Published on Friday, July 2, 2004 by the Agence France Presse
commondreams.org
WASHINGTON – Several members of the House of Representatives have requested the United Nations to send observers to monitor the November 2 US presidential election to avoid a contentious vote like in 2000, when the outcome was decided by Florida.

Recalling the long, drawn out process in the southern state, nine lawmakers, including four blacks and one Hispanic, sent a letter Thursday to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asking that the international body “ensure free and fair elections in America,” according to a statement issued by Florida representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, who spearheaded the effort.

“As lawmakers, we must assure the people of America that our nation will not experience the nightmare of the 2000 presidential election,” she said in the letter.

“This is the first step in making sure that history does not repeat itself,” she added after requesting that the UN “deploy election observers across the United States” to monitor the November, 2004 election.

The lawmakers said in the letter that in a report released in June 2001, the US Commission on Civil Rights “found that the electoral process in Florida resulted in the denial of the right to vote for countless persons.”

The bipartisan commission, they stressed, determined “that the ‘disenfranchisement of Florida’s voters fell most harshly on the shoulders of black voters’ and in poor counties.” Both groups vote predominantly Democratic in US elections.full article

There is certainly a news blackout of the activities of the Black Congressional Caucus. Malcolm X was murdered when he said called on the UN.

Well, not only are positions like this, which are identical to Bush’s, going to lose the Dems the election (which you would think they could have figured out by now), they reveal the complicity of the two parties where it counts. How can any self-respecting American progressive possibly support Kerry??

by Bryan Bender Boston Globe
WASHINGTON — Senator John F. Kerry strikes a decidedly stronger pro-Israel position in a new policy paper than he did a few months ago, as he attempts to enlist the support of Jewish voters who have been gravitating to President Bush and away from their tradition of voting Democratic in presidential elections.

In the policy paper, which has not been released publicly, Kerry outlines clear, strongly worded positions on several issues important to the American Jewish community. He calls for more forceful action to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, fully backs Israel’s construction of a 425-mile-long barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territories that the paper refers to as ”a security fence,” and pledges to work to push for a new Palestinian political class to replace Yasser Arafat, who is called a ”failed leader.”

Earlier in the campaign, Kerry got off to a shaky start with some Jewish groups. Last October he called the barrier — composed mostly of electronic fencing with razor wire and a ditch along a tracking road, but with some stretches made of concrete — a ”barrier to peace.” The new paper says building it is ”a legitimate right of self-defense” and ”not a matter” to be taken up by the International Court of Justice, which has criticized the move.full article

Palestinians walled in, and walled out: Inter Press Service
“Something there is that does not love a wall,
That wants it down.” Robert Frost

When you see media reports about the ‘rift’ between the United States and France, remember Haiti. France can be relied on to play its part in the imperial drama. Remember it was France that provided the pretext to the US cicumventing the UN to invade Iraq. She is a most accomplished actress.

by Peter Hallward new left review

As his advisors ponder the ever more troubling consequences of regime change in Iraq, Bush is entitled to take some comfort from the far more successful operation just completed in Haiti. [1] No brusque pre-emptive strikes, domestic carping or splintering coalitions have marred the scene; objections from caricom and the African Union have carried no threats of reprisal. In overthrowing the constitutionally elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide, Washington could hardly have provided a more exemplary show of multilateral courtesy. Allies were consulted, the un Security Council’s blessing sought and immediately received. The signal sent to Chávez, Castro and other hemispheric opponents was unambiguous—yet it was not a bullying Uncle Sam but France that made the first call for international intervention in Haiti’s domestic affairs.
full article

by Saul Landau counterpunch.org

…For the white elite Chavez represents ugliness. The man with Indian and African features has committed the unpardonable sin: redistributing wealth. He increased the percentage of the budget that goes toward public health (8%) and education, although still not up to the level of developed countries. He also stopped subsidizing private schools where the wealthy send their kids.

Chavez received 59% of the vote in the 2000 presidential election by campaigning against the IMF model that has devastated the third world. He shares this anti neo-liberal view with President Nelson Kirchner of Argentina, Lula of Brazil and Bolivian peasant leader Evo Morales. Chavez stopped the privatization steamroller that would have delivered Venezuela’s social security funds to private brokers and the state’s universities to education entrepreneurs.

Instead of continuing the “reward the rich and punish the poor” system, Chavez extended credit to small rural and urban holders. Rather than perpetuating the thievery and privilege that prevailed in the state controlled oil sector, he fired the overpaid bureaucrats and converted the revenues for the poor.

Chavez, in his first four years (1998-2002), actually lowered the inflation rate from over a 53% average between 1989-1998 to less than 23%. Venezuela’s oil industry, devastated by a two and a half month strike that began in 2002, has recuperated and has begun to pour profits into state coffers…
full article

Transcript of Saddam’s Arraignment
By CounterPunch Wire counterpunch.org

The following is an edited transcript of the translators’ words as Saddam Hussein answered questions from judge Ra’id Juhi. Some parts of the conversation are missing, as the microphone failed to pick up everything the translators said

The Judge opened proceedings by asking Saddam for his name:

SADDAM: …Hussein Majid, the president of the Republic of Iraq.

The judge then asks his date of birth

SADDAM: 1937.

JUDGE: Profession? Former president of the Republic of Iraq?

SADDAM: No, present. Current. It’s the will of the people.

JUDGE: The head of the Baath Party that is dissolved, defunct. Former commander and chief of the army. Residence is Iraq. Your mother’s name?

SADDAM: Sobha. You also have to introduce yourself to me

JUDGE: Mr Saddam, I am the investigative judge of the central court of Iraq.

SADDAM: So that I have to know, you are an investigative judge of the central court of Iraq? What resolution, what law formed this court?

Saddam Could Call CIA in His Defense: Inter Press Service

Evidence offered by a top CIA man could confirm the testimony given by Saddam Hussein at the opening of his trial in Baghdad Thursday that he knew of the Halabja massacre only from the newspapers.

Not that we’ll ever hear from the man. But this brings up the interesting fact that, at the time, neither the US nor the UN made a PEEP about Halabja. Was it okay then?
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It is appropriate that Israel would call on the US to help them circumvent the World Court. They have after all shown their contempt for justice with this kangaroo court thing they’ve got going in Baghdad. How about giving Saddam access to his lawyers, for example? Again, and I keep asking, how does this folly play in the Arab world?

Reuters article

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel’s foreign minister said on Friday his government would not accept a World Court ruling on the legality of its West Bank barrier and pressed for U.S. support to block any U.N. action against the Jewish state.

The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, will render its judgment in a public hearing on July 9, one of the most high-profile rulings in its 58-year history.

“We believe that Israel can deal with this issue by itself,” Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said at the White House after talks with U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. “We can’t accept any external involvement from the International Court of Justice.”

“We don’t believe it’s the place that this issue should be discussed. It should be discussed between the two parties — the Israelis and the Palestinians — with other members that are involved in the peace process,” he told reporters.

The U.N.’s top court said it would hand down an “advisory opinion.” Such a ruling is non-binding, but Israel fears the General Assembly, where pro-Palestinian sentiment is strong, could use it to lobby for sanctions against the Jewish state.

L.A. Police Probe 2nd Case of Flashlight Beating
yahoo news:full article
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Los Angeles police said on Thursday they were investigating the second case in two weeks of officers seen on videotape beating a prone suspect with a metal flashlight.

Home video showing a black man being pinned to the floor and hit with a flashlight during an arrest at a private party on June 19 was aired on local television a week after a police officer was seen beating black car theft suspect Stanley Miller 11 times around the head after he had been wrestled to the ground.

City leaders have moved quickly to calm tension in a city still bruised by the infamous 1991 police beating of black motorist Rodney King that subsequently sparked the worst riots in modern U.S. history.

Imagine. A despotic vicious dictator is able to quite credibly claim the moral high ground over the US government. I am sure Saddam is looking like a big hero in much of the Arab world about now, refusing to accept the authority of an occupying power that flouts international law. If Bush and co. think that parading Saddam in front of the cameras is going to amount to a big political coup for them…well we know they’re crazy anyway…

iol news article

Amman – Saddam Hussein’s defence team, which has not yet been allowed to enter Iraq, on Thursday again slammed as “illegal” the Iraqi Special Tribunal trying the deposed dictator.

“This court is illegal since it was designated by an illegal authority, created by the occupation,” one of the lawyers, Jordanian Ziad Khassawneh, told reporters as Saddam appeared before the Baghdad court to hear charges against him.

“This procedure contravenes international laws and Geneva Conventions which consider null any accord struck between an occupier and a provisional government, since it stems from a dictat,” he said.
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So in order to comprise an ‘elite,’ you have to come from money? You know, rather than excoriate the right-wing for its stupidity, it would nice to see liberals exhibit a teensy bit of self-reflection and get the fact that they ARE ‘a member of the class that’s doing the trodding.’ If you say you care about the injustice of the world and are unwilling or unable to see that you are, in fact, A DIRECT BENEFICIARY of that injustice, you will, AS LIBERALS DO, settle for incomplete analysis and half-hearted half-measures which do not address the core issues of white supremacy and corporate global colonialism. For Lord’s sake, of course Michael Moore is an elite! Tons of money, tons of access and influence. We can niggle on the definition of ‘elite,’ and pull out our ‘I grew up in poverty’ credentials, but what a stupid exercise that would be. Too busy attacking the supposed ‘enemy,’ with which they have uncomfortably much in common, to do any self-analysis.

It reminds me of how liberals are so quick to ‘defend public education’ against the conservatives that they are not willing to admit how broken public education is..

Dude, Where’s That Elite?
By BARBARA EHRENREICH New York Times

You can call Michael Moore all kinds of things — loudmouthed, obnoxious and self-promoting, for example. The anorexic Ralph Nader, in what must be an all-time low for left-wing invective, has even called him fat. The one thing you cannot call him, though, is a member of the “liberal elite.”

Sure, he’s made a ton of money from his best sellers and award-winning documentaries. But no one can miss the fact that he’s a genuine son of the U.S. working class — of a Flint autoworker, in fact — because it’s built right into his “branding,” along with flannel shirts and baseball caps.

My point is not to defend Moore, who — with a platoon of bodyguards and a legal team starring Mario Cuomo — hardly needs any muscle from me. I just think it’s time to retire the “liberal elite” label, which, for the past 25 years, has been deployed to denounce anyone to the left of Colin Powell. Thus, last winter, the ultra-elite right-wing Club for Growth dismissed followers of Howard Dean as a “tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show.” I’ve experienced it myself: speak up for the downtrodden, and someone is sure to accuse you of being a member of the class that’s doing the trodding.
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by Anahad O’Connor New York Times: Full Article

Almost 17 percent of those who fought in Iraq reported symptoms of major depression, severe anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder…