In this issue:

Former U.S. Diplomats Blast Bush's Southwest Asia Policy

Kentucky State Rep Backs LaRouche Campaign

Friedman Calls for Firing Rumsfeld

Law Professor Urges Hearings into Scalia's Conduct

Kerry Grovels, Hillary Gushes Before the ADL

Police-State Measures: Get Used to Them

Chalabi Reported To Be Playing Double Game with Iran

Retired Military To Condemn Bush Southwest Asia Policy

From Volume 3, Issue Number 19 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published May 11, 2004

United States News Digest

Former U.S. Diplomats Blast Bush's Southwest Asia Policy

Just as 52 British former diplomats recently wrote Prime Minister Tony Blair a letter demanding that he use all his influence to change President Bush's Mideast policy of backing up Israel in every situation—or, failing that, that Blair stop backing Bush—now, a group of American former diplomats have similarly acted.

We reprint here the text of a letter 16 U.S. former diplomats sent to President Bush on April 30; it has now been signed by a total of about 60 diplomats.

"Dear Mr. President: We former U.S. diplomats applaud our 52 British colleagues who recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair criticizing his Middle East policy and calling on Britain to exert more influence over the United States. As retired foreign service officers, we care deeply about our nation's foreign policy and U.S. credibility in the world.

"We also are deeply concerned by your April 14 endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral plan to reject the rights of 3 million Palestinians, to deny the right of refugees to return to their homeland, and to retain five large illegal settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank. This plan defies UN Security Council resolutions calling for Israel's return of occupied territories. It ignores international laws declaring Israeli settlements illegal. It flouts UN Resolution 194, passed in 1948, which affirms the right of refugees to return to their homes or receive compensation for the loss of their property and assistance in resettling in a host country should they choose to do so. And it undermines the Road Map for peace drawn up by the Quartet, including the United States. Finally, it reverses longstanding American policy in the Middle East.

"Your meeting with Sharon followed a series of intensive negotiating sessions between Israelis and Americans, but which left out Palestinians. In fact, you and Prime Minister Sharon consistently have excluded Palestinians from peace negotiations. Former Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo voiced the overwhelming reaction of people around the world when he said, 'I believe President Bush declared the death of the peace process today.'

"By closing the door to negotiations with Palestinians and the possibility of a Palestinian state, you have proved that the United States is not an even-handed peace partner. You have placed U.S. diplomats, civilians, and military doing their jobs overseas in an untenable and even dangerous position.

"Your unqualified support of Sharon's extra-judicial assassinations, Israel's Berlin Wall-like barrier, its harsh military measures in occupied territories, and now your endorsement of Sharon's unilateral plan are costing our country its credibility, prestige, and friends.

"It is not too late to reassert American principles of justice and fairness in our relations with all the peoples of the Middle East. Support negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, with the United States serving as a truly honest broker. A return to the time-honored American tradition of fairness will reverse the present tide of ill will in Europe and the Middle East, even in Iraq. Because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the core of the problems in the Middle East, the entire region and the world will rejoice along with Israelis and Palestinians when the killing stops and peace is attained."

Kentucky State Rep Backs LaRouche Campaign

At the conclusion of a two-day campaign trip to Louisville, Ky., where he addressed dozens of trade unionists, political leaders, supporters, and youth, Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche held a May 7 press conference at which he was endorsed by State Rep. Perry Clark. Clark called on Kentuckians to join him in voting for LaRouche in the May 18 Democratic Presidential primary.

In his opening statement, Rep. Clark cited the fact that the financial oligarchy has taken over both parties in the United States, and that this control has to be broken. Lyndon LaRouche is the only person who can do that, Clark said, and that's why he endorses him for President. Clark also released a formal statement of endorsement, in which he praised LaRouche's FDR-like economic approach to dealing with the current economic crisis, as well as LaRouche's policy for ending the Iraq nightmare with an initiative based on the precept "Love Thy Neighbor."

Clark's statement read in part: "That policy [LaRouche's economic program] also echoes the approach of Great Kentuckians of generations past. Roosevelt proudly stood on the shoulders of both Henry Clay and President Abraham Lincoln, who were leading proponents of what became known as the American System of Economics. It was this system that built the United States into the great nation, that up until recently, was the envy of the world. It is time to revive the American System of Clay and Lincoln."

LaRouche followed Clark with a hard-hitting discussion of why he is the only candidate for President who is qualified to be President under the current conditions of crisis. He put the key issues of the LaRouche Doctrine for Southwest Asia, and the solution to the economic crisis, on the table, while stressing that he personally is committed to changing Bush Administration policy now, prior to the election. After a few questions, LaRouche was interviewed separately by the NBC and CBS affiliates in Louisville.

The LaRouche campaign is concentrating over the coming week on the primary contests in Arkansas and Oregon, which also occur on May 18. A heavy series of radio ads presenting the LaRouche Doctrine is being aired, at the same time that teams from the LaRouche Youth Movement are deploying throughout these states.

Friedman Calls for Firing Rumsfeld

In his May 6 New York Times op ed, senior columnist Thomas Friedman writes, "We are in danger of losing America as an instrument of moral authority and inspiration in the world. I have never known a time in my life when America and its President were more hated around the world than today."

The overhaul of Iraq policy must "begin with President Bush firing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—today, not tomorrow or next month," as he should already have done, over the Pentagon's failure of planning for the postwar period. Friedman says Bush must call for a regional approach: "Invite to Camp David the 5 Perm Members of the UNSC, the heads of NATO and the UN, and the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria," and admit mistakes, that we are losing Iraq, and that he is turning a new page." There is "still a glimmer of hope that this Bush team will do the right thing," says Friedman.

Law Professor Urges Hearings into Scalia's Conduct

In an op ed published in the New York-area newspaper Newsday on May 4, Hofstra University Professor of Law Monroe Freedman argues that, in the course of trying to refute the demands that he recuse himself from hearing the plea of his 25-year-long buddy Dick Cheney to keep his energy task force dealings secret, Supreme Court Justice Scalia "unintentionally made the far more important point that he should have disqualified himself in 2000 from Bush v. Gore, which made his old friend Dick Cheney the Vice President of the United States." Freedman argues that Scalia should have recused himself, under the Federal Disqualification Statute, a law which expressly applies to Supreme Court justices.

"In a State of the Union address, George W. Bush inveighed against 'activist judges' who, 'without regard for the will of the people ... insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people.' Perhaps Congress should hold hearings on Supreme Court justices who flout the will of the people, and who bring the administration of justice into disrepute, by sitting in cases from which they have clearly been disqualified under federal law," Freedman urged.

Kerry Grovels, Hillary Gushes Before the ADL

Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry failed to criticize the rightwing, repressive policies of the Sharon government in Israel when he addressed the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) on May 4. Instead, he said that "I will never force Israel to make concessions that cost or compromise any of Israel's security.... We will also never expect Israel to negotiate peace without a credible partner."

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) also addressed the ADL meeting, praising Abe Foxman and the ADL in glowing terms. She announced that she had led an effort to condemn the "ongoing efforts to undermine Israel's standing in the world community, most recently by the General Assembly vote to take the issue of the fence to the World Court." A letter was signed by Clinton and Senators Hatch, Schumer, and Smith, "protesting the International Court of Justice's decision to hear this case, I asked them what would we do if we had constant incursions from Canada or Mexico, that people were coming over our border on a daily, weekly basis and killing innocent civilians, what would we do? Well, we would obviously take action. And I think that is the right of self-defense and the responsibility of any government to do."

Clinton and her colleagues have apparently decided to ignore the fact that Israel's fence is a de facto theft of Palestinian land.

Police-State Measures: Get Used to Them

That is the message of the May 2 New York Times magazine cover feature by Michael Ignatieff, the Canadian writer who made his first big splash making the case for an American Empire, in the New York Times magazine of Jan. 4, 2003. The feature article is a summary of a book Ignatieff expects to bring out later this month, which book is entitled The Lesser Evil.

In January 2003, Ignatieff said that the U.S. has to "get used to" the idea of being the world empire, like it or not. Now he says that we have to "get used to" police-state measures, because they are allegedly necessary to defend ourselves against allegedly inevitable new terror attacks, including around this fall's elections.

Ignatieff plays it coy, by criticizing Bush for running roughshod over Congress to get the war, for the lies leading to the war against Iraq, and by noting all sorts of other "excesses," such as under Hoover.

His solution is that we need a "rule of law" governing the "lesser evils" which are required to win the "war on terror." Ignatieff even applies this schema to torture, citing Alan Dershowitz's statement that if the U.S. is going to use it, it should regulate it with "torture warrants."

Ignatieff goes so far as to launch into an attack on the "imperial Presidency," at the same time that he defends outright the doctrine of preemptive war. He just wants to make sure that the doctrine is not carried out as stupidly and clumsily as it has been in Iraq. So, "the question is not whether we should be trafficking in detention, coercive interrogation, and targeted assassination"—i.e., we should. "It is whether we can keep these lesser evils under the control of free institutions."

Chalabi Reported To Be Playing Double Game with Iran

Newsweek magazine reported, in its May 10 issue, that U.S. intelligence officials have briefed the White House that the neo-cons' Ahmad Chalabi "and some of his top aides have supplied Iran with 'sensitive' information on the American occupation in Iraq.... [E]lectronic intercepts of discussions between Iranian leaders indicate that Chalabi and his entourage told Iranian contacts about American political plans in Iraq. There are also indications that Chalabi has provided details of U.S. security operations. According to one U.S. government source, some of the information Chalabi turned over to Iran could 'get people killed.'"

Newsweek cites Administration officials saying that "Chalabi may be working both sides in an effort to solidify his own power and block the advancement of rival Iraqis.... Yet Chalabi still has loyal defenders among some neo-conservatives in the Pentagon." The magazine stresses that "each month the Pentagon still pays his group a $340,000 stipend, drawn from secret intelligence funds, for 'information collection.'" The factional battle is hot: "The State Department and the CIA are using the intelligence about his Iran ties to persuade the President to cut him loose once and for all."

Retired Military To Condemn Bush Southwest Asia Policy

A group of retired U.S. generals and admirals is drafting a "tough condemnation" of the Bush Administration's Southwest Asia policy, wrote Arnaud de Borchgrave in the Washington Times on May 3. In addition, the Council on Foreign Relations organized a conference call for its members with retired Army Gen. William E. Odom, who said staying the course in Iraq was untenable and urged an immediate pull-out of U.S. troops.

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