sara rose writes

The War in Iraq and Science in the USA: One Archeologist's Perspective



I remember writing last quarter for an assignment in my Human Ecology class that the war in Iraq would not only have horrible humanitarian consequences, but that it would also be devastating for the archaeological heritage of the region known as the “birthplace of civilization”. I remember thinking how it hardly seemed surprising that this destruction would come from a country which has done little to protect its own heritage over the years since the “Indians” became “civilized” to the point of near extinction. It is no wonder that this country (USA) has some of the most lax heritage preservation laws of any country in the world – to claim the sophistication and complexity of the people who lived here before US brings us face to face with a sordid, brutal past most European United Statesers would rather forget (1). Examples of the destruction of Native American sites can be seen in my southeastern Ohio town where hundreds, if not thousands, of human burial mounds were bulldozed by land-owners to create land more amenable to building houses or setting up a double-wide. The United States has no laws protecting cultural heritage sites on private property, no matter how important they are. If federal money is used for construction, i.e. roads, pipelines, then and only then is it required by law to do an archaeological survey of land to be disturbed. It was only in 1991 that the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed by the federal government. After more than 100 years of archaeological investigation (and pillage), this law set up rules and guidelines for how Native American cultural remains, including bodies, were dealt with by archaeologists.

Donald Nicholson-Smith writes "[The following is a translation of an article by Hervé Kempf that appeared in Le Monde for 25 November 2002 following a number of inaccurate reports on former enragé and situationist René Riesel's sentencing, his refusal to request a presidential pardon and his earlier break with José Bové and the Farmers' Confederation. The article gives a brief history of the affair and outlines Riesel's current positions.--Reuben Keehan]

WHY SHOULD SOLDIERS BOVÉ AND RIESEL BE RESCUED?

The resignation that has greeted the Court of Appeals' confirmation of the sentencing of José Bové and René Riesel to fourteen months in prison testifies to a singular amnesia on the part of French society and its political representation. For, in an astonishing paradox, France is prepared to lock up agitators for actions in Nérac and Montpellier that it has since itself acknowledged to be well founded. In order to understand this, we have to look at the recent past.

hydrarchist writes:

"Fencing Off Ideas: Enclosure and the
Disappearance of the Public Domain"

James Boyle

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from off the goose.

The law demands that we atone

When we take things we do not own

But leaves the lords and ladies fine

Who take things that are yours and mine.

The poor and wretched don't escape

If they conspire the law to break;

This must be so but they endure

Those who conspire to make the law.

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

And geese will still a common lack

Till they go and steal it back.

Louis Lingg writes "cryptome.org has posted several items regarding American scientist Steven J. Hatfill, considered a suspect in the anthrax mailings in the U.S. last fall.

At http://cryptome.org/hatfill-spd.htm is an article from the Independent Newspapers in South Africa identifying Hatfill as a sympathiser of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, a neo-nazi outfit.

'STEVEN JAY HATFILL: Questionable (Quite Possibly Unsavory) Past – Ideal Fall-Guy for the Anthrax Incidents' by Stephen P. Dresch provides biographical and historical detail on Hatfill.

At http://cryptome.org/is-z-hatfill.htm cryptome has reposted an 'American Prospect' profile of Hatfill and a shorter piece from the NY Times on the FBI's disinterested and lethargic investigation of the anthrax mailings.

Finally, 'The Disaster Train' is the transcript of a talk Hatfill gave at the Terrorism Studies Program at George Washington University in 1998 addressing coordinated response and mass evacuation in the event of a bio-terror attack."