Democracy Now! May 28, 2003

8:00-8:01 Billboard 8:01-8:06 Headlines 8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break 8:07-8:20: Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned Iran yesterday the US will aggressively put down any attempt to install a theocratic regime in Iraq. The warning reflects Washington s concern that some Shia Muslim clerics in Iraq with political and religious ties to Iran, will help to fill the vacuum left by the fall of Saddam Hussein. In recent weeks, Washington has taken a more hard-line stance towards Iran, one of the members of the so-called axis-of-evil. The Washington Post reported the Bush administration appears set to call for the destablization of the Iranian government. The Pentagon is urging President Bush to approve public and private actions that could lead to the toppling of the government. The Pentagon plan may involve the Iraq-based armed opposition movement Mojahedin Khalq, even though it is designated a terrorist group by the State Department. On Monday, the Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said that it had evidence of two previously undisclosed uranium enrichment facilities west of Tehran. This comes as the Bush Administration tries to build international support for the International Atomic Energy Agency to look further into Iran s nuclear program. The U.S. also cancelled diplomatic talks with Iran and accused the country of failing to take action against members of the al-Qaeda network. An unnamed Bush administration official told the LA Times that last weekend s talks in Geneva were scrapped because the US has information linking the attacks in Saudi Arabia to operatives in Iran. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said he believed Iran would cooperate with any request for the extradition of suspected Saudi members of al-Qaeda wanted in connection with the bombings. Accounts in the Arab press report that Saad bin Laden, the son of al-Qaeda s founder operates out of Iran. The US also believes the new head of al-Qaeda s military operations Saif Al-Adel is living in Iran near the Afghan border. * Dilip Hiro, journalist and author of 24 books including "Iraq: In the Eye of the Storm" and Neighbors, Not Friends: Iraq and Iran after the Gulf Wars and Iran Under the Ayatollahs 8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break 8:21-8:40: In the buildup to the US led invasion of Iraq, White House officials told the American people up until March that that the president had not decided to use military force and would only consider it as a last resort. Financial Times reported yesterday that the decision to invade Iraq came much earlier. A senior aide to President Bush said the critical internal moment in the White House came in the second week of December, when the president was briefed on Iraq s weapons declaration. The president was told that the Iraqi regime appeared to have made a decision not to co-operate with the UN process. One person who worked closely with the National Security Council during the time said, A tinpot dictator was mocking the president. It provoked a sense of anger in the White House. After that point, there was no prospect of a diplomatic solution. France concluded in early January that the US had abandoned the diplomatic path and was already determined to overthrow Saddam Hussein using military force. Bush administration officials indicated that the French assessment was justified. The Financial Times report is the first in a three-part series. *James Harding, reporter for the Financial Times Contact http://news.ft.com/home/us 8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break 8:41-8:58: Herman Goering at his Nuremberg trial in 1946 said: Naturally, the common people don t want war but, after all it s the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. This quote by Hermann Goering is published on the first page of Micah Wright s new book of remixed war posters. You Back the Attack! We ll Bomb Who We Want! has just been published by Seven Stories Press. After spending four years as an Airborne Ranger in the US Army, Micah Wright moved on to the next logical step in his career: writing children s animation. Upon earning a degree in political science and creative writing from the University of Arizona, Micah relocated to Los Angeles and began writing at Nickelodeon Animation where he wrote for Nicktoons The Angry Beavers. That animation was nominated for an Emmy and an Annie award. He is also the creator of the first true American anime show Constant Payne and is co-creator of the acclaimed Chet Thunderhead: Private Eye , animated series. * Micah Ian Wright, antiwar satirist and animation writer. He is the author of You Back the Attack, We ll Bomb Who We Want! 8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits 9:00-9:01 Billboard 9:01-9:06 Headlines 9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Break 9:07-9:20: More than 100 cities and one state have adopted resolutions condemning the USA Patriot Act. But last month Arcata, California took it a step further. The Arcata City Council adopted a city ordinance that makes cooperation with the Patriot Act a crime. Starting this month, any city department head who voluntarily complies with investigations or arrests under the Patriot Act will be fined $57. The USA Patriot Act gives the government new powers to snoop on citizens including the use wiretaps and electronic surveillance and gathering information from public libraries. Opponents say it violates civil liberties, supporters say it helps fight terrorism. Guest: David Meserve, City Council member in Arcata, CA who wrote the ordinance 9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break 9:21-9:33: The Supreme Court handed a victory to the Bush Administration yesterday when it refused to hear a challenge to closed, secret deportation hearings held for hundreds of immigrants detained after the Sept. 11 attacks. Following the attacks, the government ordered all immigration hearings closed if the detainees were deemed so-called special interest' cases because of possible links to terrorism. Only the government can decide if a case is a special interest case. The appeal was brought by a group of New Jersey newspapers seeking information about the detainees. We asked the Justice Department for a comment, but the media office declined to join us today. * Nancy Chang, senior litigation attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights and Author of Silencing Political Dissent. She represented the North Jersey Media Group, which brought the case. * Lee Gelernt, lead council for North Jersey Media Group Contact: http://www.ccr-ny.org/ http://www.aclu.org/9:33-9:40: Immigrant attorneys and advocates have compared the detention of Muslims post 9-11 to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Now the government is investigating allegations of abuse in two INS facilities: Passaic County Jail in Patterson, New Jersey and the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Right now, a report from Noah Reibel, who is a student at Columbia journalism school. Behind the INS Curtain , by Noah Reibel, 9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break 9:41-9:58: Right now, a conversation between two of the most pre-eminent social critics of our time. One of them was born in Shillong, India in 1959. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now lives, and has worked as a film designer, actor, and screenplay writer in India. Her first novel, The God of Small Things, won the prestigious Booker Prize. The other was born in 1922 in Brooklyn, New York to two Jewish immigrants who worked in factories. He grew up in slums there, worked in a shipyard, and was a bombardier in World War II. In 1960, he decided to try to write a new kind of history of the United States, a view from the ground up, from the people who built this country, the workers, the immigrants, the slaves. He spent the next two decades researching and writing. In 1980 he published his history and beyond all expectations, it became a best seller. A little while ago, he sold the millionth copy that history book. I am talking about Arundhati Roy, and Howard Zinn. A couple of weeks go, Arundhati Roy and Howard Zinn had a conversation in front of thousands, in Riverside Church in Harlem. The event was sponsored by the Center for Economic and Social Rights, and the Lannan Foundation. This is what they had to say to each other. <sum> Howard Zinn and Arundhati Roy, Riverside Church, May 12th 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Sharif Abdul Kouddous, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press with help from Noah Reibel and Vilka Tzouras. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro and engineer. Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Emily Kunstler, Orlando Richards, Simba Rousseau, Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Karen Ranucci, Fatima Mojadiddy, Denis Moynihan and Jenny Filipazzo.