Beyond Baghdad
By Margot Patterson, National Catholic Reporter, December 13, 2002
Tomorrow Baghdad. The next day -- Damascus? -- Foreign policy analysts are saying regime change in Iraq is only the first step in a grander, arguably grandiose, plan on the part of some U.S. policymakers to remake the map of the Middle East. The goal is U.S. hegemony in the region and indeed the world. Included in the agenda are controlling other nations’ access to oil and frightening Arab nations and the Palestinians into capitulating to U.S. and Israeli demands in the Middle East. In an essay called “The Push for War,” originally published in The London Review of Books, Anatol Lieven, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that “the basic and generally agreed plan is unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority, and this has been consistently advocated and worked on by the group of intellectuals close to Dick Cheney and Richard Perle since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.”

Reasons to Oppose US Aid To Israel - standard format
Reasons to Oppose US Aid To Israel - Acrobat format
Global Exchange, April 2, 2002
United States diplomats like to say that when it comes to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians the US plays the role of "an honest broker." But the US' massive financial and military support for Israel means that, in fact, the US is taking sides. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, receiving more than $3 billion annually [1] -- or about $8 million every day. If a level diplomatic playing field is to be created, the US' unfair and biased support of Israel must end. Until the US stops lending its weight to Israel, a truly just peace will remain elusive.

Richard Perle’s Stealth Attack on Saudi Arabia
By Richard H. Curtiss, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September-October 2002
Former Pentagon official Richard Perle, a long-time supporter of Israel, reached new heights in his mission to distract the American public from dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Perle is chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel to the Pentagon, which is often in the headlines. Former French Ministry of Defense employee Laurent Murawiec, now a Rand Corporation analyst, gave a controversial briefing to the Defense Policy Board on July 10. Although the topic was expected to be Iraq’s Saddam Hussain, there were big surprises in store. Murawiec’s briefing was, to put it mildly, inflammatory. Presented as it was to former senior officials and intellectuals who advise the Pentagon, it might have passed without notice. Perle, however, had ensured that would not happen, with his journalistic cohorts preparing the way for Murawiec’s shocking statements.

American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy
By R. Nolan, Foreign Policy Association
This week, FPA speaks with Dr. Andrew J. Bacevich, Director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University. He is also the author of the recently published book American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. TRANSCRIPT: (Q.)  The name of your book is American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. In it, you point out the strategic consistencies in the administration of the first President Bush and the two terms of Bill Clinton. In what ways were these administration's foreign policies alike, and has the current administration in any way diverged from this congruity? (A.) The book tries show that we have had a coherent foreign policy since the end of the cold war. That idea, of course, is an exception to the conventional wisdom that we haven't. It also argues that this coherence has been shared across party lines and that it represents an extension of U.S. grand strategy over decades. In other words, the end of the cold war, the fall of the Berlin wall, the demise of the Soviet Empire, in a sense, really was not the dividing line that we tend to view it as. Much of what was U.S. foreign policy during the cold war continues to exist today. So the argument for coherence and for consistency goes further back than these first administrations of the post-cold war.

Entry denied
Editorial, Ha'aretz, December 13, 2002
For the last two years, 10,000 people have been denied entry to Israel after arriving at the threshold of the country. One out of three of those refused entry was also sent to the lockup at Ben-Gurion International Airport, where their liberty was denied and they were treated in a hostile, humiliating manner. Among those whose dignity was thus trammeled are members of parliaments, doctors, rabbis, civil rights activists, journalists and athletes. A report in this weekend's magazine, "Entry denied" by Sara Leibovich-Dar, shows that this harsh and arbitrary policy has been in effect for the past two years, implemented by the border control police and the Airports Authority. According to Interior Minister Eli Yishai, foreigners are not wanted in Israel unless they prove otherwise. Danny Seaman, head of the Government Press Office, takes the same approach with foreign correspondents. It's difficult to believe he's doing so without the approval of his direct superior, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Vote Sharon, get Netanyahu
By Yoel Marcus, Ha'aretz, December 13, 2002
My heart goes out to the propagandists and copywriters who are working for Ariel Sharon. They can't recycle the winning slogan, "Sharon will bring peace and security." Because he didn't bring either one. Indeed, when he was at the height of his power and really could have, with a unity government and cowed ministers, with Netanyahu in exile on the lecture circuit in America, he took no creative step to extricate us from the cycle of bloodshed. To paraphrase a famous saying, it can be said of him that as one who purported to be the only one capable of bringing peace and security, he missed no opportunity to miss every political initiative to eliminate terrorism. And now, having soundly defeated Benjamin (Houdini) Netanyahu in the Likud primary, and about to lead the Likud to a crushing victory in the elections, an unfortunate thing has happened: the top ranks of his party have moved to the right, to the side of Netanyahu. Once famed for fencing in the party's leaders and making it impossible for them to moderate their positions, he now finds himself fenced in by Netanyahu. Prometheus bound.

Turkey's bait
By Gareth Jenkins, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 12 - 18 December 2002
What price is Ankara willing to pay to ensure that it remains on the US's good side?  Reactions to Turkey's decision to open its airbases to the United States  -- US Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz visited Ankara last week and received a pledge that Turkey would open its airbases and ports to US forces in the run-up to Washington's expected military campaign against Iraq in early 2003. In return the US has offered to spend what officials from President George W Bush's administration describe as 'hundreds of millions of dollars' upgrading Turkey's military facilities, although they insist that the improvements will have no impact on the timing of any strike against Baghdad. Initially, Wolfowitz's visit triggered conflicting signals from Ankara, raising questions about the policy, authority and the competence of the government of the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (JDP), which took power at the beginning of November. After meeting with Wolfowitz, Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis declared that, provided the campaign was authorised by the UN, Turkey would allow the US to use its military bases to launch an attack. Hours later the office of Prime Minister Abdullah Gul issued a statement that no such decision had been taken. But privately Turkish officials have confirmed that Ankara will open both its bases and ports to the US.

False Washington Times report convinces Canada to ban Hizbullah
Nigel Parry, The Electronic Intifada, December 13, 2002
So what "sound criminal and security intelligence information" surfaced and what process took place in the ten days between December 1st and December 11th? None did. Apparently a single, initial media report on December 4th was sufficient. --  Washington Times assertions helped change Canada's policy towards an organisation that is widely recognised for its humanitarian contributions in desperate areas of the Middle East. That the reports later turned out to be false apparently doesn't seem to matter. On Wednesday 11th December 2002, the social arm of Lebanese resistance group Hizbullah was one of three organisations to be added to Canada's official list of "terrorist entities". Hizbullah's military wing has been banned in Canada since 2001 but up until Wednesday, it was still legal to contribute to the social arm of the organisation. "This decision is made on the basis of sound criminal and security intelligence information and in no way is due to political pressure from anywhere," insisted Wayne Easter, Canada's Solicitor General. Easter felt compelled to put it this way for the very reason that adding Hizbullah to lists of "terrorist" organisations has long been a noisy and overt goal of pro-Israeli groups in North America.