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Not Just Bush's War
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030331070349684.html

War Hawks Backtrack, White House “somber"
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030331064619978.html

Bring Our Lads Home -- Send Rumsfeld to War Instead
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/200303310620566.html

Radio Giant Agitates For War
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030328055221748.html

"Red Alert" Means Martial Law
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030328054629483.html

Organic Agriculture Helps Fight Cancer
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030328054301811.html

Lack of Skepticism Leads to Poor Reporting on Iraq Weapons Claims
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030327051036793.html

Spectre of McCarthy Haunts Hollywood
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030327050554158.html

Brutality Towards Al-Qaeda Prisoners Endangers US POWs
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030327050329524.html

Abortion foes abandon trial strategy
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030326102836507.html

750 Ithacans March For Peace
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/2003032610232695.html

Give Protestors a Chance
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030326101718602.html

Monroe County Green's Statement Against War
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030325074415686.html

Subscribe or unsubscribe to this weekly newsletter at
http://www.tcgreens.org/auth/

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Not Just Bush's War

By JERRY GORDON, The Organizer

As president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, George W. Bush bears direct and personal responsibility for the slaughter of the Iraqi people currently underway, and for all the other consequences of this war, including casualties of U.S. troops. But that does not make this "Bush's war." Such a characterization is both factually wrong and politically disorienting.

Plans for the conquest of Iraq and U.S. control of its oil were drawn up decades ago by a group of Washington foreign policy strategists seeking to ensure U.S. global dominance. It fell to the Bush administration to attempt to put those plans into effect.

There have been a number of articles published recently which document the evolution of this strategy. One of the best is by Robert Dreyfuss titled "Playing for Keeps -- Washington's Endgame for the Persian Gulf," which appears in the April 2003 edition of Mother Jones.

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030331070349684.html

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War Hawks Backtrack, White House “somber"

Shafi Khan

In the face of fierce Iraqi resistance, Bush administration officials seem to be backtracking their promises of a quick, painless victory. Many seem to have forgotten statements made just a few months ago. Administration hawks who pushed the failed “shock and awe” campaign are now preparing the American public for a long drawn out conflict.

Richard Perle, the recently resigned chairman of the Defense Policy Board, in a PBS interview July 11, 2002 called Saddam Hussein’s regime “a house of cards and said it would collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder.” Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking to NBC March 16 said, “My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces and are likely to step aside.”

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars March 11 said “Over and over, we hear reports of Iraqis here in the United States who manage to communicate with their friends and families in Iraq, and what they are hearing is amazing. Their friends and relatives want to know what is taking the Americans so long.”

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030331064619978.html

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Bring Our Lads Home -- Send Rumsfeld to War Instead

By Robin Cook/The Sunday Mirror

This was meant to be a quick, easy war. Shortly before I resigned a Cabinet colleague told me not to worry about the political fall-out.

The war would be finished long before polling day for the May local elections.

I just hope those who expected a quick victory are proved right. I have already had my fill of this bloody and unnecessary war. I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed.

It is OK for Bush to say the war will go on for as long as it takes. He is sitting pretty in the comfort of Camp David protected by scores of security men to keep him safe. It is easy to show you are resolute when you are not one of the poor guys stuck in a sandstorm peering around for snipers.

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/200303310620566.html

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Radio Giant Agitates For War

By PAUL KRUGMAN

By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been vehement. One of the most striking took place after Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, criticized President Bush: a crowd gathered in Louisiana to watch a 33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie Chicks CD's, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with 20th-century European history it seemed eerily reminiscent of. . . . But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here.

Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns out, is that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry with close links to the Bush administration.

The CD-smashing rally was organized by KRMD, part of Cumulus Media, a radio chain that has banned the Dixie Chicks from its playlists. Most of the pro-war demonstrations around the country have, however, been organized by stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, a behemoth based in San Antonio that controls more than 1,200 stations and increasingly dominates the airwaves.

The company claims that the demonstrations, which go under the name Rally for America, reflect the initiative of individual stations. But this is unlikely: according to Eric Boehlert, who has written revelatory articles about Clear Channel in Salon, the company is notorious and widely hated for its iron-fisted centralized control.

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030328055221748.html

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"Red Alert" Means Martial Law

By TOM BALDWIN

TRENTON, NJ -- If the nation escalates to "red alert," which is the highest in the color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home, the state's anti-terror czar says.

"This state is on top of it," said Sid Caspersen, New Jersey's director of the office of counter-terrorism.

Caspersen, a former FBI agent, was briefing reporters, alongside Gov. James E. McGreevey, Thursday, when for the first time he disclosed the realities of how a red alert would shut the state down.

A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate.

"Red means all non-critical functions cease," Caspersen said. "Non-critical would be almost all businesses, except health-related."

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030328054629483.html

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Organic Agriculture Helps Fight Cancer

Plant phenolics (flavonoids) are plant by-products believed to protect the plant from insect predation, bacterial and fungal infection and photo-oxidation. This same class of plant chemicals has been found to be effective in preventing cancer and heart disease, and to combat age-related neurological dysfunctions.

The main target of these plant chemicals is to protect the cell against damage caused by active oxygen radicals. Oxygen radicals are generated from exposure to oxygen that has in turn been activated by exposure to radiation, heavy metal ions and chemicals. Oxygen radicals cause cancer by damaging DNA, resulting in mutations; by activating enzymes involved in regulating cell growth; and by promoting angiogenesis (invasion of blood vessels into tumours to allow rapid growth of the tumour). Oxygen radicals are also implicated in cardiovascular disease and age-related nerve cell damage.

Conventional agriculture depends on heavy applications of chemical fertilisers, frequent spraying with chemical pesticides and irrigation. Such practices are believed to inhibit the production of flavonoids. On the contrary, organic agriculture, which eliminates the use of synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, creates conditions favourable to the production of health-enhancing plant flavonoids.

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030328054301811.html

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Lack of Skepticism Leads to Poor Reporting on Iraq Weapons Claims

A lack of skepticism toward official U.S. sources has already led prominent American journalists into embarrassing errors in their coverage of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, particularly in relation to claims that proof had been found that Iraq possesses banned weapons.

On March 20, the second day of the invasion, U.S. military sources initially described missiles launched by Iraq as "Scuds"-- the U.S. name for a Soviet-made missile used by Iraq during the Gulf War. They exceed the range limits imposed on Iraqi weapons by the 1991 ceasefire agreement.

While some reporters appropriately sourced the Scud reports to military officials, and cautioned their audience about the uncertainty of the identification, others rushed to report claims as facts. NBC's Matt Lauer's report was definitive: "We understand they have fired three missiles. One of those was a Scud missile. It was destroyed by a Patriot missile battery as it headed toward Kuwait."

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030327051036793.html

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Spectre of McCarthy Haunts Hollywood

By Leslie Feinberg

Entertainment moguls are channeling the mean spirit of Joseph McCarthy in their witch hunts against well-known industry workers who publicly express opposition to a U.S. war against Iraq.

The Screen Actors Guild board of directors issued a statement on March 3 explaining, "Some have recently suggested that well-known individuals who express 'unacceptable' views should be punished by losing their right to work."

The actors' union statement referred to the 1950s "blacklists"--or more accurately "redlists"--that destroyed many careers and forced others, like Charlie Chaplin, to flee the country. This rapacious red-baiting was part of the witch-hunts led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy against communists and progressives after World War II.

On the same day IATSE, the labor union representing technicians and other workers in live theatre, film and television production and trade shows, publicly said that it, "unconditionally concurs with and supports SAG's statement condemning any hint of blacklisting that is being threatened as a result of any public statements that disagree with the current administration's dictates."

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030327050554158.html

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Brutality Towards Al-Qaeda Prisoners Endangers US POWs

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party members are warning that the brutal and humiliating treatment of al-Qaeda prisoners has put American soldiers captured by Saddam Hussein's army in grave peril.

"The whole world has seen video footage of shackled and shaved men transported in plastic containers and confined to cages in Guantanamo," said Anita Rios, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. "The world knows that the Pentagon has sent some captive al-Qaeda members to other nations to be interrogated under torture. In November, 2002, six al-Qaeda members were executed by a missile launched by a CIA drone in Yemen. It's possible that Saddam, a murderous dictator, will use this as a license to visit similar treatment on American soldiers taken captive. President Bush, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Ashcroft must order an end to this kind of treatment immediately."

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030327050329524.html

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Abortion foes abandon trial strategy

By Beverly Hiestand and Ellie Dorritie, Buffalo, N.Y.

Right-wing terrorists who want to deny reproductive rights for women--the right to decide when and if to bear children--had vowed to use the murder trial of James C. Kopp as a media circus. They had to shift gears.

In an interview with two reporters from the Buffalo News in the Erie County Holding Center last November, Kopp admitted that he fatally shot Dr. Barnett Slepian, a respected ob-gyn doctor who provided abortions. Slepian was killed in 1998 with a bullet from a high-powered rifle while at home with his family. However, Kopp denied he had committed any crime.

Kopp, and the reactionary current that politically supports him, had announced that they would use the trial to argue that this was an act of "justifiable homicide" and maintain a media presence throughout the trial, which had been expected to last about one month.

However, on March 11, Kopp chose a non-jury trial in which no one would testify. As a result, he was tried on March 17 with no witnesses--not even Kopp himself. Instead, County Judge Michael L. D'Amico reviewed 35 pages of stipulated facts, listened to attorney arguments and handed down the guilt verdict the next day.

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030326102836507.html

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750 Ithacans March For Peace

Yesterday March 22, 2003 protesters met at Ithaca's Dewitt Park for a funeral procession through town past the Ithaca Journal and the Ithaca Times in protest of the war and in remembrance of the lives lost and to be lost by both the Iraqi and U.S. people and also of the death of truth in media. Before the march began several statements were read aloud to the waiting and gathering crowd.

"We come together today to mourn all victims of war – the lives of Iraqi and U.S. people and to embrace the spirit of nonviolence in thought, word and deed.

As we walk in this funeral procession please remember the Iraqi mother who has no place for her children to be safe from U.S. bombs and guns. Please remember the Iraqi youth who only know [sic] an American that wants to wage war with them – an 18 year old man in Iraq has spent 13 years of his life being attacked by the U.S. with bombs and sanctions. Please remember the U.S. soldiers who are being ordered to be ready to kill another human being…who are being exposed to radioactive depleted uranium particles as they breathe the air where bombs have exploded. Please remember the children of Iraq and U.S. soldiers, born with birth defects as a result of their fathers' and mothers' exposure to this DU poison. Please remember the death of innocence for U.S. children who are asking their parents, "Am I going to be bombed? Do I have to worry about this?"

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/2003032610232695.html

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Give Protestors a Chance

Peter Rosset; March 21, 2003

There comes a time when mild opposition turns to serious concern, when reasonable voices are ignored, when 'polite' mass turnouts are ignored, when serious concern turns to anger and outrage. When does that point come? When is it justified to do something that inconveniences the morning commute? When international law is violated? When innocent lives are at stake? When our schools are sacrificed for war? When our votes are ignored, when polls are ignored, when national and global public opinion is ignored?

I write this for those who are uncomfortable with anti-war protests that block streets and inconvenience commuters. I ask you to have an open mind. Feel free to disagree when you are finished, though I hope you will come away with new perspective.

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030326101718602.html

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Monroe County Green's Statement Against War

My name is Jason Crane, and I'm the chair of the Green Party of Monroe County. I want to begin by saying that the Green Party unconditionally opposes this illegal war, and the use of violence in international affairs.

As Bush's war begins, we're asked to cast aside our opposition and to support our troops.

I can't do that. I can't pretend that everything we in the peace movement have been saying has been rendered meaningless by the start of the war. I can't oppose this illegal conflict, then turn around and support the illegal actions of our military.

Do I want to see Americans killed in combat? Of course not. No more than I want to witness the deaths of countless innocent Iraqi men, women and children. And I sympathize with the mothers and fathers and husbands and wives and children whose relatives are fighting a war they didn't choose for a president they didn't elect.

http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030325074415686.html

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