Corporations charged with plundering patriotism

By Jim Lobe

Washington, DC, Nov. 6 (IPS)— Major US corporations are profiting far too much from the wave of patriotism that has swept the country since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, say civic, environmental, and labor groups.

They are pressing Congress to delay action on a mounting pile of legislation which, if approved, would add to the windfall big business and the wealthy have collected over the last six weeks.

Since Sept. 11, “members of Congress have served up a non-stop buffet of corporate pork legislation,” says Ralph Nader, the Green Party’s presidential candidate last year and the founder of a network of US public-interest and consumer groups.

“Under the guise of national security, our federal treasury is being raided and our democratic rights are being taken away while Congress feeds sympathetic campaign contributors at taxpayer expense, sends working people to fight, and leaves the unemployed, the disenfranchised, and American families to suffer,” Nader adds.

Nader and others say they are incensed by economic stimulus legislation in Congress that provides more than 200 billion dollars in tax breaks and related benefits to big corporations and upper-income taxpayers.

“Who would have thought that a national emergency would set off a feeding frenzy by corporations and the wealthy?” asks Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice.

The airline industry has been a special beneficiary of the post- Sep. 11 corporate bonanza. Congress approved a 15-billion-dollar bailout of already-troubled airline companies virtually before the dust had settled at the site of the fallen twin towers of Manhattan’s World Trade Center, even while some 150,000 aviation workers were being laid off by many of the same companies.

When asked to provide 2.5 billion dollars in extended unemployment benefits, job training, and health care for those workers, Republican senators, backed by President George W. Bush, filibustered the bill to death.

“The bailout doesn’t help the workers and doesn’t help the passengers,” says John Passacantando, director of the US section of Greenpeace.

The outrage over corporate profiteering appears to be growing, both in Congress and the mainstream media. While the airline bailout passed easily in early October, the House of Representatives split along party lines on the tax-cut package.

“At a time when the country is being urged to make sacrifices for the common good, the idea of well-to-do Americans lining up for a tax break is appalling,” the New York Times declared Oct. 25, the day after the House approved the stimulus bill in a 216-214 vote.

“The predators of Washington are up to their old tricks in pursuit of private plunder at public expense,” declared Bill Moyers, the country’s most prominent television documentary producer and former President Lyndon Johnson’s press secretary, in a speech last week. “In the wake of this awful tragedy wrought by terrorists, they are cashing in.”

Corporations and their lobbyists appear unfazed by the outrage, however. The mining, energy, pharmaceutical, insurance, and defense industries have mobilized hundreds of lobbyists to take advantage of the crisis atmosphere in Congress and elsewhere in the nation by gaining favorable new legislation.

Encouraged by energy companies, Bush, whose campaign was financed in major part by many of these same industries, has renewed his drive to get Congress to approve his energy plan, which would permit drilling in the environmentally sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and expand the use of nuclear power.

Environmental groups, which favor conservation and the development of alternative sources of energy, say nuclear power stations are especially vulnerable to terrorist attack, as would be any pipelines built to transfer oil from the ANWR.

“The administration and many in Congress are pushing energy legislation that will actually weaken national security,” says Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth.

US lawmakers rebuff world court at critical moment

By Jim Lobe and Abid Aslam

Washington, DC, Nov. 10 (IPS)— The administration of President George W. Bush faces a potential new obstacle to maintaining international support for its “war against terrorism” -- this one erected by US legislators.

At issue is the American Servicemen’s Protection Act (ASPA), an amendment to the State Department budget bill for 2002 that, if signed by Bush, would bar any US cooperation with the nascent International Criminal Court (ICC), even on a case-by-case basis.

A key Congressional conference committee approved the ASPA during a meeting late Thursday. The amendment also would prevent the administration from even sending a US delegation to negotiations to hammer out operational details of the tribunal, which is being set up in the Netherlands to prosecute war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity.

The decision attracted little immediate attention but could prove momentous, according to observers.

ICC proponents denounced the lawmakers’ action, calling it especially counter-productive at a moment when Washington needs international support in pursuit of the administration’s crusade against suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia, and as-yet unidentified terrorists and their supporters worldwide.

European countries have pleaded with Washington not to oppose the ICC. They include Germany, which has pledged troops to the US-led “war."

“This is the worst possible time to do something like this,” said Steve Dimoff, director of the Washington office of the non-governmental United Nations Association-USA. “It’s like telling everyone, ‘We really don’t need you guys’.”

The move also came as Bush prepared to appeal for greater international support of US efforts Saturday, at the opening of the UN General Assembly’s annual general debate.

“I’ll make the case,” Bush said of his speech, “that the time of sympathy is over. We appreciate the condolences. Now is the time for action.”

However, a State Department official poured water on the president’s chances. “Unless Bush vows to veto the bill -- something I don’t think he’ll do -- this is going to be seen as a real slap in the face by the other delegations,” said the official, who asked not to be identified.

It is not yet clear what precisely the administration will do about the conference committee’s action. The committee was formed to reconcile two different versions of an appropriations bill that includes the State Department’s budget.

The House of Representatives version included nothing about the ICC, but the House Majority Whip, unilateralist Republican Tom DeLay, prevailed upon the House conferees to yield to the Senate version of the bill, which included the ASPA.

The provision most objectionable to critics, the so-called Craig Amendment, states: “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act shall be available for cooperation with, or assistance or other support to, the International Criminal Court or the Preparatory Commission. This subsection shall not be construed to apply to any other entity outside the Rome Treaty.”

The last reference suggests that the amendment would not apply to tribunals already set up for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

Under this provision, “if the ICC were in the future to prosecute the world’s worst criminals, including those who attack the US or its interests, the US would be prohibited from working with the court,” said Heather Hamilton, program director at the non-governmental World Federalist Association.

This would appear to make it impossible, for example, for US troops to turn over Osama bin Laden or anyone else in al-Qaeda to the ICC.

Apart from this provision, the Bush administration endorsed the ASPA in a Sept. 25 letter to Senator Jesse Helms, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Helms has said he opposes the court because “instead of helping the United States go after real war criminals and terrorists, (it) has the unbridled power to intimidate our military people and other citizens with bogus, politicized prosecutions.”

The administration opposes the creation of the court for similar reasons but told Congress that the Senate provision would impede its efforts to promote US interests related to the court.

Among its other provisions, the ASPA bars military aid to other countries unless they agree to shield US troops on their territory from ICC prosecution and similarly restricts US troops from participating in UN peacekeeping operations unless the UN Security Council explicitly exempts them from prosecution.

The bill also authorizes “any action necessary” to free US troops who may be handed over to the court “improperly.”

“I cannot believe that at the very moment we are asking the world to join in apprehending the thugs and criminals who claimed 6,000 lives,” Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat, said last month when the Craig amendment was approved, “we would say we will have nothing to do with the establishment of an international criminal court.”

Proposals for an international criminal court have been circulated in one form or another since the Nuremberg Nazi war crime trials after World War II. A framework for the creation of the ICC was established under the 1998 Rome Treaty. It will enter into force when 60 of the 120 nations that signed the pact have ratified it. So far, 43 have and some observers believe the target will be reached by the middle of next year.

Only seven countries voted against the treaty, including the United States, China, Israel, and Iraq.

Muslim tortured in US prison

Nov. 4— A relative of a Pakistani who died in FBI custody last week claimed the detainee was tortured by US prison authorities.

Rafiq Butt, 42, was taken into custody by the FBI after the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington. He was arrested in New York, where he had been living for several years.

The FBI claimed that Butt died of cardiac arrest. He was being detained as a material witness and had not been charged with a crime.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Butt’s death on October 24, identifying him as 55-year-old Muhammed Butt and quoting a criminal justice official as saying that he died “of natural causes from a pre-existing heart condition.”

“He did not have anthrax. He was taking antibiotics, but he did not have anthrax,” Emily Hornaday told AFP by telephone.

According to AFP, Butt had been handed over to the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) on September 20 and had spent the last three weeks of his life in the Hudson County jail in northern New Jersey. Hornaday said he was “in the process of being deported.”

Butt’s body arrived in Lahore a few days ago and was immediately sent to Mayo Hospital Lahore for an autopsy, according to Aziz Butt, the dead man’s cousin.

Aziz Butt said that the autopsy report revealed marks on Rafiq Butt’s body suggesting he had been subjected to severe torture before his death. The report found multiple fractures in his cousin’s legs and chest, as well as deep bruises on the body, Aziz Butt said.

A spokesman for the Mayo hospital could not be reached for comment.

Aziz Butt said his family had faced serious difficulties in having his cousin’s body returned to Pakistan. He claimed FBI officials deliberately delayed sending the body back and initially insisted on burying the corpse in the United States.

He added that his family was considering legal action against the FBI and other relevant US agencies, who he claims are responsible for his cousin’s death.

“They have surpassed our police, which is blamed for custodial and extra-judicial killings,” said an emotional Aziz Butt. “Of course it was a murder. They have killed him without any proof.”

Turkish News online reported Thursday, Nov. 8 that some of the Muslim men jailed during the US investigation of the September 11 attacks are complaining about being held in solitary confinement, stripped, blindfolded, physically abused by guards or cellmates, and deprived of sleep.

“I was treated worse than an animal,” said Yazeed al-Salmi, a former housemate of one of the alleged hijackers. A Saudi living in California, al-Salmi said he was released last month from the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Manhattan.

As many as 100 people are being held in federal lockups in New York City alone as part of the investigation.

The only glimpse of the detainees’ lives behind bars has come from a few prisoners who have either been released or made appearances in open court.

Usama Awadallah, a Jordanian college student from San Diego, was held as a material witness for a month before he was charged Oct. 19 with lying to a grand jury about whether he knew one of the hijackers.

Source: Indymedia: www.indymedia.org

Eavesdropping rule on detainees called ‘terrifying’

By George Lardner Jr.

Washington, DC, Nov. 9— The Justice Department has decided to listen in on the conversations of lawyers with clients in federal custody, including people who have been detained but not charged with any crime, whenever that is deemed necessary to prevent violence or terrorism.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft approved the eavesdropping rule on an emergency basis last week, without the usual waiting period for public comment. It went into effect immediately, permitting the government to monitor conversations and intercept mail between people in custody and their attorneys for up to a year at a time.

The move, which the Justice Department said was necessary “in view of the immediacy of the dangers to the public,” stunned defense lawyers and civil libertarians. They assailed it as an unconstitutional attack on the right to counsel and, in the words of American Civil Liberties Union official Laura W. Murphy, “a terrifying precedent.”

The monitoring of attorney-client conversations is the latest in a series of extraordinary law enforcement measures the government has taken in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

President Bush last week signed the USA Patriot Act, a bill that gives the government a freer hand to conduct searches, detain or deport suspects, eavesdrop on Internet communications, monitor financial transactions and obtain electronic records on individuals. The administration also has promised to crack down on immigration violations, Congress is considering legislation to tighten airport security, and Ashcroft announced yesterday that he is reorganizing the Justice Department and FBI to concentrate on terrorism.

Until now, communications between inmates and their attorneys have been exempt from the usual monitoring of social phone calls and visits at the 100 federal prisons around the country.

According to a summary published in the Federal Register Oct. 31, the monitoring will be conducted without a court order whenever the attorney general certifies “that reasonable suspicion exists to believe that an inmate may use communications with attorneys or their agents to facilitate acts of terrorism.”

The definition of “inmate” previously covered only people in custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons, but it was changed to cover anyone “held as witnesses, detainees, or otherwise” by INS agents, US marshals, or other federal authorities. Since Sept. 11, the government has detained nearly 1,200 people, many on immigration violations. The Bush administration has declined to say how many have been released.

Explaining the new rule, the Justice Department said authorities “may have substantial reason to believe that certain inmates who have been involved in terrorist activities will pass messages through their attorneys (or the attorney’s legal assistant or an interpreter) to individuals on the outside for the purpose of continuing terrorist activities.”

The president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Irwin Schwartz of Seattle, denounced the eavesdropping as “an abomination” and said it would be challenged in court at the first opportunity.

“The Code of Professional Responsibility is quite clear: a lawyer must maintain confidentiality,” Schwartz said. “If we can’t speak with a client confidentially, we may not speak with him at all. And if we can’t do that, the client is stripped of his Sixth Amendment right to have a lawyer.”

The Justice Department said it will set up “procedural safeguards” to protect the right to counsel. Inmates and their attorneys will be notified “of the government’s listening activities,” and the monitoring will be done by a special “taint team” that will not disclose what it hears to federal prosecutors or investigators without approval by a federal judge, officials said.

Records of clearly privileged information, such as a discussion about a client’s defense, will not be retained by the monitors, the department said. “Apart from disclosures necessary to thwart an imminent act of violence or terrorism, any disclosures to investigators or prosecutors must be approved by a federal judge,” it added.

The critics were not mollified. “Who’s going to be on the taint team?” asked Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a nonprofit group in Washington. “The government says it’s building a mosaic, processing thousands of bits and pieces of information that may seem innocuous at first glance. How is the ‘taint team’ going to know if something a person says to a lawyer is part of the mosaic or not without sharing it with others? This seems to be a useless safeguard. What if they think what they overhear is in code?”

Martin said monitoring of witnesses and others who have not been convicted would be “particularly outrageous.” Murphy, who is director of the ACLU’s Washington national office, agreed, saying, “the idea that this could be happening to innocent people is really disturbing.” A lawyer’s effectiveness, she added, can be dramatically diminished if the government is listening in, making a client fearful of disclosing all that the attorney needs to know to mount a forceful defense.

The attorney-client eavesdropping authority is an addition to the “special administrative measures” the government has imposed on certain inmates since the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. They include solitary confinement, interception of mail, and restrictions on visitors and telephone calls. But until Ashcroft signed the new regulation, they were limited to 120-day periods. Now, all such steps can be ordered for a year at a time and renewed indefinitely at one-year intervals.

Source: Washington Post

Summit explores corporate, state control over citizens

By Sean Marquis

New York, New York, Nov. 10— Nov. 8 saw the opening of the “US Strategy Summit on Global Corporate Power and Democracy” in New York City. The Summit’s purpose is to address the problem of intertwined corporate/state power and control over people’s lives and to explore concrete solutions.

The Summit is also timed to coincide with pro-democracy actions around the world this weekend to contest the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Doha, Qatar, in the United Arab Emirates.

The opening session of the New York Summit began with a panel discussion, the premise of which was that corporations wield too much power in the public sphere, power which dominates private citizens.

David Korten, founder of The People-Centered Development Forum, opened the summit and went right to the heart of the matter, saying he felt it was no longer a question of restraining corporations, but that it was time to “eliminate them."

Korten said this is necessary because the corporate-capitalist economy is a “suicide economy, not only destroying its own foundations, but the foundations of life here on Earth."

Korten felt that in order to be able to leave this capitalist paradigm, people need to start viewing cities and populations, “not as pools of money seeking to replicate themselves, but communities of people creating life."

As part of such a change, community activists and organizers need not focus so much on having the answers and dictating the solutions to others, but instead focus on “creating the space and structures for people and communities to create their own solutions."

Michael Schuman, a lawyer for Communities Venture, proposed some solutions in relation to Korten’s call for change.

Schuman suggested supporting and investing in local businesses, self-reliance in terms of goods, services, and foods, and creating more local currencies.

“One of the virtues of a local money system is Wal-Mart will never accept local money,” Schuman said.

A general solution which he proposed was the idea that “different communities need to work together to maximize self-reliance, minimize [but not eliminate] trade [between communities],” Schuman said.

He introduced the idea of self-reliant communities acting in a network of mutual support, and spoke of the notion of “two types of globalization."

According to Schuman, one kind of globalization “pits communities dangerously against one another, the other kind nurtures community development worldwide. The choice is obvious”.

Chaia Heller, from the Institute for Social Ecology, built on Schuman’s idea of mutually acting communities and called them a “confederation."

She said that first, direct democratic structures need to be established in local communities and cities which then would link up and work together.

“Cities, towns, and villages should then confederate around shared principals,” Heller said. “Make this direct, democratic confederation contest the state."

She emphasized that this network should not be designed to work under or within the state, but to replace it.

Heller believes that small, local groups can affect such large scale change. “If we learned one thing from Sept. 11, it does not take a lot of people to bring the system down,” Heller said. “I don’t agree with their methods. I don’t believe in violence. But I think we saw the fragility of the capitalist system”.

Completing the discussion and also speaking of the Sept. 11 events and what has been going on in this country since that day, Reverend Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou said that he was bothered by the way religion was being abused to serve violent and oppressive ends.

He asked, “How do we break the monopoly the right has on the ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ and ‘God’ talk?”

In answer to his own question, Rev. Sekou said, “We have had national prayer meetings to justify war mongering. Jesus stood against empire and a prostrate church and that’s why he wound up on the cross. The very biblical story itself is a liberatory narrative; everyone else has bastardized it. We need to rescue the language.”

Rev. Sekou believes that language is not only a battle between left activists and the right, but that it has incurred problems amongst activists themselves, particularly between white and black activist communities.

Progressive and white activists need to be able to “go into black communities and say ‘how do we serve you’?, and not worry about whether they read Chomsky or if they wear Nikes,” Rev. Sekou said.

He added that “all communities have something teach; it means listening too, and not talking so much”.

After the panel presentation, the assembly broke up into various working groups to discuss some of the ideas brought up by the panel and other issues ranging from local democracy to sexism and racism.

The Summit runs Nov. 8-10 at Rutgers Presbyterian Church in New York City.

US appoints terror war spin doctor

Nov. 8— Fears over crumbling public support for the coalition have prompted the Bush administration to launch a new propaganda offensive. The US president has appointed a top advertising executive, Charlotte Beers, as the new Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy.

The move comes less than two weeks after the announcement that a media center is to be set up in Islamabad.

Beers’ job will be to coordinate the contact between the government and the media.

Many see her appointment as a sign that the administration is dissatisfied with the way the conflict has been covered.

“Certainly in the Arab world and in the Muslim world, there’s a feeling here in Washington that the US did not get its message out promptly or effectively,” Washington Post assistant editor and chief foreign correspondent Jim Hoagland said in an interview.

But he believes hiring a high profile advertising executive is not the answer.

“The idea that putting out Madison Avenue techniques is going to solve the problem is going to be something that the astute American public is going to see through pretty quickly,” he said.

Charlotte Beers has been dubbed “the most famous woman in advertising” and was chairman of J. Walter Thompson until her contract expired last month.

She will report to Colin Powell as one of just six undersecretaries of state.

Beers has worked with Powell before. She and her new boss served together on the board of Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.

Beers’ appointment marks the coalition’s second propaganda offensive this month.

On Nov. 1, the US and Britain announced that a “Coalition Information Center” is to be set up in Islamabad.

Similar centers will open in London and Washington to counter what the prime minister’s official spokesman refers to as “untruths and lies”.

The UK and US are believed to fear that time differences are giving the Taliban a public relations head start, so that their version of the night’s events dominates the Pakistani news agenda. Islamabad is five hours ahead of London and 10 hours ahead of New York.

But a London-based Arabic paper describes the coalition’s strategy as “dangerous”.

“The intervention by the US and British governments in the media services and dissemination of information to people endangers the future of political and civil freedoms,” said an article in Al-Hayat published on Saturday, “not only in the United States and Britain, but also in all the countries in the world.

“This step will... encourage undemocratic regimes to continue to control the press and media and justify for these regimes the continued existence of information ministries and political propaganda mouthpieces.”

Source: BBC News: news.bbc.co.uk

ALF destroys equipment at San Diego lab

San Diego, California, Nov. 12— On the evening of Nov. 11, 2001, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) gained entry to the contract animal research lab of Sierra Biomedical (aka HTI Bioservices) in San Diego, CA. The research center was smashed to pieces from the inside out for several hours.

In a communiqué sent out after the incident, the ALF stated that “vital” equipment was destroyed and files were soaked in muriatic acid.

“No piece of equipment was left intact,” the statement continued. “A transport van located outside had its tires slashed, was doused in paint, and was just simply worked over. It is almost unbelievable that such a benign exterior could house such abhorrent acts as those performed in this lab. No high-priced contract is worth murder nor is it worth what the ALF will do to stop these murders. We were thorough and determined. They will not soon recover from our visit. We struck not with anger, but sadness in our hearts of the lives taken before our arrival” and for the recent death of a friend.

“The ALF is always watching,” the press dispatch warned.

Source: North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office

President approves trials by military

By Joseph Curl

Washington, DC, Nov. 14— President Bush yesterday established a framework for the creation of special US military tribunals to try people accused of terrorist attacks and mete out sentences, including the death penalty.

The military order gives Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld the authority to establish the courts, similar to those established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.

White House Counsel Al Gonzales said the order gives Bush an option and a tool besides civilian courts for bringing to justice those directly responsible for attacks like the September 11 assaults on New York and Washington.

“The president would make a separate independent finding that someone was a member of a terrorist organization like al Qaeda and that it was in the interests of the United States that the person be prosecuted,” said Gonzales. “That person would then be delivered to the secretary of defense who would take control of the individual.”

“There may not be a need for this and the president may make a determination that he does not want to use this tool, but he felt it appropriate that he have this tool available to him,” said Mr. Gonzales.

Bush said that individuals “subject to this order” include anyone who:

* “Is or was a member of the organization known as al Qaeda.”

* “Has engaged in, aided or abetted, or conspired to commit, acts of international terrorism, or acts in preparation therefor, that have caused, threaten to cause, or have as their aim to cause, injury to or adverse effects on the United States, its citizens, national security, foreign policy, or economy.”

* “Has knowingly harbored one or more [of the above] individuals.”

The order gives the secretary of defense broad powers, including the right to seize any suspect “subject to this order” from any state in the nation and commence a military tribunal. The defense secretary also will determine when to establish a military tribunal and will oversee the courts.

The order sets out the punishment those tried by the tribunals face.

“Any individual subject to this order shall, when tried, be tried by military commission for any and all offenses triable by military commission that such individual is alleged to have committed, and may be punished in accordance with the penalties provided under applicable law, including life imprisonment or death,” the order states. The tribunal will act “as the triers of both fact and law” and both conviction and sentencing require a two-thirds vote of the court’s members.

Bush will stand as the final judge upon conviction, unless he designates the duty to the defense secretary, the order states. The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the move, saying Bush should first “justify why the current system does not allow for the timely prosecution of those accused of terrorist activities.”

“Absent such a compelling justification, today’s order is deeply disturbing and further evidence that the administration is totally unwilling to abide by the checks and balances that are so central to our democracy,” said Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU’s national office.

“Increasingly they appear willing to circumvent the requirements of the Bill of Rights,” she said.

The order also forbids any individual from seeking “remedy” in any other US court or “any court of any foreign nation or any international tribunal.”

Bush signed the order before leaving Washington for his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Source: Washington Times