ORIGINAL MATERIAL PRODUCED BY THE GLOBAL BEAT SYNDICATE Mark Engler: on George Bush and Globalization Christina Sklebar: on Blair and Britain's referendum on the European Union Ralph A. Cossa: on Malaysia's new prime minister, Abdullah Badawi Don Kraus: on getting it right at the G-8 Summit

New York University

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A TIME TO CHANGE STRATEGY?
The neo-conservatives who lobbied for taking the United States into war in the Middle East, began with a glowing vision of a grateful Iraq that an inner circle in the Pentagon hoped would provide an anchor for an American-style democracy in the Middle East. A more fundamental notion underlying the argument was the heady conviction that the U.S. should take advantage of its superpower status in order to impose its vision on a chaotic world. It hasn't worked out that way. The U.S. will be lucky if it can extricate itself from Iraq without plunging the Middle East into civil war. Oil prices have skyrocketed. Terrorism is on the increase and groups ready to attack the U.S. are signing up new recruits faster than we can catch the old ones. U.S. prestige is at its lowest point abroad in nearly a century. Instead of promoting democracy, America now finds itself defending the use of torture, seeking ways to circumvent international law and ceding U.S. military responsibilities to armed militias in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty-seven former senior U.S. government officials insist that it is time for the administration to change course. The list cuts across party lines, and it includes former CIA director Stansfield Turner and William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The group, "Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change," plans to issue a statement on Wednesday. The Washington Post reports on the group's background (Washington Post, June 17, 2004)
•The BBC predicts that the group will be hard to ignore because of the status of its members
•Contact information

"Gitmoized" detainee.

"TREAT THEM LIKE DOGS, OR THEY WILL HAVE NO RESPECT..."
Brigadier General Janis Karpinsky speaks freely on BBC's Radio 4 about the role of ranking U.S. generals in the abuse at Abu Ghraib. Karpinsky says that General Geoffrey Miller specifically demanded harsher treatment: "He said they are like dogs and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them." Karpinsky adds that Miller told her that General Ricardo Sanchez had offered "to give" him any prison that he wanted. Karpinsky says that she tried to explain that Abu Ghraib was under the control of Larry Bremer's Provisional Coalition Authority, and was not hers to give. Asked if she suspects a Pentagon cover-up, she says that that is how she sees it. (Brigadier General Janis Karpinsky on BBC Radio Four's "On the Ropes" programme, June 15, 2004)
•BBC print story
•Radio 4: Karpinsky in Real Audio (the entire interview lasts nearly 30 minutes)

DONALD RUMSFELD ALLEGEDLY AUTHORIZED HIDING ABU GHRAIB SUSPECT FROM THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS
The suspect was apparently forgotten once the Pentagon had authorized removing him from official prison records and was only interrogated once. The authorization to conceal his presence was given by Rumsfeld in response to a request from CIA director George Tenet. (New York Times, June 17, 2004)

THE TEXT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE'S MEMO CONCERNING TORTURE
Last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to reveal the contents of his department's advice to the White House concerning torture. The Washington Post published the entire memorandum on Monday. While Ashcroft insists that neither he nor the president ever advocated "torture," the Department of Justice memo simply changes the definition so that a whole range of previously outlawed behavior is now considered acceptable--at least by the White House. If lashing a victim to a board and repeatedly drowning him does not actually cause organ damage, death or permanent insanity, it is no longer really considered to be torture. As the memo puts it: "...We conclude that torture as defined in and proscribed by Sections 2340-2340A, covers only extreme acts. Sever pain is generally of the kind difficult for the victim to endure. Where the pain is physical, it must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure. Severe mental pain requires suffering not just at the moment of infliction but it also requires lasting psychological harm, such as seen in mental disorders like posttraumatic stress disorder...."
(Memo, the United States Department of Justice, August 2002 via the Washington Post)
•The DOJ memo in pdf format
•The Pentagon memo on interrogation and torture (pdf)
•The Washington Post story on the DOJ memo
The Post points out that a number of lawyers with the Judge Advocat Generals for the services had serious problems with the administration's approach(June 8, 2004)
•Ashcroft's testimony to the U.S. Senate
•The New York City Bar Association's briefs on the Bush administration's denial of legal rights to detainees, the use of torture by U.S. officials and prison abuse
•U.S. Intelligence personnel tried to warn superiors of abuse--including the beating of 5 Iraqi generals while they were blindfolded. (New York Times, June 14, 2004)

THE WAY CLEARED FOR SHIITE MILITANT MUQTADA TO COMPETE ON IRAQI POLITICAL SCENE
Muqtada has ordered his militias to stand down in exchange for the U.S. abandoning its efforts to arrest or kill him and in response to a U.S. agreement to let Muqtada compete in the next elections. Muqtada has gained so much stature in forcing the U.S. to backdown, that he is now likely to emerge as a powerful player on the local political scene. (Juan Cole, Informed Comment, June 16, 2004)

THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY WARNED AGAINST USING CIVILIAN CONTRACTORS IN INTELLIGENCE
A memo signed by Undersecretary of the Army Patrick Henry at the beginning of the Bush administration cautions against shifting responsibility for intelligence work to privatized military organizations. The concern is not only a lack of adequate control, but also that these private companies may eventually work for other countries while retaining access to U.S. military secrets and tradescraft. (U.S. Defense Dept. December 26, 2000)

A MILITARY LAWYER TAKES ON THE PENTAGON
No one expected Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift to be overly aggressive in his defense of the detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay. Swift's previous experience had been with minor cases involving smoking marijuana and other trivial infractions. Besides that military justice is designed more to keep order and discipline during wartime than to provide true justice. As it turned out, the assessment of Swift was wrong. The Navy lawyer filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court and compared the situation at Guantanamo with that of George III's mishandling of justice which finally led to the American Revolution. (By Jonathan Mahler, The New York Times Magazine, June 13, 2004)

THE PENTAGON TAKES ON ITS OWN NEWSPAPER
When the Stars and Stripes began asking U.S. soldiers in Iraq how they felt about their service there, the idea seemed like a good one until the armed forces newspaper actually started printing the replies. What followed was an attempt by Washington to muzzle a military institution whose traditions extend back to World War II.( Robert Schlessinger, The Washington Monthly, May 2004)

CHENEY'S CHIEF OF STAFF ALLEGEDLY SAT IN ON HALLIBURTON DISCUSSIONS
Dick Cheney casually remarked on NBC's Meet the Press in September 2003 that he had no role or knowledge in the awarding of a $7 billion contract to his former company, Halliburton, for reconstruction in Iraq. The Contract went against normal Defense Department procedure since no competitive bidding was allowed, and Halliburton was already under investigation over other contracts. California Congressman Henry Waxman says that he has learned now that Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was in fact present during at least two meetings discussing the contracts, which were awarded by Bush political appointees rather than civil service experts. The political appointees were reportedly led by Michael Mobbs, a special advisor to under secretary of defense, Douglas Feith. (Joshua Chaffin, Financial Times, June 14, 2004)
•Henry Waxman's letter to Cheney and other documents on the Halliburton scandal (Henry Waxman, U.S. Congress, June 2004)

WRITING OFF IRAQ'S DEBT
Iraq will never be sustainable as an independent entity unless something is done about its $120 billion foreign debt. While creditors have indicated that they may be prepared to write off half the amount, there is little incentive to go further as long as the U.S. bans the countries who hold the debt from sharing in lucrative reconstruction contracts. Juan Cole surveys the situation in Informed Content.(June 14, 2004)

MORE VOLUNTEERS SIGN UP FOR HALLIBURTON DESPITE RISING CASUALTIES
At least 39 Halliburton employees have already died in Iraq and two more are missing, but that hasn't dampened the readiness of new hires signing up at recruiting sessions in Texas. (Sheila McNulty, Financial Times, June 14, 2004)

IRAN REJECTS FURTHER NUCLEAR CURBS
Iran announces that not only will it will not stop its nuclear program, but it may be time for the rest of the world to accept the fact that it will soon be nuclear capable. (BBC, June 12, 2004)
•Resources on Iran's nuclear development
•Iran relies increasingly on homegrown nuclear know-how. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Jacques Boureston and Charles Ferguson report that Iran has created new universities and institutes to develop nuclear technology on its own. (Jacques Boureston and Charles Ferguson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May-June 2004)

SOUTH KOREA TAKES A HARD LOOK AT WASHINGTON
South Korea owes its existence to the U.S., but that hasn't stopped an increase in anti-American sentiment. The causes have ranged from charges of arrogance to disputes over real estate and a sense that the U.S. has not quite understood how to deal with the North. The Center for Strategic and International Studies publishes an extensive update on the complex relationship which has now endured five decades.
(CSIS, June 14, 2004)

FEW DETAILS EMERGE ON CONGO COUP ATTEMPT LAST WEEK
Rumors are circulating in Kinshasa that the ringleader may have slipped back into town. (Politinfo.com, June 14, 2004)

SUDAN:DARFUR FACT SHEET
The U.S. is investigating whether the killing constitutes genocide. Reuters Alertnet explains the background (June 14, 2004)

A RISKY GAMBLE THAT LACKED FOCUS
"....Today we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror . Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us? ..."
----Donald Rumsfeld in a memo to his top staff, October 16, 2003
Peter Singer, writing in Parameters, the quarterly review of the U.S. Army War College, notes that the U.S. has been very effective at overturning vile regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has been far less successful at eradicating the group that was directly responsible for 9/11. Al Qaeda is more vibrant than ever, and, despite losses, its senior leadership remains in tact. Its popularity in the Middle East has grown. It is recruiting men and money for more operations. One reason is that the Muslim world has begun to look at the War on Terror as the war against Islam. But a deeper issue is the need for a greater strategic vision which takes into account the fact that the United States may now find itself at the edge of an emerging fault line similar to the Cold War, in which ideas can count as much as material threats to our security. If that is the case, the administration appears to be still locked in a post-1946 world view, struggling over basic questions of where it wants to go and why. Singer surveys five books that attempt to analyze a greater strategic vision. (Peter Singer, Parameters, U.S. Army War College, Summer 2004)

WHERE AMERICANS GET THE NEWS
Speaking at the Brookings Institution, the Pew Foundation's Andrew Kohut analyzes where Americans turn to learn about the world. Fox has expanded the audience by appealing to conservatives, but most Americans still find that for a serious understanding of what is happening, print or radio is more effective than TV. Add to that a growing interest in the internet, and a gradual expansion of cable TV. The entire discussion is available in pdf format from Brookings' website.
•Andrew Kohut at Brookings

GENERAL ZINNI ANSWERS QUESTIONS AT THE CENTER FOR DEFENSE INFORMATION
The former CentCom commander cuts to the essence of what can be done in Iraq. (General Anthony Zinni, CDI, June 8, 2004)

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The Security Policy Working Group
William Hartung, Marcus Corbin, Winslow T. Wheeler
Lucy Webster

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