Bay Area United Against War Presents a film screening of:
"WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
Meet film director Danny Schechter "The News Dissector."
Danny will be available for a question and answer period
right after the movie.
Saturday, Dec. 11th, 2004
(Showtime to be announced)
Embarcadero Center Cinema
One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 267-4893
" 'WMD' paints a meticulous and damning portrait of the media's coverage of
the Iraq war. In sobering detail, Danny Schechter shows us how the TV
networks now prefer the role of cheerleader, to that of objective
journalist," says Mike Nisholson of austinnforkerry.org.
"Schechter tackles his subject like a cross between Errol Morris and a
Dashiell Hammet detective, following close on the tail of big media
reporters as they in turn track the march toward war, embed themselves in
the military industrial complex and then get out when the fighting gets
tough and leave the cleanup work to stringers, " writes Shandon Fowler of
film's Hamptons International Film Festival appearance, Oct. 20-24.
To learn more about the film visit:
www.wmdthefilm.com
www.bauaw.org
(Distributed by Cinema Libre Studio, www.cinemalibrestudio.com)
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1) Saving the Iraqi Children
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
OP-ED COLUMNIST
November 27, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/opinion/27kristof.html?oref=login&hp
[Note: This Op-Ed piece is an example of the bankruptcy of the
arguments in favor of the continued American occupation of Iraq.
After claiming, ³Among Iraqis, the risk of death by violence was
58 times greater after the war than before, and infant mortality
nearly doubled.² the author argues, ³If U.S. troops leave Iraq too
soon, the country will simply fall apart.²
But while the article accurately exposes the depth of the mayhem
this war has brought to the people of Iraq, especially its children,
the authors convoluted reasoning leads to more occupation, more
bombing, more troops, more of the same.
Kristof goes on to conclude his argument against the withdrawal
of U.S. troops by claiming, ³The best answer to that question, I think,
is that our mistaken invasion has left millions of Iraqis desperately
vulnerable, and it would be inhumane to abandon them now. If we
stay in Iraq, there is still some hope that Iraqis will come to enjoy
security and better lives, but if we pull out we will be condemning
Iraqis to anarchy, terrorism and starvation, costing the lives of
hundreds of thousands of children over the next decadeŠThose
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, whose lives we placed
at risk by invading their country, are the reasons we should remain
in Iraq, until we can hand over security to a local force. Saving
hundreds of thousands of lives is a worthy cause to risk American
lives for, even to die for.²
The antiwar movement must counter this sinister argument by
demanding that all the troops be withdrawn from Iraq and
Afghanistan immediately. Our movement must demand that
the entire U.S. military budget be wrested from the hands of
the warlords. We must insist that these billions of dollars be
used, instead, for massive humanitarian aid to the people of
Iraq and Afghanistan--with no American strings attached;
as well as for healthcare, education, jobs, affordable housing
and social services here at home. There is enough money to pay
for all of this if we do away with this filthy, illegal, immoral war
and the giant U.S. corporate war machine that controls and
profits from it.
As musical artist Michael Franti says, ³You can bomb the world
to pieces but you can¹t bomb it into peace.²
The world is at a great turning point that will determine the fate
of all life on Earth. The time for the worldwide antiwar movement
to stand united is now. If we wish to prevent genocide against
the entire planet by the greedy few who seek to own the wealth
of the world through force of violence we must stand united
against them.
The extent of the cynicism expressed by Kristof in this apology
for the continued bombing and killing of Iraqi children is astounding.
Killing children in order to ³save them² goes beyond even George
Orwell. More importantly, this argument can be applied wherever
resistance to U.S. domination arises. No one is safe from their
plundering rampages for oil, wealth and power.
This article stands as a clear mandate to all of us who are horrified
by this reasoning to gather all of our forces together to bring this
war to an end NOW!
ALL OUT JANUARY 20TH Â BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War]
2) Sentencing-Guideline Study Finds Continuing Disparities
WASHINGTON
November 27, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/national/27sentencing.html
3) Foreign Interest Appears to Flag as Dollar Falls
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON
November 27, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/business/27dollar.html
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1) Saving the Iraqi Children
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
OP-ED COLUMNIST
November 27, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/opinion/27kristof.html?oref=login&hp
Iraqis are paying a horrendous price for the good intentions of well-meaning
conservatives who wanted to liberate them. And now some well-meaning
American liberals are seeking a troop withdrawal that would make matters
even worse.
Heaven protect Iraq from well-meaning Americans.
Lately, I've been quiet about the war because it's easy to rail about the
administration's foolishness last year but a lot harder to offer
constructive suggestions for what we should do now. President Bush's policy
on Iraq has migrated from delusional - we would be welcomed with flowers, we
should disband the Iraqi army, security is fine, the big problem is
exaggerations by nervous Nellie correspondents - to reasonable today. These
days, the biggest risk may come from the small but growing contingent on the
left that wants to bring our troops home now.
Consider two recent reports.
First, The Lancet, the London-based medical journal, published a study
suggesting that at least 100,000 Iraqis, and perhaps many more, had died as
a result of the invasion of Iraq. Among Iraqis, the risk of death by
violence was 58 times greater after the war than before, and infant
mortality also nearly doubled.
That's apparently because of insecurity. A doctor in Basra told me last year
how physicians and patients alike had had to run for cover when bandits
attacked the infectious diseases unit, firing machine guns and throwing hand
grenades, so they could steal the air-conditioners. Given those conditions,
women are now more likely to give birth at home, so babies and mothers are
both more likely to die of "natural" causes.
The second troubling report, in The Washington Post, recounted that acute
malnutrition among children under 5 soared to 7.7 percent this year from 4
percent before the war. Those are preliminary figures, but they suggest that
400,000 Iraqi children are badly malnourished, and suffering in some cases
from irreversible physical and mental stunting.
Those glimpses at the public health situation in Iraq are a reminder not
only of the disastrous impact of our invasion, but also of the humanitarian
impact if we pull out our troops prematurely.
If U.S. troops leave Iraq too soon, the country will simply fall apart. The
Kurdish areas in the north may muddle along, unless Turkey intervenes to
protect the Turkman minority or to block the emergence of a Kurdish state.
The Shiite areas in the south might establish an Iranian-backed theocratic
statelet that would establish order. But the middle of the country would
erupt in bloody civil war and turn into something like Somalia.
What would that mean? If Iraq were to sink to Somalia-level child mortality
rates, one result by my calculation would be 203,000 children dying each
year. If Iraq were to have maternal mortality rates as bad as Somalia's,
that would be 9,900 Iraqi women dying each year in childbirth.
Granted, my argument for staying the course is a difficult one to make to
American parents whose immediate concerns are the lives of their own
children. There is no getting around the fact that if we stay, more
Americans will die, and this burden will fall inequitably on working-class
families and members of minority groups.
I also have to concede that those calling for withdrawal may in the end be
proven right: perhaps we'll stick it out in Iraq and still be forced to
retreat even after squandering the lives of 1,000 more Americans. Those of
us who believe in remaining in Iraq must answer the question that John Kerry
asked about Vietnam: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a
mistake?"
The best answer to that question, I think, is that our mistaken invasion has
left millions of Iraqis desperately vulnerable, and it would be inhumane to
abandon them now. If we stay in Iraq, there is still some hope that Iraqis
will come to enjoy security and better lives, but if we pull out we will be
condemning Iraqis to anarchy, terrorism and starvation, costing the lives of
hundreds of thousands of children over the next decade.
Those hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, whose lives we placed at risk
by invading their country, are the reasons we should remain in Iraq, until
we can hand over security to a local force. Saving hundreds of thousands of
lives is a worthy cause to risk American lives for, even to die for.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
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2) Sentencing-Guideline Study Finds Continuing Disparities
WASHINGTON
November 27, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/national/27sentencing.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 (AP) - The number of minority inmates in federal
penitentiaries, as a percentage of all federal prisoners, has increased
sharply since sentencing guidelines took effect in 1987 and now accounts for
a majority of the prison population, a study reviewing 15 years of data has
concluded.
The study was conducted by the United States Sentencing Commission, which
sets the guidelines for federal judges. The panel examined how well the
guidelines had brought uniformity to punishments, and found that while
sentencing had become "more certain and predictable," disparities still
existed among races and regions of the country, with blacks generally
receiving harsher punishment than whites.
The findings come as the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of
the guidelines, which advocates say are crucial to achieving fairness in
punishment. The justices could decide as early as next week whether to throw
out the system because it allows judges, rather than juries, to consider
factors that can add years to sentences.
Yet before the guidelines were created in 1987, judges had wide discretion
in issuing sentences. The guidelines, in contrast, give them a range of
possible punishments for a given crime and make it difficult for them to go
outside those boundaries.
The study found that the average prison sentence today is about 50 months,
twice what it was in 1984, when lawmakers began calling for a uniform
sentencing system. The difference, the study determined, is due mostly to
the guidelines' elimination of parole for offenses like drug trafficking.
"The big unanswered question is, Do we need to have sentences growing this
way?" said one sentencing expert, Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio
State University. "Nobody wants to go back to the bad old days of complete
unguided judicial discretion."
Whites made up 35 percent of the prison population in 2002, a sharp decline
from nearly 60 percent in 1984, according to the report. It attributed the
decrease to a striking growth in Hispanics imprisoned on immigration charges
- to 40 percent of federal prisoners, from about 15 percent.
In addition, the gap in punishment between blacks and whites widened. While
blacks and whites received an average sentence of slightly more than two
years in 1984, blacks now stay in prison for about six years, compared with
about four years for whites. The report attributed this disparity in part to
harsher mandatory minimum sentences that Congress imposed for drug-related
crimes like cocaine possession. In 2002, 81 percent of offenders in such
cases were black.
The study found harsher punishments generally in the South than in the
Northeast and the West, though it concluded that legal differences in
individual cases "explain the vast majority of variation among judges and
regions."
A bigger problem causing sentencing disparities, it said, is plea
bargaining. The study said that as an incentive for getting guilty pleas,
prosecutors offered more lenient punishments than those mandated in the
guidelines in as many as one-third of cases.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
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3) Foreign Interest Appears to Flag as Dollar Falls
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON
November 27, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/business/27dollar.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 - Investors and market analysts are increasingly worried
that the last big source of support for the American dollar - heavy buying
by foreign central banks - is fading.
The anxiety was on full display Friday, when the dollar abruptly slid to a
record low against the euro after a report suggesting that the Chinese
central bank might start to reduce its holdings in the American currency.
Though Chinese officials later denied the report, and the dollar recovered,
analysts say the broader trend is that foreign governments are becoming less
willing to finance the growing debt of the United States government.
On Tuesday, a top official with the Russian central bank said his government
had become worried about the sinking value of the dollar and might switch
some foreign reserves to euros.
A day later, India's central bank hinted that it was worried about the same
issue and might shift some reserves into other currencies.
Japan and China, which together have amassed nearly $900 billion in United
States Treasury securities, have both slowed their buying sharply from the
frenetic pace in February and March.
"There is an emerging consensus that banks around the world are moving to
expand their reserves of euros at the expense of dollars," said Laidi
Ashraf, chief currency analyst at MG Financial Group in New York.
The Bush administration has essentially condoned the dollar's decline. At
meetings with foreign ministers last week, the Treasury secretary, John W.
Snow, repeated the American mantra of support for a "strong dollar" but also
for letting "market forces" determine exchange rates.
A continued decline of the dollar would be good for American manufacturers,
because it would make exports cheaper in foreign markets and push up the
cost of imports.
But a diminished foreign appetite for dollars could push up interest rates.
The Federal Reserve has already raised short-term rates four times this
year, but the shift in the sentiment of foreign investors may soon
seriously affect long-term rates that influence the cost of home mortgages.
"Sell U.S., buy Europe," summed up Richard Berner, chief United States
economist at Morgan Stanley , in a report last week. Mr. Berner noted that
investors have begun demanding higher yields for 10-year Treasury securities
than for comparable European bonds, and he predicted that the spread would
widen.
Recent data from the Treasury Department indicated that foreign governments
had sharply slowed their purchases of Treasury securities. The question is
whether those purchases will continue to slow or start to increase again as
countries try to shore up the American currency to help maintain their own
industries' competitiveness.
Japanese purchases of Treasury securities, which ballooned by about $100
billion from October 2003 to March of this year, have slowed sharply and
actually declined slightly in September.
Largely as a result, the dollar has sunk to its lowest level against the
Japanese yen, about 102.5 yen to the dollar on Friday, in four and a half
years.
Chinese purchases of Treasury securities slowed to a crawl, increasing just
$2 billion in September, to $174 billion.
On Friday, a top Chinese central bank official denied reports in a Chinese
newspaper that the government planned to reduce its holdings of Treasury
bonds.
But Chinese officials, under prodding from the Bush administration, have
repeatedly said they want to gradually relax their 10-year-old policy of
locking its currency, the yuan, at a fixed exchange rate to the dollar. Any
move to a more flexible exchange rate for China would probably cause the
dollar to drop in value and allow the Chinese central bank to stop buying
United States debt securities.
America's current account deficit, the broadest measure of its indebtedness
to other countries, is on track to exceed $600 billion next year, about 6
percent of its gross domestic product. The United States needs to attract
about $2 billion a day to keep its spending at current levels.
The nation attracted enormous sums of foreign money in the late 1990's as
well, but the character of that money has changed. Back then, a big part of
the inflow was through foreign direct investment and purchases of American
stocks.
This year, by contrast, foreigners have been net sellers of stocks. The big
growth has been in foreign purchases of Treasury securities, and the big
buyers have been foreign central banks that wanted to prevent their own
currencies from rising too much against the dollar.
Tony Norfield, currency strategist for ABN Amro in London, said he was
convinced that central banks were trying to scale back their purchase of
dollar assets, a move that could push the euro, already up about 30 percent
in the last years, even higher.
"You do not need the central banks to sell Treasuries for the dollar to go
down," Mr. Norfield said. "All they have to do is buy less and the dollar
is going to be in trouble."
The euro hit a new high of $1.3329 on Friday in light trading, before
settling back about a half-penny.
European leaders are alarmed about the potential damage of a sinking dollar
to their exports.
"Recent moves on exchange markets of the dollar versus the euro are
unwelcome," said Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central
Bank, at a banking seminar on Friday in Rio de Janeiro.
"I want to underline the importance of recent statements by the Treasury
secretary of the United States on his determination to pursue a strong
dollar policy," Mr. Trichet added.
But Mr. Snow and Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve,
offered no hint that they would intervene in currency markets to prop up the
dollar.
"The market for U.S. Treasury securities is deep and liquid and continues to
be attractive to a broad and diverse pool of investors," a spokesman for
Mr. Snow, Robert Nichols, said.
That remains to be seen. According to the most recent Treasury data, the
biggest source of growth in securities came not from China, Japan or Europe
but from Caribbean banking centers.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
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