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> Fri., Sept. 19, 2003
Flashpoints
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Today on Flashpoints:
An In-Depth Look at US Imperialism and Empire Building in
the 21st Century with Noted Writer and Visionary Chalmers
Johnson;
The Block Report with host JR Takes on the Health Effects
of Naval Dumping in Bayview-Hunter's Point in San francisco;
5:01 PM PST
U.S. Militarism and Empire Building Dennis Bernstein discusses
with USCD professor Chalmers Johnson his new book on the Gulf
Wars of the Bush Family Presidents.
(The following is adapted from part of a chapter of Chalmers
Johnson's new book about American militarism, The Sorrows
of Empire: How the Americans Lost Their Country, forthcoming
in late 2003 from Metropolitan Books).ISBN 0-8050-7004-4 $25.00
From a marketing point of view,' said Andrew H. Card, Jr.,
the White House chief of staff on the rollout this week of
the campaign for a war with Iraq, 'you don't introduce new
products in August.'" New York Times, September 7, 2002
"After all, this is the guy [Saddam Hussein] who tried
to kill my dad." President George W. Bush, at Houston,
September 26, 2002
In the hours immediately following the September 11, 2001
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked for plans to be drawn up
for an American assault on Iraq. The following day, in a cabinet
meeting at the White House, Rumsfeld again insisted that Iraq
should be "a principal target of the first round in the
war against terrorism."(1) The president allegedly replied
that "public opinion has to be prepared before a move
against Iraq is possible," and instead chose Afghanistan
as a much softer target.
These statements and their timing, are noteworthy because
the United States had not even determined that the suicide
bombers came from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and it
has never published any evidence that al-Qaeda had any connection
with Iraq. In fact, the 2001 edition of the U.S. Department
of State's annual report on Patterns of Global Terrorism does
not list any acts of global terrorism linked to the government
of Iraq. It was not until September 22, 2001 that Secretary
of State Colin Powell promised to release to the press proof
that al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were guilty of planning
and executing the attacks on New York and Washington, and
that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told CNN,
"Clearly, we do have evidence, historical and otherwise,
about the relationship of the al-Qaeda network to what happened
on September 11." But such evidence has never been forthcoming.
Until passenger manifests revealed that the airliner hijackers
were mostly from Saudi Arabia, I myself thought that the attacks
could be blowback from American policies in any number of
places. Rumsfeld's early targeting of Iraq therefore suggests
that the Bush administration has had a hidden agenda."
from "The Sorrows of Empire: How the Americans Lost Their
Country." by Chalmers Johnson, Metropolitan Books
5:38 PM PST
Music Break "White Whisper" by Deep Forest
5:39 PM PST
The Block Report JR with Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, MD, Bay
View News Contributing writer. The U.S. Navy has been dumping
its waste for years and years with nuclear waste in the Hunters
Point area of the city which contains a large shipyard, Candlestick
Park, several power plants and 50,000 residents in the immediate
vicinity and 1,500,000 depending upon the groundwater.
www.sfbayview.com/043003/navynotcleaning043003.shtml
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