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From: Democracy Now!
Re: Rundown 5-13-03
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8:00-8:01 Billboard
Britain?s longest serving MP Tom Dalyell criticized for calling
Bush administration a cabal?
U.S. sends chief weapons search team home empty-handed
The Philippines: the next front in the war on terror?
8:01-8:10 Headlines
8:10-8:11 One Minute Music Break
8:11-8:28 BRITAIN’S LONGEST SERVING MP TOM DALYELL
CRITICIZED FOR CALLING BUSH ADMINISTRATION A “CABAL”
The Australian newspaper is reporting that the mayor of London,
Ken Livingstone has launched an outspoken attack against US
President George W. Bush.
"I think George Bush is the most corrupt American president
since (Warren) Harding in the '20s. He is not the legitimate
president,” the Mayor said.
Livingstone was answering questions on the Iraq war and other
subjects during a two-hour meeting with 200 schoolchildren
at London's City Hall.
"This (the Bush administration) really is a completely
unsupportable government, and I look forward to it being overthrown
as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown,"
he added.
The mayor's outburst was immediately condemned by opposition
Conservatives and Liberal Democrats who warned it could put
Americans off of visiting London.
Well another British politician is also coming under fire:
Tam Dalyell, Britain’s longest serving member of Parliament
faces an investigation for inciting racial hatred. According
to the Guardian newspaper last week, he accused Tony Blair
of being unduly influenced by Jewish ministers and officials.
Dalyell made the remarks in an interview with Vanity Fair
magazine, identifying Lord Levy, Tony Blair's Middle East
envoy, Peter Mandelson, whose father is Jewish, and Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw, who has Jewish ancestry.
Dalyell also said he felt Blair was influenced by a "cabal"
of Jewish advisers. Dalyell, who is known as the Father of
the commons, later said he used the word “cabal”
in reference to the Bush administration, not Downing Street.
“The cabal that I referred to was in the U.S…that
is the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. I was
thinking of [US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz,
[defense adviser Richard] Perle, [Undersecretary of State
for Arms Control and International Security John] Bolton…
Leading British Jews criticized Dalyell for his “misguided
remarks.” One of them, Professor Eric Moonman a former
Labor MP and President of the Zionist Federation in London,
said he would refer Dalyell to the commission for racial equality.
[Moonman said last week he was seeking advice on whether
there was a case for referral. "I believe there is,"
he said. "I will be distressed to do it because of a
relationship with a man I admire enormously. But he made the
statements and he knew what he was doing."
Dalyell who is a fierce opponent of war denies the accusations
of anti-semitism. He told the Sunday Telegraph: “I am
fully aware that one is treading on cut glass on this issue,
and no one wants to be accused of anti-semitism, but if it
is a question of launching an assault on Syria or Iran,…then
one has to be candid.” He said, “I am not going
to be labeled anti-Semitic. My children worked on a kibbutz.
But the time has come for candor.”
Israel’s conservative newspaper, The Jerusalem Post
acknowledged that Dalyell “is the conscience of the
party, the voice of its ideological soul,” known for
speaking out and, when “necessary, disagreeing with
his leader, loudly and publicly.” Commentator Douglas
Davis said that Dalyell “is not expressing a lone view;
he is giving voice to the darkest thoughts of many others,
both within and without his own party,” and he is giving
“such private thoughts public respectability.”
Well today, we’re joined by Tam Dalyell, veteran British
labor MP and Professor Eric Moonman, president of the Zionist
Federation of London.
8:28-8:29 One Minute Music Break
8:29 -8:40 U.S. sends chief weapons search team home empty-handed
During the war, British journalist Geoff Meade asked an indignant
Pentagon official if this war was going to make history “by
being the first to end before its cause could be found.”
Well, Meade’s premonition appears to be coming true.
The group directing the U.S. search for weapons of Mass Destruction
in Iraq is leaving the country without finding proof that
Saddam Hussein possessed chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
In Sunday’s Washington Post, Barton Gellman wrote that
Survey teams have combed laboratories and munitions plants,
bunkers and distilleries, bakeries, file cabinets and holes
in the ground to no avail.
The article also said that the frustrated 75th Exploitation
Task Force, which was in charge of the weapons search, “consistently
found targets identified by Washington to be inaccurate, looted
and burned”
Meanwhile doctors in Iraq fear that hundreds of Iraqis may
be suffering from radiation poisoning, following the widespread
looting of the country's nuclear facilities.
Many residents in villages close to the huge Tuwaitha Nuclear
Facility, about seven miles south of Baghdad, were showing
signs of radiation illness last week, including rashes, acute
vomiting and severe nosebleeds.
Alarmed by the reports, the International Atomic Energy Agency
last week sent a letter to reiterate earlier demands that
the US grant the agency access to Iraq's nuclear sites, but
so far there has been no response.
Well we’re joined by the Washington Post’s New
York Bureau chief, Barton Gellman. His article “Weapon
Hunters Come Up Empty-handed” appeared yesterday in
the Washington Post. He also reported on the looting of seven
nuclear sites in Iraq which appeared in the Post this weekend.
He has just returned from Iraq.
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 Bombing in Philippines kills 10; We hear from Filipino
journalist Luis Francia
Philippines President Gloria Arroyo has called on the separatist
rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front- the MILF- to renounce
terrorism and commit itself to the peace process. She warned
that time was running out on peace talks.
She spoke during a visit to Korondal, the site of a bomb
blast that killed at least 10 people over the weekend. The
MILF has consistently denied the government’s charge
that it was behind the attack.
The explosion in a busy market left a trail of carnage and
destruction. Body parts were strewn across toppled vendors,
a bloodied and maimed body hung off the back of a motorcycle
cab and shattered glass and debris were everywhere.
Peace talks between government officials and MILF leaders
broke down last week following other bomb attacks in the region.
The MILF, which numbers around 12,500, has been waging a
25-year war against the government with the aim of establishing
an independent Islamic state in the southern third of the
country.
The BBC reports that if Manila officially brands the group
a terrorist organization the army will be given the green
light to escalate their military activities in the area. The
U.S. Army recently put 1,000 more troops on the ground in
Indonesia to help the government combat terrorism.
Luis Francia is a Philippine author and journalist. He is
the editor of “the Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American
War and the Aftermath of an American Dream, 1899-1999”.
He spoke at New York University on April 23rd. Here’s
a little bit of what he had to say…
- Luis Francia, Philippine author and journalist. He is
the editor of Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War
and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899-1999. This
was recorded at New York University, April 23,
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
9:00-9:01 Billboard:
Gore Vidal on the “United States of Amnesia,”
9/11, the 2000 Election and the War in Iraq
9:01-9:04 Headlines
9:04-9:05 One Minute Music Break
9:06-9:22 HL: Gore Vidal on the “United States of Amnesia,”
9/11, the 2000 Election and the War in Iraq
Intro: One of America’s most acclaimed essayists and
historians in an extended interview with Democracy Now’s
Amy Goodman & an excerpt from a recent Vidal speech
On Sunday Sen. Bob Graham accused the Bush administration
of engaging in a "coverup" of intelligence failures
before and after the Sept. 11 attacks to shield it from embarrassment,
and said the war with Iraq has allowed Al Qaeda and other
groups to become a greater threat to Americans than ever before.
This according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
Graham, a presidential candidate and former chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, also accused the administration
of jeopardizing the safety of Americans by blocking the release
of a landmark congressional report on the government failures
that preceded the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
The Florida Democrat said the White House has withheld from
the public important information about the continued existence
of terrorist cells in the United States — including
some with ties to foreign governments that the U.S. has been
afraid to go after.
Graham’s critique in many ways is similar to one that
appeared in a book that recently topped the New York Times
Bestseller paperback. The book is Dreaming War: Blood for
Oil and the Bush-Cheney Junta. The author is Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is one of America’s most prolific and best-known
writers. He has written more than 22 books and more than 200
essays -- a collection of his essays won the National Book
Award in 1993.
Vidal is the author most recently of Perpetual War for Perpetual
Peace and Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Bush-Cheney
Junta.
Taken together, the books constitute a comprehensive attack
on America's imperialist ambitions and the military industrial
complex.
Writing in the Scotsman, critic Gavin Esler called Perpetual
War “the finest serious critique of America's use and
abuse of power in the 21st century that I have read.”
I had an opportunity to speak with Vidal last week. We’re
going to play some of that interview. He begins by discussing
his thoughts about the United States post 9-11.
- Gore Vidal, essayist, critic and author of best-selling
books Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace and Dreaming War:
Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta in an interview
with Amy Goodman
- Gore Vidal, recorded May 4th at the Ethical Culture of
Society in New York in a speech sponsored by the Nation
Institute.
Links: Nation Books: www.nationbooks.org
9:23-9:24 One Minute Music Break
9:25-9:41 Gore Vidal cont'd
9:41-9:42 One Minute Music Break
9:42-9:58 Gore Vidal cont'd
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, 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.
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