 |
|||
|
"Terrorism" and Blowback: A Chronology of America's Descent into Fascism Part Five: October 7, 2001 - August 15, 2002 From Afghanistan to Preparation for War against Iraq
October 7, 2001 Air Strikes begin on Afghanistan: 31 targets are hit during the night hours by US and British forces targeting "military aircraft, runways, missile launchers and 'terrorist' training camps." A spokesman for the Northern Alliance reports that the Taliban's radar system was "completely destroyed." The Taliban says there are 20 casualties, including women, children and elderly people. The UN World Food program is forced to suspend its food convoys. The ration packs dropped by two US planes as the "humanitarian" part of the mission represent only a minute fraction of that supplied by the convoys. [World Food program officials have said that a quarter of the Afghan population will be dependent on food aid by the end of the year— 5.5 million people. There are only a few weeks left to get food convoys into the remote areas before passage is blocked by the winter snows. The people also need seeds to plant the winter wheat which will feed them next year. Chris Buckley, an aid officer: "The real Afghanistan is one where 85 per cent of the population are subsistence farmers. Most Afghans don't have newspapers, television sets or radios. They will not have heard of the World Trade Centre or the Pentagon, and most will have no idea that a group of zealots has attacked these icons of western civilisation. There isn't even a postal service. Now, in these isolated villages, families are down to their last weeks of food and already men, women and children in the refugee camps are dying of cholera and malnutrition. I have spoken to orphans with swollen bellies. I have spoken to men who have no money to hire trucks to escape the drought and make it to the camps. I have spoken to families who say they will wait in their villages for death.... To punish innocent Afghans would be immoral," Z Magazine, 14 September 2001.] October 8, 2001 Tom Ridge starts his first day at work as head of the Office of Homeland Security, a new advisory position announced by Bush in his address to Congress on September 20. This department will have responsibility for overseeing all aspects of domestic security in response to the September 11 attacks. [A former congressman and two-term governor of Pennsylvania, Ridge won his first term on a get-tough-on-crime platform, using Willie Horton-type ads against his opponent. Once in office, he had many anti-crime bills passed, several of which were declared unconstitutional. He believes all juveniles (and not just alleged murderers) should be tried as adults and do adult time in prison. His state police roughed up death penalty protesters and made pre-emptive strikes against headquarters of the protesters at the Philadelphia Republican Convention in 2000. Civil libertarians, beware! ] October 9, 2001 The Times of India reveals that Lt. General Mahmud Ahmed was recently fired as head of Pakistan's ISI because of evidence provided by India of his links to Mohammed Atta, one of the alleged suicide bombers of the World Trade Center on September 11th. [At the general's instance Ahmad Umar Sheikh had wired $100,000 to Atta. Sheikh was one of the three militants who hijacked an Indian Airlines plane in 1999. They were allowed to go free in exchange for the safe release of the plane's passengers. James Taranto, Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2001.] October 10, 2001 More Blowback on the Right to Know: The five major US TV networks accede to the "request" of the White House to not air live, unedited tapes of Osama bin Laden or his aides (as they had on October 7 and 9) on the rationale that Al Qaeda might be using the transmissions to send coded messages to terrorist "sleepers." October 12, 2001 Major Blowback on American Civil Liberties: The House passes the anti-terrorism bill (with a cumbersome title that yields the acronym PATRIOT) 339-79 after a five-hour debate. The bill gives unprecedented new powers to the police for eavesdropping on the internet without a court order, indefinite detention of non-citizens, and secret courts for foreign intelligence investigations. [The Senate had passed its version, the United and Strengthening America Act (acronym = USA) the night before with one lone dissenter, Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. As troubling as the act's provisions was the way it was railroaded through the Congress. Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA): "What we have today is an outrageous procedure: A bill, drafted by a handful of people in secret, comes to us without a committee review and immune to amendment." He could have added that the bill was 186 single-spaced pages in length and unavailable in time to be read.] The definition of "terrorism" in the bill is so broad that it could be applied to citizens. For example, those picketing abortion clinics, to Greenpeace activists attempting to block whaling boats, and to dissenters protesting actions of the World Trade Organization. There were three laws already on the books that would have applied to the atrocities of 9-11, so no new law was needed. So let's look at some of the more troubling parts of the bill:
October 12, 2001 Blowback to the Federal Budget: The House Ways and Means Committee approves a bill which, if passed, would double the size of the Bush tax cuts approved in May, would cost the country $212 billion in lost taxes over the next three years, and again grossly favor the wealthy. In this "stimulus" tax bill 41% of the tax cuts would benefit the wealthiest 1%. Only 7% of the cuts would go to the bottom 3/5 of taxpayers. Citizens for Tax Justice, www.ctj.org October 13-14, 2001 Demonstrations are held throughout the world to protest the bombing of Afghanistan: London, 20,000; Berlin, 15,000; India, 100,000; San Francisco, 10,000 plus thousands more in other American cities, Sweden, Nepal, South Korea and Nigeria. The Nation, October 19, 2001. October 15, 2001 Several Islamic groups unite to call a nationwide strike in Pakistan to protest Pakistan's support of the US bombing of Afghanistan. [There have been daily protests, growing in intensity, with violent clashes with the police and numerous deaths. In an effort to shore up his shaky regime General Pervez Musharraf placed the leaders of three of the groups under house arrest and forced the resignation of two of his top generals who were pro-Taliban, transferring a third to a less sensitive command. Ironically, all three generals had supported Musharraf when he overthrew Prime Minister Nawaz Shaif in October 1999.] Vilani Peiris, "Pakistani leader faces an uncertain future as protests continue", wsws.org. October 16, 2001 Bush ends his televised report on the military campaign in Afghanistan by urging America's children to "go out and mow a lawn or do somebody a favor to earn a dollar" which they should send to the White House for the Red Cross fund for Afghanistan's children. At the same time US bombers are making a daytime raid on Kabul. One of their bombs destroys a Red Cross warehouse holding famine relief supplies whose roof was plainly marked with a large red cross. In Pakistan Secretary of State Colin Powell and General Pervez Musharraf hold a press conference in which they announce their agreement to work together for the creation of a "new, broad-based government in Afghanistan" which "could include moderate elements within the Taliban." Two ironies: These are the same guys that the US is currently bombing, and wasn't it George W. Bush who denounced "nation-building" in the 2000 campaign? New York Times, October 17, 2001. The Pentagon buys up exclusive rights to all pictures of Afghanistan taken by the civilian satellite, Ikonos, spending millions of taxpayer dollars. [This decision was taken after reports of heavy civilian casualties from the overnight bombing of training camps near Darunta. The one-meter resolution of Ikonos is sufficient to observe bodies lying on the ground and possibly count them accurately. The pictures are not needed for military purposes; the Pentagon has seven imaging satellites in orbit, four of which take pictures six to ten times better than Ikonos' resolution. Western media is not to know the civilian casualty rate. Duncan Campbell, "US buys up all satellite war images." Guardian, October 17, 2001.] October 21, 2001 The World Health Organization warns governments around the world to prepare against a possible terrorist smallpox attack. The USA has already ordered 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine as a result of the anthrax scare in the US. There have been one death, 8 illnesses, and 38 exposures to anthrax caused by mail sent to people in the media and the government in Florida, New York, New Jersey and Washington DC since October 1st. Additionally there have been anthrax exposures in Argentina and Kenya. Anthony Browne, The Observer (UK), October 21, 2001. October 21, 2001 Bob Woodward reports in the Washington Post that Bush II signed an intelligence finding the previous month instructing the CIA to do "whatever is necessary" to eliminate Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network. (So all the talk the previous month on whether or not President Ford's prohibition on assassination of world leaders should be rescinded was just so much rhetoric.) Additionally Woodward describes the "Threat Matrix," a CIA document that arrives every morning on the desks of the top officials in the Bush administration concerned with intelligence and national security. The Threat Matrix contains the raw data on all threats received of bombings, bioterrorism, hijackings, etc. Washington Post, October 21, 2001, p. A01. October 22, 2001 The Times of London reports that the FBI is considering using torture to force suspected members of bin Laden's network to talk. More than 150 of the 800 picked up after September 11 remain in custody and are remaining silent. One of these is Zacarias Moussaoui, the French Moroccan who is suspected of being a hijacker who failed to make it aboard United Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. Two others whose silence the FBI would especially like to crack are the two Indians who were apprehended on September 12th travelling with false passports, knives and hair dye. There is speculation that the current rather conservative Supreme Court would support the curtailment of civil liberties of prisoners in terrorism cases. Damian Whitworth, The Times (UK), October 2001. October 29, 2001 The Threat Matrix Delivered to the White House indicates Al Qaeda may have a radiological weapon ready for Washington or New York. Vice-President Cheney announces that he is leaving for "a secure, undisclosed location," ostensibly to ensure the continuity of government should anything happen to George W. Bush. [While this action was later disclosed to the public, kept secret was the dispatch of four covert teams in Washington and one in New York to roam the cities with equipment capable of detecting nuclear material. Six other cities received teams that could detect biological and chemical agents.] Bob Woodward, Bush at War, pp. 269-271. November 1, 2001 Blowback on the Right of Posterity to Know: George W. Bush signs Executive Order 13233, altering the 1978 Presidential Records Act in several fundamental and unconscionable ways:
[The current Bush administration had been stalling on the Reagan presidential records which had been vetted for national security and were ready for release on the due date of January 12, 2001. One suspects that the records might contain evidence of George H. W. Bush having been "in the loop" after all on the Iran-Contra scandal and who knows what else. Ironically, the 1978 act had been passed as a result of President Nixon's attempts to bury and destroy his presidential records. And once the records were open, much was found that had not been suspected. See Kutler, Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes. Public Citizen filed a suit in federal court seeking to overturn this order on behalf of the American Historical Association, the National Security Archive and other groups on November 28, 2001. John Dean, "Hiding Past and Present Presidencies", tompaine.com; Stanley I. Kutler, Chicago Tribune, January 2, 2002.] November 9, 2001 Northern Alliance generals capture the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Nine hundred young Pakistani recruits, left behind when senior Taliban flee, take refuge in a former girls' school. Their garrison is identified by "spotters" (US Special Forces?) and bombers score two hits on the school, killing dozens, and causing the Pakistanis to offer to surrender. After about one hundred had emerged, Northern Alliance soldiers opened fire, summarily executing them as they walked forward with hands raised. Two days later the Alliance set fire to the building to smoke out the remaining Taliban, then shot them as they tried to flee the flames. Of the original 900, only 325 were taken prisoner. After Mazar-e-Sharif the Northern Alliance extended its control of Afghanistan to Taloquan in the north and Herat in the west, or about 50% of the country, with only Kunduz remaining in Taliban hands in the north. (When the bombing started two months before, the Alliance occupied only about 10%.) Much of this was accomplished without a great deal of fighting; US bombers had been pummeling the Taliban for weeks and many Taliban leaders, including the governor of Bamyan province, simply surrendered. World Socialist Web Site, November 15 and 22, 2001.] November 13, 2001 The Taliban suddenly retreat from Kabul to Kandahar, taking all of the Afghan treasury with them. The Northern Alliance, which had previously pledged not to enter Kabul until the US and UN had set up some sort of new interim administration, swarms into the capital and takes control of the major ministries. Pashtun residents are afraid that Northern Alliance soldiers will assume they are Taliban and summarily execute them. [The US immediately marshalled international sentiment to prevent the various warlords of the Northern Alliance from establishing a de facto administration in Kabul. In the UN the "Six plus Two" group (United States and Russia plus Afghanistan's six neighbors--- China. Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan--- agreed that any interim government should be "broadly-based, multi-ethnic and representative."] "Fall of Kabul," wsws.org, November 15, 2001. November 13, 2001 Major Blow to the Constitution and America's Reputation for Justice: Bush the Unelected issues a Military Order that would allow the government to try persons accused of "terrorism" before special military commissions rather than in civilian courts (as were the terrorists accused of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993 and the two embassies in East Africa in 1998.) These military tribunals may "sit at any time and any place"— Afghanistan, continental United States, Guantánamo Bay, etc. Articles III, V and VI of the Constitution are trashed by the following provisions:
The administration attempts to justify this outrageous order by invoking Ex Parte Quirin, the 1942 Supreme Court decision that declared that the secret military trial of the eight German saboteurs inside FBI headquarters was justified because FDR was commander in chief of a nation at war and the accused had been sufficiently charged with unlawful belligerency according to the international common law of war. The comparison with this shameful decision is not valid because now there has been no congressional declaration of war, and Quirin confirms that only Congress has the right to set up such tribunals, either specifically or by delegating such power to the President in the declaration of war. [The saboteurs had been tried secretly to cover up the bungling by the FBI. One of the would-be saboteurs called the FBI immediately upon landing on Long Island. The FBI dismissed the call as a hoax. Only when the caller, George Dasch, went to FBI headquarters in Washington and showed them the contents of his briefcase (including $80,000) was he believed and the other saboteurs found and arrested. J. Edgar Hoover got great publicity and the Medal of Honor for his "speedy capture" of the saboteurs, all of whom initially got the death sentence. When FDR found out that Hoover had lied to him, the sentences of Dasch and Burger (who also tried to sabotage the mission) were commuted to 30 years and life. The other six were immediately executed. Dasch and Burger were paroled to the American sector of Germany in 1948.] A more relevant precedent would be Ex Parte Milligan, the 1866 Supreme Court decision which decided unanimously that the military court which tried Milligan and two others (for conspiracy to seize munitions at federal arsenals and release Confederate prisoners) did not have jurisdiction and the prisoners must be released. Neither Congress nor the president may authorize the trial of civilians by a military commission when civil courts are available. As none other than our current Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote, "The Milligan decision is justly celebrated for its rejection of the government's position that the Bill of Rights has no application in wartime." Quoted by Neal Katyal in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, November 28, 2001. [Bush said the trials would be "fair" and his administration spokespeople tried to imply that these tribunals would be similar to US military courts-martial. Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel, wrote in a New York Times op-ed (November 30, 2001), defending the military commissions, "The American military justice system is the finest in the world." And perhaps it is, with these provisons that the proposed military tribunals lack:
Criticism from overseas was immediate, with comparisons being made to Stalinist trials, and the trial and conviction in Peru of US citizen Lori Berenson. Spain, where eight men suspected of complicity in the 9-11 attacks had been apprehended, indicated that they would not turn them over to the US for trial in such Star Chamber proceedings. In the United States the leading constitutional scholars testified against the proposals in hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committtee, and conservative columnists such as William Safire voiced disapproval. However, fellow Democratic representatives persuaded Dennis Kucinich of Ohio to withdraw his amendment to the Defense Appropriation bill that would have withheld funding for military tribunals."Hearings Reflect Some Unease with Ashcroft's Legal Approach," Washington Post, December 2, 2001.] November 25, 2001 Northern Alliance troops enter Kunduz after six days of heavy pounding of this city of 100,000 by American B-52s. The figures vary as to the number of Taliban who surrender--- 3300, 4000, 5000, or 6000. Some are taken away in trucks with their arms tied behind their backs with odd pieces of cloth. Some of the wounded are executed and left on empty stalls in the market place. [General Mohammed Daoud estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 Taliban had taken refuge there after the other cities of northern Afghanistan fell to the Northern Alliance. The surrounded Taliban attempted to negotiate a surrender to "anyone but the Northern Alliance," a move that was forcefully prevented by the Bush administration. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said he wanted them to "be killed or taken prisoner." Daoud was willing to grant amnesty to the Afghan fighters only. A few Taliban shaved their beards and slipped out of the city with the fleeing civilians; many must have died in the bombing. Secret airlifts on the three nights before the 25th rescued between 4000 and 5000 men who were Pakistani military advisors (including two generals), Pakistani citizens who had volunteered to fight the Northern Alliance after the US bombing began, and non-Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda. Pakistani President Musharraf got the green light from the US for the airlift (and a special airlift safety corridor) after he explained that his regime might not survive the humiliation of the loss of so many citizens and key military. Indian intelligence "knew within minutes" of the airlifts, but the government did not denounce the action until after the December 13th attack on the Parliament. Protest notes sent to the US and UK have gone unanswered. The Indians have cause for alarm, for as one intelligence official told Seymour Hersh, "Musharraf can't afford to keep the Taliban in Pakistan. They're dangerous to his own regime. Our reading is that the fighters can go only to Kashmir." Seymour M. Hersh, "The Getaway," New Yorker, January 28, 2002, pp. 36-40; Rory McCarthy, "Alliance accused of brutality in capture of Kunduz," The Guardian (UK), November 27, 2001; Don Dahler, ABCNews.com, November 19, 2001; Peter Symonds, "US sets stage for a massacre in Kunduz", wsws.org, November 22, 2001; December 2, 2001 The highly-touted energy conglomerate, ENRON, the seventh largest corporation in the United States, files for bankruptcy. December 2, 2001 Next Country: Iraq? Britain's Observer breaks a story indicating the US military and CIA have drawn up plans for a military operation against Iraq's Saddam Hussein that could "begin within months" despite opposition from European Union leaders and that usually stalwart ally of the US, Tony Blair. The plan calls for the standard US bombing of key military installations combined with aid to Iraqi opposition groups. Playing the role assigned to the Northern Alliance in the war with Afghanistan will be Kurds in the North, Sunni extremists around Baghdad, and Shi'ites in the South. "Significant numbers" of US ground troops will probably be required in the early stages to guard the oil fields around Basra. Since no evidence has been found conclusively linking Iraq to 9-11, it is believed the US will use the excuse of Iraq's anticipated refusal to allow inspection for weapons of mass destruction. The major proponents of the plan are said to be Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, former CIA Director James Woolsey, General Tommy Franks of the US Central Command, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers, and Under Secretary of State John Bolton. Peter Beaumont, Ed Vuillamy and Paul Beaver, The Observer, December 2, 2001. December 5, 2001 The Bonn Agreement: The UN Conference on Afghanistan (the 6 Plus 2 Group) concludes its nine days of haggling in a Bonn, Germany hotel. They announce an "interim government" that will attempt to govern Afganistan for six months beginning December 22. Its head will be Hamid Karzai, the head of the Pashtun Popolzai clan who is currently in Kandahar negotiating the surrender of the Taliban forces there. The key ministries of defense, interior and foreign affairs are given to leaders of the Northern Alliance who will have 17 of the 30 ministerial posts. The "Rome faction," those supporting the 87-year-old ex-king, receive nine posts including that of Karzai. The remaining four go to the Pakistani-supported "Peshawar group" and the Iranian-supported "Cyprus group." Neither ex-President Rabbani nor the powerful Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum gets a job. In June there will be a loya jirga, presided over by King Zahir Shah, which will select another government to serve for two years. Meanwhile the Loya Jirga Commission (composed of 21 prominent Afghans selected by the UN) will be laying down the procedures for choosing the 800-1000 delegates to the loya jirga which Peter Symonds aptly describes as "a cynical piece of political theatre designed to give a democratic gloss to a regime that has no power to make even relatively minor decisions." "UN unveils a quasi-colonial regime for Afghanistan," wsws.org, December 8, 2001; www.eurasianet.org/loya.jirga/commission.shtml. December 6, 2001 John Ashcroft Embarrasses Himself and Also the Justice Department He Heads, according to former White House counsel John Dean, Ashcroft came before the Senate Judiciary Committee ostensibly to explain how the military tribunals called for in Bush's order of November 13 would be administered. "Ashcroft told the Senate, in essence, that he didn't have any information about how these tribunals would operate. Rather blithely, he said those details were being handled by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his 3000 lawyers at the Defense Department. It is difficult to believe that the attorney general is as uninformed as Ashcroft indicated, but that's what he said. One wonders if Ashcroft is really in the loop at all on this war on terrorism. I cannot imagine an attorney general not being all over the issue, insisting that the Department of Defense have input from the Department of Justice." Evading all of the timid questions put to him by Democratic senators, Ashcroft declared that Bush had no obligation to consult Congress because "the Constitution vests the president with the extraordinary and sole authority, as commander-in-chief, to lead our nation in times of war." [Let's forget that there has been no declaration of "war" and the president is on such occasions commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but not the civilian population.] In his prepared remarks Ashcroft challenged his auditors and critics: "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorism, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of goodwill to remain silent in the face of evil." John W. Dean, "A Matter of Justice: Ashcroft's Appalling Failure to Explain Military tribunals," www.findlaw.com; Kate Randall and John Andrews, "Ashcroft defends Bush's war against the Constitution," wsws.org, December 12, 2001. December 10, 2001 Civilian Victims of US Bombs in Afghanistan: Professor Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire releases his comprehensive accounting of the civilian deaths caused by US bombing from October 7th to December 6th. The number: 3,767, an average of 62 killed per day. [Herold compiled his figures from such sources as the BBC, Indian and Pakistani newspapers, and British and Canadian newspapers. In several cases he demonstrated that the Pentagon was just plain lying when they claimed "no civilian casualties." His total-to-date is more than died in all four plane crashes on September 11th (3128), and on a population scale is the equivalent of 38,000 US civilians. The number does not include the number who have died (and will die) from starvation as the result of the international food distribution trucks barred from entering the country by the US. Nor those who will die or be maimed from the 5000 unexploded cluster bombs. Nor those deaths incurred since December 6th. www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm] December 22, 2001 Harmid Karzai, resplendent in his trademark green-and-blue cloak, and his government are sworn in at a rather subdued ceremony in Kabul. [Two days before the US had bombed a convoy of vehicles in Paktia province. Among the dead were 15 tribal elders en route to Kabul to witness the inauguration of the new government. The US insisted that no mistake had been made, that the vehicles contained "Taliban leaders." Paktia tribal leader Munib and others accused rival warlord Pacha Khan Zadran of providing false intelligence to the US military. Pacha Khan denied having given such information at the same time denouncing the slain as Al Qaeda members. The New York Times noted that the "convoy that came under American attack may have contained some former Taliban members, but it was clearly welcome in Kabul." Peter Symonds, "Open-ended US bombing campaign results in further Afghan casualties," wsws.org, January 4, 2002; Amy Waldman, "Fluid Loyalties are Laid Bare by a U.S. Raid," New York Times, December 28, 2001.] December 22, 2001 Averted Suicide Bomber on Paris-Miami Flight: An alert flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 63 observes a rather scruffy-looking passenger attempting to light a match to the sole of his shoe soon after takeoff. It takes two crew members and several passengers to subdue the man and tie him to his seat. The plane is diverted to Boston, the nearest airfield, where British national, Richard Reid, is arrested. [His black basketball shoes contained about nine ounces of two explosives, TATP and PETN, a mixture similar to one devised by Ramzi Yousef, who had planned a series of simultaneous airplane explosions in the mid-1990s. For those who thought Reid "stupid" not to attempt to ignite the shoes in the washroom, he was seated in the ideal place described by Yousef--- a window seat above the Boeing's central fuel tank and adjacent to the wing. (The bomb was not big enough to destroy the jet, but big enough to detonate the fuel. The resulting fire would bring the plane down.) Reeve, The New Jackals, pp. 85-86. The "shoe bomber," as he was soon called, was found to be a petty British criminal who converted to Islam in prison and, after his release, fell in with extremists and attended a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. He and Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th suicide bomber" of 9-11, worshipped at the same mosque in Brixton in the same time period. DEBKAfile hypothesizes that Reid is possibly Shoe Bomber #2, the first shoe-bomber having brought down American Airlines 587, the flight from JFK to Santo Domingo that crashed mysteriously minutes after takeoff on November 12th, killing 255 passengers and crew and five people on the ground in Rockaway Beach. The analysts believe that a shoe bomber explosion could have caused the very unusual disaster---- the clean break of the vertical stabilizer from the fuselage and the engines separating from the plane and landing 800 feet from the crash site. Simon Reeve, San Francisco Chronicle, January 6, 2002; World-Net-Daily, January 17, 2002. On January 30, 2003 a federal judge in Boston sentenced Richard Reid to life in prison. Reuters, Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2003.] December 25, 2001 Next Country: Somalia? One of the films opening Christmas Day (in Los Angeles and New York) is Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. Based on Mark Bowden's prize-winning series in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the 1993 episode in Somalia, the film is blatantly racist and pro-war and attempts to arouse sentiments for revenge. [Since September 11 Somalia has been one of the several countries frequently mentioned as next on the list in the "war on terrorism" despite the fact that the country has not been implicated in the 9-11 attacks. In November the US government closed down the Somali-owned Al-Bakarat money transfer company which is the only way Somalis in the US can send remittances to their families in Somalia. (About 80% of the country rely on these funds for survival.) The Somalia Internet Company was also closed and international telephone communication severely restricted, isolating the country. In December a group of US officials visited aides to opposition warlords in southern Somalia for talks about the war on terrorism, thus accelerating fears that these warlords, having watched the Northern Alliance regain power in Afghanistan with the help of US bombing missions, might ask for a sequel in Somalia. President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan told Reuters that fears of such US military strikes were interfering with his efforts to unite the country: "People are terrorized by this campaign of propaganda against Somalia....For their own interest, they [the warlords] want to see America involved in Somalia, Somalia bombed, and then to take over power like the Northern Alliance did in Afghanistan. But Somalia is not Afghanistan. The transitional national government is not Taliban. I am not Mullah Mohammed Omar." Black Hawk Down was privately screened for top White House officials who were allowed to make changes in the film before its release. (Bowden told the New York Post that he was pressured by the Army to change the name of the Ewan McGregor character from the heroic Army Ranger John "Stebby" Stebbins to "John Grimes." Stebbins was court-martialed on June 8, 2000 for sexually abusing a child under the age of 12 and sentenced to 30 years in the Leavenworth, Kansas military prison.) New York Times, January 11, 2002; www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,9281,00.html ] December 27, 2001 Stealth Attack on Labor: With Bush 43 still at his Texas ranch, the White House announces the suspension of the Clintonian regulations that would have prevented the awarding of federal contracts to companies that operate unhealthy or unsafe work sites. (A congressional report had shown that in one recent year the federal government had given out contracts worth $38 billion to over 250 companies that repeatedly violated environmental and workplace standards.) David Broder, "Pursuit of a Partisan Agenda," Washington Post, January 7-13, 2002. However, as Michael Moore has pointed out, this regulation was one of two dozen environmentally progressive measures that Clinton rather cynically issued in the last days of his presidency. Moore, Stupid White Men... and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation, pp. 216-221. December 28, 2001 Blowback on the Right of Congress to be Informed: Bush signs the inteligence authorization act for fiscal year 2002 which includes an amendment that reports to Congress should "always be in written form." He announces that such written notice could "impair foreign relations" and national security and, therefore, by his presidential authority his administration may frequently ignore the ruling. December 31, 2001 Oil: Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad is named by Bush to be the US special envoy to the interim government of Afghanistan. He will also continue in his present position as the Special Assistant for Southeast Asia, Near East and North Africa on the Security Council. [Khalilzad was the Unocal advisor who drew up the risk analysis for the proposed pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. He participated in the negotiations between Unocal and the Taliban in 1997 and lobbied for a more sympathetic governmental policy toward the Taliban. He headed the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Department of Defense, yet did not secure a subcabinet position for himself. (Possibly his affiliation with Unocal and his support for the Taliban would have made confirmation difficult?) Instead he was named to the National Security Council where no confirmation vote was needed. He was born in Afghanistan in 1951 to an elite family. (His father was an aide to King Zahir Shah.) When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Khalilzad was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. He became an American citizen and was a special advisor to the Reagan administration where he lobbied for more muntions for the mujaheddin, including the Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. With Khalilzad in Kabul, maybe it's time to start a betting pool: How many weeks (or months) until the Karzai government awards a contract to Unocal for its pipeline?] www.truthout.com/01.14A.Zalmay.Oil.p.htm; wsws.org, January 3, 2002. January 10, 2002 Attorney General John Ashcroft recuses himself from the criminal investigation that has been launched against the failed ENRON corporation and its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen. Andersen reveals that its employees have destroyed and deleted a "significant" number of documents pertaining to ENRON, even after those documents were subpoenaed. [Ashcroft reportedly received "up to $60,000" from Enron executives for his 2000 senatorial campaign (which was won by Mel Carnahan who died before the election.) In addition to the criminal investigation several civil suits have been filed against 29 officials of Enron (whose logo looks increasingly like a "W" in free fall.) They have been charged with selling their company shares while urging employees to buy and locking up the shares in their retirement funds. Independent (UK), January 11, 2002.] January 11, 2002 Stealth Appointments: Bush used his constitutional right to make two "recess appointments" of candidates who would have failed to get Senate approval. Otto J. Reich, named as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, is a retread from the Reagan administration where he ran the covert program to garner support for the Nicaraguan contras. During the Iran-Contra investigation a government committee ruled that his activities constituted unlawful domestic propaganda. A native of Cuba, he is vehemently anti-Castro. The second stealth appointee is Eugene Scalia to be solicitor for the Department of Labor. John J. Sweeney, president of the AFl-CIO, called this appointment "a slap in the face of American workers." Scalia, who will now be the overseer of major laws affecting workers' compensation, and safety and health in the workplace, has a history of opposition to several initiatives for worker protection, including the Clintonian regulation on ergonomics which Scalia derided as "junk science" and Bush repealed in March. Scalia is also the son of Antonin Scalia, the leader of the Felonious Five who made Bush #43. New York Times, January 11, 2002. January 11, 2002 Taliban and Al Qaeda Captives Arrive in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba: The first 20 "detainees" arrive in Cuba from Kandahar Airport in Afghanistan. They have been shaved, hooded, shackled, manacled, chained to their seats and, in a few cases, sedated for the 27-hour flight. They are guarded by 40 MPs armed with stun guns. Air Force General Richard Myers explains the extreme precautions: "These are people that would gnaw through hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld describes the detainees as "illegal combatants" and not prisoners of war and, therefore, the US is not bound by the Geneva Conventions for the treatment of POWs. However, he says, they will be treated "fairly." This fair treatment includes housing in separate 6 x 8 outdoor cages made of concrete and chain-link fencing with metal roofs located in a newly-constructed, super-safe area of the American naval base. The cages are open to the elements on all sides (for constant supervision, supposedly) so the prisoners have no privacy for either dressing or relieving themselves. (Some of their guards are women which should certainly offend their extremist Muslim sensibilities.) Their accomodations include a mattress, a Koran, two towels (one for use as a prayer rug) and "culturally appropriate" food. None has been charged with a crime; they will all be subject to interrogations in hopes of learning more about future Al Qaeda plans. Their "Camp X-Ray" will ultimately house several thousand prisoners. It is conjectured that Guantánamo was chosen as a location not only because of its security but also because it is not US soil and there are no federal courts to which the government might be pressured to take the prisoners. Los Angeles Times, Independent (UK), January 11, 2002; World Socialist Web Site, January 14, 2002. January 22, 2002 The International Conference on Reconstruction Aid for Afghanistan closes its meeting in Tokyo with a paltry $4.5 billion in grants and loans pledged by the richest nations of the planet— only $1.8 billion this year with the remaining $2.7 billion given in dribbles by 2006. The United States, which has just spent $4.5 billion bombing the country and whose almost-elected president is asking for an additional $48 billion for the Pentagon, pledges an unconscionably measly $296 million (not billion) for this year with no commitment for future years. [The UN had estimated that the bankrupt government needs $1.3 billion in immediate financing and $15 billion over the next decade. The whole country needs rebuilding— roads, electricity plants, communication systems, schools, hospitals, clean water systems, extensive de-mining, etc. Seven million people are dependent on international food aid; there are five million Afghan refugees waiting to be reabsorbed into the country. Yet the international community has demanded that much of this aid be spent on a new army and a police force. (Need to make the country secure for that new pipeline from Turkmenistan.) The Karzai government was forced to "assume responsibility for the foreign debt incurred by all previous governments"—$5.5 billion, which means that Afghanistan must pay out $100 million in interest each year. As well as subscribing to World Bank strictures and buying goods from the donor nations. Oh, and also about one-fourth of this munificent $4.5 billion is in the form of non-interest loans which must be repaid and— no more poppy-growing, the main source of income for the peasant farmers. All in all, a splendid prescription for failure. World Socialist Web Site, January 28, 2002.] January 23, 2002 Blowback to Guantánamo Bay: A reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl, is kidnapped in Pakistan. [He was researching a story on Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," and fell into the trap of an offer to meet with a potential source. On the 27th e-mails were sent to the Los Angeles Times and several other newspapers from the hitherto unknown group, the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. Photos were enclosed of Pearl with his chained hands holding a current copy of Dawn and a pistol pointed at his head. The e-mail described Pearl as a CIA spy and said they would hold him until the Pakistani captives being held in Cuba were released. The conditions of his detention would be "inhumane" to match those in Cuba. A further communication on the 30th said that investigation had demonstrated that Daniel Pearl was not CIA but was working for Mossad. The US has 24 hours in which to release the Pakistanis or they will kill Pearl. They further warn that other American journalists have three days in which to leave Pakistan; after that time they, too, will be kidnapped. Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2002.] January 24, 2002 Targeted Killing in Lebanon: Less than two days after he agreed to give evidence in a Belgian court against Ariel Sharon, Elie Hobeika and his three bodyguards are killed in a Christian suburb of Beirut as their Range Rover passes by a Mercedes loaded with 100 kilos of explosive materials. It is a complicated assassination with at least four men involved: one to signal that Hobeika has left his house only 100 meters away, one to guard the car bomb, and two to discern the line of sight and push the detonator. It is widely believed in Lebanon that Israel is responsible, as neither the Syrians nor the Hizbollah would have been able to operate in this very Christian area. [Some Palestinian survivors of the 1982 Sabra-Shatilla massacre filed suit in Belgium against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, charging him with crimes against humanity. Sharon was defense minister at that time and the Israeli Kahan Commission found him to be "personally responsible" for the massacre which was perpetrated by the right-wing Lebanese Christian militia allegedly at Sharon's urging.The leader of the Phalange was Elie Hobeika who has claimed that he was innocent of the atrocities. Independent (UK), January 24 and 25, 2002. However, on February 14, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that diplomatic immunity prevents past and present government officials from being tried for war crimes outside their own country, thus potentially putting the kibosh on the Belgian case. (This as Milosevic was being tried just down the street!) The Belgian court, however, merely postponed indicting Sharon. Jean Shaoul, "Sharon's war crimes in Lebanon: the record", World Socialist Web Site, February 22, 2002. On March 8 a third potential witness against Sharon was killed. Michael Nassar and his wife were gunned down in a petrol station in the suburbs of Saõ Paulo shortly after Nassar phoned a friend to say they were being followed by men in a car. Nassar, a close associate of Hobeika, had made a fortune selling former Phalangist weapons to the Croatians. He absconded from Lebanon in 1997 when pressed by the court to explain the source of his wealth. The first of Hobeika's colleagues to die after the suit was filed against Sharon was Jean Ghanem, who drove his car into a tree on New Year's Day. Robert Fisk, "Third former militiaman with links to Sabra and Chatila is murdered," Independent (UK), March 11, 2002. Update of February 12, 2003: The Cours de Cassation, Belgium's highest court, overturns a June 2002 ruling of a lower court: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon may now be prosecuted for war crimes--- but only after he leaves office. This opens the way for trials of numerous leaders worldwide, since this unusual law allows for war crimes prosecutions regardless of where the offences took place. The dispatch mentions Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro and Israeli General Amos Yaron. One can think of several American leaders who will not be planning vacations in Belgium. Agence France Presse, February 13, 2003. January 30, 2002 The G.W. Bush Doctrine and the "Axis of Evil": In his State of the Union message a bellicose Bush extends his "war on terrorism" to include any country that he believes to be acquiring or seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction that could be used by terrorists. "The United States will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons….all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security." He names in particular North Korea, Iran and Iraq, calling them "an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger." He mentions that his budget "includes the largest increase in defense spending in two decades…. Whatever it costs to defend our country we will pay." [Conspicuously omitted from his speech:
As numerous foreign newspapers pointed out, the three countries singled out have no common agenda and so hardly constitute an "axis" as did Germany, Italy and Japan in the obvious (although later denied) World War II reference. What they do have in common is dismal poverty and a long "unfinished business" status with the hawks of the Republican far right--- North Korea from the Cold War, Iran from the overthrow of the Shah and the American Embassy hostages, Iraq from the failure of Bush's father to capture Baghdad and install an American puppet government there. From the Guardian: "As for the weapons of mass destruction all three of these 'axis' powers seek, dangerous though that quest is, the experts tend to agree that the primary motive is regional (emphasis added) and that an attack on the US (or Israel) would in any case be a suicidal act. Nor could such regimes ever be sure that handing weapons over to terror groups would be untraceable, before or after use. The consequences of discovery would be as lethal as if they had used the weapons themselves." Martin Woolacott, "In a panic, Bush has opted to blame all the old enemies,' Guardian (UK), February 8, 2002. As the Guardian had earlier pointed out: "Every twist in the war on terrorism seems to leave a new Pentagon outpost in the Asia-Pacific region, from the former USSR to the Philippines. One of the lasting consequences of the war could be what amounts to a military encirclement of China." Simon Tisdall, "Republican agenda rules the war on terrorism." Guardian (UK),February 7, 2002. The third leg of Bush's speech was his dire warning, possibly made with the timetable of the November elections in view, that "our war against terror is only beginning. Thousands of dangerous killers,… are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning…. Tens of thousands of trained terrorists are still at large." Bush made a call for "every American to commit at least two years … to the service of your neighbors and your nation." (Possibly this was a feeler for a re-institution of the draft?) "State of the Union speech: Bush declares war on the world," wsws.org, January 31, 2002; "Bush has earned the praise of America but not the trust of the world," Independent (UK), January 31, 2002.] Update of January
15, 2003: North Korea was included in the "axis
of evil" as an afterthought, according to the recent book by
ex-White House aide and speechwriter, David Frum. The State Department's
East Asia division heard about the inclusion only hours before the
speech and were most unhappy about it. (The phrase was initially
"axis of hatred" but the chief speechwriter felt that
"axis of evil" had better theological overtones.) This
designation, especially after the Bush regime had already withdrawn
support for South Korea's "sunshine policy," caused the
paranoid "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il to abandon the 1994
Agreed Framework and renew the country's nuclear program. (See
entry for October 2-5, 2002.) Hendrik Hertzberg,
"Axis Praxis," The New Yorker, January 13, 2003;
David Frum, The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George
W. Bush. February 2, 2002 Fascism Revisited: "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too," says right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, a headline speaker at the five-day Conservative Political Action Conference in Arlington, Virginia. [Other speakers were a roll call of the far right wing of the Republican party: National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice,Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, Republican National Committee chair Marc Raciot, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Senator Jesse Helms (introduced by his hopeful successor, Libby Dole), George Will, Michael Deaver, former Ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick, Pat Buchanan, Asa Hutchinson, Congressman Bob Barr (GA), Congressman Dave Weldon (FL), Senator Sam Brownback (KS), Phyllis Schafly, Laura Schlessinger, Oliver North, William Bennett, Edwin Meese, CNN's Bob Novak, ABC's Sam Donaldson, Rev. Lou Sheldon, Alan Keyes, David Horowitz, Senator Mitch McConnell (KY), and Lynne Cheney. Earlier Coulter had given her solution for the current crisis: "We should invade their [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Patrick Martin, "Conference of US right-wingers hears call to execute John Walker," World Socialist Web Site, February 27, 2002; cpac.org.] February 22, 2002 The Death of Daniel Pearl: After nearly a month of pleas for the release of Daniel Pearl and mysterious communiques indicating that he might still be alive, the US Consulate in Karachi receives a revolting video which depicts Pearl "confessing"---- "I am a Jew, my mother is a Jew"---- just before his throat is cut and his body decapitated on camera. [His death probably occurred in late January, about a week after his disappearance. "Worldwide revulsion at murder of American journalist on video," Independent (UK), February 23, 2002. On March 22nd Ahmed Omar Sheikh and three other Muslim militants were charged in a Karachi court with the kidnapping and murder of Pearl. Not only did Sheikh confess to the kidnapping (not under oath) but also notes in his handwriting had been found which matched the content of e-mail messages sent about Pearl. (Seven other suspected accomplices remained at large.) Sheikh was a leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed), a fundamentalist group that was banned by President Musharraf after 9-11. It had been covertly supported by ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service. The United States, which had already indicted Sheikh, asked for his extradition. New York Times, March 22 and 23, 2002. Initially Musharraf seemed to be unwilling to hand over Sheikh. He reportedly told US Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain that he would rather hang Sheikh himself than extradite him, undoubtedly fearing that the ties between the ISI and terrorist organizations would be exposed. Times of India, March 28, 2002. Abdullah Iqbat in Dubai's Gulf News suggests that Daniel Pearl was really researching exactly those links and also the role of the US in training the ISI, rather than getting interesting background material on shoe-bomber Richard Reid. He had been warned by other journalists of the very sensitive nature of his pursuit. One of Pearl's major stories had been the "fabrication" by Western sources of certain Kosovo "atrocities," a subject not likely to endear him to certain government circles. "Pearl was probing spy agencies' role," Gulf News, March 25, 2002.] March 9, 2002 Nuclear Policy Review: The Los Angeles Times reveals a secret Pentagon report that was given to Congress on January 9th. The Bush administration has ordered the military to prepare contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against at least seven nations--- China, Russia, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria--- and to build smaller nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield. The report anticipates three types of situations where these mini-nukes would be used:
The report says the US
should be prepared to use nuclear weapons in an Arab-Israeli conflict,
if North Korea should invade South Korea, if Iraq should attack
Israel, and if China should attack Taiwan. Paul
Richter, "U.S. Works Up Plan for Using Nuclear Arms,"
Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2002. [A Washington
Post article of June 10th made it clear that the new policy
contemplated would include pre-emptive attacks and sneak attacks,
thus abandoning the 50-year-old policy of "deterrence"
and "containment." Thomas E. Ricks and
Vernon Loeb, "Bush Developing Military Policy of Striking First,"
Washington Post, June 10, 2002.] March 15, 2002 Is the US Preparing to Abandon Afghanistan--- for the Second Time? Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld attempts to explain why the Bush administration has said NO to interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai's pleas to increase and extend the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan: "There is not a serious security problem." The current force of 4500 soldiers from 17 nations is operating only in Kabul and its immediate area. The Bush administration is trying to get Turkey to take over the ISAF administration from Britain (and has suggested to Congress that $228 be given to Turkey to expedite the transfer.) Turkey is not willing to take over if the ISAF operates outside of Kabul,. David Corn suggests that the administration needs Turkey to be compliant about an invasion of Iraq (and continue the US of bases there), so----- [Rumsfeld 's assessment of life in Afghanistan was quickly contradicted by other prominent Americans testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee. DIA chief Thomas Wilson said there was "a very widespread probability of insurgency-type warfare" in both the rural areas and the cities. CIA head George Tenet described severe economic, social and political problems. Journalists have reported the violent competition for control among the rival warlords in places like Herat, Farah and Helmand Province. The head of Refugees International reported that people are starving because the lack of security has prevented aid workers from reaching people in many parts of Afghanistan. There have been reports of food shipments stolen by warlords. (Yet George Bush boasted to some high school students: "We've prevented mass starvation because we've moved a lot of food into the region.") The International Crisis Group has recommended expanding the ISAF to 25,000 to 40,000 troops that would patrol the principal cities of Afghanistan and the major transportation routes. (The US State Department suggested 25,000 troops as the number.) Peter Symonds suggests: "Any extension of the ISAF would end the current monopoly of military power that Washington enjoys throughout the country and cut across its plans for a largely US-trained Afghan national army as the means for exerting long term political influence." "Washington presides over a political and social disaster in Afghanistan", wsws.org, March 29, 2002. The United States took no responsibility for nation rebuilding or for ensuring stability once the Soviet Union was forced out of Afghanistan thirteen years ago, letting the factional fighting happen and the Taliban emerge. Is this going to happen again? "Rival Flags Stir Afghan Fear," New York Times, February 4, 2002; "Warlords Steal Food Shipments," New York Times, January 4, 2002; David Corn, "Bush to Afghanistan: We Make War," TomPaine.org, March 22, 2002. March 20, 2002 Saudi "Charities" Targeted: John Loftus, former federal prosecutor, author and famed Nazi-hunter, files a lawsuit in Hillsborough County, Florida against Professor Sami A. Al-Arian under Florida's Consumer Protection Act. He alleges that the various "charitable" agencies that Al Arian manages--- Islamic Concern Project, International Committee for Palestine, World Islamic Enterprise-- have operated illegally under the non-profit charter of the first-named to transport communications equipment to Osama bin Laden and to launder money for terrorist groups sponsored by Saudi Arabia, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The lawsuit asks for the appointment of a receiver to freeze the personal and corporate assets of the defendant, to make restitution to deceived consumers, to distribute remaining assets to legitimate charities, and to refer the matter to the Florida Attorney General for prosecution. (It is a felony under Federal law for anyone to solicit contributions to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda, etc.) [A few hours after the filing, US Customs agents raided homes and offices in northern Virginia belonging to Saudi organizations with $1 billion in assets, some of which the Florida groups had allegedly helped to launder. Al-Arian had been investigated by the federal government in the mid-'90s and WISE was shut down in 1995 as a front for Middle Eastern terrorists, but Al-Arian was never charged. Loftus claims that for years there were orders from the State Department and the White House "not to embarrass the Saudi Government." 9-11 was not an intelligence failure, "it was a foreign policy failure." The Saudis, he said, aimed to destroy the State of Israel and also to prevent the formation of an independent (and democratic) Palestinian state. They discovered too late that they had gone too far in their support of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. (Purportedly, bin Laden laughingly turned down an offer of $300 million from his relatives to cancel the attack on the twin towers.) Al-Arian, a citizen of Kuwait, in September was suspended with pay from his position as professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida. He has applied for US citizenship. www2.john-loftus.com; Graham Brink, "Suit labels Al-Arian terrorist fundraiser," St. Petersburg Times, March 21, 2002.] April 17, 2002: Oops! US "Friendly Fire" Kills Canadians: Despite having been told twice to hold his fire, Major Harry Schmidt of the Illinois Air National Guard, returning to base from a mission and seeing gunfire below, drops a 500-pound laser-guided bomb onto a nighttime training exercise being conducted near Kandahar by soldiers of the Canadian Light Infantry. Four soldiers are killed and eight are wounded. [A joint US-Canadian inquiry held that Schmidt and Major William Umbach, the lead pilot, bore responsibility for the tragedy. Canadian General Maurice Baril condemned their actions and described Schmidt as "trigger-happy." A US military panel recommended "appropriate disciplinary action" against the two F-16 pilots in addition to disciplinary action against some members of the pilots' chain of command. If such actions have been taken, a Google search of July 18 failed to reveal them. Daniel le Blanc, "US pilot ignored 2 orders," Globe and Mail (Canada), June 29, 2002; Thomas E. Ricks, "2 probes Fault Pilots in Allies' deaths," Washington Post, June 29, 2002, A13; www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/canada_06-28-02.html. Update of September 11, 2002: Majors Schmidt and Umbach are charged with four counts of manslaughter, eight counts of aggravated assault and dereliction of duty. They have been recalled to active duty to face the charges. A possible defense may be that Major Schmidt had taken amphetamines; this drug was routinely supplied to pilots in Afghanistan to fight fatigue and enable them to fly longer hours. The pilots were allowed to keep the drugs in the cockpit and self-regulate their dosage. Lieutenant General Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force, is in charge of reviewing the case. His three options: dismissal of charges, general court martial or special court martial. Andrew Buncombe, "US pilots on manslaughter charge over 'friendly fire,'" Independent, September 14, 2002.] Update of June 20, 2003: The Air Force has dropped involuntary manslaughter charges against Majors Schmidt and Umbach, criminal charges which could have resulted in a prison term as long as 64 years. Instead, Major Harry Schmidt, 37, faces administrative penalties consisting of a reprimand, 30 days' confinement in his quarters, loss of one month's pay and travel restrictions for two months. The Air Force Flying Evaluation Board may separately issue a permanent ban on flying. Schmidt's superior, Major William Umbach, 44, will be allowed to retire without prejudice. Maj. Schmidt's attorney, Charles Gittins, says his client may refuse the administrative penalties and insist on a trial. The use of amphetamines and the "fog of war" were the main items used in the officers' defense. The families of the dead Canadian soldiers were outraged, and Canadian politicians were decidedly unpleased. There have been 14 subsequent "friendly fire" accidents in Afghanistan and Iraq. "It's going to happen again and again. They are just whitewashing everything," said Clair Leger whose son Marc was one of the fatalities. John Hendren, "Charges Dropped in 'Friendly Fire' Deaths," Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2003. April 29, 2002 Oil Hegemony in the Southern Caucasus: US troops arrive in the f ormer Soviet republic of Georgia ostensibly to "train and equip" Georgians to combat Islamic radicals in the Pankisi Gorge area (purportedly a safe haven for Al Qaeda fugitives and Chechen rebels) as part of the "war on terrorism." [However, a Defense Ministry official told Radio Free Europe on February 27: "The U.S. military will train our rapid reaction force which is guarding strategic sites in Georgia--- particularly oil pipelines ." (Emphasis added.) The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project has been designed to loosen Russia's energy hold on Georgia and Azerbaijan and bring the southern Caucasus into the US sphere of influence. It will also profit certain American companies---Halliburton, Chevron, and the law firm Baker Botts (headed by elder Bush's old friend and advisor, James Baker III.) Other conflicts of interest: Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice was a director of Chevron. Armen Georgian, "U.S. Eyes Caspian Oil in 'War on Terror'", Foreign Policy in Focus, April 30, 2002.] May 6, 2002 "Axis of Evil" Expanded: John Bolton, the Under Secretary of State for Disarmament Affairs and International Security, adds Cuba, Syria and Libya to Bush's "axis of evil" list in a speech to the right-wing Heritage Foundation. Bolton was previously vice president of the equally conservative American Enterprise Institute. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) endorsed him for his State Department nomination saying, "John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon, if it should be my lot to be on hand for what is forecast to be the final battle between good and evil in this world." Ian Williams, AlterNet, May 30, 2002. [On this same day Bolton
sent a letter to the United Nations annulling US participation
in the International Criminal Court. The White House said that
this move was motivated by the concern for American soldiers, that
they might be brought before the court on politically motivated
charges. However, an unnamed senior public official told New
York Times reporter Elizabeth Becker that the real concern was
for the top civilian leaders (and he mentioned the legal actions
that have been brought against former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
in Chile and the US.) "The soldiers are like the capillaries;
the top public officials--- President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld,
Secretary Powell--- they are at the heart of our concern. Henry
Kissinger, that's what they really care about. They don't really
care about the Lieutenant Calleys of the future." (Lieutenant
William Calley was given a life sentence at hard labor for the 1968
massacre in Vietnam at My Lai 4. President Nixon ordered him released
from the stockade and put under house arrest; a few months later
he was paroled.) Elizabeth Becker, "On World
Court, U.S. Focus Shifts to Shielding Officials," New York
Times, September 7, 2002.] May 15, 2002 The Public Learns that Bush Was Warned before September 11: CBS News reveals that Bush received a briefing from the CIA on August 6, 2001 that there was an imminent possibility of an airplane hijacking by terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden. [Did Bush then return to Washington to oversee increased precautions for "homeland security"? No, he continued with his vacation for the rest of August. This news temporarily derailed the TV talking heads from their usual celebrity gossip. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CN) announced their intention to sponsor legislation for a bipartisan independent commission to investigate what the government knew and what the government did in the pre-September 11 period. Vice President Cheney adopted a bullying posture, saying at a fundraising dinner that "my Democratic friends … need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions, as were made by some today, that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9-11." Such criticism is "thoroughly irresponsible … in time of war." National Security Advisor
Condoleeza Rice baldly stated that the warning was only about a
hijacking to take hostages. "I don't think anybody could have
predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into
the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon,
that they would try to use an airplane as a missile." Really??
No one? Not the FBI agent in Phoenix, or the FBI department in Minneapolis,
or those responsible for security of the G-8 conference in Genoa
two weeks earlier, or the Philippine police who uncovered the Bojinka
plot in January, 1995, or --- ? A CBS poll taken May 18-19 (before
the release of the Rowley letter to FBI Director Mueller) indicated
that "two-thirds of Americans think the Bush administration
is hiding something about what it knew before September 11"
and just over a fifth think the administration is "telling
the whole truth." "Cover-up and conspiracy,"
wsws.org, May 18, 2002; AP, Washington Post, May 21, 2002. May 16, 2002 NBC News Reveals that there was a document awaiting Bush' signature on September 9--- two days before September 11--- that was "a game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of the Earth." [The details in this formal National Security Presidential Directive were essentially the same as the war plan that was adopted after September 11-- first the persuasion of other countries to share intelligence and arrest suspected terrorists, then freezing of Al Qaeda assets. The Taliban would be pressured to give up Osama bin Laden; if they refused, then a full-scale military attack on the country. www.msnbc.com/news/753359.asp An earlier scenario which surfaced June 26, 2001(and received zero attention by the US media) called for a joint US-Russian military venture against the Taliban on two fronts in northern Afghanistan with India and Iran "facilitating" the operations. It "would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest." (The bombing started October 7 and the ground attacks on October 19.) "US planned war in Afghanistan long before September 11," wsws.org, November 20, 2001; www.indiareacts.com/archivefeatures/nat2.asp?recno=10.] May 21-23, 2002 Whistleblower from Phoenix FBI: Kenneth Williams, the Phoenix agent who wrote the seven-page memo in July, 2001 recommending an examination of all Middle Eastern students taking flight training in the United States, testifies in closed-door sessions before the Senate Judiciary and the Senate Intelligence Committees. [Senator Durbin (D-IL) commented that "although he didn't come up with the exact September 11 scenario, what he presents in that memo was so close to the fact pattern that emerged on September 11 that, as you read it, it just takes your breath away." Senator Durbin along with Senators Shelby (R-AL) and Senator Graham (R-FL) asked the FBI to make the memo public, but FBI Director Robert Mueller has refused. In addition to FBI headquarters, the New York field office and the Chicago field office, Mr. Williams had sent the memo to the Radical Fundamentalist Unit. Its head, David Frasca, would claim that he had not seen the memo until after September 11. (This is the same unnamed supervisor who stonewalled Coleen Rowley's requests from the Minneapolis office on the question of Zacarias Moussaoui.) Williams' memo stated that an inordinate number of individuals "of investigative interest" were attending flight schools in Arizona where they were getting pilot training and taking courses in airplane construction, aircraft security and mechanics. His suspicions had been aroused when he interviewed a particular Arab who expressed hostility towards the United States and an inflamed view of Islam. His memo included the facts that several of the Arizona students had ties to al-Muhajiroun, a London-based radical Islamic organization, and that several "fatwas" had indicated that America's civil aviation and its airports were legitimate targets. Paul de la Garza, "Senator says FBI memo 'takes your breath away'" St. Petersburg Times, May 23, 2002; Jerry Seper, "Agent told CIA of flight students," Washington Times, May 23, 2002; Edward Helmore, "Agent blasts FBI over 11 September cover-up," London Observer, May 26, 2002. May 21, 2002 Whistleblower from Minneapolis FBI: Coleen Rowley, FBI special agent and legal counsel for the Minneapolis FBI, sends a scathing 13-page letter to Director Robert Mueller and hand-delivers copies to the heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee. [Mueller immediately stamped the letter "classified" and refused to give it to congressional investigators or several US senators from the Judiciary Committee. The letter was leaked to the public and posted on the time.com web site on the 25th; the ensuing firestorm was enormous. Rowley contended that FBI headquarters stymied the investigation into Moussaoui, re-writing her request for a warrant to search his laptop and personal effects, and casting doubt on the French intelligence report (since Zacarias Moussaoui is such a common name in France!) She noted that the same personnel continued stalling even after the World Trade Center was struck when possibly an interrogation could have uncovered and prevented other attacks. The Supervisory Special Agent, his unit chief and other involved headquarters personnel were not only kept in their same positions unreprimanded but also occupied critical positions in the Command Center on September 11th. The SSA (who had both the Minneapolis case and the Phoenix memo on his desk) has received a promotion! Rowley faulted Mueller also, even though he came into the job only a week before the attack, for "a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of the facts" despite repeated attempts to deliver the true facts to him. "I think you have not been completely honest about some of the true reasons for the FBI's pre-September 11th failures." Minneapolis agents were so frustrated that "jokes were actually made that the key FBI HQ personnel had to be spies or moles, like Robert Hansen, who were actually working for Osama Bin Laden to have so undercut Minneapolis' effort." www.time.com/nation/printout/0,8816,249997,00.html. Note from January
10, 2003: The unnamed supervisor who buried the Williams memo
and denied the request of the Minneapolis FBI for the pre-9-11 search
warrant on Moussaoui seems to have been identified as Marion "Spike"
Bowman, the FBI's deputy general counsel and head of the FBI's National
Security Law Unit which approves or denies requests for secret surveillance
warrants. Bowman was one of nine current or former FBI who received
a Presidential Rank Award in December, an honor that includes a
cash bonus of 20-30% of the honoree's annual salary. Senator Charles
Grassley (R-IA) asked Director Mueller to explain in writing why
he had seen fit to recommend Bowman for this award, as Bowman's
testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in July,
2002 had "raised serious questions about the competence of
lawyers in his unit." Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) complained
that Bowman's law unit provided "inexcusably confused and inaccurate
information to FBI investigators in Minneapolis; this "patently
false" advice had sent the agents "on a wild goose chase
for nearly three weeks." Bowman's unit was also criticized
for blocking the August 29, 2001 request by New York agents to begin
a search for Khalid Almihdar--- one of the hijackers on the AA flight
that crashed into the Pentagon. Ted Bridis, "White
House award to FBI lawyer draws fire," Detroit News,
January 10, 2003. May 30, 2002 Pipeline
Agreement Signed: Pakistan, Turkmenistan and the interim
government of Afghanistan sign an agreement for a feasibility study
for that controversial 975-mile gas pipeline. This will provide
"the shortest transportation route for the transportation of
petrochemical resources from Central Asia to the Far East, Japan
and the West," said Pakistani President Musharraf… "our
stand on a pipeline to India remains unchanged whatever the level
of tension."---- this as the two countries stand on the brink
of a possible nuclear war. Hamid Karzai, prime minister for the
interim government, issues a statement that "the stability
in Afghanistan is very, very satisfactory, keeping in mind what
we had five months ago."---- this as the British announce a
fresh offensive against Taliban remnants. Talek
Harris, Agence France-Presse , May 30, 2002. It
seems a tad presumptuous for the interim government to rush into
this agreement when the Loya Jirga, pursuant to the Bonn Agreement
of December 2001, is due to convene June 10-16 to select a permanent
government for Afghanistan. June 1, 2002 Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace--- Bush Takes on 60 Countries: June 3, 2002 Bush & Co. Sued for $7 Billion: Stanley Hilton files a class-action law suit in San Francisco naming ten defendants, including Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice and Norman Mineta. They are charged with allowing the September 11 attacks to take place for the political benefits to be gained from the disaster. The plaintiffs are the families of 14 of the victims of 9-11. Hilton, a former aide to Senator Dole, alleges that the administration ignored intelligence information, refused to round up suspected terrorists prior to 9-11, and did not use the available technology to disable pilot controls on the hijacked planes and control their flights from the ground. There will be financial benefit from oil and gas pipelines approved by the puppet Afghan government installed by the US. David Kiefer, "S.F. attorney: Bush allowed 9/11," San Francisco Examiner, June 11, 2002; William Rivers Pitt, "All Along the Watchtower," truthout.org, June 20, 2002. June 4, 2002 Secret Hearings on Intelligence Failures Begin: On the same day as the ceremony for the completion of the removal of millions of tons of debris from Ground Zero, the joint session of the House and Senate Intelligence committees begins its much delayed investigation of a very limited scope of what happened on September 11th. Before the first testimony is heard, Bush, speaking from the National Security Agency, flatly denies that the government could have prevented the attack and warns against any wider investigation: "I don't want to tie up our team when we're trying to fight this war on terrorism. So I don't want our people distracted." [He didn't need to worry about the joint session; most of the committee's staff was selected by L. Britt Snyder, the former CIA inspector general. The Republican co-chairman of the committee, Porter Goss of Florida, was a CIA spy 1962-1971. Before that he was in Army intelligence. All of the members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees have been vetted by the CIA and FBI for their "security" reliability to receive classified information. Therefore, these hearings and their findings are likely to be a whitewash of any substantive failures on a par with the Warren Commission report. If the American public is ever to know the full truth of what happened on September 11th, a full-scale, independent investigation will be required. wsws.org, June 5, 2002. Meanwhile, more evidence accumulated of serious negligence if not actual wrongdoing:
June 6, 2002 Homeland Insecurity: Bush announces a cabinet level office for "Homeland Security" on the same day that Coleen Rowley testifies before the Senate committee, thus diluting her television coverage. June 10, 2002 Dirty Bombs and Dirty Bombers: Attorney General Ashcroft makes a dramatic announcement at a press conference in Moscow, of all places: "We have captured a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb,' in the United States"--- supposedly in Washington, D.C. [Abdullah al-Muhajir, also known as José Padilla, is an American citizen of Puerto Rican descent, born in New York, raised in Chicago, who converted to Islam while in prison for the last of a series of crimes, including armed robbery, the first committed 16 years ago when he was 14. He was "captured" upon entry to the United States from Zurich and Pakistan on May 8 because he answered the physical description of a man in Pakistan that Abu Zubaydah allegedly said was training with Al Qaeda, "studying how to wire explosive devices and researching radiological dispersion devices." As Patrick Martin points out, it is unclear how a man with a grade-school education and no knowledge of the local languages is going to accomplish this "research." Bush issued an executive order, declaring this American citizen to be an "enemy combatant who poses a serious and continued threat to the American people and our national security" and therefore not given presumption of innocence nor habeas corpus. Padilla was transferred from a New York jail to the military brig in Charleston, South Carolina. His attorney has not been allowed to see him. Rumsfeld said the US is not trying to punish him, just get some information from him. The government has admitted that it has no evidence against Padilla that would stand up in a civil court--- no assembly of radioactive materials, no actual target, etc. He received $10,700 when passing through Zurich; it seems much more likely that Al Qaeda was using him as a courier, not a dirty bomb expert. Since the government secured his release from Pakistan prison and tracked him to O'Hare, surely it would have been more useful to continue tracking him and see who got the money. But of course the disclosure of his "plot" is most useful in spreading alarm to the American public and maintaining the high approval ratings that typically go to a Commander-in-Chief in time of war. And this announcement could not have been better timed to distract attention from Coleen Rowley and other would-be whistleblowers and to reassure the public that this "capture" occurred only because the FBI and CIA are now working together harmo | |||