Democracy Now! March 19, 2003

8:00-8:01 Billboard 8:01-8:06 Headlines 8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break 8:07-8:12: It received just three sentences on Larry King s show last night: Dozens of Iraqis in at least five United States cities thought to be sympathetic to Saddam Hussein's regime will be detained because war is imminent. The government sources told CNN the individuals could pose a danger to Americans or U.S. interest, sources said, but the sources would not be more specific about the nature of the danger. These Iraqis have been under surveillance until now and the Justice Department is heading the detention effort. The story has barely been mentioned in other outlets. The New York Post reported the round-ups would be part of the government s so-called Operation Liberty Shield. Guest: Anas Shallal, Iraqi-American living in the Washington D.C. area. He is a "Partner for Peace" with the Seeds of Peace program and one of the founders of the Mesopotamia Cultural Society. 8:12-8:20: President Bush yesterday delivered a final ultimatum to Saddam Hussein: he gave the Iraqi President and his son just 48 hours to flee the country, or be attacked. There are just a few hours left. But thousands of people in this country are facing an imminent deadline of a very different kind. By March 21st, just two days from now, immigrants from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia must register with immigration officials. If they don t register, they will be imprisoned or deported. If they do register, many of them will also be imprisoned or deported. People from Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Kuwait must register by April 25. The deadline has prompted thousands of Pakistanis to try to flee to Canada. The Detroit Free Press is reporting border cities in New York, Michigan and Vermont have been transformed into unlikely refugee camps for hundreds waiting to get in. Vermont Refugee Assistance is swamped. It is recruiting local families to provide shelter for the hundreds of people awaiting appointments with Canadian immigration authorities or for husbands who are in jail. But after sheltering more than 200 people in the past six weeks, the agency says it can assist no more refugees. If Canada turns away the refugees, they are at the mercy of US authorities, who separate families, detain them, and deport them. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has implemented a policy of detaining asylum seekers from 33 nations where al Qaeda has operated. The new policy could result in hundreds of arrests. Guest: Monami Maulik, founder & organizer of DRUM, Desis Rising Up & Moving Contact: http://www.drumnation.org Guest: Elizabeth Woike, assistant director at Vive La Casa, An Organization for World Refugees in Buffalo Contact: http://www.vivalacasa.org 8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break 8:21-8:40: In an effort to display a show of international support for the war, the Bush Administration yesterday listed 30 countries that are publicly backing a U.S. invasion. The list includes Britain, Spain and Australia, as well as Turkey, Afghanistan, South Korea, Japan, Colombia, Italy and others. Of these nations, only two, Britain and Australia plan to supply troops. The Washington Post reports that some of the countries were surprised by their inclusion. A senior diplomat at Colombia's embassy was unaware that his nation had been listed. Turkey has voted against allowing US troops to be deployed there. 95% of the Spanish population is against a US invasion of Iraq, despite its government s support. The list includes no governments in the Arab world. Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett criticized the so-called coalition: He said the posse announced today is mighty weak. It includes such military powerhouses as Eritrea and Estonia and pariahs like Uzbekistan with a human rights record as difficult to defend as Saddam Hussein's. The Congressman added, This list is an embarrassing indication of the administration's foreign policy failure. Meanwhile, protests against the war are intensifying. We thought we'd hold a cross-continental discussion. Guest: Paola, an organizer with Fermiamolaguerra, a national and international coalition to stop the war in Genoa, Italy Guest: Michael Sachs, Head of policy and research with the African National Congress in South Africa and is an organizer for the Stop the War Campaign in Johannesburg. Guest: Mohammad Tahseen, Executive director with the South Asia Partnership Pakistan, an NGO in Lahore which is coordinating a secular anti-war movement in the region. Guest: George Monbiot, columnist with the Guardian of London Contact: http://www.monbiot.com 8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break 8:41-8:50 international discussion, cont d 8:50-8:58 Talk-back to war: more listeners tell us what they re doing in this time of war We turn now to you, the listeners. This is what some of you had to say about what you re doing in this time of war. Tape: Talk-back to war, recorded 3/18/03 8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits 9:00-9:01 Billboards: 9:01-9:06 Headlines 9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Break 9:07-9:20 IS: War against Iraq is unequivocally illegal under the UN Charter and international law. That is the conclusion of a new report by the Center For Economic and Social Rights. It is the height of hypocrisy for the U.S. and U.K. to base war on Resolution 1441 when they are fully aware that France, Russia and China approved that resolution on explicit written condition that it could not be used by individual states to justify military action, said CESR Executive Director Roger Normand, who recently returned from a fact-finding mission to Iraq. This war violates every legal principle governing the resort to force. It clearly has little to do with disarmament, democracy, human rights, or even Saddam Hussein, and everything to do with oil and power. The report warns that an illegal war in Iraq would threaten the pillars of collective security established after World War II to protect civilians from a recurrence of that unprecedented carnage. Meanwhile other international law experts say the United States is well within its legal right to attack Iraq. Often cited is Iraq s failure to abide by the ceasefire agreement that ended the first Persian Gulf War. Today we are going to have a debate on the legality of a U.S. attack against Iraq. * Roger Normand, executive director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights Link: http://www.cesr.org * Ruth Wedgewood, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of international law at both Johns Hopkins 9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break 9:21-9:40: This morning in Australia, Greenpeace activists dressed as United Nations peacekeepers blockaded Prime Minister John Howard s official residence in Canberra. The protesters wore blue berets and chained themselves under four-wheel drive vehicles blocking the gates of Howard s home. Howard was forced to leave home by a back door. The action follows the Australian government's decision yesterday to commit Australian troops to an invasion of Iraq. In Britain, antiwar protesters gave Foreign Secretary Jack Straw a rude wake up call by blaring air sirens outside his London home at 6:30 this morning. Protesters said they briefly blockaded the roads around his home, forcing him to be late to work. Earlier this week, dozens of elderly women blocked the entrance to the RAF Fairford air base in Gloucestershire, England, where US bombers are preparing to be deployed to the Gulf. Some of the women were in wheelchairs; many were in their 70s and 80s. They held flowers, knitted, sang, danced and linked arms, bringing military vehicles to a halt. One woman told the British Press Association: "We aim to interfere with the smooth running of the base by blocking the main entrance." She said, "The decisions to make war are overwhelmingly carried out by men. We women think about the victims of war. When you talk about the enemy we just see other mothers' sons." She talked about "little boys with big egos who cannot back down for fear of losing face". Protesters are also targeting the bombs themselves, before they are loaded on the planes at the RAF Fairford base. On Sunday, over a dozen people set up a camp just off a major road used to transport bombs from the massive underground storage facility at Welford. There is more. In Turkey today, massive protests are planned at leading party headquarters as the Turkish government heads to a vote tomorrow on whether the United States can use its airspace to wage a war on Iraq. On Friday, some two dozen Greenpeace activists chained themselves to the wheels of a truck blocking an entrance to an eastern Turkish port, where U.S. forces are unloading equipment. With dozens of Turkish soldiers with assault rifles manning the entrance, police dragged away the demonstrators from Turkey, Britain, Australia, Belgium and Lebanon. The Spanish Civil Guard temporarily seized the famous Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior. The ship s captain and two others were arrested. The ship was blocking the joint Spanish-US naval base at Rota in southern Spain, where the U.S. Navy vessel Cape Horn was expected to deliver arms to troops in the Gulf. And there is more. Activists in Scotland are facing serious charges after dismantling military planes and support equipment intended for use in Iraq. In Germany on Saturday, police carried away hundreds of protesters who were blocking the main gate to the U.S. military's Rhein-Main Air Base And in Italy, in addition to massive street protests, there have been direct actions at gas station, airports and US military bases. * Shane Ratenbury, Campaign organizer with Greenpeace, Australia. He helped to blockade Prime Minister John Howard s house * Banu Dokmecibasi, (pronounced: Dokmechibeshe) anti-war organizer in Turkey and Mediterranean campaign organizer for Greenpeace. * Francesca Bria, reporter with Indymedia, Italy Contact: Italy.indymedia.org * Timo Marshall, crew member of the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior * David Mackenzie, organizer with Trident Ploughshares in Scotland, http://www.tridentploughshares.org/9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break 9:41-9:45 DIRECT ACTIONS, CONT D 9:45-9:58 Are the networks megaphones for official views on Iraq?: FAIR finds few voices of dissent in recent war coverage The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has found in a new study, In Iraq Crisis, Networks Are Megaphones for Official Views, that network newscasts are dominated by current and former U.S. officials and largely exclude Americans who are skeptical of or opposed to an invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, the conservative Media Research Center has released a study of its own. The study accuses ABC Nightly News of championing France and the United Nations over the US, treating Iraqi propaganda with less skepticism than Bush administration pronouncements, and: sanitizing radical protesters. FAIR studied nearly 400 on-camera sources who appeared in nightly news stories about Iraq on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The study took place in the first two weeks of February, during which Secretary of State Colin Powell made his presentation to the United Nations Security Council on February 5th. More than two-thirds of the guests featured were from the United States. Of the U.S. guests, a striking 75 percent were either current or former government or military officials. Only one of the official U.S. sources Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy-- expressed opposition or even skepticism about the war. And even Kennedy s concerns were vague. He said on NBC Nightly News on February 5th: "Once we get in there how are we going to get out, what s the loss for American troops are going to be, how long we're going to be stationed there, what s the cost is going to be." * Steve Rendall, senior analyst at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Link: http://www.fair.org/activism/iraq-sources-networks.html 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Ana Nogueira and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro and engineer.