TruthOut offers the following tidbit from Newsweek on a National Intelligence Council finding that, contrary to Bush's dearest dreams, Iran "is not in a prerevolutionary state." We wonder if this document was drawn up before several cities in western Iran exploded into rebellion. Yes, we shouldn't underestimate the populist appeal of the newly-elected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But nor should we underestimate the degree of anger and alienation among Iran's Kurds, Arabs and other minorities—as well as young people tired of the mullahs' repressive rule. If Bush is cultivating illusions that "regime change" in Iran would be an easy affair, his opponents must also avoid the self-deception that everything is hunky-dory in Iran.

Turkey's Kurdish separatist guerillas, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), officially ended a five-year truce in June, and eastern Turkey has since seen a series of bombings and skirmishes. Most recently, five Turkish soldiers died after a bomb blast ripped through a busy street in the town of Semdinli, Hakkari province, near the border with Iran and Iraq, on Aug. 5. (Turkish Weekly, Aug. 6)

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the resurgent Kurdish guerilla movement in eastern Turkey and long-standing offical State Department-designated "foreign terrorist organization," is apparently building a visible presence in northern Iraq, and is even said to be establishing a foothold in Iran.

AP reported Aug. 2 that federal investigators used provisions of the USA Patriot Act to search and bug a 360-foot tunnel under the US-Canadian border, and eavesdrop as hundreds of pounds of British Columbia-grown marijuana was brought through it. Agents installed surveillance equipment after obtaining a so-called “sneak-and-peek

We Are All Rotten Apples
by Nirit Ben-Ari

On August 4, Eden Natan-Zada, an Israeli soldier wearing a military uniform and carrying a gun given to him by the army, opened fire on passengers on an Egged bus in the Palestinian town Shfar'am in the Galilee, killing four passengers. Immediately afterwards, an angry mob attacked and killed him while he was already handcuffed by the police. Natan-Zada declared upon his army enlistment that he would refuse orders to evict Jews in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as part of Sharon's disengagement plan. Shortly after his enlistment, he deserted and was locked up in military jail. When he was released, he moved to the Kfar-Tapuach settlement, populated with some of the most violent religious fundamentalist Jews in the West Bank.

At least three are dead in a land dispute between Tzeltal Maya ejidos (collective farming communities) in Mexico's conflicted southern state of Chiapas. More than 20 families have been displaced following the violence between the ejidos of El Chamizal and Laguna Semental in Ocosingo municipality. (Proceso's APRO news service, Aug. 5, online at Chiapas95)

In the capital, Tuxtla Guutierrez, the federal Agriculture Secretariat is demanding police evict some 1,000 striking sugar cane workers who began occupying their office Aug. 2. The cañeros, from the communities of Huixtla and Pujiltic, are demanding changes to federal agriculture policy to favor local producers. (APRO, Aug. 5, via Chiapas95) Chiapas sugar producers are threatened by cheap US corn imports, with corn syrup displacing cane sugar from the market. (CIEPAC, Sept. 5, 2001)

The National Council of Resistance of Iran reports that on Aug. 3 thousands took to the streets of Saqez, capital of Iran's Kurdistan province, against the clerical regime, and in solidarity with uprisings in other cities in the region, including Sanandaj, Mahabad, Sardasht, Piranshahr, Marivan, Oshnavieh, Baneh and Divan Darreh.

NYC activist Robert Lederman offers the following commentary on the below Aug. 5 AP story on plans to conduct simulated bio-chemical warfare attacks in the city: