Warfare Against Civilian Population
by Eva-Maria Foellmer, Current Concerns, September 18, 2002
On 1 July, the Sunshine Project published parts of a secret research report for the Pentagon about the ‘The Advantages and Limitations of Calmatives for Use as a Non-Lethal Technique’. A set of drugs, ranging from Valium to anesthetics and illegal drugs, has been prepared for a set of ‘military and civilian’ applications. The research report dating from October 3, 2000, now had to be published according to American law. What has come to light almost defies belief: The Pentagon commissioned a study investigating how entire populations can be paralysed by using medicines and drugs, and how medicine can be used as an instrument of torture.

The task of Sisyphus
By Fatemah Farag, Al-Ahram Weekly, September 12 - 18, 2002
James Zoghby: An American identity, an Arab heritage: walking the fine line: James Zoghby has always stood out. There are the Zoghby columns, the Web site, the polls and television spots. Then 9/11 happened and Zoghby emerged as one of the most politically savvy, one of the most prolific, one of the most often heard Arab/American voices. The emphasis here, though, is on the American. Visiting Zoghby at his Washington DC office, I expected someone who not only looked Middle Eastern, but spoke like one. Standing outside his office, waiting for the designated time of our appointment, I could hear an American on the phone and was sure there must be someone else in his office. But as it turned out it was Zoghby, alone. I admit to having been disoriented. "I do not think the Arabs understand. They still see us [Arab Americans] as Diaspora. What they do not get is that we are Americans," Zoghby explained.

The rumors about Palestinian democracy were premature
By Danny Rubinstein, Ha'aretz, Sepetmber 18, 2002 
Omaya Juha of Gaza, the caricaturist at Al-Hayat al-Jedida, the official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority (PA) provided the most dramatic depiction of the resignation of the Palestinian government last week. Because the Palestinian legislative council (the parliament) forced the resignation of Arafat's government on him on a historic date, September 11, Juha drew Arafat's government as the Twin Towers in New York and the Palestinian parliament as a large commercial airliner crashing into the towers. Of late, it has seemed as if all of the Palestinian spokesmen collaborated in describing the legislative council's toppling of the government. They all explained that it was not a case of failure on the part of Arafat and his colleagues, but rather to a large extent the opposite was true: It was a success on their part.

Democrats let Bush get away with it
By Mark Tran, The Guardian, September 19, 2002
The president's rush to vote on Saddam before the elections is blocking out political debate on security after September 11: The Democrats are in a pickle over President George Bush's sabre-rattling with Iraq. With the language of war dominating the political debate, the Democratic party is finding it difficult to make its own points about corporate malfeasance and the unpredictable state of the economy.

The bitter legacy of Sharon's unfinished business
By Tim Llewellyn, Media Monitors Network, September 17, 2002
On September 14, 1982, the Christian president-elect of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, was assassinated in a bomb attack at one of his Phalangist Party offices in Christian East Beirut. As a consequence, his allies the Israelis, who had invaded Lebanon and had effected the evacuation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the large bulk of its guerrillas from the Western, Muslim area of Beirut under international supervision, invaded the West of the city, in violation of American-arranged agreements. The then Israeli Minister of Defence, Ariel Sharon, ordered Phalangist militiamen into the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla, under Israeli supervision, to clean out, as he put it, any remaining terrorists. There, the militiamen carried out a massacre of some 800 people, most of them civilians, over a period of two nights and a day.