Louis Lingg writes
Dissent Magazine posted the following brief piece by Iraqi dissident architect and author Kanan Makiya (Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, published under the psuedonym Samir Khalil).

I
support a war on the grounds that the current regime of the Ba'ath
Party in Iraq is a criminal state that has gone beyond the pale
even as judged by the very low standards of the Middle East region,
and certainly of the international community. My position rests
on the exceptional nature of Ba'athi totalitarianism in Iraq (and
is therefore not extendable to all the nasty states that exist
in the world). Moreover, it derives from the particular historical
experience-dating back to the 1991 Gulf War-that binds the United
States to Iraq. The outcome of that war, which left the dictator
in place and precipitated one of the harshest sanction regimes
of recent times, places an extraordinary moral responsibility
upon the shoulders of the United States to finish that which it
in a very important sense left unfinished. Such a responsibility
might not exist were it not for that particular historical experience.
One does not transport half a million men halfway across the world
and then leave the people of a country, who were not responsible
for their state's outrage, broken and bleeding for ten years with
no end in sight to the torment that they are going through.

Anarchist Prisoners' Legal Aid Network writes:

"This statement was sent to a contact of the Anarchist Prisoners' Legal Aid Network by anarchist prisoner Rob los Ricos (Robert Thaxton). This is being circulated for March 18th, the International Day for Political Prisoners and anniversary of the Paris Commune. Listed after the statement are ways which you can help Rob."

"Circle A Cellmates"

Rob (Los Ricos) Thaxton

"I find you guilty."

This year started on an interesting note. On January 2nd, Oregon Department of Corrections Security Threat Group manager came by to visit. He threatened to send me into exile in Eastern Oregon -- far from my daughter in Portland -- if I didn't move out of the cell I shared with Brian McCarvill. Brian is currently suing ODOC over their mailroom policies, which result in the rejection of anarchist literature sent to him. This has been something that has bothered me the past 3 years -- I have over 200 mail violations notices concerning letters and publications sent to me here in prison. Their favorite reasons for such "violations" are because the publications are
"anarchist-related" or because of "STG symbol" -- in this case, a circled "a", a symbol used internationally for "anarchy".

"Rachel Corrie, In Memoriam"

Peter Bohmer

Rachel Corrie was an incredibly good person. I mourn and am very saddened

by her murder yesterday, March 16th, 2003. She was killed by a bulldozer as

the Israeli military ran over her as she was protesting the destruction of

Palestinian homes in Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

A Short History of Franco-US Discord

Paul-Marie de la Gorce, http://MondeDiplo.com/2003/03/07franceusa

The current frost between France and the United States is not new. They have often disagreed over the past 45 years: France refused to allow US missiles stationed on its soil, withdrew from Nato's command structure, and recognised communist China even though it horrified the US.

"Who is in Charge?"

Edward Said


The Bush administration's relentless unilateral march

towards war is profoundly disturbing for many reasons,

but so far as American citizens are concerned the

whole grotesque show is a tremendous failure in

democracy. An immensely wealthy and powerful republic

has been hijacked by a small cabal of individuals, all

of them unelected and therefore unresponsive to public

pressure, and simply turned on its head.

"International Future Humanity"

Franco Berardi (Bifo)

Some days ago I witnessed a debate on the USA/conflict on the Italian TV

current affairs programme the Infidel by Gad Lerner. There was an interview

with Dani Cohn Bendit that impressed me. The position of Cohn, Bendit,

Fischer, Sofri, and Liberation has recently undergone a mutation, that makes

of it the most interesting nucleus of contemporary Europeanism, an evolution

of the culture of 1968 that connects the liberal and reformist legacies in

order to combine them in a form of cosmopolitan and humanist

neo-enlightenment.

"The Intellectual Property Meme"

David Reed



Every time you utter the words "intellectual property" you

buy into the idea that all information bit patterns are or

should be inherently "owned" by somebody.

Anonymous Comrade writes

"Bush's Ultimate Thule"

By Mike Davis



In the early summer of 1951, a group of Inuit hunters, guiding a French anthropologist, returned to their homes at Thule in the northwest of Greenland after a daring expedition to Canada's Ellesmere Island. When they had left the year before, Thule was one of the most remote communities on earth: twenty igloos and a trading post established in 1910 by Greenland's national hero, Knud Rasmussen, to provide a base for his famed

ethnographic explorations.

Louis Lingg writes

"BuzzFlash.com has posted an interview with Daniel Ellsberg.

An excerpt: 'I remember reading once that George III said, "I desire what
is right. Therefore anyone who disagrees with me is a traitor." And that was the exact attitude and attribute
of kingship that our founders wanted to get away from and sought to do so by the way they designed the
Constitution. And we're moving away from their concept back to that of George III. In fact, when I look at
George Bush -- would that be George IV or V?

nolympics writes:

The Special Treatment of Iraq

By Perry Anderson

The prospect of a second war on Iraq raises a large number of questions, analytic and political. What are the intentions behind the impending campaign? What are likely to be the consequences? What does the drive to war tell us about the long-term dynamics of American global power? These issues will remain on the table for some time to come, outliving any assault this spring. The front of the stage is currently occupied by a different set of arguments, over the legitimacy or wisdom of the military expedition now brewing. My purpose here will be to consider the current criticisms of the Bush Administration articulated within mainstream opinion, and the responses of the Administration to them: in effect, the structure of intellectual justification on each side of the argument, what divides them and what they have common. I will end with a few remarks on how this debate looks from a perspective with a different set of premises.

read the rest at
http://counterpunch.org/anderson03082003.html"