David McReynolds writes

"A Thousand Coffins at the United Nations

Mar 19, 2002

Let's see if I can pull the words out at this hour, and
write this in one flow.

Today, shortly after 1 p.m., I got to Dag Hamaskold
Plaza near the United Nations, to look at the "Coffin
Display" arranged by Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved
Families for Peace. (Two groups cooperated in this
project, the Parents' Circle of 200 families in Israel
and National Movement for Change in the Palestinian
Authority).

Italian Government Aide Murdered, Political Motive Suspected

BBC News

Marco Biagi, a close aide to Italian Labour Minister Roberto Maroni, has been shot dead outside his home in Bologna. Eyewitnesses said two people on a
motorbike approached the 51-year-old
economist and law professor as he cycled
home, and gunned him down. Police have begun an investigation into
what is being seen as an act of political
terrorism.

Noam Chomsky, MIT Linguist, Critiques U.S. Foreign Policy

Jonathan Curiel, San Francisco Chronicle, March 18, 2002

When Noam Chomsky takes the stage today at the University of
San Francisco to give a speech titled "Human Rights: Global
Change and Continuity, " he'll be greeted by an audience
that sees him as the antidote to U.S. leaders who back the
military campaign in Afghanistan and want to expand the war
on terrorism to Iraq and other countries.

German Hermeneuticist Hans-Georg Gadamer, 1900-2002

Julian Roberts, Guardian , Monday March 18, 2002, Gadamer obit

Hans-Georg Gadamer, who has died in Heidelberg aged 102, was one of the outstanding figures of German 20th-century philosophy. He was not just astonishingly long-lived, but his frenetic philosophical activity continued until his death.

Chuck0 writes

The Stars & Stripes: Killing for the Flag

Alternative Press Review,Vol 7, No.1/Spring 2002

The U.S. is the only nation-state to have been condemned by the World Court
for international terrorism.

The U.S. vetoed a UN Security Council
resolution calling on governments to observe international law. After
deliberately targeting the civilian public health infrastructure, the U.S.
military imposes a continuing economic blockade on Iraq which has directly
resulted in the deaths of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of children.
The U.S. government is the primary financier and arms supplier for the
decades-long Israeli war against the entire Palestinian people. The U.S.
armed forces and U.S. organized and/or financed ally or proxy forces have
killed millions upon millions of civilians since the end of World War II.
This is the not-so-hidden meaning of the Stars and Stripes as the vast
majority of people around the world understand it.

Bill Weinberg's World War III Report, #25, March 17, 2002

Bill Weinberg with David Bloom, researcher

Vigilant, Independent Sentry of Truth in the War on Terrorism

UN ENDORSES PALESTINE; ISRAEL PULLS BACK IN WEST BANK; ALLIES BREAK RANKS ON IRAQ--WORLD FINALLY CHILLING OUT?

THE AFGHANISTAN FRONT

1. US "Mopping Up" in Operation Anaconda

2. Despite 8 Dead, Media Plays Up US Troops Gloating

3. Russians Warn Not to be Deceived by Early Victories

4. John Podhoretz Prepares Public for Quagmire

5. Pentagon: Osama Irrelevant

6. Hekmatyar Capitulates

7. Ex-King Backs Expansion of "Peacekeeping Force"

8. Scramble for Afghanistan's Electric Grid; Pipeline Interests Lurk in Background?

9. Desperate Afghans Scavenge Kandahar "Ground Zero"

10. Media Rewrite History of Taliban Opium Crackdown

THE PALESTINE FRONT

1. UN Resolution 1397 Endorses Palestinian State

2. Massive Israeli Invasion of Ramallah; Bush: "Not Helpful"

3. More Raids on Refugee Camps; 32 Dead

4. Israel Pulls Back as Zinni Arrives

5. Abuse of Palestinian Detainees Evokes Auschwitz

6. Israel Building "Concentration Camp" Near Hebron?

7. Summary Execution of Captured Palestinian?

8. Loophole in Israeli Ban on House Demolitions

9. Italian Journalist Killed in Ramallah

10. Mysterious Attack Near Lebanon Border

11. Cabinet Hardliners Resign, Plug "Right-Wing Peace Plan"

12. Hardliners Rally in Tel Aviv

13. Israeli Mayors: We Won't Hire "Refuseniks"

THE IRAQ FRONT

1. Allies Break Ranks With US in Iraq Attack

2. ...Except Britain, Of Course

3. US Support of Saddam Genocide Down Memory Hole

4. Does Saddam Have Weapons of Mass Destruction?

5. "Taliban-Like" Group in Iraqi Kurdistan?

XENOPHOBIA WATCH

1. Pat Robertson Disses Islam

2. Rehnquist Fears Headwraps?

3. Summary Expulsion of Somali Refugees

WATCHING THE SHADOWS

1. Appeal Denied in Lockerbie Conviction

2. ISI Link to Pearl Kidnapping?

3. Student Visas Posthumously Issued for 9-11 Hijackers!

jim writes: I saw this on the web, it is worth a read:

"The New Empire Loyalists


Former Leftists Turned US Military Cheerleaders Are Helping Snuff Out Its Traditions of Dissent"


Tariq Ali

Saturday March 16, 2002, The Guardian

Exactly one year before the hijackers hit the Pentagon, Chalmers Johnson, a distinguished American academic, staunch supporter of the US during the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and one-time senior analyst for the CIA, tried to alert his fellow-citizens to the dangers that lay ahead. He offered a trenchant critique of his country's post-cold war imperial policies: "Blowback," he prophesied, "is shorthand for saying that a nation reaps what it sows, even if it does not fully know or understand what it has sown.

"Given its wealth and power, the United States will be a prime recipient in the foreseeable future of all of the more expectable forms of blowback, particularly terrorist attacks against Americans in and out of the armed forces anywhere on earth, including within the United States."

"In the US, Dreaming of Iraq:

The Political Economy of the 'War on Terrorism' "

George Caffentzis

"I am not a criminal.
I am new to Cairo. I live in Baghdad." He told the story
of his dream and the buried treasure,
and he was so believable in the telling that
the night patrolman began to cry. Always,
the fragrance of truth has that effect.
-- Rumi, "In Baghdad, Dreaming of Cairo:
In Cairo, Dreaming of Baghdad"(1260-1273)
(Rumi 1996: 210)

Preface, 2002: The Political Economy of "the War on Terrorism"

I wrote the following essay in March 1998, during the last major political-military confrontation of the US government with the Baathist regime of Iraq. It might be useful to review it now when the Bush Administration is preparing for an attack on Iraq to bring about a "regime change."

In it is an analysis of the political economic thinking that is at the basis of Bush's "war on terrorism" (stage two: "The Axis of Evil"). The key argument of this doctrine is very simple:

(1) Almost any advanced technological production process can be used to create "weapons of mass destruction."

(2) Any such production process not directly controlled by a multinational corporation (MNC) headquartered in the US (or Japan or Western Europe) can be used by a government to create weapons of mass destruction.

(3) No goverment outside a list agreed upon by the US government ought to have the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction. Hence,

No government (whether democratically elected or not) outside of the agreed list whose advanced technology is not controlled by an acceptable MNC can be allowed to exist.

Regeneration, A Monthly Anarchist/Libertarian Communist Paper from Los Angeles in Spanish
and English

http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~gonzo/regeneration/

A small group of local anarchists has recently started a paper in the tradition of Ricardo Flores Magon's Regeneracion, which was published in Los Angeles from 1910-1918. Regeneration is an anarchist monthly newsletter of local politics, events and culture for Southern California. Our goal is a libertarian communist society and an end to capitalism, racism, patriarchy, the state and other bad stuff. We see education as
vital to building the revolutionary movement and we hope the distribution of news and analyses aids this task. Anyone is welcome to submit articles to the newsletter. We ask that they be relevant to Los Angeles residents, and that they tell the story from an anarchist perspective (we interpret these criteria very broadly!). We would especially like submissions of artwork, book reviews, movie reviews, etc. and announcements of local
events.

Report from Anarchist Bolivia

Juventudes Libertarias

Anarchist ideas are returning to Bolivia, unitiing different generations and demanding their place in history. The first months of the year have been fertile for acratic activity.
The anarchist-communist group Juventudes Libertarias in Sucre has launched the second number of its periodic "A LAS CALLES" ["To the streets!" -- trans.] together with the first issue of a more political publication called "EL YUNQUE DE ACRACIA" ["The Anvil of Anarchy" -- trans.].