In Search of Peace and Flowers

Ana and Rozaiba --

the new polls show that the stupido is vulnerable --

the massive anti war rallies all around the world have shaken Americans from their post 9/11 -- stupor and anasthesia.

`They are slowly waking up to the realization that under the pretext of --`fightng terrorism` -- their country, and its constitutional morality has been hijacked -- in broad daylight -- by a cabal of greedy unscruplous uncouth sleazy -- OIL Men -- pushing the the country -- towards a DISASTER --

greater than Vietnam

led by an illegitimate Village Idiot -- who was -- actually REJECTED -- by the people -- by HALF MILLION VOTES -- then `elected` -- by a `majoity` of -- FIVE Supreme Court judges!

they are asking why we are going to WAR -- what`s the occasion -- what happened to 9/11 Osama`s war -- why Iraq -- what did Iraq do to us -- and why now?

I was listening to the news this morning where information from nasah`s post was being discussed. Apparently, Blair has asked Bush for three more weeks...what`s going to happen in these three weeks??? Perhaps he`ll discover he has a spine afterall.

nasah (#39): good piece.

it`s great to see the waves of people make the leaders sit up and take notice. inspiring. i didn`t think the anti-war movement could create inspiration from the iraq affair.

we can see the effect of the waves on people on this board who were satisfied with war and presented arguments for it.

hahaha. regime change :):)

Bush about helping ``regime change`` in Britain, Italy and Spain

LONDON, Feb. 18 -- Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing his toughest political battle since taking office over growing opposition to his support for President Bush and U.S.-led military action against Iraq, according to analysts and opinion polls.

Blair, America`s staunchest international supporter, has been hit by a series of setbacks in recent days, starting with an equivocal report by the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, to the Security Council last Friday.

That was followed by Saturday`s mass demonstration opposing a war, a protest now said to have attracted more than 1 million people, the largest political rally in British history.

This morning, a new opinion poll showed Blair at his lowest approval rating in 21/2 years.

Other U.S. allies in Europe also face political difficulty.

In Italy, where an estimated 1 million marchers protested against military action and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi`s support for the Bush administration, the country`s main labor union, the CGIL, today threatened to launch a general strike if war broke out.

In Spain, where 2 million to 3 million people took to the streets Saturday, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar`s party has fallen behind the rival Socialists in opinion polls for the first time since he came to power three years ago.

Aznar is to meet with Bush this weekend at the president`s ranch in Crawford, Tex.

Blair and his aides are disturbed that despite a month-long blitz of public appearances in which he has sought to make the case against Iraq, opposition to military action is increasing.

``This is crunch time for Tony Blair,`` said Alan Simpson, a leader of Labor`s anti-war faction in the House of Commons.

``He can lead the war party or the Labor Party, but he can`t lead both. It`s quite clear if he goes off to war, he will have left the party behind him.``

Blair has failed to persuade the British public that the Iraqi government is a direct and imminent threat to Britain, nor has he connected the campaign against Iraq with the war on terrorism, analysts said.

He is also suffering from a high level of public mistrust.
The government`s release two weeks ago of what was billed as an intelligence dossier on Iraq turned out to be largely copied from a graduate student`s report, and it damaged Blair`s credibility.

Blair`s opponents within his ruling Labor Party have become increasingly emboldened and for the first time talking openly of seeking to replace Blair if he takes Britain into war without a second Security Council resolution authorizing force......(Washington Post)

will the dimwit go for a `regime change` at home -- as well?

Bush helping ``regime change`` in Britain, Italy and Spain

LONDON, Feb. 18 -- Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing his toughest political battle since taking office over growing opposition to his support for President Bush and U.S.-led military action against Iraq, according to analysts and opinion polls.

Blair, America`s staunchest international supporter, has been hit by a series of setbacks in recent days, starting with an equivocal report by the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, to the Security Council last Friday.

That was followed by Saturday`s mass demonstration opposing a war, a protest now said to have attracted more than 1 million people, the largest political rally in British history.

This morning, a new opinion poll showed Blair at his lowest approval rating in 21/2 years.

Other U.S. allies in Europe also face political difficulty.

In Italy, where an estimated 1 million marchers protested against military action and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi`s support for the Bush administration, the country`s main labor union, the CGIL, today threatened to launch a general strike if war broke out.

In Spain, where 2 million to 3 million people took to the streets Saturday, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar`s party has fallen behind the rival Socialists in opinion polls for the first time since he came to power three years ago.

Aznar is to meet with Bush this weekend at the president`s ranch in Crawford, Tex.

Blair and his aides are disturbed that despite a month-long blitz of public appearances in which he has sought to make the case against Iraq, opposition to military action is increasing.

``This is crunch time for Tony Blair,`` said Alan Simpson, a leader of Labor`s anti-war faction in the House of Commons.

``He can lead the war party or the Labor Party, but he can`t lead both. It`s quite clear if he goes off to war, he will have left the party behind him.``

Blair has failed to persuade the British public that the Iraqi government is a direct and imminent threat to Britain, nor has he connected the campaign against Iraq with the war on terrorism, analysts said.

He is also suffering from a high level of public mistrust.
The government`s release two weeks ago of what was billed as an intelligence dossier on Iraq turned out to be largely copied from a graduate student`s report, and it damaged Blair`s credibility.

Blair`s opponents within his ruling Labor Party have become increasingly emboldened and for the first time talking openly of seeking to replace Blair if he takes Britain into war without a second Security Council resolution authorizing force......(Washington Post)

will the dimwit go for a `regime change` at home -- as well?

samina #33...
thank you!

soldotna...
you really need to read more...I recommend that you forget about David Aaronovitch and all this other bigoted crap you`ve been posting, and turn to Robert Fisk for starters. Robert Fisk has been dead on about just about everything, from his critiques of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban, to his decrying the Israeli government, to his criticisms of Bush and Blair. He`s even pointed out the flaws in the anti-war movement (everyone has flaws, dude!)...so read some of his stuff...it isn`t propaganda like the some of the crap you`ve been posting.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ASSOCIATION OF ASIAN INDIAN WOMEN IN OHIO JOINS IN FILING AN AMICUS BRIEF IN
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT IN SUPPORT OF THE CONTINUATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
MICHIGAN`S AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PROGRAMS
Cleveland, OH. - The Association of Asian Indian Women in Ohio (AAIWO) has
joined The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium and its
Affiliates, the Asian Law Caucus and Asian Pacific American Legal Center,
along with twenty-four other organizations, filed an amicus curie (``friend of
the Court``) brief in support of the University of Michigan in the affirmative
action cases Grutter v. Bollinger (law school case) and Gratz v. Bollinger
(undergraduate case). The brief was supported by a broad range of Chinese,
Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Hmong, South Asian, Pacific Islander, Cambodian,
Laotian, and Vietnamese American public-interest groups representing the
civil rights, business, legal, education, labor, women, and health
communities.
The case involves a Caucasian applicant`s challenge, under both the United
States Constitution and a federal statute, to the University`s admissions
programs. The University`s programs consider a number of factors, including
race and diversity, in addition to test scores and grades to ensure that the
University`s student body provides the diversity of backgrounds and
perspectives necessary for an enriched educational experience. Both the
undergraduate and law school cases are pending before the Supreme Court of
the United States to determine whether affirmative action can be used in
admissions to institutions of higher education.
`` Affirmative Action has gone a long way in integrating American society but
discrimination persists in many arenas and affirmative action is still
necessary to address discrimination issues in corporate America. Education is
the key to advancement and affirmative action has to continue`` said Jayashree
Y. Bidari, Legal Counsel and Board Member of AAIWO. `` Diversity on college
campus is essential to survive in a global economy. Affirmative action gives
the opportunity for the youth to learn to respect and understand diverse
cultures that reflects the make up of America`` said Manju Rastogi, President
of AAIWO. ``Our youth can continue to integrate and communicate with people of
all colors if they have the opportunity to meet, study and interact with a
diverse student body. I commend the University of Michigan and other
Institutions of higher learning in their efforts to promote diversity that
will result in a better tomorrow for all Americans`` said Margaret Gonsalves,
First Vice-President of AAIWO. ``We still play in an unleveled playing field.
It would be a very sad day if the U.S. Supreme Court abolishes affirmative
action. Doors to opportunities will close. Today it may be the colleges,
tomorrow it will be the Corporate America. Discrimination continues and we
need to level the playing fields before we abolish affirmative action`` said
Neeta Chandra, Second Vice-President of AAIWO.
The University of Michigan`s admissions programs are thoughtfully drafted to
provide a balance between achieving diversity and maintaining fairness in the
admissions process.

Other amici joining AAIWO, NAPALC, ALC, and APALC on the brief are:
Asian American Business Roundtable
Asian American Legal Center Inc.
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Asian Law Alliance
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO
Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach (formerly Nihonmachi Legal Outreach)
Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations
Chinese for Affirmative Action
D.C. Asians for Peace and Justice
Filipino Civil Rights Advocates
Filipinos for Affirmative Action
Hmong National Development, Inc.
Japanese American Citizens League
Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, Inc.
National Association for the Education and Advancement of Cambodian, Laotian
and
Vietnamese Americans
National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
National Asian Pacific American Women`s Forum
National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development
National Council of Asian American Business Associations
National Federation of Filipino American Associations
National Korean American Service & Education Consortium
Organization of Chinese Americans
South Asian Bar Association of Southern California
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
AAIWO
Jayashree Y. Bidari
Legal Counsel & Board Member
31031 Center Ridge Road, Suite 6
Westlake, OH 44145

A musician with many concerns about war at:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_168039,001100050008.htm


Ras

Soldotna,
Enough. I`m not answering questions that have been answered several times already. Do us a favor and do some reading on your own time and educated yourself and stop posting columns written by people who should be spanked very badly for wasting trees with their regurgitated idiocy.

Dear Poster, please read what your official has to say:

CNN SHOWDOWN: IRAQ

Soundoff: Interview With Max Boot, Amy Goodman

Aired January 20, 2003 - 12:43 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Across the country, indeed the world, the cry grows louder for a nonmilitary solution to Iraq. Is it possible? Sounding off today from New York, Amy Goodman -- she is host of Democracy Now on Pacifica Radio, and Max Boot with the Council on Foreign Relations. He is author of the book ``The Savage Wars of Peace.``
Thanks both of you -- to both of you for joining us. Max, is it possible to avoid a war with Iraq?

MAX BOOT, AUTHOR, ``THE SAVAGE WARS OF PEACE``: Wolf, it`s possible, but very unlikely in my opinion. To avoid a war with Iraq, we would have to have voluntary disarmament by the Saddam Hussein regime, and everything that we know about Saddam, one of the most brutal and ruthless dictators in the world over the past 20 years is that he will never give up his weapons of mass destruction, no matter what the U.N. says. Therefore, I think it`s extremely unlikely that he will go quietly...

BLITZER: Let me let Amy weigh in on that as well. Go ahead, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN, DEMOCRACY NOW: Sure it`s possible. I mean, if Donald Rumsfeld was willing to shake Saddam`s hand in 1983 and 1984 when he knew he was using chemical weapons, surely he can negotiate diplomatically with him now when he knows he`s not.

BLITZER: You`re referring to a mission that he undertook during the Reagan administration to Baghdad at a time when U.S.-Iraqi relations were clearly much better than they are now in the face of that Iraqi war with Iran. But go ahead, Max, why don`t you respond.

GOODMAN: I think the operative point there though is that the U.S. at that time knew well that Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons and yet, Donald Rumsfeld did not raise this issue in Baghdad. Instead, he shook Saddam Hussein`s hand, and helped to normalize relations with Iraq...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Hold on one second. Let`s let Max weigh in. My understanding was the Iraqis used chemical weapons, gas, against the Kurds later in the `80s, `88, I believe, not in `84.

(CROSSTALK)

BOOT: Can I get in a word edgewise, please? BLITZER: Yes. Go ahead, Max.

BOOT: That is correct, Wolf. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons in a hideous campaign in 1987, 1988, especially around the area of Halabja (ph), which is one of the Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. But I am puzzled -- I am truly puzzled by the way the left harps on this time and again, as if we were somehow the reason why Saddam Hussein was in power in the 1980s, which is not at all the case. But even if we were, to some extent, supporting Saddam, which we were during his war with Iran, which was an even worse enemy in the 1980s, doesn`t that create even more of a burden upon us today to make up for those policies of the past by removing this evil cancer upon the Middle East whom we once supported?

I think it is incumbent upon us to liberate the people of Iraq and to get rid of this evil dictator, and I believe that is ultimately what we are going to have to do, Wolf.

BLITZER: Amy, go ahead.

GOODMAN: Well, right now -- first of all, I would say back in `83 and `84, we are talking about a Saddam Hussein who is gassing the Iranians in the war there, and the U.N., State Department of the United States knew it well. But right now, what is the answer? If we`re talking about our concern for Iraqi civilians, certainly the answer is not to bomb them, as the U.S. has continued to do on a regular basis, along with Britain, the two countries that have the most powerful oil companies who want to get into Iraq. That`s what this is about.

BOOT: That is ridiculous.

GOODMAN: You should have no illusion about it being about anything else.

BOOT: That is an absurd charge. The oil companies have no interest in overthrowing Saddam Hussein, the Saudi royal family, or any other dictators in the Middle East. They are perfectly happy to cut deals with dictators. But oil companies would like to have sanctions lifted. They don`t want to have the Saddam Hussein regime overthrown. And -- that is also a specious charge that we are, -- quote-unquote -- ``bombing civilians.`` What U.S. warplanes are doing in enforcing the northern and southern no-fly zones is responding when Iraqi air defenses are illegally firing upon them, and they are targeting Iraqi radars. They are not targeting civilians. It is Saddam Hussein who kills civilians deliberately, it is not the United States military.

GOODMAN: I just spoke with four women who returned from Iraq who lost loved ones at the World Trade Center. They`re with a group, Peaceful Tomorrows. They went to Iraq to build bridges with ordinary Iraqis. They went to the home of a family whose husband and father had died just a few weeks ago as a result of another U.S. bombing in the so called no-fly zone. That`s not authorized by the United Nations but imposed by the United States and Britain.

BOOT: Did these so-called peace activists of yours happen to visit with any Iraqis who had lost family members who had been raped, tortured or killed by Saddam Hussein`s regime, of whom there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps?

GOODMAN: I want to make it very clear, there is no question that Saddam Hussein is brutal and that he`s a dictator. There is also no question that Kim Jong Il in North Korea is a dictator, but the U.S. has decided to deal diplomatically with him. I think that they can come up with a way to deal diplomatically with Iraq. The difference is the U.S. wants to control the oil fields of Iraq.

BOOT: That is an absurd charge and the reason why we are dealing diplomatically with Kim Jong Il is because he already has nuclear weapons, and I would hope that we would act in the case of Iraq before Saddam Hussein acquires nuclear weapons, and I wish you would keep repeating this specious charge that this is a war about acquiring oil fields, when the fact of the matter is that any government of liberated post-war Iraq will control its own fields just as the government of liberated post-war Kuwait controls its own oil fields, and we have not gotten any kind of advantage in the oil fields from liberating Kuwait from Iraqi aggression.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Hold on one second. We have to wrap it up. I`m going to give both of you one last chance to wrap up your final thought. Amy, you first, very briefly, and then Max.

GOODMAN: I encourage you to read the ``Wall Street Journal`` and ``The New York Times`` where they lay out the blueprint of a post-Saddam Iraq. It is very clear the U.S. will control Iraq for at least 18 months, and the first thing they will do is quickly take control of the oil fields. This is about oil.

BOOT: If you will...

BLITZER: Max, go ahead.

BOOT: If you will finish reading those stories which you cite, you will see that Secretary of State Powell and other senior U.S. government officials have pledged that all oil revenues of Iraq will be used to liberate, to rebuild liberated Iraq. It will not be going for the benefit of the United States. In fact, this war is going to wind up costing us an awful lot of money, $50 to 60 billion at a lower estimate, so we`re not going to make a profit on this war, if that is what you are implying. That`s an absurd charge to make.

BLITZER: All right. Unfortunately -- Amy, we have to leave it right there because we are all out of time. I know both of you were very patient in waiting with us during all the news conferences that we covered this hour. I want to thank both of you and invite you back on another occasion. We will continue this discussion. Amy Goodman and Max Boot, thanks to both of you for joining us.

GOODMAN: Thank you, Wolf. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

Dear marcher, please answer a few questions

David Aaronovitch / The Guardian / February 18, 2003



If I`d been a marcher, I would gloat, too. Ever since the weekend it`s been like one long sugary Coca-Cola ad: ``We are the world, we are the people...`` All those years demonstrating about everything from abortion to Zimbabwe and now, when there is the biggest demo in British history, I can`t clap along.

Leaving the war aside for a moment, something is definitely happening. The past 12 months have seen three of the greatest public demonstrations in British history: last Sunday`s rally, the Countryside march and the Queen Mother`s walk-past. The governing cynicism of the 90s, as exemplified by writers such as PJ O`Rourke, has given way to the desire to give personal witness to historical events. It is now actually fashionable to pick up a placard with a slogan on it and walk for a few miles in the company of thousands of others. People want to say they ``were there``. I cannot see that as a bad thing.

Even so, some things get up an old marcher`s nose. The Sunday Telegraph had no trouble in finding what it called ``moderate`` protesters, such as 57-year-old Chelsea businessman Jonathan Callow, who had been on only one previous demonstration - with the Countryside Alliance. Sourly, I wondered how he had resisted all those entreaties we had made for him to support the anti-apartheid movement after Sharpeville and Soweto, or to march against the endless Vietnam war, and yet now was turning out every three months or so. Another woman more or less explained it. ``Saddam is not threatening us,`` she told the Telegraph reporter, ``The government should spend the money on British jobs, hospitals and the rural economy.`` Not in my name. Not in my back yard.

So, in this moment of extraordinary success, I wanted to ask those who went on the demonstration some questions. I wanted to ask whether, among your hundreds of thousands, the absences bothered you? The Kurds, the Iraqis - of whom there are many thousands in this country - where were they? Why were they not there? When Tony Benn was confronted by a young pro-war Iraqi woman on Channel 4 news on Saturday night, why did he describe the organisations of the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition as ``CIA stooges``?

Did some of the slogans bother you? Do you really believe that this parroted ``war about oil`` stuff is true? If so, what were the interventions in oil-less Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan about? What did you feel about the marchers wearing stickers bearing the Israeli flag and the words ``the fascist state``? Did you say to yourself, ``Actually, there`s only one fascist state in this equation, and it`s the one we`re effectively marching to save``?

If you got to Hyde Park, did some of the speeches bother you? How about the equivalence used by Tony Benn, as in, ``If there are inspectors in Iraq, I want to see inspectors in Israel, inspectors in Britain and inspectors in America``? Name Welsh villages attacked with chemical weapons by British bombers in the past 20 years.

Do you agree with Harold Pinter that the US is ``a country run by a bunch of criminals ... with Tony Blair as a hired Christian thug``? Is there any word in that sentence, apart from Tony, Blair and Christian, that isn`t quite mad? What about rail union leader Bob Crow`s suggestion that the government be brought down by civil action? Are you up for that?

If you think that it`s all nonsense but you don`t mind, then perhaps you can explain the extraordinary speech by Charles Kennedy MP. Here is the boss of a top party, yet one cannot tell what his view on war against Saddam actually is. Instead his speech was all about how unconvincing Blair`s arguments were. ``I have yet,`` he said, ``to be persuaded that the case for war against Iraq has been made.`` It`s been made, Charles, and if you don`t agree with it, why don`t you just say so? Stop blathering on about how ``people are suspicious and scared`` and tell them what you think ought to be done. Or is there a serious case for war, but you didn`t want to say so in front of a million demonstrators?

Back to those demonstrators, and just to ask, do you believe that Blair should act on your demands because so many people turned out on Saturday? If so, do you also think he should halt plans for the housing of asylum seekers in Lee-on-Solent because, at the same time as you marched, one-third of Lee`s entire population took to the streets to demand no asylum seekers in their town? Did the way the demo was reported in Baghdad bother you? Not your fault, but did you have any worry afterwards that it might make Saddam more obdurate and not less? Or maybe, like Benn, you don`t much care.

While we`re about it, why do you think Saddam readmitted inspectors after nearly five years in the first place? Was it because he felt it was the right thing to do? Or was it because of the threat of force? If it was the latter, what does this tell you? Should your protest bear fruit, are sanctions part of your preferred containment strategy (should you desire one)? If not, what replaces them? What do you mean, you don`t know?

Finally, what are you going to do when you are told - as one day you will be - that while you were demonstrating against an allied invasion, and being applauded by friends and Iraqi officials, many of the people of Iraq were hoping, hope against hope, that no one was listening to you?

You could still be right and I could be mistaken. A war could be far bloodier than I imagine, the consequences far worse than I believe they will be. It is just possible that a new Iraqi government, instead of moving towards democracy, might be a corrupt oligarchy. All I can say is that the signs look relatively promising in both Kosovo and Afghanistan.

On the other hand, what if you are wrong?

Amit #18:

The US only needs two types of countries support to carry out this war. One is itself, and the other group are the Muslim countries surrouding Iraq.

It cannot launch an attack against Iraq without placing troops in Turkey or Jordan or Kuwait et. It cannot win the whole war by just using Aircraft carriers.

I think Pakistan is trying hard to somehow or the other get out of this situaiton. No one in Pakistan wants to support this war, however the Pakistani govt. has always been dead scared of USA economic hold over Pakistan. They fear the USA can bring the country to a halt economically. Hence, the Pakistani arm can be twisted quite easily. I think Pakistan will try to stay out of this conflict. I hope it doesn`t vote in favor as a rotating member of the Security Council.

The country that is really surprising me is Turkey. It has an outright Islamic govt. now. Turkey is a torn state, with its military forcing it into secularity, with a population going competely in the other direction due to the corruption of the secular govts. it has had. However, it is rumored that Turkey is willing to supply bases at a price of $26 billion dollars.

I suppose everyone has a price.

This is what happens when countries are themselves weak economically. They can either be bought or threatened. The only Muslim leader going from one corner to the other opposing this war is Mahatir of Malaysia. It is no coincidence that his is the only Muslim country that has a strong economic base.

All the talk about Islamic this and that, amongst governments is a hoax. Most Islamic governments in the region are all heridatory dictatorships - a concept that is forbidden in Islam to begin with. So much so that the rulers of Saudi Arabia call themselves Khadim-al-Hurmain (the Servants of the Religous houses of Islam), instead of calling themselves Kings. What hypocricy!

The only Islamic group that genuinely opposes this war are the people of these countries. I think it is time that Pakistan stood up for what is right, come hell or high water. Scared followers can never be leaders, not even of themselves.

Pakistan should vote against an attack against Iraq. At the same time it should strongly support the removal of Saddam, but not in the, ``blink of an eye`` method of the USA. Saddam can be removed slowly. I don`t think the USA is going to destroy Pakistan, if it votes against something. I think Pakistanis do not understand the USA well enough. It has 150 countries to handle. Pakistan is just one of them. It is not that important as far as the USA is concerned.

Sooner or later, countries have to take their own destiny in their own hands. It may seem difficult in the short term, but it will pay huge benefits in the long run. If Turkey gets 26 billion today and sells itself, it will benefit in the short term. However, in the long term, its society will become even more divided and torn, with the clean shaven maulvis of today replaced by the bearded variety.

I think Pakistan needs to disassociate itself with all these, ``Islamic`` hyporcite states, only dealing with them for economic purposes. Saudi Arabia has funded Pakistan into potential fundamentalism. The only good to come from Afghinstan are pomegranates and melons. Hardly any of them raise their voice for Kashmiri rights (including Yasir of Palestine), while we cry ourserlves hoarse for all of them. The Middle Eastern shiekhdoms send 2 million for zoos in USA, and 50,000 when floods hit Pakistan.

The only Islamic countries Pakistan needs to associate in a philosophical, soical and intellectual sense and religious sense are Bangladesh, Iran, Malaysia and Indonesia (and Turkey, if its fanatic secularitics, who are as dangerous as religious fanatics ever let go of their country) - all non-Arab cultured states. Pakistan should try to become the leader of the pathetic, though rich, Middle Eastern shiekhdoms, and not try to follow them.

Every course I have taken, every profession I have been a part of, I have seen Pakistanis leave all these guys in the dust. I am surprised Pakistan as a nation doesn`t have more confidence.

Marching for Saddam: Who are the ``Leaders`` & Who Is Paying for it All
By J. Michael Waller / Insight Magazine / Feb. 17, 2003

Meet the ``leaders``

Meet the ``leaders`` of the antiwar protests who sought to spread their defense of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein worldwide on Feb. 15-16, going to the streets with a style and message that seemed eerily familiar:


One urged U.S. troops to mutiny and murder their commanding officers.


One is a leader of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslavian leader on trial for war crimes.


One was made an ``honorary nephew`` of North Vietnam`s Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War, returned home wearing a ring made from the wreckage of an American fighter plane and later became executive director of an alleged Soviet front organization that reportedly took its marching orders from the KGB.


Several organized protests in solidarity with the FARC narcoterrorists of Colombia.


Others have been waging campaigns in support of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.


Many of the most influential are professional radicals with a fanatical devotion to the late North Korean communist dictator Kim Il-sung and his communist dictator son, Kim Jong-il.


None has criticized Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

In a globally coordinated campaign, these and other aging veterans of Cold War ``peace`` protests are running today`s antiwar movement. This has other antiwar activists pulling at their hair. They argue that the affiliations and extremist positions of the current organizers risk discrediting the cause. Some even have gone public with these complaints. Writing in the Washington Post, sixties-era historian Michael Kazin, a professor at Georgetown University, says the American left is ``sharply divided`` about leadership of the protests. ``The organizers of the recent Washington and San Francisco marches refuse to say anything critical of Saddam Hussein,`` Kazin lamented.


Who`s Paying for it All?


But the critics don`t have much clout with the ``antiwar`` leadership, as they themselves recognize, because they aren`t doing the organizing or paying the expenses to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people into the streets. Today`s protests require huge amounts of work and are coordinated worldwide. United for Peace and Justice (UPJ), one of the two main groups that ran the Feb. 15-16 protests across the United States, claims simultaneous demonstrations were held around the world in more than 300 cities, including Baghdad.

Peace activists are torn between joining the Axis of Evil or not protesting at all. Some look the other way. Some rationalize involvement. ``We can`t divide the peace movement, you know,`` said a paid antiwar organizer at Our Lady of Mercy Church in wealthy Potomac, Md.

The demonstration planners are, in fact, professional agitators who have mass protest down to a science, having participated in or run grass-roots mobilizations since before most of today`s picketers were born. Critical authorities on U.S. radicalism say the track record of the leaders reveals not a principled opposition to war but a calculated commitment to undermining U.S. security and foreign policy, regardless of their ideology, and exploiting the naïveté and idealism of whatever influential or mainstream people can be persuaded to join them. That`s how a group such as the International Action Center (IAC) could support Milosevic`s mass murder of Muslims on the one hand, and back Islamic terrorists and Saddam on the other.

The organizers divide into two distinct groups: the IAC and Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, known as International ANSWER, lead one group, and UPJ heads the other. IAC and ANSWER are front groups of the Workers World Party (WWP), a tiny Marxist-Leninist group whose leaders display a fanatical devotion to the late North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung and his son and successor, Kim Jong-il (see sidebar). According to longtime homeland-security analysts, UPJ`s leaders built their political-organizing careers in the old Soviet-funded Communist Party USA (CPUSA).

Indeed the very concept of ``front groups`` -- umbrella organizations set up by communists to trick liberals and innocents into supporting the party line -- has been a veritable hallmark of Marxist agitation since the 1920s.

Many are tempted to laugh off the idea that graying old extremists are running current protests, and they roll their eyes at hearing the ``C``-word, even Moscow having given up communism. But many others, especially liberals in the peace movement, are not at all amused. ``I think the demonstrations would have been twice as big had the organizers been from a wider range of antiwar groups and not so dominated by this tiny Marxist-Leninist faction,`` said Stephen Zunes, chair of the peace- and justice-studies program at the University of San Francisco.

The IAC has felt the sting. In a statement it blasted those who ``dishonestly claim that ANSWER is a `front` group in order to diminish the coalition,`` though it acknowledges ``the presence of socialists and Marxists, in particular members of the Workers World Party.`` Their critics, IAC says, are racists: ``Those who claim that ANSWER is a `front` organization demonstrate their own racist and elitist perception of reality.``

And ANSWER has ripped what it calls ``a repugnant red-baiting campaign against the ANSWER coalition because of its role as a principal organizer of the mass grass-roots movement of opposition to war throughout the United States.``

The WWP is nothing if not consistent. According to a 1974 congressional report, it split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1959 in a dispute over the Soviet invasion of Hungary three years before. The Socialist Workers opposed the invasion, while Workers World partisans supported it. ``In 1968, the Workers World Party supported the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the communist Warsaw Pact armies,`` the report continued. The party, which never numbered more than a few hundred people, supported the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army against the United States during the Vietnam War, according to the congressional report. Some of its activities were coordinated with enemy military actions. An April 8, 1972, internal letter ``To All Branches`` of the party urged participation in ``antiwar`` demonstrations in support of a Viet Cong offensive in South Vietnam. The letter`s author, John Catalinotto, remains in the party as managing editor of its weekly Workers World ``newspaper,`` and occasionally represents the IAC.

Party members received revolutionary training in Cuba as members of the Venceremos Brigades in the 1960s and early 1970s, and at about that time the party oriented itself ideologically with North Korea. Deirdre Griswold Stapp, a voice of the party and currently editor of Workers World, described how the party functioned in a 1972 report to the Cuban Communist Party. Explaining its ``international relationships,`` she told Cuban leaders about the WWP`s new contacts with North Korea, via a front group called the American Servicemen`s Union, according to congressional investigators. ``The chairman of the American Servicemen`s Union, Andy Stapp, recently visited the Democratic People`s Republic of Korea and opened friendly discussions with the party there,`` she wrote. She later married Stapp.

In a speech to the 6th Congress of the League of Socialist Working Youth of Korea, the youth branch of North Korea`s ruling party, Andy Stapp praised ``Comrade Kim Il-sung, ever victorious, iron-willed, brilliant commander and outstanding leader of the international communist and working-class movements,`` according to a transcript published in a congressional report. ``As instructed by Marshal Kim Il-sung, the outstanding leader of the international and working-class movements, the No. 1 target of all the revolutionary people in the world is U.S. imperialism. In order to avenge the many oppressed people who have died a bloody death, and in order to build a new society in America in which everyone enjoys happiness, as in Korea, I recognize the great juche idea of Marshal Kim Il-sung as the Marxism-Leninism of the present time.``

Stapp committed himself and his organization to armed violence and to promoting mutiny within the U.S. military. According to the transcript of his speech broadcast over Radio Pyongyang, Stapp stated, ``The American Servicemen`s Union will study as documents, that must be read, the works of genius of Marshal Kim Il-sung. ... With the juche idea as the guiding compass of struggle, we will consolidate the branches of the American Servicemen`s Union in order to rally more soldiers around the organization. In this way the American GIs will fight against their real enemies, against the policy of aggression and war enforced on them by the U.S. ruling circles and the fascist military officers.``

He added that his goal was ``to build a powerful American Servicemen`s Union that will turn the guns against their fascist officers. ... If the American Servicemen`s Union cuts the windpipe of U.S. imperialism inside the army while at the same time it is mutilated in all parts of the world, U.S. imperialism will surely perish forever.``

Today, the WWP and its fronts claim to be nonviolent, but they remain as enthusiastic as ever about North Korea. Visiting Pyongyang to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung in April 2002, Griswold Stapp signed a statement denouncing President George W. Bush`s ``notorious antiterrorism war`` and demanding that ``the Korean peninsula be reunified without fail under the wise leadership of the respected leader Kim Jong-il following the banner of the Three Charters for the national reunification set forth by the great President Kim Il-sung.`` Filing an article from the North Korean capital for the July 23, 2002, issue of Workers World, Griswold Stapp called Pyongyang ``truly one of the most beautiful cities in the world.``

Brian Becker, a WWP secretariat member and a director of ANSWER and the IAC, visited North Korea in March 2002 to denounce the United States, discredit the presence of U.S. troops in South Korea and reaffirm a commitment to reunify the divided peninsula along the lines of the plan set by Kim Jong-il. Becker serves as a spokesman for the IAC and its antiwar campaign.

The second major coordinating faction of the present-day antiwar movement, headed by UPJ under Leslie Cagan`s leadership, has its roots in the old Soviet ``active-measures`` agitprop networks, say homeland-security experts.

Insight has traced Cagan`s career to Cuba, where in the early 1970s as a member of the Venceremos Brigades she received revolutionary training and indoctrination. In the last years of the Cold War, Cagan organized mass protests from an office called Mobilization for Survival, according to former congressional investigators. She coordinated with Soviet international front organizations and the CPUSA as the vanguard element of broader-based demonstrations around the world against U.S. resistance to Soviet expansion. This magazine has obtained Mobilization for Survival documents from the 1980s that show the group`s support for Marxist-Leninist insurgencies and terrorist groups in the Third World, Middle Eastern terrorists (including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Soviet-backed dictatorships in Africa and Latin America, and Soviet-inspired campaigns for the unilateral disarmament of the United States.

In 1990-91, when the United States led an international coalition to free Kuwait from the Iraqi military, Cagan coordinated the National Campaign for Peace in the Middle East to organize grass-roots opposition to the liberation. Also in 1991, when the CPUSA broke into two factions, Cagan cofounded the splinter group, called the Committees of Correspondence. Now she runs the UPJ, coordinating opposition to the war on terrorism in general and the effort to destroy Saddam`s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, longtime Cagan associate Michael Meyerson is helping to run protests in New York, according to the Associated Press. Formerly a member of the national council or ``Politburo`` of the CPUSA, Meyerson has been involved in protests since at least 1960. It was Meyerson who, in a 1965 visit to Hanoi, was made an ``honorary nephew`` of North Vietnamese Communist Party leader Ho Chi Minh. He returned home to attend ``antiwar`` protests sporting a Viet Cong cap and the ring he famously said was made from the wreckage of an American fighter plane. He ran the U.S. Peace Council, the New York-based branch of the World Peace Council, a Soviet international front organization that, according to 1982 CIA and FBI testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, received covert funding and direction from the KGB.

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Dear all,

let me just say that this ``report`` did get a bit too personal and even
made it to the Opinion pages of at least one publication.

I appreciated the feedback from those that read it but
soldotna`s replies still have me a bit puzzled.

But then again, everyone is entitled to their views.

PEACE

Ras