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Editorial: Pearl Harbor - A Lesson Lost On The People Of The World
Signs of the Times
08/12/2006
Yesterday was the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the day when President Roosevelt gave the American people and the world conclusive proof that, as a general rule, war doesn't just happen but is deliberately created by politicians.
From Douglas Reed's Controversy of Zion:
In the First [World] War President Wilson, re-elected on the promise to keep his country out of war, immediately after his re-inauguration declared that "a state of war exists". In the Second War President Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940 on the repeated promise that "your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars". His electoral programme, however, included a five-word proviso: "We will not send our armies, navies or air forces to fight in foreign lands outside the Americas except in case of attack". These five words were added (says one of Mr. Bernard Baruch's approved biographers, Mr. Rosenbloom) "by Senator James F. Byrnes, who was so close to Baruch that it was sometimes impossible to tell which of the two originated the view that both expressed".
The importance of the proviso was shown on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. Twelve days earlier Mr. Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary for War, after a cabinet meeting on November 25, 1941, had noted in his diary: "The question was how we should manoeuvre them" (the Japanese) "into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves; it was a difficult proposition".
The pre-history of this notation, again, is that on January 27, 1941 the United States Ambassador in Tokyo had advised his government that "in the event of trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the Japanese intended to make a surprise attack against Pearl Harbour"; that the Soviet spy in Tokyo, Dr. Richard Sorge, informed the Soviet Government in October 1941 that "the Japs intended to attack Pearl Harbour within sixty days" and was advised by the Soviet Government that his information had been transmitted to President Roosevelt (according to Sorge's confession, New York Daily News, May 17, 1951); that the Roosevelt government delivered a virtual ultimatum to Japan on November 26, 1941; that secret Japanese messages, from September 1941 up to the very moment of the attack, which were intercepted and decoded by United States intelligence units, gave unmistakable evidence of a coming attack on Pearl Harbour but were not transmitted to the American commanders there; that on December 1 the Head of Naval Intelligence, Far Eastern Section, drafted a dispatch to the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet saying "war between Japan and the United States is imminent", which was cancelled by superior authority; that on December 5 Colonel Sadtler of the U.S. Signal Corps, on information received, drafted a dispatch to commanders, "War with Japan imminent; eliminate all possibility of another Port Arthur" (an allusion to the similar "surprise attack" that began the Russo-Japanese war), which was similarly suppressed; that a Japanese reply, obviously tantamount to a declaration of war, to the Roosevelt ultimatum was received in Washington on December 6, 1941 but no word was sent to the Pearl Harbour defenders. A message stating that "the Japanese are presenting at one p.m., eastern time today what amounts to an ultimatum. . . be on the alert" was at last dispatched about noon on December 7, 1941, and reached the commanders at Pearl Harbour between six and eight hours after the Japanese attack.
The record now available suggests that the Americans on Hawaii alone were left without knowledge of the imminent onslaught which cost two battleships and two destroyers (apart from many vessels put out of action), 177 aircraft and 4575 dead, wounded or missing. A direct and immediate consequence was also the disaster suffered by the British navy off Malaya, when the battleships Prince of Wales and Renown were sunk with great loss of life.
Political leaders who are ready to obtain their country's entry into war by facilitating an enemy attack on it cannot be depended on to wage it in the national interest. The American people as a whole still is unaware of the truth of Pearl Harbour, an ominous beginning which led in unbroken line to the ominous end.
Eight investigations were held, seven naval or military ones during wartime and one Congressional one at the war's end. Thus wartime secrecy enshrouded them all and none of them was truly public or exhaustive; moreover, all were conducted under the aegis of the political party whose man was president at the time of Pearl Harbour. The vital facts (that the president knew at the latest eight weeks earlier, from an intercepted Japanese dispatch, that "a surprise attack was being planned and that these intercepted messages were withheld from the Pearl Harbour commanders over a long period) were burked throughout. The Secretary of War's diary (with the significant entry above quoted) was not admitted in evidence and Mr. Stimson himself was not called, being in ill health. Control of the press enabled the long proceedings (six months) to be presented to the public in bewildering and confusing form.
However, the three naval commanders chiefly concerned have published their accounts. Rear Admiral Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet at the time, says of another admiral's belief that "President Roosevelt's plans required that no word be sent to alert the fleet in Hawaii", that "the individuals in high position in Washington who willfully refrained from alerting our forces at Pearl Harbour should never be excused. The Commanders at Pearl Harbour Were never informed of. . . the American note delivered to the Japanese Ambassadors on November 26, 1941, which effectually ended the possibility of further negotiations and thus made the Pacific war inevitable . . . No hint of vital intercepts received, decoded and delivered to responsible officials in Washington on December 6 and 7, 1941, was sent to the Navy and Army Commanders in the Hawaiian area".
Fleet Admiral Halsey, who at that time was one of Admiral Kimmel's three senior commanders, says, "All our intelligence pointed to an attack by Japan against the Philippines or the southern areas in Malaya or the Dutch East Indies. While Pearl Harbour was considered and not ruled out, the mass of the evidence made available to us pointed in another direction. Had we known of Japan's minute and continued interest in the exact location and movement of our ships in Pearl Harbour" (indicated by the withheld message) "it is only logical that we would have concentrated our thought on meeting the practical certainty of an attack on Pearl Harbour".
Rear Admiral Theobald, commanding destroyers of the Battle Force at Pearl Harbour, writing in 1954 says, "Dictates of patriotism requiring secrecy regarding a line of national conduct in order to preserve it for possible future repetition do not apply in this case because, in this atomic age, facilitating an enemy's surprise attack, as a method of initiating a war, is unthinkable".
(The admiral presumably means that he hopes a repetition is "unthinkable"). He adds. "The recurrent fact of the true Pearl Harbour story has been the repeated withholding of information from Admiral Kimmel and General Short" (the naval and military commanders at Pearl Harbour, who were made scapegoats) ". . . never before in recorded history had a field commander been denied information that his country would be at war in a matter of hours, and that everything pointed to a surprise attack upon his forces shortly after sunrise".
Admiral Theobald quotes the later statement of Admiral Stark (who in December 1941 was Chief of Naval Operations in Washington and who refused to inform Admiral Kimmel of the Japanese declaration of war message) that all he did was done on the order of higher authority, "which can only mean President Roosevelt.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. If it works, why change tactics? It should be obvious to anyone that is prepared to think logically rather than emotionally or "patriotically" that involving a country in a war that the population doesn't want is easy. In 1941 it happened by way of Pearl Harbor, Vietnam was helped along by the fake Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the current invasion of Iraq absolutely required the events of September 11, 2001.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Letter from James Abourezk, former US Senator from South Dakota to Jeff Blankfort on the Israel Lobby
Jeff Blankfort
08/12/2006
The following letter was sent to me today by James Abourezk, former US Senator from South Dakota, and he readily complied when I asked that I be allowed to forward it to my list because what he had to say is of the utmost importance, given last month's election and all the new faces in Congress, and the immediate previous posting to you and James Petras's article earlier in the day.
Dear Jeff:
I just finished reading your critique of Noam Chomsky's positions in an e mail sent to me by Tony Saidy.
I had never paid much attention to Chomsky's writings, as I had all along assumed that he was correct and proper in his position on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But now, upon learning that his first assumption is that Israel is simply doing what the imperial leaders in the U.S. wants them to do, I concur with you that this assumption is completely wrong.
I can tell you from personal experience that, at least in the Congress, the support Israel has in that body is based completely on political fear--fear of defeat by anyone who does not do what Israel wants done. I can also tell you that very few members of Congress--at least when I served there--have any affection for Israel or for its Lobby. What they have is contempt, but it is silenced by fear of being found out exactly how they feel. I've heard too many cloakroom conversations in which members of the Senate will voice their bitter feelings about how they're pushed around by the Lobby to think otherwise. In private one hears the dislike of Israel and the tactics of the Lobby, but not one of them is willing to risk the Lobby's animosity by making their feelings public.
Thus, I see no desire on the part of Members of Congress to further any U.S. imperial dreams by using Israel as their pit bull. The only exceptions to that rule are the feelings of Jewish members, whom, I believe, are sincere in their efforts to keep U.S. money flowing to Israel. But that minority does not a U.S. imperial policy make.
Secondly, the Lobby is quite clear in its efforts to suppress any congressional dissent from the policy of complete support for Israel which might hurt annual appropriations. Even one voice is attacked, as I was, on grounds that if Congress is completely silent on the issue, the press will have no one to quote, which effectively silences the press as well. Any journalists or editors who step out of line are quickly brought under control by well organized economic pressure against the newspaper caught sinning.
I once made a trip through the Middle East, taking with me a reporter friend who wrote for Knight-Ridder newspapers. He was writing honestly about what he saw with respect to the Palestinians and other countries bordering on Israel. The St. Paul Pioneer press executives received threats from several of their large advertisers that their advertising would be terminated if they continued publishing the journalist's articles. It's a lesson quickly learned by those who controlled the paper.
With respect to the positions of several administrations on the question of Israel, there are two things that bring them into line: One is pressure from members of Congress who bring that pressure resulting in the demands of AIPAC, and the other is the desire on the part of the President and his advisers to keep their respective political parties from crumbling under that pressure. I do not recall a single instance where any administration saw the need for Israel's military power to advance U.S. Imperial interests. In fact, as we saw in the Gulf War, Israel's involvement was detrimental to what Bush, Sr. wanted to accomplish in that war. They had, as you might remember, to suppress any Israeli assistance so that the coalition would not be destroyed by their involvement.
So far as the argument that we need to use Israel as a base for U.S. operations, I'm not aware of any U.S. bases there of any kind. The U.S. has enough military bases, and fleets, in the area to be able to handle any kind of military needs without using Israel. In fact I can't think of an instance where the U.S. would want to involve Israel militarily for fear of upsetting the current allies the U.S. has, i.e., Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. The public in those countries would not allow the monarchies to continue their alliance with the U.S. should Israel become involved.
I suppose one could argue that Bush's encouragement of Israel in the Lebanon war this summer was the result of some imperial urge, but it was merely an extension of the U.S. policy of helping Israel because of the Lobby's continual pressure. In fact, I heard not one voice of opposition to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon this summer (except Chuck Hagel). Lebanon always has been a "throw away" country so far as the congress is concerned, that is, what happens there has no effect on U.S. interests. There is no Lebanon Lobby. The same was true in 1982, when the Congress fell completely silent over the invasion that year.
I think in the heart of hearts of both members of congress and of the administrations they would prefer not to have Israel fouling things up for U.S. foreign policy, which is to keep oil flowing to the Western world to prevent an economic depression. But what our policy makers do is to juggle the Lobby's pressure on them to support Israel with keeping the oil countries from cutting off oil to the western nations. So far they've been able to do that. With the exception of King Feisal and his oil embargo, there hasn't been a Saudi leader able to stand up to U.S. policy.
So I believe that divestment, and especially cutting off U.S. aid to Israel would immediately result in Israel's giving up the West Bank and leaving the Gaza to the Palestinians. Such pressure would work, I think, because the Israeli public would be able to determine what is causing their misery and would demand that an immediate peace agreement be made with the Palestinians. It would work because of the democracy there, unlike sanctions against a dictatorship where the public could do little about changing their leaders' minds. One need only look at the objectives of the Israeli Lobby to determine how to best change their minds. The Lobby's principal objectives are to keep money flowing from the U.S. treasury to Israel, requiring a docile congress and a compliant administration. As Willie Sutton once said, "That's where the money is."
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: US and Israel targeting DNA in Gaza? Part 3 of 3: The DIME bomb, yet another genotoxic weapon
James Brooks
Online Journal
Dec 7, 2006
The human genome: target or innocent bystander?
Since early July, Israeli forces have been using a new
weapon in the Gaza Strip that inflicts strange and deadly wounds. Doctors and
medics say the unidentified device has significantly increased fatalities from
Israel's attacks. [1] [2]
In the first two parts of this article, we reviewed evidence
that Israel's new weapon may be Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME), a "low
collateral damage" weapon developed by the US Air Force. The DIME bomb's
"micro-shrapnel" is reportedly made of HMTA, a tungsten alloy that disrupts
body biochemistry, damages the immune system, rapidly causes cancer, and
attacks DNA (genotoxic). [3-9]
The road to DIME
DIME weapons are "spin-offs" from the military's
"bunker buster" research. Initially, "bunker busters" were made with depleted
uranium (DU), which had already been used in armor-piercing bombs, bullets, and
artillery shells. [10]
The former director of the US Army's Depleted Uranium
project, Dr. Douglas Rokke, warns us that DU is an "illegal . . . radioactive
toxic material," the use of which "is absolutely unacceptable, and a crime
against humanity." [11]
During Gulf War I, US forces deployed more than 300 tons of
DU in Iraq. A few years later, more was dropped during Operation Desert Fox.
Iraqi doctors reported alarming rises in the incidence of cancer, leukemia, and
birth defects, in clusters closely correlated with US bombsites. Scientists
found strong links between DU and Gulf War Syndrome, which is slowly killing
thousands of veterans. [12-14]
Despite the science, the vets, and the tragedies in Iraq,
the US has stubbornly refused to end its use of DU. US-UK forces may have
expended more than 2,000 additional tons of DU in Iraq since March 2003.
Nowadays, however, commanders are supposed to warn GIs to avoid contact with
the results of their work. [15]
After the 2001-2002 bombing of Afghanistan, the Uranium
Medical Research Centre (UMRC) found that the urine of Afghanis living near US
bombing sites contained four to 20 times the normal level of non-depleted
uranium (NDU). These unexpected results could not "be explained by . . . any
known geological or other features in the area."
UMRC researchers were "shocked" that, "without exception, at
every bombsite investigated, people are ill . . . [with] symptoms consistent
with internal contamination by uranium." [13]
Their field results indicated that our weapons scientists
had "progressed" beyond DU to NDU, a processed form of pure uranium that is
even more toxic than the depleted form. The "slightly enriched" uranium
reported from recent Israeli bombsites in Lebanon may possibly be NDU from
modified GBU 28 'bunker busters' supplied by the United States. [16] [17]
Dual-purpose munitions
Considering the scope of their destructive power, DU and NDU
may be said to function as Dual-Purpose Munitions, like cluster bomblets that
kill both tanks and people. As their exotic metallurgy "burns" through concrete
and steel, DU and NDU bombs are converted to micron-sized particles that sicken
and kill and murder the next generation in the womb. [18] [19]
Agent Orange, an herbicide heavily used during the war on
Vietnam, also performed two functions. It obliterated the 'jungle cover hiding
the Viet Cong' while it 'weakened the enemy' with burns, illness, and death,
and corrupted the DNA of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. The third generation
of its disfigured and suffering victims is now being born. [20] [21]
This madness seems to have begun during World War II, within
the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb. In a 1943 memo to
Brigadier General L. R. Groves, three researchers proposed steps to develop "a
gas warfare instrument" [of radioactive material, such as uranium] "ground into
particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke. . . . in this form it
would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person
inhaling the material is extremely small. It has been estimated that one
millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are
no known methods of treatment for such a casualty." [22]
The good doctors were concerned the Germans might be
preparing such a weapon. They urged the Army to be ready to respond, or act, in
kind. General Groves promptly followed their recommendations.
The toxic HMTA "micro-shrapnel" spewed by DIME weapons
appears to be the latest development in a long string of carcinogenic and
genotoxic weapons developed and deployed by the US military.
Return to Gaza: The mythology of murder
Israel has denied using DIME weapons. Nonetheless, Israel's
military has used the occupied Palestinian territories as a weapons development
zone for decades, testing bright ideas like depleted uranium and poison gases.
It would not surprise us to find that it is now testing a weapon for the US Air
Force on Palestinians in Gaza. [23]
Unfortunately, the DIME hypothesis is the most plausible
explanation for the grotesque effects of Israel's new weapon. We can only pray
that we have not witnessed the first experiment in the effects of embedded HMTA
in human subjects.
Still, DIME may not explain all of the evidence. For example,
one of the metals found in victims' wounds was copper. DIME bombs are not known
to contain significant copper, but another US marvel, the Sensor Fuzed Weapon
(SFW), sprays slugs of molten copper at its targets. Is Israel also testing the
SFW? [24] [25]
If DIME weapons are designed to reduce civilian casualties,
why has Israel's 'mystery weapon' increased the civilian death toll? Perhaps
this question should be addressed to the advocates of Focused Lethality
Munitions, and to the remote-control operators of Israel's drone aircraft and
their commanders and politicians.
Although much remains unclear about Israel's new weapon, a
few devastating facts are indisputable:
The weapon causes enormous and indiscriminate pain and
suffering.
It operates as both a chemical weapon and an anti-personnel
explosive. At the very least, it is likely to induce heavy metal poisoning in
its surviving victims.
The weapon has significantly increased civilian mortality
rates, in part because it inflicts virtually untreatable wounds.
Despite this public parade of horrors, Israeli forces have
continued to use this weapon against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for nearly
five months.
"Whenever and wherever necessary"
If the DIME hypothesis is confirmed, authorities will probably
explain that it is a new class of weapon not regulated by international law.
The truth is that existing conventions and treaties have already prohibited
some of the most egregious effects of the new weapon.
To cite one example, the bomb may be in direct violation of
Protocol I of the 'Geneva Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons,' which
"prohibits the use of any weapon the primary effect of which is to injure
by fragments which in the human body escape detection by X-rays." [26]
We will likely be told that DIME weapons provide a more
"humane" way to fight "terrorism" by "reducing collateral damage" and "helping
US troops win hearts and minds." At the same time, we'll be assured that the
new weapon "packs quite a punch" and will "give our troops more options" to
"take the battle to the enemy," even if he is "hiding among civilians."
Whether Israel's new weapon is the Air Force's DIME bomb or
another similarly dreadful invention, the horrors unfolding in Gaza make it
clear that "Focused Lethality" is a blood-drenched lie. It promises only a
deadlier form of indiscriminate warfare.
US plans to explode payloads of cancer-causing genotoxic
heavy metal powder "wherever and whenever necessary" may portend an escalation
of a campaign currently limited to the vicinity of "hard targets" we attack
with DU and NDU. Whatever we make of the intent behind these weapons, the result
is chemical-genetic warfare. It cannot be allowed to continue.
References
1) Gaza
doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks, Rory
McCarthy, The Guardian, 10/18/2006
2) Israel used
chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza, Jean Shaoul, Centre for Research on
Globalization/wsws.org, 10/24/2006
3) Abstract:
Potential late health effects of depleted uranium and tungsten used in
armor-piercing munitions: comparison of neoplastic transformation and
genotoxicity with the known carcinogen nickel, Miller, AC, et al, PubMed,
11/26/2006
4) Neoplastic
transformation of human osteoblast cells to the tumorigenic phenotype by heavy
metal-tungsten alloy particles: induction of genotoxic effects, Miller, AC
et al Carcinogenesis, Vol. 22, No. 1, 115-125, January 2001, Oxford University
Press
5) Abstract:
Carcinogenic Potential of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten Alloys, Alexandra C
Miller, Ph. D., Department Of Defense, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute
(AFRRI)
6) Depleted
uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant alpha particle
decay, Miller, AC et al, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Issue 91, 2002
pp. 246- 252
7) Embedded
Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces Metastatic High-Grade
Rhabdomyosarcomas in F344 Rats, Kalinich et al, Environmental Health
Perspectives Volume 113, Number 6, June 2005
8) Abstract: Effect
of the militarily-relevant heavy metals, depleted uranium and heavy metal
tungsten-alloy on gene expression in human liver carcinoma cells (HepG2),
Miller, AC et al, SpringerLink/Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 1/1/2004
9) Preconceptional
paternal exposure to radiation or heavy metals like cadmium can induce cancer
in unexposed offspring, Alexandra C. Miller, Rafael Rivas, Robert J. Merlot
and Paul, Carcinogenesis 5: Environmental and Endogenous Carcinogens/Proc Amer
Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 47, 2006
10) Cancer
Worries for New U.S. Bombs, DefenseTech.org, 5/20/2006
11) Depleted
Uranium and US-Israeli Bombs, Dr. Doug Rokke, PhD, Media Lens, 7/24/2006
12) Dirty
Weapons - Casualties From Iraq War Will Mount, Chalmers Johnson, Pacific
News Service, 5/3/2003
13) Uranium Radiation
Levels in Afghanistan Not Attributable to Depleted Uranium, Centre for
Research on Globalization - Middle East, 6/5/2003
14) Depleted
Uranium Radioactive Contamination In Iraq: An Overview, Prof Souad N.
Al-Azzawi, Centre for Research on Globalization - Middle East, 8/31/2006
15) Use of Depleted
Uranium Weapons Lingers as Health Concern, Larry Johnson, Common Dreams,
8/4/2003
16) Further
Evidence Of Enriched Uranium In The Air In Lebanon Following The Recent
Conflict, Stop Uranium Wars/Pandora DU research Project, 11/22/2006
17) Mystery of
Israel's secret uranium bomb, Robert Fisk, The Independent, 10/28/2006
18) The
Real Dirty Bombs: Depleted Uranium, Christopher Bollyn, Nuclear Age Peace
Foundation, 8/6/2004
19) Depleted Uranium,
Australian Peace Committee, 12/2/2006
20) Vietnam Agent
Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign
21) Agent
Orange DNA injury confirmed in Vietnam veterans, Patrick Gower, New Zealand
Herald, 7/29/2006
22) Memorandum
to: Brigadier General L. R. Groves From: Drs. Conant, Compton, and Urey,
Midfully.org/War Department, United States Engineer Office, Manhattan District,
Oak Ridge Tennessee, 10/30/1943
23) The Israeli Poison
Gas Attacks, James Brooks, Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel
24) CBU-97,
Wikipedia
25) Textron
Systems' Sensor Fuzed Weapon Production to Include Maritime Capability,
Textron Systems Corporation, 8/10/2006
26) Convention
on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons . .
. , United Nations: International
Law, 10/10/1980
Part 1, Part 2
Original
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Double Standards
Bulov
28 Nov 06
1) What do you call someone who explodes a bomb and kills innocent people?
- A terrorist.
What do you call someone who drops a bomb from a plane and kills innocent people?
- A brave American pilot.
What do you call it when a Palestinian uses violence against the Jews who have illegally occupied his land?
- A terrorist attack.
What do you call it when an Israeli helicopter fires rockets at Palestinian youths armed with stones?
- Self-defence.
What do you call it when someone gives money to a government official in return for favors?
- Bribery.
What do you call it when a large corporation gives money to a government official in return for favors?
- A campaign contribution.
What do you call the form of government where a small elite exploits and intimidates the citizens?
- A dictatorship.
What do you call the form of government where a small elite exploits and intimidates the citizens, and the citizens can choose every few years which part of the elite should occupy the government buildings?
- A democracy.
What do you call it when someone carrying a gun enters your house and steals your valuable possessions?
- An armed robbery.
What do you call it when a multinational corporation supported by armed forces enters your country and steals your valuable possessions?
- Free trade.
What do you call it when a group of people take the law into their own hands and kill people without a fair trial?
- A lynching.
What do you call it when the US takes the law into its own hands and kills people without a fair trial?
- Operation Enduring Freedom. (The invasion of Afghanistan)
What do you call someone who steals from the rich and gives to the poor?
- Robin Hood.
What do you call someone who steals from the poor and gives to the rich?
- The US government.
What do you call a weapon that can kill thousands of people?
- A weapon of mass destruction.
What do you call a weapon that killed 1.5 million Iraqis, including more than 500,000 children?
- Sanctions.
What do you call an army that will fight for whoever pays the most money?
- Mercenaries.
What do you call an army in Afghanistan that will fight for whoever pays the most money?
- The Northern Alliance (or United Front).
What do you call an attack on the Pentagon, a military command and control center in the US?
- A cowardly attack on American freedom and democracy.
What do you call the destruction of an Afghan village by US bombs?
- An attack on a Taliban military command and control center.
What do you call it when just over 3 thousand people were killed in the September 11 attack on the US?
- An atrocity.
What do you call it when nearly 5 million people were killed in the Vietnam war?
- A mistake.
What do you call it when very rich people exploit poor people?
- Greed and selfishness.
What do you call it when very rich countries exploit poor countries?
- Globalization.
What do you call a foreign oppressor in the last century that controlled the economic and social life of a country?
- A colonialist power.
What do you call a foreign oppressor in this century that controls the economic and social life of a country?
- The International Monetary Fund.
What do you call it when people are slaughtered?
- A massacre.
What do you call it when 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqis are slaughtered by the US at a loss to American forces of 148 (46 of which were killed by friendly fire)?
- Gulf War I.
What do you call members of the Ku Klux Klan, a white racist organization?
- American patriots.
What do you call members of the Black Panther party, a black racist organization?
- Prisoners on death row.
What do you call the extermination of a people?
- Genocide.
What do you call the extermination of native Americans in the US?
- A glorious episode in American history.
What do you call someone who stands up in front of a crowd and tells stories?
- An entertainer.
What do you call someone who stands up in front of a crowd at the Pentagon and tells stories?
- Donald Rumsfeld.
What do you call a television station that broadcasts only the government's views?
- A propaganda station.
What do you call the BBC when the World News consists solely of half an hour of a Pentagon briefing?
- Fair and impartial.
What do you call the 2002 presidential election in Zimbabwe where there were serious irregularities?
- A flawed election.
What do you call the 2000 presidential election in the US where there were serious irregularities?
- A victory for democracy.
What do you call it when American Whites advocate an exclusively White state and the expulsion of all non-Whites?
- Racism.
What do you call it when Israeli Jews advocate an exclusively Jewish state and the expulsion of all non-Jews?
- Zionism.
What is the name of the leader wrongly accused of trying to create an ethnically pure Greater Serbia?
- Slobodan Milosevic, on trial as a war criminal until his death.
What is the name of the leader trying to create an ethnically pure Greater Israel?
- Ariel Sharon, a "man of peace".
What do you call a leader who sells out his country to a foreign power?
- A traitor, or Quisling.
What do you call a British leader who sells out his country to a foreign power?
- Tony Blair.
Which Middle East country (whose name begins with I) does not possess nuclear weapons, agreed to allow access to UN weapons inspectors, and has been occupied by the US?
- Iraq.
Which Middle East country (whose name begins with I) possesses nuclear weapons, refuses to allow access to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and receives around $5 billion p.a. in aid from the US?
- Israel.
What do you call it when innocent people are killed by those resisting a brutal occupation?
- Terrorism.
What do you call it when innocent people are killed by an occupying army?
- Collateral damage, self-defense, or caught in the crossfire.
What do you call it when Saddam Hussein kills his own people with chemical weapons?
- A crime against humanity.
What do you call it when the FBI uses chemical weapons to murder 96 US citizens (including women and children) in Waco, Texas?
- Law and order.
What do you call a serial killer who claims that God told him to do it?
- A psychopath.
What do you call a serial killer who claims that God told him to invade Iraq?
- George W. Bush.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: The Spirit of Democracy in Venezuela
by Stephen Lendman
8 December 2006
"Today we gave another lesson in dignity to the imperialists, it is another defeat for the empire of Mr. Danger....another defeat for the devil. We will never be a colony of the US again....Long live the socialist revolution....Destiny has been written....Socialism is human. Socialism is love." This is how Hugo Chavez Frias characterized his smashing electoral victory on December 3 when he appeared on the balcony of the Palacio de Miraflores (the official presidential palace residence) and addressed a huge gathering of his followers below that evening telling them of his victory for the people and that he now has an even stronger mandate to pursue his Bolivarian Project to do more for them ahead than he's already accomplished so far which is considerable.
He told his loyal, cheering supporters his impressive landslide electoral victory is one more blow to George Bush, and it follows on the others won by populist candidates in the region in the past six weeks by Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil on October 29, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua on November 7, and Rafael Correa in Equador on November 26. Chavez will serve for another six year term that will run until December, 2012.
Earlier in the day, Hugo Chavez showed he's indeed a man of the people by casting his own vote the same way ordinary people do. Unlike George Bush who goes everywhere in an entourage of limousine, helicopter, or Air Force One luxury accompanied by a phalanx of security needed to protect him from the people he was elected to serve, Chavez drove himself in his aging red-colored Volkswagon to his assigned polling station accompanied by his young grandson in the back seat, voted, and then left the same unaccompanied way he came. That's how a man of the people does it - no bells, whistles or extravagant trappings of power that's a hallmark of how things are done to excess in the US calling itself a model democracy but one only for the few with wealth and power and that behaves like a rogue state that's only a model for despots and tyrants.
In Venezuela under Hugo Chavez there's real participatory democracy for all the people. After it played out in a fair and open electoral process, Chavez greeted his supporters in an atmosphere of jubilant celebration once National Electoral Council (CNE) president Lucena Tibisay announced at 10:30 PM election night that with about 78% of the vote tallied, Chavez received 61.4% (5,936,000 votes) to right wing opposition candidate Manuel Rosales 38% (3,715,000 votes).
The early figures were then updated showing Chavez increased his advantage to 62.89% (7,161,637 votes), handily defeating Rosales by about 26 points (at 36.85%) - an impressive nearly two to one thrashing. It was also announced that voter turnout was about 75% or the highest percentage in Venezuela's history making this election an historic event and a clear mandate for Hugo Chavez.
Once the first results were announced on election night, it was clear to Mr. Rosales he'd lost and he was forced to concede defeat. He added, however, he would continue opposing the policies of the Chavez government "struggling for the people of Venezuela (and announcing) we are beginning the struggle for the construction of a new time for Venezuela....and I won't stop there, from today on I will be in the streets (staying) in the struggle, in the fight." He didn't say what he has in mind is returning the country to its ugly past serving the interests of wealth and power and ignoring the needs of ordinary people, all his pious rhetoric aside. He's sure to get lots of encouragement and help from Washington as its unbending agenda going forward is to do precisely that. Short of an armed invasion, however, it may be harder than ever to do that as Hugo Chavez came out ahead in all 23 of Venezuela's states including in Rosales' home state of Zulia that went for Chavez with a 50.57% majority, an embarrassment he also neglected to mention in his concession statement cum bravado. A dozen other candidates participated in the election as well, but had nothing to brag about, getting in total less than half of one percent of the vote total.
From the US capitol, State Department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus added her government's response without a touch of irony from an administration that's already tried and failed three times to oust Hugo Chavez: The US government recognizes the right of the Venezuelan people "to elect the government of their choice and the path they want for their country." US Undersecretary of State for Latin America Thomas Shannon added: "We do not want a relationship of confrontation (with Venezuela). We've always looked for ways to deepen the dialogue with....President Chavez (and we hope) he will show a greater interest."
Neither US official tried explaining that their post-election good faith rhetoric is belied by their government's actions since the Bush administration came to power in 2001 trying every underhanded trick it could cook up to undermine and oust Hugo Chavez and is still engaging in subversion. It would be quite a change in the Bush White House if it ever practiced what it always disingenuously preaches fooling no one, especially Hugo Chavez and his government.
The same kind of post-election forked tongue comments came from US Ambassador William Brownfield who congratulated Venezuelans on a smooth and peaceful election and indicated Washington's willingness to have a less confrontational relationship with Chavez saying: "We recognize that and we're ready, willing and eager to explore and see if we can make progress on bilateral issues." Hugo Chavez understands full well the kind of relationship the ambassador means and responded to the overture: "They want dialogue but on the condition that you accept their positions. If the government of the United States wants dialogue, Venezuela will always have its door open. But I doubt the US government is sincere....we are a free country. We were once a North American colony, and we will not be one ever again."
Chavez was being polite but firm as he knows the US is never sincere in its dealings with other countries and is determined to remove him from office. Also, its relations with all Global South countries are uncompromisingly ones on an "our way or the highway" basis. For Hugo Chavez, that's no way, and it's hard to imagine relations between the two countries will change going forward, at least under a Bush administration. Chavez explained further saying: "How are we going to have good relations with a government that has financed conspiratorial activities here?"
It's also a government establishing closer ties with the military in Latin American countries (circumventing ruling governments if necessary) to counter the influence and spread of populist leftist governments like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Former US Southern Command General Bantz Craddock explained the real sentiment of the Bush administration toward the region when he said: "The challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean today are significant to our national security. We ignore them at our peril." He wasn't referring to the need to be more conciliatory to populist leftist leaders like those in Venezuela, Bolivia or Ecuador (in January) or Fidel Castro in Cuba (the US has tried and failed many dozens or even hundreds of times to kill) who have notions of governance much different than those in Washington.
For the moment at least, the cheering crowd outside the Miraflores on election night had other thoughts on their mind, but like their president demand nothing less than a relationship based on equality and respect with their dominant northern neighbor. They gathered in the late evening pouring rain dressed in their signature red T-shirts and caps, waving Venezuela flags and shouting "Uh, ah, Chavez no se va" - "Uh, ah, Chavez will not go." It continued all night in the celebratory streets of Caracas echoing Chavez's words repeating "Libertad (liberty) and telling the crowd this was a victory for them, for socialism and for the Bolivarian Revolution he now wants to advance to the next stage.
Venezuela Under Chavez - How Real Democratic Elections Are Run
The polls opened at 7AM on Sunday, December 3, but hours earlier people were already queueing up in their eagerness to participate in Venezuela's democratic electoral process. Most of them, as we know, were there to support Hugo Chavez Frias as their president and won't allow anyone else to have the job as long as he wants it. The lines were long at many of the stations, but observers noted voting across the country ran smoothly with only minor problems that were no obstacle to the electoral process. About 1400 observers were on hand to witness the day's events including 10 representatives from the Carter Center in the US, 130 from the European Union (EU), 60 from the Organization of American States (OAS) and 10 from the Mercosur Common Market of the South countries.
At day's end, OAS team leader Juan Enrique Fisher congratulated Venezuelan officials for a "transparent and well-run election....We congratulate the Venezuelan people for their spirit of citizenship, President Chavez for his popular mandate and candidate Rosales for his civic spirit and for fortifying democracy." He described the voting as "massive and peaceful" and added scattered reports of voting equipment malfunctions were minor and more attributable to voter unfamiliarity with the machines than to irregularities. Spanish parliamentarian Willy Meyer, one of seven members from the European Parliament, noted the process was smooth-running and turnout was "massive, well-arranged and happy..." European Union leader Antonio Garcia Velasquez said Venezuelan electoral officials gave them "complete liberty and with all requirements so that the job (of observing) can be fulfilled in conformity with our stipulations." The NGO Electoral Eye noted in an afternoon statement that 99% of the voting centers were operating "completely normally."
Voting took place using 33,000 ballot tables at 11,118 polling stations throughout the country, and each candidate in the election was allowed to have observers present at all of them if they wished. All registered Venezuelans, of course, could vote including the 57,667 eligible ones located in other countries. Voting took place on Sunday to make it as easy as possible for people to participate, and while polling stations were scheduled to close at 4PM Caracas time, most stayed open as long as there were people in line who hadn't yet voted.
Venezuela's Electoral Process Prior to the Election of Hugo Chavez
Before Hugo Chavez was first elected the country's president in December, 1998, less than half of all eligible Venezuelans were registered to vote and thus were unable to participate in choosing their elected officials who might help them raise their standard of living including the great majority of impoverished people in the country most in need of positive change. For decades previously, two parties in the country, Democratic Action (AD) and Social Christian Party (COPEI), dominated the political process through a power-sharing arrangement that served the interests of Venezuela's wealthy elite and its "sifrino" middle class ignoring the needs and rights of the great majority of poor and effectively disenfranchised. It finally boiled over in the streets in the late 1980s and 1990s that led to the governing coalition bringing Hugo Chavez to power in 1998 that changed everything - just the way Chavez promised he's do it if elected.
Along with his political and social revolution, Chavez promised to address the problem of electoral fraud and exclusion that had to be overcome for any true democracy to exist. At the outset of his first term in office, the National Assembly strengthened earlier reforms and initiated new ones focusing on voter access and rights, security and eliminating the kinds of fraudulent practices that characterized Venezuelan elections in the past.
A major and successful initiative was later established in 2003 known as Mision Itentidad (Mission Identity) that aimed to implement Article 56 of the Bolivarian Constitution stating: "All persons have the right to be registered free of charge with the Civil Registry Office after birth, and to obtain public documents constituting evidence of the biological identity, in accordance with law." The Mission constituted a combined mass citizenship and voter registration drive that's given millions of ordinary Venezuelans national ID cards granting them the full rights of citizenship they never before had. It also resulted in over five million Venezuelans being able to register and vote in elections for the first time ever up to the middle of 2006 - including qualified immigrants and indigenous people who never before had any rights. In 2000, before this initiative was begun, 11 million Venezuelans were registered to vote. By September, 2006, the number had grown to over 16 million in a country of 27 million people.
How the Electoral Process Is Administered
The electoral process is administered by the National Electoral Council (CNE). It's an independent body, separate from the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government or any private corporate interests. It's comprised of 11 members of the National Assembly and 10 representatives of civil society, none of whom are appointed by the President.
Elections are now conducted in Venezuela using Smartmatic touchscreen electronic voting machines with verifiable paper ballot receipts that voters can check to assure they confirm the vote they cast and then are saved by the CNE to have as a permanent record of vote totals that can be used in case a recount is needed. They also require voters to leave an electronic thumbprint to assure no one votes more than once.
The machines work as intended leading the Carter Center to comment, based on their observations of their use: "The automated machines worked well and the voting results do reflect the will of the people." Further independent studies verified the same thing including ones carried out by vote-process experts at the University of California Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Stanford and elsewhere. Great care was taken in their design to eliminate any possibility of tampering. It involves using a special technology splitting the security codes into four parts that has been endorsed in numerous voting security reports because it makes the machines used in Venezuela the most advanced system in the world according to the European Union Election Observation Mission in the country.
How Elections Are Now Run in the US
Contrast this exercise of real participatory democracy with the way things are done in the US, especially since the fraud-laden election bringing the Bush administration to power. A growing number of investigations have since revealed how corrupted the electoral process has become, especially in national elections, where a systematic effort has been made to disenfranchise portions of those segments of eligible voters likely to oppose Republican candidates or selected Democrats representing elitist interests. Many techniques are used to do it starting with the privatization of the electoral process that gives large electronic voting machine companies total unregulated control over it.
In the 2004 national election, more than 80% of the US vote was cast and counted on these machines owned, programmed and operated by three large corporations, most of which have no verifiable paper ballot receipts making it impossible to have a recount as any done, if needed, will only verify the first result being challenged. The process now is secretive and unreliable run by private corporate interests with everything to gain if candidates they support win, and based on what's now known, that's exactly what's happened. As long as this system prevails, the US electoral process is fraudulent on its face making a sham of the notion of the kind of free, fair and open elections that are a hallmark of the way things are run under Hugo Chavez.
It's what one observer, commenting on US elections, calls the "ultimate crime" as the very bedrock of democracy depends on the right of the electorate to exercise its will at the polls without it being subverted by private or other interests. Its importance is what Tom Paine said about it at the nation's founding: "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right (as has happened in the US) is to reduce a man to slavery."
Subversion with electronic voting machine manipulation is only part of the problem as investigations have also uncovered much more revealing a systematic perversion of the democratic process. In the 2000 and 2004 national elections in the US, millions of votes cast were never counted that included "spoiled ballots," rejected absentee ballots and others lost or deliberately ignored in the count. In addition, there's been massive voter roll purging, for a variety of reasons, that added up to one common denominator - eligible voters disenfranchised were likely to vote for the "wrong" candidates so they were denied the right to vote at all. In Venezuela under Hugo Chavez today, every eligible voter can register and is encouraged to vote without fear their vote cast will disappear, go to another candidate or they will be purged from the voter roles. That's how a true democracy is supposed to work, and in Venezuela today it does. In the US it doesn't, and it shows in the results. It also shows in that half or more of eligible voters here never bother showing up on election day believing, with justification, their votes don't count.
Another major difference between the two countries is in Venezuela the people are informed well enough to understand what the candidates stand for, how their government serves them, and they're willing to actively engage to keep their hard-won democratic rights and social benefits they won't give up without a fight. In contrast, in the US, the public is lulled into believing in an illusion of democracy and the rights of the people guaranteed under one that don't exist anymore, if they ever did. Because of their apathy, they're not in the streets like the people of Venezuela, their comrades in Mexico, who aren't as fortunate, or the anti-Bush/Olmert masses comprising up to half the population of Lebanon in the streets of Beirut demanding real democracy, justice and an end to Western domination. Instead, they're home or out shopping because they fail to understand unless they go there in large enough numbers for the rights they don't, in fact, have, they'll never get them.
Chavez's Goal to Build A Socialist Society in the 21st Century
Chavez first announced to the world his hope to build a socialist society in the 21st century in Venezuela at the January 30, 2005 Fifth World Social Forum. He wants a humanistic one based on solidarity, not the bureaucratic kind that doomed the Soviet Union and Eastern European states where governments were top - down with no participation of the people who ended up ill-served. Later on, Chavez elaborated saying "We have assumed the commitment to direct the Bolivarian Revolution towards socialism....a new socialism....a socialism of the 21st century....based in solidarity, fraternity, love, justice, liberty and equality" beyond the free-market model based on exploitation of working people for the interests of capital.
The Chavez government has pursued these goals incrementally since it came to power in February, 1999 following Hugo Chavez's election in December, 1998. He promised Venezuelans his vision of a Bolivarian Revolution to free them from what 19th century liberator Simon Bolivar called the imperial curse that always "plague(d) Latin America with misery in the name of liberty." His Movement for the Fifth Republic Party (MVR) got a peoples' mandate for change at its outset to draft a new constitution that transformed Venezuela from an oligarchy serving wealth and power alone to a model humanist democratic state serving everyone based on solidarity and the principles of political, economic and social justice.
He delivered in ways unimaginable in the US where essential government-delivered services for the people are denounced as radical and denied in a nation now dominated by a reactionary ideology and the notion that only neoliberal market-based solutions are acceptable - even though it's proved they don't work. Under this flawed model, government only works for the privileged few that benefit under its law-of-the-jungle rules that come at the expense of the great majority losing out the way it always happens in a top-down society run by and for them. This is the state of things today in the US, a nation where its founding principles have been turned upside down and is now run by and for plutocrats with values corrupted by false notions of fairness, equity and justice.
That was how Venezuela was governed before the age of Hugo Chavez. In the 28 years before he was first elected, the people suffered from deprivation, neglect and indifference. Venezuelan inflation-adjusted per capita income fell 35% in those years, the worst decline in the region and one of the worst in the world. Chavez halted the decline and turned it around as high oil prices and a favorable economic climate lifted the nation's growth to the highest level in the region following the crippling 2002-03 oil strike and destabilizing effects of the short-lived coup deposing Hugo Chavez for two days in April, 2002. Since that time, unemployment declined and the crushing poverty level in the country fell from a high of around 62% in 2003 to a level near 40% today and falling.
Chavez, however, went much further by enshrining the principles of a participatory democracy and its social revolution in the new 1999 Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. It mandates revolutionary structural changes for political, economic and social justice that include quality health care for all as a "fundamental social right and....responsibility....of the state." It bans discrimination, guarantees free expression Chavez's fiercest critics enjoy and use to the fullest against him without recrimination, provides for housing assistance, an improved social security pension system for seniors, assures support for the rights of indigenous people, and requires quality education be made available for all to the highest level that virtually eliminated illiteracy - compared to the stated 20% level here in the US according to the Department of Education figures but which, in fact, is much higher and increasing based on the best evidence of functional illiteracy among the secondary student populations of the nation's inner cities.
That would now be unacceptable in Venezuela where Chavez post-election wants to take his Revolution to the next level doing more than ever for his people. Along with all of the above, the government additionally already provides subsidized food for those in need, land reform, job training and micro-credit. It's a country in which most of the productive capacity is state or privately owned, but a great emphasis has been made to be innovative and go in new directions, experimenting with the idea of co-management with state-owned enterprises allowed to be jointly managed by the workers in them. A major effort has also been made to expand the number of cooperatives outside of state or private control, and since Chavez was first elected the total number of them has grown from 800 to 100,000 employing 1.5 million people or 10% of the adult population and rising.
Another of Chavez's top priorities since first taking office in 1999 has been land reform. The country has long been run by rich oligarchs including large land-owning ones that allowed 5% of the largest landowners to control 75% of the land and 75% of the smallest ones to have only 6% of it. Chavez is trying to implement land reform legislation allowing underused land owned by the latifundistas (the large rich landowners) to be redistributed to landless campesinos who'll put it to productive use and improve their lives in the process.
Chavez also wants to continue enhancing all the above-listed programs that have improved the lives of his people including the many innovative social Missions using the country's oil wealth to do it. His impressive electoral victory gives him a greater mandate than ever to advance his Bolivarian Project to the next level and his vision of socialism or social democracy in the 21st century. It won't be a simple task as the power of the oligarchs supported by the Bush administration, and what may succeed it, are powerful obstacles in the way of social advance. So far he's achieved wonders for the past eight years in the face of great odds, but much more needs to be done. With the power of the Venezuelan people standing with him, not willing to give up the great gains already gotten, Chavez is now looking ahead to advance the country's social democracy well into the new century.
Hugo Chavez is now an empowered symbol and leader of a growing social revolutionary populist movement slowly spreading in the region that needs to be turned into an unstoppable juggernaut. It represents a hopeful and promising alternative to generations of entrenched elitism backed by military power along with oppressive US dominance and the poisonous effects of the neoliberal Washington Consensus model savagely exploiting the Global South for the interests of capital in the North. It's a way to be free from the US-controlled IMF and World Bank debt-bondage demanding in return punishing fiscal austerity, state-owned industry privatizations, social neglect, the loss of organized labor rights in a system of market deregulation benefitting the privileged alone at the expense of staggering levels of poverty, deprivation and inequality for the majority. It's a way to build a free society of, for and by the people unbeholden to wealth and power. It's a way to reduce poverty and inequality and improve the lives of ordinary people in ways never thought possible in the developing world until Hugo Chavez had a vision and was able to implement it and begin its spread.
Chavez now has allies in Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Nicaragua, Uruguay and even Chile that still exists under the shadow of Augusto Pinochet and his 17 year dictatorship that crushed the strongest democracy in the region and from whose rule the country has yet to fully recover, but hopefully has a chance under its new more enlightened leader. They represent what author Tariq Ali refers to in the region as an "Axis of Hope," and Chavez has now earned enough political capital to bring it closer to fruition.
The momentum in Latin America is with Hugo Chavez and his allies if they can seize it and take it to the next level. The chance for success has never been better with the US more vulnerable than ever and staggering from its loss of dominance in the Middle East and the forces arrayed against it there showing they can stand up to the most powerful nation on earth and prevail. It's a sign America is not all-powerful, is in decline politically and economically and choosing an independent course is an alternative that can work if enough nations unite and do it together.
The region's most dominant nations have already shown they can oppose Washington and prevail. Following Argentina's IMF-imposed structurally adjusted economic meltdown at the end of the 1990s, President Nestor Kirchner got the financial markets in 2005 to accept his take-it-or-leave-it offer of 30 cents on the dollar payment on the country's unrepayable sovereign debt of around $130 billion and have to accept it in the form of long-term, low-interest bonds.
Then, events at the November, 2005 Summit of the Americas in Mar del Playa, Argentina sounded the death knell for the US-proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) expansion of the disastrous NAFTA model because the dominant Southern Common Market Mercosur countries in the region of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela want no part of it signaling for scholar Immanuel Wallerstein that "The Monroe Doctrine is dead. And there are few mourners."
And yet another blow to US-promoted globalization came with the collapse of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha (so-called "Development") Round talks in July, 2006 because more developing countries now realize the US/Western-one-way trade deals have been disastrous despite disingenuous rosy promises of economic growth and prosperity that only delivered increased poverty, deprivation and environmental destruction instead.
Before these agreements from hell were ever agreed to, average per capital income growth in Latin America was 82% from 1960 to 1980 (4% per person, per year). Once the notion of globalization took hold after 1980 based on the Washington Consensus neoliberal model, the rate of income growth in the region through 2000 fell to 9% (less than half of 1% per person, per year), and since 2000 it dropped to 5% - a stunning indictment of how so-called "free-trade" US-style (that isn't "fair trade") is a formula for economic ruin for those countries adopting it, and significant ones like Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia and others in Latin America want no more of it.
It remains to be seen going forward if this kind of momentum can continue, gain strength with new allies working together for the common self-interest of all to break free from the dominant US chokehold by asserting their independence as Venezuela under Hugo Chavez has shown can be done and be able to get away with it and benefit as a result.
Further success in Venezuela and elsewhere depends on breaking free from what South African born and now activist and distinguished Bolivarian Venezuelan Professor of philosophy and political science Franz Lee says must be accomplished ahead: "(Getting) rid of all the five tentacles of capitalist imperialism: exploitation, domination, discrimination, militarization and alienation....in a class struggle against global fascism." In Venezuela, the process has only just begun. Hugo Chavez has taken up the challenge to move it ahead, but he'll need the support of other enlightened leaders to boldly go with him where he's already gone and then take it a lot further to achieve a peoples' victory over the forces that have long held them down and denied them the equity and justice they deserve.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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Iraq - "Social Engineering"
Bipartisan panel urges agencies to order civilians to Iraq
GovExec.com
06/12/2006
With the situation in Iraq "grave and deteriorating," the United States must begin the process of shifting troops out of the country, members of a bipartisan panel said Wednesday. But at the same time, the group recommended, the Bush administration must make sure that it has sufficient civilian personnel in Iraq -- if necessary, by ordering some employees to serve there.
"The nature of the mission in Iraq is unfamiliar and dangerous, and the United States has had great difficulty filling civilian assignments in Iraq with sufficient numbers of properly trained personnel at the appropriate rank," wrote members of the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former Secretary of State James A. Baker II and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., in their report. For example, panel members said, the United States still has "far too few Arab language-proficient" officials in the country.
To address the problem, the group recommended that the secretaries of State and Defense and the Director of National Intelligence put the "highest possible priority" on language and cultural training for military personnel and civilian employees about to be assigned to Iraq. And, the report said, if not enough of the latter group volunteer to go to the country, "civilian agencies must fill those positions with directed assignments."
If agencies do so, the panel recommended, the federal government should take steps to address employees' financial hardships resulting from service in Iraq, such as providing the same tax breaks military personnel stationed in the country receive.
The Iraq Study Group, launched earlier this year under the auspices of the United States Institute of Peace, also recommended that the Defense, Justice, State and Treasury departments, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development, begin to conduct cross-agency training efforts to prepare for complex operations such as those in Iraq. Those efforts, the group said, should be modeled on the joint training exercises conducted by the military services since the passage of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act.
In a separate recommendation, the panel said the State Department should create a Foreign Service Reserve Corps with personnel who could provide "surge capacity" to deal with future stability operations. Other departments, such as Agriculture, Justice and Treasury, should develop similar capacities, panel members said
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We Must Prevent Permanent Bases in Iraq
By David Swanson
davidswanson.org
December 8, 2006
Congress passed a law banning permanent bases in Iraq and the Baker-Hamilton Report suggests that Bush state we don't have long-term plans - meanwhile, construction continues.
Did you notice something about the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report? It recommends all sorts of changes, all of them far short of actually ending the war, but it recommends them all to the same person responsible for the disastrous situation we're in now. It doesn't suggest what Congress should do to rein in an out-of-control president. Rather, it recommends that the President do dozens of things. Here's one of them:
Recommendation 22: The President should state that the United States does not seek permanent military bases in Iraq. If the Iraqi government were to request a temporary base or bases, then the U.S. government could consider that request as it would in the case of any other government.
Bush came close to stating this on April 13, 2004, when he said "As a proud and independent people, Iraqis do not support an indefinite occupation and neither does America." But the Iraq Study Group does, and so -- judging by other remarks and actions, does Bush. When you refuse to set a definite time for getting out, you are supporting an indefinite occupation. Robert Gates, the new Rumsfeld, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that he thought the "war on terror," which he dishonestly connected to the War on Iraq, would last "a generation." That's pretty indefinite.
But what if Bush were to state that the United States does not seek permanent bases? How would that differ from Bush stating that he had no warning of Katrina, or that he knew Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or that the United States does not torture, or that he planned to keep Rumsfeld on another two years?
Speaking of Rumsfeld, on February 17, 2005, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, testifying before the same Senate Armed Services Committee, said: ''We have no intention, at the present time, of putting permanent bases in Iraq.'' Now, in Rumsfeldspeak this probably meant that he would build temporary bases and then decide later to make them permanent, or that they would just be "enduring," which would mean permanent but not, you know, permanent -- in the same way that an "enemy combatant" is a prisoner of war without the rights of, you know, a prisoner of war. In any case, what is gained by having Bush or Rumsfeld say the words? Wouldn't it make more sense to recommend to Congress that it do something that used to be the role of Congress: namely, pass a law?
But there's the catch. Congress already has. Since the moment we entered Fiscal Year 2007 in October, every dime spent on permanent military bases in Iraq has been illegal. But no one even knows how to find out how many dimes that is. And that illustrates a broader problem. Bush not only began this war in secret with money that Congress had approved for something else, but he also immediately turned it into a permanent occupation and began constructing permanent bases. It took Congress three years to get around to cutting off the funding for more such construction, but Congress had never approved the whole idea. Neither, of course, had the Iraqis.
This past weekend there was a huge protest in Italy where a permanent U.S. military base plans to expand with the construction of a new base nearby. In South Korea it's a similar story, with the added kicker that our military is evicting townspeople, eliminating their village, and building a new base with a golf course attached. There's a global meeting planned in March in Ecuador on eliminating foreign military bases. It was U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia that enraged Osama Bin Laden. Americans pay a fortune to maintain bases all over the world, and the primary product of them is anger.
Last March, when Congress passed the "emergency" supplemental funding for the war for 2006, both houses of Congress included language banning the use of funds to build permanent bases. A Republican-run conference committee "reconciled" this agreement by deleting it.
But leaders on this issue like Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) didn't give up. Similar language was included in the "Defense" Appropriations bill for 2007. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) introduced an amendment on the floor of the House to again delete the language on no-permanent-bases. But most of the Republicans and almost all of the Democrats went against him. Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) urged King to withdraw his amendment: "If we strike this prohibition from this bill that was well thought out, what we are saying to the Iraqi people and what I am satisfied the propaganda machine of al Qaeda in Iraq are going to do is use this and say: see there, we told you so. The Americans plan to occupy us for the rest of our lives." The House voted 376-50 for no-permanent-bases. It's been the law since October. The 2007 "Defense" Authorization bill passed including the same language.
Why did King want to allow the construction of permanent bases? He argued on the floor: "I believe that we should not foreclose our options in Iraq ... Historically, basing rights agreements have been a necessary part of diplomatic relations with foreign governments." Well, yes, but that's exactly what the Iraq Study Group recommends: working the basing arrangements out with the puppet government. Indications are that the Iraqis are not fooled.
When a number of us wrote to Congressional leaders to thank them for cutting off funds for permanent bases, we noted that: "This important step comes as evidence increasingly points to its need. A University of Maryland poll recently showed that 77 percent of Iraqis believe that the United States intends to maintain permanent bases in that country, while a State Department study found that a majority of Iraqis are calling for U.S-led military forces to withdraw immediately. The recently issued National Intelligence Estimate confirmed what many of us had feared for so long: the U.S. presence in Iraq is increasing terrorist threats and not making America's homeland more secure."
So, over three-quarters of Iraqis are hip to what we're doing. Americans don't lag so far behind. In a new study released by the same university this week, we learn that 66 percent of Americans (including a near majority of Republicans) believe that a majority of Iraqis oppose the establishment of permanent U.S. bases in their country, and 68 percent of Americans (including a majority of Republicans) believe that, in any case, we should not have such bases. Tom Engelhardt points out that: "This is an especially remarkable set of figures, given that the permanent bases have received next to no attention in the American mainstream media."
Enough has been reported, however, for us to know that we are spending billions of dollars to construct bases in Iraq for the U.S. military. The new Democratic majority in Congress knows this, knows the damage these bases are doing, and knows the good that could be done by making better use of all that money, not to mention the lives lost in the process. If we speak up, perhaps the new majority will also know how quickly it can become a minority again if it does not seize this issue, expose it, and set it right. As Congressman Dennis Kucinich said on the floor of the House on Wednesday: "The American public did not vote for the Iraq Study Group. They voted for a new congress and a new direction in Iraq -- out."
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Iraq Doesn't Need Any More Heavy Weapons
By Stephen Pizzo
News for Real
December 8, 2006
The Baker-Hamilton report proposes to "beef up Iraqi military" with billions in new hardware -- the absolute last thing the war-torn country needs.
I know everyone is abuzz today about how the Baker/Hamilton commission's bleak report on Iraq represents the beginning of the end for Bush's disastrous blunder. True, there is now light at the end of that bloody gauntlet. But more US kids will have to die before it's over, not for strategic, but for entirely face-saving reasons.
And, if you listened carefully to statements from both administration and Iraqi officials over the the last couple of weeks, you heard the lid on the KY jelly jar being loosened for one last reaming - of you, your kids and your grandkids.
It's a "new plan," a plan to "beef up Iraqi military" so it can take over from US forces. You heard Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki last week claim that the only reason his forces have not stood up to the insurgents so far is because they don't have any "heavy weapons." He wants heavy weapons -- tanks, Humvees, artillery, that kind of stuff.
Maliki's request fell on eager -- no, desperate -- ears. George W. Bush, now painted into a corner by his own incompetence, is now looking for any way to hold off Iraq's inevitably collapse until after he leaves office. And Maliki's request for more military gear was just the ticket, especially now that the Baker/Hamilton has sanctified the notion of encouraging and enabling the Iraqis to fight for themselves.
Of course, Iraq can't even pay it's own utility bills, so guess who's going to have to borrow a few billion dollars more to pay for those heavy weapons Maliki wants?
Bush's new strategy, which has already begun to emerge, will be a two-pronged ruse: 1) Increase training of Iraqi troops, and 2) Provide them "the means" to function after US forces leave. ("Means" = heavy weapons.)
Bear with me here as I free associate on this "new course forward:"
Let's see -- first let's talk about "heavy weapons."
Over the past three years the harsh Iraq environment has worn down our own military's stock of heavy weapons to the breaking point. Nearly $8 billion in US heavy weapons, tanks, trucks, Humvees and trucks, are now up on blocks awaiting repairs at US headquarter and supply depots around the world. Our soldiers in Iraq are now so short heavy equipment that the Pentagon has been looting National Guard and Reserve units to make up the shortfall. Gutted reserve units now need their own $7 billion infusion of heavy weapons to replace theirs which are now being degraded in Iraq.
So, just what can we give Mr. Maliki? The heavy weapons and gear now on the ground in Iraq, of course. We could just leave it behind when our own troops split. Forget for moment that we will have to then replace it all for our own armed forces. Let's instead consider what the Iraqis will do with those heavy weapons.
Well let's see. Maliki is a Shiite. So is that little two-legged tumor, al-Sadar. Shiites are to Iraq what racist segregationists were to the US south a century ago -- only meaner. Sunnis are Iraq's minority. What does common sense suggest the Shiite-government of Iraq has in mind for those heavy weapons. (You only get one guess.)
Which is precisely why, at such as critical tipping-point moment, al-Maliki is not begging for more US troops. And he's not begging US troops to stay in Iraq either. All Maliki is asking for now are "heavy weapons" for his 350,000 US-trained and supplied Iraqi soldiers.
On top of that al-Sadar has his own 60,000-man Shia militia. These are the folks who have been kidnapping Sunnis off the street. Most are later found shot in the head, but only after militia soldiers amused themselves by making holes in them with electric drills. (Imagine the creative uses those dudes will come up with once they have heavy weapons!)
Meanwhile up north the Kurds, who have been stabbed in the back by the US more than once, will go berserk at the very notion that the US is providing the Shiites the heavy military gear. That's all the Shiites need to reclaim the Kurd's newly acquired oil fields -- which of course is another reason al-Maliki wants heavy equipment.
I guess my point here is Bush is about to make things worse in Iraq -- again. We should not give Maliki "heavy" anything. We've already armed and trained his new army with the kinds of weapons necessary to bring law and order to Iraq. I suggest he be told to get on with that task because that's all he's getting from Uncle Sap. (Thank goodness it takes too long to train helicopter pilots or we'd be giving them choppers too.)
New York Times -- and one-time supporter of the war -- Tom Friedman, said today that the trouble real problem we face in Iraq is that Iraqis living together as a unified nation is our first choice. But for Iraqis that is their second choice. Most Iraqis first choice is that their particular tribe, Sunni, Shia or Kurd, get everything they want. (Which for Sunnis and Shiites is, pretty much, everything.) The Shiites want full control of Iraq. The Sunnis want to return to the good old days when they ran roughshod over Iraq. The Kurds want nothing to do with either of them, just their own country and every drop of oil under it.
"We lost," Friedman, said today. "It's over. We should no longer sacrifice our first-choice soldiers to further the second choices of the Iraqis."
Amen. Get out. Sooner rather than later. And take our heavy weapons with us.
A couple of other free-associative observations on all this:
* We all know now that the Bush administration lied to us about WMD in Iraq. Now, thanks to the Baker/Hamilton report we learn they've been lying to us about the true level of violence in Iraq. They looked at one particularly violent day in Iraq during which the administration reported 93 violent incidents. The real number was over 1100 violent attacks. (Not exactly a rounding error.)
* Ever wonder why, from the very start of this mess, the Bush administration made one breathtaking mistake after another? There was a clue in the Baker/Hamilton report. We have 1000 Americans working at the US embassy in Iraq out of which only six of them speak Arabic. There's 4 million Arab-Americans, but the Bush administration could only round up 6 (s-i-x) to work at our embassy in Baghdad.
* On 9/11 3030 Americans were killed, resulting in the Bush administration's "war on terror." The same year the leading causes of death for Americans was tobacco -- the source of 435,000 deaths, or 18.1% of total US deaths that year. Rather than declare war on tobacco Bush administration lawyers argued the court should reduce the $135 billion fine against Big Tobacco to $10 billion.
* The same year as terrorist killed 3030 Americans, 17,000 Americans -- more than 5 times as died on 9/11 -- died from illicit drug use. Yet just this week I read this dispatch from our war front in Afghanistan:
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon, engaged in a difficult fight to defeat a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, has resisted entreaties from U.S. anti-narcotics officials to play an aggressive role in the faltering campaign to curb the country's opium trade...Military units in Afghanistan largely overlook drug bazaars, rebuff some requests to take U.S. drug agents on raids and do little to counter the organized crime syndicates shipping the drug to Europe, Asia and, increasingly, the United States, according to officials and documents. (Afghanistan now provides upwards of 90% of the heroin coming into the US, and this years crop has been a record. )
So, let me get this straight. We will go to war against anyone that kills 3030 Americans in one year by flying planes into office buildings, but have no interest in going to war against those that kill 17,000 Americans every year by providing them deadly drugs.
Meanwhile, now self-financed by this booming drug trade, the Taliban is making a strong comeback in Afghanistan.
Maybe it's time for the Baker/Hamilton commission to get to work on an Afghanistan report.
Yes Virginia, George W. Bush is a moron. No need for special commission to verify that. The evidence -- and bodies -- mount by the hour.
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Widows Become The Silent Tragedy
By Dahr Jamail & Ali Al-Fadhily
08 December, 2006
Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Dec. 7 (IPS) - Hundreds of thousands of widows are becoming the silent tragedy of a country sliding deeper into chaos by the day.
Widows are the flip side of violence that has meant more than a million men dead, detained or disabled, Iraqi NGOs estimate. These men's wives or mothers now carry the burden of running the families.
"The total figure of men who have been killed, disabled or detained for long periods of time adds up to more than one and a half million," Khalid Hameed, chief of the Iraqi al-Raya human rights organisation told IPS. "The average number of Iraqi family members is seven, so about ten million Iraqis are facing the worst living circumstances."
In these circumstances, he said, women have had to "search for ways to survive and support their families at a time when not much help comes from the international community."
Most international NGOs left the country by last year apparently on the advice of governments of their countries pointing to growing violence and dangers to NGO members.
"International NGOs were conducting support projects for Iraqi women before they suddenly quit and left the country in a rush in October 2005," Faris Daghistani, who was project manager at the Baghdad mission for the Italian humanitarian aid organisation in Iraq INTERSOS told IPS.
"There was a wide focus on working women and how to support them by training and providing them with necessary tools to raise income on their own," he said. "It is a pity that most of our productive projects have stopped, and we had to leave women to face their fate on their own."
The violence since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 is not the first to have taken its toll. Hundreds of thousands of men were killed, taken prisoner or disabled during the 1980-1988 war between Iran and Iraq.
"We have never lived our lives as human beings should live," 42-year-old Dr Shatha Ahmed told IPS at her home in Baghdad. "The Iraq-Iran war took our fathers, and now the Bush war is taking our husbands and sons."
Women now face a long struggle surviving and bringing up families on their own, she said. "We could not even dream of developing our own skills."
Dr. Shatha's husband, also a doctor, was killed by Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army in September this year when he was leaving the Ministry of Health offices in Baghdad. She now has to support her family, and her husband's parents as well.
Some help is on offer to widows through groups such as the Iraqi Red Crescent, the Islamic Party, the Muslim Scholars Association and non-governmental organisations. But this support is not well organised, and is insufficient to help the growing number of widows.
The Social Affairs Office of the government has started paying the equivalent of about 100 dollars monthly to widows. But this payment cannot support whole families, given particularly the shooting inflation.
And the payment is not easy to get. "I had to pay a lot of money as bribes to government officials in order to get the monthly support payment, and that is not enough to support my big family," 47-year-old widow Haja Saadiya Hussein from Baghdad told IPS.
"Americans killed my husband last year near a checkpoint, and now I have to work as a servant in government officials' houses to earn a living for my six children. I have stopped them going to school, to cut my expenses."
Some widows have attempted to remarry in order to find support. Some second husbands, who are usually older, offer to take care of their new sons for religious reasons.
"There can be no compensation for losing a husband," a spokesperson from the Iraqi Red Crescent's social support department told IPS. "The world is responsible for these women who lost their spouses in the name of the international community."
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U.S., Iraqis dispute raid, at least 17 killed
By Ghazwan al-Jibouri
Reuters
8 Dec 06
ISHAQI, Iraq - Iraqi and U.S. officials gave sharply differing accounts of an overnight raid and air strike on Friday in which up to 20 people were killed, with a town mayor accusing American troops of killing five children.
The U.S. military issued a statement saying ground forces with air support killed 18 men and two women in the Thar Thar area of Salahaddin province, north of Baghdad. It suspected all of being al Qaeda militants and said it found weapons including rocket-propelled grenades and explosive suicide vests.
In the village of Jalameda, near Ishaqi, 90 km (50 miles) north of the capital, police said they found the bodies of 17 dead civilians in the rubble of the family homes of brothers Mohammed Hussein Jalmoud and Mahmoud Hussein Jalmoud.
Captain Nasser Abdul Majeed told Reuters that the 17 included six women and five children. They had been sent to the regional capital Tikrit to determine the cause of death.
The houses, surrounded by open fields, were flattened in the raid, leaving little but rubble and twisted steel rods.
Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver said the statement on al Qaeda referred to the Ishaqi incident.
It is an area where the Sunni insurgency is active. Earlier, Ishaqi police and the mayor put the death toll as high as 32.
"The Americans have done this before but they always deny it," Ishaqi Mayor Amer Alwan told Reuters by telephone.
"I want the world to know what's happening here."
In March, Ishaqi police and officials accused U.S. troops of tying up and shooting dead six adults and five children and then calling in an air strike to destroy the house. An investigation by the U.S. unit involved concluded there was no wrongdoing.
It did, however, also find that there were up to nine "collateral deaths" of civilians, as opposed to the three which the military originally reported.
COMPLAINTS
That incident was one of a handful involving civilian deaths that came to light in the past year which have been investigated by the U.S. military, including the deaths of two dozen civilians in the town of Haditha in November 2005.
At least five marines are expected to be charged soon with offences, possibly including murder, U.S. officials have said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said shortly after taking office in April that he was losing patience with reports of U.S. troops killing civilians. Many Iraqis believe unjustified killings by U.S. troops are common, but few have been confirmed by official investigations.
Such sentiments are among reasons cited by many Iraqis for wanting an end to the U.S. military presence, although many also share the concerns of some U.S. officials that a hasty withdrawal could precipitate greater sectarian violence.
In its statement on Friday's strike, the U.S. military said: "Coalition Forces targeted the location based on intelligence reports that indicated associates with links to multiple al Qaeda in
Iraq networks were operating in the area."
Ground forces were searching buildings when they came under heavy machinegun fire from one of the buildings. The ground forces returned fire, killing two militants, it said. The troops then called in an air strike that killed 18 more militants.
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The Empire Is Falling
By Robert Fisk
08 December 2006
The Independent
The Roman Empire is falling. That, in a phrase, is what the Baker report says. The legions cannot impose their rule on Mesopotamia.
Just as Crassus lost his legions' banners in the deserts of Syria-Iraq, so has George W Bush. There is no Mark Antony to retrieve the honour of the empire. The policy "is not working". "Collapse" and "catastrophe" - words heard in the Roman senate many a time - were embedded in the text of the Baker report. Et tu, James?
This is also the language of the Arab world, always waiting for the collapse of empire, for the destruction of the safe Western world which has provided it with money, weapons, political support. First, the Arabs trusted the British Empire and Winston Churchill, and then they trusted the American Empire and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Truman and Eisenhower administrations and all the other men who would give guns to the Israelis and billions to the Arabs - Nixon, Carter, Clinton, Bush...
And now they are told that the Americans are not winning the war; that they are losing. If you were an Arab, what would you do?
Be sure, they are not asking this question in Washington. The Middle East - so all-important (supposedly) in the "war on terror" - in itself, a myth - doesn't really matter in the White House. It is a district, a map, a region, every bit as amorphous as the crescent of "crisis" which the Clinton administration invented when it wanted to land its troops in Somalia. How to get out, how to save face, that's the question. To hell with the people who live there: the Arabs, the Iraqis, the men, women and children whom we kill - and whom the Iraqis kill - every day.
Note how our "spokesmen" in Afghanistan now acknowledge the dead woman and children of Nato airstrikes as if it is quite in order to slaughter these innocents because we are at war with the horrid Taliban.
Some of the same mindset has arrived in Baghdad, where "coalition" spokesmen also - from time to time - jump in front of the video-tape evidence by accepting that they, too, kill women and children in their war against "terror". But it is the sentences of impotence that doom empires. "The ability of the United States to influence events within Iraq is diminishing." There is a risk of a "slide towards chaos [sic] [that] could trigger the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe."
But hasn't that already happened? "Collapse" and "catastrophe" are daily present in Iraq. America's ability "to influence events" has been absent for years. And let's just re-read the following sentence: "Violence is increasing in scope and lethality. It is fed by a Sunni Arab insurgency. Shiite [Shia] militias, death squads, al-Qa'ida and widespread criminality. Sectarian conflict is the principal challenge to stability."
Come again? Where was this "widespread criminality," this "sectarian conflict" when Saddam, our favourite war criminal, was in power? What do the Iraqis think about this? And how typical that the American media went at once to hear Bush's view of the Baker report - rather than the reaction of the Iraqis, those who are on the receiving end of our self-induced tragedy in Mesopotamia.
They will enjoy the idea that American troops should be "embedded" with Iraqi forces - not so long ago, it was the press that had to be "embedded" with the Americans! - as if the Romans were ready to put their legions amid the Goths, Ostrogoths and Visigoths to ensure their loyalty.
What the Romans did do, of course - and what the Americans would never do - is offer their subjects Roman citizenship. Every tribe - in Gaul or Bythinia or Mesopotamia - who fell under Roman rule became a citizen of Rome. What could Washington have done with Iraq if it had offered American citizenship to every Iraqi? There would have been no insurrection, no violence, no collapse or catastrophe, no Baker report. But no. We wanted to give these people the fruits of our civilisation - not the civilisation itself. From this, they were banned.
And the result? The nations we supposedly hated - Iran and Syria - are now expected to save us from ourselves. "Given the ability [sic] of Iran and Syria to influence events and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage [sic] them constructively."
I love those words. Especially "engage". Yes, the "influence of America" is diminishing. The influence of Syria and Iran is growing. That just about sums up the "war on terror". Any word yet, I wonder, from Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara?
The strategies
The Baker panel considered four options, all of which it rejected:
Cut And Run
Baker believes it would cause a humanitarian disaster, while al-Qa'ida would expand further.
Stay The Course
Baker accepts that current US policy is not working. Nearly 100 Americans are dying every month. The US is spending $2bn (£1bn) a week and has lost public support.
Send In More Troops
Increases in US troop levels would not solve the cause of violence in Iraq. Violence would simply rekindle as soon as US forces moved.
Regional Devolution
If the country broke up into its Shia, Sunni and Kurd regions, it would lead to ethnic cleansing and mass population moves.
Baker outlines a fifth option - 'responsible transition' - in which the number of US forces could be increased to shore up the Iraqi army while it takes over primary responsibility for combat operations. US troops would then decrease slowly.
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Bush cool on key Iraq report recommendations
AFP
8 Dec 06
US President George W. Bush has rebuffed some key policy recommendations by the Iraq Study Group, but announced a new push for talks with Israel and the Palestinians after a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The group's report, which warns that the situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating," called for most US combat troops to be withdrawn by early 2008, for talks with Iran and Syria, and for a new Middle East peace effort.
Bush lavished praise on the Iraq Study Group, calling its Wednesday report as "worthy of serious study."
"The American people expect us to come up with a new strategy," he said at a joint press conference with Blair. "We need a new approach," he said.
Bush also described the situation in Iraq as "bad."
Initially he described the violence in Iraq, which the report warned could spiral into a regional war, as "unsettling."
Later, when asked how he could convince the public that he is not in denial and was sincere about a policy overhaul, Bush responded: "It's bad in Iraq. That help?
"You want frankness? I thought we would succeed quicker than we did. And I am disappointed by the pace of success," he said.
Blair said his trip to the Middle East would show that Britain and the United States could be trusted as honest brokers in the region, despite their Iraq entanglement.
"I believe that by moving this forward, we send a very strong signal -- not just to the region but to the whole of the world -- that we are even-handed and just in the application of our values," Blair said.
Blair said his main goals would be to seek the release of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, whose kidnap in Gaza in June sparked fierce Israeli-Palestinian clashes, and to seek ways to speed formation of a Palestinian national unity government acceptable as a negotiating partner to Israel.
"We need to get the door unlocked, because it's kind of barred at the moment, and it needs to be opened," Blair said.
The prime minister's visit was to set the stage for a Middle East visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in early 2007, her eighth trip in two years to Israel and the Palestinian territories, her spokesman said.
Bush cautioned that the review, led by former secretary of state James Baker and former representative Lee Hamilton, was one of many, citing pending reviews by the Pentagon, US State Department, and national security council.
Bush was cool on two key commission proposals -- talks with Iran and Syria, and withdrawing most US combat troops by early 2008.
"I've always said we'd like our troops out as fast as possible," he said, while insisting on the need to be "flexible and realistic" and tying any change in troop level to advice from US military commanders, as he has in the past.
Bush said he would make a speech outlining his strategy "after I get the reports," a move the White House says will come in weeks.
Bush said Damascus and Tehran might be welcome for talks if they renounced support for extremists and pledged support for Baghdad's fledgling government, otherwise "they shouldn't bother to show up."
Bush also reiterated his longstanding condition that Iran freeze sensitive nuclear work before any direct talks.
"Should they agree to verifiably suspend their (uranium) enrichment, the United States will be at the table with our partners," he said, telling Tehran: "There's no need to continue this obstinance."
The Bush-Blair meeting followed November 7 US legislative elections, in which Bush's Republican Party lost the control of Congress to the opposition Democrats.
It also came one week after a dispute inside the State Department, triggered by a senior analyst saying he was "ashamed" of the way Bush treated Blair and that US-British relations were "totally one-sided" in Washington's favor.
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Paris praises 'lucid' Baker-Hamilton Iraq report
PARIS, Dec 7, 2006 (AFP)
France on Thursday praised as "lucid" the Iraq Study Group report on the US presence in Iraq, in particular its call for Washington to step up efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"The report made by the Baker-Hamilton committee is lucid. From our point of view, it reflects the actual situation in Iraq," Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said in a statement.
"As France has always said, there can be no military solution to the deep crisis that Iraq is going through. The report does not fix a precise timetable for withdrawal, but it does set a horizon. That is also what we are saying," he said.
"To ensure that the withdrawal does not lead to chaos, it is vitally important to have a political process which can bring Iraqis together and isolate the extremists and terrorists," he said.
Douste-Blazy also said that he "agreed with the appeal which is made to the US to involve itself totally in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which would open up room for manoeuvre to solve other crises in the region."
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Gore to Bush on Iraq: It's Not About You
ABC
6 Dec 06
ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: Calling the Iraq war "the worst strategic mistake in the entire history of the United States" and "worse than a civil war," former Vice President Gore urged President Bush to find a way to get U.S. troops out of Iraq "as quickly as possible without making the situation worse" while appearing this morning on NBC's "Today."
"I would urge the President to try to separate out the personal issues of being blamed in history for his mistake and instead recognizing that it is not about him. It's about our country," Gore said in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer.
When asked if he would pull U.S. troops out of Iraq even it was seen as a defeat for the U.S., Gore dodged the question, saying if he were president, he would have "the full flow of information" and he would be able to test these ideas.
On the question of whether he would run for president in 2008, Gore once again said he is involved in a different kind of campaign - to educate people about climate change - and that he isn't planning to do so but he hasn't completely ruled it out.
When asked if Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is the man to beat on the Democratic side in 2008, Gore said once again, "I think it's too early to evaluate the candidates who look like they are planning to run." Gore gave a similar answer about Obama when he was interviewed last month by ABC Radio's David Blaustein.
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Catastrophe Still Awaits
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Counterpunch
"The real difficulty in changing any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones."
John Maynard Keynes
A ray of realism appeared in the confirmation hearings for Secretary of Defense nominee Robert Gates before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Gates himself said that the US was not winning in Iraq, a statement with which everyone agreed except the White House.
The US, however, is not out of the woods. The question remains: what will be the US government's response to the lost war and the terrible calamity that Bush has created in Iraq?
Many Americans are still fighting the Vietnam war. They see Iraq through the lens of the futile Vietnam misadventure and express their dismay that America will lose another war because "the Democrats will cut and run like they did in Vietnam." These Americans have forgotten that it was a Republican administration that got the US out of Vietnam and that it was the Democrats who committed the US to that conflict. Moreover, Democrats are not showing a cut and run propensity.
For example, Silvestre Reyes, the incoming Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says the US cannot withdraw from Iraq until it has dismantled the militias. Reyes wants to put 30,000 more US troops into Iraq to dismantle the militias. Reyes has forgotten that sending more troops was the Democrats' policy in Vietnam, a policy whose only result was that more Americans lost sons, fathers, husbands, and brothers.
Obviously, sending more US troops will not succeed in dismantling the Iraqi sectarian militias. However, a US attempt to dismantle the militias will result in the militias joining the insurgency and turning on the US troops. The situation would deteriorate, not improve. It is frightening that the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee does not understand this.
The appearance of a ray of realism about Iraq in the Senate Arms Services Committee does not mean that the US will escape catastrophe. At the Armed Services Committee hearing (Dec. 5), some senators said that US troops must not be used in a civil war between Iraqis, but that the troops have to stay until stability is created. Senators have the idea that US troops can be shorn of their combat role, but remain to train the Iraqi army so the Iraqi government can put down insurgency and civil war.
However, in civil war each side has a government and an army. Which side will the US support? If the US sides with the Sunnis against the majority Shiites, it will be throwing in its lot with the insurgency that has been killing its troops and find itself arrayed against the more numerous Shiites backed by Iran. If the US favors the Shiite majority, the US will anger its Sunni allies in the Middle East.
Indeed, civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, with or without US involvement, could easily spread throughout the Middle East. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was not the only country where Sunnis hold political sway over Shiites. By invading Iraq, stirring up extremism, and setting in motion sectarian violence, the Bush regime may have opened Pandora's Box of civil war throughout the Middle East.
The neoconservative Bush regime lacked the brains to understand that defeating Saddam Hussein's army would not give the US control over Iraq. Whatever minimum control the US might once have had is gone.
The US army in Iraq has so little control that it cannot even provide sufficient security for President Bush to meet in Iraq with Prime Minister Maliki.
Since the US army has no control, provides no security, and does not know who it is fighting, US troops simply provide targets for insurgents. They are accomplishing nothing positive and should be withdrawn. US troops in Iraq serve one purpose: They are a provocation that foments Islamic extremism and creates dangerous instability throughout the Middle East.
The senators and Robert Gates haven't got this far in their comprehension. The question is whether they will see the light before US troops are forced to pay a higher price for their government's stupidity.
A minority of Americans still believe the US can defeat the Iraqi insurgency if only the US would use enough force. Americans hear this from neoconservatives and from the right-wing crazies of talk radio. These are the same Americans who believe the US could have won the Vietnam war by invading or nuking North Vietnam.
The US probably could have defeated North Vietnam on a one-on-one basis. However, just as General MacArthur's invasion of North Korea brought in the Chinese, a US invasion of North Vietnam would have been an extreme provocation for the Soviet Union and China and could have ended in nuclear war.
Many Americans have the absurd notion that the only limit to US power is the will to use it. This absurd idea provides the Israeli lobby with a vocal American minority that is easy to exploit in behalf of "standing tough" in the Middle East. The main reason that neither Republicans nor Democrats can come to their senses about Iraq and America's disastrous Middle East policy is that the Israeli Lobby will not let them.
Right-wing Israeli governments suffer the same delusion as neoconservatives about limitless US power. They believe that the power of their lobby can ensure that American power will be used to destroy all of Israel's enemies.
The US is likely to remain mired in Iraq until Israelis cast out this delusion. No amount of US power can make it possible for Israel to both steal Palestine from Palestinians and have peace. No number of US invasions of Islamic countries can win "the war on terror." As long as right-wing extremism prevails in Israel and as long as the US interferes in the internal affairs of Muslin countries, the formula for calamity remains in place.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
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Afghanistan's opium crop at an all-time high
Online Journal
Dec 7, 2006
The question is
why. Under Taliban rule, which began in the late 1990s, Afghanistan just about
kicked the growing habit by 2001. After five years the Taliban is slipping back
in, but poppy production has grown by leaps and bounds.
According to the Washington
Post, "Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90
percent of the world's heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic
high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush
administration reported yesterday.
"In addition to a
26 percent production increase over the past year -- for a total of 5,644
metric tons -- the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61
percent. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the
southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent."
With a flair for understatement, White House drug policy chief John
Walters called the news "disappointing." I'd say it was shocking. But
curiously, the "resurgent Taliban forces" were cited "as the main impediment to
stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and the U.S. military
investment has far exceeded anti-narcotic and development programs."
But Walters went so far as to say "the drug trade as a
problem . . . rivals and in some ways exceeds the Taliban, threatening to
derail other aspects of U.S. policy." But I thought when those bearded
brigands, the Taliban, were there, poppy production was near nil, 94% gone.
Somehow this brings to mind a Michael Ruppert article,
"The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire,"
published in Nexus Magazine. He wrote, "The Bush family's involvement in
drug-running is an open secret, but Dick Cheney's direct link to a global drug
pipeline through a US construction company is less well known." Sparing no
toes, Mike takes the next step . . .
From Medellin To Moscow With Brown &
Root
"Halliburton
Corporation's Brown & Root is one of the major components of the
Bush-Cheney Drug Empire. The success of Bush Vice-Presidential running mate
Richard Cheney at leading Halliburton, Inc. to a five-year, US $3.8 billion
'pig-out' on federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans is only a partial
indicator of what may happen, now that the Bush ticket has won the US
presidential election."
But is Cheney's
former company's subsidiary, Brown and Root, involved in Afghanistan as well?
Well, The Center
for Public Integrity reports, "KBR was awarded a $100 million contract
in 2002 to build a new U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, from the State
Department." Ah, so. And . . .
"KBR has also been
awarded 15 LOGCAP [Logistics Civil Augmentation Program] task orders worth more
than $216 million for work under 'Operation Enduring Freedom,' the military
name for operations in Afghanistan. These include establishing base camps at
Kandahar and Bagram Air Force Base and training foreign troops from the
Republic of Georgia."
But hasn't the CIA
traditionally had a hand in Afghanistan's drug business, going back to the 80s,
and also with the Iran-Contra scam, providing a continuous drug-revenue stream
to what has been called "our shadow government," sponsor of worldwide dark ops?
Again, according to Ruppert, the Afghanistan opium growing began with the CIA
around that time.
CIA planted the opium currently growing
Ruppert says,
"Before 1980, Afghanistan produced 0% of the world's opium. But then the
CIA moved in, and by 1986 they were producing 40% of the world's heroin supply.
By 1999, they were churning out 3,200 TONS of heroin a year nearly 80% of the
total market supply. But then something unexpected happened. The Taliban rose
to power, and by 2000 they had destroyed nearly all of the opium fields.
Production dropped from 3,000+ tons to only 185 tons, a 94% reduction! This
enormous drop in revenue subsequently hurt not only the CIA's Black Budget
projects, but also the free-flow of laundered money in and out of the
Controller's banks"
University of
Wisconsin History Professor Alfred McCoy, writing for The
World Traveler, mostly corroborates Ruppert's views . . ."Within a
few years, the currents of global geopolitics then shifted in ways that pushed
the CIA into new alliances with drug traffickers. In 1979, the Soviets invaded
Afghanistan and the Sandinista revolution seized Nicaragua, prompting two CIA
covert operations with some revealing similarities.
"During the 1980s,
while the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, the CIA, working through Pakistan's
Inter-Service Intelligence, spent some $2 billion to support the Afghan
resistance. When the operation started in 1979, this region grew opium only for
regional markets and produced no heroin.
"Within two years,
however, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world's top heroin
producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict
population went from near zero in 1979 to 5,000 in 1981 and to 1.2 million by
1985-a much steeper rise than in any other nation.
"CIA assets again
controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujaheddin guerrillas seized territory
inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary
tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under
the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin
laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests.
"In May 1990, as
the CIA operation was winding down, The Washington
Post published a front-page expose charging that Gulbudin Hekmatar, the
ClA's favored Afghan leader, was a major heroin manufacturer. The Post argued,
in a manner similar to the San Jose Mercury News's later report about the
contras, that U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin
dealing by its Afghan allies 'because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has
been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.'"
Bottom line
So, I guess we
"inspired" the Afghans to grow heroin, we exported it to finance dark ops,
including a full-scale war. Therefore the miracle of the poppies popping back
this year must be what, an accident, an ill wind that blows no good, the testy
Taliban or those warlock warlords who fought with us once, or conceivably the
favorite U.S. contractor, Brown and Root, in the middle of some larger CIA
effort?
Returning for an
answer to the Washington
Post article, its author Karen
DeYoung reported that "Gen. James L. Jones, supreme allied NATO commander said
in a recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Afghanistan is NATO's
biggest operation with more than 30,000 troops. Drug cartels with their own
armies engage in regular combat with NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan. He
said, 'It would be wrong to say that it is just the Taliban. I think I need to
set that record straight.'" Well all right. We like straight talk.
DeYoung also
reports, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told Congress last month, "It's almost
the devil'