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WAR WATCHDETAINEES ABUSED AND REFUSEDHundreds of prison videotapes confirm that immigrants detained after the Sept. 11 attacks suffered serious physical and verbal abuse, according to a report issued by the Department of Justice's Inspector General (Dec. 18). Nearly a thousand foreign nationals, mostly Arab and Muslim men, were jailed after Sept. 11, and not one was ever charged with a terrorism-related crime. Tapes from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. showed "some officers slammed and bounced detainees against the wall, twisted their arms and hands in painful ways, stepped on their leg restraint chains and punished them by keeping them restrained for long periods of time." The videotapes were not turned over by prison officials during an earlier investigation. On Jan. 12, the Supreme Court turned down an appeal challenging the secrecy that surrounded these detentions. The Supreme Court let stand an appeals court ruling that found reasonable the administration's claim that terrorist networks could reap advantage from disclosure of information about the circumstances of the arrests or even the names of those arrested. WORLDWIDE ANTIWAR PROTESTS SET FOR MARCH 20"Not one more day, Not one more death, Not one more dollar." Protests of the Iraq war and occupation are set for March 20 in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and other cities around the world to mark the first anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Global Day of Action Against War and Occupation should be a massive event that shows that popular opinion is as strongly against the war in Iraq today as it was when massive numbers demonstrated all over the world last Feb. 15. Don't let the election season go by without reminding every presidential candidate that an international majority is opposed to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Help organize. Contact www.unitedforpeace.com and www.internationalanswer.org. WILLIE NELSON'S ANTIWAR SONGVeteran country music singer Willie Nelson, who is up for five Grammy awards this year, is playing a new tune: "Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth." It starts: "There's so many things going on in the world/Babies dying/ Mothers crying/ How much oil is one human life worth/ And whatever happened to peace on earth?" This is Nelson's second protest song. The first was his 1991 reflection on the Vietnam-era, "Jimmy's Road." FBI SPIES ON ANTIWAR ACTIVISTSAn FBI bulletin leaked to The New York Times revealed that the agency is systematically collecting intelligence on the U.S. antiwar movement. The memorandum directs agents to report on everything from demonstrations to Internet organizing. Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that the document shows that, "The FBI is dangerously targeting Americans who are engaged in nothing more than lawful protest and dissent." GOVERNMENT FAILED TO PREVENT 9-11In an interview with CBS on Dec. 17, Thomas Kean, the Republican chairman of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, said he believes the strikes could have been prevented. "This was not something that had to happen." Kean added, "There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed." U.S. SPIED ON U.N. DELEGATESKatharine Gun, a former British intelligence employee, leaked a National Security Agency memo revealing that the U.S. spied on Security Council delegates when it was seeking U.N. approval for an Iraq invasion. The memo indicated that the U.S. used wiretaps and read private e-mails to find "information that could give U.S. policy-makers an edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals." Gun said she acted "to prevent an illegal war in which thousands of Iraqi civilians and British soldiers would be killed or maimed." For leaking this information, Gun is facing charges under the Official Secrets Act. (Baltimore Sun, Dec. 14) BUSH AND BLAIR CAN'T FIND WMDOn Jan. 8, The New York Times reported that the Bush administration has withdrawn from Iraq a 400-member military team whose job was to search for and destroy weapons of mass destruction. "The step was described by some military officials as a sign that the administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expected to uncover the caches of chemical and biological weapons that the White House cited as a principal reason for going to war last March," according to The Times. On Jan. 11, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he did not know whether any weapons of mass destruction would ever be found in Iraq. Blair told BBC television the weapons had not been at sites where military chiefs expected to find them and they might never be found.
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