[casi] News titles, 8-15/6/02

[Peter Brooke <pbrooke@DELETETHISukonline.co.uk>]

News titles, 8-15/6/02

Another collection of outdated news (readers I hope understand that these
mailings are mainly intended as an archive). This time its comparatively
short since I¹ve only given URLs and my own comments for the most
interesting items, in the ŒGeneral Paranoia¹ section. This week, Donald
Rumsfeld visited Kuwait, George Bush announced his new Homeland Security
Department, work began on the US Œanti-missile shield¹ project in violation
of the 1972 ABM treaty. Already, one can feel, the world is a safer place.
Thoroughgoing enthusiasts for the news mailing service will be pleased to
learn that a perfected version of News, 25/5-1/6/02, which got mangled in my
own mailing, can now be found in the discussion list archive on the CASI
website.

FINGER POINTING AT IRAQ

*  Blind Anthrax Alley [Letter from Drew Hamre, replying to ŒWeighing an
Attack on Iraq¹ by Fred Hiatt, Washington Post, 3rd June. See News, 1-8/6/02
(3)]
*  Bush reportedly tells [Japanese PM] Koizumi he's going to attack Iraq
*  Iraq attack is on [ŒFormer paratrooper John Ringo¹, in trash novelist
style, predicts that war is inevitable because it would be embarrassing for
President Bush to give the next State of the Union address with President
Hussein still in power. He may have a point. But hundreds of thousands of
people killed to spare Mr Bush some embarrassment seems a high price to pay.
Here¹s a phrase to reduce those who have been trying so hard to keep the
historical record straight to despair: ŒWe've forgotten the arrogant nature
of the expulsion in 1998 ...¹]
*  Rumsfeld's tough talk on Iraq [Rumsfeld Œsaid to a room full of
reporters, including many in the Kuwaiti press, that he viewed that
reconciliation possibility as something like the lion inviting the chicken
into the den. [He created] a little bit of a faux pas, perhaps not realizing
that he was calling the Kuwaitis chickens.]
*  Rumsfeld tells U.S. troops Hussein is 'world-class liar'
*  Kristol's War will need better salesmanship [How a discourse that sounds
perfectly anodyne in the US (Œfirst Iraq, then Iran and North Korea and even
the House of Saud¹) doesn¹t travel very well in Europe.]
*  Why a First Strike Will Surely Backfire [William Galston, a Clinton
adviser, has already gone so far with the Forces of Evil that his argument
against an intervention in Iraq sounds weak. It amounts to saying that,
unlike, er, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Panama, Afghanistan, such a war would
have been unprovoked so the rest of the world would oppose it and might do a
bit of sulking. But the rest of the world has already revealed its
prostitute status through its acquiescence in earlier adventures and its
continued willingness to treat the US as a respectable power. The Bush
administration would probably be able to live with a bit of sulking.]

INSIDE IRAQ

*  Hussein holds rare Q&A on Iraqi TV

IRAQI/MIDDLE EASTERN-ARAB WORLD RELATIONS

*  Morocco, Iraq to set up business council
*  Iran accepts refugees if war breaks out in Iraq, Pakistan
*  Iraq, Qatar sign free trade agreement
* [Lebanese] Parliamentary delegation returns from Iraq
*  Kuwait's age-old woes [Stagnancy of Kuwait under aging leadership]
*  U.S. Iraqi Expert [Robert Deutsch] Assigned to Embassy in Ankara

OIL POLITICS

*  Refiners Learn to Live Without Iraqi Oil
*  Iraq Opposes OPEC Oil Output Hike

IRAQI OPPOSITION

*  Saddam's opponents claim attack on party chief [Islamic terrorism strikes
again, this time, as so often in the past, with US support. And, assuming
the story is true, may we assume that President Hussein¹s response will
resemble that of his soul-brother, Ariel Sharon?]

REMNANTS OF DECENCY

*  US artists damn 'war without limit' [Note at the end: ŒIt was announced
last week that Bill Maher, host of the television show Politically
Incorrect, has not had his contract renewed by ABC. Maher was criticised for
an exchange six days after September 11 in which he and a guest agreed that
whatever else the hijackers were, they were not "cowardly."¹ Nonetheless,
whatever else the hijackers were, they were not "cowardly."]

SIEGE OF IRAQ
*  Aussie warship intercepts 16 boats
*  US attacks Iraqi radar site

IRAQI/UN RELATIONS

*  Reporter owes reluctant thanks to Saddam Hussein [This article is of very
little interest and would hardly have been worth giving except for the clear
message, from a specialist in reporting UN affairs, that the UN is only
interesting when the US has a use for it.]

MARGINAL NATIONS OF NO IMPORTANCE

URL ONLY
http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/fp.asp?layout=displaynews&doc_id=NR20020611670.4
_61a8018dcab794fd
*  Europe Barks. But Does it Bite?: Its leaders criticize Bush and his
policy. But are they more nervous about their own roles?
by Stryker McGuire in London and John Barry in Washington
Hoover's-Financial Times (from Newsweek International, 3rd June), 11th June
[Long, wandering, impressionistic article about US/European relations which
concludes, probably rightly, that ŒEurope¹ isn¹t anything in particular and
that there isn¹t much substance to its disagreements with the US.]


GENERAL PARANOIA

URLs ONLY:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-wh/2002/jun/11/061102259.html
*  Bush Pledges Fight Against Evil
Las Vegas Sun, 11th June
[A rather indefinite account of Bush¹s proposed Homeland Security
Department]

http://www.canada.com/vancouver/story.asp?id={6BB5B429-75F7-48AF-9E35
0A7217CB7855}
*  War on terror will dominate G-8 foreign ministers' conference at Whistler
Vancouver Sun [?], 11th June
[Preparations for meeting of G8 foreign ministers in Canada, which could
have been, but probably wasn¹t, a chance for ŒEurope¹ to assert strong
opposition to a war on Iraq.]

http://www.faz.com/IN/INtemplates/eFAZ/docmain.asp?rub={B1311FCE-FBFB-11D2
B228-00105A9CAF88}&sub=&doc={EF4A68EE-530E-4A8F-9715-00C8842E5C78}
*  Germany's Armed Forces in Dire Need of Modernization
by Jürgen Jeske
Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung, 12th June
[Part of the sustained effort to increase the European defense budget at the
expense of the welfare budget. Somehow this is supposed to counter
Œterrorism¹, though how it would have prevented September 11, or any half
way competent suicide bomber with access to a little fertiliser and sugar is
not explained. Rarely can it have been so obvious that there is a hidden
agenda to all this. Rarely can journalists have been so reluctant to seek it
out. It is in my view hinted at in the sentence: ŒGermany will no longer be
able to keep up in the defense technology that, while perhaps done primarily
for military reasons, is well known to provide technological impulses to the
economy as a whole.¹]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134473670_abm13.html
*  U.S. to start anti-missile shield: Bush voids ABM treaty today;
construction begins Saturday
by Drew Brown
Seattle Times, 13th June
[Account of the current stage of the Star Wars project. Although I haven¹t
given it, it has its interest. The author is clearly suspicious that the
whole thing is pointless. It is so obviously pointless that the spending of
huge sums of money on it must be considered as an end in itself. Hence it
could be a useful starting point to understanding how the US economy as a
whole works.]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/national/13CIVI.html?pagewanted=print&posi
tion=top
*  Echo of F.B.I. Abuses in Queries on New Role
by NEIL A. LEWIS
New York Times, 13th June
[On new information gathering powers of the FBI, with some information on
past abuses, notably the investigation into CISPES (the Committee in
Solidarity With the People of El Salvador)]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,736400,00.html
*  Messy war on the new masters of Armageddon
by Hugo Young
The Guardian, 13th June
[Hugo Young joins Bush in defending the principle of the pre-emptive strike,
the principle of the attack on Pearl Harbour. This is because the threat of
Œterrorism¹ has suddenly become so dreadful. It happens that I am that most
unpopular of UK citizens, an Ulster Protestant. But I don¹t remember this
type of language issuing from the pages of The Guardian (or indeed from
anywhere in the United States) at the time when we were living under
Œterrorist¹ assault in the 1970s...]



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