Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 02.26.06

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    02.26.06

1. Sensible vigil    2.26 12noon
2. Reconstruction/TV 2.26 12noon/1:30pm
3. Why we fight/film 2.26 12noon
4. FNVW              2.26 1pm
5. Black pioneers/TV 2.26 3pm
6. KFAI/Indian       2.26 4pm
7. Fidel/Stone/film  2.26 6pm

8. Crisis intervene  2.27 8am
9. Housing/homeless  2.27 9:30am
10. Capitol tour     2.27 11am
11. PoF/GLBT/RC      2.27 6:30pm
12. Cohousing/>55    2.27 7pm
13. Warming/Steger   2.27 7pm Morris MN
14. Venez/Colombia   2.27 7pm
15. AI Augustana     2.27 7pm
16. Airport dike     2.27 7pm
17. Sami/Iraq        2.27 7pm
18. Black clubs/TV   2.27 7pm
19. MLK III activist 2.27 7:30pm
20. WhoopiGoldbergTV 2.27 8pm

21. Michael Keefer - Understanding the planned assault on Iran (1 of 2)
22. ed             - Bush dreams pretty nukes (poem)

--------1 of 22---------

From: skarx001 <skarx001 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Sensible vigil 2.26 12noon

The sensible people for peace hold weekly peace vigils at the intersection
of Snelling and Summit in StPaul, Sunday between noon and 1pm. (This is
across from the Mac campus.) We provide signs protesting current gov.
foreign and domestic policy. We would appreciate others joining our
vigil/protest.


---------2 of 22--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Reconstruction/TV 2.26 12noon/1:30pm

American Experience:
Reconstruction: The Second Civil War
tpt2 Part 1: Revolution Sunday, Feb. 26 at noon

In the chaos following the Civil War, a revolution takes shape in the
South. Former slaves move to take control of their lives, setting up their
own communities, churches and schools. Southern whites, deeply threatened,
resist - often violently. Congress finally acts to stem the violence and
safeguard blacks' rights, and passes Radical Reconstruction, imposing
military rule on the South and giving black men the vote.

tpt2 Part 2: Retreat Sunday, Feb. 26 at 1:30pm

Radical Reconstruction, the world's first large-scale experiment in
interracial democracy, sweeps across the South; white resistance flares
into violence. Northern commitment to Reconstruction wanes as the white
Southern version of Reconstruction, the "lost cause," captures the
Northern imagination. By l877, Reconstruction is over, but it has laid the
groundwork, both in legislation and in black memory, for the great Civil
Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.


--------3 of 22--------

From: David Strand <mncivil [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Why we fight/film 2.26 12noon

[Listed for 2.25; now we have times. -ed]

"Why We Fight" is said to be a great exploration of american militarism
beggining with exploration of Eisenhower's warning that we "beware the
military industrial complex".

Showtimes Sun. Feb. 26th at 12:00 pm, 2:20 pm, 4:40 pm, 7:00 pm, 9:20 pm
and Monday Feb. 27th thru Thursday March 2nd at 4:40 pm, 7:00 pm, and 9:20
pm.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/


---------4 of 22--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: FNVW 2.26 1pm

Sunday, 2/26, 1 to 3:30 pm, Friends for a Nonviolent World annual meeting,
Twin Cities Friends Meeting, 1725 Grand Ave, St. Paul.  info [at] fnvw.org


--------5 of 22--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Black pioneers/TV 2.26 3pm

North Star: Minnesota's Black Pioneers
tpt2 Sunday, Feb. 26 at 3PM
tpt17 Tuesday, Feb. 28 at 7PM

This tpt-produced documentary traces the history of African Americans in
Minnesota through 12 individual stories that take us from George Bonga,
a voyageur and trader, to Frederick McGhee, the state's first black
attorney and one of the founders of the NAACP, to the 1963 March on
Washington.


--------6 of 22--------

From: Chris Spotted Eagle <chris [at] spottedeagle.org>
Subject: KFAI/Indian 2.26 4pm

TREATY OF 1805.  On October 14, 2005, two Dakota men were ticketed after
entering the Minneapolis Coldwater campus area, without government
permits, to exercise their treaty rights. The $125-offense was described
as not complying with a federal police officer.

Inside the fenced-off area, Jim Anderson (Dakota) led a Pipe Ceremony with
Professor Chris Mato Nunpa (Dakota) and ten supporters.  During the
ceremony 25 more held a prayer circle outside the fence.

Mato Nunpa, Indigenous Studies at Minnesota State University at Marshall,
and Anderson, Cultural Chair of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community,
each received a U.S. District Court violation notice.  Their first court
appearance is on Thursday, March 2, in U.S. Federal District court at 9:00
a.m., Courtroom 5, St. Paul, 180 East Fifth Street.

A rally has been planned by supporters to be at the federal court house at
8:00 a.m. with speakers, Attorney Larry Leventhal, Howard Vogel of the
Hamline Law School, and Mendota Dakota Community attorney Barbara Nimis.

The Treaty of 1805 was the first of several treaties signed between the
Dakota Oyate and the United States.  Coldwater Spring is in the ceded area
according to the Treaty.  Article 3 of the treaty states, "The U.S.
promise on their part to permit the Sioux to pass, re-pass, hunt and do
other things as they have formerly done in said district."

"We know that the falls which came to be known as Minnehaha Falls, was a
sacred place, a neutral place, a place for many nations to come" And that
the spring from which the sacred water should be drawn was not very far
"a spring that all nations used to draw the sacred water for the ceremony,"
Anishinabeg spiritual elder Eddie Benton Benais told Minnesota officials
during court ordered testimony in March of 1999.

Benais said the mile and a half between Minnehaha Falls and Coldwater
Spring "sacred grounds that were mutually held to be a sacred place" by
Upper Mississippi tribes who regularly gathered there including Dakota,
Anishinabeg, Ho Chunk, Iowa, and Sauk and Fox nations.

Coldwater, south of Minnehaha Park, is an ancient spring, an acknowledged
sacred site, and the last spring of size in the Twin Cities flowing at
about 100,000 gallons a day.

Hydrologists say Coldwater Spring is 10,000-years-old, flowing under the
last glacier.  The spring forms a creek, wetland, and waterfall descending
130-feet down the Mississippi gorge.

Program guests are Jim Anderson, Susu Jeffrey, (Friends of Coldwater) and
Professor Chris Mato Nunpa.

* * * *
Indian Uprising is a one-half hour Public & Cultural Affairs radio program
for, by, and about Indigenous people & all their relations, broadcast each
Sunday at 4:00 p.m. over KFAI 90.3 FM Minneapolis and 106.7 FM St. Paul.
Current programs are archived online after broadcast at www.kfai.org, for
two weeks.  Click Program Archives and scroll to Indian Uprising.


--------7 of 22--------

From: Joan Malerich <joanmdm [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Fidel/Stone/film 2.26 6pm

Cuba and Venezuela Film and Discussion Group

Oliver Stone's two fascinating interviews with Fidel Castro
Arise Bookstore, 2441 Lyndale Av S 6pm Sundays Feb 26 and March 5.

Apt in StPaul near Macalaster College, 7pm, Wednesdays, March 1 and
March 8. Limit to 10.  Contact Joan to register joanmdm [at] comcast.net
651-451-4081

If you are anti-Cuban revolution, this is not for you. This is only for
those who are interested in learning the truth and reality of Fidel and of
the revolution of the people.

First Interview:  Comandante (90 min.), In over 30 hours of interviews,
Fidel never exercised his power to stop the cameras.  Stone films Castro
working at his office, touring a medical school and a museum and follows
him through the streets where he mingles freely with the Cuban citizens.

The film paints Castro as an engaging and intelligent leader, and looks
beyond the familiar beard, cigar and jungle fatigues.  Stone and Castro
discuss pivotal moments in world history such as President Kennedy's
assassination, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis.

Second Interview:  Looking for Fidel (50 min).  After the controversy of
the April, 2003, arrest of the "dissidents" (really mercenaries taking
money and gifts from the far-right extremists Cuban Exiles.  Millions of
taxpayer dollars go to these extremist groups every year.), and the
terrorists attack on the ferry by 12 hijackers of which three were
executed AFTER a fair trial, HBO and the New York Tribeca film festival
postponed broadcasting the film, though it did show in other countries,
including Canada.  HBO requested (ordered) Stone to return to Cuba and
interview Fidel again with these recent events in mind.

Looking for Fidel gives a voice to all the major players, as Stone
interviews not only Castro , but prisoners accused of hijacking, leading
"dissidents," wives of prisoners and human rights advocates, all of whom
express their view forcefully in the emotionally charged environment that
is Cuba today.  In one extraordinary roundtable, Stone brings together
Castro, several accused hijackers, prosecutors and defense attorneys for a
conversation that is both provocative and compelling.  Film includes
fascinating cover between Stone and Castro about Cuban politics, human
rights and Cuba's future.  Stone's unprecedented encounter with this
highly controversial world leader provides a rare picture of Fidel Castro
and illuminates his views on Cuba's unique position in the world.

Eventually, both of these films showed sparingly on HBO.  However, PBS
refuses to air them.  PBS has aired only the anti-Fidel, anti-Cuban
revolution, films such as the Cuban exile's (Andriana Bosch) propaganda
film on Fidel Castro.  If PBS and other mainstream TV stations refuse to
air Stone's interviews, it seems the interviews must have that which
mainstream media does not like--truth and reality.


--------8 of 22---------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Crisis intervene 2.27 8am

First Annual
Minnesota CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) Conference/
Conference for all Stakeholders in Mental Health Crisis Issues

Barbara Schneider Foundation, BSF, and Minneapolis Police Department, MPD
worked together on the creation of the first CIT (Crisis Intervention
Team) Unit in Minnesota.  CIT has since been widely adopted by law
enforcement nationally.  Now Barbara Schneider Foundation is sponsoring
the First Annual /Minnesota CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) Conference /on
Monday, February 27, 8 am-5 pm at the Holiday Inn Select, 3 Apple
Treee Square, Bloomington, Minnesota.

This conference is being organized with the MPD's CIT Unit with a key note
address by U of M Police Chief Greg Hestness, who is a leader in the CIT
movement in Minnesota.

The conference will be an opportunity for stakeholders in mental health
crisis response from health care, mental health, courts, criminal justice,
corrections, social services and advocacy to learn more about CIT and have
a chance to develop stronger relationships with law enforcement to improve
the response to those in mental health crisis in their communities.

It will include exciting speakers on CIT training, the overlap of mental
health and public safety response, communication and de-escalation skills.
It will also include breakouts on: combat stress, traumatic brain injury,
scenario role plays in CIT training;  hospital versus jail; responding to
childhood and adolescent disorders; and customized training available for
other stakeholders in mental health crisis.  A highlight of the day will
be a demonstration of role-playing by Crisis Company actors that simulate
mental health crisis response scenarios and response techniques and
strategies that are used in CIT training.

Call: Mark Anderson, Executive Director, Barbara Schneider Foundation, 612
801 8572 *


--------9 of 22--------

From: Joanna Dornfeld <jdornfeld [at] mhponline.org>
Subject: Housing/homeless 2.27 9:30am

Join HousingMinnesota, the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless and
Minnesota NAHRO at the State Capitol as we continue to work for all
Minnesotans have a home they can afford. Meet with legislators to help
shape policy decisions that will help our communities thrive.  For more
information about lobby day and to register go to
www.housingminnesota.org/lobbyday or see the attached flyler to register.
Please register early so we are able to schedule a meeting with your
legislator.

Affordable Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Trainings

HousingMinnesota and the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless are
sponsoring a series of advocacy trainings designed for individuals,
service providers and developers throughout the state to teach the tools
and skills to develop meaningful relationships with your local policy
makers.

Policy makers need your expertise.  Few organizations are closer to the
real problems of people who need affordable housing than you: individuals,
service providers, developers and local government staff. Personal stories
are powerful tools for change.  People and policy makers can learn from
your story.  Attend these trainings to learn how to communicate about the
needs in your community and possible solutions. For more information about
these events see the attached flyer or go to
http://www.housingminnesota.org/events.cfm?PageID=6.

St. Paul
Feb 27, 9:30-11am
Union Gospel Mission
77 East 9th Street
St. Paul, MN

Moorhead
March 6, 2-3:30pm
Clay County Family Service Center
715 11th Street North
Moorhead, MN

Minnetonka
March 14, 7-8:30pm
Adath Jeshurun Congregation
10500 Hillside Lane West
Minnetonka, MN

Owatonna
March 3, 9-9:55am
Owatonna Arts Center
435 Garden View Lane
Owatonna, MN

Anoka County Area
March 7, 2-3pm
1201  89th Ave. NE
Room 300
Blaine, MN

Use these trainings as a springboard to participate in our annual Lobby
Day.

For more infomration about any of the events, please contact Joanna
Dornfeld at (651) 649-1710 ext. 108 or jdornfeld [at] mhponline.org.

Joanna Dornfeld Field Manager HousingMinnesota (651) 649-1710 ext. 108
www.housingminnesota.org
HousingMinnesota is an initiative of the Minnesota Housing Partnership.


---------10 of 22--------

From: Stephen Eisenmenger <stephen [at] mngreens.org>
Subject: Capitol tour 2.27 11am

CAPITOL TOUR
LEADER:  Ken Pentel
Monday Feb 27
11am-3:30pm

LOCATION:  Meet in the Transportation Building Cafeteria.  (For detailed
directions, call Ken at (612) 387-0601 or e-mail him at
<kenpentel [at] yahoo.com>)  If you come, itıs a good idea to bring his number
with you for locating the group.

In March Ken will be scheduling session days that we hope will lead to a
legislative team and a statewide network on legislative issues that
concern Greens.


--------11 of 22--------

From: Heather Ferguson <fergusoh [at] stolaf.edu>
Subject: PoF/GLBT/RC 2.27 6:30pm

Monday February 27 6:30 to 8:30 pm, St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church,
4537 3rd Avenue south, Minneapolis

People of Faith Roundtable*
Monday, February 27 6:30-8:30pm
Meeting at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church
4537 3rd Ave. S. Minneapolis
Just north of 46th St on the east side of 35W.

"This month's People of Faith Roundtable will be gathering at St. Joan
of Arc Catholic Church in South Minneapolis. Our featured speakers will
be "Catholics for Equality" which is a coalition of various Catholic
organizations supportive of GLBT rights. We will also have a break out
session for work groups and further discussion.


--------12 of 22---------

From: Sagesusan71 [at] aol.com
Subject: Cohousing/>55 2.27 7pm

Cohousing Informational Meeting
Monday Feb 27
7-9pm
StAnthony Park Library
2245 Como Av StPaul

Over 55 group forming


---------13 of 22--------

From: Cesia Kearns <cesia.kearns [at] sierraclub.org>
Subject: Warming/Steger 2.27 7pm Morris MN

Global Warming and Minnesota's Energy Future
With famous Arctic Explorer Will Steger in Morris, MN

Arctic Explorer Will Steger shares firsthand accounts of climate change at
the poles, and J.Drake Hamilton, Science Policy Director for Minnesotans
for an Energy Efficient Economy (ME3) discusses recent facts on global
warming, the impact on Minnesota, and how we can slow climate change
through local energy solutions

Monday, February 27 7-8:30pm
University of Minnesota, Morris, Science 2950 (Science Auditorium)
This event is free and open to the public.  Refreshments provided.

Co-sponsored by the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, MPIRG, and
Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ME3)

For questions or more information, please contact Cesia (saysha) Kearns at
612-659-9124 or email cesia.kearns [at] sierraclub.org visit
www.northstar.sierraclub.org   www.me3.org


--------14 of 22--------

From: Merideth Cleary <meriberry15 [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Venezuela/Colombia 2.27 7pm

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM VI
Monday Feb 27
7-8:30pm
Steelworkers Union
2829 University Ave SE Minneapolis, MN  55414

Come hear a report back by Associate Member of the Steelworkers and
Witness for Peace organizer, Merideth Cleary, delegate in the World Social
Forum who traveled to Colombia where she took testimonies from social
leaders and victims of violence in Colombia.

Stay to see the premier showing of the short documentary about the
delegation: "Venezuela and Colombia; Testimonies of Opportunity and
Tragedy"

Featuring testimonies of labor leaders of the UNT (Venezuela National
Workers Union); worker occupied factories and the impacts of the
Bolivarian Missions in Venezuela; leaders of SINALTRAINAL (Colombian union
representing Coca Cola and NESTLE workers); indigenous, campesino, and
Afro-Colombian leaders, and members of the Popular Movement of Women.

Corporation for Community Training and FMI contact - Gerardo Cajamarca or
Merideth Cleary at 612-623-8003 or at gentelatinauswa [at] yahoo.com.


--------15 of 22--------

From: Gabe Ormsby <gabeo [at] bitstream.net>
Subject: AI Augustana 2.27 7pm

Augustana Homes Seniors Group meets on Monday, February 27, 7-8pm in the
party room of the 1020 Building, 1020 E 17th Street, Minneapolis. For more
information contact Ardes Johnson at 612/378-1166 or johns779 [at] tc.umn.edu.


--------16 of 22--------

From: Bob Parker <bobpmn [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Airport dike 2.27 7pm

[Yet another ripoff by the parasitical rich, aided and abetted by lapdog
government, at the expense of the city and the citizens. Stop these SOBs.
-ed]

When something is very wrong in one neighborhood, sometimes it takes the
whole village to participate in remedying it. When the stank was upon the
west end, many voices combined to bring about action in the residents'
favor. I believe that this airport issue is important to St Paul as a
whole, in that it seems to be a situation tilted unfairly towards the
convenience of an elite few, rather than the daily quality of life of many
residents of Mounds Park, Dayton's Bluff and Downtown. There are a lot of
us up here that feel a little voiceless sometimes. Some of us don't
believe that we have the same political pull that other, wealthier
neighborhoods might.

I believe that increasing air traffic at this airport will do absolutely
nothing for us. It will increase the already obnoxious noise of planes at
all hours, directly over our homes, to say nothing of adverse
environmental effects on the diverted flood plain, or the sight of a
corrugated metal wall along the riverfront. A riverfront, I might add,
that many would like to see made more beautiful and citizen-friendly. It
is certainly not going to do anything to help us reverse the slumification
of Dayton's Bluff. It won't help us redevelop East Seventh as an
attractive commercial area. It will negatively affect potential
home-buyers from moving in, re-habbing great old houses and raising their
kids here.

It will, however, shave something like 15 minutes off of the commute for
3M executives, so maybe that's good... Hmmm. I don't know...  let's try to
see this on balance. Neighborhoods.... or wealthy corporate
executives..... Hmmm.

Well, there I go, getting incendiary again. And, I'm sure, guilty of
taking a simple view of this matter. But I can't see how else it can be
portrayed. Perhaps a flood wall supporter can help us to see the benefit
it would bring to our neighborhoods, and the city as a whole.  How it will
help us reclaim a wholesome vitality in Dayton's Bluff;  raising our
commercial and private property values, effectively contributing to the
city's general health.

Here is Karin's message:

From: "Karin DuPaul" <Karin [at] DaytonsBluff.org>
Subject: DBCC -  Airport Dike - 2/27 meeting

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED
A floodwall has been proposed for the Downtown Saint Paul Airport. The
Dayton's Bluff Community Council as opposed the building of a floodwall.
Reasons include the fact that it will have negative impacts on the river,
wildlife, increased airport usage above Dayton's Bluff neighborhoods, and
add significant noise and air pollution.  And it will lower property
values in flight pattern areas, because of increased usage. If the
floodwall is built more corporate jets will move to this airport.

I am encouraging you (and bring your neighbors) to attend the Dayton's
Bluff Community Council Board meeting on Monday February 27 at 7PM at 798
East Seventh Street (corner of 7th and Margaret).

Mayor Coleman will be here and the dike is one of the issues that will be
discussed.  The Mayor has not made a decision on where he stands on the
floodwall issues and he needs to see the neighborhood are against it.


--------17 of 22--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
From: "katherine" <katherine [at] deltove.com <mailto:katherine [at] deltove.com>>
Subject: Sami/Iraq 2.27 7pm

An Eyewitness Report from Iraq
Minnesotan Sami Rasouli Speaks About his Experience

Monday, February 27
7pm
St. John Neumann
4030 Pilot Knob Road
Eagan, MN
Contact Katherine at 952-432-3654

Curious about the situation Iraq?  Confused by conflicting news reports?
Sami Rasouli, a former Twin Cities restaurant owner with dual American and
Iraqi citizenship, has spent the last six months working in Iraq. He
returned to his homeland to help his country recover from the invasion.
He will share stories of his work and of the effects of war on the Iraqi
people as they go about their daily lives, including his insights about
the continued violence, the Iraqi elections, the future of Iraq and the US
debate about the war.


--------18 of 22---------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Black clubs/TV 2.27 7pm

Independent Lens: A Place of Our Own
tpt17 Monday Feb 27 at 7pm

Stanley Nelson is a third-generation upper middle-class African American
who spent the past 40 summers in Oak Bluffs, an affluent African-American
resort community on Martha's Vineyard. Building on personal stories of
summers past, Nelson explores the world of black doctors, lawyers and
journalists who created social clubs, professional organizations and a
refuge for African Americans.


--------19 of 22--------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: MLK III activist 2.27 7:30pm

February 27 - Social Activist Martin Luther King III:  My Father s Dream,
My Mission. 7:30pm.  Cost: $10 for U of M students with a valid
student ID; $15 for the general public.

The University of Minnesota's Minnesota Programs and Activities Council
(MPAC) will present My Father's Dream, My Mission, an evening with social
activist Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King Jr., at 7:30
p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, in the Great Hall of Coffman Union, 300 Washington
Ave. S.E., Minneapolis. Doors open at 7 p.m.

King's speech was to originally take place this Monday, but was postponed
due to Coretta Scott King's death. All tickets purchased for the original
date will be honored for the rescheduled date. If ticket holders wish to
receive a refund, they may go to the Coffman information desk and present
their ticket to receive a refund.

During the event, King will address hallmarks of his father's vision such
as the fight against poverty and social, political and economic injustice.
He will also speak about his strategies to implement his father's ideas
into today's society. King currently serves as president of the King
Center, an organization dedicated to continuing the work and vision of
Martin Luther King Jr. The King Center was founded in 1968 by Coretta
Scott King.

Tickets cost $10 for U of M students with a valid student ID and $15 for
the general public. Tickets can be purchased at the Coffman information
desk during regular business hours. Any remaining tickets will be sold at
the door. If the event is sold out, tickets for overflow seating will be
made available. Location: Great Hall, Coffman Memorial Union, 300
Washington Ave SE, Minneapolis


--------20 of 22--------


From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Whoopi Goldberg/TV 2.27 8pm

African-American Lives
Part 1: Monday, Feb. 27 at 8PM on tpt17
Part 2: Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 8PM on tpt2 and Tuesday, Feb. 28 at 7PM on
tpt17
   	Whoopi Goldberg

Hosted by renowned Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and utilizing
expert genealogical and historical research and DNA analysis, the series
traces the lineages of Professor Gates and eight other prominent African
Americans - neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, actress Whoopi Goldberg, Bishop
T.D. Jakes, astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, musician/producer Quincy Jones,
sociologist Dr. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, comedian/actor Chris Tucker and
TV pioneer/philanthropist Oprah Winfrey.  Viewers will accompany them on
a transformational journey of discovery as they unearth remarkable new
truths about their family histories.


--------21 of 22---------

Petrodollars and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation:
Understanding the Planned Assault on Iran
by Michael Keefer
February 10, 2006
GlobalResearch.ca

[1 of 2]

Iran has been in the gun-sights of George W. Bush and his entourage from
the moment that he was parachuted into the presidency in November 2000 by
his father's Supreme Court.

A year ago there were signs, duly reported by Seymour Hersh and others,
that the United States and Israel were working out the targeting details
of an aerial attack on Iran that it was anticipated would occur in June
2005 (see Hersh, Gush Shalom, Jensen). But as Michel Chossudovsky wrote in
May 2005, widespread reports that George W. Bush had "signed off on" an
attack on Iran did not signify that the attack would necessarily occur
during the summer of 2005: what the 'signing off' suggested was rather
"that the US and Israel [were] 'in a state of readiness' and [were]
prepared to launch an attack by June or at a later date. In other words,
the decision to launch the attack [had] not been made" (Chossudovsky: May
2005).

Since December 2005, however, there have been much firmer indications both
that the planned attack will go ahead in late March 2006, and also that
the Cheney-Bush administration intends it to involve the use of nuclear
weapons.

It is important to understand the nature and scale of the war crimes that
are being planned-and no less important to recognize that, as in the case
of the Bush regime's assault on Iraq, the pretexts being advanced to
legitimize this intended aggression are entirely fraudulent. Unless the
lurid fantasies of people like former Undersecretary for Arms Control and
International Security and now Ambassador to the United Nations John
Bolton count as evidence-and Bolton's pronouncements on the weaponry
supposedly possessed by Iraq, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela show him to
be less acquainted with truth than Jean Harlow was with chastity-there is
no evidence that Iran has or has ever had any nuclear weapons development
program. Claims to the contrary, however loudly they may have been
trumpeted by Fox News, CNN, or The New York Times, are demonstrably false.

Nor does there appear to be the remotest possibility, whatever desperate
measures the Iranian government might be frightened into by American and
Israeli threats of pre-emptive attacks, that Iran would be able to produce
nuclear weapons in the near future. On August 2, 2005, The Washington Post
reported that according to the most recent National Intelligence Estimate
(NIE), which represents a consensus arrived at among U.S. intelligence
agencies, "Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key
ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of
five years" (Linzer, quoted by Clark, 28 Jan. 2006).

The coming attack on Iran has nothing whatsoever to do with concerns about
the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Its primary motive, as oil analyst
William Clark has argued, is rather a determination to ensure that the
U.S. dollar remains the sole world currency for oil trading. Iran plans in
March 2006 to open a Teheran Oil Bourse in which all trading will be
carried out in Euros. This poses a direct threat to the status of the U.S.
dollar as the principal world reserve currency-and hence also to a trading
system in which massive U.S. trade deficits are paid for with paper money
whose accepted value resides, as Krassimir Petrov notes, in its being the
currency in which international oil trades are denominated. (U.S. dollars
are effectively exchangeable for oil in somewhat the same way that, prior
to 1971, they were at least in theory exchangeable for gold.)

But not only is this planned aggression unconnected to any actual concern
over Iranian nuclear weapons. There is in fact some reason to think that
the preparations for it have involved deliberate violations by the Bush
neo-conservatives of anti-proliferation protocols (and also, necessarily,
of U.S. law), and that their long-term planning, in which Turkey's consent
to the aggression is a necessary part, has involved a deliberate transfer
of nuclear weapons technology to Turkey as a part of the pay-off.

Prior to her public exposure by Karl Rove, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, and
other senior administration officials in July 2003, CIA agent Valerie
Plame was reportedly involved in undercover anti-proliferation work
focused on transfers of nuclear technology to Turkey that were being
carried out by a network of crooked businessmen, arms dealers, and 'rogue'
officials within the U.S. government. The leaking of Plame's identity as a
CIA agent was undoubtedly an act of revenge for her husband Joseph
Wilson's public revelation that one of the key claims used to legitimize
the invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein's supposed acquisition of uranium ore
from Niger, was known by the Bush regime to be groundless. But Plame's
exposure also conveniently put an end to her investigative work. Some of
the senior administration officials responsible for that crime of state
have long-term diplomatic and military connections to Turkey, and all of
them have been employed in what might be called (with a nod to ex-White
House speechwriter David Frum) the Cheney-Bolton Axis of Aggression.
Thanks to the courage and integrity of former FBI translator Sibel
Edmonds, there is evidence dating from 2002 of high-level involvement in
the subversion of FBI investigations into arms trafficking with Turkey.
The leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent may therefore have
been not merely an act of revenge for her husband's contribution to the
delegitimizing of one war of aggression, but also a tactical maneuver in
preparation for the next one.

George W. Bush made clear his aggressive intentions in relation to Iran in
his 2002 State of the Union address; and his regime's record on issues of
nuclear proliferation has been, to put it mildly, equivocal. If, as seems
plausible, Bush's diplomats had been secretly arranging that Turkey's
reward for connivance in an attack on Iran should include its future
admission into the charmed circle of nuclear powers, then the meddling
interference of servants of the state who, like Plame and Edmonds, were
putting themselves or at least their careers at risk in the cause of
preventing nuclear weapons proliferation, was not to be tolerated.

The ironies are glaring. The U.S. government is contemplating an
unprovoked attack upon Iran that will involve "pre-emptive" use of nuclear
weapons against a non-nuclear-weapons-holding state. Although the pretext
is that this is necessary to forestall nuclear weapons proliferation,
there is evidence to suggest that planning for the attack has involved,
very precisely, nuclear weapons proliferation by the United States.

It would appear that this sinister complex of criminality involves one
further twist. There have been indications that the planned attack may be
immediately preceded (and of course 'legitimized') by another 9/11-type
event within the U.S.

  Let us review these issues in sequence.

  Plans for a conventional and 'tactical' nuclear attack on Iran

On August 1, 2005 Philip Giraldi, an ex-CIA agent and associate of Vincent
Cannistraro (the former head of the CIA's counter-intelligence operations
and former intelligence director at the National Security Council),
published an article entitled "Deep Background" in The American
Conservative. The first section of this article carried the following
headline: "In Washington it is hardly a secret that the same people in and
around the administration who brought you Iraq are preparing to do the
same for Iran." I quote the first section of Giraldi's article in its
entirety:

"The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's
office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with
drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another
9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a
large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical
nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic
targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development
sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could
not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in
the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being
involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States.
Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly
appalled at the implications of what they are doing - that Iran is being
set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack - but no one is prepared to damage
his career by posing any objections."

The implications of this report are breathtaking. First, it indicates on
the part of the ruling Cheney faction within the American state a frank
in-house acknowledgment that their often-repeated public claims of a
connection between Saddam Hussein's regime and the 9/11 attacks are the
rubbish that informed people have long known them to be.

At a deeper level, it implies that "9/11-type terrorist attacks" are
recognized in Cheney's office and the Pentagon as appropriate means of
legitimizing wars of aggression against any country selected for that
treatment by the regime and its corporate propaganda-amplification system.
(Though the implicit acknowledgment is shocking, the fact itself should
come as no surprise, since recent research has shown that the Bush
administration was deeply implicated not merely in permitting the attacks
of September 11, 2001 to happen, but in actually organizing them: see
Chossudovsky 2002: 51-63, 144-56; Chossudovsky 2005: 51-62, 135-46,
237-61; Griffin 2004: 127-46, 169-201; Griffin 2005: 115-35, 277-91; Marrs
134-37; and Ruppert 309-436.)

And finally, Giraldi's report suggests that the recent U.S. development of
comparatively low-yield nuclear weapons specifically designed to destroy
hardened underground facilities, and the recent re-orientation of U.S.
nuclear policy to include first-strike or pre-emptive nuclear attacks on
non-nuclear powers, were both part of long-range planning for a war on
Iran.

Articles published by William Arkin in the Washington Post in May and
October 2005 reported on what the U.S. military's STRATCOM calls CONPLAN
8022, a global plan for bombing and missile attacks involving "a nuclear
option" anywhere in the world that was tested in an exercise that began on
November 1, 2005; the scenario for this exercise scripted a dirty-bomb
attack on Mobile, Alabama to which STRATCOM responded with nuclear and
conventional strikes on an unnamed east-Asian country that was
transparently meant for North Korea.

Jorge Hirsch has outlined the deployment of key administrative personnel
and of ideological legitimations in preparation for a nuclear attack on
Iran (Hirsch, 16 Dec. 2005). And Michel Chossudovsky has described the
command structure that has been set up to implement STRATCOM's current
plans for preemptive 'theatre' nuclear warfare (see Chossudovsky 2006).
But it must be emphasized that these plans, as tested in November 2005 in
the exercise referred to by Arkin, involve the creation of an impression
of what theorists of nuclear war call "proportionality." An attack on
Iran, which would presumably involve the use of significant numbers of
extremely 'dirty' earth-penetrating nuclear bombs, might well be made to
follow a dirty-bomb attack on the United States, which would be
represented in the media as having been carried out by Iranian agents.

Yet as Giraldi indicates, although the bombing of Iran would follow and be
represented as a response to "another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the
United States," the planned pattern involves a cynical separation of
appearance from reality: "the response is not conditional on Iran actually
being involved in [this] act of terrorism.."

                  Earth-Penetrator 'dirty bombs'

Talk about "low-yield" nuclear weapons, by the way, means simply that the
most recent U.S. nuclear weapons can be set to detonate with much less
than their maximum explosive force. The maximum power of the B61-11
earth-penetrating "bunker-buster" bomb ranges, by different accounts, from
300 to 340 or 400 kilotons (see Nelson; Hirsch, 9 Jan. 2006). (By way of
comparison, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August, 1945, killing some
80,000 people outright, and a further 60,000 over the next several months
due to radiation poisoning and other injuries, had a yield of 15
kilotons.) The lowest-yield setting of the BL61-11 is reportedly 0.3
kilotons-equivalent, that is to say, to the detonation of 300 tons of TNT.

But since these new weapons are designed as earth-penetrating
"bunker-buster" rather than air-burst bombs, each one can be expected to
produce large volumes of very 'dirty' radioactive fallout. Robert Nelson
of the Federation of American Scientists writes that even at the low end
of the B61-11 bomb's yield range, "the nuclear blast will simply blow out
a huge crater of radioactive material, creating a lethal gamma-radiation
field over a large area." The very intense local fallout will include both
"radioactivity from the fission products" and also "large amounts of dirt
and debris [that] has been exposed to the intense neutron flux from the
nuclear detonation"; the blast cloud produced by such a bomb "typically
consists of a narrow column and a broad base surge of air filled with
radioactive dust which expands to a radius of over a mile for a 5 kiloton
explosion."

Yet wouldn't the "tactical" and "low-yield" nature of these weapons mean
that civilian casualties could be kept to a minimum? A study published in
2005 by the National Research Council on the Effects of Nuclear
Earth-Penetrator and Other Weapons offers estimates of the casualties that
could be caused by these weapons. According to Conclusion 6 of this
report, an attack in or near a densely populated urban area could be
expected, depending on the B61-11's yield setting, to kill from several
thousand to over a million people. An attack in a remote, lightly
populated area might kill as few as several hundred people - or, with a
high-yield setting and unfavourable winds, hundreds of thousands.

But what kinds of yield settings might the U.S. military want to use?
Conclusion 5 of the NRC report might seem to suggest that genuinely
low-yield settings might be possible: the yield required "to destroy a
hard and deeply buried target is reduced by a factor of 15 to 25 by
enhanced ground-shock coupling if the weapon is detonated a few meters
below the surface." Conclusion 2, however, is more sobering. To have a
high probability of destroying a facility 200 metres underground, an
earth-penetrating weapon with a yield of 300 kilotons would be required -
that is to say, a weapon with twenty times the explosive power of the
Hiroshima bomb. Extrapolating from the information the report provides,
one might guess that a weapon in the 7-8 kiloton range - with half the
power of the Hiroshima bomb - could be deployed against a facility like
Natanz, the sensitive parts of which are buried 18 metres underground and
protected by reinforced concrete (Beeston). A similar or smaller weapon
might be used against the uranium fuel enrichment facility at Esfahan - a
city of two million people which is also, by the way, a UNESCO World
Heritage City.

The NRC report, it should be noted, was written by a committee, and one
that on the issue of civilian casualties seems to have had some difficulty
in making up its collective mind. Conclusion 4 of the report informs us
that "For the same yield and weather conditions, the number of casualties
from an earth-penetrator weapon detonated at a few meters depth is, for
all practical purposes, equal to that from a surface burst of the same
weapon yield." But Conclusion 7 tells a different story: "For urban
targets, civilian casualties from nuclear earth-penetrator weapons are
reduced by a factor of 2 to 10 compared with those from a surface burst
having 25 times the yield."

The most charitable interpretation I can give to Conclusion 7 is that it
was composed for a readership of arithmetical illiterates - who the
authors assume will be unable to deduce that what is actually being said
(assuming a linear relation between yield and casualties) is that an
earth-penetrating weapon will cause from 2.5 to 12.5 times more casualties
than a surface-burst weapon of the same explosive power.

In light of the fact that the NRC report was commissioned by the United
States Congress, we can ourselves conclude that the U.S. government is
contemplating, open-eyed, a war of aggression that American planners are
fully aware will kill - at the very least - many tens of thousands, and
perhaps many hundreds of thousands of civilians.

                            The pretexts

The principal reason being advanced for an attack upon Iran is the claim
that Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear threat with the capacity
and presumably the intention of launching nuclear ballistic-missile
attacks upon Israel and even western Europe and the United States.

Iran does possess ballistic missiles, including the Shahab-3, which with a
range of 1300 kilometers is capable of striking Israel, as well as U.S.
forces throughout the Middle East. (Why Iran would dream of initiating
military aggression against the U.S. or against Israel, which possesses an
arsenal of some 200 nuclear warheads, together with multiple means of
delivering them, including ballistic missiles, is not explained.)

A fear-mongering article published by The Guardian on January 4, 2006,
included the information that the next generation of the Shahab missile
"should be capable of reaching Austria and Italy." The leading sentence of
this same article declares that "The Iranian government has been
successfully scouring Europe for the sophisticated equipment needed to
develop a nuclear bomb, according to the latest western assessment of the
country's weapons programmes" (Cobain and Traynor). But neither this
article nor a companion piece (Traynor and Cobain) published the same day
provides any evidence that Iran actually has a nuclear weapons program,
even though both articles were based upon a "report from a leading EU
intelligence service," a "55-page intelligence assessment, dated July 1
2005, [that] draws upon material gathered by British, French, German and
Belgian agencies."

There is in fact very good evidence, in the form of exhaustive inspections
by the International Atomic Energy Agency since 2003, that Iran does not
have and has never had any such program. As the physicist Gordon Prather
wrote in September 2005, "after two years of go-anywhere, see-anything
inspections, [the IAEA] has found no indication that any special nuclear
materials or activities involving them are being-or have been-used in
furtherance of a military purpose" (Prather, 27 Sept. 2005).

But what about intentions? The Guardian journalists inform us that
"western leaders have long refused to believe Tehran's insistence that it
is not interested in developing nuclear weapons and is only trying to
develop nuclear power for electricity" (Cobain and Traynor). Perhaps it is
time these "western leaders" - George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and whatever
rag-tag and bob-tail of lesser luminaries they are dragging after them -
began to attend to the facts.

A good place to start might be with William Beeman's and Thomas Stauffer's
assessment of the physical evidence for an Iranian nuclear weapons
program. (Stauffer, by the way, is a former nuclear engineer and
specialist in Middle Eastern energy economics; Beeman directs Brown
University's Middle East Studies program; both have conducted research on
Iran for three decades.) Beeman and Stauffer note that Iran has three
principal nuclear facilities.

Of the first two, a uranium enrichment plant in Natanz and a deuterium
research facility in Arak, they remark that "Neither is in operation. The
only question of interest is whether these facilities offer a plausible
route to the manufacture of plutonium-based nuclear bombs, and the short
answer is: They do not."

Beeman and Stauffer compare the third facility, the PWR pressurized
"light-water" reactor under construction at Bushehr, with Israel's
heavy-water graphite-moderated plant at Dimona. The Bushehr reactor is
designed to maximize power output through long fuel cycles of 30 to 40
months; it will produce plutonium isotopes (PU240, 241 and 242) that are
"almost impossible to use in making bombs"; and "the entire reactor will
have to shut down - a step that cannot be concealed from satellites,
airplanes and other sources - in order to permit the extraction of even a
single fuel pin." Israel's Dimona plant, in contrast, produces the
bomb-making isotope PU239; moreover, it "can be re-fueled 'on line,'
without shutting down. Thus, high-grade plutonium can be obtained covertly
and continuously."

Claims emanating from the U.S. State Department to the effect that Iran
possesses uranium-enrichment centrifuges or covert plutonium-extraction
facilities are dismissed by Beeman and Stauffer as implausible, since "the
sources are either unidentified or are the same channels which
disseminated the stories about Iraq's non-conventional weapons or the
so-called chemical and biological weapons plant in Khartoum."

As Michael T. Klare remarks, the U.S. government's "claim that an attack
on Iran would be justified because of its alleged nuclear potential should
invite widespread skepticism." But skeptical intelligence appears to be
the last thing one can expect from the corporate media, whose organs
report without blinking Condoleezza Rice's threat that "The world will not
stand by if Iran continues on the path to a nuclear weapons capability"
(see [Rice]), and George W. Bush's equally inane declaration, following
the IAEA's vote to refer Iran to the UN Security Council, that "This
important step sends a clear message to the regime in Iran that the world
will not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons" (see [Bush]).

There is much to be said about the sorry process of propagandizing,
diplomatic bullying, and behind-the-scenes blackmail and arm-twisting
within the IAEA and in other forums - all of it strongly reminiscent of
the maneuverings of late 2002 and early 2003 - that has led to the present
situation, where in early March the Security Council will be called upon,
as in the case of Iraq three years ago, to accept and legitimize the
falsehoods on which the new war of aggression is to be based. The early
stages of this process were lucidly analyzed by Siddharth Varadarajan in
three fine articles in September 2005. Its more recent phases have been
assessed by Gordon Prather in a series of articles published since
mid-September 2005, and also, with equal scrupulousness and ethical
urgency, by another well-informed physicist, Jorge Hirsch, who has been
publishing essays on the subject since mid-October. I will not repeat here
the analyses developed in their articles (the titles of which are included
in the list of sources which follows this text). But Varadarajan's recent
summary judgment of the diplomatic process is worth quoting: "Each time it
appeases Washington's relentless pressure on Iran, the international
community is being made to climb higher and higher up a ladder whose final
rungs can only be sanctions and war. This is precisely the route the U.S.
followed against Iraq in its quest to effect regime change there"
(Varadarajan, 1 Feb. 2006).

It is also worth saying something, however briefly, about the media
campaign that has accompanied the diplomatic preparations for war. This
has included, since mid-2005, accusations that that Iran was involved in
the terrorist attacks of 9/11, some of whose perpetrators are alleged (by
members of the wholly discredited Kean Commission of inquiry into the
events of 9/11) to have passed through Iran on their way to the U.S. (see
Coman; Hirsch, 28 Dec. 2005; and also, if you believe The 9/11 Commission
Report to have any credibility, Griffin 2005).

A more relevant accusation surfaced in November 2005, when the New York
Times reported that senior U.S. intelligence officials had briefed IAEA
Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei and his senior staff on information
gleaned from a "stolen Iranian laptop computer" which they said
demonstrated that Iran had developed nuclear weapons compact enough to fit
onto its Shahab missiles. But as Gordon Prather wrote, "'sources close to
the IAEA' said what they had been briefed on appeared to be aerodynamic
design work for a ballistic missile reentry vehicle, which certainly
couldn't contain a nuke if the Iranians didn't have any. Furthermore,
according to David Albright, a sometime consultant to the IAEA, who has
actually had access to the 'stolen Iranian laptop,' the information on it
is all about reentry vehicles and 'does not contain words such [as]
'nuclear' and 'nuclear warhead'" (Prather, 23 Nov. 2005).

Sorry, boys: no biscuit.

And yet the object of the exercise was evidently not to persuade the IAEA
people, who are not idiots, but rather to get the story into the
amplification system of that Mighty Wurlitzer, the corporate media.

This strategy has evidently worked. The New York Times, for example, may
have parted company with Judith Miller, the 'star' reporter whose sordid
job was to serve as a conduit for Bush regime misinformation during the
lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, but in Elaine Sciolino they have a
reporter who is no less skilled in passing off neocon propaganda as fact
(see Prather, 7 Jan. 2006). The New York Times also gave front-page space
in mid-January to an article by Richard Bernstein and Stephen Weisman
proposing "that Iran has restarted 'research that could give it technology
to create nuclear weapons'" (quoted by Whitney, 17 Jan. 2006). "Perhaps,"
Mike Whitney suggests, "the NY Times knows something that the IAEA
inspectors don't? If so, they should step forward and reveal the facts."

The key facts, as Whitney wrote on January 17, are that there is no
evidence that Iran has either a nuclear weapons program or centrifuges
with which to enrich uranium to weapons-grade concentration. "These are
the two issues which should be given greatest consideration in determining
whether or not Iran poses a real danger to its neighbors, and yet these
are precisely the facts that are absent from the nearly 2,500 articles
written on the topic in the last few days." Add to these the further fact,
noted above, that the August 2005 National Intelligence Estimate doubled
the time American agencies thought Iran would need to manufacture "the key
ingredient for a nuclear weapon" from the previous estimate of five years
to a full decade.

Why then is the American public being incited to ever greater anxiety in
the face of a weapons program which - on the paranoid and unproven
assumption that it actually exists - is if anything a receding rather than
a gathering threat?

Fox News has led the way among the non-print media in drum-beating and
misinformation - to the extent, as Paul Craig Roberts observes, that a
Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll can plausibly report "that 60% of Republicans,
41% of Independents, and 36% of Democrats support using air strikes and
ground troops against Iran in order to prevent Iran from developing
nuclear weapons." Worse yet, an LA Times/Bloomberg poll apparently finds
that 57% of the respondents "favor military intervention if Iran's
government pursues a program that would enable it to build nuclear arms."
Any civilian nuclear power program opens up this possibility (Canada, had
it so desired, could have become a nuclear-weapons power forty years ago)
- but the function of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is precisely to
open the way to peaceful nuclear power generation while preventing the
further dissemination of nuclear weapons. What the LA Times/Bloomberg poll
therefore means, Roberts says, is that "if Iran exercises its rights under
the non-proliferation treaty, 57% of Americans support a US military
attack on Iran!"

Numbers like these suggest that George W. Bush will indeed get the new war
he so desires. And it appears that he will get it soon. As Newt Gingrich
declared on Fox News in late January, the matter is so urgent that the
attack must happen within the next few months. "According to Gingrich,
Iran not only cannot be trusted with nuclear technology, but also Iranians
'cannot be trusted with their oil'" (Roberts).

[The second/last part deals with the real reason for the planned war. -ed]


--------22 of 22---------

 Bush dreams pretty nukes;
 bright flowers whisk away unwhite
 meat blobs much like us.

 Congressional Dems
 fear each days' dark attack of
 creeping spinal bend.

 What can we do? they
 gasp. We must save ourselves for
 what counts - our dear seats.

 Everyone else will
 have to fend for himself - to
 each his own, we say.

 If you don't like your
 fate, why were you born into
 this world? It's your fault.

 If we never see
 you again, goodbye, and please
 get out of our light.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
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