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The first fireball
(John Berger, The Guardian, June 29, 2002)
Now that the number of innocent civilian victims killed collaterally in Afghanistan by the US bombardments is equal to the number killed in the attack on the Twin Towers, we can perhaps place the events in a larger, but not less tragic perspective, and face a new question: is it more evil or reprehensible to kill deliberately than to systematically kill blindly? . . . When on September 11 I watched the videos on television, I was instantly reminded of August 6 1945. We in Europe heard the news of the bombing of Hiroshima on the evening of the same day. The immediate correspondences between the two events include a fireball descending without warning from a clear sky, both attacks being timed to coincide with the civilians of the targeted city going to work in the morning, with the shops opening, with children in school preparing their lessons. A similar reduction to ashes, with bodies, flung through the air, becoming debris. A comparable incredulity and chaos provoked by a new weapon of destruction being used for the first time - the A-bomb 60 years ago, and a civil airliner last autumn. . . . The differences of context and scale are of course enormous. In Manhattan the dust was not radioactive. . . . A few days before the bombing of Hiroshima, Vice Admiral Radford boasted that "Japan will eventually be a nation without cities - a nomadic people". The bomb, exploding above a hospital in the centre of the city, killed 100,000 people instantly, 95% of them civilians. Another 100,000 died slowly from burns and effects of radiation.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 11:48 AM

 

Analysis: Choose your friends, not foes
WASHINGTON, June 26 (UPI) -- You choose your friends, not your enemies. With enemies, one wages war, or hopefully, makes peace. Requesting that your enemies become your friends before making peace with them is illogical, at best. This takes the game quite a few strides ahead of "you are either with us, or against us." By this logic, you either play it our way, or you don't get to play at all. Let us, nevertheless, give praise to President George W. Bush for his latest Middle East initiative. However, the president, I am afraid, may have caused more harm than good. Demanding a change in Palestinian leadership as a pre-condition to advancing peace in the Middle East will only make it harder to achieve this peace. "The United States has failed this test of leadership in the Middle East," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, D.C. "The president has set U.S. foreign policy and U.S.-Arab relations back with today's (Monday's) announcement," added Zogby. At a time when much of the world is condemning American arrogance and interference in other countries' domestic affairs, Bush's plan is certain to infuriate those who have long looked at the United States with suspicion, and questioned its motives and bias towards Israel.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 8:53 AM

 

WorldCom Accounting Scandal Sends Markets Reeling
LONDON/PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Global markets reeled on Wednesday after U.S. long-distance carrier WorldCom Inc. shocked investors with its disclosure of a $3.8 billion accounting scandal, one of the largest in history. WorldCom, the second-biggest U.S. long-distance telecoms group, on Tuesday night fired its Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan and said it would restate its results for the last five quarters, erasing all profits from the beginning of 2001. The news further soured investor confidence after such once high-flying companies as energy trading company Enron Corp., telecom giant Global Crossing and conglomerate Tyco International crashed on a lack of accounting transparency. "This is just another nail in the coffin of confidence," said Paul Marsch, a London-based Morgan Stanley telecoms analyst.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 8:48 AM

 

Fatal vision: how Bush has given up on peace
(ROBERT FISK, The Independent, 23 June 2002)
George Bush Junior gave up last week. . . . There will be no Middle East peace conference in the near future, no serious attempt to halt the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, not a whimper of resolution on the region's tragedy from the man who started the "war for civilisation'', the "war on terror'', the "endless war'' and, most recently, the "titanic war on terror''. . . . Just a week ago, as we all know, Mr Bush had another of his famous "visions". They started in the autumn of last year when he had a vision of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. This particular vision coincided quite by chance, of course, with his efforts to keep the Arab states quiescent while America bombed the poorest and most ruined Muslim country in the world. Then this dream was forgotten for a few months until, earlier this year, Vice President Dick Cheney toured the Middle East to drum up Arab support for another war on Iraq. . . . the President has had yet another vision, a rather scaled-down version of the earlier one. Now he dreams of an interim Palestinian state. It is a sign of how obedient American journalists have become that not one US newspaper has seen this for the preposterous notion it really is. . . . Talal Salman, the editor of the Beirut daily As Safir, wrote in his newspaper last week that interim envisages "a provisional state on territory segmented like beehives'', with every town, village and refugee camp cut off by "a wall of tanks and permanent and moving checkpoints; with everything under helicopter surveillance ... with death squads monitoring intentions and dreams, targeting anyone they discover, determine, speculate or suspect may have explosive materials in their blood". . . . And amid these horrors, what do we get from Mr Bush? Delay. Obfuscation. A vague plan – revealed as usual to the pliant New York Times – suggested that the Bush boys and girls were going to ignore the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees, dump the "final status" issues of Jerusalem and settlements on the Israelis and Palestinians and – by far the most hilarious clause – would "find new language" to bridge Israel's and Palestine's interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 242.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 2:04 PM

 

Israeli TV Companies Weigh Taking CNN Off the Air

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israeli television broadcasters are considering pulling the plug on the CNN news channel in protest at comments made by U.S. media mogul Ted Turner, officials and sources at the companies said on Thursday. Turner, founder of the 24-hour Cable News Network, was quoted on Tuesday as saying the Israeli military was engaged in "terrorism" against the Palestinians that could be compared to Palestinian suicide bomber attacks on Israelis. A senior board member at the YES satellite television broadcaster and a source close to the head of Israel's three cable providers, now engaged in a merger, said the companies would weigh taking the widely watched CNN off the air. "At least two of us (board members) have demanded that YES management take CNN off the air for at least 24 hours in protest over what Ted Turner said," the board member, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 7:07 AM

 

Stop trying to behave like a Hollywood hitman
(The Independent, 18 June 2002)
If the United States had wanted to confirm every worst suspicion in the world, it could do no worse than reveal that it has set the CIA free to organise a coup against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. . . . This is no way for a mature democracy to proceed, let alone the world's only remaining superpower. If America believes – as well it might – that the peace and security of the world is best served by a change in regime in Iraq, then it should proceed through legitimate action and co-ordinated world pressure. This is the real world, not Hollywood.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 2:33 PM

 

Were U.S. troops in Afghanistan complicit in a massacre?
(Michelle Goldberg, Salon.com, June 15, 2002)
Irish documentarian Jamie Doran says he has evidence of American complicity in a massacre in Afghanistan, and he's been showing his rough footage to European leaders in the hope of preventing a coverup. . . . Doran, who worked at the BBC for more than seven years and has made documentaries about human rights abuses throughout the world, screened 20 minutes of his unfinished feature documentary, "Massacre at Mazar," to the European parliament and the German parliament on Wednesday. After witnessing the screening, Andrew McEntee, former head of Amnesty International in the U.K., called for an independent investigation. . . . Doran felt he had to get some of the information out immediately because the mass graves he secretly filmed are in danger of being tampered with, which would make an independent inquiry into his film's allegations of Northern Alliance and American war crimes impossible.
[Hagerty comment: And recall the fact that the U.S. government purchased all the rights to all commercial satellite pictures of Afghanistan. Thus the historical record of what took place in Afghanistan is now in the hands of journalists who filmed events as they unfolded.] . . . According to Doran, of the approximately 8,000 Taliban prisoners taken after the fall of Kunduz in late November 2001 to Gen. Rashid Dostum, around 5,000 are unaccounted for. He says he's filmed eyewitnesses testifying that many of those prisoners suffocated in the metal containers used to transport them between Qala-I-Zeini fortress and Sherberghan prison, and that Northern Alliance troops fired into the containers, killing and wounding other prisoners. One witness claims that an American officer ordered the bodies dumped in the desert of Dasht-I-Leili, and that living people were taken there as well and executed. Furthermore, Doran says he has witnesses claiming to have seen American special-forces soldiers torturing prisoners who made it to Sherberghan.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 12:28 PM

 

Israel Starts Building Fence Along West Bank: Palestinian Interim State Is Rejected by Sharon
washingtonpost.com -- Israeli bulldozers began work today on a controversial project to erect a fence and sophisticated security system along the entire length of the West Bank in an attempt to seal off the Palestinian-controlled territory from Israel following a series of suicide bomb attacks. The project, which has been discussed for years, has come under fire from both Israelis and Palestinians for a variety of political, religious, economic and social reasons. But it has drawn many new advocates -- including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- and gained wider popularity in recent months following suicide bombings that have killed dozens of Israelis and terrorized urban areas across the country. Meanwhile, Sharon today told a meeting of his cabinet ministers that "the conditions are not ripe" for the establishment of any kind of Palestinian state, according to a statement released after the meeting.

Does Sharon want peace?

. . . Read more!


posted by West 9:30 AM

 

State of emergency in southern Peru
BBC News -- A state of emergency has been declared in the Peruvian city of Arequipa after three days of protests. President Alejandro Toledo authorised the military to use force to maintain control in the country's second largest city, after widespread anti-government demonstrations and rioting. The protests were over the privatisation of two state electricity companies. President Toledo said he would not bow to the protesters' demands, and pledged to continue with similar privatisation plans in other parts of the country.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 9:25 AM

 

Bush Orders 'Lethal Force' To Capture Saddam Hussein
washingtonpost.com -- President Bush early this year signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake a comprehensive, covert program to topple Saddam Hussein, including authority to use lethal force to capture the Iraqi president, according to informed sources. The presidential order, an expansion of a previous presidential finding designed to oust Hussein, directs the CIA to use all available tools, including:

• Increased support to Iraqi opposition groups and forces inside and outside Iraq including money, weapons, equipment, training and intelligence information.

• Expanded efforts to collect intelligence within the Iraqi government, military, security service and overall population where pockets of intense anti-Hussein sentiment have been detected.

• Possible use of CIA and U.S. Special Forces teams, similar to those that have been successfully deployed in Afghanistan since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Such forces would be authorized to kill Hussein if they were acting in self-defense.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 8:14 AM

 

Planetary system found that resembles ours - June 13, 2002
(Richard Stenger, CNN, June 13, 2002)
But the orbit of the Jupiter-like planet is stable enough to foster a benign, life-friendly environment in the inner solar orbit, the astronomers said. . . . Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, is thought to have protected terrestrial life in its infancy, ingesting dangerous hordes of comets before they collided with our planet. . . . But whether a terrestrial planet lurks near the star will remain a matter of speculation for some time. The hunt for exoplanets has turned up only gas giants so far because of the limits of current search methods. . . . The new discoveries, announced at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., include another planet around 55 Cancri, a star visible to the naked eye in the constellation Cancer; and the smallest known exoplanet, one near the star HD49674 with less than half the mass of Saturn.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 8:16 PM

 

Gulf buildup: U.S. has doubled troops in Kuwait this year
World Tribune -- The Defense Department has provided the first report on the U.S. military buildup in Kuwait. A Defense Department release said about 8,000 U.S. military personnel now serve in the sheikdom — twice as many as reported late last year. About 2,000 of them serve in Camp Doha near the Iraqi border. Last year, Gulf defense sources reported no more than 4,000 U.S. troops in Kuwait, Middle East Newsline reported. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on tour of the Persian Gulf and South Asia, refused to disclose how many U.S. troops are deployed throughout the region.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 3:48 PM

 

Dollar hits 17-month low versus euro
Financial Times -- The dollar on Wednesday fell to a 17-month low against the euro, amid continued worries over the outlook for US companies. The euro's rise above $0.95 was fleeting, but rekindled hopes that the currency is now heading back towards parity against the dollar. Euro bulls were disappointed, however, that the currency stopped short of $0.951 - a more technically significant level. "The $0.951 level was being protected by investors keen to defend the value of options postions," said Chris Furness, senior currency strategist at the economic consultancy 4Cast. "But these positions are going to expire at the end of this week, leaving the dollar unprotected," he added. By the middle of New York trading the euro stood at $0.945, up slightly on Tuesday's London close of $0.943. History seldom repeats itself in foreign exchange.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 11:01 PM

 

By shipping plutonium around the world, Britain is courting catastrophe
(George Monbiot, The Guardian, June 11, 2002)
At the end of this week, two British ships will pull into the port of Takahama to collect enough plutonium to make 17 atomic bombs. . . . The security of the shipment has been described by the definitive defence briefing, Jane's Foreign Report, as "totally inadequate". Britain and Japan are to launch, in the form of the two freighters carrying the material, a pair of floating dirty bombs, waiting for a detonator. And they are doing so for reasons that have nothing to do with economics and nothing to do with defence, but everything to do with a politics which is as mad and dangerous as their mission. . . . This programme can sustain itself only until the public grasps the two unavoidable facts of nuclear power. The first is that there is, as yet, no safe means of disposing of the wastes it produces. The second is that even if one were found, the monitoring and safe management of these wastes requires 250,000 years of political and economic stability. No government on earth can guarantee five. . . . To spread plutonium across an entire region, terrorists need only send a missile or boat like the one Bin Laden used to attack the USS Cole, equipped with the right explosives, into the side of one of the freighters. . . . Japan has insisted that the ships have no military escort.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 9:58 AM

 

UK FOLLOWS US: 'Massive abuse' of privacy feared
BBC -- Plans to increase the number of organisations that can look at records of what you do online could lead to widespread abuse of personal information, warn experts. The government this week unveiled a draft list of organisations that will be given the right to request information about the web, telephone and fax lives of British citizens under the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Civil liberty campaigners have little faith that government safeguards will be effective in policing the use of sensitive information passed to organisations not connected with law enforcement.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 9:07 AM

 

Israel Serves as a Convenient Foil for the United States
(Robert Jensen and Rahu Mahajan, CommonDreams.org, June 10, 2002)
For all the talk of a "special relationship" between the United States and Israel, it's clear that for American policymakers there's nothing particularly special about their support for Israel or rejection of Palestinian rights. . . . the primary aim of U.S. policy in the Middle East is U.S. dominance over the region and its oil resources, through support for regimes that play our game and through our ever-increasing military presence. . . . That reality is clear: The central principle of every U.S. administration since the end of World War II has been that the resources of the region do not truly belong to the people of the region, but instead exist for the benefit of Americans. . . . It is not simply a question of who owns the oil, but who controls the flow of oil and oil profits. Even if the United States were energy self-sufficient, U.S. elites would seek to dominate the Middle East for the leverage it brings in world affairs, especially over the economies of our primary competitors (Europe and Japan), which are more heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil. . . . U.S. leaders don't mind peace, so long as it is within a system that doesn't threaten U.S. control. Yes, a Middle East in a constant state of tension -- either engaged in war or on the verge of war -- has been dangerous. But that's a price the United States has been willing to pay. . . . The inevitable conclusion to draw from this is that United States cannot be a positive force in the Middle East without a fundamental shift in goals: The United States must replace its quest for control with a commitment to peace AND justice, under international law. . . . Never has it been more crucial that Americans understand this. While Israel steps up the violence in Palestine, the Bush administration plots a war on Iraq. U.S. officials tell us Iraq presents a grave threat to the world, though other nations (including Kuwait) don't feel threatened and all the world (save Israel and the always-loyal Tony Blair) rejects the U.S. plans. . . . The more the United States overplays its hand in the Middle East, the more the rest of the world sees clearly U.S. intentions. The question is, can we the American people see the same, and demand of our government a policy geared toward justice not domination.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 8:04 PM

 

10 Things to Know about U.S. Policy in the Middle East
(Stephen Zunes, Alternet.org, September 26, 2002)
1. The United States has played a major role in the militarization of the region.
2. The U.S. maintains an ongoing military presence in the Middle East.
3. There has been an enormous humanitarian toll resulting from U.S. policy toward Iraq.
4. The United States has not been a fair mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
5. U.S. support for Israel occupation forces has created enormous resentment throughout the Middle East.
6. The United States has been inconsistent in its enforcement of international law and UN Security Council resolutions.
7. The United States has supported autocratic regimes in the Middle East.
8. U.S. policy has contributed to the rise of radical Islamic governments and movements.
9. The U.S. promotion of a neo-liberal economic model in the Middle East has not benefitted most people of the region.
10. The U.S. response to Middle Eastern terrorism has thus far been counter-productive.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 3:08 PM

 

Arafat threatens 'disastrous explosion'
Jerusalem Post -- In a speech broadcast today, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat threatened that if Israel does not retreat from PA-ruled areas that there will be a "disastrous explosion that will impact stability of the whole world." According to the Palestinian Authority's official news agency WAFA, in an address broadcast in Spain to an awards ceremony honoring EU Middle East envoy Miguel Moratinos, Arafat claimed that "the situation in Palestine is at the edge of explosion." Arafat warned that if Israel does not withdraw from Palestinian held territory immediately, "enabling our people to practice their legitimate rights of establishing the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the whole region will witness a disastrous explosion that will impact not only the region but the stability of the whole world."

. . . Read more!


posted by West 2:18 PM

 

NEWS ANALYSIS Bush's goal: regaining the political initiative
International Herald Tribune -- WASHINGTON Since Sept. 11, President George W. Bush has confidently led the war on terrorism, abroad and at home, with strong public support and only the faintest criticism from congressional Democrats. Yet when he went on national television to urge the creation of a department of homeland security, Bush was struggling to regain the initiative. That is because over the last month the debate on terrorism has shifted. By all evidence, Bush retains the confidence of an overwhelming majority of Americans, but his administration is no longer immune to questions or criticism about what happened before Sept. 11 and whether everything is now being done to make the United States safer. In recent weeks, Bush has faced the first sustained scrutiny since those terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. He and his aides have watched the embarrassing spectacle of bureaucratic infighting between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency play out on the front pages of major newspapers. And he has felt growing pressure from Congress to do what his administration seemingly had been resisting, which was to elevate homeland security to cabinet status. As a result, there are signs of declining public confidence in the government's ability to combat terrorism. Thursday night's prime-time speech was designed to respond to those calls - and to show that Bush and his closest advisers have absorbed the lessons the country is just now learning about what went wrong before Sept. 11.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 10:15 AM

 

UN Warns of Rollback in Liberties After Sept. 11
LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S.-led "war on terror" is threatening civil liberties and human rights around the world, the United Nations said Thursday, echoing a warning by Amnesty International a week ago. U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson told an audience at London's Commonwealth Institute that security concerns in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States should not be a reason to neglect the rights of individuals or groups. Robinson claimed official reactions to the attacks "at times have seemed to subordinate the principles of human rights to other more 'robust' action in the war against terrorism." "There has been a tendency to ride roughshod over -- or at least to set on one side -- established principles of international human rights and humanitarian law," the high commissioner for human rights said.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 6:26 PM

 

'Millions face famine' in Africa
bbc.co.uk -- The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that 12.8 million people are on the brink of starvation in southern Africa and urgently need food aid. It made the warning in Johannesburg, where international aid agencies, donor governments and humanitarian organisations are meeting to discuss ways of alleviating the situation. Crops have failed across the region due to drought, floods and political breakdown. The impact of food shortages over the next 12 months, particularly on people with HIV/Aids, will also be discussed by the delegates, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 9:08 AM

 

Egypt got 24 N. Korean No-Dong missiles, violating pledge
worldtribune.com -- The United States has received intelligence reports that North Korea delivered 24 No-Dong intermediate-range missiles to Egypt in the last half of 2001. U.S. intelligence sources said the CIA report was sent to both the Bush administration and Congress. The No-Dong missiles did not contain engines but Egypt is believed to have received a separate shipment of up to 50 North Korean engines via Libya, Middle East Newsline reported. "It's a slap in the face to all those who have been working to stop the Egyptian-North Korean missile cooperation program," an intelligence source said. "Egypt pledged that it wasn't seeking the No-Dong or its engine and then acquired both."

. . . Read more!


posted by West 9:04 AM

 

Israelis storm Arafat's compound
GAZA, June 5 (UPI) -- Israeli armored vehicles entered early Thursday the compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Palestinian security sources said. Fierce clashes were reported between Israeli troops and Arafat's guards. Medical sources said at least 30 Palestinians suffered injuries. Several tanks and bulldozers rolled into the area as other tanks patrolled Ramallah. There was constant gunfire and heavy shelling in Arafat's compound, Saeb Erakat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, told CNN. Arafat, who was in his office at the time of the incursion, told Erakat to contact officials from the United States, Europe and the United Nations in an effort to end the military operation. The Israeli military had no immediate comment. The Israeli incursion came hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives next to a crowded bus in northern Israel, leaving at least 17 people dead and 37 wounded.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 6:19 PM

 

India plans war within two weeks
telegraph.co.uk -- India's military is seeking final authorisation to invade the Pakistani side of divided Kashmir in the middle of this month to destroy the camps of Islamic militants. The planned campaign would be similar to the American attack in Afghanistan, in which air strikes would be followed by ground assaults by special forces transported by helicopter, military sources said yesterday. Smart bombs and other advanced ordnance are reported to have been loaded on to French-made Mirage 2000H and Russian-built MiG-27 aircraft at bases in northern and western India.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 6:17 PM

 

Wage peace, not war
(George Monbiot, The Guardian, June 4, 2002)
There is something dreamlike about our contemplation of the drift to war in Kashmir. While India and Pakistan move their missiles into position, in Britain our concerns are focused on the evacuation of our own citizens, the destination of the likely refugees, and the possibility that the Indian cricket team might be prevented from visiting England at the end of this month. That 12 million people could be vaporised if the war begins in earnest is viewed as regrettable, but nothing to do with us. . . . In the United States, the sense of detachment is even more palpable. . . . no one is proposing the measures necessary to prevent what could become the most lethal conflict since the second world war. . . . But at least the US has blocked new arms sales to India and Pakistan. The United Kingdom, by contrast, has done everything in its power to promote them. . . . More pertinent still, the nuclear weapons programmes in both India and Pakistan were initiated with the help of the west. . . . But there is no peace industry commensurate with the world's war industry. There are no vested interests to appease, no campaign contributions to be gained from preventing rather than encouraging the use of weapons.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 8:09 PM

 

'India ready for nuclear response'
NEW DELHI, June 3 (UPI) -- India has finalized preparations for a retaliatory nuclear attack against Pakistan if Islamabad decides to use atomic weapons against New Delhi, a senior Indian official warned Monday, but another defense official said neither country would be reckless enough to use such weapons. In an interview published India's weekly Outlook magazine, Defense Secretary Yogendra Narain also acknowledged that a nuclear war would end in "the mutual destruction" of both the countries. However, in another media interview, Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes downplayed fears of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan saying neither country would be imprudent enough to use the nukes.

. . . Read more!


posted by West 11:41 AM

 

Under the nuclear shadow
(Arundhati Roy, The Observer, June 2, 2002)
We've decided we're all staying. We've huddled together, we realise how much we love each other and we think what a shame it would be to die now. . . . My husband's writing a book about trees. He has a section on how figs are pollinated, each fig by its own specialised fig wasp. There are nearly 1,000 different species of fig wasps. All the fig wasps will be nuked, and my husband and his book. . . . Terrorists have the power to trigger a nuclear war. Non-violence is treated with contempt. Displacement, dispossession, starvation, poverty, disease, these are all just funny comic strip items now. Meanwhile, emissaries of the coalition against terror come and go preaching restraint. Tony Blair arrives to preach peace - and on the side, to sell weapons to both India and Pakistan. . . . Right now when it looks as though all the music, the art, the architecture, the literature, the whole of human civilisation means nothing to the monsters who run the world. What kind of book should I write? For now, just for now, for just a while pointlessness is my biggest enemy. That's what nuclear bombs do, whether they're used or not. They violate everything that is humane, they alter the meaning of life.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 12:18 PM

 

Nuclear neighbours teeter on brink of Armageddon
(Jason Burke and Peter Beaumont, The Observer, June 2, 2002)
Tonight, in the forests of Kashmir, figures will be moving in the darkness. They are fighters using terrorism to overthrow Indian rule in the disputed state. . . . New Delhi says these militants take their orders directly from Islamabad. The Pakistanis say they are independent. Neither claim, according to inquiries by The Observer, is accurate. And it is through the gap between these stories that 1.25 billion people could fall into a nuclear nightmare. . . . In the past seven days the sense of impending catastrophe has deepened exponentially in London and Washington, driven by Pentagon alarm over 'unusual Indian troop movements' which US Defence Intelligence Agency analysts believe signal that Indian forces are all now in position for an imminent assault. . . . any Indian attack over the line separating Indian and Pakistani forces in Kashmir could rapidly escalate into a nuclear exchange. . . . 'In a worst-case scenario,' said a senior Foreign Office source, 'we would be looking at contamination affecting Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh even China.' . . . And there are militant groups that even Musharraf cannot control. The aggressive Jaish-e-Mohammed (the Army of Mohammed) is unlikely to obey his orders to cease fire. Other, 'home-grown' Kashmiri militants have stockpiles of weapons and funds independent of Pakistani support. . . . One man with a Kalashnikov and some dynamite could set off a blast that will make the entire world tremble.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 12:14 PM