Ashcroft Nonapologetic Despite Findings of Post-9-11 Injustice
By Robyn Blumner, Salt LakeTribune/St. Petersburg Times, June 13, 2003
Attorney General John Ashcroft must loathe this country's traditions of freedom. How else can one explain his blithe reaction to a report released Monday by the Justice Department's own inspector general that details how his department mistreated hundreds of immigrants detained following Sept. 11? Page after page of the nearly 200-page report is as scathing and condemning as bureaucrat-speak gets. Yet Ashcroft told Congress Thursday that he does "not apologize" for the way his department conducted itself post-Sept. 11. None of the report's findings apparently pricked his conscience: not the way men were indiscriminately arrested, or the way they were kept from contacting attorneys, or the way they were left to languish for months while the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents assigned to clear them of terrorist links were given other duties. The report covers the experiences of 762 immigrants, almost all male and from Muslim or Middle Eastern countries, who were picked up on immigration violations and designated "of interest" in the terrorism investigation. In the end, beyond Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, not one of the detainees was charged with a terrorism-related crime. Not one. How can the Justice Department claim to have been safeguarding Americans when it threw away the rule book -- the principles of due process -- and in doing so came up with zero al-Qaida members beyond Moussaoui? If the great paradigm of this century is liberty vs. security, then where was the security payoff? At the direction of Ashcroft and his underlings -- including Michael Chertoff, an assistant attorney general who has been nominated for a federal appellate court seat -- we gave up the presumption of innocence, suspicion based on fact, the possibility of bail, public immigration hearings and humane conditions of confinement. In exchange, we obtained no added safety. I'd say this was a sucker's deal -- one Ashcroft not only vows to continue but wants Congress to authorize. Even after this bruising evaluation, Ashcroft had the audacity to ask the House Judiciary Committee for expanded powers to hold people suspected of terrorism indefinitely. When Ashcroft looks at the Bill of Rights, he must see it with shark-dead eyes.

Iraq's lethal peace
Editorial, The Guardian, June 16, 2003
It could yet change American minds -- In the latest US ground strikes against Iraqi "militants" such as yesterday's raid on Falluja, the local people have used signalling systems - including lights and coloured flares - when the American forces approach. These signals, says the US command, are evidence of civilian collusion with "Ba'athist fighters" in their midst, further proof that tough action is justified. The citizens of Falluja and elsewhere have a simpler explanation: they need to warn their neighbours to take cover from an invader who, in the words of its commander Lt Gen David McKiernan, will "strike hard and with lethal force" whenever it thinks fit. These ambiguities are familiar in any situation when an occupying army is confronted by resistance on the ground. Some of those targeted over the last few days in the Sunni strongholds north of Baghdad may indeed be "Saddam loyalists". Others will be ordinary people shot because they were misidentified or in the wrong place, whose tragedies quickly become a footnote in last week's wire stories. Operation Peninsula Strike has left more than 100 dead and taken 400 prisoners, of whom 60 were later released as being "of no use to American officials". How many of the dead would also have been "of no use"? The grim story reported by our correspondent today from a village north of Baghdad, where a family of shepherds were shot by US tanks, is just one of many. In another incident last week, a family were killed as they "worked in their wheat field to extinguish fires set by US flares". The US commanders themselves acknowledge that their occupation has met growing resistance and that they are engaged in what Gen McKiernan calls "a cycle of action, reaction and counter-action." Significantly, this realisation is reaching deep into the US heartland. Newspapers from Cleveland, Tallahassee, Charlotte and Salt Lake City carried headlines this weekend such as "Losing the peace", "Iraq war still hot, commanders say", "Civilian deaths intensify anti-US ire" and "The war is over, but US soldiers keep dying".

The Dog Ate My WMDs
By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout, June 13, 2003
After several years teaching high school, I've heard all the excuses. I didn't get my homework done because my computer crashed, because my project partner didn't do their part, because I feel sick, because I left it on the bus, because I had a dance recital, because I was abducted by aliens and viciously probed. Houdini doesn't have as many tricks. No one on earth is more inventive than a high school sophomore backed into a corner and faced with a zero on an assignment. No one, perhaps, except Bush administration officials forced now to account for their astounding claims made since September 2002 regarding Iraq's alleged weapons program. After roughly 280 days worth of fearful descriptions of the formidable Iraqi arsenal, coming on the heels of seven years of UNSCOM weapons inspections, four years of surveillance, months of UNMOVIC weapons inspections, the investiture of an entire nation by American and British forces, after which said forces searched "everywhere" per the words of the Marine commander over there and "found nothing," after interrogating dozens of the scientists and officers who have nothing to hide anymore because Hussein is gone, after finding out that the dreaded 'mobile labs' were weather balloon platforms sold to Iraq by the British, George W. Bush and his people suddenly have a few things to answer for. You may recall this instance where a bombastic claim was made by Bush. During his constitutionally-mandated State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, Mr. Bush said, "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." Nearly five months later, those 500 tons are nowhere to be found. A few seconds with a calculator can help us understand exactly what this means. 500 tons of gas equals one million pounds. After UNSCOM, after UNMOVIC, after the war, after the US Army inspectors, after all the satellite  surveillance, it is difficult in the extreme to imagine how one million pounds of anything could refuse to be located. Bear in mind, also, that this one million pounds is but a part of the Iraqi weapons arsenal described by Bush and his administration.

The Road to Aqaba
By John B. Judis, American Prospect, July 1, 2003
Before the Iraq War, administration neoconservatives were fond of saying, "The road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad." In the wake of the war and of George W. Bush's June 4 summit meeting in Aqaba, Jordan, many people in Washington think they were right. Liberal columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. wrote in The Washington Post on June 6, "One core claim of the war's supporters was vindicated on Wednesday when Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, his Palestinian counterpart, committed themselves to the president's pathway to peace. Defenders of the war always said that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would change the political dynamics of the Middle East. In the short term, at least, they have been proved right." But are they right? Neoconservatives argued that the administration's success in Iraq -- measured not only by a quick victory but by the installation of a pro-Israel regime -- would lead to the resolution of the conflict in Israel. That has not happened at all. Instead, the United States, after a quick victory, has encountered profound difficulties in occupying Iraq. It was these difficulties rather than the initial successes that finally led the Bush administration to intervene forcefully in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After September 11, the Bush administration was divided over what to do about Israel and the Palestinians. Secretary of State Colin Powell believed that resolving the conflict was essential to stabilizing the Mideast and ending the threat of Islamic radicalism. He favored trying to revive the negotiations that the Clinton administration had pursued. But Pentagon and National Security Council neoconservatives wanted the administration to back Ariel Sharon's Likud Party, which opposed a Palestinian state and sought to defeat the Palestinian opposition militarily. Sharon's backers in the administration argued that by ousting Saddam Hussein and installing a pro-Israeli government (like that of exile Ahmad Chalabi), they could isolate Palestinian radicals and force an agreement on Sharon's terms. Bush pursued the semblance of a compromise between the two factions. He paid lip service to the State Department position, coming out in favor of a Palestinian state and of the road map that representatives from the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations had endorsed in April 2002. This road map laid out parallel concessions by the Israelis and Palestinians on the way to a Palestinian state by 2005. But in practice, Bush and the administration slighted the road map and tilted toward the neoconservatives and the Sharon government.

All the Fibs that Fit the Print
By Greg Palast, AlterNet, June 16, 2003
The New York Times is crowing about the coon skin on the wall: the Paper of Record is mighty proud of itself for nailing the hide of Jayson Blair, cub reporter and liar, to the corporate newspaper wall. And, for good measure, this week we have the resignations of Times editors Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd. The trouble on the Olympus of Journalism seems to be, editorial writers say, affirmative action run amok. Now that the stable’s been cleaned out, the rest of the Times news is, in their self-congratulatory words, “simply truth.” Oh yeah? This past year I’ve keep a rapidly thickening files of fakery, flim-flam and outright lies printed in the Times and other of America’s mainstream news outlets. Here’s a sampler – beginning with a whopper told by Times hotshot Lynette Clemetson. Looney and Dangerous. Have you heard about Cynthia McKinney, the former US Congresswoman? According to National Public Radio... ...McKinney’s “a loose cannon” (quoting a media expert).  ...“The people of Atlanta are embarrassed and disgusted” by McKinney (quoting a politician).  ...McKinney’s “loony” and “dangerous” (quoting a Senator from her own party).  Yow! And why is McKinney dangerous/loony/disgusting? According to NPR, “McKinney implied that the [Bush] Administration knew in advance about September 11 and deliberately held back the information.”  The New York Times revealed her comments went even further over the edge: “Ms. McKinney suggest[ed] that President Bush might have known about the September 11 attacks but did nothing so his supporters could make money in a war.” That’s loony, all right. As an editor of the highly respected Atlanta Journal Constitution told NPR, McKinney’s “practically accused the President of murder!” Problem is, McKinney never said it.

The opportunity presented by peace monitors
Editorial, Daily Star, June 16, 2003
The arrival in Israel and Palestine of a dozen American monitors headed by diplomat John Wolf has coincided with the resumption of security talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials. Somehow, we feel as if we’ve been through this scene before. During the past dozen years or so since the Madrid peace talks, Israelis and Palestinians have done this routine at least a dozen times, always without permanent success. Washington also has increased its diplomatic involvement, to the point where the CIA director, the president, and others have personally participated in individual meetings or ongoing processes. Also to no avail. Why? Probably because these attempts were usually distorted in favor of Israeli concerns and placed disproportionate blame on the Palestinians for the recurring descent into warfare, or else the would-be American mediators ran out of patience or effective ideas. Two new elements come into play this time around. First, the US participates in the peace-making process within a wider global context of its “war against terror,” one in which the conflicts and tensions in the Middle East are no longer neatly contained within this region. Sept. 11, 2001 was a turning point in Washington’s perception of Middle Eastern issues, including its perception of its own role there. The message seems to have gotten through: The US cannot expect to continue its pro-Israeli tilt and support for the non-democratic Arab political order, and expect the peoples of this region to remain docile. There is no guarantee that American diplomacy today will prove more successful than before; yet the initial signs are that the US at least appreciates more clearly the nature of the stakes, and therefore the necessity of its working more diligently and fairly for peace, justice and stability. Second, in view of the above, the dispatch of American “monitors” provides a potentially important opportunity for the US to play a much more balanced and constructive role as a promoter of a negotiated comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace accord.

While Abu Mazen went to Jordan
By Danny Rubinstein, Haaretz, June 16, 2003
Yasser Arafat's back. At least that's the conclusion of many Palestinians in light of the tragic events of last week and the renewed attempts to halt the violence. Last Wednesday, when the suicide bombing took place in Jerusalem, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas was making his way from Ramallah to Jordan to have surgery to remove cataracts. As he approached the Allenby Bridge he received word of the attack but decided to go ahead with the trip. Some in the Palestinian leadership were angry at him as a result. It's a simple operation - eight minutes' work on each eye, according to Dr. Samar Abdul Hadi - and not urgent. So why, with the level of the bloodshed rising, couldn't Abbas postpone the treatment? Arafat, in any case, immediately showed he was in control of the situation. The various news networks went back to interview him and he condemned the bombing as terrorism (while Arafat issued that official condemnation, Palestinian newspapers ran obituaries honoring the teenaged "martyr Abdel Muati Shabana, the hero of the Jaffa Road operation"). Arafat immediately ordered the heads of the security services to convene to discuss the situation. Minister for Security Mohammed Dahlan summoned to Ramallah the Gaza commanders, Abdel Razak Majida, the parallel to the IDF chief of staff, and Amin el Hindi, who is parallel to the head of the Mossad. The IDF allowed them, and other Gaza security commanders, to reach Ramallah, but prevented Rashid Abu Shbak, head of the Preventive Security forces, from going to the meeting, on the grounds he is still "tainted with terror."

Finding ways to end the state of fear for American Muslims
By Shaik Ubaid, IViews, June 14, 2003
The country has just come off another heightened state of alert. The loudest sigh of relief was from the American Muslims. Every time the alert level goes up, along with the fears of the next terrorist attacks, the American Muslims had to fear an increase in hate crimes against them. During the recent alert, a Muslim child and teenager were attacked in Pennsylvania and a Sikh man, mistaken for a Muslim, was shot in Arizona. Ann Coulter called for a Muslim-free air travel and Cal Thomas warned about Muslim political activism and these two media personalities were not alone in causing distress to the Muslims. The anxiety levels rise and fall in synchronization with the level of alert. It is this never ending roller-coaster ride that seems to be taking a heavy toll on Muslims. Two weeks ago, in the midst of the state of high alert, my brother-in-law called my children, saying that he had three free tickets for the Mets game that evening. My son and middle daughter jumped at this chance. They were all ready to leave when my wife and I arrived home that evening. We were aghast. With her hijab (headscarf), our daughter is easily identifiable as Muslim. To send her into the charged atmosphere of a ballpark was out of the question. My daughter, the most athletic member of our family, tried arguments like, "Mom, I am bigger than my brother," or, "But dad, there are lot of policemen in there." But nothing would sway us. My son went with his uncle, and my daughter sulked for days. The last twenty months have been a very stressful time for all Americans but more so for the Muslim Americans. Some mothers pulled their sons out of Little League after Sept. 11, hearing of unrelated reports of mistreatment in the schools, never to send them back. Muslim riders on Long Island trains admit to becoming extra cautious every time the headlines in the city tabloids that their fellow travelers read, get shriller. Our rampant fears are already inflicting far-reaching psychosocial trauma on our children. They are just as fearful as we are. We hear it in their questions. The younger ones ask, "Will there be more wars?" or "Why is the president not saying sorry when children in Iraq are killed?" or "What do 'towel head' and 'camel jockey' mean?" And many older ones have exhibited clear signs of stress, like falling grades and behavioral and mood problems.

Remarks for The Evergreen State College Graduation
By Cindy Corrie, CommonDreams, June 16, 2003
What a joyful day! I know Rachel is dancing somewhere in the heavens as she peers down upon all of us and celebrates with all of you who are graduating today. She will cheer loudly and lovingly when her colleagues cross this stage to collect their diplomas, and she will offer an especially triumphant salute to her dear, dear friend and ours Colin Reese. I know, too, that Rachel is out there somewhere impishly smiling at us-her poppy and her mama-- coming to pick up her diploma for her because she is busy elsewhere. Rachel spent her lifetime in Olympia and a good deal of time here at Evergreen-in and out-finding her way, finding her voice, finding friends. One of the most powerfully healing pieces of these past three months without Rachel has been for us to enter a bit into her Evergreen community. We thank you for letting us in, for helping us to better understand Rachel's experience here, to better understand her journey. We thank, especially, those of you who continue tirelessly to help us pursue Rachel's dreams. In evaluating some of her work at Evergreen, Rachel wrote, "I have developed confidence as a participant in a collaborative classroom setting, as an investigator of local history, and as an organizer of community events. I have worked to develop bridges between local history and current events, between art and social change work, between student activists and the broader community. The work that I did this year will continue beyond the end of the program and beyond my time at Evergreen." And later, she wrote, "I developed a whole different modus operandi through the work I did in this program. I think giving up comforting habits and behavior patterns is one of the most radical things that can happen." Rachel's interests and activism extended to many different areas-labor, the homeless, the delivery of mental health care, the cost of higher education, the environment, peace-- but now, she will always be connected to the Palestinian people whom she joined as she worked nonviolently to resist the cruel oppression of the thirty-six year Israeli Occupation.

The appalling loss of humanity
By Gideon Levy, Palestine Monitor/Ha'aretz, June 15, 2003
Last Monday, attorney Leah Tsemel wanted to give some photographs to her client, who was standing a few meters from her in the military courtroom at the Ofer base near Ramallah. The photographs were of Quds, the firstborn son of administrative detainee Abed al-Ahmar, who is being held in custody without trial. Quds was born two months ago, while his father was in military custody. Military judge Major Ronen Atzmon refused to allow the photos to be passed to al-Ahmar,  who has never seen his child. Atzmon was unwilling to assume the security responsibility for such a move. This incident may seem trivial in view of the mutual bloodbath of the past few days, but it is precisely these minor events that show the level of cruelty that the Israeli occupation has reached. The story of our moral deterioration is to be found here, no less than in the acts of killing. Al-Ahmar can't see his newborn son because family visits to security prisoners were banned three years ago and have not been reinstated. The fact that his wife is a Jewish Israeli is of no help. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been totally cut off from their families for three years without a telephone call or a visit. There are not many regimes in the world that treat their prisoners this way. Last week, al-Ahmar's administrative detention was extended for another six months for the 17th time (not consecutively); he is one of about 1,000 detainees being held today without trial. It has to be said again that, if the defense establishment has any material against al-Ahmar and the other administrative detainees, it must put them on trial. If not, they must be set free.