------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Authorities probe security at German Isar 1 N-plant
Lithuania to extend no-fly zone near N-plant
U.S.: Bush Links Terror Attacks, Scrapping Of ABM
NIRS response to NRC info shutdown
US nuclear agency reviews Web site, eyeing security

MILITARY
Bunker Busters
KILLING THEM SOFTLY
Taliban reports 300 dead civilians
U.S. seeks post-Taliban coalition
Europe Has Plans for Bioterrorism
U.S. Says Anthrax Found at Kazakhstan Facility
Burma to Top Heroin Produce
Indonesia's Muslims ready for Afghanistan
Bush warns Saddam to permit inspections
Paratroop officer uses Palestinian as human shield
NATO Chief Says Members Committed to Helping U.S.
Pakistan Fortifies Afghan Border
Caves Smashed
US deploys controversial weapon

OTHER
EU decision on German green energy pending
Plug Power 2001 fuel cell shipments on target
Alaska pipeline spill costs expected to mount
Amnesty deplores allies' rights records

POLICE
CIA 'flooding Afghan region with agents'
It's over: NBC Reports Anthrax Case
Terrorist Attacks Imminent, FBI Warns
Reports from in Afghanistan
Al-Jazira television
US deploys controversial weapon

ACTIVISTS
FOUR PEACE ACTIVISTS ARRESTED AFTER BREACHING SECURITY AT NSA
In The Spirit of Crazy Horse
Peace movement needs to update its message
REP. MCKINNEY'S LETTER TO PRINCE ALWALEED
Nader Blasts Bush's War at S.F. Rally
DEMONSTRATIONS IN CAIRO, JERUSALEM, TEHRAN, KHARTOUM...
Coalition of Women for Peace Statement
Protests erupt worldwide against US strikes on Afghanistan
Anti-US Demonstrations All Across The Middle East
Indian Protesters Burn US And British Flags
SECRET WARS



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- germany

Authorities probe security at German Isar 1 N-plant

Planet Ark
GERMANY: October 12, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12780/story.htm

FRANKFURT - The environment ministry of the German state of Bavaria said yesterday it was investigating security procedures at the Isar 1 nuclear reactor which is currently shut for maintenance.

The move followed anonymous allegations that details on equipment installed in 1994 had been presented late and incomplete by two staff members at the 870 megawatt reactor operated by utility E.ON , the ministry said.

The ministry, which monitors safety in the state where the plant is located, said it was also studying the quality of work of the public-sector technical safety authority TUEV in this context.

The plant would only be allowed to rejoin the power grid after all questions had been fully answered, it added.

Operator E.ON Kernkraft in a statement said the two staff members had been suspended until further clarification was obtained.

"The sensitive area of nuclear power requires a culture of utmost safety," the statement said.

"E.ON will pursue any hints pointing to possibly incorrect behaviour with strong determination."

Isar 1 was switched off for its annual revision on September 22, which originally was meant to go on for around four weeks.

-------- lithuania

Lithuania to extend no-fly zone near N-plant

Planet Ark
LATVIA: October 12, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12779/story.htm

RIGA - Vilnius plans to ask neighbouring Belarus to set up a no-fly zone near Lithuania's Ignalina nuclear power plant as a protective measure, the Baltic News Service (BNS) quoted Lithuania's defence minister as saying yesterday.

Lithuania considers Ignalina a strategic facility and stepped up security there after the September 11 attacks on the United States - although the likelihood of such incidents in the Baltic state appear remote.

BNS said Lithuanian Defence Minister Linas Linkevicius announced the plan to ask Belarus for the no-fly zone while touring Ignalina.

The Soviet-designed plant with two reactors, similar to the doomed Chernobyl facility in the Ukraine, supplies more than 70 percent of Lithuania's electricity, making the country one of the most nuclear-dependent in the world.

Ignalina, built in the 1980s, lies in the northeast of the country, three km (two miles) from the border with Belarus and 20 km (12 miles) from the Latvian frontier. It was not known whether Lithuania was also approaching Latvia for a no-fly zone in the area.

BNS said the current Lithuanian no-fly zone extended for five km (three miles) around Ignalina and to an altitude of 6,000 metres (20,000 feet).

The agency quoted Linkevicius as saying there were plans to extended the Lithuanian no-fly zone to 10 km (six miles) around the plant and to an altitude of 30,000 metres (98,000 feet).

-------- treaties

U.S.: Bush Links Terror Attacks, Scrapping Of ABM

By Andrew F. Tully
12 October 2001
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/10/12102001125104.asp

U.S. President George W. Bush says he still wants to scrap the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty over the objections of Russia, despite Moscow's help in America's war against international terrorism. Bush says the treaty -- which would forbid a missile-defense system he wants to deploy -- is antiquated. And he says September's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington demonstrate the need for such a system.

Washington, (RFE/RL) -- U.S. President George W. Bush says the terrorist attacks of 11 September support his argument that America needs a missile-defense system and that the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, or ABM, is out of date.

During a news conference last night at the White House, Bush also said the U.S. has no immediate plans to take its war against international terrorism outside of Afghanistan, although it is carefully watching Iraq.

And he confirmed news reports that the U.S. is prepared to support the creation of a Palestinian state as long as its government recognizes the right of Israel to exist.

Bush called the news conference in an effort to reassure the American people that his government is doing all it can both at home and abroad to protect them from further acts of terrorism. He said Washington is doing its best to neutralize Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organization on military, diplomatic, law-enforcement, and financial fronts.

One reporter asked if Bush still intends to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, or ABM, even over the objections of Russia, which is providing important cooperation with the U.S. in the war on terrorism. The U.S. signed the treaty with Russia's predecessor, the Soviet Union, in 1972, at the height of the Cold War.

The purpose of the accord was to limit the era's arms buildup. Russia and even some of America's allies argue that scrapping the treaty would lead to a new arms race. The treaty would prohibit Bush's intention to build a missile defense system to protect the U.S. not from nuclear powers like Russia or China, but from what Washington calls "rogue" states like Iraq or North Korea.

Last night, Bush said the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington demonstrate the need for such a system. And he said he is eager to discuss the issue in an upcoming meeting in China with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I can't wait to visit with my friend Vladimir Putin in Shanghai to reiterate once again that the Cold War is over, it's done with, and that there are new threats that we face, and no better example of that new threat than the attack on America on 11 September. And I'm going to ask my friend to envision a world in which a terrorist thug and/or a host nation might have the ability to develop -- to deliver a weapon of mass destruction via a rocket. And wouldn't it be in our nation's advantage to be able to shoot it down?"

Bush did not directly answer a follow-up question on whether Washington is prepared to abandon the treaty unilaterally over Russia's explicit objection. He said only: "I have told Mr. Putin that the ABM treaty is outdated, antiquated, and useless, and I hope that he will join us in a new strategic relationship."

On the subject of terrorism itself, Bush for the first time said he would reconsider the military strikes that allied planes are carrying out against Al-Qaeda and Taliban positions in Afghanistan if the Taliban were to surrender bin Laden now.

Bush has repeatedly said that his campaign against terrorists and those who harbor them is not limited to bin Laden, who is believed to be behind the attacks on New York and Washington that killed more than 5,500 people. Last night, he was asked if he plans to take the war to Iraq, which America has often accused of supporting terrorism.

Bush replied: "There's no question that the leader of Iraq is an evil man. After all, he gassed his own people. We know he's been developing weapons of mass destruction. And I think it's in his advantage to allow [weapons] inspectors back in his country to make sure that he's conforming to the agreement he made after he was soundly trounced in the Gulf War. And so we're watching him very carefully."

Bush also was asked about Syria, another suspected state sponsor of terrorism. He replied that Syria has been helpful in the current campaign by providing valuable intelligence.

He also made a point of saying he appreciates the help of Saudi Arabia. This was in stark contrast to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's rejection yesterday of a $10-million check to help in the reconstruction of the city that was offered by a member of the Saudi royal family. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal said in a statement that the attacks on New York and Washington were in part a result of America's Middle East policies, which he said favor Israel over the Palestinians.

At last night's news conference, Bush said his administration is prepared to support what Palestinians have been seeking for a half-century: their own state. But he emphasized that such a state must recognize the right of Israel to exist. He also said he is prepared to meet with Yasser Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority, but only for a substantive exchange, not just to give Arafat the opportunity to be photographed with the president of the United States.

Since he was campaigning for the presidency last year, Bush has been emphatic that he does not believe the U.S. should engage in what he calls "nation-building": helping emerging or developing countries create the institutions necessary to become free-market democracies. He has in the past said such processes cannot be imposed on the people of these countries.

Last night, Bush was asked about "nation-building" in Afghanistan once allied forces and local insurgents break the Taliban's control of the country. Bush replied: "One of the things we've got to make sure of is that all parties, all interested parties, have an opportunity to be a part of a new [Afghan] government, that we shouldn't play favorites between one group or another within Afghanistan. Secondly, we've got to work for a stable Afghanistan so that her neighbors don't fear terrorist activity again coming out of that country. Third, it'd be helpful, of course, to eradicate narco-trafficking out of Afghanistan as well. I believe that the United Nations could provide the framework necessary to help meet those conditions."

Bush closed the news conference with a plea to American children to help the children of Afghanistan directly. He asked each child in the country to earn one dollar and send it to the White House. The president said the money will then be forwarded to Afghan children who have been suffering through years of war and famine.

Bush said these gifts will symbolize the generosity and compassion of the American people.

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

NIRS response to NRC info shutdown

Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001
From: "michael mariotte" <nirsnet@nirs.org>

Please feel free to forward this to news organizations in your region. Just ask if you'd like a formatted version in Word.

NEWS FROM NIRS Nuclear Information and Resource Service 1424 16th Street NW, #404, Washington DC 20036 202.328.0002; f: 202.462.2183; nirsnet@nirs.org; www.nirs.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Michael Mariotte or Paul Gunter October 12, 2001 202-328-0002

NRC SHUTS WEBSITE FOR "SECURITY" REASONS; AGENCY IS PROTECTING THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY, NOT THE PUBLIC

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) October 11 shut down its website in order to remove potentially tens of thousands of pages of information about the nation's commercial nuclear power industry. The NRC left the following message on its site: "Our site is not operational at this time. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has taken the action to shut down its web site. In support of our mission to protect public health and safety, we are performing a review of all material on our site. We appreciate your patience and understanding during these difficult times."

"Why," asked Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), "if the information on the NRC's website is so potentially valuable to terrorists, did the NRC wait a full month to review its material?"

"The simple reason," said Mariotte, "is that the information is not particularly useful to terrorists, rather, it's useful to the U.S. public, which monitors the safety of nuclear power reactors." Mariotte pointed out that plant-specific security-related information never has been posted on the NRC's website, nor made available in the agency's Public Document Rooms.

"We have no quarrel with the NRC removing any legitimate security-related information from public access," said Paul Gunter, Director of NIRS' Reactor Watchdog Project, "but we take issue with any NRC effort to remove documents regarding basic plant information, safety requirements, emerging radiation hazards and licensee compliance issues."

"In light of the agency's information blackout, NRC is obligated to also suspend a business-as-usual approach with the nuclear utilities," said Mariotte. "We are asking that the NRC adhere to its statutory requirements and regulatory commitment to include public participation by suspending all licensing proceedings, its meetings with the industry and extending all public comment deadlines until public access to all non-security related documents is resumed."

Gunter noted that there is no statutory basis for the NRC to withhold most of its information. "Statutes requiring the protection from unauthorized disclosure of very specific types of security information, documents and reports are already in place," said Gunter. "If NRC wants to go beyond these statutory bounds then they need to prepare an order stating their legal basis before proceeding further," he added. "What is this? An undeclared state of Martial Law?" said Gunter.

"The public information blackout only underscores the growing danger and vulnerability that has existed at every nuclear power station," said Gunter. "Since the initial licensing of nuclear power plants in the 1960's, our concern is that this technology is ultimately incompatible with real national security and a democratic society."

The security-based information blackout comes while the NRC has been seeking to close down its Operational Safeguard Response Evaluations (OSRE) program, which has documented a nearly 50% failure rate by utilities in protecting their reactors from mock terrorist attacks. Instead, the NRC has pushed for less costly industry-led security assessments.

NIRS is sending a letter to NRC Chairman Richard Meserve demanding reinstatement of non-security- related materials.

-------- us nuc politics

US nuclear agency reviews Web site, eyeing security

Planet Ark
USA: October 12, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12778/story.htm

NEW YORK - The U.S. government's nuclear watchdog, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said yesterday it was vetting its Web site with an eye to power plant security following the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We're looking at the data that is up on the Web site with a very careful eye as to what information might potentially be of value to terrorists," NRC spokesman Victor Dricks told Reuters by telephone from the commission's headquarters in Rockville, Maryland.

Information believed advantageous to anyone considering an attack on a U.S. nuclear power plant has already been pulled from the site, Dricks said.

"We've removed for example the coordinates, the latitude and longitude of all the nuclear plants, feeling that that might be something that could be of interest to terrorists," Dricks said.

He also said detailed and specific design information about the construction of each of the nuclear power plants has been taken off the Web site.

The NRC oversees the operations of the nation's 103 nuclear power plants.

Included in the Web site review, being done by an NRC panel, is the NRC's plant status report which gives a daily chronicle of the morning operating status of each of the nuclear plants in the U.S.

The plant status report is used by electricity traders to gauge available power supplies in various regions of the country.

"We are trying to balance the public's need to know and their right to know with these security concerns," Dricks said. "We are certainly aware (the daily plant status report) is the kind of information that people in the financial community want to have access to."

The NRC's Web site, at (http://www.nrc.gov), was not available yesterday due to technical reasons.


-------- MILITARY

Bunker Busters -- tactical nuclear weapons? (several opinions)
Comments anyone on this apparent use of tactical nuclear weapons?
Molly

From: "Molly Johnson" <peacegrannie@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 16:46:35 -0700

From Progressive News --

BUNKER BUSTERS

== BILL GERTZ, WASHINGTON TIMES: Asked if U.S. bombers are using special "bunker buster" and earth-penetrating bombs against terrorists and their Taliban militia supporters, Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters: "You bet. To the extent we see a good deal of activity, a lot of so-called adits and tunnel entries and external indication of internal activity, we have targeted them." Adits are openings to mines or other underground facilities . . . The full range of U.S. weaponry dropped and fired on targets in Afghanistan since operations began Sunday included 5,000-pound "bunker buster" bombs as well as "earth penetrators," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011012-586496.htm

[While there is no mention of nuclear devices in the bunker busters mentioned above, there have been long-standing plans to use them]

== KENNEDY GREY, WIRED: Though large "theater" thermonuclear devices - doomsday bombs - don't fit the Bush administration's war on terrorism, smaller tactical nukes do not seem out of the question in the current mindset of the Defense Department. The most likely candidate is a tactical micro-nuke called the B61-11, an earth-penetrating nuclear device known as the "bunker buster." The B61-11 was designed to destroy underground military facilities such as command bunkers, ballistic missile silos and facilities for producing and storing weapons. However, it could be used against the warren of tunnels and caves carved under the Afghan mountains that are often cited as a potential refuge for the U.S. government's prime suspect, Osama bin Laden . . . Studies by the Natural Resource Defense Council estimate that more than 150 B61-11s are currently in the U.S. arsenals, scattered among NATO aircraft carriers and planes on bases in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands and Greece.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47319,00.html

== NY TIMES, May 31, 1997: US deploys 'bunker buster' nuclear bomb, designed to destroy underground factories and laboratories while causing relatively little surface damage; weapon, designated B-61, is repackaging of a 30-year-old hydrogen bomb that was originally designed to be dropped from an airplane by parachute and explode while still aloft; dropped without parachute, it can burrow as deep as 50 feet into soil before exploding; critics say B-61 is new weapon intended to be used against rogue states suspected of trying to develop weapons of mass destruction in underground complexes; diagrams

== ROBERT W. NELSON, FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS: Critics argue that adding low-yield warheads to the world's nuclear inventory simply makes their eventual use more likely. In fact, a 1994 law currently prohibits the nuclear laboratories from undertaking research and development that could lead to a precision nuclear weapon of less than 5 kilotons, because "low-yield nuclear weapons blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional war." Last year, Senate Republicans John Warner and Wayne Allard buried a small provision in the 2001 Defense Authorization Bill that would have overturned these earlier restrictions . . . Senators Warner and Allard imagine these nuclear weapons could be used in small-scale conventional conflicts against rogue dictators, while leaving most of the civilian population untouched. As one anonymous former Pentagon official put it to the Washington Post last spring, "What's needed now is something that can threaten a bunker tunneled under 300 meters of granite without killing the surrounding civilian population." Statements like these promote the illusion that nuclear weapons could be used in ways which minimize their "collateral damage," making them acceptable tools to be used like conventional weapons . . . However, the use of any nuclear weapon capable of destroying a buried target that is otherwise immune to conventional attack will necessarily produce enormous numbers of civilian casualties. No earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep enough into the earth to contain an explosion with a nuclear yield even as small as 1 percent of the 15 kiloton Hiroshima weapon. The explosion simply blows out a massive crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with an especially intense and deadly fallout. Moreover, as Congress understood in 1994, by seeking to produce usable low-yield nuclear weapons, we risk blurring the now sharp line separating nuclear and conventional warfare, and provide legitimacy for other nations to similarly consider using nuclear weapons in regional wars.

http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm

====

SLO CO Grandmothers for Peace
Molly Johnson, area coordinator
6290 Hawk Ridge Place,
San Miguel, CA 93451 805/467-2431

--

Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 21:34:58 -0400 Reply-To: mgubrud@squid.umd.edu

The "bunker busters" currently in use in Afghanistan are not nuclear devices. They are 5,000 lb bombs designed to penetrate solid material (earth, concrete) before detonation. The B61-11 nuclear version referred to below is not currently being used. There is a danger that the U.S. may wish to resort to low-yield earth-penetrating nukes if other means of attacking underground facilities in Afghanistan, such as the conventional bombs, are unsuccessful. Any use of any nuclear weapons by the U.S. would be a very grave decision which would have severe costs for U.S. national security. It would not be made lightly or quietly.

Mark Gubrud

--

From: Steven Starr <shadesahoy@socket.net> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 20:26:19 -0500

Dear Molly,

The 5000 pound weapon you ask about contains a conventional chemical high-explosive, it is not a nuclear device. As huge as it sounds, the 5000 pound bomb does not at all compare in explosive power to the B-61 weapon you later refer to -- the B-61 has a dial-a-yield design which allows its explosive power to be set between 0.3 to 170 kilotons. Even at its lowest yield of 0.3 kT, it still has the power of 300 tons (or 600,000 pounds) of TNT.

Your reference to the article by Robert Nelson of the FAS is very good; it makes the point that any so-called bunker buster nuclear device would only create a very dirty nuclear surface blast which would poison a large area with intense radioactive fallout.

Steven Starr

--

From: Jackie Cabasso <wslf@earthlink.net> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:24:52 -0700

Dear Molly and others -- The GBU-28 "bunker busters" reportedly used in Afghanastan are NOT nuclear weapons. The U.S. has both conventional and nuclear weapons designed to penetrate into the earth before detonating. I forward the following message from my colleauge Jay Coughlan at Nuclear Watch of New Mexico (jcoghlan@earthlink.net), which provides additional information. You will find more information about current US nuclear weapons programs and policies on our web site at www:wslfweb.org -- Jackie

We looked up the GBU-28 yesterday on the Federation of American Scientists site http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/gbu-28.htm . You can also punch in "GBU-28" on the Google search engine and get it lickety split. It's not a nuke. It was developed in record time during the Gulf War (only used twice). In flight tests it could reportedly burrow 100 feet of soil and 20 feet of reinforced concrete. It has 647 lbs. of tritonium high explosive. It is laser guided ("smart") from high elevations. F-15s and F-111s seem to be the platforms of choice. There was no information that we see saw on the explosive yield of the GBU-28. The following is from the FAS site. Mission Offensive counter air, close air support, interdiction Targets Fixed hard Class 4,000 lb. Penetrator, Blast/Fragmentation Service Air Force Contractor Lockheed (BLU-113/B), National Forge (BLU-113A/B), Program status Production First capability 1991 Weight (lbs.) 4,414 Length (in.) 153 Diameter (in.) 14.5 Explosive 6471bs. Tritonal Fuze FMU-143 Series Stabilizer Air Foil Group (Fins) Guidance method Laser (man-in-the-loop) Range Greater than 5 nautical miles Development cost Development cost is not applicable to this munition. Production cost $18.2 million Total cost $18.2 million Acquisition unit cost $145,600 Production unit cost $145,600 Quantity 125 plus additional production Platforms F-15E, F-111F

-------- afghanistan

KILLING THEM SOFTLY: STARVATION AND DOLLAR BILLS FOR AFGHAN KIDS

By "Norman Solomon" <MediaBeat@igc.org>
Fri, 12 Oct 2001

The Pentagon's air drops of food parcels and President Bush's plea for American children to aid Afghan kids with dollar bills will go down in history as two of the most cynical maneuvers of media manipulation in the early 21st century.

Many U.S. news outlets have been eager to play along. A New York Times editorial proclaimed that "Mr. Bush has wisely made providing humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people an integral part of American strategy." Four days later, on Oct. 12, the same newspaper still had nothing but praise for the U.S. government's food aid charades: "His reaffirmation of the need for humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan -- including donations from American children -- seemed heartfelt."

While thousands of kids across the United States stuff dollar bills into envelopes and mail them to the White House, the U.S. government continues a bombing campaign that is accelerating the momentum of mass starvation in Afghanistan.

Relief workers have voiced escalating alarm. Jonathan Patrick, an official with the humanitarian aid group Concern, minced no words. He called the food drops "absolute nonsense."

"What we need is 20-ton trucks in huge convoys going across the border all the time," said Patrick, based in Islamabad. But when the bombing began, the truck traffic into Afghanistan stopped.

In tandem with the bombing campaign, the U.S. government launched a PR blitz about its food-from-the-sky effort. But the Nobel-winning French organization Doctors Without Borders has charged that the gambit is "virtually useless and may even be dangerous." One aid group after another echoes the assessment. The U.S. has been dropping 37,000 meals a day on a country where several million Afghans face the imminent threat of starvation. Some of the food, inevitably, is landing on minefields.

The food drops began on Sunday, Oct. 7, simultaneous with the start of the bombing. "As of Thursday, a Pentagon spokeswoman said more than 137,000 of the yellow-packaged rations had been dropped," the Knight-Ridder News Service reported on Oct. 12. "International aid organization officials say, however, that around 5 million Afghans are in danger of starvation because the nation's borders are sealed and food supplies are diminishing by the day -- meaning that only a tiny percentage of the hungry are receiving the U.S. food." The borders are sealed because of the continuous bombing.

Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld wasn't worried about provoking appropriate derision and outrage when he told reporters on Oct. 8: "It is quite true that 37,000 rations in a day do not feed millions of human beings. On the other hand, if you were one of the starving people who got one of the rations, you'd be appreciative."

Avowedly, the main targets of the bombing are the people in the bin Laden network and their Taliban supporters. But the rhetorical salvoes will be understood, all too appropriately, in wider contexts. "We will root them out and starve them out," Rumsfeld said, just before closing a news conference with a ringing declaration: "We are determined not to be terrorized."

Supposedly, bombing Afghanistan is going to make us safer back here in the USA. But as soon as the attacks began on Oct. 7, the FBI called for heightened alerts across the United States -- because the risk of another deadly attack in this country had just increased. What's wrong with this picture?

Unlike the media herd, longtime foreign correspondent Robert Fisk is exploring key questions. "President Bush says this is a war between good and evil," he writes in the London-based Independent newspaper. "You are either with us or against us. But that's exactly what bin Laden says. Isn't it worth pointing this out and asking where it leads?"

Fisk asks other questions that aren't ready for prime time: "Why are we journalists falling back on the same sheep-like conformity that we adopted in the 1991 Gulf War and the 1999 Kosovo war? ... Is there some kind of rhetorical fog that envelopes us every time we bomb someone?"

In wartime, media accounts seem to zigzag between selected facts and easy sentimentality. Michael Herr, a journalist who covered the Vietnam War, later wrote that the U.S. media "never found a way to report meaningfully about death, which of course was really what it was all about." Obscured by countless news stories, "the suffering was somehow unimpressive." Accustomed to seeing its military might as self-justifying, the USA powered ahead. "We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality," Herr observed. "Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop."

In its Oct. 12 editorial, headlined "Mr. Bush's New Gravitas," the New York Times concluded that the current president is providing exactly the kind of leadership we need: "As he reflected on the sorrow, compassion and determination that have swept the country since those horrifying hours on the morning of Sept. 11, he seemed to be a leader whom the nation could follow in these difficult times."

Among the leadership qualities most appreciated by editorial writers is the Bush administration's aptitude for shameless propaganda. While the Pentagon keeps dropping tons of bombs, it scatters some meals to the winds. While the U.S. government persists with a bombing campaign that shows every sign of resulting in mass starvation, the president urges the young people of the United States to send in dollar bills -- "to join in a special effort to help the children of Afghanistan."

----

Taliban reports 300 dead civilians

October 12, 2001
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011012-62512786.htm

Afghan civilians became a propaganda tool yesterday in the Taliban militia's desperate bid to rally Muslim and Arab nations against the United States and its anti-terror campaign.

The Taliban, virtually isolated by the world, accused U.S. forces of targeting civilians, insisting that as many as 300 have been killed during five days of air strikes. The United States rejected that assertion as false and "totally baseless."

The Bush administration said it regrets any loss of innocent lives, and blamed the Taliban for spreading "nasty rumors" that the United States first "drops food and then bombs people" or that the food was poisoned.

A daytime raid on Kabul, the Afghan capital, caught residents, used to strikes after dark, by surprise yesterday.

The Taliban, which has been trying to convince other Arab and Muslim countries that the U.S.-led war is against all of them, said dozens had died nationwide in the past 24 hours, giving various estimates of casualties, and charged that a mosque near Jalalabad also had been hit.

One report said a 10-year-old son of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was killed by a bomb earlier this week.

"More than 77 civilians have been martyred in different forms in our country and the number is increasing with the passage of time," the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said at a press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan.

"This is at a time when the Pentagon is lying to the world that it is not targeting civilians," he said.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed the accusation, but acknowledged that, as in any military conflict, there will be "unintended loss of life," which Washington regrets.

"It comes with ill grace for the Taliban to be suggesting that we are doing what they have made a practice and a livelihood out of," he told reporters outside the Pentagon.

More than 5,000 American civilians were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States is doing its best to minimize civilian casualties, but the munitions it is using are not 100 percent precise.

"Everyone here knows that an automobile doesn't work 100 percent of the time the way one would want it, nor does any other piece of equipment, including equipment that's managed by the Department of Defense," he said.

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said "any assertions that we are deliberately targeting civilians are totally baseless."

He accused the Taliban of spreading "very nasty and very untrue rumors." Asked by reporters how the State Department had learned about those rumors, he responded: "I think we hear them from people who have been in touch with people in Afghanistan. I'm not sure I've seen any of them in the press.

"I know there have been all kinds of rumors circulating in Afghanistan, perhaps some of them exaggerated by the Taliban. One was that we drop food and then bomb people afterwards - that's totally false. One was that the food was somehow poisoned - that's totally false."

Several reports surfaced yesterday saying civilians have been killed by U.S. and British air strikes since they began Sunday. In addition to Mr. Zaeef's figure, another Taliban official was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that at least 115 persons had died over the past day. Yet another, quoted by Agence France-Press (AFP), put the toll at 200.

A witness told AFP that a bomb, dropped during a U.S. raid on Kabul's airport yesterday, had hit a nearby village, destroying several houses and killing a 12-year-old child. Another report said 15 persons were killed when a missile struck a mosque in the northeastern city of Jalalabad.

Only four civilian deaths have been independently confirmed so far - those of four Afghans in Kabul working for a U.N. mine-clearance program. Journalists are banned from traveling around the country.

U.S. officials suggested yesterday that the Taliban is using the reports as a propaganda tool to influence both its own people and other nations in the Muslim world.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, during an emergency meeting of its 56 members Wednesday, warned against inflicting civilian casualties but avoided condemning the air strikes on Afghanistan. Arab allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia had earlier stressed the importance of avoiding civilian casualties.

During the 1999 Kosovo conflict, Serbia was believed to have exaggerated the civilian death toll for the same reasons. The collateral damage was then attributed to NATO's high-altitude air strikes from 15,000 feet.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned yesterday that the West was in danger of losing the propaganda battle for Arab and Muslim support.

Mr. Blair's diplomatic efforts during a shuttle through the Middle East suffered a setback when a Saudi newspaper reported that Saudi Arabia had asked him to cancel a planned visit to the kingdom.

British officials acknowledged having "discussions" about adding Saudi Arabia to the two-day trip, which included stops in Oman and Egypt, but said Mr. Blair and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah had scheduling problems.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.

--------

U.S. seeks post-Taliban coalition

By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 12, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011012-760905.htm

The United States is using the lure of foreign aid to piece together a broad coalition to govern Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, a State Department official said yesterday.

"Were there to be a broad-based government in Afghanistan, we would intend to help that government with reconstruction, with developing the country," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell leaves this weekend for South Asia, where he will discuss with Pakistani leaders the future shape of Afghanistan, said Mr. Powell's deputy Richard Armitage.

"We've had discussions with some of our coalition partners about the eventual shape of an Afghanistan," Mr. Armitage told reporters at the State Department.

"We don't want a Pashtun totally dominated or a Tajik-Uzbek totally dominated government. It has to be one that's more broad-based and representative."

He referred to the major ethnic groups in Afghanistan - the Pashtuns who dominate the Taliban and the Tajiks and Uzbeks who dominate the Northern Alliance rebels.

Opposition Afghans met yesterday to try to cobble together their own version of a new government to end decades of war and repression.

In the dusty lanes of the Pakistani border city of Peshawar, in towns of northern Afghanistan controlled by the Northern Alliance, in Rome where the former Afghan king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, lives, as well as in Washington, Afghans pleaded for support from their fellow Afghans and from America.

But any future regime in Kabul also must be acceptable to Afghanistan's neighbors - Pakistan, Iran and the Russian-backed Central Asian republics - say analysts.

Afghanistan's neighbors all agree with the United States that the Taliban must be ousted, but they have different ideas about who should rule in its place.

Pakistan has urged the United States not to provide supportive air bombardments that would help the Northern Alliance seize power in Kabul. Until recent weeks, Pakistan had backed the Taliban against the alliance. It fears having a resentful neighbor on its northern border.

"Pakistanis don't trust the alliance and they don't want it," said Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution, a former State Department official.

"A gathering of major ethnic and religious groups could form some kind of government coalition if it was the conduit for significant [U.S. financial] aid," he said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this week voiced strong support for the various anti-Taliban groups in Afghanistan, saying, "We would like to see them heave the al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership out of that country."

But needing Pakistan for intelligence, logistics and other support, it has withheld the air attacks on Taliban forces defending Kabul.

Northern Alliance spokeswoman Otilie English said yesterday in Washington that the group had "no intention" of taking Kabul before a broad-based tribal council was held to agree on the shape of a new government.

Pakistan's military government spokesman Lt. Gen. Rashid Qureshi said yesterday by telephone from Rawalpindi, Pakistan, that his government was not seeking to promote any special group of Afghans to replace the Taliban.

"Pakistan has always said any future government should be acceptable to the people of Afghanistan," Gen. Qureshi said.

Asked about a proposed return of King Zahir, who refused to abandon claims to parts of Pakistan when he ruled from 1933 to 1973, the general said his government would not object "if the people of Afghanistan want the king and it's acceptable to the world."

In Peshawar, headquarters for many of the 2 million Afghan refugees remaining in Pakistan since the 1980-1990 war against the Soviet Union, former guerrilla leaders are emerging in the hopes of gaining a role in the future government.

The mainly Pashtun exiles have been holding small sessions among themselves or with King Zahir in Rome.

The United Nations and the European Union also may play a role in supporting reconstruction of a post-Taliban Afghanistan.

U.N. specialists in political affairs and peacekeeping say the country is too big, too poor and too suspicious of outsiders to lend itself to models developed for tiny East Timor, or centrally located Kosovo.

"Whatever we do there, it will have to be with the consent of the people," said one peacekeeping analyst. "Outsiders don't fare very well there, history has shown us."

Staff writer Betsy Pisik contributed to this article.

-------- biological weapons

Europe Has Plans for Bioterrorism

October 12, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Europe-Bioterrorism.html

LONDON (AP) -- Horrified by the Florida anthrax infections, Europeans are showing new concern about their own vulnerability to spores used as terror weapons.

European governments say they are prepared to deal with the threat of biological or chemical attack. But medical experts warn that varying national standards of surveillance leave the continent exposed to the stealthy spread of infection.

``All governments will be sitting down and reviewing their plans,'' in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States,'' said John Eldridge, a biological and chemical weapons analyst with Jane's, the defense information group.

European governments insist they have no specific evidence of a chemical or biological threat. Still, they've instructed doctors to be alert for unusual symptoms and have increased security around sensitive sites, including water supplies and pharmaceutical plants.

Beyond that, details of their plans are scarce.

In Britain, ``procedures are in place'' to vaccinate the general public against anthrax and other diseases, a Home Office spokeswoman said. The government won't say how many doses Britain has, or where they are stored.

France has unveiled a $57 million plan, dubbed ``Biotox,'' that includes making a military-run decontamination center available for civilian use. Health Minister Bernard Kouchner said last week that more ``means of individual protection,'' such as gas masks or jumpsuits, would be made available in case of a crisis.

The German government announced it was establishing a biological warfare center in Berlin to collect information on the threat and prevention of attacks. Italy said it was assembling a rapid-response group and had designated a secure laboratory and isolation facilities.

In Belgium, the government has embarked on an awareness-raising campaign among health institutions.

Since Sept. 11, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson has acknowledged ``real and substantial dangers'' of biological attacks.

``I don't think we do enough at the moment,'' he said. ``We'll have to do more in the future.

Still, military surplus stores have reported brisk sales of gas masks and protective coveralls. Some medical experts are calling for more information.

``We have too much secrecy and too few people knowing our contingency plans,'' said Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association.

Experts in the spread of infection stress the response must cross national borders. On Sept. 24, the World Health Organization warned that a bioterrorist attack could easily overwhelm the resources of a single nation.

European Union nations routinely share information on disease outbreaks, but a study by British and German scientists published Friday in the British Medical Journal found ``inadequacies in detection, coordination, funding and reporting'' across the continent.

Rates of detecting illness vary widely among European nations, researchers said.

``If people are dropping dead in the street, you don't need sophisticated surveillance, but the chances of that happening are remote,'' said Julius Weinberg of London's City University, one of the paper's authors. ``Instead you might just get an increase in the background rates of infection, and that can only be detected through good, basic surveillance.''

The authors advocated better reporting, stronger international links -- including common databases -- more straightforward funding and quicker responses by public-health officials.

Some moves are under way to improve international coordination. On Wednesday, British Health Secretary Alan Milburn and his American counterpart, Tommy Thompson, agreed to share information to create an ``early-warning system'' against biological and chemical attack.

--------

U.S. Says Anthrax Found at Kazakhstan Facility

October 12, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-anthrax-kazakhstan.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American inspectors found anthrax at a Soviet-era biological weapons facility in Kazakhstan during a routine inspection this week, a U.S. official said on Friday.

``It was a routine inspection under the joint threat reduction program. None of them contracted the disease. They are taking their medicine,'' said the official, who asked not to be identified.

The inspectors, working under government agreements meant to decrease the threat of proliferation of biological weapons, carry out their work fully protected so they are not in any danger, he said.

Four cases of anthrax, apparently deliberate infections, have been established in New York and Florida in the last week, raising concerns of possible use of biological weapons as the United States pursues its war on terrorism.

The campaign against terrorism, prompted by the Sept. 11 attacks by hijacked airliners on the World Trade center in New York and the Pentagon which killed about 5,500 people, includes a bombing campaign against Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant believed behind the Sept. 11 attacks, is sheltering in Afghanistan. U.S. officials believe bin Laden has been seeking biological and chemical weapons for his fight against America.

U.S. Defense officials said the United States has helped fund a threat-reduction program at Kazakhstan's Vozroshdeniye Island in the Aral Sea where the Soviet Union had a bioweapons station and reportedly experimented with anthrax.

Experts fear that some of the anthrax made in former Soviet facilities may have found its way to criminals or extremist groups.

It was not immediately known whether this week's inspection, which was arranged some time ago, took place at Vozroshdeniye Island. The U.S. official said the anthrax was found in the last three days.

A report on the Russian Interfax news agency last summer said that said a dozen people had been treated in hospital with anthrax in Kazakhstan, but gave few details.

-------- drug war

Source: Burma to Top Heroin Produce

October 12, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Afghanistan-Opium.html

LONDON (AP) -- Burma could become the world's biggest supplier of heroin if Afghan growers adhere to the Taliban's ban on opium poppy cultivation, a U.N. researcher said Friday.

Dr. Sandeep Chawla, chief of research for the U.N. drug control program, said last year's ban by Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban rulers was highly effective.

``Afghanistan has gone from producing 70 percent of the world's opium to less than 10 percent,'' Chawla told a London conference organized by the British charity Drug Scope.

During the 1990s, Afghanistan produced between 3,000 and 4,000 tons of opium per year, followed by Burma, which produced 1,000 tons a year, and Laos and Colombia, which produced 100 tons a year, Chawla said.

At poppy harvest time last year, Afghanistan had 200,000 acres under poppy cultivation, producing 3,276 tons of raw opium. This year, 18,700 acres under cultivation have produced 185 tons of opium.

The price of raw opium in Afghanistan went from $20 a kilo last year to more than $200 this year. It was $700 just before the Sept. 11 attacks, after which it plummeted dramatically on speculation that the Taliban prohibition on poppy cultivation would not be enforced, Chawla said.

For the first time in 30 years, the price of raw opium in Burma is at the same level as in Afghanistan, when usually it is up to three times higher, he said.

Although there was no evidence so far that farmers were returning to growing opium, Chawla said they might if political instability and widespread poverty continued.

-------- indonesia

Indonesia's Muslims ready for Afghanistan

October 12, 2001
By Ian Timberlake
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011012-74735620.htm

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Aisyah is a heavyset Jakarta housewife who hopes to die as a martyr in Afghanistan.

She has told her two teen-age sons that she might not come home from the jihad she hopes to wage.

"I told them: If I die over there, you must follow," Aisyah, 38, said after adding her name to a list of hundreds of would-be warriors who say they are willing to risk death in defense of their fellow Muslims.

A 10-day registration drive at the Islamic Youth Movement (GPI) office in Jakarta attracted 776 applicants, including Aisyah and 17 other women. Registration closed on Oct. 2.

"We will send our troops if the United States government attacks Afghanistan," vowed Iqbal Siregar, who heads the GPI in Jakarta.

His colleague Handriansyah, the tough-talking commander of GPI's Jihad Brigade who goes by a single name, has threatened action on the streets of Jakarta as well, saying his followers will expel Americans, destroy the U.S. Embassy and even kill the ambassador if Afghans are hurt by American bullets.

Mainstream Islamic organizations have criticized the jihad registration, saying millions of destitute Afghans need humanitarian aid, not soldiers.

At the same time, a prominent Islamic scholar says GPI has only a superficial understanding of what a jihad really is.

Other militant groups also claim to have opened jihad registration posts, but despite their bravado, few if any of the holy warriors will ever reach an Afghan battlefield, partly because they lack funding.

Mr. Siregar, an easygoing man, said the jihad recruitment is as much an outlet for people's emotions as it is an attempt to build a genuine fighting force in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation.

"We also want to show the Islamic world that this has set an example of Islamic solidarity," Mr. Siregar, 34, said while two young men earnestly completed their applications. He said the threats by Handriansyah shouldn't be taken literally and were made in the heat of emotion.

"We don't hate the American people, but what we hate is imperialism, vanity and arrogance," he said, sitting beside a painting of Osama bin Laden, whom U.S. officials have identified as the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that killed thousands of Americans and hundreds of foreigners.

GPI was founded in 1945, the year of Indonesian independence. It claims 10,000 members across the country.

Mr. Siregar enthusiastically welcomed an American reporter. Neither he nor his followers showed any animosity - except toward U.S. foreign policy.

Expressing a view that is widespread here even among centrist intellectuals, he complained that the United States employs a double standard by, for example, not condemning Israeli attacks against Muslims in the Palestinian territories.

"For us, Osama bin Laden is not the target of American aggression toward Afghanistan but basically America wants to smash the symbols of Islam," he said. "The United States regards Islam as dangerous."

If Islam is under threat, young men like Agus Kartono say, they are ready to protect it.

"Engaging in a holy war is an obligation of Islam," said Mr. Kartono, 23, who works as a cleaner at a cafe. He said he had hoped to fight with Muslim forces after they began battling Christians almost three years ago in Indonesia's Maluku provinces.

Thousands are believed to have died in that conflict. Mr. Kartono said his parents forbade his going because they needed him to pay for his younger brother's education. Now he has his family's permission to fight in a new war far from home, even though his training is rudimentary.

"I learned from my dad," he said as he filled out the three-page application.

Combat volunteers were asked about their education and work experience, their health and any special skills they could offer. They also had to list religious books they have read and their motivations for jihad.

The men who qualify will undergo basic training at an unspecified date, said Mr. Siregar.

"We will look for a location in Indonesia that resembles the atmosphere in Afghanistan because they say it's extraordinarily cold at night over there," he said.

The holy warriors lack weapons with which to train, but Mr. Siregar joked that former East Timor militia leader Eurico Guterres might be able to lend them some. Mr. Guterres, a Roman Catholic, visited the Jihad registration center to offer his support.

Mr. Guterres has never been charged in connection with a campaign of murder carried out by militias backed by the Indonesian military before East Timor's 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia.

Mr. Siregar said a core of about 50 Indonesian veterans of the Malukus conflict and the Afghan war against the former Soviet Union were ready for immediate departure to Afghanistan if America began military action, which it did Sunday. He would not let a reporter meet any of the veterans.

Women like Aisyah will not see combat, but with the right qualifications they could serve as medics or translators, Mr. Siregar said. "Or maybe, more perfectly, they could run a canteen," he said.

Aisyah, her head covered in the style of devout Muslims here, said she will serve wherever she is needed. Her commitment is not matched by her knowledge of Afghan politics.

"What's it called? Oh, Taliban," she said, after a reporter reminded her of Afghanistan's embattled regime.

Some jihad hopefuls undoubtedly have genuine religious motives, but Azyumardi Azra, rector of the State Institute of Islamic Studies in Jakarta, said he suspects many are simply looking for something to do. About 40 million people - more than 37 percent of Indonesia's work force - were unemployed last year, according to the national news service, Antara.

Mr. Siregar confirmed that some of the jihad applicants were jobless, but he said most were students. Some, like the cleaner, Mr. Kartono, work in low-paying jobs. Another jihad applicant, Anto, 24, sells children's toys on the street.

People like them have become targets of hard-line fringe groups that hope their call for jihad will attract sympathy from the centrist majority of Indonesian Muslims, said Mr. Azra. He heads Indonesia's largest Islamic college and has a doctorate from Columbia University in New York.

"These hard-line groups have tried to get a following from moderate Muslims, but so far they've failed," he said.

GPI seems to adhere to a strict interpretation of jihad, Mr. Azra said. "The real meaning [of jihad] is striving, to the utmost, for any good purpose," he said. In that sense, a soldier isn't the only one who can achieve martyrdom. A husband killed by a car on his way to work also would attain martyrdom because he died struggling to feed his family, Mr. Azra said.

Mr. Siregar, the father of two young girls, said he has waged a daily jihad by doing what is right and by caring about his religion. Now, he said, he is ready to take his struggle to the battlefield and lose his life if he must.

"That won't be a problem. That's the way into heaven," he said with a smile.

-------- iraq

Bush warns Saddam to permit inspections

October 12, 2001
By Gus Constantine
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011012-36252150.htm

President Bush last night warned Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, to allow international inspectors back in the country to make sure he is conforming to the agreement to abstain from developing weapons of mass destruction.

"We know he's been developing weapons of mass destruction," he told reporters attending his 45-minute news conference.

"And so we're watching him very carefully," he said, obviously addressing his comments directly to Saddam, whom he called "an evil man."

Mr. Bush delivered his warning in response to a question of whether "the American people will tolerate you widening the war beyond Afghanistan." The questioner was referring to recurring reports that some Bush advisers are urging the president to "take out Iraq, Syria and so forth."

"Thank you for warning me," Mr. Bush replied with a touch of sarcasm.

He then repeated his oft-stated warnings that the United States will seek out "individual terrorists who cause harm to people" as well as "host governments that sponsor them."

On Syria, Mr. Bush took a different tack.

Noting that some nations have offered to help the United States tackle the problem of terrorism, he said, "The Syrians have talked to us about how they can help in the war against terrorism.

We take that seriously and we'll give them an opportunity to do so." Earlier yesterday Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage struck a harsher note, warning that states such as Syria could face U.S. military action if they don't comply with Washington's demands in its campaign against terrorism.

Mr. Armitage told reporters the targets in the campaign include all groups that threaten the interests of the United States and U.S. allies.

Organizations "that are trying to hurt allied and U.S. interests, I think that's in the main where we will concentrate next," he said. "We know who has global reach and is a threat to the United States and our allies."

Asked what the consequences would be if countries such as Syria do not meet U.S. expectations, he said: "The consequences might be whatever the coalition finds worthy and it runs the gamut from isolation to financial investigations, all the way up through possibly military action."

The United States has Syria on its list of "state sponsors of terrorism" because it hosts Lebanese and Palestinian organizations that attack its ally, Israel.

-------- israel

Paratroop officer uses Palestinian as human shield

25 Tishri 5762 Friday October 12, 200
The Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/10/12/LatestNews/LatestNews.36129.html

A deputy company commander in the Paratrooper Brigade was sentenced to two weeks of detention for using a Palestinian as a human shield.

He was punished for tying the Palestinian man to the hood of his vehicle in order to use him as a human shield during an operation to extricate Israeli troops caught during recent riots in Za'abra.

In a related matter, the chief military prosecutor has decided to investigate recent suspicions that reserve soldiers physically harassed Israeli Arabs from Jaljulya on the Nablus bypass road, Israel Radio reported.

-------- nato

NATO Chief Says Members Committed to Helping U.S.

October 12, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-nato.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A number of NATO countries want to be on the front line with the United States in its campaign to fight terrorism, said NATO Secretary General George Robertson on Friday.

In an interview with CNN's ``Larry King Live'' show to be aired later on Friday, Robertson said NATO had already been asked to do eight specific tasks by the United States, including sending five surveillance planes to patrol U.S. skies.

``I know that a number of NATO countries don't simply want to back all of the Americans -- they want to be there on the front line with the United States in this campaign against terrorism, which is after all, an affliction that could as easily happen to them or damage them,'' said Robertson.

Robertson, speaking from NATO headquarters in Brussels, said five of the alliance's 24 Airborne Warning and Control Systems Aircraft (AWACS) had arrived in Oklahoma in the United States to patrol U.S. skies, starting on Friday.

``This is the classic case of the old world coming to the aid of the new in a very clear and visible symbol of the solidarity that exists between the two continents and the 19 nations,'' added Robertson, who was in Washington earlier this week to meet President Bush.

NATO member Britain joined the United States in bombing raids this week on Afghanistan, where Saudi-born fugitive Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network are believed to be based. Bin Laden is the chief suspect for the Sept. 11 aerial assault on New York and Washington. Other NATO members have also indicated they are prepared to help.

Asked whether other NATO members would replace American troops in the Balkans so they could go elsewhere, Robertson said that depended on what the Americans wanted.

He estimated there were about 10,000 U.S. troops currently in the Balkans, amounting to about 7 percent of total troops in the area, as well as a lot of highly specialized U.S. assets such as unmanned aerial vehicles.

``And it may be that if they are moved closer to Afghanistan then the NATO allies will have to fill the gap ... there are NATO troops that would be more than willing to fill their positions,'' he said in a transcript of the interview released by CNN.

Pressed on whether NATO would be involved in nation building in Afghanistan if the Taliban were toppled there, Robertson said the alliance had some unique peacemaking and peacekeeping abilities, citing Bosnia as an example.

``So maybe further down the road that's something that will be looked at and these capabilities, you never know, could be drawn on,'' he said.

-------- pakistan

Pakistan Fortifies Afghan Border

October 12, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Pakistan-Border.html

CHAMAN, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistani guards dug trenches along the Afghan border on Friday and set up new lines of barbed wire. Arriving refugees from Afghanistan, meanwhile, described their panicky flight from airstrikes that pounded villages just across the frontier.

Some of Thursday's air raids on Afghanistan came so close to the Pakistan border town of Chaman that shock waves howled through the streets, seconds before loud explosions at about 10:30 p.m. People rushed to rooftops and into the streets to see what was happening.

Thursday was the fifth night of U.S. strikes targeting military installations and suspected terrorist bases in Afghanistan, whose ruling Taliban have harbored Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

Afghan refugees arriving in Chaman early Friday said Taliban positions in the southern Afghan villages of Kalamtar and Rabat had been bombed. Rabat has a small airstrip.

``I have never seen such a sight. Bombs were dropping in and around the village, and there was fire and smoke everywhere,'' said Agha Jan Agha, a farmer from Kalamtar.

``I grabbed my family and some clothes and we must have walked about 10 kilometers in the night before we found a car that would bring us to the border,'' said Agha, who arrived with six children and several relatives.

Gul Hamad, who arrived from Rabat, said that at least a dozen bombs shook his village. ``We live close to Taliban positions in the mountains, and these were attacked at night by the Americans,'' said Hamad, a farmer.

``We got out in a hurry, so I don't know what happened to the village. But at the time of the bombing most of the Taliban were out patrolling the city, they were not in their bunkers,'' Hamad said.

Small teams from Pakistan's border militia were digging trenches about a mile from the border. A Pakistani official at the border said they were for protection, but gave no details.

New barbed-wire fences could also be seen along the frontier.

-------- u.s.

Caves Smashed, Pentagon Says Mountain Complexes Hit by 'Bunker Buster' Bombs

By Bradley Graham and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 12, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46330-2001Oct11.html

As U.S. warplanes pounded the Afghan capital of Kabul yesterday during the fifth straight day of bombing, Pentagon officials reported that airstrikes had devastated mountain cave complexes and may have struck Taliban leader Mohammad Omar's Chevrolet Suburban with several as yet unidentified individuals inside.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters yesterday that cave complexes, which he declined to further identify, had been hit by an array of precision munitions, including GBU-28 "bunker busters," 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs designed to penetrate buried concrete structures.

While Rumsfeld offered no indication whether the caves may have been occupied at the time of the strikes, destroying the complexes was an important objective because Osama bin Laden -- the terrorist leader U.S. officials hold responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington -- has used fortified caves as residences and headquarters.

Another senior official, who asked not to be quoted by name, said U.S. military imagery analysts believe that Omar's Suburban may have been hit in Wednesday night's attacks. The vehicle was occupied at the time, but analysts aren't sure who was in it, the official said, adding that they believe it may have been Omar or members of his family. U.S. officials previously cited "credible" reports that two members of Omar's family were killed in Kandahar on Sunday when the U.S. bombing campaign began.

With two U.S. aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea launching strike aircraft round-the-clock, a huge fire ball lit the sky over Kabul. Heavy bombing was also reported around Kabul's airport.

Pentagon officials said the air campaign had shifted from fixed targets associated with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network to troop concentrations and other "emerging targets."

Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the British defense staff, said the war, in which Britain is helping the United States, will stretch into next year. "We must expect . . . to go through the winter into next summer, at the very least," he said.

In Islamabad, meanwhile, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said 140 civilians had been killed over the day of bombing alone, including 15 people at a mosque that he claimed was destroyed in Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border and close to numerous training camps associated with bin Laden's terrorist network.

Responding to questions from reporters, Rumsfeld denied that civilians were being targeted and expressed regret at any "unintended loss of life." Other senior defense officials said they had received no collateral reports indicating that either large numbers of civilians had been killed or a mosque destroyed.

Offering a partial picture of the Afghan battlefield, Pentagon officials said they were surprised that Taliban forces in Afghanistan have done little to evade attacks. As a result, officials said, U.S. strike aircraft have had relatively easy targets, but that intelligence on some hidden Taliban military assets and capabilities has been harder to come by.

Unlike Iraqi and Yugoslav troops, which tried to scatter when targeted by American air campaigns over the past decade, the Taliban forces have appeared to hunker down and remain concentrated in their encampments, the officials said.

"This particular adversary is not reacting in ways we've seen in other conflicts," a senior official said.

With the bulk of the Taliban's combat power still arrayed in tactical positions north of Kabul against the rebel Northern Alliance, defense officials said the lack of movement they have observed has involved units in garrison locations in the south and the west.

"Some forces have been moving to avoid targeting, but others either have not dispersed when they have had an opportunity, or their dispersal has been amateurish -- they haven't dispersed very far," one official said.

In the Pentagon's view, the Taliban military appears not to know how to react to the aerial bombardment. While they had developed effective guerrilla tactics against Soviet forces in the 1980s, Taliban troops had become accustomed in recent years to fighting more conventional fixed battles against opponents, the officials said.

"For all the fabled fighting qualities of the Afghans, they've never had to deal with a modern air campaign," an official said.

Although Pentagon leaders declared control of the air two days into the campaign and began focusing airstrikes on Taliban troop encampments and equipment, the officials suggested yesterday that the Afghan fighters continue to pose some military threat to American warplanes and to a potential follow-on ground operation by U.S. special operations forces.

"Reports of their demise have been exaggerated," one official said. "They're certainly in serious trouble, but they're not down yet."

Rumsfeld cited a lingering air threat to U.S. aircraft, noting the existence of some surface-to-air missiles, shoulder-fired Stinger missiles and "a great deal" of antiaircraft artillery. "That is a fact, and we have been attempting to reduce that," he told reporters at the Pentagon.

Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Henry P. Osman, director of operational plans and joint force development on the Joint Staff, told reporters that most fixed targets belonging to the Taliban and al Qaeda have now been destroyed.

Osman presented a series of pre- and post-strike reconnaissance photographs showing heavily damaged targets, beginning with the Taliban's regimental headquarters in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, which was struck both on Sunday and on Monday.

Also hit was a radio station near Kabul, numerous fighter aircraft on a runway at a former Soviet air base near Herat and a surface-to-air missile site near Kandahar. A radar facility at the site was bombed on Sunday, and all of the missiles there were destroyed on Monday, the imagery showed.

The most dramatic image was of the aircraft, which showed that the U.S. bombing had literally smashed fighter aircraft to pieces. Osman also presented gun camera footage from a warplane that showed precision-guided munitions striking the missile site and setting off a series of large secondary explosions.

"In terms of hitting the things we're aiming at, we're doing very well," one senior official said. "In terms of learning what to aim at, it's better than what we expected."

Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.

-------

US deploys controversial weapon
B-52s scour country for troop convoys to attack

Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday October 12, 2001
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,568278,00.html

United States aircraft are dropping cluster bombs on Afghanistan for the first time as pilots begin to look for moving targets, including armoured vehicles and troop convoys.

The weapons - which scatter about 150 small "bomblets" over a large area and whose use has been condemned by the Red Cross and other hu manitarian agencies - can be dropped by B-52 bombers.

B-52 bombers engaged in air strikes on Afghanistan are based on the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia.

"The prime focus was garrisons, bivouac areas, maintenance sites, troop-type facilities," a US defence official said yesterday. The official described the latest round of round-the-clock bombing as "substantial". US officials hope the cluster bomb attacks on troops may persuade some Taliban commanders to change sides.

The attacks involved about 10 B-52 and B-1 bombers, which took off from Diego Garcia. The Pentagon said they dropped "area munitions," including CBU-89 Gators, which are 1,000-pound cluster bombs.

The Red Cross last year called for a ban on cluster bombs.

In a report sent to the UN it said some 30,000 unexploded bomblets remained in Kosovo after the conflict ended. They are estimated to have caused up to 150 casualties, including the death of two Gurkha soldiers.

"Unlike anti-personnel mines, incidents involving these sub-munitions usually result in death or injury to several people as a result of their greater explosive power," the Red Cross said.

Cluster bombs are used to cover a broad area rather than a single specific target. The bomblets, or "sub-munitions", contain higher explosive than landmines and their normally brightly-coloured casings make them attractive to children.

An internal Ministry of Defence report estimated that 60% of the 531 cluster bombs dropped by the RAF during the conflict in Kosovo missed their in tended target or remain unaccounted for. Cluster bombs were dropped from medium and high altitudes during the Kosovo conflict despite official US assessments after the 1991 Gulf war that they were likely to miss their targets.

On average, between 5% and 12% of the bomblets fail to explode, according to UN estimates.

In its report on the lessons from Kosovo, the MoD last year described cluster bombs as "an effective weapon against area targets such as a group of soft-skinned military vehicles".

It added: "Nevertheless, we have learned that it would be useful to have a capability to strike single vehicles more accurately."


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

EU decision on German green energy pending

Planet Ark
GERMANY: October 12, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12776/story.htm

FRANKFURT - European Union Budget Commissioner Michaele Schreyer said yesterday she did not expect the Commission to block new German laws subsidising so-called green energy.

"I don't expect there will be any threat to the law from the European Commission," Schreyer said.

But a spokesman for Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said no decision had yet been taken on whether Monti would examine government support measures for renewable producers.

Schreyer said the Commission had already approved similar support measures from the Danish and Belgian governments and that there was therefore little danger that the German measures would run into problems.

Monti spokesman Michael Tscherny told Reuters: "Schreyer has said what she is expecting - she is free to do that."

"There is a question as to whether it is state aid or not, that's still unclear. Monti did not tell Schreyer that we are not going to open proceedings. There's no decision yet."

Schreyer's remarks applied to the feed-in law for renewable energies (EEG), but the law subsidising power produced at combined heat and power plants (CHP) is part of the same complex.

An industry source said that if the existing EEG law was safeguarded, then the same principles would be applied by the EU to the CHP law, although this required a separate official process.

A new German CHP regulation is due to come into effect on January 1, 2002, replacing an existing law.

Both laws support the expansion of energy sources that are low on green house gas emissions and therefore help prevent global warming - which is one of Germany's declared political goals.

They require that regional suppliers and municipalities pay above-market prices for power from such energy sources, and then pass the additional costs on to consumers.

Prior to Monti's concern, the European Court of Justice said in the spring Germany's subsidising schemes complied with EU law because the inherent environmental goals overruled concerns about producer aid.

But according to high-ranking EU sources Monti's probe would be based on the question whether the funding would constitute state aid if the subsidised companies are themselves state-owned - many municipalities in Germany still are publicly-owned.

An industry source said the news, if confirmed, would give mixed signals to the German electricity sector.

"It's good and bad - operators of renewable energy plants would be given planning security," he said.

"But consumers are having to pay more and this has always been of great concern to energy-intensive industries."

"The laws also tie up personnel and other resources and this is annoying for the utilities and grid operators which are having to administrate them."

Green power company shares in the German equity market rose on Thursday in the wake of Schreyer's remarks, but analysts pointed out that they believed Monti was the decisive figure in the debate.

----

Plug Power 2001 fuel cell shipments on target

Planet Ark
USA: October 12, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12777/story.htm

NEW YORK - Plug Power Inc. will deliver 125 of its commercial fuel cell systems to state and federal agencies this year, a company official said yesterday.

Steven Zenker, director of investor relations, was commenting on a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority announcement earlier in the day that 20 Plug Power 5-kilowatt fuel cell systems are providing electricity to a variety of New York State facilities and 21 additional systems are to be installed by year end.

Zenker said the 41 systems are in addition to another 75 that will be delivered to the Long Island Power Authority this year and another 10 going to the U.S. Army's Watervliet Arsenal in 2001 under a contract announced Wednesday.

He said Plug Power's goal for this year is to deliver between 125 and 150 of the systems using the company's proton exchange membrane technology.

Helped by the two announcements in as many days, Plug Power's stock climbed 95 cents, or 10.5 percent, to $10.04 on Nasdaq before closing yesterday at $9.50, up 25 cents, or 2.7 percent for the day.

The use of stationary, on-site generation, or distributed generation, has become an increasingly popular way of protecting power users from blackouts and other problems in the aging U.S. power generation and distribution system.

A fuel cell uses electrochemistry to convert hydrogen into water, electricity and heat. The hydrogen is removed from natural gas or another hydrocarbon by a fuel processor that is part of the fuel cell generation system.

The state authority said the 41 systems are the third and final phase of a $6 million two-year demonstration program it managed for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. It said this covered the installation of 80 Plug Power units, the first 40 of which were test systems.

-------- environment

Alaska pipeline spill costs expected to mount

Story by Yereth Rosen,
REUTERS
USA: October 12, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12775/story.htm

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Cleanup workers will likely spend much of the winter digging up frozen, contaminated soil and chopping down oil-coated trees at the site where crude oil sprayed out of a bullet hole in the trans-Alaska pipeline, officials said this week.

Workers may have to clear-cut the spruce and birch forest site affected by the spill, then plant new trees and bushes next spring, said Tim Woolston, a spokesman for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., the consortium that operates the pipeline system.

Alyeska has already spent about $3 million on the cleanup, Woolston said, and the cost is expected to mount.

"Certainly that will go up significantly," he said.

The spill totaled 6,800 barrels or 285,600 gallons. It was the largest spill along the trans-Alaska pipeline in 23 years, and the third-largest in the state since oil began flowing through the 800-mile (1,296-km) line.

It started last Thursday, when a gunman used a high-powered rifle - which state officials identified as a .338-caliber magnum - to pierce the oil line at its midpoint, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Fairbanks. Although bullets have struck the oil line in the past, this was the first time that one had pierced it.

A local man, Daniel Lewis, 37, was arrested by the Alaska State Troopers, charged with the shooting and related offenses and jailed in Fairbanks.

Cleanup workers, using vacuum trucks and containment pits, have so far picked up 2,772 barrels, or 116,424 gallons of the oil as of Wednesday, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) said.

No impacts to wildlife have been reported, partly a result of lucky timing, said Brad Hahn, DEC's manager for prevention and emergency response. "All the migratory birds are out," he said.

No oil has been found in nearby water bodies, either, though officials are concerned about possible future leaching into ground water, Hahn said.

Long-term prospects for the area, about two to three acres in size (1 hectare), are complicated by the intermittent permafrost underlying it, he said.

There will be consultations with plant experts to determine the best course of action, Hahn said.

"We want to do the least amount of disturbance possible," he said.

Like Alyeska, the state has borne a cost from the near-shutdown of North Slope oil production in the days after the hole was detected.

The pipeline was shut down from late Thursday to early Sunday, when the bullet hole was plugged with a permanent weld. During most of that time, North Slope output was down to 5 percent of its normal 1 million-barrel-per-day rate.

The delayed production of about 2.7 million barrels means the state will lose $8.35 million in oil royalties and taxes, said Chuck Logsdon, chief petroleum economist for the Alaska Department of Revenue.

The state would lose more if cleanup expenses were figured into the transportation tariff that oil producers subtract from the wellhead price used to calculate royalties and taxes, Logsdon said.

"If it gets applied to the tariff, the state shares in some of that cost," he said.

Lewis was charged with criminal mischief, drunk driving, assault and misconduct involving a weapon - charges he has faced often for other incidents in the past, according to police records.

He "will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," said Bob King, press secretary for Gov. Tony Knowles.

But the state's priority is the spill cleanup, King said.

Alyeska is owned by oil companies with interests on the North Slope. Major owners are BP, Phillips Petroleum and Exxon Mobil.

-------- human rights

Amnesty deplores allies' rights records

October 12, 2001
By Calum MacLeod
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011012-60815848.htm

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan - Amnesty International yesterday warned the world of the appalling human rights records of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, two Central Asian republics that have become key allies in the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

Amnesty's new report, "Central Asia: No excuse for escalating human rights violations," predicts a deterioration in already paltry respect for human rights as the authoritarian governments of those and three other former Soviet republics in the region use the war against terrorism as an excuse to eliminate all opposition.

While Amnesty also named Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan and Turkmenistan, the human rights watchdog singled out Uzbekistan, the most powerful and populous Central Asian nation, whose dictatorial President Islam Karimov has threatened to shoot terrorists himself.

At least 1,000 U.S. troops are now stationed at the Uzbek air base of Khanabad 55 miles from the Afghan border.

Mr. Karimov's iron fist has been challenged over the past two years by bombings and armed incursions by religious extremists linked to Osama bin Laden and backed by the Taliban regime.

These events partly explain why the Uzbek president is willing to risk Russian and Islamic ire by allowing U.S. troops into Uzbekistan, now a frontline state in the global war on terrorism.

The Uzbek government has long insisted the world take the terrorist threat more seriously, including its proposals to establish an international anti-terrorist center within the United Nations. One week before the New York and Pentagon terrorist attacks, Tashkent had instructed the national carrier Uzbekistan Airways to put its worldwide offices on heightened alert for possible hijackings.

Ever since the Soviet Union disintegrated in the early 1990s, unorthodox Islamic beliefs have been seeping across Central Asia's long borders and gaining ground among those worst hit by social and economic dislocation.

In Uzbekistan's Ferghana Valley, which shares jigsaw borders with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, groups such as the Saudi-backed Wahabbis, and the radical, multinational Hizb ut-Tahrir, have formed countless underground cells. When they surface, their calls for an Islamic state are swiftly silenced, while the families of those arrested wait for months to learn of their whereabouts.

They are beaten immediately after arrest, at the militia posts and in jails, and at least 50 have died from these beatings in the past three years, said Mikhail Ardzinov, chairman of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan.

Mr. Ardzinov estimates there are at least 8,000 political prisoners in Uzbek jails, the majority of them from banned Islamic groups. A former political prisoner himself, beaten by police in his a crumbling Soviet-era apartment two years ago, he acknowledges the irony at this time of defending people who desire a state similar to the Taliban, but insists his embattled organization must defend the human rights of all Uzbek citizens.

"We expect this crisis will result in further crackdowns and controls," Mr. Ardzinov said in an interview. "Parliament has decided that everybody must come together with the president, and support his policies.

"So whoever is against him is considered a bad person. Just like in Stalin's time, we will be called enemies of the people. Karimov's policy against independent and opposition groups is already repressive. It is hard to imagine how it could get worse, yet it could."

-------- spying

CIA 'flooding Afghan region with agents'
War against terrorism: Intelligence

Independent (uk)
By Andrew Gumbel
12 October 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=99049

The Central Intelligence Agency is flooding the remote region around Afghanistan with agents and millions of dollars in the hope of sowing dissent in the ranks of the Taliban.

It aims to find informants who can pinpoint Osama bin Laden and secure his capture or death, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday.

The CIA was mounting a rapid mobilisation known as a "surge", calling some agents out of retirement and dispatching them to Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

They have been told they can offer a bounty, possibly exceeding the $5 million previously tendered, for information leading to the capture of Mr bin Laden and his lieutenants.

The intelligence agency has come under severe criticism, particularly since 11 September, for its failure to maintain a human intelligence network in difficult parts of the world. And the "surge", however large, is likely to do little to overcome the dearth of linguistic and cultural expertise required to operate with any effectiveness in southwestern Asia.

The CIA has been hunting for Mr bin Laden since 1998, with little success so far. There appears to be some optimism, however, that the pressure of military intervention might cause splits in the Taliban and lead to a breakthrough.

The United States has imposed a ban on assassinations since 1976, but the intelligence officials who spoke to the Los Angeles newspaper did not see this as an obstacle. "I'm sure if someone were to deliver to us evidence of his timely demise, we'd find a way to demonstrate our gratitude," one official said.

A former CIA operative, Robert Baer, warned that such an outcome would not come easily. "If you think you're going to penetrate bin Laden and the Taliban in a couple of weeks, it is not possible," he said. "It's extremely hostile country. People are suspicious. They're insular and they hate foreigners".

-------- terrorism

It's over: NBC Reports Anthrax Case
NBC Reports Anthrax Case Worker Has 'Cutaneous' Infection

Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001
From: "Andy Caffrey" <hayduke@efmedia.org>
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/nbcanthrax011112.html

NEW YORK, Oct. 12 - An NBC News employee who opened "suspicious mail" has tested positive for anthrax, the news organization said today.

The employee was infected through her skin, in a form of the disease known as cutaneous anthrax, the organization said.

The woman, whose name was withheld, works on the third floor of the company's Manhattan headquarters, where the Today show and NBC Nightly News are produced. She was responding well the treatment, the network said.

"She is in no danger, and she should recover fully and completely," NBC network head Andrew Lack told employees via e-mail. "At this point, we know that some suspicious mail was received," he said. Tests of the mail were negative, but the employee subsequently tested positive for the disease.

Mayor: No Reason for Public to Worry

NBC employees on the third floor will be tested for the presence of anthrax spores. Areas of the building at 30 Rockefeller Center will be closed for testing as well, said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Giuliani told a news conference there was no reason for the public to be concerned.

"This is in very good hands," he said.

Cutaneous anthrax accounts for 95 percent of all known anthrax cases, and is rarely fatal with appropriate treatment. This form of infection typically comes from a cut or abrasion that allows the anthrax bacterium to enter the skin.

The FBI is already investigating the exposure of three employees of the Sun tabloid newspaper in Boca Raton, Fla. One of the employees died of inhalation anthrax, which is both very rare and usually fatal. Two other employees there tested positive for exposure to anthrax.

NBC said there was no indication other employees had been exposed to the diseases. Network officials said they were working with health officials, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI.

ABCNEWS Internet Ventures.

---

Terrorist Attacks Imminent, FBI Warns
Assaults on U.S. Called Possible in 'Next Several Days'

Washington Post
By Dan Eggen and Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 12, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46338-2001Oct11.html

The FBI warned yesterday that additional terrorist acts could be directed at U.S. interests at home and abroad over the "next several days," marking the most specific and urgent call of alarm from the Bush administration since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The two-sentence warning, issued by FBI headquarters in Washington shortly before 4 p.m. EDT, offered no details about the type or location of possible attacks or about the information that led to the unusual public notice.

But administration officials said the public alert came amid an increasing number of credible reports to the CIA and other intelligence agencies indicating that multiple terrorist strikes are possible, and perhaps likely, through the weekend.

"This is the real deal," a senior intelligence official said. He noted that the possibility of new attacks was "a little higher than last week," when the CIA and FBI told lawmakers in a briefing that there was a very high probability of attacks, especially as the United States began military strikes in Afghanistan. The United States began bombing there Sunday.

Yesterday marked the second time in a week that the FBI asked law enforcement agencies to be on the highest alert, but it was the first time since Sept. 11 that it pointedly suggested that attacks could occur within such a specific time frame. Officials said they provided information to avoid the confusion that has followed previous alerts that were leaked to the news media and so that appropriate precautions could be taken. But they offered no specific suggestions to an already jittery public.

President Bush, speaking at a news conference on the one-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 hijackings, said Americans faced an "ongoing threat" of attacks that the government was working to thwart.

"If we receive specific intelligence that targets a specific building or city or facility, I can assure you our government will do everything possible to protect the citizens," the president said.

Bush said the FBI warning was the result of "a general threat" received by the government. "I hope it's the last, but given the attitude of the evildoers, it may not be," he said.

The FBI's brief statement said: "Certain information, while not specific as to target, gives the government reason to believe that there may be additional terrorist acts within the United States and against U.S. interests overseas over the next several days.

"The FBI has again alerted all local law enforcement to be on the highest alert and we call on all people to immediately notify the FBI and local law enforcement of any unusual or suspicious activity."

However, many police departments and emergency officials around the country said they were already at their highest state of readiness and there was little more they could do. The FBI had previously recommended increased security for water supplies, trucks, nuclear facilities, power plants, crop dusters and other potential terrorist targets.

The senior intelligence official said that the CIA in recent days had gathered information pointing to possible multiple attacks in the very near future, including several highly credible reports and hundreds of other reports that are less reliable but cannot be dismissed.

U.S. intelligence has reports of suspected terrorists promising a new attack against U.S. facilities within the nation and overseas that would be bigger than the Sept. 11 assaults on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, the official said.

Some of that might be hyperbole, said the official, but the "higher quantity and higher quality" of the new information should put everyone on notice. The official said the FBI warning is intended "to put people on edge. New information is coming in every hour."

Another official said intelligence showed the U.S. Embassy in Moscow might be attacked this week, but "people were moved around" and the Russians are helping with security. In addition, there was a report that a U.S. facility in Italy might be attacked, the official said.

Bush was informed of the new threats during a morning briefing yesterday with FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, said Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker.

Ashcroft, in a taped interview for the ABC News program "Nightline," said "the next several days are obviously important partially because of the environment in which we find ourselves in the initial response period" in Afghanistan.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the decision to issue the alert is consistent with Bush's insistence that federal authorities immediately release information about anthrax cases in Florida.

"It's important to be forthright with the public and to share information so that all appropriate actions can be taken by law enforcement officials," Fleischer said.

Authorities are paying special attention to a videotaped statement by an aide to Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the Sept 11 attacks, that was broadcast Tuesday.

Suleiman Abu-Gheit said that "the storm of airplanes will not stop," an apparent reference to the four hijackings which left more than 5,000 dead. He also praised those who carried out the attacks and added: "Thousands of young people look forward to death like Americans look forward to living."

In the past, terrorism experts noted, bin Laden and his terrorist network, al Qaeda, have shown a proclivity for striking targets that they had unsuccessfully tried to hit before. At the World Trade Center, for example, extremists linked to bin Laden killed six people with a truck bomb in 1993.

Authorities thwarted a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in 1999, as well as plans to bomb the Holland and Lincoln tunnels connecting Manhattan and New Jersey.

Around the nation, the response to the FBI warning was mixed. The U.S. Coast Guard and other federal agencies beefed up already tight security measures, but other agencies and state officials said they already had prepared for another strike as well as they could.

The Coast Guard yesterday expanded the number of top security zones in ports and harbors and added 100-yard security zones around all cruise ships, said spokesman Jim McPherson. However, McPherson said that "we do not have indications of a maritime threat."

But officials in Detroit, Miami, New York, Dallas and other cities said they had taken all necessary precautions earlier.

San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy said the FBI had notified the city that it faced "no specific terrorist threat." Like local officials elsewhere, Murphy said San Diego has been implementing tighter security for the last month, and plans today to begin installing airport-like security screening at City Hall.

"We are doing nothing new today other than what we've been doing," he said.

In the Washington area, the FBI has warned police to be on special alert for truck bombs. District police have been training over the past week in how to spot terrorists masquerading as truckers and large trucks have been banned from an area around the U.S. Capitol.

Since the attacks, the American Trucking Associations, which represents nearly 3,000 trucking companies, has urged its members to be more vigilant about practicing security measures. Spokesman Mike Russell said yesterday that companies have increased their use of electronic tracking devices to monitor trucks nationwide.

In addition, drivers transporting hazardous materials have been given new security guidelines, which include information on possible ploys that could be used to hijack trucks. The drivers have been urged to check the security seals on their trucks each time they stop, and not to talk about their cargo or destination with strangers.

"Cargo theft has always been a major issue in the industry, so we always had some form of a security program," Russell said. "The events . . . have forced us to triple our efforts."

Near Houston yesterday, authorities said they were investigating the theft of 700 pounds of industrial explosives. While such thefts are not uncommon, officials said, the amount stolen is unusually large.

The nation's nuclear weapons facilities have been at their highest level of threat protection "without a specific threat against a particular facility," according to a notice posted by Los Alamos National Laboratory. "Security Condition Level 2," or SECON 2, has been in effect since Monday.

Asked if the government was offering advice to its employees in light of the FBI warning, Office of Personnel Management spokesman Scott Hatch said: "We are not telling federal employees anything beyond the ordinary. We . . . have no inside information about the FBI release and we know what the general public knows."

Earlier yesterday, the industry agency that oversees the nation's electric power transmission grid said it received a contrary message from federal authorities, indicating that the agency no longer needed to be at the highest level of security.

Based on that assurance, the North American Electric Reliability Council said it told 21 regional transmission control centers that they could step down from the highest alert level today. The FBI informed the group that the lower level of alert was acceptable.

The president of the Arab American Institute, James Zogby, said he did not believe the FBI alert would cause "undue hardship" for Arab Americans despite its call on the public to notify law enforcement "of any unusual or suspicious activity."

He said the "wide net" of suspicion cast right after Sept. 11 had largely dissipated, although "we are having a problem with airlines, in getting on board and staying on board."

Zogby said he knew of about a dozen recent instances in which Arab Americans had been refused passage even though they had tickets, had passed through all security checkpoints and in some cases taken their seats.

In a separate development, federal sources said they are investigating whether Youssef Hmimssa, also known as Jalali, may have had contact with the Sept. 11 hijackers. Authorities have previously said that Hmimssa, who appeared in court on unrelated charges yesterday, may also have had knowledge of a possible terrorist attack on former defense secretary William S. Cohen.

Hmimssa is charged in Detroit with having false identification documents and faces credit card fraud charges in Chicago.

Staff writers Mike Allen, Stephen Barr, Peter Behr, Petula Dvorak, David Fallis, Amy Goldstein, Marcia Slacum Greene, George Lardner Jr., Allan Lengel, Carol D. Leonnig, John Mintz, Eric Pianin, Walter Pincus and Cheryl Thompson in Washington, and Jeff Adler in Los Angeles, contributed to this report.

---

Reports from in Afghanistan

Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001
From: "tycho" <cleo.patra@angelfire.com>
Organization: Angelfire
http://email.angelfire.mailcity.lycos.com:80

feeling speechless and shocked/fearful surprised yet not surprised, wondering how much DU these bunker busters are dispersing etc etc etc...SO i send this on fyi. Ali Abunimah has an informative website and Al-Jazeera is the Qatari satellite network started by ex-BBC people (jazeera=bridge in arabic). When i was in Jordan in 2000 i found their on-site coverage of the Chechan war amazingly insightful and really made our networks look more cartoonish to me than they had already seemed. While they are still a large media corporation, the quality is at least better than what we are getting from any other on-site sources right now.

If you are websurfing for news, the christian science monitor has a good reporter in northern afghanistan/tajikistan and i've also found itar-tass news reports worth checking out. links to a wide range of news sources can be found at www.drudgereport.com.

--

Al-Jazira television

From: "Ali Abunimah" <ahabunim@midway.uchicago.edu>
October 12, 2001

Al-Jazira television broadcast pictures this morning of children seriously injured in the United States bombing of the Afghan capital Kabul. Several children were shown lying on hospital beds some with bandages around their heads and limbs. One child's body was almost completely covered in bandages while another infant was screaming in someone's arms. One child appeared completely still and had small scars on his face. It was not clear if this child was alive or simply weakened or unconsious. Many parents have taken their children out of hospitals, the television said, because there were no medications or supplies with which to treat them.

Al-Jazira also showed what appeared to be a school house destroyed by bombing. A chalk board could be clearly seen on the inside wall of the building. The television also showed pictures of a number of destroyed houses.

The Al-Jazira correspondent in Kabul Taysir al-Allouni said that he had received eyewitness reports of a mosque being destroyed in an area called Rishkour, and more houses in another area with the loss of dozens of lives. He said there were reports of heavy civilian casualties in two villages outside Kabul. Al-Jazira does not have pictures of these areas yet, but is working to obtain them he said.

Al-Allouni said that the bombing last night had been the heaviest. He described the bombs being used by the United States as setting off enormous explosions with fireballs lasting up to 30 seconds, and sending enormous clouds of black smoke into the sky.

The type of bomb could not be confirmed from the ground, he said, but referred to reports from Washington that US forces are dropping 2300kg "bunker buster" bombs and said that the bombs used last night were bigger than those used in the first days of the US attacks.

The Guardian also confirms that the US is now using cluster bombs (see story below)

Ali Abunimah http://www.abunimah.org

---------

US deploys controversial weapon:
Cluster bomb B-52s scour country for troop convoys to attack

Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian (London)
October 12, 2001

United States aircraft are dropping cluster bombs on Afghanistan for the first time as pilots begin to look for moving targets, including armoured vehicles and troop convoys.

The weapons - which scatter about 150 small "bomblets" over a large area and whose use has been condemned by the Red Cross and other hu manitarian agencies - can be dropped by B-52 bombers.

B-52 bombers engaged in air strikes on Afghanistan are based on the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia. "The prime focus was garrisons, bivouac areas, maintenance sites, troop-type facilities," a US defence official said yesterday. The official described the latest round of round-the-clock bombing as "substantial". US officials hope the cluster bomb attacks on troops may persuade some Taliban commanders to change sides.

The attacks involved about 10 B-52 and B-1 bombers, which took off from Diego Garcia. The Pentagon said they dropped "area munitions," including CBU-89 Gators, which are 1,000-pound cluster bombs.

The Red Cross last year called for a ban on cluster bombs.

In a report sent to the UN it said some 30,000 unexploded bomblets remained in Kosovo after the conflict ended. They are estimated to have caused up to 150 casualties, including the death of two Gurkha soldiers.

"Unlike anti-personnel mines, incidents involving these sub-munitions usually result in death or injury to several people as a result of their greater explosive power," the Red Cross said.

Cluster bombs are used to cover a broad area rather than a single specific target. The bomblets, or "sub-munitions", contain higher explosive than landmines and their normally brightly-coloured casings make them attractive to children.

An internal Ministry of Defence report estimated that 60% of the 531 cluster bombs dropped by the RAF during the conflict in Kosovo missed their in tended target or remain unaccounted for. Cluster bombs were dropped from medium and high altitudes during the Kosovo conflict despite official US assessments after the 1991 Gulf war that they were likely to miss their targets.

On average, between 5% and 12% of the bomblets fail to explode, according to UN estimates.

In its report on the lessons from Kosovo, the MoD last year described cluster bombs as "an effective weapon against area targets such as a group of soft-skinned military vehicles".

It added: "Nevertheless, we have learned that it would be useful to have a capability to strike single vehicles more accurately."


-------- activists

FOUR PEACE ACTIVISTS ARRESTED AFTER BREACHING SECURITY AT NSA

From: "Jonah House" <disarmnow@erols.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001

As part of the INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST TO STOP THE MILITARIZATION OF SPACE, organized by the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space in Gainesville, Florida, Ellen Barfield, Max Obuszewski, Sister Carol Gilbert, O.P. and Sister Ardeth Platte, O.P. walked through an open gate at the National Security Agency at 7 AM, despite the fact the area was on highest alert.

They carried a letter addressed to Lt. General Michael V. Hayden, head of the National Security Agency, demanding a meeting. However, a security breach alert was sounded, and at least nine vehicles, soldiers with drawn weapons and attacl dogs soon arrived. The NSA officials would not permit a meeting with Gen. Hayden, so Ardeth and Carol poured their own blood on the asphalt to represent all victims of the NSA's work. Max held a sign "Unmask the Body of Secrets...No Star Wars...Nonviolence Now...International Day of Protest - Oct. 12-13, 2001", while Ellen's banner read "No War On Afghanistan, Iraq, Whomever; No Spying, No Star Wars, Work for Peace, Please!"

Each demonstrator was arrested and charged with trespass [six months/$2500 fine], destruction of government property [one year] and conspiracy [five years]. No trial date was assigned, but the protesters were eventually released on personal recognizance at about 12 noon on Friday, October 12, 2001.

The four activists acted the morning after George W. Bush indicated all police departments and government agencies were placed on the highest security alert. Real security, though, will not come from military weaponry or warmaking. True security comes from treating all people equally and from sharing the world's resources.

Max Obuszewski, raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, attended Erie Cathedral Preparatory School for Boys, the same high school as Tom Ridge, the head of the Office of Homeland Security. He and the others hope Gov. Ridge will heed their call for real security: NO THEATRE MISSILE DEFENSE! NO NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE! NO STAR WARS RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT! KEEP SPACE FOR PEACE! NO WAR! FUND HUMAN NEEDS! The NSA cloak of secrecy, its covert actions, confrontations, undisclosed annual budgets and interceptor sites throughout the world will not enhance security.

The statement the four carried unto the base read:

OUR REJECTION OF "STAR WARS" AND TODAY'S WARS

We enter the National Security Agency property on this International Day of Protest, October 12, 2001, walking toward the Tordella Supercomputer Facility as a sacred pilgimage to

+ mark and break open this site of darkness and secrecy

+ delay and stop business as usual

+ unmask and reveal the covert and overt role of the Agency that is far removed from public scrutiny

+ bring to light its illegal and harmful past and present practices and its projected plans of participation in the U.S. Space Command's Vision for 2020

We come to appeal to all of you present at the NSA to turn away from the Ballistic and Theater Missile Defense/Offense work, your Surveillance Measures, Echelon, Eavesdropping, Spying, Photo Missions, Intelligence Gathering through Listening Devices, Postal Interceptions, Intercepts from Water, Land, Air, and Space, Cryptanalysis & Traffic Analysis, Propaganda, Deception and Excessive Budgets. All of these secret endeavors lead to a path of killing, destruction, power-seeking, domination and death-dealing. The world expects more of the United States and wants something better.

We mourn for the victims of violence and their families in this country and in all other parts of the world. We deplore terrorism in any form in any place on planet Earth or threats of terrorism and war from land, water, air or space. We are non-violent persons and realize that it is only by non-violence and just relationships that the cycle of violence will be broken.

We believe in transformation of satellites and computer use and the activities of 38,000 employees and this Agency, itself, to be used for life, in behalf of people with basic human needs in the United States and the rest of the world.

The work of the NSA, NRO, CIA, DEA, FBI, U.S. Space Command, etc. (the whole military industrial complex with its Department of War and profiteering Corporation contracts) perpetuates the havoc that is presently being wrought upon this nation.

We plead for the use of intelligence in the work for justice and for peace and may it be granted and returned to you and to all future generations.

Submitted by: Ellen Barfield, Sr. Carol Gilbert, O.P. Max Obuszewski, Sr. Ardeth Platte, O.P. October 12, 2001 at the National Security Agency in Maryland

The activists will attend the October 13 protest at the NSA at 10:30 AM. Their letter to Gen. Hayden is available on request. The list of sites at which people will be acting on October 13 against Star Wars is also available on request.

The Baltimore Emergency Response Network and Baltimore's Jonah House have been organizing demonstrations at the National Security Agency since 1996. See James Bamford's book BODY OF SECRETS, which details the spy agency's response to these nonviolent protests.

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In The Spirit of Crazy Horse: Happy "Indigenous Day"

Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001
From: Marita McComiskey <mccomisk@uconnvm.uconn.edu>

STATEMENT OF LEONARD PELTIER OCTOBER 12
Brothers, Sisters, Friends, and Supporters,

Today marks 509 years since Columbus arrived on the shores of Turtle Island, where he first staked claim to the cherished lands of our ancestors. Although Columbus is long dead, the legacy of injustice that he began continues. Whether it be relocation of the Dine at Big Mountain, the persecution of Indigenous Peoples throughout Latin America, the fishing struggles in Canada, or the dumping of toxic waste on reservations, the dehumanization of Indigenous Peoples remains pervasive throughout the Americas. As we see in the spirits of the grandmothers of Big Mountain, the Mi'Kmaqs of Burnt Church, or the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Indigenous resistance also remains alive. It is in this spirit of resistance that I am inspired to continue fighting for my own freedom after 25 years of unjust imprisonment.

I want to thank you all for your concern and continued support. I know that these are very difficult and unpredictable times for us all. Although the LPDC has expressed condolences and sympathy on my behalf, I would like a chance to personally say how sorry I am to any of you who lost loved ones on September 11. Please know that I have been praying for you and for peace ever since.

Despite the difficult times we are faced with, and despite this year's clemency defeat, I am feeling blessed. I have to admit that I feared being forgotten after I did not receive clemency. But instead of finding myself alone, I have been surrounded by more compassionate and talented people than ever before - and they have all expressed their determination to continue the struggle for my release. People who I greatly respect like Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, Nilak Butler, Thom White Wolf Fassett, Debra Peebles and Debra White Plume, to name only a small few, have joined the LPDC. I want to thank Jennifer Harbury, Pat Benabe, Gina Chiala, Jean Day, and Sylvain Duez-Alesandrini for bringing our new team together and sticking with me. I also want to thank all of you - I received hundreds of birthday cards last month and my spirits were greatly lifted knowing that you are still with us. Without you, I could have no hope.

I am also very encouraged by the new strategies the LPDC plans to pursue on my behalf. We have three new, very important cases to file and the lawyers in charge of them are very dedicated and talented. But I must say that without your active participation, these cases will mean very little. Public pressure is the key to fairness and justice.

In closing, I would like to wish you all a happy "Indigenous Day" and encourage you to continue advocating for the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Although prison life becomes more and more difficult with age, my spirit remains unbroken, and I still dream of rejoining my people in freedom and continuing our work for human rights and justice.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Leonard Peltier

Until Freedom Is Won! The New Peltier Justice Campaign

Leonard Peltier Defense Committee PO Box 583 Lawrence, KS 66044 785-842-5774 www.freepeltier.org

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Peace movement needs to update its message

Friday, October 12, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific
Lance Dickie / Times staff columnist
Seattle Times editorial columnist
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/134352537_lance12.html

As the United States hunkers down for a long war against terrorism, a vibrant, conscience-stirring peace movement is more important than ever.

Informed dissent that protects civil liberties, challenges excessive government secrecy and questions a wider conflict is a robust expression of democratic business as usual after Sept. 11.

People with the courage to speak out are valued citizens.

As clear, however, is the peace movement's desperate need for new material.

Like generals fighting the last war, peace activists who use old templates of protests after a murderous assault on 6,000 innocent civilians will quickly be judged irrelevant. And ignored.

An exquisite example of nothing to say was a placard at a Seattle rally that read: "Stop violence everywhere."

All that was missing were three more signs: "End Disease," "No More Hunger" and "Go M's." That nicely covers a spectrum of sentiments - and they could carpool.

If the peace movement wants to be heard, it has to offer a credible alternative in frightening, perplexing times.

Normally articulate people in Seattle's peace movement are tongue-tied by events. The stammering and silence about what comes next is deafening.

I find that most reassuring. These are smart, dedicated people whose deep intellectual beliefs have collided with the reality of evil that kills with ingenuity and resolve.

The peace movement has to rethink and gain control of its message.

Any rhetoric that hints of an excuse, rationalization or multi-layered, nuanced understanding for religious extremists to kill on a massive scale will exile well-intended people to the fringes.

America suffered an atrocity at the hands of madmen not the slightest bit interested in giving peace a chance. Flying airliners into buildings is not a political science exercise to be parsed out and deconstructed.

I know this is terribly rude and indecorous for Seattle, but tell the black-clad anarchist-types to stay home. Their masks are cowardly and offensive, especially mixed in with courageous people who express strong beliefs in emotional times.

The slightest temptation to blame America for this attack, based on what happened in Vietnam, El Salvador, the Brazilian rain forest or on a factory floor in Indonesia means losing most of your audience.

As a local peace organizer noted, it is not America's fault terrorists were willing to do insane acts. Keep that in mind.

If papier-mâché turtles and other political theater try to crowd out the memory of 6,000 dead, the peace community will be contemptuously dismissed.

Stay focused, don't strain for a unifying theory that binds union organizing, free speech, religious freedom, reproductive choice and gay rights - unless, of course, the point is Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda would incinerate them all.

Facile recitations of past U.S. military involvement tend to omit Bosnia and Kosovo. If America, and European allies, are ripe for criticism in defense of those Muslim minorities, it is for averting their eyes for too long.

U.S. bombing raids, and international ground troops, ended a decade of genocide against Muslims, not that anyone noticed.

The measured response of the Bush administration in Afghanistan has flummoxed his critics. They are pleased and impressed the first aerial bombardment of a ragged nation was with food supplies. They even want a little credit for the president looking over his shoulder at public opinion.

The core of the peace movement, those dedicated souls who pay attention when the rest of us do not, could be saying a form of "I told you so" right now.

They've never stopped preaching against the spread of nuclear weapons. Dirt poor Pakistan, the only nation to recognize the Taliban, has the bomb.

They're constantly warning against using the U.S. military as an arm of foreign policy and arming others without our democratic values. Here we go again, with the Northern Alliance, the drug-smuggling, corrupt predecessors of the Taliban. No, we don't seem to learn.

At this moment, a persistent call to stay focused on military targets is a message to build upon. Everyone is fearful of more civilian casualties, here or abroad.

I wish the peace movement made a sharper distinction between military policy and the immediate members of the armed forces, and their anxious families. Recognition of their contributions, fears and sacrifices is overdue by those whose hearts bleed for everyone else.

If the peace movement is looking for a mission in confusing, divisive times, make it education. The thirst for information and context is acute.

The trick for the peace movement is to operate as part of the larger community, instead of appearing to be on the outside looking in.

Lance Dickie's e-mail address is ldickie@seattletimes.com.

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REP. MCKINNEY'S LETTER TO PRINCE ALWALEED

October 12, 2001
http://english.planetarabia.com/content/article.cfm/103300/108036/

His Royal Highness Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Embassy of Saudi Arabia 601 New Hampshire Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20037

Dear Prince Alwaleed bin Talal:

I would like to take just a moment to thank you for your recent demonstration of empathy with those suffering from the devastating and heinous September 11 attacks on the United States Pentagon and the World Trade Center. I would especially like to thank you for your most generous offer of $10 million to assist those Americans in need as a result of those attacks.

I was disappointed that Mayor Giuliani chose to decline your generous offer and instead criticize you for your observations of events in the Middle East. Whether he agreed with you or not I think he should have recognized your right to speak and make observations about a part of the world which you know so well. I think Mayor Giuliani would do well to listen to the words of one of our greatest Americans, former Senator Robert Kennedy. In 1968 he said that America "is a great nation and a strong people. Any who seek to comfort rather than to speak plainly, reassure rather than instruct, promise satisfaction rather than reveal frustration--they deny that greatness and drain that strength. For today as it was in the beginning, it is the truth that makes us free." I believe Senator Robert Kennedy's remarks remain as inspirational and true today as when he first spoke them over 30 years ago.

Let me say that there are a growing number of people in the United States who recognize, like you, that US policy in the Middle East needs serious examination. Indeed, on the same day that you made your remarks about US policy in the Middle East, the Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, The Honorable Henry Hyde, spoke on National Public Radio and said, "There's no question in my mind that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most important issue in dispute, and has generated a lot of the animosity towards us because of our unwavering support for Israel, which will remain in place."

At the same time, CNN played an interview with former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski who stated that America must "deal with some of the issues that animate the hostility" against us, like "the treatment of the population of Iraq" and that "the Israelis are stronger, so they're naturally inflicting much more casualties than the Palestinians on the Israelis and that produces frustration and rage."

Your Royal Highness, many of us here in the United States have long been concerned about reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that reveal a pattern of excessive, and often indiscriminate, use of lethal force by Israeli security forces in situations where Palestinian demonstrators were unarmed and posed no threat of death or serious injury to the security forces or to others. Israeli peace organizations like B'Tselem accuse the Israeli Defense Forces of violating the most fundamental rules of international law in committing atrocities against Palestinians.

The Israeli Gush Shalom boldly states that "Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the root cause of the violence and hatred. As long as the occupation continues, bloodshed will continue and increase." Indeed, Your Royal Highness, all people of good conscience understand that this kind of mistreatment breeds a hotbed of anger and despair that destabilizes peace in the Middle East and elsewhere. Until we confront the realities of events in the Middle East our nation and the nations of the Middle East will be at risk.

Your Royal Highness, there are many people in America who desperately need your generosity. People who have been locked out, marginalized from America's mainstream. All of those people are poor and too many of them are people of color. A black baby boy born in Harlem today has less chance of reaching age 65 than a baby born in Bangladesh. Your Royal Highness, the state of black America is not good.

It is painfully visible in Washington D.C., where, just a few hundred yards from the White House, one can find black man after black man huddled in bus shelters, doorways, over subway ventilation shafts, sleeping on the street, thrown away like trash. Ironically, many of them are Vietnam veterans who, having served this nation with distinction in Vietnam, now find themselves without adequate care and accommodation. Unfortunately, this same scene is repeated in each and every one of our major cities here in the United States.

I am ashamed to say that my home city of Atlanta is no exception. Just last night my son was out with members of Atlanta's Muslim community who, for years, have been feeding Atlanta's homeless. Sadly, no one in mainstream Atlanta knows about the tireless and generous work of the local Muslim community. But the poor know, and I guess at one level that's all that matters. But on a broader view mainstream America should know.

The Justice Department admits that blacks are more likely than whites to be pulled over by police, imprisoned, and put to death. And, though blacks and whites have about the same rate of drug use, blacks are more likely to be arrested than whites and are more likely to receive longer prison sentences than whites. Incredibly, 80% of people in prison in the United States are people of color.

Twenty-six black men were executed last year, some probably innocent; America began 2001 by executing a retarded black woman.

Government studies on health disparities confirm that blacks are less likely to receive surgery, transplants, and prescription drugs than whites. Physicians are less likely to prescribe appropriate treatment for blacks than for whites and black scientists, physicians, and institutions are shut out of the funding stream to prevent all this.

I serve in Congress where the Black Caucus is shrinking. Yet, sections of the Voting Rights Act will soon expire, and quite frankly, after crippling Court decisions, there is not much left of affirmative action to mend.

In the FBI's own words, its counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) had as a goal, "to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of black organizations and to prevent black "leaders from gaining respectability."

And instead of real leaders, COINTELPRO offers us hand-picked "court priests" who are more loyal to the plan than to the people. Court priests who preach peace, peace when there is no peace.

As you can see, the statistics are very grim for Black America. Although your offer was not accepted by Mayor Giuliani, I would like to ask you to consider assisting Americans who are in dire need right now. I believe we can guide your generosity to help improve the state of Black America and build better lives. My office can provide you with a list of charities who labor under the most difficult circumstances to try and improve the lives of the people they serve. I hope you will consider reaching out to our charities and to our people who are in need. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions you may have.

Sincerely,

Cynthia McKinney Member of Congress
http://www.house.gov/mckinney/guest.htm

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Nader Blasts Bush's War at S.F. Rally

By Jonathan Nack
October 12, 2001

SAN FRANCISCO - Former Green Party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader roundly criticized the Bush Administration's war on terrorism in a speech before an enthusiastic paying audience of approximately 2,500 at the San Francisco Masonic Center last night. Nader called for a democratic debate over the Administration's policies saying, "the mindless bombing of Afghanistan's infrastructure will not end well for Afghanistan and, I fear, it will not end well for us." "We are entitled to ask what this war will cost: what it will cost Afghans, what it will cost our rights and democracy here, and what the huge shift of money into the military and corporate bailouts will cost our domestic programs?"

Nader called for, "sobriety in these moments of impetuousness, restraint, and to move forward under international law to apprehend the criminals." "This is an international crime and we've got to find ways to bring these criminals to justice."

Nader said that, "grief and mourning for the victims must eventually give way to honoring their memory," and quoted a statement by President George W. Bush that the terrorists, "hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom to assemble, our freedom of speech, and our freedom to disagree," in justifying the appropriateness of his own remarks. Nader said that the best way to honor the memories of those lost on September 11th was to exercise and defend our democratic freedoms and to "make sure our government doesn't slaughter the lives of hundreds of innocent people."

Nader charged that, "thought police in Washington dismiss all critical analysis as justifying the terrorist attack," calling for a rejection of that notion while describing the terrorists' act as, "criminal butchery, a massacre more than an attack, and with no justification". He urged the audience to, "never allow Washington to tell you to shut up, get in line, and waive the flag." "Never let them take your flag away from you." Nader urged the audience to think for themselves, to not inhibit what they have to say, and asked, "how many times have we been told that they were dropping bombs only on military targets?" Nader concluded that there was no such thing as limiting bombing to only military targets and that, "we are not going to be able to bomb our way to a solution of this problem."

Nader described the Administration's rationale for the bombing as "cheap propaganda", which is, "going to get more rancid and grim." "U.S. attacks on Afghanistan will spread more hatred of our country and our allies." He also worried that 7.5 million Afghans face starvation this winter, which he said was only four weeks away in Afghanistan, while the U.S. has dropped only "135,000 snacks."

Quoting approvingly Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's assertion that, "poverty, disease, and illiteracy are breeding grounds for tolerance of terrorism," Nader proposed a profound reorientation of U.S. foreign policy to support democratic forces and to, "side with the millions and millions of workers and peasants rather than with dictators and oligarches." He proposed a, "balanced approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," and an end to economic sanctions against Iraq which he said was taking the lives of 5,000 Iraqi children a month. "You do not destabilize a dictator by destroying the lives of innocent children and adults," said Nader.

Nader also called for a renewed defense of civil liberties, opposition to unwarranted curtailment of them, and reform of intelligence agencies, including making them "leaner and more efficient" by reducing their bloated budgets and bureaucracies", which, said Nader clearly couldn't protect us.

The focus of Nader's speech was a major departure from the usual agenda of the longtime consumer activist who usually sticks closely to themes concerning how corporations have gained too much power and are subverting democracy. Nader did draw a connection to those themes, noting that corporations are taking advantage of the tragedy of September 11 for their own greedy purposes. He pointed to corporate lobbying for government bailouts, even by industries in trouble long before the terrorist attacks, for the limiting of regulations, including the opening up of the Alaskan Arctic reserve, and opposing benefits for workers who are losing their jobs.

The event was billed as a "People Have the Power" rally in support of San Francisco ballot initiatives for a Municipal Utility District, which would create public control of power in response to California's failed electricity deregulation. Nader, and numerous speakers before him, called for volunteers for a grassroots campaign which could overwhelm the big money being spent by Pacific Gas & Electric to defeat the initiatives. However, Nader and other speakers clearly felt compelled to address the war. The event was also organized as part of a series of "super rallies" being held around the country by Nader's new Democracy Rising Campaign.

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DEMONSTRATIONS IN CAIRO, JERUSALEM, TEHRAN, KHARTOUM...

12 October 2001
VOA

JERUSALEM, Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in various cities in the Middle East to protest the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan. Many more thronged to mosques for Friday prayers throughout the region and heard anti-American sermons.

Several thousand Palestinians staged anti-American demonstrations in the West Bank Friday, including in Ramallah and Nablus. Many chanted their support for Osama bin Laden and vented their anger against U.S. President George W. Bush, describing him as the "father of terrorism."

The Palestinian Authority has clamped down on anti-American demonstrations and earlier this week sent out police to quell one such protest in Gaza. Two Palestinian youths were killed in the incident. Palestinian police have also clamped down on media coverage of protests, at times barring journalists from entering protest areas.

Tens of thousands of protesters, including some government ministers, took to the streets in Iran. In Tehran, marchers carried placards denouncing the U.S. action as terrorism. Others declared their willingness to join a jehad (war against imperialistic terrorism) against the United States and its allies. The Iranian government has denounced terrorism, but is also critical of the American action. But Iran has also helped supply weapons to the anti-Taleban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

There was heavy police presence in Cairo as about 5,000 people demonstrated after Friday prayers at the city's Al-Azhar mosque. In Lebanon, several thousand people took to the streets in the northern city of Tripoli to denounce what they called the U.S. "aggression."

Muslims across the region thronged to mosques and heard anti-American sermons. In Saudi Arabia, prayers were held in support of Afghans and to denounce the "enemies of Islam," but they made no direct mention of the U.S. and British attacks. In the Syrian capital, Damascus, an imam denounced terrorism, but said that terrorism cannot be fought by waging wars that destroy cities and kill women and children.

The Associated Press reports that in one mosque in Baghdad, the imam and worshippers broke down in tears. The imam spoke of a crusade against Muslims, led by America. He also accused the United States and Britain of playing games as they destroy cities and kill people.

The United States and its allies have repeatedly stressed that the attacks are not against the Afghan people or Islam, but rather against Osama bin Laden, his al-Qaida network, and the Taleban rulers of Afghanistan who harbor him and his supporters.

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Coalition of Women for Peace Statement

Ha'Aretz
October 12, 2001

Stop the attack on Afghanistan!

This is no war against terrorism - it is revenge for lost honor and a display of power by the rich and strong against the poor.

The main victims of this bombing will be Afghani citizens who are already suffering under the brutal Taliban regime, especially Afghani women.

War is never a solution, and the war on Afghanistan will not end terrorism. On the contrary - this poor, hungry, devastated, and humiliated people with their millions of refugees will have nothing to lose but their honor, and will fight for this honor with all the means at their disposal, even the tools of terrorism.

Terrorism can be prevented only by ending oppression, hunger, and humiliation.

Instead of killing and destroying those who rise up against them, the rich and sated countries should help build the infrastructure for a decent life and a just sharing of resources. Food and education are preconditions, though not sufficient, for creating a more democratic and egalitarian society.

This universal principle holds true for Afghanistan, and for the Palestinians as well: An Israeli-Palestinian peace can be achieved only by ending the occupation and the oppression.

NO MORE WAR!

The Coalition of Women for Peace: Bat Shalom Machsom-Watch NELED - "Women for Coexistence" New Profile: Movement for the Civil-ization of Israeli Society Noga Feminist Journal TANDI - Movement of Democratic Women for Israel Women's International League for Peace and Freedom - Israel chapter Women and Mothers for Peace - The re-grouped Four Mothers Movement Women Engendering Peace Women in Black

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Protests erupt worldwide against US strikes on Afghanistan

Oct 12
AFP

KARACHI, Anger over the US-led strikes on Afghanistan exploded into violence Friday as Muslims worldwide marked their first holy day since Washington opened the military front of its war on terror.

US symbols such as fast-food restaurants were singled out as Muslim militants in Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia and Malaysia vented their fury over five nights of bombs and missiles raining down on Afghanistan.

In Pakistan, whose government has found itself on the front line of the US-British campaign after disowning the Taliban regime across the border, police fired tear gas at hundreds of demonstrators attacking government buildings, shops and vehicles in the port of Karachi.

Islamic radicals defied government warnings of a harsh crackdown and the presence of around 20,000 police and paramilitary troops, deployed in anticipation of more serious clashes after afternoon prayers at mosques across the city.

Hundreds of people attacked a government complaints office in the Lyari district of southern Karachi and attempted to set it on fire.

Tear gas was also used to disperse a crowd of up to 400 people who attacked a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) outlet in Karachi, setting it partially ablaze.

There were also reports of factories being attacked in the industrial part of western Karachi, which is dominated by ethnic Pashtuns, many of whom are refugees from Afghanistan.

The Pashtuns are the dominant tribe in Afghanistan and the main support base for the Taliban.

Pakistani's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, has ordered security forces to adopt a policy of zero tolerance of any protestors engaged in violence after five people were killed earlier this week.

But allies of the Taliban and alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden were gearing up for a full-scale show of force in the Pakistani city of Quetta, which is near the Afghan border.

Thousands of Islamic radicals have streamed into the flashpoint city in recent days in support of a call for an anti-US jihad, or holy war, and observers said they expected that up to 50,000 people could protest.

Islamic radicals' opposition to Musharraf's support for the US boiled over in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan, where the Pakistani consulate was stoned by an anti-US mob.

A crowd of some 3,000, mainly Afghan refugees as well as Iranians, demonstrated in the streets of Zahedan, crying "down with America" and burning effigies of US President George W. Bush and the US flag.

Police in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, fired water cannon when hundreds of protesters set fire to an effigy of Bush outside the US embassy.

Defying hundreds of police in riot gear, 37 armoured cars and three water cannon, at least 500 people staged noisy demonstrations outside the Jakarta embassy in protest at the US air attacks on Afghanistan.

About 300 members of the Islamic student group Hamas displayed the Bush effigy on the hood of a jeep with a "wanted" poster hung from its neck.

Baton-wielding police charged the students in a vain attempt to stop them setting it alight. Students counter-attacked with bamboo sticks but no serious injuries were reported.

Outside the capital, an explosion struck a KFC outlet at Makassar in South Sulawesi province but no one was injured. In the city of Yogyakarta, protesters this week sealed off a McDonald's and a Pizza Hut.

Jakarta police spokesman Anton Bahrul Alam said several groups were planning to stage rallies after midday prayers. Police will "arrest anyone who tries to create unrest and anarchy", he warned.

Malaysian police also got tough, firing water cannon at some 2,000 demonstrators protesting outside the US embassy.

The demonstrators stood their ground after the first blast of chemically laced water, defying orders to disperse and chanting "Down with America" and "Allahu Akbar" as a helicopter clattered overhead.

But longer salvos backed by the presence of about 100 armed police and a riot squad pushed them down the road outside the embassy.

Most of the demonstrators were men wearing skullcaps after Friday prayers. They shouted that Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were "the next legitimate targets".

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a staunch critic of the West, reaffirmed his opposition to the attacks on Afghanistan, saying "I don't think it is going to help in combating terrorism."

India, which is home to the world's second largest Muslim population after Indonesia, was set to see mass protests at the huge Jama Masjid in the old quarter of New Delhi.

Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the imam at the mosque and India's top Muslim cleric, said 30,000 to 40,000 people would emerge from prayers to denounce "America's barbaric attack".

The US embassy in the Indian capital was under tight guard.

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Anti-US Demonstrations All Across The Middle East

AFP
10-12-1

CAIRO - Thousands of Egyptians, Iranians and Palestinians and other Muslims staged angry protests following their weekly prayers on Friday, five days after the start of the US-led strikes against Afghanistan.

More than 5,000 Egyptians gathered at the al-Azhar mosque, Egypt's largest, to vent their anger at the military strikes by the United States and Britain.

"Down with the United States, down with Britain. Long live the Muslims," chanted the demonstrators, who included representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood and of the Nasserite movement who had arrived as guests of the mosque's imam, Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi.

During his sermon, Tantawi restated his position that "no state has the right to punish an entire nation including children, old people and innocent women simply through the misdeeds of one criminal."

He also supported "the right of the Palestinians to defend their land and their faith" against Israeli occupation.

"These are mujahedeen and it is our duty to stand at their side," he added.

The demonstration took place peacefully amid a large police presence, with several plainclothes security agents deployed among the faithful and anti-riot trucks stationed near the mosque.

At Saudi mosques, prayers were offered for fellow Muslims in Afghanistan and railed against "enemies of Islam" but made no explicit mention of the ongoing strikes, which began Sunday after Kabul's Taliban regime refused to hand over prime terror suspect Osama bin Laden to the United States.

Sheikh Saud al-Sharim, imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest shrine, simply warned Muslims to "steer clear of strife."

The imam of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina prayed for "Muslims in Afghanistan to be spared" and for "the Muslims' enemies to be destroyed," again without referring to the US-British blitz.

Some prayer leaders in the capital's mosques were slightly more explicit, urging Muslims to "support their brethren in Afghanistan."

"It is every Muslim's duty to support his brothers in Afghanistan to show them that we are brothers in adversity," said the imam of a Riyadh mosque, beseeching God to "bring down the infidels."

"The blood of Afghan Muslims is being shed," he said.

In the Iranian capital, Tehran, Culture Minister Ahmad Masjed-Jameyi and Trade Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari joined several thousand people who marched from Tehran University to the central Palestine Square.

Many held up placards, including ones reading "(US President George W.) Bush is the father of terrorism" and "(Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon is the disobedient son of terrorism."

Others carried ones announcing their willingness to enter a jihad, or holy war, against the United States.

In Zahedan, capital of Iran's southeastern Sistan Baluchistan province, a rally by about 3,000 people, including a large number of Afghan refugees, turned violent after they attacked the Pakistani consulate, police told AFP.

"Pakistan's consulate was attacked by demonstrators who threw stones," a police official said, adding that there were no injuries but that the consulate's windows were broken.

In Jordan, an ally of the United States, the prayer leader at one of Amman's main mosques, the King Abdullah Mosque, Sheikh Walid Shabsogh, said in his sermon: "We send a sincere message to the entire world that it is totally wrong to link Islam with terrorism."

Meanwhile, at the Al Wahdat Mosque in Al Wahdat Palestinian refugee camp, also in Amman, prayer leader Sheikh Samer Mahmood asked that "God give victory to our brothers in Palestine and Afghanistan".

In the West Bank city of Nablus, some 2,000 people gathered and carried banners and Palestinian flags, including ones calling the United States "the head of terrorism in the world."

There were similar protests through the streets of Ramallah and Tulkarem.

Palestinian police were given strict orders to take a hands-off approach to any demonstrations after last Monday's violent clashes with protestors, in which two people were killed.

And in Lebanon, some 3,000 people led by Sunni Muslim religious clerics staged a protest in the northern port city of Tripoli, where a number of Sunni fundamentalist groups are based. Many also carried portraits of bin Laden.

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Indian Protesters Burn US And British Flags

By Achmad Sukarsono
Reuters
10-12-1

NEW DELHI - Thousands of Indian Muslims spilled on to the streets of major cities on Friday in protests against the U.S.-led air strikes on Afghanistan, forcing police to use teargas and water cannons to disperse the violent mobs.

Spilling out of mosques after Friday prayers, the protesters shouted anti-U.S. slogans and burned effigies of President Bush, calling the bombings on Afghanistan an ``act of terrorism'' and the U.S. ``the biggest terrorist.''

"Death to America. Death to Israel. Taliban, Taliban, we salute you," some 10,000 Muslims chanted at New Delhi's Mughal-era redstone Jama Masjid, the country's biggest mosque.

Violence was also reported in the southern city of Hyderabad and Srinagar, summer capital of the revolt-racked northern state of Kashmir. In both cities, Muslims pelted stones at police.

India has thrown its weight behind the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan in an attempt to flush out Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, but a section of the country's large Muslim community -- who make up about 12 percent of its billion-plus population -- has expressed its resentment at India joining the United States' war on terrorism.

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SECRET WARS

10/12/01
by Mumia Abu-Jamal

As this is written, the obscene whine of bombs pierces the night sky over the capital city of Kabul, in the war-shattered nation of Afghanistan. Once again, the American Empire has come to the Middle East, armed with the glittering array of war.

Although national opinion polls assure us that this nebulous war against "terrorists, and all who support them," is a popular one, high opinion poll ratings mask the very real and very deep anxiety that people feel, in their hearts, and in their guts, about the prospect of victory. That anxiety underlies a deep distrust that Americans have historically felt about the government. What don't they know? What are Americans not being told? *How will this end?

In truth, there is a good reason for this sense of anxiety, as many Americans are, without their knowledge or okay, a part of the secret wars that are raging around the world.

When the United States was a very young, and indeed, an infant nation, a well-known national leader hatched a secret plot to invade and overthrow Libya. An agent of his was given tens of thousands of dollars, and 1,000 guns to raise a secret army against Libya. This U.S. State Department official was attached to the Navy and given the title, "Agent for the United States Fleet in the Mediterranean." This secret agent, working without the knowledge or permission of the U.S. Congress, entered Egypt, organized a mercenary army, and waged war against Libya, but was not able to destabilize the government.

The government agent was Capt. William Eaton. He was acting under the secret orders of U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson, after a secret meeting of them on December 10, 1803. (See Jerry Fresia's Toward an American Revolution: Exposing the Constitution & Other Illusions (Boston: South End Press, 1988), p. 102).

Such secret wars have dotted the history of the U.S., and made her the enemy of millions, on several continents. For the poor in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in Africa and parts of Asia, the U.S. is seen as a powerful, yet schizophrenic child. She will arbitrarily remove leaders of governments, insert agents of disorder, and wage vicious propaganda wars against other countries through her media machine.

In an alleged 'democracy', why is there even *ever* a need for secret war?

In a nation that claims to represent the interests of the people, how can a secret war be waged? The two are simply incompatible, for if the government is (in Lincoln's famous words) "... of the people", how can the government keep secrets from itself?

While the media may manipulate public opinion to justify the waging of wars, the real beneficiaries are rarely known, and indeed, rarely are the real causes known. The causes are, more often than not, economic. While citizens and soldiers wave flags, corporations wave wallets.

For example, you may still find old-timers, who will tell you that the big, "WW II", was fought against the Nazi ideology of Hitler. Few would argue with the old geezer. But how many of us know that American corporations traded with the Nazis, *even during the war?* Charles Higham, in his 1984 book, Trading With the Enemy (Dell Books) wrote:

What would have happened if millions of Americans and British people, struggling with coupons and lines at the gas stations, had learned that in 1942 Standard Oil of New Jersey [part of the Rockefeller Empire] managers shipped the enemy's fuel through the neutral Switzerland and that the enemy was shipping Allied fuel? Suppose the public had discovered that the Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied Paris after Pearl Harbor was doing millions of dollars worth of business with the enemy with the full knowledge of the head office in Manhattan [the Rockefeller family among others]? Or that Ford trucks were being built for the German occupation troops in France with authorization from Dearborn, Michigan? Or that Colonel Sosthenes Behn, the head of the international American telephone conglomerate ITT, flew from New York to Madrid to Berne during the war to help improve Hitler's communications systems and improve the robot bombs that devastated London? Or that ITT built the FockeWulfs that dropped bombs on British and American troops? Or that crucial ball bearings were shipped to Nazi-associated customers in Latin-America with the collusion of the vice-chairman of the U.S. War Production Board in partnership with Goering's cousin in Philadelphia when American forces were desperately short of them? Or that such arrangements were known about in Washington and either sanctioned or deliberately ignored? [pp. 184-5] (Fresia's bk, pp. 108-90).

There are wars, and there are *wars*, apparently. Unfortunately, there are also secret wars, and the ones who are in the battle fields, or wave flags, are the last ones to know.


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