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NATIONAL NEWS
NAACP reaffirms
opposition
to war on Iraq
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Physicist blows
whistle on US missile defense
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Terror alerts
manufactured?
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article
Scientists seek
‘super-soldiers’ formula
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Congressman to
introduce universal draft bill
Compiled by Shawn Gaynor
Jan. 8 (AGR)-- Congressman Charles Rangel,
a New York Democrat and member of the Congressional Black Caucus,
said he would be introducing a bill this week to the House of
Representatives calling for a universal military service draft.
The Congressman, who had voted against the October resolution
authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, said his resolution
would ensure a "shared sacrifice" among Americans
serving in the armed forces.
"Service in our nation’s armed forces is no longer
a common experience. A disproportionate number of the poor and
members of minority groups make up the enlisted ranks of the
military, while the most privileged Americans are underrepresented
or absent."
The bill would maintain the Conscientious Objector status option,
and would make domestic service mandatory for those not serving
in the military.
Rangel has expressed the belief that a draft would make Congress
less likely to authorize war.
"Those who support going into war would feel more the
pain and sacrifice involved if they thought that the fighting
force would include the affluent" stated Rep. Rangel.
His timing is ironic however, due to the fact that Congress
already authorized military action by a vote of 296-133 in October
with the Senate following suit with a vote of 77-23. No further
legislation will be necessary for a war against Iraq.
Only one member of Congress who has a child in the enlisted
ranks of the military voted for military action — just
a few more have children who are officers.
Rep. John Conyers, also of the Congressional Black Caucus,
who supports the bill said, "It is a way to get fairness
in the draft system. The reason we want fairness in the draft
system that it is quite likely [with] the President, taken at
his word, we are going to be at war with Iraq very shortly.
We are massing troops as we speak."
"Nothing would be more patriotic than every body joining
in the effort," he added in an interview with the radio
program Democracy Now!.
When challenged that the law would give the administration
further resources to wage a war, he responded, "every body
who doesn’t like it can leave the United States. I served
in the army!"
"Well then I expect you should reenlist," said David
Harris, author Our War, a personal memoir of the Vietnam war
period in the US, and who served 20 months in prison for refusing
to fight in the Vietnam War.
"This means the government would own the lives of everyone
from 18 to 26. There may be problems of the volunteer army but
the solution is not the draft," said Harris.
Administration officials and the Pentagon have expressed their
opposition to a new military draft.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the Pentagon is not
going to reinstate a military draft, saying there is no need
to compel young men and women to serve in the armed forces.
He said the Pentagon is meeting its needs with the all-volunteer
army, including the National Guard and Army Reserves.
Rumsfeld said Tuesday that a draft has "notable disadvantages."
Minorities represent about 37 percent of the military’s
1.3 million troops, according to Department of Defense statistics.
The United States has not drafted troops since 1973.
Source: Democracy Now!, New York Times, CNN,
VOA News
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NAACP reaffirms
opposition to
war on Iraq
Jan. 5— The National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) today reaffirmed its opposition to a
US war against Iraq in a declaration issued by its Religious
Affairs Department. The declaration, prepared by a taskforce
of national multi-faith leaders, was introduced during the NAACP
7th Annual National Religious Leadership Summit last October.
Rev. Julius C. Hope, NAACP Religious Affairs Director, said:
"As we begin the New Year, it is vitally important that
we seek solutions that offer peace over resolutions that end
in war. The religious summit delegation took the extraordinary
step in issuing an anti-war statement to galvanize our collective
spiritual power as people of God to emphasize that we fundamentally
oppose a war on Iraq. The faith community is the moral conscience
of this nation and this declaration demonstrates that we can
not sit idly by without calling for the US to seek more Godly
and holy solutions of peace."
The anti-war declaration by the multi-denominational religious
leaders closely mirrors the resolution unanimously passed last
fall by the NAACP Board of Directors. The Board’s resolution
expresses opposition to war against Iraq before all options
are exercised, including but not limited to United Nations arms
inspection. It is the first policy position taken by the NAACP
concerning possible war in Iraq.
Julian Bond, chairman of the Board of Directors, said, "Our
resolution reflects serious discontent among African Americans
and all Americans about the risks and perils of war.’’
Moreover, the NAACP Board resolution underscores that African
American and other minority youth and young adults are enrolled
into armed service at disproportionate rates.
The resolution introduced by Demetrius Prather, youth board
member who represents the NAACP Youth and College Division,
also calls on NAACP college chapters to host town hall meetings
on campuses across the country to gauge student sentiment about
the possible war.
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and
largest civil rights organization, with a half-million adult
and youth members throughout the United States and worldwide.
Source: National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP)
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Physicist blows
whistle on US missile defense
Washington, DC, Jan. 3— The credibility of President
Bush’s multibillion-dollar missile defense plans are being
questioned by leading scientists after claims that the results
of key tests were falsified.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is considering
an investigation into accusations that fundamental flaws in
the proposed "Son of Star Wars" system have been covered
up.
The criticism is led by Theodore Postol, a physicist and missile
defense critic at MIT, who has said that the institute is sitting
on what is potentially "the most serious fraud that we’ve
seen at a great American university."
After months of rebuffing demands for an inquiry into the affair,
Ed Crawley, the chairman of MIT’s aeronautics and astronautics
department, has reversed previous refusals and recommended an
investigation.
The issue in question goes to the heart of missile defense
technology, an article of faith among right-wing Republicans
and a key plank in Bush’s 2000 presidential manifesto.
The United States unilaterally withdrew last year from the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in order to pursue
the controversial proposed system, which is designed to intercept
enemy warheads in flight, a feat likened to hitting a bullet
with a bullet.
Dr. Postol and fellow critics say the ability of an interceptor
missile to distinguish between an incoming warhead and the decoys
likely to accompany it is deeply suspect. Any such doubts would
cripple the credibility of the system.
Such questions date back to mid-1997 when the military contractor
TWR Inc. was accused by one of its employees, Nira Schwartz,
of faking test results on a prototype anti-missile sensor meant
to distinguish hostile warheads from decoys.
The company and its system was given the all-clear by the Lincoln
Laboratory, a federally funded research center at MIT. But subsequently
the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress,
accused TWR of exaggerating the sensors’ performance, saying
its conclusions had been "highly misleading."
Dr. Postol has written to 20 members of Congress saying that
MIT’s reluctance to investigate the role of its own research
center "may indicate an attempt to conceal evidence of
criminal violations."
Critics say that MIT’s independence is compromised by
its interest in maintaining hundreds of millions of dollars
in annual government contracts.
The missile defense system, the first steps of which Bush announced
in December with the aim of having ten missile interceptors
in Alaska by 2004, is being built by Raytheon, which beat TWR
to the contract. But Dr. Postol said the TWR test, which offers
a rare glimpse into the highly secretive world of missile testing
and is based on the same infra-red technology used by Raytheon,
suggests some flaws that challenge the overall feasibility of
the entire project.
Dr. Postol, a persistent missile defense critic who is accusing
MIT of a "serious case of scientific fraud," cannot
be lightly dismissed. After the Gulf War, he challenged the
Pentagon’s claims for the success of its defensive Patriot
missiles, saying they had intercepted few, if any, Iraqi Scuds.
Despite initial ridicule, his assertion is now accepted.
Source: Times (UK)
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Terror alerts
manufactured?
FBI agents:
White House scripting ‘hysterics’ for political effect
By Jon Dougherty
Jan. 4— Intelligence pros say the White House is manufacturing
terrorist alerts to keep the issue alive in the minds of voters
and to keep President Bush’s approval ratings high, Capitol
Hill Blue (CHB) reports.
The Thursday report said that the administration is engaging
in "hysterics" in issuing numerous terror alerts that
have little to no basis in fact.
"Unfortunately, we haven’t made a lot of progress
against al-Qaida or the war on terrorism," one Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent familiar with terrorism
operations told CHB. "We’ve been spinning our wheels
for several weeks now."
Other sources within the bureau and the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) said the administration is pressuring intelligence
agencies to develop "something, anything" to support
an array of non-specific terrorism alerts issued by the White
House and the Department of Homeland Security.
"Most of the time, we have little to go on, only unconfirmed
snippets of information," a second FBI agent, who also
was not named in the report, said. "Most alerts are issued
without any concrete data to back up the assumptions."
Indeed, the most recent terrorism alerts have been issued absent
specific threat information. Each of the accompanying warnings
comes without any shift in the nation’s new color-coded
alert system; the current warning level of yellow, or "elevated,"
has been in place since late September.
Even recent reports regarding five Arab men who may have slipped
into the country via Canada using phony identification could
be politically motivated, one expert said.
"We have very, very little to support the notion that
these five represent any more of a threat than any of the other
thousands of people who enter this nation every day," terrorism
expert Ronald Blackstone said. "It’s a fishing expedition."
On Wednesday, one of the five, a Pakistani jeweler, Mohammed
Asghar, was tracked down in Pakistan by The Associated Press.
He told reporters there he’d never been to the US, though
he said he tried once – two months ago – to use false
documents to get into Britain to find work.
"I imagine the finger pointing has started at the White
House," Blackstone said.
On Thursday, President Bush said of the Asghar case: "We
need to follow up on forged passports and people trying to come
into our country illegally."
"Don’t misunderstand, there is a real terrorist threat
to this country," another FBI agent told CHB. But, the
agent continued, "every time we go public with one of these
phony ‘heightened state of alerts,’ it just numbs
the public against the day when we have another real alert."
Last year, the FBI issued alerts that terrorists may attack
stadiums, nuclear power plants, shopping centers, synagogues,
apartment houses, subways, and the Liberty Bell, the Brooklyn
Bridge, and other New York City landmarks, reported Knight-Ridder
newspapers. The bureau also advised Americans to be wary of
small airplanes, fuel tankers, and scuba divers.
CHB reported that FBI and CIA sources said a recent White House
memo listing the war on terrorism as a definitive political
advantage and fund-raising tool is just one of many documents
discussing how to best utilize the terrorist threat.
"Of course the White House is going to exploit the terrorism
threat to the fullest political advantage," said Democratic
strategist Russ Barksdale. "They would be fools not to.
We’d do the same thing."
The White House did not return phone calls from WorldNetDaily
seeking comment.
Source: WorldNetDaily.com
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Scientists seek
‘super-soldiers’ formula
Jan. 6 — The Pentagon has launched a series of
remarkable medical experiments to find a way to keep its soldiers
and pilots awake and alert for up to five days at a time.
The mission to create an "Extended Performance War Fighter,"
as the project is known, took on added urgency last week as
the military use of amphetamine stimulants – or "go
pills" — was plunged into deep controversy.
The defense lawyers for two American pilots who accidentally
killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan last April said
they would argue that the forcible use of the drug dexamphetamine
was to blame. Majors Harry Schmidt and William Umbach are threatened
with courts martial for dropping a laser-guided bomb on the
Canadians near Kandahar as the pilots approached the end of
a six-hour night patrol.
David Beck, the lawyer for Major Umbach, said he would argue
that the drugs impaired the pilots’ judgment and that the
US Air Force should accept responsibility. Major Schmidt has
said that he flew seven 10-hour missions during his several
weeks in the region and used the "go pills" each time
because he became too tired without them.
The Pentagon’s search for an "Extended Performance
War Fighter" concentrates on employing advanced genetics
and neurological science to keep soldiers awake and alert.
Jan Walker, the spokesman for the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, which conceived "stealth" technology,
confirmed the Pentagon was "working out ways to resist
the effects of sleep deprivation. If our fighters can do that,
we can fundamentally change the order of battle."
One of the agency’s plans for keeping warriors awake is
to "zap" their brains with electromagnetic energy.
Much of the research is being conducted at Columbia University
in New York, in the laboratories of the neurological science
department.
Researchers have identified a small area of the brain above
the left ear that they would zap either before or during missions.
"When he needed it, the pilot could just be zapped during
operations," said one leading research scientist.
The first research contracts for the program were handed out
at the beginning of last year.
Other projects include work at the University of Wisconsin,
where researchers are probing the brains of the white-crowned
sparrow, a tiny songbird that migrates between Alaska and California.
Even when the birds are kept in cages, they become restless
and will not sleep for a week during the migration season. The
researchers are comparing their brains with those of a close
avian cousin which does not migrate.
Meanwhile, biologists at the US Navy’s Marine Mammals
Program, which once trained dolphins to place mines against
the hulls of enemy ships, is now studying how the animals keep
part of their brains awake so that even when submerged and asleep
they still surface to breathe. Mothers and newborn dolphins
have also been found to stay awake continuously for several
days after birth.
Scientists are working on identifying the gene that allows
this. Genetic codes could then be modified to create soldiers
who would be less susceptible to the effects of sleep deprivation.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
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NATION BRIEFS
Bush
kills report on layoffs
The Bush Administration, under fire for its handling
of the economy, has quietly killed off a Labor Dept. program
that tracked massive layoffs by US companies. The statistic,
issued monthly, served as a pulse reading of corporate America’s
financial health. Since Bush does not want any indicators of
America’s failing economy to reach the public, his administration
decided, with virtually no mentioning in federal publications,
to sack one of the easiest to understand overviews of which
industries are in the greatest distress and which workers are
bearing the brunt of the turmoil. The administration cited lack
of funding as responsible for ending the program.
(San Francisco Chronicle)
Drug
firms ‘invented’
female sexual problem
Drug companies were accused Friday of creating
a medical disorder, female sexual dysfunction, in order to sell
impotency drugs such as Viagra to women as well as men. A paper
in the British Medical Journal says there is increasing concern
that women will simply be prescribed drugs for sexual problems
that in reality stem from "complex social, personal, and
physical" difficulties in their relationships. Drug companies
have made a concerted effort over the last six years to have
female sexual dysfunction recognized as a medical condition
requiring medical treatment. This is based on a few surveys,
conducted by researchers with close ties to drug companies,
that asked women if they had suffered sexual difficulties, such
as lack of desire or anxiety about performance, for more than
two months. A "yes" to any of the problems was classified
as sexual dysfunction. (Guardian UK)
US cities
consider
easing police spy rules
Seattle, WA officials are considering dismantling
a 23-year old law protecting people from being spied on by the
police for their political beliefs. Many cities passed laws
similar to Seattle’s in response to law enforcement abuses
during the civil rights, anti-war, and environmental movements
of the 60’s and 70’s. But now many cities are being
faced with police departments who claim the anti-spying laws
hamper their efforts to protect their cities from terrorists.
Seattle is one of a handful of cities picked by the federal
government last October to be involved in the trial of a new
anti-terrorism database-sharing system. Critics worry that sensitive
personal information could leak to the public, and that the
relaxing of spy laws will lead to civil rights abuses. (ABCNews.com)
Hundreds
in LA protest detention
of Middle Eastern men and boys
Hundreds of people gathered on the steps of a
federal building Saturday to protest a new federal program that
requires temporary visa holders from countries with suspected
links to terrorism to register with local immigration officers.
They also protested the detention of nearly 400 Middle Easterners
men and boys during a round of registration last month in California.
The National Security Entry Exit Registration Program is a federal
response to the Sept. 11 Terrorist attacks. Protesters claim
the program is a racist, fear-mongering tactic akin to Nazi
treatment of Jews in the period leading up to WWII. (AP)
Gov’t
awards marriage
promotion grants
The federal government has sent more than $2.2
million in grants of taxpayer money from its child support programs
to 12 states and a variety of religions, nonprofit, and tribal
organizations to advance the nation’s child support enforcement
system. Roughly $550,000 will be spent promoting marriage, which
some organizations see as a necessity for a child’s well-being.
Critical of this manifestation of President Bush’s faith-based
initiative, detractors are skeptical of the way these organizations,
especially the religious ones, will spend their money. Critics
also argue the government has no role in people’s decisions
on marriage and that the faith-based initiative violates the
constitutional separation of church and state. (AP)
Court upholds
terrorism
law secrecy
In a high-profile affirmation of the government’s
powerful new counter-terrorism laws, a federal appeals court
ruled Tuesday that authorities can freeze the assets of the
Global Relief Fund, a US-based global Islamic charity, that
it believes is linked to terrorism without providing its evidence
to defense lawyers. Justice Dept. officials and a lawyer for
the charity, Roger Simmons, described the ruling as a precedent
setting case that upholds some aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act
and other counter-terrorism measures implemented after the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks. The ruling is considered a very significant
victory for the government. In reaction to the ruling, Simmons
said if he can’t get a reversal in the moderate 7th Circuit
Court of Appeals, he is going to the Supreme Court. "What’s
bad about this [ruling] is that the key issue in the case is
the question of whether we supported terrorism and that the
government can rely upon secret evidence to make its case. How
do you go about proving your innocence when the government can
rely on secret evidence that you can’t even see?"
(Los Angeles Times)
Court denies
Office of Homeland
Security motion
The US Office of Homeland Security (OHS) lost
a round in efforts to keep its activities private with a federal
court ruling that it must answer questions about its operations
and activities. The judge ruled last week that the White House
must show it had no independent authority in a ruling denying
a motion to dismiss the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s
(EPIC) lawsuit seeking material under the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA). The OHS sought to have the case dismissed, arguing
it could not be subjected to the FOIA information requests because
it was not an agency and that its sole function was to advise
and assist the president. The judge’s ruling granted the
EPIC’s request for information on proposals dealing with
the standardization of US drivers licenses, a "trusted
flier" program, and biometic technology for identifying
individuals that would establish the status of the OHS. "There’s
been a lot of secrecy in the activities of this office,"
said the executive director of the EPIC. "We think that
the activity of this office, like the activity of other federal
offices, should be open." (Reuters)
MLK Jr.
son wants Cincinnati breakfast cancelled
The son of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
has asked the city and the Cincinnati Arts Council to use every
means possible to cancel the Jan. 20 annual breakfast honoring
his father, saying it would violate an economic boycott by black
activists. MLK III, president of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, did not ask for the planned march or evening celebration
to be cancelled. The art consortium board said they could not
suffer the loss of their biggest fund raiser. The boycott began
in April 2001 after a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed,
fleeing black man. Supporters are trying to pressure the city
into making changes they deem necessary to improve the lives
of black residents. (AP)
MN counties
race
to list local terror
groups for money
In the emerging battle against terrorism in Minnesota,
counties, cities, and emergency medical units are scrambling
for a piece of the $15.2 million fund set aside for training
and equipment largely made available under the state’s
2002 Terrorism Act. The applications, which list local groups
that may pose a terrorist threat, whether they are planning
to use a weapon of mass destruction, and what the casualties
would be if they did, will not be publicly disclosed. Many state
legislators fear the Terrorism Act is an erosion of civil liberties,
worry who will get targeted and who will know about it, and
seriously question whether any Minnesota group has a weapon
of mass destruction.
(Minneapolis Star Tribune)
El Paso
settles in
police abuse suit
The city of El Paso agreed Thursday to settle
with a man who claimed three police officers sodomized him in
2000. The City Council voted to pay an undisclosed amount to
Andres Perez Ruiz, a 31-year old undocumented Mexican who was
stopped for driving while intoxicated in Nov., 2000. Perez alleged
a police officer shoved a nightstick or other object into his
rectum while two officers held him. The officers deny the charges.
A grand jury and a police internal investigation did not yield
any proof of wrongdoing. Perez has been operated on six times
because of lingering rectal infections. An investigation by
the US Dept. of Justice, requested by the Mexican Consulate
in El Paso, is ongoing. (El Paso Times)
Homeless
give
presents to
compassionate cop
A New York police officer received a Christmas
gift of $3000 from homeless people who wanted to thank him for
standing up for them. Officer Eduardo Delacruz was suspended
for 30 days without pay last month for refusing a sergeant’s
order to arrest a homeless man found sleeping in a parking garage.
In gratitude, organizations for the homeless put together a
fund for the 37-year old officer, his wife, and five children.
Homeless people also contributed their spare change earned from
recycling cans and bottles, begging, and even portions of their
welfare checks. (AP)
US proposes
visitor tracking rules
The US government wants detailed information about every person
who comes to or leaves the US by commercial plane or boat, and
for the first time will require US citizens to fill out forms
detailing their comings and goings. Under rules proposed Friday,
the information would be sent electronically to the government
for matching against security databases. The public has one
month to comment. The American Civil Liberties Union believes
these rules will probably not impinge on people’s privacy.
The aim is to detect potential terrorists or criminals immediately
and to enhance the government’s ability to track whether
visitors to the US have departed as planned. (AP)
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