IAN HENSHALL`S NEWSLETTER 24 JUNE 2002

CONTENTS

1.OVERVIEW
Iraq War plans still face tough resistance, Bush in trouble at home, watch out for Venezuela

2. IT'S THE ECONOMY
Bush junta raids Federal Budget, foreign investors lose faith

3. BUSH IN TROUBLE
News that the Administration was warned of 911 attack has raised questions of criminal negligence and complicity.
Attacks on Bush: quotes from Counterpunch (left) Harpers Magazine (centre) and Pat Buchanan (right).

4. AFGHANISTAN: US PERSONNEL ACCUSED OF MAJOR WAR CRIMES
EU shown undercover film from Afghanistan, MEPs call for investigation.

5. BUSH ARMS CONTROL TREATY - `A FARCE`
Under the terms of the treaty, the only time the US or Russia is obliged to take weapons out of use is 31st December, 2012, and then only for one day.

6. ISRAEL: 60,000 FOR PEACE. 60% SUPPORT WITHDRAWAL FROM WEST BANK
911 has provided the opportunity for Sharon to promote `transfer` (ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank) in the name of anti-terrorism, but Israeli public opinion would back withdrawal.

7. WHEN IS A MASSACRE NOT A MASSACRE?
Medialens accuses The Observer's Peter Beaumont of two-faced reporting from Jenin and Kossovo; Guardian Media Editor Janine Gibson accused of falsehoods over `massacres`.

8. US BREACHING BIOWEAPONS TREATY AND US LAW, SAY RESEARCHERS
Freedom of Information Act researchers have exposed illegal US military research.


1. OVERVIEW

Since I wrote the last overview there has been the revelation that, as the New York Post put it BUSH KNEW; Gaullist victory in France; and bad run for Blair. Nuclear war with India/Pakistan loomed as a macabre counterpoint to the Queen's jubilee.

The war lobby is still bullish about their plans for mayhem in Iraq. Here in the UK the spin is that Bush is fully supported at home and that the extension of the war to Iraq is inevitable. In fact the US public is split on an invasion of Iraq, with most Democrats against.

While the Blair line is that `no decision has been taken` to attack Iraq, the Bush line is rather different: `there is no war plan on my desk`. The warmongers in Washington have killed the Blair/Powell line that there is a coalition against terrorism and have thus been able to ignore arab opinion. They are also developing a new doctrine of pre-emptive defence to counter widespread military doubts under the Powell doctrine. This holds that the military should not intervene without an exit strategy and bipartisan support at home.

However it has long been a theme of this newsletter that Bush is NOT doing well politically even with the war to boost his ratings, which are hardly any higher than Clinton's at the height of the impeachment scandal. Blair has if anything cooled it on Iraq recently and a Powell resignation, rumored to be a possibility, would be a political disaster to Bush at home. His domestic appeal has been based on the `compassionate conservative` pitch, of which Powell is the concrete symbol.

If Bush loses the House in the mid terms this November, the way will be clear for the massive bipartisan Commisssion into 911 and the War demanded by the Democrat Senate leader Tom Daschle, the man who the anthrax attackers tried to kill. Liberal Republicans may start defecting at this point. For an excellent lighthearted interview with the ficticious republican moderate Shallow Throat on this subject go to
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/09.011D.bw.shallow.II.htm.

Even if Bush can navigate the political waters back home there are obstacles abroad. There is the risk of fundamentalist or nationalist revolutions in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, while Iraq Iran and Syria are reported to be co-operating on military resistance to a US invasion.

There are reports of renewed plans for a very violent pro-US coup in Venezuela, which US strategists see as an essential alternative oil supply in the event of an arab oil boycott. The Independent (London) sees a date before July 5 as likely due to an impending personnel shakeup in the military, while AFI News service warns that a civil war could spread across into Colombia and Peru (RBMedia@afi.supanet.com)

2. IT'S THE ECONOMY

September 11 triggered not only a small war and the US Patriot Act, a blatant travesty of the US Bill of Rights, but also, and this may turn out to be of the most concern for US voters, an unprecedented greed-driven raid on the US Government as Bush's junta hit the US Treasury with a double whammy of long term tax cuts for the rich and defence expenditure hikes. The excuse was to get the economy out of the recession, but most of the fresh money won't come on line in time for that.

Unless, that is, the recession drags out. The Bush mob might have the US corporate media under their thumb, but its not so easy to fool the money people. As well as the things we hear about, like investment in research and development or the protestant work ethic, US prosperity is built on a vast `free` natural resource base, cheap transport, low land prices, no costs from internal conflicts, a limitless supply of cheap illegal labour and above all easy finance - because the world's savers are prepared to lend money to the US Treasury at around 3% and, since the 90's boom, prefer to invest in the US stock market.

In a recent report the excellent New Economics Foundation point out that the US has accumulated an external debt of US$2.2 trillion, almost the same as that owed by the whole of the developing world, and that the real driving force behind globalisation is not so much corporate power as the need for the US and UK to finance their external deficits.

Now, savings from Asia which have effectively financed the US deficits are in long term decline, Wall Street is in the longest bear market since the great depression, domestic oil reserves are dwindling, and US agribusiness is having trouble selling its genetically modified products abroad. The Bush response - rabid warmongering, looting the US Treasury, and an expensive rash of domestic anti-terrorism measures - is threatening this whole edifice, amounting to what US business commentators are calling a terrorism tax.

Meanwhile Bush cronies at Enron have pulled off one of the biggest thefts ever - from Californians by rigging the energy market there (papers proving this suspicion have recently come to light), and from the financial markets where the stolen money was hidden in the notorious partnerships that Arthur Anderson helped to hide. Foreign investors are understandably losing confidence in US auditors and hence the US stock market. But worse problems will arise if they lose confidence in the US Treasury and force interest rates up with the economy still firmly stuck in recession. Look out for the Japan scenario.

Since WW2, there has been a pattern: imperial adventures, whether in Algeria, Suez, Vietnam or Afghanistan have been halted by economic not military forces. A few years ago the talk, now forgotten in the United States of Amnesia, was of imperial over-reach. It may come back to haunt them.


3. BUSH IN TROUBLE

The corporate media has predictably glossed over the significance of the revelations that the White House was repeatedly warned of a terrorist threat to the US mainland last summer, encapsulated in the New York Post headline: BUSH KNEW

The official story has now changed radically, raising the possibility that it might change again. On September 16th, 2001, Vice President Cheney gave an interview to Tim Russert on the NBC news program 'Meet the Press.' (Source: http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.17A.WRP.Bush.NU.htm)

MR. RUSSERT: No specific threat?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No specific threat involving really a domestic operation
or involving what happened, obviously, the cities, airliner and so forth. We
did go on alert with our overseas forces a number of times during the course
of the summer when we thought the threat level had risen significantly. So
clearly, we were surprised by what happened here."

It now turns out that there was a blizzard of quite specific warnings all of which were mysteriously lost somewhere within the security establishment.

But the more significant damage to the official 911 story is this: the only reason many could believe in the supposed extraordinary US failures that day (eg that no planes were available at Andrews Airbase to defend the Pentagon even one hour after the WTC attacks) was the assertion that the attacks came out of the blue. Now, many more people in the States are accusing the Administration of deliberately letting the attacks happen. Given well documented moves by the Bush team to REDUCE surveillance measures against Bin Laden last summer, the only real dispute is now over the word deliberate.

The junta's response to these revelations has been to capitalise on its control of the corporate media with a series of ever more contrived security alerts. The recent alert over an alleged dirty bomb plan involved a suspect who had no bomb, no radioactive material and no real plan for a bomb.

This hoax was probably planned to distract attention from an explosive press conference at the Washington Press Club where an impressive line-up of dissidents was raising the possibility of the regime's complicity in the attacks. Here are excerpts from their press release:

A national press conference and formal web site launch
for UnansweredQuestions.org will be held on Monday,
June 10th from 2-5 PM at the National Press Club in
Washington, D.C.

The goal of this unprecedented press event and public
inquiry is to pose pointed, as yet unanswered,
questions regarding the failure of our national
security infrastructure, and the response that has
sacrificed civil liberties and rewarded failure as
opposed to ensuring performance and guaranteeing
freedom, now and in the future.

The conference will be moderated by Catherine Austin
Fitts, President of Solari and former Assistant
Secretary of Housing during the 1st Bush administration.

Confirmed participants include:
Mary Schiavo, Esq., lawyer for 32 passengers' families
from all 9/11 hijacked planes, former Inspector
General of the U.S. Department of Transportation
('90-'96) and author of Flying Safe, Flying
Blind.

Lorna Brett, Director of Media Relations, Nolan Law
Group, representing 9/11 families on United Airlines
hijacked planes.

Ryan Amundson, whose brother Craig was killed at the
Pentagon; founder of Peaceful Tomorrows.org.
Tom Flocco, independent investigative journalist who
has researched and written extensively about insider
trading in the trading days immediately preceding
September 11th.

Jared Israel, Investigative Journalist and author of
forthcoming book on 9-11.

Peter Erlander, Professor of Constitutional Law,
William Mitchell University and past President of the
National Lawyers Guild.

J. Michael Springmann, a veteran of 20 years of
foreign service, who worked at the Saudi Embassy
during a two year period when visas were issued to
suspected Saudi hijackers.

(exerpt ends)

To give an idea of the problems building up for Bush, here is a quote from the left wing Counterpunch (ed Alexander Cockburn). Notice that like much of the US/UK corporate media, they are keeping their options open on the White House's exact role in 911:

To suggest that the Bush Administration arranged the 9/11
tragedy is to resort to wildly speculative conspiracy theories.
On the other hand, there is a substantive and documented record
of neglect and obstruction to warrant a charge of criminal
negligence by Bush and his national security state apparatus.
It may be that part of that apparatus, especially elements within
the FBI, are angered by how they and their reports were
cavalierly treated by the White House. They and other
congressional sources may be leaking the kind of information
that was essential in bringing down President Nixon.

From the centre, here is a quote from John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine:

In fact, a White House coverup of the causes and origins of Sept. 11 began almost immediately with the safe passage (within a week of the attack) out of the U.S. provided to 14 members of the bin Laden family, before they could be interrogated by the FBI. By November, the White House public-relations department was no doubt panicking when Bin Laden: la vérité interdite by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié appeared, quoting John O'Neill, the former director of antiterrorism in the New York office of the FBI.

... I can imagine that the higher-ups in the White House, sensitive to George Bush the elder's business relationship with the Carlyle Group and its Saudi investors, told the FBI and Mr. O'Neill that asking questions about bin Ladens and Saudi royals was bad diplomacy, not to mention bad business.

During the prior Bush administration, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, told our then-ally Saddam Hussein that the U.S. had "no opinions on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."

Saddam was evidently emboldened by our professed neutrality. The next thing we knew, George the First was calling his reliable old client a Hitler equivalent. Might we imagine a similar "appeasement" scenario here?

We need a new foreign policy, free of oil politics and Bush-family conflicts of interest. But first we need a new government.
(exerpt ends)

And finally from the Right, here is Pat Buchanan:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27771

Rightly, the U.S. government is focused on how to anticipate such an attack,
prevent it, prepare for it. But there has been no debate over the most
critical question. Why?

... (He lists terrorism in Algeria, Lebanon, Ireland)
In all these atrocities, terror was a weapon of the weak and stateless
against Western powers they could not defeat with arms. In each case, terror
was used to expel an imperial power or drive out foreign troops.

The dynamiting of the King David Hotel convinced the British to accelerate
their departure from Palestine. Zionist terror ended. Mau Mau terror ended
when the Brits left Kenya. When De Gaulle cut Algeria loose, FLN terror
ended. When Reagan withdrew his Marines from Beirut, anti-American terror
ended in Lebanon.

Lesson? The price of empire is terror.

(end of exerpt)

4. AFGHANISTAN: US PERSONNEL ACCUSED OF WAR CRIMES COMPLICITY

http://www.iol.co.za/
Documentary of US 'war crimes' shocks Europe

June 12 2002 at 05:28PM

By Clive Freeman

Berlin - American soldiers have been involved in the torture and murder of
captured Taliban prisoners, and may have aided in the "disappearance" of up
to 3 000 men in the region of Mazar-i-Sharif, according to Jamie Doran, an
Irish documentary film-maker.

Doran's latest film, Massacre At Mazar, was shown on Wednesday in in the
Reichstag, the German parliament building in Berlin, and there were
immediate calls for an international commission to be set up to investigate
charges made in the documentary.

Andrew McEntee, a leading international human rights lawyer, who has viewed
the film footage and read full transcripts, believes there is prima facie
evidence of serious war crimes having been committed by American soldiers in
Afghanistan.

'The Americans did whatever they wanted'

Much of the footage shown in Doran's 20-minute documentary was taken
secretly, and although witnesses were said to be living in fear of reprisal
from within Afghanistan itself they had all agreed to appear at any future
international war crimes tribunal to give evidence, it was claimed.

One witness in the film claimed he had seen an American soldier break an
Afghan prisoner's neck and pour acid on others. "The Americans did whatever
they wanted. We had no power to stop them," he alleged.

Sometimes prisoners who were beaten up and taken outside had "disappeared",
he said.

In other sequences witnesses, among them two men, claimed they had been
forced to drive into the desert with hundreds of Taliban prisoners.

The living were then summarily shot while 30 to 40 American soldiers
purportedly stood by, it was alleged. The prisoners had been taken there on
the orders of the local American commander, according to the documentary.
Sapa-DPA

5. BUSH ARMS CONTROL TREATY - `A FARCE`

From: Professor Knelman f.knelman@shaw.ca
by way of David Weston dweston@cqm.co.uk
Subject: "A Treaty that is a Farce"

The strategic arms reduction treaty signed by Bush and Putin on May 24, 2002
calls for a reduction of the current levels of warheads of between 5,700 and
6,500 warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by December 31, 2012, i.e. a
ten-year span. In the next ten years this could be zero
reduction, for the rate is not specified. After December 31, 2012 the U.S.
could declare the treaty "dead" as they have done with many arms control
treaties, and bring back the 4,000 warheads they have shelved. The net
result is that this treaty would have been in force for just one day.

6. ISRAELI PUBLIC OPEN TO PEACE

The curent news is that Sharon is planning to expel alleged families of alleged terrorists from the West Bank. This is another step towards the plan promoted by radical Zionists to ethnically cleanse the West Bank of Palestinians. `Transfer`, now supported by 40% of Israelis, is also promoted in the US media and on the pages of the Daily Telegraph (London), which should put proprietor Conrad Black into the dock for inciting war crimes.

The promotion of transfer as a serious option would have been impossible without the terrorist attacks of September 11. Mossad sources are now admitting that they were working with Mohammed Atta BEFORE 911, claiming that the intent was to avoid terrorist attacks (see previous newsletter).

The good news from Israel is that the peace movement is very much alive and that there is widespread support for a withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, the central Palestinian demand. These exerpts are taken from the newsletters of peace group Gush Shalom:

A large majority of Israelis support evacuation of most of the
settlements and deployment of the IDF along the Green Line and see no
solution to terrorism without negotiations for a political solution.

In a Dahaf (Mina Zemah) poll, commissioned by the Peace Coalition and
conducted 5-6 May, 2002, the possibility of unilateral withdrawal of the
IDF from the territories with redeployment along the Green Line
(pre-1967 border) was the formula which most raises the hopes of close
to 67% of the public.  Some 59% believe that a withdrawal which includes
evacuation of most of the settlements will lead to a renewed peace
process. 

Thus, of all the various plans for unilateral withdrawal, the Peace
Coalition's call for withdrawal from the territories and a return to the
Green Line receives the greatest amount of support.

The poll demonstrates for the first time majority support for
the introduction of an international force, under the U.S., into the
occupied territories.  56% of the public said that such an international
force would raise their hopes -- a much higher percentage than those who
said that their hopes would be raised by IDF responsibility for security
in Palestinian cities.

Over 60,000 attend Tel Aviv peace rally (AFP, 11.5.2002)
More than 60,000 demonstrators have turned out in Tel Aviv for the
largest peace rally in Israel since the second intifada erupted 19
months ago. The rally was called to demand Israel's withdrawal from the
Palestinian territories. Peace Now, one of the rally organisers, claimed
the protest was the biggest peace demonstration since the outbreak of
the Palestinian intifada in September 2000.
    "This is the first time since the intifada that we have had such a
massive demonstration with people in clear opposition to the
government," said Peace Now spokesman Arye Arnon.

7. WHEN IS A MASSACRE NOT A MASSACRE

Congratulations to Medialens for exposing the Observer's Peter Beaumont. Beaumont denied that there was any massacre in Jenin saying that there was only proof of around 30 civilian deaths. Medialens researched and contrasted Beaumont's reporting of Kossovo where his hysterical accusations of a (disputed) Serb massacre helped rally liberal support for the NATO bombing campaign which went on to destroy Serbian factories, bridges and hospitals.

Medialens points out that the corporate media respond to atrocities by `our` side with agonised pleas for understanding and balance, while screaming with hysteria over atrocities by the enemies of US/UK. After Jenin, lots of agonised articles appeared like Beaumont's, saying that `media allegations` of a massacre were false. But medialens discovered that there were in fact no assertions of a massacre in the mainstream media. They suggest you
write to Janine Gibson, editor of Media Guardian: (janine.gibson@guardian.co.uk). Ask why she published Sharon Sadeh's claim that British papers have "unanimously" presented events in Jenin "as a 'massacre'". Ask her if she is able to find even one example of a British journalist in the Guardian, Observer or Independent describing Jenin as 'a massacre'. Copy your letters to editor@medialens.org. Visit the Media Lens website: http://www.MediaLens.org

8. US BREACHING BIOWEAPONS TREATY AND US LAW SAY RESEARCHERS

Here are some exerpts from an article in New York paper the Village Voice, 10 May 2002 http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0220/kick.php

U.S. Military Proposes Illegal Bioweapons Research
by Russ Kick

According to documents unearthed by a nonprofit government watchdog, the
United States military has proposed the development of biological weapons
that would violate international treaties and federal law. In fact, they
may have already developed some of these illegal, treaty-busting
bioweapons. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Sunshine Project has
recently pried loose some damning documents from the Marine Corps, which
seems to be overseeing this area of research.

Exhibit A is a 1997 proposal from the Naval Research Laboratory to create
genetically engineered bacteria and fungi that will corrode and degrade
enemy matériel, such as roads, runways, vehicles, weapons, and fuel.

The military scientists take great care to point out that the germs they
want to create would be "nonlethal." But this doesn't matter. The
international Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention treaty absolutely
bans member nations from possessing or developing microbes, toxins, or any
other biological agents for use in battle or other hostile situations.

Yet the navy lab is advocating these super-bugs for blatantly offensive
purposes, saying they will "degrade opposing forces' mobility, logistical
support and equipment maintenance programs prior to or during military
engagements." Likewise, the air force proposal is for bioweapons that would
be used to attack enemy forces: "Catalysts can be developed to destroy
whatever war matériel is desired. All [military] Services would have an
interest."

Both proposals claim that the destructive germs wouldn't violate the
biological weapons treaty. "That's completely false," says Edward Hammond,
a co-founder of the Sunshine Project. He notes that the convention makes no
distinction between bioweapons that target humans and those that take out
equipment or other targets. "If the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
was limited to humans, it would be disastrous. Weapons that target animals,
like livestock, would be legal. Destroying crops would be legal."

The military's proposed germ research would violate more than just
international treaties. "U.S. federal law explicitly states that biological
weapons that attack matériel are illegal," Hammond says. "The penalty is
life in federal prison. If they lifted a finger to do this research, they
have violated the [Biological and Toxin Weapons] Convention and federal law."