<nettime> ivogram [x5]: families, protestors, immigrants, gotovina, heritage

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

     [ digested @ nettime ]

"Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
     Family Issues
     Blacklisting in the Land of the Free
     [raccoon-announce] NYTimes.com Article: Jailing Immigran
     Gotovina
     Call Heritage!

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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 10:17:54 -0400
Subject: Family Issues

Saddam Hussein tried to immitate his great idol Joseph Visarionovich 
Stalin in almost every other aspect - brutality, secretiveness, 
backstabbing, manipulation, fear - except for the chilly manner in 
which the old Georgian, trained by Jesuit priests, treated his 
family. Saddam, au contraire, was a warm father, encouraging his 
bratty offspring to participate and even enjoy in such adult 
pleasures as torture and mutilation of ones political enemies. And 
trying to pass a dictatorship on ones kids proved many times too 
often to be a bad idea, with North Korea and Iraq being just the most 
recent examples. The heirs lack the superb survival skills, because 
they never had to fear anybody, and their habits are just too much 
even for the constituency that is well trained into submission, 
because they could always do whatever they want.

Even passing a democracy on ones child may be a bad idea, as the 
situation in the U.S. suggests now. On a different scale, of course, 
GW is as removed from GH, as Qusay (or, worse, Uday...) was from 
Saddam. He just did coke, drove drunk, and dodged military duty. 
Compared to Uday, Bush is an apostle. But compared to his Democratic 
opponents he is a lowlife hoodlum.

On the other hand, Saddam might have done better if he had recognized 
that among his children, girls were the smarter ones. With a reason. 
True, Iraq was a modern Arab Muslim state. But it was still an Arab 
Muslim state. Women migh have been as free as it goes, but men were 
still more free. Uday and Qusay could do what they pleased. Sisters 
had to behave more modestly. As the rest of the women, they learned 
how to moderate themselves, and how to apply brains to get what they 
wanted, since the brawn was not as available to them as it was to 
their infamous brothers.

First, they fled Iraq, with their not-so-bright husbands who spilled 
the beans to the West, when they arrived in Jordan. Then, they 
followed them back, as the hubbies swallowed the bait (that nothing 
is going to happen to them, yeah, right), and saw them executed by 
the big bro. I don't believe little sisters really liked Uday or 
Qusay that much, particularly not after that. One of them appeared on 
CNN after the brothers were wacked Hollywood style. She looked a 
little amused and quite tired of answering questions about her dad's 
whereabouts. When she said that she doesn't know where Saddam is, it 
looked like she might have known where the brothers were.

So, they are dead, and sister is getting global air-time. Nice job. 
There are 3 sisters, and there were 2 brothers. Brothers were $15 
million each, that makes 30, $10 million per sister. If Macciavelli 
lives today, and in the Arab Muslim world (which needs renessaince 
badly, anyway) he would be a she, I guess.

ivo

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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 12:00:29 -0400
Subject: Blacklisting in the Land of the Free

So there is a "no-fly" list containing names of people FBI suspects 
may hi-jack planes in the future, and obviously they don't want them 
near a plane.

And there is also "no-easy-fly" list containing names of thousands of 
people that government wants to give some 'third degree' treatment in 
response to their outspoken opposition to certain government 
policies. That list, containing the alphabet soup of the US human 
rights and peace activists, seems to be established solely for the 
purpose of harassment and persecution of the political opponents. As 
such, it is contradictory to American values enshrined in the U.S. 
Constitution, and needs to be abandoned as illegal, the sooner the 
better.

ivo

------- Forwarded message follows -------
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0803-03.htm

Published on Sunday, August 3, 2003 by the Independent/UK 
[http://www.independent.co.uk/]

US Anti-War Activists Hit by Secret Airport Ban

by Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles

After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists
that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington
has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even
thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny
at airports.

The list had been kept secret until its disclosure last week by the
new US agency in charge of aviation safety, the Transportation
Security Administration (TSA). And it is entirely separate from the
relatively well-publicized "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000
people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could 
endanger the safety of their fellow passengers.

The strong suspicion of such groups as the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU), which is suing the government to try to learn more, is
that the second list has been used to target political activists who
challenge the government in entirely legal ways. The TSA acknowledged
the existence of the list in response to a Freedom of Information Act
request concerning two anti-war activists from San Francisco who were
stopped and briefly detained at the airport last autumn and told they
were on an FBI no-fly list.

The activists, Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams, work for a small pacifist
magazine called War Times and say they have never been arrested, let
alone have criminal records. Others who have filed complaints with the
ACLU include a left-wing constitutional lawyer who has been
strip-searched repeatedly when traveling through US airports, and a
71-year-old nun from Milwaukee who was prevented from flying to
Washington to join an anti-government protest.

It is impossible to know for sure who might be on the list, or why.
The ACLU says a list kept by security personnel at Oakland airport 
ran to 88 pages. More than 300 people have been subject to special
questioning at San Francisco airport, and another 24 at Oakland,
according to police records. In no case does it appear that a wanted
criminal was apprehended.

The ACLU's senior lawyer on the case, Jayashri Srikantiah, said she is
troubled by several answers that the TSA gave to her questions. The
agency, she said, had no way of making sure that people did not end up
on the list simply because of things they had said or organizations
they belonged to. Once people were on the list, there was no procedure
for trying to get off it. The TSA did not even think it was important
to keep track of people singled out in error for a security grilling.
According to documents the agency released, it saw "no pressing need
to do so".

It is not just left-wingers who feel unfairly targeted. Right-wing
civil libertarians have spoken out against the secret list, and at
least one conservative organization, the Eagle Forum, says its 
members
have been interrogated by security staff.

The complaints by the ACLU form part of a pattern of protest since the
11 September attacks, with the Bush administration repeatedly under
fire for detaining people on the flimsiest of grounds in the name of
the "war on terror".

Many Muslims have had a hard time, especially if they have a surname
such as Hussein.

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

###

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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2003 00:15:13 -0400
Subject: Re: today's www.washingtonpost.com

Since Racan can find 60 in Croatia, I am sure Zivkovic can find 1000 
people in Serbia happy to kill Muslims. And I have no doubts they 
would be more efficient than Americans against the guerilla war in Iraq.
Still, this would be a very dangerous idea for two reasons. First, 
the U.S. would mix up 'angry men' from two so far separated conflict 
areas, creating the danger of those two conflict situations to merge 
in one big mess.
Second, there is no guarantee that those 1000 Serbs would actually be 
loyal to the U.S., that bombed their country just 4 years ago. Why 
wouldn't they just help Iraqis organize their insurgence better? The 
Trojan horse metaphor comes up vividly when thinking of such a 
scenario.

ivo


On 4 Aug 2003 at 10:47, anthony margan wrote:

To all: this is incredulous (mypersoanl letter to the editor is at 
the very bottom):
washingtonpost.com 
Europe's Last Hard Cases 
By Jackson Diehl

Monday, August 4, 2003; Page A15 
Almost lost among the foreign favor-seekers who crowded Washington 
last month was the leader of a nation the United States went to war 
against just four years ago. For most of the 1990s U.S. policymakers 
were preoccupied with containing Serbia -- the main component of a 
country then called Yugoslavia and recently renamed Serbia and 
Montenegro. Now its new prime minister, Zoran Zivkovic, is but one of 
the heads of government seeking to forge a "strategic alliance" with 
the Bush administration -- and as a teaser, he's offering to send the 
army crushed by U.S. air power to support American soldiers in Iraq. 
It's not an easy sell, despite the need for troops. Zivkovic is a 
democrat and a reformer, but by his own account his country is still 
plagued by economic dysfunction and criminal gangs, including some 
linked to extreme nationalists and criminals of the last decade's 
wars. One of the worst, Ratko Mladic, is believed by prosecutors at a 
Balkan war crimes tribunal in the Hague still to be at large in the 
country. Zivkovic's predecessor was assassinated by the gangsters, 
and it's not clear that the army has reformed very much since it 
fought the wars of the Balkans. 
Yet here was Zivkovic, meeting with Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice 
and outlining a strategy for his country that is pinned on 
integration with the central institutions of the West -- the European 
Union and NATO, the alliance whose first shooting war was waged in 
1999 to drive the Serbian army out of Kosovo. As a first step, Serbia 
is hoping for an invitation to the Partnership for Peace, NATO's 
program for friends and prospective members. "Serbia is looking for 
an ally in the United States, and in return Serbia can offer to be a 
reliable partner in the Balkans," the prime minister said at a 
meeting at The Post. To prove he means it, he told Rice that Serbia 
would contribute 1,000 troops to any U.S. mission -- including 
Afghanistan or Iraq.
It would be easy enough to dismiss the proposed partnership -- yet 
Zivkovic represents not just his historically troublesome corner of 
Europe but a much larger piece of unfinished business for the West. 
Though NATO and the EU have undertaken big expansions since the fall 
of the Berlin Wall, they have yet to cope with a dozen countries and 
some 170 million people who consider themselves European. They range 
from bits and pieces of the former Yugoslavia and the former hermit 
state Albania in the Balkans, to former Soviet possessions such as 
Armenia and Georgia in the Caucasus, to the newly independent states 
that lie between Central Europe and Russia -- from giant Ukraine and 
impoverished Moldova to Belarus, the continent's last dictatorship.
The easy part of reconstructing Europe after the Cold War was 
expanding the West to include countries such as the Czech Republic 
and Poland, which had Western traditions and a history of democracy. 
States such as Romania and Bulgaria have since been nursed toward 
free-market capitalism and democracy by the promise of membership in 
the transatlantic alliance. But what to do with Ukraine, a country 
the size of France with a population of 50 million, which teeters 
between democracy and autocracy, as well as between alignment with 
Moscow and with Washington? Or Turkey, a country that forms Europe's 
border with the Arab Middle East and belongs to NATO but not the EU? 
Or, indeed, Serbia, the most frequent starting point for European 
wars in the past 100 years?
"Where this part of Europe finds itself five years from now is where 
we will be for the next 50 years," predicts Bruce Jackson, a well-
connected former Pentagon official and advocate of NATO expansion, 
who has made it his mission to call attention to Europe's last hard 
cases. The alternatives are stark in their range -- countries such as 
Serbia and Ukraine could be coaxed into becoming democracies, U.S. 
military allies and part of a federal Europe; they could fall under 
the suzerainty of a resurgent Russian empire; they could drift along 
as unstable buffer states, home to drug and arms traffickers, 
terrorist groups and presidents-for-life. 
Jackson, who recently founded the Project on Transitional 
Democracies, has been trying to persuade policymakers in Washington 
and Brussels to aim for the first alternative, even if it means 
tutoring some unsavory characters -- or in Europe's case, subsidizing 
more poor farmers. "These are the last victims of communism, fascism 
and nationalism," Jackson says. "They imagine themselves part of 
Europe, and allies of the United States. Not all of them will 
necessarily make it -- but we will be judged by how many of them we 
can save."
His strategy meets resistance in Paris and parts of Brussels, which 
would prefer to keep Turkey out of the EU and exclude Ukraine and the 
Caucasus from the West altogether. But it seems to be gaining 
traction in the Bush administration, which is pushing hard for 
Turkey's EU membership and accepted Ukraine's offer of troops for 
Iraq despite the problematic record of President Leonid Kuchma.
Zivkovic, too, got a warm reception from Rice and Powell. As for his 
troop offer -- officials say they are thinking about it. 
                 =A9 2003 The Washington Post Company 
Dear Editor,

The Bush Administration must be absolutely desperate for troops for 
Iraq if, as Jackson Diehl notes,the US State Dept is "thinking 
about" an offer of troops from Serbia ("Europe's Last Hard Cases," op-
ed, August 4).Has the Bush Administration stooped so low, as to 
now consider this offer from a government that, according to the UN 
and otherorganizationsthat monitor Serbia,still offers safe harbor 
tothe world's two top war criminals -General Ratko Mladic and 
Radovan Karadzic, both wanted for, among other things, 
executing8,000 unarmed men and boys eight years ago at Srebrenica, 
Bosnia? 

Mr. Diehl also fails to mention that it was only last November and 
December when The Postheadlined stories that illustrated, in detail, 
how Serbian companies were actively aiding and abetting Saddam 
Hussein's regime, and how Serbian companies and indivudualspropped 
up hismilitary. Even though those ties were severed with the fall 
of Saddam, there's no evidence to suggest that 
theindividualsresponsible for propping up Saddam havebeen removed 
from power in the Serbianmilitary, secret services or society. So, 
The Bush Adminsitration isnow "thinking about"stationing Serbian 
troops in Iraq?Is it fair to ask ifGeneral Mladic, or if one of 
his close associates,willbe commanding this detachment?

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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 00:18:54 -0400
Subject: [raccoon-announce] NYTimes.com Article: Jailing Immigran

Here is an enterpreneurial Montenegrin Albanian, father of an 
American child, fleeing persecution in his home country, who managed 
to open and run a succesful restaurant in Upstate NY, before getting 
all his immigration red tape in order. He gets pulled over for 
speeding in another State, and they arrest him for violation of his 
immigrant status, and keep him in jail for NINE (9) months now. 
That's a long stretch. Particularly, because it is not exactly clear 
where did he wronged himself against the immigration laws after he 
paid the $1000 penalty to the INS. Where is the moral compass behind 
the post-9/11 legislation in the U.S.? What kind of values does such 
arrest protect?

ivo


------- Forwarded message follows -------
to:             	"RACCOON, Inc." <raccoon-announce@yahoogroups.com>
from:           	Selma Subasic <blondie_ss@yahoo.com>
date sent:      	Tue, 5 Aug 2003 07:35:42 -0700 (PDT)
subject:        	[raccoon-announce] NYTimes.com Article: Jailing Immigrants
send reply to:  	raccoon-announce@yahoogroups.com

[ Double-click this line for list subscription options ] 

> Jailing Immigrants
> 
> August 4, 2003
>  By BOB HERBERT 
 
> 
> CONGERS, N.Y. - The Al Laghetto Restaurant on Route
> 9W is a well-regarded family operation that until
recently was run by Elizabeta Markvukaj, her fiancé,
Vaso Nikpreljevic, and his brother Mario. 
> 
> Ms. Markvukaj is a friendly, formidable woman from
> Albania who carries with her the disturbing memories
of her years in a Communist internment camp. Vaso,
Mario and other members of the close-knit Nikpreljevic
clan settled in the U.S. after fleeing Montenegro in
the 1990's. 
> 
> After the violence, hatreds and atrocities they
> witnessed in their homelands, these refugees had
managed to knit together a life in quiet upstate
Rockland County that seemed very good indeed.
Elizabeta and Vaso had a baby girl 18 months ago and
were making plans for their wedding. They belonged to
a local church, paid their taxes promptly, 
contributed to charity and participated in Sept. 11 
relief efforts. 
> 
> It's hard to imagine a family that is less of a 
threat to the peace and well-being of the United
States. And yet everything the family has worked
toward is unraveling. 
> 
> On Nov. 30, 2002, Mr. Nikpreljevic was pulled over
> for speeding on the Connecticut Turnpike. A computer
> check revealed that his immigration papers were not
in order. A nightmare scenario ensued. He was
handcuffed and arrested, and has not been out of
custody since. The government has ordered him
deported. And under current law he would be
> barred from any realistic chance of returning. 
> 
> "He hasn't done anything wrong," said Ms. Markvukaj.
> Tears streamed down her face during an interview on
a
> large, covered patio behind the restaurant. She
described how she took the baby, Nina, to visit Vaso
in prison ("She recognized him!"), how business has
fallen off in the restaurant and how the family is
fighting with everything it has to block Vaso's
deportation. 
> 
> Mr. Nikpreljevic's immigration history is
> complicated. His lawyers, Theodore Cox and Joshua
Bardavid, said that back in the early-90's when he
first came to the U.S., Mr. Nikpreljevic's mother
submitted a petition on his behalf requesting
authorization to apply for a green card. That
> petition was approved. But Mr. Nikpreljevic 
submitted a request for asylum. That was denied and he
was deported. 
> 
> He returned to the U.S. illegally, through Canada.
> But, according to the lawyers, he paid a $1,000
penalty and was permitted to apply for a green card
and remain in the U.S. pending a decision on his
application. 
> 
> As he had never been in trouble, and his relatives
> and fiancée had all been able to secure citizenship
or permanent residency status, he did not anticipate a
> problem. 
> 
> But times (and the treatment of immigrants) have
> changed since Sept. 11. After his arrest in
Connecticut, Mr. Nikpreljevic was told that his
application had been "terminated." No reason was
given, his lawyers said. Mr. Nikpreljevic has been
held in a number of prisons in Connecticut and
Massachusetts since then, the latest being the Osborn
Correctional Institution in Somers, Conn.
> 
> 
> When he is being moved from one prison to another,
his family said, officials just show up in the middle
of the night and take him away - a very frightening
> procedure. Thousands of men and women, many of them
completely innocent, are ensnared in this system,
which is fundamentally uncaring and frequently cruel.
Many of the immigrants never even see an attorney. 
> 
> In Mr. Nikpreljevic's case, the lawyers have
> challenged the decision by immigration authorities
to "terminate" his application for permanent residency
status. If their effort is unsuccessful he will be
deported, and there is little doubt his family will be
devastated. 
> 
> Mr. Nikpreljevic and his relatives are exactly the
> kinds of productive individuals who help a society
to thrive. They have been a boon to their local
community and are assets to the U.S. as a whole. But
the law, especially in times of great fear, does not
always leave room for wise decisions. And where
immigrants are concerned, the system becomes more
> of a crapshoot than ever. 
> 
> So the extended family that is anchored by the Al
> Laghetto Restaurant is holding its collective
breath, hoping for a merciful ruling from the courts. 
> 
> The speeding charge, by the way, was dismissed. 
> 
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/04/opinion/04HERB.html?ex=1061026629&;
> ei=1&en=726780c273989fde

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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 12:38:40 -0400
Subject: Gotovina

Interesting developments regarding Gotovina case. Is The Hague ready 
to drop it?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030804-090706-1701r.htm

ivo

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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 12:38:44 -0400
Subject: Call Heritage!

1-800-546-2843

Call Heritage and ask them what did they do with rent controled 
tenants of the 70 year old apartment building, adjoining their 
headquarters, three blocks from Capitol Hill, that was donated to 
them by that building's owner!

In the recent solicitation letter, Edwin Feulner, Heritage president, 
brags about acquiring that property, about the ability to house there 
66 interns ("farm team") - the future conservative leaders of America 
- are they going to sleep in rooms from which low-income minority 
tenants had been evicted?

He is also bragging about the media-ready 200-seat auditorium, 
practically on the steps of the Senate, already funded for, expecting 
to double the impact of their messages. And what exactly are those 
messages?

Underlined for emphasis, there is a sentence in the letter: "Heritage 
is still tiny compared to the forces of liberalism who are out to 
defeat us." Is there any liberal foundation so close to the White 
House and commandeering such a large pool of money?

But this goes on: "This LIBERAL foundations spent over $ 7 billion 
last year alone in their CONTINUING EFFORT TO IMPOSE SOCIALISM on 
America..."  This guy got his apples and oranges completely mixed up. 
Since when would liberals want to impose socialism?

"And OF COURSE, we're up against the full force and funding of the 
federal government - your tax dollars and mine at work, against us!" 
Excuse me? Just a couple of paragraphs before Edwin wrote: "In answer 
to the Senator's question, the President suggested she 'Call 
Heritage'."

Call Heritage, and ask them why are they lying in their solicitation 
letter telling you that they're up against the full force of the 
federal government, if in the same letter they readily acknowledge 
that the president of the same government is directing people to call 
them for advice!

In search for more messages that will get higher prominence with the 
new building and the new auditorium, I, also,  browsed the Heritage 
web page. They supported U.S. military adventure in Iraq, yet they 
oppose sending American boys to Liberia. Although, they do say that 
the U.S. has a "special relationship with Liberia" and that America 
has "historical and cultural ties with much of that continent" 
[Africa].

The US literally established Liberia as a country. It is a country 
established by former African slaves from the U.S., so much for 
historical and cultural ties between the US and Africa, squeezed 
between two other failed states: former British colony, Siera Leone, 
now under control of the British (again), and former French colony, 
Cote D'Ivoire, now under control of the French (again). I guess the 
world just expects the US to do its fiduciary duty. Call Heritage and 
ask them why they think that is wrong.

ivo

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