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Democracy Now!
ATTN: ALL STATIONS
From: Democracy Now!
Re: Rundown 5-15-03
PRSS Channel: A67.7
8:00-8:01 Billboard:
Vinnell Corporation: The link between oil fields, Saudi troops,
"no Jews" clauses, coup attempts in Grenada, and
Monday's car bombings in Saudi Arabia
One third of the Texas state legislature flees the state
and takes refuge in a Holiday Inn in Oklahoma
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:20 Vinnell Corporation: The link between oil fields,
Saudi troops, “no Jews” clauses, coup attempts
in Grenada, and Monday’s car bombings in Saudi Arabia
For the second time in a decade, Saudi bombers target the
U.S. company which has been training the Saudi military. Monday’s
triple car bombing killed 34 including eight Americans.
U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan appeared on
U.S. morning talk shows yesterday and said that just days
before Monday’s car bombings, US intelligence officials
detected signs of an impending attack and urgently asked Saudi
Arabia to increase security at residential compounds inhabited
by Westerners. But Ambassador Jordan said the Saudi government
failed to act.
Later in the day, White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said
Saudi Arabia “must deal with the fact that it has terrorists
inside its own country.”
34 people died in the bombings, including eight Americans.
Nearly 200 people are injured.
Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal denied receiving
any request for additional security. But he also admitted
his country needs to learn from its mistakes.
This, as Saudi security chiefs claimed yesterday the mastermind
of the suicide car bombings took his orders directly from
Osama bin Laden. Officials named Mohammed al-Juhani as the
leader of the al-Qaeda cell and said he entered the country
two months ago on orders to target Westerners. Intelligence
sources also admitted that cell had been under surveillance
for nearly two months, that they knew the identities of the
leader of the cell and many of its members, and that police
had failed to capture any of them despite two armed encounters
this year.
The unprecedented criticism of the oil-rich kingdom comes
as President Bush has himself come under unprecedented criticism.
Two days ago, Senior Democratic Senator Bob Graham said: "We
essentially ended the war on terror about a year ago, and
since that time al-Qaida has been allowed to regenerate.”
He said: “The war on Iraq was a distraction. It took
us off the war on terror, which we were on a path to win.
But we've now let it slip away from us." Graham is a
former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a
presidential candidate. He also charged the Bush administration
ignored relevant intelligence about terrorism before the Sept.
11 attacks - and is still doing so today.
Meanwhile, details of precisely who was targeted are emerging.
The car bombings directly targeted a U.S. company –
the Vinnell Corporation.
Vinnell’s work in Saudi Arabia dates back nearly three
decades ago, when it won a contract to train Saudi troops
to guard oilfields.
- Dan Briody, author of The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret
World of the Carlyle Group
- Pratap Chatterjee, independent journalist and creator
of the WarProfiteers card deck which “exposes some
of the real war criminals in the US’s endless War
of Terror.”
Link:
WarProfiteers card deck: www.warprofiteers.com
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:40 HARTUNG con’d
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 One third of the Texas state legislature flees
the state and takes refuge in a Holiday Inn in Oklahoma
Democrats from the Texas legislature have convened informally
for a most unusual gathering. They are not in the Texas capitol.
They are not even in Texas. They are in the Oklahoma town
of Ardmore. And they are in a Holiday Inn.
A group of 51 Democrats fled to Oklahoma over the weekend
in order to thwart a quorum and derail Republican efforts
to redraw the state's congressional districts in favor of
the GOP.
The redistricting was proposed House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay, who according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram wanted
to “correct” the 2002 election results which led
17 Democrats and 15 Republicans being elected to Congress.
DeLay said Tuesday, "What's at stake here is the most
effective, accurate representation for the state of Texas.”
But Democrats have protested the move claiming that the electoral
map should not be altered until the next census is released.
The Democrats said they're not coming back until House Speaker
Tom Craddick removes redistricting from the House agenda or
until Friday -- when it's too late under the rules to consider
it.
The missing Democrats said they sent their offer to Craddick
but hadn't heard back by Wednesday night. Craddick has repeatedly
said he won't negotiate and won't drop the redistricting proposal.
- Mark Homer, Texas state legislator from Paris, Texas.
He is speaking to us from the Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
- Jim Hightower, national radio commentator, editor of
the newsletter “The Hightower Lowdown” and the
author of If the Gods had Meant us to Vote They Would Have
Given us Candidates. He is the former Texas Agriculture
Commissioner.
Link: www.jimhightower.com
8:58-8:59 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.
9:00-9:01 Billboard:
“Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy, Buy One Get One Free”:
award-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy addresses a packed
audience at Riverside Church in Harlem as “a slave who
presumes to criticize her king.”
9:01-9:04 Headlines
9:04-9:05 Minute Music Break
9:06-9:20 “Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy, Buy One
Get One Free”: award-winning Indian author Arundhati
Roy addresses a packed audience at Riverside Church in Harlem
as “a slave who presumes to criticize her king.”
Two nights ago, the famed Indian author Arundhati Roy spoke
to a packed crowd at Riverside Church in Harlem, New York.
She spoke out against the invasion and occupation of Iraq,
from the same pulpit where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
spoke out against the invasion of Vietnam over three decades
ago.
Arundhati Roy is the author of the novel The God of Small
Things, for which she received the 1997 Booker Prize. It has
sold six million copies and has been translated into over
20 languages worldwide.
She has also written three non-fiction books: The Cost of
Living, Power Politics and her newest book War Talk, a collection
of essays analyzing issues of war and peace, democracy and
dissent, racism and empire.
A year ago she was the recipient of the 2002 Lannan Foundation
Prize for Cultural Freedom.
Arundhati Roy named this speech, “Instant-Mix Imperial
Democracy, Buy One Get One Free.” The speech was sponsored
by the Center for Economic and Social Rights and the Lannan
Foundation.
- Arundhati Roy, acclaimed Indian author and activist,
speaking at Riverside Church in Harlem on May13, 2003. Roy
won the Booker Prize for her first book, the novel The God
of Small Things. She is also the author of Power Politics
and War Talk
Links:
Center for Economic and Social Rights: www.cesr.org
Lannan Foundation: www.lannan.org
9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break
9:21-9:38 Roy, cont’d
9:38-9:39 One Minute Music Break
9:39-9:58 Roy, cont’d
9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits
Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie
Karran, Ana Nogueira and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo
is our music maestro and engineer.
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 music maestro and engineer.
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