Democracy Now! February 24, 2003

9:00-9:01 Billboard 9:01-9:06 Headlines 9:06-9:07 One-minute music break 9:07-9:14: The Bush administration is entering a period of intense diplomacy intended to strong-arm reluctant nations into passing a new U.N. Security Council resolution. The resolution would pave the way for an unprovoked US attack on Iraq. The US, Britain and possibly Spain, are planning to introduce the resolution early this week. But the US has met with unprecedented opposition. Last Saturday, tens of millions marched in the streets of major cities around the globe, in opposition to an unprovoked, unilateral US attack. More worrying to the Bush administration, only three Security Council members out of 15 are supporting the US: Britain, Spain and Bulgaria. Nine votes are required to pass a Security Council resolution. President Bush hosted Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at his ranch in Crawford, Texas over the weekend. On Saturday, Bush and Aznar held a strategizing meeting via telephone with British and Italian Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi. Bush appears to be calling on his few allies to try to lobby other Security Council members. Aznar has already met with Mexican President Vicente Fox and is set to discuss the issue with Chile. Spain is emerging as the Bush administration s strongest ally, second to Britain. But according to the latest poll in Spain, 94% of the people are against a war in Iraq. Last Saturday, some three million people marched in the streets against the war. That is about one of every 13 Spaniards. And just yesterday, some two hundred thousand took to the streets of Madrid. They began protesting the gigantic oil spill off the Galician coast, but the demonstration turned into an anti-war protest. Guest: Maria Carrion, filmmaker and former Democracy Now! producer 9:14-9:20: World-renowned Irish civil rights activist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was refused entry to the US over the weekend, and deported. She passed through the US immigration office in Dublin just fine. But when she arrived in Chicago, a loudspeaker called out her name. McAliskey says she was surrounded by four immigration officers. One of them told her they had received a fax from their agents it Dublin. The fax called her a potential or real threat to the United States. Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is a world-renowned civil rights activist. She was elected to the British Parliament from Northern Ireland in 1969, when she was just 21 years old. She was the youngest British MP in history. In August of that year she was arrested during the ''Battle of the Bogside,'' an uprising in Derry that marked the beginning of 30 years of armed resistance to the British occupation of Northern Ireland. She served four months in prison for inciting a riot. She was still an MP. Over the years she continued her activism. In 1981, she and her husband were shot by members of a Protestant paramilitary group at their farmhouse near Belfast. Bernadette was struck by nine bullets. We go now to Bernadette Devlin McAliskey in Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Guest: Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, Irish civil rights leader 9:20-9:21 One-Minute Music Break 9:21-9:40: Today, as part of our ongoing teach-in on war and peace, we bring you the voice of Arundhati Roy. She is the author of Power Politics and The God of Small Things, for which she won the Booker Prize in 1997. She is an outspoken critic of India's nuclear weapons testing and environmental policies and has been tried for her political beliefs. Her latest book, coming out at the end of April, is War Talk . In late September last year, Roy gave a major address in Santa Fe, New Mexico on the war in Iraq, U.S. foreign policy, Palestine and corporate globalization. Tape: Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things and Power Politics. Trained as an architect, she is an outspoken critic of India's nuclear weapons testing and environmental policies. She has been tried for her political beliefs. Links: http://www.lannan.org/Transcript of Arundhati Roy s address: http://www.lannan.org/_authors/roy/transcript.htm#reading 9:40-9:41 One-Minute Music Break 9:41-9:58 ARUNDHATI ROY CONT D 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits