Pentagon hires image firm to explain airstrikes

By Warren P. Strobel
and Jonathan S. Landay

Washington, DC, Oct. 19— The Pentagon has hired a well-known Washington public-relations firm to help it explain US military strikes in Afghanistan to global audiences, US officials confirmed Thursday. It’s part of a broader Bush administration campaign to try to reverse a rising tide of opposition in the Islamic world.

The firm, the Rendon Group, has worked in the past for US government agencies, including the CIA, which paid it to boost the image of the Iraqi National Congress, a US-backed group of Iraqis opposed to the rule of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

That effort in the mid-’90s ended with an investigation by the CIA’s inspector general over how a reported $23 million was spent on behalf of the Iraqi National Congress and its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, current and former intelligence officials said.

For the anti-terrorism public-relations war, the Pentagon is paying Rendon to monitor news media in 79 countries; conduct focus groups; create a counterterrorism website that will provide information on terrorist groups and the US campaign against terrorism; and recommend ways the US military can counter disinformation and improve its own public communications.

“The war on terrorism started without notice,” said Lt. Col. Kenneth McClellan, a Pentagon press officer. “We needed a firm that could provide strategic counsel immediately. We were interested in someone that we knew could come in quickly and help us orient to the challenge of communicating to a wide range of groups around the world.”

McClellan said the initial contract, awarded without bidding, is for $397,000 and lasts 120 days, with an option to extend it for up to one year. Officials at the company declined comment, citing a confidentiality agreement in the contract.

The Bush administration has been widely criticized, both at home and abroad, for being slow to realize the importance of images in the war on terrorism. It is struggling to counter a widespread perception in the Islamic world that the war in Afghanistan is a war on Islam and that the United States is indifferent to civilian casualties.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this week, “To the extent we need to do a better job to make sure that people are not confused as to what this is about, then we darn well ought to do a better job.”

“We are clearly losing the ‘hearts and minds’ issue,” said one official involved in the administration spin effort, describing it as “not a very well-organized effort.” The official requested anonymity.

In recent days, the administration has dispatched waves of officials for international television interviews, particularly on the widely watched Arab station Al-Jazeera. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has appeared on Metro TV in Indonesia, where anti-American protests have been widespread, and Great Britain’s ITN.

But initial analyses indicate that the outreach effort still has a long way to go.

An Al-Jazeera interview of Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice “continued to garner significant press attention,” but Arabic press commentators in Morocco and Saudi Arabia “found nothing new,” said a State Department review of foreign media reporting Thursday.

“They claimed that the US is offering Arabs a ‘false equation,’ i.e. the war against terrorism is not against Islam or Arabs — nevertheless, it is Muslims and Arabs who will have to pay for Sept. 11,” the review said. The choice of the Rendon Group to advise the Pentagon may not be a coincidence, given its past work on behalf of the Iraqi opposition.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Abortion foes use anthrax threat to spread fear

By William Booth

Oct. 21— As she has done for years, Carol Westfall followed strict security protocols last Monday. When the mail arrived at her Cleveland abortion clinic, Westfall brought the envelopes into her office. She closed the door and sat alone. She got out a plastic biohazard waste bag and put on rubber gloves.

But this particular letter did not look threatening. Just the opposite: It appeared to be official correspondence from the US government.

“I took the letter out of the envelope and powder just fell everywhere,” said Westfall, executive director of the Cleveland Surgi-Center. Cream-colored dust was on her face and hands, on her clothes and desk, floating in the air. “Then I saw the words on the letter, and the words were, ‘Army of God, you’ve been exposed to anthrax, you’re dead.’”

Army of God? Westfall knew that name as well as millions of Americans have come to know the name “al Qaeda.” It is a loose affiliation of extremist antiabortion advocates under whose banner clinics have been bombed and abortion providers assassinated.

In the past five days, more than 130 clinics and doctor’s offices that provide abortion services have been sent letters threatening death by anthrax. Almost all the letters contained a suspicious brown or white powder, and almost all of them came in similar business envelopes with false return addresses from the “US Secret Service” or the “US Marshals Service.” And of those that were opened, several mentioned the Army of God.

So far, none of the letters have tested positive for anthrax microbes, and most abortion providers do not expect them to. They’ve received similar threats in the past — more than 80 letters threatening anthrax exposure were mailed to clinics between October 1998 and January 2000 — and all of them turned out to be hoaxes.

Instead, the providers suspect that the extraordinary times have emboldened antiabortion terrorists and offered them another opportunity to instill fear and attract attention.

Still, there is a palpable new concern. If antiabortion terrorists can learn to make bombs, maybe — now that lethal anthrax strains have been found in letters sent to the Capitol and various media organizations — they can learn how to grow anthrax bacteria.

Morris Wortman, a gynecologist who provides abortion procedures in Rochester, NY, said that “Americans lost their innocence on September 11” about terrorism. “But I lost my innocence a long time ago,” he said. Like any doctor or staffer who provides abortions, Wortman has lived with the threat of terrorism for almost two decades.

The precautions the providers have learned to take offer other Americans a glimpse of a possible future — where all mail is seen as potentially harmful, where cameras record comings and goings and where the flip of a switch can immediately begin to tape-record a threatening phone call.

“We’re always on high alert,” said Mia Gossett, operations director for the Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women in Philadelphia, where the glass front doors are kept locked, a video camera is trained on the entranceway and an armed security guard is on duty the two days a week when abortions are performed. The Blackwell clinic also received an anthrax threat letter Monday.

Federal and local law enforcement authorities say the mass mailings appear to be the work of a group that is at least loosely organized. Investigators and the abortion providers say they assume the letters are being sent by domestic antiabortion terrorists.

Westfall says she has not heard from the state Health Department, the FBI, or her local police about the tests done on the material in the letter her clinic received.

“They told me testing it was not their highest priority,” she said. “I assume it will turn out to be negative, as the others were, but still my employees are pretty nervous and want to know.”

All together, more than 130 letters have been sent to clinics in 15 states on the East Coast, in the District and in the Midwest. Almost all of the letters were postmarked from Atlanta; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Washington, DC.

Source: Washington Post

Man’s choice of reading material keeps him from flying

By Gwen Shaffer

Oct. 18— On Wed., Oct. 10, Neil Godfrey arrived at Philadelphia International Airport around 9:30 am to catch his flight to Phoenix, where his father lives. He entered the airport, passed through the metal detector, proceeded through the security checkpoint, and sat down to read near his boarding gate. About 10 minutes had passed when a National Guardsman approached Godfrey.

“He told me to step aside,” Godfrey says. “Then he took my book and asked me why I was reading it.” The book, Hayduke Lives! by Edward Abbey, is about a radical environmentalist, George Washington Hayduke III, who blows up bridges, burns tractors, and sabotages other projects he believes are destroying the beautiful Southwest landscape.

Within minutes, Godfrey says, Philadelphia Police officers, Pennsylvania State Troopers, and airport security officials joined the National Guardsman. About 10 to 12 people examined the novel for 45 minutes, taking notes the entire time. They also questioned Godfrey about the purpose of his trip to Phoenix.

Eventually, one of the law enforcement officials told Godfrey his book was “innocuous” and he would be allowed to board the plane.

He sat in the waiting area for about another ten minutes before he was approached by a female United employee, who informed him that he wouldn’t be allowed to fly “for three reasons.” The first was that Godfrey was reading a book with an illustration of a bomb on the cover. Secondly, he purchased his ticket on Sept. 11. (Godfrey bought the ticket on Priceline.com shortly after midnight, at least eight hours before the World Trade Center was attacked).

The third reason cited by the United employee was that Godfrey’s Arizona driver’s license had expired, although the dates she indicated referred to the date the license was issued and the date that showed when Godfrey turned 21. Nonetheless, Godfrey was not allowed to board his flight. He reclaimed his luggage and was escorted out of the airport.

His mother then booked him on another flight to Phoenix, leaving the same day. Godfrey returned to the airport, leaving the Abbey novel at home. He exchanged it for a Harry Potter novel.

Back at the airport, Godfrey was pulled aside a second time. Although an airport security official declared that everything checked out fine, a National Guardsman standing nearby vetoed that decision.

“This time, they took my Harry Potter book and about four people studied it for 20 minutes,” Godfrey says.

Eventually, the supervisor of airport operations for United, Burt Zastera, refused to allow Godfrey on the plane. Zastera gave Godfrey a contact number he could call for a full explanation.

Godfrey’s father called that number and was told his son was banned from flying United because he cracked “a joke about bombs.”

“That is totally false,” Godfrey says, pointing out that no one at the airport ever mentioned this to him. Plus, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations stipulate that any passenger who jokes about explosives be arrested on the spot. By contrast, Godfrey was never charged or even accused of breaking the law. In fact, Philadelphia Police officers didn’t even file an incident report, according to department spokesman Cpl. Jim Pauley.

Source: Philadelphia City Paper: http://citypaper.net

Berkeley City Council calls for US to end war in Afghanistan

By Nate Tabak

Berkeley, California, Oct. 17— The Berkeley City Council called for an immediate end to US bombing in Afghanistan and condemned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in a series of divisive votes at a meeting Tuesday.

The resolution opposing US military action, approved Tuesday with lone support from the council’s five progressives, was first introduced a week ago and put Berkeley again under the national spotlight.

“It was a glib, thoughtless, knee-jerk response that has just ripped our city apart and caused tremendous pain when it wasn’t necessary,” said Council member Polly Armstrong, a centrist moderate.

The idea of a resolution opposing military action had been brewing among progressives for more than three weeks. The resolution, drafted by left-leaning progressive Councilmember Dona Spring and supported by her four progressive counterparts, urged President Bush and congressional representatives to “help break the cycle of violence as quickly as possible” by stopping the bombing and the endangerment of the innocent people in Afghanistan.

Instead, the terrorists should be brought to justice in a world court, Spring said.

Mayor Shirley Dean said it would be nearly impossible to bring the terrorists to court and insisted that “you have to take a strong action against the terrorists.” Dean said that since the resolution was first made public last week, her office has received thousands of e-mails from across the country lambasting the council. Some of the letters, which include death threats, left her staff in tears, she said.

Spring, who revised her original proposal after being “disavowed” by Dean and her three moderate allies in a biting statement released last week, criticized the lack of moderate support for the revised resolution, which she said was “seeking to be conciliatory” to the moderates.

Moderates on the council said they did not want to take a stand on the airstrikes in Afghanistan because the city’s residents had many opinions on the attacks and had no clear consensus.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington urged the council to be “equally as brave” as Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, who was the lone voice of opposition to the “War Powers Resolution” passed shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Worthington said it is “critical” that Berkeley question the government while many Americans are afraid to ask questions.

A competing resolution from Armstrong to commend President Bush for his response to the Sept. 11 attacks, including his patience in forging an alliance with 60 countries, was voted down by the council.

Source: The Daily Cal: www.dailycal.com

Neighbors sue to disband Suquamish tribe

By Paul Shukovsky

Oct. 18— The Suquamish Tribe wants to help impoverished members by building a low-income housing project on its reservation. But affluent, non-Indian neighbors along scenic Agate Passage don’t like the idea.

So they are trying to force the tribe out of existence by filing suit in US District Court in Seattle. In their suit, the Angeline Avenue neighbors assert that the tribe was improperly recognized by the United States. They are also challenging the legitimacy of the boundaries of the reservation, which is on the Kitsap Peninsula across from Bainbridge Island.

The suit reflects a burgeoning conflict across America between tribes exercising their governmental powers and their non-Indian neighbors.

“These kinds of disputes are cropping up all over the country,” said John Echohawk, executive director of the Native American Rights Fund, an Indian legal-rights organization based in Colorado.

Because of growth, more and more non-Indians are moving onto or near tribal land. At the same time, tribes are exercising more political and economic power.

Along Angeline Avenue, for instance, neighbors say they are tired of the Suquamish Tribe’s zoning and land-use policies. They don’t want tribal police stopping them for traffic violations. They say it’s not fair because they have no voice in tribal government, no vote in tribal elections.

But Scott Crowell, a tribal official, says that’s a choice neighbors made when they moved onto an Indian reservation.

“They chose to move onto a foreign jurisdiction,” he said.

Crowell calls the lawsuit an affront to the tribe. “They don’t think we exist as a people,” he said.

“They don’t believe we exist as a government. But we’re not going anywhere; we’ve been here forever.”

At times, the rhetoric has become racially charged. Tensions peaked in May when vandals smashed a cross marking the grave of Chief Sealth, the legendary Suquamish and Duwamish leader for whom Seattle is named. A newspaper article about the tribe’s planned housing project was found at the scene. No one has been arrested.

Many Angeline Avenue residents, such as Tom Stoesser, say they were appalled by the desecration of the grave. And though Stoesser, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, says he does not begrudge the tribe the opportunity to build a housing project, he worries about the effects a new sewer system and additional traffic might have on his neighborhood.

A deal being brokered by Kitsap County Commissioner Chris Endresen to build a new access road bypassing Angeline Avenue would go a long way toward salving his concerns. But the basic conflict would remain.

“This land is not really tribal,” he said, waving an arm at Angeline Avenue. “The problem is (the Suquamish) are a sovereign nation. They have their own set of laws.”

Because of the tribe’s sovereign status, it does not have to comply with Kitsap County zoning rules.

The Suquamish land, known as the Port Madison Reservation, was established by treaty in 1856. Between 1886 and 1910, the United States split up most of the reservation land into allotments to individual Native Americans that ultimately resulted in a checkerboard of Indian and non-Indian ownership. In 1903, the US War Department acquired 70 acres of land from the tribe for cannon emplacements overlooking Agate Passage, the future site of Angeline Avenue. In 1926, the War Department said it no longer needed the land and sold it to a private company.

The lawsuit, filed by the Association of Property Owners/Residents of Port Madison, says that the “allotments were intended to discourage Indians from maintaining tribal relations ... to break up tribal land and terminate tribal existence.”

Relations between the Suquamish tribe and their neighbors have frequently been strained.

In the mid-1980s, the tribe failed in a lawsuit to gain title to the tidelands in front of Angeline Avenue. But in 1995, several Western Washington tribes, including the Suquamish, won a federal court ruling that the tribes retain a treaty right to gather shellfish on tidelands around Puget Sound. That decision still rankles some along Angeline Avenue, who don’t believe Indian tribes should have such treaty rights or sovereign status.

United Property Owners, a property rights group focusing on conflicts with Indian tribes, grew out of the shellfish litigation that unfolded on beaches such as the one along Angeline Avenue. Now, the organization has members in 37 states.

“I believe that Indians have the right to control only the portions of their reservations that are not privately owned,” said Barb Lindsay, the group’s executive director.

“It is not fair to have zoning authority over people who have no voice or vote in the government. It’s a problem we are hearing about from states all over the nation.”

Lindsay does not believe tribes should have special legal status. Allen, the former president of the National Congress of American Indians, sees it differently.

“If you make a choice to live within an Indian reservation border, you must learn to be respectful of the tribe, its culture and its authority to protect its own interests,” he said.

“If you have a problem with that, then make another choice. The Indians are not going to go anywhere,” he said. “We now know how to fight back, based on your rules.”

Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer

Media suppress news: Bush lost election to Gore

By Charles Laurence

Washington, DC, Oct. 22— The most detailed analysis yet of the contested Florida votes from last year’s presidential election — with the potential to question President George Bush’s legitimacy — is being withheld by the news organizations that commissioned it.

Results of the inspection of more than 170,000 votes rejected as unreadable in the “hanging chad” chaos of last November’s vote count were ready at the end of August.

The study was commissioned early this year by a consortium including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNN. The cost was more than $2 million.

Now, however, spokesmen for the consortium say that they decided to postpone the results of the analysis by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago for lack of resources and lack of interest in the face of the enormous story after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Newspapers were saying last week that the final phase of the analysis, counting the 170,000 votes, had been postponed.

“Our belief is that the priorities of the country have changed, and our priorities have changed,” said Steven Goldstein, vice-president of corporate communications at Dow Jones, owner of The Wall Street Journal.

Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for The New York Times, said: “The consortium agreed that because of the war, because of our lack of resources, we were postponing the vote-count investigation. But this is not final. The intention is to go forward.”

However, David Podvin, an investigative journalist, said he had been tipped off that the consortium was covering up the results.

He refused to disclose his source, other than to describe him as a former media executive whom he knew “as an accurate conduit of information” and who claimed that the consortium “is deliberately hiding the results of its recount because [former Democrat vice-president Al] Gore was the indisputable winner.”

He also claims that a New York Times journalist involved in the recount project told “a former companion” that the Gore victory margin was big enough to create “major trouble for the Bush presidency if this ever gets out.”

“The goosiness, the sensitivity, that the press which organized this analysis is now showing to publishing the results and the persistence of questions about the Florida ballots raise questions,” said Dr. John Mason, a professor of political science at William Paterson University, in New Jersey. “There is a sensitivity over the legitimacy of this president.”

NORC staff have been puzzled by the idea that the media would lack the resources because, they said, they had computer programs already designed and fitted for the final count.

Source: The Telegraph of London via Sydney Morning Herald

Two Sikh men attacked near Seattle

Seattle-Tacoma, Washington, Oct. 22–– Two Sikhs were attacked in the suburbs around Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, apparently in the mistaken belief that they are Muslims, authorities said.

Sikh men who grow beards and wear turbans are sometimes mistaken for Muslims. The Sikh religion originates in India. Since the terrorist attacks, a number of Sikhs have been assaulted, and a Sikh gasoline station owner in Arizona was killed.

Karnail Kail Singh, who owns the SeaTac Crest Motor Inn, said his assailant threatened him at the motel two or three weeks ago. He was on the telephone quoting room rates at about 8am Friday, Oct. 19, when the man returned, and shouted “You still here? Go to Allah!” and knocked him unconscious with two blows from a cane. He required nine stitches in the head.

“I’m scared. There’s no security,” said Kail Singh, 47, a US citizen from India who does not wear a beard or turban.

A 60-year-old man was arrested nearby and jailed for investigation of second-degree assault. He may be charged with malicious harassment, a felony carrying tougher penalties, sheriff’s deputies said.

The other victim, 23-year-old Rubinder Singh, was crossing the street about 8pm Saturday, Oct. 20, when he was hit in the face from behind and knocked to the ground. He refused medical attention. “It’s just because of my skin color that they hit me,” he said.

Police were looking for a boy of about 14, whom a witness reported hearing say, “I’m going to bomb on him,” shortly before the attack.

Source: Associated Press

ALF liberate 2000 mink, 162 birds from facilities

Iowa, Oct. 18— This week the underground Animal Liberation Front (ALF) targeted two facilities in Iowa, releasing thousands of mink from a fur farm and rescuing numerous birds from an animal research breeder. Both places have previously been targeted by the ALF.

This morning, in two separate communiqués sent to the ALF Press Office, ALF activists claimed responsibility for both actions. They occurred in the same state within three days of each other.

In the late hours of Oct. 16, the ALF entered an unnamed fur farm in Jewell, Iowa and opened all of the mink cages, releasing an estimated 2000 mink into the surrounding area. Press Office records show that this fur farm is Isebrand Fur Farm, which was targeted previously by ALF activists two years ago on Aug. 21, 1998 when 3000 mink were released. This most recent action was the 70th time animals have been released from a fur farm in North America since the campaign against fur farms began over six years ago.

In Glenwood, Iowa, on Oct. 18, the ALF also entered several sheds at Double T Farms and cut the wire mesh fencing to pens holding pigeons, ducks, and geese, releasing an estimated 162 birds. The statement said that the sheds were damaged or destroyed.

Double T Farms breeds various species of birds for use in animal experimentation.

The ALF threatened that “there will be further visits until (the) operation is shut down.”

Source: North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office

5,000 march in San Francisco to protest military actions

By Marilee Enge

Oct. 21— Thousands of anti-war demonstrators marched in San Francisco on Saturday. “One, two, three, four. We don’t want your racist war,” the marchers chanted, holding signs that read, “No racist scapegoating” and “Peace is patriotic.”

The march was one of the largest, and perhaps the most emotional, anti-war events to be held in the Bay Area since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. An estimated 5,000 people walked from the Ferry Building to the Civic Center, where speakers invoked government conspiracies and denounced US military action in Afghanistan.

Many questioned President Bush’s motives for attacking Afghanistan and said they wanted to see hard evidence of the involvement of Osama bin Laden and his network. They suggested the events of Sept. 11 were retribution for US policies in Israel and Iraq.

“Why don’t they tell us what proof they have?” asked Malalai Arsalai, a 22-year-old student at De Anza College and member of the Muslim Student Association. “If they’re after one person, why would they kill thousands?”

Arsalai said her family fled war-torn Afghanistan when she was 4 months old. She calls herself a Muslim first and an American citizen second.

“I don’t know exactly how to respond,” to the terrorist attacks, she said. “Maybe they should get the troops out of Saudi Arabia. Maybe they should stop supporting Israel. Maybe they should stop sanctions against Iraq.”

She passed out a flier that showed smoke billowing from the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11. “Why?” it asks. “1,200,000 Dead Iraqis.”

There were also more traditional calls for peace, including one by Father Louis Vitale, a Franciscan and pastor of St. Boniface Church in San Francisco.

“We’ve got to stop the hatred,” he said. San Francisco’s patron, St. Francis, helped change the Europe of his time when he refused to join the Crusades and fight against Islamic people, Vitale said. “We’re all meant to be brothers and sisters on this planet.”

Source: San Jose Mercury News