*DISSING THE INSPECTORS

*UP CLOSE WITH KARL ROVE

*YOU CAN SIGN UP FOR THIS WEBLOG

Catch 22 is becoming Catch 23 or an even catch, as the Bush White House discredits whatever weapons report Iraq inspectors come up with on December 7, a day that will “live in infamy.” That is a full day earlier than the December 8 deadline. Washington is not waiting for the report to surface before dismissing it , reports the LA Times:

“President Bush disparaged Iraq’s efforts to comply with new U.N. disarmament demands as ‘not encouraging,’ suggesting Monday that Saddam Hussein will fail to meet terms for a key report due this weekend ˜ which would move the United States closer to war….Bush sought to draw attention away from the inspections, saying that disarmament rather than the inspections is the goal of the U.N. resolution passed last month.”

This is called “moving the goal posts.” First you announce support for inspections and then you say that inspectors are not really looking for weapons but to certify disarmament, or in short, discrediting the process forced on it in the first place

**TEA AT THE PALACE

In Iraq, inspectors finally visited one of those Presidential Palaces. Remember all the media speculation about what likely lurked within their imposing walls. Well, apparently, there was not enough to hold their interest, and they split in less than two hours. On to the next site.

The New York Times is reporting that inspectors found that certain equipment they were told not to move has now been relocated to parts unknown. This disclosure warranted this headline: ‘Equipment Missing at Iraqi Missile Development Plant.” The summary: “The new round of U.N. weapons inspections appeared to run into its first serious problem on Monday.”

*HOUSE OF HORRORS

Britain has issued a report summarizing earlier human rights reports on Iraq (that no one in power in the West has paid any attention to for years), to claim that Saddam is running a “House of Horrors” committing “vile atrocities” and sadism. Oddly the New York Post carried a wire report on this yesterday, but without any sensational new “news” about the man they are reverting to call the “Butcher of Baghdad,” they recycled the British report today with a front page “MONSTER INC” headline and two pages of agit- prop on the inside. Oddly, a few days ago the Independent in London carried a report that has had some pick up in the US suggesting that one of the American inspectors may know something about sadism himself. The report named a US appointed member of the UN team as part of an S&M club in Washington DC. Maybe this has become a special qualification. Bizarro.

*OTHER WEAPONS UNINSPECTED

As we contemplate the search for weapons of mass destruction, and the new mania in high places for disarmament, here’s an item which one would think might be considered related. It is in the LA Times. Sonni Efron reports:

“WASHINGTON — Eleven years after the United States committed to helping the former Soviet Union secure and destroy its weapons of mass destruction, and 14 months after President Bush made it a priority to keep them out of terrorists’ hands, vast and lethal stockpiles remain ripe for plucking, officials and nonproliferation experts say.” As far as I know, no one is inspecting or prospecting for these lethal killing machines.

APOLOGIES, APOLOGIES

A former Bush Administration official who was interviewed on the role of Bush consigliere Karl Rove in Esquire has now “apologized” for his candor. Randall Mikkelsen of Reuters reports:

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former senior aide to President Bush apologized on Monday after being quoted in an article saying that a band of “Mayberry Machiavellis” were running a White House where politics trumped policy.

“The Esquire magazine article — which extensively quoted John DiIulio, the former head of Bush’s stalled effort to aid religious charities — represents a rare criticism by a one-time insider of a Bush White House which has placed a near-total lid on internal dissent.

“John DiIulio agrees that his criticisms were groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples. He sincerely apologizes and is deeply remorseful,” DiIulio’s office said in a statement. The statement was distributed by the University of Pennsylvania, where DiIulio works as a professor.”

WHAT KARL ROVE IS LIKE

The Esquire piece interviews Dilulio, but also carries this anecdote about Roveworld. Recounts Ron Susskind: “Eventually, I met with Rove. I arrived at his office a few minutes early, just in time to witness the Rove Treatment, which, like LBJ’s famous browbeating style, is becoming legend but is seldom reported. Rove’s assistant, Susan Ralston, said he’d be just a minute. She’s very nice, witty and polite. Over her shoulder was a small back room where a few young men were toiling away. I squeezed into a chair near the open door to Rove’s modest chamber, my back against his doorframe.Inside, Rove was talking to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him. I paid it no mind and reviewed a jotted list of questions I hoped to ask. But after a moment, it was like ignoring a tornado flinging parked cars. ‘We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!’ As a reporter, you get around-curse words, anger, passionate intensity are not notable events–but the ferocity, the bellicosity, the violent imputations were, well, shocking. This went on without a break for a minute or two. Then the aide slipped out looking a bit ashen, and Rove, his face ruddy from the exertions of the past few moments, looked at me and smiled a gentle, Clarence-the-Angel smile. “Come on in.” And I did. And we had the most amiable chat for a half hour. ..”

JAMBO OSAMA

CNN reports today that “A statement attributed to al Qaeda claimed responsibility for last week’s terrorist attacks on Israeli targets in Kenya.

“Ha’aretz in Israel is reporting that officials there have foiled other Al Qaeda attacks. In what is now becoming horifically familiar, there are reports that spy agencies knew an attack there was likely. Here’s Paul Redfern in the Nation in Nairobi (via the Globalvision News Network’s News Shadow –gvnews.net:)

“LONDON, Dec 02, 2002 — Some Western intelligence agencies knew another attack by Al Qaeda in Kenya was imminent after the Bali bombing, it became clear yesterday.

“Following the devastating attack on the Paradise Hotel in Kikambala on Thursday morning it emerged that the Australian foreign affairs ministry sent a specific advisory not to travel to Kenya - and Mombasa in particular - on November 12, in the light of what it termed “new information.”

“‘Threats against westerners and western interests are high,’ the Australian advice said.

“‘Australians are advised to defer all non-essential travel to Mombasa and Australians in Mombasa who are concerned about their safety should consider departure.”

“It is not clear however if that advice was shared by all western intelligence agencies or indeed passed onto the Kenyan government.”

FUNDAMENTALISM IN THE USA?

As western news sources continue to attack Muslim fanatics, Edward Said, the Palestinian scholar references fundamentalism in America in his most recent column in Cairo’s Al-Ahram: “A recent poll taken in the United States reveals that 86 per cent of the American population believes that God loves them. There’s been a lot of ranting and complaining about fanatical Islam and violent jihadists, who are thought to be a universal scourge. Of course they are, as are any fanatics who claim to do God’s will and to fight his battles in his name. But what is most odd is the vast number of Christian fanatics in the US, who form the core of George Bush’s support and at 60 million strong represent the single most powerful voting block in US history. Whereas church attendance is down dramatically in England it has never been higher in the United States whose strange fundamentalist Christian sects are, in my opinion, a menace to the world and furnish Bush’s government with its rationale for punishing evil while righteously condemning whole populations to submission and poverty.

“It is the coincidence between the Christian Right and the so-called neo-conservatives in America that fuel the drive towards unilateralism, bullying, and a sense of divine mission. The neo-conservative movement began in the 70s as an anti-communist formation whose ideology was undying enmity to communism and American supremacy. ‘American values,’ now so casually trotted out as a phrase to hector the world, was invented then by people like Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Midge Dechter, and others who had once been Marxists and had converted completely (and religiously) to the other side. For all of them the unquestioning defense of Israel as a bulwark of Western democracy and civilisation against Islam and communism was a central article of faith. Many though not all the major neo-cons (as they are called) are Jewish, but under theBush presidency they have welcomed the extra support of the Christian Right which, while it is rabidly pro-Israel, is also deeply anti-Semitic (ie. these Christians — many of them Southern Baptists – believe that all the Jews of the world must gather in Israel so that the Messiah can come again; those Jews who convert to Christianity will be saved, the rest will be doomed to eternal perdition)…”

ANTHRAX SCARE IN NEW YORK

There is strange story in New York that there was an anthrax scare in the mail room at a Midtown office at IBM when a letter containing an unidentified substance arrived. The letter, sent from India, was addressed to Bill Gates, who of course works for Microsoft. Not IBM. “Someone didn’t know the difference between IBM and Microsoft,” said a spokesperson for the Post Office.

On the still unsolved anthrax crime front, here’s an item from an AP story from October 24, 2001, that I missed at the time. It reports that What House mail sorters were back then, anthrax free but then reveals:

“On the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House Medical Office dispensed Cipro to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David, and told them it was a precaution, according to one person directly involved.. The person who found and posted this item, that I assume Henry Kissinger and his fellow investigators will review in great detail, said: :It’s wonderful that VP Cheney and his team were given Cipro beginning on the night of Sept. 11. The US Congress had to wait a few weeks later. (The first “anthrax letter” was postmarked in Trenton NJ on Sept. 18 and sent to New York Post and NBC anchor Tom Brokaw.)”

WILL RUSSIA PAY COMPENSATION FOR ITS TERROR VICTIMS?

In other people’s terror wars, this just in from Radio Free Europe: “A Moscow court today opened hearings on complaints from former hostages and victims’ families in connection with the seizing of a Moscow theater by Chechen separatists in October. Eight plaintiffs are demanding compensation ranging from $500,000 to $1 million.

“The 23-26 October seizure of the theater ended with at least 170 casualties, including 41 hostage takers. The overwhelming majority of victims died from the effects of a narcotic gas used by Russian forces…”

IS THERE LIFE AFTER CAPITALISM?

The two sides of the globalization divide are now preparing respective 2003 global conferences. The World Economic Forum which met this past year in New York City returns to Davos in Switzerland to assemble its capitalist elite next month. At the same time, in Brazil, the World Social Forum will be discussing, among other things, “Life After Capitalism.” Michael Albert who runs ZNET and writes books about social and economic issues, is convening sessions on what do new now that that capitalism is crumbling. He writes: “This umbrella label will provide a shared venue for anti-captalists and will encompass dozens of panels and presentations, etc. It will try to provide a place and events where people can meet, socialize, and pursue their agendas in a way introducing and seriously debating ideas and differences and moving forward, with lasting relations developed.” For more on Michael’s Albert’s view of Life After the Big C, look for his new book PARECON, published by VERSO, in which he outlines, in detail and imaginative scope, what a new economy might look like and how it might function.

Parecon is short for participatory Economics. It is envisioned as a basis for a new economy which equality replaces exploitation. For years, many have raged at the machine, so to speak, but now Michael Albert talks about how to dismantle it and put it together along more democratic lines. While some may find it utopian, at least he is tackling that old question, “Well what will your replace it with, Mate?” with substance, not slogans. Noam Chomsky said “it merits close attention, debate, and action. Your News Dissector is in the Amen Corner fearing life after Capitalism in personal terms as many of us may welcome such a new era in social ones. That title again: “PARECON.”

WITH ALBINA AGAIN

Last night, I visited with visiting Media Channel advisor, French Countess Albina du Boisrouvray, the human rights campaigner and AIDS orphan advocate who last night launched a handsomely packaged campaign called ALBINA’S ACTION FOR ORPHANS (see.fxb.org) with a photo exhibit in SOHO. She is a prophet on her way to becoming a product as she takes advantage of our obsession with personalities and celebrities to give the campaign for Aids orphans a personal face and articulate voice, Her global efforts — that now includes 63 projects in India and another in Mongolia are urgently needed as governments remain in denial about the scope and seriousness of the orphans crisis. I chatted last night with an UNICEF representative just back from Namibia who confirmed that many Southern African leaders are totally out of touch with the problem. It was good to see MAC cosmetics helping to sponsor the event, and Marie Clare magazine interested in a story.

YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE

Please remember that this weblog is now available on email for those who sign up. See above. This is one way we can distribute it more widely, Help us if you can. You can continue to feed back to me at dissector@mediachannel.org