Democracy Now! February 20, 2002

9:01-9:06 HEADLINES BEARING WITNESS: A SURVIVOR OF YESTERDAY'S ATTACK ON A HOUSE IN GAZA GUEST: BARBARA LUBIN, Executive Director, Middle East Childrens Alliance CONTACT: http://www.mecaforpeace.org 9:06-9:07 ONE-MINUTE MUSIC BREAK 9:07-9:20 AS REPORTS EMERGE OF A STRING OF MISTAKES ACROSS SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN IN US RAIDS, AND THE WAR CONTINUES AT HOME, WELL RETURN TO THE CRITICAL VOICE OF ACTIVIST AND SCHOLAR CORNEL WEST The intense air war that supposedly smashed the Taliban and still seeks to disable or kill its top leaders has left a string of mistakes across southern Afghanistan. And even the US media is beginning to look into why Afghans have been forced to live and die with US mistakes during the war on Afghanistan. The Washington Post has made visits to five villages near Kandahar over the last week and yielded testimony about more than 100 civilian victims of U.S. airstrikes, corroborated by local commanders, Afghan officials and firsthand inspection of the bomb damage. The reporters have found that in a succession of villages, precision-guidance munitions from U.S. aircraft sometimes hit precisely the wrong targets as pilots and their allies on the ground tried to distinguish between fleeing or hiding targets and vulnerable civilians. These accounts indicate that while being cautious about hunting Taliban or al Qaeda members on the ground, U.S. forces struck potential targets from the air with less discriminating firepower. U.S. bombs hit fleeing Taliban convoys, destroyed hidden weapons depots and chased targets who hid in civilian areas. But airstrikes also killed children in their homes, pulverized trucks regardless of their cargo and pounded a Muslim shrine into rubble. We are going to return to one of the few public voices expressing concern about the US-led so called war on terrorism which justified the aggressive military strategy in Afghanistan. West has come under fire at Harvard, where he is professor of African-American studies and philosophy of religion. At a private meeting in October with new Harvard president Lawrence Summers, West says he was criticized for working on Bill Bradleys campaign and for some of his less scholarly work, including his recent hip hop CD, Sketches of my Culture. The Harvard president suggested that West embark on a new work of serious scholarship befitting his elite designation at Harvard as one of only 14 University Professors. Summers was recently quoted as saying that the University has to be more patriotic. Here is the second part of a speech by activist, theologian, and scholar Cornel West, given several months ago in the Bay area during the Mario Savio awards. TAPE: CORNEL WEST, professor of African-American studies and philosophy of religion at Harvard University and author of the best-selling book, Race Matters. 9:20-9:21 ONE-MINUTE MUSIC BREAK 9:21-9:40 AS REPORTS EMERGE OF A STRING OF MISTAKES ACROSS SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN IN US RAIDS, AND THE WAR CONTINUES AT HOME, WELL RETURN TO THE CRITICAL VOICE OF ACTIVIST AND SCHOLAR CORNEL WEST TAPE: CORNEL WEST, professor of African-American studies and philosophy of religion at Harvard University and author of the best-selling book, Race Matters, contd 9:40-9:41 ONE-MINUTE MUSIC BREAK 9:41-9:58 ONE MONTH AFTER BUSH ACCUSES NORTH KOREA OF BEING PART OF AN "AXIS OF EVIL," PROTESTS ERUPT IN SOUTH KOREA OVER HIS VISIT Standing beside South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung earlier today, President Bush announced that he has no intentions of invading North Korea and that his goal in the region is peace. His remarks came as protests rocked the South Korean capital of Seoul and anger continued to simmer over Bush's now infamous "axis of evil" remarks. In his State of the Union address last month, Bush labeled North Korea the third spoke in a dangerous Axis of Evil that also includes Iran and Iraq. The comment sparked outrage in all three countries, and led the North Korean government to accuse Bush of declaring war on the region. The United States longtime ally, South Korea, did not altogether disagree. The government, as well as the citizens, have repeatedly called on Bush to withdraw or at least temper his remarks. But if Bushs visit to South Korea was meant to quell anger in the region, it is unclear whether he succeeded. On a trip up to the Demilitarized Zone, also today, Bush called the North Korean regime "despotic" and insisted that the burden was on the government in Pyongyang to prove that it did not plan to threaten its neighbors with weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, down in Seoul, security remained tight as protests continued outside major U.S. facilities, including the American Embassy, the American Chamber of Commerce, U.S. firms, and military installations. Though the protests have been among the biggest in the countrys recent history, the Western media has scarcely mentioned them. GUEST: RUPERT CORNWELL, reporter for the London Independent based in Washington CONTACT: www.independent.co.uk GUEST: TIM SHORROCK, reporter who has been writing about Korea for decades GUEST: REVEREND KIYUL CHUNG, General Secretary of Korea Truth Commission (KTC) on US Military Massacres of Civilians CONTACT: www.koreatruthcommission.org/english/english.html 9:58-9:59 OUTRO AND CREDITS