Stories from 2002-06-04

" 'His presidency was going nowhere. He wasn't elected by the American people, but placed into the Oval Office by the conservative supreme court (if you really want to know why the justices voted like they did, I suggest Supreme Injustice by Alan Dershowitz), the economy was sliding into the usual Republican pits and he needed something to hang his presidency on.' " [more]

"The Israeli government revealed last month that Ahmed Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) used the telephone in the Jericho "prison" to order the suicide bombing in Netanaya that murdered two Israelis and wounded 25 on May 19, 2002." [more]

"This is not a tyranny, as Mr. W. has claimed. It is justice, it is true equality among human beings, it is general learning and culture without which there is not, there cannot be nor will there ever be true independence, freedom and democracy anywhere on Earth." [more]

"But there is no peace industry commensurate with the world's war industry. There are no vested interests to appease, no campaign contributions to be gained from preventing rather than encouraging the use of weapons. As a result the hundreds of thousands of peacekeepers whose deployment is required in Kashmir do not exist. While wars are plotted in loving detail, there is no global peace plan for the territory, despite 55 years of conflict." [more]

"At least one F-16 pilot complained that requirements for crew rest were not being observed and that many of the pilots were overtired. The pilot was told, however, that further questions about crew rest would not be looked on favourably by the wing command. Instead, pilots were advised to speak to a flight surgeon about so-called 'go/no pills' — amphetamines used to help stay awake on long missions, and sedatives to help sleep." [more]

" 'There was consensus that training will be intensified and pushed forward to the company level,' said a spokesman for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo after a meeting with the visiting U.S. deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. 'This is closer to the action.' " [more]

"Decisive and successful action against Saddam could very well encourage recalcitrant leaders like Syria's Bashar Assad to be more cooperative with American security interests in the Middle East, given that Assad himself would likely be given cause to fear for the durability of his own regime." [more]

"Hamas thrived on an Israeli policy that was based on the Likud Bloc strategy of cultivating an alternative to Arafat that might win the hearts and minds of the Palestinian masses while allowing Israel to extend its control ... Israel nurtured the rise of the Islamic movement among the Palestinians, first in the Gaza Strip and to a limited degree in the West Bank. Desperate to prevent Arafatís return under any peace accord and seeking to undermine his popularity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a year later Israel allowed a 42-year old quadriplegic religious leader to license his humanitarian organization, later called Hamas." [more]