[Austin-ghetto-list] Brainfood

[Roger Baker]

IMNSHO, The New Republic, like the link Connie posted, suffers from the
baggage of having to support US policy on Israel (being as it is a
mouthpiece for the establishment wing of the Democratic Party).

So of course its editor Peter Beinart would like to deny that our Israel
policy has little real bearing on bin Laden's motivations. While bin
Laden may be more deeply motivated by Saudi policy, the fact is that he
has formally declared war on BOTH the United States and Israel exactly
because US policy on Israel/Palestine is universally unpopular in the
Arab world. 

http://www.thenewrepublic.com/100101/trb100101.html

The piece goes on to conclude, predictably, that peace protests against
a US war on terrorism in whatever way Bush wants to conduct it are
misguided because bin Laden is a very bad man, etc. As if the growing
peace movement and the Bush administrations's attempt to declare a war
against domestic dissent to US foreign policy could be trivialized by
trying to make it out as a referendum on bin Laden. (I went to a meeting
of about 250 UT students in the local Austin peace movement last night,
which dealt heavily with the roots of Arab nationalism, Islamic
fundamentalism and their evolution over the last few decades in regard
to the history of US foreign policy). 

The bottom line is that United States can seek world domination through
trying to perpetuate its corporate empire, or else it can have security,
but not both. -- Roger

      
        **********************************************

If you thought this war was a simple matter, look at the following story
from the Wash. Post.

Everyone would like to think isn't about oil, but in truth a major cause
is the fact that we have made Saudi Arabia a military client by secret
agreement with Fahd in exchange for Saudi oil. A primary goal of bin
Laden is to remove our military power from the Persian Gulf, a power
that assures our oil addiction will be satisfied until sometime this
decade when not even the aging supergiant Saudi fields can supply our
growing addiction -- which nothing but oil can quench. 

(forget wind and solar and natural gas and coal, etc., Oil is the one
king of portable energy and nothing else can keep the US transportation
system running as usual).  


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32169-2001Sep26.html

         ****************************************

More useful info on the history of our involvement in Afghanistan:

http://www.cnn.com/2001/COMMUNITY/09/25/van_dyk/index.html#top_of_page

         ****************************************

This is mostly interesting reading:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Progressive Review" <ssmith@igc.org>
To: <news@prorev.com>
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 4:37 PM
Subject: UNDERNEWS SEP 24


> NOTE: A revealing graphic that goes with our piece on the secret war can
be
> found at http://prorev.com/indexa.htm
>
> WORD
>
> The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. A
> person who claims to know the mind or will of God is pathological. - The
> Rev. Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral
>
> RECOVERED HISTORY
> The Secret War
>
> *** Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian, LONDON., March 5, 2001: A new and
> potentially explosive Great Game is being set up and few in Britain are
> aware of it. There are many players: far more than the two - Russia and
> Britain - who were engaged a century ago in imperial rivalry in central
Asia
> and the north-west frontier. And the object this time is not so much
control
> of territory. It is the large reserves of oil and gas in the Caucasus,
> notably the Caspian basin. Pipelines are the counters in this new Great
> Game.  There are plans for pipe-lines through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey,
> Iran, Bulgaria, Macedonia - and Albania. Traditional rivalries between
east
> and west are complicated by other threats - from Chechen separatists,
Kurds,
> Albanian guerrilla groups, the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over
> Nagorno-Karabakh and, throughout the region, Islamic groups whose
activities
> are causing deep concern to Moscow, Tehran and Washington alike . . . This
> is the region both west and east have their eyes on. It is rich in
untapped
> oil and gas while US reserves are running down, China is desperate for
more
> oil, and no one outside the Gulf wants to rely on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or
> Iraq - which have the biggest oil reserves.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4146099,00.html
>
> *** DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY: Afghanistan's significance from an energy
> standpoint stems from its geographical position as a potential transit
route
> for oil and natural gas exports from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea. This
> potential includes proposed multi-billion-dollar oil and gas export
> pipelines through Afghanistan, although these plans have now been thrown
> into serious question . . . On November 29, 1999, UN Secretary General
Kofi
> Annan issued a report on Afghanistan which listed the country's major
> problems as follows: civil war (which has caused many casualties and
> refugees, and which has devastated the country's economy), record opium
> production, wide-scale human rights violations, and food shortages caused
in
> part by drought. According to the 2000 CIA World Factbook, Afghanistan is
an
> extremely poor, landlocked country, highly dependent on farming and
> livestock raising (sheep and goats). Currently, the country is
experiencing
> a severe drought . . . The Soviets had estimated Afghanistan's proven and
> probable natural gas reserves at up to 5 trillion cubic feet. Afghan gas
> production reached 275 million cubic feet per day in the mid-1970s.
However,
> due to declining reserves from producing fields, output gradually fell to
> about 220 Mmcf/d by 1980 . . . Soviet estimates from the late 1970s placed
> Afghanistan's proven and probable oil and condensate reserves at 95
million
> barrels. Despite plans to start commercial oil production in Afghanistan,
> all oil exploration and development work were halted after the 1979 Soviet
> invasion. Afghanistan's various provinces receive refined products from
> neighboring countries . . . Besides oil and gas, Afghanistan also is
> estimated to have significant coal reserves (probable reserves of 400
> million tons) . . .
>
> http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/afghan2.html
>
> *** JOHN J. MARESCA, VICE PRESIDENT UNOCAL in testimony before a House
> committee, February 12, 1998: Today we would like to focus on issues
> concerning this region, its resources and U.S. policy: The need for
multiple
> pipeline routes for Central Asian oil and gas. The need for U.S. support
for
> international and regional efforts to achieve balanced and lasting
political
> settlements within Russia, other newly independent states and in
Afghanistan
> . . . The Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon
reserves,
> much of them located in the Caspian Sea basin itself. Proven natural gas
> reserves within Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan equal
> more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's total oil reserves may
reach
> more than 60 billion barrels of oil -- enough to service Europe's oil
needs
> for 11 years. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels . . .
>
> [An] option is to build a pipeline south from Central Asia to the Indian
> Ocean. One obvious potential route south would be across Iran. However,
this
> option is foreclosed for American companies because of U.S. sanctions
> legislation. The only other possible route option is across Afghanistan,
> which has its own unique challenges. The country has been involved in
bitter
> warfare for almost two decades. The territory across which the pipeline
> would extend is controlled by the Taliban, an Islamic movement that is not
> recognized as a government by most other nations. From the outset, we have
> made it clear that construction of our proposed pipeline cannot begin
until
> a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of
governments,
> lenders and our company. In spite of this, a route through Afghanistan
> appears to be the best option with the fewest technical obstacles. It is
the
> shortest route to the sea and has relatively favorable terrain for a
> pipeline. The route through Afghanistan is the one that would bring
Central
> Asian oil closest to Asian markets and thus would be the cheapest in terms
> of transporting the oil.
>
> Unocal envisions the creation of a Central Asian Oil Pipeline Consortium.
> The pipeline would become an integral part of a regional oil pipeline
system
> that will utilize and gather oil from existing pipeline infrastructure in
> Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The 1,040-mile-long oil
> pipeline would begin near the town of Chardzhou, in northern Turkmenistan,
> and extend southeasterly through Afghanistan to an export terminal that
> would be constructed on the Pakistan coast on the Arabian Sea. Only about
> 440 miles of the pipeline would be in Afghanistan. This 42-inch-diameter
> pipeline will have a shipping capacity of one million barrels of oil per
> day. Estimated cost of the project -- which is similar in scope to the
Trans
> Alaska Pipeline -- is about $2.5 billion . . .
>
> The pipeline would benefit Afghanistan, which would receive revenues from
> transport tariffs, and would promote stability and encourage trade and
> economic development. Although Unocal has not negotiated with any one
group,
> and does not favor any group, we have had contacts with and briefings for
> all of them. We know that the different factions in Afghanistan understand
> the importance of the pipeline project for their country, and have
expressed
> their support of it.
>
> A recent study for the World Bank states that the proposed pipeline from
> Central Asia across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea would
> provide more favorable netbacks to oil producers through access to higher
> value markets than those currently being accessed through the traditional
> Baltic and Black Sea export routes.
>
> http://www.house.gov/international_relations/105th/ap/wsap212982.htm
>
> NOT EVERYONE'S CHEERING
>
> REUTERS: International public opinion opposes a massive U.S. military
strike
> to retaliate for attacks on America by hijacked aircraft, according to a
> Gallup poll in 31 countries whose results. Only in Israel and the United
> States did a majority favor a military response against states shown to
> harbor terrorists, the survey found. People questioned elsewhere preferred

> to see suspected terrorists extradited and put on trial. "Around 80
percent
> of Europeans and around 90 percent of South Americans favor extradition
and
> a court verdict.  . . . Seventy-seven percent of Israelis backed military
> action, while 54 percent of Americans were in favor, it said.
>
> REUTERS: Stocks slumped on Friday, with blue chips chalking up their
biggest
> weekly loss since the Great Depression in the 1930s on growing fears over
a
> worsening U.S. economy and a long war on terrorism after last week's
deadly
> attacks.  . . . Total investor losses of $6.8 trillion since stocks peaked
> in March 2000 are equivalent roughly to the combined economies of Japan,
> Germany and France. About $1.4 trillion in investor wealth has evaporated
> this week, raising fears consumer spending will drop and add more pressure
> to the economy.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/22/automobiles/23ROAD.html
>
> SLEEP WELL TONIGHT
>
> KXTV: Gary Condit has been named to a House subcommittee on terrorism and
> security. His first move was to send a letter to law enforcement agencies
to
> ask their thoughts on improving homeland security. Condit, who represents
> Modesto and other communities in the Central Valley, is now a member of
the
> House Permanent Select Committee's newly formed Subcommittee on Terrorism
> and Homeland Security.
>
> http://www.kxtv.com/news-story/September2001/092201/CONDIT-COMMITTEE.htm
>
> THE WAR AGAINST WHATEVER
>
> *** GUARDIAN, LOONDON: Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of
> possible American military strikes against them two months before the
> terrorist assaults on New York and Washington, which were allegedly
> masterminded by the Saudi-born fundamentalist, a Guardian investigation
has
> established. The threats of war unless the Taliban surrendered Osama bin
> Laden were passed to the regime in Afghanistan by the Pakistani
government,
> senior diplomatic sources revealed yesterday. The Taliban refused to
comply
> but the serious nature of what they were told raises the possibility that
> Bin Laden, far from launching the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New
> York and the Pentagon out of the blue 10 days ago, was launching a
> pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as US threats. The warning
to
> the Taliban originated at a four-day meeting of senior Americans,
Russians,
> Iranians and Pakistanis at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July. The conference,
> the third in a series dubbed "brainstorming on Afghanistan", was part of a
> classic diplomatic device known as "track two." It was designed to offer a
> free and open-ended forum for governments to pass messages and sound out
> each other's thinking. Participants were experts with long diplomatic
> experience of the region who were no longer government officials but had
> close links with their governments. "The Americans indicated to us that in
> case the Taliban does not behave and in case Pakistan also doesn't help us
> to influence the Taliban, then the United States would be left with no
> option but to take an overt action against Afghanistan," said Niaz Naik, a
> former foreign minister of Pakistan, who was at the meeting. "I told the
> Pakistani government, who informed the Taliban via our foreign office and
> the Taliban ambassador here."
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,556279,00.html
>
> *** SAM SMITH, "WHY BOTHER?" Every act in the face of wrong carries twin
> responsibilities: to end the evil and to avoid replacing it with another.
> This twin burden is analogous to what a doctor confronts when attempting
to
> cure a disease. There is even a name for medical failure in such cases;
the
> resulting illness is called iatrogenic  caused by the physician. In
> politics, however, we have been taught to believe that simply having good
> intentions and an evil foe are sufficient.
>
> This is not true. Arguably from the moment we become aware of an evil, and
> certainly once we commence an intervention, we become a part of the story,
> and part of the good and evil. We are no longer the innocent bystander but
 a
> participant whose acts will either help or make things worse. Our
intentions
> immediately become irrelevant; they are overwhelmed by our response to
them.
> Our language confuses this business terribly. That which is known at the
> personal level as terrorism is called humanitarian or a peacekeeping
mission
> when carried out by the state. Thus both the office building destroyed by
a
> few individuals and the country destroyed by a multinational alliance lie
in
> ruins to support the tragic myth that Allah or democracy will be better
for
> it. But nothing grants us immunity from responsibility for our own acts.
So
> if we are to revolt, rebel, avenge, or assuage, our duty is not only to
the
> course we set but to what we leave in our wake.
>
> http://prorev.com/orderwb.htm
> http://prorev.com/wbintro.htm
>
> *** ITALY'S LA NAZIONE reports that with a war against Afghanistan, heroin
> would be come scarce, less pure and more expensive
>
> *** George Wehrfritz, Catharine Skipp and John Barry NEWSWEEK: U.S.
military
> sources have given the FBI information that suggests five of the alleged
> hijackers of the planes that were used in Tuesday's terror attacks
received
> training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s. Three of the
> alleged hijackers listed their address on drivers licenses and car
> registrations as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla.  known as the
> "Cradle of U.S. Navy Aviation," according to a high-ranking U.S. Navy
> source. Another of the alleged hijackers may have been trained in strategy
> and tactics at the Air War College in Montgomery, Ala., said another
> high-ranking Pentagon official. The fifth man may have received language
> instruction at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Tex. Both were
former
> Saudi Air Force pilots who had come to the United States, according to the
> Pentagon source. But there are slight discrepancies between the military
> training records and the official FBI list of suspected hijackerseither in
> the spellings of their names or with their birth dates. One military
source
> said it is possible that the hijackers may have stolen the identities of
the
> foreign nationals who studied at the U.S. installations.
>
> *** REUTERS: Law enforcement offlcials planned to thwart the bombing of
the
> World Trade Center by substituting harmless powder for explosives, but the
> scheme was called off by the FBl, a newspaper reported. Tape recordings
> secretly made by an FBI informer reveal that authorities were in a far
> better position than previously known to foil the Feb. 26 bombing of New
> York's tallest towers, the New York Times reported . . . The New York
Times
> published conversations the informer, a 43 year-old former Egyptian army
> officer, Emad Ali Salem, taped with his FBI handlers. On the tapes, Salem
> recalls that the FBI had planned on "building the bomb with a phony powder
> and grabbing the people who were involved in it."  But the informer. who
is
> heard lecturing his handlers, said the powder scheme was called off and
"we
> didn't do that." Salem also is heard on the tapes criticizing the agents
for
> ignoring his warnings that the World Trade Center was to be bombed.
>
> *** MICHELINE MAYNARD, NY TIMES: Although 86 percent of vacations are
taken
> by car, business travelers have long preferred to fly. That may change,
out
> of necessity if not fear . . . In two hours of additional pre-flight time,
a
> car can cover 100 to 150 miles . . . Last year, congestion in and around
the
> 50 largest cities cost an estimated $39 billion in lost work time and
wasted
> gasoline, according to the General Accounting Office. "Congestion is a way
> of life in most cities," said Jerry Cheske, a spokesman for the AAA auto
> club . . . With all those people on the roads, the roads themselves will
be
> bearing a bigger burden. Just a week before the terrorist attacks,
officials
> in Missouri estimated that 9,000 of the state's 23,000 bridges were
obsolete
> or badly in need of repair.
>
> http://nytimes.com
>
> *** ANDREW STEPHEN, NEW STATESMAN: There is genuine bewilderment - which
> quickly fans into anger - over why anybody would want to do something so
> horrible to so beautiful and free a country as the US. Americans have had
it
> drilled into them by their schools and churches since infancy that theirs
is
> the land of the free and home of the brave. And doesn't that make America
> both uniquely different and superior to all other countries? It is
something
> those of us who regard ourselves as friends of America have to face: that
> the vast majority of Americans see themselves and their country as
superior
> to the remaining 95 per cent of the world. The logic is thus inescapable:
to
> Americans, any terrorists attacking their country must be evil crackpots
> consumed by envy and jealousy of US lifestyles. And these crackpots can
and
> must be eradicated (or "taken out" in the again fashionable macho speak)
so
> that America can triumphantly carry on being the land of the free and home
> of the brave. The innate goodness of America is such that any outbreak of
> anti-American violence must just be a weird aberration. This is the
> alarmingly simplistic position that the US has got itself into since 11
> September. Because American newspapers and television (with a handful of
> exceptions) have such woeful news coverage of the rest of the world,
> Americans tend to be ignorant of foreign affairs; they have no conception
> whatsoever of how much their country and what it stands for are despised
by
> scores of millions of people, especially in the Arabic and billion-strong
> Muslim countries . . . History, after all, is not on America's side: even
if
> we take the example of Northern Ireland as a microcosm, terrorism that
> emanated from a tiny geographical area and an equally small population
could
> not be contained over a generation by a modern Nato army . . . In a war
with
> any Arab and Muslim communities or countries, this same phenomenon will
> multiply exponentially.
>
>
http://www.consider.net/forum_new.php3?newTemplate=OpenObject&newTop=2001092
> 40005&newDisplayURN=200109240005
>
> *** Madeleine Bunting, GUARDIAN, LONDON: The Guardian's poll on showed a
> remarkable consistency of attitudes across age and political affiliation;
> the one big gap was between men and women: 74% of men support air strikes
> and only 58% of women. Whereas 55% of men were prepared to contemplate
war,
> 32% of women opposed any military action if it meant war. This isn't a
> one-off. Polls in both the 1990 Gulf war and the 1999 Kosovo war showed
the
> same gap. In 1990, 61% of men and only 39% of women thought Britain should
> agree to using British troops to get Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait; nearly
> half of women (49%) opposed military action. In Kosovo, the gap between
men
> and women narrowed after atrocities against Kosovan Albanians were
> broadcast: 76% of men were in favour of air strikes and 62% of women. A
few
> days later, after Nato mistakenly bombed a convoy of refugees, women's
> support for air strikes fell sharply to 56% while men's held steady.
Equally
> intriguing is how women have been wiped off many newspaper pages and
> television screens. Despite significant advances in the number of women in
> the media, the crisis has exposed how many of them are in the "softer"
areas
> of news such as features and domestic stories. In a major crisis such as
> this, virtually all the reporters have been men.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/0,3604,554794,00.html
>
> *** WITH THE AMERICAN MEDIA PLAYING ALONG with the White House lock-down
on
> information, the European and Asian journals become more important sources
> of news. For example, Jim Ridgeway of the Village Voice reports, "The
London
> Times is reporting that a British Special Air Forces commando unit has
> already made contact and traded fire with Taliban troops inside
Afghanistan.
> The SAS is working with MI6 agents to track down bin Laden, the paper
says.
> The Times also reports that 82nd and 101st U.S. Airborne are just inside
the
> Pakistan border with Afghanistan, and that the U.S. has Air Force units in
> Uzbekistan. The British are staging attacks from Tajikistan."
>
> *** "Our movement cannot cope with all the candidates for martyrdom." - a
> Hamas spokesperson quoted in the Pakistani newspaper Daily Jang, following
> the attack on the World Trade Center.
>
> *** George Monbiot, GUARDIAN, LONDON: Civil liberties are suddenly
> negotiable. The US seems prepared to lift its ban on extra-judicial
> executions carried out abroad by its own agents. The CIA might be
permitted
> to employ human rights abusers once more, which will doubtless mean
training
> and funding a whole new generation of Bin Ladens. The British government
is
> considering the introduction of identity cards. Radical dissenters in
> Britain have already been identified as terrorists by the Terrorism Act
> 2000. Now we're likely to be treated as such. The authoritarianism which
has
> long been lurking in advanced capitalism has started to surface . . . Mark
> Twain once observed that "there are some natures which never grow large
> enough to speak out and say a bad act is a bad act, until they have
inquired
> into the politics or the nationality of the man who did it". The left is
> able to state categorically that Tuesday's terrorism was a dreadful act,
> irrespective of provenance. But the right can't bring itself to make the
> same statement about Israel's new invasions of Palestine, or the sanctions
> in Iraq, or the US-backed terror in East Timor, or the carpet bombing of
> Cambodia. Its critical faculties have long been suspended and now, it
> demands, we must suspend ours too . . . The governments of Britain and
> America are using the disaster in New York to reinforce the very policies
> which have helped to cause the problem: building up the power of the
defence
> industry, preparing to launch campaigns of the kind which inevitably kill
> civilians, licensing covert action. Corporations are securing new
resources
> to invest in instability. Racists are attacking Arabs and Muslims and
> blaming liberal asylum policies for terrorism. As a result of the horror
on
> Tuesday, the right in all its forms is flourishing, and we are shrinking.
> But we must not be cowed. Dissent is most necessary just when it is
hardest
> to voice.
>
> http://www.monbiot.com
>
> *** BILL GERTZ, GEO-STRATEGY: The use of hijacked airliners as terrorist
> cruise missiles has been known to be a tactic used by terrorists linked to
> Osama Bin Laden since 1995. That's when terrorist Ramsi Youssef was
captured
> by police in the Philippines. Computer hard drives were recovered during
the
> arrest that laid out plans for spectacular terrorist attacks using
aircraft
> . . . According to an intelligence source involved in decoding the hard
> drives, the first plan was to assassinate Pope John Paul II during a
> scheduled visit to the Philippines. The airliner terrorism was outlined as
> part of a terrorist operation code-named "Project Bojinka." The operation
> called for hijacking U.S.-bound commercial airliners from the Philippines,
> Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. The hijacked aircraft
were
> to be crashed into structures in the United States, including the World
> Trade Center, the White House, Pentagon, the Transamerica tower in San
> Francisco and the Sears Tower in Chicago. "A dry run was even conducted on
a
> Tokyo-bound Philippines Airline flight which fortunately was aborted by
our
> security personnel," the source said.
>
> http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_5.html
>
> *** SUNDAY MIRROR: A massive 85 per cent of British people want identity
> cards introduced in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United
States,
> it was revealed yesterday . . . Home Secretary David Blunkett is actively
> considering introducing the system, we can reveal. He has the support of
> Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens and security services
MI5
> and MI6 . . . There is also an overwhelming call for the cards to be
packed
> with information to clearly identify the holder. These include photograph
> (97 per cent), date of birth (96 per cent) eye colour (92 per cent), a
> finger print (85 per cent), DNA details (75 per cent), criminal records
(74
> per cent) and religion (67 per cent).
>
> http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P2S2.shtml
>
> *** Rowan Scarborough, WASHINGTON TIMES: The day before terrorists struck
> the United States, its intelligence agencies detected discussions between
> Osama bin Laden's lieutenants of an impending "big attack," a senior
> administration official says. The official said in an interview that the
> detection was not discovered until days after the Sept. 11 assault on the
> World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The time lapse is typical of
> intelligence analyses, in which computers sift through loads of that day's
> collection to find valuable material.
>
> http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20010923-68173904.htm
>
> *** JOHN COLES, SUN, LONDON: A British schoolmaster told how he taught
Osama
> bin Laden as a teenager - and described him as "shy, retiring and
> courteous." Brian Fyfield-Shayler, 69, said the boy who grew into the
> world's most wanted man behaved well, did all his work on time and was not
> particularly religious. But the teacher - then head of English at an elite
> Saudi school modeled on Western counterparts - added that bin Laden stood
> out from the crowd because of his huge self-confidence. Now he believes
the
> Western-style education experienced by the bright lad, allied to his
> privileged upbringing amid a super-rich family, may have sewn the seeds of
> violent rebellion in his soul. Mr Fyfield-Shayler said: "I'm pretty sure
> that looking back at a school like that, he would have decided it was
rather
> alien."
>
> http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14051386
>
> *** LLOYD GROVE, WASHINGTON POST: Our friend Keven Bellows, general
manager
> of the "Dr. Laura" radio show, complained yesterday that we didn't
> adequately report her denial that her boss, Laura Schlessinger, ever
implied
> that the presence of women in the military is partly to blame for last
> week's terrorist attacks. Here's what Schlessinger told an active-duty
> military caller last Wednesday in the immediate aftermath of the attacks:
> "Instead you've put in women and lowered the standard and nobody can get
> yelled at to have a backbone and grit because they left their lipstick
back
> at the barracks. . . . I've watched one way or another -- by political
> correctness in politics -- the military [having] their stingers pulled
out.
> . . . That scares me because you guys are not dealing with the full deck."
>
> *** REUTERS: United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that
> reprisals for the deadly attacks on New York and Washington should not be
> leveled at innocent people. "The world must recognize that all societies
> have common enemies, but it must also understand that these are not -- are
> never -- defined by a religion or a nationality," Annan wrote in an
article
> for French newspaper Le Monde published on Saturday. "No people, no
region,
> no religion should be targeted because of the abominable acts of certain
> individuals," he said.
>
> *** TIME: the Bush Administration is considering the establishment of
> special military tribunals. Suspected terrorists could be tried without
the
> ordinary legal constraints of American justice. During World War II,
German
> saboteurs were tried secretly that way in Washington, and those convicted
> were hanged 30 days later.
>
> http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010924/bprivacy.html
>
> MINI NUKES
>
> *** FRIENDS COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL LEGISLAITON: Deeply-buried in the
> Senate-passed version of the FY 2001 defense authorization bill, is a
short
> section that calls for the Departments of Defense and Energy to conduct a
> study on "the defeat of hardened and deeply buried targets" and includes
> "any limited research and development that may be necessary to conduct
such
> assessment." The targets include underground bunkers. The kind of weapon
> that could burrow into the ground to destroy such a bunker would likely
> contain low-yield nuclear warheads. These weapons are known as mini-nukes.
> although the section does not explicitly mention nuclear weapons, the fact
> that it calls for Dept. of Energy involvement is significant. The DOE does
> research on nuclear, but not conventional weapons. Officials at U.S.
nuclear
> weapons laboratories have, for several years, argued in favor of the
> development of low-yield nuclear warheads. They argue that the U.S. needs
a
> weapon which can, on the one hand, destroy a bunker built into solid rock,
a
> hundred yards or more underground, but which will, on the other hand,
spare
> populated areas located near the bunker . . . Since mini-nukes would be a
> new nuclear weapon, testing would be necessary. If the U.S. were to break
> the global moratorium on nuclear test explosions, the moratorium would
> collapse. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty would almost certainly
dissolve.
> Other nuclear powers would begin nuclear testing. Pressures from
non-nuclear
> countries could spell the end of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The
> world could, once again, find itself at the brink of nuclear holocaust.
>
> http://www.fcnl.org/issues/arm/sup/min_threat800.htm
>
> *** PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: The Pentagon is looking into the development of
> precision, low-yield nuclear weapons, reported Walter Pincus in the
> Washington Post (April 16). The weapons would have earth-penetrating
> nose-cones and be used to attack hardened targets, an objective the
Defense
> Department was required to study after Congress's 7-year-old bill banning
> R&D of mini-nukes was amended last year . . . Collateral damage would
hardly
> be limited, according to a Public Interest Report from the Federation of
> American Scientists: "The use of any nuclear weapon capable of destroying
a
> buried target that is otherwise immune to conventional attack will
> necessarily produce enormous numbers of civilian casualties. No
> earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep enough into the earth to
contain
> an explosion with a nuclear yield even a small as 1 percent of the
> 15-kiloton Hiroshima weapon. The explosion simply blows out a massive
crater
> of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with an
especially
> intense and deadly fallout."
>
> GRAPHIC ON HOW MINI NUKES WORK
> http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/10/16/art/nukes16a.htm
>
> LAND OF THE FREE
>
> *** Bill Miller, Washington Post: The Justice Department has considerable
> leeway in deciding how long to hold those people arrested as material
> witnesses in the investigation into last week's attacks at the World Trade
> Center and Pentagon, according to lawyers and constitutional scholars . .