WW News Service Digest #359
1) Welfare cuts + job losses = poverty crisis
by WW
2) Steel workers fight for their jobs
by WW
3) Detroit opts for domestic partner benefits
by WW
4) Michigan protest hits racial profiling
by WW
5) Israel launches assault on Palestinian authority
by WW
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 13, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WELFARE CUTS + JOB LOSSES = POVERTY CRISIS
By Heather Cottin
New York
There's another front to the U.S. war. It's right here in
this country. The casualties are mounting by the tens of
thousands as people are being cut off welfare just as the
recession destroys millions of jobs. A huge number of those
on welfare have been working people who earned so little
they couldn't afford food and shelter without public
assistance.
As the rich get richer, with the kindly assistance of
Congress and the president who are pushing through a $70-
billion corporate tax "incentive," the Bush administration
is going ahead with the plan to "end welfare as we know it."
This bipartisan plan of, by, and for the wealthy, was signed
into law by Bill Clinton in 1996 to end federal assistance
to the poorest people in the United States.
Entitled the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Act," this law stated that on Nov. 30, 2001, anyone
receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children who had
exhausted the five-year lifetime limit mandated by the new
law would be withdrawn from "welfare dependency" and forced
to go it alone.
The policy wonks who came up with the title of the law
implied that poor people who needed welfare were
irresponsible. They put the blame for poverty on the poor,
rather than the capitalist system that impoverishes millions
as "collateral damage" while a wealthy minority enriches
itself.
Under this law, the federal government has been forcing
recipients into what came to be called "workfare." This
means taking jobs--often below minimum wage--to qualify for
assistance. Conservatives called it "opportunity." Many
people on welfare, however, are disabled or have small
children to care for and haven't been able to take workfare
jobs.
Welfare was always insufficient to meet the needs of the
poor. An Oct. 12 article in New York Newsday explained,
"Public assistance leaves families deep in poverty. The cash
grant for a family of three is only $577 per month and has
not been raised in more than 10 years. While many families
also receive food stamps, assistance levels are still way
below that needed to move a family out of crushing poverty."
But even this meager support has now come to an end for tens
of thousands of families. The largest group yet to face the
cutoff of federal funds, they are also among the first to do
so in a full-blown recession.
FREEFALL CRISIS
The Nov. 30 New York Times reported that stringent rules and
a good economy had already cut the number of people
receiving welfare in that city by half, to 387,000
recipients. Now, as the five-year limit expires for many,
they won't be able to pay the December rent or buy enough
food to feed their families.
The New York State Constitution mandates a Safety Net
program for those who cannot care for themselves, but for
many of the 38,000 families in the state cut off from
federal welfare after Nov. 30, this state net is not
working. And there will be more. "An additional 13,700 city
families," the Times added, "are expected to hit their
federal time limit over the next three months."
The New York City economic crisis has proved a disaster for
the poor here. But Robert Doar, executive deputy
commissioner of the State Office of Temporary and Disability
Assistance, won't admit it. He told the Times, "Most people
can get virtually the same benefits as before. ... We do
think it's gone very smoothly."
The Times reporter disputed this: "But a very different
picture emerges from visits to several welfare offices,
interviews with welfare lawyers, social service
organizations, and recipients themselves. Some have received
letters just in the last few days denying them state aid,
apparently in error. Others, in offices bristling with
ominous posters about time running out, tried to apply for
benefits but caseworkers told them--within a reporter's
earshot--that it was too late."
"They are closing cases in error, and clients are being
denied the right to transfer to Safety Net assistance," said
Mark Cohen of the Welfare Law Center, a national advocacy
group based in New York.
Almost 65 percent of the welfare recipients had jobs, but
they did not, according to the Times, make enough for their
families' survival.
The Times noted that many of the thousands who were about to
lose welfare assistance were also losing their access to
other programs that helped them survive. This is because of
federal cutbacks of Medicaid, food stamps and rent-
assistance programs. The Nov. 18 Times reported that the
federal government is terminating the Section 8 program that
provides aid to low-income and poor people who need help
paying their rent.
An October alert from the Center for Budget and Policy
Priorities--a Washington, D.C., advocacy group--warned that
the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program that has
provided nutritional help for women and infants will
terminate aid in early 2002 to 345,000 women, children and
infants whose needs will become even greater as the economy
nosedives.
Numerous studies have shown that WIC improves the health of
participants, especially babies. But the government's
priorities are the corporate elite, the Wall Street bankers
and wealthy corporate stockholders, not impoverished
children and women.
INDICTMENT OF CAPITALISM
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reported in
October that the weakening economy has produced a rash of
budget cuts throughout the country.
Because fewer people are working, and because corporations
are paying fewer state taxes, most states are collecting
fewer taxes.
Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and
Rhode Island face severe budget crises.
But tax breaks for the wealthy proliferate in those states
as well.
Budget cuts are being considered or have been implemented in
at least 27 states. The CBPP notes that other states are
expected to cut programs that workers rely on: medical care,
welfare, education, libraries and parks.
NEW YORK STATE HIT HARD
The World Trade Center disaster hit New York State hard. In
addition to the toll in human lives, it resulted in the loss
of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the metropolitan area.
According to Gov. George Pataki, "never in the history of
the state had there been revenue losses of this magnitude."
In Buffalo, according to the Dec. 2 Newsday, officials have
ordered massive municipal worker layoffs. "Municipal
governments are spiraling into fiscal distress," said New
York State Comptroller H. Carl McCall. The state's counties
are in similar shape.
When capitalism goes into a tailspin, many workers look to
the federal and state governments for relief. Isn't that why
taxes are deducted every week from our paychecks? But while
owners of corporations are laying off workers, the bought-
and-paid-for government officials are showing concern only
for the continuation of corporate profits.
In his classic work "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific,"
Frederick Engels demonstrated that capitalist competition
and the drive to expand production for profit will
inevitably lead to periodic crises of overproduction.
Paradoxically, this means that workers are impoverished
because of super-abundance--a condition that exists only
under capitalism. Engels concluded, "The contradiction has
grown into an absurdity."
Nothing could be more absurd than the state of the U.S.
economy at the present moment. While government hands
billions in welfare to the capitalists, tiny babies and
pregnant women are denied nutrition. Workers produce food
and clothing and housing in great abundance yet they cannot
afford to buy them. People are mired in poverty and workers
are laid off, while the capitalist government turns its back
on them.
Nothing indicates the criminal failure and inanity of the
capitalist system more than the contradictions the workers
now face.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 13, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AS LTV LAYS OFF THOUSANDS:
STEEL WORKERS FIGHT FOR THEIR JOBS
By Martha Grevatt
Cleveland
The workers at LTV Steel Co. call it a terrorist attack on
the city of Cleveland. They have renamed the company Liars
Thieves Vultures, Inc.
The victims of economic terrorism are the steel workers. The
accused are the CEOs of the company.
Their crime is the decision to shut down all their steel-
making operations, throwing 3,200 workers in Cleveland and
4,300 more in Illinois and Indiana onto the scrap heap. On
top of that, they are threatening to cut health benefits to
over 40,000 retirees and training programs for laid-off
workers.
Since last Dec. 29, LTV, along with almost a dozen other
steel companies, has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. On Nov.
20 LTV filed a motion in bankruptcy court asking permission
to idle all operations for 60 days, and then to shut down if
no buyer is found.
On Nov. 27 LTV began laying off workers and started the
involved process of shutting down the mills.
Workers reported to union officials that the measures being
taken would result in a "cold" or permanent shutdown--as
opposed to a "hot" or temporary one.
Earlier this year the company had shut down its other mill
in Cleveland, leaving 700 jobless. While it initially agreed
to a hot shutdown, hot turned cold with the excuse of Sept.
11.
Back in 1999, LTV's credit was still good. The company went
deep into debt to purchase Copperweld, a steel pipe and tube
company, at a price of $656 million. Now it admits that this
is the major factor in the credit crisis, yet it wants to
eliminate basic steel operations while keeping Copperweld
open.
In the spring, the union had agreed to major wage and
benefit concessions. In late November, the company
negotiated $320 million more in cost savings in talks with
major creditors. CEO William Bricker did not even notify the
Steel Workers union of LTV's shutdown plans.
Local elected officials were likewise kept in the dark,
prompting Mayor Michael White to call Bricker "the Art
Modell of steel." Modell was the owner of the Cleveland
Browns who suddenly moved the team to Baltimore in 1995.
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich went to court and was able to
block the immediate shutdown. But the steel workers' future
is anything but secure.
On Nov. 29 hundreds of militant steel workers rallied
outside the plant to save their jobs. Initially chanting,
"Bricker's gotta go," they roared when it was announced that
he had resigned.
Bricker earned the ire of workers and the community for his
outrageous salary of $700,000 a year along with a million-
dollar bonus he was set to be paid in several installments,
all while claiming the company was losing millions of
dollars. Bricker cashed in his bonus days before his
resignation was made public.
On Dec. 1, some 500 steel workers and their supporters
briskly marched several miles to press their demands again.
They began their march at St. Michael's Hospital, just
blocks away from their mill. It had been saved from closing
after a militant struggle uniting unions and the community.
They marched all the way to downtown Cleveland, chanting,
"Save our jobs." Their chants were loud but almost drowned
out by the honks of support. Not only motorists, but
Teamsters, bus drivers and postal workers on the job honked
to express their outrage at LTV bosses.
There is no neutrality in this union town when it comes to
shutting down LTV Steel. If the courts allow this shutdown,
many times the 3,200 jobs directly affected will be lost
indirectly.
The Catholic and Lutheran dioceses have filed friend-of-the-
court briefs to stop the shutdown. Politicians have gotten
on the bandwagon--the Dec. 1 march was called by Kucinich
and joined by Mayor-elect Jane Campbell and dozens of other
elected officials.
The next phase will open Dec. 4, when U.S. Bankruptcy Court
Judge William T. Bodoh will begin hearings on LTV's request.
Steel workers plan to pack the courtroom to defend the right
to their jobs.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 13, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
DETROIT OPTS FOR DOMESTIC PARTNER BENEFITS
Workers World Bureau
Detroit
On Nov. 30, the Detroit City Council took an important first
step toward establishing domestic-partner benefits for over
15,000 city workers. In a seven to two vote, the council
approved procedures for city employees in same-sex
relationships to register their domestic partnerships with
the City Clerk. These procedures include time limits to
establish a relationship as well as to dissolve the claim.
This ordinance lays the basis for a Detroit city employee's
domestic partner to get most of the same benefits now
claimed by a spouse. It also will give a same-sex lover
legal rights to hospital visitation and access to police
records now accorded a married couple.
The council was prepared to vote on a group of other
ordinances that elaborated the specific benefits to be given
a domestic partner. Action was postponed when it was
discovered at the last minute that the ordinances had
numerous errors. A vote is expected when the newly elected
council meets after the holidays.
The council also responded to a union request that the
ordinances be written to apply to both union and non-union
employees. UAW Local 2334 President David Sole, representing
city chemists, called for the council to go beyond the
original ordinance for non-union workers. He pointed out
that while new benefits cannot be imposed on unions, past
council action had included language that required the city
to offer these improvements to the various unions. The city
legal department was instructed to include this language
after Sole's testimony.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 13, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AS ARABS ARE HAULED IN BY FEDS:
MICHIGAN PROTEST HITS RACIAL PROFILING
By Mark Marzolf
Dearborn, Mich.
Over 100 people marched in front of Dearborn City Hall on
Nov. 29 to voice their opposition to the racist-profiling
dragnet imposed by the U.S. Justice Department against the
Arab-American population.
The "Justice" Department plans to question some 5,000 Arab-
Americans as part of its ongoing investigation into the
events of Sept. 11. This same government body recently
concluded an investigation into the Detroit Police
Department, which led the nation in fatal shootings of
civilians by police departments during the 1990s, without a
single prosecution.
The demonstration was organized by the Detroit Anti-War
Network. People carried signs declaring "FBI and INS out of
Dearborn!" and chanted colorful and militant slogans such as
"Black, Arab, Latino, Asian and white--We demand our civil
rights!" and "Arab-Americans under attack! What do we do?
Stand up--fight back!"
A statement issued by DAWN says: "5,000 Arab men who have
arrived here in the last year are to 'voluntarily' report
for questioning at local law enforcement departments. Police
departments in Oregon and Texas have refused to assist with
the questioning because it stinks of racial profiling, and
there is no basis to question these men."
Lawyers for several of the 566 men targeted for questioning
in the metropolitan Detroit area have confirmed that those
who "voluntarily" decide not to respond to the Justice
Department by the Dec. 4 deadline will nevertheless be paid
a "follow-up" visit by FBI agents.
Thousands of Arab-Americans from New York to Los Angeles
have been victimized by an escalating and systematic state
sponsorship of racial profiling and intimidation since Sept.
11.
Within days of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks,
a mosque and frequent meeting place of the Islamic Student
Union at Wayne State University in Detroit was vandalized.
Broken windows and racial slurs covered the building.
The next night, in an immediate wave of solidarity, a
diverse gathering of hundreds stood watch over the mosque
during a boisterous demonstration against these racist
attacks.
The number of discrimination and ethnic intimidation reports
fielded by the Michigan chapter of the American-Arab Anti-
Discrimination Committee has increased from an average of 20
per week to well over 200. This is a nationwide trend,
according to the ADC.
Michigan is home to some 350,000 Arab-Americans, the biggest
Arab population in the United States. Some 700 Arabs in the
state are currently being targeted by Attorney General John
Ashcroft and the Justice Department's racist investigation.
In the city of Dearborn, over 20 percent of the populous is
Arab-American, making up the biggest percentage of Arabs in
any U.S. city. Middle Eastern restaurants, bakeries, grocery
stores and retail shops are an enormous part of the cultural
diversity in the metropolitan Detroit community.
Some 200 Arab men in Dearborn alone have received letters
from the Justice Department seeking "cooperation." Those
interviewed would be subject to highly personal questions,
such as their political and religious beliefs, as well as
information about family and friends--where they work, where
they live and where they go to school.
A fundamental source of genuine cooperation is trust. Do the
Arab and Muslim Americans have any reason to trust the U.S.
ruling class?
ADC Vice President Khalil E. Jahshan condemns the racist
questioning as "a short-sighted public relations gimmick
that is destined to fail because the trust needed to secure
Arab participation in such a program no longer exists."
Jahshan said, "The trust between the U.S. government,
including law enforcement agencies, and the Arab community
has been further eroded over the past few weeks by denial of
due process, by revoking of attorney-client privileges, by
arbitrary and extended detention, and by casting the
investigative net so broadly as to implicate thousands of
innocent people."
And there is more: the international control of U.S.
imperialism through its military and economic sponsorship of
Israel, which continues to subjugate the people of Palestine
to an intensifying occupation and military war carried out
by heavily armed convoys, aircraft and tanks against highly
populated villages; the sanctions against Iraq, where more
than 1.5 million people have died a slow, agonizing,
premature and preventable death; and now an escalating war
in Afghanistan, where hospitals, Red Cross and food-supply
depots, schools and mosques have all been destroyed by
missiles and carpet bombs bearing the stars and stripes.
The racist profiling measures and executive directives smack
of martial law. They are reminiscent of the civil,
constitutional and human-rights violations seen throughout
U.S. history against many peoples of color and progressive
movements.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 13, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
BUSH "DOCTRINE" PAVES THE WAY:
ISRAEL LAUNCHES ASSAULT ON PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
By Fred Goldstein
The latest attacks on the Palestinian people by the Israeli
government can only be understood in the context of the
worldwide wave of reaction stirred up by the U.S. government
in the wake of the Sept. 11 disaster. The so-called Bush
doctrine of "You are either with us or them" is the new
framework that right-wing, adventurist forces in Washington,
in and out of the government, rally around.
In the White House and the Pentagon this "doctrine" means
that everyone who resists U.S. military domination, U.S.
corporate and financial control, and Washington's control
over the strategic regions of the globe--is "them."
In Tel Aviv this battle cry has been gladly taken up by the
Israeli government of Ariel Sharon and converted into a
justification to carry out new aggression aimed at further
weakening, if not destroying, the Palestinian national
movement. In this endeavor, the right wing of the Israeli
ruling class has been strongly encouraged by growing support
in the summits of power in Washington.
ISRAELI OFFENSIVE AIMED AT PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
In the wake of the Hamas suicide bombings in Jerusalem and
Haifa--which had been in retaliation for the assassination
of Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, a Hamas leader on the West Bank--the
Israeli Defense Forces have opened up an offensive of
selective destruction aimed at the Palestinian Authority and
its chair, Yasser Arafat. This offensive is also aimed at
terrorizing the Palestinian people and all resistance forces
while promoting a civil war within the Palestinian national
movement.
On Dec. 3 Israeli helicopters used missiles and machinegun
fire to destroy three helicopters stationed near Arafat's
home in Gaza City. Israeli planes bombed positions in the
West Bank town of Jenin. The next day Israeli troops and
tanks moved into Ramallah, taking up positions 200 yards
from Arafat's headquarters. Later in the day Israeli
helicopters fired missiles into the Palestinian Interior
Ministry building, close to Arafat's headquarters. He was
there at the time but was unhurt.
Missiles were also fired into the Khan Yunis refugee camp in
southern Gaza and into the West Bank towns of Tul Karm,
Qalqilyah and Salfit. The towns of Nablus and Ramallah are
in areas under Palestinian control, but Israeli forces
entered them. There were numerous other acts of Israeli
aggression--and more are planned.
Meanwhile, the capitalist media stepped right into service.
There was round-the-clock coverage of the 25 innocent
civilians killed in the Hamas bombings in Jerusalem and
Haifa. There was no mention of the 80 Palestinian leaders
who have been assassinated in the 14 months of the present
Intifada uprising against the occupation. There was no
mention of the hundreds of innocent, unarmed Palestinian
men, women and children killed or wounded during this
period.
The media did not tell the people of the U.S. about the
200,000 olive trees destroyed by the Israeli army over the
last 14 months, the principal crop for poor Palestinians.
CNN did not give round-the-clock coverage to the hundreds of
homes bulldozed; to the schools closed; to the people unable
to travel even to a doctor in case of illness or for
employment because they are barred from roads reserved for
Israelis or because they are not allowed through checkpoints
staffed by the IDF for so-called "security" reasons.
The West Bank alone is separated into 220 little
disconnected areas by military checkpoints.
The real suffering and oppression of Palestinians--who live
with 60 percent unemployment and a 70 percent poverty rate,
defined as less than $2 a day--has been deliberately
concealed. One million Palestinians are confined to only 17
percent of the land of the occupied territories. The rest is
occupied by 400,000 Israeli settlers, who get the best land,
the most water and all the privileges of occupiers.
Furthermore, they are armed and carry out vigilante justice
against the Palestinians.
PALESTINIANS VIEW ISRAELI OCCUPATION AS TERRORISM
There is no way to comprehend the suicide bombings in
Jerusalem without understanding the occupation that has gone
on for 53 years--ever since the Israelis expelled 870,000
Palestinians from their homeland by force and created a
refugee population that not only wants an end to the brutal
occupation but yearns to return to its rightful homeland.
>From the Palestinian perspective, the regime in Tel Aviv is
a "terrorist entity," heavily armed with $3 billion a year
worth of Pentagon weapons and ammunition. Yet Sharon ordered
these attacks after having the Israeli cabinet declare the
Palestinian Authority a "terrorist entity" and declaring the
Hamas bombings an "act of war." This declaration, put in the
language of the Bush administration, came 24 hours after
Sharon had a one-hour meeting with Bush in the Oval Office.
The timing of this latest sequence of events is highly
significant.
As Washington was anticipating victory in the war in
Afghanistan, it felt the need to begin building political
support for the next phase of the war. There was mounting
pressure inside the administration to make some gesture in
the direction of moderating the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
On Nov. 19 Secretary of State Colin Powell made a highly
touted policy speech in which the Bush administration
reversed its position of "hands off" diplomacy--which had
really meant, let the Israelis do as much damage to the
Palestinian struggle as possible without any interference
from Washington.
In this speech Powell announced that he had appointed a
delegation to go to the region to get the "peace process"
going again. This delegation consisted of a highly
prestigious Mideast career diplomat, former Assistant
Secretary of State William Burns, as well as retired Gen.
Anthony Zinni, former head of the Central Command in the
Middle East and Central Asia. This post is now held by Gen.
Tommy Franks, who is running the war against Afghanistan.
In this speech Powell spoke of a Palestinian state, of an
end to the occupation, of freezing the settlements, and of
sharing Jerusalem. But he also laid down the preconditions
being put forward by the Sharon government for any talks-
namely, that the Palestinian Authority make arrests and put
an end to the resistance. A period of nonviolence by the
Palestinians was a precondition for negotiations.
To make the speech as appealing as possible to the Arab
audience, however, he spoke of an end to the suffering of
Palestinian children and innocent civilians.
KILLING OF CHILDREN FOLLOWED BY ASSASSINATION
Two days after the Powell speech, five Palestinians boys
walking to school were killed by a booby-trap bomb planted
by the Israeli Army in the refugee camp of Khan Yunis in the
Gaza Strip. At first the IDF denied responsibility for the
attack, but later admitted it after an investigation was
threatened.
The following day, Israeli helicopters fired missiles into a
van on a West Bank road killing Hamas leader Mahmoud Abu
Hanoud and two people with him. This was guaranteed to bring
about retaliation on the eve of the Zinni-Burns trip.
In case the assassination was not enough, on the same day
the IDF killed a 15-year-old boy and wounded six others at
the funeral for the five boys killed the day before in Khan
Yunis.
In the view of the Alternative Information Center, a
Palestinian-Israeli organization based in Israel, "The
summary execution of the Hamas military commander ...
ordered by the Israeli government was clearly timed to
coincide with the arrival to the region of the American
envoys, led by Gen. Anthony Zinni. Israel's assassination of
Abu Hanoud crowned a bloody week in which more than 14
Palestinians were killed, among them five children, six
Palestinians were assassinated and hundreds of houses were
damaged."
The dispatch continued, "the execution ... was an attempt to
establish a new reality that will make the envoys' task
impossible to implement."
SHARON'S OFFENSIVE HAD TO HAVE SUPPORT IN WASHINGTON
To understand this event as strictly the right-wing Israeli
regime taking advantage of a situation that fell into its
hands would be to overlook the role of the U.S. government
and the factions within it at the moment.
The Sharon regime is aiming its blows at the Palestinian
Authority, trying to cripple it and put it completely on the
defensive. It is trying to make the climate impossible for
any sort of negotiations, whether for minimal concessions or
even for show. It has reflexive, historical hostility to any
form of discussion about justice for the Palestinians. It
wants to concentrate on destroying the movement. It feels it
has the upper hand with Bush's "war on terrorism" behind it.
But it is difficult to conceive that in the midst of a world-
wide diplomatic military offensive by the U.S. government,
even the Sharon government, brash as it is, could carry out
the assassination of a Hamas leader without some support at
the highest levels in Washington. This is particularly clear
in that it took place on the eve of a visit by an important
U.S. delegation to initiate a new phase of U.S. diplomacy,
calculated to placate the European imperialists and the Arab
regimes.
This is the first time that the Israelis have launched such
a massive military retaliation without the U.S. president
calling for "restraint" on both sides. It is always possible
that Bush will get around to it, if things go too far. But
enough damage has already been done. It took Bush almost a
whole day before he spoke on the Israeli attack. But when he
did, he clearly came down on the side of those who wanted
the delegation to fail.
On the Dec. 2 Sunday NBC talk show Meet the Press, Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked by Tim Russert, "Do you
think Yasser Arafat is a terrorist?"
Rumsfeld replied: "I think that Yasser Arafat has-it's not
for me to characterize him, but if one looks historically,
he has been involved in terrorist activities. We all know
that. That's been his background. "
This is the line of Ariel Sharon. Now, according to the Bush
doctrine and applied by Rumsfeld, Arafat is an enemy-a
"terrorist."
But Rumsfeld, who represents the right wing in the Pentagon
and is in the faction that is pushing for war on Iraq, was
also asked by Russert, "Will we insist, demand, that Saddam
Hussein allow in the United Nations inspectors to find out
just how developed his biological, chemical and perhaps
nuclear weapons systems are?"
Russert was mouthing Bush's most recent demands for weapons
inspectors to reenter Iraq, which the president had
enunciated in his Rose Garden interview the previous week.
Rumsfeld replied: "Now that's a call the president and the
secretary of state are going to have to consider. The
reality is that we had inspectors in Iraq for many years,
and we didn't find much."
In short, Rumsfeld does not think much of Bush's demanding
inspectors in Iraq. He did not pick up on the president's
demand at all. His grouping, including Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and a large grouping of former
military and government officials, consider the struggle for
inspections as a potential diplomatic morass which would
only slow the momentum towards war.
It is this grouping that is growing in strength and feeding
off the war against Afghanistan. Their mentality about the
world at large now happens to overlap with the mentality of
the right wing in Israel, making this offensive against the
Palestinian people possible for Sharon.
The attacks on the Palestinians--even if the Israelis are
forced to pull back eventually--are being supported by the
Bush administration for the moment as part of the renewed
struggle to build a New World Order where all forms of
resistance to imperialism and oppression are considered
"terrorism."
- END -
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