Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik August 2004 / Timeline September, 2004
Version 3.0
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09/01/2004
International faglig fredsdag.
09/01/2004
Det er nu seksten måneder siden, at USAs præsident Bush
erklærede krigen i Irak for vundet.
09/01/2004
Anden verdenskrig starter, 1939.
09/01/2004
Fredsakademiets computer lægges ned af et virusangreb. Seks
virus findes på harddisken.
09/01/2004
US senators demand probe into Iraq deal
US presidential hopeful John Kerry has joined four other US
senators in calling for an inquiry into the awarding of a $293m
contract for security in post-war Iraq, to a former British officer
who defended the murder of a Belfast teenager by two of his
soldiers.
The contractor, Aegis Defense Services, is headed by Tim Spicer, a
former lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guards, who was in command
when two soldiers in his unit shot and killed Peter McBride, an
unarmed teenager in 1992. The soldiers were convicted of murdering
McBride, but were later released and returned to the military,
writes Irish Independent.
09/02/2004
Vigil for the Fallen: We Remember--He Lied--They Died
7 am to 7 pm Union Square Park at 14th Street and Broadway
All welcome to join veterans, including some recently returned from
Iraq, Gold Star Parents and other Military Families, 9-11 Families
and other Concerned Citizens at a Vigil for the Fallen. Programs
with speakers and music at 12 noon and 5 pm.
Sponsored by Veterans For Peace, Iraq Veterans Against
the War, Military Families Speak Out, Vietnam
Veterans Against the War, Veterans Against the Iraq War, Bring
Them Home Now!
Call 718-805-6341, 201-876-0430 or visit
http:/www.veteransforpeace.org
A Photo Journal of the week NYC RNC Protests
http://www.duckdaotsu.org/NY/protest.html
http://www.duckdaotsu.org/NY/protest2.html
09/02/2004
Lockheed Martin, Hewlett-Packard to Host Milcom 2004 Featuring
Nation's Top Military Communications Officials
www.californiaspaceauthority.org
Lockheed Martin and Hewlett-Packard are the co-hosts of Milcom
2004, an annual international military communications conference
that brings together leaders from government, industry and academia
to discuss and showcase the latest advancements in military
communications and networking.
The conference is scheduled for Oct. 31-Nov. 3 at the Monterey
Conference Center in Monterey, Calif., and is sponsored by the
Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association (AFCEA)
and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Communications Society. Different companies host the event each
year, which rotates between the East and West coasts.
09/03/2004
UN adopts Lebanese sovereignty resolution
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=11154
Security Council adopts resolution calling for withdrawal of
foreign forces from Lebanon, respect of its sovereignty.
09/04/2004
Fredsakademiet er igen virksom efter virusangrebet.
09/10/2004
UN rejects private peacekeepers
By Thalif Deen
As the United Nations continues to face a shortage of
well-equipped, professionally trained soldiers for its growing
peacekeeping operations overseas , a proposal to hire private
security forces to rectify the shortfall has been greeted with
scepticism.
"There is little or no support for the privatisation of UN
peacekeeping," says a senior UN official, speaking on condition of
anonymity. "I cannot think of any member state willing to go along
with the proposal," he told IPS.
A proposal to double the current peacekeeping force in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), from 10,800 to about
23,900, and the possibility of a new 10,000-strong UN mission in
Sudan are expected to bolster the total number of UN peacekeepers
from 59,000 to over 82,000.
But most western states remain reluctant to provide peacekeepers,
mostly for political and security reasons, abdicating the role of
peacekeeping mostly to developing nations.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan complained in 2003 that although
these countries have the world's best-equipped military forces,
they have refused to actively participate in peacekeeping
operations.
Last November, the London 'Financial Times' said Annan was
exploring the possibility of hiring private security forces for UN
peacekeeping missions as a means of resolving the problem.
In anticipation of this, the paper said, at least one British
security firm was building a database of some 5,000 former soldiers
who would be available to work for the United Nations at short
notice.
But David Harland of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations
told IPS the privatization of UN peacekeeping was not on any
agenda. Asked if the peacekeepers who were killed in Kosovo in
April this year were from private security firms, as originally
reported, he said they were "seconded for service" by member
states.
The shooting incident in the town of Mitrovica left three
international police officers dead and almost a dozen others
wounded, 10 of who were US correctional officers while the 11th was
an Austrian civilian police officer. But none was from any private
security firm.
As of July, the 10 largest troop contributors to UN operations were
from developing nations: Pakistan (8,544 troops), Bangladesh
(7,163), Nigeria (3,579), Ghana (3,341), India (2,934), Ethiopia
(2,863), South Africa (2,480), Uruguay (1,962), Jordan (1,864), and
Kenya (1,831).
In contrast, the number of troops from western nations averaged
less than 600. The largest contributors were United Kingdom (567
troops), Canada (564), France (561), Ireland (479), and the United
States (427).
Of the 16 UN peacekeeping missions, seven are in Africa: Burundi
(since June 2004); Cote d'Ivoire (since April 2004); Liberia (since
September 2003); Ethiopia/Eritrea (since July 2000); Democratic
Republic of Congo (since November 1999); Sierra Leone (since
October 1999); and Western Sahara (since April 1991).
Last April, US President George W. Bush approved a plan to train
about 75,000 soldiers, mostly from Africa, over a five-year period
for peacekeeping. The Bush administration, which has called the
project 'the Global Peace Operations Initiative', has committed
some 660 million dollars to build peace keeping capacity.
"This is meant to expand world wide capacity that could be used by
the United Nations or by others," said Douglas Feith, under-
secretary-general for policy at the US department of defence.
Feith told reporters "there was not enough capacity in the world to
deal with the requirements. Other countries have shown an interest
in building up their peacekeeping forces, but they need help."
But Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution warns the
international humanitarian community to be cautious about its
dealings with private security forces. "The emergence of a global
trade in hired military services, better known as the 'privatized
military industry', is one of the most interesting developments in
warfare over the last decade," he writes in the current issue of
'Humanitarian Affairs Review', a quarterly journal of global policy
issues published in Belgium.
These firms, he says, now operate in over 50 countries, helping win
conflicts in Angola, Croatia, Ethiopia-Eritrea and Sierra Leone.
From 1994 to 2000, the US defence department alone entered into
over 3,000 contracts with US-based firms, which provided goods and
services estimated at a value of more than 300 billion dollars.
The Canadian military, Singer adds, recently privatized its supply
chain to the British firm, Tibbett and Britten. But the work of the
privatized military industry is not limited to governments, because
clients have included rebel groups, drug cartels and humanitarian
non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Singer says no example better illustrates the industry's growing
activity than the war in Iraq, where private military contractors
handled everything - from feeding and housing coalition troops to
maintaining the most sophisticated weapons systems.
He warns that the presence of these firms might jeopardise norms of
neutrality among aid groups and lead to a further multiplication of
armed forces on the ground.
09/14/2004
Kindersoldaten - Kinder ohne Kindheit
http://www.cdu.de/politik-a-z/bundesfachausschuesse/kindersoldaten.pdf
Anlässlich der Vorstellung des Beschlusses des
CDU-Bundesfachausschusses Internationale Zusammenarbeit und
Menschenrechte "Neue Initiativen gegen den Missbrauch von Kindern
als Soldaten" erklären der Ausschussvorsitzende, Armin
Laschet, und die zuständigen Ausschussmitglieder, Siegfried
Helias und Erika Reinhardt:
In vielen Ländern werden Kinder und Jugendliche als Soldaten
rekrutiert und zu Folterungen und Tötungen gezwungen.
Insbesondere Mädchen werden zudem Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs.
Allein in den letzen 10 Jahren sind mehr als zwei Millionen Kinder
durch bewaffnete Konflikte ums Leben gekommen und sechs Millionen
zu Invaliden geworden. Häufig werden die Kinder durch Drogen
gefügig gemacht. Auch Folter, Misshandlungen und Hinrichtungen
sind auf der Tagesordnung.
Die CDU hat bereits mit dem Beschluss "Gegen den Missbrauch von
Kindern als Soldaten" vom 21. Juni 2001 weitgehende Maßnahmen
vorgeschlagen, um den Einsatz von Kindern in militärischen
Auseinandersetzungen zu begegnen. Leider hat sich die Situation in
den vergangenen Jahren nicht grundlegend gebessert. Auch unternimmt
die rot-grüne Bundesregierung keine ausreichenden
Anstrengungen, um Fortschritte zu erzielen.
Wenn ein Land Kinder als Soldaten missbraucht, muss dies
Konsequenzen haben. Notwendig sind dann neben diplomatischem Druck
abgestufte Maßnahmen, die bis zu Sanktionen reichen
können - z.B. das Einfrieren der Mittel für die
Entwicklungszusammenarbeit oder Einreiseverbote für
Angehörige von Kriegsparteien, die Kinder als Soldaten
missbrauchen. Nötig ist auch, Programme zur Demobilisierung,
Rehabilitation und Reintegration von Kindersoldaten zu
fördern.
09/15/2004
Canadian Bullets, Dead Iraqis
http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2004/09/30644.php
By: Chris Spannos
With up to 13,802 Iraqi civilian deaths to date, Canadians will now
be providing one of the most basic necessities for the US
occupation forces in Iraq: bullets. The Canadian company SNC
Technologies Inc. (SNC TEC) is now part of a multinational
consortium of small-caliber ammunition producers whose purpose is
to supply between 300 million -500 million more bullets to
occupation forces per year, and potentially for at least five
years.
Beyond Canada, General Dynamics, the US defence contractor, also
awarded contracts to several small bullet suppliers - including
Winchester, a unit of Olin Corporation and Israel Military
Industries. Their also in discussion with several other
international producers, including General Dynamics Santa Barbara
Sistemas, Madrid, Spain in an effort to try to meet the ammunitions
demand. Michael S. Wilson, president of General Dynamics Ordnance
and Tactical Systems, said,"Our goal is to ensure maximum supply
support for the U.S. armed forces in their war against terror."
The high demand in bullets is in response to a recent U.S. Army
market survey for a "Small-Caliber Ammunition Systems Integrator".
The Financial Times reports that the US occupation forces "will
need 300m to 500m more bullets a year for at least five years, or
more than 1.5m a year for combat and training. And because the
single army-owned, small-calibre ammunition factory in Lake City,
Missouri, can produce only 1.2m bullets annually, the army is
suddenly scrambling to get private defence contractors to help fill
the gap."
"We're using so much ammunition in Iraq there isn't enough capacity
around," said Eric Hugel, a defence industry analyst at Sephens
Inc. "They have to go internationally."
The Financial Times also reports that the "bullet problem has its
roots in a Pentagon effort to restock its depleted war material
reserve. But it has been exacerbated by the ongoing operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq, where rearguard and supply units have been
thinly-stretched throughout the countryside, occasionally without
active duty combat soldiers to protect them."
Recently rejuvenated after the historic demonstrations in New York,
where half a million people were unified in saying "No to the Bush
agenda", a campaign focusing on these contracts could have a direct
effect on saving the lives of Iraqis, and give traction to an again
waking anti-war movement. For the international anti-war movement,
which is struggling to live up to it's reputation as "the other
super power", such contracts could provide important anti-war
campaigns in our own nations, raising the social costs for the US,
and other complicit countries, in waging war on Iraq. For Canada,
long in denial about it's active participation in the US war on
terror, the SNC Technologies contract should highlight the fact
that Canada has not only provided previous military and diplomatic
support for the war on terror, but is now literally, without doubt,
providing the ammunition to kill Iraqis.
As for the general structure of the contracts, General Dynamics
reports that they will serve as the systems integrator responsible
for supply chain management, with Winchester serving as a principal
supplier of all calibers of ammunition, including 5.56mm, 7.62mm
and Cal. 50 ammunitions. Israel Military Industries Ltd. currently
produces ammunition to U.S. military specifications for each of the
calibers being sought and will be relied upon to be a significant
production partner on the team. SNC will also be a critical
provider of select ammunition across all calibers being sought.
For Canadians interested in SNC Technologies Inc., they are a
developer and manufacturer of ammunitions and related defence
products. Headquartered in Le Gardeur, Québec, their web
site boasts of annual revenues of more than $ 266 million(CAD).
SNC TEC is the sole Canadian producer of military ammunition and
produces over 70% of conventional military ammunition used by the
Canadian Department of National Defence. In addition, the company
is also a current supplier to the Department of Defense of the
United States for both small and large caliber products.
Internationally, SNC TEC provides conventional ammunition, or
components, to a large number of other countries across Europe, the
Middle East, the Far East, as well as Australia and New Zealand
(according to their web site, these include Belgium, Denmark,
France, Holland, Greece, Italy, Sweden, the UK, UAE, Oman, Jordan
and Kuwait, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and the
Philippines).
The company is wholly owned by the SNC-Lavalin Group. "The SNC
Group, which began as a small engineering consulting firm in 1911,
grew over the years into a leading group of engineering and
construction companies. In 1992, it merged Lavalin engineering firm
to form the SNC-Lavalin Group Inc."
09/16/2004
30,000 Nukes ... And the Voters Don't Know Where Bush and Kerry
Stand?
http://hnn.us/articles/7078.html
By Lawrence S. Wittner
In the run-up to the Iraq war, the threats posed by weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs) were exhaustively discussed by the politicians
and the pundits. But, in the aftermath of that conflict, when no
WMDs were to be found, they became an embarrassment to the war
enthusiasts, who conveniently forgot about them. Certainly, the
mass media, only recently filled with alarms about nuclear attacks,
have said remarkably little about nuclear weapons over the past
year.
This is unfortunate. Despite the nuclear arms control and
disarmament treaties of the past, 30,000 nuclear weapons remain in
existence, with the potential for annihilating civilization.
Furthermore, a number of nations appear to be in the process of
building them. And, finally, the two major party candidates for
president -- George W. Bush and John Kerry -- have taken positions
on nuclear weapons that diverge markedly.
Since becoming president, Bush has unilaterally withdrawn the
United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty,
refused to support ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (ratified at this point by 115 nations), and has developed
guidelines that expand the possibilities for using nuclear weapons
in a variety of situations, including "surprising military
developments."
Furthermore, despite the Bush administration's criticism of other
nations for developing nuclear weapons, it has flouted U.S.
commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968. In
that treaty and in its periodic updates, the nuclear powers,
including the United States, pledged to work toward divesting
themselves of nuclear weapons. But there has been no move along
these lines during the Bush administration. The only nuclear arms
control measure negotiated by the president is the Strategic
Offensive Reductions Treaty, signed with Russia in May 2002.
Although, ostensibly, this measure will reduce the number of
strategic nuclear warheads that are deployed on U.S. and Russian
missiles, there is no deadline for the reduction, the deactivated
warheads will simply be kept in storage, and the treaty will
terminate in 2012, after which its provisions can be ignored or
forgotten.
Rather than eliminate nuclear weapons, the Bush administration has
chosen to build new ones. In the president's 2005 budget, he
requested $36.6 million for research on new nuclear weapons,
including "mini-nukes" and the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (the
so-called "bunker buster"). An uneasy Congress is still grappling
with this proposal.
In this same budget, the president requested another $30 million to
reduce the time necessary to resume U.S. nuclear testing. If new
nuclear weapons are to be built, such testing is necessary. And the
resumption of testing would also have some other important
consequences. It would bring an end to the great power moratorium
on nuclear testing that has been observed by Russia, China,
Britain, and France since 1996. Some or all of these nations would
then resume nuclear testing themselves, building new nuclear
weapons and adding to the vast nuclear stockpiles that they (and
terrorists) can draw upon.
Not surprisingly, the official web site of the Bush re-election
campaign says nothing about nuclear arms control and disarmament,
but lauds the administration's leadership in building new kinds of
weapons -- without, by the way, mentioning that a number of these
new weapons are nuclear.
John Kerry has taken a stand that is much more in line with the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as well as with the arms control
and disarmament policies of past presidents, both Democratic and
Republican. He has criticized the Bush administration's withdrawal
from the ABM Treaty and lauded the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
(CTBT). "The failure of the United States to ratify the CTBT," he
declared, "will seriously undercut our ability to continue our
critical leadership role in the global nuclear non-proliferation
regime."
Kerry has also attacked the building of new U.S. nuclear weapons,
stating: "What kind of message does it send when we're asking other
countries not to develop nuclear weapons but developing new ones
ourselves?" Speaking in June 2003, he stated: "It is absurd to
think the United States will start development on a new generation
of nuclear weapons at the same moment we seek the world's support
in an effort to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and
technology."
The official Kerry campaign website declares that the Democratic
presidential candidate will work to "end production of new fissile
material for nuclear weapons by negotiating a global ban on
production of new material." On this site, Kerry also promises to
strive to "reduce existing stocks of nuclear weapons and materials
by ending development of the new generation of nuclear weapons" and
by "accelerating reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear
arsenals."
Unfortunately, most presidential campaign coverage in the mass
media ignores these significant differences between the two
candidates on nuclear weapons issues. But the differences are real.
Voters should recognize that, in November 2004, they have an
important choice to make when it comes to the future of nuclear
weapons -- and perhaps their own future, as well.
Published with permission from History News Network.
09/17/2004
Radiohead vs. George Bush And 'Star Wars'
http://www.xfm.co.uk/Article.asp?id=40196
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has sent a message urging fans to
join a protest again Bush’s Star Wars programme next week at
the Fylingdales Base. By way of invitation to the rally, at which
Yorke will be speaking, the singer asked "Anybody want to come?" on
the official Radiohead message board.
The demonstration will take place next Sunday (September 25) at the
Fylingdales base and Yorke is just one of the guest speakers set to
be present at the protest against George Bush's planned
announcement of the Star Wars program this October.
09/18/2004
Was The Iraq War Legal, Or Illegal, Under International
Law?
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article6917.htm
By: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.
"Advantage is a better soldier than rashness." -Montjoy in Wm.
Shakespeare's Henry V, 3.6.120
During a BBC radio interview on Wednesday, UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan created a controversy by reiterating his long-held
position that the Iraq War was illegal because it breached the
United Nations Charter. [1] On Thursday, the imperial leaders of
the "Coalition of the Willing" retaliated by vehemently arguing
that their Iraq War was, to the contrary, legal. [2]
Obviously, this dispute raises a legal question: "Whose opinion is
correct, and whose is incorrect?" Additionally, we should be asking
ourselves: "Who decides? (i.e., 'Whose jurisprudential opinion
shall be dispositive for purposes of resolving this dispute?')"
It seems eminently reasonable -- even for the disputants -- to
conclude that the optimal source of guidance on this question of
international law would have to be the world's foremost experts in
the field of international law. Hence, the UN's chief and the
coalition's leaders need to know how the world's top international
law experts would resolve their jurisprudential dispute. And we,
the people, need to know who's right and who's wrong here.
Realistically, one cannot seriously expect the disputants -- much
less their national electorates -- to wade through numerous legal
documents, most of which contain rigorous and not-occasionally
tedious reasoning, to find the correct answer. Thus, it seems
prudent to proceed directly to the world's most authoritative
answer to our pressing question du jour: "Was the Iraq War legal,
or illegal, under international law?"
And The World's Most Authoritative Answer Is ... Among the world's
foremost experts in the field of international law, the
overwhelming jurisprudential consensus is that the Anglo-American
invasion, conquest, and occupation of Iraq constitute three phases
of one illegal war of aggression. [3]
Moreover, these experts in the international law of war deem both
preventive wars and preemptive strikes to be euphemistic
subcategories of outlawed wars of aggression.
And the experts' answer would hold true regardless of whether their
governing legal authority was: (A) the UN Security Council
Resolutions that were passed to implement the conflict-resolution
provisions of the UN Charter; or (B) prior treaties and juridical
holdings which have long since become general international law.
[4]
Readers who need to "trust but verify" (i.e., to corroborate) for
themselves that the experts' overwhelming opinion is exactly as
stated above should read a document entitled "15 January 2003."
(Find it by scrolling down approximately one-fourth of the way,
after you've clicked onto this ES website:
http://www.eurolegal.org/useur/bbiraqwar.htm "The Legality Of The
Iraq War" .) Why?
That document was drafted and signed by the world's foremost
international law experts -- the prestigious International
Commission of International Law Jurists -- to provide ultimate
proof of their authoritative opinion concerning the legal status of
war against Iraq. Furthermore, this large body of eminent
international law experts explicitly stated that they'd drafted
their legal document in order to advise Messrs. Bush and Blair
prior to the invasion: (1) that it would be blatantly illegal under
international law for the Anglo-American belligerents to invade
Iraq; and (2) that their joint decision as Commanders-in-Chief to
commence hostilities would constitute prosecutable war crimes.
Skeptical readers who don't regard this highly-authoritative
conclusion as an adequate answer are invited to undertake the legal
reasoning for themselves at the ES website. Note that every
applicable Article in the UN Charter, and every relevant UN
Security Council Resolution, is cited and analyzed therein. And
readers who continue to scroll down the ES website will find a
succession of articles which summarize the opinions of noteworthy
individual experts on international law. These, too, strongly
confirm that the invasion of Iraq constituted an illegal war of
aggression under international law. [5]
Finally, ambitious readers will learn what non-credible source was
most responsible for propagating the fictitious pre-war claim that
Saddam Hussein's Iraq was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on
the WTC and the Pentagon (hint: yet another uncredentialed neocon
think-tanker from the thoroughly-discredited American Enterprise
Institute).
Three Conclusions It is the overwhelming consensus of the world's
foremost international law experts that: (1) UN Secretary General
Annan's opinion is correct (i.e., true) because the Iraq War was,
indeed, illegal; and
(2) the opinion of the "Coalition of the Willing's" leaders is
incorrect (i.e., false) because their Iraq War was NOT legal.
(3) Therefore, Americans must break free of the neocons'
self-delusional groupthink mentality by learning to differentiate
between fact and truth, which are all-too-easily confused. For
instance, it's an undeniable fact that Messrs. Bush and Cheney have
been arguing along the campaign trail that "The Iraq War was
legal!" Nevertheless, the mere fact that they've been vehemently
arguing that point certainly does NOT make it true! Their argument
is flawed by a logical fallacy called an ipse dixit (i.e.,
"something asserted but not proved"). As we've already seen, their
argument is just plain WRONG AS A MATTER OF LAW! Therefore, Messrs.
Bush and Cheney are making a false argument (i.e., deceptively
asserting something that is untrue).
The Bottom Line Americans should reject the temptation to vote for
Messrs. Bush and Cheney, because: (1) both men were advised
beforehand that their decision to commence the invasion of Iraq
would be blatantly illegal under international law; (2) they
invaded nonetheless, and now they're cynically attempting to
mislead the public again by falsely arguing that "The Iraq War was
legal!"; (3) however, their argument is legally-meritless nonsense
-- the current equivalent of their earlier false argument that
torture is a legal method for the US military's interrogation of
prisoners; (4) they've repeatedly demonstrated their disdain for
universal human rights and democratic governance under the rule of
law; and
(5) the 21st-century world isn't Tombstone's OK Corral and they
certainly aren't Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday -- however much they
might wish us to believe that they are! [6]
ENDNOTES
[1] Read this 9-16-04 PI article:
http://www.politinfo.com/articles/article_2004_09_16_4815.html
"UN Says Nothing New In Annan's 'Illegal War' Comment". Also see
this 9-17-04 GU article, which contends that UN Secretary General
Annan's statement wasn't his long-held opinion, but is new and
belated:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1306642,00.html
"The War Was Illegal"
[2] Read this 9-17-04 JO article: http://snipurl.com/94y0 "Bush
Joins Coalition Leaders In Defending War Against Iraq"
[3] Read the 9-15-04 ES's indispensable analysis:
http://www.eurolegal.org/useur/bbiraqwar.htm#TOP Legality of the
Iraq War. or http://www.eurolegal.org/useur/bbiraqwar.htm
[Skeptical readers should not read to confirm their biases, but
instead should set their biases aside until they've finished
reading all of the legal arguments on this website, which will take
awhile.]
[4] There seems to be one relevant omission from the ES website.
General international law could have been be cited as an
alternative basis for proving the Iraq War's illegality by
analyzing these authoritative precedents: (A) the Kellogg-Briand
Pact of Paris (1928); and (B) the Charters, Principles,
Indictments, and Holdings from the International Military Tribunals
at Nüremberg and Tokyo (1945-48).
[5] Generally speaking, legal opinions offered by government
attorneys are NOT considered to be authoritative because: (a)
they're drafted in the adversarial mode of an advocate, often under
self-interested political pressure from the executive branch; (b)
even at its best, their reasoning tends toward casuistry,
reflecting Cicero's injudicious maxim,"salus populi suprema lex
esto" (De Legibus, III, 3.8: "Let the welfare of the people be the
supreme law!" Or the Bushites' tortuous translation thereof: "We
feel that we can legally torture our prisoners now if it might save
our people later!"); and (c) for an apt example, see the history of
the Third Reich's attorneys Hans Frank and Wilhelm Frick, whose
pre-war legal advice to Reichsführer Hitler was that Germany
could use the pretext of an imminent threat to "preemptively"
invade Poland, for which war crime they were both tried, sentenced,
and hanged to death by the International Military Tribunal at
Nüremberg. Note bene, Attorney General Ashcroft and Bush
administration "torture memo" attorneys Bybee, Chertoff, Gonzales,
Haynes and Woo!
[6] Read Douglas Jehl's 9-16-4 CD/SPI article:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0916-02.htm
"CIA Analysis Holds Bleak Vision For Iraq's Future". Also see the
9-16-04 Dreyfuss Report column:
http://tompaine.com/archives/the_dreyfuss_report.php "Annan For
President"
Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., is the Executive
Director of the American Center for International Law ("ACIL").
©2004EAPIII
09/19/2004
Secret papers show Blair was warned of Iraq chaos
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/18/nwar18.xml
Tony Blair was warned a year before invading Iraq that a stable
post- war government would be impossible without keeping large
numbers of troops there for "many years", secret government papers
reveal.
The documents, seen by The Telegraph, show more clearly than ever
the grave reservations expressed by Jack Straw, the Foreign
Secretary, over the consequences of a second Gulf war and how
prescient his Foreign Office officials were in predicting the
ensuing chaos.
They told the Prime Minister that there was a risk of the Iraqi
system "reverting to type" after a war, with a future government
acquiring the very weapons of mass destruction that an attack would
be designed to remove.
The documents further show that the Prime Minister was advised that
he would have to "wrong foot" Saddam Hussein into giving the allies
an excuse for war, and that British officials believed that
President George W Bush merely wanted to complete his father's
"unfinished business" in a "grudge match" against Saddam.
But it is the warning of the likely aftermath - more than a year in
advance, as Mr Blair was deciding to commit Britain to joining a
US- led invasion - that is likely to cause most controversy and
embarrassment in both London and Washington.
09/20/2004
New US Financing for Indonesian Military
By: Patrick Kennedy The Bush administration is working to assist
the brutal Indonesian military with alarmingly new haste. ETAN has
recently learned of State Department plans to budget foreign
military financing (FMF) for Indonesia in 2006.
FMF, which funds weapon sales, has been banned for Indonesia since
2000 following its scorched-earth campaign in East Timor. Not a
single Indonesian officer has served jail time for the crimes
against humanity committed then, and the military continues to
commit heinous rights violations with impunity throughout the
archipelago.
The final decision on inclusion of FMF in the 2006 State Department
budget has not yet been made.
09/20/2004
Center for Constitutional Rights Seeks Injunction to Require
Private Contractors in Torture Suit to Properly Train
Interrogators
Recent Accusations of Continued Torture Prompt Filing
http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=PPbySqgPIb&Content=437
Synopsis
On September 14, 2004, the legal team led by the Center for
Constitutional Rights and the Philadelphia law firm of Montgomery,
McCracken, Walker & Rhoads filed for a preliminary injunction
against CACI International, the U.S. government contractor at
Abu-Ghraib Prison and other facilities in Iraq. The injunction asks
that the court require all CACI interrogators to receive proper
training in the laws on torture and how to conduct interrogations
free of torture.
Plaintiffs have filed a class action complaint on behalf of torture
victims in Iraq that alleges private contractors Titan Corporation
of San Diego, California, and CACI International of Arlington,
Virginia and its subsidiaries conspired with U.S. officials to
humiliate, torture and abuse people detained by U.S. authorities in
Iraq. The complaint also names three individuals who worked or
subcontracted with the companies: Stephen Stephanowicz and John
Israel and Adel Nahkla of Titan.
Reports by U.S. military investigators state that CACI sent
untrained interrogators to the detention facilities in Iraq. The
Fay Report states that CACI interrogators used tactics such as
threatening detainees with dogs and forcing detainees to simulate
sex acts and other sexual abuse and threats of violence.
The Schlesinger Report makes clear that torture during
interrogations conducted by untrained interrogators is a
predictable result. Plaintiffs also included in the filing
statements by two experienced military interrogators who criticized
CACI practices.
It is still unclear why CACI was permitted to send over untrained
interrogators when the military knew it needed trained
interrogators. What is known is that CACI improperly influenced the
military procurement system.
Plaintiffs' lawyers have received reports that recently released
detainees were tortured as late as July 2004, despite the earlier
reports of torture coming to light.
Susan Burke, of Montgomery, McCracken, stated, "In light of this
newly released information, we were compelled to protect our
clients by filing this injunction. We hope that the court will
grant our narrow and modest request. Clearly, both the detainees
and American troops remain at risk if we let CACI keep sending over
interrogators not trained in the law of war."
Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Attorney Jennie Green
added, "The interrogation techniques used violate the most basic
principles of international law, and U.S. courts have been clear
that plaintiffs may sue their torturers in U.S. court. The courts
must act to prevent such torture from continuing. We strongly
believe that the credibility of U.S. claims to abide by the rule of
law is at stake."
Added Shereef Akeel, who met with the recently released detainees,
"I interviewed a 15-year-old boy who said he was stripped naked,
starved, beaten and repeatedly sodomized by Americans. His 18-year
old brother and uncle were also tortured. CACI must be required to
take action to make such barbaric actions stop."
Barbara Olshansky, Deputy Director for Litigation at the Center for
Constitutional Rights, said, "We all have to be concerned about the
hidden role of private contractors in detention centers in Iraq and
elsewhere. The abuses committed in this country's name and the
absence of any investigation into the corporations' responsibility
by the Bush Administration sends a terrible message to the world
about our commitment to human rights."
09/21/2004
National Museum of the American Indian Opens
On 21 September 2004 the National Museum of the American Indian
opened its doors to thousands of eager visitors in Washington, D.C.
Among them were some 20,000 Native Americans who converged on the
capital to celebrate the opening of this $219 million museum -- the
Smithsonian Institution's eighteenth which is prominently located
on the National Mall at Fourth Street and Independence Avenue,
S.W.
09/21/2004
US Troops mutinying - 40% AWOL
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2283618&nav=0RaPQlm1
http://www.hotpolitics.com/SQUIRMS/S9_21_04.htm
(Columbia-AP) Sept. 10, 2004 - Officials at Fort Jackson say only
about 60 percent of the reservists recalled to duty have reported
so far.
Lieutenant Colonel Burton Masters says 186 of the 309 members of
the Individual Ready Reserve has reported for duty by Tuesday.
Masters says he's not surprised that not everyone has shown up for
duty. He says most of those who have not reported are seeking
exemptions from active-duty service or delays in reporting.
Masters says those who fail to report or apply for a delay or
exemption will be considered deserters if they do not show up
within seven days of the date they were told to report.
Troops subject to the recall have been on active duty but have not
completed their eight-year obligation to the Army.
09/22/2004
Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission Act;
Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Commission Act
Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission Act On 22 September 2004 the
House of Representatives passed the Civil War Sesquicentennial
Commission Act (H.R. 2449). The bill establishes a 25-member
commission that will plan, develop, and carry out programs and
activities that commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.
The commission is charged to cooperate and assist states and
national organizations to ensure a suitable national observance of
the sesquicentennial. The bill authorizes an expenditure of up to
$200,000 a year through 2016. There is also a special provision
authorizing $3.5 million to the National Endowment for the
Humanities for grants to universities, museums, and academic
programs with a national scope "that sponsor multi-disciplinary
projects, including those that concentrate on the role of African
Americans in the Civil War.", writes NCH WASHINGTONUPDATE.
09/22/2004
9 former and current US and UK government employees issue letter
supporting Danish whistleblower Frank Grevil
Unless otherwise noted, all signatories can be contacted through
michael@ellsberg.net
Frank Grevil¹s press contact is: Tom Clark
tclark@tiscali.dk
home (+45) 4444 1343
work (+45) 4452 6447
mobile (+45) 4095 0574 or (+45) 6062 1763
The following letter was posted on www.truthtellingproject.org
today:
OPEN LETTER TO THE DANISH GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC
We, the undersigned citizens of the United States and the United
Kingdom, have recently come to learn of the criminal proceedings
against our Danish fellow truth-teller, Mr. Frank Grevil.
As his case has been presented to us, Mr. Grevil is formally being
accused of leaking three classified "threat assessments" to a
Danish newspaper in January/February 2004, in order to substantiate
claims made verbatim to the same newspaper. These documents
demonstrated that his employer at the time, the Danish Defense
Intelligence Service, provided unbalanced intelligence on Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction prior to the decision of the Danish
Parliament to join the so-called "Coalition of the Willing" in
March 2003. These documents also showed how the Service its threat
assessments almost entirely upon similar assessments provided by
intelligence agencies in the United States and the United Kingdom,
the content of which later turned out to be based on bad
intelligence and in some cases even fabricated information.
We have learned that the Danish Parliament has recently taken
actions to enhance parliamentary control over the intelligence
service, which are clearly attributable to Mr. Grevil's
revelations. This lends great credibility to his claims, which
deserve in our opinion credit for serving the public interest
rather than punishment.
What Mr. Grevil has undertaken reflects in many ways what we have
done in our respective countries. With this letter, we want to draw
attention to the important role that unauthorized truth-telling
plays in a democratic state. In our experience, the proper chain of
command often does not work to correct corruption, crimes, lies,
cover-ups, or incompetence within state agencies. Disclosing
documents without authorization is frequently the only way to
expose these abuses or to substantiate verbal allegations about
them to the press.
We strongly recommend reevaluating Mr. Grevil's case on the basis
that his deed was done unselfishly and conscientiously, in order to
strengthen democracy, and government transparency, and true
national security.
SIGNATORIES
John H. Brown, Former Foreign Service Officer
Sibel Edmonds, Former Language Specialist, Federal Bureau of
Investigation
Daniel Ellsberg, Former official, U.S. Departments of Defense and
State
Katharine Gun, Former translator, GCHG, UK
Larry Johnson, Former Deputy Director for Anti-Terrorism
Assistance, Transportation Security, and Special Operations,
Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counter
Terrorism
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatowski (karen@militaryweek.com), recently
retired from service in the Pentagon¹s Office of Near East
planning
Ray McGovern, Former Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency
Coleen Rowley, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(Clarification of Coleen Rowley's Signature: "I have signed this
letter in support of Danish Major Frank Grevil in my personal
capacity and not as a representative of the FBI. I wish to further
clarify my view that the propriety of 'unauthorized disclosures,'
such as the one Major Grevil made, is limited to only the narrowest
of circumstances, to dire situations involving truly unlawful,
unconstitutional or deceptive actions on the part of higher
government officials entailing life and death consequences, for
example, the My Lai massacre or the Abu Ghraib torture incidents.
In less serious situations, I believe that the proper and most
constructive way of bringing concerns and problems to light is
through chain of command and other institutional mechanisms such as
Inspector Generals.")
Philip G. Vargas, Ph.D., J.D., Former Director, Privacy &
Confidentiality Study, Commission on Federal Paperwork
SIGNATORY BIOS
JOHN BROWN (JohnHBrown30@hotmail.com) was a member of the U.S.
Foreign Service from 1981 until March 10, 2003 and has served in
London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev, Belgrade and Moscow. His recent
articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Nation and The
Moscow Times. He is currently working on a book, "Propaganda and
U.S..Foreign Policy," a historical overview of the topic.
SIBEL EDMONDS worked as a language specialist for the FBI's
Washington Field Office. During her work with the bureau, she
discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches,
cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had
national security implications. After she reported these acts to
FBI management, she was fired in March 2002. Since then, court
proceedings on her issues have been blocked by the assertion of
"State Secret Privilege" by Attorney General Ashcroft; the Congress
of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any
discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification by the
Department of Justice; and the report on her case issued by the
Department of Justice Inspector General has been entirely
classified. Ms. Edmonds is fluent in Turkish, Farsi, and
Azerbaijani, and has an MA in Public Policy and International
Commerce from George Mason University GMU, and a BA in Criminal
Justice and Psychology from George Washington University.
DANIEL ELLSBERG is a lecturer, writer and activist on the dangers
of the nuclear era and unlawful interventions. He is best known for
releasing publicly the Pentagon Papers, the 7,000-page Top Secret
McNamara study of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, to the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in 1969 and to the New York Times,
Washington Post and 17 other newspapers in 1971. His trial, on
twelve felony counts posing a possible sentence of 115 years, was
dismissed in 1973 on grounds of governmental misconduct against
him, which led to the convictions of several White House aides and
figured in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon.
Ellsberg joined the Defense Department in 1964 as Special Assistant
to Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs)
John McNaughton, working on Vietnam. He transferred to the State
Department in 1965 to serve two years at the U.S. Embassy in
Saigon. He started his career as a strategic analyst at the RAND
Corporation, and consultant to the Department of Defense and the
White House, specializing in problems of the command and control of
nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making and
returned there in 1967.
KATHARINE GUN worked as a translator for the British equivalent of
the National Security Agency. When she saw a memorandum from NSA
indicating that NSA and her agency were ³surging² their
intercept capability against UN Security Council members as yet
undecided on the resolution for war, she decided that this was an
illegal way to promote an illegal war and gave the story to the
press. In doing so, she risked two years in prison under the
Official Secrets Act. In the end, she walked free because her
defense was based on the defense of necessity and the UK government
was unwilling to share the UK Attorney General Lord
Goldsmith¹s opinions on the legality of the war.
RAY MCGOVERN worked for 27years as a career analyst in the CIA
spanning administrations from John F. Kennedy to George H. W. Bush.
He is now co-director of the Servant Leadership School, which
provides training and other support for those seeking ways to be in
relationship with the marginalized poor.
In January 2003, McGovern, along with other intelligence community
alumni/ae, created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Through VIPS, he has written and spoken extensively about
intelligence-related issues and appeared in several documentaries
including "Uncovered: The Truth About the Iraq War" (Robert
Greenwald) and "Break the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on
Terror" (John Pilger).
McGovern¹s duties at CIA included chairing National
Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President's Daily Brief
(PDB). These, the most authoritative genres of intelligence
reporting, have been the focus of press reporting on "weapons of
mass destruction" in Iraq and on what the president was told before
9/11. During the mid-eighties, he was one of the senior analysts
conducting early morning briefings of the PDB one-on-one with the
Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, and the Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs.
COLEEN ROWLEY was appointed a Special Agent with the FBI in 1981
and initially served in the Omaha, Nebraska and Jackson,
Mississippi Divisions. In 1984 she was assigned to the New York
Office and for about 7 years, where she worked on Italian Organized
Crime (specifically the Colombo Family of the LCN) and Sicilian
heroin drug investigations (some of the latter "Pizza Connection"
cases). During this time she served three separate Temporary Duty
Assignments as an Assistant Legal Attache in the Paris, France
Embassy and the Montreal Consulate.
In 1990 I received an "Office of Preference" transfer to
Minneapolis where she assumed the duties of Principal Legal Advisor
(now known as "Chief Division Counsel") which entailed oversight of
the Freedom of Information, Forfeiture, Victim-Witness and the
Community Outreach Programs as well as providing regular legal
training to FBI Agents of the Division and some outside police
training.
In April, 2003, following an unsuccessful and highly criticized
attempt to warn the Director and other administration officials
about the dangers of launching the war in Iraq, Rowley "stepped
down" from this (GS-14) legal position to go back to being a
(GS-13) FBI Special Agent. She has also begun to speak publicly on
the topic of ethics and ethical decision-making to various groups,
ranging from school children and business people to lawyers.
(Please see Rowley's clarification of her participation in this
letter, posted with her signature above.)
PHILIP VARGAS was appointed to a major US Congressional Commission
on Federal Paperwork in 1977. A report he and his staff prepared
was approved by agency commissioners and officials and had the
strong support of his supervisor, containing important and critical
information of costly waste and improper activities within the US
federal governmental system. This report was suppressed by the
Commission¹s Executive Director and his deputy..Vargas
delivered a copy to the President and Vice President at the White
House, and to other public officials and associations.
As a consequence, Dr. Vargas was summarily dismissed from his
position, though he carried out his responsibilities in accordance
with his agency's mandate and the US government's own Code of
Ethics. Vargas says: "I believe that citizens must have access to
the information of their government in order to be able to
participate meaningfully in the democratic process. I believe that
government secrecy is pervasive and that secrecy is the enemy of
democracy and freedom the more secrecy the less democracy and
the less freedom. For defending those basic democratic principles I
have paid a heavy price. But I would do it again if I had to."
09/23/2004
L-3 Communications Awarded $216.7 Million Navy Support
Contract
L-3 Communications (NYSE: LLL) announced today that its Vertex
Aerospace subsidiary (L-3 Vertex) has been awarded a one-year, $47
million contract to provide Contractor Logistics Support and
operation of the Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department
(AIMD) for Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). With the exercise of
four, one-year option periods, the total contract value is $216.7
million, writes Business Wire.
09/25/2004
Keep Space for Peace Week: International Days of Protest to Stop
the Militarization of Space, Sept. 25 - Oct. 2, 2004
The Bush Administration (after unilaterally abandoning the 1972 ABM
Treaty) promises to deploy missile defense interceptors in Alaska
and California before the next election. Fifteen interceptors (that
have yet to be proven effective) will be put into the ground at Ft.
Greely, Alaska and Vandenberg AFB, California to "protect" the
continental U.S. from attack. This year the Global Network's Keep
Space for Peace Week coincides with this deployment effort. For the
past several years our Keep Space for Peace Week of local actions
has taken this issue into classrooms, libraries, TV and radio
programs, churches, military bases, aerospace corporation
facilities, and the offices of political leaders. We encourage you
to organize a local activity during the week in solidarity with
groups all over the world. Working together we must create
opposition to Bush's dangerous and destabilizing Star Wars
deployments.
This week of events is being cosponsored by the Women's International League for
Peace & Freedom.
09/26/2004
Tour of duty set to be NZ's last in Iraq
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3594890&thesection=news&thesubsection=general
New Zealand's Army engineers are home after six months in Iraq,
and the Government has no plans to send another detachment.
Prime Minister Helen Clark, who was at Ohakea Air Base on Saturday
night to welcome the 61 engineers and support staff, said last week
that it was unlikely they would be replaced, writes New Zealand
Herald.
09/25/2004
How Bush's Grandfather Helped Hitler's Rise to Power
by Ben Aris in Berlin & Duncan Campbell in Washington
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a
director and shareholder of companies that profited from their
involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files
in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was
a director was involved with the financial architects of
Nazism.
Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received
public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the
documentation involving him. But now the multi-billion-dollar legal
action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush
family, and the imminent publication of three books on the subject,
are threatening to make Prescott Bush's business history an
uncomfortable issue for his grandson, George W, as he seeks
re-election.
While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to
the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for,
Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German
industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the
1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The
Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the
New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented
Thyssen's US interests, and that he continued to work for the bank
after America entered the war.
09/27/2004
Keep Space for Peace Local Action at Fylindales
www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/reports/fdales_04.htm)
About 3 or 4 hundred people gathered on the North Yorkshire Moors
at the start of 'Keep Space for Peace Week' in the UK. Although the
weather forecast had been bad (which probably kept many people
away) we actually had some sunshine and blue skies - although it
was (as usual) a bit breezy at times. We were assembling in the
usual place for a Fylingdales demonstration - about 1/2 a mile down
the road from the base entrance in a side track off the main road
near the road bridge by Eller Beck.
09/27/2004
Publishers sue government over limits on editing
On 27 September 2004, several publishers' and authors'
organizations sued the U.S. government over procedures currently in
place relating to governmental regulation of articles produced by
scholars in embargoed countries.
The suit, filed by the Association of American Publishers'
Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, the Association of
American University Presses, the PEN American Center, and Arcade
Publishing focuses on recent actions of the Treasury Department's
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) which enforces U.S. trade
embargoes. The plaintiffs assert that OFAC is unduly restricting
works by authors who live and work in embargoed countries and that
the agencys interpretation of law violates the First Amendment and
other acts of Congress. (For the complaint and some twenty-five
other relevant documents, tap into:
http://www.aaupnet.org/ofac/.)
09/27/2004
Government to disarm "warriors" in the northeast Uganda
The Ugandan government is to resume disarming lawless "warriors" in
the northeastern Karamoja region, which borders Kenya and Sudan,
saying easy availability of weapons had claimed hundreds of lives
in tribal clashes and encouraged insecurity.
Maj Shaban Bantariza, spokesman for the Uganda People's Defence
Forces, told IRIN on Sunday that disarmament committees were being
formed at district and sub-county levels throughout the region to
revive an exercise that started in December 2002, but went into
limbo as the government shifted its attention to fighting the
Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the north.
An estimated 40,000 illegal guns are in the hands of pastoralists
in the Karamoja region, according to the army. "They are forming
the disarmament committees which will include district officials
and other leaders," Bantariza said. "Voluntary disarmament will be
embarked on first in October, but we shall resort to forceful
disarmament after the period for voluntary disarmament
elapses."
Previously, the pastoralists were given one month to disarm. But
after only a few thousand guns were turned in, the army resorted to
forceful disarmament. Human rights groups however criticised army
"high-handedness" while collecting the guns.
"The last operation managed to recover about 11,000 guns,"
Bantariza said.
Karamoja region, situated some 400 km northeast of the capital,
Kampala, is made up of three districts - Kotido, Moroto and
Nakapiripiriti. It lies at the centre of an area where small arms
are traded with the Turkana people of Kenya and with other tribes
in southern Sudan, the scene of a long-running civil war, writes
IRIN.
09/28/2004
Here they go again! NRA pushes repeal of D.C.'s gun laws
StopTheNRA [mailto:advocacy@stopthenra.com]
Emboldened by the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban, the NRA is
carrying its extremist agenda into the heart of the Nation's
Capital. The Congress of the United States has the power to change
any local law in our Nation's Capital and is being pushed by the
NRA to repeal locally passed gun laws in Washington, D.C. and
prevent the city from enacting any gun laws in the future. On
Wednesday, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on
legislation that would repeal gun laws in the District of
Columbia.
Many Members of Congress are on record supporting this extreme
piece of legislation - they want more guns and even more assault
weapons on the streets. This bill would actually repeal the local
ban on assault weapons, and lacking voting representation in
Congress, the citizens of D.C. are powerless to stop it and need
your help.
09/29/2004
Children Became Letters
"Children Became Letters" was a common expression among Jews in
Nazi Germany. From 1933 on, Jewish children were especially hard
hit by anti-Semitism both at school and in their neighbourhoods. An
ever larger number of parents made the difficult decision to
entrust their children to Jewish aid organizations and send them
abroad alone. The multimedia exhibition "Children Became Letters"
concentrates on the children's organized escape from Germany to
Palestine and the USA between 1933 and 1941. Using personal life
stories, it shows the opportunities and difficulties of emigration.
In addition to tracing the different paths taken by the children,
it portrays the work of Jewish aid organizations by focusing on the
biographies of two major figures - Recha Freier and Kaete
Rosenheim. With these thematic focal points, the authors of the
exhibition want to examine the limits and opportunities of rescue
work.
A film installation entitled "Innere Landschaften" (Inner
Landscapes) explores the experience of escape, departure and life
in a foreign land. Since the inception of the project, the authors
of the exhibition have cooperated closely on a variety of issues
with secondary schools in Berlin and its environs. Students of the
Katholische Liebfrauenschule and the Schiller-Oberschule have
created an exhibition about the Children's Home Ahawah that will be
presented in the former rooms of Ahawa. After 1933, the staff
managed to send some of the children to safety in Palestine with
the help of the Youth Aliyah movement. This part of the exhibition
project is accessible from the Centrum Judaicum and was also opened
in 28 September 2004.
Book (German language): Gudrun Maierhof / Chana Schuetz / Hermann
Simon (eds.): "Aus Kindern wurden Briefe. Die Rettung juedischer
Kinder aus Nazi-Deutschland" - ISBN 3936411867 - 14,90 Euro
Exhibition: 29 September 2004 - 31 January 2005 - Stiftung Neue
Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum, Oranienburger Str. 28/30, 10117
Berlin (Mitte), S-Bahn stop Oranienburger Strasse, information via
tel. (030) 88028-368, email:
aus-kindern-wurden-briefe@cjudaicum.de
09/29/2004
Tens of thousands protest US arms sale to Taiwan
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/09/27/6454206
Tens of thousands took to the streets in Taiwan on Saturday
afternoon to protest against the 18.2 billion dollar US sale of
advanced weapons to Taiwan. Despite rains, the protesters chanted
"No to weapons purchases, Save Taiwan." Demonstrators called for
the authorities to use the money instead to help the unemployed and
students. People from all walks of life joined the rally, whose
major organizer was Democracy Action Alliance (DAA), a
non-governmental organization. Others participating in the march
included the Anti-Arms Purchasing Alliance, Democratic Advancement
Alliance, many People First Party (PFP) and New Party (NP) members,
labors rights groups, education reform, gender equality
organizations, and even retired generals.
"The country has so many important issues that need to be solved
immediately, such as the high unemployment rate, education and
women's rights. We can't let the government send money to the US
and leave a huge debt for the next generation," said Tang Shu
leader of the Labor Rights Association.
The plan to purchase 388 "Patriot" missiles, eight submarines, 12
anti-submarine planes and other weapons from the United States was
unveiled on June 2.
The plan outraged thousands of local residents and prompted
criticism from the general public. Recently, 11 academicians from
the "Central Research Academy" in Taiwan and nearly 200 retired
generals signed a petition in protest against the procurement plan.
They were later joined by several university presidents and a dozen
non-governmental organizations.
09/29/2004
Lockheed Martin, European groups win contract for NATO missile
defence
Several European makers of military air equipment, including EADS,
and the US company Lockheed Martin have won a contract from NATO
worth 3.0 billion dollars (2.44 billion euros) to design and build
a MEADS missile defence system, the MEADS group said on
Wednesday.
MEADS (Medium Extended Air Defense System) is a joint venture
between Lockheed Martin Corp, the European Aeronautic Defence and
Space Company (EADS), MBDA-Italia and Lenkflugkorpersysteme (LFK)
in Germany, writes AFP.
09/30/2004
Mordecai Vanunu
kidnappes 1986.
09/30/2004
Patriot Act subpoena of Internet data struck down
ACLU wins case against power to access personal information
- Julia Preston, New York Times
New York -- A federal judge struck down a key surveillance
provision of the USA Patriot Act on Wednesday, ruling that it
broadly violated the Constitution by giving federal authorities
unchecked powers to obtain private information.
The ruling, by Judge Victor Marrero of federal court in Manhattan,
was the first to uphold a challenge to the surveillance sections of
the act, which was adopted in October 2001 to expand the powers of
the federal government in national security investigations.
The ruling assails one piece of the law by finding that it violates
both free speech and unreasonable search protections, and is likely
to provide fuel for other court challenges.
The ruling came in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties
Union against a kind of subpoena created under the act known as a
national security letter. Such letters required Internet service
companies to provide personal information about their subscribers
and barred them from disclosing to anyone that they had received
the subpoena.
Such subpoenas could be issued without court review, under
provisions that seemed to bar those who received it from discussing
it with a lawyer.
Marrero vehemently rejected the provision, saying that it was
unique in American law in its "all-inclusive sweep" and had "no
place in our open society."
He ordered that his ruling would not take effect for 90 days, to
give the Bush administration time to appeal.
09/30/2004
Outsourcing the Pentagon: Who's Winning the Big
Contracts?
By: Nathan Kommers
Center for Public Integrity
No-bid contracts have accounted for more than 40 percent of
Pentagon contracting since 1998, the Center for Public Integrity
revealed today in an exhaustive reports on Defense Department
contracting.
Over the past six years, the Pentagon has awarded some $362 billion
to companies without competitive bidding. In fact, of the top ten
contractors, only one, SAIC, won more than half its dollars through
full and open competition. All the others won a majority of their
dollars through sole source and other no-bid contracts.
The report, which covers the period 1998-2003, also documents the
extent to which the Defense Department has become dependent on
outside contractors, finding that every annual increase in defense
spending has been matched by an equal increase in contracting.
Fully half the Defense Department budget-some $900 billion since
1998-has gone out the door to contractors rather than paying for
direct costs such as payrolls for the uniformed armed services.
To read the full report log on to
http://www.publicintegrity.org.
Center for Public Integrity
910 17th St. NW
Washington, DC 20006
ph: 202-481-1221
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