U.S. NAVAL AIR STATION, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — Fifteen months after the first hooded and shackled detainees arrived at a primitive tent facility known as Camp X-Ray, some 664 prisoners seized after the Afghan war remain here in a legal, political and geographical limbo.

The hastily erected tents have been replaced by more permanent structures. Each cell has a metal bed stenciled with a bright yellow arrow pointing to Mecca. The heavily guarded and isolated Islamic world created here on the southeastern coast of Cuba has also undergone some cultural adaptations over the last year.

It is the only United States military base where the lilting Muslim call to prayer is heard five times a day over loudspeakers as part of the Pentagon's intensive program to demonstrate respect for the detainees' Islamic faith.

"What they hear is the actual call as it's heard in either Mecca or Medina, depending on what CD I choose to play that day," said Capt. Youseff Yee, the Islamic chaplain. Detainees are supplied with prayer caps, prayer oils, beads and copies of the Koran. They have also developed a fondness for the bagels they are served as part of their bread ration.

With the United States on the verge of releasing 7,000 prisoners seized during the war in Iraq, lawyers and human rights advocates say they hope the contrast with the long detentions here will put more pressure on the administration to deal with the people captured in Afghanistan and other countries in the campaign against terrorism.

To a small extent, the military has begun to do that. In mid-March, 22 prisoners were released from Guantánamo, sent back to Afghanistan with blue jeans, new copies of the Koran and, on average, an additional 13 pounds from a diet that is similar to that of the soldiers who guard them. At the other end of the spectrum, the Pentagon is preparing soon to bring a handful of inmates before a military tribunal.

But the majority of the detainees still face an uncertain future on an island chosen explicitly for its unusual features. Not only is the base lodged on sovereign territory of Cuba, a nominally hostile country, and ringed by a 17-mile-long fence with armed watchtowers on both sides. Two federal courts have also said that despite the fact that it is totally under United States control, the base is outside the reach of United States law because it is technically part of Cuba.

It is hard to imagine a more precarious — or more promising — time in the Middle East...The moment has come for the Arab world to engage in a homegrown, evolutionary and orderly process of democratization... Force-feeding democracy will lead not to reform but to radicalization. ...Arab world is ready to do this....suicide bombings have only hurt the Palestinian cause. ... the plan for Middle East peace, known as the road map, will be published soon, without modification, are indeed welcome developments...On this path, Arabs need to come to terms with their own political and economic challenges; Israel must realize it cannot continue to occupy a nation against its will; and the United States must help to foster democracy and end the Arab-Israeli conflict while at the same time ignoring the voices that speak of remaking the region in a way that suggests Arabs are pawns in a game of chess.

UNITED NATIONS: After extending until June 3 emergency arrangements for Iraq's oil-for-food plan, the UN Security Council faces contentious US demands that UN controls be struck entirely from the multibillion-dollar plan. President George W Bush has said several times he wants the sanctions, imposed in 1990, lifted entirely and diplomats said the United States was crafting a resolution that would guarantee that proceeds from future oil sales be held in trust for an interim Iraqi authority rather than the United Nations. The consequences of any resolution would be to free oil sales and give the United States firm control over contracts and expenditures until an Iraqi government is in place, they said. Without Security Council endorsement, no oil firm will sign a contract with an entity that has no legal standing. On Thursday, the Security Council renewed emergency procedures, first instituted on March 28, for the oil-for-food plan until June 3, the end of the program's current phase.

At: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2428652a12,00.html

This is the first part of a two part interview with author Pete Brewton who documented in his book of the same name the connection during the Ronnie Ray-gun era between the deregulation of the savings and loans, the S&L collapse, the funding of subversive CIA projects, and the profiteering of a circle of friends around Bush Sr. that included the mafia.

"With Aziz in custody, top U.S. officials are patting themselves on the back. But they have only proven that victors are able to imprison the vanquished.... Aziz epitomized the urbanity of evil. He was articulate and deft at rationalizing government actions that caused enormous suffering. His similarities to top U.S. officials are much greater than we're comfortable acknowledging."

(Bush) Poked fun at the Iraqi information minister, who gave outlandish briefings denying U.S. forces were in Baghdad when they were just blocks away. "It was one of the classics. It was just unbelievable what he was saying."

hi, I really enjoy Blog Left and I just wanted to pass on the word about a pretty unique peace-activism site, FacesForPeace.org, where people are posting their photos and antiwar statements in one place, kind of an "online peace rally" (this war may be about over but the conditions for future preemptive, near-unilateral wars are obviously still in place). Hope you can check it out, if you like it please spread the word.

peace,
tim

From the Routledge website: During the mid-1990s, the O.J. Simpson murder trials dominated the media in the United States and were circulated throughout the world via global communications networks. The case became a spectacle of race, gender, class and violence, bringing in elements of domestic melodrama, crime drama and legal drama. According to cultural critic and scholar Douglas Kellner, the Simpson case was just one example of what the author calls 'media spectacle' -- a form of media culture that puts contemporary dreams, nightmares, fantasies and values on display.

Through the analysis of several such media spectacles -- including Elvis, the X Files, Michael Jordan, and the Bill Clinton sex scandals - Kellner's insightful and fascinating book draws out important insights into media, journalism, the public sphere and politics in an era of new technologies. Media Spectacle is a brilliant dissection of contemporary society; its ongoing appetite for scandal, tragedy and perversion; and the new technologies and media that strive to feed this immense hunger. This is cultural criticism and media analysis at its best.



From the Rowman & Littlefield website: The September 11 terror attacks and subsequent war in Afghanistan are considered by many a dangerous new era in global politics. In a comprehensive study of the world since September 11, Douglas Kellner provides a detailed examination of the Bush administration's response to the terror attacks and subsequent U.S. interventions. In this sustained critical analysis of Bush administration policy, Kellner argues that global terrorism instead requires a multilateral and global solution.

The book shows how September 11 provided an opportunity for the Bush administration to push through hard-right domestic and foreign policies, many of which were being contested and blocked in Congress pre-September 11. Kellner describes the Bush legacy of unilateralism in foreign policy, which greatly undermines national security while isolating the U.S. and creating new enemies; a failed economic policy that enriched its supporters and corporate allies while turning economic surpluses into deficits; and a sustained policy of attacks on democracy, civil liberties, justice, and the U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances.

The book documents several important factors largely overlooked by the media, including:

1. The relations between the Bush family, the bin Ladens, Cheney and the tangled web of oil, money, and money behind both the Enron, Halliburton and other corporate scandals and the September 11 attacks and subsequent Terror War;

2. The ways that the Bush administration deprioritized terrorism pre-September 11 and put aside Clinton administration plans to deal with bin Laden and terrorism;

3. How Republican Party and Bush administration economic policies helped enable corporate corruption and have led to economic crisis;

4. How Bush administration unilateralism is intensifying war and repression throughout the world and how his new doctrine of "preemptive strikes" threatens to unleash an era of war.

The Introduction and Chapter 1 of the book are freely available to read in .PDF format.

To get to Baghdad, the marines of the Third Battalion fought the old-fashioned way — by shooting as many of the enemy as they could. Their victims weren't all soldiers. ....As the war in Iraq is debated and turned into history, the emphasis will be on the role of technology -- precision bombing, cruise missiles, decapitation strikes. That was what was new. But there was another side to the war, and it was the one that most of the fighting men and women in Iraq experienced, even if it wasn't what Americans watching at home saw: raw military might, humans killing humans. The Third Battalion, Fourth Marines was one of the rawest expressions of that might. Based in Twentynine Palms, Calif., it specializes in desert warfare, and its forces number about 1,500 troops, equipped during the war in Iraq with about 30 Abrams tanks and 60 armored assault vehicles, backed up with whatever artillery and aircraft were required for its missions, like 155-millimeter howitzers and Cobra gunships and fighter jets. The battalion made the ground shake, quite literally, as it rumbled north from Kuwait through Iraq, beginning its march by seizing the Basra airport, continuing on past Nasiriya, into the desert and through a sandstorm that turned the sky red and became, at its worst moments, a hurricane of sand that rocked armored vehicles like plastic toys nudged by a child's finger. On the way to Baghdad, the battalion also fought fierce but limited battles in Afaq and Diwaniya, about 120 miles south of Baghdad, and in Al Kut, about 100 miles from the Iraqi capital. ... [Read on! And then read the contents of this link: Violence is the American Way ] A

Under cover of the “war on terrorism,” police are collecting information on activists. In Denver, intelligence files link Amnesty members to “criminal extremism.” ... Most members of Amnesty International don’t consider themselves part of a criminal extremist network. But that’s how a Denver Police Department’s intelligence database tracked AIUSA members Stephen and Vicki Nash and Mark and Barbara Lee Cohen. The couples fear that Denver police and other agencies that share the files will paint peaceful activists as potential terrorists and “criminalize protest activity,” says Stephen Nash.Mark Cohen was surprised by the “criminal extremist” label. “None of us have ever been arrested, much less convicted of a crime, for our political activities,” he says.

The Denver case has raised red flags for civil liberties and human rights advocates who have been fighting the Bush administration’s rollback of civil liberties. They say that national and local law enforcement agencies across the country have been hacking away at hard-won protections of the right to peaceful protest. The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado agrees and has filed a lawsuit charging the police with violating the First Amendment rights of activists. Three Chicano activists, whose files reflect surveillance as far back as 1967, have filed a separate federal lawsuit against the police, claiming their civil rights have been violated. Amnesty International is also concerned. “Civil liberties are definitely a human rights issue—they are inseparable,” says Curt Goering, senior deputy executive director of AIUSA. “Governments are entitled, even obligated, to take steps to protect the security of their citizens. That’s true here in the U.S. and in other countries—governments face this dilemma all the time. But they need to proceed in ways that are absolutely consistent with international standards of basic human rights and civil liberties.” ....Most members of Amnesty International don’t consider themselves part of a criminal extremist network. But that’s how a Denver Police Department’s intelligence database tracked AIUSA members Stephen and Vicki Nash and Mark and Barbara Lee Cohen. The couples fear that Denver police and other agencies that share the files will paint peaceful activists as potential terrorists and “criminalize protest activity,” says Stephen Nash.Mark Cohen was surprised by the “criminal extremist” label. “None of us have ever been arrested, much less convicted of a crime, for our political activities,” he says.

The Denver case has raised red flags for civil liberties and human rights advocates who have been fighting the Bush administration’s rollback of civil liberties. They say that national and local law enforcement agencies across the country have been hacking away at hard-won protections of the right to peaceful protest. The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado agrees and has filed a lawsuit charging the police with violating the First Amendment rights of activists. Three Chicano activists, whose files reflect surveillance as far back as 1967, have filed a separate federal lawsuit against the police, claiming their civil rights have been violated.Amnesty International is also concerned. “Civil liberties are definitely a human rights issue—they are inseparable,” says Curt Goering, senior deputy executive director of AIUSA. “Governments are entitled, even obligated, to take steps to protect the security of their citizens. That’s true here in the U.S. and in other countries—governments face this dilemma all the time. But they need to proceed in ways that are absolutely consistent with international standards of basic human rights and civil liberties.” ...

On March 24, the Bellingham City Council passed a resolution that defines policy on how city employees will respond and how city resources will be used if federal authorities request information or assistance pursuant to the so-called USA Patriot Act. The council's decision to pass the resolution followed a public discussion of the proposed policy. This is how it should be in a representative democracy; there is public notice of an open discussion and debate, and our elected representatives then make their decisions and cast their individual votes.... But there is a problem with the city's posture vis-à-vis the Patriot Act and the "surveillance society" the act represents. The city, without public notice or debate, indeed without the City Council's consideration at all, has been promoting its own policy of indiscriminate surveillance: Smile! You're on candid camera!

The Feb. 18, 2002, cover of Der Spiegel caught the attention of Daniel Coats, the U.S. ambassador to Germany. The cover depicted “the Bush Warriors” (die Bush Krieger). Colin Powell was portrayed as Batman, Donald Rumsfeld as Conan the Barbarian. Dick Cheney was depicted as the Terminator, flanked by Condoleezza Rice as Xena, the Warrior Princess. The president himself was given pride of place in this band of warriors as Rambo, in the classic pose with a bandoleer draped manfully over his chest. Coats asked Der Spiegel to supply poster-sized copies of the cover for the White House, confirming European perceptions of America as a place that has been inoculated against all forms of irony by the sheer success of its own pop culture. Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence agree that we have a Rambo in the West Wing. More interesting, they argue that the roots of the superhero myth that guides policy today can be traced to the Bible.

In making their case, Jewett and Lawrence succeed in placing the discussion of American civil religion on a new tack. In their view, American civil religion is the troubled repository of two incompatible tendencies: zealous nationalism and prophetic realism. Zealous nationalism sees America as a “city on a hill,” set apart by God from the other nations, as a chosen people with a sacred duty to preserve and protect democracy against all comers. [Such sentiment, of course, puts American civil religion in the same context as "American Exceptionalism". ] The zealous like to think of foreign policy in apocalyptic images. Political complexity and moral ambiguity is reduced to a more easily managed duality: light vs. darkness; good vs. evil; innocence vs. depravity. Since God’s chosen are threatened by conspiratorial evil, violence in defense of the nation takes on the sacred quality of a redemptive act....

Censured Casualties features rare footage of war crimes against the Iraqi people suffered during and after the Gulf War and the bombing of Basra. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, in his attempt to document the injustice of United States military actions in the region, explores the realities of the last US war against Iraq and it is sad to see how little has changed in some respects between then and now.

Traveling through the Orient on his Easter recess, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist cannot be enjoying himself if he appreciates the intensity of two Republican critics back in Washington: freshman Sen. Lindsey Graham and House Majority Whip Roy Blunt....They are angrier than they admit on the record about Frist's performance just before Congress took its break. He not only accepted an unacceptable limit on President Bush's tax cut but kept it secret while hurrying out of town two weekends ago....

According to Rami Khouri, executive editor of the Daily Star in Beirut, the only way we can "fully understand this war and its consequences" is to follow both American and Arab news media."For different reasons, Arab and American broadcasters provide a distorted, incomplete picture of the war in Iraq - while accurately reflecting emotional and political sentiments on both sides," Khouri wrote in an editorial for the Pacific News Service.

It was the picture of the day -- the toppling of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad -- and may end up being the picture of the war, the single image that comes to define the conflict.The message will be clear: The U.S. liberated the Iraqi people; the US invasion of Iraq was just.The Picture of the War? A definitive moment....On Wednesday morning television networks kept cameras trained on the statue near the Palestine Hotel. Iraqis threw ropes over the head and tried to pull it down before attacking the base with a sledgehammer. ...
Finally a US armoured vehicle pulled it down, to the cheers of the crowd.It was an inspiring moment of celebration at the apparent end of a brutal dictator's reign. But as US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has pointed out at other times, no one image tells the whole story.

Questions arise about what is, and isn't, shown.

One obvious question: During live coverage, viewers saw a US soldier drape over the face of Hussein a US flag, which was quickly removed and replaced with an Iraqi flag.Quick turnaround: Occupation or liberation of Iraq. Commanders know that the displaying the US flag suggests occupation and domination, not liberation. NBC's Tom Brokaw reported that the Arab network Al Jazeera was "making a big deal" out of the incident with the American flag, implying that US television would -- and should -- downplay that part of the scene. Which choice tells the more complete truth?

Another difference between television in the US and elsewhere has been coverage of Iraqi casualties....Despite constant discussion of "precision bombing," the US invasion has produced so many dead and wounded that Iraqi hospitals stopped trying to count.

Red Cross officials have labeled the level of casualties "incredible," describing "dozens of totally dismembered dead bodies of women and children" delivered by truck to hospitals. Cluster bombs, one of the most indiscriminate weapons in the modern arsenal, have been used by US and UK forces, with the British defense minister explaining that mothers of Iraqi children killed would one day thank Britain for their use. US viewers see little of these consequences of war, which are common on television around the world and widely available to anyone with Internet access. Why does US television have a different standard? CNN's Aaron Brown said the decisions are not based on politics. He acknowledged that such images accurately show the violence of war, but defended decisions to not air them; it's a matter of "taste," he said.

Dear Colleagues,
Thanks to everyone for your support of this effort, and most importantly, for taking the time to attend today's meeting and joining the successful vote in favor of the resolution. Having spent about 20 minutes watching the attendance fluctuate between 194 and 196, I can tell you that your physical presence really did make a difference....special thanks to those of you who got on the cell phone to urge colleagues to attend at the last minute...and a particular word of gratitude to numbers 197-200, whoever you might be!
Though today's event was a purely symbolic action, I think that it was important nonetheless. It was not just that the meeting was a historic occasion on the UCLA campus; more importantly, we appear to be the first university or college faculty in the country to have taken such a stand since the U.S. invasion of Iraq began. As you may have noticed, there was media presence at the meeting; hopefully, our colleagues elsewhere in the academic world will soon learn about what we have done and will act accordingly.
A number of colleagues have suggested that today's event should be the first, not the last act; I couldn't agree more strongly. Given the situation internationally and nationally, there is certainly more that a concerned group of UCLA faculty can do. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. In the meantime, I will confer with a number of colleagues and will write you as soon as we have an idea of what other steps we could take.
Thanks again for all your support. A copy of the final resolution appears below.
Best wishes,
Roger

The vote today on the following resolution was one hundred and eighty-four in favor; nine abstaining; and seven opposing.

We, assembled members of the Faculty of UCLA, at a Special Meeting of the Academic Senate, by a vote of [n] to [n], say to our fellow citizens, to the President of the United States, and to our Senators and Representatives:

1. We deplore the doctrine of preventive war espoused by the President of which the invasion of Iraq is the first application;

2. reaffirm our commitment to addressing international conflicts through the rule of law and the United Nations;

3. oppose the establishment of an American protectorate in Iraq; and

4. call for the establishment of a post-war representative government in Iraq, answerable to the United Nations, which guarantees to Iraqis inalienable personal, political and civil rights.

... "I'm afraid what we're in for," he said, is a "long-term task" pushed forward by "the political concern and pressure to find hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction that you can show."..."There's lots we don't know about current whereabouts," Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy [and longstanding 'true-believer' neo-con], said in an interview. "That's going to be true until we have full control of the country, and even a time thereafter."

[Feith] added: "If you have [custody of] the people who know everything, and they tell you everything they know, then you could learn the whereabouts of everything very quickly. But if those people aren't around, or they're dead, or they've organized things in such a way that nobody has too much knowledge, it's going to take you awhile." [Interpret this last statement as, "If we can't find the 'smoking gun' evidence', we'll manufacture it."]...

[In three days viewing,] "i've gotten to really explore international cable tv footage. very interesting -- i can't always know what they're saying but you can tell a lot by the pictures. The international news tends to show a lot of iraqi civilian casualties and deaths and also a lot of iraqi government statements. This was less true of Filipono news -- but Italian, French, and Taiwanese were all pretty hard hitting. German tv appears to be trying to distance itself from the intense energies there pre-war and is balanced in anti-war and pro-war coverage. Canada has been giving US more of a favorable hearing than before -- a number of "support the troops" stories and attention to US gov't speeches, etc. -- but they've also been running a number of in-depth exposes and powerful anti-imperialism and anti-war pieces. They also did a piece in the Philippines that showed a population much more anti-us than the nightly news of that country did. NewsWorld International's coverage of Mexican news also revealed the press there showing a lot of Iraqi casualties and the anchor man spoke of "war crimes" being committed by the us before he paused and said "allegedly".

The other interesting thing is the amount of press given to the govt by the US tv, which about the closest parallel is China's state television where every story is ultimately about Jiang. I guess Iraqi tv would be the same too. Even the Russians who tend to have a lot of stories on the govt and Putin have more forms of other news than US."

Metal of Dishonor Depleted Uranium and Gulf War Syndrome, a "must see" video!

http://www.konscious.com/site/live/films/clip5/MOD_56k.ram

Expose of Pentagon use of depleted uranium weapons which have compromised the health of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the U.S. and Gulf region. Contains interviews with Dr. Helen Caldicott, Dr. Michio Kaku and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. 50 Minutes 1997

If for any reason the above link doesn't work, Metal of Dishonor (along with many other great videos) is posted on this website: www.peoplesvideo.org

With troops locked in a bloody and unpredictable struggle in Iraq, leaders from "new" Europe are distancing themselves from the war that the US claims they back. The conflict in the Gulf is unpopular with voters, and support for Washington and London has declined as casualties have mounted. Meanwhile, some countries that never backed war have vented their anger at being listed among America's 45-nation coalition of allies. Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minster, began his political retreat before a shot was fired. Mr Berlusconi was a signatory of the Anglo-Spanish letter that backed the US before the conflict begun. That did not translate into concrete military support, however. Last week, Mr Berlusconi was at pains to insist that the deployment in northern Iraq of 1,000 US paratroopers who had been stationed in Italy did not break a pledge that Italian bases would not be used for direct attacks on Saddam Hussein. Denmark, which has backed the action, had to scale back its small military deployment because of parliamentary opposition. The Netherlands, which did not sign the Anglo-Spanish letter but was sympathetic, has ruled out military involvement, fearful of destabilising negotiations to form a coalition government. ...Across the ex-Communist nations of Europe, identified by Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, as part of the "coalition of the willing", sentiment has proved ambivalent. One explanation is that the Anglo-Spanish letter endorsed by three of the applicant nations, and a subsequent declaration by a further 10 eastern European states, did not commit them to supporting hostilities. Some leaders went along with the formulation on the basis that taking a tough line might force President Saddam to back down.... Several nations provided logistical support because failing to do so would have provoked a diplomatic schism with Washington. Yet these nuances have been brushed aside by a Pentagon in its efforts to present the image of broad support.Croatia was presented as part of the "coalition of the willing" on the basis that it opened its airspace and bases to US civilian aircraft. But Stipe Mesic, the President, denounced the war as "illegitimate" because it lacked UN backing. Slovenia has also rejected the idea that it backs the conflict.