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War
Watch AFGHANISTAN SUFFERS Before Sept. 11, 9.5 million Afghans depended for survival on the United Nations World Food Program. After a winter where war created new hardship and prevented aid from reaching many, The New York Times reports: "Akhtar Muhammad did something that has become ruefully unremarkable in Afghanistan: he took two of his children and traded them for bags of wheat." The Times says countless others, like Khali Gul's family, are dying: "Her family had become foragers two months before and now seemed to be succumbing one by one to diarrhea. Five days after her husband died, a son, 3, and a daughter, 4, perished as well." While the United Nations says that Afghanistan desperately needs almost $2 billion in aid this year, the U.S. plans to contribute only $200 million. The State Department reports that almost one-fourth of U.S. aid will go to protect U.S. workers in Afghanistan and to train an Afghan army. MILITARY TRIBUNALS The U.S. has set up a system of military tribunals to try those it claims to be terrorists. Defendants in these tribunals will lack many basic legal rights, like a trial before peers and the right to appeal. On March 28, the administration announced that it may hold Afghan prisoners in captivity indefinitely, even if they are acquitted in these military tribunals. The Washington Post reported that the U.S. has also deported dozens of people to countries where they can be subjected to interrogation tactics, including torture and threats to families, that are illegal in the U.S. NEW POLICE POWERS The merging of immigration control, espionage and policing is a dangerous part of Bush's "war on terrorism." Florida will soon deputize local police officers as Immigration and Naturalization Service agents. This expands police power since immigration agents can make arrests without a warrant or probable cause, and can detain indefinitely any non-citizen deemed a security risk. Meanwhile, the New York City Police Department recently hired two career intelligence experts with no police experience into its top leadership. BLOATED WAR BUDGET In accordance with President Bush's request, the House of Representatives' budget resolution for 2003 calls for a whopping military budget of $393 billion. This is a 13 percent increase, the largest in two decades, and is 52 percent of the total discretionary budget. Domestic security spending will be doubled to $37.7 billion and another $10 billion is allocated to discretionary spending for the "war on terrorism." To cover these escalating costs, $224.3 billion in Social Security money will be reallocated. OIL AND WAR "Follow the money" has always been a useful axiom for understanding U.S. policy. "Just as the Gulf War in 1991 was about oil, the new conflict in South and Central Asia is no less about access to the region's abundant petroleum resources," writes Ranjit Devraj in Asia Times, a business-oriented publication. Similarly, Uri Averny writes in Israel's Ma'ariv, "If one looks at the map of the big American bases created for the war, one is struck by the fact that they are completely identical to the route of the projected oil pipeline to the Indian Ocean." FACT CHECKS Some readers
questioned the estimate of "about 4,000" Afghan civilian deaths
cited in our February issue. That figure came from the widely cited
study by University of New Hampshire Professor Marc Herold. See www.democracynow.org/thndtrmb.doc. IN MEMORIUM Margo Sercarz,
who helped launch War Times, passed away on March 28, 2002 at the age
of 46. Margo was a lifelong fighter for peace and justice. She was loved
for her deep commitment, unusual skill and generous spirit. We deeply
miss her. |
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