Officials cite attendance rules in one-day suspension for walkout November 26, 2002

By JOSE L. SANCHEZ Jr. and ROBERT DIGITALE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

About 50 Petaluma High School students who walked out of classes Wednesday to protest U.S. policy on Iraq have received one-day suspensions.

Some students and their parents said Monday the suspensions were unfair because students at other Sonoma County high schools who also staged protest walkouts were not suspended.

Petaluma school officials did not make the decision "lightly or capriciously," said Tom Joynt, director of alternative education and child welfare and attendance.

"It's the obligation of the principal to ensure compliance with attendance rules," he said.

"I am heartened that young people are learning the responsibility of being a citizen, which often means dissent from popular opinion," Joynt said.

But he said the protesters also learned another lesson: "Civil disobedience can have a consequence, such as in this case suspension."

Allowing students to walk out without consequences would set a bad precedent, he said.

Petaluma High officials said they provided other opportunities for the protesters to express their views, but they have an obligation to maintain order at the 1,540-student campus.

"I don't think we should have been suspended," said Rosie Heartte, 17, one of the protesters. "One of our main purposes was to educate students about the issue and we did that."

"If we go to war, it's absolute that innocent civilians are going to die and that young Americans will be sent over to fight," she said. "We need to explore other options, continue to make use of the U.N."

The walkout occurred at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, a half-hour before a rally organized by school officials in the school's open-air quadrangle to give students a chance to express their views on Iraq.

Students who walked out of their classes early were guided by school officials to the multipurpose room, where they listened peacefully to several speakers.

On Thursday, the students who had walked out were summoned by school officials and told they would be be suspended for one day Monday.

"What is very sad ... is that these are young adults who attempted to negotiate with the administration prior to walking out and they were completely shut down," said Rachelle Heartte, Rosie's mother.

Petaluma High Principal Michael Simpson (email: msimpson@pet.k12.ca.us) said he made every attempt to offer students an alternative to the walkout and to urge them to remain in class.

He spoke to students that morning over the school's intercom system as part of the daily announcements.

"I did tell them that if they walked, there would be consequences," he said.

In addition to arranging for the lunchtime rally Wednesday, Simpson is providing a forum today for the expression of views on Iraq.

About 150 students from Santa Rosa High walked out of classes at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday and marched to a downtown rally in Old Courthouse Square, administrators said. None of those students was suspended, Assistant Principal Bill Blackerby said.

He said that the students were given unexcused absences and that officials never considered suspending the protesters.

None of the estimated 60 to 70 students who walked out of classes at Analy High School in Sebastopol was suspended, officials there said.

The walkouts and rallies were part of a national Student Day of Resistance initiated by Not in Our Name, an anti-war group founded after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to protest U.S. foreign policy.

Carl Wong, former superintendent of Petaluma city schools and the superintendent-elect of Sonoma County schools, said school districts across the county were notified by students of their intentions to stage the anti-war protests.

He said students were warned that if they participated in the walkouts, there would be a range of possible consequences for leaving class without an excuse.

Wong said some teachers used the coming protest as a "teachable moment," talking about the protest and asking students to consider their choices.

Rosie Steffy, 17, one of the Petaluma walkout organizers, said suspension was a price she was willing to pay to bring attention to an issue she considers vitally important.

Without the suspensions, the issue would not have received as much attention from the press, she said.

"I do think (the suspensions are) reasonable," she said. "But I can't help wondering why the other schools didn't see it the same way."

Staff Writer Randi Rossmann contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writers Jose L. Sanchez Jr. at 762-7297 or jsanchez@pressdemocrat.com and Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or rdigitale@pressdemocrat.com.

LIVERMORE - Peace activists gathered outside the gates of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Monday demanding to inspect some of the most fundamental components of America's weapons program.

Highlighting the ongoing controversy surrounding inspections of weapons facilities in Iraq, the group called on lab director Michael Anastasio to allow its Citizens Weapons Inspection Team to investigate what it called "clandestine activities" related to weapons development.

Jackie Cabasso of the Western States Legal Foundation in Oakland said in a six-page letter addressed to Anastasio that the investigations team wanted to examine the lab's plutonium, tritium, uranium and National Ignition facilities, among others.

Cabasso quoted from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, a newly adopted international demand that Iraq open its doors to weapons inspectors or face the possibility of attack. Mock weapons inspectors waved the blue flag of the UN and dressed in white "clean suits" as Cabasso and other speakers rallied the colorful crowd.

"While the Bush administration calls on other countries to disarm, we call on the United States to disarm," Peter Ferenbach of the group California Peace Action told about 75 demonstrators. "We are people here with a true commitment to disarmament."

President Bush and members of his administration have been working to build an international coalition against Iraq and its president, Saddam Hussein. Bush has fought to put weapons inspectors back to work in that country.

But to the coalition of peace activists outside the lab Monday, the move is hypocritical.

"If we want other countries to have weapons inspections, let us start here at home," said Tara Dorabji of Tri-Valley CAREs.

Not everyone on hand, however, agreed. Craig Hollander stood alone across the street from the group with a sign reading: "Peace, security, freedom: yours courtesy of Lawrence Livermore."

The Ripon man said he heard about the demonstration on the radio and just had to be there on his day off.

"I just think this whole protest is absurd," Hollander said. "If it wasn't for Lawrence Livermore Lab, they wouldn't have those rights (to protest)."

Police worked to keep the crowd on the sidewalks, but otherwise had no problems, said lab spokesman David Schwoegler. There were no arrests, he said, adding that would-be inspectors were not allowed access to the facilities.

"They knew they weren't going to get in," Schwoegler said. "Those are restricted facilities. We don't just let people go into special areas with nuclear materials."

Senator Robert C. Byrd statement, 10 October 2002. I have heard from tens of thousands of Americans -- people from all across this country of ours -- who have urged me to keep up the fight. I am only one Senator from a small state, yet in the past week I have received nearly 20,000 telephone calls and nearly 50,000 e-mails supporting my position. I want all of those people across America who took the time to contact me to know how their words have heartened me and sustained me in my efforts to turn the tide of opinion in the Senate. They are my heroes, and I will never forget the remarkable courage and patriotism that reverberated in the fervor of their messages. As the apostle Paul said, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." There are Americans all across this country who have joined in spirit with me and a small band of like-minded Senators in fighting the good fight. We could stay here on the floor and continue to fight, and it is certainly a fight worth the effort. But there is also a point at which it becomes time to accept reality and to regroup. It is clear that we have lost the battle in the Senate, but we have not yet lost the war. The next front is the White House, and I urge all those people who are following this debate, and who have encouraged me in my efforts, to turn their attention to the President. Call him, write him, e-mail him. Urge him to heed the Constitution and not short-circuit it by exercising the broad grant of authority that the Iraq resolution provides. The President has said on many occasions that he has not yet made up his mind to go to war. When he does make up his mind Ç if he does Ç then he should come back to Congress and seek formal authorization. Let him use this Iraq resolution as leverage with the United Nations, if that is what he wants it for, but when it comes time for the United States to undertake military action, let him come back to the Congress for authorization. More.

In the past week I have received nearly 20,000 telephone calls and nearly 50,000 e-mails supporting my position... They are my heroes, and I will never forget the remarkable courage and patriotism that reverberated in the fervor of their messages.

The Leifr E(i)riksson Peace Award 2002 goes to US Congresswoman Barbara Lee for her sincere and honest dedication to world peace and in particular for her foresight and courageous vote in the US Congress a year ago today, the 14th. September 2001.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee was the only member of the US Congress to oppose Res.64 and the sole voice against 420 other members of the house that seriously undermined the world peace by approving use of United States Armed Forces against an undisclosed number of nations and peoples of the world in an open-ended action by the President and significantly reducing Congressˆs authority in approving such future military action. More.

Send an email of congratulations to Barbara Lee.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced H.Con.Res.473 calling for the United States to work through the United Nations to renew arms inspections, assure Iraqi compliance with U.N. resolutions, and to oppose unilateral first strike military action.

"President Bush has called on the United Nations to assume its responsibilities. I call on the United States to assume ours by working with the United Nations to ensure that Iraq is not developing weapons of mass destruction by utilizing mechanisms such as the resumption of arms inspections, negotiation, regional cooperation, and other diplomatic means," Congresswoman Lee stated.

"We all agree that world would be better off without Saddam Hussein in power, but I believe that we are better off still if we live under the rule of law and eliminate weapons of mass destruction," said Lee. Lee also said that, "A preemptive, unilateral first strike would set a terrible international precedent. The question one must ask when confronting this doctrine of preemption is, where will it end? Which dictator will be next?" More.

Reorganized Bay Area Peace Navy Makes Waves for Peace!

October 12, 2002, San Francisco
Martin Schaaf

Exemplifying the highest values of democracy and freedom, the newly reorganized Bay Area Peace Navy met the United States Navy in a fair fight for the hearts and minds of the public. Judging by the number of waves, smiles and cheers, the Peace Navy is on a winning roll.

By it's presence, the Peace Navy reminds all of us that Fleet Week:

• Has deep roots in the ugly epoch of American history which included the subjugation of the Pilipino people;

• Is an inappropriate use of tax dollars that could be spent on health care, schools and social security. The Blue Angels alone cost an estimated $98,000 per performance;

• The Navy has a poor environmental track record including Low Frequency Active Sonar which kills marine animals for miles around and the pollution of Hunters Point. "The Navy has been negligent in its responsibility to the present and future residents and workers in the Bayview Hunters Point area," says Supervisor Tom Ammiano.

• The Bay Area can do better by reexamining and redefining Fleet Week as a San Francisco Bay Festival that promotes the Bay ecology and culture, rather than death and destruction in Iraq and elsewhere.

Ken Kelton's 30' ketch, Rubicon, from Marin, led the fleet covered with banners. Ken Meyercord's Samira 20' sailboat flew a beautiful earth flag almost as big as its normal mainsail. Eight kayaks displayed a variety of home-made signs, flags and the Peace Navy peace anchor logo.

Everyone commented on the positive reception they received.

Lies and Propaganda

March 6, 2003-The corporate-controlled media's employees-who falsely call themselves journalists-breathlessly feed the American people a daily diet of lies, distortions and disinformation packaged as news.

The weekend fare was the alleged capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, billed by White House Press Propagandist Ari Fleischer as "one of Osama bin Laden's most senior and significant lieutenants, a key al Qaeda planner and the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks."

The New York Times Monday dutifully reported, "Tom Ridge, the secretary of the new Department of Homeland Security, agreed that Mr. Mohammed's capture was a significant blow to al Qaeda, and that Mr. Mohammed had been keeping tabs on a potential terrorist operation unfolding in the United States.

An impressive catch? Maybe. Maybe not.

Asia Times reported last Oct. 30 that Mohammed was shot and killed in a police raid on his Karachi apartment last Sept. 11.

If Asia Times is correct, Mohammed would have had to been raised from the dead. Now George W. and John "The Crisco Kid" Ashcroft may be fanatical born-again Christians, but the last person said to have raised anyone from the dead was Jesus.

So that leads to two possibilities: Asia Times is wrong or the Bushies are telling another whopper. And they have been telling a pile of whoppers-an elephant dung heap of them as high as the World Trade Center.

Since the dung heap has grown quite ripe, we'll spare you the litany of lies that run from George W dodging whether he used drugs, the stolen elections of 2000 and 2002, the official lines (lies) about 9/11 and the "evil" Saddam Hussein, to Colin Powell's "Miss Cleo" performance before the UN Security Council-when he told the members Al-Jazeera would soon play an alleged Osama audio tape which it hadn't yet received.

Day after day, night after night, the "newsies" ran with this crap without raising an eyebrow, much less a question. The slobbering pack runs with every PR handout or pronouncement from the White House and no questions asked, with the exception of Helen Thomas, who now is a bad girl for asking hard questions and calling George W. "the worst president [sic] in all of American history," and a few others who muster up enough courage now and then to get under Ari Fleischer's skin.

Then there was the lie about how we had to bomb Afghanistan back beyond the Stone Age in order to get Osama, the mastermind of 9/11, al Qaeda and, the new entry into the picture, the Taliban.

Failing to grab Osama by the beard and not really wanting anyone to notice that the oil companies could now build their pipeline through the shattered Afghanistan-as long as US troops stood guard-the Bushistas came up with a bigger whopper still: Saddam bin Laden . . . er, Saddam (he's a bastard, but he was our bastard) Hussein and his invisible to all, but the White House, "weapons of mass destruction."

Saddam, who has been locked in his war-torn Iraq for 11-12 years, suddenly became the Hitler of the 21st century who is a menace to the whole world.

And the "newsies" ate that up in the pages of their corporate-owned newspapers and magazines, and before their corporate-owned TV cameras. More than that, they became the cheering section for war. Television, especially, right down to the corporate-owned local news desks, just can get enough footage of troops packing up and shipping out for the slaughter.

When the lies are exposed for what they are, the "oops journalists" don't run to their word processors, microphones or cameras to tell the people. If they acknowledge they have been lied to at all, they probably do so in hushed tones and nervous tittering over drinks or lunch.

Investigative reporter Greg Palast, who ironically flat out denies that the George W. Bush or his administration had any foreknowledge of or involvement in the 9/11 attacks, said that Dan Rather of CBS, a guest on Palast's BBC's Newsnight, told him that, in the wake of 9/11, US journalists "are simply too afraid to ask the uncomfortable questions that could kill careers."

Rather is worried about killing careers when it is the country that is being killed? He and his colleagues are fearful of being labeled "unpatriotic" for asking the questions the First Amendment of the Constitution empowers them to ask in their roles as the people's watchdogs?

What do Rather, NBC's Tom Brokaw, ABC's Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel, even PBS's Bill Moyers, have to lose? All are millionaires. Rather is 71 years old; Brokaw, 63; Jennings, 64; Koppel, 63, and Moyers, 68.

Is seeing their mugs on the tube more important than saving the country from the machinations of those who are destroying it? What do they think would happen if they put their heads together and on the same night went on the air and laid the truth before the American people?

At the worst, they would be unemployed and Jennings might even be deported to Canada. If suddenly finding themselves idle isn't their cuppa, there are many of us publishing and broadcasting on the Web who would welcome their help.

Are these men less courageous than Edward R. Murrow, who exposed Senator Joseph McCarthy for what he was; than Walter Cronkite who, after going to Vietnam for a first-hand look, turned on the war and thus ended Lyndon Johnson's aspirations for a second term as president; than Helen Thomas who refuses to be bowed by the Bushistas?

When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie. Since the end of the 19th century, if not earlier, presidents have misled the public about their motives and their intentions in going to war. The enormous losses of life, property and liberty that Americans have sustained in wars have occurred in large part because of the public's unwarranted trust in what their leaders told them before leading them into war.

In 1898, President William McKinley, having been goaded by muscle-flexing advisers and jingoistic journalists to make war on Spain, sought divine guidance as to how he should deal with the Spanish possessions, especially the Philippines, that U.S. forces had seized in what ambassador John Hay famously described as a "splendid little war." Evidently, his prayer was answered, because the president later reported that he had heard "the voice of God," and "there was nothing left for us to do but take them all and educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them."

McKinley's motivations had little if anything to do with uplifting the people whom William H. Taft, the first governor-general of the Philippines, patronizingly called "our little brown brothers," but much to do with the political and commercial ambitions of influential expansionists such as Captain Alfred Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge and their ilk. The official apology for the brutal and unnecessary Philippine-American War was a mendacious gloss.

The Catholic Filipinos evidently did not yearn to be "Christianized," American style, at the point of a Springfield rifle, and resisted the U.S. imperialists as they had previously resisted the Spanish imperialists.

The Philippine-American War, which officially ended on July 4, 1902, but actually dragged on for many years in some islands, cost the lives of more than 4,000 U. S. troops, more than 20,000 Filipino fighters, and more than 220,000 Filipino civilians, many of whom perished in concentration camps eerily similar to the relocation camps into which U.S. forces herded Vietnamese peasants some 60 years later.

When World War I began in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson's sympathies clearly lay with the British. Nevertheless, he quickly proclaimed U.S. neutrality and urged his fellow Americans to be impartial in both thought and deed. Wilson himself, however, leaned more and more toward the Allied side as the war proceeded. Still, he recognized that the great majority of Americans wanted no part of the fighting in Europe, and in 1916 he sought re-election successfully on the appealing slogan, "He Kept Us Out of War."

Soon after his second inauguration, however, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war, which was approved, although six senators and 50 members of the House of Representatives had the wit or wisdom to vote against it. Wilson promised this would be "the war to end all wars," but wars aplenty have taken place since the guns fell silent in 1918, leaving their unprecedented carnage -- nearly 9 million dead and more than 20 million wounded, many of them hideously disfigured or crippled for life, as well as perhaps 10 million civilians who died of starvation or disease.

And what did the United States or the world gain? Only a 20-year reprieve before the war's smoldering embers burst into flame again.

After World War I, Americans felt betrayed, and resolved never to make the same mistake again. Yet just two decades later, President Franklin Roosevelt began the maneuvers by which he hoped to plunge the nation once again into the European cauldron. Unsuccessful in his naval provocations of the Germans in the Atlantic, he eventually pushed the Japanese to the wall by a series of hostile economic-warfare measures and clearly unacceptable ultimatums, which may have induced them to mount a desperate military attack on Pearl Harbor.

Campaigning for re-election in Boston on October 30, 1940, FDR had sworn: "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." Well, Peleliu ain't Peoria. Roosevelt was lying when he made his declaration, just as he had lied repeatedly before. (Stanford historian David Kennedy, careful not to speak too stridently, refers to FDR's "frequently cagey misrepresentations to the American public.") Yet many, many Americans trusted Roosevelt with their lives; during the war more than 400,000 paid the ultimate price.

Among FDR's many political acolytes was a young congressman, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who eventually and, for the world, unfortunately, rose to the presidency. Like his mentor, he relied heavily on lying to the public. In October 1964, seeking to gain election by portraying himself as the "peace candidate" (in contrast to the alleged mad bomber Barry Goldwater), LBJ told a crowd at Akron University: "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."

In 1965, however, shortly after the start of his elected term in office, Johnson exploited the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, itself based on a fictitious account of an attack on U.S. naval forces off Vietnam, and initiated a huge buildup of U.S. forces in Southeast Asia that would eventually commit more than 500,000 American "boys" to fight an "Asian boys" war. Some 58,000 U.S. military personnel would lose their lives in the service of LBJ's vanity and political ambitions, not to speak of the millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians killed and wounded.

Now President George Bush is telling the American people we stand in mortal peril of imminent attack by Iraqis or their agents armed with weapons of mass destruction. Having presented no credible evidence or compelling argument, he simply invites us to trust him, and therefore to support him as he undertakes what once would have been called naked aggression.

Well, David Hume long ago argued that just because every swan we've seen was white, we cannot be certain that no black swan exists. Bush may be telling the truth. In the light of history, however, we would be making a long-odds bet to believe him.

---------------------------
Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at The Independent Institute in Oakland, editor of The Independent Review and author of "Crisis and Leviathan" (Oxford University Press).

___________________________
Copyright 2002 SF Chronicle

We have an urgent problem: The Administration continues to refuse to answer questions or to release the intelligence gathered prior to 9/11. Given the serious danger of the coming attack on Iraq, it is critical that Congressional investigators be allowed access to these files so that they can find out 'what did we know and when did we know it.' The government needs to release all the documents now.

To date, team Bush has steadfastly refused.

Congress and the courts should force the Executive branch to release those files with extreme urgency. This needs to happen before we wake up to yet another American surprise attack in the Middle East, and it should happen before the elections in November.

Now weˆre talking war number two, in less than a year, and we need some answers: no more spin, no more simplistic homilies, no more fatherly advice from our Supreme Team of Bush and company. Weˆre adults, and most of us can and do handle the truth every day. So, why not just tell us what took place before, during, and after September 11th, 2001? More.

Republican and Democratic Senate offices report "overwhelming" opposition from their constituents to war with Iraq. This comes as Congress prepares to pass a war resolution granting President Bush sweeping powers to invade Iraq.

The national news radio show Democracy Now! conducted an informal survey on Thursday of 70 Republican and Democratic Senate offices.

Of the 26 offices which responded to our inquires, 22 reported an overwhelming majority " in some cases up to 99 percent -- of constituents opposed war in Iraq; three said the response was split and just one office reported a majority called backing the war. Among the findings:

Democrats

* Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl: Aides say they are receiving 1,000-2,000 calls per week with the overwhelming number opposed to an attack on Iraq.

* Washington Sen. Patty Murray: Over 5,000 letters and phone calls were received last week on Iraq, aides say. Only about 100 came from constituents who supported an attack.

* California Sen. Dianne Feinstein: Staff in her San Francisco office reported about 200 calls a day with 99 percent of the callers opposing the war.

* New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman: The D.C. office has been receiving at least 1,300 calls a day with about 70 percent opposed to war.

Republicans

* North Carolina Sen.Jesse Helms: Staff declined to give figures but said the "majority is against" when it comes to calls on Iraq.

* Nebraska Sen. Charles Hegal: According to aides, constituents favor diplomacy over war at a rate of 5 to 1.

* Virginia Sen. John Warner: About 150 constituents a day are calling into the D.C. offices. "A very small minority supported military action," said one aide.

"It's extraordinary that, as Senators work with the Bush Administration to draft a war resolution, their constituents are expressing overwhelming opposition an attack against Iraq," said Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now! "Unfortunately we are hearing very little about this in the media. These calls represent the silenced majority, not the silent majority."

In making the case for war, the Bush administration has delivered a bill of particulars against Saddam Hussein that includes al-Qaida terrorist links yet to be demonstrated and weapons he may or may not have within reach.

Publicly, President Bush's officials are touting reports that al-Qaida operatives have found refuge in Baghdad and that Iraq once helped them develop chemical weapons. Privately, government intelligence sources are hedging on that subject, suggesting there might be less than meets the eye. Did Iraq really kick out U.N. weapons inspectors in 1998, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said? No. "We made the decision to evacuate," says Charles Duelfer, who was deputy chairman of the U.N. inspection agency at the time. More.

''It seems like everyone connected the dots here,'' WSVN-Fox 7 anchor Christine Cruz said during the sixth hour of the marathon coverage of Friday's bomb scare on Alligator Alley. ``It seems like everyone did what they were supposed to be doing.''

Like a lot of what was said during the coverage, that was about half right. Television reporters were certainly connecting dots -- lots of dots, some of them seemingly from another planet -- but if journalism is about facts and not hype, then they definitely weren't doing what they were supposed to do.

Friday's coverage was the source of a staggering amount of misinformation. Among the inaccurate reports: More.

It has since been shown that the Iraqi charge at the time - that the weapons inspectors had been used as spies for the US - was the truth, not propaganda.

So far, neither George Bush nor Tony Blair have come up with any reason that could justify a first strike against Iraq - except the unstated (because it is unacceptable) reason that "regime change" would give America control of Iraq's 100 billion barrels of oil reserves. More.

George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are wilfully ignoring the realities of the Middle East. The result can only be catastrophic

Those were the days. But sitting in the United Nations General Assembly last week, watching President Bush Jr tell us with all his Texan passion about the beatings and the whippings and the rapes in Iraq, you would have thought they'd just been discovered. For sheer brazen historical hypocrisy, it would have been difficult to beat that part of the President's speech. Saddam, it appears, turned into a bad guy when he invaded Kuwait in 1990. Before that, he was just a loyal ally of the United States, a "strong man" - as the news agency boys like to call our dictators - rather than a tyrant.

But the real lie in the President's speech - that which has dominated American political discourse since the crimes against humanity on 11 September last year - was the virtual absence of any attempt to explain the real reasons why the United States has found itself under attack. More.

President Bush spoke to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, September 12 about the supposedly urgent need to attack Iraq. The following is a list of statements made by him that are either illogical, half-truths, or outright falsehoods, with responses to each.

1. "Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation."

Kuwait had been slant-drilling the Iraqi oil field of Rumallah as well as driving down the price of oil at a time when Iraq was in desperate need of funds to rebuild its infrastructure after the Iran-Iraq War (in which Iraq was the favored state of the US). While it is arguable whether this was justification for an invasion, this provocation is significantly less specious than that cited for, say, the American invasion of Panama seven months earlier.

2. "And the regime's forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources."

Satellite imagery showed no Iraqi military buildup in the border regions with Saudi Arabia in either Iraq or occupied Kuwait in September 1990, as revealed in a series of articles in the (FL) Times in January 1991. Yet the elder President Bush fabricated this "aggression" to justify Operation Desert Shield. More.

No area is more rife with false information than the Middle East. Our government has certainly been guilty of such practices and is cranking up the big lie machine in its drive to dignify war with Iraq. The staunch supporters of the state of Israel in the media and government assault the public stories that don't stand the light of day. But once out there, they also take on a life of their own and the "man in the street" repeats them without fail. Let's look at some of the most common of these myths.

1. Israel has been attacked time and again by its enemies and is only defending itself.

In actuality, the vast majority of the time Israel has been the attacker. Certainly they claim provocation for these attacks but they have lied and spread disinformation in many cases. In 1956, Israel attacked Egypt, capturing the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip and was forced to withdraw by President Eisenhower.

In 1967 Israel launched its six-day war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, announcing it had been attacked. It used Egypt's military maneuvers in the Sinai and the intent to blockade the Strait of Tiran as its cover for the incursion and only after the war was over did it admit it had launched a preemptive strike. If it was in the right, why did it feel it had to lie? If Egypt was indeed attacking Israel, no one bothered to ask why Egypt's entire air force was destroyed on the ground. It has been documented (see former NSA operative James Bamford's Body of Secrets, pp 139-239), that Israel had planned this war for a long time. More.

"The people can always be brought to do the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism."

--Nazi leader Hermann Goering

"From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." More

Correspondent Scott Peterson has reported on US military actions from the Gulf War to Afghanistan, and has had plenty of experience with obfuscation from US officials. In Somalia in 1992 and 1993, regular - and often botched - US raids to capture the warlord, Gen. Mohamed Farah Aidid, were always described to the press as "routine" missions - not operations to nab the warlord. Yet when Scott finally received the Delta Force "after-action" report through a Freedom of Information Act request years later, it clearly said: Every single Delta action was aimed at taking out General Aidid.

In one telling case, US generals who didn't like the way a certain action in Mogadishu - which led to dozens of Somali casualties - was being reported on CNN, revised their version of events three separate times, before settling on the "real" story.

"My experience is that the US military always wants to put the best gloss on things," says Scott. "And why not? It's natural. Eventually, though, the reality, no matter how stark - at times, very stark - always emerges. But while troops are deployed, they want to shape the debate in their favor." More.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that immigration hearings may be closed by the government, dealing a blow to media organizations who sought access to hearings involving foreigners swept up in the nation's terrorism investigation.

"We are disappointed that the court has sanctioned the use of secret hearings to deprive people of their liberty," he said. "Locking people up in secret hearings is profoundly at odds with the basic principles of fairness." (American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt) More.

Lawmakers challenged the Bush administration's refusal to share documents in a wide range of cases Wednesday, from the FBI's handling of Boston mob informants in the 1960s to the Justice Department's failure to notify an Associated Press reporter before subpoenaing his home telephone records.

"When I get a majority in the House, I'm going to take you guys to court" to get the Boston records, Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., told Daniel J. Bryant, an assistant attorney general testifying before the committee.

"You're going to give me those documents," Burton said. It would take a vote by the full House, controlled by Republicans, to find President Bush in contempt to start a court battle.

The number of hate crimes reported in California jumped 15.5 percent to a record high last year, fueled by anti-Arab sentiment after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Wednesday.

The news was especially troubling, Lockyer and others said, because the tally would have dropped 5 percent had it not been for bias against those who are, or appeared to be, Middle Eastern.

"Hate crimes based on religion declined or remained nearly steady in all categories except anti-Islamic hate-crimes, which soared," Lockyer said as he released his report, "Hate Crime in California 2001."

Crimes motivated by race or ethnicity also dropped for all but Middle Easterners, American Indians and Alaska natives.

Californians reported 2,261 hate crimes last year, up from 1,957 in 2000. That's the highest tally since 1995, the first year records were kept.

The crimes also grew more violent. Assault, intimidation and other violence -- including two homicides -- accounted for 1,658 hate crimes, almost 3 in 4. That's up from 1,293 in 2000, the report found. More.

Kevin Phillips in his book, Wealth and Democracy, points out that some of the greatest fortunes in American history have been made from war-related businesses. Who are todayˆs wartime profiteers?

Helen Caldicott: Well, 32 members of the Bush administration come from the military-industrial complex. Twenty-eight of them come from Lockheed-Martin. Many of the rest come from the Heritage Foundation, which is funded by Lockheed-Martin. So this is a military-industrial administration. More.

On the fifth anniversary of the negotiation of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, the coalition that has spearheaded efforts to abolish the production and use of antipersonnel landmines has insisted that they are advancing toward their goal despite difficult setbacks over the past year.

Releasing its fourth annual report Friday on progress toward ridding the world of one of its most deadly and indiscriminate weapons, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), noted that the widespread planting of mines by India and Pakistan since the onset of a major mobilization by both countries along their common border last winter marked a big step in the wrong direction. More.

A federal official said a flight attendant noticed a passenger with a suspicious object, thought it was a knife and alerted a federal air marshal on board.

Before the air marshal could investigate, the flight attendant had already told the pilot the plane should return to Houston. More.

On the anniversary of the devastating terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the United Nations and international human-rights groups are warning that the war on terrorism risks new violations of human rights that could in turn foster new terrorism.

Terrorism and human-rights abuses committed by governments are closely linked, according to the UN and the groups, which is why it is critical that the world's nations uphold international human-rights standards as a key part of any anti-terrorist campaign. More.

Families of Sept. 11 victims criticized President Bush on Monday for eroding civil rights in the U.S. war on terror, and said they believed airport security was no better than a year ago.

Stephen Push, head of the Sept. 11 Homeland Security Alliance, gave the Bush administration a "C-" grade on a report card in urging the government to temper military gusto with fair treatment of those placed under arrest.

Push said he did not believe suspended judicial rights -- such as denying terrorist suspects access to a lawyer or expeditious trial -- were needed or desirable. More.

The period after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon last September 11 has amounted to "a year of loss" for the civil rights and liberties of United States citizens and non-citizens, according to a new report released by a major U.S. human rights group.

The New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR) is calling for a series of security laws and executive decrees adopted in the wake of the attacks to be urgently reviewed. More.

By The Associated Press

September 5, 2002, 11:44 AM EDT

Some of the fundamental changes to Americans' legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act following the terror attacks:

* FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigation.

* FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests.

* FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.

* RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.

* FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES: Government may search and seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation.

* RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.

* RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them. Copyright (c) 2002, The Associated Press

*** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.***

"As a Native American, every time I see the American flag I feel the same way I imagine Jewish people must feel when looking at the Nazi flag. The American flag is a flag of oppression and genocide. Because thatˆs what America is built on - from the very beginning when the first European settlers landed in North America, it has been a country built on blood." Rod Coronado, Native American activist, speaking in Brighton last week.

"It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in." General Colin Powell, when asked about the number of Iraqi people who were killed by Americans in the 1991 Desert Storm campaign (200,000 people, incidentally). More.

Iraq poured scorn on the United States on Sept. 11, saying it was using last year's attacks -- hailed as the "punishment of God" by one Baghdad magazine -- as a pretext to try to crush its old foe in the Middle East.

The government newspaper al-Jumhouriya said President Bush's "arrogant and imperialist" administration wanted to rule the world by force.

"A year after the September 11 events, the American administration has failed to review its policy of aggression and blackmail," it said in a front-page editorial.

"Between the two Septembers, the American evil administration is pointing at Iraq as a very dangerous enemy which threatens world peace, in order to launch a new war under false excuses," wrote the official al-Iraq newspaper.

But also Wednesday, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz sent a letter of condolence to former Attorney General Ramsey Clark on the attack anniversary, the official Iraqi News Agency said. More.

Lamentably, in the year since 9-11, we Americans have torn up treaties. We have largely ignored the greatest immediate threat to global human security - the AIDS pandemic. And our president would not even attend the Earth Summit on eradicating poverty and protecting the environment. All of this is central to Africa's survival. It is why so many Africans had hoped the U.S. had changed as a consequence of that sad September.

As I traveled around Africa this summer I heard friends say that the greatest international threat today is not a bearded band of medieval terrorists... but the policies of a very 21st century Washington. Surely America's security is not enhanced if our actions threaten the security of the rest of the world. More.

Afghanistan is beginning to look like a quagmire rather than a victory, with echoes of the confusion and uncertainty and persistent bloodshedding of Vietnam. Compounding the complications of the U.S. goal of hunting down the Taliban and Al Qaeda while stabilizing a fragile government is the swirl of ethnic tensions in Afghanistan fueled by competing warlords. More.

But what of the actual military operations? The hunt for al-Qaeda?

I went to meet a colonel in the 82nd Airborne.

"It's all going extremely well," he told me. But when it came to specifics he was rather more equivocal.

"We have recently detained a number of important suspects."

"Who?" I asked. He couldn't say.

Where did he think the main body of Al Qaeda fighters now were? Again he couldn't say.

Then I asked him about the reports of growing resentment at the large US military presence in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Of the road blocks and house-to-house searches, and the growing list of accidental killings.

"Absolutely not," he insisted. "We are only here because the Afghan people want us to be here."

As I left Bagram, dusk was descending like a giant curtain across the Hindu Kush. I felt uneasy, and not just about the long dark drive back to Kabul.

Growing unease

When I'd first arrived in Afghanistan a year before, the Americans were seen as liberators, allies, in the fight to rid Afghanistan of the hated Taleban and their foreign, trouble making, friend Osama Bin Laden.

The Americans too had had a clear purpose - to get the "bad guys". But a year on that goal has faded.

The bad guys have disappeared, melted away in to the mountains and heaving streets of Kandahar and Karachi.

Among the Americans frustration is growing.

To the local Afghans, they are starting to look increasingly like occupiers. More.

From October 21, 2001, Jihad Unspun staff and researchers began tracking military casualties in the US war on "terrorism" campaign in Afghanistan from approximately 40 international news sources daily. Although limited information on the extent of casualties suffered in Afghanistan by US and Coalition troops has appeared in main stream North American press, this has not been the case in other parts of the globe. This report documents our research. This conclusion that can be drawn from this report is that the deaths of both US and Coalition soldiers are significantly higher than the public is being made aware of and therefore the willingness to continue the America war effort to new theatres such as Iraq is being orchestrated under false pretenses. More

But why aren't CNN and other claimed "international" news agencies publishing feature stories with titles such as "Afghanistan remembers"? They claim to be covering the news and opinion of the entire world, but it is quite clear that they are more interested in covering news with a bias that puts American lives above everyone else.

I do not believe there is any difference between an Afghan life and an American life; people deserve to live peacefully regardless of their citizenship or ethnicity. So, I will do the work for the American news agencies who have shown they are concerned only with the lives of those inside the United States.

"Afghanistan remembers"

KABUL - What if you had only one last chance to contact your loved ones before you died? In those final seconds, would you be able to find the right last words? These are the questions that were posed to at least 4,000 civilians in Afghanistan who have perished under the guns of the Bush administration, with the full sanction of a majority of the American people. More.

Robert Fisk, one of Britain's most distinguished foreign correspondents and a person very familiar with central Asia, recently wrote in London's Independent: "Why on earth are all my chums on CNN and Sky and the BBC rabbiting on about the "air campaign," coalition forces" and the "war on terror"? Do they think their viewers believe this twaddle? Certainly Muslims don't. In fact, you don't have to spend long in Pakistan to realize that the Pakistani press gives an infinitely more truthful and balanced account of the "war" - publishing work by local intellectuals, historians and opposition writers along with Taliban comments and pro-government statements as well as syndicated Western analyses - than the New York Times; and all this, remember, in a military dictatorship." More.

...There is so far no evidence produced that the state of Afghanistan, at the time, either attacked the United States or authorized or approved such an attack. Indeed, just recently FBI Director Mueller and the deputy director of the CIA publicly admitted that they have found no evidence in Afghanistan linked to the September 11 attacks. If you believe the government's account of what happened, which I think is highly questionable, 15 of these 19 people alleged to have committed these attacks were from Saudi Arabia and yet we went to war against Afghanistan. It does not really add up in my opinion.

...Indeed there was a treaty directly on point at that time, the Montreal Sabotage Convention to which both the United States and Afghanistan were parties. It has an entire regime to deal with all issues in dispute here, including access to the International Court of Justice to resolve international disputes arising under the Treaty such as the extradition of Bin Laden. The Bush administration completely ignored this treaty, jettisoned it, set it aside, never even mentioned it. They paid no attention to this treaty or any of the other 12 international treaties dealing with acts of terrorism that could have been applied to handle this manner in a peaceful, lawful way. More.

Judge Laurence H. Silberman, a semiretired judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, used a speech at the conservative legal group the Federalist Society for the unusually harsh criticism of the Supreme Court.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is considered a swing vote in capital cases, has been testing the waters to see how people would respond to a ruling that declared executions unconstitutional, Silberman said.

Law professors and other lawyers at the event said they do not expect the Supreme Court to strike down capital punishment.

"It would be a very sudden and dramatic reversal," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

Eugene Volokh, a former law clerk to O'Connor, said he thinks "Like most Americans she believes that it's not only constitutionally permissible, but also sometimes morally the right solution" to impose the death penalty.

Illinois opened a marathon series of clemency hearings Tuesday for nearly every prisoner on death row in what could be the most sweeping review of capital punishment in U.S. history.

"This is unprecedented," said Robert Dunne, a member of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. "Normally we only hear petitions for clemency from death row inmates when their executions are imminent."

Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in 2000, calling the state's death penalty system "fraught with error" after 13 inmates were found to have been wrongfully convicted. More.

LONDON, Sep 25, 2002 -- The USA continues to defy the United Nations and flout international law in its pursuit of the death penalty against children, Amnesty International said today, as it released two new reports on the execution of people who were under 18 at the time of the crime. "Two thirds of the known executions of child offenders in the past decade were carried out in the USA", the organization said. "It is clear that the United States is the world's leading perpetrator of this universally condemned human rights violation."

In his recent speech on Iraq to the UN General Assembly, President George Bush spoke of "broken treaties", UN resolutions being "unilaterally subverted", and of the USA's wish for the UN to be "effective, and respected, and successful".

"The execution of child offenders leaves treaties just as broken, resolutions just as subverted, and respect for the UN and international law just as undermined," Amnesty International said. More.

...The cupboards were bare. The food stamps were exhausted, the staples from the local food pantry depleted. Ms. Daniels, a single mother of five children, was down to that time at the end of the month when the sun rises and sets on her incessant worry: What will we eat tomorrow?

The Danielses are among 32.9 million Americans 11.7 million of them under 18 who live in poverty, while untold others teeter on its edge. After the economic boom of the 1990's, the poverty rate fell slightly, even as the nation increasingly moved from welfare to work. More.

More of those in need are like Jene Hayward. The mother of two works full time, but after paying rent and utilities and helping with her son's college expenses, she has little left over for groceries.

For her, and millions of others, visits to the food pantry are no longer one-time emergency stops, but a regular part of the monthly routine. Indeed, America's Second Harvest, the nation's leading hunger-relief organization, now estimates that more than 40 percent of America's hungry are working poor. More.

Reports from Beijing say that one oil tanker exploded and another was heavily damaged in a fire in southern China. Details are sketchy but reports say that the blaze occurred near an oil depot in Qingliu, a village in the southern province of Guangdong, near Hong Kong.

Local reports say that more than 50 fire engines, five firefighting boats and two helicopters assisted in tackling the blaze.

Three people were reported injured.

The tanker which exploded was carrying more than 100 tons of oil.

It ignited more than 400 tons of diesel oil.

There is no indication how much sea water was polluted.

Fears are growing that the Greek-managed Prestige could break up in heavy seas, spilling thousands of tonnes of oil into the sea and causing an environmental catastrophe.

Washington D.C.'s Dupont Circle was full to capacity Sunday afternoon with several thousand people for a permitted rally protesting economic and environmental injustice, and the possibility of war in Iraq. The protest was part of a weekend of demonstrations timed to coincide with the annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Passing the headquarters of many embassies along Massachusetts Avenue, protesters were watched by police and guards particularly in front of the embassies of Japan and Turkey. Chants of "Exxon, Mobile, BP, Shell, Take your war and go to hell," surged through the demonstrators, indicating their belief that any war in Iraq would be fought over oil supplies.

Late in the afternoon, some 3,000 demonstrators stopped in front of Vice President's Dick Cheney's residence. Cheney did not make an appearance. Police chased protesters into a wooded area, but no arrests were made, and people dispersed peacefully.

Several thousand people gathered Saturday by the Washington Monument to protest the policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Both institutions set conditions for loans and grants on projects that affect the environment. More.

Large amounts of black carbon or soot particles and other pollutants are causing changes in precipitation and temperatures over China, a new study suggests. The study's authors say soot pollution may be at least partially responsible for the tendency toward increased floods and droughts in Asian regions over the last several decades.

In a paper appearing in Friday's issue of the journal "Science," the researchers explained that black carbon can affect regional climate by absorbing sunlight, heating the air, and altering large scale atmospheric circulation and the hydrologic cycle. The study's U.S. authors include Surabi Menon of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Columbia University, and her colleague James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. More.

Oil continues to wash up on the beaches from the stricken cargo ship MV Jolly Rubino... lying off St Lucia, 150 miles north-east of Durban, South Africa, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2002. All hope has been abandoned of pulling the ship off the rocks after it ran aground Sept. 12 on reefs off the UNESCO World Heritage Site of St. Lucia on South Africa's east coast. Instead, workers will focus on pumping oil off the ship in an effort to protect an ecologically sensitive estuary nearby before the ship breaks up.

The ship is beached some five miles south of the entrance to the UNESCO -recognized St. Lucia Wetlands Park, cracked on both sides and leaking oil.

The vast coastal area of lagoon, swamp, dune and beach is home to an array of rare plants, animals and birds and is a magnet to ecologists, divers and tourists.

Conservationists say the park's fragile ecosystem would be ruined if oil found its way into the wetlands.

But the salvage company said water levels in the stricken ship had risen, pushing oil up into the cargo holds, fueling the fire.

"The fuel is burning off, so the threat to the environment is greatly reduced," SMIT spokeswoman Clare Gomes told Reuters.

She said it was hard to tell how much fuel remained on board the container vessel, which has been on fire for eight days. More.

Pressure is mounting on President Bush to take effective action on climate change after a new report, led by space agency NASA, warned that failure to take action could be catastrophic. More

Free trade across North America is not only affecting the air, water and forests of the continent, but is creating a "looming threat" to the survival of certain plant and animal species, says a report from a NAFTA agency. More.

If the Indian Point nuclear plants spew radiation from an accident or terrorist attack, at least one child in Westchester County is surely prepared.

He is Jacob Tinkhauser, 8, and his protection comes courtesy of his mother, Robin, who, emboldened by reports of the effectiveness of potassium iodide against radiation- induced thyroid cancer, has delivered a supply of the over-the-counter drug to her son's elementary school and given staff members permission to administer the drug to her son.

"You have to be cautious and prepare," Ms. Tinkhauser said. Or as Jacob, a third grader, put it, "I'll be safe."

Four months ago, Ms. Tinkhauser was only dimly aware of the nuclear plants, which are about 12 miles from her home, leaving both her home and her son's school outside the 10-mile evacuation zone mandated by federal guidelines in the case of a major radiation leak. She had never heard of potassium iodide, known by its chemical symbol KI. More.

Thoughts

"Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism." Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is from Isthmus, April 3, 1992, apparently a newspaper or magazine published in Madison, Wisconsin. "Pull the Plug!" was reprinted in the Winter 1992 issue of "S.E.T. Free: The Newsletter Against Television." Pull the Plug! by Gar Smith In the final analysis, the smartest way to save energy and promote a healthy and wise planet is to unplug the television set completely. A recent study by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst suggests that exposure to television not only subjects viewers to electromagnetic radiation, it also induces measurable amounts of stupidity. Researchers found that the longer test subjects watched TV coverage of the Iraq war, the more they supported the war but the less informed they became. Pro-war couch potatoes were twice as likely as critics to claim (incorrectly) that Kuwait was a democracy; only 31% knew that Israel had an army of occupation in neighboring territories; only 3% were cognizant of Syria's occupation of Lebanon; and only 2% recalled that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait had been prompted by Kuwait's lowering of oil prices and theft of oil drilled from wells in Iraqi territory. In the words of the researchers, "We discovered that the correlation between TV watching and knowledge was a negative one." For more, see our sister site, Society for the Eradication of Television [SET].		We discovered that the correlation between TV watching and knowledge was a negative one. Researchers found that the longer test subjects watched TV coverage of the Iraq war, the more they supported the war but the less informed they became. ...only 2% recalled that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait had been prompted by Kuwait's lowering of oil prices and theft of oil drilled from wells in Iraqi territory.