Re: 535 members of Congress and ...
I'm sorry but I cannot make too much of that. I remember the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. How many had sons or daughters in the armed forces then? I know Senator Al Gore would have, eventually, but then so would Rep. George H.W. Bush. Scott Gassler At 19:40 18/03/03 -0500, Paul Zarembka wrote: 5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only one (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces!... [Michael Moore at www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15406 ] Paul Z. *** Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists, Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
Re: Re: war and the economy
Third Wordism has died and one has to think in terms of modern Marxism. how are the two incompatible, the recent divisions on the expropriations of the colonies i.e. iraq, nuclear notwithstanding the allies could jump at each others throat. talk of ultra imprealism in the age of globalisation leads nowhere. lenin's other proposition on the political aspect of imperialism holds with slight modifications. with the evolution of fluidity in financial capital, capitalismremains closely wedded to nationalismat least for the moment. capital has a home to die for.Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
The Kurds Turks the pressures re Iraq
http://harikumar.brinkster.net/AllianceIssues/CLOUD.htm
Re: Re: quiet... too quiet
On Tuesday, March 18, 2003 at 19:34:07 (-0800) Devine, James writes: ... In any event, it's for the Iraqi people to overthrow their dictator. It's not _our_ job. It is our responsibility to help them in any way they see fit, if we helped put him there and supported him, is it not? Bill
Re: Re: Saddam's apparatus of terror will shatter the whole world view of the left
Chris Burford wrote: Even now, it is vital to support all non coercive, non-military and fundamentally democratic measures for stabilising Iraq. Whatever happened to the principle of self-determination? Do other countries have the right to stabilize the USA? There should be no military occupation of Kurdistan. There should be no rush into Baghdad if Saddam leaves, and no encouragement for revolution against members of the Baath socialist party. We should demand consultative forums about a transition to forms of bourgeois democracy. Who is we? PEN-L? The British peace movement? Your former comrades who work for Tony Blair? US, and British troops to keep out of population centres. A very bold proposal. Why not keep the fuck out of all of Iraq. (If only to minimise the risk of clashes, bitterness, and further terrorist attacks against the hegemons. I don't know. I might relish a terrorist attack or two against the hegemons. Like a well-placed bomb under a hotel filled with CNN journalists, liberal imperialist NGO's and other buzzards hovering over the carcass of Iraq. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
RE: Re: Saddam's apparatus of terror will shatterthe whole world view of the left
I agree. When I was an undergraduate in San Diego, living on my own and making $2.50 and hour as a laboratory assistant, I gave half my income to support a haven for anti-war soldiers. Later in Berkeley, I worked with MDM (movement for a democratic military). In all the anti-draft and anti-war meetings and demonstrations that I attended I never heard derogatory statements made about individual inductees, solders or /Vietnam Vets or saw actions against them. Vietnam Vets were ostracised by those in power who were in denial about the terrible price of that war on those forced to kill against their conscience and interests. In San Diego I heard dozens of agonizing stories from G.I.s before Seymour Hersh broke his story. -Original Message- From: Carrol Cox [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 11:48 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:35728] Re: Saddam's apparatus of terror will shatterthe whole world view of the left Ian Murray wrote: It's true that anti-war movements have sometimes made the mistake of failing to support troops exposed to danger. The treatment of US soldiers returning from duty in Vietnam - often ostracised as if personally responsible for that tragedy - is a shaming example. THis is a fucking lie that has been exposed over and over again and still it keeps popping up. It was popularized by that slimeball Greene who used to write for the Tribune until he got himself in some sexual scandal or other and got bounced. People risked their lives in places like El Paso Texas maintaining coffee shops for soldiers en route to Vietnam -- and now shit like this Jonathan Freedland 40 years later passes on this bullshit. Assholes. Don't people know a damn thing any more about what actually went on in the '60s. Carrol
Rimbaud on War
These two poems by Arthur Rimbaud, written between 1869 and 1871 when he was about 16 years old, are worth reading as we march off to war. The phrase scarlet or green in the first poem refers to the French troops (scarlet) or German (green) who were sacrificed by their leaders during the Franco-Prussian war, which ended in January of 1871. The second is one of his most famous poems, one that I read in college (in the original French, naturelment). The poems in English suffer what all translations do --- trying to fit a square peg in a round hole --- but they are fairly good renditions. If you can read French and have not yet read these, they are even more stunning in the original language of Rimbaud. Evil While the red mouths of machine-guns spit blood And whistle non-stop in the endless blue, While --- scarlet or green beside their sneering king --- Massed battalions are blown to bits, While nightmare madness stacks A million men on smoking heaps --- You poor beggars, dead in summer's grass, In your joy, Nature, maker of these saintly men. There is a God, who laughs at patterned Altar-cloths, incense, great gold chalices, Who's lulled to sleep by Hosannas, And Who wakes when mothers, huddled In the black of grief, tie a small coin In their handkerchief, and give it Him. Asleep in the Valley A gully of green, a laughing river Where silver tatters snag Madly in grasses; where, from the proud Mountain the sun shines; foaming trough of light. A young soldier, mouth open, head bare, Neck on a pillow of cool cress, Sleeps, stretched out in the grass, sky above, Pale on his green bed where light teems down. Feet among the flags, he sleeps, smiling how A sick child might; he takes a nap. Gather him close, Nature, rock him. He's cold. No scent makes his nostril quiver. He sleeps in the sun, one hand on his still Chest. In his right side, two red holes. If you'd like a visual image to go along with the second poem, see this: http://www.zopyra.com/~rael/ledormeur.jpg Bill
RE: Re: Re: quiet... too quiet
Title: RE: [PEN-L:35742] Re: Re: quiet... too quiet We should help the Iraqi people as they see fit (within reason, of course). One thing that would help is regime change in the US. JD -Original Message- From: Bill Lear To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 3/19/2003 4:32 AM Subject: [PEN-L:35742] Re: Re: quiet... too quiet On Tuesday, March 18, 2003 at 19:34:07 (-0800) Devine, James writes: ... In any event, it's for the Iraqi people to overthrow their dictator. It's not _our_ job. It is our responsibility to help them in any way they see fit, if we helped put him there and supported him, is it not? Bill
RE: Re: Saddam's apparatus of terror will shatter the whole world view of the left
Below I give some links to a few articles from the first Gulf War in 1991 that raise issues that are coming up again on this thread with respect to the present Gulf War. They oppose the chauvinist slogan of support our troops, with which the flag-waving forces pretend to be concerned for the plight of ordinary soldiers (naturally, only their own soldiers, not those of the enemy). But they combine this opposition with class sympathy for the plight of the oppressed cannon fodder from the working masses which comprises the bulk of the armed forces, both here and in Iraq, and with support for the GI resistance that developed in the Gulf War. * On the slogan 'support our troops' * Who really spat on Viet Nam GIs? * More on the slogan Support our troops All three of the above at www.communistvoice.org/WA9102Support.html * On GI resistance anti-war work during the first Gulf war, part two of a reply to criticisms of the anti-war agitation of the Workers' Advocate (this article contains a detailed exposition of some basic points of communist anti-war work) This is at www.communistvoice.org/05cSupport.html --Joseph Green [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: quiet... too quiet
We should help the Iraqi people as they see fit (within reason, of course). One thing that would help is regime change in the US. JD We need help more badly than anyone else does, with a possible exception of Israelis. There is no nation whose left-wing ideas and institutions are in sorrier shape than the USA's. -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/
Re: Zizek's latest
From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] In any case, I urge one and all to read Zizek's essay, if for no other reason, than ... ... it helps to kill time while waiting for this goddamned war to begin. Carl _ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Re: war and the economy
From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Has any member of Congress spoken up against this war? I saw Daschle's comment where he started out strong, condeming the bastard's lack of diplomacy, but then he said support the troops. [Even Daschle's guarded comments were enough to get him branded a virtual traitor by Speaker of the House Hastert:] House Leader Hastert Blasts Sen. Daschle Remarks Tue March 18, 2003 01:05 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican speaker of the House of Representatives accused Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle on Tuesday of coming mighty close to giving comfort to U.S. foes and undermining President Bush's march toward war with Iraq. Rep. Dennis Hastert of Illinois ripped into Daschle for saying on Monday: I'm saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war. Daschle made the remarks after Bush decided to give up on diplomacy in his showdown with Saddam Hussein and instead give the Iraqi leader 48 hours to leave his country or face war. I was disappointed to see Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's comments, Hastert said in a statement. Those comments may not undermine the president as he leads us into war, and they may not give comfort to our adversaries, but they come mighty close, Hastert said. ... http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNewsstoryID=2401283 Carl _ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
Legality of Iraq war
There seem to be many discussions of this. Ad nauseam one hears that there are good arguments on both sides of the issue. Some Prof from Duke just said this on CBC radio and our defence minister takes the same position. Of course there arguments on both sides but the pro legality side has quite weak arguments and ignores key aspects of resolution such as1441 that left the UN siezed of the issue and specifically used the term serious consequences' for material breaches rather than the use of force. As Negroponte clarified when France and others worried about automaticity there was none and there was no hair trigger. Well now it seems there is! If international law were not simply a fig leaf for great power actions France and the US could simply ask the International Court of Justice for an interpretation on the issue. I havent seen ONE source anywhere suggest this? Why is that? Or even awareness that this is an option. CHeers, Ken Hanly
Re: how about a digest?
you can read the list on the web and still post. On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 12:09:17AM -0500, Lisa wrote: Ok, if it is so darn hard to unsubscribe me, can I just have my pen-l mail condensed or something? Maybe pre-digested? That way, instead of getting mucked up in the email, I can get on with more important things...like shopping at the gap. Lisa -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pre-emptive war before the deadline
* U.S. 'NO-FLY' PATROLS HIT AIR DEFENCES HARD by Bradley Graham Gulf News, from Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service, 10th March Washington: The commander of U.S. air forces in the Gulf said Saturday that several months of intensified U.S. airstrikes had hit all fixed air defences in southern Iraq known to American officials. But he added that mobile anti-aircraft guns and missiles remained a threat to U.S. pilots. We've killed what we know is there, Air Force Lt. Gen. T. Michael Buzz Moseley said. But they have a lot of depth in mobile systems that they can continue to roll into the south. The mobile systems are the ones I worry about the most. The arrival of hundreds of additional Air Force and Navy carrier-based aircraft in the region in the past two months has enabled the United States to more than double the number of sorties over southern Iraq. This in turn has led to wider and more frequent coverage of the southern no-fly zone, Moseley said. More than 400 U.S. planes are now operating from about 30 locations in the Gulf and elsewhere, according to other officials. In the past month, U.S. pilots have struck from seven to 14 targets in Iraq a week. But Moseley said patrols are still not being flown 24 hours a day, and Iraqi forces continue to shoot at U.S. aircraft. Since passage of UN Security Council resolution 1441 in early November, which gave Iraq one more chance to disarm, Iraqi forces have fired more than 200 anti-aircraft artillery shells and more than 100 missiles at U.S. and British warplanes patrolling the southern zone, Moseley said. They're moving stuff around, they're enhancing the no-fly zone and they're a continual threat to my pilots and crews, the general said. Sometimes they shoot at us 10 or 11 or 12 times during an operation. As commander of the 9th Air Force and the air component commander for the U.S. Central Command, Moseley would direct the air campaign in a war against Iraq. His remarks in a telephone interview were intended to portray the intensification of U.S. airstrikes against Iraq as still essentially an enforcement action prompted by a rise in Iraqi attacks in violation of UN resolutions. But the increasingly aggressive U.S. targeting in the southern and northern no-fly zones established a decade ago has been widely seen as reflecting an American plan for the systematic destruction of Iraqi air defences and, more recently, surface-to-surface missiles in a fashion that will ease the way for an invasion. The surge in sorties, which now number in the hundreds daily and reached a record 1,000 one day last week has transformed what was once a limited patrolling operation into a broader, more intense prelude to possible full-scale war. The first sign of the widened campaign came last September when Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld disclosed that he had directed commanders to focus retaliatory strikes not just on Iraqi radar and missile systems but also on air defence communications centres, command posts and cable relay sites to eliminate all elements of Iraq's air defence network in the no fly zones. Lately, the strikes have also included surface-to-surface missiles, which Iraq has moved into the southern zone within range of Kuwait, the key staging area for the bulk of U.S. ground forces massing in the region. Such weapons, which include Ababil-100 missiles, Frog-7 rockets and Astros-2 multiple rocket launchers, have also been shifted north of Baghdad presumably to attack American or Kurdish forces coming from that direction, according to defence officials. http://www.ccmep.org/usbombingwatch/2003.htm#3/9/03
What if the Inspectors stayed?
I know nothing about the TFF but the article makes a point that puzzled me for ten seconds until I remembered that after all the UN is simply a forum for the big boys to sort things out. When they cant, it has no role, at least not on issues such as this. Cheers, Ken Hanly http://www.transnational.org/pressinf/2003/pf177_Did_Annan_miss.html Did Kofi Annan miss an opportunity to stop the war? PressInfo # 177 March 18, 2003 By Jan Oberg, TFF dirctor and Hans von Sponeck, TFF Associate Yesterday Washington recommended that the inspectors from IAEA and UNMOVIC as well as all UN humanitarian staff, UNOHCI, leave Iraq as soon as possible. The UN mission in the demilitarised zone on the border between Kuwait and Iraq (UNIKOM) was already evacuating. These missions are UN missions. They are in Iraq because of a Security Council decision. They are there to help bring about peace by peaceful means and to help the citizens of Iraq. After a short Security Council meeting behind closed doors, Secretary-General Kofi Annan informs the world that these missions have been ordered to evacuate. Thus, it seems that one member issues an ultimatum recommendation and the UN obeys and leaves the Iraqi people behind to be intimidated, humiliated, killed, wounded and, in a few weeks, starve. Article 99 of the UN Charter states that the S-G may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security. Is that not exactly what the US ultimatum did - threatening Iraq and threatening the world organisation in Iraq? Article 100 of the UN Charter states that in the performance of their duties the Secretary-General and the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any government... Well, of course, it was not termed an instruction, it was a recommendation. But what the Secreatary-General did on March 17, 2003 was to accept an instruction. In this context we would like to refer to an article How Kofi Annan Can Stop the War by Paul F. deLespinasse.* Here is the gist of professor deLespinasse's proposal: The situation provides an interesting opportunity for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. If the U.S. issues the expected warning, he can and should announce that the U.S. has no authority to evict the inspectors, who are United Nations employees. Furthermore, Annan can say that he will not withdraw the inspectors from Iraq unless he is ordered to do so by the U.N. Security Council or the inspectors report that they are not being allowed to do their job. Any effort to get the Security Council to order the inspectors out under current circumstances would undoubtedly fail, and if by some miracle it did get the needed nine votes it would certainly be vetoed by France, Russia, or China. Such an announcement by the Secretary-General would have three very beneficial consequences. First, it is unlikely that President Bush and his advisors would proceed with an attack, which would be a public relations nightmare as long as the inspectors are still in Iraq. Second, the announcement would not undermine the work of the inspectors, but could even increase their clout, and that of the Secretary General, vis-à-vis Saddam Hussein. As long as they remain, the inspectors would protect Iraq from an American attack, but if not given carte blanche to do their work they will leave. Third, the announcement would become a precedent for greatly enhanced power to be exercised by the Secretary General of the United Nations. This person is the closest thing we have to a chief executive for the world, and he is in a position from which it is natural to consider the welfare of the people of the world as a whole. We wonder how it was possible for one member state to get the UN, all its immensely important missions, ordered out of the place in a matter of hours? We wonder whether the Secretary-General could not have shown more perseverance in defence of the organisation that is so important for the world and for the people of Iraq? With this potential window for peace closed, could Pope John Paul, the Non-Aligned Movement, NAM, or members of the Security Council give peace a last chance and call a General Assembly meeting. It would revive the principles underlying the Uniting for Peace resolution. And it would give a high-level democratic voice to we the peoples who are sad, angry and frightened at the prospect of a war-cum-massacre at innocent millions of fellow-human beings. *) deLespinasse is professor emeritus of political science at Adrian College in Michigan and can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] © TFF 2003 ___
Re: Zizek's latest
An article titled THE IRAQ WAR: WHERE IS THE TRUE DANGER? by the Freudian radical Slavoj Zizek just showed up at: http://www.lacan.com/iraq.htm snip One can surmise that the US are well aware that the era of Saddam and his non-fundamentalist regime is coming to an end in Iraq, and that the attack on Iraq is probably conceived as a much more radical preemptive strike - not against Saddam, but against the main contender for Saddam's political successor, a truly fundamentalist Islamic regime. One can also surmise that the USG was well aware that the era of theocracy is coming to an end in Iran. Having captured Afghanistan, and now conquering Iraq, it will be soon in a position to invade Iran from both east and west, crushing any secular democratic state in Iran, if one arises and acquires a left-wing character. -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/
RE: Re: Zizek's latest
Title: RE: [PEN-L:35757] Re: Zizek's latest Yoshie writes: One can also surmise that the USG was well aware that the era of theocracy is coming to an end in Iran. Having captured Afghanistan, and now conquering Iraq, it will be soon in a position to invade Iran from both east and west, crushing any secular democratic state in Iran, if one arises and acquires a left-wing character. at the same time, the era of theocracy is starting in the US, with a president who invokes his god if there's a hat dropping anywhere in the world, faith-based initiatives, and the wrecking of government schools (etc.) so that religious groups have to step in to fill the gap... hopefully, the non-evangelicals will counteract the fundies... BTW, I wish that people wouldn't attack this fellow Zizek as a way to attack other people on pen-l. This Aesopian way of writing produces such bizarre events as when I criticized Stalin a month or so ago and discovered that a pen-ler interpreted this as an attack on _him_! It also encourages me to read Zizek, to see what the hullabaloo is about. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine stop the war now!
Spitting Image
Title: Spitting Image Marty Hart-Landsberg writes: This issue has been dealt with in an excellent book by Jerry Lembcke entitled the Spitting Image. In this book he examines the origins of the myth of vietnam vets being spat upon. He followed up every charge and could find no substantiation. He writes about the development of the myth and the way it was promoted, years after the end of the war, in movies, etc. Apparently most of the claims of being spat upon involve a hippie girl doing the spitting. Jerry finds that this is a familiar theme in other countries where the military has lost battles. Even if one hippie girl really did spit upon a returning soldier (so that the urban myth is true), it's _very_ far from being representative of the anti-war movement. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: RE: Re: Re: quiet... too quiet
While adamant opposition to war remains correct, the left would be in a better position (politically and ethically) if it had consistently supported constructive initiatives on human rights. The suppression of hundreds of millions of people under absolute despotisms, and the oppression of minorities everywhere, are burning issues, and denouncing them is not an adequate response. Just as we organize against war, we should be organizing for institutions to defend human rights. I for one do not think of the International Criminal Court as a distraction or pointless bit of bourgeois puffery. It is far too restricted in scope, of course, but it's our job to put forward a vision of a genuine international human rights court of appeal. Similarly, the international solidarity movement is a prototype of an international peace force -- third parties who could provide on-the-ground protection for people at extreme risk. It should not just be well-healed youth from the richer countries who do this; we need a global fund to finance human rights intervention work by people from third world and low income communities too. These are all elements of the other world that is said to be possible. The big obstacle to overcome on the left is, to put it very bluntly, nationalism. The idea that national sovereignty is a higher principle than human rights has widespread currency, but to me it is a great mistake. Whenever the left has chosen nationalism over internationalism, it has ended in disaster. Nationalism is a bad idea not just for the powerful countries, but also for the dominated. It presents itself as a defender of human and economic rights, but it tramples these rights in order to save them. If we buy into the dichotomy between imperialism and nationalism, we lose. Our chose is between either of those and international solidarity. Sorry for the lecture, but recent events have put me into a soapbox mode. Peter Devine, James wrote: We should help the Iraqi people as they see fit (within reason, of course). One thing that would help is regime change in the US. JD -Original Message- From: Bill Lear To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 3/19/2003 4:32 AM Subject: [PEN-L:35742] Re: Re: quiet... too quiet On Tuesday, March 18, 2003 at 19:34:07 (-0800) Devine, James writes: ... In any event, it's for the Iraqi people to overthrow their dictator. It's not _our_ job. It is our responsibility to help them in any way they see fit, if we helped put him there and supported him, is it not? Bill
Re: quiet... too quiet
At 9:25 AM -0800 3/19/03, Peter Dorman wrote: The big obstacle to overcome on the left is, to put it very bluntly, nationalism. No, sir, the big obstacle in the USA is lack of money and manpower at the disposal of leftists, as well as lack of a powerful challenge to US imperialism. For better or worse, US leftists have had little impacts on nationalism or lack thereof in other nations. -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/
Re: RE: Re: Zizek's latest
I hope that Jim's suspicion is wrong here. On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 09:03:16AM -0800, Devine, James wrote: BTW, I wish that people wouldn't attack this fellow Zizek as a way to attack other people on pen-l. This Aesopian way of writing produces such bizarre events as when I criticized Stalin a month or so ago and discovered that a pen-ler interpreted this as an attack on _him_! -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: 535 members of Congress and ...
Isn't it the point that BOTH in Vietnam and now, the Congress didn't have family and friends in the enlisted ranks? Gene Coyle Robert Scott Gassler wrote: I'm sorry but I cannot make too much of that. I remember the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. How many had sons or daughters in the armed forces then? I know Senator Al Gore would have, eventually, but then so would Rep. George H.W. Bush. Scott Gassler At 19:40 18/03/03 -0500, Paul Zarembka wrote: 5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only one (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces!... [Michael Moore at www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15406 ] Paul Z. *** Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists, Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
Re: RE: Re: Zizek's latest
Devine, James wrote: BTW, I wish that people wouldn't attack this fellow Zizek as a way to attack other people on pen-l. This Aesopian way of writing produces such bizarre events as when I criticized Stalin a month or so ago and discovered that a pen-ler interpreted this as an attack on _him_! I don't attack other people. I attack ideas. When I told you that I resented Stalin being dragged by the moustache into your replies to me, it was because I regarded it as a false amalgam. In any case, since Henwood has said dozens of times on this list and others that he has killfiled me, I didn't think it would hurt to comment on a very public figure. Obviously I was wrong and I will resort to my previously announced policy of avoiding critical remarks directed against Michael Hardt, Toni Negri, Slajov Zizek, Marc Cooper, Judith Butler, Pierre Bourdieu, the Rethinking Marxism school, or anybody else that Henwood favors just to keep the peace. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
In Honor of the Gulf War Resisters
* Copyright © 2001 by Against the Current The Greatest Gulf War Heroes: In Honor of Our Resisters by Betsy Esch Airplanes don't fly, tanks don't run, ships don't sail, missiles don't fire unless the sons and daughters of Americans make them do it. It's just that simple. -- General Norman Schwarzkopf, West Point, 1991 ...When Clarence Davis was nineteen years old a judge gave him a choice: Go to jail or enlist. Having spent the better part of his childhood in and out of a variety of juvenile homes, Davis opted for the Marines. It was peacetime, the Cold War was over, the threat of communism had been exterminated and, besides, he already knew what jail was like. The Marines at least represented the possibility of skills, money and mobility. Less than six months later, in August, 1990 the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait and the United States began preparations for the tragedy that would come to be known by some as Operation Desert Storm. Just five months after that, Davis was among the first 500,000 U.S. troops deployed to the Persian Gulf.3 After arriving in Saudi Arabia, Davis decided he would not participate in the allied campaign against Iraq. In a letter he wrote, I can never support the same country or thought that killed millions of Native Americans, Vietnamese, Japanese, Africans, Iraqis, Panamanians etc. I can never support the same thought that does not include me in the Constitution that I supposedly enlisted to uphold and defendI am not a Muslim but another reason for my refusal to fight came from the immorality of killing a Muslim brother or sister. Davis turned himself in to his Commanding Officer; at that time he didn't even know he had the right to apply for Conscientious Objector (CO) status. Davis was immediately locked up and held in a military prison until his court martial, where he was found guilty of desertion and refusing to obey a direct order. Though military law requires that a civilian lawyer be made available to soldiers charged with military crimes, Davis was denied this right on the grounds that it was too expensive to fly someone in for the trial. About the court martial he wrote, Being scared was indeed the only prerequisiteimagine a full bird Colonel and three officers all telling you that you are facing death or a life of long hard labor and ain't nothing you can do about it. It was basically an experience that will never leave me. Some months later, Davis was returned to the States and sent to the brig at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, where all the Marine resisters were incarcerated. By January, 1991 more than 2500 people had applied for Conscientious Objector (CO) status. In spite of the Gulf War's popularity, more people applied for CO status during the build up and war than in any other four-month period in the century. Though ultimately less than ten percent of those applications would be accepted, the intervening months saw one act of courage after another from the resisters -- who faced far harsher treatment than those who refused to serve in Vietnam. In October, 1990 Army headquarters created a rule requiring that those who had applied for CO status be deployed even though the processing of their applications was incomplete. Even after Danny Gillis (who now goes by the name Kweisi Raghib Ehoize) had applied for CO status he was called up for active service. Ehoize refused to board the bus that would take his division to the air strip. While the families and friends of young soldiers being shipped out looked on, Ehoize was beaten by two white Marines who tried to force him on the bus. Though he had broken no laws, Ehoize was handcuffed and taken to the brig by the military police.4 In a blatant act of harassment, Jody Anderson, a Marine who aided Ehoize during the attack but who then did ship out to Saudi Arabia with the unit, was arrested after the war and charged with mutiny, inciting to riot, assaulting an officer and disobeying a direct order. All told, Anderson faced life imprisonment plus forty-four years, ultimately serving two years in prison.5 Between the end of the war in Vietnam and the Gulf War, numerous changes to military law and policy had been implemented to limit the spread of antiwar sentiment and make it harder for GIs to resist. Troop rotations, leaves and discharges were ended (many of those who refused during Vietnam did it while on leave or rotation); GIs stationed in Saudi Arabia were strictly isolated from the Saudi people (one of the acknowledged factors that contributed to the rise of antiwar sentiment among Americans in Vietnam is that they lived among the Vietnamese people). Policy included a refusal to acknowledge any resistance (reporters were regularly told that the rate of applications for CO status had not increased, though it had in fact multiplied exponentially); and the centralization of all imprisoned resisters at Camp Lejeune
More polls
Negative Views of U.S. Are Increasing in Europe, Poll Finds By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS and MARJORIE CONNELLY The New York Times WASHINGTON, March 19 As the Bush administration drives toward war in Iraq (news - web sites), resentment and hostility are building toward America in general and Mr. Bush in particular, a new poll has found. Most of America's major European allies and Russia view the United States unfavorably, and overwhelmingly disapprove of the way President Bush (news - web sites) is handling United States foreign policy, according to a nine-country survey released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The poll was conducted within the last week in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and the United States. In most instances, it offered a glimpse of hardening, increasingly negative views of the United States, as compared to surveys from last year and 2001. The survey lends empirical support to critics who say the Bush administration has squandered an outpouring of goodwill and sympathy among American allies and partners in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The nations asserted that American foreign policy has more of a negative effect on them than a positive one with only the British evenly divided. All of them opposed taking part in a war to end Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s rule, even though most believed that the Middle East would be more stable after an American-led invasion. Every nation surveyed wanted to recast the partnership between the United States and Western Europe to grant Europeans more independence in determining their security and foreign policy. The poll also underscored the extent to which the few governments allied with Washington, particularly Britain and Spain, are bucking the sentiments of their own people. Mr. Bush came in for special criticism from Europeans. Although his approval ratings have held steady at home, respondents across the Atlantic who viewed American policy negatively mostly blamed Mr. Bush, rather than a general problem with America. Overwhelming majorities disapprove of President Bush's foreign policy, and the boost in ratings he enjoyed post 9-11 in Western Europe has dissipated, said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew center. Western Europeans mostly see Bush as the problem, rather than America more generally. Most noticeably anti-Bush were the French, three-fourths of whom said the problems created by America were mostly Bush, while only a fraction 15 percent faulted America in general. Russia and Turkey were the only nations that were inclined to blame America in general rather than the president. The poll showed a serious disconnect between Americans and their traditional allies. While 59 percent of Americans supported a war to remove Saddam Hussein, only 39 percent of Britons and 13 percent of the Spanish favored military action. The survey demonstrated how anger and dismay toward America have intensified in recent months as the United States, seeking action against Baghdad, has clashed with members of the United Nations (news - web sites) Security Council. In Germany, for example, America's staunchest ally on the continent during the cold war, only 25 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of the United States, down from 61 percent last June. In France, where respondents last year held a 63 percent mostly favorable view of the United States, the number has fallen to 31 percent. Similarly, in Italy, the favorable opinions fell from 70 percent to 34 percent. Only two nations Poland and Britain held views toward America that were more favorable than not. But that support has sharply diminished over the past year. Poles, who have long embraced the United States because of family ties and as protection against stronger neighbors, held a view that was 79 percent favorable of the United States last year. The new poll places that positive view at only 50 percent. The erosion of support in Britain is perhaps the most troubling from the American perspective. Tony Blair (news - web sites), the British prime minister, has steadfastly stood by the Bush administration throughout the diplomatic wrangling and has committed troops to any invasion. But the British despite their claim of a special relationship with the United States, and their skepticism toward European integration nevertheless voice growing dislike of the United States and its foreign policy. Last year, 75 percent of Britons had a generally positive view of the United States. This year, that number plunged to 48 percent, while the negative views more than doubled. The United States did not fare any better with other partners in the anti-Iraq coalition. The Spanish, for example, held a 74 percent unfavorable opinion of the United States, and 79 percent of them opposed Mr. Bush's policies, even as that country's prime minister, José María Aznar, hews tightly to
FW: Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present
Title: FW: Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present some predictions about the war. From : Renee Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject : Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present Date : Tue, 18 Mar 2003 17:10:18 -0800 To my students: I told you so. Back in 1999 after looking at the sanctions program against Iraq and the NATO war against Yugoslavia, I made a few predictions to my students which I have reiterated each subsequent year. Those predictions were as follows: 1. The U.S. would invade Iraq. 2. The U.S. would project military power into the Caspian - Central Asia region. 3. The European Union would seek to dissociate itself from U.S. foreign policy and chart its own course. Why did I make these predictions and why have they come true? Foretelling a U.S. war against Iraq was fairly easy to do. The explanation is that the U.S. backed sanctions program was designed to destroy the country economically and militarily; in effect, it was a form of siege warfare designed to degrade the target (Iraq) making it much easier to conquer. Added to the sanctions program was the imposition of northern and southern no-fly zones which not only effectively denied to the Iraqi military the airspace over the country's northern and southern perimeters but also allowed the U.S. and UK air forces to bomb northern and southern Iraq to pieces on a regular basis. The U.S. thus softened up the invasion routes for the conquest of Iraq. In short, the coming war represents a continuation of the ongoing war against Iraq. It will be Phase III. Phase I was Desert Storm - kicking Iraq out of Kuwait. Not knowing how the Iraqi Army would perform on its home soil and not having a suitable replacement for Saddam Hussein, the U.S. began Phase II - siege warfare plus bombing to reduce Iraqi defenses while a replacement could be found for Hussein. This low intensity warfare has finally accomplished its task and now the necessary reasons for invasion have been trotted out to justify the war and occupation. But why invade Iraq?, the students asked. Answer: The Baath regime (which the U.S. helped come to power in 1963 by assisting its coup against a previous Iraqi government) no longer served as the compliant vassal of U.S. political economic interests in the region. The Baath's eventual leader, Saddam Hussein - like other U.S. protégés before him (Ngo Dinh Diem in Viet Nam, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Manuel Noreiga in Panama) developed illusions of autonomy and began to pursue policies inimical to the visions of Washington. In seeking to expand his role as a grand Arab leader free of U.S. constraints, Hussein crossed the line. His crimes which heretofore had been ignored were given wide airplay to shift public opinion against him. (When he was seen as an agent of U.S. policy, those crimes were conveniently ignored. One of my favorite pictures on my desk is the 1983 photo of Ronald Reagan's special Middle East envoy, Donald Rumsfeld - yes, that Rumsfeld! - shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad; soon thereafter, the U.S. began supplying biochem weapons to Iraq.) The occupation of Iraq will allow the U.S. to reassert control of the oil fields which had been contracted out to foreign competitors (France, Russia, and China) and also to position itself militarily on the western flank of Iran (the other part of the axis of evil). With this move, the U.S. will have Iran almost surrounded: American troops are on Iran's eastern flank in Afghanistan, southern flank with the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf, and western border in Iraq. With the Iraq threat erased after the removal of Hussein, watch the White House and media develop the new threat: Iran. This extension of U.S. military might throughout the Middle East/Persian Gulf region into Central Asia (the 'stans) is a process that extends back to the fall of the old American ally, the Shah of Iran, and the subsequent loss of Persian oilfields to U.S. control. Since 1980 the U.S. has built up its airlift and sealift capabilities in the region and developed new bases to pre-position itself for war. In 1997 the Army dropped 500 paratroopers into Kazakhstan to test its airlift capabilities for war in Central Asia and in 1999 took Central Asia out of the Pacific Command and put it into the Central Command which oversees the oil rich Middle East. This put the Central Asian countries (which abut the Caspian Sea and Iran) into the sphere of plans for Mideast warfare. New predictions: 1.The Iraqi oilfields will not be put in the hands of the Iraqi people; they will be privatized and awarded to appropriate corporate investors. 2.The French, Russians, and Chinese will lose their existing contracts to develop the Iraqi oilfields and Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, and British Petroleum will become the major players in Iraq. The rebuilding of the damaged oilfields will go to Vice-President Dick
Re: FW: Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present
Title: FW: Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present An interesting article who is Martin? Of course the New American Century People are also after Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Egypt and I forget the other ten...;) Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Devine, James To: Pen-l (E-mail) Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 2:52 PM Subject: [PEN-L:35768] FW: Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present some predictions about the war. From : Renee Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject : Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present Date : Tue, 18 Mar 2003 17:10:18 -0800 To my students: "I told you so." Back in 1999 after looking at the sanctions program against Iraq and the NATO war against Yugoslavia, I made a few predictions to my students which I have reiterated each subsequent year. Those predictions were as follows: 1. The U.S. would invade Iraq. 2. The U.S. would project military power into the Caspian - Central Asia region. 3. The European Union would seek to dissociate itself from U.S. foreign policy and chart its own course. Why did I make these predictions and why have they come true? Foretelling a U.S. war against Iraq was fairly easy to do. The explanation is that the U.S. backed sanctions program was designed to destroy the country economically and militarily; in effect, it was a form of siege warfare designed to degrade the target (Iraq) making it much easier to conquer. Added to the sanctions program was the imposition of northern and southern "no-fly" zones which not only effectively denied to the Iraqi military the airspace over the country's northern and southern perimeters but also allowed the U.S. and UK air forces to bomb northern and southern Iraq to pieces on a regular basis. The U.S. thus softened up the invasion routes for the conquest of Iraq. In short, the coming war represents a continuation of the ongoing war against Iraq. It will be Phase III. Phase I was Desert Storm - kicking Iraq out of Kuwait. Not knowing how the Iraqi Army would perform on its home soil and not having a suitable replacement for Saddam Hussein, the U.S. began Phase II - siege warfare plus bombing to reduce Iraqi defenses while a replacement could be found for Hussein. This low intensity warfare has finally accomplished its task and now the "necessary" reasons for invasion have been trotted out to justify the war and occupation. "But why invade Iraq?", the students asked. Answer: The Baath regime (which the U.S. helped come to power in 1963 by assisting its coup against a previous Iraqi government) no longer served as the compliant vassal of U.S. political economic interests in the region. The Baath's eventual leader, Saddam Hussein - like other U.S. protégés before him (Ngo Dinh Diem in Viet Nam, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Manuel Noreiga in Panama) developed illusions of autonomy and began to pursue policies inimical to the visions of Washington. In seeking to expand his role as a grand Arab leader free of U.S. constraints, Hussein "crossed the line". His crimes which heretofore had been ignored were given wide airplay to shift public opinion against him. (When he was seen as an agent of U.S. policy, those crimes were conveniently ignored. One of my favorite pictures on my desk is the 1983 photo of Ronald Reagan's special Middle East envoy, Donald Rumsfeld - yes, that Rumsfeld! - shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad; soon thereafter, the U.S. began supplying biochem weapons to Iraq.) The occupation of Iraq will allow the U.S. to reassert control of the oil fields which had been contracted out to foreign competitors (France, Russia, and China) and also to position itself militarily on the western flank of Iran (the other part of the "axis of evil"). With this move, the U.S. will have Iran almost surrounded: American troops are on Iran's eastern flank in Afghanistan, southern flank with the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf, and western border in Iraq. With the Iraq "threat" erased after the removal of Hussein, watch the White House and media develop the new "threat": Iran. This extension of U.S. military might throughout the Middle East/Persian Gulf region into Central Asia (the 'stans) is a process that extends back to the fall of the old American ally, the Shah of Iran, and the subsequent loss of Persian oilfields to U.S. control. Since 1980 the U.S. has built up its airlift and sealift capabilities in the region and developed new bases to pre-position itself for war. In 1997 the Army dropped 500 paratroopers into Kazakhstan to test its airlift capabilities for war in Central Asia and in 1999 took Central Asia out of the Pacific Command and put it into the Central Command which oversees the oil rich Middle East. This put
RE: Re: FW: Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present
Title: FW: Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present I don't know who Martin is. I simply forwarded it. BTW, a student told me that some CIA guy was on TV saying that Syria was next, in order to end that country's domination of Lebanon. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message-From: k hanly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 1:31 PMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: [PEN-L:35769] Re: FW: Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present An interesting article who is Martin? Of course the New American Century People are also after Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Egypt and I forget the other ten...;) Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Devine, James To: Pen-l (E-mail) Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 2:52 PM Subject: [PEN-L:35768] FW: Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present some predictions about the war. From : Renee Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject : Iraq War - Predictions Past and Present Date : Tue, 18 Mar 2003 17:10:18 -0800 To my students: "I told you so." Back in 1999 after looking at the sanctions program against Iraq and the NATO war against Yugoslavia, I made a few predictions to my students which I have reiterated each subsequent year. Those predictions were as follows: 1. The U.S. would invade Iraq. 2. The U.S. would project military power into the Caspian - Central Asia region. 3. The European Union would seek to dissociate itself from U.S. foreign policy and chart its own course. Why did I make these predictions and why have they come true? Foretelling a U.S. war against Iraq was fairly easy to do. The explanation is that the U.S. backed sanctions program was designed to destroy the country economically and militarily; in effect, it was a form of siege warfare designed to degrade the target (Iraq) making it much easier to conquer. Added to the sanctions program was the imposition of northern and southern "no-fly" zones which not only effectively denied to the Iraqi military the airspace over the country's northern and southern perimeters but also allowed the U.S. and UK air forces to bomb northern and southern Iraq to pieces on a regular basis. The U.S. thus softened up the invasion routes for the conquest of Iraq. In short, the coming war represents a continuation of the ongoing war against Iraq. It will be Phase III. Phase I was Desert Storm - kicking Iraq out of Kuwait. Not knowing how the Iraqi Army would perform on its home soil and not having a suitable replacement for Saddam Hussein, the U.S. began Phase II - siege warfare plus bombing to reduce Iraqi defenses while a replacement could be found for Hussein. This low intensity warfare has finally accomplished its task and now the "necessary" reasons for invasion have been trotted out to justify the war and occupation. "But why invade Iraq?", the students asked. Answer: The Baath regime (which the U.S. helped come to power in 1963 by assisting its coup against a previous Iraqi government) no longer served as the compliant vassal of U.S. political economic interests in the region. The Baath's eventual leader, Saddam Hussein - like other U.S. protégés before him (Ngo Dinh Diem in Viet Nam, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Manuel Noreiga in Panama) developed illusions of autonomy and began to pursue policies inimical to the visions of Washington. In seeking to expand his role as a grand Arab leader free of U.S. constraints, Hussein "crossed the line". His crimes which heretofore had been ignored were given wide airplay to shift public opinion against him. (When he was seen as an agent of U.S. policy, those crimes were conveniently ignored. One of my favorite pictures on my desk is the 1983 photo of Ronald Reagan's special Middle East envoy, Donald Rumsfeld - yes, that Rumsfeld! - shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad; soon thereafter, the U.S. began supplying biochem weapons to Iraq.) The occupation of Iraq will allow the U.S. to reassert control of the oil fields which had been contracted out to foreign competitors (France, Russia, and China) and also to position itself militarily on the western flank of Iran (the other part of the "axis of evil"). With this move, the U.S. will have Iran almost surrounded: American troops are on Iran's eastern flank in Afghanistan, southern flank with the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf, and western border in Iraq. With the Iraq "threat" erased after the removal of Hussein, watch the White House and media develop the new "threat": Iran. This extension of U.S. military might throughout the
Martin Feldstein??
I just received an e-mail from ECAAR about the antiwar petition that I and many of you signed. As I scanned the ad copy with the list of names, I was struck by the inclusion of Martin Feldstein. OK, it wasn't exactly Martin Feldstein but Martin Feldstei -- but then I was Peter Dorma. So is it true? Do I have to rethink my position? Peter
Re: Martin Feldstein??
Who is this Martin Feldstein? Sabri
Iraq: Oil wells are burning
Just read on Haberturk, a Turkish News Site, that oil wells in Iraq are on fire. The news piece said, details will follow soon. In the mean time here is an article from Houston Cronicle. Sabri + March 19, 2003, 10:59AM Saddam opens spigots on oil wells, reports say By DAVID IVANOVICH Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- With a U.S.-led assault perhaps just hours away, Saddam Hussein has opened the spigots on some of his country's oil wells, creating pools of crude that could be set ablaze, Pentagon and oil industry sources said today. Saddam's operatives also are believed to have tied plastic explosives packed against the wells to a small number of switches, those sources said. This would allow Saddam to detonate many wells simultaneously, and it could also help ensure that any order to blow up the wells is carried out. Some observers have questioned whether Iraqis would follow orders to torch the fields in their own country, as they did to the oil fields in Kuwait. A Pentagon source said the activity had been observed in at least the northern part of the country, where Iraq's huge Kirkuk oil-field is located. The Pentagon fears Saddam intends to destroy as many of the country's 1,500 oil wells as possible if the United States and Britain launch an invasion. U.S. and British military officials have been accusing Saddam's forces of planting explosives in Kirkuk, as well as in southern fields near Basra. Oil industry officials also have been hearing reports that Saddam has been replacing key oil field workers with supporters deemed more loyal to the Iraqi leader. The U.S. military is hoping to avoid any destruction to the oil fields, knowing the country's oil wealth will be critical to Iraq's future. To prepare for a possible conflagration, the Pentagon hired Houston-based Kellogg Brown Root, owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton Co., to draw up a plan to deal with any well fires on short notice. Last week, the Pentagon asked companies interested in providing firefighting services in Iraq to call a toll-free number. During the first Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi army blew up more than 730 oil wells in Kuwait before retreating in advance of a U.S.-led attack. Oil well firefighting crews spent nearly eight months dousing those fires. And the Pentagon says the cost to repair the destruction approached $20 billion.
Iraq: Oil wells are burning
BusinessWeek Online MARCH 19, 2003 WAR IN IRAQ Racing Saddam to Iraq's Oil Fields Securing them before they're blown up is a massive challenge. Even harder may be putting out the fires if the wells do get torched Next to grabbing Saddam Hussein himself, one of the most difficult tasks facing U.S. and British forces is preventing him torching Iraq's oil fields. If all goes according to plan, U.S. paratroopers from the 173rd, 82nd, and 101st Airborne Divisions will swoop down from the sky as soon as the bombs begin to drop. They'll seize Iraq's single-largest source of crude, the 10 billion-barrel Kirkuk field in the north. At the same time, a Marine Expeditionary Force, aided by British troops, will race up from Kuwait to capture the massive Ramaila fields in southern Iraq. Combined, these two regions account for 70% of Iraq's oil production. DEADLY PREPARATION. But beating Saddam to the detonator won't be easy. According to the Defense Dept., the Iraqi dictator has already sent two dozen boxcars of plastic explosives to the oil fields in preparation for a sequel to the first Gulf War, when black plumes of smoke darkened the skies over Kuwait's oil fields. With more than 1,500 working wells, Iraq has twice as many potential targets as Kuwait. If fires are raging, troops and oil-well firefighters will face a far less manageable environment than they did in Kuwait. Iraq's land mass is 25 times larger than Kuwait's, and it's much more diverse topographically. Kirkuk has high mountains nearby. West of Basra, where the Ramaila fields are, the land consists of swamps and marshes. Near Mosul, where a network of pipes and pumping stations converge to send Kirkuk oil north to export markets via the Mediterranean Sea, the land is mostly desert and high sands. Firefighters would require different equipment for each type of terrain. A lot more than oil is at stake. The cost to human life and health of torched oil fields could be catastrophic. Of immediate concern: Oil from the Kirkuk field is high in sulfur and might produce deadly sulfur dioxide gas that could endanger the 500,000 or so civilians who live nearby. CHENEY CONNECTION. Then there's the environmental toll. The Kuwaiti fires, with the concurrent spilling of 5 million barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf, were 20 times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster. While the fires were extinguished after nine months, the environmental cleanup continues to this day. Some Kuwaitis still suffer smoke-related respiratory problems, and nearly a third of the nation's water has been spoiled by contamination. The potential cleanup has already sparked controversy back home. The Defense Dept. announced on Mar. 6 that Houston-based Kellogg Brown Root had been hired to provide a plan to quickly extinguish any fires. Kellogg is a division of Halliburton (HAL ), the oil-field giant once headed by Vice-President Dick Cheney. We weren't consulted. It's a sweetheart deal, grouses Michael J. Miller, chief executive of Safety Boss, a privately held Canadian oil-field fire-fighting outfit. Halliburton and Defense say the work is part of a long-running contract the Army has with the company. In Kuwait, a number of businesses helped put out the fires, including Safety Boss; Cudd Pressure Control, a division of RPC Inc. (RES ); Wild Well Control, a division of Superior Energy Services (SPN ); and Boots Coots International Well Control (WEL ), which has a business alliance with Halliburton. Given the vast size of Iraq's oil fields, if Saddam does succeed in blowing them up, putting out the fires will no doubt provide plenty of work for everyone. - --- By Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles, Stan Crock in Washington, and Stephanie Anderson Forest in Dallas
RE: Martin Feldstein??
Title: RE: [PEN-L:35771] Martin Feldstein?? and I was James G. Devin Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine stop the war now! -Original Message- From: Peter Dorman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 2:09 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:35771] Martin Feldstein?? I just received an e-mail from ECAAR about the antiwar petition that I and many of you signed. As I scanned the ad copy with the list of names, I was struck by the inclusion of Martin Feldstein. OK, it wasn't exactly Martin Feldstein but Martin Feldstei -- but then I was Peter Dorma. So is it true? Do I have to rethink my position? Peter
RE: Re: Martin Feldstein??
Title: RE: [PEN-L:35772] Re: Martin Feldstein?? he's a very conservative economist at Harvard, famous for faking results that made Social Security look bad (or perhaps he made a mistake that he didn't notice because it fit with his preconceptions). He's the economic godfather of Greg Mankiw, the new head of the Council of Economic Advisors (to the US President) and an inspiration to the entire mainstream Reagan/Bush tradition. (Also important to Reagan/Bush has been Milton Friedman and Arthur (supply side) Laffer. These two seem to have disappeared slowly in the last 20 years.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine stop the war now! -Original Message- From: Sabri Oncu [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 2:22 PM To: PEN-L Subject: [PEN-L:35772] Re: Martin Feldstein?? Who is this Martin Feldstein? Sabri
Re: Yahoo! Groups is shutdown
Huh? What do you mean? What groups? When? Carrol
RE: Yahoo! Groups is shutdown
Huh? What do you mean? What groups? When? Carrol It is working now. Maybe because of the heavy load. There have been rumours floating around that they are going to shut it down, though.We will see. If I were them, I would not shut it down. It would be a major mistake on their part. They would lose lot of business, if they anger majority of their clients, as I said on A-List. Sabri PS: Yahoo! Groups is this garbage: http://groups.yahoo.com/
Iraqi diplomat says no plans to destroy oil facilities
AP World - General News Iraqi diplomat says no plans to destroy oil facilities in case of war Tue Mar 18, 2:04 AM ET NEW DELHI, India - An Iraqi diplomat said Tuesday that his government had no plans to destroy its oil wells or attack oil structures in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia in the event of an attack by U.S.-led forces. Responding to U.S. President George Bush's warning to Iraqis not to set fire to their oil wells if war comes, the Iraq (news - web sites) Embassy's charge d'affaires, Adday Alsakab, told Dow Jones Newswires there were no such plans. Iraq won't destroy any of its oil wells or its oil export facilities. We reject all such claims by Mr. Bush, said Alsakab, the highest-ranking Iraqi diplomat in India since the ambassador was reposted. We have also no intentions to target oil facilities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Alsakab said. Our war is with the United States, not with the others. ... The U.S. forces and its allies will be our only targets if they attack us. Alsakab was echoing statements by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), who said in an interview late last month that he would not set fire to his country's oil wells in the event of war. Alsakab suggested that the United States and its allies may attack Iraq's oil facilities and accuse the Baghdad government of doing it. I don't know. Maybe they will do it and blame the Iraqis for it. It is a propaganda floated by the Americans. Iraq wants to protect its oil wells as this is in our economic interest, said Alsakab. Alsakab said he didn't have official confirmation on whether Iraq had halted its oil exports, as some news media have reported. We are expecting a war and we are ready for it. We are taking all the measures to defend our land, defend our leader, Alsakab said in the phone interview with Dow Jones Newswires. http://tinyurl.com/7t58
Re: Iraq: Oil wells are burning
You sure these aren't US special forces on orders from Halliburton?;) Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Sabri Oncu [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: PEN-L [EMAIL PROTECTED]; ALIST [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 4:33 PM Subject: [PEN-L:35773] Iraq: Oil wells are burning Just read on Haberturk, a Turkish News Site, that oil wells in Iraq are on fire. The news piece said, details will follow soon. In the mean time here is an article from Houston Cronicle. Sabri + March 19, 2003, 10:59AM Saddam opens spigots on oil wells, reports say By DAVID IVANOVICH Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- With a U.S.-led assault perhaps just hours away, Saddam Hussein has opened the spigots on some of his country's oil wells, creating pools of crude that could be set ablaze, Pentagon and oil industry sources said today. Saddam's operatives also are believed to have tied plastic explosives packed against the wells to a small number of switches, those sources said. This would allow Saddam to detonate many wells simultaneously, and it could also help ensure that any order to blow up the wells is carried out. Some observers have questioned whether Iraqis would follow orders to torch the fields in their own country, as they did to the oil fields in Kuwait. A Pentagon source said the activity had been observed in at least the northern part of the country, where Iraq's huge Kirkuk oil-field is located. The Pentagon fears Saddam intends to destroy as many of the country's 1,500 oil wells as possible if the United States and Britain launch an invasion. U.S. and British military officials have been accusing Saddam's forces of planting explosives in Kirkuk, as well as in southern fields near Basra. Oil industry officials also have been hearing reports that Saddam has been replacing key oil field workers with supporters deemed more loyal to the Iraqi leader. The U.S. military is hoping to avoid any destruction to the oil fields, knowing the country's oil wealth will be critical to Iraq's future. To prepare for a possible conflagration, the Pentagon hired Houston-based Kellogg Brown Root, owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton Co., to draw up a plan to deal with any well fires on short notice. Last week, the Pentagon asked companies interested in providing firefighting services in Iraq to call a toll-free number. During the first Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi army blew up more than 730 oil wells in Kuwait before retreating in advance of a U.S.-led attack. Oil well firefighting crews spent nearly eight months dousing those fires. And the Pentagon says the cost to repair the destruction approached $20 billion.
prediction
Title: prediction The was a posting on our local (Nevada City CA USA) Peace Center forum: Since everyone else is predicting the outcome of the war, I figure I'd try it too: Shock and Awe scares the Iraqi armyinto immediate surrender with 5 casualties. Saddam flees to Utah to live in exile with Bin Laden, Reagan, Goering, the frozen head of Nixon,and other grand and notable Republicans. 2 weeks later, reconstruction of Starbucks, Borders, Old Navy, and all 300 McDonald's franchises begins. Baghdad WalMart opens, giving the formerly repressed Iraqi people access to tons of low cost cheap plastic crap. Oddly enough, the price of gasoline in Iraq doubles. In their first true democratic election since the U.S. first helped Saddam into power, the Iraqi people elect a complete fucking idiot as Prime Minister. But that's okay -- Bush leaves Colin Powell behind to help with the policy making. Fascist TV Minister Pat Robertson endorses Traditional Muslim Family Values, encourages war tattered Iraqis to embrace how the white man has suffered much to bring them freedom. Iraqi blue blood seen hobnobbing with insipid European royalty. Traditional Iraqi clothing replaced with Dockers. Tigris Canal project carries precious water 500 miles to new golf resort. After a mere 2 years, the Iraqis have been dumbed down by Quality Shopping to the point where Harvard researchers declare the Iraqis as stupid and vaccuous as Americans -- they are promised U.S. citizenship once they do something about their skin color. President Bush: Our job here is done. Next stop, North Korea. Meanwhile, back in the U.S. Repealing of environmental pollution laws produces a breed of mutant humans who possess strange unstoppable loyalty to the President, no matter how dumb his policies. The Fed declares bankruptcy. The Democrats areraptured by God, into the great Heavens beyond. Nobody notices for3 years. Peace activists shunned in conservative press. The last of the Greatest Generation of Americans dies, formerCEO of the Human Destruction Division of Raytheon,Bob Willaferd, 101 years old. In a completely unrelated revelation,his deathis followed by a period of 3000 years of world peace. Bob Dylan, 88, dancing on grave says I told you so. And in the world: Life goes on as it has always. Humans are trapped in the endless cycle of bith, suffering, old age, sickness and death. The end. Joe. -- -- Drop Bush, Not Bombs! -- During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. George Orwell - END OF THE TRAIL SALOON Live music, comedy, call-in radio-oke Alternate Sundays, 6am GMT (10pm PDT) http://www.kvmr.org I uke, therefore I am. -- Cool Hand Uke I log on, therefore I seem to be. -- Rodd Gnawkin Visit Cool Hand Uke's Lava Tube: http://www.oro.net/~dscanlan
Article on Illegality of Iraq war
CONTACT: Roger Normand, CESR Executive Director, (718) 237-9145 ext. 12 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For Immediate Release: March 18, 2003 NEW REPORT: WAR IN IRAQ IS UNEQUIVOCALLY ILLEGAL Human Rights Group Warns of Return to the Rule of the Jungle in International Affairs New York, March 17, 2003--War against Iraq is unequivocally illegal under the UN Charter and international law generally, according to a new report. The report rejects efforts by the U.S., U.K, and Australia to circumvent the U.N. Security Council and claim legal justification from past resolutions. Attempting to legitimize a war opposed by world public opinion, the U.S. Secretary of State, the U.K. Attorney-General, and the Australian Prime Minister have in the past 24 hours each issued major statements insisting that international law justifies their decision to attack Iraq. The report, issued by the New York-based Center for Economic and Social Right, cites a range of authoritative legal sources to dismiss their arguments. According to Professor Thomas Franck, a leading authority on the use of force, the use of old resolutions to support military action today makes a complete mockery of the entire system of international law. It is the height of hypocrisy for the U.S. and U.K. to base war on Resolution 1441 when they are fully aware that France, Russia and China approved that resolution on explicit written condition that it could not be used by individual states to justify military action, said CESR Executive Director Roger Normand, who recently returned from a fact-finding mission to Iraq. This war violates every legal principle governing the resort to force. It clearly has little to do with disarmament, democracy, human rights, or even Saddam Hussein, and everything to do with oil and power. The report warns that an illegal war in Iraq would threaten the pillars of collective security established after World War II to protect civilians from a recurrence of that unprecedented carnage. This is an attack on the very institutions of international law and the United Nations, said Philip Alston, Professor of Law and Director of Human Rights and Global Justice and New York University. It opens the door for every country to take the law into its own hands and launch preemptive military strikes without any universally binding restraints. In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal rejected German arguments of the necessity for preemptive attacks against its neighbors and instead outlawed preventive war as a crime against the peace. In the Tribunal's judgment, To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. The Center for Economic and Social Rights is taking part in an unprecedented worldwide effort by legal organizations, practitioners, and scholars to uphold the rule of law by putting governments on notice that they will face public condemnation and legal prosecution for any war crimes they commit in Iraq. The law is meant to protect all people and apply to all countries, said Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human rights litigation center. We are working with CESR and likeminded groups in the UK, Australia, and elsewhere to ensure that our leaders know in advance that they will be held individually accountable for any and all war crimes they commit. The report points out that the impact of an unlawful war against Iraq will be suffered primarily by innocent civilians. A pre-emptive military strike against Iraq is a cruel culmination of 13 years of punishment of people for something they have not done, said Hans von Sponeck, CESR's Europe representative and former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq. CESR is an international human rights organization accredited to the United Nations and supported by the Ford Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation. For further information please visit www.cesr.org/iraq. Tearing up the Rules: The Illegality of Invading Iraq is available at http://www.cesr.org/iraq/docs/tearinguptherules.pdf Press Contacts: Roger Normand, CESR Executive Director, (718) 237-9145 ext. 12, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Philip Alston, NYU Law Professor, (212) 998-6173 Europe: Hans von Sponeck, former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, +41-797-455-040
[Fwd: State Dept Advisory]
Original Message Subject: State Dept Advisory Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 11:54:15 -0500 From: Bob Broedel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Science for the People Discussion List[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] State Department Warns Americans Not To Act Like Americans By R.O. Whatley (Washington, D.C.) In what is believed to be its strongest travel advisory ever, the U.S. State Department warned Americans abroad not to act like Americans. The advisory was issued simultaneously in Washington by State Department spokesman Richard Boucher and in The Hague by a man who, in halting Dutch, denied the was U.S. Ambassador Clifford Sobel. Unlike previous alerts, which have warned Americans to keep a low profile or avoid certain destinations, the new advisory notes that it is now unwise to come across as American at all. As a result, the State Department cautions U.S. citizens to avoid behavior that could cause them to be singled out as obviously American. This includes: - the weaning of white socks and tennis shoes. - complaining if asked to share a bathroom. - threatening to sue over bad service, television reception, or weather In addition, U.S. citizens attempting to speak a foreign language are urged to curb their Americanisms. For example: Correct : Est-ce que vous l'avez aux autres couleurs? Incorrect: Est-ce que vous, like, l'avez aux, like, autres couleurs? The advisory immediately created turmoil overseas, particularly for U.S. military personnel, who pretended to be French and were forced to surrender. In an apparent response to heightened fears of terrorist attacks by Islamic militants, the U.S. embassies in Islamabad, Jakarta, Manila, Kuwait City, Riyadh, Bangkok, Saana and Jordan were all proudly displaying the red, white and blue flag of France. The alert also caused confusion at home, as it seems to contradict the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has warned Americans not to act un-American. In a press briefing this afternoon, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer attempted to unravel the paradox. What we are saying is, when you are in America, you need to behave like an American, particularly if you are not American...or are Colin Powell. But when you are outside America, you should not behave like an American, unless you are not American, in which case we urge you to act American. Here I refer specifically to the NATO representatives from Germany, France, and Belgium. The advisory, Fleischer added, applies to all Americans, including President Bush. When the President is traveling abroad, he will only act American while aboard Air Force One or in the company of U.S. media. At all other times, he will attempt to come across as Kosovian or Grecian. Reached for comment in Brussels, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns said, Qing wen, ren min gong yuan zai na li?
the nature of the war
Title: the nature of the war Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend who's been on the left for about 55 years. He suggested that Bush's war may actually be against the collective interests of the ruling class, the product of a small clique within that class. I suggested instead that it was an example of playing high-stakes poker: if the Bushwackers win (e.g., Iraq doesn't turn into a major quagmire) it could be a big victory for them and for their class -- but that the odds against that result were quite steep. what do people think? Jim
Re: the nature of the war
Your friend may be correct. Business Week, which tends to reflect the upper reaches of the other class, has not been too supportive of the war. What may be more likely is that the old Yankee/Cowboy split is coming unglued -- maybe reverting back to the older Rockefeller/Goldwater split? I don't think that the upper, upper class favors tax cuts at the expense of education. Michael Lind's new book -- I have only heard him interviewed -- sounds like it may be on target. He says that the Southern rich comes evolves out of the old English aristocracy without the Northern rich's streak of puritanism. On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 07:32:27PM -0800, Devine, James wrote: Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend who's been on the left for about 55 years. He suggested that Bush's war may actually be against the collective interests of the ruling class, the product of a small clique within that class. I suggested instead that it was an example of playing high-stakes poker: if the Bushwackers win (e.g., Iraq doesn't turn into a major quagmire) it could be a big victory for them and for their class -- but that the odds against that result were quite steep. what do people think? Jim -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: the nature of the war
Title: Re: the nature of the war Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend who's been on the left for about 55 years. He suggested that Bush's war may actually be against the collective interests of the ruling class, the product of a small clique within that class. I suggested instead that it was an example of playing high-stakes poker: if the Bushwackers win (e.g., Iraq doesn't turn into a major quagmire) it could be a big victory for them and for their class -- but that the odds against that result were quite steep. what do people think? Jim It just shows you that capitalists aren't risk-takers. -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/
Re: Iraq: Oil wells are burning
You sure these aren't US special forces on orders from Halliburton?;) Cheers, Ken Hanly Quite possible. Now the attack on Iraq is official. Don't know what to say. Sabri ++ 03/19 22:28 Treasuries Fall for Fourth Day After U.S. Begins Attack on Iraq By Beth Thomas Tokyo, March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries fell for a fourth day after President George W. Bush said U.S.-led attacks on Iraq have begun. The 10-year note yield rose as high as 4.04 percent before Bush's speech, in which he said that U.S. and allied forces were in the early stages of an effort to disarm Iraq and that selected targets were being attacked. The benchmark note has lost more than 3 percent since March 10. ``There's a lot of expectations that the conflict is going to be over in a short period of time,'' said Andrew Michl, who helps manage the equivalent of $660 million of fixed-income at ING NZ Ltd. in Auckland. ``That'll boost confidence in the global economies, and the U.S. in particular, boost equities and be negative for bonds.'' Treasury yields may rise between 20 and 30 basis points in the weeks to come, he said. The 3 7/8 percent note maturing in 2013 fell 1/32, or 32 cents per $1,000 face amount, to 99 2/32 at 12:21 p.m. in Tokyo from late New York yesterday. The yield held at 3.99 percent, after climbing from as low as 3.56 percent on March 10. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point. The yield on the 1/2 percent 2005 note held at 1.72 percent. Reports of weapons fire in Baghdad came less than two hours after Bush's deadline for Saddam Hussein to go into exile passed with the Iraqi leader refusing to quit. Cable News Network said a cruise missile was fired at a target in the Iraqi capital. ``The market's betting very strongly that the war is going to be short and that's contributing to higher Treasury yields,'' said John Tan, fixed-income strategist at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore. ``People are taking bets right now on a short war.''
Re: Re: Iraq: Oil wells are burning
I have heard that oil is likely to be used a weapon to cover troops. oil pipelines are spilling in the desert around basra and the shore of shat alarab to avoid amphibian assaults, a huge environmental disiater maybe in the making.Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
Article by Bob Herbert
Ready for the Peace? By BOB HERBERT ow that U.S. strikes against Iraq have begun, we should get rid of one canard immediately, and that's the notion that criticism of the Bush administration and opposition to this invasion imply in some sense a lack of support or concern for the men and women who are under arms. The names of too many of my friends are recorded on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial for me to tolerate that kind of nonsense. I hope that the war goes well, that our troops prevail quickly and that casualties everywhere are kept to a minimum. But the fact that a war may be quick does not mean that it is wise. Against the wishes of most of the world, we have plunged not just into war, but toward a peace that is potentially more problematic than the war itself. Are Americans ready to pay the cost in lives and dollars of a long-term military occupation of Iraq? To what end? Will an occupation of Iraq increase or decrease our security here at home? Do most Americans understand that even as we are launching one of the most devastating air assaults in the history of warfare, private companies are lining up to reap the riches of rebuilding the very structures we're in the process of destroying? Companies like Halliburton, Schlumberger and the Bechtel Group understand this conflict a heck of a lot better than most of the men and women who will fight and die in it, or the armchair patriots who'll be watching on CNN and cheering them on. It's not unpatriotic to say that there are billions of dollars to be made in Iraq and that the gold rush is already under way. It's simply a matter of fact. Back in January, an article in The Wall Street Journal noted: With oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia's, Iraq would offer the oil industry enormous opportunity should a war topple Saddam Hussein. But the early spoils would probably go to companies needed to keep Iraq's already rundown oil operations running, especially if facilities were further damaged in a war. Oil-services firms such as Halliburton Co., where Vice President Dick Cheney formerly served as chief executive, and Schlumberger Ltd. are seen as favorites for what could be as much as $1.5 billion in contracts. There is tremendous unease at the highest levels of the Pentagon about this war and its aftermath. The president and his civilian advisers are making a big deal about the anticipated rejoicing of the liberated populace once the war is over. But Iraq is an inherently unstable place, and while the forces assembled to chase Saddam from power are superbly trained for combat, the military is not well prepared for a long-term occupation in the most volatile region in the world. What's driving this war is President Bush's Manichaean view of the world and messianic vision of himself, the dangerously grandiose perception of American power held by his saber-rattling advisers, and the irresistible lure of Iraq's enormous oil reserves. Polls show that the public is terribly confused about what's going on, so much so that some 40 percent believe that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. That's really scary. Rather than correct this misconception, the administration has gone out of its way to reinforce it. I think the men and women moving militarily against Saddam are among the few truly brave and even noble individuals left in our society. They have volunteered for the dangerous duty of defending the rest of us. But I also believe they are being put unnecessarily in harm's way. As a result of the military buildup, there is hardly a more hobbled leader on earth at the moment than Saddam Hussein. A skillful marshaling of international pressure could have forced him from power. But then the Bush administration would not have had its war and its occupation. It would not have been able to turn Iraq into an American protectorate, which is as good a term as any for a colony. Is it a good idea to liberate the people of Iraq from the clutches of a degenerate like Saddam Hussein? Sure. But there were better, less dangerous, ways to go about it. In the epigraph to his memoir, Present at the Creation, Dean Acheson quoted a 13th-century king of Spain, Alphonso X, the Learned: Had I been present at the creation I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.
Shock and Awe
Hmmm..obliterating downtown Baghdad would be a colossal mistake...oops sorry...just meant a bit of shock and awe and got carried away... Cheers, Ken Hanly From paper to the battlefield By Seth Stern | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor If all goes according to plan, thousands of smart bombs raining down on Iraq will paralyze the country: Iraqi commanders will be cut off from their divisions, troops in the field will be cowed by an enemy they can't see, civilians will be so confused they don't dare confront the American invaders. The goal is to shock and awe the Iraqi military into submission, while minimizing casualties on both sides. In a decade, shock and awe has grown from a theory dreamed up by retired generals to the concept undergirding current US war plans against Iraq. Critics say it sounds like an overoptimistic rehash of bombing campaigns that devastated Dresden and Hanoi, but did little to end fighting. And they worry that in Iraq it will once again be infantry on the ground, not smart bombs from the sky, that actually wins the war. Either way, the acceptance of this plan shows how an idea can percolate through Pentagon ranks and capture the military's imagination. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said earlier this month that the best way to ensure a short conflict is to have such a shock on the system that the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on that the end is inevitable. The military's war plan calls for dropping an unprecedented 3,000 precision-guided munitions in the first 48 hours, quickly followed by lightening-fast ground attacks. The idea behind such a strategy was born in the mid-'90s when seven former cold war warriors gathered to rethink US defense strategy. At the time, they were one of many groups exploring ways to exploit US advantages in speed, weapons accuracy, and control of the electronic environment. The group was cochaired by Harlan Ullman, a retired navy destroyer commander who had always been fascinated by immaculate battles, where brilliant commanders devastated enemies by outthinking and overpowering them. The study group included Charles Horner, the commander of American air power during the Gulf War, and Fred Franks, the general who led US tanks through southern Iraq. General Horner says they hoped to discover some hidden truths from Desert Storm. For example, Horner recalls how instead of focusing on shooting down the entire Iraqi air force, the US neutralized it by destroying the ground-based radar stations that directed them. Iraqi pilots were left flying blind without instructions. They became very confused and then terrified about flying, Horner says. Ullman points out the example of American atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when, he says, a society that was prepared to die was turned around. Members of the group wondered whether, in a post- Hiroshima era, an adversary's will to resist could be destroyed without resorting to that same destructive firepower. Psychological means could supplement a military so advanced it moved faster than most enemies could react. They laid out their approach in a 1996 report entitled Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance. The group met on and off in succeeding years, explaining its ideas in papers and seminars for current and former military officials. Donald Rumsfeld, President Ford's secretary of defense, attended one of those briefings in 1999 and joined several former defense secretaries in signing a letter to the Clinton administration supporting a shift in military strategy. A year later, President-elect Bush returned Mr. Rumsfeld to his old job at the Pentagon, where he brought his enthusiasm for transforming the military's thinking. The US military may have no equal in developing high-tech weaponry, but changes in doctrine or missions don't come as easily at the Pentagon. The last major strategic innovation, called the AirLand doctrine, was adopted in the US in the early '80s, after Israel's experience in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Designed to more fully integrate air and ground forces, the doctrine is still untried in the battle field. But skeptics both inside and outside the military say Shock and Awe doesn't add much new to that body of thought beyond a catchy title. It says something all soldiers know: War is a test of will, not of physical strength, says retired Gen. Robert Scales. Shock and awe may, in fact, paralyze the enemy, he says, but the effect is only temporary. Enemy forces must still be physically incapacitated or frozen in place by occupation. Ullman says he never claimed the idea was completely new. He cites diverse sources of inspiration: Pizarro's defeat of the Incas in the 16th century with only 100 troops but the advantage of firearms, armor, and horses; the German blitzkreig during World War II, and the bombing of Japan. That last comparison earned Ullman the ire of antiwar activists who labeled him a modern-day Dr.
Bye Bye United Nations TATA
In an interview with F. engels just before he died, he rasied concerns about the future casualties of war with the development of smokeless gunpowder, now it is shock and awe, every missile fired is like a commercial for anew and improved product. and now my question is how to provide for a international security arrangement that really criminilises war sine it is bye bye United nations. k hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hmmm..obliterating downtown Baghdad would be a"colossal mistake"...oops sorry...just meant a bit of shock and awe and gotcarried away...Cheers, Ken HanlyFrom paper to the battlefieldBy Seth Stern | Staff writer of The Christian Science MonitorIf all goes according to plan, thousands of smart bombs raining down on Iraqwill paralyze the country: Iraqi commanders will be cut off from theirdivisions, troops in the field will be cowed by an enemy they can't see,civilians will be so confused they don't dare confront the Americaninvaders.The goal is to "shock and awe" the Iraqi military into submission, whileminimizing casualties on both sides. In a decade, "shock and awe" has grownfrom a theory dreamed up by retired generals to the concept undergirdingcurrent US war plans against Iraq.Critics say it ! sounds like an overoptimistic rehash of bombing campaignsthat devastated Dresden and Hanoi, but did little to end fighting. And theyworry that in Iraq it will once again be infantry on the ground, not smartbombs from the sky, that actually wins the war. Either way, the acceptanceof this plan shows how an idea can percolate through Pentagon ranks andcapture the military's imagination.Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said earlier thismonth that the best way to ensure a short conflict is to "have such a shockon the system that the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on that theend is inevitable." The military's war plan calls for dropping anunprecedented 3,000 precision-guided munitions in the first 48 hours,quickly followed by lightening-fast ground attacks.The idea behind such a strategy was born in the mid-'90s when seven formercold war warriors gathered to rethink US defense strategy. ! At the time, theywere one of many groups exploring ways to exploit US advantages in speed,weapons accuracy, and control of the electronic environment.The group was cochaired by Harlan Ullman, a retired navy destroyer commanderwho had always been fascinated by "immaculate battles," where brilliantcommanders devastated enemies by outthinking and overpowering them.The study group included Charles Horner, the commander of American air powerduring the Gulf War, and Fred Franks, the general who led US tanks throughsouthern Iraq.General Horner says they hoped "to discover some hidden truths" from DesertStorm. For example, Horner recalls how instead of focusing on shooting downthe entire Iraqi air force, the US neutralized it by destroying theground-based radar stations that directed them. Iraqi pilots were leftflying blind without instructions. "They became very confused and thenterrified about flying," Horner says! .Ullman points out the example of American atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshimaand Nagasaki, when, he says, "a society that was prepared to die was turnedaround."Members of the group wondered whether, in a post- Hiroshima era, anadversary's will to resist could be destroyed without resorting to that samedestructive firepower. Psychological means could supplement a military soadvanced it moved faster than most enemies could react. They laid out theirapproach in a 1996 report entitled "Shock and Awe: Achieving RapidDominance." The group met on and off in succeeding years, explaining itsideas in papers and seminars for current and former military officials.Donald Rumsfeld, President Ford's secretary of defense, attended one ofthose briefings in 1999 and joined several former defense secretaries insigning a letter to the Clinton administration supporting a shift inmilitary strategy. A year later, President-elect Bu! sh returned Mr. Rumsfeldto his old job at the Pentagon, where he brought his enthusiasm fortransforming the military's thinking.The US military may have no equal in developing high-tech weaponry, butchanges in doctrine or missions don't come as easily at the Pentagon. Thelast major strategic innovation, called the AirLand doctrine, was adopted inthe US in the early '80s, after Israel's experience in the 1973 Yom Kippurwar. Designed to more fully integrate air and ground forces, the doctrine isstill untried in the battle field.But skeptics both inside and outside the military say "Shock and Awe"doesn't add much new to that body of thought beyond a catchy title."It says something all soldiers know: War is a test of will, not of physicalstrength," says retired Gen. Robert Scales. "Shock and awe" may, in fact,paralyze the enemy, he says, but the effect is only temporary. Enemy forcesmust still be physically inca! pacitated or frozen in place by occupation.Ullman says he never
Paul Eluard
Speaking of french poetry, here is one in french by Eluard. "L'Avis" (1942)La nuit qui précéda sa mortFut la plus courte de sa vieL'idée qu'il existait encoreLui brûlai le sang aux poignetsLe poids de son corps l'écoeraitSa force le fasait gémirC'est tout au fond de cette horreurQu'il a commencé à sourireIl n'avait pas UN comaradeMais des millions et des millionsPour le venger il le savaitEt le jour se leva pour lui.Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
Re: Re: Re: Saddam's apparatus of terror will shatter the whole world view of the left
At 2003-03-19 09:15 -0500, you wrote: Chris Burford wrote: Even now, it is vital to support all non coercive, non-military and fundamentally democratic measures for stabilising Iraq. Whatever happened to the principle of self-determination? Do other countries have the right to stabilize the USA? I hope so. Certainly I hope that the deepening global civil society will have an influence back on the USA and strengthen its progressive civil society, among other things helping undermine hegemonism and arrogant unilateralism. Prospects look relatively good over 5 or 10 years. Chris Burford
The politics underlying the war
If war is the continuation of politics, what are the underlying politics that are being manifested in the war? How will the nature of the war change these? How will they be manifest? Saddam Hussein's defence is essentially political. It is hard to judge the war from the opening salvos - a failed assassination attempt - but Bush may not just be window dressing in saying that the war more be more stretched out than people have supposed.It is interesting that he tried to avoid the word war. If Saddam launches a counter attack it may be mainly for a political purpose - to send body bags back to the USA. His basic political position is that this is an unjust imperialist war and that the suffering of the Iraqi people will be the responsibility of the aggressors. While using shock and awe, are using psychological warfare, and are likely to try to take the country piece by piece. Entry into Baghdad may be delayed, with a lot of new about the plight of the population. The political battle will be about who is more humanitarian, and there may be initiatives by the United Nations at various moments in the war, calling for a ceasefire and a political compromise. The peace movement will evolve in the face of these politics and military tactics. While the internationalist spirit of being against your own ruling class is a positive prejudice, defence of national sovereignty of all states, is not the sum total of a progressive position. I do not think it is sustainable on a world scale, although I recognise some people would base their position on this. The battle on the security council has not been about intervention or non-intervention - it has been about the timing and the proportionality of the force and pressure used to intervene. It has been a defeat of hegemonism, not of intervention. We will see how the peace movement responds and evolves, and we can each make our personally minuscule contribution to the debate. Peace now, or Cease fire now, may remain the main slogans, but a purely pacifist position will isolate the movement from its wide hinterland, and so I suggest would a campaign based mainly on a rearguard defence of national sovereignty. Propaganda and education is already there but needs to broaden into a movement that is not defeated and demobilised by a hegemonic victory, but campaigns for a wider peace and justice in the middle east and in the whole world. IMHO Chris Burford London
The nature of inter-imperialist contradictions
This week has shown the fundamental strength of inter-imperialist contradictions. They are not such as inevitably to lead to war between the different imperialist blocs. This is a reflection of the underlying interpenetrated system of global finance capital. The gold price has just dropped on the outbreak of war - the markets now know a little more where things are going , and can reorganize themselves as a single capitalist organism. Politically for a moment it looked as if France and Europe just possible could strengthen their financial links with the rest of the islamic world while the USA turned Iraq, into a second colony and bastion to join Israel. This will happen in part but not in a polarised way that would lead to troops of the different imperialisms confronting each other in a way that would lead to war. The nearest we got to that was the skirmishing to control Pristina airport. Certainly contracts ofr Iraqi reconstruction will be divided out unfairly between the imperialist powers, but it is not just moral weakness of people like Chirac, that France has drawn back from intensifying an outright confrontation with the USA. France will protest to the UK againts blaming France for the failure of the second resolution. But behind the scenes they will also suggest they did the USA and Britain a favour by providing an excuse for the withdrawal of the resolution, which would not even have won a majority vote. France has already signalled a little gesture which has been noted by the USA, that if Saddam used chemical or biological weapons, it would also send troops. Meanwhile the agenda has gone on to post-war imperialist reconstruction, and it appears that the United Nations, and the EU will have significant opportunities to play a part in this, and the USA will not exclude them. Chirac is already long ago on record calling on Saddam to go into exile. He is in favour of intervention in Iraq. Just a political difference made it convenient for France to defy the US with the threat of a veto. However the signals are now that the servants of global finance capital, will half unconsciously find other ways of expressing and accommodating their contradictions, in such a way that a third area of the world, after the Balkans and Afghanistan, will fall under the semi-cordinated remit of a new global empire. The more that France and Europe cooperate in this inter-imperialist agenda, the more they undermine the exclusive significance of the overwhelming military might of the USA. Collusion is dominant over contention. The people of the world will still need to take advantage of the contradictions, but also will have to adapt to the dominant nature of the collusion. Chris Burford London
Re: Zizek's latest
Louis Proyect wrote: An article titled THE IRAQ WAR: WHERE IS THE TRUE DANGER? by the Freudian radical Slavoj Zizek just showed up at: http://www.lacan.com/iraq.htm It is written from his customarily tortured perspective, which is to treat all important events in the class struggle as tidbits of popular culture to be masticated and then belched up. Aside from the excerpts presented, he also said: On 9/11 2001, the Twin Towers were hit; twelve years earlier, on 11/9 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. 11/9 announced the happy 90s, the Francis Fukuyama dream of the end of history, the belief that liberal democracy has in principle won, that the search is over, that the advent of a global liberal world community lurks round the corner, that the obstacles to this ultra-Hollywood happy ending are just empirical and contingent, local pockets of resistance where the leaders did not yet grasp that their time is over; in contrast to it, 9/11 is the main symbol of the end of the Clintonite happy 90s, of the forthcoming era in which new walls are emerging everywhere, between Israel and the West Bank, around the European Union, on the US-Mexican border. The prospect of a new global crisis is looming: economic collapses, military and other catastrophes, emergency states... And when politicians start to directly justify their decisions in ethical terms, one can be sure that ethics is mobilized to cover up such dark threatening horizons. It is the very inflation of abstract ethical rhetorics in George W. Bush's recent public statements (of the Does the world have the courage to act against the Evil or not? type) which manifests the utter ETHICAL misery of the US position - the function of ethical reference is here purely mystifying, it merely serves to mask the true political stakes, which are not difficult to discern. In their recent The War Over Iraq, William Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan wrote: The mission begins in Baghdad, but it does not end there. /.../ We stand at the cusp of a new historical era. /.../ This is a decisive moment. /.../ It is so clearly about more than Iraq. It is about more even than the future of the Middle East and the war on terror. It is about what sort of role the United States intends to play in the twenty-first century. One cannot but agree with it: it is effectively the future of international community which is at stake now - the new rules which will regulate it, what the new world order will be. What is going on now is the next logical step of the US dismissal of the Hague court. [...] One can surmise that the US are well aware that the era of Saddam and his non-fundamentalist regime is coming to an end in Iraq, and that the attack on Iraq is probably conceived as a much more radical preemptive strike - not against Saddam, but against the main contender for Saddam's political successor, a truly fundamentalist Islamic regime. Yes in this way, the vicious cycle of the American intervention gets only more complex: the danger is that the very American intervention will contribute to the emergence of what America most fears, a large united anti-American Muslim front. It is the first case of the direct American occupation of a large and key Arab country - how could this not generate universal hatred in reaction? One can already imagine thousands of young people dreaming of becoming suicide bombers, and how that will force the US government to impose a permanent high alert emergency state... However, at this point, one cannot resist a slightly paranoid temptation: what if the people around Bush KNOW this, what if this collateral damage is the true aim of the entire operation? What if the TRUE target of the war on terror is the American society itself, i.e., the disciplining of its emancipatory excesses? On March 5 2003, on Buchanan Press news show on NBC, they showed on the TV screen the photo of the recently captured Khalid Shakh Mohammed, the third man of al-Qaeda - a mean face with moustaches, in an unspecified nightgown prison-dress, half opened and with something like bruises half-discernible (hints that he was already tortured?) -, while Pat Buchanan's fast voice was asking: Should this man who knows all the names all the detailed plans for the future terrorist attacks on the US, be tortured, so that we get all this out of him? The horror of it was that the photo, with its details, already suggested the answer - no wonder the response of other commentators and viewers' calls was an overwhelming Yes! - which makes one nostalgic of the good old days of the colonial war in Algeria when the torture practiced by the French Army was a dirty secret... Effectively, was this not a pretty close realization of what Orwell imagined in 1984, in his vision of hate sessions, where the citizens are shown photos of the traitors and supposed to boo and yell at them. And the story goes on: a day later, on another Fox TV show, a
Zizek's latest
An article titled THE IRAQ WAR: WHERE IS THE TRUE DANGER? by the Freudian radical Slavoj Zizek just showed up at: http://www.lacan.com/iraq.htm It is written from his customarily tortured perspective, which is to treat all important events in the class struggle as tidbits of popular culture to be masticated and then belched up. Like Perry Anderson, Zizek has a rather blinkered idea of what the antiwar movement stands for: And, incidentally, opponents of the war seem to repeat the same inconsistent logic: (1) Saddam is really bad, we also want to see him toppled, but we should give inspectors more time, since inspectors are more efficient; (2) it is all really about the control of oil and American hegemony - the true rogue state which terrorizes others are the US themselves; (3) even if successful, the attack on Iraq will give a big boost to a new wave of the anti-American terrorism; (4) Saddam is a murderer and torturer, his regime a criminal catastrophe, but the attack on Iraq destined to overthrow Saddam will cost too much... I have no idea what sort of opponents he is talking about, but this sounds like more like a NY Times editorial than the sort of people I marched (or attempted to march with) on Feb. 15th. He also shared Perry Anderson's detached Mandarin style, which allows him to come with howlers like this: The one good argument for war is the one recently evoked by Christopher Hitchens: one should not forget that the majority of Iraqis effectively are Saddam's victims, and they would be really glad to get rid of them. He was such a catastrophe for his country that an American occupation in WHATEVER form may seem a much brighter prospect to them with regard to daily survival and much lower level of fear. We are not talking here of bringing Western democracy to Iraq, but just of getting rid of the nightmare called Saddam. To this majority, the caution expressed by Western liberals cannot but appear deeply hypocritical - do they really care about how the Iraqi people feel? This is only a good argument if you sweep history under the rug. The population of nearly every country that wound up in the gunsights of US imperialism eventually found itself crying uncle. If you take Hitchens' argument seriously, then you would find yourself in sympathy with the fate that befell both Nicaragua and Yugoslavia. When the USA decides to put on the pressure on semiperipheral or peasant societies, daily survival becomes a vain hope. Our position is to allow every country, including Iraq, to find its own path to social justice and democracy. To drive the point home, when Zizek writes: One can make even a more general point here: what about pro-Castro Western Leftists who despise what Cubans themselves call gusanos /worms/, those who emigrated - but, with all sympathy for the Cuban revolution, what right does a typical middle class Western Leftist have to despise a Cuban who decided to leave Cuba not only because of political disenchantment, but also because of poverty which goes up to simple hunger? we are reminded of the canard about leftists spitting at GI's returning from Vietnam. In fact, the more recent Cuban refugees are not despised as much as pitied. The main objection to gusanos is not that they enjoy Miami middle-class life, but that they terrorize other Cubans and leftists who seek normal relations between the socialist republic and its imperialist neighbors. Zizek's tendency to psychoanalyze the left is a poor substitute for hard, fact-based reporting of the kind that Marx produced. A final word on one other most peculiar item in Zizek's meandering essay. He writes: No wonder that, in February 2003, an American representative used the word capitalist revolution to describe what Americans are now doing: exporting their revolution all around the world. No wonder they moved from containing the enemy to a more aggressive stance. It is the US which is now, as the defunct USSR was decades ago, the subversive agent of a world revolution. When Bush recently said Freedom is not America's gift to other nations, it is god's gift to humanity, this apparent modesty nonetheless, in the best totalitarian fashion, conceals its opposite: yes, BUT it is nonetheless the US which perceives itself as the chosen instrument of distributing this gift to all the nations of the world! When exactly was the USSR the subversive agent of a world revolution? Sigh, if only this was the case. In fact, we have been dealing with an aggressive capitalist revolution (or counter-revolution, to be more precise) for more than 82 years. It was, after all, the USA that invaded the Soviet Union with 20 other capitalist nations, after 1917 and not the other way around. In any case, I urge one and all to read Zizek's essay, if for no other reason, that it is important to take the pulse of the left academy in these trying times. Compared to Perry Anderson, Zizek at least has
Yahoo! Groups is shutdown
They claim this is temporary. We will see! Sabri
Call to Conscience press release and Speakers Bureau
Subject: Call to Conscience press release and Speakers Bureau Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 11:25:10 -0800 (PST) From: Vets Call to Conscience [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please send this out to your local press. Bye the way, anyone going to the vet event in DC or SF this weekend and willing to pass out the Call? Immediate Release**For Immediate Release**For Immediate Release Date: March 1st, 2003 Contact: Terri Allred Seattle, Washington [EMAIL PROTECTED] (206) 909-0481 Speakers Available for Interview www.calltoconscience.net Military Veterans call upon the Troops to Do the Right Thing Veterans Call to Conscience to Active Duty Troops Reservists Almost 1000 ex-military from WWII veterans to Active Duty Troops have signed a statement of conscience calling upon troops to follow their conscience and do the right thing stating that they will support their actions. The statement reads in part: If the people of the world are ever to be free, there must come a time when being a citizen of the world takes precedence over being the soldier of a nation. Thousands of copies of the statement have gotten into the hands of deploying troops, here in the US and throughout Europe. The statement has been endorsed by prominents like: Howard Zinn, Father Roy Bourgeoisie, Daniel Ellsberg, Michael Moore, Ron Kovic, Kurt Vonnegut andd others. 20% of the signers are Gulf War Veterans. Many signers are active duty and include several locked up for filing for CO status. The statement has been translated into Turkish, Farsi, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Danish and Malay. Signers include Gulf war veterans from England and Scotland and members of the Israeli IDF. The statement has made its way onto many US bases and has been leafleted to troops in Germany and in Belgium. The Call to Conscience has established a Speakers Bureau. The bureau features veterans of WWII, Korea and Vietnam as well as the first active duty marine to refuse deployment to the Gulf in 1991. Two members of the speakers bureau are Gulf War Veterans with much to say about the war in 1991. Many speakers filed for Conscientious Objector status during the Vietnam and Gulf War. Several spent many months in Leavenworth military prison for their opposition to war. Speakers are Black, Asian, native and women. Speakers range from an important religio To interview signers please email or call: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or call (206) 909-0481 Veterans Call to Conscience Speakers Bureau Veterans Call to Conscience Speakers Bureau Available for National International Press Dave Allen 101st Airborne Winooski, Vermont Air Assault as an anti-tank crew-member during the Persian Gulf War. Member of Green Mountain Vets for Peace (VFP). (802) 598-7453 Robert Bossie US Air Force 1955- 1959 Chicago, Illinois Member of Priests of the Sacred Heart Co-Founder of Voices in the Wilderness Member of the 1991 Gulf Peace Team which positioned themselves on the Iraq-Saudi Arabian border to oppose the war Traveled to Iraq three times with medicines in open violation of sanctions Speaks widely on Iraq (312) 641-5151 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Scott Camil Sgt. USMC - 1965 -1969 Gainesville, Florida 20 months Vietnam, 2 Purple hearts Southeast Regional Coordinator VVAW 1971-1973 Box 141693 Gainesville , FL 32614 Carl Dix Army 1968 - 1972 Brooklyn, NY Vietnam war resister 1969 - Fort Lewis 6 Sentenced to 19 months in Leavenworth Prison National Spokesperson for the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) Unique perspective on revolution in the United States (866) 841-9139 x2670 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Joseph C. Farah Army 1960 - 1963 Indianapolis, Indiana Chapter President - Indianapolis Veterans For Peace (VFP) Writer-researcher, educator, independent scholar and published critic. 1998 traveled to Viet Nam with former American POW's. (317) 514-3600 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kim Hawkins Navy 1987-1991 (Gulf War) Trenton, Maine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Robert Kirkconnell Air Force 1967 - 1994 Member Veterans for Peace (VFP) Palestine Media Watch 27 years active duty in the US Air Force 2 tours of Viet Nam Decorations include: Bronze Star with combat v device 4 Meritorious Service Medals Home (909) 866-0284 Cell (909) 553-1937 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marty Kunz Navy 1970-1976 Seattle, Washington National Organizer Vietnam Veterans Against The War Anti Imperialist (VVAWAI) Organizer Veterans Call to Conscience Project Organized Seattle Protest against Flag Burning Law 1994. Organized National Anti Intervention Conference 1994 (206) 374-2215 [EMAIL PROTECTED] O'Kelly McCluskey WWII / Korean Veteran Seattle, Washington Veterans For Peace Navy enlisted 44-46 -DAV -1953--57 USAF officer. Spoke out against French Imperialism backed by US reinstitution colonialism on Algeria and Vietnam. Threatened with a court martial and resigned his
