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SA NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2003
Democracy and/or truthPauline Mitchell, Secretary CICD (Vict.)* Delivered at the Unitarian Church, East Melbourne on the 14th of September 2003. Today it has become clear that you cannot have both! Once the world was ruled by kings and emperors who had absolute power, imposing taxes and flinging people into waging wars that extended the rulers' realm and wealth, but did nothing for their subjects. Today we have 'democracy' where we elect those who govern us, but in reality little has changed, it just involves more people and has spread wider. The system is still the same - the enhancement of capital; whether big business, taxes or wars, the extension of property and riches still reigns supreme. So while the people might elect the government, the owners of capital and property rule that government and use the media to form a majority public opinion to support their views. At the beginning of this year the world witnessed an unprecedented upsurge of public opinion against the United States intention to invade Iraq. People saw no threat coming from Iraq, so millions of people throughout the world and in every country of the world, demonstrated publicly to show their opposition to such a move. This outpouring of feeling disturbed some governments; it was not the sort of 'democracy' that the Bush administration and his cohorts had in mind. They began to work on themes such as Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and convincing people of Saddam Hussein's desire to use them against any country, especially the United States. The British Prime Minister Tony Blair produced dossiers telling of Hussein's intentions, but these dossiers were ridiculed and shown to be lies. The United States Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to convince the United Nations Security Council and the people of the world, but failed miserably. And all the time, the voices of opposition grew louder and the US realised that if they tried to get a vote in the Security Council to invade, they would lose the vote. So the United States decided to take unilateral action with its 'coalition of the willing'. When the coalition of the willing invaded and the troops were in Iraq, people were stunned and thought it was no use protesting, and when the troops were in combat, the worlds people were told that the most important thing was to support the troops. The huge, pre-emptive peace movement fell away in confusion feeling that protesting was useless and had no effect. But actually it did have an enormous effect. It has isolated the United States and its policies as never before. It has forced the United States to step outside the United Nations and take unilateral, illegal action. It has divided NATO, it caused a deep division between the United States and the European Union, and the US and the UN Security Council, and it may still unseat the British Prime Minister. No weapons of mass destruction were found, but the spin-doctors were working on public opinion and the emphasis subtly changed. The media, while giving us a sense of 'democracy' through its criticism of the US of not finding the weapons of mass destruction, was overwhelmingly on the side of the coalition of the willing, re-enforcing the idea that although the WMD have not been found, the action was necessary to get rid of the demon of Saddam Hussein. This manipulation of the media to get a desired result in public opinion goes back a long way. In 1991 the first Gulf War was steeped in untruths; probably the best known is the Kuwaiti babies that were supposed to be thrown from the incubators by the invading Iraqi troops. This never happened, but the lie served its purpose for a time. Then there were the oil well fires that were supposed to have been started by the fleeing Iraqi army, but US planes had been dropping napalm and now pilots are starting to come forward confirming this. Going back further to the Vietnam War, in 1964 the first lie was the Gulf of Tonkin incident where the US warships were supposed to have been fired on by hostile North Vietnamese forces. This didn't happen, there is no evidence of it at all, but it enabled President Johnston to get a resolution through the Congress to widen the war. In 1941 there was Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War 2. President Roosevelt and his advisers knew of the impending raid on Pearl Harbor before December 7th but let it happen. (Details of this are in two books, 'Rule by Secrecy' by Jim Marrs, distinguished US author and investigative journalist and 'Day of Deceit - the Truth about Pearl Harbor' by Robert B Stinnett.) Further back in 1918 the sinking of the ship Lucitania, to give an excuse for the US to get into World War 1, was a result of the ship being deliberately sent into enemy-controlled waters, without an escort. Going back to the rule of kings, when Captain Cook was on his voyage of discovery in 1788, he was very impressed with the Australian aborigines and their social structure, and said so in his diaries. However, the description of the aborigines given by William Dampier was the one accepted by the English court, because that was what they wanted to hear - although William Dampier was a British buccaneer and James Cook was a captain in the Royal Navy. So throughout the history the truth has taken a battering, and always the prevailing view was the one held by the government or rulers. Apart from twisting of the truth, there is also the suppression of the truth. The most recent example is the coverage of the United Nations' annual Human Development Report, which came out in July. I suppose one cannot really make accusations about total suppression as it did get a brief airing in the press and it is available from the United Nations. The Human Development Report gave a gloomy picture showing that the world is more divided than ever between the super-rich and the desperately poor. A few years ago at the Human Development Conference it was pledged to halve the number of people living on less than $1 a day by the year 2015, and there was to be a 2/3-drop in mortality rates for children under 5 years. But on present trends it will be 2147 before the poverty is halved and 2165 before the child mortality drops 2/3. Also 54 countries are poorer now than in 1990 and 21 countries have gone backwards. The report added that 'such reversals in survival were previously rare'. If that is not enough, there is also the state of the environment on the planet, also partially suppressed. The first Earth Summit held 11 years ago itemised the threats facing the planet: climate change, destruction of the rain forests, increasing deserts, the loss of species, the lack of clean water etc. All these were attributed to the activities of the humankind and the overuse and misuse of limited resources. Urgent action was needed to repair the damage. However, at the second Earth Summit last year it was found that these matters had been ignored by the majority of governments and have gone downhill fast since 1992. To change the way we act will not be popular with everyone, but adjustments must be made and with planning we can change, we must change. We cannot continue on the present course. The most important part of the environment is the water. We have been warned of water scarcity and that wars will be fought over water. It is a desperate situation, and all the evidence points to the first quarter of this century being the critical time to act. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the balance that was evident throughout the Cold War years has now gone. During those years, although the US and its allies dominated the UN Security Council, the United States usually restrained itself and observed the UN Charter and its covenants. Now the US is the sole superpower, by far the world's strongest military power with the most advanced military technologies and the strongest multinational corporations, and now at the instigation of the United States the United Nations has gone through several restructuring processes. In the first restructure the UN office dealing with multinationals was abolished; this office was where countries could take their complaints about the actions of multinationals on their territory. Then there was the Department of Disarmament. This was quickly reduced to an office. Over the years the United Nations has lost a lot of influence. Today the Bush Jnr administration would like to see the UN disbanded altogether or reduced to just a world charity organisation and the United States would take over. In 1992 the Bush Snr administration plotted this course in the Pentagon document dubbed 'The New World Order' which laid out the strategies in the military as well as in trade and economics. The stated goal was nothing less than world domination, and in 1997 the neoconservatives formed the 'Project for a New American Century' to rally support for American global leadership. The march of capitalism has only one route: to consolidate capital, to extend its markets and to increase its profits. This results in monopoly capitalism where some multinationals have more assets than some countries. But the ruling class, aided by the media monopolies, still tells us there is competition under capitalism! All governments follow this path - but the US because of its strength is by far the most dominant. Republicans and democrats have the same aim - they just do things differently. The ultra-conservatives who played a role in the Reagan and Bush Snr republican administrations were excluded from playing a direct role in the democrat Clinton/Gore administration. Instead the Clinton administration concentrated on economic power and there was a push for corporate globalisation, which resulted in the ruthless transfer of wealth from the poor nations to the rich. This globalisation brought matters to a head and the first big demonstrations against corporate and economic power took place in the United States itself in Seattle 1999. Under Clinton the oil interests in the Caspian basin were secured for the US and more military bases were built in strategic countries, then there were the rich mines in Kosovo, also secured for the US. The Clinton administration presided over the bulk of the sanctions on Iraq; the then Secretary of State said the price was worth it, when she was told the sanctions killed 5,000 Iraqi children a month! On the positive side, the administration did emphasise multilateral co-operation and made genuine attempts to solve the Israeli/Palestine problems and the North Korean problem. When the US Supreme Court appointed George W Bush as president in 2000, he immediately surrounded himself with the neo-conservatives that had been in power during the Reagan and Bush Snr administration, and they moved quickly. They very clearly embraced unilateralism, making them unpopular among the allies. On the domestic front, big business was rewarded in many ways and the arms expenditure got a big increase. Unemployment rose and social services suffered. During its first year the Bush administration began to lose what little support it had among its own people. Then came September 11th, 2001. Whether the Bush administration had anything to do with the terrorist attack or not, they were certainly poised to take advantage of it. Bush declared a 'War on Terrorism', blamed al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden and his organisation in Afghanistan, and attacked the network. People were lulled into thinking these military actions made them more secure. Immediately the support for the Bush administration rose. After a week or so the tactics changed to the Taliban and Afghanistan and Kabul were bombed, but there is plenty of evidence now to show that the Afghanistan invasion was planned well before September 11th and the proposed oil pipeline through Afghanistan played a major part. Bush enacted laws such as 'The Patriot Act' ostensibly to combat terrorism, but after a while the people began to realise that civil liberties and human rights were being attacked. Bush also declared the 'Axis of Evil' and demanded a regime change for some countries. It was then that the saga of weapons of mass destruction and the United Nations' weapons inspectors began in Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction still have not been found, but the majority opinion now is that the action was necessary to rid the world of a tyrant. This opinion change has been achieved by the media. There are people who say that the Bush administration has done some good in having brought things to a head and people can now see the ruthlessness of his policies and the capitalist system. In part that is right, it has exposed the system, but this administration is much more dangerous than any previous ones. Under this administration there has been major policy changes and many countries are now in fear of a US invasion because of the policy of 'preventive wars' and pre-emptive strikes. While President Clinton didn't endorse some treaties and international
agreements and the US Congress refused to ratify others, they still existed.
Under the Bush presidency many of these treaties have been completely shredded -
they will have to be re-negotiated from scratch. Former President Reagan's plan
for a missile defence 'Star Wars' was shelved because of world criticism. Now
the Bush Jnr administration has brought it out into the open and will begin
deploying it next year. Also the Reagan plan for 'back-pack nukes' was shelved
because of world opposition, but this concept has now been revived under the
name of 'mini-nukes' that are intended to be used in conventional warfare. These
developments will be hard to reverse and any progress made towards nuclear
disarmament has been cancelled. However, the press has been very silent on all
of these developments. We must have a different approach to the 'War on Terrorism'. We have to be rational. What motivates terrorism and terrorists that carry out suicide bombing? President Bush knows. After the attack on the Twin Towers he said that it was because 'they were envious of America's way of life!' Exactly - extreme poverty and extreme injustice and hopelessness motivates this sort of desperate act, it can be traced to this in all cases. No one kills oneself willingly for nothing - not even the most fundamental religious zealot. So far we have been deflected from thinking about terrorism in these terms, but for our own salvation we must, and also do something about poverty and injustice. World military spending rose by 6% last year, growing twice as fast as in 2001, largely as a result of the US-led 'War on Terrorism'. If the money spent on fighting terror were spent on fighting hunger, disease and inequality, the threat of terrorism would diminish greatly. Just as we will want to protect ourselves, capitalism too will fight to protect itself and use all its sophisticated and economic strength to do so. Instead of a capitalist camp and a socialist camp there are now two capitalist camps with two different economic bases - one the euro and the other the US dollar, in competition with each other. We may think this is good, as we have balance again, but now we have two powerful predatory capitalist blocks, each with its own propaganda machine to manipulate public opinion, working to get a desired result. There are many public relations firms that have done jobs for the United States administrations. The best known, I suppose, is the Rendon Group Inc. It was heavily engaged in the first Gulf War and has been active in this one. Its blurb on its website says that the Rendon Group is a Global Strategic Communications Consultancy with more than 20 years experience assisting government. It assembles teams dedicated to working directly with clients to achieve strategic goals and objectives. The ABC cameraman from Adelaide that was killed in Iraq a few months ago was involved with the Rendon Group. Then there is the P2OG - P2OG stands for 'Pre-emptive, Pro-active Operations Group'. Their mandate is to go into countries to stir up trouble so that the Marine can go in. This was set up when Bush Jnr took office. Also the white House has its own propaganda machine, the Office of Global Communications, which puts out its own dossiers and news. Defence secretary Rumsfeld said quite openly it was to plant false stories in the press. In October 2001 Rumsfeld set up a secret Pentagon committee, the Office of Special Plans, to manipulate reams of intelligence information. This was only discovered by former CIA agents. We are living in very dangerous and perilous times. We have to get more of the important information out to the people. But will we be allowed to, or will we be fogged and swamped with versions of democracy. Things have been stacked against us far into the future. The so-called War on terror has allowed the Bush administration to put in place all the moves outlined in the Project for a New American Century document. On the other hand, more people today are seeing through this 'democracy' and are seeking the truth and acting on it. ----------------------------- Letter to the EditorMany public-spirited people were moved to write letters to the Adelaide Advertiser expressing their dismay at the extraordinary leniency of the first Nemer verdict, which eventually combined to give rise to the South Australian government's successful appeal against the appallingly inadequate sentence - or non-sentence - and the more satisfactory supplanting custodial sentence. Even though a mere four years and nine months in the nick doesn't sound much of a punishment for shooting an innocent man's eye out - particularly if the sentence gets reduced by way of remission - the new verdict still represents a triumph of justice over the nit-picking legal niceties and obfuscations the so-called experts used to justify the original verdict. As the performance of the Director of Public Prosecutions now seems to be wanting, will his earlier dubiously lenient decisions now be reviewed? There is the more serious matter of the car-deaths of the two innocent Aboriginal boys, Anthony Wilson and Robert Harridine, whose relentless white pursuers were never brought to book. This matter could and should, as a matter of urgency and justice, be revisited. --D. Diss Good news from JapanDear friends, This is an exciting news from Japan. Power firms to bow out of Suzu nuke project --The Asahi Shimbun, 29-11-03 Kansai Electric Power Co., Chubu Electric Power Co. and Hokuriku Electric Power Co. have a two-stage pullout in mind. They will first express their intention to freeze the project at board meetings in early December, then convey the decision to the Suzu and Ishikawa governments and finalize it after considering the opinions of local citizens. It will be the third time a nuclear power project formally incorporated in the government's basic electricity plans will be terminated, but the first to be scrapped due to financial reasons. The cost of the project, risks associated in building the facilities, decreased electricity demand and ongoing industry deregulation are all thought to be part of the decision. Passing on the costs of building the nuclear plant to consumers by padding their electricity bills would be a risky move now that deregulation has opened the sector to new entrants and triggered price competition. The companies have been discussing how to include the Suzu project in their electricity supply plans for fiscal 2004, to be drawn up next March. Local opposition was behind the first two nuclear projects being scrapped. Chugoku Electric Power Co.'s Hohoku nuclear plant project in Yamaguchi Prefecture was cancelled in 1994 and Chubu Electric Power's Ashihama nuclear plant in Mie Prefecture was scrubbed in 2000. A two-stage procedure was used to phase out the Ashihama project. Under pressure from local opposition, the prefectural government asked Chubu Electric Power for a ``cooling-off period.'' Two and a half years later, the prefectural governor requested that the firm retract the project, citing lack of understanding on the part of residents. The company consented. In the Suzu case, a two-pronged phase-out is deemed necessary because some residents support the project. The issue will likely be one of the main talking points of the Suzu mayoral election slated for next June, preparations for which are expected to get into full swing soon. Incumbent mayor Osamu Kaizo supports the nuclear project, while local residents are split between pro- and anti-nuclear camps. (IHT/Asahi: November 29,2003 The Israeli violations of the cease fireFrom: 7pm Tuesday, Dec 2 to: 7pm Wednesday, Dec 3, 2003 [2] Palestinians were killed, [21] were wounded and [43] were arrested. [20] Dunams were bulldozed. [11] Houses, [6] vehicles and [3] economic establishments and [1] animal farm were destroyed or damaged. [1] Bypass road was built. Palestinian areas were shelled [3] times and bombarded [19] times. ¨ Jerusalem: One Palestinian student (fifth year of medical school) was suffocated to death when the occupation forces fired gas bombs at students in Al Quds University, and seven others were wounded. ¨ Ramallah and Al Bireh: One Palestinian was killed and two others were wounded, one critically when the occupation soldiers opened fire at them in the village of Aboud. The two wounded were kidnapped. ¨ Nablus: The occupation forces sealed off the northern entrances of the village of Aseera, held several Palestinians, and arrested one at Bet Foureek checkpoint. The occupation troops also opened fire at Palestinians in Balata refugee camp and wounded two. ¨ Jenin: The occupation forces invaded Palestinian houses in the city and several villages and arrested eighteen Palestinians. ¨ Tulkarm: The occupation forces invaded and vandalized Palestinian houses in Noor Shams refugee camp. ¨ Qalqilya: The occupation forces continue closing off the gates of the segregation wall preventing Palestinians from reaching the markets. Corps was destroyed. Meanwhile, an occupation special unit arrested seven Palestinians in the center of the city. ¨ Hebron: The occupation forces continue bulldozing Palestinian lands in Al Buera area for a new settlement road. and arrested one Palestinian who was trying to prevent soldiers from bulldozing his land. Several houses were raided and four Palestinians were arrested in the village of Yatta. ¨ Khan Younis: The occupation forces closed Abu holy checkpoint and arrested five Palestinians ¨ Rafah: The occupation forces bombarded Palestinian houses and wounded two Palestinians, one child. Several dunams were bulldozed. Rafah crossing was sealed off and one Palestinian was arrested. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No, anti-Zionism is not anti-semitismAs an idea, a Jewish homeland was always controversial. As a reality, Israel still is - and it is not anti-Jewish to say so --Brian Klug, December 3, 2003, The Guardian From the beginning, political Zionism was a controversial movement even among Jews. So strong was the opposition of German orthodox and reform rabbis to the Zionist idea in the name of Judaism that Theodor Herzl changed the venue of the First Zionist Congress in 1897 from Munich to Basle in Switzerland. Twenty years later, when the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour (sponsor of the 1905 Aliens Act to restrict Jewish immigration to the UK), wanted the government to commit itself to a Jewish homeland in Palestine, his declaration was delayed - not by anti-semites but by leading figures in the British Jewish community. They included a Jewish member of the cabinet who called Balfour's pro-Zionism "anti-semitic in result". The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 has not put an end to the debate, though the issue has changed. Today, the question is about Israel's future. Should it become a "post-Zionist" state, one that defines itself in terms of the sum of its citizens, rather than seeing itself as belonging to the entire Jewish people? This is a perfectly legitimate question and not anti-semitic in the least. When people suggest otherwise - as Emanuele Ottolenghi did on these pages last Saturday - they simply add to the growing confusion. Ottolenghi contends that "Zionism comprises a belief that Jews are a nation, and as such are entitled to self-determination as all other nations are". This is doubly confused. First, the ideology of Jewish nationalism was irrelevant to many of the Jews, as well as non-Jewish sympathisers, who were drawn to the Zionist goal of creating a Jewish state in Palestine. They saw Israel in purely humanitarian or practical terms: as a safe haven where Jews could live as Jews after centuries of being marginalised and persecuted. This motive was strengthened by the Nazi murder of one-third of the world's Jewish population, the wholesale destruction of Jewish communities in Europe, and the plight of masses of Jewish refugees with nowhere to go. Second, you do not have to be an anti-semite to reject the belief that Jews constitute a separate nation in the modern sense of the word or that Israel is the Jewish nation state. There is an irony here: it is a staple of anti-semitic discourse that Jews are a people apart, who form "a state within a state". Partly for this reason, some European anti-semites thought that the solution to "the Jewish question" might be for Jews to have a state of their own. Herzl certainly thought he could count on the support of anti-semites. What is anti-semitism? Although the word only goes back to the 1870s, anti-semitism is an old European fantasy about Jews. The composer Richard Wagner exemplified it when he said: "I hold the Jewish race to be the born enemy of pure humanity and everything noble in it." An anti-semite sees Jews this way: they are an alien presence, a parasite that preys on humanity and seeks to dominate the world. Across the globe, their hidden hand controls the banks, the markets and the media. Even governments are under their sway. And when revolutions occur or nations go to war, it is the Jews - clever, ruthless and cohesive - who invariably pull the strings and reap the rewards. When this fantasy is projected on to Israel because it is a Jewish state, then anti-Zionism is anti-semitic. And when zealous critics of Israel, without themselves being anti-semitic, carelessly use language, such as "Jewish influence", that conjures up this fantasy, they are fuelling an anti-semitic current in the wider culture. But Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is no fantasy. Nor is the spread of Jewish settlements in these territories. Nor the unequal treatment of Jewish colonisers and Palestinian inhabitants. Nor the institutionalised discrimination against Israeli Arab citizens in various spheres of life. These are realities. It is one thing to oppose Israel or Zionism on the basis of an anti-semitic fantasy; quite another to do so on the basis of reality. The latter is not anti-semitism. But isn't excessive criticism of Israel or Zionism evidence of an anti-semitic
bias? In his book, The Case for Israel, Alan Dershowitz argues that when
criticism of Israel "crosses the line from fair to foul" it goes
"from acceptable to anti-semitic". No, it is not. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a bitter political struggle. The issues are complex, passions are inflamed, and the suffering is great. In such circumstances, people on both sides are liable to be partisan and to "cross the line from fair to foul". When people who side with Israel cross that line, they are not necessarily anti-Muslim. And when others cross the line on behalf of the Palestinian cause, this does not make them anti-Jewish. It cuts both ways. There is something else that cuts both ways: racism. Both anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim feeling appear to be growing. Each has its own peculiarities, but both are exacerbated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the invasion of Iraq, the "war against terror", and other conflicts. We should unite in rejecting racism in all its forms: the Islamophobia that demonises Muslims, as well as the anti-semitic discourse that can infect anti-Zionism and poison the political debate. However, people of goodwill can disagree politically - even to the extent of arguing over Israel's future as a Jewish state. Equating anti-Zionism with anti-semitism can also, in its own way, poison the political debate. · Brian Klug is senior research fellow in philosophy at St Benet's Hall, Oxford, and a founder member of the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights comment@guardian.co.uk Bush Signs Bill Allowing Study of New Generation of NukesDec 2, 2003 -- Agence France Presse US President George W. Bush has put his stamp of approval on a bill allocating millions of dollars for research into new types of nuclear weapons and for bolstering readiness at the Nevada nuclear test site. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday that Bush had signed the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 2004. The act contains funds for the Department of Energy and its nuclear programs. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Further efforts by this or another administration to win necessary congressional approval for engineering, development, and testing of new or modified nuclear weapons will be vigorously opposed and must be defeated. --Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association Threat drives combative lawyer to walk away from terrorism casesBy Colin Freeze, Dec 5, 2003 - Rocco Galati woke up yesterday morning, put on a blue suit, and went to court to represent a terrorism suspect fighting extradition to France. Once in Federal Court, Mr.Galati faced a judge who demanded an apology, taking issue with the lawyer's quoted remarks that included criticisms of "lazy" judges who preside over "kangaroo courts" and "sham trials." The goateed 44-year-old apologized and told the judge he was walking away from that terrorism case and a number of others. An hour later, Mr.Galati summoned reporters to his Toronto office to explain why. Known for representing several terrorism suspects, the outspoken lawyer, who has spent years raging against what he calls government secrecy and the death of Canadian civil liberties, gently announced he was saying good night to that role -- and he said it was all because of a threatening phone message. In a 15-second message Tuesday, an anonymous caller told the Italian-born lawyer he was a "dead wop" for choosing to represent a "punk terrorist" recently returned to Canada from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mr.Galati, who has shrugged off other death threats, insisted the caller was no mere crank, but likely part of a conspiracy by intelligence agents who are out to get him. He asserted that U.S., and possibly Canadian, spies were likely involved. When a reporter noted that he appeared to be tearing up, Mr.Galati acknowledged he was almost crying because "it means that lawyers cannot represent anyone, even in what you profess to be a democracy, here in Canada." It was the third time in slightly more than a week that about 20 journalists had jostled their way inside Mr.Galati's office, past the door decorated with business cards of reporters, past the framed copy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They squeezed into the small area not taken up by bookshelves and a couch, above which hung a crayon drawing proclaiming Je t'aime, Papa (I love you, Daddy). The reporters peered over one another to see Mr.Galati at his desk once again, this time flanked by a lawyer of his own. He was subdued and not his usual combative self. When Mr.Galati played the message for reporters, he punched on the speaker phone, bumped up the volume, and dialled his voice mail. After keying in his password he played a recording of an angry voice belonging to someone who had called from Mississauga, Ont. To many listeners, the caller sounded like a run-of-the-mill crank. But the lawyer insisted that he could "tell a serious threat from a loon." It was proof of a plot to kill him, he said. Mr.Galati demanded answers, from the Prime Minister's Office down to local police forces. He said he hoped his resignation from terrorism cases would assuage the caller, whoever it was. He said he planned to focus on other areas of law, possibly taxes. He says he will walk away from the cases of about a half-dozen clients, most of whom are accused of links to al-Qaeda. Mr.Galati is known for taking on difficult cases, for his explosive courtroom demeanour, his acute sense of outrage and his vocabulary, which is peppered with four-letter words. He has employed his rhetorical weapons against a much bigger cudgel wielded by the government -- the ability to present secret evidence, which neither he nor his clients may see, in certain deportation cases in which Canada's national security is said to be at stake. Much is murky in these cases, but not all evidence is secret. One of Mr.Galati's clients is alleged to be a threat because he has admitted to meeting al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden several times in Sudan during the early 1990s. And then there is Abdurahman Khadr, the 20-year-old recently released uncharged from Guantanamo Bay. He returned to Toronto this week after a bizarre odyssey, to admit -- during a strange news conference in Mr.Galati's office -- that he trained for three months at an "al-Qaeda-related camp" in Afghanistan in 1998. Still, the willingness to take on uphill battles has landed Mr.Galati on the cover of the current issue of Canadian Lawyer magazine. Dubbing him a "five-foot-six inch pitbullish tsunami of outrage," it describes how he lambastes Federal Court judges (Mr.Galati calls them "lazy"); Canadian security agents (he calls them "liars") and Canada itself (it "engages in racial institutional apartheid," he says). The article says Mr.Galati regularly receives death threats -- including a strangled cat on his doorstep and obscene letters. But the voicemail appears to be the last straw. "We suspect it's an American agency or a Canadian agency or both," Mr.Galati said yesterday. A CSIS spokeswoman responded that any suggestion that it conspired to kill Mr.Galati is "absurd." A spokeswoman for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency laughed when she was asked whether the CIA was involved in any plots to kill Canadian lawyers. "We wouldn't comment on that," she said. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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