BAUAW NEWSLETTER-SUNDAY, JAN. 23, 2005

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the military
out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)

2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!
The San Francisco Police Department is trying
to get away with MURDER!!!
for more information call (510)428-3939

3) Thousands take to the streets to oppose the inauguration
of George W. Bush
Next: March 19 Central Park - Troops Out Now!

4) Adult curfew is probation's latest tactic
NEWS STORIES ABOUT THE CURFEW
Posted on Mon, Jan. 10, 2005
By Guy Ashley

5) Support our troops: Bring them home
BY HOWARD ZINN
pmproj@progressive.org
Posted on Sat, Jan. 22, 2005
IRAQ
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/10705669.htm?template=cont
entModules/printstory.jsp

6) Dying for Democracy
Sunday Herald
January 23, 2004
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **

7) FROM MANIFEST DESTINY AND LEBENSRAUM TO
BUSH'S "CALLING OF OUR TIME"
DAVE SILVER
JANUARY 22, 2005

8) Few but Organized, Iraq Veterans
Turn War Critics
By NEELA BANERJEE
January 23, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/national/23vets.html?oref=login

9) Mystery Oil Slick Kills Seabirds Off California
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
LOS ANGELES
January 22, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/national/22spill.html?oref=login

10) Community Labor News
Social Security Information & Resources
As the debate on Social Security progresses, please
check this page frequently for additional information and
resources on Social Security and the proposed changes to the
program.
Recent articles and materials on Social Security:
http://www.pacesteelalliance.org/pacealliance/program/content/930.php

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the
military out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)

Our children are being recruited to military service right out of
High School. They are being offered Junior ROTC for class credit
as an alternative to Physical Education. Junior ROTC advocates
the military as a career choice. Every day we hear of schools
and hospitals closing. Our children have fewer job opportunities
available to them with far fewer benefits. And they are finding
it increasingly more difficult to go to college because of increased
college costs and the general increase in the cost of living.
Junior ROTC makes the military attractive to them. But these
are not the job opportunities we want for our children-or
that our children want for themselves!

Meanwhile, due to an ever-increasing war budget, most of our
tax dollars are being spent on a war with no end in sight; and
on overall defense spending that dwarfs even the war budget!
And while corporations are raking in billions, two-thirds of
them pay no taxes at all. This puts a severe strain on the taxes
left over-after military and defense expenditures-for all social
services and human needs-taxes that come from the poor
and all working people. We want our children to have an
opportunity to learn and thrive to the best of their potential
not to kill and be killed. Stop the war. Bring all our troops
home now. End all military recruitment in public schools and
institutions of higher learning. Use our tax dollars for schools,
healthcare, housing, jobs-all human needs not war!

Number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq as of Jan 11: 1,357
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html

Number of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq: over 10,000
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0104-12.ht

Number of Iraqis killed: est. over 100,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/

Number of Iraqis wounded: Untold. Not counted but
estimated in the millions.

Cost of the war: $149.5 billion spent as of Jan. 12, 2005
http://costofwar.com/index.html

With the money spent so far on the war we could have hired
over 2,600,566 public schoolteachers for one year.
http://costofwar.com/index-public-education.html

Total U.S. Defense spending: nearly $754 billion as of
fiscal year 2004.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1253

The people of San Francisco voted last November 2004
by a 63 percent majority to bring all our troops home now.
We haven't changed our minds!

Bay Area United Against War (www.bauaw.org) (415) 824-8730
P.O. Box 318021, S. F., CA 94131-8021
Labor Donated...BW

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!

The San Francisco Police Department is trying to get away
with MURDER!!!

If the cops get their way, the Superior Court will DISMISS
THE CASE against killer cop GREGORY BRESLIN !!!

With no punishment for Breslin - or anyone - in the 1998
cold-blooded police shooting of Sheila Detoy !!!

Don't let police murder go unpunished !!!


SIX YEARS - NO JUSTICE FOR SHEILA DETOY

* May 13, 1998: San Francisco police officers shot up a car
full of unarmed teenagers and killed 17-year-old Sheila
Detoy. SFPD then blamed her friends for her death.

* The Office of Citizen Complaints found that Officer Gregory
Breslin is responsible for her death. The OCC also sustained
complaints against the other officers involved in Sheila's killing.

* In 2003 the San Francisco Police Commission decided they
wanted to file charges against the officers, but the Police
Officers Association is trying to get Breslin off on a technicality
but we say: THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT ON PUNISHING KILLER COPS!!!

for more information call (510)428-3939

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

3) Thousands take to the streets to oppose the inauguration
of George W. Bush
Next: March 19 Central Park - Troops Out Now!

Tens of thousands protest the Inauguration of George W.
Bush

Thousands took to the streets of Washington, DC to protest
the inauguration of George W. Bush. The International
Action Center organized contingents from New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Raleigh, and
many other cities to participate in the demonstrations,
hand out literature, and distribute placards.

Thousands of people turned out to line the inaugural
parade route, despite attempts by the Bush Administration
to prohibit protesters from being present. For months, the
Bush Administration had been fighting to stage manage the
inauguration and present the facade of a united front in
support of the Bush agenda of global war, corporate greed,
and repression. The ANSWER Coalition won a significant
legal victory and obtained a permit to assemble directly
on the parade route. As a result, thousands of protesters
were able to gather at a rally near the beginning of the
parade route and many more lined up all along the parade
route. As Bush rode down Pennsylvania Avenue, he was
confronted by protesters holding signs all along the
route, many of which said "George Bush: Guilty of War
Crimes."

Unfortunately, many thousands more were stopped at
"security checkpoints," set up by the Bush Administration
in an attempt to minimize the impact and visibility of the
protests. However, the people engaged in spontaneous
protest at the check points, chanting, "George Bush -
Terrorist," and holding anti-war placards and banners.

In addition, thousands marched through the streets of
Washington DC, beginning at Malcolm X Park. This loud and
spirited demonstration, consisting largely of youth, was
organized by the DC Antiwar Network.

Militant youth, including members of FIST (Fight
Imperialism-Stand Together), participated in breakaway
marches despite police brutality, which included the use
of pepper spray, tasers, and clubs. One group of youth
eventually challenged the Bush Administration's tactics by
directly confronting the police at the massive fences
erected to keep protesters off of the parade route under
the pretense of security.

Many demonstrators at both locations carried signs
distributed by the Troops Out Now Coalition that said
"Troops Out Now - March 19 - Central Park!" and "End the
Occupation Now - Iraq, Palestine, & Everywhere."

Bush's Speech--a declaration of war on the world

His speech was an unabashedly aggressive pro-war threat on
the entire globe. His call to empire, veiled in words
like "freedom" and "liberty," delivered in what some
described in an "evangelical" or "messianic" tone,
asserted his divine right to intervene anywhere, anytime.
It did not mention any country by name--it was instead,
an open declaration of domination and endless war--a
campaign to globalize Abu-Ghraib.

The speech was seen around the globe as an ominous
beginning for Bush's second term. The British daily The
Guardian summed up world-wide concern in an editorial
under the headline "Fireworks in Washington, despair
around the world."

Bush's Inaugural address makes it clear, now more than
ever, that we have to continue to organize a unified mass
movement to struggle for justice. In his twenty-one
minute speech, he did not once mention the millions of
people who have lost their jobs under his Administration.
He did not mention the tens of millions who are without
healthcare. He made no promise to address the crises in
education, housing, or AIDS. He did not mention Iraq once,
even though 100,000 Iraqi people and nearly 1400 U.S.
troops have died because of his colonial war. He did not
mention any social programs, except for social security,
which he plans to turn over to be looted by his corporate
backers.

It is clear that the antiwar movement in the US has a
unique responsibility to confront and stop this drive for
global empire. Unity among all antiwar and progressive
forces is now more important than ever.

Next Step: March 19 - Central Park, and across the globe

The weekend of March 19-20 is the second anniversary of
the beginning of the U.S. "shock and awe" attack on Iraq.
Antiwar and progressive organizations worldwide have
called for protests on this weekend.

In the U.S., the Troops Out Now coalition has called for a
massive regional march on Central Park on March 19 to
demand the immediate, complete, and unconditional
withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq.

A few months ago, Mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD, and Bush told
us that we could not march to and rally in Central Park.
We do not accept this decision and are determined to
challenge it by assembling tens of thousands of people to
retake Central Park --our Park. The antiwar movement
cannot afford, and must never again agree to, this
infringement on our rights, especially in a city as
important as NYC.

In addition, there will be local and regional
demonstrations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta,
Washington DC, and throughout the country. There will
also be a major regional demonstration in Fayetteville,
North Carolina. Fayetteville is home to Fort Bragg, which
is the home base for the 82nd Airborne Division and many
of the Army's elite units. For more information on this
rally, see: http://www.mfso.org.

How You can get involved:

1) Endorse: http://troopsoutnow.org/endorse.html
2) Organize transportation from your area to NYC on March
19 - call 212-633-6646 for details.
3) Download flyers from the Troops Out Now website to help
get the word out.

http://troopsoutnow.org

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

4) Adult curfew is probation's latest tactic
NEWS STORIES ABOUT THE CURFEW
Posted on Mon, Jan. 10, 2005
By Guy Ashley

OAKLAND - Curfew, the after-sundown restriction that smacks of a
crackdown on rebellious youths' Saturday-night antics, has a more
hardened group feeling the heat: adults who have past run-ins with the
law.

In a program that may be unprecedented in California, prosecutors acting
at the urging of Oakland police are demanding 10 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfews
as a common probation condition for those pleading guilty to felonies in
Alameda County Superior Court.

Judges have imposed dozens of curfew orders since the demands began
reaching their courts three months ago as part of plea deals negotiated
between defense attorneys and prosecutors.

Curfews have displeased defense lawyers, who say it is the latest defeat
for defendants who in recent years have faced harsher sentencing laws,
longer probation terms and stay-away orders that have become everyday
courtroom occurrences.

Defense lawyers say their hands may be tied because the curfews have
shrewdly been offered to their clients as part of a
rock-and-a-hard-place proposition: If you would rather not stay home at
night, jail is always an option.

"It's a cowardly and scary new world," Oakland defense attorney Paul
Wolf said Friday, moments after a client was sentenced to five years'
probation in a weapons case, a term accompanied by a curfew. "But in a
more narrow context, I must admit I feel some sense of relief that my
client is not going to jail."

To hear Mayor Jerry Brown talk about it, curfews hold the promise of
stifling nighttime adult activities with established links to violent
crime -- and could be the missing piece of the puzzle in Oakland's
effort to control its notorious homicide problem.

"You have to go where the problem is," Brown said in 2003, when he first
broached the curfew idea with county law enforcement brass. "Since more
than 50 percent of the murder victims in this city are either on
probation or parole, it makes sense to try to rein in the activities of
these people in some meaningful way."

Efforts to reach Brown this week were unsuccessful. The mayor is cited
by police as the driving force behind curfews, part of an array of
criminal-justice reforms Brown has touted as he positions himself for a
run for state attorney general next year.

Though a fairly common condition of state-mandated parole, the use of
curfews in locally imposed probation appears to be a ground-breaking
concept. "We've seen curfews for teenagers, but we don't know of any
other cities where this practice is in place for adults," said Megan
Taylor, spokeswoman for the League of California Cities.

"I've never seen it," said Albert Manaster, a deputy public defender in
Los Angeles County who recently completed a book for defense attorneys
specializing in probation.

Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff said he believes curfews are
appropriate for certain convicted felons, as long as there is a clear
link between their offenses and the types of night-driven activities
that seem time and again to erupt in violence.

"We won't be prosecuting a person for petty theft at high noon and
placing them under a curfew," he said.

Penalties for violating curfew are fairly fluid, though prosecutors say
first-time violators will likely get up to 30 days in county jail.

No such violations have yet been recorded, said Ann Diem, a senior
prosecutor in Orloff's office.

While curfews so far have been confined to Oakland cases, Orloff said he
expects probationers in other county areas soon will be asked to accept
the home-at-night conditions, when warranted.

With some 20,000 people on felony probation in Alameda County, it is not
too far-fetched to say there may be thousands of people eventually
living under the stay-at-home orders if the curfew strategy proves
sound.

Precise numbers of curfew orders imposed so far were not available --
either from Orloff's staff, the county public defender's office or the
courts themselves.

"Since we're dealing with a large number of these types of crimes, I
would expect that there already is a significant number of people living
under a curfew," said Sandra Quist, a deputy district attorney who files
felony cases at the downtown Oakland courthouse.

It is possible the numbers could grow dramatically in coming months,
Quist said, because prosecutors likely will begin seeking curfews for
misdemeanor probation cases -- the number of which dwarf those involving
felonies.

The curfew demands arrived in local courts on Oct. 4, after more than a
year of Oakland efforts to target the parole population with expanded
law enforcement tools including curfews and mandatory meetings with
community-based service providers.

Curfews are the latest phase in a violence-reduction strategy police
have been pushing in the last 15 months. An array of crime-fighting
approaches targeting troubled pockets of town, the new strategy grew
from studies showing disproportionate numbers of homicides occur at
night and involve people on probation or parole -- as victims,
perpetrators or both.

"The idea is that if you can keep these people off the street, or
otherwise disrupt the street-level drug dealing and other activities
that always seem to come up, you can have a real impact on violent
crime," said police Lt. Pete Sarna, a key player in developing the
strategy.

Last week, police cited the $1 million annual strategy -- which includes
increased use of undercover operations targeting drug peddlers, and a
program in which minor parole and probation violators are locked up for
up to a week and provided substance-abuse treatment -- as a reason for
Oakland's 23 percent drop in its 2004 homicide rate..

Sarna said he knew curfews would be controversial. But he says the
numbers don't lie, and believes few critics -- even defense attorneys --
can challenge the need for new approaches to crime-fighting.

His point drew a surprising level of support from Tony Bergquist, 38,
who was sentenced in a weapons case Friday and learned he would have to
stay home every night for the next five years.

For years, Bergquist lived in one of West Oakland's toughest
neighborhoods, an experience he says showed him "there's a real need to
do something about the drug dealers and the violent people who are out
there."

"I used to see these people every night in front of my house," he said.

Nevertheless, Bergquist said he was "feeling a lot of anxiety" about
living under curfew. "No late-night dinners with my girlfriend for the
next five years?" he asked, though he did not seem to direct the
question to anyone in particular.

Wolf, who represented Bergquist in court before Judge Thomas Reardon,
said the case also raised troubling questions about the link between
crime and curfew that Orloff says is necessary.

Bergquist, he notes, was arrested in his West Oakland home in July by
police chasing another suspect into his yard, and then happened to
notice a marijuana plant growing inside his home.

Police searched the house and found 31 plants, two rifles, two handguns
and four boxes of ammunition stored in lock-boxes. Because he had a
felony conviction on his record, for a 1989 kidnapping, he was
prosecuted for being an ex-felon in possession of firearms, a felony.

No charges were brought for the plants prompting the search, because he
produced a city-sanctioned card showing he has a medical necessity to
grow and use it.

"If these curfews are designed to curtail the activities of people who
are known to frequent Oakland's drug hot-spots, then why do you require
it of somebody who was arrested inside his home just because he had the
bad luck to get mixed up in somebody else's business?" Wolf asked.
###

Oakland Officials Hope Curfew Will Reduce Crime
Jan. 17 (AP) - Police in Oakland are hoping a curfew imposed on people
on probation will help cut down on crime in the city.

As a condition of release from jail, probationers in Oakland are now
required to stay in their homes between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
seven days a week. The only exceptions are for work and emergencies.

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown says 80 percent of homicides in the city
involve felons who are on probation and parole, and 70 percent of
homicides occur at night.

The curfew has been in place since last fall, but officials say it could
be six months to a year before they see results from the program.

KTVU.Com
Oakland Officials Use Curfew To Stem Crime

POSTED: 3:05 pm PST January 17, 2005

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Authorities in Oakland hope a curfew imposed on
people on probation will help cut down on crime.

As a condition of release from jail, probationers in Oakland are now
required to stay in their homes between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
seven days a week. The only exceptions are for work and emergencies.

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown said the plan has been in the works for two
years and getting it implemented, at just the county level, was "like
climbing Mount Everest."

Brown said 80 percent of homicides in the city involve felons who are on
probation and parole, and 70 percent of homicides occur at night.

"People believe there is a right to travel on probation and parole,"
Brown said. "I believe their right to roam the streets of Oakland can be
limited. I think it's very (beneficial) for these probationers and
parolees to spend time in their homes."

Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris said he was "a little
disappointed" when he first heard about the curfew.

It creates another layer of law enforcement on youth and more hostility
towards police, he said.

Copyright 2005 by KTVU.com. The Associated Press contributed to this
report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Rose Braz, Director
Critical Resistance
1904 Franklin St.,Ste. 504
Oakland, CA 94612
510.444.0484
fax 510.444.2177
email: rose@criticalresistance.org
MEMBERSHIP IS POWER
Become a dues-paying member of Critical Resistance! Every donation -
big and small - is vital to sustaining CR's fight to end the prison
industrial complex. Go to
http://www.criticalresistance.org/index.php?name=Support-CR, or mail
checks
to Critical Resistance, 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 504, Oakland, CA
94612.
Thank you for your contributions to this struggle.

For all list information and functions, including changing
your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page:
http://lists.criticalresistance.org/lists/info/crnews

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

5) Support our troops: Bring them home
BY HOWARD ZINN
pmproj@progressive.org
Posted on Sat, Jan. 22, 2005
IRAQ
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/10705669.htm?template=cont
entModules/printstory.jsp

We must withdraw our military from Iraq, the sooner the better.
The reason is simple: Our presence there is a disaster for the
American people and an even bigger disaster for the Iraqi people.

It is a strange logic to declare, as so many in Washington do, that
it was wrong for us to invade Iraq but right for us to remain.
A recent New York Times editorial sums up the situation accurately:
``Some 21 months after the American invasion, United States
military forces remain essentially alone in battling what seems
to be a growing insurgency, with no clear prospect of decisive
success any time in the foreseeable future.''

And then, in an extraordinary non sequitur: ``Given the lack of
other countries willing to put up their hands as volunteers, the
only answer seems to be more American troops, and not just
through the spring, as currently planned. . . . Forces need to
be expanded through stepped-up recruitment.''

Here is the flawed logic: We are alone in the world in this invasion.
The insurgency is growing. There is no visible prospect of success.
Therefore, let's send more troops? The definition of fanaticism is
that when you discover that you are going in the wrong direction,
you redouble your speed.

In all of this, there is an unexamined premise: that military victory
would constitute ``success.''

Conceivably, the United States, possessed of enormous weaponry,
might finally crush the resistance in Iraq. The cost would be great.
Already, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, have
lost their lives (and we must not differentiate between ''their''
casualties and ''ours'' if we believe that all human beings have
an equal right to life.) Would that be a ``success''?

In 1967, the same arguments that we are hearing now were
being made against withdrawal in Vietnam. The United States
did not pull out its troops for six more years. During that time,
the war killed at least one million more Vietnamese and perhaps
30,000 U.S. military personnel.

We must stay in Iraq, it is said again and again, so that we can
bring stability and democracy to that country. Isn't it clear that
after almost two years of war and occupation we have brought
only chaos, violence and death to that country, and not any
recognizable democracy?

Can democracy be nurtured by destroying cities, by bombing,
by driving people from their homes?

There is no certainty as to what would happen in our absence.
But there is absolute certainty about the result of our presence
-- escalating deaths on both sides.

The loss of life among Iraqi civilians is especially startling. The
British medical journal Lancet reports that 100,000 civilians
have died as a result of the war, many of them children. The
casualty toll on the American side includes more than 1,350
deaths and thousands of maimed soldiers, some losing limbs,
others blinded. And tens of thousands more are facing
psychological damage in the aftermath.

Have we learned nothing from the history of imperial
occupations, all pretending to help the people being occupied?

The United States, the latest of the great empires, is perhaps
the most self-deluded, having forgotten that history, including
our own: our 50-year occupation of the Philippines, or our
long occupation of Haiti (1915-1934) or of the Dominican
Republic (1916-1924), our military intervention in Southeast
Asia and our repeated interventions in Nicaragua, El Salvador
and Guatemala.

Our military presence in Iraq is making us less safe, not more
so. It is inflaming people in the Middle East, and thereby
magnifying the danger of terrorism. Far from fighting ''there
rather than here,'' as President Bush has claimed, the occupation
increases the chance that enraged infiltrators will strike us
here at home.

In leaving, we can improve the odds of peace and stability
by encouraging an international team of negotiators, largely
Arab, to mediate among the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds and
work out a federalist compromise to give some autonomy
to each group. We must not underestimate the capacity of
he Iraqis, once free of both Saddam Hussein and the U.S.
occupying army, to forge their own future.

But the first step is to support our troops in the only way that
word support can have real meaning -- by saving their lives,
their limbs, their sanity. By bringing them home.
Howard Zinn is author of the best-selling A People's History
of the United States.

(c) 2005 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

6) Dying for Democracy
Sunday Herald
January 23, 2004
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **

Violence and fear is growing in Iraq ahead of next Sunday's vote. Dahr
Jamail, in Baghdad, Foreign Editor David Pratt, in Basra, and Diplomatic
Editor Trevor Royle report/


"I will not be voting because it is a useless charade," says Salah
Abrahim as he pushes his car towards a petrol station to get fuel in a
bustling street in the Karrada district of Baghdad, a sector of the
capital city populated primarily by Shia Muslims.

"Any clever person can see that this war and its expenditures would lead
to a government that opposes the Americans."

Others on the same street are more sanguine about Iraq's first free
elections in more than half a century and will obey the fatwa issued by
the Shia spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most
revered religious leader in Iraq and a supporter of the elections. As
the majority of the Shia in Iraq live by his edicts, it is likely that
his representatives will gain the most seats in the transitional
parliament and that is a powerful spur for younger Shia voters like Alia
Halaf who can only remember the oppression of the Saddam Hussein period
and the hegemony of the Ba'ath Party. "I will vote no matter how many
car bombs are used," he explains. "My 17-year-old neighbour was
kidnapped, so I hope the elections will bring us more security. They
simply must."

Abrahim and Halaf represent two contrasting views from a capital which
is in one of the four provinces where voting will be dangerous and, to
all intents and purposes, undemocratic. They are the two extremes of
this election on which so many hopes are pinned.

Hope, expectation and fear are the emotions that are coursing through
Iraq this weekend. The hope is driven by the fact that opinion polls
show that 85% of Iraqis are anxious to vote, balanced by the fact that
perhaps only half that number will actually manage to get through to one
of the 5000 specially prepared polling stations. The expectation is
that, despite all the problems, there will be a sufficiently high
turnout to ensure that enough votes are cast to enable the new 275-seat
National Assembly to come into being. But everywhere throughout this
war-torn country is the fear that insurgents and foreign fighters will
attempt to disrupt the process by causing chaos and intimidating the
electorate. Speaking after suicide bombers had killed 25 people in two
attacks in Baghdad last week, interim prime minister Iyad Allawi
admitted yesterday that the attackers would "try to make the political
process fail" and that the security forces would be hard pushed to
contain them.

The admission comes at a time of heightened tensions, with Sunni
terrorist groups targeting the Shia population in a last-ditch attempt
to dissuade them from voting as part of a wider campaign to create an
atmosphere of fear and panic. Yesterday, the rebel group Ansar al-Sunnah
said it had shot dead 15 Iraqi National Guard members it abducted
northwest of Baghdad this month. In some parts of the country,
especially in the capital, fear is taking grip. People might want to
vote but they also dread the consequences. Last Wednesday, five suicide
car bombs detonated across the capital in nearly 90 minutes, killing at
least 26 people and the following day two polling stations were attacked
with mortars and gunfire in Beji, along with a school which was being
set up as a polling station. Shops distributing polling papers along
with the monthly food ration cards have been burned down and their
owners attacked.

For the US-led coalition, a successful election could herald a return to
normality, although senior commanders are not putting too much faith in
Allawi's assertion that the "elections will play a big role in calming
the situation and enable the next government to face the upcoming
challenges in a decisive manner." For the majority Shia population,
repressed during the Saddam era, a good turnout will enhance their
chances of dominating the new assembly and finally getting their place
in the sun.

The Kurds in the north feel much the same way and will vote in force for
their parties which have formed a united front. They enjoyed a measure
of stability and self-confidence during the 1990s when they were under
the protection of the no-fly zones imposed by Britain and the US, but it
is the Sunni population who bring the other extreme to the equation.
Their main party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, has already decided to
boycott the election and there is bound to be a low turnout in Sunni
areas; they represent 50% of the population in the four provinces where
voting is already expected to be low - Nineveh, Anbar, Salahadin and
Baghdad - which together make up a quarter of Iraq's population. In
Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, 700 officials of the Independent
Commission for Elections, including the head and members of the
committee and polling staff, have resigned after receiving death threats.

In a bid to end the boycott, Iraq's defence minister Hazem Saalan has
called on Egypt to approach Sunni leaders urging them to participate in
the poll, but in Iraq the request will fall on deaf ears. Some Sunnis
have already made their feelings clear by tearing up their ballots.
"That is what I think of this mess," said one young Sunni as he threw
the torn pieces of his ballot paper into the mud on Baghdad's Sa'adoun
Street, "Allawi-Bush will stay in power anyhow!"

To add to the complications, the process of voting has been obscured to
the point where many voters will have little clue about the candidates
until they see the ballot papers next Sunday. These will list party
coalitions, with only a few running independently, but the majority of
the parties have removed the names of their candidates from the list. An
estimated 5000 names will not be recorded until the day itself. This has
nothing to do with unnecessary secrecy but everything to do with
necessary security as at least eight candidates have been assassinated
in the past few days. But with more than 83 lists on the ballot, each
with up to 275 unnamed candidates, confusion reigns among many Iraqis
who will be expected to vote in order to fill the seats in the new assembly.

After the count, the seats will be allocated by exact proportional
representation and, as the whole country is being treated as a single
constituency, each party group will get the same proportion of seats as
it receives in the ballot. As the Sunnis will either refuse to take part
in the election or will be intimidated by the violence the process will
tell against them. Already they only represent 20% of the electorate and
there is bound to be a diminution of their representation and that will
play into the hands of the Shias whose parties are standing under the
coalition list known as the United Iraqi Alliance. Also expected to do
well is Allawi's Iraqi List which represents the interests of the
interim administration which will attract voters like Ghassan, a young
biology teacher in Diyallah province. "I don't know who is nominated for
them and I worry about how all of this will succeed but I will vote
because I think it will be good," he admits. "We've never had an
election in my life.

To protect those who want to vote, whatever the circumstances, the
interim administration has put in place a wide range of security
measures. The country's borders will be closed from Saturday, January 29
- the eve of polling - for three days and mobile and satellite phone
services will be taken off-air to prevent them being used as triggers
for suicide bombers. Traffic around polling stations will also be
controlled and each will be protected by three rings of heavy security
to lessen the risk of car bombs. A dawn-to-dusk curfew has already been
instituted and travel on the main highways is being limited to essential
services with special permits, but even these strict measures are not
expected to keep the determined terrorists at bay. Bowing to the
inevitable fact that the suicide bomber will always get through, the
ministry of health has announced that hospitals will be on high alert
throughout the day to deal with the expected casualties. And that is the
unhappy bottom line for this election.

Carlos Valenzuela, the head of the UN's election advisory team, has
voiced the hope that despite the fear which is all too apparent all over
Iraq it is important "to convince Iraqis that this is a real election
and not a Mickey Mouse election". However, as he has already seen in
places like East Timor where there were similar problems during the
period of transition, he also admits violence could easily derail the
process. Officially the responsibility for overseeing the security on
election day falls to the fledgling Iraqi security forces, but the
reality is that the election stands or falls on the capacity of the
US-led coalition forces. The US and British garrisons have both been
reinforced - there are now 150,000 US troops in the country - and
commanders will keep their forces on high alert throughout the election
period. They know that for all the rhetoric of Iraqification they hold
primacy in security matters, a point that was made clear when a senior
US commander earlier declared that Iraqi policemen were "just lambs
being sent to slaughter". Even Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former British
representative to the coalition authority, admitted last week that the
security situationwas "irremediable and ineradicable".

In its short and troubled history, Iraq is no stranger to the turmoil
caused by internecine strife. The country only came into being in the
aftermath of the first world war when Britain and France carved out
spheres of influence - previously it was the Ottoman province of
Mesopotamia - and in that time it has witnessed the assassination of
leaders such as King Faisal II in 1958 and the long period of Saddam's
dictatorship. Small wonder its people have an ambivalent attitude to the
forthcoming elections. Most want a return to normality and everyone
wants to see the removal of the occupying forces but they also fear what
the future might bring.

As palm fronds blow in the breeze at the end of a grey day in Baghdad, a
policeman who asks to be called Ali, pulls his black ski-mask further up
his face as he articulates the conundrum facing his people. "I think
most Iraqis just want security and jobs," he says. "I don't care which
party wins, we just want peace and a better living situation. But I
don't see how January 30 will change any of this."

More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/
to subscribe or unsubscribe to the email list.

(c)2004 Dahr Jamail.

Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

7) FROM MANIFEST DESTINY AND LEBENSRAUM TO
BUSH'S "CALLING OF OUR TIME"
DAVE SILVER
JANUARY 22, 2005

A new and profitable fix was sought after the U.S. economic
Depression of 1839 which followed on the heels of the genocide
against Native Americans during the Presidency of Andrew
Jackson. (1829-37) William Harrison of the Virginia planter
aristocracy died shortly after taking office in 1841. His
successors Presidents Tyler and Pierce talked about Manifest
Destiny, a 19th century form of imperialism whose aim it was
to pump up the economy by "extending the boundaries of
freedom to others." The conquest and annexation of a huge
chunk of Mexico and the imposition of "our values" was the
response

Sounds like G.W.'s "spread of liberty" as the "calling of our
time." But Bush is partially correct in pronouncing that the
nation's "vital interests and deepest beliefs are now one." For
this was so since the highest stage of capitalism, namely
imperialism from about 1900. That is, whatever is good for
capital accumulation is also good for the people including its
morality and values. Or to phrase it more elegantly as Marx
did; "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling
ideas: the class which is the ruling material force of society,
is at the same time its ruling intellectual force." As Phyllis
Bennis aptly notes in her book Before and After that U.S.
foreign policy in the context of terrorism/anti-terrorism had
its roots in a "permanent war agenda" long before 9/11.

Meanwhile in Germany in the 1920's Hitler was putting the
finishing touches to his magnum opus Mein Kampf which
postulated among other things the inevitability of war.
Lebensraum or literally living space was the pretext, but
the goal was the strengthening of a German industrial base,
its war making potential and huge profits. What better way
to sell the program to Germans at a time when a few ounces
of butter cost a million Marks and blame the sad state of
affairs on the Bolsheviks and Jews.

Of course today Bush the second no longer can use the
Red Devil so we turn to the Terrorist Devil. (a Drug Devil was
in fashion between the other two Devils) Just as the Bush-Bin-
Laden financial and military connections have been adequately
documented, we must also remember that Grandpa Bush,
Prescott, was V.P. at W.A. Harriman and was the head of
capital investments which included the pro-Nazi firm of Fritz
Thyssen called Vereinigte Stahlwerke or United Steel Works.
Fritz along with another Adolph-Krupp, were the chief providers
of necessary materials needed by the Wermacht and Luftwaffe.
(Panzer tanks and Stuka dive bombers for instance)

Pre-emptive strikes, genocidal war and regime change is done
in the name of "freedom" against "tyranny" and those who died
in Iraq according to G.W. Bush died for "human dignity and
idealism." This is the Big Lie that the German Chancellor perfected
in the 1930's. "Freedom" has become the ideological cover for
U.S. imperialist adventures seeking domination and control over
resources like oil whether in Baghdad, the Ukraine, the Caspian
Sea or Caracas. But just as the U.S. had the Apartheid State of
South Africa as a puppet proxy to keep Liberation movements in
check, so today Israel plays that role to keep order and protect
our economic interest in the Middle East.

The reaction to the Inaugural speech by the Paris daily Le Monde,
aptly notes that "in the eyes of Mr. Bush, the criteria for tyranny
would essentially be hostility toward the United States and that
he would be inclined to close his eyes to the democratic failings
of regimes that show cooperativeness." Yes indeed.

UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545

To post news articles or event announcements of interest to
member groups of UFPJ, join our news list by sending a blank
email to ufpj-news-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
* To visit your group on the web, go to:
* http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ufpj-disc/

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

8) Few but Organized, Iraq Veterans
Turn War Critics
By NEELA BANERJEE
January 23, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/national/23vets.html?oref=login

Sean Huze enlisted in the Marine Corps right after the Sept. 11 attacks
and was, in his own words, "red, white and blue all the way" when he
deployed to Iraq 16 months later. Unquestioning in his support of the
invasion, he grew irritated when his father, a former National
Guardsman, expressed doubts about the war.

Today, all that has changed. Haunted by the civilian casualties he
witnessed, Corporal Huze has become one of a small but increasing
number of Iraq veterans who have formed or joined groups to oppose
the war or to criticize the way it is being fought.

The two most visible organizations - Operation Truth, of which
Corporal Huze is a member, and Iraq Veterans Against the War -
were founded only last summer but are growing in membership and
sophistication. The Internet has helped them spread their word and
galvanize like-minded people in ways unimaginable to activist
veterans of previous generations, who are also lending help.

"There's strength in numbers," Corporal Huze said. "By ourselves,
we're lone voices, a whisper in a swarm of propaganda out there.
Combined, we can become a roar and have an impact on the issues
that we care about."

Those who turn to the groups are generally united in their
disillusionment, though their responses to the war vary: Iraq
Veterans seeks a quick withdrawal from Iraq; Operation Truth
focuses on the day-to-day issues affecting troops and veterans.

Iraq Veterans Against the War, which started in July with 8 people,
now has more than 150 members, including some still serving in
Iraq, said Michael Hoffman, a former lance corporal in the Marines
and a co-founder of the group.

Operation Truth, based in New York, began with 5 members and
now has 300, with an e-mail list of more than 25,000 people. Its
Web site is a compendium of soldiers and veterans' stories,
a media digest on the war, and a rallying point on issues
affecting troops.

Iraq veterans are keenly aware of the need to argue for their
interests, given the struggles of veterans of Vietnam and the
Persian Gulf war. The older veterans have offered a reservoir of
knowledge and compassion to help Iraq veterans avoid the
mistakes they made.

It took Vietnam Veterans of America almost 15 years to have an
effect on government policy, said Steve Robinson, executive
director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, an advocacy
group for gulf war veterans. Mr. Robinson said his group did not
come into its own for about eight years, despite help from
Vietnam Veterans of America.

Mr. Robinson is working closely with Operation Truth, which
he said had already surpassed his operation in raising money.

For Corporal Huze, the transformation began when he returned
home in fall 2003. Unable to forget the carnage he had seen in
Iraq, he began to grapple with the justification for the war, he said.

"By sometime in December 2003, I came to the conclusion that
W.M.D.'s weren't there and that Saddam Hussein had nothing to
do with 9/11, and now I'm left with all that I'd experienced in Iraq
and nothing to balance it," Corporal Huze said, emphasizing that
he was speaking as a citizen, not as a marine. "When I came to
that conclusion, I felt this sense of betrayal. I was full of rage and
depression."

That rage has since fueled Corporal Huze, a native of Baton
Rouge, La., who is awaiting a medical discharge for a head injury.
With the consent of his commanding officers at Camp Lejeune,
he speaks regularly to the media and others as a representative
for Operation Truth.

"Who I was before the war, who I was in Iraq and who I am
now are three very different men," Corporal Huze said. "I don't
think I can ever have the blind trust in the government like I had
before. I think that my being over in Iraq as an active participant,
I'm a bit more responsible than others for things there. And I think
by speaking out now, it's my amends." He added, "I don't know if
it will ever balance."

Operation Truth does not address the necessity of the war. David
Chasteen of suburban Washington, a former Army captain in the
Third Infantry Division and a member of the group's board, said
Operation Truth hoped to stake out a nonpartisan position on
aspects of the war that could realistically be changed, as opposed
to tackling the administration's Middle East policy.

"Our attitude was 'Want to do something? Here's what you can do:
get body armor to the guys on the ground, get interpreters to
people on the ground, get people who know how to plan this stuff
on the ground,' " said Mr. Chasteen, who said his experience in
Iraq as an expert on unconventional weapons left him disillusioned
about the war. "Maybe if we tell people what we saw, maybe some
of these things can get fixed. I definitely think we added
momentum to some issues."

Operation Truth points out that when Secretary of Defense Donald
H. Rumsfeld took questions from soldiers in Kuwait last month
about equipment shortages, the Web site's readers sent 3,400
e-mail messages in 24 hours to members of Congress asking
for hearings into the issue, which are to be held in the next
few months.

Organizing those who have recently returned from Iraq is an
uphill battle, older veterans and Iraq veterans agreed. The first
priority for many is resuming their lives. And unlike most Vietnam
veterans, many Iraq veterans have remained in the military after
returning, limiting their ability to participate in groups critical
of the government.

Despite their different focuses, Operation Truth and Iraq
Veterans Against the War overlap on some issues, most notably
with lobbying the government to address what is expected by
many veterans of Iraq and previous wars to be a high incidence
of post-traumatic stress disorder among those who served in Iraq.

Some who served in Vietnam, like Tim Origer of the Santa Fe, N.M.,
chapter of Veterans for Peace, have said Iraq veterans face a more
intense version of the stresses they experienced: constant threats
inherent to guerrilla war, inability to distinguish friend from foe,
and profound despair that often accompanies taking a life,
especially a civilian's.

In March 2003, reports of suicide-bombing attacks on American
soldiers had reached Sgt. Rob Sarra's Marine Corps unit in an Iraqi
town called al-Shatra. A short time later, soldiers saw an older
woman walking toward them with a small bundle. The marines,
fearing that she might be a bomber, called to her to stop, but
she kept walking.

"I was looking at her, and I thought 'I have to stop this woman,'
" Mr. Sarra said. "So I fired on her, and then the other marines
fired on her."

"When we got to her, we saw that she was pulling out a white
flag," he said. "She had tea and bread in her bag. I kept thinking,
'Was she a grandmother? Was she a mother?' "

Mr. Sarra, who has left the Marines after nine years, struggled
with post-traumatic stress disorder in Iraq and at home in
Chicago before seeking counseling and help from other veterans.
Now he is one of the leaders of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

"When someone is wounded or goes through P.T.S.D., it brings
what they went through to the forefront," Mr. Sarra said. "I knew
when I joined the Marines that if I was going to be there for 20
years, I'd face combat. But the question is, why did we go?"

A grenade tossed into Robert Acosta's Humvee in Baghdad in
July 2003 left him without his right hand and shattered his
legs. Mr. Acosta, 21, spent months in hospitals surrounded
by other young amputees, watching news about government
commissions concluding that Iraq had no unconventional
weapons.

He began reading, watching the news and talking to people,
especially Vietnam veterans like Mr. Origer in Santa Fe. Last
summer, his girlfriend heard Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of
Operation Truth, speak on the radio. Mr. Acosta contacted him.
By the fall, Mr. Acosta had become the organization's public face,
appearing in a provocative television advertisement.

Mr. Acosta, who is attending community college in Southern
California, said he hoped to bring friends from his old unit in
the First Armored Division into Operation Truth as they leave the
Army, because they might start to experience some of the
problems he faced. For instance, he said, he once used duct
tape to hold his prosthesis together because he could not get
it repaired quickly at the local Veterans Affairs hospital. And
people often asked about his injury.

"People would just come up to me and say, 'How'd you lose
your arm?' " Mr. Acosta said. "And I'd say, 'In the war.' And
they would be like, 'What war?' "

Copyright 2005 The New York Times

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

9) Mystery Oil Slick Kills Seabirds Off California
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
LOS ANGELES
January 22, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/national/22spill.html?oref=login

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 21 - A phantom oil slick floating somewhere
along a 90-mile stretch of Southern California coastline is killing
sea life as investigators scramble to find its whereabouts and origins.

More than 700 seabirds have died, another 700 are under care,
and at least one sea lion has been taken to a marine mammal
center, officials say.

Scientists were unaware that a killer blob was at sea until birds
started turning up a week ago on the shoreline from Santa Barbara
to Venice Beach. Most of the birds affected have been Western
grebes, though a few are rare pelicans.

The Coast Guard has conducted an aerial search of the shoreline,
and oil samples have been taken from the birds and shipped to
laboratories for analysis. Still, officials are flummoxed.

"We haven't been able to eliminate anything," said Dana Michaels,
a spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game.
"We've got a full-court-press investigation going, even things
that sound silly on the surface."

Among the possible sources that investigators are looking into
are pipes broken during the La Conchita mudslide that killed
10 people last week, leaking oil platforms in the ocean, seepage
from the seafloor, abandoned oil wells, runoff from the Los
Angeles metropolis, even cars and trucks that slid into the
ocean during the torrential rains that recently pummeled
California.

Officials have found no large concentrations of oil offshore,
and there has been nothing like a grounding of an oil tanker.
Nor have there been any reports of leaking or distressed
vessels at sea.

After the rain subsided last weekend, aerial surveillance did
spot at least two dozen small patches of oil off the shoreline.
But investigators do not think those isolated patches could
have harmed so many animals.

At last count, 733 birds had died, and 686 were convalescing
at the Los Angeles Oiled Bird Care and Education Center in the
San Pedro district, which abuts the busy Los Angeles Harbor.
In addition, 13 endangered brown pelicans had been taken to
Sea World in San Diego for treatment.

But all that is almost certainly not the final toll. Biologists believe
that as many as 5,000 birds may have been harmed, said
Ms. Michaels, the fish and game spokeswoman. Whatever the
case, the phantom spill's damage to wildlife makes it the worst
since a spill off the Orange County coast in 1990 killed
about 3,400 birds.

A photograph this week showed an oil patch floating on the
water near Platform Holly, one of 21 oil-producing platforms
off the coast of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Orange Counties.
But inspectors found no malfunctions by any of the rigs.

"None of the oil can be attributed to Platform Holly," said Ellen
Faurot-Daniels, oil spill program supervisor for the California
Coastal Commission.

Offshore drilling is a politically and environmentally delicate
issue in California, where oil companies are pushing to develop
36 undeveloped tracts off the coast. The companies' leases on
those tracts have been extended by the federal government and
are due for review in coming months by the Coastal Commission.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

10) Community Labor News
Social Security Information & Resources
As the debate on Social Security progresses, please
check this page frequently for additional information and
resources on Social Security and the proposed changes to the
program.
Recent articles and materials on Social Security:
http://www.pacesteelalliance.org/pacealliance/program/content/930.php

Readers may email your article submissions
or your comments to ListAdmin@CLNews.org

You may Subscribe or Un-Subscribe through a
Confirmed Opt-In or Opt-out Automatic Process at
http://www.clnews.org/MailList/subscribtion.htm

"Freedom is always and exclusively
freedom for the one who thinks differently"
--Rosa Luxemburg

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*