Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Re: Captives Tell of Suicidal Despair Dear Friends: The headline read, "Freed Captives Tell of Suicidal Despair." You pause and shake your head at the utter inhumanity of man to man. How could one do that to his brother? Then you stop dead in your tracks. These are not the internment camps of some totalitarian government in a far-off land, or tales from a Soviet gulag. This is not a re-enactment of the Bridge on the River Kwai hot box scene. This is America's treatment of those it detained for many months in Guantanamo Bay following the attacks of September 11. _______________________ International Herald Tribune June 18, 2003 Freed Guantanamo Captives Tell of Suicidal Despair  by Carlotta Gall with Neil A. Lewis/NYT NYT KABUL Afghans and Pakistanis who were detained for many months by the American military in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before being released without charges are describing the conditions as so desperate that some had tried to kill themselves. According to accounts in the last three months from some of the 32 Afghans and 3 Pakistanis in the weeks since their release, it was above all the uncertainty of their fate, combined with confinement in very small cells, sometimes only with Arabic speakers, that caused inmates to attempt suicide. One Pakistani interviewed this month said he had tried to kill himself four times. An Afghan prisoner who spent 14 months in Guantanamo described in April what he called the uncertainty and fear. "Some were saying this is a prison for 150 years," said Suleiman Shah, 30, a former Taliban fighter from Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan. None of those interviewed complained of physical mistreatment. But the men said that for the first few months they were kept in small wire-mesh cells, about 2 meters by 2.5 meters (6.5 feet by 8 feet), in blocks of 10 or 20. The cells were covered by a wooden roof, but otherwise were open at the sides to the elements. "We slept, ate, prayed and went to the toilet in that small space," Shah said. Each man had two blankets and a prayer mat and slept and ate on the ground, he said. The prisoners were taken out only once a week for a one-minute shower. "After four and a half months we complained and people stopped eating, so they said we could shower for five minutes and exercise once a week," Shah said. After that, he said, prisoners got to exercise for 10 minutes a week, walking around the inside of a 10-yard-long cage. In interviews at their homes, weeks after being released, he and the freed Pakistani detainee talked of what they said was the overwhelming feeling of injustice among the approximately 680 men detained indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay. "I was trying to kill myself," said Shah Mohammed, 20, a Pakistani who was captured in northern Afghanistan in November 2001, handed over to American soldiers and flown to Guantanamo in January 2002. "I tried four times. Because I was disgusted with my life. "It is against Islam to commit suicide," he continued, "but it was very difficult to live there. A lot of people did it. They treated me as guilty, but I was innocent." In the 18 months since the detention camp opened, there have been 28 suicide attempts by 18 individuals, with most of those attempts made this year, said Captain Warren Neary, a spokesman at the detention camp. None of the prisoners have succeeded in killing themselves, but one man has suffered severe brain damage, according to his lawyer. The prisoners come from 40 countries, and include more than 50 Pakistanis, about 150 Saudis and 3 teenagers under age 16, the majority of them captured in Afghanistan, said Najeef ibn Mohammed Ahmed Nauimi, a former justice minister in Qatar, who is representing nearly 100 of the detainees. Nauimi represents many of the Saudis, and American lawyers represent about 14 prisoners from Kuwait. There are also 83 Yemenis, he said, and a sprinkling of others, including some Canadians, Britons, Algerians, Australians and one Swede. Since January 2002, at least 32 Afghan prisoners and three Pakistanis have been released from Guantanamo Bay. Five Saudis were recently handed over to the Saudi Arabian authorities. Yasser Esam Hamdi, an American-born Saudi, was moved from the camp to a military brig in Norfolk, Virginia, in April 2002. Neary said 41 people had been released in all, but could not give a more exact description. At the same time the military is also preparing to place a handful of the prisoners, about 10, before a military tribunal soon, officials say. Human rights organizations have raised concerns about the conditions at Guantanamo Bay and the unclear legal status of the detainees. The American military has refused to consider them prisoners of war, even though the majority of them were captured on the battlefield, and does not allow them access to lawyers. No charges have yet been brought against any of the detainees, some of whom have been held there for 18 months. Concerned about their prolonged detention without trial or clear legal status, the head of the International Red Cross, which visits the detainees, urged the Bush administration last month to start legal proceedings for the hundreds of detainees and institute a number of changes in conditions at the camp. Commander Brian Grady, the staff psychiatrist at the prison's medical facility, said in a recent interview that most of the prisoners suffering from depression brought their symptoms with them when they arrived in Cuba. "I don't know what the effects of this particular confinement are," he said. "I'd be hesitant to comment." Officials at Guantanamo have generally dismissed the notion that the confinement and uncertainty about the future are specifically to blame. "I would not particularly say these circumstances are a factor," Grady said. But Jamie Fellner, the director of the U.S. program for Human Rights Watch, said that was highly implausible. "These conditions of confinement by themselves over a prolonged period are enormously psychologically stressful," she said. "Added to that is the uncertainty as to the future." Fellner added that her group had not found any credible reports of physical abuse and had investigated several accounts of beatings that turned out to be unfounded. Hospital officials said that about 5 percent of the inmates are suffering from depression and are being treated with anti-depressants. Mohammed, who spent 18 months in Cuba before his release, said that "when they first took us there they would not let us talk, or stand or walk around the cell. At the beginning it was very hard to bear, there was no call to prayer, and there was no shade. In the afternoon the sun came in from the side." Under the current routine, the majority of the prisoners remain in their cells except for two 15-minute periods a week, in which they walk around the cage and take a shower. In addition, the call to prayer is played over the prison's loudspeakers five times a day, according to Captain Youseff Yee, the Muslim chaplain who oversees the religious needs of the Guantanamo prisoners. Conditions improved after the first few months, and prisoners were moved to newly built cells with running water and a bed, Shah said. Interrogation was sporadic and varied in length and intensity. Sometimes they were questioned after 10 days, or 20 days, and then not for several months, prisoners said. "All of the people were worried about how long we would be there for," Shah said. "People were becoming mad because they were saying: 'When will they release us? They should take us to the high court.' Many stopped eating." The New York Times Copyright © 2003 the International Herald Tribune All Rights Reserved _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ========================= 2:57:11 PM

Re: John Dean Interview Dear Friends: John Dean is the man who told President Richard Nixon there was a cancer in the White House. We're pleased to present an interview with Mr. Dean, in which he talks about Watergate, the impeachment process, and the current Bush administration. According to Dean, "In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. [...] Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be 'a high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause." Before becoming Counsel to the President of the United States in July 1970 at age thirty-one, John Dean was Chief Minority Counsel to the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, the Associate Director of a law reform commission, and Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States. He served as Richard Nixon's White House lawyer for a thousand days. He has recounted his days in the Nixon White House and Watergate in two books, Blind Ambition (1976) and Lost Honor (1982). -------------------------------------------- Buzzflash June 17, 2003   The Man Who Told Richard Nixon That There Was a Cancer on His Presidency Buzzflash Interview John Dean Talks to BuzzFlash.com About George W. Bush, Watergate, Evidence of Misconduct and Possible Impeachment (If There Were Justice) John Dean is someone who knows about the impeachment process, so when he recently wrote an article reflecting on George W. Bush and impeachment, it spread across the net like wildfire. Not that anyone thinks that with Tom DeLay pulling the strings in Congress, you will even hear a pip-squeak of criticism out of the rabid right wing that controls the House. But one can dream about justice, can't one? BuzzFlash has found John Dean's ongoing legal and political commentary incisive, trenchant and compelling. Forever known as the man who "warned" Nixon of the "cancer on his presidency" (i.e., Watergate), Dean has emerged as one of the most articulate analysts warning of the threats to our Constitutional and civil rights that we face under the Bush administration and the right wing direction of the federal bench and Supreme Court. He is the author of many books, including "The Rehnquist Choice." In this BuzzFlash.com interview, Dean further explains his thoughts on the accusations being made that George W. Bush engaged in official misconduct, and the implications for Bush and our country. Or as BuzzFlash charges, Bush lied a nation into war. ========================== BUZZFLASH: In a recent article in FindLaw.com [LINK], you wrote: "In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. [...] To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be 'a high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony 'to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.'" If investigating committees can prove that there was no reason to go to war at this time, at least not on the grounds that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat, Bush's crimes would be considered far more reprehensible than Nixon's. Based on your political and government experience, what's your gut reaction about how this will play out? Do you think impeachment hearings are potentially possible? Particularly given Republican control of the House of Representatives, where impeachment proceedings would have to be initiated? JOHN DEAN: Let me start from the end of your question and work back, addressing your last two sub-questions first. Given the fact that Republicans control the Congress, there is absolutely no chance, because of the way Bush has handled the matter of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, escalating into impeachment proceedings. Impeachment is a political proceeding, of quasi-legal nature. Republicans are not going to impeach their president. To the contrary, it is very clear they would defend him. While the political soothsayers believe it a long shot, it is not impossible that the Democrats could regain control of Congress with the 2004 election, and should that happen it would be a different story. With that thought -- however remote -- in mind, let me address your "if" question. If an investigation established that the president had lied to Congress and the American people to take the country to war in Iraq, and that in fact Hussein did not pose an imminent threat, would that be "more reprehensible" than Nixon's abuses of power? Clearly it is more reprehensible than the abuses that fall under Watergate, which is a litany of activity that related to domestic matters. You will recall that there was an effort in 1973-74 to impeach Nixon for his unauthorized and secret bombing of Cambodia -- which resulted in untold deaths of innocent Cambodians. Nixon was charged with "false and misleading statements to the Congress" concerning that bombing. But the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment inquiry did not address the question of the president's lying, rather whether he had conducted an unlawful war. By a vote of 26 to 12 the committee decided Nixon had not committed an impeachable offense, because he had informally informed a few select members of Congress of his action, and that he was acting within his powers as commander-in-chief to protect American troops in Vietnam. President Bush, of course, had Congressional authority, if not United Nations authority, for his actions in Iraq. But he certainly didn't have authority to lie. BUZZFLASH: Could you explain the specific steps that would lead to charges being brought against Bush or anyone in his administration? What sort of evidence would be needed to prove that intelligence data was manipulated or misused? Would it have to be proven that Bush knew he was using lies to lead the American public into war? Would he be let off the hook if an aide said, "I withheld information from the president that he was assuring Americans about information that we knew was likely false, or knew to be a lie?" DEAN: Some of the most interesting evidence developed so far, which is public, has been largely ignored. It is the work of one of the country's best investigative journalists -- who has not become part of the establishment. I am referring to the work of Sy Hersh in The New Yorker, specifically his essay "Selective Intelligence" in the May 12, 2003 issue [LINK]. Sy presents a powerful case that Rumsfeld's team -- no doubt with Dick Cheney's support -- knew what they wanted and managed to intimidate the rest of the intelligence community into agreeing with them. That they, in effect, had a pre-determined conclusion and simply ignored any and all information that conflicted with their conclusion. Needless to say, this is not intelligence gathering. Hersh's work is precisely the type of information that can start opening up the closed doors. Indeed, Sy has done this before, and his work resulted in the revelatory hearings by the Senate (the Church Committee) and the House (the Pike Committee) during the mid-1970s. Sy doesn't get it wrong very often, and if he does, he will be the first to say so. Both the House and Senate intelligence committees have scheduled what they are calling "reviews" of the pre-war intelligence. They are going through all the boxes of documents that have been given to them now, and then they will meet with witnesses. Unless the inter-agency/department internecine war between the Defense Department and the CIA, or the Defense Intelligence Agency and Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans erupts before one of these committees, I doubt much will surface. More likely, hard information -- if it exists -- will be uncovered by a reporter like Hersh, who has been digging and has a good source. That, I suspect, will be how any misconduct will be discovered. To more specifically answer your question, it will take either documentary evidence, like e-mails or memoranda, or sworn testimony, to make a case of misconduct. There also may be recorded telephone conversations, because making such recordings is very common in the intelligence community, and it appears from some of the leaks that there is a good bit of typical bureaucratic "CYA" thinking going on. [Editor's note: CYA refers to "cover your ass."] What will have to occur is the entire pre-war period will need to be carefully reconstructed: Who said what to whom and when. Then it will be known if there was a deliberate, or improper, manipulation of the pre-war intelligence. Given George Bush's executive style, and the fact that he has no background or experience with national security intelligence, the person I suspect has been guiding Bush through this is Cheney. Indeed, Cheney is to a war like a Dalmatian dog is to a fire: He wouldn't miss it. I have little doubt that Cheney is the player in the middle of all this intelligence business, but the likelihood of his testifying about it is nil. Dick Cheney is the most secretive man in government, the most powerful, and the most unaccountable with no responsibility other than to give the president behind-the-scenes help. I doubt we will ever know what transpired between Cheney and Bush; therefore, I doubt we will ever know the true story. I am reluctant to speculate further because whether Bush could defend himself by claiming he was not given the information will depend on the facts. We are still very, very early in the efforts to unravel all this. So no one should jump to any conclusions, even if the aroma has a bit of a stench about it. BUZZFLASH: If Bush manages to get away with starting on a war based on false information, what does this mean for future presidencies in terms of extending presidential powers? DEAN: It is a sad but unfortunate truth that our history is filled with examples of presidents misleading the country about wars. President Madison did not exactly lay all the facts and mixed motives on the table in seeking a declaration of war with England in 1812, nor did President Polk in leading the nation to war with Mexico in 1846. President McKinley glossed over facts when calling for war to "free" Cuba in 1898, just as President Wilson did in 1917 with World War I. President Franklin Roosevelt campaigned in 1940 with a pledge that American boys were not going to be sent into any foreign wars and President Lyndon Johnson used a similar ploy in 1964 regarding Vietnam. It will be a sorry commentary if another president is added to this list, which I have only partially set forth. Yet historians and presidential scholars regularly have the highest historical praise for presidents who take us to war, regardless of how they do it -- not those who keep us out of war. This has always struck me as not only ironic, but moronic. It may be the best reason in the world to start electing women presidents, because that will end measuring presidents by their machismo -- although lots of Americans like Bush's warmongering, and like our nation being a bully. The fact that such people have an aberrant gene is another story. BUZZFLASH: You had personal experience with the Watergate scandal, as the legal counsel to President Nixon. You warned him that there "was a cancer" on his presidency. Is there currently a "cancer" on the Bush presidency? DEAN: No signs of cancer, yet. But he certainly has a viral infection that could weaken his immune system. BUZZFLASH: In the FindLaw.com article, you identified six speeches in which Bush unequivocally stated that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons. Looking back, are you surprised that he spoke with such certitude? Clearly this was not merely an attempt at innuendo on his part. DEAN: Actually, I was stunned when I went back and pulled all of his pre-war statements about WMDs. None of them is the slightest bit equivocal. To the contrary, he speaks like a man who has actually seen the weapons. These pre-war declarative statements make glaring his most recent statement where he now has become equivocal. His last public statement was that Iraq had "a weapons program." A program, of course, is only a plan, not actual possession. This is an inconsistent statement that calls into question his prior statements. While the White House has tried to spin it, the presidents latest statement effectively undercut all his prior statements. As lawyers know, when a witness gives inconsistent statements it is said he or she has been impeached. Once a witness is impeached it takes additional evidence to rehabilitate that witness. What the White House needs to rehabilitate the president is obvious: They must find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or this president's credibility is in trouble. BUZZFLASH: What about the responsibility of our elected officials to investigate Bush's claims? How could members of Congress not have known about the shoddy intelligence and overwhelming flaws of Bush's argument before jumping on the war bandwagon? Even before the Iraq war, some of the key pieces of Bush administration "evidence" against Iraq were being seriously challenged in the British press. DEAN: Absent a public outcry, Congress will do nothing. The only conception of "checks and balances" remaining in the Congressional conscience are campaign contribution checks, and whether they have met or exceeded the balance of the last campaign. While there are a few members of Congress trying to flush out the facts, like Congressman Henry Waxman, he is the exception, not the rule. BUZZFLASH: Though U.S. television programs like Nightline and several notable columnists have been on top of the "Where are the weapons?" story, the issue seems to be causing more of a stir in other countries, such as Britain. In America, it is generally still not a front-page story. After all, a recent poll indicated that more than 40 percent of Americans thought that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. And Bush claimed that two mobile vans were WMDs, despite evidence to the contrary. Is the American press asleep at the wheel? DEAN: No one knows better than BuzzFlash and its readers how this administration plays to public ignorance, and has become one of the most effective presidencies at manipulating the news media. It is remarkable that this story has run as many news cycles as it has. And it does pop up on the front page. On Sunday, June 15, the Los Angeles Times did a front page story, along with an extensive inside story on the missing WMDs. But the implication of your question is correct. Let me explain: In the aftermath of Watergate, the news media became highly vigilant of the presidency. Before Watergate, presidents were given the benefit of any doubts. After Watergate, they had to make their case, and quickly. But in late 2000, after the Florida election recount debacle, there was a collective mood change in the news media. While there are a few exceptions, as you mention, by and large, reporting has returned to its pre-Watergate status: Almost any news is more important than the potential of presidential failures or screw ups. BUZZFLASH: Finally, not even the Democratic leadership in Congress is making much of a deal about Bush misleading the nation. What would it take to move public opinion to the point that lying about going to war would be considered at least as impeachable an offense as lying about sex? DEAN: If this issue has not been resolved by the time the Democrats nominate their standard bearer next summer, I believe it will become a campaign issue - potentially a serious issue for Bush if he has not been able to put it away by then. At that time, it could become a real problem for Bush. In fact, he will have trouble launching another war until he gets this issue resolved. Other than that, only Barney showing up at a White House press briefing to announce he is leaving home over the issue, is it likely to get widespread public attention. Needless to say, if such weapons are found, Bush will have a great "I told you so" that you can be sure will be exploited in the 2004 campaign, as he and his father parachute into New York City for the GOP 2004 Convention, and then proceed down Wall Street, wearing flight suits with helmets under their arms, in their tickertape parade. Unless otherwise noted, all original content and headlines are © BuzzFlash. Contact BuzzFlash for reprint rights. ______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 2:56:39 PM

Re: Upcoming Supreme Court Battles Dear Friends: Two impending vacancies on the Supreme Court this summer could have an impact on the nation for decades to come. Reproductive rights, environmental protections, and civil liberties could all be in danger if one or two of these rumored vacancies are filled by right-wing Bush nominees. _______________________ Alternet June 16, 2003 Supreme Court Battle of a Lifetime by Kari Lydersen, AlterNet Reproductive rights, environmental protections and civil liberties could all be in danger if the one or two rumored vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court this summer are filled by right-wing Bush nominees. With many Supreme Court decisions on key issues in the pipeline, and many decisions that could be overturned, conservative and progressive groups are already in high gear preparing for the likely vacancies, after hearing of the impending retirements of Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, 73, and/or William Rehnquist, 78. On the left, a coalition of groups including the Alliance for Justice, People for the American Way, Naral Pro-Choice America Foundation and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights have started lobbying, grassroots mobilizing, fundraising and public awareness campaigns to make sure they and their constituents have a say in who is appointed to the Supreme Court. The Loss of Choice On June 8, Naral launched a national TV ad campaign. The 30-second spot depicts a woman reading a newspaper with the headline, "Abortion Outlawed! -- Court Overturns Right to Choose," and then goes back in time through the political events leading up to the decision. The ad ends with a voiceover saying, "There's still time to protect your right to choose." Naral hopes that the ads, part of a multi-million dollar campaign called Choice for America, will help prevent the storyline in the commercial from becoming reality. Naral is also launching an internet campaign and will begin running shorter statewide TV spots in Oregon, Wisconsin and Iowa in mid-June. Naral notes that the Supreme Court and Congress are already teetering on the brink as far as supporting reproductive choice, and that 300 anti-choice laws have been passed in states in the past few years. "The likelihood that there will be vacancies on the Supreme Court in a matter of weeks is extremely high," said Naral president Kate Michelman in a statement. "The moment is upon pro-choice America to come together to save our liberties and our constitutional freedoms.'" Respect for the Environment The Alliance for Justice, a D.C.-based group with the specific mission of examining judicial nominees, has hired extra staff to work on the Supreme Court issue and has compiled dossiers of background information on eight potential nominees. The Sierra Club is also running an intense lobbying campaign of its own, aimed at ensuring that justices friendly to the environment -- or at the very least moderate on environmental issues -- fill any Supreme Court vacancies. "The court is so divided right now, the biggest impact would come if Sandra Day O'Connor retires," noted Sierra Club senior attorney David Bookbinder. "She's one of two swing votes. If Rehnquist retired it wouldn't really matter because he's so conservative anyway, it would be hard for Bush to find someone more conservative. But then that could be an opportunity to get someone better on." Bookbinder noted that while it may be unrealistic to get a real pro-environment nominee on the court, the Sierra Club hopes to prevent the nomination of hard-line conservative candidates with no respect for the environment. "We approve the president's nominees most of the time; we are very flexible," said Bookbinder. "It's the real crazies we have a problem with. We have had some big battles." Stepping Down The last time a justice retired was 1994, when Stephen Breyer stepped down. This nine-year interval between appointees is the longest since 1823. Day O'Connor and Rehnquist, both Republicans, would be likely to step down during Bush's presidency rather than after it so he can appoint a Republican in their places. The Bush administration has reported that while there are dozens of potential nominees to fill the vacancies, there are under 10 likely candidates so far. There is a 51-48 Republican majority in the Senate (along with one independent), but on several lower court nominations Democrats have filibustered to block votes on at least two right-wing Bush nominees. Conservative groups are afraid Democrats will do the same thing with right-wing Supreme Court nominees, so they are trying to change filibuster rules, saying the potential to filibuster means there is a de facto need for a 60-vote majority (enough to break a filibuster) for a win. Progressive groups note that Bush previously stated he would be looking for new Supreme Court justices along the lines of conservatives Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia -- both strong opponents of reproductive choice and other progressive causes. Big Battles Ahead The groups are combining their campaigns aimed at the Supreme Court with campaigns to influence nominations on the lower courts. Among other things, People for the American Way, a 600,000-member social justice organization, has been spearheading a campaign to prevent the confirmation of William Pryor, the former Alabama attorney general, for the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Alabama. Pryor's record as attorney general included undermining Congress's authority to prohibit discrimination, protect separation of church and state and protect the environment, according to People for the American Way. Pryor called Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion, "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history." Pryor has also filed a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Texas's Homosexual Conduct Law, which permits gays and lesbians to be arrested for having sex in their own homes. "We're definitely preparing for a Supreme Court vacancy or two," said Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way. "We're working in coalition with dozens of organizations representing reproductive choice, defending and promoting constitutional rights and liberties. We're researching all the possible nominees mentioned over the past year or so, doing exhaustive examinations of their backgrounds, looking at their records and what they'd likely do in court." Neas noted that in 2000, People for the American Way did a series of TV and print ads relating to the Supreme Court, and now they are running an internet campaign including a web page with information on all the possible appeals court and Supreme Court nominees. "We want to be ready," Neas said. "We have to be prepared for the worst. If he names someone like Thomas or Scalia, a lot of things could be overturned. There are over 100 Supreme Court decisions that could be overturned, having to do with rights and privacy, liberty issues, campaign finance reform, economic justice, the right to choose. It's really important for all organizations and individuals to articulate what's really at stake and acknowledge the court has a daily impact on every aspect of our lives. This will have an impact on the country for decades to come." He noted that justices normally serve six to seven judicial terms, or 25 to 40 years, with their reach extending far beyond the term of the president who nominated them. Not Fit to Judge The Sierra Club has also been preparing for the Supreme Court battle with campaigns aimed at lower federal courts. "We're working with a lot of other groups to oppose extreme lower court nominees, partly on their merits and partly as a way to organize and galvanize people, to get the Senate prepared for what will be bigger vacancies on the Supreme Court," said Bookbinder. "We have a massive grassroots effort to get all our members to contact their Senators." For example, Bookbinder said California Senator Dianne Feinstein voted against conservative Ninth Circuit appointee Carolyn Kuhl "because she had gotten 30,000 emails saying this person is not fit to be a federal judge," he said. "Senators respond when their constituents start getting massively upset. If we can do that for a Circuit Court nominee, we can do even more for the Supreme Court." Neas noted that along with lobbying senators, progressive groups need to remind the general public how crucial the Supreme Court is. "We don't want people waking up two years from now to find that the fundamental rights and freedoms they thought were theirs forever are gone overnight because of a Supreme Court decision," he said. "We need to educate the American public about precisely what's at stake." --Kari Lydersen writes for the Washington Post and is an instructor for the Urban Youth International Journalism Program in Chicago. © 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 2:56:20 PM

Re: Did the President Know? Dear Friends: Did Bush know that the intelligence surrounding the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was questionable, and when did he know it? The administration's manipulation of intelligence in justifying a war that already has killed thousands of people and continues to take the lives of several Americans each week is a crime against America and Iraq. When the truth comes out, and eventually it always does, who will take the fall for these crimes? The congressional Republicans have circled the wagons to prevent a public hearing on whether intelligence was distorted by the White House to convince us of the need for war. Why? Because public hearings could lead to public demands for impeachment. Right on! ______________________ robertscheer.com June 17, 2002 What Did He Know and When Did He Know It? The Case of the Phantom Uranium raises questions about the president that could lead to legitimate calls for impeachment. by Robert Scheer What did the president know and when did he know it? The answer to that question forced the resignation of Richard Nixon as he was about to be impeached. Now, with President Bush facing that same question, congressional Republicans have circled the wagons to prevent a public hearing on whether intelligence was distorted by the White House to convince us of the need for war. Why? Because public hearings could lead to public demands for impeachment. Sound far-fetched? Not when you consider the gravity of the charge. "To put it bluntly," former Nixon White House counsel John Dean wrote on the legal Web site FindLaw (www.findlaw.com) on June 6, "if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be 'a high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony 'to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.'." Of course, intelligence data is often open to interpretation, and some political distortion is probably inevitable. Consider, however, just one of the recent revelations about how Iraq weapons intelligence was handled by the Bush administration and you'll start to see a disturbing pattern of cynical mendacity. Call it the "Case of the Phantom Uranium." It starts with a document, later exposed by United Nations inspectors as a crude forgery, that was sold by an African diplomat to Italian intelligence, which passed it to the British. It seemed to implicate Saddam Hussein in an attempt to buy uranium from Africa. This apparently proved too juicy a tidbit for the hawks in the Bush administration to resist. They knew that the specter of Iraqi nukes - which U.N. inspectors would establish as baseless - would scare Americans much more than talk of mustard gas, and scaring Americans is this administration's M.O. Thus in his 2003 State of the Union address, the president intoned that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa." Scary stuff. Problem was, the document was signed by an official who had given up his post a decade earlier, and the CIA had told the White House the story did not check out. On Friday, the Knight Ridder newspaper chain reported that, according to a senior CIA official, on March 9, 2002, a full 10 months before the speech, the White House was duly informed that an investigation, including an agent traveling to Africa to verify the story, had found no basis for the document. Three senior administration officials told the Knight Ridder reporter that Vice President Dick Cheney and officials on the National Security Council staff and at the Pentagon ignored the CIA's reservations and argued that the allegation should be included in the case against Hussein. This is just one example of the administration's manipulation of intelligence in justifying a war that already has killed thousands of people and continues to take the lives of several Americans each week. It is exceedingly odd that the same congressional Republicans who impeached Bill Clinton for dissembling in a sexual scandal find none of this worthy of a full public hearing. To pacify a growing number of critics, they have instead scheduled a secret and limited inquiry. Perhaps the Republicans think they can stall until fragments of evidence of weapons of mass destruction are found, which would clear Bush's name. However, that won't do the trick. The president persistently claimed that the war was necessitated by the imminent threat of deployed weapons - "a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles," as the president put it, capable of dispersing a huge existing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, including "missions targeting the United States." Instead, almost three months after we invaded Iraq, the United States and Britain have yet to find anything of the sort. "Frankly, we expected to find large warehouses full of chemical or biological weapons, or delivery systems," Army Col. John Connell, who heads the hunt for those AWOL weapons in Iraq, said in Sunday's Los Angeles Times. "At this point, we're getting fairly sure we're not going to find a full-up production facility. We're going to find little pieces." We now know that the threat of deployed WMD was a blatant falsehood. What has not been established is whether the president was in on the lie. If he was, he should be impeached. Copyright Robert Scheer _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 2:55:21 PM

Re: We Hold These Truths to be Self Evident Dear Friends: Why are Americans so quick to give up their civil liberties? Are these something we won't miss until they're taken away from us? How easily we can be persuaded to give up rights we imagine we will never need -- and how cavalierly we regard the rights of people who strike us as "strange" or "dangerous." But the people whose rights we are quickest to jettison are nearly always those least able to resist, whether Japanese Americans during World War II or the hapless souls (at least some of them likely to be innocent) imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, unable to find witnesses or lawyers or even to have their families know where they are. And the abridgment of rights is almost always led by people who are sincere in their belief that the people they go after are dangerous. Make the danger vivid enough and those who ought to be protecting our liberties -- the legislatures, the governmental bureaucracies and, too often, the media -- will look the other way. So will too many Americans. Someone needs to remind us that what is special about America is not just its power, unprecedented in the world, but also its principles. The one is secure enough, the other in more peril than we're willing to admit. _______________________ Washington Post June 16, 2003 Liberty Is Security by William Raspberry Every once in a while, someone will circulate a petition asking Americans to endorse a set of principles that have been paraphrased to disguise the fact that they are the same principles contained in the Bill of Rights. And whenever it happens, large numbers of Americans say no. Many do so, no doubt, because they are leery of signing anything. But many others, I suspect, really don't like the idea that public school teachers shouldn't be allowed to lead their students in prayer, or that people should be allowed to say awful things about our government in public, or that the press should be free of any government control, or that the courts should let guilty people go free because of "technicalities." The occasional petitions ought to remind us To take a current example: The French Moroccan Zacarias Moussaoui, accused by the Justice Department of being a conspirator in the 9/11 attacks -- indeed the only suspect we've charged in those attacks -- is insisting on the right to face his accusers and to question a witness who could help his legal defense. But the government says that allowing Moussaoui to question that witness, an al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody, would be a threat to our national security, presumably compromising our intelligence sources. How many Americans would reach what seems to me the only legally defensible conclusion: that the government must choose between its competing interests in prosecuting Moussaoui and protecting its intelligence? My guess is that an awful lot of us would scrape our ethical barrels for a pro-government conclusion. This is war. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. The defendant, who has repeatedly denounced America, is a foreigner not entitled to the protection of the Constitution. But the people whose rights we are quickest to jettison are nearly always those least able to resist, whether Japanese Americans during World War II or the hapless souls (at least some of them likely to be innocent) imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, unable to find witnesses or lawyers or even to have their families know where they are. And the abridgment of rights is almost always led by people who are sincere in their belief that the people they go after are dangerous. Make the danger vivid enough and those who ought to be protecting our liberties -- the legislatures, the governmental bureaucracies and, too often, the media -- will look the other way. So will too many Americans. But not all. Just last week, the American Civil Liberties Union hosted its first-ever membership conference, put together, according to Laura W. Murphy, director of the group's Washington office, "in response to a groundswell of opposition" to the Patriot Act, which suspends or weakens a number of long-established civil liberties. ACLU units in 123 jurisdictions have passed resolutions denouncing both the post-9/11 legislation and the freer rein on FBI surveillance of political and religious activities, she said. "People have come to Washington because they want to know what they can do about these incursions on our liberties." It's no surprise that the ACLU membership "gets it" -- or that rank-and-file Americans don't. It isn't that Americans are ignorant of the facts. We know about Guantanamo and Moussaoui and the difficulty of locating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But most of us don't know what to think of all these things until those we trust -- our political leaders, public intellectuals and the press -- help us sort them out. The government (and not just the current president and attorney general) always wants more power and more freedom from the impediments to its use. And the people, most often, will go along. Someone needs to remind us that what is special about America is not just its power, unprecedented in the world, but also its principles. The one is secure enough, the other in more peril than we're willing to admit. © 2003 The Washington Post Company _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 2:54:56 PM

Re: US Chaos in Iraq Dear Friends: According to the UK's The Telegraph, the American-led reconstruction effort in Iraq is in chaos and suffering from a complete absence of strategic direction. First we unjustly bombed their country, then we sent in our own highly-paid contractors to restore it, and now even that is being mismanaged. Considering the amount of time the invasion of Iraq was part of the US's game plan, this goes way beyond incompetence.  _______________________ The Telegraph (UK) June 17, 2003 America's Rebuilding of Iraq is in Chaos, Say British by Peter Foster in Baghdad The American-led reconstruction effort in Iraq is "in chaos" and suffering from "a complete absence of strategic direction", a very senior British official in Baghdad has told The Telegraph. The comments paint a grim picture of American incompetence and mismanagement as the Coalition Provisional Authority struggles to run post-Saddam Iraq.   "This is the single most chaotic organisation I have ever worked for," the official said yesterday. The source revealed that Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, had "fewer than 600" staff under his control to run a country the size of France in which the civil infrastructure was on the point of collapse. "The operation is chronically under-resourced and suffers from an almost complete absence of strategic direction," he added. Similar frustrations have been voiced privately in London, where British ministers are said to be fed up with being "taken for granted". As revealed in The Telegraph yesterday, Tony Blair appointed Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's best-known diplomat, as his special envoy in Baghdad in an attempt to put some political muscle into the administration. Officials said a crippling problem is the fact that the US has transposed Washington's inter-departmental fighting to Baghdad. For instance, the payment of salaries has been slowed down by Washington's inability to decide which currency to use - US dollars, the former regime's "Saddam dinars" or the so-called "Swiss dinars" used in the Kurdish areas. In Baghdad the senior British official said the chaos at the heart of the coalition was seriously hampering its ability to deliver vital services to the Iraqi people, such as salaries, electricity and security. "We are facing an almost complete inability to engage with what needs to be done and to bring to bear sufficient resources to make a difference," he said. The official added that a dangerous gulf was opening up between the expectations of the Iraqi people and what the coalition was realistically able to deliver. The growing dissatisfaction among ordinary Iraqis - intensified by the temper-fraying heat of a Baghdad summer - is easily discernible on the streets of the capital. As 10 local builders used shovels and wheelbarrows to repair the Baghdad police station, residents outside demanded to know when they would see more Iraqi police on the streets. Some April salaries remain unpaid and the electricity supply remains extremely unreliable. The heavy-handed presence of American soldiers and, perhaps more importantly, the lack of any visible Iraqi partnership in Government is further fuelling resentment. The official, who was involved in the planning for post-war Iraq from its conception, said Washington had been seriously caught out by the discovery that Iraq was no longer a functioning country. "The original post-war plan was to solve the humanitarian crisis - should it have arisen, which it did not - and then use the existing Iraqi ministries and officials to get the country running again as quickly as possible." In the event the coalition arrived in Baghdad to find the ministries looted and destroyed and Iraqi civil servants "unable to make decisions themselves" after years of living in a police state. "They demand written authority to do the tiniest thing, as a consequence of living under Saddam," he said. Within weeks it became obvious that the operation would take years not months. Joseph Collins, head of stability operations at the US Defence Department, conceded to Congressmen last week that bringing order to Iraq had proved "tougher and more complex" than had been expected. The situation was not irretrievable, the British official said, before warning that the coalition could face serious difficulties and even unrest if it was unable to raise its game in the coming months. "This is a difficult period, particularly with the extreme temperatures," he concluded, "It could be said that we are currently sowing the seeds of a better Iraq, but if we don't have anything to harvest by the autumn, we could face the consequences." © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 2:54:24 PM

Re: World Opposed to Bush and Iraq War  Dear Friends: A majority of people around the world view President Bush unfavorably and think the United States was wrong to invade Iraq, according to a BBC poll published on Monday. In five of the 11 countries polled, a majority of respondents believed the United States was more dangerous than Iran, named by Bush as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea. The survey,  commissioned for a TV program called "What the World Thinks of America," covered Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, South Korea, Russia and the United States. _____________________ Reuters June 16, 2003 World Opposed to Bush and Iraq War, BBC Poll Says LONDON (Reuters) - A majority of people around the world view President Bush unfavorably and think the United States was wrong to invade Iraq, according to a BBC poll published on Monday. The poll, which surveyed more than 11,000 people in 11 countries, showed 57 percent of those asked had "a very unfavorable or fairly unfavorable attitude toward the American president," the British broadcaster said in a statement. Some 56 percent felt the United States was wrong to attack Iraq, including 81 percent of Russian respondents and 63 percent of those polled in France. In Jordan and Indonesia, well over half of those asked felt the United States posed a greater danger to world peace and stability than al Qaeda. In five of the 11 countries polled, a majority of respondents believed the United States was more dangerous than Iran, named by Bush as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea. And in eight of the 11, respondents said the United States was more dangerous than Syria, a country which Washington accuses of sponsoring terrorism. However, attitudes toward America, rather than the Bush administration, were slightly more positive. Half rated the country "fairly" while 40 percent considered it "unfavorable." Asked if their country was becoming more like America, 81 percent of Australians and 64 percent of Britons said "Yes." The survey, conducted in May and June by the BBC and pollsters around the world, covered Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, South Korea, Russia and the United States. It was commissioned for a TV program called "What the World Thinks of America." _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 2:53:54 PM

Re: US pursues immunity agreements      Dear Friends: A special thanks to a Canadian/New Zealand reader to tipping us off to this one. The United States, in its desire to avoid prosecution by the International Criminal Court, has signed immunity agreements with 39 countries so far. Diplomatic sources speaking on condition of anonymity and a State Department document said five others -- Egypt, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Tunisia and the Seychelles -- had also secretly signed such agreements, but the department has made no public announcement. Washington argues that the court could become a forum for politically motivated prosecutions of US citizens, including civilian military contractors and former officials, and has been unapologetic in its pursuit of such immunity agreements. _______________________ AFP June 16, 2003 US Signs ICC Immunity Deals with Togo and Five Others WASHINGTON (AFP) - At least six more countries have agreed to exempt US nationals on their territory from prosecution by the International Criminal Court, diplomatic and State Department sources said, even as the head of the court was sworn in. The State Department announced that Togo had Friday become the 39th country to sign such an agreement with the United States. Diplomatic sources speaking on condition of anonymity and a State Department document said five others -- Egypt, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Tunisia and the Seychelles -- had also secretly signed such agreements, but the department has made no public announcement. The document obtained by AFP was prepared by the department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and named the five countries as signers of so-called "Article 98" agreements. That bureau is in charge of negotiating the agreements on behalf of the US government. The existence of the five secret immunity deals came to light as Argentine human rights lawyer Luis Moreno Ocampo was sworn in as the chief prosecutor of the tribunal, the world's first permanent war crimes court, at its future headquarters in The Hague (news - web sites). The United States strongly opposes the court, which has become a new source of division with Europe. The State Department, which now has announced the conclusion of immunity pacts with 39 nations, declined to comment on the secret agreements but acknowledged last week that it has not identified all the countries to have signed them. "Several other countries have signed agreements but have asked us not to identify them as signers," the department said in a written answer to a question posed Thursday at news briefing. "We are respecting their wishes." It was not immediately clear why the five nations did not want the deals announced, particularly when Washington is expected to make the list public in some form after July 1, the deadline for ICC member countries to agree to the pacts or lose US military aid. However, the agreements are controversial, particularly in Europe where the European Union (news - web sites) -- which supports the court -- has campaigned to limit the scope of deals signed with the United States by EU members or aspirants. Washington argues that the court could become a forum for politically motivated prosecutions of US citizens, including civilian military contractors and former officials, and has been unapologetic in its pursuit of signing Article 98 agreements. "We will continue our efforts to conclude these agreements with as many countries as possible," the department said. US officials said last week they have complained to the European Union about its stance and warned it against thwarting the drive. "We seek to protect American citizens and non-US citizens serving in the US Armed Forces from the potential danger of being tried by a court that lacks sufficient safeguards against politically motivated prosecutions and was established outside the UN system by a treaty to which we are not a party," the department said. The impact of the US warning to the EU remains unclear. Two European countries that aspire to EU membership -- Croatia and Slovenia -- said last week they would not sign the deals in part for political reasons and Bosnia received a sharp warning from France when it agreed to one. The State Department identifies the signers thus far as:    Afghanistan (news - web sites), Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Djibouti, the Democratic Republic of Congo (news - web sites), the Dominican Republic, East Timor (news - web sites), El Salvador (news - web sites), Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Israel, Madagascar, Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Nauru, Nepal, Palau, the Philippines, Romania, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda and Uzbekistan. --AFP _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 2:53:10 PM