for a campaign commercial. This is real life, and real lives have been lost. To me, it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the President to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech. I do not begrudge his salute to America's warriors aboard the carrier Lincoln, for they have performed bravely and skillfully, as have their countrymen still in Iraq, but I do question the motives of a deskbound President who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech.

Why Empires Strike Out
By Michael Elliott, Time, May 5, 2003
On imperialism's return and why it won't work this time, either -- For a concept on which, one had naively supposed, the sun had set when the last British Governor of Hong Kong sailed out of the city's harbor in 1997, imperialism is having one heck of a comeback. At the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City last week, a standing-room-only crowd gathered to hear Niall Ferguson. The Scottish historian is enjoying rock-star status with his new book, Empire, which argues that British colonial rule was a jolly good thing and that a new American empire would do well to learn its lessons. In the sacred texts of neoconservatism, imperialism is everywhere. Six articles in the latest issue of the National Interest deal with the subject. In the Weekly Standard, Max Boot — whose recent book, The Savage Wars of Peace, kicked off the whole fad — concedes that "formal empire is passe" while arguing that in carrying out President Bush's policy of democratizing Iraq, "it would be a grave mistake to look for an early 'exit strategy.'" The length of time U.S. troops would have to stay in Iraq, Boot writes confidently, "will have to be measured in years, not months." Lord. I've not seen such a fashion for improving the lot of those who live in less happy lands since I was a child in Britain memorizing what bits of the empire sent what goods to the mother country (Malaya, rubber; the Gold Coast, cocoa; Bengal, jute). And I confess I get queasy at the memories and deeply uneasy that the U.S. may be about to embark on a voyage to disappointment. Members of the Bush Administration, of course, are not so crass as to admit that their aims in Iraq are imperialist. Yet U.S. soldiers are already finding themselves in situations miserably familiar to those of the old imperial powers. Take the deaths last week in Fallujah. Young soldiers firing on demonstrators among whom agents provocateurs with weapons may (or may not) have been hiding — we've seen this movie before, from India to Algeria to Ireland. Many of the Administration's statements on Iraq reveal a cast of mind last exercised by those with ostrich-feather plumes on their hats. Iraqis, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said recently, will "figure out a way to manage their affairs" that will be "consistent with the principles that we set out." (Those principles, just so you know, don't extend to an "Iranian-type government," which, quoth the good Secretary, "ain't gonna happen.")

A Roadmap to Nowhere
By Kathleen Christison, CouterPunch, May 6, 2003
Warning: Pile-Up Ahead! -- The "roadmap" to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, finally released with little fanfare or enthusiasm on May 1 after almost a year of aimless wandering , is surely doomed. Near fatal internal flaws and severe political constraints on its implementation render it a roadmap to nowhere, destined for the same junk yard where the Mitchell Plan, the Tenet Plan, and the Zinni Plan have rusted for the two years of the Bush-Sharon stewardship over the so-called "peace process." The roadmap, first drafted in the fall of 2002, is the joint product of the Quartet, the informal diplomatic combo made up of Colin Powell for the U.S., Kofi Annan for the UN, Javier Solana for the EU, and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov for Russia. Further refined last December, the roadmap calls for a first phase, to last through May this year, in which Palestinians unconditionally cease all violence and institute political reforms, appoint a prime minister, draft a constitution, and hold elections, while Israel withdraws from areas occupied since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, dismantles settlements built since March 2001 (since Ariel Sharon took office), and freezes all other settlement activity. Needless to say, even if the deadline for this phase were not now a mere three weeks away, there would be little hope of accomplishing these substantial goals in the near future. In the second phase, from June through December 2003, the Quartet is to call an international conference to launch a negotiating process leading to establishment of an "independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty." The third and final phase, involving a second international conference, envisions an end to Israel's occupation and establishment of an "independent, democratic and viable Palestine" at some undefined point in 2005. The final peace agreement will resolve all outstanding final issues, including borders, settlements, the status of Jerusalem, and the disposition of refugees. The plan also calls for "Arab state acceptance of full, normal relations with Israel" at the end of the negotiating process but lays out no specifics.

In hot pursuit of a roadmap or a trap?
By Linda S. Heard, Online Journal, May 7, 2003
ATHENS, May 7, 2003—Glory be! We've finally got George W. Bush's famed "Roadmap". From the day that America's leader curtly announced its imminent unveiling before turning on his heel and marching away from a crowd of answer-hungry journalists, we have breathlessly waited to cast our jaundiced eyes on those hallowed paragraphs. And what a terrible disappointment they turned out to be! The first major block appears in the preamble of the document. "A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and are willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty, and through Israelis readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established . . ." It does not say which side does what first, but the way that paragraph is phrased it looks as though only the Palestinian side must end "violence and terrorism" while the Israelis merely have "to do what is necessary . . ." The document goes on to say: " . . . as a performance-based plan, progress will require and depend upon the good faith efforts of the parties . . ." Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has already shown "good faith" by anointing American/Israeli favourite Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) as prime minister and agreeing to his new cabinet, representing a painful relinquishing of power on Arafat's part. The new Palestinian leadership has accepted all the terms of the "Roadmap" unconditionally, while Abu Mazen has asserted that he will use his best endeavours to put an end to suicide bombing and disarm the militant Palestinian groups. In return, the Israelis have done . . . well . . . nothing at all towards supporting the proposal. Instead, the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been busy with his marker pen removing the bits he doesn't approve of and inserting conditions more to his liking.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent
By Walid Batrawi, MIFTAH, May 7, 2003
The Israeli government intends to take new measures against Palestinian journalists that would require them to acquire travel permits to be able to move between Palestinian cities and villages that are under Israeli siege. According to the Arabic website of the Israeli daily newspaper Yideot Ahranot, “these new regulations that are still under formation, require Palestinian journalists, who live in areas that are under security closure, will be issued special permits to be able to move in these areas. Journalists with permits will be able to go through [Israeli] checkpoints, but should abide by the army regulations including the declaration of some zones as ‘closed military areas’.” Such measures are yet another step Israel entry permits to Israel based on possession of a press card issued by the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO). We then considered this against all international laws that give journalists the freedom to move and access information. At the same time, we understood the ‘security’ reasons for such a requirement and accepted it because it is also applied to many sectors of the Palestinians including doctors, lawyers, merchants, and employees of international aid agencies. Now, we are encountering a new situation that will restrict the movement of Palestinian journalists even in their own territory. We have become captives of the decision of the Israeli District Liaison (DCL) offices where journalists must go to get their new permits.

The Evil Wall
By Uri Avnery, Palestine Media Center, May 7, 2003
For a fraction of a second, I was panic-stricken. The terrible monster coming towards me was not more than five meters away and continued to move as if I weren't there. The giant bulldozer pushed a great heap of dirt and boulders before it. The driver, two meters above me, seemed a part of the machine. It was clear that nothing would stop him. I jumped aside at the last moment. Some weeks ago, in a similar situation, the American peace activist Rachel Corrie expected the driver to stop. He did not, and she was crushed to death. I did not come on this occasion to demonstrate (we shall do this today) but to look around. In the olive grove, a few meters from the tents that were set up by the villagers of Mas'ha, together with Israeli and international peace activists, three monsters were preparing the ground for the "Separation Wall". They raised clouds of dust and a deafening roar, so that we could hardly converse. They work every day, even on Passover, 12 hours a day, without a break. The whole Israeli public supports the Separation Wall. It has no idea what it is supporting. One has to come to the place in order to understand all the implications of the project. First of all, it has to be said unequivocally: this wall has nothing to do with security.

Do journalists really care or are they just spamming us?
By Raff Ellis, YellowTimes.org, May 6, 2003
(YellowTimes.org) – From time to time, I've been caught up in debates with media types about their coverage of the news, especially since 9-11. Not surprisingly, they always profess innocence, vis a vis bias, in their news reporting. Still, it never ceases to amaze me, even when shown specific examples, how they can turn a blind eye or lapse into sophistic explanations for their performance. Not long ago, I carried on an e-mail conversation with a syndicated cartoonist about his rather slanted take on the Palestinian-Israeli situation. At first, he seemed genuinely interested in my views, offering the usual putative postulations that he had dutifully absorbed from the ever-vigilant Israeli propaganda machine. I patiently answered his comments and questions each time, always trying to include annotated and attributed sources where possible. Finally, he asked what he considered the fatal question: "Why did Arafat turn down Barak's generous offer for establishing a Palestinian state?" I was glad he asked that question because this is one of the more libelous canards that Israel has floated, and it refuses to die. I responded with a three-page essay I had written, seeing it as an opportunity to debunk this and other statements that had reached seemingly mythical proportions among the general population. He answered that he was going to run my comments by a Jewish friend of his and would get back to me. I waited two weeks but there was no reply. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me and I sent him a note wondering what his friend had said. I got a brusque reply that he was terribly busy and didn't have time to go to the bathroom much less deal with this subject. I interpreted this to mean he didn't have time to get educated on a subject that he freely comments upon in his political cartoons. There was no need for even a primitive exegesis because he just didn't care to learn the facts or to listen to another point of view.