Project Censored at Sonoma State University announces the annual release

[Guest guest]

" Mark Hull-Richter " <mhull

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 18:01:11 -0700 (PDT)

Fwd: Project Censored at Sonoma State University announces

the annual release of the most important under-covered stories of 2004-05.

 

 

 

 

 

> Thu, 08 Sep 2005 21:36:00 -0700

> Peter Phillips <peter.phillips

> Project Censored at Sonoma State University announces the

> annual release of the most important under-covered stories of 2004-05

> project-censored-L

> CC: acmemembers-owner

>

> Project Censored at Sonoma State University announces the annual

> release of the most important under-covered stories of 2004-05.

>

> For full postings see: http://www.projectcensored.org/

>

> For Interviews with Project Censored Spokespersons contact:

> Peter.Phillips

>

> 1 BUSH ADMINISTRATION MOVES TO ELIMINATE OPEN GOVERNMENT

>

> Common Dreams, September 14, 2004, New Report Details Bush

> Administration Secrecy, by Karen Lightfoot

> <http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0914-05.htm>

>

<http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/story.asp?ID=692 & Issue=Open+Government>

>

> The Bush administration has been working to make sure the public -

> and even Congress - can't find out what the government itself is

> doing.

>

> In the Fall of 2004, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) released an

> 81-page report that found that the feds have consistently " narrowed

> the scope and application " of the Freedom of Information Act, the

> Presidential Records Act, and other key public information laws. At

> the same time the government expanded laws blocking access to certain

> records - even creating new categories of " protected " information and

> exempting entire departments from public scrutiny.

>

> The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) gives citizens the ability to

> file a request for specific information from a government agency and

> provides recourse in federal court if that agency fails to comply

> with FOIA requirements. Over the last two decades, beginning with

> Reagan, this law has become increasingly diluted and circumvented by

> each succeeding administration.

>

> Under the Bush Administration, agencies make extensive and arbitrary

> use of FOIA exemptions such as those for classified information,

> privileged attorney-client documents and certain information compiled

> for law enforcement purposes.

>

> Bush administration has even refused to release records to

> Congressional subcommittees or the Government Accountability Office.

> A few of the potentially incriminating documents being held secret

> from Congress include records of contacts between large energy

> companies and Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force; White

> House memos pertaining to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass

> destruction; and reports describing torture at Abu Ghraib.

>

> The Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002 (CIIA) as part of

> Homeland Security exempts from FOIA any information that is

> voluntarily provided to the federal government by a private party, if

> the information relates to the security of vital infrastructure. But

> under the act, even " routine communications by private sector

> lobbyists can be withheld from disclosure Š if the lobbyist asserts

> that the changes are related to the effort to protect the nation's

> infrastructure. Such a broad interpretation of CIIA could hide errors

> or misconduct by private-sector companies working with the Department

> of Homeland Security.

>

> In March 2002, the Bush Administration reduced public access to

> information through FOIA by mandating that agencies safeguard any

> records having to do with " weapons of mass destruction. " This

> included " information that could be misused to harm the security of

> our nation and the safety of our people, " according to a memo by

> White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. However, the memo did nothing

> to define these terms and agencies were left free to withhold

> virtually any information under the vague charge of " national

> security. "

>

> In 2003, the Bush Administration won a new legislative exemption from

> FOIA for all National Security Agency " operational files. " The

> Administration's main rationale for this new exemption is that

> conducting FOIA searches diverts resources from the agency's mission.

>

> Congressman Waxman describe the government secrecy moves as " an

> unprecedented assault on the laws that make our government open and

> accountable, "

>

> 2 MEDIA COVERAGE FAILS ON IRAQ: FALLUJAH AND THE CIVILIAN DEATHTOLL

>

> Peacework, December 2004-January 2005, The Invasion of Fallujah: A

> Study in the Subversion of Truth " By Mary Trotochaud and Rick

> McDowell

> World Socialist Web Site, November 17, 2004, US Media Applauds

> Destruction of Fallujah, by David Walsh, The NewStandard, December 3,

> 2004, Fallujah Refugees Tell of Life and Death in the Kill Zone, by

> Dahr Jamail, The Lancet, October 29, 2004, Mortality Before and After

> the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, By Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard

> Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi and Gilbert Burnham, The Lancet, October

> 29, 2004, The War in Iraq: Civilian Casualties, Political

> Responsibilities, by Richard Horton, The Chronicle of Higher

> Education, February 4, 2005, Lost Count, by Lila Guterman, Asheville

> Global Report, April 15, 2004, CNN to Al Jazeera: Why Report Civilian

> Deaths? "

>

> Les Roberts, an investigator with the John Hopkins Bloomberg School

> of Public Health, conducted a rigorous inquiry into pre- and

> post-invasion mortality in Iraq, sneaking into Iraq by lying flat on

> the bed of an SUV and training observers on the scene. The results

> were published in the Lancet, a prestigious peer-reviewed British

> medical journal, on Oct. 29, 2004 - Roberts and his team (including

> researchers from Columbia University and from Al-Mustansiriya

> University in Baghdad concluded that the death toll associated with

> the invasion and occupation of Iraq is about 100,000 civilians, and

> may be much higher. 95% of those deaths were caused by helicopter

> gunships, rockets, or other forms of aerial weaponry and more than

> half of the fatalities were women or children.

>

> The study was done before the second invasion of Fallujah in the Fall

> of 2004. More than 83 percent of Fallujah's 300,000 residents fled

> the city. The people had nowhere to flee and ended up as refugees.

> Many families were forced to survive in fields, vacant lots, and

> abandoned buildings without access to shelter, water, electricity,

> food or medical care.

>

> The 50,000 citizens who either chose to remain in the city or who

> were unable to leave were trapped by Coalition forces and were cut

> off from food, water and medical supplies Men between the ages of 15

> and 45 were refused safe passage, and all who remained were treated

> as enemy combatants. Coalition forces cut off water and electricity,

> seized the main hospital, shot at anyone who ventured out into the

> open, executed families waving white flags while trying to swim

> across the Euphrates or otherwise flee the city. US forces shot at

> ambulances, raided homes and killed people who didn't understand

> English, rolled over injured people with tanks, and allowed corpses

> to rot in the streets and be eaten by dogs.

>

> Medical staff and others reported seeing people, dead and alive, with

> melted faces and limbs, injuries consistent with the use of

> phosphorous bombs. As of December of 2004 at least 6,000 Iraqi

> citizens in Fallujah had been killed, and one-third of the city has

> been destroyed.

>

> The International Committee for the Red Cross reported on December

> 23, 2004 that three of the city's water purification plants had been

> destroyed and the fourth badly damaged.

>

> Not long after the " coalition " had embarked on its second offensive,

> U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour called for an

> investigation into whether the Americans and their allies had engaged

> in " the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and

> disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons, and the use

> of human shields, " among other possible " grave breaches of the Geneva

> Conventions ... considered war crimes " under federal law.

>

> Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law,

> executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S.

> representative to the executive committee of the American Association

> of Jurists, has noted that the U.S. invasion of Fallujah is a

> violation of international law that the U.S. had specifically

> ratified: " They [uS Forces] stormed and occupied the Fallujah General

> Hospital, and have not agreed to allow doctors and ambulances to go

> inside the main part of the city to help the wounded, in direct

> violation of the Geneva Conventions. "

>

> Updates: English Al-Jazeera website at

> http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage, and website at

> www.dahrjamailiraq.com, The World Tribunal on Iraq at

> www.worldtribunal.org

>

> 3. ELECTION FRAUD LIKELY IN 2004

>

> In These Times, 02/15/05, A Corrupted Election, by Steve Freeman and

> Josh Mitteldorf

> Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 26, 2005, Jim Crow Returns To The

> Voting Booth,

> by GregPalast, Rev. Jesse Jackson

> www.freepress.org, Nov. 23, 2004, How a Republican Election

> Supervisor Manipulated the 2004 Central Ohio Vote, by Bob Fitrakis,

> Harvey Wasserman

>

> On Nov. 2, 2004. Bush prevailed by 3 million votes despite exit polls

> that clearly projected Kerry winning by a margin of 5 million.

>

> The 8-million-vote discrepancy was well beyond the poll's recognized,

> less-than-1-percent margin of error. And when Freeman and Mitteldorf

> analyzed the data collected by the two companies that conducted the

> polls, they found concrete evidence of potential fraud in the

> official count. The overall margin of error should statistically have

> been under one percent. But the official result deviated from the

> poll projections by more than five percent-a statistical

> impossibility of over a 100,000 to one.

>

> " Exit polls are highly accurate, " Steve Freeman, professor at the

> University of Pennsylvania's Center for Organizational Dynamics, and

> Temple University statistician Josh Mitteldorf. " They remove most of

> the sources of potential polling error by identifying actual voters

> and asking them immediately afterward who they had voted for. "

>

> " Only in precincts that used old-fashioned, hand-counted paper

> ballots did the official count and the exit polls fall within the

> normal sampling margin of error. And " the discrepancy between the

> exit polls and the official count was considerably greater in the

> critical swing states.

>

> Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, the two companies

> hired to do the polling for the Nation Election Pool in a final

> report stated that the discrepancy was " most likely due to Kerry

> voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush

> voters. " The corporate media widely reported that this proved the

> accuracy of the official count and a Bush victory. The body of the

> report, however, offers no data to substantiate this position. In

> fact, the report shows that Bush voters were more likely to complete

> the survey than Kerry voters. The report also states that the

> difference between exit polls and official tallies was far too great

> to be explained by sampling error, and that a systematic bias is

> implicated.

>

> In precincts that were at least 80 percent for Bush, the average

> within-precinct error (WPE) was a whopping 10.0 percent-the numerical

> difference between the exit poll predictions and the official count.

> Also, in Bush strongholds, Kerry received only about two-thirds of

> the votes predicted by exit polls. In Kerry strongholds, exit polls

> matched the official count almost exactly.

>

> Greg Palast reported how in June 2004, well before the election, his

> co-author of " Jim Crow " Rev. Jesse Jackson brought him to Chicago to

> have breakfast with Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards. The

> Reverend asked the Senator to read Palast's report of the " spoilage "

> of Black votes-one million African Americans who cast ballots in 2000

> but did not have their votes register on the machines.

>

> Edwards said he'd read it over after he'd had his bagel. Jackson

> snatched away his bagel. No read, no bagel. A hungry Senator was

> genuinely concerned-these were, after all, Democrats whose votes did

> not tally, and he shot the information to John Kerry. A couple of

> weeks later, Kerry told the NAACP convention that one million

> African-American votes were not counted in 2000, but in 2004 he would

> not let it happen again. But he did let it happen again. More than a

> million votes in 2004 were cast and not counted.

>

> #4. SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY QUIETLY MOVES IN

>

> Information Management Journal, Mar/Apr 2004 , PATRIOT Act's Reach

> Expanded Despite Part Being Struck Down " b y Nikki Swartz

> LiP Magazine, Winter 2004, Grave New World " , Anna Samson

> Miranda(former Prject Censored Student)

> Capitol Hill Blue, June 7, 2004, Where Big Brother Snoops on

> Americans 24/7, By Teresa Hampton and Doug Thompson

>

> On the day American troops captured Saddam Hussein Bush signed into

> law the Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) - a controversial

> expansion of the PATRIOT Act that included items culled from the

> " Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, " a draft proposal that

> had been shelved due to public outcry after being leaked.

>

> Specifically, the IAA allows the government to obtain an individual's

> financial records without a court order. The law also makes it

> illegal for institutions to inform anyone that the government has

> requested those records, or that information has been shared with the

> authorities.

>

> " The law also broadens the definition of 'financial institution' to

> include insurance companies, travel and real-estate agencies,

> stockbrokers, the U.S. Postal Service, jewelry stores, casinos,

> airlines, car dealerships, and any other business 'whose cash

> transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or

> regulatory matters. The definition is now so broad that it could

> plausibly be used to access even school transcripts or medical

> records.

>

> " In one fell swoop, this act has decimated our rights to privacy, due

> process, and freedom of speech, " wrote Anna Samson Miranda in an

> article for LiP magazine titled " Grave New World " that documented the

> ways in which the government already employs high tech, private

> industry, and everyday citizens as part of a vast web of

> surveillance.

>

> In November 2002, the New York Times reported that the Defense

> Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was developing a tracking

> system called " Total Information Awareness " (TIA), which was intended

> to detect terrorists through analyzing troves of information. The

> system, developed under the direction of John Poindexter,

> then-director of DARPA's Information Awareness Office, was envisioned

> to give law enforcement access to private data without suspicion of

> wrongdoing or a warrant.

>

> Congress passed a Defense Appropriations bill passed unanimously on

> July 18, 2003, expressly denying any funding to Total Information

> Awareness research. In response, the Pentagon proposed The Multistate

> Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange. MATRIX, as devised by the

> Pentagon, is a State run information generating tool, thereby

> circumventing congress' concern regarding the appropriation of

> federal funds for the development of this controversial database. The

> MATRIX program was officially shut down on April 15, 2005 but the

> Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security are now

> utilizing a system called FACTS (Factual Analysis Criminal Threat

> Solution). According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,

> " Between July 2003 and April 2005, there have been 1,866,202 queries

> to the FACTS application. Florida law enforcement officials are

> pursuing continuing the program and rebuilding it.

>

> On May 10, 2005, President Bush secretly signed into law the REAL ID

> Act, requiring states within the next three years to issue federally

> approved electronic identification cards. Attached as an amendment to

> an emergency spending bill funding troops in Afghanistan and Iraq,

> the REAL ID Act passed without the scrutiny and debate of Congress.

>

> Inability to conform over the next three years will leave citizens

> and residents of the United States paralyzed. Identification cards

> that do not meet the federally mandated standards will not be

> accepted as identification for travel, opening a bank account,

> receiving social security checks, or participating in government

> benefits.

>

> # 5. U.S. USES TSUNAMI TO MILITARY ADVANTAGE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

>

> Jane's Foreign Report (Jane's Defence), February 15, 2005, U.S. Turns

> Tsunami into Military Strategy

> The Irish Times, February 8, 2005 , U.S. has used tsunami to boost

> aims in stricken area,

> by Rahul Bedi

> Inter Press Service, January, 18 2005, Bush Uses Tsunami Aid to

> Regain Foothold in Indonesia, by Jim Lobe

>

> The American people reacted to the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean

> in December 2004 with an outpouring of compassion and private

> donations. Across the nation, neighbors got together to collect food,

> clothing, medicines, and financial contributions. Schoolchildren

> completed class projects to help the cause.

>

> Unfortunately, the U.S. government didn't reflect the same level of

> altruism. President Bush initially offered an embarrassingly low $15

> million in aid. More importantly U.S. government used the catastrophe

> to exploit its own strategic military advantage. While supplying our

> aid (which when compared proportionately to that of other, less

> wealthy countries, was an insulting pittance), we simultaneously

> bolstered military alliances with regional powers in, and began

> expanding our bases throughout, the Indian Ocean region.

>

> Establishing a stronger military presence in the region has long been

> a US desire to keep closer tabs on China. China, thanks to its

> burgeoning economic and military muscle, has emerged as one of this

> country's greatest potential rivals.

>

> During subsequent tsunami relief operations, the U.S. reactivated its

> military co-operation agreements with Thailand and the Visiting

> Forces Agreement with the Philippines. U.S. Navy vessels utilized

> facilities in Singapore, keeping with previous treaties. U.S. marines

> and the navy arrived in Sri Lanka despite the tsunami-hit island's

> initial reluctance to permit their entry. The U.S. also stepped up

> their survey of the Malacca Straits, through which 90 percent of

> Japan's oil supplies pass.

>

> The United States currently operates a base out of Diego Garcia - a

> former British mandate in the Chagos Archipelago (about halfway

> between Africa and Indonesia), but the lease runs out in 2016. The

> isle is also " remote and Washington is desperate for an alternative, "

> wrote veteran Indian journalist Rahul Bedi.

>

> In February 2005, the State Department mended broken ties with the

> Indonesian military - although human rights observers charged the

> military with withholding " food and other relief from civilians

> suspected of supporting the secessionist insurgency, the Free Aceh

> Movement, " Jim Lobe reported for the Inter Press Service.

>

> Former Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that U.S. relief to

> the tsunami-affected region would assist the war against terror and

> introduce " American values to the region. " The Bush Administration is

> also reviving its hopes of normalizing military ties with Indonesia,

> writes Jim Lobe. The world's most populous Muslim nation, its

> strategically located archipelago, critical sea lanes, and historic

> distrust of China have made it an ideal partner for containing

> Beijing.

>

> During a January 2005 visit to Jakarta, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul

> Wolfowitz told reporters, " I think if we're interested in military

> reform here, and certainly this Indonesian government is and our

> government is, I think we need to possibly reconsider a bit where we

> are at this point in history moving forward. "

>

> According to an article in the Asheville Global Report, the following

> month the U.S. State Department made a decision to renew the

> International Education and Military Training (IMET) program for

> Indonesia.

>

> " Clearly these new bases will strengthen Washington's military

> logistical support in the region, " says Professor Anuradha Chenoy at

> Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

>

> # 6. THE REAL OIL FOR FOOD SCAM

>

> Harper's Magazine, December 2004, The UN is Us: Exposing Saddam

> Hussein's silent partner, by Joy Gordon

> http://www.harpers.org/TheUNisUS.html

>

> Independent/UK, December 12, 2004, The oil for Food 'Scandal' is a

> Cynical Smokescreen, by Scott Ritter and

> http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1212-23.htm

>

> Last year, right-wingers in Congress began kicking up a fuss about

> how the United Nations had allegedly allowed Saddam Hussein to rake

> in $10 billion in illegal cash through the Oil for Food program.

> Headlines screamed scandal. New York Times' columnist William Safire

> referred to the alleged U.N. con game as " the richest rip-off in

> world history. "

>

> There is plenty of evidence of corruption in the " oil-for-food "

> program, but the trail of evidence leads not to the UN but to the

> U.S. " The fifteen members of the Security Council-of which the United

> States was by far the most influential-determined how income from oil

> proceeds would be handled, and how the funds could be used.

>

> The initial anti-UN accusations were based on a General Accounting

> Office report released in April 2004 and were later bolstered by a

> more detailed report commissioned by the CIA.

>

> According to the GAO, Hussein smuggled $6 billion worth of oil out of

> Iraq - most of it through the Persian Gulf. Yet the U.N. fleet

> charged with intercepting any such smugglers was under direct command

> of American officers, and consisted overwhelmingly of U.S. Navy

> ships. In 2001, for example, 90 of its vessels belonged to the United

> States, while Britain contributed only four.

>

> Most of the oil that left Iraq by land did so through Jordan and

> Turkey - with the approval of the United States. The first Bush

> administration informally exempted Jordan from the ban on purchasing

> Iraqi oil - an arrangement that provided Hussein with $4.4 billion

> over 10 years, according to the CIA's own findings. The United States

> later allowed Iraq to leak another $710 million worth of oil through

> Turkey - all while U.S. planes enforcing no-fly zones flew overhead.

>

> Scott Ritter, a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq during the first six

> years of economic sanctions against the country, unearthed yet

> another scam: The United States allegedly allowed an oil company run

> by Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov's sister to purchase

> cheap oil from Iraq and resell it to U.S. companies at market value.

> " It has been estimated that 80 percent of the oil illegally smuggled

> out of Iraq under 'oil for food' ended up in the United States, "

> Ritter wrote in the U.K. Independent.

> Little of the blame can credibly be laid at the feet of 'the UN

> bureaucracy.' Far more of the fault lies with policies and decisions

> of the Security Council in which the United States played a central

> role.

>

> # 7 JOURNALISTS FACE UNPRECEDENTED DANGERS TO LIFE AND LIVELIHOOD

>

> www.truthout.org, Feb. 28, 2005, Dead Messengers: How the U.S.

> Military Threatens Journalists, Steve Weissman,

> http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022405A.shtml

>

> InterPress Service, November 18, 2004, Media Repression in

> 'Liberated' Land, by Dahr Jamail,

> http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26333

>

> The Iraq war has been the deadliest combat zone for reporters since

> the International Federation of Journalists began keeping tabs in

> 1984. A total of 49 media workers have lost their lives in Iraq.

>

> In short, nonembedded journalists have now become familiar victims of

> U.S. military actions abroad. " As far as anyone has yet proved, no

> commanding officer ever ordered a subordinate to fire on journalists

> as such, " write Steve Weissman. But what can be shown is a pattern of

> tacit complicity, side by side with a heavy-handed campaign to curb

> journalists' right to roam freely.

>

> According to independent journalist Dahr Jamail, journalists are

> increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed

> interim government in Iraq. When the only safety for a reporter is

> being embedded with the U.S. military, the reported stories tend to

> have a positive spin. Non-embedded reporters suffer the great risk of

> being identified as enemy targets by the military.

>

> The Pentagon has refused to implement basic safeguards to protect

> journalists who aren't embedded with coalition forces, despite

> repeated requests by Reuters and media advocacy organizations.

>

> The most blatant attack on journalists occurred the morning of April

> 8, 2004, when the Third Infantry fired on the Palestine Hotel in

> Baghdad killing cameramen Jose Couso and Taras Protsyuk and injuring

> three others. The hotel served as headquarters for some 100 reporters

> and other media workers. The Pentagon officials knew that the

> Palestine Hotel was full of journalists and had assured the

> Associated Press that the U.S. would not target the building. The

> U.S. military exonerated the army of any wrongdoing in its attack on

> the Palestine Hotel. To date, U.S. authorities have not disciplined a

> single officer or soldier involved in the killing of a journalist.

>

> Unsatisfied with the U.S. military's investigation, Reporters Without

> Borders, an international organization that works to improve the

> legal and physical safety of journalists worldwide, conducted their

> own investigation. They gathered evidence from journalists in the

> Palestine Hotel at the time of the attacks. Their report stated that

> the U.S. officials first lied about what had happened during the

> Palestine Hotel attack and then, in an official statement four months

> later, exonerated the U.S. Army from any mistake of error in

> judgment. Olga Rodriguez, a journalist present at the Palestine Hotel

> during the attack, stated on KPFA's Democracy Now! that the soldiers

> and tanks were present at the hotel 36 hours before the firing and

> that reporters had even communicated with the soldiers.

>

> April 8, 2004: The same day of the attack on the Palestine Hotel, the

> U.S. bombed the Baghdad offices of Abu Dhabi TV and Al-Jazeera

> killing Al-Jazeera correspondent Tariq Ayyoub. August 17, 2004: Mazen

> Dana was killed while filming a prison, guarded by the U.S. military

> in a Baghdad suburb.

>

> As a matter of military doctrine, the U.S. military dominates, at all

> costs, every element of battle, including our perception of what they

> do. The need for control leads the Pentagon to urge journalists to

> embed themselves within the military, where they can go where they

> are told and film and tell stories only from a pro-American point of

> view. The Pentagon offers embedded journalists a great deal of

> protection. As the Pentagon sees it, non-embedded eyes and ears do

> not have any military significance, and unless Congress and the

> American people stop them, the military will continue to target

> independent journalists.

>

> # 8 IRAQI FARMERS THREATENED BY BREMMER'S MANDATES

>

> Grain, October 2004, Iraq's new Patent Law: a declaration of war

> against farmers

> TomPaine.com, October 26, 2004, Adventure Capitalism, by Greg Palast

> The Ecologist, February 4, 2005, U.S. Seeking to Totally Re-engineer

> Iraqi traditional farming system into a U.S. style corporate

> agribusiness, by Jeremy Smith

>

> Historians believe it was in the " fertile crescent " of Mesopotamia,

> where Iraq now lies, that humans first learned to farm. " It is here,

> in around 8500 or 8000 B.C., that mankind first domesticated wheat,

> here that agriculture was born, " wrote Jeremy Smith in the Ecologist.

> This entire time, " Iraqi farmers have been naturally selecting wheat

> varieties that work best with their climate ... and cross-pollinated

> them with others with different strengths.

>

> " The U.S., however, has decided that, despite 10,000 years practice,

> Iraqis don't know what wheat works best in their own conditions, "

> write Jeremy Smith. Smith was referring to Order 81, one of 100

> directives penned by L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. administrator in

> Iraq, and left as a legacy by the American government when it

> transferred operations to interim Iraqi authorities. The regulation

> sets criteria for the patenting of seeds that can only be met by

> multinational companies like Monsanto or Syngenta, and it grants the

> patent holder exclusive rights over every aspect of all plant

> products yielded by those seeds. Because of naturally occurring

> cross-pollination, the new scheme effectively launches a process

> whereby Iraqi farmers will soon have to purchase their seeds rather

> than using seeds saved from their own crops or bought at the local

> market.

>

> Native varieties will be replaced by foreign - and genetically

> engineered - seeds, and Iraqi agriculture will become more vulnerable

> to disease as biological diversity is lost.

>

> Texas A & M University, which brags that its agriculture program is a

> " world leader " in the use of biotechnology, has already embarked on a

> $107 million project to " re-educate " Iraqi farmers to grow

> industrial-sized harvests, for export, using American seeds. As part

> of the project Iraqi farmers are given equipment and genetically

> modified seeds. And anyone who's ever paid attention to how this has

> worked elsewhere in the global South knows what comes next: Farmers

> will lose their lands, and the country will lose its ability to feed

> itself, engendering poverty and dependency.

>

> Order 81 was one of several imposed by Bremer that fit nicely into

> the outlines of a U.S. " Economy Plan, " a 101-page blueprint for the

> economic makeover of Iraq, formulated with ample help from corporate

> lobbyists.

>

> Greg Palast reported that someone inside the State Department leaked

> the plan to him a month prior to the invasion. One of the goals of

> the plan is to impose intellectual property laws in Iraq favorable to

> multinational corporations.

>

> Smith put it simply: " The people whose forefathers first mastered the

> domestication of wheat will now have to pay for the privilege of

> growing it for someone else. And with that the world's oldest farming

> heritage will become just another subsidiary link in the vast

> American supply chain. "

>

> # 9 IRAN'S NEW OIL TRADE SYSTEM CHALLENGES U.S. CURRENCY

>

> GlobalResearch.ca, October 27, Iran Next U.S. Target, by William

> Clark

>

> The Bush administration has been paying a lot more attention to Iran

> recently. Part of that interest is clearly Iran's nuclear program -

> but there may be more to the story. One bit of news that hasn't

> received the public vetting it merits is Iran's declared intent to

> open an international oil exchange market, or " bourse. "

>

> The vast majority of the world's oil is traded on the New York NYMEX

> (Mercantile Exchange) and the London IPE (International Petroleum

> Exchange), and, as mentioned by Clark, both exchanges are owned by

> U.S. corporations. Both of these oil exchanges transact oil trades in

> U.S. currency. Iran's plan to open an international oil exchange for

> trading oil in the euro is a huge threat to U.S. dollar supremacy in

> oil. A shift away from U.S. dollars to euros in the oil market would

> cause the value of the dollar to plummet.

>

> In mid-2003 Iran broke from tradition and began accepting eurodollars

> as payment for it oil exports from its E.U. and Asian customers.

> Saddam Hussein attempted a similar bold step back in 2000 and was met

> with a devastating reaction from the US. Iraq. One of the first

> ordered issued by Bremmer after the US occupation of Iraq was to sell

> oil in dollars only. (Censored 2004 #19).

>

> Russia, Venezuela, and some members of OPEC have expressed interest

> in moving towards a petroeuro system. And it isn't entirely

> implausible that China, which is " the world's second largest holder

> of U.S. currency reserves, " might eventually follow suit.

> China, as a major exporter of goods to the United States, has a

> vested interest in helping shore up the American economy and has even

> linked its own currency, the yuan, to the dollar, but it has also

> become increasingly dependent on Iranian oil and gas. Worrisome to

> the US is the potentiality of China to abandon its ongoing large

> purchases of U.S. Treasuries/debt-should they become displeased with

> U.S. policies towards Iran.

>

> Barring a US attack, it appears likely that Iran's euro-dominated oil

> bourse will open in 2006. The irony is that U.S. threats to invade

> Iran put pressure on the Chinese to abandon their support of the

> dollar. Clark warns that " a unilateral U.S. military strike on Iran

> would further isolate the U.S. government, and it is conceivable that

> such an overt action could provoke other industrialized nations to

> abandon the dollar en masse. "

>

> Readers interesting in learning more about the dollar/euro oil

> currency conflict can read William Clark's new book, Petrodollar

> Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar. Available from New

> Society Publishers

>

> # 10 MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL THREATENS ECOSYSTEM AND ECONOMY

>

> Earthfirst! Nov-Dec 2004, See you in the Mountains: Katuah Earth

> First! Confronts Mountaintop Removal, by John Conner

>

> On Aug. 15 2004, environmental activists created a human blockade by

> locking themselves to drilling equipment, obstructing the National

> Coal Corp.'s access to a strip mine in the Appalachian mountains 40

> miles north of Knoxville. It was just the latest in a protracted

> campaign that environmentalists say has national implications, but

> that's been ignored by the media outside the immediate area.

>

> Mountaintop removal (MTR) is a new form of coal mining in which

> companies dynamite the tops of mountains to collect the coal

> underneath. Multiple peaks are blown off and dumped onto highland

> watersheds, destroying entire mountain ranges. More than 1,000 miles

> of streams have been destroyed by this practice in West Virginia

> alone. Mountain top removal endangers and destroys entire communities

> with massive sediment dams and non-stop explosions.

>

> According to Fred Mooney, an active member of the Mountain Faction of

> Katuah Earth First!, " MTR is an ecocidal mining practice in which

> greedy coal companies use millions of pounds of dynamite a day (three

> million pounds a day in the southwest Virginia alone) to blow up

> entire mountain ranges in order to extract a small amount of coal " .

> He goes on to say that " Then as if that wasn't bad enough, they dump

> the waste into valleys and riverbeds. The combination of these

> elements effectively kills everything in the ecosystems. "

>

> The coal industry has coined many less menacing names for mountaintop

> removal, such as cross range mining, surface mining and others. But

> regardless of the euphemism, MTR remains among the most pernicious

> forms of mining ever conceived. Blasting mountain tops with dynamite

> is cheaper than hiring miners who belong to a union. More than 40,000

> jobs have been lost to MTR in West Virginia alone.

>

> Most states are responsible for permitting and regulating mining

> operations under the Surface Mining Control Act. Now MTR is trying to

> break into Tennessee, specifically Zeb Mountain in the northeast.

> Because Tennessee did such a poor job in the 70's, the state

> renounced control, and all mining is now regulated under the federal

> Office of Surface Mining.

>

> Ninety-three new coal plants are being planned for construction

> throughout the U.S. Demand for coal will increase as these new

> facilities are completed. Oil is starting to run out and there are no

> concrete plans for a transition to renewable resources such as wind

> and solar energy. Coal companies therefore will be well-positioned to

> capitalize on their growing market by using Mountain top removal as a

> cheap way to pull coal from the ground.

>

> For Stories 11-25 see: http://www.projectcensored.org/

>

> --

> Peter Phillips Ph.D.

> Sociology Department/Project Censored

> Sonoma State University

> 1801 East Cotati Ave.

> Rohnert Park, CA 94928

> 707-664-2588

> http://www.projectcensored.org/

>

Mark Hull-Richter, U.S. Citizen & Patriot

U.S.A. - From democracy to kakistocracy in one fell coup.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0416-01.htm

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