World War III Report #26, March 24, 2002

Bill Weinberg with David Bloom, Special Correspondent

THIS WEEK: SPECIAL REPORT ON ISRAELI ESPIONAGE IN USA

THE AFGHANISTAN FRONT

1. Was "Operation Anaconda" a Victory?

2. US Troops Attacked in Khost

3. US Forces Still "Flushing Out"

4. Gen. Franks Warns of More to Come

5. Bush Warns of More to Come

6. Al-Qaeda Regrouping for Spring Offensive?

7. US Forces Raid "Al-Qaeda Compound" in Kandahar

8. Ethnic Hazaras Falsely Detained by US Forces

9. Brits Back in the Breach

10. MPs Warn of "Second Vietnam"

11. "Goodwill" US-Afghan Basketball Game Ends in Violence

12. Zahir Shah Again Postpones Trip Home

13. US Embassy Staff Leave Pakistan After Church Blast

14. Pakistan Being Drawn into War?

15. Accused Pearl Slayer to be Tried in Pakistan

16. CIA Chief: Al-Qaeda Still a Threat

THE MIDDLE EAST

1. Al-Aqsa Brigades Make US "Terrorist List"

2. B'Tselem: IDF "Trigger Happy"

3. TV Footage of IDF Atrocity Bucks Israeli Censors

4. New York Times Sees "Secret Iran-Arafat Connection"

5. Top Islamic Scholar: Suicide Bombers "Holy"

6. Saudi Newspaper Revives Blood Libel

7. Unveiled Girls Burned Alive in Saudi Arabia

THE PHILIPPINE FRONT

1. Filipinos Fear "Vietnamization"

2. US Troops Near Basilan Battle

3. Moro Rebels Deny Terrorist Link

4. Bloody Politics of Mindanao

5. Who is Abu Sayyaf?

6. Indonesia Next?

NUCLEAR PARANOIA

1. Brits Get in on Nuclear Sabre-Rattling

2. Is Pentagon Using Depleted Uranium in Afghanistan?

3. "Mystery Metal Nightmare in Afghanistan?"

ANTHRAX PARANOIA

1. CIA Link to Anthrax Attacks?

2. New York Times: Al-Qaeda Anthrax Link Seen

3. UK Observer: Al-Qaeda Anthrax Link Fabricated

4. Emergency Health Powers Act in State Legislatures

THE WAR AT HOME

1. US Farms Out Torture to Terror War Allies

2. No al-Qaeda Snared in Terror Sweep?

3. Military Tribunals to Allow "Unorthodox" Evidence

4. ...and Indefinite Detention

5. More Raids on Islamic Charities and Academics

6. Two Soldiers Dead in Fort Drum Munitions Accident

GLIMMERS OF HOPE

1. Barbara Lee Gets Standing Ovation in Berkeley

WATCHING THE SHADOWS

1. What Did Israel Know About 9-11?

2. Behind Israeli Snooping: Terror or Ecstasy?

3. ...and Disappearing Pushcarts?

Full report is at worldwar3

In today's trial Turkish anarchist prisoners are released by the decision of Izmir SSC (State Security Court). The next trial is postponed to 21st of May.

On 1st of December 2001, 5 people from Usak were arrested with the claim of being members of "Usak Anarsist Otonomu" while 3 of them were distributing their own leaflets during a trade-union demo. They are being judged according to Article No. 3713/7 which defines "illegal political gangs". Although they were just claimed to be responsible for a number of graffiti and a leaflet titled "No to Capitalism and War!" signed as Usak Anarsist Otonomu, 4 of them were forced to spend 2 months in F type cells -- where they lived 2 by 2.

YellowTimes.org writes "By Christopher Reilly

YellowTimes.org Journalist

(YellowTimes.org) – As Dick Cheney tours the Middle East in search of support for an
American offensive against the Iraqi regime, Yellowtimes.org has learned through multiple independent sources that the Pentagon has already begun planning and building new bases in the region.

According to anonymous U.S. military sources, the new airbases will be in Jordan, the Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. Logistics and communications components are already en route or being prepared for deployment from active duty, Reserve, and National Guard
units.

This just came to me via email.

It is from a comrade that is part of the international brigades in Palestine

--U.F.

Last night the Israeli Military tried to kill me.

I'm staying in the al azzeh refugee camp, in Bethlehem, along with about twenty other international civilians. We're here to act as human shields, because we've heard an Israeli invasion is imminent. It's 1:30pm right now, on Easter Sunday, and some are expecting the invasion within the next two hours. It has just been reported that international media has just pulled out of Bethlehem, and tanks are massing just outside of town.

blissett ireland writes:

"Extremely Volatile situation in Palestine. Many Firsthand accounts emerging from Irish, Italian and UK activists who are acting as Human Shields. Up to date reports suggest 8 internationals have been shot.

Amanda (9) an IMC Ireland reporter has been in contact with the Department of Foreign Affairs (1) about the situation of Caoimhe Butterly (2), a 23 yr old Irish activist who is providing basic medical care to the Injured in what is left of Arafat’s compound.

What follows is an update to the original post here. the original story continues at the end of this update.
-U.F.

Last night, 30 March 2002, 20 of us stayed in Al Azzeh refugee camp of 5,000 inside of Bethlehem with several families expecting an invasion by the Israeli military. We went two to a house. There is no land to build on, so any new homes are built atop existing ones. At the house I stayed in, we watched Arfat on television most of the night giving a press conference inside his compound in Ramallah. At 10pm he was given one hour to surrender by Israeli military or they would go in shooting. This has not yet happened and he has said he will not go alive. Television stations showed five dead, shot at point blank range inside Arafat's compound. The family I was with stays up most of the night and sleeps during the morning daylight hours. The shooting at nights requires them to quickly move from one room to the next, and to always be ready. They do not jump when they hear the popping of F-16s. They simply get up and move as the noise becomes louder.

This essay was originally published here in early february, but without footnotes due to technical difficulties. Please find herein the full text.(h.)

Anonymous Comrade writes.... This essay takes a critical look at the role Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play in the growing movement against global capital. It is part of a collection published this week by Soft Skull press in NY. "The Battle of Seattle; The new Movement against Capitalist Globalisation" Eds Eddie Yuen, Daniel Burton_Rose and George Katsiafikas, published by Soft Skull Press (February, 2002)

"This Is What Bureaucracy Looks Like.
NGOs and Anti-Capitalism(1)

by James Davis

"I'm aware that it's a lot more glamorous to be on the barricade with a handkerchief around your nose than it is to be at the meetings with a briefcase and a bowler hat, but I think that we're getting more done this way"(2) -- Bono

This essay takes a critical look at the role Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play in the growing movement against global capital. The movement, which made its spectacular US debut in Seattle, has lent NGOs unprecedented political influence. Leading thinkers and institutions of capitalist planning are desperate for allies to appease their critics. As we will see the impulses of the NGOs and those of the movement are politically at odds. While much discussion has concentrated on tactical differences, a more profound problem lies beneath. Lacking in imagination and caught between the many-headed street movement and an impulse to negotiate directly with power on its behalf, the specter of NGOs, as a device for the containment of political dissent, arises(3).

Snufkin Moomintroll of Daybreak Anarchist Collective and a couple of anonymous comrades have submitted an article titled "Viva Anarquia! A North American Anarchists account of Barcelona anti EU mobilizations!"

Read the article and comments on infoshop.org

the intro is printed below:

It´s difficult to sum up in one statement all the stuff that´s been happening in Barcelona during the last week of mobilizations that led to Sundays manifestation of 500,000 people, the largest anti-globalization march in our movements history. The momentum has been noticably building for a month; posters and graffiti spontaneously appearing, newspapers buzzing of police plans and presence, media threats that dangerous foreign agitators are coming to Barcelona (that´s us!), and much more. In the last week before the summit the police presence of 8,500 smothered the city, and later in the week shut down major streets, transportation, and neighborhoods in order to safeguard the summit (yes, again they had to meet in an occupied zone). Homeless people were cleared out of sight, young people were cleaned from the streets and plazas, and some parts of inner barcelona became a surreal playground of militarized police and tourists in bad shirts. Yes, the name Franco was mentioned more then once.

Thomas Seay writes: Here is my translation of Casarini's surprizing statement on the Biagi assasination. Please
circulate. The original can be found at:
Casarini

To All Civil Society by Luca Casarini

(translated from the Italian by Thomas Seay)

What happened in Bologna is a horrible pro-regime homicide. I reaffirm this and I will continue to state this with all my might along with thousands and thousands of people, knowing that this thought is shared by a lot of people.

What does this mean? It means that it is not the "terrorism", as the term is being used, of a previous time in this country.
Nor is it the "strategy of tension", which was inaugurated in 1969 with a state-planted fascist bomb in Piazza Fontana. Those two settings were completely different from today, as were the culture, the political and social climate in Italy as in the rest
of the world. The needs of the various state apparatus were different, the "field of action", the nation-state was different. The thinking of thousands of youth, who wanted to fight with arms, was different.

Anonymous Comrade writes "Scientific American, April 2002
full: http://www.sciam.com/2002/0402issue/0402bales.html

The Social Psychology of Modern Slavery

Contrary to conventional wisdom, slavery has not disappeared from the
world. Social scientists are trying to explain its persistence

By Kevin Bales

For Meera, the revolution began with a single rupee. When a social worker
came across Meera's unmapped village in the hills of Uttar Pradesh in India
three years ago, he found that the entire population was in hereditary debt
bondage. It could have been in the time of their grandfathers or
great-grandfathers--few in the village could remember--but at some point in
their past, the families had pledged themselves to unpaid labor in return
for loans of money. The debt passed down through the generations. Children
as young as five years old worked in quarry pits, making sand by crushing
stones with hammers. Dust, flying rock chips and heavy loads had left many
villagers with silicosis and injured eyes or backs.

Calling together some of the women, the social worker proposed a radical
plan. If groups of 10 women agreed to set aside a single rupee a week from
the tiny sums the moneylenders gave them to buy rice, he would provide seed
money and keep the funds safe. Meera and nine others formed the first
group. The rupees slowly mounted up. After three months, the group had
enough to pay off the loan against which Meera was bonded. She began
earning money for her work, which greatly increased the amount she could
contribute to the group. In another two months, another woman was freed;
the following month, a third came out of bondage."