BAUAW NEWSLETTER-FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2004

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ANTI-WAR MARCH AND RALLY
END THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ!
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
MARCH AND RALLY TO STOP THE WAR NOW!
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 3RD, 5PM
ASSEMBLE AT POWELL AND MARKET-
MARCH TO 24TH & MISSION ST., S.F.
END THE OCCUPATION - OUT OF IRAQ NOW!
No matter who is elected, we say no to war and repression!

On November 3rd we will still be against the unjust war and
occupation, the police state restrictions of the Patriot Acts,
and the continuing attacks on our immigrant communities.

Bring flashlights, drums, and noisemakers. Permitted event
featuring the Loco Bloco Drum and Dance Ensemble.

Event initiated by Not in Our Name, and endorsed by Siafu,
Middle East Children's Alliance, Veterans for Peace-SF,
International ANSWER-SF, American Muslim Voice, Nor Cal RAWA
Supporters, American Friends Service Committee-SF, Bay Area
United Against War, CodePink, Central Committee for
Conscientious Objectors, Korean Americans United for Peace,
Blue Triangle Network, Socialist Action, Queers for Peace and
Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace, Lake Merritt Neighbors
Organized for Peace, International Socialist Organization,
Refuse & Resist!, Act Up East Bay, Korea Solidarity Committee,
War Resisters League-West, South Bay Mobilization to Stop the
War, East Bay Food Not Bombs, Alameda Peace Network, Bay Area
Radical Women, Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, and United
for Peace and Justice-Bay Area.

Rock the boat - not just the vote!

For more info: http://bayarea.notinourname.net Or call 510-601-8000

| Also on Nov. 3: "Health Care NOT Warfare!"
| 9 AM gathering at Justin Herman Plaza, SF
| followed by march to the Fed Bldg for a
| noon rally. Sponsored by Beyond Voting,
| Code Blue, and Direct Action to Stop the War.
| For more info: http://www.actagainstwar.org

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NEXT BAUAW MEETING:
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH, 7:00 P.M.
1380 VALENCIA STREET
(BETWEEN 24TH & 25TH STREETS)

We will be tabling on 24th Street in front of the Farmers
Market beginning at Noon this Saturday, Oct. 30th. Come help
hand out posters, buttons and flyers for Yes on N and the
Nov. 3rd march and rally against the war.

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1) Will there be a War Against the World after November 2?
By John Pilger
http://207.44.245.159/article7167.htm

2) U.S. Forces Prepare to Attack Falluja and Ramadi
By Michael Georgy
NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
Fri Oct 29, 2004 08:23 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6659827&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

3) At Least 100,000 Dead in Iraq
U.S. War is a Blood Bath for the Iraqi People
Pledge to Take Action to End the War

4) THE ROOTS & OUR LYRICAL WARRIORS!
Mumia Under Attack .... Again!
By Sis. Marpessa Kupendua (10/04)

5) Marijuana Arrests at All-Time High,
Far Exceed Violent Crime Arrests 10/29/04
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/360/arrests.shtml

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1) Will there be a War Against the World after November 2?
By John Pilger
http://207.44.245.159/article7167.htm


10/28/04 -- There is a surreal quality about visiting the United
States in the last days of the presidential campaign. If George W Bush
wins, according to a scientist I met who escaped Nazi-dominated
Europe, America will surrender many of its democratic trappings and
succumb to its totalitarian impulses. If John Kerry wins, according
to most Democrat voters, the only mandate he will have is that he
is not Bush.

Never have so many liberal hands been wrung over a candidate
whose only memorable statements seek to out-Bush Bush. Take Iran.
One of Kerry's national security advisers, Susan Rice, has accused Bush
of 'standing on the sidelines while Iran's nuclear programme has been
advanced'. There is not a shred of evidence that Iran is developing
nuclear weapons, yet Kerry is joining in the same orchestrated frenzy
that led to the invasion of Iraq. Having begun his campaign by
promising another 40,000 troops for Iraq, he is said to have a 'secret
plan to end the war' which foresees a withdrawal in four years. This is
an echo of Richard Nixon, who in the 1968 presidential campaign
promised a 'secret plan' to end the war in Vietnam.


The statement that Nixon in 1968 "promised a 'secret plan' to end the
war in Vietnam" fails to correct the myth that US popular opposition to
the war against Vietnam developed gradually until, finally, it reached
a critical mass that ended the war. The truth is that opposition (albeit
divided generationally and, later, by class) was widespread and intense,
from the outset of public knowledge of what was happening. It reached
its greatest breadth and intensity in 1968 when, magnified and multiplied
by assassinations, uprisings, and the foretaste of a police state witnessed
in Chicago, it added considerably to the determining pressure of the
Vietnamese, forcing the US govt. to Paris to treat for peace. Then Nixon,
with Kissinger who was numbered among the negotiators, committed
treason, undermining those negotiations (as Johnson knew, although
he said nothing, making him an accomplice), ongoing during the
tumultuous 1968 presidential campaign. The price of this treasonous
conspiracy was the prolongation for the six and a half years Pilger
mentions below, six and a half years beyond when popular opposition,
here and throughout the world, and astonishing Vietnamese resistance,
had truly won the peace. During that artificial extension of a criminal
war, most (and I believe worst) casualties occurred (the average age for
US casualties was 19). Would that extension have been conceivable
without media (and personal) self-censorship? -- BD


Once in office, Nixon accelerated the slaughter and the war dragged
on for six and a half more years. For Kerry, like Nixon, the message is
that he is not a wimp. Nothing in his campaign or his career suggests
he will not continue, even escalate, the 'war on terror', which is now
sanctified as a crusade of Americanism like that against communism.
No Democratic president has shirked such a task: John Kennedy on
the cold war, Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam.

This presents great danger for all of us, but none of it is allowed to
intrude upon the campaign or the media 'coverage'. In a supposedly
free and open society, the degree of censorship by omission is staggering.
The New York Times, the country's liberal standard-bearer, having
recovered from a mild bout of contrition over its abject failure to
challenge Bush's lies about Iraq, has been running tombstones of
column-inches about what-went-wrong in the 'liberation' of that
country.

It blames mistakes: tactical oversights, faulty intelligence. Not a word
suggests that the invasion was a colonial conquest, deliberate like any
other, and that 60 years of international law make it 'the paramount war
crime', to quote the Nuremberg judges. Not a word suggests that the
American onslaught on the population of Iraq was and is systematically
atrocious, of which the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was merely
a glimpse.

The coming atrocity in the city of Fallujah, in which British troops,
against
the wishes of the British people, are to be accessories, is a case in point.
For American politicians and journalists -- there are a few honourable
exceptions -- the US marines are preparing for another of their "battles".
Their last attack on Fallujah, in April, provides a preview. Forty-ton
battle tanks and helicopter gunships were used against slums. Aircraft
dropped 500-lb bombs: marine snipers killed old people, women, and
children; ambulances were targets. The marines closed the only hospital
in a city of 300,000 for more than two weeks, so they could use it as
a military position.

When it was estimated they had slaughtered 600 people, there was no
denial. This was more than all the victims of the suicide bombs the
previous year. Neither did they deny that their barbarity was in revenge
for the killing of four American mercenaries in the city; led by avowed
cowboys, they are specialists in revenge. John Kerry said nothing; the
media reported the atrocity as 'a military operation', against 'foreign
militants' and 'insugents', never against civilians and Iraqis defending
their homes and homeland.

Moreover, the American people are almost totally unaware that the
marines were driven out of Fallujah by heroic street fighting. Americans
remain unaware, too, of the piracy that comes with their government's
murderous adventure. Who in public life asks the whereabouts of
the 18.46 bn dollars which the US Congress approved for reconstruction
and humanitarian aid in Iraq?

As Unicef reports, most hospitals are bereft even of pain-killers, and
acute malnutrition among children has doubled since the 'liberation'.
In fact, less than 29m dollars has been allocated, most of it on British
security firms, with their ex-SAS thugs and veterans of South African
apartheid. Where is the rest of this money that should be helping to
save lives? Non-wimp Kerry dares not ask.

Neither does he nor anybody else with a public profile ask why the
people of Iraq have been forced to pay, since the fall of Saddam,
almost 80m dollars to America and Britain as 'reparations'. Even Israel
has received an untold fortune in Iraqi oil money as compensation for
its 'loss of tourism' in the Golan Heights -- part of Syria it occupies
illegally. As for oil, the 'o-word' is unmentionable in the contest for
the world's most powerful job. So successful is the resistance in its
campaign of economic sabotage that the vital pipeline carrying oil to
the Turkish Mediterranean has been blown up 37 times. Terminals
in the south are under constant attack, effectively shutting down all
exports of crude oil and threatening national economies. That the
world may have lost Iraqi oil is enveloped by the same silence that
ensures Americans have little idea of the nature and scale of the
blood-letting conducted in their name.

The most enduring silence is that which guards the system that has
produced these catastrophic events. This is Americanism, though it
dares not speak its name, which is strange, as its opposite, anti-
Americanism, has long been successfully deployed as a pejorative,
catch-all response to critical analysis of an imperial system and its
myths. Americanism, the ideology, has meant democracy at home,
for some, and a war on democracy abroad.

From Guatemala to Iran, from Chile to Nicaragua, to the struggle for
freedom in South Africa, to present-day Venezuela, American state
terrorism, licensed by both Republican and Democrat administrations,
has fought democrats and sponsored totalitarians. Most societies
attacked or otherwise subverted by American power are weak and
defenceless, and there is a logic to this. Should a small country
succeed in breaking free and establish its own way of developing,
then its good example to others becomes a threat to Washington.

And the serious purpose behind this? Madeleine Albright, Bill
Clinton's secretary of state, once told the United Nations that America
had the right to 'unilateral use of power' to ensure 'uninhibited access
to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources'. Or as Colin
Powell, the Bush-ite laughably promoted by the media as a liberal, put
it more than a decade ago: "I want to be the bully on the block."
Britain's imperialists believed exactly that, and still do; only the
language is discreet.

That is why people all over the world, whose consciousness about these
matters has risen sharply in the past few years, are 'anti-American'.
It has nothing to do with the ordinary people of the United States, who
now watch a Darwanian capitalism consume their real and fabled
freedoms and reduce the 'free market' to a fire-sale of public assets.
It is remarkable, if not inspiring, that so many reject the class- and
race-based brainwashing, begun in childhood, that such a class- and
race-based system is called 'the American dream'.

What will happen if the nightmare in Iraq goes on? Perhaps those
millions of worried Americans, who are currently paralysed by wanting
to get rid of Bush at any price, will shake off their ambivalence,
regardless of who wins on 2 November. Then, will a giant awaken,
as it did during the civil rights campaign and the Vietnam war and
the great movement to freeze nuclear weapons? One must trust so;
the alternative is a war on the world.

John Pilger is currently a visiting professor at Cornell University,
New York. His latest book is Tell Me No Lies: investigative journalism
and its triumphs (Jonathan Cape)

***NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed
a prior interest in receiving the included information for research
and educational purposes.***


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2) U.S. Forces Prepare to Attack Falluja and Ramadi
By Michael Georgy
NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
Fri Oct 29, 2004 08:23 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6659827&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. marines prepared on Friday for
big assault on Sunni Muslim rebels and Arab fighters in the Iraqi cities
of Falluja and Ramadi.

"We are gearing up for a major operation," Brigadier General Denis
Hajlik told reporters at a base near Falluja. "If we do so, it will be
decisive and we will whack them."

Hajlik, deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force,
said the expected assault would involve Iraqi forces.

Iraq's U.S.-backed interim government has vowed to pacify the whole
country before nationwide elections due in January.

U.S. planes have launched almost daily air strikes on what the military
says are safe houses used by a network of Iraqi and foreign fighters
led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But a full-scale U.S.-led assault could be as devastating as a marine
offensive in April that Washington called off after a world outcry over
civilian casualties in Falluja. Local doctors reported more than 600
dead in the fighting.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi urged the people of Falluja on
Thursday to seize what he said could be the "last chance" for a peaceful
solution. He set no deadline for them to meet his demands for Zarqawi's
group to be handed over.

Falluja leaders say they know nothing of Zarqawi's network. In on-off
talks with the government, they have said Iraqi security forces can
return to the city, but not U.S. troops.

Marine Colonel Michael Schupp dismissed the sputtering dialogue as
a sham. "The negotiations are a ruse. They are just stalling for time,"
he told reporters near Falluja.

U.S.-led troops would have to support Iraqi forces inside Falluja after
rebels were dislodged, he said. He ruled out any repeat of the "terrible
experience" of the peace deal which ended the April fighting by turning
the city over to a "Falluja Brigade" led by former Baathist army officers.

"The insurgents probably were the Falluja Brigade," Schupp said.

Zarqawi's al Qaeda-allied group threatened on Tuesday to behead
a Japanese hostage within 48 hours unless Tokyo withdrew its 550
non-combat troops from Iraq. Japan rejected the demand.

MYSTERY BODY

The deadline passed without any firm word on the fate of 24-year-old
traveler Shosei Kado, but Japan's Foreign Ministry said it was checking
a report that the body of an Asian had been found in Tikrit, Saddam
Hussein's hometown.

Police in Tikrit confirmed on Friday they had found an unidentified
body, but its description did not fit Koda.

Zarqawi's network has beheaded several foreigners and claimed
responsibility for many suicide bombings and attacks, including
last week's killing of 49 unarmed Iraqi army cadets.

Marine intelligence officer Major James West said guerrilla violence
could continue even if the Jordanian was eliminated.

"Even if we get Zarqawi, that doesn't necessarily mean it's over," he
told reporters near Falluja.

West said Falluja's population had dropped to 50,000 or 60,000
from 350,000 because many families had fled for safety.

Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, and Ramadi, 110 km
(70 miles) from the capital, have been cauldrons of anti-U.S.
insurgency since last year's war toppled Saddam Hussein.

A previously unknown Islamist group said on Thursday it had
kidnapped a Polish-Iraqi woman and demanded that Poland take
its troops out of Iraq. Warsaw said its contingent would stay.

Kidnappers in Iraq also hold a British-Iraqi woman, two French
journalists and a score of other foreigners from a dozen countries.
Some may be held for ransom, others as part of a campaign to
drive foreign troops and workers from Iraq.

Gunmen killed the driver of a Turkish truck in the northern city
of Mosul on Friday and set it ablaze, witnesses said. It was not
immediately clear if the driver was a Turk, but the truck, carrying
bottled water, had Turkish plates and markings.

In a separate incident, a car bomb blew up near a U.S. military
convoy in southern Mosul, killing an Iraqi civilian and slightly
wounding three, hospital officials said. The U.S. military said
two soldiers were slightly wounded.

Militants seized two truck drivers from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh,
Al Jazeera television said on Thursday. Police said three Iraqi
contractors working at a U.S. military base near the northern town
of Baiji were abducted the same day.

Assassins killed Aqil Hamed al-Adeli, deputy governor of Diyala
province, northeast of Baghdad, on Friday, police said.

(Additional reporting by Maher al-Thanoon in Mosul, Faris
al- Mahdawi in Baquba and Fadel al-Badrani in Falluja)

(c) Copyright Reuters 2004

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3) At Least 100,000 Dead in Iraq
U.S. War is a Blood Bath for the Iraqi People
Pledge to Take Action to End the War


In a medical study being published today, scientists have concluded
that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in the deaths
of at least 100,000 Iraqis, "and may be much higher." It further revealed
that most of the 100,000 Iraqis who died were killed in violent deaths,
primarily carried out by U.S. forces airstrikes. "Most individuals
reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children,"
according to the study. The study was designed and conducted by
researches at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the
Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad (The Lancet, October 29, 2004).

The population of Iraq is approximately 25 million people. Were this
slaughter carried out on an equivalent scale in the United States, it
would be comparable to a death toll of one million people. Even the
youngest and most vulnerable have not been spared: as a consequence
of the U.S. war against the people of Iraq, infant mortality rose from
29 deaths per 1,000 live births before the war to 57 deaths per 1,000
afterward.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, 78 U.N.T.S. 277, executed in 1948, and ratified by the
United States, and which carries the binding force of the law of
nations, prohibits genocide or complicity in genocide. See, also,
18 U.S.C. 1091.

"In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnical,
racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of
the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting upon the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part..."
This is a criminal war just as the Vietnam war was a criminal war.
It isn't enough to advocate that replacing Bush with Kerry should
be the goal of anti-war advocates. The Pentagon is preparing to
rain down their favored "shock and awe" violence on the devastated
people of Fallujah who have already been subject to terrorizing
bombing raids and the killings of entire families night after night
for months. By demanding the unconditional withdrawal from Iraq
we are sending a message to the Iraq people that we respect their
right to determine their own destiny and we send a message to the
U.S. soldiers that their lives and dignity are too important to be
used in the commission of war crimes or to serve as cannon fodder
in a war that only benefits corporate and banking elite.

Bush and Kerry have pledged to continue this violent occupation
in order to "win" in Iraq. The people of Iraq are desperately trying
to regain their sovereignty and right to determine their own futures
without outside intervention. While some feel that the "final stretch"
is in these next few days culminating at the polls, for the people of
Iraq and all those around the world who stand in solidarity with them,
the "final stretch" is from now until the U.S. troops and all occupation
forces are removed from that sovereign land.

We must deepen the fight in the United States to bring this war to an
end unconditionally. It is completely bogus to insist the intervention
must continue based on some humanitarian argument that since U.S.
intervention wrought so much devastation, the U.S. must now stay the
course in order to prevent "civil war," "chaos," or "a blood bath." These
were the same arguments that were used to justify the prolongation of
the U.S. war in Vietnam. The only thing that happened when the U.S.
finally left Vietnam was that the real blood bath ended. That's why
thousands of people are planning to take action starting on November 3
and culminating in a mass action all along the route of the Inaugural
parade on January 20 in Washington, DC.

Only the anti-war movement will end the criminal war in Iraq. We urgently
need your support to carry out these activities to stop the blood bath in
Iraq. Please make a contribution now online through the secure server
by clicking here.

Anti-war activists who are out in the streets, both before the election
fighting against racist disenfranchisement and after the election, are
prominently displaying the most important anti-war message of our
time: Bring the Troops Home Now! on T-shirts, stickers and signs --
which you can get at the VoteNoWar Resource Center, along with
ANSWER's beautiful own "End All Occupations" shirt by clicking here.

Pledge now to support the January 20 demonstration against the war
- no matter who is elected. Click here to endorse and say Bring the
Troops Home Now!



Click here to unsubscribe from the ANSWER e-mail list.

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4) THE ROOTS & OUR LYRICAL WARRIORS!
Mumia Under Attack .... Again!
By Sis. Marpessa Kupendua (10/04)

A recent Cybercast News Service article condemns the musical group The
Roots for Bro. Black Thought's participation in the Mumia 911 CD, which
was created in 1999 during an extraordinary organizing campaign leading
up to international demonstrations demanding freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal
on September 11, 1999. During this time period, any and all musicians,
artists, and critical thinkers who spoke out for Mumia were targeted for
harassment from everyone from then-NJ Governor Christie Whitman to the
entire Fraternal Order of Police. The FOP staged protests, attempted to
shut down venues hosting artists who rapped, sang, stomped and cried out
for the liberation of Mumia... but organizers, attendees and bands stood
strong in the face of the massive police efforts of intimidation!!
These cops used physical protests, anonymous phone calls, and called for
a boycott of every artist who participated, threatening their careers by
using any and every media resource at their disposal to vent their
hatred. But what's lost to CNS and their sweaty-palmed cronies is that
this is about much more than any one group of musicians, this activity
is a historic example of what can happen when fired-up everyday people,
activists and artists take a strong and uncompromising stance during the
height of police terror tactics!

Mumia 911 was a tremendous undertaking, which is obvious due to it's
even being mentioned out of the face of *Nathan Burchfiel, a journalism
student at the University of Maryland, via the Cybercast News Service.
Burchfiel attempts to revive the FOP's musty, corny-ass boycott campaign
by claiming that the Mumia 911 CD is an "unreleased" endeavor of The
Roots. Burchfiel furthered this mania by enlisting a fellow student's
dissent against The Roots and twisting it into an opportunity to light
the fires of the lynch mob who want to see Mumia dead. However, young
Nathan obviously didn't do his homework, as he was so busy spewing the
vitriol of his mentors and googling lyrics, he neglected to show any
pretense of truth-telling by citing the plain and obvious FACT that
Mumia Abu-Jamal has NEVER had a fair trial, and making the absurd
assertion that a 6-year old compilation CD has yet to be released! This
definitely makes him a perfect candidate for today's totally co-opted
"fair and balanced" corporate-sponsored, perpetually lying media!

Mumia 911 was a revolutionary act of defiance to those powers that be
who decided that Mumia had been on this earth long enough. In
*Revolutionary Worker* #1005 (5/9/99) Michael Slate writes about the 17
artists who came together to bless the mic for Mumia, including:
Aceyalone from Freestyle Fellowship, Zack de la Rocha from Rage Against
the Machine, Dead Prez, Black Thought, Afu Ra, Goldii Loks (Mumia's
daughter), Pharoahe Monch from Organized Konfusion, Wise Intelligent
from Poor Righteous Teachers, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Slimkid Tre from
Pharcyde, Gene Gray (aka What? What?), Channel Live, Divine Styler,
Sayeed, Tragedy, The Last Emperor, and p.e.a.c.e. from Freestyle
Fellowship. Slate wrote that "Mumia 911 is a posse cut, a musical
bonfire lit in response to the system's rush to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal."

The producer of Mumia 911 and the Unbound album, Frank Sosa, told
Slate: "So two weeks before the session I just started calling everyone
I knew who had shown some interest in doing conscious hip-hop. We
started calling artists and telling them what it was for and sending
them 1-sheets on Mumia. We got confirmation from about 25 artists and we
really only expected about half of them to show up. At that session that
day there were actually more artists than we could accommodate. People
wanted to speak about the issue, they were adamant about it. When
everybody got in a room with each other and saw who was going to be on
the track, everybody started rewriting because there were lyrical kings
in that room, legends. Chuck D was there. Channel Live was there. Poor
Righteous Teachers was there. A lot of these people had never been in
the same room together. But they came up on each other's music. The
pressure was really on. And also when they heard Diamond D's beat
too--he put together a beat that was kind of unorthodox. He wanted to
come up with something that had a really urgent feel to it at a time
when people aren't really making beats like that. He wanted it to be
like a revolution song. When people heard the beat they were like `oh my
god' and they just started rewriting and they were writing all the way
up to when we told them to go in the vocal booth."

We have to make it known that we are NOT gonna stand for any attacks on
these brave warriors, their fire will not be suffocated by fake puritans
whose hypocrisy must be exposed for what it is. When they accuse us of
supporting a "killer" we have to recognize exactly who it is that is
advocating murder. The same people who call for the head of one of our
most brilliant African journalists and anybody who speaks on his behalf
are the same people who support mass murdering bloody wars across the
globe! In these Patriot Act days, we have to step to ANYBODY who claims
to speak on what we should or should not be listening to, especially
when we are accosted by their crazed filth 24/7, whether it comes from
the white house or any of these O'Reilly wannabees being cranked outta
these colleges! Unh, unh, we ain't havin' it! The way these artists
closed ranks for our brotha during some of the most intense attacks on
him was stupendous! Those artists who are out there leading and not
following, fearless and determined, should be duplicated 10,000 fold til
radio cannot EVER ignore them again! We want some TRUTH up in here and
that's just what we're gonna have!

Slate continued: "Mumia 911 has already electrified artists and others
across the country who have heard about it or heard a preview of it.
When well-known graffiti artist Mear heard about the single he offered
up a beautiful piece he had created for the Mumia 911 National Day of
Art as the cover art for the single. Mumia 911 has already made hip-hop
history with the largest number of artists ever recorded on a posse cut.
But history is more than facts and figures. And Mumia 911 is making that
kind of history too. As Sosa puts it, 'When everybody was in that room I
really, for the first time ever in my life, felt the spirit of history.
People knew that what they were putting down was going to have a mass
social impact and the reason that they were there was much greater than
themselves. It was a very emotionally intense day for everybody. When
you have so many people with so many different audiences coming together
in that room and doing something that is really going to draw attention
to what is going on in their community--that's when you really have the
spirit of history in effect.'"

We stand in *complete solidarity* with all of the artists who
contributed to Mumia 911 and every voice of truth who stands up and
speaks out for real justice. You will NOT silence us and we WON'T leave
our lyrical warriors hanging! We honor their boldness in a time when
this government has locked up millions of our people in their hellholes,
stealing the bulk of their lives and murdering many of them. We honor
them for giving voice to the pain and rage WE LIVE EVERYDAY, so don't
tell us how to talk our talk little man Burchfiel, we are
SELF-DETERMINED. We are extremely proud of our warrior artists and love
and support them completely. So.... we know what time it is, right?!

SUPPORT THE ROOTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND ON
NOVEMBER 14 (tickets
are $28.00 for the general public and $14.00 for
U of MD ID'd students)
and SPREAD THE WORD FAR AND WIDE!

FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS AND POW'S!!

*More on Nathan Burchfiel at: http://right-magazine.com/author/burchfiel/
http://lists.topica.com/lists/nattyreb/read/message.html?mid=1717726972&sort
=d&start=671
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200410%5C
CUL20041014a.html

More on Mumia 911 at: http://www.daveyd.com/FullArticles%5CarticleN103.asp
http://www.urban75.org/archive/news044.html
www.mumia.org

FOP Boycott List http://www.grandlodgefop.org/faulkner/projamal.html

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5) Marijuana Arrests at All-Time High,
Far Exceed Violent Crime Arrests 10/29/04
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/360/arrests.shtml

The FBI reported Saturday that the number of arrests for violations
of the marijuana laws hit an all-time high of 755,186 in 2003.
Despite a decade of marijuana law reforms and protestations by
police chiefs across the land that marijuana is not a priority, that
figure is nearly double the number of people arrested for pot in 1993.
The number of people arrested on marijuana charges last year also
exceeds the number arrested for violent crimes by more than
150,000.

With only a couple of hiccups, the number of people arrested on
marijuana charges has trended steadily upward in the past decade,
no matter which party controls the levers of government. The previous
peak of 735,500 was recorded in 2000, with 724,000 arrested in
2001 and 697,000 in 2002.

To illustrate the scope of the problem, the number of those arrested
for marijuana is more than the entire population of the state of South
Dakota (pop. 754,844). Or, for those for whom it is too easy to picture
South Dakota as a empty wasteland, the number of pot arrests is
greater than the populations of San Francisco (pop. 751,682),
Jacksonville (pop. 735,617), or Columbus (pop. 711,470).

As has been the case in past years, the vast majority of marijuana
arrests -- some 88% -- were for simple possession. Arrests for
marijuana offenses constituted a whopping 45% of all drug arrests.

The numbers appeared in the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report
and were grist for the mill for pro-reform organizations. "With
marijuana arrests exceeding 750,000 a year, it's safe to say that
the drug war isn't preventing people from using marijuana," said
Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project
( http://www.mpp.org ) in Washington, DC. "It's time to acknowledge
this reality by taxing and regulating marijuana. A responsible system
of regulation will do a better job of keeping marijuana away from kids
and end the pointless persecution of adults who use marijuana
responsibly."

"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest
minor marijuana offenders," said Keith Stroup, Executive Director of
the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
( http://www.norml.org ), who noted that at current rates, a marijuana
smoker is arrested every 42 seconds in America. "This effort is
a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources, costing American
taxpayers approximately $7.6 billion dollars annually. These dollars
would be better served combating serious and violent crime,
including the war on terrorism."

While simple marijuana possession offenses typically draw light
punishment, such as fines or suspended sentences, except in the
most conservative or rural jurisdictions, the consequences of
a marijuana arrest or conviction go far beyond having to pay a fine
or submit to probationary drug testing. "Some people are lucky and
just get a slap on the wrist," said Bruce Mirken, MPP director of
communications. "But we also have horrifying cases like that of
Jonathan Magbie, who died in the Washington, DC, jail earlier this
month while serving a 10-day marijuana sentence. Or the young
man in Florida who was raped in jail while serving a weekend
sentence for a minor marijuana violation. One case like either
of those is one case too many," he told DRCNet. "There is simply
no rational reason why we should subject people to that sort of
risk for private adult responsible use of a substance that is well-
documented to be less harmful than alcohol."

While horror stories like that of Jonathan Magbie are thankfully
the exception rather than the rule, everyone convicted of a marijuana
crime is subject to a raft of continuing punishments beyond those
exacted by the criminal justice system. "It can literally haunt them
for the rest of their lives," said Mirken. "They lose access to federal
benefits, they lose job opportunities because of the arrest record,
they can't get student loans." According to the US Department of
Education, over 150,000 college students or would-be students have
lost access to federal financial aid because of drug crimes, the vast
majority of them for simple marijuana possession.

"The bottom line," said Mirken, "is that none of this makes any sense.
Even if people think we should be trying to curb marijuana use,
arresting all these people hasn't done that, either."

While some 662,886 people were charged with simple marijuana
possession, an additional 92,301 were charged with the more
serious offense of "sale/manufacture." That number includes
all those arrested for selling or growing marijuana, even those
who were growing for their own use or for medical reasons.

While marijuana arrests are a large part of the drug war, they are
by no means all of it. According to the FBI, nearly a million
(923,006) people were arrested on other drug charges, with the
vast majority of those being for simple possession. The Uniform
Crime Report notes that the overall trend in all drug arrests is up
22% since 1994.

The number of drug arrests in 2003 (1,678,192) was greater than
for any other major crime category. All property crimes combined
totaled 1,605,127 arrests, while all violent crimes combined totaled
597,026. The number of drug arrests was also greater than the
number of driving while intoxicated arrests (1,448,148) or the
seemingly popular offense of simple assault (1,246,698). Drug
arrests made up 12.3% of all arrests nationwide.

To read the FBI's 2003 Uniform Crime Report, visit
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/03cius.htm online.

-- END --

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BAUAW NEWSLETTER-SUNDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2004

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END THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ!
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
MARCH AND RALLY TO STOP THE WAR NOW!
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 3RD, 5PM
ASSEMBLE AT POWELL AND MARKET-
MARCH TO 24TH & MISSION ST., S.F.

END THE OCCUPATION - OUT OF IRAQ NOW!
No matter who is elected, we say no to war and repression!

On November 3rd we will still be against the unjust war and
occupation, the police state restrictions of the Patriot Acts,
and the continuing attacks on our immigrant communities.

Bring flashlights, drums, and noisemakers. Permitted event
featuring the Loco Bloco Drum and Dance Ensemble.

Event initiated by Not in Our Name, and endorsed by Siafu,
Middle East Children's Alliance, Veterans for Peace-SF,
International ANSWER-SF, American Muslim Voice, Nor Cal RAWA
Supporters, American Friends Service Committee-SF, Bay Area
United Against War, CodePink, Central Committee for
Conscientious Objectors, Korean Americans United for Peace,
Blue Triangle Network, Socialist Action, Queers for Peace and
Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace, Lake Merritt Neighbors
Organized for Peace, International Socialist Organization,
Refuse & Resist!, Act Up East Bay, Korea Solidarity Committee,
War Resisters League-West, South Bay Mobilization to Stop the
War, East Bay Food Not Bombs, Alameda Peace Network, Bay Area
Radical Women, Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, and United
for Peace and Justice-Bay Area.

Rock the boat - not just the vote!

For more info: http://bayarea.notinourname.net Or call 510-601-8000

| Also on Nov. 3: "Health Care NOT Warfare!"
| 9 AM gathering at Justin Herman Plaza, SF
| followed by march to the Fed Bldg for a
| noon rally. Sponsored by Beyond Voting,
| Code Blue, and Direct Action to Stop the War.
| For more info: http://www.actagainstwar.org

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NEXT BAUAW MEETING:
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH, 7:00 P.M.
1380 VALENCIA STREET
(BETWEEN 24TH & 25TH STREETS)

We will be tabling on 24th Street in front of the Farmers
Market beginning at Noon this Saturday, Oct. 30th. Come help
hand out posters, buttons and flyers for Yes on N and the
Nov. 3rd march and rally against the war.

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1) Pentagon Extends Tours of Duty for About 6,500 U.S. Soldiers
By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON
October 30, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/30/international/middleeast/30military.html?h
p&ex=1099195200&en=f9cf09f4c5344258&ei=5094&partner=homepage

2) Record Number of GI's Going AWOL
Jeffery Glover
http://www.fox24.com/article.asp?pkid=406

3) Need for Draft Is Dismissed by Officials at Pentagon
By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON
October 31, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/politics/31draft1.html

4) Suicide Attack Kills 8 Marines Near Baghdad
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq
October 31, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31iraq.html

5) YOU CALL THIS A DEBATE?
[Col. Writ. 10/14/04] Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

6) Witnesses say Iraqi forces fired on civilians,
leaving dozens killed or injured
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2004/10/30/build/wo
rld/75-iraqiattack.inc

7) Sign the petition in support of Indymedia!
http://solidarity.indymedia.org.uk
Declaration in Support of the Indymedia Network
and Against the Seizure of its Servers

8) Canada , U.S. in refugee deal
Must seek haven in first safe country;
More claimants likely to be turned away=20
Toronto Star
Oct. 15, 2004
TONDA MACCHARLES, OTTAWA BUREAU

9) In Iraq, U.S. Officials Outline Hurdles in Fight
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
October 31, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31command.html?hp
&ex=1099195200&en=73695cd7d38ca7e9&ei=5094&partner=homepag

10) Along With Prayers, Families Send Armor
By NEELA BANERJEE and JOHN KIFNER
October 30, 2004
PROTECTING TROOPS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/30/international/middleeast/30equip.html?oref
=login

11) Big Arctic Perils Seen in Warming, Survey Finds
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
October 30, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/30/science/earth/30arctic.html?hp&ex=10991952
00&en=73839895ef0c42c7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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1) Pentagon Extends Tours of Duty for About 6,500 U.S. Soldiers
By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON
October 30, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/30/international/middleeast/30military.html?h
p&ex=1099195200&en=f9cf09f4c5344258&ei=5094&partner=homepage

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 - The Pentagon has ordered about 6,500
soldiers in Iraq to extend their tours, the first step the military has
taken to increase its combat power there in preparation for the
January elections, senior Defense Department officials said Friday.

About 3,500 members of the Second Brigade of the First Cavalry
Division will stay in Iraq two months longer than initially ordered,
and about 3,000 soldiers assigned to headquarters and support
units of the First Infantry Division will have their tours extended
by two and a half weeks.

While Pentagon officials and military officers previously had left
open the possibility that additional troops would be required to
battle a tenacious insurgency ahead of the elections, they had
also expressed hopes that new Iraqi security forces or foreign
units might fill the need. The decision to extend the stay of
American forces in Iraq at a time when replacement troops also
are arriving means a significant increase in the overall American
combat presence for the first time since the summer.

No other extensions have been approved, and no units now
preparing for Iraq duty have been ordered to speed up their
departure, according to Pentagon and military officials.

But senior Defense Department officials said they had considered
plans that would allow the American military in Iraq to quickly
increase its forces by as many as three brigades - a total of as
many as 15,000 troops, the combat power of a traditional Army
division - but that no steps had been taken other than the
extensions discussed Friday.

If Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of American forces in the
Middle East, requests even more troops, it is possible that the
Third Infantry Division, which led the drive for Baghdad during
the war and is set to return to Iraq in January, could speed the
arrival of some combat units, officials said. Other options also
are under consideration.

Under the extension orders, which have been approved by
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the soldiers whose
departures are delayed will still leave Iraq for their home bases
before the 12-month deployment limit promised by the Army,
as the units had initially been given assignments of less than
a year.

The order will result in some good news for about 3,000 members
of the 42nd Infantry Division of the New York National Guard, based
in Troy. Those soldiers are to replace the headquarters units of the
First Infantry Division whose stay in Iraq is being extended, and the
departure for Iraq of those 42nd Infantry Division soldiers is to be
delayed by up to 60 days, allowing many to spend the holiday
season at home.

Their slowed departure is necessary because there will be no living
space or equipment for those members of the 42nd Division until
the First Infantry Division soldiers leave. While the additional time
will allow for more training, two senior Defense Department officials
said the delay was a matter of logistics and infrastructure, and not
a reflection on readiness of those New York National Guard soldiers.

The Islamic holy month of Ramadan has already prompted a
25 percent increase in daily attacks, according to Pentagon officials.
But these officials said they had seen no indication yet of a major
insurgent offensive like the one a year ago. But military commanders
said they must prepare for a guerrilla offensive that could come in
November or December, as voter registration gets under way in
earnest, or for attacks timed to the elections in January.

Pentagon and military officials said commanders were already
planning to take advantage of the overlap of arriving and departing
soldiers around the time of the elections, as that offers a natural,
if temporary, increase in troop strength in certain areas. The
number of American troops in Iraq has averaged about 138,000
since the summer.

General Abizaid, said one senior Defense Department official,
"wanted the most experienced forces available to us" as the
election approached. Time already spent in Iraq has allowed
those troops to gain combat experience and to develop important
ties with Iraqi leaders and the local population that cannot be
immediately replaced by arriving forces, the official said.

Military officers in Baghdad said Friday that soldiers of the Second
Brigade of the First Cavalry Division had already been informed
of the decision to delay their mid-November departure until mid-
January. The First Cavalry Division is responsible for security in
Baghdad, including the Sadr City district that is a center of Shiite
unrest. Senior officials described the Second Brigade as "a very
seasoned force" that would serve as an "operational reserve" and
quick-reaction force during its two-month extension.

The headquarters units of the First Infantry Division now will
depart on Feb. 14 instead of Jan. 27. The division is deployed
north of Baghdad in restive Sunni Muslim cities, including Samarra,
Balad and Baquba.

In the previous troop rotation this year, 250,000 American soldiers
changed places in Iraq in the largest shift of troops since World
War II. While successful, the quick pace of the rotation put a huge
strain on the military's air and sea transportation system, on
temporary deployment bases in Kuwait and on the Iraqi road
system. Military officials decided to spread the new round of
troop replacements over a longer period, with the bulk arriving
and departing between this fall and spring 2005.

To make that new, longer rotation timetable work, some units
were scheduled for only 10 months in Iraq, including those now
scheduled for extension.

The Army has previously had to extend deployments for soldiers
in Iraq, causing complaints from some soldiers and some of
their families.

The first extension was for some troops of the Third Infantry
Division after the end of major combat operations. The second
was earlier this year, when the First Armored Division had its
yearlong tour extended by 90 days. The division was sent south
from Baghdad to put down the first uprising of a militia loyal
to the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

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2) Record Number of GI's Going AWOL
Jeffery Glover
http://www.fox24.com/article.asp?pkid=406

Fox 24's Angela Williams reports that an arrest warrant has been
issued for a Middle Georgia Soldier for deserting his unit in Iraq.
And, an investigation by Fox 24 News shows that there are
a record number of G.I's not reporting in for duty overseas and
turning up AWOL.


A Middle Georgia man is reported AWOL from the army national
guard, in an act that has become quite common during the
"War on Terror." According to Army Officials, Jeffery Glover from
Dry-branch, Georgia has not reported back to his 175th
Maintenance Company for duty. Glover already served time over
in Iraq, but now can not be found, and his former commander
says he can be considered dangerous.


Bill Galvin is a spokesperson for the GI hot line and website that
help council men and women thinking about going AWOL or already
have. He says that numbers show a third of inactive reserves have
not checked in.


Bill Galvin/ Spokesperson for G.I Hotline: "The ones that almost
universally will go AWOL are the ones that have already been
there and something that they witnessed or experienced or are
apart of made them realize this is wrong I can't do it and
I wont do it."


AWOL, standing for going absent without leave reached its all
time high during the Vietnam War. The act is a violation of
military law, but apparently does not seem to be on the minds
of those doing it.


Bill Galvin/ Spokesperson for G.I Hotline: "The max penalty is
2 years in jail and a bad discharge, if they charge you with
deserting the max is quite a bit."


Galvin says the purpose of the hot line and web site is to make
sure those who do desert, know the consequences and their
options.


Bill Galvin/Spokesperson for G.I Hotline: "We get lots of calls
from people who have been to Iraq or Afghanistan and they
when they get orders to go back hey say, 'no I won't do it'."


For more information and help with G.I rights on issues like
being A-W-O-L, look for the link on our website mentioned
on our fox24.com homepage.

Article printed from www.fox24.com: 10/31/2004 11:30:01 AM

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3) Need for Draft Is Dismissed by Officials at Pentagon
By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON
October 31, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/politics/31draft1.html

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 - Rumors of a secret plan to reinstate the draft
are churning across the Internet, worrying some in Congress and
even coloring the presidential campaign, but senior Pentagon
personnel officials and Army officers insist that there is no need for
a draft - and that they do not want one, either.

To counter public fears that conscription is returning, these officials
produced internal studies to illustrate the economic and demographic
reasons why a draft is not necessary, and why it would be a step
backward for the quality of the current all-volunteer force.

Army and Pentagon officials hope that efforts under way to
reorganize the service to form at least 43 combat brigades from
today's 33 will create additional deployable units and alleviate the
stress on the Army. And as both the Air Force and Navy shrink
their personnel rosters, some of those departing personnel are
being courted by the Army in a program that also serves as
antidote to the draft.

If a decision is made that the American military should grow, then
the Pentagon could ask Congress to finance a permanent expansion
in personnel, including enough money to attract recruits and retain
those in uniform without undercutting accounts for operations
and weapons systems.

Officials note that Congressional proposals for expanding the military,
mostly in the range of 30,000 to 40,000 more troops, would hardly
require a new draft to force conscripts from across the
approximately two-million-strong cohort of current 18-year-
old Americans.

In fact, the demographics of America are cited by Pentagon officials
as a major reason why the draft makes no sense today.

The Pentagon's top personnel officer, David S. C. Chu, said the size
of today's military - 1.4 million in the active component, and
1.2 million in the National Guard and Reserve - is a much smaller
percentage of a much larger pool of possible recruits than the United
States faced during World War II and into the 1950's.

And since the military could not possibly absorb all the 18-year-
olds in the population should a draft be reinstated, there is little
doubt that a system of deferrals would be established that, just
as in the Vietnam era, could create a caste-like system separating
the privileged of America from the others.

"What do you do when not all need to be called and only a few are
chosen?" said Mr. Chu, who is under secretary of defense for
personnel and readiness. "It becomes a question of fairness."

Today's high-technology military also benefits from personnel who
are committed to staying in the service for several years, allowing
the armed services to reap full benefit from their costly training.
During the draft, soldiers were required to stay in the service for
only two years. But Pentagon studies show that current recruits
need one to three years to reach full competency in combat or
support skills.

A study by Mr. Chu's office makes that point in arguing against
reinstating a draft that was allowed to lapse on July 1, 1973.

"Draftees quit early; volunteers stay - so today's midgrade and
senior noncommissioned officers are well experienced," said the
study, written by Bill Carr, deputy under secretary for military
personnel policy.

"During the most recent draft, 90 percent of conscripts quit after
their initial two-year hitch, whereas retention of volunteers is five
times better - about half remain after their initial (normally four-
year) military service obligation," said the study, which was
published in the spring 2004 edition of "World Defense Systems,"
a military journal.

Those statistics may not be persuasive to those who believe the
United States is poised for a broader array of offensive military
operations against other adversaries that would require a draft,
nor to those who feel that a program of required national service
would benefit the nation and America's 18-year-olds.

But senior officers stress that the all-volunteer military is also more
competent, better educated and more disciplined than in the final
years of the draft.

"I served in the draftee Army," said Gen. Richard A. Cody, who is now
vice chief of staff for the Army, the service most under stress from
worldwide deployments.

"Those soldiers were just as loyal as today," he said. "But it was
like Forrest Gump. You know, 'Life is like a box of chocolates.'
With conscripts, you never know what you're going to get."

General Cody said the strain to meet current global commitments
cannot be minimized - nor the strain to meet recruiting goals. But
he said the young men and women who signed up today were of
a higher quality than any he had seen in 29 years of command.

"I don't have rose-colored glasses on," General Cody said. "But we
don't need the draft and we don't want the draft. There are plenty
of Americans who still want to be in the military."

Perhaps the most often-cited reason for opposition to a draft
is the motivation of the all-volunteer force.

"The most important thing about a draft is that the people you
draft, by definition, don't all want to be there," Mr. Chu said. "The
great strength of the volunteer force is the ranks of people who
all made a positive, voluntary decision that this is what they want
to do."

The current American military "is also smarter than the general
population" from which conscripts would be drawn, according
to the study by Mr. Chu's office. "Over 90 percent of new recruits
have a high school diploma, while only 75 percent of the American
youth do; 67 percent score in the upper half of the enlistment
(math/verbal aptitude) test," it stated.

"These attributes translate to lower attrition, faster training
and higher performance," it concluded.

Mr. Chu said that studies of the military also showed that the
all-volunteer force had fewer disciplinary problems than
a draftee service.

"All that comes together in the performance of the force in the
field, which is the ultimate test," Mr. Chu said. "How does this
force fight? How well does it carry out the nation's objectives?
How disciplined is it in the face of challenges? I don't think
anyone can look at the events of the three-plus years since
9/11 and not see the payoff in the volunteer force."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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4) Suicide Attack Kills 8 Marines Near Baghdad
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq
October 31, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31iraq.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 30 - Eight marines were killed and nine
others wounded west of the capital when a suicide car bomb
rammed into their convoy on Saturday, military officials said,
making it the deadliest day here for the American forces in
half a year.

The explosion took place near Abu Ghraib, a prison 15 miles
west of Baghdad used by the Americans to hold detainees, said
Capt. Bradley Gordon, a Marine spokesman. The military said
in a terse written statement that the marines killed were
conducting "increased security operations." Marines have
been engaged in a variety of operations in rebellious Anbar
Province, which encompasses the parched lands of western
Iraq and includes the provincial capital of Ramadi and the
insurgent stronghold of Falluja.

In the capital, a powerful car bomb exploded outside the
offices of Al Arabiya, a prominent Arab satellite news network,
killing at least 7 people and injuring 16 others, hospital
officials said. People at the scene said insurgents drove
a car packed with explosives up to the office building in
Mansour, an affluent neighborhood west of the Tigris River
that has recently been plagued by violence.

An hour after the blast, a charred car chassis lay in the road
as American soldiers and Iraqi policemen scrambled to cordon
off the site.

Also on Saturday, Japanese and Iraqi officials said a decapitated
male body discovered in the northern city of Tikrit the previous
day was not that of Shosei Koda, a young Japanese traveler being
held by the militant group of the Jordanian fighter Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi. Iraqi officials said the body was that of an Arab man.
Mr. Zarqawi's group said in a video early Wednesday that
Mr. Koda would be beheaded if the Japanese government did
not withdraw its 550 troops stationed in Iraq within 48 hours,
a demand that Japanese leaders rejected.

The American military gave no immediate details on Saturday
about the killings of the marines, saying that further information
"could aid enemy personnel in assessing the effectiveness or lack
thereof with regard to their tactics, techniques and procedures."

The deaths came as the First Marine Expeditionary Force, charged
with controlling western Iraq, were making final preparations for
an all-out invasion of Falluja, which is seen as the center of the
Sunni-led insurgency. Warplanes conducted airstrikes in southern
Falluja on Saturday, while artillery pounded the area. Witnesses
in the city said they heard loud explosions and planes flying
overhead.

There was no immediate report of casualties from the American
military or hospital officials.

On Friday, witnesses in Falluja said an American airstrike had
killed four Iraqis.

In the besieged city on Saturday, a council of tribal and religious
leaders awaited the arrival of a delegation from the interim National
Assembly, which has been charged with helping negotiate a peace
settlement and averting the planned American invasion. Peace talks
have been continuing in spurts over the past few weeks, though
neither side has expressed any optimism. The number of Americans
killed in fighting on Saturday was the largest since early April,
when 12 marines died in an ambush in Ramadi - one of the
deadliest days of combat for the Marines since the Vietnam War.
Right after the ambush took place, the military said the marines
had been killed when insurgents mounted an assault on a Marine
base or outpost. But in recent interviews, marines with the Second
Battalion, Fifth Marines, which took charge of Ramadi in early
September, said guerrillas had killed the 12 marines in a roadway
ambush because they had been riding in unarmored or very lightly
armored vehicles.

Since then, insurgents have used car bombs in several incidents
to kill large numbers of American troops. On Sept. 6, a car bomb
tore through a convoy carrying American and Iraqi troops near
Falluja, killing seven marines and three Iraqi security officers. Four
months earlier, a car bomb killed eight soldiers from the First
Armored Division near Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad.

Senior military commanders have said they will mount
a simultaneous offensive in Ramadi, where insurgents have
been increasing their foothold, and try to close off the most
troublesome parts of the Syrian border, believed to be a transit
point for jihadists.

At Camp Ramadi, Army commanders with the Second Brigade
Combat Team, responsible for security in central Anbar Province,
reflected on the precarious situation in the region.

Col. Gary S. Patton, the brigade commander, said in an interview
that to dampen the insurgency, it was crucial to develop effective
Iraqi security forces, a strong local government and improved
municipal services. "But it's difficult to do any of that stuff when
you're fighting five-meter targets, terrorists at every street corner,"
he said. "And so our fight right now is to gain some freedom
of action."

Maj. Steven Alexander, the brigade operations officer, said Prime
Minister Ayad Allawi needed to deal firmly with the mujahedeen
in Falluja, but also risked alienating civilians there with a heavy
assault. "So I don't envy his decision," he said.

The bomb outside the Al Arabiya office in Baghdad exploded in
the mid-afternoon, with the blast heard for miles. The explosives
detonated after the car pulled up to the gate, about 9 to 13 feet
from the office building itself, said Najwa Qasim, a correspondent
or the network. A deep pit marked the spot where the bomb
went off.

"The damage occurred in the drivers' rooms and the technicians'
room; there have also been casualties among administration
staff," Mr. Qasim said. "We need some time to get a number
for our casualties. The broadcasting room was seriously damaged."

Al Arabiya's local headquarters is surrounded by the houses
of various Iraqi officials and is just blocks away from the residence
of Adnan Pachachi, a prominent member of the former Iraqi
Governing Council. A recruiting center for the Iraqi police sits
nearby, and American soldiers in Humvees often patrol the
leafy suburb.

But the Mansour District has grown increasingly dangerous in
recent weeks. A powerful car bomb exploded there last month,
and two American engineers and a Briton were kidnapped from
their home around the same time and later beheaded by Mr. Zarqawi's
group. Japan was thrown into confusion Saturday over the fate of
Mr. Koda, the backpacker who has been taken hostage in Iraq.
The day started with Foreign Ministry officials saying at an early
morning news conference that a body believed to be that of the
backpacker was being flown to Kuwait for identification. But later
in the day, Japanese medical officers in Kuwait ruled the case
a mismatch. Instead of inspecting the body of long-haired
24-year-old Japanese man, they found that the American forces
had sent them the body of a balding Iraqi man in his 50's.

"I instructed officials to be careful about dealing with unconfirmed
information," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters.
"The government will make its full efforts to rescue Mr. Koda."

With Japanese diplomats telling reporters Saturday evening
that they believed Mr. Koda was still alive, Chief Cabinet Secretary
Hiroyuki Hosoda told reporters Saturday evening, "We are now
back to the starting point."

Reporting for this article was contributed by Richard A. Oppel Jr.
from Ramadi, Khalid W. Hassan from Baghdad, James Brooke from
Tokyo and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Falluja.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

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

5) YOU CALL THIS A DEBATE?
[Col. Writ. 10/14/04] Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

To think about the third 'debate' at Arizona State U., is a painful,
quite unpleasant process.

My most vivid sensation was a stunning feeling of deja vu -- the vivid
perception that I've seen this before.

No. I'm serious. For the better part of 2 or 3 minutes, I stood in the
midst of my cell, arms akimbo, looking and listening, and wondering ...
damn! Is this live ...? Or is this a tape of the second debate?'

The same lines ... virtually word for word .. from before.

It was almost dizzying. And then, I noticed that the corporate media
moderator was different.

It was live -- but just barely.

No matter who wins the regency of the Empire, there will undoubtedly be
millions -- tens of millions -- multiples of millions of people who will
have sat out this election. While it is almost certain that increased voter
registration will swell the electorate, there will be millions of eligibles
who have not bothered to cast their ballots.

Why are there millions of people who won't vote? Well, if they listened to
those debates, could you blame them?

For millions of working people, for people who can be called 'the working
poor', for single mothers (and their children badly deteriorating in public
schools), for them, be they Black, Latino, poor whites, you name it, once
was far more than enough -- for there was nothing for you in the mouths of
the President, George W. Bush, or Sen. John F. Kerry.

Forgotten people, why should they be remembered at some corny
debate, when they're forgotten every other day of the year?

They were not speaking to those people; nor were they speaking of those
people. It's safe to guess they have nothing to tell them; and yet, those
very people, the working poor, will undoubtedly be expected to vote for one
of the two major political party's offerings.

Essentially, they are expected to shut up and vote, in the blind hope that
things will improve. That the economy will improve. That good-paying
jobs will return. That the neighborhood public school will improve. That
racist cops will curb racial profiling.

This, despite the fact that this has never happened before. Our revered
ancestor, Frederick Douglass, informed us, over a century ago:

"The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all
concessions, yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest
struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all absorbing, and
for the time being putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this
or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those
who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want
crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and
lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many
waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or
it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. *Power
concedes nothing without demand.*"

Looking at these tepid, paltry debates, contrasted with the very real
problems, both at home and abroad, that face the nation, one can only
wonder: where is the demand?

Sen. Kerry may almost coast to victory on the fuel of an anti-Bush
vote. He, in truth, promises little more than a pledge to not be as stupid
as his opponent in the waging of the fraudulent 'war on terror.'

It may take years; it may take decades, but, eventually, people will turn
away from the corporate parties. These parties are but anachronisms,
hoary, dusty relics of another era. The time must come when they will go
the way of the Whigs, and the Know-Nothing parties. It is inevitable.

May that time not be too long in coming.

For if Kerry wins, and does little more than continue Bush's nationalistic
and narrow-minded policies, who will have won?

Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

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

6) Witnesses say Iraqi forces fired on civilians,
leaving dozens killed or injured
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2004/10/30/build/wo
rld/75-iraqiattack.inc

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Witnesses said Saturday that Iraqi forces opened fire
on six vehicles, including three minibuses, after a U.S. convoy came under
attack in a central Iraqi town south of Baghdad, killing or injuring more
than a dozen people.


Eyewitnesses speaking to Associated Press Television News said an
American convoy was attacked early Saturday near the town of Haswa,
about 25 miles south of the capital.


After the U.S. troops pulled out, Iraqi police and National Guard
arrived on the scene. Witnesses said Iraqi troops opened fire randomly
and used hand grenades, hitting three minibuses and three trucks.


The U.S. military had no immediate response.


Doctor Abdul Razzaq al-Janabi, director of Iskandariyah General Hospital,
said 14 people were killed and 10 others injured. More wounded were
taken to other hospitals.


Al-Janabi said some of the victims told him three improvised explosive
devices detonated against the U.S. convoy.


The area is a major insurgent hotspot where ambushes and attacks
against U.S. and Iraqi forces are common.


APTN footage showed bloody, dead bodies riddled with bullet holes
inside the buses and on the street. Blood and gas was trickling
underneath the vehicles. Empty bullet cases were also scattered
around.


An APTN cameraman saw at least 18 bodies, while witnesses said
there were more than 20 people killed in the incident.


The footage also showed the morgue of Iskandariyah Hospital packed
with bodies stacked on top of each other.


Witnesses said police also broke into the Osama bin Zayd mosque
in the same area and detained its cleric and two guards.


Copyright (c) 2004 Associated Press.

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

7) Sign the petition in support of Indymedia!
http://solidarity.indymedia.org.uk
Declaration in Support of the Indymedia Network
and Against the Seizure of its Servers

Preface:

Indymedia is a global media network that provides open space to
publish challenging, independent reporting, with emphasis on political
and social justice issues. The Indymedia network is based upon
principled mutual aid and voluntary participation, maintaining openly
accessible newswires with the capacity for anyone to publish texts,
images, audio, and video.

On 7 October, 2004, hard drives from two Indymedia servers were seized
from the London office of a US-owned web hosting company, Rackspace,
at the request of the US Justice Department, apparently in
collaboration with Italian and Swiss authorities.

The seizure of the hard drives in London shut down an Indymedia radio
station and around 20 different Indymedia websites including those
serving Ambazonia, Uruguay, Andorra, Poland, Western Massachusetts,
Nice, Nantes, Lilles, Marseille, Euskal Herria (Basque Country),
Liege, East and West Vlaanderen, Antwerpen, Belgrade, Portugal,
Prague, Galiza, Italy, Brazil, UK, and parts of Germany Indymedia.

Although the hard drives were returned on October 13, the particular
legal framework under which the seizures took place is unknown. One
week after the seizures there is still an almost total information
blackout from the authorities in the UK, US, Switzerland and Italy.
Indymedia still has no confirmation of who ordered the seizures, who
took the hard drives, why the seizures took place, or whether it will
happen again.

In response, people all over the world have endorsed the following
Declaration:

We, the Undersigned,

* Denounce the seizure of the Indymedia hard drives as an
unacceptable attack on press freedom, free speech and privacy;

* Condemn this action as a violation of communication rights, as
expressed in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
which states: "Everyone has the right to the freedom of opinion and
expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas
through any media and regardless of frontiers."

* Voice concern over the growing use of international cooperation
frameworks by governments and law enforcement agencies to obscure
clear legal process, undermine civil liberties, and erode
communication rights.

Against the seizure of the Indymedia servers and the attempt to impose
silence:

* We request a full disclosure of the names of organizations and
individuals involved in the seizure, a copy of the subpoena, and an
investigation into the legality of the action by an independent party;

* We insist that all copies of the seized data be deleted or
returned to Indymedia, and that Indymedia be provided with a list of
organizations and individuals who have had access to the data held on
the hard drives as a result of the seizure;

* We call for openness and clarity in international cooperation
agreements, and that these agreements ensure due process, protect
privacy and free speech, and respect communication rights;

* We demand that the responsible parties be held accountable

TO BE DELIVERED TO:

The Rt Hon David Blunkett, MP (UK);

Attorney General John Ashcroft (USA);

The Director of the FBI;

The US Department of State;

Appropriate officials in the government of Italy;

Appropriate officials in the government of Switzerland.

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

8) Canada , U.S. in refugee deal
Must seek haven in first safe country;
More claimants likely to be turned away=20
Toronto Star
Oct. 15, 2004
TONDA MACCHARLES, OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA-Controversial security regulations that would see Canada turn
back refugee claimants who arrive here from across the U.S. border
appear set to take effect within two months.

The regulations will implement the so-called "Safe Third Country"
Agreement, but have met stiff criticism from Canadian advocates for
refugees who say it could force them into a more hostile environment in
the United States , where they will have fewer protections.

The deal requires refugees to seek haven in the first safe country they
reach. Canadian officials have said it could see up to one-third of
Canada 's refugee claimants turned back at the border.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge told reporters here
yesterday the regulations have been "signed off" by his department and
the U.S. Department of Justice. He said he expected final approval by
U.S. authorities "within the next couple of weeks, within a very short
period of time." There will then be a 30-day period before they take
effect.

Canada has not yet approved similar regulations here but officials said
yesterday the government is ready to publish them soon.

Ridge said the two countries share a "mutual interest" in reconciling
asylum policy. But he said the deal clearly means the United States will
see a lot more Canada-bound asylum seekers turned back at the border,
and will have to absorb them.

"We accept that as part of the broader agreement that we work with our
Canadian friends," he said. "I'm not in a position to tell you anything
other than we accept the burden - it's not a burden - the responsibility
to give people full and fair access to a process under our asylum laws.=20

The numbers we'll have to deal with will be substantially higher than
yours. So be it. We accept that responsibility."

But critics of the accord say it is a "mean-spirited" initiative that
closes doors on refugees.

Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees,
said in an interview her group is even more strongly opposed right now,
given the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could see people
returned to countries where they faced persecution, even torture.=20
"It means Canada will be sending people to the U.S. when the U.S. is
adopting laws that are trampling on the rights of refugees to protection
in the U.S. "

She said the U.S. frequently detains asylum seekers, often right through
the claims process. She noted some refugee claims are not as readily
recognized as they are in Canada , such as women facing gender-based
persecution. The United States also does not provide social assistance
or work permits to claimants for the first six months.

Still, the deal appears to be in its final stages of implementation.
Ridge made his comments after meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Anne
McLellan to review progress on the security package known as the Smart
Border Accord, reached in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 , terror
attacks on U.S. soil.

The measures they announced yesterday include a pilot project to look at
pre-clearance of passenger and commercial traffic at the Peace Bridge in
Fort Erie; a deal to deploy Canadian and U.S. officials to work on a
container security initiative in a foreign port, and deploying
multi-agency border enforcement teams at various crossings.=20
Detention Watch Network mailing list
DetentionWatchNetwork@lists.lirs.org
To unsubscribe or change your subscription, please visit:
http://lists.lirs.org/mailman/listinfo/detentionwatchnetwork
or email detentionwatchnetwork-owner@lists.lirs.org

For an archive of previous postings, please visit:
http://lists.lirs.org/mailman/private/detentionwatchnetwork

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

9) In Iraq, U.S. Officials Outline Hurdles in Fight
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
October 31, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31command.html?hp
&ex=1099195200&en=73695cd7d38ca7e9&ei=5094&partner=homepag


WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 - Senior American military commanders and
civilian officials in Iraq are speaking more candidly about the hurdles
that could jeopardize their plans to defeat an adaptive and tenacious
insurgency and hold elections in January.

Outwardly, they give an upbeat assessment that the counterinsurgency
is winnable. But in interviews with 15 of the top American generals,
admirals and embassy officials conducted in Iraq in late October,
many described risks that could worsen the security situation and
derail the political process that they are counting on to help quell
the insurgency.

Commanders voiced fears that many of Iraq's expanding security
forces, soon to be led by largely untested generals, have been
penetrated by spies for the insurgents. Reconstruction aid is finally
flowing into formerly rebel-held cities like Samarra and other areas,
but some officers fear that bureaucratic delays could cripple the aid's
alming effects.

They also spoke of new American intelligence assessments that
show that the insurgents have significantly more fighters -
between 8,000 and 12,000 hard-core militants - and far greater
financial resources than previously estimated.

Perhaps most disturbing, they said, is the militants' campaign of
intimidation to silence thousands of Iraqis and undermine the
government through assassinations, kidnappings, beheadings
and car bombings. New gangs specializing in hostage-taking are
entering Iraq, intelligence reports indicate.

"If we can't stop the intimidation factor, we can't win," said
Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, the commander of nearly 40,000 marines
and soldiers in western and south-central Iraq, who is drawing up
battle plans for a possible showdown with more than 3,000 guerrillas
in Falluja and Ramadi, with the hope of destroying the leadership
of the national insurgency.

In some cases, senior officers say, their goals could inadvertently
act at cross purposes. For example, Iraq cannot hold meaningful
national elections if militants still control major Sunni cities like
Falluja. Negotiations there have broken down and many officers
predict a military offensive. But hard-line Sunni clerics say they
will call for an election boycott if American troops use force to
put down the insurrection.

"Getting Sunnis involved in the political process to me is the
biggest thing that has to happen to help the security situation,"
said one senior commander. "If a good portion of Sunnis don't
participate, then that may give life to a larger Sunni insurgency.
That's worrisome."

Some pivotal political decisions, including those shaping the
election process and setting a time to attack militants in Falluja,
rest with Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and his government, leaving
American officials in the position, at best, of just trying to influence
their outcome. Despite these obstacles, these officers and officials
still express optimism that their detailed campaign plan and its
military, political and economic elements have provided the
blueprint for retaking rebel-held cities and navigating a tumultuous
period when violence will undoubtedly intensify as insurgents seek
to delay or scuttle the elections. That plan, adopted in August, is
refined every two weeks by top American and Iraqi generals.

"I'm guardedly optimistic," said Brig. Gen. John DeFreitas III, the
military's chief intelligence officer in Iraq. "If you look at Najaf,
Tal Afar and Samarra, I think we are having good effects."

For the first time, military officers also disclosed that the United
States could begin withdrawing its 138,000 troops from Iraq
in July, if Iraqi security forces have established control and the
threats plaguing Iraq now have lessened. "It's a mark on the
wall," said one senior officer.

The Military Answer

But when pressed in interviews and informal conversations
- mostly not for attribution, because of fear that their more
candid remarks could be used as campaign fodder back home
- senior commanders and civilian officials voiced misgivings
about how their plans could go awry, reflecting the unpredictability
of events in Iraq.

"It's a very complex country, and there are many things to worry
about," said one senior officer. "But we're trying to work through
all the unforeseen results of an insurgency that becomes more
robust."

Senior military officers say they are under no illusion that military
might alone will resolve Iraq's problems. At best, using force to
retake rebel-held cities will help establish an environment secure
enough to allow political and economic programs that will ultimately
defeat the insurgency, they say.

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq,
compares the priorities in Iraq to two giant locomotive engines,
one generating new Iraqi security forces, the other producing
reconstruction gains, aides say. The two are intended to generate
"irreversible momentum" that demonstrates to Iraqis and to the
American public that steady progress, even if sometimes halting
is being made.

Each morning General Casey's command briefing includes a slide
called "Drumbeat," a detailed compilation of progress made in
security, governance and the economy. No accomplishment is too
minor for mention, from the opening of a new hospital to the signing
of contracts for water projects. General Casey presses his commanders
to show that reconstruction projects are under way and "turning dirt,"
and not just on the books. Right now there are about 700 such
projects, with 1,800 scheduled to be under way by year's end,
officers said.

Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of training and equipping
Iraqi security forces, has a more colorful analogy. Succeeding in
Iraq, he says, is like a cattle drive from Texas to Wyoming in the
Old West: the cattle are the myriad tasks that need to be done in
Iraq, and American and Iraqi trail bosses are battling insurgent
rustlers, treacherous conditions and daunting logistical hurdles
to keep the herd moving.

"I don't think it's too late to succeed, but it's not going to be easy,"
General Petraeus said. "The bottom line is, you just have to keep
it going."

The broader context, senior officers and embassy officials say, is
for the United States to stay the course and be patient, with the
aim of restoring local control to Iraqis and helping to rebuild the
security forces and the economy.

"We can't lose this one," said Maj. Gen. Henry W. Stratman, who
as deputy chief of staff for political, military and economic affairs
is the military's main liaison with the United States Embassy and
Iraqi ministries.

Confronting Intimidation

The military is measuring its progress against a 43-page document,
prosaically titled "Multinational Force Iraq Campaign Plan: Operation
Iraqi Freedom." Under this plan, the military uses 215 measurements
to gauge progress in 15 pivotal cities and 7 smaller towns that must
be brought under control before nationwide elections can be held.

The measurements are reviewed weekly by senior officials, including
25 military planners nicknamed the Brainiacs, who are responsible for
anticipating worst-case scenarios and proposing possible solutions.
Every other week, General Casey and his top aides adjust the
measurements to reflect changing dynamics on the ground.

"I see indications to believe the security environment will be sufficient
for Iraq to have legitimate elections in January," said Maj. Gen. Stephen
T. Sargeant, the principal architect of the plan.

Officials say General Casey and John D. Negroponte, the United States
ambassador in Baghdad, have a close and cordial working relationship,
unlike that of their predecessors, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez and
L. Paul Bremer III. "It's like night and day,'' said one senior officer.

But senior officers also say there are formidable hurdles ahead.

The recent massacre of 49 newly trained Iraqi soldiers in remote
eastern Iraq illustrates the lengths that the insurgents, including
former Baathist security forces and followers of the Jordanian militant
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, will go to terrorize Iraqis who cooperate with
the Americans or take part in the new government.

Military intelligence in recent weeks has reported the discovery of
numerous suicide-bomber vests bound for Baghdad and new
kidnapping gangs crossing the border into Iraq. Since the start of
the holy month of Ramadan two weeks ago, there has been a 30
percent increase in daily attacks.

A job-training program conducted by Navy Seabees near Falluja to
teach construction skills to young Iraqis shut down earlier this month
when the 30 students stopped coming to work, fearing retaliation.

Another casualty of the intimidation campaign is the flow of
information from ordinary Iraqis to the military about the location
of militants and their arms, including roadside bombs. As rebel-held
cities are retaken, commanders say, tips from residents have picked
up, but more information is needed. "Intelligence is still a weakness,"
a senior embassy official said.

The Economic Issues

Despite the bombings aimed at Iraqi security forces, American
commanders say, there is no shortage of fresh recruits, a reflection
of the desperate economic straits most Iraqis face. There are now
about 100,000 Iraqi security forces trained and equipped, with
45,000 more scheduled to report by the end of the year.

Some Iraqi units have performed well in recent fighting, especially
some elite Iraqi commando units. Earlier this month, 2,000 Iraqi
troops helped American forces retake Samarra. But one Iraqi battalion
reported that 300 of its 750 soldiers abandoned the unit before the
offensive began Oct. 1.

American commanders fear that many Iraqi units are penetrated by
informants. They are also grappling with cultural differences. With
no formal national banking system in place, recruits and other troops
need to bring their paychecks home to their families. "If you have
four infantry companies, one is always on leave," said a senior
American officer.

The Americans have ambitious goals. "By next July, I hope enough
of the Iraqi security forces will be trained and equipped that they'll
be able to conduct independent counterinsurgency operations, with
some support," said one senior commander. "There will still be an
insurgency; it's not going to go away. But we're trying to get it down
to a lower level, where the Iraqi security forces can deal with it."

Once militants are driven out of their enclaves, the aim is to rush
in economic aid, in large part to win over the civilian population.
"We need to take Iraqis off the streets and give them meaningful
jobs so they're holding shovels and hammers, not AK-47's," said
Charles Hess, director of the Army's Iraq Project and Contracting
Office, which oversees $12.6 billion in reconstruction programs.

In Samarra, Maj. Gen. John R. Batiste, commander of the Army's
First Infantry Division, had a blunt warning to his superiors recently:
"We've got to get these unemployed folks back to work. We have a
very small window of opportunity to make this work."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

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

10) Along With Prayers, Families Send Armor
By NEELA BANERJEE and JOHN KIFNER
October 30, 2004
PROTECTING TROOPS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/30/international/middleeast/30equip.html?oref
=login


When the 1544th Transportation Company of the Illinois National
Guard was preparing to leave for Iraq in February, relatives of the
soldiers offered to pay to weld steel plates on the unit's trucks to
protect against roadside bombs. The Army told them not to, because
it would provide better protection in Iraq, relatives said.

Seven months later, many of the company's trucks still have no
armor, soldiers and relatives said, despite running some of the
most dangerous missions in Iraq and incurring the highest rate of
injuries and deaths among the Illinois units deployed there.

"This problem is very extensive," said Paul Rieckhoff, a former
infantry platoon leader with the Florida National Guard in Iraq
who now runs an organization called Operation Truth, an advocacy
group for soldiers and veterans.

Though soldiers of all types have complained about equipment
in Iraq, part-timers in the National Guard and Reserve say that
they have a particular disadvantage because they start off with
outdated or insufficient gear. They have been deployed with faulty
radios, unreliable trucks and, most alarmingly for many, a shortage
of soundly armored vehicles in a land regularly convulsed by
roadside attacks, according to soldiers, relatives and outside
military experts.

After many complaints when the violence in Iraq accelerated late
last year, the military acknowledged there had been shortages, in
part because of the rapid deployments. But the Army contends
that it has moved quickly to get better equipment to Iraq over
the last year.

"War is a come-as-you-are party," said Lt. Gen. C. V. Christianson,
the Army's deputy chief of staff for logistics, in an interview yesterday.
"The way a unit was resourced when someone rang the bell is the way
it showed up.

"As we saw this become a more enduring commitment, those in the
next rotation had full protective gear, like the newest body armor,"
he said. General Christianson acknowledged, however, that more
work needed to be done to protect vehicles in particular and that
broader changes were needed so that the Army and Reserve would
be better prepared in the future.

Not all National Guard units are complaining about their equipment.
The soldiers in Company C of the Arkansas Army National Guard's
First Battalion, 153rd Infantry Regiment, have operated in one of
the riskiest parts of Baghdad since they arrived in April.

Capt. Thomas J. Foley, 29, the company commander, and his
soldiers bragged in recent interviews that their equipment, from
Bradley fighting vehicles to armored personnel carriers, was on par
or better than what many regular Army units in Iraq now have.

The improvements are of little solace to many soldiers' families.
Progress has been made, but it has been slow and inconsistent,
soldiers, families and other military observers said. When 18 reservists
in Iraq refused an order to deliver fuel on Oct. 13, they cited the poor
condition of their trucks and the lack of armed escorts in a particularly
dangerous area.

Families Buy Equipment

Before the 103rd Armor Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard
left in late February, some relatives bought those soldiers new body
armor to supplant the Vietnam-era flak jackets that had been issued.
The mother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker, a member of the regiment who
was killed in April, bought a global positioning device after being told
that the Army said his truck should have one but would not supply it.

And before Karma Kumlin's husband left with his Minnesota National
Guard unit in February, the soldiers spent about $200 each on radios
that they say have turned out to be more reliable - although less secure
- than the Army's. Only recently, Ms. Kumlin said, has her husband
gotten a metal shield for the gunner's turret he regularly mans, after
months of asking.

"This just points to an extreme lack of planning ," said Ms. Kumlin,
who is 31 and a student. "My husband is part of the second wave that
went to Iraq."

Critics who say that disparities and shortages persist fault the
Pentagon for incorrectly assuming that American troops would
return home quickly after the war. As a result, they say, little was
done to equip and train the thousands of National Guard and Reserve
soldiers who were called to serve in Iraq and who now make up 40
percent of American troops there.

"I am really surprised that planners relied on the best-case military
scenario," said Jonathon Turley, a military historian at George
Washington University Law School who wrote last year about
shortages of body armor. He was then deluged with e-mail messages
from soldiers complaining of such shortages, 90 percent of them
from the National Guard and Reserve.

Military officials strongly dispute assertions that reservists and
National Guard troops have training and equipment inferior to that
of the regular Army. "The resourcing and equipping of the National
Guard today is indistinguishable from that of active duty soldiers,"
said Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum. "In no time in history have soldiers
gone to battle as well equipped as they have gone into Iraq."

Structured like the regular Army, the National Guard functions as
a state militia, typically called out for natural disasters or civil
disorder. The Reserve, in contrast, is largely composed of support
elements like civil affairs, the military police and supply. Both
groups train one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer.
The rest of the military does not consider them as well trained,
well equipped or well led as the standing Army, and many of these
part-time soldiers are also older.

Reliance on Reserves

Under a reorganization of the military after the Vietnam War,
support functions were passed from the Army to the Reserve.
Historians say the idea was to protect the Army from being sent
into another unpopular war because widespread support would
be needed to call up the reserves.

In his biography of Gen. Creighton Abrams, "Thunderbolt" (Simon
& Schuster, 1992), Lewis Sorley wrote than General Abrams built
into the restructuring "a reliance on reserves such that the force
could not function without them, and hence could not be deployed
without calling them up."

The reliance on the Reserve and National Guard also increased with
the shrinking of the active military from roughly 2.1 million at the
end of the Persian Gulf war to some 1.4 million today.

But for years, under what is called the Tiered Resourcing System,
new equipment went to those most likely to need it - the active Army
- while the Reserve and the Guard got the hand-me-downs.

"In addition to personnel shortfalls, most Army Guard units are not
provided all the equipment they need for their wartime requirements,"
said Janet A. St. Laurent of the General Accounting Office in testimony
before Congress in April. Ms. St. Laurent noted that many Guard units
had radios so old that they could not communicate with newer ones,
and trucks so old that the Army lacked spare parts for them.

Army officials concede that the old approach to training and
equipping the Guard and Reserve did not prepare them for the
new realities of Iraq. Progress appears to have been made in
providing modern body armor and some other equipment,
families and soldiers say.

The Army says it is on schedule to armor all its Humvees in Iraq by
April 2005, despite the fact that only one factory in the United States
puts armor on the vehicles. Moreover, the Guard is developing a plan
to heighten the training and preparedness of its soldiers, under which
a given unit could expect to be deployed every six years.

But the glaring problem for soldiers and families remains the
vulnerability of trucks. In a conventional war there would be a fixed
front line and no need for supply trucks to be armored. But in Iraq,
there are no clear front lines, and slow-moving truck convoys are
prime targets for roadside attacks.

Gen. James E. Chambers, the commander of the 13th Corps Support
Command, to which the recalcitrant soldiers who refused the
assignment are attached, told a news conference in Baghdad: "In
Jim Chambers' s opinion, the most dangerous job in Iraq is driving
a truck. It's not if, but when, they will be attacked."

Of the Illinois National Guard units now in Iraq, none of the 11 units
has suffered as many casualties as the 1544th Transportation Company.
Of the approximately 170 men and women in the unit, 5 have been
killed and 32 wounded since the unit arrived in Iraq in March and
began delivering supplies and mail and providing armed escort to
civilian convoys.

Three of the soldiers died during mortar attacks on their base south
of Baghdad. The other two were killed when roadside bombs exploded
next to their unarmored trucks. Soldiers' relatives said that they
expected the Army to outfit the trucks better than they themselves
could have, after being told by the military that the steel plates
proposed by the families would shatter if hit.

But in fact, most of the trucks in the unit have nothing more than
the steel plates that the families offered to have installed in the
first place, said Lt. Col. Alicia Tate-Nadeau, a spokeswoman for
the Illinois Guard.

3 Meanings of Armored

The Army considers the 1544th's vehicles armored, a word that
has a broad and loose meaning in the Iraq conflict. There are three
categories of armored vehicles, Colonel Tate-Nadeau said. The
"up-armored" ones come that way from the factory and provide
the best protection for soldiers. Then come vehicles outfitted with
"armor kits," or prefabricated pieces, on the chassis. The last
option consists of "whatever the soldiers try to do themselves,
from large sheets of metal on their trucks to sandbags on the
floor of the cab," Colonel Tate-Nadeau said.

"If we're one of the richest nations in the world, our soldiers
shouldn't be sent out looking like the Beverly Hillbillies," said
the mother of one soldier in the unit, who, like many parents,
asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions for their children.

According to figures compiled by the House Armed Services
Committee and previously reported in The Seattle Times, there
are plans to produce armor kits for at least 2,806 medium-
weight trucks, but as of Sept. 17, only 385 of the kits had been
produced and sent to Iraq. Armor kits were also planned for at
least 1,600 heavyweight trucks, but as of mid-September just
446 of these kits were in Iraq. The Army is also looking into
developing ways to armor truck cabs quickly, and has ordered
700 armored Humvees with special weapons platforms to
protect convoys.

Specialist Benjamin Isenberg, 27, of the Oregon National Guard,
died on Sept. 13 when he drove his unarmored Humvee over
a homemade bomb, the principal weapon of the insurgents,
said his grandmother, Beverly Isenberg of McArthur, Calif. The
incident occurred near Taji, the town north of Baghdad where
the 18 reservists refused to make a second trip with fuel that
they say had been rejected as contaminated.

"One of the soldiers in his unit said they go by the same routes
and at the same times every day," said Mrs. Isenberg, whose
husband is a retired Army officer and who has two sons in the
military and another grandson in the Special Forces who was
wounded in Iraq. "They were just sitting ducks in an
unarmored Humvee."

Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

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

11) Big Arctic Perils Seen in Warming, Survey Finds
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
October 30, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/30/science/earth/30arctic.html?hp&ex=10991952
00&en=73839895ef0c42c7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

A comprehensive four-year study of warming in the Arctic
shows that heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks
around the world are contributing to profound environmental
changes, including sharp retreats of glaciers and sea ice, thawing
of permafrost and shifts in the weather, the oceans and the
atmosphere.

The study, commissioned by eight nations with Arctic territory,
including the United States, says the changes are likely to harm
native communities, wildlife and economic activity but also to
offer some benefits, like longer growing seasons. The report is
due to be released on Nov. 9, but portions were provided yesterday
to The New York Times by European participants in the project.

While Arctic warming has been going on for decades and has
been studied before, this is the first thorough assessment of the
causes and consequences of the trend.

It was conducted by nearly 300 scientists, as well as elders from
the native communities in the region, after representatives of the
eight nations met in October 2000 in Barrow, Alaska, amid
a growing sense of urgency about the effects of global warming
on the Arctic.

The findings support the broad but politically controversial
scientific consensus that global warming is caused mainly by
rising atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse
gases, and that the Arctic is the first region to feel its effects.
While the report is advisory and carries no legal weight, it is likely
to increase pressure on the Bush administration, which has
acknowledged a possible human role in global warming but
says the science is still too murky to justify mandatory reductions
in greenhouse-gas emissions.

The State Department, which has reviewed the report, declined
to comment on it yesterday.

The report says that "while some historical changes in climate
have resulted from natural causes and variations, the strength
of the trends and the patterns of change that have emerged in
recent decades indicate that human influences, resulting
primarily from increased emissions of carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases, have now become the dominant factor."

The Arctic "is now experiencing some of the most rapid and
severe climate change on Earth," the report says, adding, "Over
the next 100 years, climate change is expected to accelerate,
contributing to major physical, ecological, social and economic
changes, many of which have already begun."

Scientists have long expected the Arctic to warm more rapidly
than other regions, partly because as snow and ice melt, the loss
of bright reflective surfaces causes the exposed land and water
to absorb more of the sun's energy. Also, warming tends to build
more rapidly at the surface in the Arctic because colder air from
the upper atmosphere does not mix with the surface air as readily
as at lower latitudes, scientists say.

The report says the effects of warming may be heightened by
other factors, including overfishing, rising populations, rising
levels of ultraviolet radiation from the depleted ozone layer (a
condition at both poles). "The sum of these factors threatens to
overwhelm the adaptive capacity of some Arctic populations and
ecosystems," it says.

Prompt efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions could slow
the pace of change, allowing communities and wildlife to adapt,
the report says. But it also stresses that further warming and
melting are unavoidable, given the century-long buildup of
the gases, mainly carbon dioxide.

Several of the Europeans who provided parts of the report said
they had done so because the Bush administration had delayed
publication until after the presidential election, partly because
of the political contentiousness of global warming.

But Gunnar Palsson of Iceland, chairman of the Arctic Council,
the international body that commissioned the study, said yesterday
that there was "no truth to the contention that any of the member
states of the Arctic Council pushed the release of the report back
into November." Besides the United States, the members are
Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Sweden.

Mr. Palsson said all the countries had agreed to delay the release,
originally scheduled for September, because of conflicts with
another international meeting in Iceland.

The American scientist directing the assessment, Dr. Robert W.
Corell, an oceanographer and senior fellow of the American
Meteorological Society, said the timing was set during diplomatic
discussions that did not involve the scientists.

He said he could not yet comment on the specific findings,
but noted that the signals from the Arctic have global significance.

"The major message is that climate change is here and now in
the Arctic," he said.

The report is a profusely illustrated window on a region in
remarkable flux, incorporating reams of scientific data as well
as observations by elders from native communities around the
Arctic Circle.

The potential benefits of the changes include projected growth
in marine fish stocks and improved prospects for agriculture
and timber harvests in some regions, as well as expanded
access to Arctic waters.

But the list of potential harms is far longer.

The retreat of sea ice, the report says, "is very likely to have
devastating consequences for polar bears, ice-living seals
and local people for whom these animals are a primary food
source."

Oil and gas deposits on land are likely to be harder to extract
as tundra thaws, limiting the frozen season when drilling
convoys can traverse the otherwise spongy ground, the report
says. Alaska has already seen the "tundra travel" season on the
North Slope shrink to 100 days from about 200 days a year in 1970.

The report concludes that the consequences of the fast-paced
Arctic warming will be global. In particular, the accelerated
melting of Greenland's two-mile-high sheets of ice will cause
sea levels to rise around the world.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times