NUCLEAR ------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
Four Afghan Neighbors Have Nukes
Nato chief warns of 'poor man's nuclear bomb' risk
Hungarian nuclear plant gets own air defence missiles
Protesters line up for German nuke waste shipments
German Reaction to Terrorism: Shut Down Nuclear Plants
German N-plants may go offline if in danger - EnvMin
Kursk arrives at Russian port
Nuclear reactor worker injured At a Crystal River hospital
Chattanooga, Tenn., nuclear engineer says he blew whistle
MILITARY
What does the world want from us?
Fears grow over food drops Starving need convoys to restart
Afghan farmer 'hit by shrapnel'
Rebels Capture Northern Areas, Cut Off Taliban Supply Route
Bioterrorism: How Unready We Are
U.S. Holds Out Threat of Force Against Iraq
Iraq: U.S. Spy Plane Shot Down
Pak to deploy 50,000 policemen at madrassas
UNHCR Says Pakistan Protests Hamper Relief Effort
U.S. controls Afghan skies
U.S. Controls Skies, Hunts New Targets
Navy Pilots Under Orders to Visually Verify Targets
In Next Phase of Attacks, an Emphasis on Helicopter Strikes
Pentagon Adds 'Bunker - Buster' Bombs
Injured U.S. Soldier First Casualty
OTHER
EU largely isolated on WTO environment issue
CIA's Stealth War
Despite Florida, widespread anthrax attack unlikely
Iran's rhetoric masks interests
The reclusive ruler who runs the Taliban
A fine line between precaution and panic
Next stage, hunting down terrorists
Americans, don't blame yourselves for Sept. 11
Reclaiming Innocence
Strikes open way for ground war
KILLERS AND THEIR BACKERS
ACTIVISTS
A minority of Americans calls out - loudly - for peace
Anti - Globalization Wave Turns Against the War
Higgins Avenue bridge peace party attracting members
From Ronnie Gilbert
Proud To Be a Pacifist
Worldwide protests against US bombing of Afghanistan
A minority of Americans calls out - loudly - for peace
Building A Peace Movement In Wartime
'There isn't a target in Afghanistan worth a $1m missile'
THE GREEN PARTY RELEASES A MAJOR STATEMENT
Fighting the Next War, Not the Last One
-------- NUCLEAR
Four Afghan Neighbors Have Nukes
October 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Nuclear-Neighbors.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Landlocked and impoverished, Afghanistan sits near four countries with nuclear weapons or nuclear ambitions: Pakistan, India, China and Iran. Leaders in the campaign against terrorism want to make sure these weapons do not fall into the hands of Osama bin Laden or other terrorists. Pakistan poses the most immediate concern.
A military-ruled Muslim nation, Pakistan supports the U.S.-led strikes against bin Laden and the Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan. But that support has triggered violent protests and forced President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to reshuffle the senior ranks of the armed forces to prevent moves to destabilize his government.
While Pakistani officials say the nation's nuclear devices are secure, a prolonged U.S. military campaign inside Afghanistan could fan anti-American sentiment and build support for the Taliban inside Pakistan.
``The whole country is pretty shaky,'' said John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World, an arms control advocacy group. ``It's at least conceivable that the Taliban could perhaps seize some nuclear weapons, if not overturn the government. That's probably the scariest scenario of all in this current environment.''
Such fears are based on the prospect of Islamic extremists joining forces with Taliban sympathizers inside the Pakistani military. If Musharraf's government were toppled by these elements, it could make Pakistan the first radical Islamic regime with nuclear weapons.
U.S. officials acknowledge that the alliance with Pakistan, which helped to create the Taliban and has harbored extremist groups, is delicate.
Western officials long have been concerned about nuclear proliferation and tensions in the region, including the long and bitter conflict between Pakistan and India in the contested region of Kashmir.
Just last week, a suicide attack inside the India-controlled portion of Kashmir killed 38 people. That led the State Department to consider adding to its list of terrorist organizations a Pakistani-based group suspected in the bombing.
Western intelligence officials believe Pakistan has enough nuclear materials for roughly 30 to 50 nuclear weapons, and India slightly more.
Now that the United States has turned Pakistan into an essential ally in its battle against bin Laden and his Taliban allies, it has been treading carefully a diplomatic line.
Pakistan was left off Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's itinerary when he visited potential staging areas in the region last week. America's top diplomat -- Secretary of State Colin Powell -- will visit both Pakistan and India late this week.
Pakistan also received a special briefing on the evidence the United States has collected linking bin Laden and his al-Qaida organization to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Pakistan stepped up security in its capital of Islamabad on Tuesday amid fears of growing unrest. The U.S.-led strikes in Afghanistan -- some of them involving flights over Pakistan -- triggered riots in several Pakistani border cities.
Pakistani troops also have been fending off Taliban fighters seeking to cross the border, apparently trying to flee the bombing campaign. Pakistani officials said Wednesday that their soldiers had fought a two-hour gun battle a day earlier with about 30 Taliban soldiers who were trying to cross over; it was the second such incident in two days.
At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday that the support of Musharraf and other regional leaders came ``with full knowledge of their political situation.'' He said Musharraf continues to express ``the strong belief that the majority of his people are behind him.''
As the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism moves ahead, ``the risk of destabilizing Pakistan may be the greatest risk'' now, said Michele Flournoy, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
For now, Musharraf has been able to keep order in his nation of 140 million people. But his fragile alliance with the United States is showing strains.
Musharraf predicted the U.S.-led campaign would last just a few days, after President Bush suggested it could be prolonged.
Musharraf does not want to see Afghanistan's opposition northern alliance take advantage of the conflict to seize power -- even though the Bush administration is helping the rebels in their battle against the Taliban.
U.S. officials recognize these differences, but try to minimize them.
As to the presence of nuclear weapons, both in Pakistan and India, ``it's certainly something that we keep taking into account,'' Boucher said.
Iran also is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to be trying to build a nuclear weapons program as well as other weapons of mass destruction, with some help from Russia.
Iran, which borders Afghanistan to the west, has joined in the international condemnation of the Taliban. But it has declined to join the U.S.-led campaign to hunt down bin Laden and his followers.
--------
Nato chief warns of 'poor man's nuclear bomb' risk
The Times (UK)
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 10 2001
FROM RICHARD CLEROUX IN OTTAWA
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001350004-2001352462,00.html
LORD Robertson of Port Ellen, the Nato Secretary-General, gave a warning yesterday that attacking forces in Afghanistan are under the threat of biological and chemical weapons.
He told 300 delegates at the Nato Parliamentary Assembly here that Britain and the United States must protect their deployed forces against that threat.
"These dangers are real. These dangers exist and it's now time we focused on them," he said. "The unthinkable happened on September 11, we don't want the unthinkable to happen again with chemical weapons." Lord Robertson made the remarks in reply to a question from a Greek delegate during a question and answer period after his speech to the group.
"We mustn't scare the population too much about chemical and biological weapons," he said. "There are real and substantial dangers out there in the hands of individuals and states which might and may well be used. They are terrifying and they are horrific when you hear the way they can be used."
He said his blood ran cold when he heard that members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network had been "investigating" crop-spraying aircraft in Florida.
"That in itself has huge implications for what they can do. That is why the balanced approach to discovery and preventing is so important, to protect our deployed forces against that threat. We will have to do much more in the future about it."
Lord Robertson said it was equally important to protect the civilian population and that was why Nato had recently set up a Weapons of Mass Destruction Centre to study the use of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
As much as it is important not to frighten people, he said, "they must be made aware of the horrendous new kinds of killing that can take place and how possible it is for it to happen".
He said that the new chemical and biological weapons had become "the poor man's nuclear bomb. It is not something we can understand at all."
Lord Robertson's speech left many of the delegates visibly shaken. In the hallways afterwards, several were talking more about the chemical and biological threat than anything else he had said during his half-hour speech.
--------
Hungarian nuclear plant gets own air defence missiles
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom;
Oct 10, 2001
Text of report by Hungarian TV on 10 October
[Presenter] Air defence missiles have been installed in the southern part of the country and in the region of the nuclear power station of Paks [central Hungary], Chief-of-Staff Lajos Fodor has confirmed. According to Lajos Fodor, the step is not justified by any concrete threat, it is part of the tightened measures introduced after the 11 September terrorist attack [against the USA]. Since the change of the political system [the fall of communism in 1989], it has not happened that a separate installation gets its own air defence.
[Reporter] Everything goes on as normal in Paks. Local residents say they have got used to living near the nuclear power station. The missiles defending the building have been mentioned only at the level of gossips.
[Female resident] I heard about it only in passing, this morning. I cannot say anything about it. What do we say about it? If it is necessary, we have to cope with it, in our own interest, so that they can protect us, perhaps.
[Reporter] Even the town's mayor does not know that the power station has got its air defence missiles.
[Imre Bor, mayor of Paks] No. We learnt about it from the press, from statements made by the interior minister and the prime minister after 11 September, that the power station would have an increased protection. Since then, the local government has not received any direct information.
[Reporter] Around the power station, nothing shows fear about a possible attack.
Since 1989, there has been no precedent in Hungary for a special air defence for a building. According to information obtained by "Newsreel" [this programme], the Hungarian army installed surface-to-air missiles for the defence of the Paks nuclear power station. These weapons are able to destroy any aircraft, missile or helicopter which could perhaps threaten the building. It was Laszlo Meszaros, reporting for "Newsreel".
Source: Hungarian TV2 satellite service, Budapest, in Hungarian 1815 gmt 10 Oct 01 /BBC Monitoring/ (c) BBC. World Reporter All
-------- germany
Protesters line up for German nuke waste shipments
Planet Ark
GERMANY: October 10, 2001
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12727/story.htm
HAMBURG - Environmental groups said yesterday that anti-nuclear protests would accompany planned shipments of nuclear waste from several German nuclear power plants to the reprocessing site in La Hague, France.
The rail-based shipments were expected to start during Tuesday/Wednesday night from the Brunsbuettel plant in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, a Greenpeace spokesman told Reuters.
Further shipments were expected from the nearby Stade plants and the Muelheim-Kaerlich plant in Germany's west, he said.
Protesters were expected to demonstrate along the whole stretch of the transportation route.
A Hamburg police spokesman confirmed a shipment of nuclear waste was planned, but would not give an exact timeframe.
Anti-nuclear organisation X-tausendmal quer (no, a thousand times) in a statement said protesters would set up pickets and blockades in a number of locations.
The shipment, consisting of seven containers, would probably cross the German-French border between Woerth and Lauerburg in Rhineland-Palatinate late today afternoon.
Given the tense security situation at a time of U.S.-led air strikes against Afghanistan, protesters believed it was especially dangerous to send atomic waste on its way, X-tausenmal spokesman Jochen Stay was quoted as saying.
"In order to protect people from damage, it would be a priority to stop carrying out nonsensical shipments of highly-radioactive waste," he said.
----
German Reaction to Terrorism: Shut Down Nuclear Plants
October 10, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/oct2001/2001L-10-10-02.html
BERLIN, Germany, German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin yesterday turned the screw on a nuclear power sector already due to be phased out by 2030 by threatening emergency plant closures in case of a credible threat of terrorist attack.
Speaking at an industry symposium in Berlin, Trittin said nuclear security is at the top of his agenda following the September 11 assaults in New York and Washington.
Their lethal impact underlined the importance of Germany's nuclear phase-out plan, Trittin stressed. Security would be guaranteed not by sealing aeroplane cockpits but by closing down nuclear power stations according to the government's plan, he said.
German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin (Photo courtesy Leila Mead/IISD)
Trittin stressed the importance of reassessing current safety precautions to consider what extra measures might be needed in times of heightened danger. The environment ministry is currently awaiting a report from Germany's commission on reactor safety, requested following the events of September 11.
Environment ministry sources confirmed that Trittin's hard line on nuclear security is also a response to recent revelations of safety lapses at the Philippsburg nuclear power station, which was ordered to close temporarily over the weekend.
Germany will phase out its 19 nuclear power plants gradually after each has had a lifespan of 32 years. Nuclear power currently accounts for about 30 percent of all Germany's energy consumption.
Always unhappy with the government's extended phase-out time line for the nuclear industry, environmentalists used the conference to reiterate their view that all nuclear stations must now be shut immediately.
"There can be no guarantee of absolute security against such terrorist attacks," Friends of the Earth Germany (Bund) said in a statement.
{Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk}
----
German N-plants may go offline if in danger - EnvMin
Planet Ark
GERMANY: October 10, 2001
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12748/story.htm
FRANKFURT - German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said yesterday German nuclear plants could be switched off if there were signs of possible attacks on them.
Speaking at a nuclear industry law symposium in Berlin, he said: "We have the legal powers to do so."
He said if interior ministries in any of Germany's 16 states believed a strike against a plant was possible, their environment ministries together with him would decide whether the particular plant or all plants should be taken off the grid.
But there was no intelligence pointing to such plans, Trittin added.
Germany's 19 nuclear plants supply one third of the nation's electricity requirements.
Trittin's remarks come in the context of U.S.-led air strikes against Afghanistan following the refusal by its ruling Taliban movement to hand over Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in the September 11 airliner attacks on U.S. landmarks.
Germany has pledged solidarity with the United States, so has to consider becoming a target for possible retribution.
Trittin said shutting down nuclear reactors reduced the risk of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.
Access procedures at the plants were being reviewed amid heightened security measures, he also said.
A group of German atomic scientists is due to report to Trittin by mid-October on how to enhance overall safety at the nuclear plants.
-------- russia
Kursk arrives at Russian port
10/10/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001/10/10/kursk.htm
MURMANSK, Russia (AP) - The battered nuclear submarine Kursk reached shore in sunny but chilly weather Wednesday, 14 months after it exploded and sank, killing its entire 118-man crew. A barge hauling the submarine pulled into a Russian shipyard's waters in the final stage of a salvage effort made riskier by the ship's two nuclear reactors and missile arsenal. On Monday, a Dutch consortium finished raising the Kursk from the Barents Sea floor. The Giant-4 barge started attaching itself to floating anchors about 500 yards from shore at Roslyakovo near Murmansk just after 5 p.m., said Russian Navy spokesman Vladimir Navrotsky. It was to take about an hour to finish the anchoring process, then two or three days to prepare the ship for docking, he said. The Kursk's two 190-megawatt nuclear reactors have been a primary concern since the Aug. 12, 2000 explosion. Measurements conducted throughout the lifting and towing have shown no trace of leaked radiation, the Russian Northern Fleet chief, Adm. Vyacheslav Popov, said.
"People concentrated all their efforts. The situation was very tense as people felt high responsibility," Navrotsky told reporters. "After anchoring we immediately will start detailed radiation checks."
Officials have said the reactors were safely shut down when the Kursk sank and that they leaked no radiation. But the risk of a potential radiation leak in the rich fishing grounds of the Barents Sea was a key reason the Russian government cited for the costly, precarious operation to lift the Kursk.
Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who is in charge of the salvage effort in the Russian Cabinet, insisted the reactors would remain safe. "If there had been a one-in-a-million chance that something would happen, we would never had carried out the operation in Roslyakovo," Klebanov said.
Concern about a possible radiation leak prompted Roslyakovo officials to work out contingency evacuation plans and beef up stocks of iodine.
Another reason for concern was the condition of the Kursk's 22 supersonic Granit cruise missiles.
If it proves impossible to lift missiles out of their containers in a normal fashion, the navy is prepared to cut them out of the Kursk's hull together with containers, Popov said. He didn't say when the missiles would be removed, but estimated that it would take at least a year to dismantle the submarine along with its nuclear reactors and missiles.
Speaking on Russian television late Tuesday, Popov bristled with anger when asked when camera crews would be allowed close to the wreck. "For sailors, a sunken ship is like a dead body and showing a disfigured wreck is morally wrong," he snapped.
While the most cumbersome part is nearing an end, much work remains on the Kursk.
Once it is put in dry dock, officials will first take out remains of the crew to prevent damaging contact with the air. Navrotsky said officials only hope to find 30 to 40 bodies, because remains of others were likely blown to dust by powerful explosions that sank the submarine.
At least 23 Kursk sailors survived the crash for hours in the stern compartments, according to letters found when divers entered the vessel last fall and recovered 12 bodies.
It took the Dutch Mammoet-Smit International consortium just over 15 hours to lift the submarine, which was lying 356 feet below the surface, on steel cables lowered from the 26,400-ton barge. The immaculate operation cost the Russian government $65 million.
The Arctic seas, usually rough in this season, have remained unusually calm throughout the lifting and the subsequent transportation of the Kursk - an essential condition for the success of the salvage effort. The operation went on surprisingly trouble-free after technical problems and delays caused by storms during the three-month preparatory works.
The government hopes to determine the cause of the Kursk's sinking. But skeptics say key clues to what caused the disaster are in the Kursk's mangled bow, which was sawed off and left on the seabed out of fear it could destabilize the lifting. The navy plans to raise all or part of the bow next year.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- florida
Nuclear reactor worker injured At a Crystal River hospital, his clothes test positive for radiation, but Florida Power says the low level is not unusual.
St. Petersburg Times
By CARRIE JOHNSON and ALEX LEARY
St. Petersburg Times, published
October 10, 2001
http://www.sptimes.com/News/101001/State/Nuclear_reactor_worke.shtml
CRYSTAL RIVER -- A temporary worker in the Crystal River nuclear plant's reactor containment building was hospitalized Tuesday when a piece of equipment fell on him and injured his ankle.
The employee, whose name was not released, was taken to nearby Seven Rivers Community Hospital and tested for radiation contamination. He was released Tuesday night.
No contamination was found on his body, although his clothes tested positive for a low level of radiation, said Florida Power spokesman Mac Harris.
Harris said he did not know what the worker was doing at the time of the 6 p.m. accident, though he was one of 900 temporary workers brought in for a monthlong refueling and maintenance operation that began Sept. 29.
Harris said he did not know what fell on the man's ankle.
"All we know is that it was large enough to injure the man's foot," said Harris Florida Power staff will investigate to determine the cause of the accident, Harris said.
In keeping with Florida Power policy, the employee was accompanied to the hospital by two radiation protection technicians, who monitor and survey for radioactive material, Harris said.
The man was wheeled into a special decontamination room and scanned with Geiger counters by Florida Power and hospital employees.
"I can confirm he was not contaminated," said Joyce Brancato, the hospital's chief operating officer. "The Florida Power personnel, as well as my staff, took all precautions in the event that he might be . . . but there is no contamination."
Harris said all employees working in the plant's containment building must wear anticontamination clothing. The injured worker was wearing cotton coveralls, shoe covers and gloves, he said. The clothing was discarded.
It is not unusual for plant workers to pick up a low level of radiation on their clothing while working in the containment building, Harris said.
In addition to the reactor, the building houses the steam equipment that turns the plant's turbines, driving the generator.
Small radioactive particles attach themselves to impurities in the water used to make steam. So if workers brush against a wet pipe or wall, their clothing may pick up particles, he said.
-------- new mexico
Navajo Nation Uranium Workers Receive $50,000 Compensation
U.S. Newswire
10 Oct 18:08
To: National Desk
Contact: Sue Blumenthal of the U.S. Department of Labor, 202-693-0023
Website: http://www.dol.gov
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/1010-163.html
SHIPROCK, N.M., Oct. 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Five uranium miners or their widows who are members of the Navajo Nation were presented checks for $50,000 in a ceremony on the Navajo Reservation today in Shiprock, N.M. The checks are lump-sum payments awarded through a new federal compensation program for nuclear weapons employees, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act.
"These checks represent our deep respect for the men and women of the Navajo Nation who steadily and quietly worked to protect our country, and who, because of their work, lost their health," said Shelby Hallmark, director of the U.S. Labor Department's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs. "Through this ceremony we wanted to make it clear to everyone on the reservation that the energy compensation program is real, and that this promise will be kept." The Labor Department administers benefits under the law.
Several members of the Navajo Nation also participated in the 9 a.m. ceremony Wednesday: Taylor McKenzie, vice-president of the Navajo Nation; Judy Secody, executive director of the Navajo Division of Health, and Larry Martinez, program director for the Office of Navajo Uranium Workers. The event was held at the Navajo Chapter House in Shiprock, N.M.
A town hall meeting to explain the new law will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Shiprock Chapter House. In addition, representatives from the U.S. Labor Department's district office in Denver and the joint Labor/Energy Department resource center in Espanola, N.M., will be available at the Shiprock Chapter House Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning to help uranium miners or survivors of miners who need help completing claim forms.
The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act went into effect July 31, 2001. It provides $150,000 in lump-sum compensation and related medical expenses to workers who are seriously ill because they were exposed to beryllium, silica or radiation while working for the Energy Department, its contractors or subcontractors in the nuclear weapons industry. For uranium workers who were awarded $100,000 in benefits under section five of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), the law provides an additional $50,000 in lump-sum compensation as well as paid medical expenses.
-------- tennessee
Chattanooga, Tenn., nuclear engineer says he blew whistle, lost TVA job
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
By Dave Flessner,
Chattanooga Times/Free Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/10/10102001/krt_45225.asp
A nuclear engineer says he was dismissed from the Tennessee Valley Authority for blowing the whistle on the utility's problems with radiation exposure records for thousands of current and former TVA employees and contractors.
In a complaint filed with the Department of Labor, Ronald G. Grover of East Chattanooga contends that TVA misled the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the status of records kept on workers' lifetime exposure to radioactivity at both the Sequoyah and Browns Ferry nuclear plants. When the 48-year-old engineer objected to the report, he claims TVA used an inspector's report about alleged problems with his expense claims and financial disclosures to dismiss him in April.
"TVA has a pattern of dealing with whistleblowers and those who support them," Mr. Grover said Friday. "But I felt like I had to stand up for what was right. Data on the exposure records were missing and some of information was changed. But TVA didn't fully disclose that to the NRC."
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, acting upon a complaint about the issue filed this week from the Union of Concerned Scientists, is investigating Mr. Grover's claims, NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said.
But TVA officials insist that Mr. Grover's dismissal had nothing to do with his complaints about exposure records and note that there is no evidence that any worker was exposed to excessive radiation. "The allegations in the complaint are either untrue or tell only part of the story," TVA spokesman Gil Francis said. "When errors were identified in any employee exposure records, they were corrected."
Mr. Francis said TVA has records on all employee radioactive exposure levels, which utilities are required to maintain at nuclear plants. But some records were not completely converted to new computer files in the 1990s when they were transferred from earlier paper and microfiche records. TVA has maintained accurate records on new radioactive exposures for most of the past decade at Sequoyah and Browns Ferry. But some earlier records are incomplete in the computer files.
TVA commissioned a team that included Mr. Grover in 1999 to try to find and correct missing files. But the final report given to NRC last year was incomplete, in Mr. Grover's view.
"The reluctance by TVA nuclear management to conduct a complete evaluation of the dose records database, as requested by Mr. Grover, along with their refusal to address these problems in a truthful and accurate manner with the NRC and with TVA personnel, serves as a basis to find that TVA has engaged in willful misconduct and willful nondisclosure," said David Marshall, an attorney for Mr. Grover.
Earlier this week, the Union of Concerned Scientists asked the NRC to investigate the adequacy of TVA's radioactive dose records. "This represents a very serious violation of federal regulations created to protect the health of nuclear workers," said Dave Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Mr. Grover, who earlier supported another whistle-blower in TVA's chemistry and processing monitoring office, claims TVA wanted to get rid of him because of his safety complaints.
TVA dismissed Mr. Grover in April, seven months after TVA's inspector general issued a 70-page report alleging that Mr. Grover had abused TVA per diem, telephone, and rental car payments while he was at the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations in Atlanta.
The Department of Labor staff initially dismissed Mr. Grover's whistle-blower complaint, but he is appealing to an administrative law judge this fall. In his complaint, Mr. Grover wants backpay, compensatory damages, and attorneys' fees.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
'What does the world want from us?'
Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul,
Wednesday October 10, 2001,
The Guardian / Reuters
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,566761,00.html
Fear and anger are spreading in the Afghan capital, Kabul, as residents spend terrifying nights under US bombing and frustrating days cleaning up the rubble and worrying what will come next.
Two nights of bombing have already sent waves of residents fleeing the city in rickety cars and horsecarts or on foot for the relative safety of the barren countryside.
Fearing more of the same, tense residents too poor, scared or defiant to leave are cursing the US-led attacks and pleading for respite.
"How long more do the Americans want us to suffer?" asked one anguished man. "We can't sleep... we can't go to mosques to worship."
Another Kabul resident who lived close to the site of yesterday's attack said: "We are already in a big mess. What else does the world want from us? Drop one atom bomb and annihilate us all instead of killing us gradually."
A secondary school student agreed: "I say, down with those people who strike innocents and call themselves people's saviour."
Another resident said: "These countries that bomb Afghanistan and kill civilians in other parts of the world, be it Palestine or Israel, are the evil ones. They call themselves a civilised nation and are proud of acting like Hollywood cowboys. They are vultures and have no pity about killing Muslims."
The first two nights of bomb ing concluded just as they had begun, with an air raid and the sound of anti-aircraft fire as Taliban forces fired in vain at bombers far out of range of their ageing guns.
The drone of planes could still be heard as muezzins called the faithful to mosques for the first prayers of the day and the sun's rays crept over the mountain ridges ringing the city.
"America thinks it's the world's master and bombs us, saying we're sheltering terrorists," the student said. "But what about the carnage in Palestine by the Israeli forces? Americans should think about their double standards."
Although they are inured to conflict, this war is something new to Afghans: stealthy missiles launched from sub marines hundreds of miles away and planes capable of flying all the way from the US to deliver a deadly payload.
"Does the world know that people in Kabul have been in trauma for the past two days?" asked a baker. "They may know, but since it is not happening on their doorstep they don't care, perhaps."
However, some residents saw the strikes as the beginning of the end of the Taliban leadership.
"I am not afraid," said one man who said he would not leave the city. "I want the Taliban to go and the attacks can fulfil this."
But he also just wanted a good night's sleep.
"Quit the idea of night assaults. Can they not do it in future during daytime?"
--
The weblog: our pick of the best online analysis
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weblog/0,6798,517233,00.html
Weblog special: Afghanistan - http://www.guardian.co.uk/weblog/special/0,10627,559063,00.html
Useful links Islamic state of Afghanistan - http://www.afghangovernment.org/ Revolutionary Association of the Women ofAfghanistan - http://www.rawa.org/
World Food Programme: Afghanistan - http://www.wfp.org/country_brief/index.asp?country=33
News and media links Afghan Network News - http://www.afghan-network.net/News/
Azadi Afghan Radio - http://www.afghanradio.com/
Lemar-Aftaab magazine - http://www.afghanmagazine.com/
Omaid Weekly - http://www.omaid.com
Radio Afghanistan - http://www.radioafghanistan.com/
Web portals Arianae.com - http://www.arianae.com Afghana.com - http://www.afghana.com AboutAfghanistan - http://www.aboutafghanistan.com
NGOs
Oxfam Afghanistan - http://www.oxfam.org.uk/afghanistan
AfghanAid - http://www.afghanaid.org.uk/
Afghan Women's Mission - http://afghanwomensmission.org/index.shtml
Christian Aid: Afghanistan - http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/afghanistan/index.htm
Human Rights Watch: Afghanistan - http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/afghanistan/
----
Fears grow over food drops Starving need convoys to restart
Paul Kelso,
Wednesday October 10, 2001
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,566549,00.html
US air drops of food into Afghanistan will do little to alleviate the suffering of 7.5m people facing starvation this winter, according to Whitehall sources.
MEP Glenys Kinnock spoke out yesterday against the food drops, condemning them as ineffective and inappropriate. "I do not believe that airdrops are any kind of answer to the massive problems facing millions of innocent Afghan people," she said in Brussels.
The World Food Programme estimates that 7.5m Afghans face starvation this winter, and sources at the Department for International Development said yesterday that unless aid convoys resume within the next few days many of them face starvation. Clare Short, the minister for international development, raised the issue at yesterday's war cabinet.
President Bush has cited the food drops to emphasise his assertion that the US is at war with the Taliban and the al-Quaida network, not with the people of Afghanistan. But a senior defence source yesterday questioned the effectiveness of the drops, seen in some quarters as little more than politically motivated gestures.
"It's a difficult situation because the aid convoys that were going in before the military action started have stopped," the source said.
"We are asking ourselves 'how best is aid delivered?', and it is far from clear that it is right and proper to do it by military means."
"Our priority is to get large amounts of food into Afghanistan before the winter starts in five weeks time," said a DfID spokesman. "We have to get the trucks going again as a matter of urgency. At the moment with the air strikes nothing moves. These people depend utterly on food aid for their lives."
----
Afghan farmer 'hit by shrapnel'
Rory McCarthy in Peshawar
Wednesday October 10, 2001
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,566600,00.html
An Afghan farmer was last night being treated in hospital in Peshawar for a severe shrapnel wound after he said he was injured in the first wave of attacks on Afghanistan.
Mohammad Raza, 30, had just stepped out of a friend's car to walk back to his village near the eastern city of Jalalabad when he heard an explosion nearby and was hit in the neck by a large piece of shrapnel.
"It was 9pm on Sunday night. He was returning to his house when he was hit by shrapnel from a missile," said Rais Khan, his cousin. "We took him to Jalalabad hospital but they said they couldn't treat him so we brought him to Peshawar."
The explosion was near Jalalabad airport, which lies to the south of the city and was a target for the US and British strikes on Sunday night.
"The missile was maybe aimed at the airport but it missed and exploded in the desert nearby," said Mr Khan.
On Monday he brought his injured cousin across the border to the Hayatabad medical complex, a modern hospital on the outskirts of Peshawar in a large suburb dominated by Afghan refugees.
He arrived that evening and was operated on by doctors, who removed the shrapnel. Yesterday Mr Raza lay in bed with his neck heavily bandaged. He was unable to speak and was still in a serious condition.
"We are not afraid of these attacks because we fought against the Russians for more than 10 years," said Mr Khan. "This was only a small attack compared to what we faced from the Russians. We will stand up and defend our country."
He said that shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Centre Arab fighters living in Jalalabad had left the city. Jalalabad was known to be a base for many of Osama bin Laden's Arab mercenaries. Bin Laden himself had a base in a farmhouse nearby.
Other refugees have also given similar reports of Arab mercenaries leaving Jalalabad, Kabul and Kandahar in the days before the missile strikes began on Sunday night.
"All the Arabs who were living in Jalalabad have gone long ago. But still they are attacking us. It is just to harm the common people," said Mr Khan.
"My cousin was only returning to his house when he was hit. What did he do wrong? Where are we going to get money for the family now?"
A flood of people from Kabul and Jalalabad have flocked to the border at the Khyber Pass, hoping to cross to safety. Pakistan has ordered the border to remain closed but many people cross through mountain passes on either side into the lawless tribal areas.
--------
In Afghanistan
Rebels Capture Northern Areas, Cut Off Taliban Supply Route
By Peter Baker and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, October 10, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33969-2001Oct9.html
JABAL SARAJ, Afghanistan, Oct. 9 -- Afghan rebels have capitalized on U.S. airstrikes to advance against Taliban military positions, capturing several northern districts and cutting off a key supply route in a bid to control a large swath of northern Afghanistan, rebel leaders said today.
The recent advances by the opposition coalition, known as the Northern Alliance, mark an attempt to break a long deadlock in its battle against the Taliban, which controls most of Afghanistan. The United States and Britain began a military campaign Sunday against the Taliban and suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden, who has been sheltered by the Taliban.
Rebel commanders have settled on a new strategy to match the U.S.-led campaign, according to interviews with opposition leaders. They have decided to link their isolated guerrilla forces through the middle of Afghanistan for the first time in years and then attempt to choke off Taliban forces in the north. Under this plan, the Taliban, bereft of provisions and reinforcements and facing an assault on the critical city of Mazar-e Sharif, would abandon the northern section of Afghanistan and retreat to their original base of support in the south, the rebel leaders said.
An opposition offensive has already begun for Mazar-e Sharif, which holds a key position on the Central Asian steppe between the Hindu Kush mountains to the south and the Uzbek border to the north. The U.S.-led airstrikes have hit targets there during this week's bombing raids, reflecting what rebel officials said was coordination between the American operation and the Afghan opposition.
Although the alliance forces are weak and outnumbered and their prospects for victory are uncertain, success in Mazar-e Sharif might enable the rebels to push through to the Uzbekistan border and reopen supply lines that have been closed since 1998.
Mazar-e Sharif, largely spared of fighting for 18 years during the Soviet invasion and subsequent Afghan civil war, fell to the Taliban in 1997 when the rebels' ethnic-Uzbek champion, Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, was betrayed by his deputy. The deputy then abandoned the Taliban and joined with Shiite Muslims who dominate the city to trap the Taliban militiamen and massacre hundreds of them. The Taliban carried out a massacre of Shiites when they recaptured the city.
Dostum fled to Turkey and Iran before returning to Afghanistan in March to battle the Taliban. In recent weeks, he has been moving toward Mazar-e Sharif again, threatening its Taliban defenders. On Monday, he took two districts to the south of Mazar-e Sharif and today was about 18 miles from the city, according to rebel leaders.
On the first night of the airstrikes, U.S. forces bombed a concentration of Taliban tanks near Dostum in an attempt to clear the way for him, opposition officials said. They said he commands between 8,000 and 9,000 fighters, most of whom are in Samangan province just south of Mazar-e Sharif.
In Mazar-e Sharif, which for centuries has been the center for ethnic Uzbeks in Afghanistan, residents have reported "earth-shaking unlike anything they had ever seen before" as a result of the U.S. bombing, according to an Afghan refugee in Uzbekistan who has been in regular contact with relatives in the city. The latest strikes were heard around 5 a.m. Tuesday, according to one of his relatives reached by phone tonight in Mazar-e Sharif.
The city's Uzbek-majority population is likely to welcome a renewed opposition attack. After Mazar-e Sharif was captured by the Taliban, the government sought to make an example of those who had held out against its rule for so long. Little more than a month ago, residents were rounded up to witness a public beheading, according to the refugee.
The U.S. airstrikes in Mazar-e Sharif have been aimed at the airport, as well as Taliban Divisions 5 and 18, according to opposition officials. A nearby training camp allegedly used by bin Laden's al Qaeda network was also a target.
But Dostum's problems suggest the serious liabilities of the Northern Alliance as it seeks to exploit the U.S. air power. Dostum has neither enough men nor weapons to mount his offensive, according to several Northern Alliance officials. Even by opposition estimates, the Taliban has significant numerical superiority in the region, with as many as 20,000 fighters currently in the north.
In an interview by satellite telephone Monday with an Uzbek journalist for Radio Liberty, Dostum complained that his military operations are being hindered by a shortage of arms. "I have no weapons, only light weapons," he told the reporter, Zikrilla Ishoneh.
At the same time, the U.S. bombardment offers Dostum a new opportunity to strike, and he confirmed in the interview that air attacks over northern Afghanistan were being coordinated with the United States. "I know where the Americans are going to direct their missiles," he told Radio Liberty.
Dostum is no longer the significant military force inside Afghanistan he once was. Before being routed by the Taliban in 1997, Dostum commanded tens of thousands of fighters, tanks and stockpiles of heavy weaponry captured after the Soviet Union's failed occupation of Afghanistan. Alliance officials and independent observers said that today the Taliban has those weapons while Dostum has to rely on what one Uzbek source characterized as "Kalashnikovs and horses."
"He is weak now, not like the General Dostum of three or four years ago," said Mohammed Hasham Saad, the top Northern Alliance official in Uzbekistan. Forced to share power with other commanders in the region, Dostum is also fighting without much of what he needs to win. "He doesn't have any tanks, he doesn't have enough forces," Saad said.
"From a military standpoint, Dostum is in a weak state right now," Ishoneh said. "He is offended by the fact that weapons from the Russians are not going to him but to others in the Northern Alliance."
His situation mirrors that of the Northern Alliance as a whole, which remains desperately short of all key supplies with which to wage a major attack. "Weapons, food, clothes, oil -- we need everything," Saad said.
But with the cutting of its supply line, the Taliban, too, now faces significant logistical problems in the battle for Afghanistan's north. The rebels have controlled a significant stretch of the only real north-west highway, north of Kabul, for years. This has forced the Taliban to rely on a provincial road through the mountains. But opposition officials said that 40 Taliban commanders, along with 1,200 of their men, decided to switch sides Monday and handed over to the rebels control of a stretch of that provincial road, from Barfak and Bazar-e Taleh in the western part of the Baghlan province northwest of Kabul.
As a result, according to this account, the Taliban has no direct land route between its strongholds in the south and its forces defending Mazar-e Sharif and other locations in the north. The only ground alternative is a highway that circles through the southern part of the country, then up through the west, taking any supply convoys at least 1,000 miles out of the way.
Moreover, such a long route is harder to protect against rebel ambushes. Now that the United States controls the skies over Afghanistan, the Taliban cannot reinforce its troops in the north by air.
"It is a major incident," said Abdullah, a top official of the Northern Alliance. "It will put the Taliban in the most difficult situation in years. The fact that they don't have any more planes will make it even more difficult."
Even before that, Dostum's forces were reporting inroads against the Taliban on the road to Mazar-e Sharif. In fighting Monday, opposition officials said, they pushed Taliban fighters out of the mountains and into the town of Samangan. The road to Mazar-e Sharif runs through Samangan, so the town must be taken before the opposition can move forward. There have been conflicting reports about the fighting for the town.
"When we capture Samangan, then we can move by road and push up to Mazar-e Sharif," Saad said. "And when we capture Mazar-e Sharif, then the way will be open for us to cross to Uzbekistan."
Currently, the Northern Alliance forces can be resupplied only from Tajikistan, which is too far away to provide regular reinforcements.
In other recent fighting, rebel leaders said they have taken most of the Badghis and Ghowar provinces in the west; they hope to take the centers of Badghis and Ghowar, now controlled by the Taliban, in coming days. Capturing Badghis would give the rebels an air base, which could be vital for resupplying their own troops.
Elsewhere, rebel commander Ismail Khan appears intent on retaking his home town of Herat in the west of Afghanistan near the border with Iran; however, for now he remains far away. His troops are located in Farsi, a small town in the southeast of Herat province.
In recent days, the front line near the capital of Kabul has remained relatively quiet, reflecting what Northern Alliance officials say is their plan to launch a major offensive in the north before they turn their attention to Kabul. But they also see opportunities in the direction of the capital if they make gains in the north. "The biggest fighting will be in Takhar province when it starts," Saad said, referring to a key province north of Kabul. "If we can break the Taliban front lines in Takhar, then we can open the Kunduz highway to Kabul."
U.S. and British forces have apparently avoided Taliban troop locations, while hitting air bases and command and control buildings that could make it easier for the rebels. But many guerrilla commanders are itching to see U.S. warplanes take out fortified bases on mountain slopes that have prevented them from moving forward.
Abdullah, the civilian official, counseled patience. He said the Northern Alliance has been cooperating with the United States and believes U.S. forces will get around to hitting targets useful for the rebels. "We're not in a hurry," he said. "We don't want to push."
Glasser reported from Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
-------- biological weapons
Bioterrorism: How Unready We Are
By Mohammad N. Akhter
Wednesday, October 10, 2001; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34279-2001Oct9.html
The disclosure that terrorists may have been interested in using crop-dusting planes to spread any number of deadly diseases shows just how close we may be to getting our first real dose of bioterrorism. The only thing scarier than an outbreak of the Black Death is knowing our public health system is woefully unprepared to do much about it.
Imagine if the plane that crashed into the Pentagon had been carrying anthrax spores or the smallpox virus. To understand the seriousness of this threat, multiply the number of deaths in the Sept. 11 attack by 10 or 20, maybe more. A cloud of anthrax spores drifting over from Arlington could kill tens of thousands of Washingtonians within days. Anthrax is so insidious that some 80 percent of those infected would die by the time they realized their flu-like symptoms were far more lethal. One billionth of a gram, smaller than a speck of dust, can kill.
As public health commissioner for the District of Columbia in the early 1990s, I knew the nation's capital was totally unprepared to deal with any form of bioterrorism. I barely had the budget to deal adequately with a severe outbreak of the flu, let alone contain a smallpox epidemic.
After my tenure, Washington had its first taste of bioterrorism. Two packages reportedly containing anthrax were left at the B'nai B'rith building. Though it was found to be a hoax, the incident proved that area health care providers and the government were not properly trained to treat potential victims, and that the city did not have a plan to deal with the situation.
Public health systems nationwide are no better prepared today. Unlike the recent crisis, in which there were far more dead than injured victims, a bioterrorist attack would flood hospitals with tens of thousands of patients requiring extended stays. Unfortunately, due in part to the privatization movement to downsize hospitals, there is a greatly reduced number of beds in these facilities.
We have too few beds and a grossly inadequate supply of vaccines and antibiotics to treat these scourges. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) maintain limited supplies of these drugs and have no way to rush them to areas in need, particularly if planes are grounded. In fact, CDC's ability to act in emergencies is so stretched that even responding to some 60 cases of West Nile virus in New York City overwhelmed it.
The antidotes are effective but costly. First, we need better intelligence -- officials on the ground in laboratories worldwide to monitor activities. We need to train emergency workers, medical personnel and our communities about how to prevent, contain and respond to potential outbreaks.
We need more beds in hospitals, greater supplies of vaccines that are stored locally, and local distribution networks to speed these medicines to victims.
Finally, with no price tag attached, we need the public to be diligent and report immediately any suspicious behavior to public officials.
The $300 million budgeted for a Clinton administration initiative to develop technologies to combat bioterrorism is -- to say the least -- inadequate. At a recent meeting of public health leaders, we estimated it would cost $1 billion to put a public health infrastructure in place to safeguard our communities. The CDC will need another $500 million to increase its capacity to respond to fast-breaking crises.
Upgrading our public health infrastructure will not only help combat terrorism but will pay additional dividends by enhancing our public health departments' ability to deal with the natural outbreak of disease.
Along with nuclear war, a pandemic sparked by an act of terrorism that kills hundreds of thousands of people is the ultimate public health crisis. As difficult as it is to think about such a nightmare scenario, we must begin preparing now for the unthinkable.
The writer is executive director of the American Public Health Association and former commissioner of public health for the District of Columbia.
-------- iraq
U.S. Holds Out Threat of Force Against Iraq
By Colum Lynch
The Washington Post
Wednesday, October 10, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33940-2001Oct9.html
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 9 -- The Bush administration delivered a stern warning to Saddam Hussein this week that the United States would launch military strikes against Iraq if he tried to assist anti-American forces in Afghanistan or move against his domestic opponents during the U.S.-led counterterrorism campaign.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte, personally delivered the message to Iraq's senior U.N. envoy at the Iraqi mission Sunday shortly after the United States launched airstrikes against Afghanistan, senior U.S. and U.N. diplomats said.
"There will be a military strike against you and you will be defeated," Negroponte told the Iraqi envoy, Mohammed Douri, according to a U.N. diplomat who has knowledge of the meeting.
The ultimatum underscored the administration's concerns that Iraq may seek to conduct military operations in the region while the United States is distracted by the war in Afghanistan. But it also came at a time when some administration officials harbor suspicions that Iraq may have been involved in the Sept. 11 attacks against New York and Washington, though officials say there is little hard evidence so far.
The tough line toward Iraq also reflects a prevailing view among many administration officials who believe that the previous Bush administration should have pressed for the ouster of Hussein during the Persian Gulf War a decade ago. Many of those officials say the administration's war on terrorism should also turn its sights toward Baghdad, because of fears that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction.
"We wanted to make it abundantly clear" to the Iraqis that it "would be pretty stupid" to try to take advantage of the U.S. focus on Afghanistan, said a senior State Department official. "The basic message was that we expect you to exercise great caution, we are watching very carefully and we have very swift capability in the region to respond if we need to."
Reading from a prepared text, Negroponte told Douri that any attempt by Iraq to aid anti-American forces in Afghanistan, to use weapons of mass destruction, or to launch military operations against its neighbors or the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq would result in U.S. military action, diplomats said.
The Iraqi ambassador returned to the U.S. mission Monday to assure Negroponte that Baghdad had no intention of undertaking military action. "The response was a whole lot of rhetoric," the U.S. official said, "but there was enough indication in the rhetoric that they had gotten the message."
Speaking in an interview today, Douri denied any Iraqi links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network or the Taliban movement that rules most of Afghanistan. "We have [had] no relation, in the past or now, with Osama bin Laden or the Taliban," Douri said. "I can tell you we are not attempting to threaten any country."
Douri and Negroponte declined to comment on the two meetings, which marked the first face-to-face encounter in years between senior U.S. and Iraqi diplomats. "I'm just not going to comment on any diplomatic contacts that we have," Negroponte said.
Negroponte arrived unannounced at the Iraqi U.N. mission Sunday shortly after the U.S. and British military campaign in Afghanistan got underway. "They knocked at the door, and we opened it," Douri said. "If someone wants to talk to us we are ready to talk."
The same day, Negroponte sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council in which he put the chamber on notice that the United States may be forced to retaliate against other state sponsors of terrorism if it turns up new evidence linking Iraq to last month's attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The U.S. investigation into the attacks has focused on bin Laden's al Qaeda network, but some Western intelligence officials have said investigators should also examine potential ties to Iraq.
Czech officials said that Mohamed Atta, believed to have piloted one of the commercial airliners that slammed into the World Trade Center, met in Prague with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani,a former consul and second secretary at the Iraqi Embassy in Prague, before traveling to the United States in June 2000. Al-Ani was expelled from the Czech Republic last April for what the Czech foreign ministry described as activities "incompatible with his diplomatic status."
In his letter, Negroponte told the Security Council that the United States was still in the "early stages" of its investigation but reserved the right, under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, to strike out in self-defense against those deemed responsible.
"There is still much we don't know," Negroponte said. "We may find that our self-defense requires further action with respect to other organizations and other states."
Iraq said today it interpreted the letter as a direct threat. Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, told al-Jazeera, a 24-hour satellite news network broadcast out of the Persian Gulf region, that the United States and Britain are seeking to "expand the range of their aggression on Iraq under the pretext of terrorism that means they want to settle their accounts with Iraq."
"The United States and Britain know very well that Iraq has no relation whatsoever to what happened in the United States and no relation whatsoever to the parties accused of doing it," he said.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan echoed the Iraqi concern, telling reporters today that Negroponte's letter had fueled "some anxiety" among many U.N. members about U.S. intentions to expand its military campaign. "That is one line that disturbed some of us," Annan said. "But the U.S. had indicated that this is not a predictor of any intentions that it intends to take, but basically that they are at early stages and keeping their options open."
--------
Iraq: U.S. Spy Plane Shot Down
October 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-US.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq claimed it shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane Wednesday over its southern no-fly zone.
``The spy plane was shot down in the southern sector and was coming from Kuwaiti territory,'' the state-run Iraqi News Agency quoted an unidentified Iraqi military official as saying.
U.S. officials did not immediately comment on the Iraqi claim.
The Iraqi official said the plane was downed at 12:42 p.m. ``in revenge of the martyrs of Iraq and Palestine.''
No footage of any plane wreckage was broadcast. The official did not give the location of the reported downing.
The United States has acknowledged that it lost two unmanned Predator spy planes in September, both of which Iraq claimed to have shot down.
While U.S. officials have said Iraq has stepped up efforts to shoot down an allied plane, they haven't acknowledged any hits by hostile fire.
U.S. and British aircraft patrol southern and northern ``no-fly'' zones to prevent Iraqi forces from attacking Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south and to provide early warning of any Iraqi troop movements toward Kuwait.
Iraq considers the zones -- established after the 1991 Gulf War -- illegal and has vowed to shoot down any coalition planes.
-------- pakistan
Pak to deploy 50,000 policemen at madrassas
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2001
THE TIMES OF INDIA
http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=184934713
Islamabad: Pakistan has decided to deploy 50,000 policemen around the madrassas, or seminaries, in the country to ensure that their students do not participate in anti-US demonstrations.
"There are more than 5,000 big madrassas which would be guarded. Policemen would also be deployed at the smaller madrassas," a senior official of the interior ministry told Online news agency.
"The step is being taken to ensure peace and order in the country. We want people to learn religion but don't want them to indulge in terrorist activities. Islam doesn't teach to break law and order," the official said.
The official maintained: "The police force has been empowered to take any suitable action according to the situation. If they deem fit, they can resort to baton charge and teargas."
"If anyone is involved in breaking the law or tried to create any problems, he would be brought to book," he added.
"The government cannot accept these organisations' demands of siding with Taliban when the whole world comity is on the one side. We cannot remain isolated," the official contended.
Religious leaders and students here are up in arms against the U.S. strikes on key military bases and terrorist training camps in Afghanistan to flush out Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 U.S attacks.
Religious parties and activists have been staging anti-U.S. demonstrations in the country since the U.S. asked the Taliban militia in Afghanistan for bin Laden after the attacks on American soil.
-------- u.n.
UNHCR Says Pakistan Protests Hamper Relief Effort
October 10, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-aid-un.html
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations refugee agency said Wednesday demonstrations in Pakistan against military action in neighboring Afghanistan were seriously hampering relief efforts.
``The security situation in Pakistan, particularly in the border areas, continues to pose a serious obstacle to the humanitarian effort underway in the region,'' the Geneva-based organization said in a statement.
UNHCR has been transporting relief supplies to the border between the two countries in preparation for the possible arrival of up to 1.5 million Afghan refugees.
Fears that many Afghans may flee their homes were heightened after the United States and Britain launched military strikes against the ruling Taliban, accused of harboring Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, Washington's prime suspect for the suicide hijackings on September 11.
Despite the Pakistan protests Monday and Tuesday, in which the offices of several international and local relief agencies were attacked by anti-U.S. demonstrators, UNHCR has continued to build up relief stockpiles in border areas.
``The string of attacks and continuing security incidents highlight the difficulties for local and international relief agencies to operate safely in the tribal areas, where the government has identified possible sites for temporary refugee settlements,'' it said.
UNHCR will resume airlifts of supplies into Pakistan on Thursday. It has not operated flights since October 2, mainly for logistical reasons.
Thursday's flight from Copenhagen will be the first of up to 10 planned by the agency over the next two weeks, security permitting. It will carry plastic sheets and registration materials, while subsequent flights will bring blankets and other relief items.
Ruud Lubbers, the High Commissioner for Refugees, is scheduled to address the foreign ministers' meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference in Qatar Wednesday on humanitarian efforts for refugees and displaced persons in the Afghanistan region.
-------- u.s.
U.S. controls Afghan skies
October 10, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011010-90185928.htm
The Pentagon said yesterday it now controls the skies over Afghanistan and can intensify strikes on al Qaeda terrorists and their Taliban militia supporters.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said there are signs al Qaeda terrorists might be leaving the country, as military forces conducted a third day of bombing and missile strikes.
Asked about terrorists fleeing, Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters: "We do pick up scraps of information that some things like that are happening. It's very difficult to verify them. But it's pretty clear that the Taliban and the al Qaeda are feeling some pressure."
After a meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, President Bush refused yesterday to rule out the possibility of using ground troops in Afghanistan.
Asked about whether such forces would be deployed, Mr. Bush said: "I'm not going to tell you," adding that information on military plans and intelligence will be restricted.
Mr. Rumsfeld made a similar statement yesterday, saying the military has "not ruled out anything" in response to a question about the insertion of ground forces to battle the Taliban.
A senior defense official said operations are now shifting to attacks on "emerging targets" - such as terrorists or Taliban leaders moving around on the ground or new targets uncovered by intelligence.
The third day of attacks was carried out primarily using tactical fighter-bombers, which can more easily hit moving targets. As of last night, the official said it also appeared as though there were no new cruise-missile strikes as a result of the changing nature of the targets, the official said.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said 13 targets were hit Monday, the second day of operations the Pentagon has code-named "Enduring Freedom."
Mr. Bush told reporters after two days of strikes "the skies were now free for U.S. planes to fly without being harassed in any way, and that the missions have been successful."
Gen. Myers said the Pentagon has begun launching both day and night raids, an indication that U.S. and British military forces have knocked out much of the Taliban's air defenses.
"I think essentially we have air supremacy over Afghanistan," the Air Force four-star general said.
"Air supremacy" means that pilots can conduct attacks relatively unimpeded by ground- or air-based defenses. There is still a danger to U.S. and allied pilots from shoulder-fired missiles, which required flying above about 16,000 feet, defense sources said.
The Pentagon released maps showing the targets hit during the first two days of the conflict. Also made public were before-and-after photographs of a terrorist training camp, air-defense site and an airfield struck by missiles or bombers.
The targets included five terrorist training camps. Two of the camps were located near Jalalabad in the northeast and three others were north and south of Kandahar, in the southern part of the country.
Other targets hit included five airfields, 16 air-defense sites and one surface-to-air missile site, four communications sites, two troop garrisons in the northern part of the country, and four command-and-control centers.
Mr. Rumsfeld said there were no U.S. casualties or aircraft losses so far in the military campaign. Mr. Rumsfeld said the military is now looking for "emerging targets" - those that are discovered through intelligence and then attacked.
He noted that the military is hitting some targets a second time and that the Pentagon is not running out of targets, "Afghanistan is."
Mr. Rumsfeld said that in addition to predetermined targets, the military is hitting "targets of opportunity" that are picked after intelligence reports are received. "And that means you have to wait until they emerge," he said.
"Now, that's the way it is. They don't have armies and navies and air forces."
"In short, we're moving along well towards our goal of creating conditions necessary to conduct a sustained campaign to root out terrorists and to deliver the humanitarian relief to the civilians in Afghanistan as we are able," said Mr. Rumsfeld.
Gen. Myers said the attacks on the training camps were important even though the sites were not "heavily populated" at the time of the attacks Sunday and Monday.
The camps included buildings used as classrooms where terrorists learned to conduct operations, and firing ranges and other terrorism-training facilities.
Mr. Rumsfeld also addressed reports that four Afghans who worked for a contractor linked to the United Nations were killed in the attacks.
Although the reports could not be verified, "nonetheless we regret the loss of life."
"Terrorists attacked and killed thousands of innocent people in dozens of countries of all races and religions in the United States on Tuesday the 11th," said Mr. Rumsfeld.
"Innocent lives are still at risk today, and will be until we have dealt with the terrorists. If there were an easy, safe way to root terrorist networks out of countries that are harboring them, it would be a blessing. But there is not.
"Coalition forces will continue to make every reasonable effort to select targets with the least possible unintended damage," he said. "But as in any conflict, there will be unintended damage."
Gen. Myers said the results showed many targets damaged or destroyed in the first two days of action.
"We did well in our initial strikes, damaging or destroying about 85 percent of the first set of 31 targets," he said. "But as in any military operation, we were not perfect."
Asked if the military attacks targeted Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and Osama bin Laden, Mr. Rumsfeld said bin Laden did not have a compound as such, although Mullah Omar is known to have several.
"There were some elements outside of one of his compounds that probably were targeted," he said.
Gen. Myers said the U.S. military has the capability of conducting air-support operations for Afghanistan's opposition militias but has not done so yet.
"What we're trying to do militarily, of course, is defeat the terrorists, the network and infrastructure that supports them, not particularly support any particular element," Gen. Myers said. "But as we can help with those kind of targets and people that can help us, of course we'll take that input."
Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States is "encouraging" opposition forces in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban.
The opposition includes armed groups of the Northern Alliance, some tribes in the south and elements inside the Taliban that oppose al Qaeda.
"We would like to see them succeed," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "We would like to see them heave the al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership that has been so repressive out of that country. Don't make any mistake about that."
Mr. Rumsfeld also suggested that the U.S. military might attack opium production efforts in Afghanistan, which have been used by the Taliban and al Qaeda to fund operations. Asked about if there had been attacks on such things as storage facilities for opiates, poppy fields or other drug infrastructure, he said: "Not at this time."
Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States does not plan a long-term commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan after it achieves its objectives.
"The United States of America, and certainly the United States military, has no aspiration to occupy or maintain any real estate in that region," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "We are simply doing exactly what the president indicated, trying to root out terrorists."
Asked about evidence that al Qaeda is trying to make chemical or biological weapons, Mr. Rumsfeld said "terrorist networks have had relationships with a handful of countries that have active chemical and biological programs.
"Among those countries are nations that have tested the weaponization of chemical and biological agents," he said, naming Iraq as one such nation.
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U.S. Controls Skies, Hunts New Targets And Offers Support to Taliban's Foes
Planners' Focus Turns to Bombing Troops on Move
By Bradley Graham and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 10, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33969-2001Oct9.html
Declaring control of the skies over Afghanistan, U.S. military authorities signaled yesterday that they are turning their attention to troop movements and other "emerging targets" associated with the ruling Taliban and the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.
The rebel Northern Alliance has appealed for airstrikes against Taliban forces arrayed in the north, but senior Pentagon officials have been reluctant to promise direct air support, lest the United States be seen as backing a particular political element in Afghanistan.
Yesterday, however, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld offered strong support to the Northern Alliance and other Afghan groups opposing the Taliban.
"Let there be no doubt, those elements on the ground -- the tribes in the south, the Northern Alliance, elements within Taliban that are anti-al Qaeda -- we're encouraging them," he said at a Pentagon news conference. "We would like to see them succeed. We would like to see them heave the al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership that has been so repressive out of that country. Don't make any mistake about that."
For the third straight day, U.S. warplanes pounded targets in Afghanistan, striking in daylight for the first time and hitting military sites near the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. More raids were reported later yesterday around Kandahar, Kabul and Herat. U.S. intelligence reported that two male relatives of Taliban leader Mohammad Omar were killed on Sunday, the day the attacks began. Asked if any of Omar's several compounds had been targeted, Rumsfeld cited "some elements outside" one of them.
U.N. and other humanitarian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan, accused the U.S. warplanes of mistakenly bombing the offices of a land mine removal group near Kabul early yesterday, killing four civilian Afghan guards.
Rumsfeld said he had "no information" on whether an American bomb or missile was responsible for the deaths. He expressed regret for the loss of life, but noted that thousands of innocent people were killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and on the Pentagon and warned that more likely would die in the U.S.-led effort to root out terrorist networks around the world.
"Coalition forces will continue to make every reasonable effort to select targets with the least possible unintended damage," Rumsfeld said. "But as in any conflict, there will be unintended damage."
As a sign of the Pentagon's concern that civilian casualties could undermine support for the U.S.-led operation, pilots from the carrier USS Carl Vinson are now required to fly over and visually identify targets before dropping their bombs.
A spokesman for bin Laden, the head of the al Qaeda terrorist network, issued a new threat against the United States, praising the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 hijackings and telling Muslims that a holy war against the United States is "a duty."
"America must know that the storm of airplanes will not stop, and there are thousands of young people who look forward to death like the Americans look forward to life," the spokesman, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, said in a videotaped statement aired on the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television station.
Administration officials are concerned that bin Laden could be using taped messages such as this to send coded signals, perhaps about future attacks, to his network. Intelligence officials, administration sources said, are studying yesterday's tape as well as the one broadcast on Sunday in which bin Laden himself appeared.
The military strikes set off more protests abroad yesterday. In Indonesia, police fired warning shots and tear gas to prevent several hundred Islamic activists from storming the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. But in Pakistan and the Gaza Strip, the scene of some of the worst protests on Monday, authorities sought to tamp down the reaction.
Attempting to reassure a nervous public, President Bush said the federal government is taking extraordinary steps to prevent future terrorist attacks. "People ought to feel comfortable going about their lives, knowing that their government is doing everything humanly possible to disrupt any potential activity that the evil ones may try to inflict upon us," he said during a news conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
Bush also announced the appointment of two more officials to his growing domestic anti-terrorism staff -- Richard A. Clarke, who will be special adviser for cyber-security, and retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, who will become deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism.
Yesterday's airstrikes, which involved only U.S. aircraft and no cruise missiles, were less intense than the ones conducted on Sunday, when 31 targets were struck, and more like Monday's, which involved 13 targets, defense officials said.
With indications that U.S. pilots were nearing the end of their original target lists, Pentagon officials said the next attacks will involve hitting some targets again and chasing after "emerging targets," meaning troop movements or equipment and facilities not previously known to U.S. military planners.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the first two days of strikes had damaged air defenses in Afghanistan to the point that U.S. and British raids could be flown around the clock with minimal concern about threats. "Essentially, we have air supremacy over Afghanistan," he said, standing beside Rumsfeld at the news conference.
U.S. warplanes never faced much of a threat from the Taliban's three SA-3 surface-to-air missile sites, 300 to 500 antiaircraft guns and an aging fleet of 30 Soviet-made MiG-21 and SU-22 fighter aircraft. But the elimination of many of these potential threats, defense officials said, would embolden coalition pilots to fly during the day as well as at night.
"There will always be the antiaircraft fire," Myers said. "There's always the possibility of these manned portable surface-to-air missiles. But the tactics that we'll utilize will keep us out of their range."
Providing the first bomb damage assessment since the airstrikes began, Myers said the attacks had damaged or destroyed about 85 percent of the initial set of 31 targets. As examples of successful hits, he showed before-and-after pictures of an Al Qaeda training camp in southeast Afghanistan, near Kandahar, whose facilities had been obliterated, a Taliban antiaircraft site near the Kandahar airfield that was destroyed, and an airfield at Shindand in western Afghanistan pockmarked with craters.
Myers acknowledged that the terrorist camp had been "fairly empty" by the time it was hit. And Rumsfeld conceded that the camp and other destroyed facilities could be rebuilt. But he said the bombing at least added cost and time and "puts pressure on" the terrorist network.
Asked about any indications that terrorists associated with al Qaeda were fleeing Afghanistan, Rumsfeld said some "scraps of information" suggested "some things like that are happening."
"It's very difficult to verify them," the defense secretary added. "But it's pretty clear that the Taliban and the al Qaeda are feeling some pressure."
In the first wave of airstrikes on Sunday, Taliban and al Qaeda ground troops did not factor as a high priority. Rumsfeld said yesterday that the troop concentrations hit so far have been "relatively small sizes -- hundreds, not thousands."
But one well-placed defense official said that with air supremacy established, the next logical step for the Pentagon would be to start enforcing "kill boxes" from the air -- clearly defined pieces of real estate in which anything that moves would be hit by aircraft. In this way, the official said, Northern Alliance forces would be able to "flow into certain cities."
Asked about providing tactical air support to the rebels, Myers sounded noncommittal yesterday. "That is a possibility, but I'm not telling you we're going to do that," the general said.
From the time the strikes began on Sunday, administration officials have said that the aerial attacks were designed to create conditions for the next phase of military operations, which is expected to include the deployment of additional ground forces in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Bush declined to offer any clues to the next phase of the campaign, brushing aside questions about whether the United States is preparing to introduce ground troops into the conflict in Afghanistan. "As to whether or not we will put troops on the ground, I'm not going to tell you," he said.
Asked whether he still wants bin Laden "dead or alive," Bush said: "I want there to be justice."
He said the war against terrorism will continue for as long as necessary, whether "it takes one day, one month, one year or one decade." In a letter formally notifying Congress of the military strikes, Bush had written: "It is not possible to know at this time either the duration of combat operations or the scope and duration of the deployment of U.S. Armed Forces necessary to counter the terrorist threat to the United States."
He was also asked about a statement from Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who said on Monday that he had been assured the military campaign would be brief. "I don't know who told the Pakistan president that," he said.
On the humanitarian air drops, Rumsfeld reported that 37,500 rations each were dropped on the first and second days. But he said medical supplies have not been delivered by the C-17 flights because they would require lower-altitude drops.
The United Nations' World Food Program (WFP) said yesterday that it was still unable to bring food into Afghanistan from Pakistan because of the military action, but that it had begun to ship in wheat from other neighboring countries. WFP spokeswoman Abigail Spring said that a truck convoy set out from Iran yesterday, and that another is expected later this week from Turkmenistan.
The WFP and other humanitarian agencies have estimated that 7.5 million Afghans will need food this winter, and have voiced concern that the fighting might interfere with food deliveries. There are now 56,000 tons of wheat stored in the region for Afghan relief, and another 165,000 tons are coming from the United States by ship.
Bush blamed the Taliban regime for causing "starvation and deprivation and discrimination" throughout Afghanistan and, in response to a question about protests abroad, said the current military campaign "is in the best interest of freedom and humankind."
Staff writers Mike Allen, Marc Kaufman and Vernon Loeb contributed to this report.
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Navy Pilots Under Orders to Visually Verify Targets
By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33809-2001Oct9.html
ABOARD THE USS CARL VINSON IN THE NORTHERN ARABIAN SEA, Oct. 9 -- Pilots launching attacks into Afghanistan from the deck of this aircraft carrier are being required to fly over and visually identify targets before they drop bombs, reflecting concern that many civilian casualties could damage world support for the American campaign against terrorism.
On three occasions, pilots from the Vinson did not drop bombs on targets out of concern they might hit civilians in the area, the commander of the carrier's air wing said. "We're not in the business of just murdering people," Capt. T.C. Bennett said. "We are in the business of blowing things up that are a threat to America."
Bennett said his pilots -- "my steely-eyed killers" -- are required to fly over and identify definite military targets before striking, a rule that he said he is applying more strictly now than ever before.
"You can call this a new warfare," Bennett said. "A lot of people perhaps just think we've put the knife in the teeth and go out there and everybody wants to fling a bomb somewhere, but that's not the case."
The wing commander said he has grabbed pilots before they launch to give them final instructions: "Make sure you know what the hell you're dropping on. Just don't go in there cowboying, slinging bombs in Afghanistan."
Four guards at a U.N. building in Kabul were killed today by a U.S. airstrike, according to the world body and humanitarian aid organizations in Islamabad, Pakistan. Bennett said his aircraft were not within 250 miles of the site and were not responsible.
Jets from the Vinson were launched tonight to attack MiG-21 and Su-22 fighters parked at a military airfield near Shindand in western Afghanistan. Earlier in the day, two F-14 Tomcats hit an airfield at Mukurin in western Afghanistan, while four F/A-18 Hornets attacked the airfield at Kandahar, home base of the ruling Taliban militia.
On Monday night, jets from Carrier Wing 11 aboard the Vinson struck a terrorist camp in the mountains near Kandahar and destroyed two MiG-21s on the ground at another airfield, Bennett said. "An aircraft dead on the ground is better than one airborne," he said.
The attack on the camp near Kandahar struck facilities and vehicles, but Bennett said it was unknown whether the camp was occupied. "Each of these terrorist training camps also have command and control, and that's primarily what we were doing there," he said. "It's important for us to take down their infrastructure so they can't give orders."
There are growing indications that U.S. aircraft are running short of targets. Most of the missions launched from the Vinson on Sunday involved strikes on assigned targets, but most of the jets sent up today were deployed to protect other aircraft, including Air Force tankers and surveillance planes.
Also, aircraft from the Vinson have not been called back to previous targets, an indication that bomb damage analysts believe they have been destroyed.
Fighter jets from the wing did not strike assigned targets on several recent missions because pilots did not see anything worth hitting. "There was nothing there, so therefore they did not release their bombs," Bennett said.
Visual inspections of targets expose pilots to increased risk, Bennett said, adding, "You don't like to stay in the same area too long."
While the U.S. aircraft are flying higher than the range of the Soviet-era antiaircraft artillery being fired by Taliban forces, there are concerns about the possibility of a jet being hit by U.S.-made, shoulder-fired Stinger missiles when flying over mountains.
No threat has emerged from Taliban aircraft. "They haven't tried to put anything up in the air, nor do we expect them to," Bennett said.
Strike fighters flying off this carrier have been primarily launching two types of munitions toward Taliban and terrorist targets: 1,000-pound laser-guided GBU-16s and 2,000-pound JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions). The latter are guided by global positioning satellite, with the target's coordinates punched into the munition's computer.
None launched so far has missed, Bennett said. "We have not had any bombs go stupid or go off target," he said.
One was a dud -- a JDAM that struck a command and control facility at the Kandahar airfield but destroyed it anyway, Bennett said. "It didn't explode, but when you have 2,000 pounds of steel ripping through a building, it tends to do a lot of damage," he said.
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THE MILITARY
In Next Phase of Attacks, an Emphasis on Helicopter Strikes
New York Times
October 10, 2001
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/10/international/10MILI.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 - The Pentagon is preparing to launch risky raids into Afghanistan using low-flying Army helicopter gunships to find and attack forces allied with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and the Taliban government, two senior Pentagon officials said today.
The helicopters, operated by special operations forces from bases near - but not in - Afghanistan, would be able to strike pockets of forces after the American air and missile strikes have made more progress at wearing down the Taliban's air defenses and other major military targets.
At the same time, the administration is deploying a growing number of special forces to the region who would be in a position to hunt down terrorists, including troops in Uzbekistan, to the north of Afghanistan.
These, however, do not constitute a potential invasion force for Afghanistan, a prospect that Pentagon officials have for now ruled out.
It is not clear how soon the close-in helicopter operations will begin. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers of the Air Force, said today that American fighters and bombers were rapidly establishing air superiority over Afghanistan after three days of strikes, carried out from relatively high altitudes. The risks involved in such strikes were illustrated by the deaths of four men working with the United Nations on a demining operation near Kabul, the capital.
"I think essentially we have air supremacy over Afghanistan," he said. But he acknowledged that "there will always be the antiaircraft fire."
"There's always the possibility of these manned portable surface-to- air missiles," the general added.
Although the Air Force bombers and Navy jets that have been attacking Afghanistan have flown higher than the remaining Afghan weapons can reach and the strikes have hit hard at the few air-defense installations that can fire high-altitude missiles, the helicopters would have no such safety if they swooped in low.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the United States was "moving along well toward our goal of creating conditions necessary to conduct a sustained campaign to root out terrorists," a reference, a senior official said, to the next phase of the operation, which is continuing around the clock.
Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers did not elaborate on future operations in a news conference at the Pentagon. But other officials said the war plans included deploying additional forces to southern and central Asia, including specially equipped Blackhawk helicopters and other helicopters designed for special operations.
The helicopters, operated by Army special forces units, are equipped with better night vision and target equipment, measures to protect them from ground fire and the ability to refuel in midair.
They have been used in the past in some of the military's most challenging operations, especially since the Persian Gulf war.
The preparations to use helicopters became known as American aircraft, including 10 heavy bombers, joined by waves of fighter jets flying off carriers in the Arabian Sea, once again struck Taliban air defenses, airfields and what Mr. Rumsfeld called modest concentrations of Taliban troops and other forces on the ground. [News agencies reported further attacks near Kandahar early Wednesday.]
For the first time, General Myers listed the targets struck, 31 on the first day followed by 13 on the second, and provided the first aerial photographs of the damage. That included the destruction of what General Myers said was a terrorist training camp called Garmabak Ghar; a surface-to-air missile battery near Kandahar, in the south; and an airfield in Shindand, in the west.
Officials said the strikes were on a similar scale as those before, though they noted that there were no longer very many significant military targets. The strikes today included the first use of 5,000-pound bombs designed to penetrate hardened bunkers, as well as cluster bombs intended to destroy concentrations of troops or weapons.
The senior Pentagon officials declined to identify the additional forces being deployed, citing the need for secrecy on deployments, bases of operations and missions. Indeed, the officials said, full details may never be disclosed. Even in the Pentagon command center, special forces operations are discussed only in a separate area.
But the officials' remarks indicated that the helicopter gunships were part of the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which has two battalions at Fort Campbell, Ky., and a third at Hunter Army Airfield, Ga.
The 160th, the sole large Army unit specially trained for such a mission at night and in bad weather, has been involved in many major military operations. It is trained to deploy anywhere in the world in days or even hours. Its helicopters can be ferried in cargo planes.
The officials also declined to discuss the potential bases from which the forces would operate. The Pentagon has ordered a third carrier, the Kitty Hawk, to the region without its full component of fighter jets and other aircraft. But even if it served as a base for special operations troops, its location in the Arabian Sea would be hundreds of miles away.
The Army helicopters can fly several hundred miles after refueling. But that makes their missions even more dangerous, and targets in the north of Afghanistan would be practically inaccessible.
The Pentagon has also deployed nearly 1,000 troops, including an enhanced infantry battalion from the 10th Mountain Division, to a former Soviet air base near Karshi, in Uzbekistan, about 100 miles from the Afghan border. Those troops are providing security for a relatively small contingent of search-and-rescue and special-reconnaissance forces, something that President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan has agreed to permit. In public, Mr. Karimov has ruled out allowing special operations forces to strike from Uzbek territory, saying, "We are not quite ready for this."
Some American officials have suggested that the agreement might be elastic enough to allow them to mount operations to search for Mr. bin Laden from Uzbekistan.
Launching helicopter gunships into the battle will be risky. Afghan guerrilla fighters armed with Stinger missiles repeatedly shot down Soviet helicopters when they flew below 10,000 feet in the war there in the 1980's.
With the Taliban air defenses more or less impaired, American pilots have also turned their attention to what officials at the Pentagon are calling emerging targets, including small groups of forces, tanks or other equipment being moved after of the initial strikes.
Noting that some F-14's and F/A- 18's have returned to the carriers in the Arabian Sea still clutching their bombs and missiles, officials said there have so far been relatively few of the emerging targets.
One American airman, a B-1 weapons systems officer, said he was surprised when his superiors changed his targets after his plane was aloft. "All the planes are retargetting at a moment's notice," said the officer, who was made available for a telephone interview by Pentagon officials and identified only by the call-sign Morning.
In London, a senior British defense official, echoing Pentagon planners, said the purpose of the attacks so far on Afghanistan was to condition the environment "so that there is less risk of damage to our own people, our own aircraft" in future deployments. Britain has already said the deployment of ground troops is an option, and it has made frequent use of special forces in the past.
Although the United States could launch helicopter raids on its own, a defense official said, the strikes could also be coordinated with the forces in Afghanistan opposed to the Taliban, including the Northern Alliance, as well as opposition groups in southern Afghanistan.
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Pentagon Adds 'Bunker - Buster' Bombs
October 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Military.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon is adding 5,000-pound ``bunker-buster'' bombs to the mix of weapons aimed at shaking up the Taliban and laying ground for commando raids in Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.
A fourth day of aerial raids, including attacks on the outskirts of Kabul, the Afghan capital, moved the U.S.-led campaign closer to the expected start of ground operations against the al-Qaida terrorist network and the Taliban government.
Publicly, the Pentagon offered no information about Wednesday's attacks, although officials speaking on condition of anonymity said ``leadership targets,'' such as command-and-control facilities in underground bunkers near Kandahar were to be hit with 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs. Taliban's headquarters are in that southern Afghanistan city.
The officials said they could not verify immediately that the attacks were conducted as planned.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has hinted that more attacks would be aimed at such targets.
``The command and control and leadership structure may still be intact,'' he told CBS News on Tuesday.
Officials said U.S. warplanes also would begin dropping cluster munitions, anti-personnel bombs that dispense smaller bomblets, for use against moving and stationary land targets such as armored vehicles and troop convoys.
The Pentagon released a brief statement with minimal details about Tuesday's bombing raids, the smallest since attacks began on Sunday. U.S. forces struck six military targets in Afghanistan, using between five and eight bombers and eight to 10 carrier-based Navy strike aircraft, it said.
Tuesday's targets were airfields near Kabul in the east and Herat in the west; surface-to-air missile emplacements near Kabul and Jalalabad and an al-Qaida training camp near Kandahar, the Pentagon said. Also, a maintenance facility at a Taliban army garrison near Mazar-e-Sharif was struck for a second time.
Unlike the first two days of attacks, Tomahawk cruise missiles were not fired Tuesday, and none were planned for Wednesday.
Two Air Force C-17 cargo planes on Tuesday dropped 35,000 packets of humanitarian food rations in north-central Afghanistan, and another airdrop was planned for Wednesday, officials said.
The Pentagon also announced that 495 additional Army reservists were called to active duty for transportation and military police work, and 75 Marine Corps reservists had been called up. It also said Rumsfeld will preside over a memorial service Thursday for the 189 people killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon. President Bush is to deliver the principal address.
The focus of the air campaign over Afghanistan is turning to more difficult targets, after opening salvos neutralized the Taliban's meager air defenses. Among priority targets now are deeply buried command-and-control facilities associated with Taliban leaders' compounds, including those near Kandahar, officials said.
Air war planners selected the 5,000-pound ``bunker-buster'' bombs for use against those targets, three senior defense officials said.
During the Gulf War, the Pentagon developed the GBU-28, whose inventory and performance characteristics are classified secret, for striking deeply buried targets. It was used on Feb. 27, 1991, against a bunker complex in Iraq; two years ago a version with an improved guidance system was put into production.
The B-2 stealth bomber is capable of dropping the improved version of the bomb, known as the EGBU-28. B-2s have flown missions over Afghanistan and dropped 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs known as the Joint Direct Attack Munition.
At Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, Brig. Gen. Tony Przybyslawski, commander of the 509th Bomb Wing, told reporters Wednesday that six B-2s flew from Whiteman to their targets in Afghanistan, then continued to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, where fresh crews took over for the return flights to Whiteman. The 44-hour combat missions were the longest in history, he said.
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Injured U.S. Soldier First Casualty
October 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-First-Casualty.html
An Army soldier got trapped between two trucks and was critically injured Wednesday, becoming the first American casualty of Operation Enduring Freedom, the campaign against terrorism, officials said.
The soldier's name and where the accident took place were not disclosed.
``U.S. medical personnel on the scene performed initial lifesaving care,'' then the soldier was taken to a U.S. base in Incirlik, Turkey, for further treatment, said Maj. Brad Lowell, a U.S. Central Command spokesman at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.
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-------- imf / world bank / world trade organization
EU largely isolated on WTO environment issue
SWITZERLAND: October 10, 2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12742/story.htm
GENEVA - The European Union stepped up its bid this week for negotiations on environmental issues to be included in any new trade round, but most members of the World Trade Organisation remained firmly opposed, officials said.
The EU, which says it sees the issue as a "deal breaker" for launching fresh negotiations on trade liberalisation, put two draft proposals on the table at a preparatory meeting for a coming WTO ministerial meeting.
But diplomats from developing countries, which are particularly suspicious of what they see as a bid to introduce "green protectionism," said the plan remained unacceptable.
"We are not prepared to open any negotiations on this issue," said one South American diplomat.
The developing countries, backed by the United States and other rich states, believe existing WTO accords fully cover all legitimate environmnental concerns.
"The U.S. did not see a case for opening rules for negotiation," a senior trade official, who attended Monday's meeting, told journalists.
The 142-member WTO is seeking agreement on draft texts for a declaration to be issued by the ministers at the November 9-13 meeting in Doha, Qatar, as well as a deal on how to handle the developing countries' complaints.
WTO director-general Mike Moore has been leading the campaign for a new trade round which he sees as vital to give a shot in the arm to the ailing world economy.
Many developing countries, however, say that the WTO needs to address perceived shortcomings in existing free trade accords before launching a new round.
But diplomats say the starkest differences now on display are over the environmental issue - labelled by the EU at a meeting last week of the WTO's ruling General Council as "of prime political importance" to Brussels.
"The resistance faced by the EU all along remains," said one trade official.
Trade ministers from a number of WTO member states are due to meet in Singapore on October 13-14 in a bid to speed progress towards a deal in Doha.
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CIA's Stealth War Centers on Eroding Taliban Loyalty and Aiding Opposition
By Alan Sipress and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 10, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33989-2001Oct9.html
The United States announced its war in Afghanistan with dramatic airstrikes Sunday but the campaign could ultimately be won by the covert efforts of American and Pakistani agents to win over commanders in the south and east of the country who are the base of Taliban support, according to current and former U.S. officials.
In these parts of Afghanistan where the ruling Taliban is most deeply rooted in the local ethnic Pashtun community, CIA agents have launched an effort to win the loyalty of dissident Taliban commanders through the use of money or fear, administration officials said.
This program represents one element in an American strategy, tailored to the political and ethnic geography of Afghanistan, to attack Taliban positions, encourage defections among Taliban supporters and bolster opposition military forces through airstrikes, financial support and psychological warfare.
The United States has sought to turn the tide in northern Afghanistan on behalf of the Northern Alliance, which was already battling the Taliban before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, both by targeting government tanks and aircraft and arming opposition commanders. Within the last week, the alliance forces of Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum have begun to receive assault weapons, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and other military supplies from Uzbekistan that were paid for by the United States, according to Philip Smith, Dostum's representative in Washington.
While international attention has focused on northern Afghanistan, the only part of the country where western journalists have access, an equally significant and perhaps ultimately decisive effort to shape opposition is occurring in the south, where the CIA effort to encourage defections from the Taliban is centered.
President Bush alluded yesterday to the importance of covert actions in the counterterrorism campaign. "There will be a conventional component to the conflict, but much of what takes place will never make it onto the TV screens," he said.
It is in the south and southeast where the campaign remains most in the shadows. "The intell stuff -- the efforts to get the Pashtuns to defect -- that's the war you don't see," said a former CIA official familiar with Afghanistan. "Once you get that, you can operate militarily."
Strikes on Taliban targets by U.S. aircraft and cruise missiles are meant to punctuate the clandestine wooing of commanders, tribal leaders and village elders in the broad swath of Afghanistan from Jalalabad in the east to Kandahar in the south where the ethnic Pashtun community is centered, officials said. The Taliban is composed primarily of Pashtuns and profits from their traditional rivalry with other Afghan ethnic groups.
"There's the message to the Taliban: Time to quake in your boots. Then there's the message to the Taliban moderates, which is: Now's the time to change sides. It's agency guys doing it, inside the south and east," the former CIA official said.
Another former CIA officer with extensive experience in Afghanistan said the only practical strategy for ousting the Taliban is to "peel off" Pashtun tribal leaders who had not expected they would face war with the United States when they allied themselves with Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader. Winning Pashtun defectors, he said, will not be difficult for the CIA. "These are rented relationships -- if you have common grounds, common interests, you can do something for a few bucks," he said.
The success of this strategy could turn on the intelligence efforts and intimate cooperation of Pakistan, which initially created and fostered the Taliban in the 1990s. That prospect received a crucial boost on Sunday when the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, ousted several influential intelligence and military leaders who remained close to the Taliban, most notably purging Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed of the Interservices Intelligence Agency, which long served as the Taliban's patron.
"Much depends, in this whole process, on the Pakistanis," said Jack Devine, a former CIA operations official who headed the agency's Afghan task force. "It's a question of going in with the right incentives. When [Pashtun leaders] see the Taliban is a losing proposition, they will be looking for new allies. I'm pretty optimistic about driving the Taliban into the ground."
But Abdul Haq, a prominent Pashtun commander opposed to the Taliban, said the U.S.-led bombing campaign is undermining efforts to turn relatively moderate Taliban commanders against the hard-line leadership of Omar.
Speaking yesterday from Peshawar, Pakistan, the former mujaheddin fighter said he was planning to return to Afghanistan to muster his supporters against the Taliban. Haq said he had been involved in intensive talks with Taliban commanders interested in switching sides. But, he said, "after the bombing started, it put us in a difficult situation and it weakened the moderate Taliban inside the Taliban."
In northern Afghanistan, overt U.S. military action and coordination with the Northern Alliance is designed to play a dominant role, administration officials said. U.S. Special Forces have an important part in the battles in the north and west, in particular calling in airstrikes against Taliban troops and equipment, according to the former CIA official familiar with Afghanistan.
Northern Alliance fighters have begun capitalizing on American airstrikes -- in particular targeting a Taliban concentration of Soviet-era tanks near the major regional center of Mazar-e Sharif -- to advance against Taliban positions.
Smith said the U.S. airstrikes on Taliban MiGs and attack helicopters have also given a considerable boost to alliance forces, which under Dostum have been engaged in street-to-street fighting on the outskirts of Mazar. "The morale in the forces is very high, especially after what was hit in yesterday's bombing," he said.
He also said that U.S. officials have paid for the provision of old Soviet weapons stashed in Uzbekistan, including small arms, AK-47 assault weapons and ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades, antitank weapons, mortars, mines and supplies, including food and medicine. Dostum's forces began to receive the weapons within the last week but said they fall short of expectations. "It would be more beneficial if they would be arriving in larger quantities and in a more timely fashion and a mix of weapons and ammunition that is a little different," Smith said. In particular, he said Dostum needs more rocket-propelled grenades and tanks.
U.S. intelligence officials have received reports of Taliban forces pulling back from the border of Uzbekistan to reinforce Mazar, according to one U.S. official. "In the north, there's some movement -- Taliban forces pulling back to reinforce Mazar-e Sharif, coming back to the urban area from the border," the official said.
Briefing reporters yesterday at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not rule out tactical air support for Northern Alliance forces: "That is a possibility, but I'm not telling you we're going to do that."
Asked whether the U.S. military, flying from distant bases, could provide tactical air support for Northern Alliances, Myers said that it could. "We have the capability to operate at great distances," he said, adding that U.S. aircraft "would not be prohibited technically" from providing close-in air support of Northern Alliance troops.
The U.S. official said that the fall of Mazar would clear the way for another opposition commander, Ismail Khan, to capture the western city of Herat. Such a turn of fortune could convince some Taliban commanders to break ranks with the Taliban and back the rebellion to preserve a Pashtun element in the government, administration officials and analysts said. Unlike the Taliban, the Northern Alliance mainly draws its support from the minority Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara communities.
Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks and news researcher Karl Evanzz contributed to this report.
-------- terrorism
Despite Florida, widespread anthrax attack unlikely
Christian Science Monitor
October 10, 2001 edition
By Liz Marlantes Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1010/p4s1-usmi.html
The ongoing FBI investigation into two cases of anthrax in Florida is illustrating both the possibility and the limitations of a major biological attack occurring in the United States.
Both cases involve employees for the supermarket tabloid The Sun. The first man died last Friday, while the second has been treated for the disease and is in stable condition.
While authorities have not officially labeled the incident as terrorism, the fact that two men from the same office building contracted anthrax seems to indicate some form of foul play, say experts. Health officials say the disease is not contagious, and so could not have been passed from one man to the other. This may mean that a criminal or terrorist group has the ability to grow or manufacture anthrax spores, and might attempt to carry out other attacks in the future.
But the chances of any group successfully pulling off a wide-scale anthrax attack are still fairly remote, medical experts say. While certain terrorist groups may now be able to grow the anthrax organism, they would face many technical obstacles in preparing and deploying the spores to infect large numbers of people.
In addition, the relatively quick reaction of Florida health officials in identifying and isolating the outbreak indicates another strong layer of defense that could mitigate the impact of any future attack.
"What is the likelihood of a major chemical or biological attack in the United States? Very slim," says Christopher Hellman, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington. Even given what's just happened, he says, "you're way more likely to be hit by lightning."
Experts say one of the main reasons anthrax is often seen as conducive to a terrorist attack - aside from its deadliness - is that the spores are relatively hardy.
"You can keep them in your pocket for 20 years, and they're still viable," says Theresa Koehler, an associate professor at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.
But to spread the spores effectively, terrorists must first find a way to get large numbers of people to inhale them - something that makes them dependant on things like weather conditions, if they're planning their attack outside. Once the spores settle on the ground, they're far less dangerous, since it's unlikely they'd be inhaled.
Terrorists would also have to have the technical expertise to manufacture the proper particle size - since anthrax has a tendency to clump, which makes it less effective.
"Anthrax spores can survive for days, but it's not so easy to disperse them in the air in the proper-size particles," says Jacqueline Cattani, director of the Center for Biological Defense at the University of South Florida.
The closest thing to a historical precedent officials have for judging the potential impact of an anthrax attack is a 1979 explosion at a military research facility in the Russian city of Sverdlovsk. The explosion released anthrax spores into the atmosphere - but only a relatively small percentage of residents came down with the disease, Dr. Koehler says.
And while terrorist groups have attempted to use anthrax in the past, most have been unsuccessful. "The Japanese cult Aum Shinri Kyo tried to disperse anthrax about nine times in Japan before the sarin gas attacks - and were totally unsuccessful," says Ms. Cattani. "In this particular case, it's unfortunate one person did die, but I think the public health department dealt with it very rapidly."
Jennifer LeClaire in Miami contributed to this article.
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Iran's rhetoric masks interests
As Iran rail against US strikes on Afghanistan, its leaders discuss the makeup of a post-Taliban regime.
Christian Science Monitor
From the October 10, 2001 edition
By Colin Barraclough | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1010/p6s1-wome.html
TEHRAN, IRAN - At first glance, Iran's opposition to the US and British air strikes on Afghanistan seemed a return to the old days of Tehran's fiery revolutionary rhetoric. Yesterday, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami called for "an immediate end" to the strikes and said they had caused a "human catastrophe."
And on Monday, Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, termed the attacks "unacceptable to Iran."
His comments followed a rhetorical blast from Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who accused Washington Monday of "lying" about its true intentions, expanding on comments last week that Iran does not consider the United States "competent and sincere [enough] to lead any global campaign against terrorism."
Read between the lines, however, and a different picture emerges. Iran's official pronouncements were still couched in the language of its Islamic revolution, but analysts searched in vain for the vitriol that once featured prominently. "There's still a bit of a fuss, of course," said a European diplomat in Tehran. "What struck me, though, was how muted the fuss was this time."
It is no surprise that Iranian leaders rejected President Bush's "for or against us" ultimatum - Iran has long seen itself as a role model for nonaligned countries. But contrary to many expectations, Iran has spent the past few weeks pursuing a vigorous diplomatic drive to avert military action in Afghanistan.
Foreign Minister Kharrazi has made plain his disappointment that his initiative had failed. "During the past days, from Sept. 11 to today, Iran has employed its utmost diplomatic efforts to prevent [further] casualties," he said Monday. "Our recommendations did not fall on receptive ears."
Iranian leaders fear that the US is using the September attacks as a pretext to expand its influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. A glance at the map shows why: American military forces are already stationed in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, while US oil companies are entrenched in Azerbaijan to the north. With US military now deployed in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and engaged in combat in Afghanistan, it's no surprise Iranians feel jittery.
Sensing the importance of the Afghan crisis to the country, Iranians have suspended the domestic struggle for political power. For the first time in memory, Iran's leaders are speaking with one voice. "This is the first time since 1979 that the makers of foreign policy in Iran have taken a single position," said Saed Leylaz, a political analyst.
But despite its fears, there has been little sign of public protest on the streets of Tehran or Iran's other cities. It was business as usual for the moneychangers on Ferdowsi Street, where noisy demonstrators are often bused in to protest outside the British and German Embassies.
"Iranians think Osama [bin Laden] is a terrorist and that the Taliban were produced by the United States," said Farideh Dabiri, an Iranian woman sipping tea in Ferdowsi Street cafe. "We believe both projects backfired on the US."
In fact, Iran is keen to make the distinction between what it views as legitimate resistance movements and "real" terrorist groups, which attack civilian targets in enemy countries. It's a distinction Iranian representatives will emphasize as Muslim leaders meet at the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Qatar today. Iran's support for the Shiite fundamentalist group Hizbullah in Lebanon, for instance, emanates from the highest level in Iran. The government has long admitted to supporting the Lebanese fighters, viewing them as a legitimate armed group resisting a foreign occupying force on its own territory.
But behind the public rhetoric Iran's planners are already discussing the makeup of a post-Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In substance, if not in form, their views match closely with those of the US, which advocates a transitional government led by Afghanistan's deposed king, Zahir Shah, in partnership with the opposition Northern Alliance.
"Iran can support an alliance between the Northern Alliance and Zahir Shah," said Mr. Leylaz. "For us, Zahir Shah is much better than the Taliban."
Iran, which admitted last week that it has directed covert military and logistical support to the embattled Northern Alliance, also backs a transitional government that would give way to what one Foreign Ministry official has described as "a broad-based government set up under UN auspices."
In part, Iran's neutrality is fueled by its intense dislike of the Taliban. Iran's Shia clerics view the hard-line Sunni Taliban as a creation of Pakistan's powerful intelligence service, the ISI, that has elevated the Sunni Pashtoon tribes over Iran's allies, the Shia Hazara tribe.
In addition, Iran has borne the economic cost of hosting some 2.4 million Afghan refugees. The refugees arrived when fleeing the 1979 Soviet invasion, but most are too afraid of the Taliban to return home.
Unlike Pakistan, however, which housed its Afghan refugees in dirt-poor camps in border regions, Iran allowed refugees to work, marry, and settle throughout the country. Many are now prosperous, giving them less reason to respond to the Taliban's call to arms.
Moreover, Iran still nurses a grievance over the murder of nine Iranian diplomats in Mazar-e-Sharif in 1999 when Taliban forces rolled into the city. And Iran has suffered an upsurge in drug trafficking since gangs based in Afghanistan won virtual carte blanche from Taliban leaders in the late 1990s.
But Iranian officials also have their eye on long-term geopolitics. Iran's senior clerics carry some clout in the Islamic world, particularly among Shiites, who account for a quarter of the world's Muslims - a fact that prompted Britain's foreign minister, Jack Straw, to make the trip to Tehran late last month. Only Iran and Pakistan possess a functioning intelligence network in Afghanistan, dealing Tehran a strong hand in maintaining its line against US pressure.
Analysts are realizing that Iran could emerge from the Afghan crisis with its importance enhanced. "A change of government in Afghanistan could solve Iran's border problem, its refugee problem, and its drug problem," said the European diplomat. "And Iran wouldn't even have to lift a finger."
Furthermore, should Pakistan's military government come under increasing pressure from grassroots pro-Taliban activists, Iran is likely to emerge as a key voice of reason in the region.
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The reclusive ruler who runs the Taliban
Christian Science Monitor
October 10, 2001
By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1010/p1s4-wosc.html
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN - A Pakistani official arrived in Kandahar, Afghanistan, this spring, on a mission to save two towering 1,700-year-old mountain carvings of Buddha. He tried to dissuade the Taliban Supreme Leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, from blowing up the statues.
Mullah Omar replied by describing a dream he'd had about "a mountain falling down on him." Before it hit him, Allah appeared, asking Omar why he did nothing to get rid of the false idols.
"I closed my attaché case," the Pakistani recalls, shoulders sagging. "There was nothing left to say."
Such private visions are part of the decisionmaking process that has guided the life of the man who rose from village mullah to Taliban leader to partner of Osama bin Laden.
Those who have met Omar, say he's tall (6 foot, 6 inches) bearded, reclusive, and a lover of war stories. A fierce commander, he was wounded four times in the jihad against the Soviets, leaving him with one eye.
His title, "Commander of the Faithful," has not been adopted by any Muslim anywhere for nearly 1000 years. Omar has given few interviews, rarely meets with non-Muslims, and there is only one known photo of him - as a young man. Diplomats describe him as shy and untalkative with foreigners. Omar says he has one son.
"He has never visited Kabul, the capital," says Rahimullah Yousefzai, who has interviewed Omar twice for The News, a Karachi, Pakistan, based newspaper. "He is not a great speaker. To his followers, his strength is his piety, the force of his belief."
In the past year, facing drought, military problems, a lack of international recognition, and sanctions, Omar has become increasingly isolated, and influenced by Arabs such as Ayman Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden's No. 2. Omar's rhetoric used to focus on rebuilding Afghanistan, and even on censuring Mr. bin Ladin. During the past year, his public statements have taken on a pan-Islamic tone found more among militant Islamists from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Omar used to be seen cross-legged in local mosques talking with his followers. But in recent months (until this week's air raids), he was seen in convoys of Landcruisers with tinted windows, a gift of wealthy Arabs. Omar's house (reportedly hit by bombs yesterday) was was one of 16 large residences built with Arab money along a stretch of Herat St. in Kandahar. Mr. Zawahiri is a neighbor.
Born in 1959 as the son of a peasant farmer, he grew up in mud huts around the village of Singesar, near Kandahar. In short, he's an unlikely leader in a country where pedigree and royalty have always been the path to power.
Omar, in fact, was relatively unknown in Afghanistan until 1994. He came to power reluctantly, says Mr. Yousefzai. Omar told him that he started the Taliban after a dream in which Allah came to him in the shape of a man, asking him to lead the faithful. There were also practical reasons.
Omar, known for a pure devotion to Islam, was a mullah with a village madrassah near Kandahar. But he was "horrified," says Yousefzai, by the behavior of former mujahideen commanders that he had fought alongside from 1989 to 1992. They were kidnapping and raping boys and girls, stealing from Afghans at gunpoint on the road, and driving international aid workers out of Kandahar. So, Omar and 30 ethnic Pashtun followers "picked up the gun" - at first to stop four notorious mujahideen who were raping women near Omar's village - and later to bring law and order to an entire country.
The idea: create a Muslim state that would perfectly practice a strict interpretation of the Koran, one taught in the fundamentalist madrassahs of Pakistan, where Omar went to school.
The Taliban movement, backed by the Pakistani secret service, succeeded beyond anyone's imagination - capturing most of the country by 1998.
In 1996, as Taliban fervor increased, Omar accepted the title of "Amirul Momineen," or "commander of the faithful," in an emotional meeting in Kandahar where he appeared on a balcony above thousands of cheering Taliban, wrapping himself in a cloak said to belong to the Prophet Mohammad. The cloak had not been removed from its Kandahar shrine in 60 years, and had never been worn before. Omar is the first Muslim since the Fourth Caliph, a nephew of Prophet Mohammad, to publicly accept the Amirul title, a ranking in Islam nearly second to the Prophet.
Omar's weighty title, which is not accepted by Muslims outside Afghanistan, represents a long journey for a man who never finished his Islamic education. In fact, Omar laments his interrupted schooling, and still calls himself a "talib," (one who seeks), rather than a "mullah" (one who gives) - even while some of his followers think of him as a god.
Many ordinary ethnic Pashtun followers see him as a repository of piety. "It is our duty to follow Omar, he is our father, the first man to take the cloak of the prophet," says Qoari Ali Khan, the head of a madrassah in Pabbi, Pakistan, who was one of 250 mujahideen commanded by Omar in the anti-Soviet war, where the Taliban chief made a name for himself as a marksman with anti-tank rockets.
Still, in the past year, some of the shine has come off the mantle of the current Amirul Momineen of Afghanistan. Some young Pashtuns who used to support Omar, and his dream of a pure Islamic state, are disillusioned.
Omar has never traveled to Kabul to set up a functioning government. Decisions are made in private with a small council of elders. Funds are often distributed among the Taliban by special envoys who travel to Kandahar for an audience with Omar. A plea is made, and Omar opens a large tin box, kept near his bed, which is filled with US dollars.
Some Afghans now speak of Omar's past year as something of an evolving tragedy, as he continues to be buffeted between Arab, Pakistani, and other influences. Some Muslims sympathetic to the Taliban do not want to see Afghanistan used as a platform for bin Laden's violent pan-Islamic jihad.
"There is no question that at the top levels, the Arabs have grown strong in the past two years," says a young Pakistani journalist who has visited Kandahar recently. "People like Osama and Zawahiri don't have to actually see Omar to influence him. Their presence isn't needed. The circumstances and their moves make it possible."
In the Taliban ranks, there is some dissatisfaction - though US strikes may again bring a rallying to Omar. Still, as the country undergoes drought, farmers are reportedly tired of handing over their sons each year for a jihad to take the Panjshir Valley, held by the Northern Alliance. That's another reason Omar depends on Arab fighters on the front lines.
Moreover, in something of a risky move that did not yield Omar any of the international credit he expected, the Taliban did last year stop an entire harvest of poppy. Farmers growing poppy earn about $5,000 a hectare, as compared with $1200 a hectare for wheat.
Last year as well, a huge truck bomb exploded near Omar's headquarters, killing his brother, and reportedly sending the mullah into a period of troubled silence.
During this time, as well, wealthy Arabs who come to Afghanistan to cut their teeth as radical jihadis - have often been reported as "bossing around" and "treating badly" many of the local Taliban. "We used to see them once in awhile, and knew they lived in camps," says the Pakistani journalist. "But in the past year, they are seen on the streets, in the restaurants, everywhere. Omar seems unaware of this."
In the late 1990s, Omar told Mr. Yousafzai that "I am ready to sacrifice everything in completing the unfinished agenda of our noble jihad...until there is no bloodshed in Afghanistan and Islam becomes a way of life for our people." Yet the country has lived in fear, with continued bloodshed.
Again, in the late 1990s, Omar is on record condemning any export of jihad by the Taliban to neighboring countries, and especially by Osama bin Laden. "We have told Osama not to use Afghan soil to carry out political activities as it creates unnecessary confusion about Taliban objectives," Omar told Yousefzai.
Yet the Pakistani Minister of Interior Moinuddin Haider, who visited Omar last month to persuade him to turn over Osama bin Laden, say the man is isolated: "I told Mullah Omar, 'You have switched off your TV set,'" Mr. Haider told reporters here. "I said, 'You don't have many embassies ...to tell you what is happening. You don't know what the Muslim world is saying right now.'"
Some observers say that Omar, who never finished his Islamic schooling, has become swayed by Gulf Arabs who have Islamic credentials that, for a man with humble origins, must be dazzling.
The scholars and clerics from the schools of Egypt and the land of Saudi Arabia, the land of the prophet, and, in the mind of a fundamentalist, the place where a restoration of "true Islam" must spring from - give these figures great influence on Omar, experts say.
In a Voice of America interview on Sept. 21, Omar said: "God says he will never be satisfied with the infidels. In terms of worldly affairs, America is very strong. Even if it were twice as strong or twice that, it could not be strong enough to defeat us. We are confident that no one can harm us if God is with us."
"I want an independent state for Palestine too," says one local Muslim who has followed the Taliban closely. "But I don't want to put my gun on your shoulder, the way the Arabs are doing with Omar.
"The tragedy is that at the beginning, Omar sounds like the man who will pave the way for the king's [Zahir Shah's] return. He talked about peace and security. But he never said he would try to become the leader of the Muslim world.
But when he says, 'there is one authority, and that is me,' which he has said, influenced by I-don't-know-who, it becomes a farce."
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A fine line between precaution and panic
Some new security steps, while well-meaning, may be overkill.
Christian Science Monitor
October 10, 2001
By Abraham McLaughlin | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1010/p1s3-usmi.html
WASHINGTON - As part of the security checks at Detroit's City Hall, people entering the building are screened for the usual weapons: guns, knives, and explosives.
But the list of contraband also includes several other items: curling irons, tweezers, and, perhaps mercifully for co-workers for more than security reasons, dental floss.
The range of things people can't bring into the building points up a dilemma facing post-Sept. 11 America: where, exactly, to draw the line on security measures.
As the country goes on "high alert" in anticipation of possible reprisals for the US bombing raids in Afghanistan, cities, businesses, and even individuals are struggling to find the right balance between precaution and panic.
Many of the new measures do, of course, raise basic questions about how much personal freedom people are willing to give up in the name of safety. But beyond the clash of principles, there are more subtle issues surrounding what are the most effective and practical measures to take to deal with a threat that is unseen and unknown.
"You can look at some of the things we've done as a little silly, like taking away nail clippers from passengers boarding airplanes," says Richard Stoll, a political scientist at Rice University. "But I think it also sends a message about how serious we are."
Certainly, much of the new alertness and vigilance is understandable - and warranted. Male passengers on a Chicago-bound flight earlier this week, for instance, helped subdue a confused man who entered the plane's cockpit and scuffled with a pilot.
Yet in other cases, Americans, official and otherwise, aren't sure what to do. Consider the case of Amy Ulland, who works in a Virginia high-rise near the Pentagon.
She recently pulled into the building's garage without a parking pass. After some argument, the security-conscious attendant agreed to let her stay, but insisted on checking her car, ostensibly for bombs. He peered into her trunk for a few seconds and then muttered, "You know what? I have no idea what I'm looking for."
Amid the new climate of fear, most people seem willing to give security officials the benefit of the doubt, especially at airports. A Harris Interactive poll, for instance, found 4 out of 5 Americans willing to be fingerprinted before boarding in order to guarantee airline safety.
This weekend, passengers headed to Washington's Reagan National Airport on the Delta shuttle from New York were given strong warnings before boarding. The bathrooms on the plane would be closed. No passenger would be able to stand up during the flight. And if anyone did stand up, the plane would be immediately diverted to another city.
No matter. Many passengers were just grateful to be flying into the airport - which is close to downtown - so they didn't complain about the new strictures.
Indeed, because terrorists can presumably strike at any time and in any place, many individuals and groups are pushing to secure all aspects of daily life.
In Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley unveiled a plan last week that would require the city's 2,500 high-rise buildings (those 80 feet or taller) to have emergency evacuation plans on file with the city, to hold safety drills every six months, and to distribute written evacuation instructions, perhaps on wallet-sized cards for easy retrieval.
At the United Nations headquarters in New York, dump trucks filled with sand are blocking all roadways leading to the compound - ostensibly to prevent car-bomb attacks. California Highway Patrol officers are patrolling the Golden Gate Bridge and other crossings. Even Disneyland and Disney World are taking steps to increase safety.
Yet the push for security can lead to what some see as overreaction - to measures that have questionable security value.
Near St. Louis, a fifth-grader was suspended for three days for drawing a picture of the World Trade Center towers under attack, and then grinning when asked by a school official why he had taped the picture to the outside of his study cubicle.
And even airline industry experts acknowledge that some of the measures in force at airports, such as a ban on curbside check-ins, aren't especially useful in the post-Sept. 11 environment.
Eliminating "curbside check-in really is to try to avoid someone getting on the plane with a bomb - on the theory that they would check in and never get on," says David Stempler of the Airline Travelers Association here. But now that terrorists have shown a willingness to commit suicide to carry out their acts, "a lot of these measures are not really focused on the reality of today."
Contributing: staff writer Kris Axtman in Houston and Craig Savoye in St. Louis.
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Next stage, hunting down terrorists
Christian Science Monitor
October 10, 2001
By Ann Scott Tyson | Special correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1010/p1s2-usmi.html
WASHINGTON - Precision airstrikes by US and British forces have weakened the Taliban's air defenses and opened up the skies over Afghanistan, setting the stage for far more difficult ground operations in the war on terrorism.
In contrast to this first volley of missiles and bombs, the campaign to come will last much longer, be far more complicated, and carry much greater risk for America - both militarily and diplomatically.
"The hard part ... is ahead," said Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona yesterday, echoing the sentiment of US and allied defense officials. Senator McCain, a Navy veteran who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, says the next phase would likely include the "insertion and extraction" of small numbers of ground troops on search-and-destroy missions against Osama bin Laden's organization.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stressed that the airstrikes are only the beginning of the effort to expel from Afghanistan both the terrorists and the Taliban leaders who back them. Taken alone, he said, the strikes are unlikely to "rock the Taliban back on their heels," given the absence of high-value targets in a nation already pounded into "rubble" during earlier fighting with the former Soviet Union.
"The cruise missiles and bombers are not going to solve this problem. We know that," he said at a Pentagon briefing Monday. "What they can do is to contribute by adding pressure, making life more difficult, raising the cost for the terrorists and those that are supporting [them]."
In recent days, dozens of targets - including Taliban-controlled early-warning radar systems, airfields, and aircraft, as well as command centers and troop concentrations - have been hit.
Training camps and troops of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization of Mr. bin Laden have also been targets, according to the Pentagon.
Daytime strikes on Afghanistan Tuesday suggested US military commanders are at least somewhat confident in having dismantled Taliban air defenses, opening the way for round-the-clock US bombing of mobile targets such as troops and tanks, experts say.
Specifically, the aerial bombing is intended to clear the way for two types of high-risk ground offensives: an advance on the Taliban regime by internal opposition forces such as the Northern Alliance, and small-scale US and allied commando operations aimed at destroying bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
Some experts predict that teams of elite US Special Operations Forces could begin short-term actions within days.
Their goals could range from destroying military and communications targets that are hard to hit from the air, to investigating terrorist training camps, to seeking out the terrorists themselves, says Chris Hellman, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information, an independent defense think tank in Washington.
Yet the success of such operations will depend heavily on the quality of intelligence, which is still lacking, experts say.
"We ran into the exact same problem in Somalia, which is a dearth of good intelligence," says Mr. Hellman. "We will have to rely, to a large extent,... on paid informants, [and] a lot of the time they totally miss the boat."
US officials and experts stress that they do not expect any larger-scale ground invasion involving hundreds or thousands of US troops. Such an occupation would be "the height of foolishness," says McCain.
US forces, though, could become more directly involved in efforts by the Northern Alliance and other internal anti-Taliban groups to overthrow the Taliban regime. Secretary Rumsfeld has not ruled out providing air cover and other assistance to Northern Alliance forces, and experts say limited numbers of American troops could serve as combat advisers to the Northern Alliance as it attempts to advance on the Taliban from its base north of Kabul.
The United States continues to encourage the Northern Alliance and other anti-Taliban groups, seeking to build up pressure on the Taliban regime "so that it eventually creates a situation internally where it disintegrates and falls apart," in the words of Rumsfeld.
Yet Washington has so far been careful to avoid the appearance of a partnership with the Northern Alliance or other specific opposition groups, because that would carry major strategic as well as political risks, experts say.
Above all, the Bush administration seeks to avoid military entanglement in Afghanistan's civil war, or taking sides with the Northern Alliance in a way that could unite and provoke the deeply factional Afghan militias against it.
There are also worries that the first civilian casualties of the US airstrikes - including the deaths of four United Nations land-mine-removal workers near Kabul, reported Tuesday - could generate fresh popular support for the Taliban, especially if the civilian losses increase.
Protests of thousands of people against the US strikes erupted again Tuesday among Muslim groups in Pakistan and other nations, leading to new concerns about the solidity of the US-built coalition against terrorism.
Since the strikes began on Sunday, televised statements by bin Laden and the Taliban have attempted to portray the war on terrorism as a battle between Western infidels and the Islamic faithful - a depiction that US officials vigorously dispute.
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Americans, don't blame yourselves for Sept. 11
Christian Science Monitor
October 10, 2001
By Catherine Labio
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1010/p9s1-coop.html
NEW HAVEN, CONN. - 'Why do they hate us?" The question has been asked insistently by a wide cross section of Americans, from children to President Bush, since the heartbreaking attacks of Sept. 11. As if hatred were reason enough for such deadly assaults. As if Americans could have prevented these acts of terror, if only they had known that they were hated and been given a chance to fix the problem. The question is in many ways odd, suggesting a remarkable willingness to take on blame for actions that are fundamentally out of balance.
Nowhere has this fallacy been more in evidence than in the sometimes sanctimonious and embarrassingly automatic alacrity with which some academics and intellectuals have invited Americans to take responsibility for the attacks. Their almost relentless insistence on contextualization and their unwillingness to focus equally on the need to separate context from cause, let alone responsibility, have added up to blaming the United States for the terrorist attacks. It is, of course, important to try to understand why others might resent America's unprecedented economic, political, and cultural dominance. It is something else altogether, however, to go on to represent American power as the primary cause of the events of Sept. 11.
Indeed, how did it come to pass that an attack on US soil by a foreign enemy that has tried to harm it before, and will undoubtedly try again, should have been greeted with a rush to engage in collective self-flagellation, instead of reflecting on the need for self-defense and the strengths of a culture where critical inquiry is not only possible, but valued?
It is true that the other prevalent response to "why do they hate us?" - because they hate freedom and all that is great about America or the West, not to mention "civilization" - is not much more edifying. It does, however, have the merit of recognizing that terrorism is indefensible. US foreign policy did not cause the Sept. 11 attacks any more than the federal government caused the Oklahoma City bombing. Hatred of the US, anger at the federal government - these are not sufficient causes. Unless, of course, we have suddenly come to think "honor killings" are fine, that rape victims get what they deserve, and that the attacks were caused by the secularization of America by feminists, abortionists, gay activists, the ACLU, and whoever else does not embrace a certain strain of fundamentalist Christianity.
I am not saying that one should stop looking at US policies critically in the name of national unity, or dismiss the powerlessness felt by so many. I am saying, however, that one should take care not to discuss these issues in such a way as to suggest, let alone claim, that they have caused the events of Sept. 11. Nor should one believe that the massacre of thousands of civilians from some 80-plus countries was intended to "invite" Americans to redress economic or political wrongs.
Terror on this scale is hardly political discourse. Not only were the hijackers neither poor nor uneducated; they left no list of grievances or message detailing the logic behind their assault, and no terrorist organization has actually claimed responsibility for the attacks. One reason for this is that the attacks cannot be justified. People and institutions can be criticized for what they do wrong. They are terrorized for what they do right, or for no reason at all - other than some people's desire for power and their fear of an open system of government.
Although I mistrust the logic behind the "why do they hate us?" question, it also has a uniquely American quality that is worth noting. I have lived in this country for about 18 years, but am still sufficiently European to be both baffled and impressed by the earnestness behind this persistent interrogation. For one thing, I am less likely than Americans to be surprised by expressions of anti-Americanism from abroad. Also, I am perhaps more easily reconciled than most Americans to the idea that resentment is an inevitable byproduct of formidable wealth and power.
Yet, it will not do to dismiss the American "why do they hate us?" question with a European "Why not? That comes with the territory." Though it betrays a certain naiveté - and perhaps even a regrettable ignorance of the world outside the US, that can occasionally seem too convenient or even hypocritical - the question also exposes a remarkable strain in American republicanism, in the broader sense of the term, that expects foreign policy to be guided by moral principles.
That no country can live up consistently to such an ideal takes nothing away from the American willingness to affirm it. More important, Americans' uneasy relationship with their own power and their reluctance to let it go unchecked will presumably affect for good rather than ill their government's ability to have continued support for its counterattacks and to lead a sustained worldwide campaign against global terrorism, in which moral authority will play as crucial a role as military superiority.
Catherine Labio, originally from Belgium, is an assistant professor of comparative literature and French at Yale University.
---
Reclaiming Innocence
Christian Science Monitor
October 10, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1010/p8s1-comv.html
Ask many Americans why they have displayed Old Glory since Sept. 11, and eventually they get around to saying, "We didn't deserve to be attacked."
Ask why they like to see "God Bless America" on signs, and they say something like, "Because we're innocent."
Such sentiments reflect a deep desire to hold fast to the ideal that the United States is too pure to be a target of evil forces. Americans ask simply, "Why do they hate us?" and hope the answers don't imply any guilt or error by the US in its global affairs.
But a feeling has spread that America's innocence has fallen like the twin towers in a nation founded on the principle of presumed innocence.
It's driven in part by the media, academics, and pundits who conduct blame-the-victim finger-pointing, citing what the US could have done or should be doing to keep foreign radicals from so hating the US that they must - just must - resort to killing thousands of civilians. (See opinion piece, next page.)
Has the US sided with Israel too much? Should it not have troops in Saudi Arabia to defend it against Iraq? Are the sanctions against Iraq really killing Iraqi children? Is American culture harming Islam? Have Arabs been betrayed by American indifference and hypocrisy? Is the US too dependent on Middle East oil?
And so on. The list is endless.
The worry over lost innocence is so strong that children are even being asked not to pick Halloween costumes that are not too scary. And students are being told to read up on atrocities committed by Americans in the past, from Indian slaughter to slavery to Waco.
In hindsight, the US has committed wrongs. But it rarely acts collectively, knowing at the time that it's doing wrong. It generally learns from past mistakes, but moves ahead with a less-naive innocence and renewed idealism.
Innocence, like truth, has the power to see evil acts, such as terrorism, as nothing more than the illusion of "idolizing something or somebody, or hating them," as the founder of this newspaper, Mary Baker Eddy, once wrote.
Many top Islamic clerics in the Middle East have condemned the Sept. 11 attacks because they broke a basic religious precept: that even in war, mankind must hang on to the idea of innocence among noncombatants. In the mind of the terrorist, if everyone is presumed guilty, then everyone is game for massacre.
A civil society rests on a pillar of innocence, and those who throw innocence to the wind in a broad sweep of collective guilt will find themselves living outside society - in a place like the caves of Afghanistan.
---
Strikes open way for ground war
As both sides build up their front lines, the Northern Alliance is heading for Kabul.
Christian Science Monitor
October 10, 2001
By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1010/p1s1-wosc.html
BAGRAM FRONT, AFGHANISTAN - The Northern Alliance is preparing to advance on the Afghan capital of Kabul.
"We are getting ready to attack Kabul," says tank commander Sardar, as his battered armored personnel carrier is fitted with a new 12.7mm anti-aircraft gun in the market of the rebel-controlled village of Jabal Siraj. "Commander Fahim told us yesterday to get ready," he says.
But it won't be easy, in part, because of what awaits them when they finally receive the orders to cross the front line. Alliance spies who are operating behind Taliban lines say they will meet a much-more aggressive militia reinforced by holy warriors from across the region who are loyal to Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network.
These spies say that up to 2,000 Pakistani, Arab, Chechen, and even Central Asian fighters have been sent from Kabul to the Bagram front line in the two days since American bombing began.
Though the 15,000 strong Alliance soldiers are far outnumbered - about 3 to 1 - they believe the US will provide air cover for their attack. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld states explicitly that American strikes are designed, in part, to pave the way for the Alliance to move decisively against the Taliban.
"The United States is interested in the elements of Afghans on the ground that have it in their mind that they would like to end Al Qaeda's role in Afghanistan and end the senior Taliban's role," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters in a briefing on Monday.
If they are able to take Kabul and secure the Bagram air base, Alliance sources and other experts say, that could accomplish three goals. It will deal a critical blow to the Taliban regime, presaging their likely fall from power. It will send bin Laden and his followers to their mountain hideouts. And it could provide a secure air base where supplies for the Alliance and US Special Operations troops, as well as humanitarian aid, could be flown.
But taking Kabul, for the Alliance, whose top leaders still say publicly that isn't their primary goal, will not be easy. Their strategy depends on three elements: American military support, a mass popular uprising against the Taliban in Kabul, and defections of thousands of Taliban forces to their side.
To prepare for the onslaught, Alliance leaders have called up reserve troops to bolster their 15,000-strong militia, and Alliance chief Gen. Muhammad Fahim has ordered them to repair their equipment.
In the shadow of the green-capped village mosque in Jabal Siraj, the new machinegun mount is arc-welded into place on Commander Sardar's tank. Grinders smooth over a rough hinge for an armored hatch; and more than a dozen two-foot-long Sagger rockets are laid out on the ground for cleaning.
They are preparing, Sardar says, to meet these holy warriors - the Taliban's so-called "foreign legion." It's estimated that these fighters make up about one quarter of the Taliban's 40,000-strong forces. They have played an increasingly important military role by often spearheading offensive operations, and are known to be far more aggressive in combat.
"They have moved Chechens, Pakistani, Kashmiri, and Arab troops to this front in the past two days, because they are much stronger fighters," says Alliance Commander Lalaga, at Bagram, 30 miles north of Kabul.
"The Taliban brought lots of ammunition, arms, and soldiers," he adds. "We have seen the lights of their cars during the night, reinforcing to the Taliban front."
Commander Lalaga says Alliance spies are reporting new foreign troop numbers at 800 Pakistanis, 950 Arabs, and 250 Chechens - elements that refugees and relief workers in Kabul say often act as a law unto themselves in Taliban territory.
The London-based Jane's Intelligence Review supports this. They say the Taliban's reliance on foreign troops loyal to bin Laden and their numbers have increased markedly in the past 18 months. More than half of the estimated 10,000 to 12,000 "foreign legion" are Pakistani, and the rest a collection from militant groups throughout the Islamic world.
Moreoever, the Russian breakaway republic of Chechnya set up an embassy in Kabul early last year. Many argue that this "Arab" influence - and bin Laden's close personal ties with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar - has further radicalized the Taliban.
"There seems little doubt at least 2,000 combatants - all apparently affiliated to and financed by Osama bin Laden - are now active in support of the Taliban," Jane's reports. The trend across much of Afghanistan, reflected well before the latest deployments of the past two days, is that "when the going gets tough, Afghan Taliban forces are fighting alongside - or following behind - non-Afghan fighters."
At the front, they are expected to put up a stronger resistance than Taliban forces - partly because defeat could spell the end of the Taliban, and therefore safe haven for Mr. bin Laden and his "foreign legion."
"The Arabs must fight stronger than the Taliban, because all the world wants to take these Arabs to trial," says General Babajan, Alliance commander of this front line, adding that his troops fired more than 100 rockets at Taliban resupply lines overnight Monday, in concert with US strikes.
"There is no place safe for Arab soldiers to go, so they must face the Northern Alliance and fight well," he says, speaking beside a mortar position at Bagram air base.
While claiming that he has yet to receive orders to move on Kabul, he made clear that success of his 2,000 troops stretched across the front from Kabul airport to Bagram - facing off with at least 6,000 Taliban and foreign soldiers - would require American help.
"When we plan to attack Kabul, at that time America should bombard the Taliban with planes and rockets," General Babajan says, adding that the new, disciplined Arab and foreign units might keep Taliban defections down. Already, he says, in the last two days, bin Laden units have set up a new camp at the base of Mt. Safi, which rises from the Shomali Plain north of Kabul. The claim could not be independently verified.
While some argue that the rush of foreign troops to the front indicates a sense of Taliban desperation, foreign and Afghan observers familiar with life in Taliban-ruled Kabul say there is a Catch-22. While the "foreign legion" has helped the Taliban control 90 percent of the country, misbehavior among these forces, including very strict enforcement of stern religious rules on the Taliban's behalf, has worn out their welcome among ordinary Afghans.
"People of 22 nations fight with the Taliban, they are very well-equipped and have good logistics, and aren't Afghans," says Gino Strada, director of the Italian relief organization Emergency, which operates on both sides of the front line.
"But the population doesn't like them," he adds. "They are frightened of them, and they are right. I get frightened too, just looking at them."
---
KILLERS AND THEIR BACKERS -socparty text
From: "John Thomas" <johnthomas15@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001
As the carnage in Afghanistan continues, with millions facing starvation and even UN workers not safe from being killed by "precision" bombing, we've started to hear quite a bit about the "Northern Alliance" opposition forces and their war against the Taliban government.
They are an alliance of various groups with various backers, and we probably haven't heard that much about them until now because the main players behind them have hitherto been Iran and Russia. They both have had obvious cause to advance their interests in an area strategically important for oil (like the US and others) and have thus been attempting to wrest control of Afghanistan from Pakistan (and, indirectly, US) control through support for the Alliance. It might, therefore, not be surprising if the US, Britain etc. stay a bit luke-warm about such "freedom fighters"...
But what are they like? Well, not a shit load better than the Taliban from the point of view of the ordinary people of Aghanistan... Their atrocities are quite well documented, and include mass executions, "ethnic cleansing", shelling of civilians, rape, use of child soldiers, large-scale opium production etc. etc.
Yeah, much the same as the new Public Enemy No. 1, the Taliban (who apparently weren't that evil that they didn't deserve massive injections of CIA dollars until very recently!). As for US/British spiel about "supporting the Afghan people" - yes - like a rope supports a hanged man...
So, whoever "wins" here (and Afghanistan will certainly not be allowed to be governed "independently" of US and other Great Power direction) things will continue in the same awful way for our Afghan sisters and brothers. One bunch of bastards or another, to suit the interests of capital.
The ONLY solution to this cycle, here and elsewhere, is for working class people to take direct control of their own lives - in opposition to capitalism and all of its gangs of butchers.
www.worldsocialism.org
-------- activists
A minority of Americans calls out - loudly - for peace
The country's long tradition of antiwar activism resurges after attacks on the Taliban.
Christian Science Monitor
October 10, 2001
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1010/p5s1-uspo.html
NEW YORK - Katharine Roberts was out campaigning for her candidate for mayor, when she heard about the US attacks against the Taliban and an antiwar rally in Times Square. She raced home, as best she could with her cane, got her peace button, and then joined several thousand others to protest the US military response.
"I'm a lifelong activist, and what's happening here is breaking my heart," she says. "We are becoming them, and that's the wrong thing to do."
Wrapped in a white shawl, with white hair and pink glasses, the retired business-systems consultant is part of a long tradition of antiwar activism in America - stretching back to the Quakers, who gave up control of Pennsylvania rather than fight in the French and Indian War for the British crown.
From "ban the bombers" to anti-Vietnam War activists, pacifists in America have never shied from going against the grain and paying a price for it. Now, the nascent movement - converging on Times Square and in cities across the country from Boston to San Francisco, and made up of people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds - is no different.
As Ms. Roberts and other protesters marched toward the heart of Broadway, some onlookers booed, while others called them un-American and as well as some unprintable things. "I just let it roll off my back," Roberts says.
Fueling the movement
Historically, the Quakers' pacifism has had deep spiritual roots that still resonate on the protest lines. But in this century, a myriad of ideological and other religious impulses have fueled the antiwar movements.
That has led to dissent and a range of views within the community itself. For instance, Todd Gitlin, a former leader of the Students for Democratic Society and anti-Vietnam War protests, believes nations have a right to self-defense. Although he's not sure bombing Afghanistan is the right course, for now he's sitting out the protests.
On the other hand, radical historian Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, headlined one of the first protests in Boston after President Bush declared war on terrorism. He's confident that there is no moral justification for bombing an impoverished country when the perpetrators are terrorists spread over 30 nations.
"Terrorism has much deeper roots, and they lie in American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East," he says. "This is something that Americans don't like to face or think about, but just because the enemy is evil, that doesn't mean we're good."
The variety in the movement is reflected in the Times Square marchers as well. Economist Laksham Parmal, his hand shaking as he carries a sign saying, "Islam, Arabs and Immigrants are not the enemy!" is a follower of Mahatma Gandhi. Gloria Bletter, an attorney and advocate of international human rights law, was passing out leaflets calling the US to take its case to the United Nations, where the perpetrators could be tried and punished according to international criminal law. Osage Bell was decked in a black sweatshirt proclaiming her membership in the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade.
"It's ideological, it's emotional," she says, explaining her reasons for protesting. "We want a better world for people."
Roberts, who walks cautiously through the crowd, doesn't have a religious or ideological base for her lifetime of activism. She says she just knows her own mind and maintains that violence only begets more suffering.
"Whether I'm right or wrong, I have these strong feelings, and I'm not going to give them up," she says.
Like many in the crowd, Roberts is proud to stand up for what she believes in, rather than for what the government would like her to.
To her, that's real democracy and patriotism. "The FBI has a long dossier on me, and I'd be ashamed if they didn't," she says, laughing as she merged into the crowd.
Wide-ranging concerns
But for others, there is a growing sense of unease. Beatrice Nava is clear that a dreadful act was committed against the people at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. But as a mother of four who were draft age during Vietnam, she doesn't believe a military response is appropriate. She's also concerned about the "circumscription of rights" here at home.
"I fear it's going to become increasingly unacceptable to say what I think is very true, which is that the US has engendered hate and righteous indignation with its foreign policy," she says. "It doesn't justify an attack on innocent people, but explains why fanatics are able to gain support and can identify some of their pain coming from this most powerful and richest country in the world."
---
Anti - Globalization Wave Turns Against the War
New York Times
October 10, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-antiglobalisation.html
ATHENS (Reuters) - Anti-globalization activists who disrupted ``capitalist'' gatherings from Seattle to Genoa ran out of steam when America was attacked in September -- the stuffing of their protests knocked out by the horrors of ``ground zero.''
But the demonstrators who, before the attacks, were grabbing the world's attention with protests against the likes of the Group of Eight and the International Monetary Fund are now providing the core of the West's anti-war movement.
``Our drums have changed beat and are now beating to an anti-war rhythm,'' said Petros Konstantinou, a leading anti-globalization activist in Greece. ``We have adapted our steps to suit anti-war demonstrations and actions.''
Anti-globalization web sites are now full of rallying calls for anti-war demonstrations -- from London's Hyde Park, where a national demonstration is planned for Saturday, to the pier at Huntington Beach, California, a fortnight later.
Thousands of protesters may take to the streets across Germany this weekend, including as many as 25,000 in Berlin.
``War is such a massive thing. It blocks out everything else,'' said Martin Empson, an activist with Britain's Globalise Resistance.
SHADOWED BY WAR
Before September 11, anti-globalization demonstrators had descended on international summits in their tens of thousands to protest against the spread of unfettered capitalism and the domination of poor nations by the rich.
The threat of such protests, often accompanied by violence and rioting, forced authorities to set up huge and expensive security systems and, in some cases, to change meeting venues.
But since the suicide attacks on Washington and New York, both the focus and the force of demonstrations have shifted.
Few of what might have been considered traditional forums for anti-globalization protest have attracted big numbers. And what demonstrations there have been -- at a postponed IMF meeting, a changed NATO venue and a European Union finance ministers gathering -- have focused on the threat of war.
Activists say the attacks prompted self-questioning about whether it was appropriate to demonstrate when people were shocked and many were rallying around their governments.
``There is an element of people saying 'I am not sure I want to protest at this time of...mourning,'' Empson said.
But the threat of war and the actual bombing campaign sparked a ``roll over'' from protesting at globalization to demonstrating against the attacks on Afghanistan.
``Opposing war, resisting racist attacks on Muslims, and refusing to surrender freedom, civil rights and privacy is crucial at this dangerous time,'' said a comment on an anarchist web site linked to anti-globalization forces.
----
Higgins Avenue bridge peace party attracting members, respect
Tuesday, October 10, 2001
Bryan O'Connor Montana Kaimin
http://www.kaimin.org/Oct_01/10-10-01/news3_10-10-01.html
Missoula's informal weekly peace gathering on the Higgins Avenue bridge appears to be growing, even though no one seems to take credit for creating it.
"There's no real formal organization," said participant Dean Ritz. "Whoever shows up, shows up."
Ritz and about 50 other Missoula residents gathered on the bridge at 5 p.m. Tuesday, something they intend to do every week. Ritz, who works part time at the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center, said the group was practicing its freedom of association.
"It's patriotic to gather and associate in a public space," Ritz said.
The group held signs that read: "No More Victims," "Wage Peace" and "Compassion." Some people simply made a peace sign with their fingers.
One man wore earrings with peace symbols on them. "We don't have the (peace) sign on the hill anymore, but our bodies work just as well," attendee Jane Bucks said.
Bucks said she was not at the gathering last Tuesday, but was prompted to show up this week by the Oct. 4 editorial in the Missoulian. The editorial described last week's peace protesters as naive, something she said she took offense to.
"It solidified my desire to come down," Bucks said. "That and the fact that our bombs kill individuals that have nothing to do with terrorism."
Bucks passed out several copies of a Tuesday news article reporting the deaths of four civilians in Kabul, Afghanistan. Another woman said she was having bad dreams about innocent people being killed in Afghanistan.
"These people make less than $500 a year, don't have good water to drink and they are walking hundreds of miles just to get shot at," Mary Hamilton said.
Hamilton, a downtown business owner, said she is embarrassed at the United States' lack of concern for other countries and its hunger for power and oil in the Middle East. But she said the people of Afghanistan are whom she worries about the most.
"For 20 years they have had no life," Hamilton said. "Now we are taking away what little scraps they have left."
Rita Jankowski-Bradley and her daughter Janina took turns holding a large peace banner. Jankowski-Bradley said she attended a 10,000 person peace march in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 29., where she spoke with some of the relief workers from the terrorist attacks.
"Some of them told me that justice is necessary, but not revenge," Jankowski-Bradley said.
She said she thinks an international tribunal should be called for the terrorists, instead of waging war on a country. She also said she is concerned about Arab-Americans' civil rights. Janina Bradley, a sociology and environmental studies major at UM, said she is not satisfied with the U.S. foreign policies used in the Middle East.
"Our intervention in other countries for decades has caused much of this violence in the Middle East, all over oil," Bradley said.
Some members of the grass roots peace group, which has no formal name, are planning to take part in a national march on Oct. 27. Marches are being organized in cities across the country on that date, Bradley said, and they plan to march in Missoula as well.
Photo: Mike Cohea/Montana Kaimin - UM graduate Sue Bradford shows her opposition to the U.S. bombings of Afghanistan. Bradford and about 50 others stood on the Higgins Avenue bridge showing their distaste for the U.S. response.
http://www.kaimin.org/Oct_01/10-10-01/images_10-10-01/peaceprotests_mrc-10-10.jpg
----
From Ronnie Gilbert
From: nadine bloch <nbloch@igc.org>
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 16:00:39 -0300
For the second time in my life - at least - a group that I belong to is being investigated by the FBI. The first was the Weavers. The Weavers were a recording industry phenomenon. In 1950 we recorded a couple of songs from our American/World fok music repertoire, Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene" and (ironically) the Israeli "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" and sold millions of records for the almost-defunct record label. Folk music entered the mainstream, and the Weavers were stars.
By 1952 it was over. The record company dropped us, eager television producers stopped knocking on our door. The Weavers were on a private yet well-publicized roster of suspected entertainment industry reds. The FBI came a-calling.
This week, I just found out that Women in Black, another group of peace activists I belong to, is the subject of an FBI investigation. Women in Black is a loosely knit international network of women who vigil against violence, often silently, each group autonomous, each group focused on the particular problems of personal and state violence in its part of the world. Because my group is composed mostly of Jewish women, we focus on the Middle East, protesting the cycle of violence and revenge in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
The FBI is threatening my group with a Grand Jury investigation. Of what? That we publicly call the Israeli military's occupation of the mandated Palestine lands illegal? So does the World Court and the United Nations.
That destroying hundreds of thousands of the Palestinians' olive and fruit trees, blocking roads and demolishing homes promotes hatred and terrorism in the Middle East? Even President Bush and Colin Powell have gotten around to saying so. So what is to investigate? That some of us are in contact with activist Palestinian peace groups? This is bad?
The Jewish Women in Black of Jerusalem have stood vigil every Friday for 13 years in protest against the Occupation; Muslim women from Palestinian peace groups stand with them at every opportunity. We praise and honor them, these Jewish and Arab women who endure hatred and frequent abuse from extremists on both sides for what they do. We are not alone in our admiration. Jerusalem Women in Black is a nominee for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Bosnia Women in Black, now ten years old.
If the FBI cannot or will not distinguish between groups who collude in hatred and terrorism, and peace activists who struggle in the full light of day against all forms of terrorism, we are in serious trouble.
I have seen such trouble before in my lifetime. It was called McCarthyism. In the hysterical atmosphere of the early Cold War, anyone who had signed a peace petition, who had joined an organization opposing violence or racism or had tried to raise money for the refugee children of the Spanish Civil War, in other words who had openly advocated what was not popular at the time, was fair game.
In my case, the FBI visited The Weavers' booking agent, the recording company, my neighbors, my dentist husband's patients, my friends. In the waning of our career, the Weavers were followed down the street, accosted onstage by drunken "patriots", warned by friendly hotel employees to keep the door open if we rehearsed in anyone's room so as not to become targets for the vice squad. It was nasty. Every two-bit local wannabe G-man joined the dragnet searching out and identifying "communist spies."
In all those self-debasing years how many spies were pulled in by that dragnet? Nary a one. Instead it pulled down thousands of teachers, union members, scientists, journalists, actors, entertainers like us, who saw our lives disrupted, our jobs, careers go down the drain, our standing in the community lost, even our children harrassed. A scared population soon shut their mouths up tight.
Thus came the silence of the 1950s and early 60s, when no notable voice of reason was heard to say, "Hey, wait a minute. Look what we're doing to ourselves, to the land of the free and the home of the brave," when not one dissenting intelligence was allowed a public voice to warn against zealous foreign policies we'd later come to regret, would be regretting now, if our leaders were honest.
Today, in the wake of the worst hate crime of the millenium, a dragnet is out for "terroriststs" and we are told that certain civil liberties may have to be curtailed for our own security. Which ones? I'm curious to know. The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech or of the press? The right of people peaceably to assemble? Suddenly, deja vu - haven't I been here before? Hysterical neo-McCarthyism does not equal security, never will.
The bitter lesson September 11's horrific tragedy should have taught us and our government is that only an honest re-evaluation of our foreign policies and careful, focused and intelligent intelligence work can hope to combat operations like the one that robbed all of us and their families of 6,000 decent working people. We owe the dead that, atleast. As for Women in Black, we intend to keep on keeping on.
-Ronnie Gilbert
----
Proud To Be a Pacifist
Common Dreams
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
Seattle Times
by Lewis Green
http://commondreams.org/views01/1010-04.htm
It is doubtful that I can say much that makes sense to syndicated columnist Michael Kelly, as it is obvious from his recent column, "Few pacifists would accept logical outcome of their stance" (Oct. 3), that he completely misunderstands the peace and justice efforts of millions of Americans.
I suspect most peace and justice activists would be hard-pressed to recognize what Kelly describes "pacifism." I know no one in my circle of acquaintances who wants terrorists to get a free ride. We expect terrorists to be tracked down, brought to trial in the country where their offenses were committed and, if found guilty, sent to prison.
What we object to is selective enforcement on terrorism: Terrorism must be recognized whenever and wherever it occurs. I would argue that at least some of the world's 35,000 children who died on Sept. 11 are victims of terrorism, and some of that terrorism is state-financed and state-perpetrated by the West, including the United States. Where is Kelly's outrage regarding that daily occurrence?
I do not know any "privileged" peace and justice staffers, workers or volunteers. Most of us work for very little income; many of us for nothing. I was raised in a poor, rural New Hampshire town, by parents who barely had enough income to pay their bills. In 1965, I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force because giving back to the nation and the world was something my family believed in. I served seven years, earned the Air Force Commendation Medal, and protested the Vietnam War, like many who served then, not because we were or are anti-American, but because that was a criminal and foolish war, having more to do with expansionism than with defense.
Most of my fellow peace and justice workers have taken vows of nonviolence. That does not mean that we will be passive if attacked, but it does mean that our responses will be measured and thoughtful and likely nonviolent, which would not prevent us from serving in the military or in police departments; nonviolence is the opposite of violence, it's not passivity.
Nonviolence does mean, however, that we will not perpetrate unprovoked violence upon others. To that end, we believe that the United States government and its representatives, in their desire to be the greatest, richest and most powerful country in the world, have a violent history toward both persons living within its borders and toward peoples around the world. It also means that we believe that most of the world's governments have acted in these ways, but we are United States citizens, so our efforts are directed at changing U.S. policy.
Many of us in the peace and justice community are faith-based and followers of Jesus, Abraham, Buddha, Gandhi, King and other spiritual leaders. We believe in the values preached and offered by the great prophets, all of whom call for peace. All too often, we who call ourselves Christians seem to ignore Jesus' greatest teaching: Love God and love one another. Here are but a few examples:
It is not love for the United States to consume 40 percent (or 60 percent, depending upon how we measure) of the world's resources. It is not love for the United States and the West to perpetuate and justify a wealth gap that leaves 32 million Americans poor and voiceless, and billions of others around the world poor and voiceless, as well. It is not love to train foreign soldiers in the art of counterinsurgency, which is simply a fancy phrase for "the art of terrorism," which those soldiers all too frequently use to brutalize their own citizens, primarily, but not exclusively, in their Latin American homelands.
In addition to being wrong and antithetical to the teachings of the world's religions, and of most of our mothers and fathers, the short list of examples above does not leave us safer or more free.
Throughout the history of mankind, nations, including our own, worked purposefully to create an unjust world, where but one nation, one empire, is first, leaving in its wake the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed. Eventually, all of the empires fall, and another takes its place. We call for an end to this foolish way of living. We call for changes in the way nations govern, the way they treat other nations, and the way they treat their own citizens. We call for the ultimate democracy, where freedom touches everyone. Where all are fed, clothed and sheltered.
Yes, freedom comes with a price: Perhaps, the rich may have to be less rich; CEOs may not be able to make 220 times that of the average worker in the United States; we have to implement fair trade instead of free trade; we may have to drive cars that pollute far less or, heaven forbid, ride public transportation; we may have to think of others as much as we think about ourselves.
Kelly may find that distasteful, but he goes astray when he accuses those of us in the peace and justice community of being unwilling to walk the talk, as most of us live extremely modest lives. In my case, I surrendered my good-paying corporate job and lowered my standard of living, so that I can work to create a more just and fair world, where peace is achieved through justice. My story reflects the stories of most of the peace and justice workers I know.
So, in the end, I suspect Kelly will think I am moronic and maybe even a traitor, as that attitude seems to make up about 40 percent of the mail I receive whenever I rebut a column such as his. But I will take the company of the great prophets and the peacemakers any day over that of those governments and individuals who feel comfortable bombing, killing, brutalizing or terrorizing - either militarily or economically - those they do not understand, those who get in their way or those who disagree politically or socially.
In closing, I love my country enough not only to serve it in the military but to serve it in peace, as well. Bring all terrorists to justice, but treat all terrorism equally. The life of an American lost is dreadful, painful and horrible; so is the life of an Afghan lost. The divisive nature of splitting apart people through namecalling and belittling does nothing to bring us closer together in understanding one another nor does it contribute to a just world.
Lewis Green is regional coordinator for Witness for Peace Northwest (wfpnw@witnessforpeace.org; www.witnessforpeace.org)
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Worldwide protests against US bombing of Afghanistan
From: "radtimes"
By Julie Hyland
10 October 2001
Anger at the US bombing raids on Afghanistan has unleashed protests in many countries, sometimes leading to violent clashes.
In Pakistan, crowds of about 15,000 fought for more than three hours with police in Quetta, in western Pakistan near the Afghanistan border. A police station was attacked and the headquarters of the UN children's fund was badly burnt, along with several shops and cinemas. Police opened fire on the crowd, killing one and injuring several others. Approximately 75 people were arrested.
Three people were killed in the nearby town of Kuchlak, including a 12-year old boy, when police opened fire on a crowd of some 1,500, mainly Afghan refugees, protesting the US air strikes.
Police also fired into crowds in Peshawar, injuring at least 10 people. Effigies of Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair were burned.
In a series of running battles with protestors in the Khyber bazaar, riot police, backed by soldiers with machine guns, fired tear-gas canisters and mounted baton charges. Armoured personnel carriers were used to block roads around the US Consulate to prevent demonstrators approaching. Following a smaller demonstration led by students, all the city's students were ordered home indefinitely and all government schools in the northwest province closed for week.
At Landi Kotal further north, at least three people were wounded when a local militia fired upon some 5,000 tribesmen who had gathered to burn effigies of US President George W. Bush.
Sporadic violence was also reported in the southern city of Karachi.
In the tightly guarded capital of Islamabad, several hundred protestors demonstrated near the UN headquarters building and the American Cultural Centre. The city's American and British Embassies have been placed under heavy guard.
Pakistan's President General Musharraf, whose support for the air raids has been crucial to the US war drive, dismissed the protests as the work of extremists and said they were "very, very controllable".
On Monday, Pakistani authorities had arrested three leading Islamists allied to the pro-Taliban Afghanistan and Pakistan Defence Council, a coalition of 35 parties pledged to oppose the US attacks. Azam Tariq, Fazlur Rehman and Samiul Haq were all placed under house arrest.
Violent protests also erupted in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, causing large parts of the city to be closed down. At the Kashmir University campus hundreds of students demonstrated against the attacks, throwing stones and chanting anti-US slogans. Thirty people were injured when police fired tear gas at the protestors, many of whom denounced Musharraf for supporting the US.
In Calcutta, 1,000 anti-war protestors from the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) demonstrated near the American Centre, and burnt an effigy of President Bush. SUCI leader Prabash Ghosh said that the US had not offered proof that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the terror attacks. A joint statement by the country's four Stalinist and Maoist communist parties warned India's ruling coalition, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, not to aid the US-led war drive.
In Bangladesh, the third largest Muslim country in the world, Islamic organisations protested in the capital, Dhaka. Chanting slogans such as "Bangladesh soil is not for America" and "Laden is the defender of Islam", several hundred protestors listened to Fazlul Haq Amini of the Islamic Oikya Jote, a partner in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four-party alliance, which assumes office today, threaten war against the US. Bangladesh had offered the US use of its airspace and other key facilities to conduct its military strikes, but Amini warned that more than three million students in the country could be called upon to support a holy war against the US.
In Egypt, more than 20,000 students from nine universities in Cairo and the north protested the air strikes, and condemned the government's support for the US attack. President Hosni Mubarak has been America's most stalwart ally amongst the Arab countries, but has not issued a statement since the bombing began. Security forces stood guard outside the campuses as 4,000 students protested at the Islamic University of Al-Azhar, 3,000 at the Alexandria University and a further 2,500 at Zagazig University to the north.
In Jordan, security forces carried out a major clampdown against potential protestors as soon as the US raids began, arresting at least 10 Islamic students from the University of Jordan.
In the Sultanate of Oman, where British forces are engaged in a major military exercise, police broke up a small anti-war protest, mainly involving students.
Elsewhere in Asia, there have been violent clashes in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation. In the second day of protests by fundamentalist Muslim groups some 500 demonstrated near the US embassy in the capital Jakarta. Indonesian police fired warning shots, tear gas and water cannon to try and disperse the crowd. At least four people were reported injured in the clashes. The US embassy has been closed, and sealed off with barbed wire barricades. A small group of protestors managed briefly to gather outside the British Embassy. A separate group of 200 members of the Indonesian Muslim Student Action Unity also protested outside the United Nations building in the capital, chanting "America, the real terrorist".
US and British officials called on all foreign nationals to remain indoors after the Association of Indonesian Ulemas (clerics) issued a joint statement on behalf of 40 Islamic organisations, criticising the Indonesian government's support for the US and demanding that it "suspend diplomatic relations with America and its allies until the attacks stop".
There were reports of protests in Makassar, Sulawasi Island and in the Javanese city of Bandung where 2,000 people marched.
In Japan, there were small anti-war demonstrations outside the US Embassy in Tokyo, whilst the country's 370,000-strong Teachers Union condemned the US bombing raid and called for an immediate end to the attacks.
In Europe, there have also been small demonstrations in all the major capitals. A total of 15,000 people participated in anti-war demonstrations in Geneva, Amsterdam and Barcelona at the weekend. Following the US air strikes, protests have also been held in Stockholm and Helsinki, whilst in Rome, several hundred demonstrated outside the United Nations. Sit-down protests were held in Turin and Milan.
In Greece, more than 2,000 marched on the US Embassy in Athens, which was sealed off by hundreds of riot police.
In Dublin, a group of anti-war protestors demonstrated outside the US Embassy to condemn the air strikes and protest the Irish governments offer of assistance to the Bush administration.
And in France, a few hundred protestors gathered in Paris and Strasbourg.
There have also been a series of protests across Britain. In London, a small group of 100 demonstrators gathered outside Downing Street as the bombing raids began on Sunday evening, chanting, "Stop the war, feed the poor". In Birmingham, hundreds demonstrated under the auspices of the "Stop the War" coalition the same evening. Both incidents passed off peacefully.
However in Glasgow, six people were arrested following a protest outside a Ministry of Defence building. Three men and three women were taken into custody after scaling the first floor ledge of the building to unfurl a banner saying asking, "What do the dead eat?"a reference to the US bombing raids being followed up by so-called humanitarian food drops. Another two people were also arrested during the same protest. A spokesman for the Faslane Peace Camp, which organised the protest, said, "Bush and Blair are nothing short of murderers themselves. If they have proof against Osama bin Laden they should bring him to trial through the international law courts." Some 400 people also gathered at a two-hour vigil in the city's Glasgow Square, whilst in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, 200 rallied in Parliament Square, chanting slogans such as, "Terror is no antidote to Terror".
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A minority of Americans calls out - loudly - for peace
The country's long tradition of antiwar activism resurges after attacks on the Taliban.
By Alexandra Marks
The Christian Science Monitor
October 10, 2001
NEW YORK - Katharine Roberts was out campaigning for her candidate for mayor, when she heard about the US attacks against the Taliban and an antiwar rally in Times Square. She raced home, as best she could with her cane, got her peace button, and then joined several thousand others to protest the US military response.
"I'm a lifelong activist, and what's happening here is breaking my heart," she says. "We are becoming them, and that's the wrong thing to do."
Wrapped in a white shawl, with white hair and pink glasses, the retired business-systems consultant is part of a long tradition of antiwar activism in America - stretching back to the Quakers, who gave up control of Pennsylvania rather than fight in the French and Indian War for the British crown.
From "ban the bombers" to anti-Vietnam War activists, pacifists in America have never shied from going against the grain and paying a price for it. Now, the nascent movement - converging on Times Square and in cities across the country from Boston to San Francisco, and made up of people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds - is no different.
As Ms. Roberts and other protesters marched toward the heart of Broadway, some onlookers booed, while others called them un-American and as well as some unprintable things. "I just let it roll off my back," Roberts says.
Fueling the movement
Historically, the Quakers' pacifism has had deep spiritual roots that still resonate on the protest lines.
But in this century, a myriad of ideological and other religious impulses have fueled the antiwar movements. That has led to dissent and a range of views within the community itself.
For instance, Todd Gitlin, a former leader of the Students for Democratic Society and anti-Vietnam War protests, believes nations have a right to self-defense. Although he's not sure bombing Afghanistan is the right course, for now he's sitting out the protests.
On the other hand, radical historian Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, headlined one of the first protests in Boston after President Bush declared war on terrorism. He's confident that there is no moral justification for bombing an impoverished country when the perpetrators are terrorists spread over 30 nations.
"Terrorism has much deeper roots, and they lie in American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East," he says. "This is something that Americans don't like to face or think about, but just because the enemy is evil, that doesn't mean we're good."
The variety in the movement is reflected in the Times Square marchers as well.
Economist Laksham Parmal, his hand shaking as he carries a sign saying, "Islam, Arabs and Immigrants are not the enemy!" is a follower of Mahatma Gandhi.
Gloria Bletter, an attorney and advocate of international human rights law, was passing out leaflets calling the US to take its case to the United Nations, where the perpetrators could be tried and punished according to international criminal law.
Osage Bell was decked in a black sweatshirt proclaiming her membership in the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade.
"It's ideological, it's emotional," she says, explaining her reasons for protesting. "We want a better world for people."
Roberts, who walks cautiously through the crowd, doesn't have a religious or ideological base for her lifetime of activism. She says she just knows her own mind and maintains that violence only begets more suffering.
"Whether I'm right or wrong, I have these strong feelings, and I'm not going to give them up," she says.
Like many in the crowd, Roberts is proud to stand up for what she believes in, rather than for what the government would like her to. To her, that's real democracy and patriotism.
"The FBI has a long dossier on me, and I'd be ashamed if they didn't," she says, laughing as she merged into the crowd.
Wide-ranging concerns
But for others, there is a growing sense of unease. Beatrice Nava is clear that a dreadful act was committed against the people at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. But as a mother of four who were draft age during Vietnam, she doesn't believe a military response is appropriate. She's also concerned about the "circumscription of rights" here at home.
"I fear it's going to become increasingly unacceptable to say what I think is very true, which is that the US has engendered hate and righteous indignation with its foreign policy," she says. "It doesn't justify an attack on innocent people, but explains why fanatics are able to gain support and can identify some of their pain coming from this most powerful and richest country in the world."
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Building A Peace Movement In Wartime
October 10, 2001
by Alan Bock
http://www.antiwar.com/bock/b101001.html
With the launching of cruise missiles and bombs the war is truly on. It would be prudent to take American leaders at their word that this is likely to be a protracted conflict think Cold War rather than Gulf War if only because war is the health of the state and a protracted war can serve as justification for accretions of state power.
There may be episodes of relative calm and respite from direct military conflict times when, as President Bush would have it, the forces of freedom are enjoying invisible victories over the invisible enemy. But it is probably wise to expect something resembling a wartime footing for at least several years and possibly more.
THE ONGOING WAR
One could argue that this is only a more active phase of a continuing conflict. Back in the 1980s sociologist Robert Nesbitt gave the Jefferson address for the Smithsonian Institution and noted that in his view what would surprise the founders the most about the United States was that it had been in a constant state of war for 70 years and counting. Most Americans thought active war would end or at least ratchet downward a bit with the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of communism as a worldwide threat.
Quibbles from neocons aside, however, the defense budget was not really reduced all that much and U.S. commitments were certainly not scaled back. The propensity to meddle in the troubled affairs of other countries never abated. The Clintonistas might have preferred symbolic skirmishes and bombing from 15,000 feet to the kind of hand-to-hand combat that some traditionalists believe is the defining characteristic of true manhood for other mothers' sons. But they continued to intervene, and the regnant ideology that bombs and military action are the most effective if not the only way to deal with nasty folk out there in the rest of the world was reinforced rather than seriously challenged.
Nonetheless, the missiles and bombs of the last few days represent a serious ratcheting up of military hostilities. With military hostilities will come changes in domestic policies and repression, from the relatively gentle repression of self-censorship in the face of war enthusiasm to much less gentle forms.
So what are those who believe in peaceful policies and restraint in the rest of the world to do during these relatively active phases of hostility?
PATRIOTISM V. NATIONALISM
There's an old saw to the effect that patriotism is the love of one's own country, while nationalism is hostility toward some other country or countries. It's a simplistic distinction that might not be entirely valid in every case. But it's a useful distinction with a certain amount of analytical power.
If that is the distinction, I'm a patriot but not a nationalist. I would urge other antiwar activists and writers to think about adopting a similar stance if they can do so conscientiously.
LIBERATION AND MARKETS
There are people who genuinely believe America is a pox on the earth and the source of most of the globalist capitalist evil that threatens everything good, true and beautiful in the world. If that's really their sincere belief, bless 'em. But I don't think that viewpoint will sell very well in the American body politic.
I'm an enthusiastic capitalist unfortunately a theorist rather than a practitioner, so I have trouble meeting my mortgage payment every month. I think that what mainly afflicts the troubled spots of the earth is a lack of capitalism or of free markets, to refine the terms a little bit. What irks me most about US foreign policy is not that it spreads anything resembling capitalism though it often enough does serve the interests of certain US mega-corporations but that it subverts genuine free trade and free markets.
All that said, as the war on terrorism drags on and I think our would-be masters intend to drag it on for as long as they can, using it to enhance state power at home and abroad I'm more than happy to join hands and form coalitions with people who believe that the IMF is an instrument of global capitalism instead of global socialism, so long as they're sincerely interested in slowing down the spread of global militarism.
MORE BLUNDERING THAN EVIL
But I, for one, will express myself in terms of American patriotism, of this country being true to its origins, ideals and better angels (and the real wishes of the majority of American citizens), rather than characterizing the United States as a demonic force in the world. I yield to few in my criticism of US foreign policy as fashioned by arrogant ignoramuses with educations so incomplete that they are barely aware of the vast stretches of their ignorance. But I think of America more as a blundering, essentially good-natured giant rather than a malignant force though the results are often the same.
Insofar as people can do so and still be true to themselves, I would urge others to avoid characterizing America as evil.
One of the reasons the United States is ill-suited to the role of world policeman is that for various reasons of history, geography and culture, few Americans know very much or care to know very much about the rest of the world. (Unfortunately, too many of those with an interest are more interested in trying to run the world than in trying to understand it.) As a consequence, most Americans are baffled and then indignant when confronted with a litany of the sins of the CIA and American hegemonists and the implication that this country is a malignant sore on the world.
Most Americans know that they aren't personally malignant, and in fact are generous and openhearted. They find it difficult to take in the idea that their country is malignant, and are more likely to reject the idea than think about it when confronted with a hostile presentation.
On the other hand, most Americans don't have much confidence in politicians or the government, and might be open to the idea that they are making horrendous mistakes, either because they fail to understand the full implications of their actions or because institutional imperatives push them in the direction of unwise actions. So I advocate a patriotic tone even a reminder that it is not only our birthright but to some extent our American duty to be willing to criticize the government and hold it in check rather than a blame-America-first attitude.
KEEPING THE CRITICISM GOING
Speaking of America First, I do think it is imperative not to follow in the footsteps of those early critics of American interventionism and war fever in at least one respect. Once Pearl Harbor was attacked and the United States declared war in 1941, almost all the members of the America First Committee were essentially silent in public for the duration of the war. Some became supporters of the war effort and others kept their criticism or misgivings to themselves, whether because of fear of offending the majority or essential patriotism.
One can make a case either way as to whether that was the wise course. In today's circumstances, however, I believe it is essential that critics of the War Party maintain a steady drumbeat of criticism and sometimes opposition. For starters, Congress hasn't declared war, despite all the metaphors and military action, so there's no justification for wartime repression of speech and criticism. If we're smart, it should be responsible criticism, delivered in measured tones and backed by solid research and a reasonable appreciation of the facts as we are able to determine them.
There may be circumstances in which it is more effective to criticize particular tactics or actions rather than getting to the root of what's wrong with American foreign policy in every presentation. We should be prepared for the likelihood that we will sometimes get little attention and will sometimes be dismissed as cranks. But we should determine that we will not relent in our determination to change American foreign policy over time which means we have to be willing to criticize it at almost every step.
I have no idea how dangerous this course might be for some. It is certainly likely that patriotism will morph into jingoism from time to time and critics will be threatened. It is possible that we will face official sanction, especially if Attorney General John Ashcroft gets the kind of repressive "anti-terrorist" legislation he craves. But I think the best defense is to establish a record at the outset of calm, reasoned, thoughtful, patriotically grounded criticism.
WARTIME DANGERS
As the United States embarks on a campaign our leaders assure us is narrowly targeted on known terrorists and their supporters, a campaign to protect freedom and democracy, there are subtle dangers of which we should be aware. It is typical during time of war or military action for tolerance of differing opinions, of different cultures, even of innocent eccentricity to decline. This is likely to be especially true of a war initiated by an act of terrorism on American soil, when most authorities expect terrorists of some sort (perhaps not directly connected to those who carried out the first atrocities) to seek to retaliate with another act of dramatic destruction.
Already we have heard retired military people on television urging Americans to be ready to report suspicious activities to the FBI.
Heightened vigilance is to be expected and is important, given the circumstances. But we must be vigilant and persistent ourselves, reminding our fellow citizens that among the values assaulted by the terrorists are freedom of speech and the right to be odd, different or unusual and be left alone.
This freedom doesn't, or shouldn't, end during wartime; indeed, it is desirable in many ways that it be encouraged. Promoting unity and discouraging troubling questions are not only subversive of enduring American values, suppressing honest criticism can often lead to bad decisions.
In the weeks and months to come we and other Americans will question everything from the timing of certain attacks to the weapons used to ways to minimize casualties all the way to the broader question of whether we should be in a war at all. This is healthy in a free country. A strong America can not only tolerate impertinent questions, it will become stronger as a result.
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'There isn't a target in Afghanistan worth a $1m missile'
Mohamed Heikal, the Arab world's foremost political commentator, talks to
Stephen Moss
Wednesday October 10, 2001
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,566516,00.html
It feels surreal to be talking to Mohamed Heikal, the Arab world's most respected political commentator and the former foreign minister of Egypt, in the lounge of Claridge's, one of London's swishest hotels. As the missiles rain down on Afghanistan, Heikal unveils his vision of the possible chaos ahead to the accompaniment of a tinkling piano and a lilting clarinet. Rarely has the gulf between west and east, first world and third, seemed so great.
Heikal, an effortlessly urbane 78-year-old, spans those worlds and unpicks the hypocrisies of each. He has been a journalist for almost 60 years, was editor and chairman of the influential Egyptian daily Al-Ahram for almost 20, and has written a dozen highly regarded books on Egypt and Iran. From the first days of the revolution, he was close to President Nasser, and was briefly - and reluctantly - his minister of information and foreign affairs in 1970. He enjoyed an equally close but rather more volatile relationship with President Sadat, who imprisoned him in 1981 for opposing the Camp David negotiations.
Heikal can see no logic in the attack on Afghanistan. For a start, he says, there is nothing there worth attacking. "I have seen Afghanistan, and there is not one target deserving the $1m that a cruise missile costs, not even the royal palace. If I took it at face value, I would think this is madness, so I assume they have a plan and this is only the first stage."
He also questions whether Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network were solely responsible for the September 11 attacks, arguing that the limited evidence so far presented is far from convincing. "Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was Nazi Germany or the communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there. Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored and al-Qaida has been penetrated by American intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organisation and sophistication."
Heikal gives little credence to suggestions that a more central planning role may have been played by Bin Laden's nominal deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. "He is dangerous and was involved in the assassination of Sadat, but he is not a great thinker or a great planner. He played a peripheral role in the assassination, which itself was marked by superficial planning and only succeeded because of luck. As their interviews with al-Jazeera showed, Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri rely on nothing but their instincts. This is not Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood, this is an isolated minority who reflect neither Islam nor our times. They are the historic residue of oppression; they don't represent the future."
There may, Heikal believes, be some as yet undiscovered element in the atrocity of September 11. Whatever the truth, he says that the explanations so far have been hasty, inconclusive and remarkably convenient. "I understand that the American administration wanted an enemy right away to hit, to absorb the anger of the American people," he says, "but I wish they had produced some real evidence. I read what Mr Blair said in the House of Commons carefully: they had prepared the atmosphere for that statement by saying he is going to reveal some of the proof, but there is no proof, nothing; it is all deductions. Colin Powell was more honest than anybody: he said if not this, it doesn't matter, he has committed so many other crimes that necessitate taking action against him. But that is like the Chinese proverb: 'Hit your wife every day; if you don't know the reason, she does.' You can't do it this way."
It is important, Heikal says, to differentiate between the powerful anti-American feeling throughout the Middle East and the response to the attack on the World Trade Centre. "I know there were some demonstrations by people who expressed happiness," he says, "but they are not representative. People in the Middle East know what terrorism means. When tourists were shot at Luxor, there was indignation in Egypt. On the other hand, there is an unbelievable degree of anti-American feeling all over the area."
The reasons for that loathing of the US are, he says, easy to pinpoint - the Americans' "blind" support for Israel and their backing for illegitimate, discredited regimes across the Middle East. He castigates every government in the region, including his own, and blames the US for propping them up. "The people did not choose these governments and in any free election none of them would succeed. They are not legitimate governments; they do not represent anything other than power."
This is bad enough, but the fact that the US - the shining city on the hill - colludes with them is even worse. "The US supports the status quo whatever it is. They talk about democracy and then ignore it; they talk about the UN and ignore it; in every way you can accuse them of double standards. It is revolting to see them talking about democracy and then supporting undemocratic regimes. They talk about international legitimacy and then support what the Israelis are doing." All this is said with an analyst's precision, rather than an orator's passion.
So will Islam now rally to the cause of Afghanistan? Heikal says there is little direct sympathy for the Taliban, who he describes as being "out of this world". He relates the story of Mullah Omar Mohammed, the Taliban leader, attending a meeting of Islamic leaders in Pakistan and refusing to sit down until a picture was removed from the room. "But that is Jinnah," [Mohammed Ali Jinnah led Pakistan to independence in 1947] protested his Pakistani hosts. "Who is Jinnah?" he replied. He also failed to recognise Yasser Arafat. Heikal tells the story to demonstrate that just as the problems of the Middle East fail to register on Mullah Omar's radar, so the Taliban is not the key issue for the rest of the region.
Nevertheless, as a symbol of American imperialism, the attack on Afghanistan is potent, and there are likely to be far-reaching repercussions, especially if Iraq and other countries in the region are added to the target list. Inevitably, says Heikal, when there is a vacuum, Islam - a ready-made cultural unifier and the answer to the region's multiple identity crises - is there to fill it. He identifies Pakistan as the country most likely to be destabilised. "There is a danger that the action will bring down the Pakistani regime," he says. "It could create a split in the army, where many of the officers are pro-Islamic. The worst-case scenario is chaos with no one strong enough to take over, and that chaos could easily spread into the Middle East." He also says that Turkey is vulnerable, despite the army's self-proclaimed role as the bastion of secularism.
Standing behind everything is the issue of Palestine - unresolved and apparently unresolvable. "The current crisis in Afghanistan can spill over into other countries," says Heikal, "but the chronic crisis is the Palestinian issue." He is pessimistic about any compromise, recalling the telegram sent to the Zionist leader, Theodor Herzl, by the two rabbis he dispatched to Palestine to look at the land that might form the state of Israel: "The bride is beautiful but she is married."
His solution is a Palestinian state and "an Israel for all its citizens", where the million Arabs are not second-class citizens. "The most important thing is to get religion out," he says. "You are talking to me about a Muslim state, yet you are not discussing a Jewish state - a state built on religion. That cannot be. Religion can be no basis for a state."
He has no faith in the current softening of the American line towards the Palestinians, which he says is a replica of their approach during the Gulf war. "Whenever the US needs the Arabs, they are ready to offer a carrot," he says. "In 1991 the Arab world was lured into the Gulf war against Iraq because they were promised that they would be compensated by a just solution of the Palestinian problem. The Americans sent letters of reassurance to all the parties and the Arab states went to Madrid to negotiate on the basis of those assurances. It is 10 years since Madrid and nothing has happened. Now the same scenario is being repeated. Strangely enough, it is even the same people - Cheney, Powell, a Bush. It is as if nothing has changed. People in the Arab world will see that our leaders are deceived again. Those who repeat their lessons are very bad pupils, and we are very bad pupils. We don't learn from our mistakes, so we are doomed to repeat them."
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THE GREEN PARTY RELEASES A MAJOR STATEMENT ON THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS AND THE U.S. RESPONSE
For immediate release:
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
Contacts: Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator 207-326-4576, nallen@acadia.net
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator 202-518-5624, scottmclarty@yahoo.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Green Party of the United States has issued an official statement on the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and U.S. airlines. The statement is printed below.
"The statement represents a broad consensus of the 33 states in the party's Coordinating Committee," said Ben Manski, a Wisconsin Green and a member of the national Steering Committee of the Green Party. "It addresses the atrocities committed on September 11, the surrounding issues, and what Greens believe is an appropriate response that emphasizes justice instead of vengeance, the safety of our people, the rule of law, and a systematic approach to deterring terrorism. It urges President Bush and his Cabinet to respond to the attacks as crimes against humanity punishable under international law, rather than a motivation for war - which would result in many more civilian deaths."
GREEN PARTY STATEMENT On The September 11th Events
The Green Party of the United States is shocked by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. We extend our deepest sympathy to those most personally affected by these horrific events. We remember especially the injured, the loved ones of those who have died, the innocents who lost their lives in the midst of an ordinary day's work, and those heroic firefighters, police officers and other relief workers who gave their lives unquestioningly. These were our neighbors, co-workers, friends and family members. As Americans and as members of the human family, we are all irrevocably affected by this terror.
GREEN PARTY URGES ADHERENCE TO INTERNATIONAL LAW
Greens fully support the right and obligation of the U.S. to seek justice. The complete disregard for the sanctity of human life displayed by the perpetrators of these atrocities must be countered by a just and lawful response. Justice is the goal and mark of a civilized society. Thus, we call on the United States Government to exercise caution and restraint as we form a response to these attacks. Indiscriminate military actions and acts of vengeance would only escalate violence and generate additional hatred.
Furthermore, a unilateral and indiscriminate military response, especially on the Afghan or Arab peoples, can easily be misperceived as an attack on Islam. This would undermine international support for the US, further fanaticism and terrorism and ultimately imperil the possibility of peace in the future.
Therefore, we believe that the September 11, 2001 attacks on innocent civilians should, in accordance with domestic and international law, be characterized as an international crime against humanity, not a war. A full investigation, undertaken with international cooperation, must take place before the President and Congress attempt to bring those responsible to justice. Accordingly, the identification of any perpetrator of these offenses and their supporters must be based on solid and credible evidence not by innuendo or conviction in the media. A sound legal case must be made and brought to federal and international courts for arrest and extradition as necessary. American declarations of war inhibit rather than promote this international cooperation. Attempts to unilaterally seek redress through bombs and missiles, rather than a court of law, will undermine international law, and set back recent international successes in bringing those who have committed crimes against humanity to justice. Accordingly, the Green Party specifically opposes any attempt by President Bush to wage war outside the scrutiny of Congress and the American public for whom they speak. The U.S. Constitution addresses war powers explicitly and does not, under any interpretation, allow a president a "blank check" power to wage war.
GREENS FEAR EROSION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES AT HOME
No matter who the perpetrators of the September attacks prove to be, unjust attacks in the U.S. or abroad against Arab-Americans, Arabs, Muslims or anyone else of Middle Eastern ancestry are unacceptable and un-American. Therefore, we encourage President Bush and other public officials to continue to denounce sentiments and behavior that target ethnic or religious groups in revenge for the September 11th attacks.
The September 11th attacks struck out at American democracy as well as the World Trade Center and Pentagon. By definition, terrorism opposes representative government, undermines civil liberties, and represses religious freedom and ethnic diversity. Therefore, our response to terrorism must not erode these very same civil liberties and constitutional rights. While we understand the immediate need for measures like increased airport security, we oppose any restriction on civil political dissent, which would, in effect, make democratic accountability a casualty of the September 11th attacks. Critical, open and honest civic debate about our past and future policy is essential to a solid and lasting democracy. We urge our fellow citizens to be vigilant in supporting our civil liberties, which are always vulnerable during times of conflict.
LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS TO TERRORISM AND VIOLENCE AGAINST CIVILIANS
While there is never any justification for acts of terror against innocent civilians -- indeed it is the quintessential act of dehumanization -- the events of September 11th bring Americans the unique occasion to reconsider our government's role on the world stage. The Green Party calls attention to the fact that, even in the midst of our national anger, grief, and fear, the US remains the most militarily powerful and influential country in the world at present. In accord with this and our identity as a leading defender of democracy, we have the obligation to act democratically and model moral and just standards for others.
Thus, in seeking to prevent further terrorist attacks in the US and elsewhere, the Green Party urges our nation to reassess our government's policies and actions, which at worst, may have served to justify terrorism in the minds of our attackers and their sympathizers, and at least,may continue to be sources of frustration and anger for many freedom-seeking peoples around the world.
The Green Party asserts that a significant aspect of preventing future terrorist attacks on the United States is to insure that our foreign policy is firmly based on economic and social justice. Specifically, we call on the U.S. to end the economic sanctions against Iraq which have resulted in the death of over a half million innocent Iraqi children and civilians. We also call on the U.S. to insist that international law be strictly observed with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Furthermore, the Green Party of the United States urges our fellow citizens and people everywhere to view September 11th as an opportunity to call for an end to all violence towards civilians. As our platform states, the Green Party seeks strength through peace and asserts that security and liberty prosper together. While we recognize the need for self-defense and the defense of others who are in helpless situations, we trust that non-violence provides the surest road to peace.
Therefore, at this turning point in world affairs, we strongly urge President Bush to lead the world forward, toward a realignment of peoples and nations, not backward into an era of military and economic conquest characterized by endless violence. We can signal this new era with a declaration strictly banning the targeting of civilians and non-combatants and the use of weapons of mass destruction. This new era can be sustained by a rededication of our vast resources away from producing more weapons and towards eradicating the poverty, disease and ignorance that foster despair and insecurity for most of the world's people. Finally, we urge people and governments around the world to join us in the most pressing challenge of this new millennium: to create a culture of peace. It is in meeting these demands of peace, that we will know what peace truly is. The deaths of over 6000 innocents demand it.
MORE INFORMATION
The Green Party of the United States http://gpus.org
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Fighting the Next War, Not the Last One
Wed, 10 Oct 2001
by Michael Novick
It has been said that generals are always preparing to fight the last war. In this case, it looks like the generals and spy-masters are way out in front fighting the next one, while it is we on the left and in the peace movement who are fighting the last one. Compared to what we are entering on, the Gulf War or even the Vietnam War were only skirmishes. We are facing a colossal political watershed. Bush, Cheney et al have lied about many things over the past weeks, but they have told one truth -- this is going to be a long, total war, and the terrain on which we struggle has been fundamentally changed. It establishes the groundwork for all on-going struggles, in the US, Canada and throughout Bush's global "coalition" of states.
Nonetheless, if we allow Bush to set the terms and definitions of the struggle -- for example, if we attempt to define ourselves reactively and exclusively as a peace movement, or to subsume all our efforts into anti-war activism -- then I think that we will have lost the battle before we begin it. We would have allowed Bush et al to wipe the slate clean of all our successes and growth in the recent period in taking an initiative against the state and capital, against the empire. This would allow Bush to solidify the temporary "national unity" he has achieved, and to successfully use the brand of "terrorist" to launch a new McCarthyism domestically with even sharper teeth than cold-war anti-communism or COINTELPRO.
Bush has launched a program and campaign comparable in scope to World War II or to the Cold War. The shadowy and malleable nature of the enemy is perfectly suited to his purposes, and the war will be waged domestically as well as throughout the rest of the empire. In response to the mirror image "lines in the sand" drawn by Bush and Bin Laden, we need to declare our opposition to the fascist terror and war of both Bush and Bin Laden, and we need to put forward an analysis and program for dealing with both. We must put forward non-state methods for dealing with fundamentalist terror. This terror is in no way revolutionary. Read Bin Laden's statements, in which he calls for the American people to put in place a "nationalist" government. Look at Bin Laden's practice, beginning with his terror assaults on coeducational education in Afghanistan. He is no friend or ally of the world's people. But we cannot accept imperial war and state terror as an answer or response, nor can we ally or align ourselves as a loyal left wing of Bush's coalition.
What can we put forward as a revolutionary program against terror?
1. Civilian-based defense domestically against terror. The empire has demonstrated its inability to deter terror attacks on the U.S. (or possibly its complicity in them). War is a guarantee of more terror here, and the precautionary security measures have been self-evidently unresponsive to the threats and possibilities. We need to be involved in active, grass roots community self-defense efforts -- if we are not, they will become a province of right wing mass organizing and base-building and for breeding racist paranoia. We must pose this as a clear alternative to the state program, not an adjunct. Such civilian based defense established on a sound basis can also deal with organized racist terror, or police abuse, or with rescue and recovery in the event of disaster.
2. Solidarity with the Afghani people, in particular material aid to RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, which has been struggling in clandestinity within Afghanistan and among Afghan refugees for a democratic secular society, providing education and health care. We must pose this as clearly opposed to the US alliance with the reactionaries of the Northern Alliance.
3. Alliances with social revolutionary forces in the Muslim and Arab world. The US and Israel promoted and financed the creation of Islamic fundamentalism as a strategic attempt to divide and divert the Arab masses in Palestine, in the reactionary Arab regimes, and elsewhere in predominantly Muslim societies. This is well-documented. It happened in Palestine with Hamas, in Iran with Khomeini, and in Afghanistan with Bin Laden and the various mujaheddin factions (whether Taliban, Northern Alliance, etc). We must seek out the authentically revolutionary and anti-imperialist forces in those societies, learn from them and build solidarity with them.
4. Opposition to state terror by the U.S. government and its NATO and other allies, such as Israel, Turkey and the reactionary Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia or the emirates; and opposition to racist terror inside the US. This includes identifying and opposing the terror components in all 2-1/2 wars the pentagon is fighting, such as in Colombia.
5. Projecting a global vision of decolonization and human liberation, a redefinition and redistribution of wealth. This involves reasserting all the issues of corporate domination, environmental devastation, and domestic and international (neo-)colonialism that we were raising prior to September 11, and that hold true even more in its wake. Reasserting our people's globalization movement, in which oppressed and exploited people in all countries began to learn from and about each other and to make common cause. War and international relations are too important to leave to the generals and diplomats. We must create a new grass-roots, non-hierarchical "international."
6. Developing methods of struggle that sink roots, diversify and integrate our movement with popular resistance, below the radar of state surveillance and disruption. The empire's drive towards war and a police state will clearly not easily be deterred and we can anticipate that the arena for open, public and legal struggles will be severely curtailed. We have to foster struggles for cultural and political independence and transformation, for dealing with protracted and growing economic deprivation, for sustaining and building movements under conditions of incarceration and intimidation. The class, racial, gender and national contradictions that plagued our society -- and our movement -- prior to the hijackings and attacks did not vanish; in fact they will be increasingly exacerbated by war and fascism. We have to unite oppressed and exploited people on the basis of solidarity and internationalism and to recognize that white supremacy and identification with the oppressor continue to be central obstacles to such unity.
Such a program is the only valid basis for opposing the imperialist war. There is no problem of the chicken and egg here. We can't oppose the terror without opposing the war, nor can we effectively oppose the war without opposing the terror. Doing both says we are acting independently of the state and the empire as we must now and in the future. Implementing our program allows us to demarcate ourselves clearly from terrorism, to put forward a politically and morally consistent opposition to all forms of terror, and to avoid the pitfalls of a purely pacifist response that will condemn our movement to ineffectiveness and irrelevance. There is an unease with Bush and his war, but people seriously want to know what else they can do. Unless we speak directly to that need, we will be (rightly) dismissed.
Even more so than under Reagan/Bush and Thatcher, the empire is relying on the concept that There Is No Alternative [TINA] -- or perhaps, more pointedly, that terror is the only alternative to the empire state, and that the empire state is the only alternative to terror. Our task centers on breaking through that deadly duopoly.
We can anticipate that the war will not immediately resurrect the economy and that widespread unemployment in the context of the drastically reduced social safety net, and a renewed fiscal crisis -- especially for state and local governments -- will provide ample opportunities for social, political and economic struggle over housing, education, jobs, prisons, police abuse, health care, etc etc. In this context, we must put forward a fundamental critique of capitalism, imperialism and colonialism as they function both inside and outside the United States, and a vision of creating a sustainable and liberated society in their place.
--Michael Novick
People Against Racist Terror/Anti-Racist Action
POBox 1055, Culver City CA 90232 310-495-0299 part2001@usa.net
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