James G. Abourezk: on the political risks in trying to make up your own mind about Iraq Ralph A. Cossa: on whether the North Koreans are more interested in influencing Washington, South Korea or both. John J. Schulz: on George Bush's missile defense as a bad idea whose time has come. THE GLOBAL BEAT'S INTERACTIVE REPORTS Why We Are Hated,Nuclear Bunker busters AND Post-Moscow Disarmament

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WHY THEY HATE US
[a Global Beat Exclusive]
"We’ve seen the future, and it’s not pretty. We saw it clearly through the media-soaked eyes of more than 1,200 teen-agers in 12 countries from all parts of the world whom we surveyed for a project entitled The Next Generation’s Image of Americans. "

THE SEARCH FOR A NUCLEAR WEAPON FOR LIMITED CONFLICTS
Mark Bromley and David Grahame report on the Pentagon's search for a nuclear "bunker buster"

THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL

Rose Gottmoeller:
an interactive assessment of nuclear disarmament after the Moscow Summit,

The Journalists' Essential Field Guide to Afghanistan
by Edward Girardet

click here

REPORTING ETHNICITY AND
OTHER DIVERSITY
ISSUES
by The European
Center for War,
Peace &
The News Media
click here

BIG OR LITTLE? THE U.S. PONDERS THE FORCE NEEDED TO OUST SADDAM
Defense department civilians have long favored a highly mobile lightly armed strike force for the attack on Iraq, while the more experienced professionals in the U.S. command favor a massive deployment of overwhelming force. The Brookings Institution’s Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst, reports that the Bush administration now wants to have it both ways via a somewhat muddled compromise. The invasion, according to this scenario, will kick off with heavy air attacks and lightly armed probes by small groups who will secure bases inside Iraq for a more massive deployment that could eventually reach 300,000 troops. Pollack admits that his information comes from yet another leaked battle plan currently circulating through Washington. In favor of the massive deployment, Pollack notes that the military won’t get points for style and that a massive deployment has the advantage of being able to cut through an opposing army more quickly. Recent experience in Afghanistan has shown that deploying lightly armed special operations units in full scale battle doesn’t work, and even the special operations officers don’t like it. Moreover an over reliance on small unit tactics may unintentionally lead to a prolonged war of attrition.
By Kenneth Pollack, the Brookings Institution, December 18, 2002

DONALD RUMSFELD’S PRESS CONFERENCE: U.S. CAN FIGHT TWO WARS SIMULTANEOUSLY
The Secretary of Defense discusses recent losses of predator unmanned drones over Iraq, North Korea’s decision to block international monitoring of its nuclear operations and the U.S. capacity to fight two major wars at the same time.
Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Dept. Briefing. December 23, 2002

UN AGENCIES TOLD TO PREPARE FOR WAR
The Times of London reports that a number of UN agencies have been ordered to start preparing for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. According to the Times, the U.N. expects the heaviest fighting to be in the three governates around Baghdad, with the Kurdish north left relatively untouched.
Times, December 23, 2002

OIL COMPANIES LESS SURE ON IRAQ FALLOUT
While critics accuse the U.S. of using Saddam as a pretext to secure control of Iraq’s rich oil reserves, oil company executives are much less sure of the outcome. The U.S. will undoubtedly get preferential treatment if it controls the post-Saddam government in iraq. Britain feels it has a claim on Iraqi oil, since it developed the Anglo-Persian oil claims in the first place. Russia and France stand to lose their monopolies on Iraq oil at the moment. The U.S. State Department insists that it is not orchestrating the spoils of war quite yet, but oil leverage may be a fact of life. Former CIA director James Woolsey has suggested that France and Russia be advised that cooperating with efforts to move Iraq towards "decent" government is a sine qua non to having the U.S. work for close relations with American oil companies and Iraq’s next government.
By Anthony Sampson in the Guardian, December 22, 2002

THE LAST TIME THE U.S. EXPERIMENTED WITH ASSASSINATION
Writing in the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh recalls that time during the Vietnam War when the CIA’s "Phoenix" program started as a relatively innocent effort to identify, and then to "neutralize" suspected communist sympathizers. By 1969, the top-secret program, run by CIA and U.S. Army officers, had targeted 21,000 suspect individuals. By 1971, death squads operating under the auspices of the program had, according to Saigon's figures, killed an estimated 40,000 people, Hersh says that the CIA claimed that 20,000 was closer to the mark. Many of those killed were targeted because of local grudges that had nothing to do with the war, but because of secrecy, there was no way for the American public to know who had been murdered in order to further Washington's concept of democracy or why.
Seymour Hersh's interview is in The New Yorker, December 23, 2002.

CONJURING NEW DEMONS

Saddam may never actually launch a biological attack against the U.S. , but in the current atmosphere of war fever, no one wants to take chances. Unfortunately, RAND now reports that vaccinating 60% of the population against a hypothetical small pox attack—just one of the possible weapons of mass destruction open to a terrorist-- is statistically likely to kill at least 500 people. Not only that, but a candidate whose vaccination with a weakened, but live virus, goes horribly wrong may spread the disease to others who haven’t been vaccinated. Of course, the odds of actually becoming a fatal victim of the program are relatively small-- unless you happen to be one of the people testing the vaccine, which explains why some of the potential testees—notably doctors and health professionals-- are beginning to have second thoughts about the idea. The administration’s compromise is likely to be to inocculate 10 million U.S. health workers at a projected cost of only 25 deaths. RAND’s multi-part study will be published by the New England Journal of Medicine on January 31, 2002. The articles are currently available on-line. [click here]

MORE ON THE TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS PROJECT
Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air talks with Georgetown University law professor David Cole about the implications. Cole, the author of the recent book, Terrorism and the Constitution, Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of national Security, points out that earlier Republican administrations had a nasty record of using this kind of information to strike back at their enemies in the past. President Nixon’s enemies list is a case in point, and the Watergate break-in was intended to get information which Republicans could use against Democrats in the upcoming election. Of Course, Nixon was not the first. In the bad old days, the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, routinely kept intimate dossiers on people he didn’t like and then used the information to blackmail political figures into doing what he wanted. Hoover’s targets included Martin Luther King and Charlie Chaplin. Gross also interviews former Reagan chief counsel, Douglas Kmiec, who thinks the dangers are being exaggerated. (Click on image above to go to the TIA site)
Terry Gross, Fresh Air, December 2002 (requires RealAudio player)

THE TOOLS FOR TOTAL INFO ARE ALREADY IN PLACE
Thanks to the Internet, which incidentally, was also developed by DARPA, the defense Department’s advanced research agency, all that is needed to tie billions of bits of information about each of us together is a greenlight to override arcane privacy protections. Thanks to Osama Bin Laden, many Americans now seem ready to opt for total transparency in the interests of personal safety.
John Markoff and John Schwartz outline the situation in the New York Times, December 23, 2002.

IRAQ’S SLAP AT RUSSIAN OIL CONSTITUTE’S "PETTY BLACKMAIL"

Iraq’s decision to break a $3.8 billion development contract with Russia’s giant Lukoil corporation has been seen in Moscow as little more than a pressure tactic. The contract, signed in 1997, called for the development of the wester Qrna Oilfield, which has estimated reserves of 7.3 billion barrels. Lukoil was due to receive 54% of the profits under a production sharing agreement. The only rub was that actual development hinged on U.N. sanctions against Iaq being lifted. Since Saddam may not be around long enough to see that happen, the value of the contract was beginning to look increasingly hypothetical.
By MENA, December 15, 2002

THE SPECTER OF UNCONTROLLED PLUTONIUM PRODUCTION IN PYONGYANG
North Korea confirms that it is back in business again as a budding nuclear bogeyman. Some experts think the Koreans could come up with a bomb if they have the right technical expertise—some of which they have managed to get from Pakistan.
The New York Times, December 23, 2002

A NEW BALL GAME IN SOUTH KOREA
The election of Roh Moo Hyun as the new president of South Korea is likely to complicate U.S. efforts to forge a common policy towards North Korea. Roo makes no secret of the fact that he intends to pursue Seoul’s "sunshine policy" towards the north.
The Council on Foreign Relations explores the implications.

WHY IS SOUTH KOREA TREADING SO LIGHTLY WHEN IT COMES TO THE NORTH ?
Pyongyang is unlikely to ever use a nuclear weapon itself, but its past record indicates that it would be more than willing to sell one for a price to someone else. Given the threat, American policy experts have had a hard time understanding why South Korea is so determined to keep channels open to the North. A new RAND study argues that Seoul’s approach is intimately tied to domestic politics, and more specifically to Seoul’s efforts to consolidate political support at home.
RAND December 2002.

WHAT TO DO WITH VENEZUELA’S CHAVEZ
Everyone wants the inept president to go, except the desperate poor who still cling to the hope that he might eventually change their lot. Barry Lynn, a former AFP correspondent in Venezuela, outlines the dynamics of Venezuela’s passion play in the upcoming issue of Mother Jones.Barry Lynn, Mother jones, Jan/Feb 2003

MORE ON CHAVEZ
NewsTrove.com carries a comprehensive list of recent news stories from papers around the country on Chavez and the Venezuelan crisis. NewsTrove.com

NARCO NEWS TAKES ON THE A.P.’S CARRACAS BUREAU
It’s certainly unfortunate that the Associated Press’ former bureau chief in Bolivia resigned after allegedly moonlighting as a lobbyist for an $80 million water pipeline project, but does that make the rest of AP’s reporting on Latin America suspect? Narco news evidently thinks so. The trouble is that Narco News is so tendentious that it is hard to know how much of its criticism to take seriously.

AFGHAN DEMOCRACY: CAN'T KARZAI TAKE A JOKE?
Abdul Ghafoor Itiqad, editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper, Farda, thought he was just doing his job when he ran a cartoon showing Afghan president playing the piano, with his finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, on the drums. It’s hard to tell whether the music offended, or the fact that the cartoon also showed the head of Aghanistan’s National Bank tossing wads of money at representatives of the United Nations and assorted NGO’s. There has been a rising tide of criticism lately over how the U.N. and the NGOs are spending the $1.3 billion international aid that is flowing through Kabul, and some people feel that Karzai, who still appears in public surrounded by hulking U.S. Special Forces bodyguards, should pay more attention to where the money is actually going. Afghan defense minister, Mohamed Qaseem Fahim, was not amused, and the hapless editor has now been assigned to a tiny cell with eight other inmates including a convicted murderer.
By Rahimullah Samandar , Institute for War & Peace Reporting. December 20, December 2002, 2002,

POLITICAL REALISTS VS THE CHICKEN HAWKS
While war with Iraq now looks pretty much like a foregone conclusion, the administration remains split over how to handle Iraq’s post-Saddam future. The neo-conservative unilteralists are rallying around Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, while the political realists including the CIA, senior U.S. military commanders and the most experienced career officers in the State Department are relying on Colin Powell to act as their champion. They count in their camp, most of the top officials in the administration of President Bush’s father, who despite the fact that they defeated Saddam, do not seem to carry much weight in the current euphoria over going to war.
By Jim Lobe, Foreign Policy in Focus, December 20, 2002

INCASE YOU MISSED IT:
THE REALISTS VERSUS THE RADICAL NEO-CONS
Nicholas Lemann’s piece in the New Yorker last spring presciently identified the lines of conflict that have split the administration over the future of the world as defined by Washington. Now that we are in the thick of what Lemann predicted, his analysis is well worth giving a second reading.
By Nicholas Lemann in the New Yorker, March 25, 2002.

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