(apologies for ATNTF not going out last week - I was away from work) This weeks stories: Blood Is Thicker Than George Bush...Weapons of Mass Destruction Found In Iraq...
An American writer in the London Times has described the Iraq war as "almost bloodless". The civilan death toll from the war is estimated at at least 6000 - more than twice the amount of people that died in the bombing of the World Trade Centre. Job seekers are being instructed to take jobs as prostitutes by the government's Job Network. The Brisbane branch of the Job Network is also making job seekers fill out a questionnaire, showing pictures of four men including one hippie and one with darker skin. Job seekers are asked who would be more likely to use drugs and who they wouldn't like their sister to marry among other questions. The service recently offered a 56 year old woman with bad eyesight and arthritis a job as an Army combat medic, a 62 year old a job as a junior, and a 27 year old man a job as a female prostitute. (Herald Sun, August 15). American pilots dropped napalm on Iraqi troops during the war. Marine pilots and commanders confirmed that they used an upgraded version of the weapon. They said napalm was used because of its psychological effect on an enemy. A 1980 United Nations convention banned the use against civilian targets of napalm, a mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks to skin as it burns. The US, which did not sign the treaty, is one of the few countries that makes use of the weapon. The upgraded weapon, which uses kerosene rather than petrol, was used in March and April, when dozens of napalm bombs were dropped near bridges south of Baghdad. "We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches," said Colonel James Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11. "Unfortunately there were people there...you could see them in the [cockpit] video. They were Iraqi soldiers. It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect." A reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald who witnessed another napalm attack on March 21 on an Iraqi observation post at Safwan Hill, close to the Kuwaiti border, wrote the following day: "Safwan Hill went up in a huge fireball and the observation post was obliterated. 'I pity anyone who is in there, a Marine sergeant said. We told them to surrender."' At the time, the Pentagon insisted the report was untrue. "We completed destruction of our last batch of napalm on April 4, 2001," it said. The Pentagon denied lying. It drew a distinction between traditional napalm, first invented in 1942, and the weapons dropped in Iraq, which it calls Mark 77 firebombs. (New Zealand Herald, August 11). The Victorian Ombudsman will investigate a number of complaints, some of them serious, about the behaviour of tram inspectors on Victoria's privatised transport system. Despite having the power to arrest travellers, inspectors receive only one week's training from the government, as well as some training by their employers. Chris Field from the Consumer Law Centre said that inspectors routinely break the law, for example by forcing travellers to show identification and demanding proof of ability to pay. Union secretary Lou Di Gregorio said that private transport companies pressure inspectors into treating the public like criminals. Mr Di Gregorio said that inspectors had no incentive to help the public, and inspectors who failed to issue enough infringement notices were asked "what have you been doing all day?". (Melbourne Times, August 13). A former Liberal Party branch president has described Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's fundraising capacity as a "loaves and fishes phenomenon". Clive Troy has made a submission to the Senate committee investigating the Minister's use of his discretion in migration matters. Mr Troy was president of the Liberal Party's Normanhurst branch, covering Mr Ruddock's seat of Berowra. He says Mr Ruddock boasted about being a "very effective fundraiser" and while the branch was always short of money, at election time Mr Ruddock had enough to spare to support other electorates. Mr Troy says he attempted to understand those unexplained funds by asking to see the relevant financial records but they were never available. He has told the committee he understands some sizeable donations collected more recently did not go through the local books but went to an account called the Millennium Fund, which raised more than $100,000 for each of the last three federal elections. (ABC news website, August 20). Indonesia's special forces, Kopassus, will receive training from the Australian military. Kopassus has been linked to several human rights abuses. Alan Dupont from the Australian National University justified the links with Kopassus on the grounds that "no one denies Kopassus' record, but the [Indonesian] police are hardly paragons of virtue". (The Age, August 16). Quotes of the Week: "We make programs for the people we fly over". Television executive, quoted by Andrew Dention. "Ordinarily, our boats patrolled Vietnam's rivers in pairs. But on this night we had several teams operating together as we launched the Pentagon's latest ingenious scheme for winning the war in the Mekong Delta. The concept was simple enough: instead of surprising people with conventional gunfire during raids, the boats would first set the houses and buildings on fire with bows and arrows. The brass called this early version of 'shock and awe' Operation Flaming Arrow. Of course, the flimsy huts burned like matchbooks, leaving the families homeless and destitute. The next day, civil action teams of GIs would arrive bearing sheets of corrugated tin for new roofs and bags of rice to help the villagers get started again. There would also be bars of Dial soap and clothing from church groups in the states. I remember a particular time when, with the fires still smoldering in the stultifying heat of a Delta morning, the teams distributed boxes of heavy sweaters. I'm sure the church folks back home felt good about their gifts. But we shared with the villagers a sense of absolute mystification at a policy that would burn down people's homes in the middle of the night, then give them tin and soap and sweaters to rebuild their lives. Our government called it 'pacification'. We called it madness. It all has come back to me while watching the news from Iraq, where we should be applying more of the lessons so painfully learned in Vietnam. Instead, we seem to be repeating our mistakes. What I remember most from those nights are the faces - and the eyes. The children would be terrified, but also oddly fascinated in that way that kids have. The mothers, beyond ordinary fear, would be wildly angry, often unleashing a flood of invective that, of course, none of the Americans could specifically understand because no one spoke the language. The old widows - there seemed to be one in every hut - would look at you with the cold, dead eyes of people who had been violated forever and seemed to expect always to suffer. But mostly I remember the men, who, if they hadn't slipped away when the mess began, would be taken by the American troops for interrogation. Usually, several young soldiers would throw the man down while yelling the few Vietnamese phrases they knew. At least one would hold a rifle to his head. Another might stand on his neck. His hands would be bound behind his back. He would be wrenched up into a kneeling position. Many times he would be blindfolded. Eventually a 'pacification' team member would come along and question the man in Vietnamese. He would be asked to show his papers - documents which, more often than not, had been lost in the fire. He would be yelled at, cursed at, and sometimes spit on. Many times he would be kicked and punched. Those lucky enough to have the right kind of documents and otherwise convince the Americans of their innocence (of what?), would be released. Then you would see it. In the eyes. The clean, white fury of men who have been reduced to abject humiliation and powerlessness in front of their families. The hatred in their eyes would be as pure as any you would ever see. It would last forever. You would never forget it. I saw those eyes again the other day on the evening news. A group of young American soldiers, sent by their government to go house to house in a sweltering Baghdad suburb, had kicked in a door and rousted a family. The children were terrified, crying. The mother was furious, screaming. The eyes of the GIs were filled with confusion and shame at what they were being made to do by their government. And the father, down on the ground in front of his house with a kid from Arkansas or Detroit or California standing on his neck, showed in his eyes the kind of white-hot hatred that will take a thousand years to extinguish". Former US Naval officer James L. Larocca. 1. Before (or during) your next meeting, seminar, or conference call, prepare yourself by drawing a square. I find that 5"x 5" is a good size. Divide the square into rows & columns, five across and five down. That will give you 25 one inch blocks. 2. Write one of the following words/phrases in each block: * synergy * strategic fit * core competencies * best practice * bottom line * revisit * take that off-line * 24/7 * out of the loop * benchmark * value-added * proactive * win-win * think outside the box * fast track * result-driven * empower (or empowerment) * knowledge base * at the end of the day * touch base * mindset * client focus(ed) * paradigm * game plan * leverage 3. Check off the appropriate block when you hear one of those words/phrases. 4. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout "BULLSHIT!" anarchist news service write to James, PO Box 503, Newtown NSW 2042 or email [EMAIL PROTECTED] contact us to get ATNTF emailed directly to you. If you like All the News That Fits, forward it on to people or lists who might be interested in it, or post it on your local Indymedia: http://www.indymedia.org. Some other Australian anarchist contacts: Love and Rage is an anarchist, non-profit record label. Our CD is available by mail order. 20 songs for $10 within Australia, $15 in New Zealand, $10 in the USA, $10 in Canada, 5 pounds in Britain, or 10 euros in the rest of Europe. Other countries, or enquiries from shops and distroes, email us and ask. Address for orders is PO Box 1191, Richmond North VIC 3121 (Australia). Please make cheques or money orders out to J. Hutchings. http://www.loveandrage.rocks.it http://www.angry.at/thegovernment - anarchist website with fliers for download, contacts etc. http://www.angry.at/racists - Anarchist/anti-racist music site with free mp3s, Real Audio, Real Video, internet radio, band interviews etc. Also includes the text of 'Escape', an anarchist novel - http://www.geocities.com/skipnewborn/novel.doc http://www.dolearmy.org - information for unemployed people. http://www.activate.8m.com - anarchist magazine aimed at teenagers. All the News That Fits appears in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review (http://www.vicnet.net.au/~anarch - PO Box 20 Parkville VIC 3052) and The Ham (http://www.theham.cat.org.au). Media outlets mentioned in All the News That Fits are sources - items are not direct quotes from news media. Background information may have been gathered from sources in addition to media outlets cited. Where no source is cited, the information has been gathered from direct sources. . -- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
