The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2002-2003

by Project Censored

In the 1970s, the United States and the Middle East were embroiled in a tug-of-war over oil. At the time, American military presence in the Gulf was fairly insignificant and the prospect of seizing control of Arab oil fields by force was pretty unattainable. Still, the idea of this level of dominance was very attractive to a group of hard-line, pro-military Washington insiders that included both Democrats and Republicans. Eventually labeled "neoconservatives," this circle of influential strategists played important roles in the Defense Departments of Ford, Reagan and Bush Sr., at conservative think tanks throughout the '80s and '90s, and today occupies several key posts in the White House, Pentagon, and State Department. Most principal among them are:

• Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, our current Vice-President and Defense Secretary respectively, who have been closely aligned since they served with the Ford administration in the 1970s;
• Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the key architect of the post-war reconstruction of Iraq;
• Richard Perle, past-chairman and still-member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board that has great influence over foreign military policies;
• William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and founder of the powerful, neo-conservative think-tank, Project for a New American Century.

Under President Reagan, the Rapid Deployment Force was transformed into the U.S. Central Command that oversaw the area from eastern Africa to Afghanistan. Bases and support facilities were established throughout the Gulf region, and alliances were expanded with countries such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

Since the first Gulf War, the U.S. has built a network of military bases that now almost completely encircle the oil fields of the Persian Gulf.

In 1989, following the end of the Cold War and just prior to the Gulf War, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz produced the 'Defense Planning Guidance' report advocating U.S. military dominance around the globe. The Plan called for the United States to maintain and grow in military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge us on the world stage. Using words like 'preemptive' and military 'forward presence,' the plan called for the U.S. to be dominant over friends and foes alike. It concluded with the assertion that the U.S. can best attain this position by making itself 'absolutely powerful.'

The 1989 plan was spawned after the fall of the Soviet Union. Without the traditional threat to national security, Cheney, Powell and Wolfowitz knew that the military budget would dwindle without new enemies and threats. In an attempt to salvage defense funding, Cheney and company constructed a plan to fill the 'threat blank.' On August 2, 1990 President Bush called a press conference. He explained that the threat of global war had significantly receded, but in its wake a new danger arose. This unforeseen threat to national security could come from any angle and from any power.

Iraq, by a remarkable coincidence, invaded Northern Kuwait later the same day.

Cheney et al. were out of political power for the eight years of Clinton's presidency. During this time the neo-conservatives founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The most influential product of the PNAC was a report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defense," (www.newamericancentury.org) which called for U.S. military dominance and control of global economic markets.

With the election of George W. Bush, the authors of the plan were returned to power: Cheney as vice president, Powell as Secretary of State, and Wolfowitz in the number two spot at the Pentagon. With the old Defense Planning Guidance as the skeleton, the three went back to the drawing board. When their new plan was complete, it included contributions from Wolfowitz's boss Donald Rumsfeld. The old 'preemptive' attacks have now become 'unwarned attacks.' The Powell-Cheney doctrine of military 'forward presence' has been replaced by 'forward deterrence.' The U.S. stands ready to invade any country deemed a possible threat to our economic interests.

The concept of Homeland Security was thrown around the Pentagon long before the events of 9/11. Originally titled "Homeland Defense," it was placed within the Pentagon's "Operations Other Than War (OOTW)" command, under the stand-alone civil disturbance plan called the "Garden Plot." Over the years, homeland defense has been extended by a host of Presidential Decision Directives and Executive Orders. Now, following the events of 9/11, the initial concept has ballooned into a vast, powerful, and far-reaching department.

One DHS mandate largely ignored by the press requires the FBI, CIA, state, and local governments to share intelligence reports with the department upon command, without explanation. Civil rights activists claim that this endangers the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans by blurring the lines between foreign and domestic spying (as occurred during the CointelPro plan of the '60s and '70s). According to the ACLU, the Department of Homeland Security will be "100% secret and 0% accountable." Meanwhile, the gathering, retention, and use of information collected is a central focus of the Bush administration's new agenda. Officially established to track down terrorists, information can be collected on any dissenter, American citizen or not, violent or not. The classification of recent peace marches and protests as "terrorist events" within DOD and FEMA documents is one example of the dangerous potential of these mandates.

As part of Homeland Security, the PATRIOT Act of 2001 allows the government increased and unprecedented access to the lives of American citizens and represents an unrestrained imposition on our civil liberties. Wiretaps, previously confined to one phone, can now follow a person from place to place at the behest of government agents and people can now be detained on the vague suspicion that they might be a terrorist -- or assisting one. Detainees can also be denied the right to legal representation (or the right of private counsel when they are allowed to meet with their attorneys).

William Safire, a writer for the New York Times, defined the first Patriot Act as a Presidential effort to seize dictatorial control. No member of Congress was given sufficient time to study the first Patriot Act that was passed by the house on October 27, 2001. In some cases, while driving the Act through Congress, Vice-President Cheney would not allow the legislation to be read; publicly threatening members of Congress that they would be blamed for the next terrorist attack if they did not vote for the Patriot Act.

The "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003" (AKA Patriot Act II) poses even greater hazards to civil liberties. The draft proposal of Patriot Act II was leaked from Ashcroft's staff in February of 2003 and is stamped 'Confidential -- Not for Distribution.' Patriot Act II was widely editorialized against in the U.S. media but full disclosure on the contents, implications and motivations were under developed. In particular, there are three glaring areas that warranted greater coverage by the American media:

The second Patriot Act proposes to place the entire Federal government and many areas of state government under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Justice department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command.

Under section 501, a U.S. citizen engaging in lawful activity can be picked off the streets or from home and taken to a secret military tribunal with no access to or notification of a lawyer, the press, or family. This would be considered "justified" if the agent 'inferred from conduct' suspicious intention. One proposed option is that any violation of Federal or State law could designate a U.S. citizen as an 'enemy combatant' and allow him or her to be stripped of citizenship.

Section 102 states that any information gathering can be considered as the pursuit of covert intelligence for a foreign power -- even legal intelligence gathering by a U.S. reporter. This provision could make newsgathering illegal, and therefore an act of terrorism.

In addition, the Bush administration is calling for a repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, a law passed after the Civil War to prohibit the deployment of federal military forces onto American streets to control civil action -- otherwise known as Martial Law.

One fear among civil rights activists is that, now that the details of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act/Patriotic Act II have been revealed, the proposals contained therein will be taken apart, renamed, and incorporated into other, broader pieces of legislation within the Department of Homeland Security.

This came as no surprise to Europeans however, as Iraq had made extra copies of the complete weapons declaration report and unofficially distributed them to journalists throughout Europe. The Berlin newspaper Die Tageszetung broke the story on December 19, 2002 in an article by Andreas Zumach.

At the same time, according to the investigation by Michael Niman, the Iraq government sent out official copies of the report on November 3, 2002. One, classified as "secret," was sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency, another copy went to the UN Security Council. The U.S. convinced Colombia, chair of the Security Council and current target of U.S. military occupation and financial aid, to look the other way while the report was removed, edited, and returned. Other members of the Security Council such as Britain, France, China and Russia, were implicated in the missing pages as well (China and Russia were still arming Iraq) and had little desire to expose the United States' transgression. So all members accepted the new, abbreviated version.

But what was in the missing pages that the Bush administration felt was so threatening that they had to be removed? What information were Europeans privy to that Americans were not?

According to Niman, "The missing pages implicated twenty-four U.S.-based corporations and the successive Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. administration in connection with the illegal supplying of Saddam Hussein government with myriad weapons of mass destruction and the training to use them." Groups documented in the original report that were supporting Iraq's weapons programs prior to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait included:

• Eastman Kodak, Dupont, Honeywell, Rockwell, Sperry, Hewlett-Packard, and Bechtel,

• U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture and Department of Defense,

• Nuclear weapons labs such as Lawrence-Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia.

But perhaps most importantly, the missing pages contain information that could potentially make a case for war crimes against officials within the Reagan and the Bush Sr. administrations. This includes the current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- for his collaboration with Saddam Hussein leading up to the massacres of Iraqi Kurds and acting as liaison for U.S. military aid during the war between Iraq and Iran.

This means that the United States government is planning to use secret military operations in order to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people. In a strange twist of logic, it seems the plan is to somehow combat terrorism by causing it. According to the report, other strategies include stealing money from terrorist cells or tricking them with fake communications. The Defense Department already maintains a secretive counter-terror operations group known as Delta Force that is called in when a crisis happens.

Exactly what type of actions would be required to "stimulate reactions" by terrorist groups has yet to be revealed. When asked questions regarding what measures would be taken, Pentagon sources responded with, "Their sovereignty will be at risk."

The current P2OG program is not entirely new to the United States. One similar program was Operation Northwoods. In 1963, America's top military brass presented a plan to President John Kennedy that called for a fake terrorist campaign -- complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans -- to provide "justification" for an invasion of Cuba, a Mafia/corporate fiefdom which had recently been lost to Castro. Kennedy rejected the plan, and was killed a few months later. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but on a far grander scale, with resources at his disposal undreamed of by his predecessors, and no counterbalancing global rival to restrain him.

Former president Nixon wanted such a group, but congress denied it; President Reagan tried to use the National Security Council instead, but ran into trouble with the Iran-Contra affair. Now, President Bush may finally realize the dream.

In March 2001, Bush told 10,000 workers of Northwest Airlines that they could not strike for 80 days. The President also told United Airlines strikers that unless they agreed to further concessions the administration would refuse the $1.8 billion that the airline needed to avoid bankruptcy. After 9-11, Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act forcing workers of the Pacific Maritime Association to return to work.

Immigrant workers have suffered the most from the "war on unions." Prior to 9-11, immigrant workers began receiving better wages and working conditions. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) negotiated a new contract for baggage screeners raising their pay from minimum wage to $10 an hour. Also, the AFL-CIO called for the repeal of the law that makes it illegal for undocumented workers to work in the U.S. The Immigration and Naturalization Service was also beginning to reduce the number of raids it carried out to find undocumented workers.

In the wake of 9-11, the Bush administration used the specter of national security to justify its attack on public-sector unions, and to stall passage of the homeland security bill until receiving the right to exempt the 180,000 employees of the new department of most civil-service protections. Congress passed legislation that created the Transportation Security Authority (TSA), which oversees baggage screeners at airports and requires all baggage screeners to be federal government employees. But since the TSA is part of the Homeland Security Department, employees may not form or join a union. Congressional legislation also allows Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to suspend civil service regulations, allow discrimination, abolish whistleblower protections, and exempt the department from Freedom of Information Act regulations. The House has passed legislation that also exempts the Homeland Security Department from Title 5 of the Civil Service Act, which protects the collective bargaining rights of federal employees.

After 9-11, to ensure that screeners were American citizens, the INS launched Operation Tarmac. Operation Tarmac began by picking up immigrant workers who had access to airplanes. But as time moved on, the Operation began cracking down on immigrant workers in all sections of airports, even foodservice. In one instance, the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union claims that immigrant workers were called to an employee meeting where they were arrested by INS agents.

In December of 2002, the Labor Department issued new reporting and itemization regulations for unions -- an administrative nightmare that will cost unions millions of dollars. Having asked the new Congress to pass strict penalties for unions that fail to meet reporting deadlines, the Bush budget increased spending for auditing, investigating and punishing union violations. At the same time, the budget cut money for enforcing workplace health and safety laws, and for investigating corporate violations of worker protections. In his first two years in office, Bush has already blocked more strikes than any president in history.

As was reported in the mainstream press, the Bush administration has announced plans to accelerate the process of contracting out federal work to private companies, putting the jobs of nearly 850,000 federal employees at risk. This invites anti-union, low-wage contractors to compete for what are now, in most cases, decent-paying, union jobs with good benefits. But what went unreported is that this is proving to embolden conservative governors who are seeking wholesale privatization and de-unionization of state and local workforces as well.

The 7,000 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) still available today are quickly dwindling to just two or three for any one locale. They are being bought out by large monopolies that also control your local phone, cable, and possibly, satellite internet.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Congress are currently overturning the public-interest rules that have encouraged the expansion of the Internet up until now. Much of this is due to the lobbying tactics that cable and phone industries use to mute the competition, take advantage of technological changes and push for deregulation to consolidate market control.

A policy of open access currently makes it possible for people to choose between long-distance phone providers. This open access policy has also allowed one to choose between AOL, MSN, Jimmy's Internet Shack, and thousands of other ISPs for dial-up Internet access. Phone companies would like to use their monopoly ownership of the phone wires to have total control over phone-based Internet services as well, but telecom regulations are in place that prevent them from blocking out other companies.

Unfortunately, as the general shift from dial-up to broadband Internet access gets underway, the FCC is moving in with a series of actions that threaten to shut down open access. In 2002 the FCC decided to characterize high-speed cable Internet connection -- largely controlled by AOL-Time Warner, AT&T Broadband, and other large corporate players -- as an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service." This designation frees cable broadband from telecom rules, giving the cable companies that own broadband lines the ability to deny smaller ISP companies access over their cable lines. Cable itself is a monopoly in most towns; so anyone who signs up for cable internet will typically have no choice other than to use the cable company's own ISP.

The ABM Treaty alone is a crucial factor in national security; letting Bush get away with facilitating its demise will destroy the balance of powers carefully crafted in our Constitution. The Bush Administration has no legitimate excuse for nullifying the ABM Treaty since the events that have threatened the security of the United States have not involved ballistic missiles, and none of them are in any way related to the subject matter of the ABM Treaty. Bush's withdrawal violates the U.S. Constitution, international law, and Article XV of the ABM Treaty itself. The Bush Administration says it needs to get rid of the ABM Treaty so it can test the SPY radar on the Aegis cruisers against Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) and so that it can build a new test facility at Fort Greely, Alaska. In addition, some conservatives have willingly dismissed the ABM Treaty because it stands as the major obstacle towards development of a "Star Wars" missile defense system. Discarding treaty constraints and putting weapons in space is nothing short of pursuing absolute military superiority.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is crucial to global security because it bars the spread of nuclear weapons. The U.S. is currently in noncompliance with the NPT requirements, as demonstrated in the January 2002 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review. Moreover, critics charge that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) under construction at Livermore lab violates the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which the U.S. signed in 1996 but has not ratified. The CTBT bans nuclear explosions, and its language does not contain any "exceptions allowing laboratory thermonuclear explosions."

The twentieth century was the bloodiest in human history, with a total of 174 million people killed in genocide and war. The world increasingly needs an international legal framework from which the people of the world can be protected from heinous criminal acts, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This reasoning explains the votes of the 139 countries that signed the Rome Treaty, and the 67 ratifications that have resulted in the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Former U.S. president, Bill Clinton, signed the Rome Treaty supporting the ICC when he held office. However, in an unprecedented action, George W. Bush actually erased Clinton's signature (a United States president has never before 'unsigned' a treaty). Moreover, his Administration has declared it has no intention whatsoever of cooperating with the ICC.

Furthermore, in what is being called The Hague Invasion Act, or the Services Members' Protection Act, the GOP-controlled House Appropriations Committee voted to authorize the use of military force to "rescue" any American brought before the ICC. Erica Terpstra, a parliamentary representative in the Netherlands where The Hague and ICC is located, states that this "is not only a gesture against the NetherlandsÉbut against the entire international community."

While proponents of ICC consider it the most important development in international law since the Nazi war crimes Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II, the Bush Administration insists it would limit U.S. sovereignty and interfere with actions of the U.S. military.

This unprecedented rejection of and rapid retreat from global treaties that have in effect kept the peace through the decades will not only continue to isolate U.S. policy, but will also render these treaties and conventions invalid without the support and participation of the world's foremost superpower.

Nobel Peace Prize candidate, Helen Caldicott, states that the tiny radioactive particles created when a DU weapon hits a target are easily inhaled through gas masks. The particles, which lodge in the lung, can be transferred to the kidney and other vital organs. Gulf War veterans are excreting uranium in their urine and semen, leading to chromosomal damage. DU has a half-life of 4.1 billion years. The negative effects found in one generation of US veterans could be the fate of all future generations of Iraqi people.

An August 2002 UN report states that the use of the DU weapons is in violation of numerous laws and UN conventions. Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagons DU project says "We must do what is right for the citizens of the world- ban DU." Reportedly, more than 9600 Gulf War veterans have died since serving in Iraq during the first gulf war, a statistical anomaly. The Pentagon has blamed the extraordinary number of illnesses and deaths on a variety of factors, including stress, pesticides, vaccines and oil-well fire smoke. However, according to top-level U.S. Army reports and military contractors, "short-term effects of high doses (of DU) can result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer." Our own soldiers in the first Gulf War were often required to enter radioactive battlefields unprotected and were never warned of the dangers of DU. In effect, George Bush Sr. used weapons of mass destruction on his own soldiers. The internal cover-up of the dangers of DU has been intentional and widespread.

In addition to Doug Rocke, the Pentagon's original expert on DU, ex-army nurse Carol Picou has been outspoken about the negative effects of DU on herself and other veterans. She has compiled extensive documentation on the birth defects found among the Iraqi people and the children of our own Gulf War veterans. She was threatened in anonymous phone calls on the eve of her testimony to congress. Subsequently, her car, which contained sensitive information on DU, was mysteriously destroyed.

The Nation covered the failure of women's rights to materialize after the U.S. invasion. Despite the fanfare (stripping the Burqa, the signing of the "Declaration of Essential Rights of Afghan Women"), little has changed for the average Afghani woman. Many women have yet to stop wearing the burqa due to fear of persecution and the new Interior Ministry still requires women to receive permission from their male relatives before they travel. According to former Women's Affairs Minister Dr. Sima Samar, the ministry is severely under-funded. As of April 2002 Dr. Samar had no access to the Internet and was unable to afford to operate her satellite phone. She was also receiving many death threats. Dr. Samar resigned later that year and is currently working as a human rights commissioner. Hafiza Rasouli, a UNICEF project officer, stated, "We felt safer under the Taliban." As for the future loya jirga, or grand council, that will help determine governmental policies, only 160 seats out of 1,450 have been guaranteed to women.

As of July 2002 the life expectancy for the people of Afghanistan is forty-six years. The average yearly income per capita is $280. As for the children, 90 percent are not in school. After 23 years of war, the adult male population has been decimated, many children have taken the place of their fathers and mothers as the breadwinners in their families. Some scavenge for scrap metal, wood, or bricks, while others hammer sheet metal, fill potholes, or build coffins. They are lucky to earn five cents an hour. More than one out of every four children in Afghanistan will die before their fifth birthday. The growth of more than half these children is moderately or severely stunted from malnutrition. A UNICEF study has found that the majority of children are highly traumatized and expect to die before reaching adulthood. Beyond this, the region is just overcoming a three-year drought, which killed half the crops and 80 percent of livestock in some areas.

In January 2002, the Tokyo conference pledged $4.5 billion for reconstruction, of which donor nations promised $1.8 billion this year. Nearly one year later, barely 30 percent of what was promised had been delivered. The U.S. government's own contribution has been half that of the European Union. The $300 million granted in 2002 was quickly spent. The U.S. government has been hesitant to put funding into the ISFA or reconstruction-oriented groups and has been more focused on building an Afghan national army. However, the simultaneous funding of local warlords, now being referred to as "regional leaders" is undermining this work.

In June of 2002, leaders from the eight most powerful countries in the world (the G8) met to form a New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) as an "anti-poverty" campaign. One glaring omission, however, is the consultation and representation of the African nations. Not one of the eight leaders was from Africa. The danger of the NEPAD proposal is that it fails to protect Africa from exploitation of its resources. NEPAD is akin to Plan Columbia in its attempt to employ Western development techniques to provide economic opportunities for international investment. Welcomed by the G8 nations, this development plan reads like a mad dash to grab up as much of Africa's remaining resources as possible.

According to Robert Murphy of the US State Department's Office of African Analysis, Africa is important to "the diversification of our sources of imported oil" away from the Middle East. The U.S. currently gets 15 percent of its total oil imports from the African continent. By 2015, that figure will be 25 percent. Rather than a plan to reduce African poverty, NEPAD is a mechanism for ensuring that U.S. and other Western investments are protected.

All over Africa activists, trade unionists, and women's organizations are mobilizing against NEPAD. It is clear to them that the "solutions" put forward by NEPAD are in direct contradiction to that which is really needed to deal with the problems faced by Africa today. The objective of NEPAD will be to provide "increased aid to developing countries that embrace the required development model." The harrowing effects of IMF and World Bank debt on the African continent will neither be addressed nor revoked by the new program. Under NEPAD, Africa's natural riches will continue to be bought and sold by the autonomous Western powers-that-be under the namesake of "development" and with the feigned support of the African people.

Meanwhile, the food shortage in Africa is now widespread. Dr. Tewolde Behran Gebre Egziabher, General Manager of the Environmental Protection Authority in Ethiopia, explains that drought is not the cause of famine in Africa. Storage and transport are the two big problems. The year before last in Ethiopia, when there was a surplus of food, farmers could not sell their produce (locally or on the foreign market) and thus did not get the capital they needed for future crops. One hundred kilos of maize would sell for as little as $4 and Saudi Arabia wanted to buy this cheap maize. However, by the time the maize got to the port its price would have tripled because transport costs are so high. It was marginally cheaper for Saudi Arabia to instead buy maize that came all the way from the U.S. The U.S. is underselling starving nations and the food shortages are actually exasperated by this practice.

Loans provided by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and G8 have traditionally included strategies known as Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) which came in to effect in Africa in 1980. SAPs require that governments reduce public spending (especially on health, education and food/storage) in order to pay Western Banks. They must also increase exports of raw materials to the West, encourage foreign investment and privatize state enterprises. Instead of reducing the debt, since 1980 SAPs have increased African debt by 500 percent, creating a domino effect of disasters (prolonged famine, conflict, abject poverty, environmental exploitation) linked to an estimated 21 million deaths and, in the process, transferring hundreds of billion dollars to the West.

Doran's documentary follows the finding of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), that concluded that there was evidence of the disposal of human remains at two mass gravesites near Mazar-i-Sharif. In the documentary, two witnesses claim that they were forced to drive into the desert with hundreds of Taliban prisoners who were held in sealed cargo containers. The witnesses alleged that the orders came from a local U.S. commander. Prisoners, who had not yet suffocated to death inside the vans, were shot by Northern Alliance gunmen, while 30 to 40 U.S. soldiers stood watching.

Irfan Azgar Ali, a survivor of the trip, informed the London Guardian newspaper, "They crammed us into sealed shipping containers. We had no water for 20 hours. We banged on the side of the container. There was no air and it was very hot. There were 300 of us in my container. By the time we arrived in Sheberghan, only 10 of us were alive." One Afghani truck driver, forced to drive the containers, says the prisoners began to beg for air. "Northern Alliance commanders told us to stop the trucks and we came down," he said. "After that, they shot into the containers to make air holes. Blood came pouring out. They were screaming inside." Another driver in the convoy estimated that an average of 150 to 160 people died in each container. When the containers were unlocked at Sheberghan, the bodies of the dead tumbled out. Another witness states they observed a U.S. soldier break an Afghani prisoner's neck and pour acid on others.

In addition to bodies of Taliban prisoners, the filmmakers allege that thousands of Afghanis, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Chechens, and Tajiks may also be buried there.

Afghani warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the man whose forces allegedly carried out the killings, admits there were only 200 such deaths and that the prisoners died before the transfer.

One Northern Alliance soldier who spoke to Doran claims that U.S. troops masterminded a cover-up. The soldier informed Doran, "The Americans told the Sheberghan people to get rid of them [the bodies] before satellite pictures could be taken." One witness told the London Guardian that an U.S. Special Forces vehicle was parked at the scene as bulldozers buried the dead. Doran's footage showed areas of compacted red sand, apparently caked with blood, as well as "clothing, bits of skull, matted hair, jaws, femurs, and ribs jutting out of the sand, despite a sloppy attempt to remove evidence after the fact" (Melbourne Sunday Herald Sun, 2/9/03). Additionally, bullet casings littered the site, offering a grim testimony that some Taliban prisoners, who were still alive, were executed before being dumped in the desert. United Nations (UN) and human rights officials have found the grave, but have not estimated the number of bodies it contains.

Says Doran, "I took the footage to the European Parliament because É I have a great fear that the graves may be tampered with. I had to take it to the highest level in Europe." According to the Glasgow Herald (December 19, 2002), Doran stated "They're hiding behind a wall of secrecy, hoping this story will go away, but it won't." Doran also feared for the safety of the witnesses, two of whom have subsequently been murdered. Doran's key researcher, Najibullah Quarishi, was almost beaten to death in an unsuccessful attempt to gain a copy of incriminating footage.

The screening of the film at the European Parliament prompted calls for an international commission to investigate the charges. Andrew McEntree, former chairman of Amnesty International, said that "very credible evidence" in the documentary needed to be investigated. McEntree said that he believed that war crimes had been committed not only under international law, but also under U.S. law.

A Pentagon spokesman denied the allegations, "U.S. Central Command looked into it...when allegations first surfaced that there were graves discovered in the area of Sheberghan prison. They looked into it and did not substantiate any knowledge, presence, or participation of U.S. service members." A U.S. Embassy spokesperson in Berlin also rejected the allegations made in the documentary saying, "The claims are completely false that American soldiers were involved in the torture, execution, and disappearance of Taliban prisoners. In no way did U.S. troops participate or witness any human rights violations." But in a statement to United Press International wire service (August 29, 2002), Doran said, "It is beyond doubt that a number of American soldiers were at Sheberghan Prison. Either they walked around blindfolded with earmuffs for eight days or they saw what was going on."

Since his 1998 election, President Hugo Chavez has increasingly socialized the Venezuelan government. One of his most controversial moves was to nationalize Venezuela's oil company PDVSA. Venezuela is the fourth largest oil-producing nation, and the third largest oil provider to the U.S. As the leader of OPEC, Chavez has encouraged lowering oil production to raise prices. He also changed a 60 year-old agreement with oil companies that raised royalties for Venezuela.

Chavez has irritated the U.S. in many ways. He changed the Venezuelan Constitution in 1999, granting more land rights to the poor, who make up over half of the 24 million people in Venezuela. Chavez refused to allow U.S. planes to fly over Venezuela during their military activities in Colombia. President Chavez was also the first head of state to visit Saddam Hussein in Iraq since the embargoes in 1990.

Because of the close relationship that many of Venezuela's wealthy have with the United States, the coup took place with little opposition from Venezuela's long-established business and political community. The Bush administration was quick to endorse the change in government, which put Pedro Carmona, a wealthy businessman and former business associate of George Bush Sr., into office. Carmona's first move as president was to "dissolve the Constitution, national legislature, Supreme Court, attorney general's office, and comptroller's office."

In the United States, corporate press covered the coup from a sympathetic anti- Chavez perspective. The April 11th killing of 17 anti-Chavez protesters by snipers was pointed to as justification for Chavez's removal. Yet the two following days, which resulted in the killing of as many as 40 pro-Chavez protesters, the deaths were hardly mentioned.

Television stations in Venezuela refused to cover the anti-coup protests, choosing instead to run their regular program schedule. Five out of the six major networks are owned by a single owner, who supported U.S. involvement in Venezuela. CIA Special Operations psychological warfare (PSYOPs) produced television announcements, purportedly by Venezuelan political and business leaders, saying Chavez 'provoked' the crisis by ordering his supporters to fire on peaceful protestors in Caracas."

Despite the distorted media coverage in Venezuela, a huge anti-coup civil protest involving hundreds of thousands of people began. Several branches of the Venezuelan military join the anti-coup forces. The streets of Caracas were flooded with protestors and soldiers vehemently chanting anti-Carmona slogans. Within two days Carmona stepped down and Chavez returned to power.

It was back in 1886 that a Supreme Court decision (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company) ostensibly led to corporate personhood and free speech rights, thereby guaranteeing protections under the 1st and 14th amendments. However, according to Thom Hartmann, the relatively mundane court case never actually granted these personhood rights to corporations. In fact, Chief Justice Morrison Waite wrote, "We avoided meeting the Constitutional question in the decision." Yet, when writing up the case summary -- that has no legal status -- the Court reporter, a former railroad president named J.C. Bancroft Davis, declared: "The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a state to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." But the Court had made no such legal determination. It was the clerk's opinion and misrepresentation of the case in the headnote upon which current claims of corporate personhood and free speech entitlements now rests.

In 1978, however, the Supreme Court further entrenched the idea of corporate personhood by deciding that corporations were entitled to the free speech right to give money to political causes Ð linking free speech with financial clout. Interestingly, in a dissent to the decision, Chief Justice William Rehnquist pointed out the flawed 1886 precedent and criticized its interpretation over the years saying, "This Court decided at an early date, with neither argument nor discussion, that a business corporation is a Ôperson' entitled to the protection of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

But more recently, in December 2002, Porter Township, Pennsylvania unanimously passed an ordinance denying corporate claims to personhood. The Township is the first and only local government in the United States to deny these civil and constitutional rights to corporations. Porter Township and neighboring Rush Township have laws that govern the local dumping of Pittsburgh-generated sludge by charging the dumping companies a "tipping fee." In 2000, Synagro Corporation, one of the largest dumping companies in the nation, sued Rush Township, claiming that as a corporate citizen, the Township violated Synagro's 14th amendment rights. In response, Porter Township, passed its precedent-setting ordinance claiming that the dumping company, or any corporation within its jurisdiction, may not wield personhood and free speech privileges.

A more high-profile challenge to corporate personhood involves a lawsuit against Nike and its claims on third-world labor practices. In 1998, Nike CEO Phil Knight wrote a New York Times op-ed piece responding to criticisms of Nike's Asian labor practices. As was widely reported in the mainstream press in mid-April of this year, San Francisco consumer advocate Marc Kasky filed a lawsuit against Nike believing the company misled the public about its labor practices. Nike, however, claims that the First Amendment protects Nike's statements, making it irrelevant whether the statements are true or false.

In May 2002, the California Supreme Court ruled against Nike saying its statements were commercial speech, and can therefore be regulated by the Federal Trade Commission. This ruling, writes Justice Joyce L. Kennard, "means only that when a business enterprise, to promote and defend its sales and profits, makes factual representations about its own product or its own operations, it must speak truthfully."

On April 26, 2003, the Ottawa Citizen provided some pro-Nike coverage of the current case against Nike saying, "The case began some years ago when anti-globalizers accused Nike of exploiting workers at its factories abroad. The Nike-bashing was unrelenting, and the company fought back." Hartmann's article also notes The New York Times' editorial support for Nike saying, "In a real democracy, even the people you disagree with get to have their say." That's true says Hartmann, but Nike is not a person -- it's a corporation.

By the release of Censored 2004, the Nike case will probably be a settled issue. It is likely that Porter Township's ordinance will be challenged in higher courts in the near future. However, Hartmann's research and writings show that the legality on which corporate claims to personhood and free speech rights rests is dubious.

According to the 2002 World Refugee Survey, there are as many as 40 million displaced people throughout the world. 15 million are seeking asylum in other countries. In addition, there at least 22 million "internally displaced" within their country of origin, who are not protected by international law and are therefore at even greater risk of oppression and abuse.

The terrorist attacks of September 11 and the subsequent war on terrorism launched by the United States and its allies have had a spillover effect on the lives of refugees worldwide.

Failed states, where warlords, gangsters and terrorists can operate with impunity, are producing hopeless and desperate people, who are often a dangerous breeding ground for political and religious fanaticism. Often, the international response to terrorist acts is to blame the refugees, even when they themselves are the victims.

The international community is unwilling to devote necessary resources to help resolve those conflicts, or at least to fully address the social and humanitarian issues.

Living in the margins of unwilling host communities, long-term refugees are victims not only of the war and persecution that forced them from their homes, but of the neglect that denies them hope of political settlements that would resolve the underlying causes of their affliction. Herded into huge refugee camps, where the prospect of emigration is slim, they can be deported at any time.

Corporate profiteers from developed countries are finding ways of benefiting from this global misfortune. Wackenhut, one of the largest operators of for-profit prisons is now setting up, with local subsidies, for-profit internment camps that charge penniless exiles a daily fee and then deport them when they are unable to pay.

The cycle of political upheaval, economic flight and expatriation that leads to international terrorism is unlikely to resolve itself if the people of the rich nations in the world continue the neglect the world's homeless.

The world's largest polluter, the U.S. military, generates 750,000 tons of toxic waste material annually, more than the five largest chemical companies in the U.S. combined. This pollution occurs globally as the U.S. maintains bases in dozens countries. In the U.S. there are 27,000 toxic hot spots on 8,500 military properties inside Washington's Fairchild Air Force Base is the number one producer of hazardous waste, generating over 13 million pounds of waste in 1997. Not only is the military emitting toxic material directly into the air and water, it's poisoning the land of nearby communities resulting in increased rates of cancer, kidney disease, increasing birth defects, low birth weight, and miscarriage.

The military currently manages 25 million acres of land providing habitat for some 300 threatened or endangered species. Groups such as Defenders of Wildlife have sued the military for damage done to endangered animal populations by bomb tests. The testing of Low-Frequency Sonar technology is accused of having played a role in the stranding death of whales around the world.

Rather than working to remedy these problems, the pentagon claims that the burden of regulations is undercutting troop readiness. The Pentagon already operates military bases in and outside of the U.S. as "federal reservations" which fall outside of normal regulation. Yet the DoD is seeking further exemptions in congress from the Migratory Bird Treaties Act, the Wildlife Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

The Pentagon now employs 10,000 people with an annual budget of $2 billion to deal with the legalities that arise from the Military's toxic droppings. New Justice Department policies frustrate attempts by the public to obtain knowledge. In one case the U.S. Navy demanded $1500 for the release of documents related to compliance with environmental laws at the Trident nuclear submarine base in the Puget Sound. Other requests are simply not processed and attempts at legal countermeasures are thwarted. The Pentagon has also won reductions in military whistleblower protection laws. These measures disregard the Freedom of Information Act and obstruct the notion of a Democratic State.