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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
Democratic Contenders Debate As Iowa Caucus Looms
Superpower Syndrome: America’s Apocalyptic Confrontation
With The World
Part II Of Our Conversation With Leading Iraqi Feminist Yanar
Mohammed
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:20 Democratic Contenders Debate As Iowa Caucus
Looms
INTRO: With the first presidential contest of 2004 just
two weeks away, Democratic presidential contenders engaged
in two-hour televised debate in Iowa where the first votes
will be cast in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 19. We hear an excerpt
of the debate with the candidates discussing trade issues.
With the first presidential contest of 2004 just two weeks
away, Democratic presidential contenders engaged in two-hour
televised debate yesterday. The debate was held in Iowa where
the first votes will be cast in the Iowa caucuses on Jan.
19.
Many of the contenders aggressively challenged former Vermont
governor Howard Dean for - among other things - having suggested
that the U.S. is no safer now that Saddam Hussein is in custody.
The candidates touched on some of the issues that most divide
the Democratic field, especially trade, the public school
system, tax cuts, and the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
At one point in the debate, the candidates were all asked
to describe a mistake in their careers. Many cited votes for
GOP programs in Congress. Ohio congressman Denis Kucinich
confessed that, as mayor of Cleveland, he had fired the police
chief "live on the 6 o'clock news on Good Friday. Now
if any of you can top that, I'll yield to you."
The event was sponsored by the Des Moines Register and held
at the studios of Iowa Public Television. Register editor
Paul Anger acted as moderator with questioning by Register
columnist David Yepsen and National Public Radio's Michele
Norris. Two candidates, retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Al
Sharpton, did not attend.
We play an excerpt of the debate.
Read transcript of the debate: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54363-2004Jan4.html
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:40 Superpower Syndrome: America’s Apocalyptic
Confrontation With The World
INTRO: We speak with author and psychiatry professor Robert
Jay Lifton who says “Superpower syndrome really means
an American sense of entitlement to rule the world because
it’s the strongest power in the world.
In a recent article in The Nation entitled “American
Apocalypse, author and professor Robert Jay Lifton writes:
“The amorphousness of the war on terrorism carries
with it a paranoid edge, the suspicion that terrorists and
their supporters are everywhere and must be "pre-emptively"
attacked lest they emerge and attack us. Since such a war
is limitless and infinite--extending from the farthest reaches
of Indonesia or Afghanistan to Hamburg, Germany, or New York
City, and from immediate combat to battles that continue into
the unending future--it inevitably becomes associated with
a degree of megalomania as well. As the world's greatest military
power replaces the complexities of the world with its own
imagined stripped-down, us-versus-them version of it, our
distorted national self becomes the world.”
- Robert Jay Lifton, distinguished Professor of Psychology
and Psychiatry at John Jay College and the Graduate Center
of the City University of New York as well as a visiting
psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School. He is also
the author of several books. His latest book is “Superpower
Syndrome: America’s Apocalyptic Confrontation with
the World.”
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 Part II Of Our Conversation With Leading
Iraqi Feminist Yanar Mohammed
INTRO: We hear part 2 of our conversation with Yanar Mohammed,
a leading figure of women’s struggle in Iraq. She is
one of the founding members of the Organization of Women’s
Freedom in Iraq and Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper Al-Mousawat.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting that six months
before Saddam Hussein’s capture was announced, Kurdish
forces had discovered that Saddam’s wife was in the
Tikrit area. This intelligence, most likely obtained by a
PUK special forces unit, was transferred to the Americans.
The Kurds, however, are said to have never received any follow-up
from the coalition forces on the intelligence and were furious.
This report comes two weeks after the Sunday Express of Britain
reported that Saddam was actually captured by Kurdish forces
who then drugged him and abandoned him for U.S. troops to
find after Kurdish leaders had brokered a deal. The article
quoted unnamed British and Iraqi military intelligence officers.
The Express also reported that secret talks are underway to
sentence Saddam to life imprisonment in Qatar after a "showcase
trial."
Whatever the full extent of their involvement in Saddam’s
capture, the Kurds, and the PUK in particular, would benefit
handsomely.
Apart from a trifling $25 million bounty, their status would
have been substantially boosted in Washington, which may in
part explain the recent vociferous Kurdish reassertion of
their long-term political ambitions in the “new Iraq.”
The New York Times is reporting today that the Bush administration
has decided to let the Kurdish region remain semi-autonomous
as part of a newly sovereign Iraq despite warnings from Iraq's
neighbors and many Iraqis not to divide the country into ethnic
states.
This comes as US troops faced continuing resistance attacks
against US forces, including the shooting down of a Delta
Kiowa Warrior helicopter on Friday.
According to the Pentagon, 485 US soldiers have been killed
in Iraq since the start of the invasion. 346 of them were
killed since President Bush declared an end to major combat
operations on May 1. The website Iraqbodycount.net estimates
the number of Iraqi civilians killed between 7,900 and 9,700.
- Yanar Mohammed, Director of the Organization of Women's
Freedom in Iraq, a group that works to stop atrocities against
Iraqi women and defend their rights. She also serves as
the Editor in Chief of the newspaper Al-Mousawat which stands
for "Equality."
8:58-8:59 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 Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, and Jeremy Scahill. Mike Di
Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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