Det danske Fredsakademi

Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik November 2004 / Timeline November, 2004

31. Oktober 2004, December 2004

11/??/2004
Første review-konferance over Ottawa landmine-konventionen i Kenya.

11/01/2004
Det er nu atten måneder siden, at USAs præsident Bush erklærede krigen i Irak for vundet.

11/01/2004
International aktionsuge mod landminer starter.

11/01/2004
U.S. Prepares to Activate Missile Defense System
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1896&ncid=1896&e=6&u=/nm/20041101/us_nm/arms_usa_missile_dc
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is set to declare operational soon a multibillion dollar system intended to defend America from attack by ballistic missiles, but which critics say will not work.
"We say to those tyrants who believe they can blackmail America and the free world -- you fire, we're going to shoot it down," President Bush said in August. The Pentagon said the system would be deemed operational by year's end.
But critics have strong doubts about the project, a descendant of the "Star Wars" shield idea envisioned by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s that even the Pentagon admits will have only rudimentary capabilities initially.
The Pentagon has conducted no tests on the system since December 2002, and the eight earlier tests all were under contrived conditions, critics argued.
"What's wrong is they're claiming to have real capability when none has been demonstrated, and deploying a system so early," said Philip Coyle, a former assistant secretary of defense who helped evaluate missile defense under President Bill Clinton.
"This is like deploying a new military aircraft without the wings and the tail and the landing gear."
Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said the system is scheduled to be deemed operational by the end of the year.
Budgeted at more than $50 billion over five years, it is built on the simple concept of blasting one missile out of the sky with another.
Five land-based interceptor missiles have been installed at Fort Greely in Alaska. A sixth is due there this month, and two more are set to be placed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California by the end of 2004, Lehner said.
The Navy said last month a U.S. destroyer with long-range missile-tracking equipment had begun patrols in the Sea of Japan, the system's first naval component to be put in place.

11/02/2004
Stephen Hawking to Lead Anti-War Protest on Election Day
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=577860
Stephen Hawking, Britain's most eminent scientist, has become the latest prominent opponent of the Iraq war by agreeing to take the lead role in a ceremonial protest to coincide with the United States presidential election. Peace protesters will gather in Trafalgar Square at 5pm on Tuesday, where they will read out the names of 5,000 Iraqi men, women and children known to have died in the conflict.

11/02/2004
Præsidentvalg og valg til senatet i USA
Demokraten John Kerry taber præsidentvalget.
En valgmaskine i Ohio tildeler næsten 3.900 stemmer til Præsident Bush, selv om der kun er 800 vælgere i valgkredsen.
VANISHING VOTES
Nation Magazine, May 17, 2004 Issue
On October 29, 2002, George W. Bush signed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Hidden behind its apple-pie-and-motherhood name lies a nasty civil rights time bomb...
First, the purges. In the months leading up to the November 2000 presidential election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, in coordination with Governor Jeb Bush, ordered local election supervisors to purge 57,700 voters from the registries, supposedly ex-cons not allowed to vote in Florida. At least 90.2 percent of those on this "scrub" list, targeted to lose their civil rights, are innocent. Notably, more than half--about 54 percent--are black or Hispanic. You can argue all night about the number ultimately purged, but there's no argument that this electoral racial pogrom ordered by Jeb Bush's operatives gave the White House to his older brother. HAVA not only blesses such purges, it requires all fifty states to implement a similar search-and-destroy mission against vulnerable voters. Specifically, every state must, by the 2004 election, imitate Florida's system of computerizing voter files. The law then empowers fifty secretaries of state--fifty Katherine Harrises--to purge these lists of "suspect" voters.
The purge is back, big time. Following the disclosure in December 2000 of the black voter purge in Britain's Observer newspaper, NAACP lawyers sued the state. The civil rights group won a written promise from Governor Jeb and from Harris's successor to return wrongly scrubbed citizens to the voter rolls. According to records given to the courts by ChoicePoint, the company that generated the computerized lists, the number of Floridians who were questionably tagged totals 91,000. Willie Steen is one of them. Recently, I caught up with Steen outside his office at a Tampa hospital. Steen's case was easy. You can't work in a hospital if you have a criminal record. (My copy of Harris's hit list includes an ex-con named O'Steen, close enough to cost Willie Steen his vote.) The NAACP held up Steen's case to the court as a prime example of the voter purge evil.
The state admitted Steen's innocence. But a year after the NAACP won his case, Steen still couldn't register. Why was he still under suspicion? What do we know about this "potential felon," as Jeb called him? Steen, unlike our President, honorably served four years in the US military. There is, admittedly, a suspect mark on his record: Steen remains an African-American.
If you're black, voting in America is a game of chance. First, there's the chance your registration card will simply be thrown out. Millions of minority citizens registered to vote using what are called motor-voter forms. And Republicans know it. You would not be surprised to learn that the Commission on Civil Rights found widespread failures to add these voters to the registers. My sources report piles of dust-covered applications stacked up in election offices.
Second, once registered, there's the chance you'll be named a felon. In Florida, besides those fake felons on Harris's scrub sheets, some 600,000 residents are legally barred from voting because they have a criminal record in the state. That's one state. In the entire nation 1.4 million black men with sentences served can't vote, 13 percent of the nation's black male population.
At step three, the real gambling begins. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 guaranteed African-Americans the right to vote--but it did not guarantee the right to have their ballots counted. And in one in seven cases, they aren't.
Take Gadsden County. Of Florida's sixty-seven counties, Gadsden has the highest proportion of black residents: 58 percent. It also has the highest "spoilage" rate, that is, ballots tossed out on technicalities: one in eight votes cast but not counted. Next door to Gadsden is white-majority Leon County, where virtually every vote is counted (a spoilage rate of one in 500).
How do votes spoil? Apparently, any old odd mark on a ballot will do it. In Gadsden, some voters wrote in Al Gore instead of checking his name. Their votes did not count.
Harvard law professor Christopher Edley Jr., a member of the Commission on Civil Rights, didn't like the smell of all those spoiled ballots. He dug into the pile of tossed ballots and, deep in the commission's official findings, reported this: 14.4 percent of black votes--one in seven--were "invalidated," i.e., never counted. By contrast, only 1.6 percent of nonblack voters' ballots were spoiled.
Florida's electorate is 11 percent African-American. Florida refused to count 179,855 spoiled ballots. A little junior high school algebra applied to commission numbers indicates that 54 percent, or 97,000, of the votes "spoiled" were cast by black folk, of whom more than 90 percent chose Gore. The nonblack vote divided about evenly between Gore and Bush. Therefore, had Harris allowed the counting of these ballots, Al Gore would have racked up a plurality of about 87,000 votes in Florida--162 times Bush's official margin of victory.
That's Florida. Now let's talk about America. In the 2000 election, 1.9 million votes cast were never counted. Spoiled for technical reasons, like writing in Gore's name, machine malfunctions and so on. The reasons for ballot rejection vary, but there's a suspicious shading to the ballots tossed into the dumpster. Edley's team of Harvard experts discovered that just as in Florida, the number of ballots spoiled was--county by county, precinct by precinct--in direct proportion to the local black voting population.
Florida's racial profile mirrors the nation's--both in the percentage of voters who are black and the racial profile of the voters whose ballots don't count. "In 2000, a black voter in Florida was ten times as likely to have their vote spoiled--not counted--as a white voter," explains political scientist Philip Klinkner, co-author of Edley's Harvard report. "National figures indicate that Florida is, surprisingly, typical. Given the proportion of nonwhite to white voters in America, then, it appears that about half of all ballots spoiled in the USA, as many as 1 million votes, were cast by nonwhite voters."
So there you have it. In the last presidential election, approximately 1 million black and other minorities voted, and their ballots were thrown away. And they will be tossed again in November 2004, efficiently, by computer--because HAVA and other bogus reform measures, stressing reform through complex computerization, do not address, and in fact worsen, the racial bias of the uncounted vote.
One million votes will disappear in a puff of very black smoke. And when the smoke clears, the Bush clan will be warming their political careers in the light of the ballot bonfire.
* based on the new expanded election edition of Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
Litteratur: Bundgaard, Bente: Der klages allerede over valgsvindel. I: Berlingske Tidende, 10/24/2004.
Ritzaus Bureau: Fejl [sic] ved optælling i Ohio. I: Berlingske Tidende, 11/07/2004.
Added later by the editor:
The Cleveland Massacre
In Cleveland three separate incidents were recorded of poll workers who called the police to arrest neighbors who accompanied blind voters to the polls among the multiple incidents of the elderly and handicapped being refused the right to vote.
The collected information reveals why political parties are wedded to the electoral winner-take-all system. The 2004 election, decided by slim margins, capitalized on old-time techniques perfected in the racist south joined by modern technology. Without the winner-take-all electoral system these types of abuses would be far less effective.
Observers documented incidents including:
* Election officials deleted registered voters from rolls
* Voters labeled as felons with no criminal record.
* Poll workers denying registered voters the right to vote even when they appear on lists.
* Poorly trained and abusive poll workers.
* Duplicate absentee ballots sent to some voters and none to others
* Multiple voter registrations for the same individual
* Too few machines for anticipated voters
* Broken and outdated polling machines
* Incorrect ballots and in some cases no ballots
* Police cruisers parked in front of or near polling locations
* Ballot boxes not secured
* Television, radio, telephone, and print campaigns to mislead voters on dates and locations.
* Doors locked and entrances changed to the back of buildings.
* Poll workers, police, party representatives and others illegally requiring minority and other voters to show identification.
The strategy of focused intimidation and voting rights denials in only a few heavily minority neighorhoods proved very effective in getting George Bush re-elected.
Source: https://voteprotect.org/index.php?display=EIRMapNation&tab=ED04
Voters Report Problems with Computer Systems
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1103-03.htm
by Andy Sullivan, Reuters
WASHINGTON - Voters across the United States reported problems with electronic touch-screen systems on Tuesday in what critics said could be a sign that the machines used by one-third of the population were prone to error.
Voters calling in to an election-day hotline reported more than 1,100 problems with the ATM-like machines, from improperly tallied choices to frozen screens that left their votes in limbo.
Volunteer John Kramer processes complaints to the voter hotline, 1-866-MYVOTE1, which is based at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, November 2, 2004. The hotline, which recorded calls and logged voters complaints, processed more than 50,000 calls from voters. (Tim Shaffer/Reuters) Voters in Maryland said congressional candidates were left off ballots, while some in Florida told hotline volunteers that their ballots had already been filled out when they stepped up to vote, watchdogs said.
Machines in New Orleans, Miami and suburban Philadelphia failed to start punctually in the morning, leading to long lines at polling places and prompting some to turn away from the polls, according to activists with the Election Protection Coalition.
The nonpartisan group said it had received 1,166 complaints as of late evening involving a wide array of machines.

11/02/2004
CIA Chief Seeks Change in Inspector's 9/11 Report
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/02/politics/02intel.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=
By Douglas Jehl
WASHINGTON, - The director of central intelligence has asked the C.I.A.'s inspector general to modify a draft report on the Sept. 11 attacks to avoid drawing conclusions about whether individual C.I.A. officers should be held accountable for any failures, Congressional and intelligence officials said Monday.
The request by Porter J. Goss, the intelligence chief, would affect an 800-page report that is the result of nearly two years of work. Congressional officials said they were reviewing Mr. Goss's request, spelled out in an Oct. 27 memorandum to the inspector general, John Helgerson, to determine whether it was consistent with a request by the joint Congressional committee that looked into the Sept. 11 attacks.

11/03/2004
Fyrværkerilager og -fabrik i et boligområde i Kolding springer i luften.

11/03/2004
Withdrawal is the only honorable way out
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20041101db.htm
By Doug Bandow
WASHINGTON -- Iraq has become the central issue in America's presidential campaign, but neither candidate has a solution for a conflict that has cost more than 1,100 American lives. Unfortunately, the killing will continue until the United States and its allies withdraw their forces, leaving Iraq to the Iraqis.
America's dead "have made the ultimate sacrifice defending freedom," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. They have made the ultimate sacrifice, but, sadly, we know that the war was a mistake.
Rather than admit error when its claims that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction proved false, the administration seamlessly switched rationales. The war, officials said, actually was about spreading democracy.
Hussein's removal was welcome, but sacrificing allied lives to promote democracy was always a dubious justification. After more than a year of occupation the U.S. continues to lose ground.

11/03/2004

11/04/2004
Impeachment: Now More Than Ever!
By Francis A. Boyle
Removal of George W. Bush through the electoral process has failed. Despite exposure of systematic lying concerning Iraqi WMD and connection to al-Qaeda, George W. Bush has been returned to the US presidency by a majority of voters convinced of his moral and leadership qualities.
But the legal case for impeachment remains, and offers clarity and recourse.
In October 2002, following speeches by Vice President Cheney calling for a preventive war against Iraq, Professor Francis A. Boyle, a leading US expert in international law, set up a national campaign to impeach Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft. On March 11, 2003, Congressman John Conyers, ranking member of the House judiciary committee that has jurisdiction over any bill of impeachment, called for a meeting in Washington, DC to discuss introducing a draft bill of impeachment. Forty to fifty of his top legal advisors met with Boyle and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and weighed and reviewed the case for impeachment.
The case was argued on its merits: violations of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Human Rights, the UN Charter, international law, etc. There is, today, a second, revised draft bill of impeachment sitting on Capitol Hill, ready to go.
With an expanded military campaign imminent and the prospect of World War III looming on the horizon, a powerful nationwide movement to impeach George W. Bush is only a matter of time.
What are the historical, legal and policy issues which are inexorably moving the US towards such a crux?

11/04/2004
Ungarn vil trække sine tropper ud af Irak inden udgangen af marts 2005, noterer Ritzaus Bureau. Også Holland har meddelt, at landets tropper i Irak trækkes ud samtidigt med de ungarnske.
Kilde: Two more states to quit Iraq coalition
By Stefan Wagstyl in London and Charles Clover in Baghdad, The Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/4d233d40-2ddc-11d9-a86b-00000e2511c8,stream=FTSynd,s01=2.html

11/04/2004
Georgian Troop Deployment to Iraq
Richard Boucher, Spokesman
The United States warmly welcomes Georgia's decision to deploy additional troops to Iraq to provide security for the United Nations presence in Iraq.
This latest deployment by Georgia will increase the total number of its troops in Iraq from 159 to 850. It underscores Georgia's commitment to partnership with the people of Iraq and their friends around the world in pursuit of peace, prosperity and democracy in Iraq. The U.S. will offer additional training to help Georgia sustain this deployment following an assessment by the U.S. European Command.

11/04/2004
Lebanese American security firm leaving Iraq
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=11784
Head of Al Safar Group says all foreigners will be potential targets for guerilla warfare in violence-torn Iraq.
ROME - Iraq is becoming impossible to live in and all foreigners will be potential targets for "terrorists", the Lebanese American head of a security company said Thursday in an interview with an Italian newspaper.
"In the short term Iraq will become impossible, ungovernable," said George Haddad in remarks quoted in Italian by the newspaper Corriere della Sera, coinciding with a visit here by Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
Haddad said he was winding up his company, Al Safar Group.
"Every foreigner will be a potential hostage and guerilla warfare will make towns impossible to live in," he predicted: "The elections will be chaos and I want to be far away from here to enjoy my earnings."

11/05/2004
Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival
Knabrostr. 12,3. / dk-1210 Copenhagen K / Denmark
tel. +45 3393 0734 / info@cphdox.dk / www.cphdox.dk
Fra d. 5 november løber Danmarks største internationale dokumentarfilmfestival af stablen. Vi lever i en brydningstid, hvor krig desværre stadig er den skinbarlige virkelighed for millioner af mennesker. På festivalen spænder filmene bredt og kampen for fred er sat øverst på dagsordenen i en række film.
Peace one day
Én mand. Én rigtig god idé. En eftermiddag i 1999 beslutter den 29-årige engelske skuespiller Jeremy Gilley sig for at oprette en officiel international fredsdag: En dag, der i praksis vil kunne gøre det muligt at bringe mad og medicin ind i ellers utilgængelige krigszoner – og som med tiden vil kunne styrke troen på en mere fredelig verden. Det bliver en langt sværere opgave, end han kunne have forestillet sig.
Fred én dag – kan det lade sig gøre?
Til trods for projektets umiddelbart naive og utopiske karakter, fanger det efterhånden en lang række indflydelsesrige personligheders opmærksomhed, heriblandt Dalai Lama, Kofi Annan og Shimon Peres, der alle medvirker i filmen. Spørgsmålet er om én viljestærk og idealistisk mand kan gøre en forskel...
Fred er ikke hverdagen for millioner af mennesker verden over. Cph:dox viser også nogle film, der dokumenterer krigens rædsler. Det sker fx gennem de to formeksperimenterende film Oh, Man og Original Child Bomb, som behandler henholdsvis første og anden verdenskrig.
I Amnesty Award 2004-serien viser vi en række stærke og rystende dokumentarfilm, der dokumenterer krænkelser af menneskerettigheder verden over.
Peace One Day vises i Cinemateket d. 5 november. Amnesty Award-serien vises fra d. 5 - 14 november.

11/05/2004
World Wide Petition against the Escalation in Iraq : An initiative of the BRussells tribunal endorsed by the World Tribunal on Iraq
Prof. Jean Bricmont, a Belgian scientist, specialist in theoretical physics, and author on politics, who was member of the prosecution at the BRussells Tribunal, has written a short but strong statement "Stop the escalation" (see the text after this message, in English, French and Dutch). It has been signed already by several distinguished people (see underneath).
We feel that we can't wait any longer to do something. We hope that you and/or your organisation will sign this letter, giving the call of prof Bricmont the resonance it deserves and he aimed at in writing it.
Now that we know, since the evening of 28th of October 2004, from an article in the Lancet, based on a survey by Johns Hopkins University that 100.000 Iraqi's died in the war, we feel this petition is urgent, so we send it out now.
We hope you join us in our outcry over the ongoing massacres by signing this petition against the escalation.
Yours in struggle for peace.
Prof.Lieven De Cauter, Dirk Adriaensens, Hana Al Bayaty and Patrick Deboosere, on behalf of the B Russell s Tribunal committee.( www.brusselstribunal.org ) with full support of the the World Tribunal on Iraq ( www.worldtribunal.org ) of which the BRussells tribunal Committee is part.
STOP THE ESCALATION
"Excluding information from Falluja, a Lancet report of october 29 estimates that 100,000 more Iraqis died than would have been expected had the invasion not occurred. Eighty-four percent of the deaths were reported to be caused by the actions of Coalition forces and 95 percent of those deaths were due to air strikes and artillery." (Reuters, October 28, 2004)
Far from being over, the war in Iraq has only begun. The United States do not seem to be able to defeat the Iraqi resistance with the means they have been using. But neither can they accept their setbacks. The very arrogance with which the war was declared and waged has put all their prestige at stake in Iraq and, thereby, decades of efforts to assure their world domination. The stakes are even greater than in the Vietnam war. The United States cannot get out of Iraq unless they leave behind a friendly government, but today they have so few friends in that part of the world that no democratic election can produce such a government.
As a result, one must seriously anticipate a military escalation after the elections -- immediately in case Bush is returned to office, perhaps more gradually should Kerry win. But the Democratic candidate has no more intention than Bush of withdrawing from Iraq . The U.S. government will seek to defeat the resistance by all possible means. The effort is already underway to demonize the resistance in world opinion by associating it with abductions and murders condemned by virtually the whole spectrum of political organizations in the Arab world.
We demand that the United States face up to reality, unconditionally withdraw their troops from Iraq, and draw the necessary conclusions as to the unacceptable nature of preventive war. It is an illusion to ask that the U.S. forces remain until Iraq is pacified or stabilized, because their very presence is so hated that it constitutes the main obstacle to any sort of pacification.
Meanwhile, we affirm that we shall oppose by all peaceful and legal methods every attempt to crush the Iraqi resistance by a military escalation such as was attempted during the Vietnam war. We call on all governments to grant asylum to American military personnel refusing to serve in Iraq . We shall do our best to spread all available information to counter the war propaganda, and we shall try to mobilize world public opinion, as in 2002, to demand that the United States abandon their efforts to impose a military solution on Iraq.
First provisional list of signatories (30.10.04)
Noam Chomsky, author, USA
Jean Bricmont, prof. of theoretical physics and political publicist, writer of this petition, Belgium
Lieven De Cauter, prof of philosophy, Belgium
Patrick Deboosere, demographer, Belgium
Hana Al Bayaty, film maker, Iraq/France
Dirk Adriaensens, SOS Iraq , Belgium
Ayse Berktay, WTI organiser, Turkey
Abdul Ilah Al Bayaty, author, Iraq/France
Haifa Zangana, Iraqi-Kurdish novelist and journalist, Irak/UK
Ahmedzaib Khan Mahsud, Architect / Planner, Doctoral candidate, K. U. Leuven
Dr.Haithem Alshaibani, Prof. of Physics, UAE
tareq aldelaimi, writer and political activist, Iraq
Salah Omar Al Ali, Chief Editor of Al Wifaq Al Democraty, Iraq
Ed Herman, Professor Emeritus of Finance, Pennsylvania, economist and media analyst, USA
Michael Parenti, author, USA
William Blum, author of books on US foreign policy, Washington, DC
Richard Plunz, professor urban design, New York
Pierre Galand, Senator , Belgium
Karen Parker, attorney, USA
Amy Bartholomew, Law professor, Canada
Tom Barry, Policy Director, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC), USA
John Saxe-Fernández, Professor, Mexico
Joachim Guilliard, journalist, Germany
Alkan Kabakcioglu, Posdoctoral Fellow in Physics, University of Padova , Padova , ITALY
Erik Swyngedouw, prof of social geography, Oxford
Ur Shlonsky, Professor Geneva , Switzerland
Xavier Bekaert, theoretical physicist, Paris
Nicolas Boulanger, Chercheur en Physique Théorique, Belgium
Bruno Vitale, physicist, Geneva ( Switzerland )
Biju Mathew, Professor, USA
Anton Regenberg, former director of the Brussels Goethe Institute
Anthony Alessandrini, New York University Students for Justice in Palestine, USA
Ayca Cubukcu, Ph.D. student, Columbia University, WTI- New York organizer, New York
Madiha Tahir, student and activist, USA
Rania Jawad, Graduate Student, New York City
Gizem Arikan, Graduate Student, USA
Stephanie Schwartz, New York , NY
Ozlem Altiok, Peace Action of Denton , Texas , USA
Obie Hunt, therapy aide Manhattan Psychiatric Center , USA
Pierre Py, Dictionnaire Historique de la Suisse
Janine Tillmann Py, Switserland
Silvia Cattori, Journaliste, Suisse
Adriana Hernandez Alarcon Mexico Doctor, member and founder of the organization "Not in Our Name México"
Aracely Cortes Galan Mexico , member and founder of the organization "Not in Our Name México"
Federico Campbell, México, Journalist, member and founder of the organization "Not in Our Name México"
Ramsés Ancira, México, Journalist, member of "Not In Our Name Mexico"
Rosa García, México, member and founder of of the organization "Not in Our Name México"
Gabriel Perez Rendon Mexico Doctor, member and founder of the organization "Not in Our Name México"
Annelies De Backer , Belgium
Griet Boddez, director's secretary, Belgium
Ariella Masboungi, Architect and urbanist, France
Stefan Boeykens, Architect-Engineer, Leuven, Belgium
Paul Blondeel, urban research and consultancy, Amsterdam
Daniela Peluso, Anthropologist, Canterbury , UK
Erling Fidjestøl, social worker, Norway
Kaat Boon, civil engineer architect, Brussels
Elise Christensen, Peace Council , Norway
Catherine Denis, Médecin généraliste, Belgium
Simten Cosar, Ankara , Turkey
Enrique Ferro, Peace Activist, Brussels
Behcet Akalin, Istanbul-Turkey, IT Director
Saul Landau, journalist, USA
Roland Marounek, programmer, Stop.USA, Brussels
I Sign the Petition!
Send a mail to Info@Brusselstribunal.org with "I sign" mentionning your name, profession, country, and organisation if needed.

11/05/2004

11/06/2004
House Dems ask GAO to investigate voting machines [It has began] (post by lawnorder on dailykos.com)
http://www.legitgov.org/
Http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. General Accountability Office
Dear Mr. Walker:
We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration...
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr. Jerrold Nadler, and Robert Wexler
House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution

11/06/2004

11/07/2004
Hele Irak, bortset fra det kurdiske område i nord erklæres i undtagelsestilstand.

11/08/2004
GSA Contracts Lose Favor With DoD Managers
Defense Department managers are cutting back their use of non-DoD contracts and procurement services, a move that already appears to be hurting business for the General Services Administration, officials say.
The Navy is moving millions of dollars worth of information technology services business off of GSA contracts and onto its own. And the Air Force is similarly discouraging use of GSA supply schedules and other contracts for at least some of its procurement staffs.
Pentagon budget and acquisition chiefs instructed managers across the department in an Oct. 27 memo to get special approvals and undertake additional research and steps when using non-DoD contracts, writes Federal Times.

11/09/2004
Krystalnatten i Nazityskland, 1938.

11/09/2004
Tanks Appear at Anti-War Protest in Westwood - Fallujah West?
http://la.indymedia.org/
LOS ANGELES, Armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood.
The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered.
Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the tanks, but police quickly cleared the street.
The people continued to protest the presence of the tanks, but after about ten minutes the tanks drove off. It is unclear as to why the tanks were deployed to this location.

11/09/2004
Combatant Trials Cannot Continue in Current Form, Judge Orders
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Military trials set up to determine the guilt or innocence of enemy combatants imprisoned at a U.S. military prison in Cuba are unlawful and cannot continue in their current form, a federal judge ruled this afternoon.
In a major setback to the Bush administration, U.S. District Judge James Robertson found that detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may legally be prisoners of war entitled to the protections of international law and should be allowed a hearing on whether they qualify for those protections.
Robertson determined that the military commissions the Pentagon created after the Sept. 11, 2001, invasion of Afghanistan, to try and sentence the detainees are not lawful or proper. He found that commission rules allowed that the first person scheduled to go to trial on charges of terrorist acts could be denied access to evidence and excluded from some commission sessions, in violation of military law.

11/09/2004

11/10/2004
Sweden Army to Cut 1,000 Officer Positions
By Matt Moore
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Sweden will cut 1,000 officer positions by next summer and not hire replacements as it scales back the historically neutral country's armed forces, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

11/10/2004

11/11/2004
Våbenstilstand efter første verdenskrig, 1918.

11/11/2004
Yasser Arafat 1929-2004 / Mordechai Vanunu back to prison
By: Adam Keller & Beate Zilversmidt
The Other Israel
Yasser Arafat 1929-2004
Enough has been said by enough people about Arafat's illness, which led to his death, about who he was and what it will be like without him. Let's allow our thoughts to go back to meeting him after his arrival in Gaza, ten years ago.
A group of Israelis, Jews and Arabs on a welcoming visit, were sitting waiting for him to enter the hall - on some back benches a group of Palestinian women and children. When Arafat came in, surrounded by a crowd of body-guards all much taller than him, we first only saw glimpses of the kufiya on his head. But suddenly he freed himself, his broad smile radiated happiness and hope, and he started to shake hands with everybody - the backbenches first, taking special care not to miss one child.
The language of the meeting was Arabic; among the Israeli Arabs were some long-time friends, and the meeting was very spirited. Arafat who himself seemed excited about having returned to the beloved country, took care to mix in every sentence some English words - for the Israelis who didn't speak Arabic. That meeting with Arafat, our first, made us understand why this person, not forgetting such details eben in a hectic situation, had succeeded in keeping together a scattered nation .
Forty years Arafat survived like a Houdini; a master not only in the art of physical survival, but also in acquiring popularity and media attention, for himself and thereby for his nation.
On the other hand, his popular image as "The bad guy" was exploited to the full in Israel and turned the period of his sickbed into a quite disgusting media spectacle.
With the intensity of the media attention, one starts speculating: was it pure coincidence that we heard of his being ill immediately after the Knesset authorized the Gaza withdrawal? Sharon just told the Palestinians: "We define until where we withdraw, there is no partner" and immediately after that, the "no-partner" took the stage by falling ill. And a week later from his Paris hospital bed Arafat's last sign of life - his addressing Bush upon being reelected, expressing the wish that the US Middle-East policy would be revised. As if he didn't believe it himself, he then entered into the coma from which he did not wake up anymore.
Now we are preparing tp join the Gush Shalom delegation to the funeral. Yasser Arafat no longer will be there to surprise us. And we all, the Palestinians and the Israeli peace seekers will have to cope without him.
On the day of Arafat's death Mordechai Vanunu goes back to prison.
As if to fit itself into the quest for coincidence, it was this morning, in the first hours after the death of Arafat became official, that thirty armed police of the Special Investigations Unit entered the compound of the Anglican Church in East Jerusalem, where Vanunu had been staying since his release from prison, and detained the recently released nuclear whistleblower. (They had ignored the request of Bishof Riah al-Assad to rid themselves of their weapons before entering.)
The reason of the arrest according to Haaretz: "for questioning related to an ongoing probe examining suspicions he leaked national secrets and violated legal rulings since his release from prison."
A country which cannot live without phantoms.

11/12/2004

11/13/2004
Iraq: The War, the Occupation and International Law; The Stockholm Hearing, November 13-14, 2004
A public hearing about the war against Iraq and the ongoing occupation was held on November 13-14 in Stockholm. The theme of the hearing was "Iraq: the War, the Occupation and International Law". Among the participants were Iraqi witnesses and experts coming directly from Baghdad, a number of Swedes with experience from Iraq, prominent academics, experts in International Law from a number of countries, peace research workers and publicists.
The hearing that was arranged by the Swedish Committee for the World Tribunal on Iraq was a continuation of the broad public opinion movement that in the beginning of 2003 manifested itself in the largest peace demonstrations ever to take place in Sweden on the eve of and after the military attack on Iraq. The hearing aimed both to provide information and to activate Swedish public opinion, as well as to make a contribution on the global level to the Wold Tribunal on Iraq.
The conclusions presented here are a short summary based on their presentations, the questionings during the hearing, written documentation and relevant international conventions and principles of international law.
I. The War, International Law and the Global Power Politics of the United States
The war on Iraq that started on March 20, 2003 and which was initiated and led by the US was an illegal war of aggression and as such in breach of the UN charter and existing international law. This has been made clear by the UN General Secretary and, among others, the Swedish government. The war must be characterized a crime against peace, which constitutes the most severe of all international crimes and which was one of the four categories of crime at the Nuremburg Trials in 1946.
The outlawing of the use of force is the cornerstone in the UN charter and the result of century old efforts to declare war illegal and eliminate it as a means to solve international conflicts. By adopting in 2002 an official doctrine which advocates so-called pre-emptive wars, the US government has openly challenged the basic principle of peaceful co-existence between states. The failure to protest against this officially announced doctrine of attack undermines the UN charter.
All governments must in their bilateral relations and in different international forums once more express their support for the UN charter and its absolute outlawing of the use of force and intensify their condemnations of the war of aggression against Iraq by the US and its allies. What is needed now is once again the formation of a powerful global public opinion, embraced by both governments and popular movements, against war doctrines and for support of the basic principles of the UN charter and especially the outlawing of the use of force in the relation between states.
II. The Occupation of Iraq: impact on society, economy, culture and health
The military attack on Iraq was carried out with great ruthlessness and resulted in widespread destruction of life and property. The occupation powers, led by the US with their full responsibility for order and security, have to take the consequences for the large-scale destruction and plundering of Iraqi buildings and property which took place during the period shortly after the start of the occupation. The extent of the destruction and the magnitude of the cost of the re-construction have consistently been underestimated by the US.
The cultural treasures in Iraq, which are part of the heritage of human civilization, have been plundered. Education and health care are in a state of acute crisis.
The US has used its position as an occupant, in breach of the Hague Convention, to fragmentize, privatize, reshape and force the Iraqi economy into a state of dependency and deprived the Iraqi people their long term possibilities to make sovereign economic and political decisions in their own interests.
The decisions taken by the occupation powers and which are in breach of international legal principles shall not and can not be approved by the world community of states. The US must cease all requirements and dictates which affect or can affect the Iraqi economy and social structure.
In accordance with international legal principles, which are obligations for an occupation power, the demand must now be consistently made that the US and its allies unconditionally pay reparations and fully cover the costs for the reconstruction of Iraq after the damage caused by the war and the occupation.
III. The Occupation of Iraq: humanitarian law and human rights
US military operations in Iraq have since the beginning of the attack and the start of the occupation been carried out with blatant brutality and a reckless disregard of humanitarian law, including applicable articles in the Geneva conventions.
The bombings, the blockades and the military raids into Iraqi cities that strive to preserve their identity arouse disgust. The attack on the city of Falluja has caused heavy civilian losses and hundred of thousands people have been driven away as refugees. These outrages must be emphatically condemned.
The systematic torture in Abu Ghraib and other prisons has chocked a whole world. These violations and atrocities have been found to be part of a deliberate policy, with direct connections to the US government, to disregard the absolute prohibition of torture, one of the strongest legal norms of International Law. The ban against torture is explicitly stated in a number of conventions, and the torture of prisoners of war constitutes a severe war crime.
The world community must react with utmost rigour against the US atrocities in Iraq, otherwise the confidence in the whole international system for humanitarian law and human rights will be undermined. All states that have signed the Geneva conventions have a common obligation to act upon breaches against the conventions. All possibilities to act in order to investigate and condemn the crimes committed must be tried within the framework of the convention against torture, the conventions on human rights and the UN Commission on Human Rights. This puts demands on both states and popular movements to act quickly and decisively.
IV. Self -Determination and Democracy for the Iraqi People or continued Occupation?
Iraq is still in all essential matters an occupied country. Peace, self-determination and democracy for Iraq require that the occupation forces leave the country and that the Iraqi people themselves and without interference from abroad shall decide upon their constitution and their form of government.
The elections which are planned by the regime installed by the occupation powers do not fulfil basic democratic principles for self-determination and excludes a large part of the electorate from the political process. Their purpose is only to legitimize the continued control of the country and will be followed by a protracted war against the continued resistance against the presence of the foreign troops.
Instead of accepting a continued war in Iraq the UN and its member states must take steps to reach an immediate political solution which includes the withdrawal of the foreign occupation forces, negotiations with participation of all Iraqi parties including the resistance, to carry out a genuine process of self-determination with democratic elections to put an end to the conflict and form the foundation for peace, reconciliation and rebuilding in Iraq. This is the model which the UN has acted in accordance with at the ending of other occupations and conflicts.
The conclusions have been summarized by a panel with the following members:
Maj Britt Theorin, former member of the EU parliament and former Swedish Ambassador for Disarmament (Chairman of the panel)
Peter Curman, chairman of the Swedish Joint Committee for Artistic and Literary Professionals (KLYS).
Stig Gustafsson, former head of legal department at The Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (TCO), and former member of the Swedish parliament
Silakh Krikeb, Chairman of the Swedish Association of Muslim Students
Christian Hårleman, Chairman of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF)
Vivi Löfstedt, The Swedish Committee for the World Tribunal on Iraq
Lars Gunnar Liljestrand, The Swedish Committee for the World Tribunal on Iraq
Jan Lönn, The Swedish Committee for the World Tribunal on Iraq (Secretary of the panel)

11/14/2004
The Rape of Nanking
By: professor Ronald Hilton
The World Association of International Studies (WAIS)
http://wais.stanford.edu/
On November 14, 2004, a very bright and attractive woman who lived near here in Sunnyvale, committed suicide at the age of 36. She was Iris Chang, whose best known book, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (Basic Books) shocked readers; her suicide may be attributed to the fact that she was traumatized by what she had discovered. There has been a conspiracy of silence about the rape of Nanking. The Japanese have tried to suppress the story. It receives only brief, indirect mention is history textbooks, and a Japanese historian has been involved in a long and as yet unsuccessful lawsuit to have this virtual ban removed. No Japanese publisher would bring out a Japanese edition of Iris Chang's book, but she hoped that some small, off-beat published would take a chance. The US has shown no interest in publicizing the story because it does not wish to complicate relations with Japan. However, a group in Congress is pushing for the affair to be given publicity. It is rather like the US government not wishing to discuss the Armenian genocide for fear of damaging our relations with Turkey. Incredibly, the Chinese government has taken the same attitude for the same reason. Chinese who tried to publicize the rape of Nanking were expelled from the country. When Iris Chang went there to study the case, she was careful to hide the motives behind her trip. The story should be publicized in Japan and China, and we hope that Basic Books will be able to make the necessary arrangements.
The title, The Rape of Nanking, is appropriate in both the literal and metaphorical senses. Gruesome photographs show women who were strapped down, raped repeatedly and then killed. Many of those who survived committed suicide or killed the babies born of Japanese fathers. The men got even worse treatment. The Japanese would have competitions to see who could kill 100 Chinese prisoners most quickly. Some were buried up to their necks, and then dogs would eat their heads. In all, 300,000 were killed. How does Iris Chang explain the Japanese behavior? She has an appropriately realistic view of human nature. She says the ordinary Japanese soldiers were treated by their superiors as little better than animals, and they took out their pent-up resentment on the Chinese.
It is useless for the Japanese to deny the rape of Nanking. The documentation is overwhelming. Some is contained in the records of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, known officially as the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Far East. There was also a tribunal in Nanking itself; I believe the documents are still not public. The Chinese dictum that a picture is worth a thousand words is abundantly illustrated in the chilling illustrations. One slight consolation for the death of Iris Chang is that it has called the attention of the world to the forgotten holocaust. Jews wrongly asserted that the Jewish holocaust was unique, and holocaust museums are devoted exclusively to it. In fact there have been many holocausts, that of Nanking being one of them. The Holocaust Museums should be expanded to include the other examples of man's inhumanity to man. The numerous holocausts in history should be given prominence, even though the documentation about them is limited. This would force mankind to face the reality of the human condition and of original sin.
The importance of our "Learning history" project in the promotion of peace has been amply demonstrated in the case of Iris Chang, to whom The Economist (11/27-12/3/04) devotes its obituary page. The Nanking Massacre, long a taboo subject in Japan, has now given rise to two bitterly opposed schools, the Great Massacre school and the Great Illusion School. The latter are like those who deny the truth of the Jewish holocaust in Nazi Germany. It is literally a matter of life and death. Iris Chang committed suicide, as had Minnie Vautrin, the American missionary who saved thousands of Chinese lives and to whom Iris Chang pays tribute. The Economist says " the Nanking "incident" is central to a wider debate about teaching history in Japanese schools. The problem goes far beyond the scope of professional historians, who gave Iris Chang little support. It involves educators and diplomats. It is a problem central to the issues of war, revolution, and peace, the study of which is the mission of the Hoover Institution.

11/14/2004

11/15/2004
A War Crime in Real Time: Obliterating Fallujah
By Francis A. Boyle
The obliteration of Fallujah continues apace. Article 6(b) of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter defines a Nuremberg War Crime in relevant part as the ". . . wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages. . ." According to this definitive definition, the Bush Jr. administration's destruction of Fallujah constitutes a war crime for which Nazis were tried and executed. There is nothing surprising about that.
Since the Bush Jr. administration's installation in power by the United States Supreme Court in January of 2001, the peoples of the world have witnessed a government in the United States of America that has demonstrated little if any respect for fundamental considerations of international law, international organizations, and human rights, let alone appreciation of the requirements for maintaining international peace and security. What the world has watched instead is a comprehensive and malicious assault upon the integrity of the international legal order by a group of men and women who are thoroughly Machiavellian in their perception of international relations and in their conduct of both foreign policy and domestic affairs. This is not simply a question of giving or withholding the benefit of the doubt when it comes to complicated matters of foreign affairs and defense policies to a U.S. government charged with the security of both its own citizens and those of its allies in Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and the Pacific. Rather, the Bush Jr. administration's foreign policy constitutes ongoing criminal activity under well-recognized principles of both international law and U.S. domestic law, in particular the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles. So their obliteration of Fallujah was to be expected.
One generation ago the peoples of the world asked themselves: Where were the "good" Germans? Well, there were some good Germans. The Lutheran theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the foremost exemplar of someone who led a life of principled opposition to the Nazi-terror state even unto death.
Today the peoples of the world are likewise asking themselves: Where are the "good" Americans? Well, there are some good Americans. Like three Catholic Nuns in Denver, they are getting arrested and going to jail for protesting against United States weapons of mass destruction (WMD) whose power for human extermination far exceeds even the wildest fantasies of Hitler and the Nazis. Or else for protesting against illegal U.S.. military interventions around the world. Just recently the Nuclear Resister estimated that since the Fall of 2002, there have been more than 9,500 anti-war related arrests in the United States alone. Many more will be coming.
In international legal terms, the Bush Jr. administration itself should now be viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy under international criminal law in violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, due to its formulation and undertaking of aggressive war policies that are legally akin to those perpetrated by the Nazi regime. As a consequence, American citizens possess the basic right under international law and the United States domestic law, including the U.S. Constitution, to engage in acts of non-violent civil resistance in order to prevent, impede, thwart, or terminate ongoing criminal activities perpetrated by U.S. government officials in their conduct of foreign affairs policies and military operations purported to relate to defense and counter-terrorism.
This same right of civil resistance extends pari passu to all citizens of the world community of states. Everyone around the world has both the right and the duty under international law to resist ongoing criminal activities perpetrated by the Bush Jr. administration and its nefarious foreign accomplices such as Blair, Berlusconi, Howard, Koizumi, Kwasniewski, etc. by all non-violent means possible. If it is not so restrained, the Bush Jr. administration could very well precipitate a Third World War.
The time for preventive action is now. Civil resistance is the way to go. People power can overcome power politics. Popular movements have succeeded in toppling tyrannical, dictatorial and authoritarian regimes throughout former Communist countries in Eastern Europe, as well as in Asia, and most recently in Latin America. It is time once again to exercise People Power here in the United States of America: "When in the Course of human Events. . . We hold these Truths to be self-evident. . . . we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and sacred Honor."
Despite the best efforts by the Bush Jr. Leaguers to the contrary, we American Citizens still have our First Amendment Rights: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom to Petition our Government for the Redress of these massive Grievances, Civil Resistance, etc. We are going to have to start vigorously exercising all of our First Amendment Rights right now. We must use them or else, as the saying goes, we will lose them. We must act not only for the good of the Peoples of Southwest Asia, but for our future, that of our children, that of our nation as a democratic society committed to the Rule of Law and the U.S. Constitution. The Nazis had their "homeland" too.
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is author of Foundations of World Order, Duke University Press, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, and Palestine, Palestinians and International Law, by Clarity Press.
He can be reached at: FBOYLE@LAW.UIUC.EDU

11/16/2004
FNs sikkerhedsråd indfører våbenembargo mod Elfenbenskysten, skrever Reuters.

11/17/2004
Child Soldiers: Governments failing generations of children
Amnesti International
London -- Governments are undermining progress in ending the use of children as soldiers, said a coalition of the world's leading human rights and humanitarian organizations in a newly published report.
The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers today released the most comprehensive global survey of child soldiers to date. It said that children are fighting in almost every major conflict, in both government and opposition forces. They are being injured, subjected to horrific abuse and killed.
The Coalition accused governments at the European Union, G-8 and UN Security Council of a failure of leadership. It called for the immediate enforcement of a ban on the use of child soldiers.
"Children should be protected from warfare not used to wage it. Instead generations are having their childhoods stolen by governments and armed groups," said Casey Kelso, head of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.
"A world that does not allow children to fight wars is possible, but governments must show the political will and courage to make this happen by enforcing international laws."
`Child Soldiers Global Report 2004' reviews trends and developments since 2001 in 196 countries. Despite some improvements the situation remained the same or deteriorated in many countries. Wars ending in Afghanistan, Angola and Sierra Leone led to the demobilization of 40,000 children, but over 25,000 were drawn into conflicts in Côte d'Ivoire and Sudan alone.
Opportunities for progress, including the creation of and growing support for a UN child soldiers treaty, the creation of demobilization programs in some countries and momentum towards prosecutions of those recruiting children, have been undermined by governments actively breaking pledges or failing to show political leadership.
Although the UN Security Council has condemned child soldiering and monitors those using children in war, some members have blocked real progress by opposing concrete penalties for violators. The Coalition said that the Security Council should take immediate and decisive action to get children out of conflict by applying targeted sanctions and referring child recruiters to the International Criminal Court for prosecution.
Armed groups, both government-backed paramilitaries and opposition forces, are the main culprits in recruitment and use of child soldiers. Dozens of groups in at least 21 conflicts have recruited tens of thousands of children since 2001, forcing them into combat, training them to use explosives and weapons, and subjecting them to rape, violence and hard labour.
Girls and boys in the opposition Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, for example, were subjected to "war councils" for disciplinary offences and in some cases other children were forced to execute them. In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, armed groups sexually abused and raped girls and forced children to kill their own relatives.
The Coalition said that all armed groups should protect children from conflict or be held legally accountable.
Governments, including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Sudan and the USA, used children on the front lines in at least 10 conflicts. Others, including Colombia, Uganda and Zimbabwe, backed paramilitary groups and militias that used child soldiers. States such as Indonesia and Nepal used children as informants, spies or messengers.
Some governments, including Burundi, Indonesia and the Russian Federation, killed, tortured or arbitrarily detained children suspected of supporting armed opposition. Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces were tortured or threatened to coerce them to become informants.
Western governments broke commitments to protect children by providing military training and support to governments using child soldiers, such as Rwanda and Uganda.
The Coalition called on governments to ban all recruitment of under- 18s into any armed force and to ratify and fully implement the UN child soldiers treaty, which is helping to reduce the numbers of children used in hostilities.
At least 60 governments, including Australia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the USA, continue to legally recruit children aged 16 and 17.
For a copy of the full report, please go to: www.child-soldiers.org
For further information, contact Nicki East or Casey Kelso at the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers: +44 20 7713 2761 or press@child-soldiers.org.uk
1. The Steering Committee of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers consists of Amnesty International, Defence for Children International, Human Rights Watch, International Federation Terre des Hommes, International Save the Children Alliance, Jesuit Refugee Service, the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva and World Vision International.
2. `UN child soldiers treaty' refers to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. This prohibits the participation of children under the age of 18 in hostilities and all forced recruitment of children. It calls on states to raise the minimum age for voluntary recruitment. By October 2004 it had been ratified by 85 states and signed by 116.

11/17/2004

11/18/2004
Using the Past to Shape the Future: Addressing Civic Issues at Historic Sites, Museums, and Cultural Centers
November 18-19, 2004
University of Illinois at Chicago
How can cultural institutions become centers of civic life in our communities? Learn from successful models around the world about how your institution can address the issues most central to your community's life today.
The role of cultural institutions is changing day by day. No longer places of passive learning, every one of these institutions has the potential to be, as the American Association of Museums envisions, "a center where people gather to meet and converse ... an active, visible player in civic life, a safe haven, a trusted incubator of change." How can we fulfill that vision? Museums, historic sites and cultural centers worldwide are interpreting their histories from multiple perspectives, collaborating with communities, and fostering dialogue on the legacies of those histories today. As a result, they are transforming themselves into powerful forums for civic engagement and public dialogue.
"Using the Past" will present successful models of civic dialogue at museums, historic sites, and cultural centers. Participants will learn how their institutions can help individuals and communities address the issues most central to their lives today.
What will participants gain from the conference?
Participants will share experiences and build skills in:
1. Connecting your history or cultural resources to the issues that matter most to your community.
2. Training front line educators to connect the past with your community's present.
3. Forming effective partnerships with community organizations and educational institutions to incorporate multiple perspectives.
4. Promoting effective dialogue and engaging stakeholder groups, visitors and communities, even on sensitive issues.
5. Expanding your audience beyond your immediate community.
For more information:
Visit our website: http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/2004conference/ or contact:
Margaret (Peg) Strobel, Director
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
312-413-5355
pegs@uic.edu

11/18/2004
The Dems Are Caving on Gonzales: War Criminal as Attorney General?
by Prof. Francis A. Boyle
As White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales originated, authorized, approved, and aided and abetted grave breaches of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949 (e.g., torture and Gitmo kangaroo courts), which are serious war crimes. In other words, Gonzales is a prima facie war criminal. He must be prosecuted under the Geneva Conventions and the US War Crimes Act.
For example, article 129 of the Third Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War provides in relevant part with respect to prima facie U.S. war criminals such as Gonzales: "Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such graves breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts."
To the same effect is article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention protecting Civilians in wartime. This obligation to prosecute Gonzales applies to every High Contracting Party to the Geneva Conventions, which means almost every state in the world, including the United States of America--still "the land of the free, and the home of the brave" despite incumbent US Attorney General John Ashcroft, another prima facie war criminal. And there is no statute of limitations for the commission of such serious war crimes. No wonder the Bush Jr administration has done everything humanly possible to sabotage the International Criminal Court.
The same conclusions can be reached by the application of the Pentagon's own U.S. Department of the Army Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare, which, by its own terms, also applies to civilian government officials such as Gonzales involved in ordering or aiding and abetting or conspiring to commit war crimes.
Despite the pusillanimous predilections of Senator Leahy, the U.S. Senate must reject his nomination. As a prima facie war criminal, Gonzales is not fit to be Attorney General of the United States of America. Should Gonzales travel around the world in that capacity, then human rights lawyers around the world will attempt to get him prosecuted wherever he might go along the lines of what they did to General Pinochet in London. Like pirates, war criminals are "hostes humani generis"--the enemies of all humankind. A fitting description for Bush Jr and his gang of war criminals.

11/18/2004
Falluja Arithmetic Lesson
by Prof. Greg Palast
Monday's New York Times, page 1:
"American commanders said 38 service members had been killed and 275 wounded in the Falluja assault."
Monday's New York Times, page 11:
"The American military hospital here reported that it had treated 419 American soldiers since the siege of Falluja began."
Questions for the class:
1. If 275 soldiers were wounded in Falluja and 419 are treated for wounds, how many were shot on the plane ride to Germany?
2. We're told only 275 soldiers were wounded but 419 treated for wounds; and we're told that 38 soldiers died. So how many will be buried?
3. How long have these Times reporters been embedded with with military? Bonus question: When will they get out of bed with the military?
Monday's New York Times, page 1:
"The commanders estimated that 1,200 to 1,600 insurgents had been killed."
Monday's New York Times, page 11:
"Nowhere to be found: the remains of the insurgents that the tanks had been sent in to destroy. ...The absence of insurgent bodies in Falluja has remained an enduring mystery."
NOT in the New York Times:
"Every time I hear the news
That old feeling comes back on;
We're waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the Big Fool says to push on."
- Pete Seeger, 1967
Greg Palast is author of the Best Democracy Money Can Buy. The New Deal: "Joker's Wild: Dubya's House of Cards" - regime change deck from 7 Stories Press available @ www.GregPalast.com.

11/18/2004
Leading journalist Robert Fisk asks: Who killed Margaret Hassan?
By Chris Marsden
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/fisk-n18_prn.shtml
Leading Middle East commentator Robert Fisk has questioned just who is responsible for the apparent murder of aid worker Margaret Hassan in Iraq.
In a front-page article in the November 17 Independent newspaper, Fisk raises a number of important questions that throw doubt on the official version of events that Hassan was killed by Iraqi insurgents.
Fisk is a man whose opinions on Iraqi affairs should be taken seriously. Now a journalist for the Independent, he is an expert on the Middle East who has lived in Beirut for more than 25 years and wrote a book on the civil war there, Pity The Nation. He has written extensively on Iraq and the Israeli Palestinian conflict and is one of the most highly decorated British journalists, winning the Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 and in 2000.

11/18/2004
Pentagon's Reliance on Civilians Surges, Death Claims Show
By Tony Capaccio
Bloomberg.com
Total death insurance claims by contractors in Iraq have risen more than sixfold from 2003, U.S. government figures show, as nearly as many civilians are working overseas as soldiers.
Companies so far this year have filed claims for 157 deaths and 516 serious injuries, based on U.S. Labor Department figures given to Bloomberg News yesterday. Almost 60 percent of those civilians who died worked for Halliburton Co. and Titan Corp. In 2003, contractors claimed 23 deaths and 132 serious injuries.
Halliburton, the biggest U.S. contractor in Iraq, and Titan, the top provider of Army translators, have filed the most claims for employees killed or wounded in Iraq. Halliburton units through yesterday have filed 747 of 1,346 Iraqi-related claims, including 16 deaths, while Titan has filed 192 claims, including 77 deaths. A total of 78 companies filed insurance claims.
The 1941 Defense Base Act requires insurance coverage for workers in combat zones hired under U.S. contracts. Every U.S. company bidding on government work overseas in places such as Iraq, Kuwait, or Bosnia and Herzegovina must buy insurance for its U.S. and foreign workers, including Iraqi personnel, from private U.S. carriers.
About 60,000 U.S. civilians are working in Iraq alongside 138,000 U.S. troops. Another 85,000 Iraqis employed on U.S. projects are also eligible for benefits under the Base Act.
Insurance carriers paid out $10 million in 2003 for Base Act benefits, according to Labor Department figures.
Insurance companies are required under the Base Act to pay claims within 14 days of their receipt or file a formal notice with the Labor Department contesting payment.

11/18/2004

11/19/2004

11/20/2004
News Gathering Is Illegal Under New Patriot Act ll
By Alex Jones
InfoWars.com
http://www.rense.com/general59/newsgatheringisillegal.htm
SECTION 102 of the new Patriot Act ll states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes news gathering illegal.
A Brief Analysis of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003 - Also Known as USA Patriot Act II
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was allowed to read the first Patriot Act that was passed by the House on October 27, 2001. The first Patriot Act was universally decried by civil libertarians and Constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum. William Safire, while writing for the New York Times, described the first Patriot Act's powers by saying that President Bush was "seizing dictatorial control." On February 7, 2003 the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan public interest think-tank in DC, revealed the full text of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. The classified document had been leaked to them by an unnamed source inside the Federal government. The document consisted of a 33 page section by section analysis of the accompanying 87 page bill.
The bill itself is stamped "Confidential - Not for Distribution." Upon reading the analysis and bill, I was stunned by the scientifically crafted tyranny contained in the legislation. The Justice Department Office of Legislative Affairs admits that they had indeed covertly transmitted a copy of the legislation to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, (R-Il) and the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney as well as the executive heads of federal law enforcement agencies.
It is important to note that no member of Congress was allowed to see the first Patriot Act before its passage, and that no debate was tolerate by the House and Senate leadership. The intentions of the White House and Speaker Hastert concerning Patriot Act II appear to be a carbon copy replay of the events that led to the unprecedented passage of the first Patriot Act.

11/20/2004

11/21/2004
Alert! Falluja women, children in mass grave
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/24EBE5BB-CA3F-462B-8279-546BC1D9B7E6.htm
Residents of a village neighbouring Falluja have told Aljazeera that they helped bury the bodies of 73 women and children who were burnt to death by a US bombing attack.
"We buried them here, but we could not identify them because they were charred by the use of napalm bombs used by the Americans," said one resident of Saqlawiya in footage aired on Aljazeera on Sunday.
There have been no reports of the US military using napalm in Falluja and no independent verification of the claims.
The resident told Aljazeera all the bodies were buried in a single grave.

11/21/2004
At $615 million, expenditures lag behind 1980s
By JAMIE FREED
www.newspress.com
WASHINGTON -- Defense spending in Santa Barbara County jumped 28 percent last year to $615 million -- despite worries about a long-term decline in Pentagon money coming to California.
Some of the county's military contracts are for landscaping, maintenance and food service at Vandenberg Air Force Base, but the vast majority of the dollars come from the Air Force and go toward high-tech aerospace projects at Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Mission Research, according to federal spending databases.
However, the future of defense spending and of the jobs that the federal money generates for the county and state is not clear. High labor costs and a strict regulatory environment are already pushing military contracts to other states.
The federal defense money flowing into the county is nowhere near the $950 million high point hit in 1985.
"What we have in California is really just a remnant of what we had," said Bill Watkins, executive director of the UCSB economic forecast. At the height of the Reagan administration's defense spending in 1985, California received $29.1 billion in military contracts, but by 1999, that had fallen to $17.4 billion -- a 64 percent drop when adjusted for inflation. Santa Barbara County defense spending hit a low of $406 million in 1998, before rebounding during the last few years.
Mr. Watkins said one reason military spending in the state fell is that companies can put in lower bids for contracts if the work is done in states where it is cheaper to do business. But at some point, he and other experts said, spending in California will level off.
A disproportional number of California bases were shut down during four rounds of military base closings in the 1990s, hitting the state's defense industry hard. Another round of base closings is expected next year, and California officials are trying to ensure that the state's bases stay off the target list.
Earlier this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger established the Council on Base Support and Retention, chaired by Leon Panetta, President Clinton's chief of staff.
The council also includes former Rep. Andrea Seastrand, R-San Luis Obispo, who heads the California Space Authority, which lobbies to promote the state's aerospace industry.
Several congressional aides said California has an advantage going into the next round of closings since much of its redundant military capacity disappeared after bases such as Monterey's Fort Ord were shut in the 1990s.

11/21/2004
Britain joins EU army
The Sunday Times - Britain
November 21, 2004
BRITAIN is to commit more than 2,000 troops to a new 18,000-strong European Union army that will be deployed as a peacekeeper to the world's trouble spots, write Adam Nathan and Nicola Smith.
Despite concerns within the military about overstretch, ministers will announce this week that at least one battle group will be ready by January. They will also say the force will expand by 2007 to comprise a multinational force of up to 12 elite rapid-reaction battle groups — each with 1,500 soldiers. At least two of these groups will be ready to deploy at 15 days' notice to humanitarian or peacekeeping emergencies, primarily in Africa.

11/22/2004
Protester mod the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security and Cooperation, USA.

11/22/2004
Iraqi Children Pay Silent Cost of Occupation: Report
The study says Iraq’s malnutrition rate is far higher than in Uganda and Haiti
CAIRO, November 21 (IslamOnline.net) – Iraqi children are paying the silent cost of the US-led occupation with malnutrition rates exceeding by far those in the world’s poorest and disease-plagued countries, a leading US newspaper reported on Sunday, November 21.
Acute malnutrition among Iraqi children has nearly doubled since the US invaded the country 20 months ago, The Washington Post reported, citing a study by Iraq's health ministry in tandem with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the UN Development Program (UNDP).
“After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year,” concluded the study.
“Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti.”
The study further put at some 400,000 the number of Iraqi children suffering from “wasting”, a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.
The United Nations children's fund (UNICEF) had warned that the number of children who suffer from diarrhea, Iraq's number one killer of infants, has more than doubled under occupation.
Iraqi doctors attributed the increase in malnutrition to dirty water, unreliable supplies of the electricity needed to make it safe by boiling and a crippled economy.
The study said 60 percent of rural residents and 20 percent of urban dwellers have access only to contaminated water.

11/22/2004
HUMANITARIAN LAW GROUPS FILE RIGHTS PETITION AT OAS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES FOR ATTACKS ON HOSPITALS, CLINICS IN FALLUJA
By Karen Parker
Los Angeles-based Humanitarian Law Project/International Educational Development (HLP/IED and San Francisco-based Association of Humanitarian Lawyers (AHL), submitted a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States on behalf of “unnamed, unnumbered patients and medical staff both living and dead” at the medical facilities in Falluja. The Commission had authority to investigate human rights violations committed by a member State of the OAS and to seek remedies for victims.
“Attacks on hospitals and medical personnel are truly shocking. We hope that this will result in the immediate improvement of the situation of the patients and staff, to additional remedies for these victims, and an end to the United States violations of human rights and the Geneva Conventions in Iraq,” stated Lydia Brazon, Executive Director of the United Nations credentialed HLP/IED.
The Geneva Conventions prohibit attacks on any medical facility or medical personnel, whether civilian or military. “Imagine the outrage if the opposition in Iraq attacked one of the medical facilities for American wounded. There would be calls for war crimes tribunals,” stated Karen Parker, the attorney in this action. “Rather than being “quaint” as administration Attorney-General nominee Gonzales has said, the Geneva Conventions and human rights agreements are meant to prevent acts of barbarity in war. Besides preventing atrocities, they are meant to protect GIs from the psychological damage that afflicts people who carry out this type of action.”
In addition to the evidence already attached to their document, the Petitioners will submit New York Times photographer Shawn Baldwin’s photograph of patients lying on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs, and a number of other photos and stories about the tragedy. They also informed the Commission that weapons containing depleted uranium, declared illegal weapons by a United Nations human rights body, might have been used near the hospitals, placing the victims at further risk of serious harm.
The Petition was filed under the Commission’s emergency provisions, enabling the Commission to order the United States to undertake measures to prevent “irreparable harm” to victims. The Petitioners also requested the Commission to visit Falluja for a first-hand assessment.
PETITION
SUBMITTED TO THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES
BY
THE ASSOCIATION OF HUMANTARIAN LAWYERS
ON BEHALF OF
UNNAMED, UNNUMBERED PATIENTS AND MEDICAL STAFF, BOTH LIVING AND DEAD, OF THE FALLUJA GENERAL HOSPITAL AND A TRAUMA CLINIC
AGAINST
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Karen Parker
154 Fifth Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
415.668.2752 tel. and fax
415.533.1066 cell
ied@igc.org
Attorney for Petitioners
CONTENTS
BRIEF STATEMENT OF THE CASE
THE ORGANIZATIONAL PETITIONER
ORGANIZATIONAL PETITIONER MEETS ARTICLE 26 REQUIREMENTS
REQUEST FOR ARTICLE 25 PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES
EXHAUSTION OF DOMESSTIC REMEDIES
FACTS
VIOLATIONS
CONCLUSION
DOCUMENTS
Tab 1. Statement of Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 16 November 2004.
Tab 2. B. Dominick, “In Fallujah, U.S. Declares War on Hospitals, Ambulances,” The New Standard (Australia), 12 November 2004.
Tab 3. “Aid convoy barred from “starving” Falluja,” Al-Jazeera, 15 November 2004.
Tab 4. M. Georgy, K. Sengupta, H. McGavin, [News stories], The Independent (UK), 15 November 2004.
Tab 5. United Nations, Emergency Working Group -- Falluja Crisis, “Up-date Note,” 11 November 2004 and 13 November 2004.
Tab 6. “Hospitals hit as fighting rages in Falluja,” Al -Jazeera, 9 November 2004.
BRIEF STATEMENT OF THE CASE
On Sunday, 7 November 2004, troops belonging to the United States Special Forces seized the Falluja General Hospital in Falluja, Iraq. The hospital patients were taken from their rooms, ordered to lie on the floor and they had their hands bound behind their backs. There are also credible reports that a medical clinic was attacked, killing 20 doctors and unnumbered patients. Survivors are presumed in urgent need of attention. Organizational Petitioner files this Petition on an emergency basis as provided by Article 25 of the Rules of Procedure of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Rules). Organizational Petitioners allege that the reports of the impact of that attack on patients and medical staff, in conjunction with current conditions at the hospital and clinic, if true, justify Article 25 remedies and constitute violations of Articles I (right to life, liberty and personal security); Article V (right of freedom from abusive attacks on personal life); Article XI (right to preservation of health and well-being); and Article XXV (right to protection from arbitrary arrest) of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, adopted by the 9th International Conference of American States (1948)(American Declaration).
The United States is a member of the Organization of American State and is therefore bound by the American Declaration.
Petitioners have not raised the issues presented herein in a forum that would invoke the duplication doctrine set out in Article 33 of the Rules.
THE ORGANIZATIONAL PETITIONER
The Association of Humanitarian Lawyers (AHL) is a California Organization duly registered with the California Secretary of State, and has private, non- profit status under United States law. Formerly known as International Disability law, its mission is to educate about and seek compliance with human rights and humanitarian law. AHL specifically seeks to protect the rights of persons injured or disabled in armed conflict and to protect medical personal, medical facilities and medical supplies from harm.
ORGANIZATIONAL PETITIONER MEETS ARTICLE 23 REQUIREMENTS
Organizational Petitioner alleges that it complies with Article 23 of the Rules, which allows petitions on behalf of third persons by groups legally recognized in a member State of the Organization of American States. Organizational Petitioner assets that the to-date unnamed and unnumbered Individual Petitioners are precisely the persons that AHL seeks to protect and that the acts in questions are those that AHL seeks to prevent or remedy.
REQUEST FOR ARTICLE 25 PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES
Article 25 of the Rules provides for measures to be undertaken in emergency situations. This rules provides, in pertinent part:
1. In serious or urgent cases, and whenever necessary according to the information available, the Commission may, on its own initiative or at the request of a party, request that the State concerned adopt precautionary measures to prevent irreparable harm to persons.
Organizational Petitioner is convinced that the situation is sufficiently grave to assume that surviving Individual Petitioners are at great risk of loss of life and other irreparable harm.
EXHAUSTION OF DOMESTIC REMEDIES
Petitioners allege excuse from exhaustion of domestic remedies as required by Article 31 of the Rules because this is an urgent case governed by Article 25 of the Rules. Petitioners also assert that United States domestic law does not provide remedies for victims of violations of human rights that occur during armed conflict and will make a showing of that if so requested by the Commission.
FACTS
Respondent State does not deny that at about 10:00 p.m. Sunday, November 7, 2004 its Special Forces stormed Falluja General Hospital, and both patients and staff were ordered to sit or lie down. Their hands were then bound behind their backs. The front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, November 8, 2004 has a photograph taken by N.Y. Times photographer Shawn Baldwin at the hospital showing the United States forces guarding a number of patients who are lying on the floor with their hands bound. This operation was admitted by Respondent to be among the first one undertaken by its military forces in its goal of seizing Falluja away from the hands of the enemy. There is strong evidence to indicate loss of life, injury, worsening of medical condition and other ills for the patients and staff at this hospital due to the conduct of Respondent.
Petitioners allege that the information regarding the clinic is sufficiently reliable to indicate that the Respondent’s military forces carried out an aerial bombardment on a medical trauma clinic, killing perhaps up to twenty doctors and unnumbered patients. In this regard Reuters has issued a photograph of a sign reading “Nazzai Emergency Hospital” that is all that remains of that facility and two adjacent building used my medical care providers. The opposition forces have no capacity for aerial attacks.[1] American officials have allegedly defended these acts by claiming that Falluja General Hospital is an “enemy field hospital” but Petitioners assert that facts available to the Respondent clearly indicate that this facility is a civilian one, and statements issued at other times by Respondent indicates this knowledge.[2]
There are numerous accounts, as well as photographs,[3] of American forces shooting at or destroying ambulances.
On Monday, November 15, 2004 the Iraqi Red Crescent allegedly tried to bring badly needed supplies to injured civilians, including the patients, but were barred from doing so. Its convoy retreated to the surrounding camps of internally displaced persons.
There is clear evidence that Abrams tanks are being used in military attacks near and around the medical facilities, thereby possibly further endangering patients and remaining medical staff as these tanks have been used to fire weapons containing depleted uranium. Depleted uranium weapons are radioactive, have a devastating effect on life and health of all persons in the area, and will continue to have a deadly effect long after the conflict is over. It is for this reason that in 1996 the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights found use of these weapons “incompatible” with existing human rights and humanitarian law standards.
The urgency of the situation is indicated by an appeal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who issued a statement in this regard.
VIOLATIONS
Petitioners allege the above acts show violations of Articles I (right to life, liberty and personal security); Article V (right of freedom from abusive attacks on personal life);
Article XI (right to preservation of health and well-being); and Article XXV (right to protection from arbitrary arrest)
War can provide an exception to certain of these rights. For example, an enemy soldier killed in battle does not have a right of action under the right to life provisions in human rights law. In some instances civilian casualties may be viewed as “incidental” ones and not, therefore, violations of either human rights or humanitarian law. However, when a military force carries out an illegal military action, then the resulting violations are simultaneously violations of human rights and humanitarian law. Thus, in order for the Respondent Government to defend against the charges brought by Petitioners, applicable humanitarian law must be consulted to see if there are exceptions that relate to this Petition. There are not.
The violations alleged by Petitioner result from military operations that are specifically forbidden in applicable humanitarian law. Article 18 of Geneva Convention IV of 1949 provides, in pertinent part:
Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.
Article 19 of the same convention provides:
The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit, and after such warning has remained unheeded.
The fact that sick or wounded members of the armed forces are nursed in these hospitals, or the presence of small arms and ammunition taken from such combatants which have not yet [been] handed to the proper service, shall not be considered to be acts harmful to the enemy.
The facts clearly show that Falluja General Hospital was at all times a civilian hospital and that the Respondent had to have known this. Further, Respondent has publicly admitted that the attack on Falluja General Hospital was a key part of its first phase of military operations to seize Falluja. Various accounts attribute a rational of preventing opposition forces from obtaining medical care. In any case, there was clearly no Article 19 warning. And while some enemy wounded were in the hospital, Article 19 provisions to not allow that facts to be construed an act harmful to the enemy. Thus, the Respondent may not invoke an exception to the right to life and security of the person and other American Declaration Article I rights.
Even if Falluja General Hospital were an enemy field hospital, Respondent could not legally carry out what it did. This is clear from Article 19 of Geneva Convention I of 1949, which provides, in pertinent part:
Fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the [enemy’s] Medical Service may in no circumstances be attacked, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.
Petitioners further conclude that the attacks on the medical facilities show violations of the right to freedom from abusive attacks as provided in Article V, violations of the right to health as provided in Article XI, and, as many patients and doctors were detained for some periods of time, a violation of the right freedom from arbitrary arrest as provided in Article XXV. The failure of the United States to provide for or allow provision for immediate, emergency relief for the unnamed, unnumbered Petitioners is an on-going violation of Article XI, and places them all at great risk of loss of live, irreparable harm and further violations. The possible use of illegal weapons containing depleted uranium would indicate an aggravated violation of the right to health and well-being as hospital patients would likely be particularly effected by exposure to DU radiation.[4]
CONCLUSION
Petitioners respectfully request the Commission to take appropriate action on this Petition with due consideration of the urgency of the matter. At a minimum, Petitioners urge the Commission to require of the Respondent full compliance with the American Declaration as it is to be interpreted during armed conflict invoking humanitarian law. Petitioners also request the Commission consider an on-site investigation under its Applicable authority. Petitioners also request leave to submit additional documentation as this becomes available, and asserts a willingness to address any issue raised by the Commission for further examination or argument.
Respectfully submitted,
Karen Parker, J.D.
Attorney for Petitioners
The Los Angeles-based Humanitarian Law Project/International Educational Development, a UN-credentialed non-governmental organization has joined as "Organizational Petitioner." HLP/IED works to protect victims of armed conflict and for full compliance with humanitarian law.
[1] Petitioners assume that Nazzai Emergency Hospital is the “trauma clinic” referred to in other accounts, but it may be that two clinics were attacked.
[2] As will be apparent under the discussion of the violations, Petitioners would still file this Petition even if Falluja General Hospital were an “enemy field hospital.”
[3] Petitioners are collecting photographs that will be submitted separately.
[4] If the facts show that DU weapons were in fact used in Falluja, Petitioners will provide the Commission with United Nations resolutions and reports on these weapons.

11/23/2004
Arms Control Activists Hail Bush Setback
By Michael Kilian
Published by the Chicago Tribune
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1123-01.htm
The defeat over the weekend of President Bush's attempts to fund research and possibly development of a new family of nuclear weapons was hailed Monday by arms control advocates as their biggest success in more than a decade.
They were reacting to the approval by the Senate and House of a spending bill that eliminates funding for the nuclear "bunker buster" as well as other "advanced concept" tactical nuclear weapons.
"This is the biggest victory that arms control advocates in Congress have had since 1992, when we were able to place limits on nuclear testing," said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the leading opponents of the Bush administration's nuclear arms program. "If we are to convince other countries to forgo nuclear weapons, we cannot be preparing to build an entire new generation of nuclear weapons here in the U.S."
The administration had argued that it was important at least to study such weapons at a time of great threat against the United States. But congressional sources said Republicans joined with Democrats in opposing the program because of the example it would set while the U.S. is trying to compel North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear arms efforts.
In addition, lawmakers were concerned by the budgetary pressure of the costly Iraq war and the spiraling deficit.
The Bush administration, which is likely to continue making the program a priority in the president's second term, had sought $27.6 million to continue work on the bunker buster or Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a nuclear weapon that would be aimed at an enemy's underground sanctuary. The goal would be to deny enemies havens for weapons of mass destruction or to hide from U.S. forces.
Bush also had asked for $9 million for further research into the possible development of "advanced concept" low-yield tactical nuclear weapons that could be used on a battlefield.
In addition to eliminating the funding requests, Congress slashed to $7 million from $29.8 million a White House request to build new nuclear warhead facilities, or "pits," and cut $30 million that the administration had planned to use to speed resumption of nuclear testing, if that proved necessary.

11/23/2004

11/24/2004
Rising War Costs : Monthly war spending passes $5.8 billion, chiefs tell Congress
By: James W. Crawley, Media General
As casualties mount in Iraq, so has the monetary cost of the war. The military is now spending more than $5.8 billion each month, top officials told Congress this week.
The service chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps told the House Armed Service Committee that the price of war has jumped as fighting continues and reconstruction efforts are stymied by security concerns. And, in a few months, more money will be needed.
The Army, with about 110,000 soldiers on the ground in Iraq, has a monthly "burn rate" of $4.7 billion.
The Air Force is spending about $800 million monthly.
The Marines, which are spearheading the fighting in Fallujah, had an average monthly war cost of $300 million.
The Navy, which was silent about its spending during the committee hearing Wednesday, did not provide its war spending totals yesterday.
War spending, known euphemistically as the "burn rate," includes the cost of fighting, feeding and fueling the forces in the area, according to the military.
Besides such consumables as bullets, bombs, food and gas, the money is used to bolster the body and vehicle armor protecting troops; buy weapons, uniforms, tents and other gear for soldiers; and replace vehicles lost in attacks, roadside bombs and accidents.
It doesn't include soldiers' regular pay and other routine costs unchanged by the war.
On a yearly basis, the war tab is about $70 billion.
"That's larger than the gross domestic product of most nations," said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a research group in Arlington, Va.
The price of war is escalating
Initial cost estimates pegged the monthly burn rate at $2.2 billion in early 2003. By July 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that costs were running about $3.9 billion a month. In June, the Pentagon comptroller said that the monthly bill was nearly $5 billion.
In August, the Pentagon got a $25 billion boost for the war through a supplemental appropriation, but military officials said this week that the money likely will run out in a few months unless another temporary spending bill is approved.
The money that the Marine Corps' set aside will "take us through the spring," said Gen. Michael Hagee, the Marine commandant.
Hagee testified alongside Army Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Air Force Gen. John Jumper and Navy Adm. Vern Clark.
Defense analyst John Pike said that the burn rate is likely to increase.
"I think the burn rate is going to get worse because the counter-insurgency effort will continue to be on our shoulders," said Pike, who is the director of GlobalSecurity.org, an independent research group.
The fighting in Fallujah and other cities has been rising as January elections in Iraq near. The increasing costs could have a lasting effect on the military's future, military analysts say.
"If the current rate of expenditures is sustained, this will cut into Rumsfeld's plan to transform the military" into a more capable and flexible force, Thompson said.
The result, he suggested, could be cutting new weapons systems or stretching out the purchase of fighters, warships and other weapons. To help understand how much money $5.8 billion is, think of it in $1 bills. That would be 5,800,000,000 bills, weighing nearly 12.8 million pounds. Stacked, the bills would reach more than 393 miles into space.
That's for one month.

11/24/2004
Operation Truth - Is A Draft Coming?
http://www.optruth.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=draft&lnav=1
Although both the presidential candidates would prefer to avoid it, the draft has remained an important issue this election year. Several recent news reports have raised the issue, this Oct. 11 Time magazine story among them. Plus: Watch a video piecing highlighting TV coverage of the issue, featuring OpTruth's Paul Rieckhoff.
On October 5th, 2004, with no debate and on only hours notice, the House of Representatives voted on a bill that would have reinstated the draft. The proposal was overwhelmingly rejected. Why was it voted on at all? This vote was a political maneuver, intended to put this controversial question to rest before the election.
But the draft is still an issue. Everyone from Senator McCain to Ambassador Bremer have admitted that there is a troop shortage in Iraq. Troop retention and recruitment are down, and the proposals made by both presidential candidates do not adequately address these issues. The next logical contingency is the draft.
Since 1973, America has relied on an all-volunteer military. But in 1980, President Jimmy Carter reinstated "Selective Service registration," the list maintained by the government of men ages 18 to 25 who are eligible for a draft. Young men, citizens or otherwise, must register with the Selective Service before their 18th birthday. If a draft is ever reinstated, these men will be eligible for mandatory military service.
Here are only some of the top officials, military experts, and government leaders who have referred to the strain placed on the military by current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan:
General Richard A. Cody: General Cody, a top Pentagon official, told the House Armed Services Committee: “Are we stretched thin with our active and reserve component forces right now? Absolutely.” (ABC News)
Ambassador J. Paul Bremer: Ambassador Bremer, who governed Iraq after the U.S. invasion, has admitted: "We never had enough troops on the ground." (Washington Post)
Senator John McCain (R-AZ):“We invaded Iraq with enough troops to topple the regime, but not enough to prevent looting, stabilize the country, or maintain security.” (www.mccain.senate.gov)
There’s a lot of evidence that the military is having a hard time meeting the troop levels they need.
The military is relying on troops from non-traditional sources: the National Guard, the Reserves, the Individual Ready Reserves, forces from the National Training Center, troops from the Army’s Delayed Entry program, and troops currently deployed in other theatres.
Currently over 40% of the troops being rotated into Iraq are National Guard members and Reservists. This reliance on Reservists hasn’t been seen since World War II; of the 2 million people who served in Vietnam, only 9,000 were National Guardsmen. (PBS)
In addition to calling on the National Guard and Reserves, the U.S. military is pulling thousands of U.S. troops out of Korea in order to supplement US troop strength in Iraq. (The Washington Post: “U.S. Troops Moving From S. Korea to Iraq”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34653-2004May17.html)
Forces from the National Training Center are also being sent to Iraq. (Associated Press) The decision to send key trainers into combat debilitates the long-term strength of the army.
The activation of the Individual Ready Reserveis another Band-Aid solution that is already reaching its limit. (military.com) In September, 2004, the Army Times reported that only 1 in 3 of the civilians called back to service through the IRR have actually shown up.
Issues with Recruitment and Retention As early as 2003, the long and risky deployments in Iraq had begun to have an effect on the National Guard and Reserves. (The Christian Science Monitor) This year, for the first time in ten years, the National Guard has fallen short of recruitment goals. (Associated Press)
The Army has had to increase their efforts in order to reach enlistment goals, including greatly increasing cash bonuses for enlistees and hiring hundreds more recruiters. (USA Today) The Army has recently gone so far as to lower the standards for enlistees (The New York Times) and is even considering shortening the long combat tours that many believe are lowering interest in enlistment. (Reuters)
The United States has been working hard to train Iraqi security forces, but with limited results. See the Army Times article. Training Iraqi police and military recruits may become increasingly difficult, as recruits have been targeted by the insurgents. (The Washington Post)
Titled the “Universal National Service Act of 2003,” this proposal was set forth by Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) and would require that “all American men and women, as well legal permanent residents, aged 18 to 26, would be subject to compulsory military service or alternative civilian service.” A similar bill was introduced in the Senate on January 9th, 2003 by Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC).
Changes in the Selective Service would make a draft today more equitable than previous drafts. The Selective Service Performance Plan for 2004 states that “if a draft were held today there would be fewer reasons to excuse a man for service. Before Congress reformed the draft in 1971, a man could qualify for a student deferment…under the new draft law, a college student could have his induction postponed only until the end of the current semester.”
Opponents of the draft believe that a volunteer army is more motivated and better trained than a drafted force. The concept of a female draft is equally controversial. A draft today would likely be more politically divisive and harmful to the militarythan ever before. "In a sharp reversal from historical support for military service, the first comprehensive national survey on the draft reveals that our country could face a crisis in military capacity with an unprecedented number of draft eligible adults stating they will actively seek deferment or refuse to serve if a draft is reinstated." (Alliance for Security)
While the draft has become an issue of importance for the general public, it has already become a reality for many off-duty servicemen. Programs like Stop Loss, known as “the back-door draft,” have been put into effect in order to salvage athinly-stretched army.

11/25/2004
Den internationale dag for afskaffelse af vold mod kvinder.

11/25/2004
Folketinget stemmer for krigsforlængelse
Folketinget vedtager beslutningsforslag om 'fortsat dansk bidrag til den multinationale sikringsstyrke i Irak'.
Ulla Røder og fire andre protesterer i Folketinget mod forlængelsen af de danske styrkers ophold i Irak. Efterfølgende sigtes de af statsadvokaten for overtrædelse af straffelovens § 137, stk 2 ved 'i forening og efter forudgående aftale ved larm eller uorden at have forstyrret en offentlig samling i Folketinget'... Retssag er fastsat til 10. juli 2005. Dommen i Byrettes afsiges 2. november 2005.

11/25/2004
Folketinget vedtager beslutningsforslag om 'udvidelse af det danske bidrag til den internationale sikkerhedsstyrke ISAF i Afghanistan'.

11/25/2004
NEW STUDY BY HARVARD PROFESSOR FINDS:
POVERTY IS NOT THE CAUSE OF TERRORISM
NEW YORK - A new study by a Harvard University professor has found that terrorism is not caused by poverty - thus further undermining the main premise behind international aid to the Palestinian Arabs.
The Harvard University Gazette reports that Alberto Abadie, associate professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, "examined data on terrorism and variables such as wealth, political freedom, geography, and ethnic fractionalization for nations that have been targets of terrorist attacks ... Before analyzing the data, Abadie believed it was a reasonable assumption that terrorism has its roots in poverty, especially since studies have linked civil war to economic factors. However, once the data was corrected for the influence of other factors studied, Abadie said he found no significant relationship between a nation's wealth and the level of terrorism it experiences... (New York Sun, Nov.10, 2994)
Palestinian Arab journalist Khalid Amayreh has likewise written that it "is simply nonsense" to "claim that Islamic terrorism in Israel, as elsewhere, is the product of poverty, backwardness, and ignorance ... Islamic fundamentalism is not a product or by-product of poverty. Several studies have shown that a substantial majority of Islamists and their supporters come from the middle and upper socio-economic strata ... The fact that city-dwellers [in Judea-Samaria], who are generally more educated and better off economically, have consistently lent more support to Islamists refutes the widely held assumption that Islamist popularity thrives on economic misery." (Jerusalem Post, Feb. 21, 1995), writes IMRA.

11/26/2004

11/27/2004

11/28/2004
UK troops in Iraq face new court threat
By Severin Carrell
Independent, UK
The Government has suffered a legal setback after a European court ruling that could see British soldiers taken to court over the deaths of Iraqi civilians in Basra.
In a landmark judgment, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that European troops who are in control of a foreign country can be prosecuted under human rights law for breaching the civil rights of local people.
It comes days before the High Court in London is due to rule on a case involving the death of the hotel receptionist Baha Mousa and more than 30 other Iraqis who were allegedly killed, tortured or ill-treated by British troops after last year's war. That case hinges on claims that British forces in Iraq are bound by the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights even outside Europe - the same issue at the centre of the ruling by the court in Strasbourg 12 days ago.
In a further embarrassment for ministers, it emerged yesterday that the United Nations Committee against Torture has accused Britain of failing to properly apply the UN Convention against Torture in its operations in Iraq.

11/29/2004

11/30/2004

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