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Crisis Updates from NVUSA Oct. 12

The USA waited until October to follow a UN suggestion made in January to freeze suspected terrorist funds; Congress (remember them?) asks why; Iraq is likely next war zone; protest report from Pakistan to Palestine; and Afghan refugees report civilian targets hit. Such are the items of today's update of the 9/11 website at Nonviolence USA at http://911.gregmoses.net

Increasing pressure on Saddam is a long-held Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz aim. In January 1998 - joined by Richard Armitage (now Deputy Secretary of State), John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky (now Under Secretaries of State), Peter Rodman (now Assistant Secretary of Defense), Elliott Abrams and Zalmay Khalilzad (now senior National Security Council officials), Robert Zoellick (now US Trade Representative), and Richard Perle (now a senior Bush adviser) - they wrote an open letter to then president Bill Clinton, stating:

"We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. We urge you to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the US and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power...
   --Marc Erikson (Asia Times 10/13/2001).

Ankara is concerned that if Saddam Hussein's regime collapses, under US military pressure, a Kurdish state may emerge in northern Iraq and threaten Turkey. Ankara has denied the right of self-determination to its Kurdish population, which rebels have been fighting for for 15 years.
   --Nadire Mater (Asia Times 10/13/2001).

The Israeli deputy defense minister Dalia Rabin Vilozov has revealed that Iraq is one of the next American targets after Afghanistan, noting that the US will inform Israel, in advance, about the attacks on Iraq.
   --Iraq-Israel (ArabicNews.com 10/12/2001).

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Months before the Sept. 11 attacks, the United Nations and the European Union directed their members to freeze the assets of five lieutenants of Osama bin Laden, including his brother-in-law and financial handler. The U.S. government didn't do it until Friday.

Members of Congress want to know why Treasury officials charged with disrupting the finances of terrorists didn't follow the lead of some of the closest U.S. allies back in January.
   --AP (10/12/2001).

Palestinian police briefly detained three foreign reporters covering a rally in the Gaza Strip in support of Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect behind the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on the United States.
   --Reuters (Houston Chronicle 10/12/2001).

SRINAGAR, OCT. 12. A bandh was observed in Srinagar [Kashmir] and other parts of the Valley today in protest against the U.S. attacks in Afghanistan. Police used teargas shells to disperse the protesters.

The call of the Hurriyat Conference, which supports Pakistan's desision to back the U.S., to the people to observe restraint went unheeded.
   --By Shujaat Bukhari (The Hindu 10/12/2001).

NEW DELHI, OCT. 12. The Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid today staged a sit- in demonstration at the Masjid complex and activists of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and other Left parties held an anti-U.S. demonstration near the American Centre here.
   --The Hinu (10/12/2001).

The Algerian dailies issued on Thursday said that 24 persons including 8 policemen, were wounded on Tuesday in clashes that took place in al-Qabayel district.
   --Algeria (ArabicNews.com 10/12/2001).

Thousands of anti-U.S. protesters in the Pakistani city of Karachi stoned police, torched cars and set ablaze a KFC restaurant licensed by the American fast-food chain. But the threat of wider protests after the first Friday prayers since the start of the air campaign did not materialize.
   --AP (NYTimes 10/12/2001).

Demonstrators protesting US attacks on Afghanistan attacked the Pakistani consulate in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan, near the border with Afghanistan, on Friday.
   --AFP (Hindustan Times 10/12/2001).

Turnout at demonstrations in the Middle East was lower than expected and there was little violence in the region after the first Friday prayers since the U.S. strikes began.
   --Reuters (10/12/2001).

The secretary of the expatriates ministry in Yemen Ibrahim Abdul Rasheed has stressed that five Yemenis were killed in the US and Canada in acts of revenge against the Muslims following the attacks of September 11 against the US.
   --Yemen-USA (ArabicNews.com 10/12/2001).

At the border crossing into Pakistan that is closest to Kandahar, refugees reported the strikes were escalating. Ekhtiar Mohammed, a brickworker who arrived in the border town of Chaman yesterday, said he had seen at least 10 people killed and 30 injured in Kandahar over the past four days.

Another arriving refugee said some bombs in recent days had been hitting populated areas.

“It's not true that the Americans have only been bombing military targets. Many of the bombs are dropping on residential neighbourhoods,” said Naseebullah Khan, who works at a factory near Kandahar’s airport, a repeated US target.
   --AP (Star Online 10/12/2001).

Journalists who attempt to venture into Afghanistan do so at their own risk, as the Sunday Express reporter, Yvonne Ridley experienced recently. As a result, other than the official US and UK government standpoint, there are only journalists on the Pakistani-Afghanistan border or with the Northern Alliance in the north-east of the country to provide an independent view of the conflict - hardly providing a view from the front-line though. Those journalists with the Northern Alliance might provide us with the first live and close-up pictures of airstrikes if the Taliban’s front-line positions are bombed or the Northern Alliance’s push into Kabul - if it ever happens - however, the media strategy of Resuming Freedom is so in favour of the US and the UK, that a more comprehensive picture of the war as it is being fought will never be available. The full scale of the war, including the special forces operations deep inside Afghanistan, might not be provided for a very long time after the last bomb is dropped.
   --Michael Fishpool (Intel Briefing 10/10/2001).

For these clips and links go to Nonviolence USA:

http://911.gregmoses.net

greg.moses@marist.edu
Philosophy
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
http://philosophy.gregmoses.net
845-575-3000 x2217

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