In this issue:

Roundup: Resistance to War Builds in United States

Washington Post: Resentment at U.S. Has Boiled Over

Bush, Ridge Should Read 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf!'

Rumsfeld Doesn't Exclude Experimentation with Mini-Nukes

Dennis Kucinich Forms Presidential Exploratory Committee

Shuttle Columbia Board Gets Down To Work

U.S., China Join International Fusion Project

From Volume 2, Issue Number 8 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Feb. 24, 2003

United States News Digest

Roundup: Resistance to War Builds in United States

As of Feb. 14, some 93 state, county, and city governments in the United States had passed resolutions against an Iraq war. These included both houses of the Maine Legislature, and Hawaii's House of Representatives. Also, the cities of Atlanta, Chicago, Gary, Des Moines, Baltimore, Detroit, Jersey City, Newark, Santa Fe, Rochester (NY), Cleveland, Philadelphia, Austin, Washington, D.C., and Milwaukee.

Meantime, from across the political spectrum, and from some surprising quarters, came stern warnings to the Bush Administration to back off and—in the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski writing an op ed in the Feb. 19 Washington Post—"accept disarmament as the outcome," if Iraq complies.

Brzezinski targetted the Likudnik "Clean Break" network in the Defense Department and elsewhere, as screwing up world support for the United States, and attacked the Bush Administration's imperial preemptive war doctrine; its Biblical mumbo-jumbo defining terrorism as "evildoers who hate freedom"; and the international exposé of the "Clean Break" document that LaRouche's campaign led around the world (although Brzezinski, of course, mentions neither LaRouche nor the name "Clean Break").

Brzezinski did write:

"Matters have not been helped by the evident, if unstated endorsement by President Bush of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's notion of how to deal with both the Palestinians and the region as a whole. The European press has commented more widely than the U.S. press on the striking similarity between current U.S. policies in the Middle East and the recommendations prepared in 1996 [the 'Clean Break' report—ed.] by several American admirers of Israel's Likud Party for then-Prime Minister Netanyahu." He adds, "That these admirers are now occupying positions of influence in the administration is seen as the reason the U.S. is so eager to wage war against Iraq, so willing to accept the scuttling of Oslo...."

Brzezinski says that to get out of the threat it has created to U.S. world leadership, the Administration must cut out the "tit for tat polemics directed at allies"; "acknowledge that the quest for peace" in the Mideast requires disarmament of Iraq and the Israeli-Arab peace process; give the UN inspectors several months to complete their work.

Meantime, on NBC's "Meet the Press" Feb. 16, Gen. (ret) Wesley Clark defended the Europeans against the Administration's bully tactics. Asked whether the French-German-Russian resistance to a U.S.-led war on Iraq were payback for the heavy-handed tactics of Bush foreign policy, Clark responded, "...I do agree with that. I think that's exactly what they've seen and felt in Europe from this Administration. It's an Administration which really hasn't respected our allies."

Two days later, on Feb. 18, the New York Times editorially warned Bush against breaking with the United Nations, and pointed to the handwriting on the wall—the Feb. 15 worldwide demonstrations for peace: "Anti-war demonstrations across the world last weekend revealed widespread public misgivings.... Significantly, Europe's biggest demonstrations were in Britain, Spain, and Italy, the three countries whose leaders have shown the most inclination to join Washington in military action. Large majorities in America as well as Europe say they want military action against Iraq to proceed only with Security Council endorsement.

"Mr. Bush should heed these views and work with the Security Council to win support for a new resolution. The potential consequences of war with Iraq are far too serious to take on without broad international and domestic support."

The Times also noted that the "coalition of the willing" won't pay the bills; "no one should mistake the coalition that Mr. Bush is assembling for the UN Security Council."

Finally, conservative Pat Buchanan is warning of a 50-year war, if the Iraq invasion goes ahead. He says an unnamed "terrorism expert" told him that "we must expect to live with terror alerts for the rest of our lives, as this war will last as long as the Cold War itself."

Washington Post: Resentment at U.S. Has Boiled Over

The Feb. 16 Washington Post reported that resentment over U.S. strongarm tactics has boiled over, and that was behind the flare-up at the Feb. 14 UN Security Council meeting. The Post said that whatever progress Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared to have made, has been complicated by the growing resentment over "the Bush Administration's heavy-handed and bullying tactics over the past two years."

Even though Iraq's behavior was the official subject of the meeting, U.S. behavior became an important subtext, as the audience broke UN rules and applauded the French and Russian delegates.

"The U.S. team often acts like thugs," said a diplomat from a country which officially supports the U.S. "People feel bullied, and that can affect the way you respond when someone makes a request."

In the context of discussing Donald Rumsfeld's attack on the "Old Europe," an official in the Bush Administration was quoted as saying: "There are people here [in Washington—ed.] who are trying to destroy institutions that have served us well since World War II—and still have some utility—and they have no obvious replacement but raw American power."

Bush, Ridge Should Read 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf!'

Law enforcement officials in Washington, D.C. and New York revealed that "a key piece of the information leading to recent terror alerts was fabricated" by a detainee, reported ABC News on Feb. 14, two days into the "Orange Alert." "The informant described a detailed plan that an al-Qaeda cell operating in either Virginia or Detroit had developed a way to slip past airport scanners with dirty [i.e. radioactive, or chemical or biological] bombs encased in shoes, suitcases, or laptops." But the information turned out "to be fabricated," after the source was subjected to a lie-detector test. Former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vince Cannistraro, now a consultant to ABC News, said, "This person did not pass." But the polygraph was not given until after the alert was publicized.

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge came under hostile questioning about this, but defended the high alert, because the warning did not rest on "just one source." Ridge was asked if the government did not "unnecessarily scare the population." This is not the first time that a captured accused terrorist or criminal has "made up a huge story and scared a lot of people." A previous case occurred Christmas Eve, when Bush personally announced a nationwide manhunt for five "Middle Eastern men" entering the country from Canada. The story turned out to be false, and the alert level was lowered.

Rumsfeld Doesn't Exclude Experimentation with Mini-Nukes

The French Reseau Voltaire online newsletter published on Feb. 18 an analysis on the two new elements of the American strategic strategy: 1) the preemptive war doctrine, and 2) the "shock and awe" doctrine. The newsletter located the origin of the preemptive-war doctrine with Vice President Dick Cheney. "Shortly after the first Gulf War, the United States drew the lessons of the U.S.S.R. collapse and of their capacity to lead a world coalition. They concluded that they had become the only superpower and that they could expect to remain in that position if they were be able to stop all other powers from developing. That principle ... was theorized on demand of then-Defense Secretary (today the Vice President) Dick Cheney. On the 18th of February 1992, an ad hoc study group composed of Paul Wolfowitz ... Lewis Libby ..., Eric Edelman ... and Zalmay Khalilzad, met to elaborate that doctrine."

The online newsletter attacked the other new principle of the U.S. war doctrine, "shock and awe," a doctrine which states that "it is not so much the actual destruction which is important" in war, "as the terror that it inspires." This doctrine was theorized in 1996 by Harlan K. Ullman (Colin Powell's professor at the National War College) and James P. Wade, referring explicitly to the Nazi Blitzkrieg and the U.S. use of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This doctrine is behind the idea of deploying nuclear mini-bombs in Iraq, against Hardened and Deeply Buried Targets (HDBTs). In a partially declassified document entitled National Posture Review, of which the secret part was leaked to some Congress members and published by the Los Angeles Times, Donald Rumsfeld explicitly authorized the use of small nuclear bombs against several states, among which is Iraq. While that project was first denied by the Bush Administration, Rumsfeld talked about it again in a speech at the National Defense University, and reconfirmed at a later hearing in Congress.

The online newsletter stated, however, that the Chiefs of Staff have not made a final decision on application, because of the danger that use in any part of Iraq could have repercussions on U.S. troops based in Kuwait. Of course, only the President of the United States can authorize any such use.

Dennis Kucinich Forms Presidential Exploratory Committee

The coming split in the Democratic Party forecast by Lyndon LaRouche, was demonstrated in the announcement Feb. 17 by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) of an Exploratory Committee for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

In his kickoff speech to a labor forum in Iowa that day, Kucinich, 56, called himself "an FDR Democrat" who is "running to return the Democratic Party to its roots." He voted against giving President Bush authority to take military action against Iraq in the fall. He told his audience that his first act as President would be to nullify the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); that he is "running to guarantee health care through Medicare for all"; "for livable wages and a full-employment economy;" and running "to oppose this unjustified war in Iraq." He has been a leader in the Congressional "Steel Caucus," having unsuccessfully attempted to save steel production under union conditions.

Kucinich, always a left Democrat, was almost recalled as Mayor of Cleveland in 1978, when he defaulted on city debt to the banks, rather than sell off the municipally owned power company, as the banks demanded. He was defeated in various elections from 1980 until 1994, when he won a seat in the Ohio Senate, based in part on having saved Cleveland citizens millions by not privatizing the city's power plant. Kucinich said he would decide in June whether to continue his candidacy.

Shuttle Columbia Board Gets Down To Work

Admiral Gehman, the chair of the independent board investigating the Columbia Space Shuttle accident, reported today that over the past week, the Board talked with hundreds of NASA and contractor employees who work on the Shuttle. He said they were "impressed by the dedication, seriousness of all the people we met," at the NASA centers and the Michoud External Tank manufacturing facility. The Board is recruiting its own team of outside experts to deal with the extremely complex investigation. Last week, former Air Force Secretary and aerodynamics expert Sheila Widnall was added to the Board.

Asked if the Board might, depending upon its findings, recommend whether or not the Shuttle program should continue, Steven Wallace, from the Federal Aviation Administration, quoted President Bush's statement that the space program will go on, and Vice President Cheney's remarks about the next generation of explorers—a determination to continue with manned space flight which coheres with American public sentiment, but not with the hysteria-mongering of the press (including the New York Times of Feb. 18).

The Board members—whose experience is mainly based on investigations of civilian and military aircraft accidents—come from a culture where you find the problem and fix it, and don't have a national debate about whether or not you need commercial or military airplanes.

On Feb. 27, the Board will hold its first public hearing; witnesses will read factual material into the public record, and invited experts, not associated with any government program, who have contacted the Board, and who have something pertinent to present, will be there.

In a survey conducted Feb. 10-14 of more than 100,000 educators worldwide by the National Science Teachers Association, 91% said that teachers should be on future Shuttle missions, and more than 76% said they would fly themselves. Since the January start of NASA's Educator Astronaut program, more than 4,500 teachers have been nominated.

In a video teleconference with NASA employees on Feb. 20, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe was asked about "the media reports that there will be a push in Washington" for unmanned space exploration. Visibly angered, O'Keefe said that "We are in a phase in which folks offer a lot of opinions." There are suddenly a "lot of experts who know what really happened," to Columbia, he said sarcastically. This debate, of manned versus unmanned missions, "comes up about every occasion where there's a challenge, a crisis, a tragedy." It isn't an "either/or proposition," he said.

One influential source of this spurious debate is the press, and exemplary was the Feb. 18 New York Times article "NASA Is Held Down by Its Own Bureaucracy," by James Glanz.

That article, which perpetuated various myths about what happened to the U.S. space program since the end of the Apollo lunar landings, was based on a lack of understanding of history, an inherent anti-science bias, and a fallacy of composition.

The Times claimed, "The end of the Cold War left the space program without the allure of competing with the Soviet Union." In fact, the race with the Soviets became secondary to the goal of landing a man on the Moon by the mid-1960s, when no one in this country would have believed that space exploration would be halted after Apollo, whether we won the "race" or not. By 1965, with no post-Apollo goals for NASA, layoffs began; there has not been a long-term goal in space since Apollo.

The Times claimed, "When the United State chose the Shuttle over continued exploration in space, NASA lost much of its appeal for young researchers." In fact, the Shuttle was originally conceived by Wernher von Braun and Krafft Ehricke, and designed at NASA, to be the first step in permanent manned exploration; to service a space station from which man could travel anywhere. It was the financial constraints, leading to design compromises, that demoralized people working on the Space Shuttle, not the technology.

U.S., China Join International Fusion Project

At the 8th ITER Negotiations Meeting, held last week in St. Petersburg, Russia, China formally joined the international fusion project, and the U.S. re-joined, after having left in 1998. The ITER representatives from Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada formally welcomed these two additional participants, stating that "history was made at this meeting," as both "confirmed their countries' commitment to participate in ITER." This is the first large international science and technology project in which China is a participant.

The head of the Chinese delegation, Luo Delong, from the Ministry of Science and Technology, stated at the meeting that China, "as one of the largest developing countries in the world, has a great need to pursue alternative energy sources. China believes that ITER can potentially lead to new forms of energy and contribute to the peaceful and sustainable development of the world in the long-term."

At the meeting, Japan, Canada, and the European Union confirmed their nations' offers to host the $8-billion fusion tokamak experiment, which venue will be decide in the coming months. The next meeting will be held in Vienna in May.

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