[Nettime-bold] MW-10

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

1) The U.S. psy-op teams in Afghanistan are busy distributing 
disclaimers over the radio waves. This is a reflection of the 
Pentagon being run by lawyers these days. The disclaimers aim to 
reduce the US liability.

"Attention, noble Afghan people. As you know, the coalition 
countries have been air-dropping daily humanitarian rations for you. 
The food ration is enclosed in yellow plastic bags. They come in 
the shape of rectangular or long squares. The food inside the bags 
is Halal and very nutritional. In areas away from where food has 
been dropped, cluster bombs will also be dropped. The colour of 
these bombs is also yellow"

So, yellow square bags are FOOD, pick them up and EAT. Yellow 
round containers are BOMBS, do not pick them up, because they'll 
eat you. Then, it goes:

"Of course in future cluster bombs will not be dropped in areas 
where food is air-dropped. However, we do not wish to see an 
innocent civilian mistake the bombs for food bags and take it away 
believing that it might contain food."

2) Dangerous diminishing of civil liberties as a result of the recently 
passed PATRIOT act already came to the US. More than 1000 
people - mostly Arab - are detained on flimsy pretexts, without the 
right to due process and usual legal protections. If unchecked, the 
new measure can quickly end up as a tool of racism.
 
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/302/nation/Secrecy_on_arrests
_fuels_righ
ts_debate+.shtml
The Boston Globe
October 29, 2001

Trying to make up for having failed to do anything to prevent the 
Sept. 11 terror attacks and still apparently clueless, US law 
enforcement agencies have been exhibiting extraordinary zeal in 
rounding up and detaining hundreds of people.  US government 
officials refuse to disclose the number of people who have been 
detained, but the total is believed to be close to a thousand. Many 
are apparently being held on flimsy pretexts -- being an Arab while 
having a box cutter in the trunk of one's car appears to be 
considered sufficient grounds for indefinite detention.  As far as is
known (which is not far, given that the authorities refuse to release
any details about names and charges), none of the hundreds of
individuals who have been detained have so far been charged with 
any crimes directly linked to the events of 9/11.
Andras Riedlmayer

3) Now, that's some encouraging news, isn't it:
"On Oct. 28, 1999, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said that he believed 
that some 48 Russian nuclear devices remained unaccounted for....
...General Aleksandr Lebed, the former Russian security czar, said 
in 1997 that several nuclear suitcase bombs and tactical nukes 
had disappeared from the Russian arsenal. In testimony before the 
Congressional Military Research and Development Subcommittee
in October 1997, Lebed said there were bombs made to look like 
suitcases that could be detonated by one person with less than 30-
minute preparation...
...During his trial for involvement in the 1998 bombing of two U.S.
Embassies in East Africa, Jamal Ahmad al-Fadl, an al Qaida 
operative, outlined bin Laden's efforts to spend $1.5 million to 
obtain a cylinder of enriched uranium. "
(By RICHARD SALE, UPI Terrorism Correspondent)

In the film Peacemaker a Bosnian Serb obtains a backpack 
nuclear bomb from Soviet sources over middle-east connections, 
intendning to blow himself up at the UN conference in NY. In film, 
produced by Spielberg's Dreamworks, the good prevailed, and the 
bomb was disabled before the big boom (so it was only a small, 
non-nuclear boom).

ivo

_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold