News Vast Homeland Security plan touches all of America Tampa Tribune

"The plan, called "Operation Liberty Shield," goes far beyond the government's previous responses to threats of terror because officials believe war with Iraq increases the possibility of attacks on U.S. soil or against U.S. interests abroad. It envisions close cooperation among federal, state and local governments, as well as private businesses such as chemical plants and banks." (03/18/03)

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAVL5GKGDD.html

News American Muslims, Arabs worry about backlash
Capitol Hill Blue/Sacramento Bee

"In the months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a wounded, angry, suspicious America rounded up 130,000 Americans of Japanese, German and Italian descent and imprisoned them without trial. More than half were U.S. citizens. They spent years locked up in barbed-wire internment camps in remote deserts and mountain ranges. Many lost their homes and businesses.
Today, some 60 years later, many American Muslims and Arabs wonder whether they, too, will be interned when the bombs start dropping on Baghdad." (03/20/03)

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_1967.shtml

Commentary Senate poised to vote on huge land grab News with Views by Tom DeWeese

"Choosing a time when the attention of all Americans is on our conflict with Iraq, the Senate is poised to vote on a bill that would unleash a major attack on private property rights. It would empower environmental groups and government agencies to use taxpayer funds to purchase land. The bill, S. 476, called the 'Faith-based Initiative' (S.476), has two insidious sections, 106 and 107, that call for a 25% tax cut on capital gains of land sales, but only if the land is sold to an "environmental group" or a government agency. This legislation is a classic Trojan Horse." (03/20/03)

http://newswithviews.com/your_govt/your_government52.htm

Commentary Red alert blues Counter Punch by Kurt Nimmo

"[A] Code Red terror alert would be something like a snowstorm. You'd get to stay home from work, the kids would be off school. In most cases, though, even during a bad snow storm, it's not illegal to go outside, the cops are not operating on a 'low threshold,' which I guess means they can shoot you for walking around in your front yard. It would be like an Americanized version of curfew in Gaza or the West Bank. You'd be forced to stay inside, hopefully with enough duct tape and plastic sheeting on hand." (03/19/03)

http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo03192003.html

Bring them Home Now
Bring Them Home Now is a network of concerned Americans who wish to protect our men and women in uniform. We believe that the proposed war on Iraq is unnecessary and immoral. Under such circumstances the only way to be pro-soldier is to be anti-war.
Bumper stickers, posters.
http://www.bringthemhomenow.com/

EVENTS
Operation Dire Distress (Washington DC)
MARCH 22-24 IN WASHINGTON, DC
VETERANS AGAINST IRAQ WAR.
TEACH-IN & SPEAKOUT
Saturday, March 22 from 1-5 PM
American University-Kay Chapel
DEMONSTRATION-SUNDAY MARCH 23
Assemble 12 Noon at Constitution Gardens
Solemn Procession to Vietnam, Korea,WW II Memorials &
March to VA, White House, Rally on the Ellipse
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Dire_Distress_03.htm


Operation Dire Distress (San Francisco)
March 22: assemble at the Veterans Building, 401 Van Ness St., San Francisco at 12 noon.
All military veterans, active-duty GI's, reservists, and family members are encouraged to attend. Veterans should wear their medals, ribbons, parts of their uniforms, etc., and all participants need to bring American flags, banners, and protest signs.
contact Paul Cox at coxschueler@igc.org or phone 510-528-1975.
Veterans Against the Iraq War
http://www.vaiw.org/


March for Peace and Democracy Mar.22
MARCH FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY
Saturday, 3/22
Assemble at noon
Broadway between 36th & 42nd Streets
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?list=sub&sub=31

Commentary The idiot prince will have his war From the Wilderness by Stan Goff

"We in the antiwar movement have struggled to protect the Iraqi people. We may fail in that. But as resistance fighters in WWII or national liberation fighters in the post-colonial era, we must differentiate setbacks from defeat, when we suffer those setbacks we can not be demoralized and demobilized. We will keep our eyes on the fact that the system itself is failing and this adventure is a symptom of that failure, and continue to work for the political destruction of our current regime as a tactical necessity.... Never quit. Never. We are in the stream of history, and we have been given a grave and momentous responsibility. Every day we delayed them was a victory." (03/17/03)

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031703_rolling_start.html

Commentary The revival of benevolent imperialism Independent by Lawrence James

"The rhetoric of imperialism is back: its reality may soon follow. 'To stop is dangerous; to recede ruin'; President Bush justifying war against Iraq? No; an Indian proconsul in 1805 defending the East India Company's policy of pre-emptive hammerblows against any native ruler who showed signs of intransigence." (03/20/03)

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=388824

Commentary Military promises huge numbers for 'Gulf War II: The Vengeance' The Onion by staff

"At a Pentagon press conference Monday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld touted the military's upcoming Gulf War II: The Vengeance as 'even better than the original.' 'If you thought the first one was good, just wait until you see the sequel,' Rumsfeld said of Gulf War II, scheduled to hit Iraqi theaters of operation March 22. 'In the original, as you no doubt know, we defeat Saddam Hussein, only to let him slip away at the very end. This time, we're going back in to take out the trash.'" (satire) (03/19/03)

http://www.theonion.com/onion3910/gulf_war_2.html

Commentary The war after the war Village Voice by Jason Vest

"According to recent unpublicized U.S. Army War College studies being read with increasing interest by some Pentagon planners, 'The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious'... The War College studies explore in detail a troubling paradox: While all experts agree that stabilizing post-Saddam Iraq would be a protracted endeavor, 'the longer a U.S. occupation of Iraq continues ... the more danger exists that elements of the Iraqi population will become impatient and take violent measures to hasten the departure of U.S. forces.'" (03/20/03)

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0312/vest.php

Commentary No checks and balances, just big sticks Moscow Times by staff

"In the weeks preceding the U.S.-British-Spanish war council in Azores, Washington exerted strong pressure on Moscow to abstain from, if not support, a UN Security Council resolution paving the way for war in Iraq.... Alternating on- and off-the-record statements, U.S. diplomats outlined a complete set of sticks that would be applied if Russia continued to resist the will of the hawkish coalition ... Russia and the rest of the world now have to ask themselves what was all the diplomatic wrangling for if the United States is going to be able to go ahead regardless of world opinion." (03/19/03)

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2003/03/19/005.html

News Justice bans media from free speech event Guardian

"Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia banned broadcast media from an appearance Wednesday where he will receive an award for supporting free speech. The City Club usually tapes speakers for later broadcast on public television, but Scalia insisted on banning television and radio coverage, the club said. Scalia is being given the organization's Citadel of Free Speech Award." (03/19/03)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2491954,00.html

News Angry Russians offered free calls to White House Ananova

"A Russian telecoms company is offering free phone calls to the White House for anyone who wants to rant at George Bush. Excom in the west Russian city of Yekaterinburg said almost 1,000 people have taken advantage of the offer." (03/19/03)

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_762308.html?menu=news.quirkies

News NYC rounds up Iraqi "agents" New York Post

" Dozens of Iraqis and suspected Iraqi sympathizers will be detained in New York and at least four other U.S. cities this week .... Iraqi agents and sympathizers may be plotting terror attacks on American soil in conjunction with the war, government officials said yesterday. The roundups -- part of a government plan called 'Operation Liberty Shield' -- will even include Iraqis who have been in the U.S. for years." (03/19/03)

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/71246.htm

Commentary Psycho-terrorists from outer space Strike the Root by Adam Engel

"Psycho Terrorists from the Galaxy of Pissed Off Aliens have begun amassing squadrons of flying saucers over Planet Earth, and they mean business. They want us to catalog and submit all our WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD) in three weeks or there’ll be hell to pay. Gadzooks! We wouldn’t be able to hand over the WMD on one military base, let alone the hundreds we keep throughout the world, not to mention various loose canons -- literally -- planes, nuclear subs, secret laboratories, in Universities mostly. Fuhgetaboudit. We’d need years, decades perhaps.... Furthermore, they want to bring democracy and freedom to America. Seems like Earth is not the only planet that deems us a bunch of dithering serfs. Word gets around." (03/18/03)

http://www.strike-the-root.com/3/engel/engel4.html

Commentary Not Iraq, but Anniston, Ala. St. Petersburg Times by Chuck Murphy

"The cache of chemical weapons includes 873,020 pounds of sarin, 1,657,480 pounds of VX nerve agent and 1,976,760 pounds of mustard agent -- enough to kill or incapacitate millions." (03/16/03)

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/03/16/Worldandnation/Not_Iraq__but_Annisto.shtml


Commentary Hawks circling for new targets Sacramento Bee by David Westphal

"Even as President Bush struggles against robust international opposition to launch a regime-toppling invasion of Iraq, some of the strongest and earliest supporters of military action against Saddam Hussein are already looking ahead to the next target.Some hawks outside the government are beginning to turn up the rhetorical heat against Iran and Syria, both of whom are Iraq's neighbors, and both known to be funneling aid to Middle East terrorist groups. Others are focusing on North Korea and its rapidly mobilized nuclear weapons program, or the North African country of Libya." (03/16/03)

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/6284906p-7238632c.html

Commentary Surveillance powers and the state Laissez Faire Times by Pierre Lemieux

Since February 17, the City of London has imposed a daily £5 "congestion charge" on most motorists entering an eight-square-mile downtown zone. Some 700 cameras catch license plate numbers, and non-payers face heavy fines. The charge has reduced traffic by 20%. The economic argument seems straightforward .... Shortly after the charge came into force, a friend wrote to me, arguing that the system allows the state to know who comes into central London every day, and that this surveillance system can be used for other purposes than congestion pricing." (03/19/03)

http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/london_congestion.htm

News Red alert? Stay home South Jersey News

"If the nation escalates to "red alert," which is the highest in the color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home, the state's anti-terror czar says. 'This state is on top of it,' said Sid Caspersen, New Jersey's director of the office of counter-terrorism. Caspersen, a former FBI agent, was briefing reporters, alongside Gov. James E. McGreevey, on Thursday, when for the first time he disclosed the realities of how a red alert would shut the state down. A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate." (03/16/03)

http://www.southjerseynews.com/issues/march/m031603e.htm