Democracy Now!
Wed., March 19, 2003
ATTN: ALL STATIONS
From: Democracy Now!
Re: Rundown
Date: 3-19-03
PRSS Channel: A67.7
8:00-8:01 Billboard:
Hour 1: Will Iraqi-Americans be detained? Round-ups may
be part of the government’s “Operation Liberty
Shield”
Hundreds of Pakistanis try to flee to Canada as new registration
deadline looms: border cities have been transformed into “unlikely
refugee camps”
As US names 30 countries supposedly supporting war, protests
intensify: a cross-continental discussion
Talk-back to war: more listeners tell us what they’re
doing in this time of war
Hour 2: Is war against Iraq legal or not? A debate between
Roger Normand and Ruth Wedgewood
Activists blockade Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s
house, a Turkish port where US military is unloading equipment,
a US naval base in Spain and damage US bombers in Scotland:
direct actions around the world to stop the war
Are the networks megaphones for official views on Iraq?:
FAIR finds few voices of dissent in recent war coverage
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:12 WILL IRAQI-AMERICANS BE DETAINED?
It received just three sentences on Larry King’s show
last night: “Dozens of Iraqis in at least five United
States cities thought to be sympathetic to Saddam Hussein's
regime will be detained because war is imminent. The government
sources told CNN the individuals could pose a danger to Americans
or U.S. interest, sources said, but the sources would not
be more specific about the nature of the danger. These Iraqis
have been under surveillance until now and the Justice Department
is heading the detention effort.”
The story has barely been mentioned in other outlets. The
New York Post reported the round-ups would be part of the
government’s so-called “Operation Liberty Shield.”
- Anas Shallal, Iraqi-American living in the Washington
D.C. area. He is a "Partner for Peace" with the
Seeds of Peace program and one of the founders of the Mesopotamia
Cultural Society.
8:12-8:20 HUNDREDS OF PAKISTANIS TRY TO FLEE TO CANADA AS
NEW REGISTRATION DEADLINE LOOMS
President Bush yesterday delivered a final ultimatum to
Saddam Hussein: he gave the Iraqi President and his son just
48 hours to flee the country, or be attacked. There are just
a few hours left.
But thousands of people in this country are facing an imminent
deadline of a very different kind. By March 21st, just two
days from now, immigrants from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia must
register with immigration officials. If they don’t register,
they will be imprisoned or deported. If they do register,
many of them will also be imprisoned or deported. People from
Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Kuwait must register
by April 25.
The deadline has prompted thousands of Pakistanis to try
to flee to Canada. The Detroit Free Press is reporting border
cities in New York, Michigan and Vermont have been transformed
into unlikely refugee camps for hundreds waiting to get in.
Vermont Refugee Assistance is swamped. It is recruiting local
families to provide shelter for the hundreds of people awaiting
appointments with Canadian immigration authorities or for
husbands who are in jail. But after sheltering more than 200
people in the past six weeks, the agency says it can assist
no more refugees.
If Canada turns away the refugees, they are at the mercy
of US authorities, who separate families, detain them, and
deport them.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has implemented
a policy of detaining asylum seekers from 33 nations where
al Qaeda has operated. The new policy could result in hundreds
of arrests.
- Monami Maulik, founder & organizer of DRUM, Desis
Rising Up & Moving
Contact: http://www.drumnation.org
- Elizabeth Woike, assistant director at Vive La
Casa, An Organization for World Refugees in Buffalo
Contact: http://www.vivalacasa.org
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:40 AS US NAMES 30 COUNTRIES SUPPOSEDLY SUPPORTING
WAR, PROTESTS INTENSIFY: A CROSS-CONTINENTAL DISCUSSION
In an effort to display a show of international support
for the war, the Bush Administration yesterday listed 30 countries
that are publicly backing a U.S. invasion.
The list includes Britain, Spain and Australia, as well
as Turkey, Afghanistan, South Korea, Japan, Colombia, Italy
and others.
Of these nations, only two, Britain and Australia plan to
supply troops.
The Washington Post reports that some of the countries were
surprised by their inclusion. A senior diplomat at Colombia's
embassy was unaware that his nation had been listed.
Turkey has voted against allowing US troops to be deployed
there.
95% of the Spanish population is against a US invasion of
Iraq, despite its government’s support.
The list includes no governments in the Arab world.
Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett criticized the so-called coalition:
He said “the posse announced today is mighty weak. It
includes such military powerhouses as Eritrea and Estonia
and pariahs like Uzbekistan with a human rights record as
difficult to defend as Saddam Hussein's.” The Congressman
added, “This list is an embarrassing indication of the
administration's foreign policy failure.”
Meanwhile, protests against the war are intensifying. We
thought we’d hold a cross-continental discussion.
- Paola, an organizer with “Fermiamolaguerra,”
a national and international coalition to stop the war in
Genoa, Italy
- Michael Sachs, Head of policy and research with the African
National Congress in South Africa and is an organizer for
the Stop the War Campaign in Johannesburg.
- Mohammad Tahseen, Executive director with the South Asia
Partnership Pakistan, an NGO in Lahore which is coordinating
a secular anti-war movement in the region.
- George Monbiot, columnist with the Guardian of London
Contact: http://www.monbiot.com
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:50 international discussion, cont’d
8:50-8:58 Talk-back to war: more listeners tell us what
they’re doing in this time of war
We turn now to you, the listeners. This is what some of
you had to say about what you’re doing in this time
of war.
- Talk-back to war, recorded 3/18/03
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
9:00-9:01 Billboards:
9:01-9:06 Headlines
9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Break
9:07-9:20 IS WAR AGAINST IRAQ LEGAL OR NOT? A DEBATE BETWEEN
ROGER NORMAND AND RUTH WEDGEWOOD
War against Iraq is “unequivocally illegal under the
UN Charter and international law.” That is the conclusion
of a new report by the Center For Economic and Social Rights.
“It is the height of hypocrisy for the U.S. and U.K.
to base war on Resolution 1441 when they are fully aware that
France, Russia and China approved that resolution on explicit
written condition that it could not be used by individual
states to justify military action,” said CESR Executive
Director Roger Normand, who recently returned from a fact-finding
mission to Iraq.
“This war violates every legal principle governing
the resort to force. It clearly has little to do with disarmament,
democracy, human rights, or even Saddam Hussein, and everything
to do with oil and power.”
The report warns that an illegal war in Iraq would threaten
the pillars of collective security established after World
War II to protect civilians from a recurrence of that unprecedented
carnage.
Meanwhile other international law experts say the United
States is well within its legal right to attack Iraq. Often
cited is Iraq’s failure to abide by the ceasefire agreement
that ended the first Persian Gulf War.
Today we are going to have a debate on the legality of a
U.S. attack against Iraq.
- Roger Normand, executive director of the Center for Economic
and Social Rights
Link: http://www.cesr.org
- Ruth Wedgewood, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations and professor of international law at both Johns
Hopkins
9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break
9:21-9:40 ACTIVISTS BLOCKADE AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER JOHN
HOWARD’S HOUSE, A TURKISH PORT WHERE US MILITARY IS
UNLOADING EQUIPMENT, A US NAVAL BASE IN SPAIN AND OTHERS DAMAGE
US BOMBERS IN SCOTLAND
This morning in Australia, Greenpeace activists dressed as
United Nations peacekeepers blockaded Prime Minister John
Howard’s official residence in Canberra. The protesters
wore blue berets and chained themselves under four-wheel drive
vehicles blocking the gates of Howard’s home. Howard
was forced to leave home by a back door. The action follows
the Australian government's decision yesterday to commit Australian
troops to an invasion of Iraq.
In Britain, antiwar protesters gave Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw a rude wake up call by blaring air sirens outside his
London home at 6:30 this morning. Protesters said they briefly
blockaded the roads around his home, forcing him to be late
to work.
Earlier this week, dozens of elderly women blocked the entrance
to the RAF Fairford air base in Gloucestershire, England,
where US bombers are preparing to be deployed to the Gulf.
Some of the women were in wheelchairs; many were in their
70s and 80s. They held flowers, knitted, sang, danced
and linked arms, bringing military vehicles to a halt.
One woman told the British Press Association: "We aim
to interfere with the smooth running of the base by blocking
the main entrance." She said, "The decisions to
make war are overwhelmingly carried out by men. We women think
about the victims of war. When you talk about the enemy we
just see other mothers' sons." She talked about "little
boys with big egos who cannot back down for fear of losing
face".
Protesters are also targeting the bombs themselves, before
they are loaded on the planes at the RAF Fairford base. On
Sunday, over a dozen people set up a camp just off a major
road used to transport bombs from the massive underground
storage facility at Welford.
There is more.
In Turkey today, massive protests are planned at leading
party headquarters as the Turkish government heads to a vote
tomorrow on whether the United States can use its airspace
to wage a war on Iraq. On Friday, some two dozen Greenpeace
activists chained themselves to the wheels of a truck blocking
an entrance to an eastern Turkish port, where U.S. forces
are unloading equipment. With dozens of Turkish soldiers with
assault rifles manning the entrance, police dragged away the
demonstrators from Turkey, Britain, Australia, Belgium and
Lebanon.
The Spanish Civil Guard temporarily seized the famous Greenpeace
ship Rainbow Warrior. The ship’s captain and two others
were arrested. The ship was blocking the joint Spanish-US
naval base at Rota in southern Spain, where the U.S. Navy
vessel Cape Horn was expected to deliver arms to troops in
the Gulf.
And there is more.
Activists in Scotland are facing serious charges after dismantling
military planes and support equipment intended for use in
Iraq.
In Germany on Saturday, police carried away hundreds of
protesters who were blocking the main gate to the U.S. military's
Rhein-Main Air Base
And in Italy, in addition to massive street protests, there
have been direct actions at gas station, airports and US military
bases.
- Shane Ratenbury, Campaign organizer with Greenpeace,
Australia. He helped to blockade Prime Minister John Howard’s
house
- Banu Dokmecibasi, (pronounced: Dokmechibeshe) anti-war
organizer in Turkey and Mediterranean campaign organizer
for Greenpeace.
- Francesca Bria, reporter with Indymedia, Italy Contact:
Italy.indymedia.org
- Timo Marshall, crew member of the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior
- David Mackenzie, organizer with Trident Ploughshares
in Scotland
Contact: http://www.tridentploughshares.org/
9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break
9:41-9:45 DIRECT ACTIONS, CONT’D
9:45-9:58 Are the networks megaphones for official views
on Iraq?: FAIR finds few voices of dissent in recent war coverage
The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
has found in a new study, “In Iraq Crisis, Networks
Are Megaphones for Official Views,” that network newscasts
are dominated by current and former U.S. officials and largely
exclude Americans who are skeptical of or opposed to an invasion
of Iraq.
Meanwhile, the conservative Media Research Center has released
a study of its own. The study accuses ABC Nightly News of
championing France and the United Nations over the US, treating
Iraqi propaganda with less skepticism than Bush administration
pronouncements, and: “sanitizing radical protesters.”
FAIR studied nearly 400 on-camera sources who appeared in
nightly news stories about Iraq on ABC World News Tonight,
CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and PBS's NewsHour with
Jim Lehrer.
The study took place in the first two weeks of February,
during which Secretary of State Colin Powell made his presentation
to the United Nations Security Council on February 5th.
More than two-thirds of the guests featured were from the
United States. Of the U.S. guests, a striking 75 percent were
either current or former government or military officials.
Only one of the official U.S. sources—Massachusetts
Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy-- expressed opposition or even
skepticism about the war. And even Kennedy’s concerns
were vague. He said on NBC Nightly News on February 5th: "Once
we get in there how are we going to get out, what’s
the loss for American troops are going to be, how long we're
going to be stationed there, what’s the cost is going
to be."
- Steve Rendall, senior analyst at Fairness and Accuracy
in Reporting Link:
http://www.fair.org/activism/iraq-sources-networks.html
9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today's program, call 1 (800) 881 2359. Our
website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie
Karran, Ana Nogueira and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo
is our engineer and webmaster.
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