[APR-news] Alternative Press Week in Review - November 24, 2003

Mon Nov 24 23:38:15 EST 2003

www.altpr.org

Alternative Press Week in Review

Your Guide Beyond the Mainstream 

November 24, 2003 

A weekly roundup of news, announcements, articles and other items of interest.

http://www.bushdraft.com

Bush Draft

Exposing the truth behind the Bush plan to bring back the draft

http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/draft-board-booklet.htm

Draft Board Member Information Booklet

http://www.ftaaimc.org/en/2003/11/1997.shtml

Shooting Protesters in the Back

Sequence of photos shows Miami police shooting Nikki Hartman in the back while she was running away from the approaching police who gave no order to disperse and no warning that they were about to open fire.

Articles of the Week

http://www.counterpunch.org/scahill11242003.html

The Miami Model: Paramilitaries, Embedded Journalists and Illegal Protests

Jeremy Schahill, CounterPunch

After last week, no one should call what Timoney runs in Miami a police force. It's a paramilitary group. Thousands of soldiers, dressed in khaki uniforms with full black body armor and gas masks, marching in unison through the streets, banging batons against their shields, chanting, "back back back." There were armored personnel carriers and helicopters. The forces fired indiscriminately into crowds of unarmed protesters. Scores of people were hit with skin-piercing rubber bullets; thousands were gassed with an array of chemicals. On several occasions, police fired loud concussion grenades into the crowds. Police shocked people with electric tazers. Demonstrators were shot in the back as they retreated. One young guy's apparent crime was holding his fingers in a peace sign in front of the troops. They shot him multiple times, including once in the stomach at point blank range.

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_3491.shtml

Government Closes Ranks Against Civil Protests

Les Blough, Axis of Logic
Last Friday, they attacked retreating protestors in Miami in what Tom Hayden called "The Miami Model" [of suppression]". As the Neocon-Bush regime gets deeper into trouble with their war-crimes in Iraq, we can expect them to become more violent toward those who will ultimately shut them down here at home.  

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/112203Conover/112203conover.html

Welcome to America where freedom reigns
Bev Conover, Online Journal

While George W. Bush was in Britain paying lip service to freedom and insisting democracy would succeed in Iraq, police in Miami, Florida, were busy stifling peaceful dissent against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) summit with tear gas, pepper spray, Tasers, rubber bullets and batons.

http://www.wiretapmag.org/story.html?StoryID=17210

What is the FTAA?
Ali Tonak, WireTap
The FTAA would effectively expand NAFTA to all of the western hemisphere. By opening up the markets of large economies such as Brazil and Argentina, the FTAA would crush the local autonomy of indigenous communities, put labor under immense pressure from corporate control, and devastate one of the world's most biodiverse environments.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Solo_Free-Trade-Honduras.htm

The "Free Trade" History Eraser: Honduras, Maquilas and Popular Protest in Latin America
Toni Solo, Dissident Voice
Three things hold people's attention currently in Latin America, the nationwide protest in Bolivia in defense of the country's natural resources, the ongoing popular defense of the Chavez government in Venezuela and the heavy political defeats suffered by President Uribe in Colombia. Uribe's party lost humiliatingly both the mayoral elections in Bogota and the national referendum on his government's policies. These events represent serious unraveling of US government aims in Latin America.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=4556

Miami's Trade Troubles

Mark Engler, ZNet

Contrary to the Bush Administration's spin, the Free Trade Area of the Americas met defeat in militarized Miami.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/nyc-n22.shtml

New York police assault fundraiser for anarchist group
Jamie Chapman, WSWS
Sunday's police raid is particularly ominous in light of a recent New York Times report on the NYPD's plans to protect the Republican National Convention-scheduled in New York City for just before the third anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks-from the protest demonstrations that are already being organized. The city's deputy police commissioner for intelligence is David Cohen, a former high-level CIA official who was hired by Mayor Michael Bloomberg after 35 years with the CIA.

http://www.pressaction.com/pablog/archives/001163.html#001163

Anarchy and the FBI

Mickey Z, Press Action

If there was ever a fail-safe, catch-all band of villains, it's the anarchists. Evoke the term "anarchist" and everyday citizens look the other way when law enforcement (sic) agencies bend the rules. Whether it's the Palmer raids of 1918-21, the deportation of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, the devastating impact of the FBI Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), it's nothing new.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j112403.html

FBI Eye on the Antiwar Guy: Our old republic gets a 'makeover' in wartime
Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com
Under the grossly misnamed "Patriot" Act, any demonstration where a fight breaks out can be classified as a "terrorist activity" - and all the participants and organizers rounded up as "enemy combatants." The legal groundwork for wholesale repression has certainly been laid.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4800303-103677,00.html

In the line of fire: The policing of mass demonstrations is becoming increasingly repressive and politicized
Katharine Ainger, The Guardian
In the face of attempts to demonise protest in the eyes of the public, it is important to remember one thing. While there certainly are frightening men dressed in black and prepared to kill swarming all over London this week, they are guarding the president. 

http://www.strike-the-root.com/3/blow/blow7.html

Rise of the American KGB
Joe Blow, Strike the Root
Political opponents, dissenters, non-voters, gun owners, anarchists, militia members, tax and war protesters, and many writers all present perceived threats to State agents. As such, they are much easier to control if they are in prison. From the State's perspective, America today is a target-rich environment, and Congress is about to deliver a huge load of new ammunition to the American KGB, which has already implemented other Soviet-style KGB tactics.  

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/2376/?PHPSESSID=0fdd1bb94dccf39382386eb85107749d

The Fear Americans NEED is Fear of U.S. Government Totalitarianism
Stan Moore, Media Monitors

The signs are clear and they are all around us. Miami cops are shooting citizens on the street who dare voice their protestations to policies benefiting corporations and harming U.S. citizens. John Ashcroft is rolling back constitutional protections in order to "protect" U.S. citizens from "terrorism". 

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/EDW311A.html

General Tommy Franks calls for Repeal of US Constitution
Michel Chossudovsky, globalresearch.ca
Frank's interview suggests that an Al Qaeda sponsored terrorist attack will be used as a "trigger mechanism" for a military coup d'état in America.  Frank is alluding to a so-called "Pearl Harbor type event" which would be used as a justification for declaring a State of emergency, leading to the establishment of a military government. In many regards, the militarisation of civilian State institutions is already functional under the facade of a bogus democracy.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0311h.asp

The Government's War on Children
Sheldon Richman, FFF

Thus the "war on drugs" is an exercise in authoritarianism that has nothing to do with the welfare of the American people. Of course it is a big part of the school curriculum: schooling's main purpose is to mold children into Good Citizens who will obey the state without question. 

http://www.americas.org/News/Features/200311_NovDec/SOA_Turck.htm

School of Assassins
Mary Turck, americas.org
The following military men are all murderers: Colonel Byron Lima Estrada of Guatemala, General Juan Orlando Zepeda of El Salvador, and General Juan López Ortiz of Mexico. What do these men have in common? They were all trained at the U.S. army's School of the Americas. Because of them, and because of thousands of others like them, people around the world refer to the School of the Americas as the School of Assassins.

http://www.bigleftoutside.com/archives/000255.php#more

20 Stratfor Lies About Latin America

Al Giordano, Big Left Outside
Wow. I just read something called a "Free Intelligence Briefing" by Stratfor.com titled "Latin America: Racial Revolt in the Making." Stratfor is one of these snake-oil disinfo sales firms that traffics in "intelligence briefings" for people gullible enough to pay for them. Imagine that: you can get lied to for free all over this great land, but some people actually pay to be deceived!

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/112403A.shtml

Donkeys of Mass Destruction
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout    
Halliburton had fashioned huge siege walls to protect the Palestine Hotel, an interesting fact in and of itself. One is forced to wonder exactly how a company whose purpose is to pull oil out of the ground came to be so adept at preparing military-style defenses. More interesting, though, is the fact that those defenses were defeated by donkeys. Not anthrax, not botulinum toxin, not VX gas, not with any of the 30,000 munitions Bush claims Iraq possessed, not with a nuclear bomb fashioned with material from Niger, and not with the help of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Halliburton was attacked by pack mules. 

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Petersen_Teflon-Terror.htm

Imperial Teflon Terrorism
Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice

Political scientist and ex-marine C. Douglas Lummis boldly declared: "Air bombardment is state terrorism, the terrorism of the rich. It has burned up and blasted apart more innocents in the past six decades than have all the antistate terrorists who have ever lived. Something has benumbed our consciousness against this reality."

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/AZI311B.html

Blood, Oil, Guns And Bullets
Aziz Choudry, globalresearch.ca
Terror, invasion, occupation and militarization are hallmarks of the US-led corporate recolonisation of Iraq. But they have long been the hallmarks of colonialism and imperialism the world over.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0311/S00132.htm

On Lies and Liberation

Robert S. Rodvik, Scoop
A careful examination of U.S. foreign policy history reveals over 400 overt military interventions and over 6,000 covert interventions into at least 100 countries, killing millions of innocents.

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_3440.shtml

The Ingenuity of the Iraqi Resistance Forces, and "Exit Strategy"

Les Blough, Axis of Logic
The U.S. genocide in Iraq has taken on the profile of the Israeli genocide in Palestine - mass, indiscriminate destruction, and attacks on civilian populations in continued attempts to crush the human will and spirit.  The city of Tikrit offers just one of many examples for this comparison of the U.S. and Israel wars. The U.S. has turned Tikrit into another West Bank and Gaza Strip.  

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Solomon_Occupied-Media.htm

Linking the Occupation of Iraq With the "War on Terrorism"
Norman Solomon, Dissident Voice

Whether you're selling food from McDonald's or cars from General Motors or a war from the U.S. government, repetition is crucial for making propaganda stick. Bush's promoters will never tire of depicting the war on Iraq as a war on terrorism. And they certainly appreciate the ongoing assists from news media. 

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=4540

I Know When Bush Is Lying: His Lips Move
John Pilger, New Statesman
Their lying has finally become satire. Bush told David Frost that the world really had to change its attitude about Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons because they were "very advanced".  

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5271.htm

We Are Paying The Price For An Infantile Attempt To Reshape The Middle East
Robert Fisk, The Independent

Bush claimed yet again that we "tolerated" the dictatorships of the Middle East. Rubbish. We created them, Saddam's regime being the most obvious example. 

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2003%20Opinion%20Editorials/November/19%20o/Censored%20&%20Scripted%20Media%20By%20Mushahid%20Hussain.htm

Censored & Scripted Media 
Mushahid Hussain, Al-Jazeera
Earlier, two major American national newspapers, reputed for their influence and independence, had to admit in print that their coverage of the Iraq War was distorted, exaggerated, forged and based on factual inaccuracies. In effect, they had become, wittingly or unwittingly, propaganda tools in Pentagon's 'Information Warfare' as part of the 'war on terror'.

http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_7173.shtml

Worse than crimes

William S. Lind, Washington Dispatch

Thus far, Operation Iron Hammer has included calling in F-16s to drop bombs and using heavy artillery on targets in Baghdad itself. If sealing off towns and bulldozing orchards did not do enough to encourage our enemies, Operation Iron Hammer certainly will. Not only does it telegraph desperation, not strength, but it also drives uncommitted Iraqis straight into the arms of the resistance.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5249.htm

Baghdad Burning

Girl Blog from Iraq

They've been bombing houses in Tikrit and other areas! Unbelievable. I'm so angry it makes me want to break something!!!! What the hell is going on?! What do the Americans think Tikrit is?! Some sort of city of monsters or beasts? The people there are simple people. Most of them make a living off of their land and their livestock- the rest are teachers, professors and merchants- they have lives and families

http://www.socialistworker.org/2003-2/477/477_05_Pilger.shtml

They put the lie to their own propaganda

John Pilger, Socialist Worker
The occupation does have parallels with Vietnam, but the closest likeness is the Soviet disaster in Afghanistan. And it really hasn't begun in earnest yet. That will happen when the Shia make their move. I understand that a Shia army is quietly forming; they have a tradition of patience, and they will wait for their moment, just as they did under the Shah in Iran. The occupation and Bush are in deep trouble.

http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node.php?id=1010&PHPSESSID=1ee95412075260196177c55f7504b5f9

Hurtling toward the abyss: Hanan Ashrawi interview
Jon Elmer, FromOccupiedPalestine

We were slated for obliteration in 1948, we were told that we didn't exist. People thought we would disappear, people thought we would be dissolved, people thought we would accept the fact of our negation. But we didn't. We persisted, we endured, we stayed on our own land, with our own culture and history and rights. And we will continue. 

http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=263836&lang=e&dir=news

Anatomy of a News Report on Palestine

Les Blough, Al Bawaba

The corporate, western media never confronts a simple reality that lies deeply imbedded in 50 years of history: Foreigners, largely from Eastern Europe came to Palestine 50 years ago, razed 300 to 600 Palestinian villages, terrorized and expelled their inhabitants, stole their lands, forced them to live in the squalor of "refugee camps" and have oppressed them ever since their arrival.

http://www.resonancemag.com/york_zinn.html

Duty of Expression: Howard Zinn and Thom Yorke

Sarah Burton, Resonance Magazine
Radiohead icon and author of "People's History of the United States" debate the artist's role in making the world a better place.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=455_0_4_0_C

The Beehive Collective
Hank Hoffman, In These Times
Images of human beings don't appear in the world conjured in the posters of the Beehive Design Collective. But, filtered through an intricate narrative of metaphor and allegory, the posters depict a world recognizably and disturbingly our own. It is the world of corporate globalization-contemporary colonialism and imperialism-and people's resistance to it, all explained in pictures.

http://www.hipmama.com/node/view/357

Revolution or Regression?
Bee Lavender, Hip Mama
The "opt out revolution" described in the article comes from an inherent position of privilege. It is neither a phenomenon nor a trend, because it effects a limited number of women with sufficient economic resources that they can make rational choices. In premise and practice the idea of upper class women staying home to raise their children is merely a continuation of the Victorian and Edwardian ideal of womanhood. What about the rest of us? 

NewsWire

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1122-09.htm

F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/21/1069027333534.html

FBI used murderers as informants for decades, allowed innocent men to be sentenced to death to protect secret operation

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe112203.html

Patriot Act Expansion Moves Through Congress

http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=23954

New bill threatens intellectual freedom in area studies

http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/latimes32.html

Mission Creep Hits Home: American armed forces assuming major new domestic policing and surveillance roles

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=03/11/19/9495731

Protesters feel Big Brother watching

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031115/ap_on_re_us/patriot_act_nevada

Opposition to Patriot Act swells

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=tEnXCy5R13&Content=303

Center for Constitutional Rights Launches Campaign to "Indict" Attorney General John Ashcroft

http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/paperboy.cfm?id=1292792003

Britain preparing for 'red alert' in unprecedented peacetime move that would see the streets of Britain flooded with armed police

http://www.sundayherald.com/38267

UK wants sweeping new powers to curb civil liberties

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2003/11/23/army_reserve_battling_an_exodus/

US Army Reserve fell short of reenlistment goals, fears crippling exodus from the armed services

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=17852&archive=true

Can't meet the re-enlistment quotas? Reduce the quotas! This year's re-enlistment success comes after the Army dropped its goals twice over the past 12 months

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18775

Pentagon Halts Scheduled Retirements, Discharges, and Rotations of Soldiers

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/17/Tampabay/Doubts_when_duty_calls.shtml

Soldiers coming home present military with new challenge: What if some of them don't want to return to duty?

http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1726~1768911,00.html

Oakland school district turns over names and phone numbers of 4,000 students to terrorist recruiters

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=0-ARMYPAPER-2396397.php

National Guard pay 'meltdown': 94% of mobilized had financial woes

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/US/pilots_security_031121.html

Two U.S. Army pilots speak out about the vulnerability of their aircraft. Their reward: criminal charges

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAW30SXBND.html

Army seeks answers to troop suicides

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1119-08.htm

"We are one stressed-out reservist away from a massacre"

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/22/politics/22MILI.html

Army Is Planning for 100,000 G.I.'s in Iraq Till 2006

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1120-03.htm

Bush Says He'll Raise Troop Level in Iraq if Needed

http://www.retropoll.org/press_release_poll03.htm

Poll: One in three Americans believe Bush should face impeachment

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html

War Crimes: US hawk Richard Perle admits invasion was illegal

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1896&e=2&u=/nm/20031118/us_nm/iraq_hammer_dc

U.S.'s 'Iron Hammer' Code Name 1st Used by Nazis

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=464771

Operation Iraqi Freedom: Imprisoned by razor wire as Americans turn Tikrit into Iraq's own West Bank

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-11/1069138364307900.xml

GIs razing homes: "What's happening in Iraq is just like Palestine"

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/deen1.html

US Gets Control of $10 Billion UN Oil-for-Food Program - proceeds from oil sales goes in the coffers of CPA headed by Paul Bremer

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe112003.html

New Leak Smells of Neo-Con Desperation

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=7928

Iraq's US-installed Governing Council bans Al-Arabiya from Iraq after it broadcast a Saddam Hussein tape

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-11-20-anti-americanism_x.htm

Official warns anti-U.S. mood is growing

http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId=Cp72B0eidAxjHCs1ICMvTzxi

Winning Hearts and Minds: Bremer Fires 28,000 Iraqi Teachers

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/11/24/national0314EST0442.DTL&type=printable

10,000 demand closing of terrorist training camp in Fort Benning

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20031124/UANAL24/International/Idx

The downfall of Shevardnadze had its roots in the rivalry between the United States and Russia

http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1292472003

Israel threatens strikes on Iranian nuclear targets

http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/367649|top|11-21-2003::18:06|reuters.html

U.S. Detonates 'Mother of All Bombs' in Florida Test

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/112003_kokal.html

Mystery Surrounds Death of State Department Official

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=465406

Israelis leave their land, forced out by a battered economy and years of violence

http://www.msnbc.com/news/994931.asp

Doubts grow within Israeli Army

http://www.fair.org/activism/usnews-bushsway.html

"Bush's Way" Unchallenged in U.S. News & World Report

http://www.terradaily.com/2003/031119092535.t70a5roc.html

China's rising grain prices could signal global food crisis

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/17/1069027021940.html

Editor deemed 'national threat'

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EK19Ak02.html

Al-Jazeera's English Experiment in Trouble

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