The slim book that was suddenly the most controversial work in the West in early March was not easy to find in the United States. Amazon said it wasn't available till April. The Strand bookstore didn't have it either. You could order it on Amazon-UK, but it would be a week getting here. I finally found an author in Michigan who kindly photocopied the British book and overnighted it to me; but to be on the safe side, I visited an activist's apartment on Eighth Avenue on the promise that I could take her much-in-demand copy to the lobby for half an hour. In the elevator, I flipped it open to a random passage:

"I can't cool boiling waters in Russia. I can't be Picasso. I can't be Jesus. I can't save the planet single-handedly. I can wash dishes."

The book is the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie. Composed from the journal entries and e-mails of the 23-year-old from Washington State who was crushed to death in Gaza three years ago under a bulldozer operated by the Israeli army, the play had two successful runs in London last year and then became a cause celebre after a progressive New York theater company decided to postpone its American premiere indefinitely out of concern for the sensitivities of (unnamed) Jewish groups unsettled by Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections. When the English producers denounced the decision by the New York Theatre Workshop as "censorship" and withdrew the show, even the mainstream media could not ignore the implications. Why is it that the eloquent words of an American radical could not be heard in this country--not, that is, without what the Workshop had called "contextualizing," framing the play with political discussions, maybe even mounting a companion piece that would somehow "mollify" the Jewish community?

"The impact of this decision is enormous--it is bigger than Rachel and bigger than this play," Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother, said. "There was something about this play that made them feel so vulnerable. I saw in the Workshop's schedule a lesbian play. Will they use the same approach? Will they go to the segment of the community that would ardently oppose that?"

In this way, Corrie's words appear to have had more impact than her death. The House bill calling for a US investigation of her killing died in committee, with only seventy-eight votes and little media attention. But the naked admission by a left-leaning cultural outlet that it would subordinate its own artistic judgment to pro-Israel views has served as a smoking gun for those who have tried to press the discussion in this country of Palestinian human rights. Indeed, the admission was so shocking and embarrassing that the Workshop quickly tried to hedge and retreat from its statements. But the damage was done; people were asking questions that had been consigned to the fringe: How can the West condemn the Islamic world for not accepting Muhammad cartoons when a Western writer who speaks out on behalf of Palestinians is silenced? And why is it that Europe and Israel itself have a healthier debate over Palestinian human rights than we can have here?

When she died on March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie had been in the Middle East for fifty days as a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group recruiting Westerners to serve as "human shields" against Israeli aggression--including the policy of bulldozing Palestinian houses to create a wider no man's land between Egypt and then-occupied Gaza. Corrie was crushed to death when she stood in front of a bulldozer that was proceeding toward a Palestinian pharmacist's house. By witnesses' accounts, Corrie, wearing a bright orange vest, was clearly visible to the bulldozer's driver. An Israeli army investigation held no one accountable.

Corrie's horrifying death was a landmark event: It linked Palestinian suffering to the American progressive movement. And it was immediately politicized. Pro-Israel voices sought to smear Corrie as a servant of terrorists. They said that the Israeli army was merely trying to block tunnels through which weapons were brought from Egypt into the occupied territories--thereby denying that Corrie had died as the result of indiscriminate destruction. Hateful e-mails were everywhere. "Rachel Corrie won't get 72 virgins but she got what she wanted," said one.

Few knew that Corrie had been a dedicated writer. "I decided to be an artist and a writer," she had written in a journal, describing her awakening, "and I didn't give a shit if I was mediocre and I didn't give a shit if I starved to death and I didn't give a shit if my whole damn high school turned and pointed and laughed in my face."

Corrie's family felt it most urgent to get her words out to the world. The family posted several of her last e-mails on the ISM website (and they were printed in full by the London Guardian). These pieces were electrifying. They revealed a passionate and poetical woman who had long been attracted to idealistic causes and had put aside her work with the mentally ill and environmental causes in the Pacific Northwest to take up a pressing concern, Palestinian human rights. Thousands responded to the Corries, including a representative of the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, London, who asked if the theater could use Rachel's words in a production--and, oh, are there more writings? Cindy Corrie could do little more than sit and drink tea. She had family tell the Royal Court, Give us time.

It was another year before Sarah Corrie dragged out the tubs in which her sister had stored her belongings and typed passages from journals and letters going back to high school. In November 2004 the Corries sent 184 pages to the Royal Court.

It had been the intention of the two collaborators, Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner, a Guardian editor, to flesh out Rachel Corrie's writings with others' words. The pages instantly changed their minds. "We thought, She's done it on her own. Rachel's voice is the only voice you had to hear," Viner says. The Corrie family, which holds the rights to the words, readily agreed. Rachel Corrie was the playwright. Any royalties would go to the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice. The London "co-editors" then set to work winnowing the material, working with a slender blond actress, Megan Dodds, who resembles Corrie.

A year ago the play was staged as a one-woman show in a 100-seat theater at the Royal Court. The piece was critically celebrated, and the four-week run sold out. Young people especially were drawn to the show.

My Name Is Rachel Corrie--the title comes from a declaration in Corrie's journal--is two things: the self-portrait of a sensitive woman struggling to find her purpose, and a polemic on the horrors of Israeli occupation.

The work is marked by Plath-like talk about boys--"Eventually I convinced Colin to quit drowning out my life"--and rilling passages about her growing understanding of commitment: "I knew a few years ago what the unbearable lightness of being was, before I read the book. The lightness between life and death, there are no dimensions at all.... It's just a shrug, the difference between Hitler and my mother, the difference between Whitney Houston and a Russian mother watching her son fall through the sidewalk and boil to death.... And I knew back then that the shrug would happen at the end of my life--I knew. And I thought, so who cares?... Now I know, who cares...if I die at 11.15 p.m. or at 97 years--And I know it's me. That's my job..." As the work grinds toward death, Corrie's moral vision of the Mideast becomes uppermost. "What we are paying for here is truly evil.... This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me."

The show returned last fall to a larger theater at the Royal Court, and sold out again. Most viewers tended to walk off afterward in stunned silence, but some nights the theater became a forum for discussions. Rickman or Viner or Dodds came out to talk about how the show had come about.

The Royal Court got bids from around the world, including a theater in Israel, seeking to stage the production. But the priority was to bring the show to "Rachel's homeland," as Elyse Dodgson, the theater's international director, says. At bottom, Corrie's story feels very American. It is filled with references that surely escaped its English audience--working at Mount Rainier, swimming naked in Puget Sound, drinking Mountain Dew, driving I-5 to California.

The New York Theatre Workshop agreed to stage the show in March 2006. But by January the Royal Court began to sense apprehension on the Workshop's part. "I went to New York to meet them because I didn't feel comfortable about what they were saying," Dodgson says.

The Workshop was evidently spooked. Its artistic director, James Nicola, spoke of having discussions after every performance to "contextualize" the play, of hiring a consultant who had worked with Salman Rushdie to lead these discussions and of hiring Emily Mann, the artistic director of the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, to prepare a companion piece of testimonies that would include Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism.

"We've had some brilliant discussions, we told them, but the play speaks for itself," Dodgson says. "It is expensive and unnecessary to have that after every single performance. Of course we knew some of the hideous things that were said about Rachel. We took no notice of them. The controversy died when people saw that this was a play about a young woman, an idealist."

Dodgson was further upset when a Workshop marketing staffer, whom she won't name, used the word "mollifying." "It was a very awkward conversation. He said, 'I can't find the right word, but "mollifying" the Jewish community.' It shocked me."

Corrie's connection to the International Solidarity Movement was politically loaded. The ISM is committed to nonviolence, but it works with a broad range of organizations, from Israeli peace activists to Palestinian groups that have supported suicide bombings, which has been seized on by those who want it to get lost.

At the heart of the disagreement was an insistence by supporters of Israel that Corrie's killing be presented in the context of Palestinian terror. And that specifically, the policy of destroying Palestinian homes in Gaza be shown to be aimed at those tunnels--even though the pharmacist's house Corrie was shielding was hundreds of yards from the border and had nothing to do with tunnels. One person close to NYTW, who refused to go on the record, elaborates: "The fact that the Israelis and such were trying to bulldoze these houses was not due to the fact that they were just against the Palestinians, but the underground tunnels, ways to get explosives to this community. By not mentioning it, the play was not as evenhanded as it claims to be." Another anonymous NYTW source said that staffers became worried after reading a fall 2003 Mother Jones profile of Corrie, a much disputed piece that relied heavily on right-wing sources to paint her as a reckless naif.

Just whom was the Workshop consulting in its deliberations? It has steadfastly refused to say. In the New York Observer, Nicola mentioned "Jewish friends." Dodgson says that in discussions with the Royal Court, Workshop staffers brought up the Anti-Defamation League and the mayor's office as entities they were concerned about. (Abe Foxman of the ADL visited London in 2005 and denounced the play in the New York Sun as offensive to Jewish "sensitivities.") By one account, the fatal blow was dealt when the global PR firm Ruder Finn (which has an office in Israel) said it couldn't represent the play.

In its latest statement, the Workshop says it consulted many community voices, not only Jews. These did not include Arab-Americans. Najla Said, the artistic director of Nibras, an Arab-American theater in New York, says, "We're not even 'other' enough to be 'other.' We're not the political issue that anyone thinks is worth talking about."

The run had been scheduled for March 22-May 14. Tickets were listed on Telecharge in February. But the Workshop had not announced the production. According to the Royal Court, Nicola at last told them he wanted to postpone the play at least six months or a year to allow the political climate to settle down and to better prepare the production. The Royal Court took this as a cancellation. The news broke on February 28 in the Guardian and the New York Times.

The Times article was shocking. It said the Workshop had "delayed" a production it had never announced, and reported that Nicola had been "polling local Jewish religious and community leaders as to their feelings." Nicola was quoted saying that Hamas's victory had made the Jewish community "very defensive and very edgy...and that seemed reasonable to me."

The Red Sea parted. Or anyway the Atlantic Ocean. The English playwright Caryl Churchill, who has worked with both theaters, condemned the decision. Vanessa Redgrave wrote a letter urging the Royal Court to sue the Workshop. At first, the New York theater community was quiet.

Enter the blogosphere, stage left. Three or four outraged theater bloggers began peppering the Workshop's community with questions. Whom did the Workshop talk to? Why aren't theater people up in arms? Garrett Eisler, the blogger Playgoer, likened the decision to one by the Manhattan Theater Club to cancel its 1998 production of Corpus Christi, a play imagining Christ as a gay man--a decision that was reversed after leading voices, including the Times editorial page, denounced the action.

The playwright Jason Grote circulated a petition calling on the Workshop to reverse itself. Signers included Philip Munger, a composer whose cantata dedicated to Corrie, The Skies Are Weeping, also had experienced politically motivated cancellations. The young playwright Christopher Shinn spoke out early and forcefully, saying the postponement amounted to censorship. "No one with a name was saying anything," says Eisler. "And Chris Shinn is not that big a name, but he is a practicing theater artist whose name gets in the New York Times."

By the time I visited the Workshop, a week into the controversy, it was a wounded institution. Linda Chapman, the associate artistic director, who had signed Grote's petition, said she couldn't talk to me, because of the "quicksand" that any statement had become. The Workshop had posted and then removed from its website a clumsy statement aimed at explaining itself. Playgoer was demanding that the opponents of the play come forward and drumming for a declaration from Tony Kushner, who has staged plays at the Workshop, posting his photo as if he were some war criminal.

In an interview with The Nation, Kushner said that he was quiet because of his exhaustion over similar arguments surrounding the film Munich, on which he was a screenwriter, and because he kept hoping the decision would be made right. He said Nicola is a great figure in American theater: "His is one of the one or two most important theaters in this area--politically engaged, unapologetic, unafraid and formally experimental." Never having gotten a clear answer about why Nicola put off the play, Kushner ascribes it to panic: Nicola didn't know what he was getting into, and only later became aware of how much opposition there was to Corrie, how much confusion the right has created around the facts. Nicola felt he was taking on "a really big, scary brawl and not a play." Still, Kushner said, the theater's decision created a "ghastly" situation. "Censoring a play because it addresses Palestinian-Israeli issues is not in any way right," he said.

The Royal Court came out smelling like a rose. It triumphantly announced that it was moving the Megan Dodds show to the West End, the London equivalent of Broadway, and that it couldn't come to New York till next fall.

The Grote petitioners (519 and counting) want that to happen at the Workshop, which itself was reaching out with another statement on the matter, released on the eve of the anniversary of Corrie's death. "I can only say we were trying to do whatever we could to help Rachel's voice be heard," Nicola said. The cut may be too deep for such ointment. As George Hunka, author of the theater blog Superfluities, says, "This is far too important an issue for everyone to paper it over again, with everyone shaking hands for a New York Times photographer. It's an extraordinarily rare picture of the ways that New York cultural institutions make their decisions about what to produce."

Hunka doesn't use the J-word. Jen Marlowe does. A Jewish activist with Rachelswords.org (which is staging a reading of Corrie's words on March 22 with the Corrie parents present), she says, "I don't want to say the Jewish community is monolithic. It isn't. But among many American Jews who are very progressive and fight deeply for many social justice issues, there's a knee-jerk reflexive reaction that happens around issues related to Israel."

Questions about pressure from Jewish leaders morph quickly into questions about funding. Ellen Stewart, the legendary director of the theatrical group La MaMa E.T.C., which is across East 4th Street from the Workshop, speculates that the trouble began with its "very affluent" board. Rachel's father, Craig Corrie, echoes her. "Do an investigation, follow the money." I called six board members and got no response. (About a third appear to be Jewish, as am I.) This is of course a charged issue. The writer Alisa Solomon, who was appalled by the postponement, nonetheless warns, "There's something a little too familiar about the image of Jews pulling the puppet strings behind the scenes."

Perhaps. But Nicola's statement about a back channel to Jewish leaders suggests the presence of a cultural lobby that parallels the vaunted pro-Israel lobby in think tanks and Congress. I doubt we will find out whether the Workshop's decision was "internally generated," as Kushner contends, or more orchestrated, as I suspect. What the episode has demonstrated is a climate of fear. Not of physical harm, but of loss of opportunities. "The silence results from fear and intimidation," says Cindy Corrie. "I don't see what else. And it harms not only Palestinians. I believe, from the bottom of my heart, it harms Israelis and it harms us."

Kushner agrees. Having spent five months defending Munich, he says the fear has two sources: "There is a very, very highly organized attack machinery that will come after you if you express any kind of dissent about Israel's policies, and it's a very unpleasant experience to be in the cross hairs. These aren't hayseeds from Kansas screaming about gays burning in hell; they're newspaper columnists who are taken seriously." These attackers impose a kind of literacy test: Before you can cast a moral vote on Palestinian rights, you must be able to recite a million wonky facts, such as what percentage of the territories were outside the Green Line in 1949. Then there is the self-generated fear of lending support to anti-Semites or those who would destroy Israel. All in all, says Kushner, it can leave someone "overwhelmed and in despair--you feel like you should just say nothing."

Who will tell Americans the Middle East story? For generations that story has been one of Israelis as victims, and it has been crucial to Israeli policy inasmuch as Israel has been able to defy its neighbors' opinions by relying on a highly sympathetic superpower. Israel's supporters have always feared that if Americans started to conduct the same frank discussion of issues that takes place in Tel Aviv, we might become more evenhanded in our approach to the Middle East. That pressure is what has stifled a play that portrays the Palestinians as victims (and thrown a blanket over a movie, Munich, that portrays both sides as victims). I've never written this sort of thing before. How moving that we have been granted that freedom by a 23-year-old woman with literary gifts who was not given time to unpack them.

Source: The Nation

An uncivil war rages inside the walls of the West Wing of the White House, a bitter, acrimonious war driven by a failed agenda, destroyed credibility, dwindling public support and a President who lapses into Alzheimer-like periods of incoherent babbling.

On one side are the dwindling numbers of die-hard loyalists to President George W. Bush, those who support his actions and decisions without question and remain committed to both Bush and scandal-scarred political advisor Karl Rove.

On the other side are the increasing numbers of those who say Rove must go and who worry about the President's declining mental state and his ability to restore credibility with Congress, our foreign allies and the American people.

The war erupted into full-blown shout fests at Camp David this past weekend where decorum broke down in staff meetings and longtime aides threatened to quit unless Rove goes. Insiders say Chief of Staff Andrew Card now leads the anti-Rove legions and has told Bush that he wants out of the high-pressure job.

White House staff members say the White House is “like a wartime bunker” where shell-shocked aides hide from those who disagree with their actions and office pools speculate on how long certain senior aides will last.

Bush, whose obscenity-laced temper tantrums increase with each new setback and scandal, abruptly ended one Camp David meeting by telling everyone in the room to “go fuck yourselves” before he stalked out of the room.

Senior aides describe Bush as increasingly “edgy” or “nervous” or “unfocused.” They say the President goes from apparent coherent thought one moment to aimless rambles about political enemies and those who are “out to get me.”

“It’s worse than the days when Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s began setting in,” one longtime GOP operative told me privately this week. “You don’t know if he’s going to be coherent from one moment to the next. What scares me is if he lapses into one of those fogs during a public appearance.”

Aides say Bush, who has always had trouble focusing during times of stress, is increasingly distant during meetings, often staring off into space during discussions on the nation’s security and other issues.

Card has responded to the crisis by cutting back on the number of staff members with direct access to the President and jumping in to answer questions when Bush’s mind wanders.

“Some people say Karl Rove is ‘Bush’s brain,’” says one increasingly-concerned West Winger. “Well Andy has become the President’s voice. He’s there to speak when the President seems unable to find form an answer.”

Bush’s mental state is a hot topic on Internet blogs and has increased since this web site disclosed last year that the White House physician had placed the President on anti-depressant medication – a story the administration never denied. Others, including prominent psychiatrists like Dr. Justin Frank of George Washington University, wonder if Bush, an admitted heavy drinker who claims he quit without any professional help, is hitting the bottle again.

An increasing number of mainstream media outlets, including Newsweek, The Washington Post and the New York Daily News recently confirmed our earlier reports about Bush’s temper tantrums.

“Bush usually reserves his celebrated temper for senior aides because he knows they can take it,” the Daily News reported. “Lately, however, some junior staffers also have faced the boss’s wrath.”

“This is not some manager at McDonald’s chewing out the help," a source with close ties to the White House told the paper. “This is the president of the United States, and it’s not a pleasant sight.”

Bush loyalists claim the President can survive his current spate of political troubles and emerge stronger than ever but an increasing number of White House aides express increasing doubt. Some even go so far as to speculate if the President’s deteriorating mental condition can survive another three years in office.

“The President has lost his focus, his ability to govern and the trust of the American people,” says one longtime GOP operative. “Those are things that are difficult to recapture when you’re on top of your game and this President has taken one too many blows to the head.”

Doug Thompson is a free-lance writer, journalist and photographer. He lives in southwestern Virginia. His work has appeared in a number of publications, including Esquire, Life, Look, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Paris Match, AFP, the Associated Press and Reuters. Courtesy of Doug Thompson

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue

Based on the latest reports in the Washington Post the US government is increasingly applying methods that until a few years ago were mainly associated with the Nazi and other totalitarian regimes. Sorry for the harsh words towards the government and its operatives of an otherwise mostly wonderful people, but the long string of scandals that has been engulfing the US leaves me no other choice.

Blogging is about the freedom of speech. I could not have written this post in any of the MSM (mainstream media) I have worked for. There is still a self-censorship employed stemming from post-WWII times when the US helped Europe back on its feet with the Marshall plan. But today's arrogance of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice administration gives room to growing hostility towards US policy around the globe.

The times they are a changin' (Bob Dylan), as almost every new day gets filled with horrifying news about the unacceptable behavior of the USA on the international stage. Thou shalt not kill seems to have become a phrase the fundamentalist right-wing America simply ignores, in the name of a new religion called petro-theism. Extremism has to be condemned in all cases, independent of its origins. We have only one world.

It all started with an unjust war based on lies (weapons of mass destruction turned out to be weapons of mass deception) where the acting president and his vice Dick Cheney have started to shift reasons ever since the public was alerted to the fact that Saddam Hussein was not capable of producing WMD. Comparison: The Nazis started their war by "returning fire" against a fictitious Polish attack.

Hitler's Enabling Laws = Bush's Homeland Security

There are still a lot of open questions why WTC 7 - a building occupied by government authorities close to the destroyed towers - came down on 9/11, defeating all laws of physics.

While my sympathy lies with all innocent 9/11 victims I still wait to see pictures that would be compelling evidence that it was really a Boeing that crashed into the Pentagon and that gave the administration the opportunity to drastically reduce civil liberties of not only US citizens but also everybody else visiting the country of unlimited opportunities. Why does the USA request fingerprints from travellers disembarking from a flight or a boat while the Mexican border is still wide open? Is it because the US economy depends on cheap immigrant labor where education costs were borne by the Southern neighbour?

Truth Is The First Victim In A War

I also point to the fact that in the history of aviation disasters only a handful of flight recorders - the "black boxes" designed to withstand all massive impacts and hours of white-hot fire - were never recovered. You guessed right if you suspect that those of the four doomed flights on 9/11 were among them. (I hope not to get pushed into the corner of conspiracy theorists because of my unbelief of the official story. I am only describing some facts and I do not believe in conspiracies as they would require intelligent members throughout in order to succeed. History has not seen such a case yet.)

The Reichstag, seat of the German parliament, was set on fire in 1933 - 4 weeks after Hitler was appointed chancellor - and the communists were immediately blamed for it. This started a wave of "enabling laws" - similar to the Homeland Security Act - that led to discriminating inhuman measures against Jews, leftists, gays and other minorities that ended in the industrialization of death in the concentration camps; aministered with the help of IBM punchcards. No export restrictions had been in place then.

Detention Facility = Concentration Camp

Today I read in the Washington Post that the US is operating secret detention facilities in at least 8 countries (some of them allegedly democracies) where prisoners are cut off from any contact to the outside world, are getting tortured and have no guaranteed access to defense counsels. Where is the ethic difference to the Nazi's concentration camps when casualties are documented in both cases? Don't tell me the numbers make the difference! Killed is killed. It makes no difference whether by the CIA or the Gestapo who had the same powers the FBI has today but lacked the technology. (All links open in a new window)

Iraq - The Unwinnable War

No sane person outside the US believes anymore that Iraq was invaded for the reason to liberate its people from Saddam, a former ally of the US. All the atrocities of Saddam were already known at the time of the first war against Iraq.

Now that the war takes much longer and many more US (and Iraqi!) lives than anticipated the official USA is digging in. Bush's vice, Dick Cheney, said on October 6 that the US must be prepared to fight the war on terror for decades. How nice that a septuagenarian calls for a war spanning decades. He certainly won't be around then to be held accountable for the pain he will have inflicted on American and Arab families alike. Have they recognized that a people can be willing to die for what they cannot get otherwise anyway: Freedom!?
President Bush on August 22 was seeking "total victory" over Iraq in front of US soldiers, the Department of Defense reported.

Reminds me of Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels who in February 1943 asked an ecstatic Nazi-selected crowd in the Sportpalast whether they wanted a "total war." Don't miss out on reading this speech. Goebbels also asked for sacrifices by the people in order for the whole good. At that time the Nazi regime was in a quite similar position war-wise as the USA is today.
Those who do not learn from history are damned to repeat it.

In case you want a first-hand account of life in Iraq under the US occupation, surf to "Baghdad Burning", a blog written by an Iraqi woman who deserves a worldwide readership for her sobering documentary. Read her posts about the drafted constitution and the case for a lasting war will become much clearer. In case you prefer to ignore such accounts you will certainly feel more comfortable with the NRO's upcoming series of "Iraq Progress Reports." I doubt though that these reports will focus on such acts as why the oil ministry in Iraq was better protected from looters than the National Museum which housed many treasures of ancient human civilization that disappeared forever.

The Coming Conflict With Iran

While US soldiers are getting killed in the Iraqi invasion by the thousands, the White House has started its warmongering against Iran. It is certainly untolerable that Iran's leadership wants Israel wiped off the map. But it is also intolerable that the only nuclear power in the world who has made use of its devastating force denies other countries its right of self defense against an aggressor and the right to substitute its dwindling energy stock with an alternative used in many other non-democratic countries as well. And Condoleezza Rice's contradicting statements are not very helpful in dousing this potential conflict.

MSM Ignoring The GAO Reports On Stolen Election

In my rant against the acting US government I also have to include some criticism of the mainstream media (MSM.) The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has these days published a new report (pdf) that comes to the conclusion that the 2004 reelection of W. was rigged. It points to manifold cases where W. "won" precincts with more votes than there were voters. For the juiciest details surf to The Free Press.

CNN, where I always wonder how this news station is funded in the light of very few paid commercials between their costly global conflict coverage with a strong pro-US bias, has not yet run a follow-up after reporting the start of the GAO's investigation a year ago. Neither has any other MSM organisation. Maybe it helps when every reader mails them.

USA Exempt From Human Rights?

The US' denial to give the United Nations access to the concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay (not to speak of the afore-mentioned secret camps) is another blow in the face of humanity and democracy. Are the USA exempt from the Geneva Conventions and the charta on Human Rights? I am not aware of such a treaty. What do Rumsfeld & Co have to hide?

In this context it has also to be noted that the US has the biggest prison population in the world, mainly stemming from a war of drugs that has turned into a war on drug users, condemned in some cases even by the right-wing NRO. OK, China may have even more prisoners - who knows for sure -, but I do not think that the USA wants to be compared against a still totalitarian regime that has only allowed more freedom for business but not for people. The USA is among a handful of countries that executes minors and moves to end this sad practice are blocked by radical conservatives. Any bible psalms needed that contradict the policies of the Christian jihadists?

Looking at other longtime allies of the US one sees that democracy is not a prerequisite for an alliance with the biggest military power in the world. Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, the former ally Iraq and others have one factor in common: Large oil and(or natural gas reserves. Friendship according to the number of barrels still in the ground.

While Hitler was attacking Russia for its vast agricultural land, US foreign policy seems to have only one priority: Oil.

Humanity comes a distant second or third only. See the post "Zimbabwe: No Oil >> No Fight for Freedom, Democracy, Humanity..." Oil wars prevail.

Arrogance Comes Before The Fall

This all happens while Bush tells the world he is a faithful Christian and a compassionate conservative. Thou shalt not lie.

Sometimes I wonder how politicians can become so engulfed in their view of the world, ignoring the signs written on the wall. If the 2004 election had taken place in Europe Bush would have lost by a 20:80 margin. Do I have to add that we still have paper ballots counted by local election committees?
The arrogance he and his team display to the rest of the world can become the roadblock the biggest economy in the world may hit at full speed.

Before Bush the whole world admired the American way of life. Wearing jeans or drinking Coca Cola was a way we all could (and wanted to) feel American, including teenagers in Tehran . This is about to change completely unless US policy manages a U-turn rather sooner than later.

In case you disagree; look at the performance of the US equity market in comparison to the European stock exchanges who have all recovered from 9/11 and post healthy gains this year. Mr. Market is always right and a stock market discounts the future in advance.

It feels strange that the generation '68 now rules a world entangled in more violent conflicts than ever before.

Toni Straka is a financial journalist and can be reached at The Prudent Investor.

Audacity. Cheekiness. Daring. Gutsiness. Any one of these words can define the Yiddish word, “chutzpah” with both positive and negative nuances. But as DePaul Professor Norm Finkelstein demonstrates in his new book, “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History”, there are those who take chutzpah too far in the negative direction.

One such person is prominent Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz whose book, “The Case for Israel” is debunked point by point by tireless and meticulous researcher Finkelstein. Ultimately, Dershowitz’s book is found to a work of fraud and plagiarism. Knowing that Finkelstein’s book would damage his credibility, Dershowitz took the unusual step of writing to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and suggested that he interfere and prevent the book from being published. The book’s publisher is the University of California Press. According to The Nation, the legal affairs secretary to Governor Schwarzenegger responded to the Dershowitz letter: “...he [the Governor] is not inclined to otherwise exert influence in this case because of the clear, academic freedom issue it presents.”

Finkelstein, whose parents are both survivors of the Holocaust, discusses the misuse of anti-Semitism in order to achieve political gains, but shines most in his book when showing that Dershowitz’s claim that Israel is a haven of human rights is wholly inaccurate. Reports by human rights organizations, like Amnesty International and Israel’s own B’tselem, are cited in surplus. One wonders if Dershowitz ever thought to do some of his own-fact-checking with prominent and respected human rights organizations when putting Israel up on a human rights pedestal. From the graphics to the torture of Palestinian minors to the complicity of Israeli medical personnel, there is nothing left to the imagination in terms of Israel’s horrendous human rights record. There is even a chronology in the back of the book that describes the roots of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

If one can summarize “Beyond Chutzpah” in one sentence, it would be this: Finkelstein leaves no stone unturned when setting out to prove the misuse of anti-Semitism.

Recently, I had an opportunity to talk with Finkelstein about his thoughts on a myriad of themes in his book. Passionate, colorful, and with a dry wit to boot, Finkelstein rejects the label that he is an intellectual but rather “someone who goes through the reports and credible history of what is going on and compares it to the nonsense ... somebody’s lying.”

Sherri Muzher: What was your purpose in writing “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.”

Norman Finkelstein: It’s important for people to read the record of what is going on there.

What do you consider the most effective example of the “new anti-Semitism” on American public opinion?

There are a large number of claims circulating about rampant anti-Semitism on college campuses. When you actually go through the records, talk to the schools, speak to the deans and so forth, all of these claims turn out to be fraudulent. There’s just no record of this so-called rampant anti-Semitism on college campuses.

The most striking example is Columbia University where there was huge hysteria, newspaper editorials, and local politicians all calling for professors at Columbia’s Middle East Center to be fired. The president eventually was forced to create an ad hoc committee to look into the charges and after all this hysteria and demands that these professors be fired, all that they could find was in one case in one instance in one day in one classroom after the invasion of Jenin in April 2002. A professor responded heatedly to a student who was defending Israeli tactics. That was it. On the other hand, they did find that pro-Israel outsiders were disrupting the classrooms of these professors, secretly video-taping their lectures and being turned, as the Columbia Report put it, into informers for the pro-Israel lobby. The real story was the harassment of professors who were critical of Israeli policy.

What will surprise people the most when reading “Beyond Chutzpah?”

I think they’re going to be very surprised by the fact that this whole claim of the new anti-Semitism is a complete fraud and they are going to very surprised that Israel’s human rights record is quite abysmal. It’s the cumulative effect of going through all of the reports in all aspects of Israel’s human rights policy. It’s not looking at one case of one person who was tortured or one child who was killed, or one house that was demolished. The record is really quite horrendous. Everybody who has read it has made the comment that it’s quite shocking to see the magnitude of Israel’s human rights crimes in the Occupied Territories.

How is the “new anti-Semitism” used to discredit legitimate criticism of Israel?

Whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle such as the Intifada or international pressure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, American Jewish organizations orchestrate this extravaganza called the “new anti-Semitism.” The purpose is several-fold. First, it is to discredit any charges by claiming the person is an anti-Semite. It’s to turn Jews into the victims, so that the victims are not the Palestinians any longer. As people like Abraham Foxman of the ADL put it, the Jews are being threatened by a new holocaust. It’s a role reversal – the Jews are now the victims, not the Palestinians. So it serves the function of discrediting the people leveling the charge. It’s no longer Israel that needs to leave the Occupied Territories; it’s the Arabs who need to free themselves of the anti-Semitism.

American Jewish organizations: Zionist or not Zionist?

American Jewish organizations didn’t give a fig about Israel before the June 1967 War. After 1967, Israel became their cause because it was safe. Israel is now the strategic asset to the US in the Middle East and so people became pro-Israel, not because they are Zionist. It’s a politically useful position to have. The biggest mistake anyone can make about people in power is to ascribe to them ideological convictions. Ben-Gurion was a Zionist. Abba Eban was a Zionist. The early founders of the state of Israel were Zionist for sure because they were committed to ideas. Just like the Bolsheviks were clearly Communist. But once you get into power, people are interested in one thing – more power. And then they adjust their beliefs and their ideology to serve that goal.

I don’t think Alan Dershowitz cares about Israel. He never wrote about Israel before June 67. The Holocaust – he’s said: Growing up, we never discussed the Holocaust. I don’t remember one single conversation with anyone about the Holocaust.

They don’t care about the Holocaust or Israel, they care about their careers. So, I’ve always found it perplexing as to why these people are elevated by giving them an ideology and acting as if they are acting out of conviction.

Speaking of Alan Dershowitz, the two of you have had a very public spat. In “Beyond Chutzpah,” you debunk Dershowitz’s book “The Case for Israel” point by point. Harvard University’s response?

There’s been no response except at some early date to exonerate him for all those charges. As far as Harvard is concerned, Alan Dershowitz has clean hands.

You have said that you believe there is a potent insurance out there against fraudulent material being published, except when it comes to the Palestine-Israel conflict. Is this what’s coming into play here?

I think there a couple things. That’s part of it, but another part of it is that Harvard can’t acknowledge that its senior most professor of law is a hoaxer and a plagiarist. It says something about the institution – it’s so devastating that they just can’t do it. It shines a light on them that is quite shocking. There’s the element of Israel and there’s the element of institutional protection.

How do you respond to those who perceive “Beyond Chutzpah” as being opposed to any invocation of Holocaust memory?

There are a lot of people who have suffered in the world. It’s time to give other people’s stories a public airing. I don’t think there’s any danger here of the Holocaust being forgotten, given the fact that the New York Times prepares a story on the Holocaust probably 5 out of every 7 days in the week. First, the only subject covered more thoroughly than the Holocaust is the weather. Second, most of what’s called the memory of the Nazi Holocaust is politically motivated. Its use and exploitation is used to immunize Israel from criticism, immunizes American Jews from criticism, and for many years, it was used as a shakedown operation to extract monies from Europe. That kind of memory we can surely do without.

But as far as remembering the Holocaust? I remember everyday. It’s my parents.

How do you hope “Beyond Chutzpah” will affect the American Jewish community, as well as your critics in American Jewish organizations?

Well, some people -- you can’t change their minds. Once Leon Trotsky, the Russian Revolutionary, was asked: What do you do with Fascists? He said: Acquaint them with the pavement.

Some people, you’re not going to change their minds. But there are a lot of people out there who are genuinely ill informed and have decent intentions but have gotten wrong information. And it’s those kinds of people you want to reach, not the hard-core fanatics and zealots of Zion. I’m not going to try and convince them of anything. I have better things to do with my time. I’d rather watch paint dry.

Regarding the Israeli proponents of a two-state solution like Ariel Sharon: Sincerity or lip service?

They’re not proponents of the two-state solution, this is nonsense. There’s an international consensus on what the two-state settlement means. It’s a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Anything else is garbage. There are people like Sharon who don’t support a two-state settlement. They support a one state solution for Israel and a phone booth for the Palestinians.

Did you see the application of the “new anti-Semitism” before the Gaza withdrawal?

Well, of course. The so-called “new anti-Semitism” charade began in 2001 right after the public relations debacle Israel suffered with the Second Intifada. It’s actually been effective. News organizations’ coverage of the Middle East began to change. Everyone got nervous about “targeting Israel.” It long preceded the Gaza withdrawal.

You discuss Israel’s Wall and the land confiscation in your book. How do you respond to those who say “land grab or not, Israel has the right to defend herself and her citizens”?

Every state has that right. You build a wall on your own property. When I was growing up, my parents didn’t get along with their neighbors, and so they decided to build a wrought-iron fence around their property. So the first thing you have to do, at least in New York, you have to hire a surveyor and the surveyor demarcates the border. If you’re one inch into your neighbor’s property, under the law, you have to tear down the fence. Very uncomplicated.

The West Bank and Gaza, under international law, are occupied territories. Israel doesn’t have title to one half of one inch of the West Bank or Gaza or East Jerusalem. Want to build a fence? Build it on your border and protect your people. This has nothing to do with terrorism. This has nothing to do with protecting the settlements. If you want to protect the settlements, you do what Israel has done. You build electronic fences around the settlements. Kiryat Arba is very well-protected and there are no terrorist attacks.

It has to do with creating a new border.

Do you feel there is US acquiescence to this border change?

There’s nothing Israel can do without US support. It can’t breathe without US support. The US bankrolls everything, and it’s just silly to think that Israel can do anything without the support. There are issues about why the US supports Israel. Is it the lobby or strategic interest? Now you can quarrel about that. But what you can’t quarrel with is the notion that were it not for the US, Israel can’t do anything.

At what point do you think the general effectiveness of this “new anti-Semitism” will fade?

Very simple – when Israel no longer comes under public attack or when people just get tired of it, just like the Holocaust Industry. People were Holocausted out. Like the Law of Diminishing Returns, if you keep bringing up the Holocaust, people are getting more and more bored. At some point, it becomes less omnipresent in American public life. And presumably at the point they start calling Mickey Mouse and Michael Jackson anti-Semites, people are going to begin to yawn and get turned off.

Tell me about the man you dedicated “Beyond Chutzpah” to -- Musa Abu Hashhash.

Musa grew up in the Fawwar Refugee Camp. In his youth, he was Communist and now he’s with the Israel human rights group, B’tselem. I would have to say that he is the most decent human being that I’ve ever met in my life. And I’m not a kid anymore. I’ve got about 51 years on this planet.

There’s a song that Paul Robeson used to sing called “The Purest Kind of a Guy.” The lyric went ‘I don’t know how I know but I know what I know. He’s the purest kind of a guy.’ That’s Musa.

Norman Finkelstein is the author of four books on the plight of Jews and Palestinians, has published articles in many scholarly journals and currently teaches political science at DePaul University in Chicago.

Sherri Muzher is a political and media analyst from Mason, Michigan. Courtesy of The Palestine Chronicle

Within twenty-four hours, on October 16-17, the New York Times ran three stories about the threat increasing chaos posed to emerging, still fragile political orders in Iraq, Palestine, and the Sudan. In all three cases, the chaos afflicting these societies was described as an unintentional and negative consequence of ill-conceived policies put in place by the various governments involved: the U.S. in Iraq, Israel as it withdrew from Gaza, and the Sudanese Government as it finally tried to restrain marauding Janjaweed militias in Darfur. In no case was the chaos viewed as intentional or beneficial to one or more of the forces competing for control of these countries.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq in particular has been judged a failure by its critics almost from the start because of the chaos it has generated. Even with the approval of the constitution, "experts" are arguing that, as long as American and other foreign troops remain in Iraq, the situation "will become more chaotic," or in the words of Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, will continue to "destabilize the Middle East."

Of course, only angry, irrational Arabs -- in this case, Sunnis -- could desire such a state of affairs. As the Project for a New American Century's Gary Schmitt wrote in a Washington Post op-ed, they "could well believe that the resulting chaos and even occasional death of a neighbor or a member of his extended family is a price worth paying for a return to Sunni ascendancy." Similarly, last week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice argued before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "the enemy's strategy is to infect, terrorize and pull down."

The tolerance for disorder, it seems, is a clear sign of an archaic Muslim mentality at work. As a Marine spokesperson explained recently, after a deadly attack on American forces, "The insurgents are against progress and only desire a return to the ways of the seventh century." No less a personage than Tony Blair was in agreement. Al-Qa'eda, he claimed, is engaged in a "premedieval religious war utterly alien to the future of humankind," whose goal, according to his friend George Bush, is to "establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia." Our goal is order. The urge to create chaos is not only pre-modern, it's inherently theirs.

The problem with this narrative is that the neoconservatives, who were primarily responsible for launching the war on terror as well as the invasion and occupation of Iraq, have by and large not viewed chaos in this manner. For them, chaos has been not just an inevitable consequence of globalization, but a phenomenon that might be well used to further their long-term agenda of remaking the Middle East in America's image. Indeed, as they saw it, it was only natural for the world's first true hyperpower to adopt a historically well-tested policy of "creative destruction." Their goal, as explained in the now famous comment of an anonymous administration official, was to "create our own reality" wherever we tread. ("We're history's actors," he continued, "and all of you will be left to just study what we do.")

Such a comment might seem the height of Bush administration hubris alone, if it hadn't also reflected the avant-garde of American business thinking of the previous decade or more. In his 1988 book Thriving on Chaos, for instance, business guru Tom Peters argued that Americans must "take the chaos as given and learn to thrive on it. The winners of tomorrow will deal proactively with chaos… Chaos and uncertainty are… market opportunities for the wise."

The advice of Peters and of the Pentagon was taken to heart by scholars and policymakers like Paul Wolfowitz, Samuel Huntington, and Robert Kaplan, who in the mid-1990s began writing of a "new cold war" or "clash of civilizations" between Islamism and neoliberalism across an "arc of instability" stretching from sub-Saharan Africa to Central Asia. Specifically, post-Cold War experiences in Bosnia, Haiti, Rwanda, and elsewhere in Africa called for an organized effort to figure out how the United States could best "manage the chaos" that the coming global "anarchy" was certain bring.

Similarly, the World Bank argued in a 1995 report that modernizing the Middle East might well necessitate a "shake-down period" before the region could even begin adapting to the new global economic order. Some neocon intellectuals believed that the best way to manage such a moment was to bring it on, to provoke a level of chaos that would be but the prologue to a new, American-style world order. (In keeping with that spirit, "Shock and Awe" made its debut in Iraq in March 2003, a level of force whose very intention was to create chaos, however short-lived it may have been expected to be.)

In this same vein, Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, and Lockheed Martin leaped to take advantage of the market opportunities presented by post-September 11 chaos. In doing so, they helped turn the "breadth economy" of the 1990s, in which many sectors grew at a sustained rate, into the "depth economy" of the new millennium, in which core "old" industries like oil, defense, and heavy engineering regained a disproportionate share of corporate profits -- a position they are unlikely to relinquish as long as chaos remains king in the global political economy.

A less Pollyanna-ish view of the coming chaos was expressed in Vision for 2020, the mission statement of the U.S. Strategic Space Command (published in 2000). Globalization, that document suggested, was producing a global zero-sum game of winners and losers. In such a context, Americans must prepare to do whatever it might take to "win," including, of course, dominating space in order to "protect US interests and investment." What the Space Command didn't mention, though it has since become a predominant concern of the Bush Administration (as the secret files of the Cheney Energy Task Force reveal) is how the expected arrival of the era of "peak oil" and the levels of global energy chaos sure to accompany it have exponentially increased the stakes involved in controlling Iraq's immense oil reserves. Growing competition with an energy-thirsty China and, to a lesser extent, the European Union has only amplified this concern, and helped produce a situation where the blowback potential from the invasion and long-term occupation of Iraq seemed, at least on paper, well worth the risk.

Playing the Chaos Card in Iraq

Given the chaos and violence currently afflicting much of Arab Iraq, particularly its Sunni regions, it is hard to imagine that the Bush Administration intended such an outcome to its long-awaited invasion and occupation. Of course, everyone would undoubtedly have cheered if the immediate post-invasion chaos had quickly given way to a free-market democratic paradise along the Tigris. But while significant parts of the chaos in Iraq have resulted from rank incompetence (or perhaps a total lack of concern with the consequences of the policies set in place), some of it can still be viewed as serving the interests of Bush administration policy desires, albeit at great cost. Even with the blowback from the chaos Bush has unleashed now creeping towards Karl Rove's office in the White House and beginning to encircle Vice President Cheney, we need to consider what other means this administration might have used to achieve three of its most important goals in Iraq:

Its first goal has long been to retain a (much reduced) military presence in that country for the foreseeable future. The administration is on record as saying that it will leave if asked to do so; but the continuing chaos and conflict, largely sparked by the continued presence of U.S. troops, ensure that the desperately weak government in Baghdad's Green Zone, which is unlikely to survive without American protection, won't make such a request. Its second goal is to ensure a predominant role for U.S. companies in the development, production, and sale of the country's vast reservoirs of oil. Indeed, the few documents made public from the Cheney Energy Task Force revealed that concern over losing Iraq to European oil companies, combined with China's insatiable thirst for petroleum and fears that it would increasingly encroach on America's sphere of economic dominance, were important reasons for the war. If the world really has entered an era of zero-sum competition over its remaining oil supplies, Iraq is a prize worth shedding a lot of blood to secure -- and chaos, whatever the ensuing pain, a strategy potentially worth pursuing.

The administration's final goal has been to continue the wholesale, disastrous privatization of Iraq's economy – something that, as the World Bank warned, was unlikely to be accepted by the people of any Middle Eastern country who possessed the wherewithal to resist. It is obviously harder for people to resist when their lives have been thrown into chaos. In fact, most of the Middle East has avoided succumbing to American pressures to adopt the kind of large-scale, structural-adjustment reforms that have spread increased poverty and inequality across the global south. As key members of the Bush administration saw the matter, Iraq could do for neoliberalism in the Middle East what Chile did for it in Latin America.

The vast majority of Iraqis are, of course, opposed to each of these goals. Yet the constitution on which they just voted -- being essentially an American-brokered document -- carefully avoided addressing any of these concerns. It is hard to imagine that such an end would have been possible in a more peaceful environment where Iraqis had the public space and time to debate these important issues, particularly when polling shows that upwards of 80% of them are opposed to the presence of U.S. troops and to the policies they are enforcing.

Perhaps Juan Cole has best summarized how and why chaos has become a defining dynamic in Iraq: "Iraq was," he said recently, "like a treasure in a strongbox… The obvious thing to do was to take a crowbar and strike off the strongbox lock."

Learning from the Israelis (as Usual)

If such planned chaos was limited to Iraq, we could perhaps see it as an aberration rather than part of the larger dynamics of contemporary globalization. But research on countries from Africa to the former Soviet Union has demonstrated that chaos -- whether the "instrumentalized disorder" in sub-Saharan Africa or the "bardok" of Central Asia -- defines political life across an increasingly large "arc of instability" stretching across three continents. Palestine is a particularly good example of how chaos, or "fawda" as Palestinians term it, can serve the political interests of an occupying power.

It has long been an open secret that the U.S. conducted extensive training with the help of the Israeli Defense and Security forces to prepare for the urban warfare and interrogation practices of Iraq. While discussing the best way to ram through walls and "interrogate" suspected insurgents, it's not unlikely that the Israelis shared their experiences fomenting chaos to wear down Palestinian society, particularly since the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada and the demise of the Oslo negotiations.

As argues Israeli social scientist Gershon Baskin, Ariel Sharon's policy of unilateralism in response to the failure of negotiations has made sense to the majority of Israelis largely because they see the "total chaos" across the West Bank and the "rule of the gun" in newly "liberated" Gaza as demonstrating that "the PA is too weak to rule" an independent Palestine, or even to negotiate its establishment. What few Israelis sharing this position consider, however, is how Israeli policies have systematically created the very chaos that is now used as the excuse for engaging in unilateral steps such as withdrawing from Gaza while cementing -- literally -- Israeli control over much of the West Bank.

Yet the roots of Israel's strategy of chaos do not lie in the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000, or in the autocratic and corrupt policies of Yasser Arafat. Rather they go back to 1994 -- the same year that Paul Wolfowitz, then a dean at the Johns Hopkins University, held a conference on the "coming anarchy." It was then that the Paris protocols to the Oslo Agreements were signed. These agreements, rarely mentioned in discussions of why Oslo failed, locked Palestinians into a catastrophic neoliberalized relationship with Israel for the remainder of the Oslo process. This happened just at the moment when Israel more or less permanently closed the Occupied Territories. Aside from a few industries run by Palestinians with ties to Israel, this nearly destroyed what was then a modest but growing Palestinian economy, led to a creeping but disastrous emigration of the country's middle class, and ultimately helped create a "severely depressed… devastated" economy that, in the words of the 2004 Palestine Human Development Report, was "ripe for corruption."

It is in the context of the ensuing decade-plus of chaos engulfing Gaza and the West Bank that we must read the recent flood of editorials by American and Israel pundits offering advice in advance of the coming Palestinian elections on how the United States and Israel can help bolster the "authority" of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. As with Iraq's insurgents, a combination of religious fanatics (that is, Hamas) and "clans" and "tribes" are described as increasingly ruling a situation in which "there is no law." And because they are depicted as the fountainhead of the chaos afflicting Palestine, Israeli "liberals" such as former Israeli General Ephraim Sneh can safely argue that Hamas is a "greater threat" to Palestinians even than to Israel.

What makes this discourse so interesting is how well it has served its purpose: With the chaos and violence of the intifada having plunged the Palestinian economy "into deep crisis," with poverty rates in the population above 50%, the most recent poll of Palestinian attitudes reveals that the idea of ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank has become a distant dream, a fate the Bush administration hopes will be replicated when it comes to the idea of an America-free Iraq.

In one of his periodic attempts to bolster public support for the occupation, President Bush offered the following ad-style summary of American policy in Iraq: "As Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down." This may be easy to say but it will remain exceedingly difficult for Iraqis to stand up as long as America looms over them in a whirl of chaos. Chaos-as-policymaking is a perilous undertaking, even for the globe's lone superpower. In the end, the chaos unleashed across Iraq by Washington might just topple America's latest imperial incarnation. For now, however, neither the Bush administration, nor chaos is likely to be a stranger to Iraq.

Mark LeVine, professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture, and Islamic studies at the University of California at Irvine, is the author of a new book, Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil (Oneworld Publications, 2005). His website is www.culturejamming.org. Courtesy of Tom Dispatch.com

My take on Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post 9/11 World (featuring David Barsamian's interviews with Noam Chomsky)

Once Again "The Heretic" Takes the Empire to Task

As you read these words, I have little doubt that The Grand Inquisitor for the Bush regime is aching for a shot at The Empire's ultimate heretic. Noam Chomsky has been a consistent intellectual thorn in the collective sides of the Machiavellians comprising the ruling elite in the United States for years. I recently had the pleasure of reading his latest, Imperial Ambitions: Conversation on the Post-9/11 World. Difficult as it is to imagine (if one has read Chomsky), I breezed through the nine chapters in about two hours. Throughout the 201 pages, interviewer David Barsamian poses probing questions, which serve to pry open the burgeoning treasure trove of knowledge and activate the analytical juggernaut comprising Avram Noam Chomsky's brain. With little prompting from Barsamian, Chomsky unleashes an onslaught of profound insights into how the world has changed since 9/11, and on America's role in shaping and effecting that change.

Glad he is only a "part-timer"

Best known for his contributions to the study of linguistics through his theory of generative grammar, this Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been the most intelligent, vehement critic of the US government during the current and the preceding centuries. Consistently writing (and speaking publicly) in a calm, thoughtful manner, for years Professor Chomsky charged America's ruling establishment and its obedient press corps with some of the most heinous crimes against humanity one could imagine. His political activism has spanned decades while his impressive list of books assailing the US government has continued to grow. His perception, insight, and presentation of evidence to support his dissidence are without equal. And activism is his "hobby". I feel assured that there are many amongst America's ruling elite who count their blessings that Dr. Chomsky has focused so much of his attention on his linguistics studies.

A Dead Civilian a Day Keeps the Terrorists at Bay?

"The new doctrine was not one of preemptive war, which arguably falls within some stretched interpretation of the UN Charter, but rather a doctrine that doesn't begin to have any grounds in international law, namely, preventive war. That is, the United States will rule the world by force, and if there is any challenge to its domination---whether it is perceived in the distance, invented, imagined, or whatever-then the United States will have the right to destroy that challenge before it becomes a threat. That's preventive war, not preemptive war."

Chomsky goes on to dissect the manner in which the Bush regime has implemented its doctrine of preventive war and "normalized it". By virtue of its sheer might and through the masterful propaganda which convinced its citizenry that invading Iraq was necessary to defend the "homeland", the United States has established such a war of aggression as "acceptable behavior" for a legitimate government. Essentially, Chomsky concludes that the Bush administration, its collaborating wealthy elite and its supportive corporate leviathans imposed their will to expand the American Empire through instilling the fear in other nations that they could be in the cross-hairs of an incredibly powerful military, and by shamelessly telling unprecedented lies to the American people.

As a result, Chomsky asserts, "George Bush has succeeded within a year in converting the United States to a country that is greatly feared, disliked, and even hated."

What's happening on the home front?

Despite the glowing reports in the mainstream media about the economy's health and the woeful lack of honest coverage of the attack on democracy by the Bush regime, the truths about both the soaring wealth gap and the installation of tyrannical government mechanisms have been widely disseminated on the Internet. Chomsky commented on both at one point in the book when Barsamian asked him how the government could maintain perpetual warfare against multiple nations:

"Meanwhile they will have undermined social programs and diminished democracy---which of course they hate---by transferring decisions out of the public arena into private hands. Internally, the legacy they leave will be painful and hard, but only for a majority of the population. The people they're concerned about are going to be making out like bandits, very much like during the Reagan years. Many of the same people are in power now, after all."

Using the formidable tool of his piercing insight, Dr. Chomsky penetrates deeply into the lie-enshrouded Bush domestic agenda. Continuing to manipulate Americans through fear (a legitimate fear spawned by the actual collapse of the WTC and then elevated to an obscene level by propaganda of Orwellian proportions), the Social Darwinists who hold the reins of the US government continue in their "long term effort to destroy the institutional basis for social support systems, to eliminate the programs such as Social Security that are based on the conception that people have to have some concern for one another. The idea that we should feel sympathy and solidarity, that we should care whether the disabled widow across town is able to eat, has to be driven from our minds." Besides severely minimizing or eliminating social programs, the ruling elites have a more sinister agenda, which Dr. Chomsky unveils. Continued implementation of this agenda will enable the Social Darwinists to strip away social support systems while simultaneously enjoying the consent of many Americans. They are targeting both the programs and the impetus for their existence. Malevolent yet brilliant.

Speaking of terrorism....

Through Barsamian's prompting, Chomsky spends some time dissecting the phenomenon of fear in the United States. As Chomsky notes, America is the most secure nation in history. Readily capable of dominating the rest of the world's combined militaries with its tremendous arsenal while occupying a land mass flanked by vast oceans, America's citizenry has as little to fear as any nation on the globe. Dr. Chomsky notes that crime and drug abuse rates in the United States are about the same as those in other industrialized nations. Yet many Americans feel perpetually frightened and insecure. Chomsky does not reach a definite conclusion on the source of American anxiety, but does note that the US government exploits this potent emotion in a powerful way by employing propaganda through the mainstream media to shepherd its corrupt agenda through America's "democratic system".

As is usually the case, Chomsky comments extensively on the numerous acts of state terrorism perpetrated by the US government over the years. He refers to The Fog of War, a documentary in which Robert McNamara agrees with General Curtis LeMay's statement that if the US had lost WW II, they would have been prosecuted as war criminals. Chomsky notes that as McNamara reflected on his role as a key strategist in US imperialist actions which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, he pondered, "But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

Referring to the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, Chomsky illustrates the point that the since the Allies were the victors, they determined what constituted a war crime. "The tribunal had to decide what would be considered a war crime, and they made the operational definition of a war crime anything the enemy did that the Allies didn't do." Blessed with the self-granted freedom to make up their own rules, the Allies determined that bombing urban centers and killing hundreds of thousands of women and children did not qualify as criminal behavior. Thus, the carefully calculated firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo and the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima went unpunished, reducing the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals to ludicrous acts of hypocrisy.

Building on the theme of hypocrisy, Chomsky revisits the Bush regime's policy of preventive war. He points out that Henry Kissinger approved of the doctrine so long as it did not become "a universal principle available to every nation." With the illegal Iraqi invasion, the United States has established its perverse right to invade a sovereign nation on a whim, but reserves that right as a privilege granted only unto them.

Coupling with the preventive war policy is the Bush regime's decree that "those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves." Examining this striking statement with his penetrating analysis, Chomsky quickly discards nations that are "harboring heads of state" because "if we include them, the discussion reduces to absurdity in no time." Focusing on "groups or individuals officially regarded as terrorists", Chomsky cites several examples living freely today within the United States. Orlando Bosch, who was involved in destroying a Cuban airliner and killing 73 people, and whom the Justice Department wanted to deport, was the recipient of a presidential pardon at the behest of Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Chomsky also points to Emmanuel Constant as a terrorist finding safe harbor in the United States. Despite his murder of several thousand Haitians, the United States will not extradite him.

Stretching back a bit in history, Chomsky briefly discusses the Cold War. Embedded in this discourse are more valuable nuggets of information. He reveals (based on previously sealed documents in Russian archives) that the Russians knew that the goal of the United States during the Cold War was "to spend them (the Russians) into economic destruction by compelling them to enter an arms race they couldn't survive-remember, their economy was much smaller than ours." As the military industrial complex was gearing up to become a money-making machine for corporate America and its complicit politicians, the United States chose to take the world to the brink of nuclear war rather than attempting to negotiate a treaty with its reluctant opponent in the arms race. How typical of the Empire.

He holds a special place in his heart for our 40th president

"When enemies commit crimes, they're crimes. In fact, we can exaggerate and lie about them with complete impunity. When we commit crimes, they didn't happen. And you see that very strikingly in the cult of Reagan worship, which was created through a massive propaganda campaign. Reagan's regime was one of murder, brutality, and violence, which devastated a number of countries and probably left two hundred thousand people dead in Latin America, with hundreds of thousands of orphans and widows. But this can't be mentioned here. It didn't happen."

Professor Chomsky elaborates on the deeply criminal nature of the Reagan administration. One example he provides is John Negroponte, who is currently the Director of National Intelligence for the United States, and who acted as Reagan's "point man" as ambassador to Honduras. According to Chomsky, Negoponte's tasks included supervising "the camps in which the mercenary army was being trained, armed, and organized to carry out the atrocities (in Nicaragua), atrocities for which it was condemned by the World Court." Chomsky also points out Reagan's policy of "constructive engagement" with the government of South Africa, in spite of its Apartheid policies, and the Reagan regime's claim that Nelson Mandela's African National Congress was one of the "more notorious terrorist groups" in the world.

Chomsky arrives at two particularly entertaining conclusions about Reagan:

1. "Again the kindest thing you can say about Reagan is that he probably didn't know what he was saying."

2. "Reagan was an incredible coward."

He also observes that Reagan was not a popular president. He cites Reagan's Gallup poll ratings during his presidency as being "roughly average, below every one of his successors, except for Bush II." Chomsky points out that "by 1992, Reagan had become the most unpopular living former president apart from Richard Nixon." He uses the atrocities committed under Reagan, the ineptitude of the man, and his lackluster poll results as evidence of the power of the US propaganda machine, which has been able to beatify this miscreant in the minds of many Americans.

Continuing his discussion on the power and the mechanisms of "imperial propaganda", Chomsky arrives at another sparkling conclusion:

"It was well understood, long before George Orwell, that memory must be repressed. Not only memory but consciousness of what's happening right in front of you must be repressed, because if the public comes to understand what's being done in its name, it probably won't permit it."

Erudition, activism, and dissent are his hallmarks

The further I got into Imperial Ambitions, the more I realized how far Chomsky's knowledge base extends, and how much of his criticism of the US government extends beyond foreign policy. For example, he comments briefly on the surprisingly large and dangerous segment of the US population which practices fundamentalist Christianity (the Religious Right, if you will):

"There is nothing like it in any other industrial country. And Bush has to keep throwing these people red meat to keep them in line. While they're getting shafted by Bush's economic and social policies, he's got to make them think he's doing something for them. But throwing red meat to that constituency is very dangerous for the world, because it means violence and aggression, but also for the country, because it means seriously harming civil liberties."

I know from experience that it is virtually inevitable for readers to ask a writer who advocates social justice (and writes in dissent against their government) what people can do to evoke change. Professor Chomsky addresses this issue at several points throughout the book. His resounding theme is perseverance. He urges activists to participate in protests, join groups or movements pushing for social change, educate themselves and others, and employ the Constitutional rights available to them before the Bush regime revokes them. The power of the ruling elite lies in its ability to induce apathy in the population with television and consumerism, to manipulate the under-educated through propaganda, and to divide and conquer with hot-button issues like abortion.

Chomsky states, "The genius of American politics has been to marginalize and isolate people." His suggestion is to take our cue from movements like the Abolitionists. His message is that by working together for the causes of peace and social justice, while persisting in the face of incremental progress and powerful obstacles, we can achieve our goals.

I highly recommend Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post 9/11 World. For those who have not read Chomsky, this book would make an excellent primer. It is much lighter reading than some of his others, and it captures his thoughts on a diverse range of issues. I recommend that you initiate your studies of Chomsky's unique viewpoint by starting with this book. If you have read Chomsky, and you are like me, you can scarcely get enough of his discerning commentary. If that is the case, do not deprive yourself of Imperial Ambitions. This is Chomsky at his finest.

Jason Miller is an  activist and writer with a degree in liberal arts. He works in the transportation industry. His affiliations include Amnesty International, the ACLU and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com. or at his blog http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/

In two speeches to overflow crowds in New York last weekend, notable theologian David Ray Griffin argued that recently revealed evidence seals the case that the Twin Towers and WTC-7 were destroyed by controlled demolition with explosives. Despite the many enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks, Dr. Griffin concluded, "It is already possible to know, beyond a reasonable doubt, one very important thing: the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job, orchestrated by terrorists within our own government."

On Oct. 15th and 16th, New Yorkers filled two venues to hear the prominent theologian and author of two books on 9/11 give a presentation entitled “The Destruction of the Trade Towers: A Christian Theologian Speaks Out.” Dr. Griffin has continued to blaze a trail of courage, leading where most media and elected officials have feared to tread. His presentation went straight to the core of one of the most powerful indictments of the official story, the collapse of the towers and WTC 7.

Dr. Griffin included excerpts from the firemen’s tapes which were recently released as a result of a prolonged court battle led by victim’s families represented by attorney Norman Siegel and reported in the NY Times. He also included statements by many witnesses. These sources gave ample testimony giving evidence of explosions going off in the buildings. A 12 minute film was shown for the audiences, who saw for themselves the undeniable evidence for controlled demolition.

Dr. Griffin listed ten characteristics of the collapses which all indicate that the buildings did not fall due to being struck by planes or the ensuing fires. He explained the buildings fell suddenly without any indication of collapse. They fell straight into their own footprint at free-fall speed, meeting virtually no resistance as they fell--a physical impossibility unless all vertical support was being progressively removed by explosives severing the core columns. The towers were built to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and 160 mile per hour winds, and nothing about the plane crashes or ensuing fires gave any indication of causing the kind of damage that would be necessary to trigger even a partial or progressive collapse, much less the shredding of the buildings into dust and fragments that  could drop at free-fall speed. The massive core columns--the most significant structural feature of the buildings, whose very existence is denied in the official 9/11 Commission Report--were severed into uniform 30 foot sections, just right for the 30-foot trucks used to remove them quickly before a real investigation could transpire. There was a volcanic-like dust cloud from the concrete being pulverized, and no physical mechanism other than explosives can begin to explain how so much of the buildings' concrete was rendered into extremely fine dust. The debris was ejected horizontally several hundred feet in huge fan shaped plumes stretching in all directions, with telltale "squibs" following the path of the explosives downward. These are all facts that have been avoided by mainstream and even most of the alternative media. Again, these are characteristics of the kind of controlled demolitions that news people and firefighters were describing on the morning of 9/11. Those multiple first-person descriptions of controlled demolition were hidden away for almost four years by the City of New York until a lawsuit finally forced the city to release them. Dr. Griffin's study of these accounts has led him beyond his earlier questioning of the official story of the collapses, to his above-quoted conclusion: The destruction of the three WTC buildings with explosives by US government terrorists is no longer a hypothesis, but a fact that has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

It’s important to note that Dr. Griffin is one of many prominent intellectuals--including the likes of Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Peter Dale Scott, Richard Falk, Paul Craig Roberts, Morgan Reynolds and Peter Phillips--who have seen through the major discrepancies of the official explanation of 9/11 and have risen to challenge it. These brave individuals represent the tip of an ever-growing iceberg of discreet 9/11 skeptics. Indeed, 9/11 skepticism appears to be almost universal among intellectuals who have examined the evidence, since there has not yet been a single serious attempt to refute the case developed by Dr. Griffin and such like-minded thinkers as Nafeez Ahmed and Mike Ruppert. As for the general public, polls have shown that a strong  majority of Canadians (63%, Toronto Star, May '04) and half of New Yorkers (Zogby, August 2004) agree that top US leaders conspired to murder nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11/01.

How, then, can the mainstream US media continue to ignore the story of the century? Perhaps the best answer was given by Dr. Griffin himself in the conclusion of his talk, and is worth quoting at length:

"The evidence for this conclusion (that 9/11 was an inside job) has thus far been largely ignored by the mainstream press, perhaps under the guise of obeying President Bush’s advice not to tolerate “outrageous conspiracy theories.” We have seen, however, that it is the Bush administration’s conspiracy theory that is the outrageous one, because it is violently contradicted by numerous facts, including some basic laws of physics.  

"There is, of course, another reason why the mainstream press has not pointed out these contradictions. As a recent letter to the Los Angeles Times said:

“'The number of contradictions in the official version of . . . 9/11 is so overwhelming that . . . it simply cannot be believed. Yet . . . the official version cannot be abandoned because the implication of rejecting it is far too disturbing: that we are subject to a government conspiracy of ‘X-Files’ proportions and insidiousness.'
 
"The implications are indeed disturbing. Many people who know or at least suspect the truth about 9/11 probably believe that revealing it would be so disturbing to the American psyche, the American form of government, and global stability that it is better to pretend to believe the official version. I would suggest, however, that any merit this argument may have had earlier has been overcome by more recent events and realizations. Far more devastating to the American psyche, the American form of government, and the world as a whole will be the continued rule of those who brought us 9/11, because the values reflected in that horrendous event have been reflected in the Bush administration’s lies to justify the attack on Iraq, its disregard for environmental science and the Bill of Rights, its criminal negligence both before and after Katrina, and now its apparent plan not only to weaponize space but also to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike.

"In light of this situation and the facts discussed in this lecture---as well as dozens of more problems in the official account of 9/11 discussed elsewhere---I call on the New York Times to take the lead in finally exposing to the American people and the world the truth about 9/11. Taking the lead on such a story will, of course, involve enormous risks. But if there is any news organization with the power, the prestige, and the credibility to break this story, it is the Times. It performed yeoman service in getting the 9/11 oral histories released. But now the welfare of our republic and perhaps even the survival of our civilization depend on getting the truth about 9/11 exposed. I am calling on the Times to rise to the occasion."

Dr. Griffin’s speech given at the University of Wisconsin earlier this year, entitled “9/11 and the American Empire,” was broadcast twice on C-SPAN. In late September Dr. Griffin was asked to give expert testimony at hearings sponsored by Cynthia McKinney and the Congressional Black Caucus investigating the 9/11 Commission Report. He is currently Professor Emeritus at Claremont College in California.

This weekend's events were sponsored by NY911truth.org, WBAI and the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance for 9/11 Truth: http://mujca.com.
Kevin Barrett  Coordinator

MUJCA-NET: http://mujca.com

Source: GlobalResearch.ca

CBS recently released results from a survey of public opinion on the war in Iraq. Most of the results were fairly predictable. The poll verified that the majority of Americans believe that the invasion wasn't such a bright idea to begin with and a significant minority thinks that now is a good time to head for the nearest exit.

The CBS poll is just the latest confirmation that the average citizen is not buying in to the administration's contention that this war of choice is worth the price in blood and treasure. Even so, one of the alarming findings of the poll indicates that the pre-war propaganda campaign still resounds with an unhealthy majority of Republicans. As incredible as it may seem, the poll found that "44% of Republicans think Hussein was involved in 9/11 and 61% think Hussein was working with Al Qaeda before the war."

Why do so many Republicans continue to believe this kind of nonsense? The short answer is that they - like many other mass media consumers - were taken in by the incredible mind messing mass media machine.

In a spirit of charity, let's assume for a moment that the reporters and publishers who disseminated these absurd notions were themselves victims of the WMD hoax and swallowed whole the discredited neocon assertions about Iraq's involvement in the 9/11 atrocities. Given that the 9/11 commission - after investigating every possible link between Saddam and Bin Laden - concluded that Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda - a sworn enemy of the secular Baathists in Baghdad. And given that the manufactured WMD canards have also proven to be false. Why then have these same media conglomerates refused to make an effort to correct the misperceptions of so many Americans - misperceptions implanted by their misleading and uncritical reporting?

You would think that any journalist or publisher who had been led astray by the Bush administration would take umbrage at being used by the neocon propagandists as conduits for leaking an endless stream of misinformation to an unsuspecting public. To this day, the New York Times blames Judith Miller's infamous WMD reporting on Ahmed Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles. Sulzberger insists that Miller confirmed and double sourced Chalabi's fiction with "United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources."

To buy into Sulzberger's alibi, you have to accept that Miller was some kind of virgin unfamiliar with the neocon pedigree of her contacts in the Pentagon and the White House. In fact, she was an imbedded journalist with the White House Iraq Group and the Office of Special Plans. Both these outfits were specifically set up for the purpose of manufacturing and twisting intelligence and then using their foul produce to market the war in Iraq. While in bed with these war mongers, Judith appears to have been impregnated with their ideological zeal to beat the drums of war.

Is it possible that Miller was unaware of Chalabi's intimate and long standing relationships with Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby? With 1200 reporters on the beat and a brigade of journalists assigned to their Washington bureau - the New York Times certainly doesn't lack sufficient resources to figure out who's who in the neocon world. You can crowd all the neocons into a single think tank and still have enough room for a pool full of sharks. Does anyone seriously believe that Miller was a gullible intern who was taken in by a few shrewd neocon operatives who abused her trust and converted her into a passive conduit for spreading war fever? Did her colleagues at the Times just stand by and allow her to make a fool of herself or did they understand that Sulzberger had given Miller explicit authority to participate in a government propaganda campaign?

From a strictly technical perspective, the campaign to market the war was a splendid success - especially when you consider that the government doesn't own any media assets. Stalin always had Pravda to fall back on - but Bush and his merry band of neocons had to go hat in hand searching for mass media collaborators. And they found enough of them at The New York Times to launch high caliber weapons of mass deception that ultimately won the day and paved a path to war.

It would be unfair to suggest that the lads at the New York Times were the only mass media operators to make a deal with the neocon government within a government. No one signed on the dotted lines with more enthusiasm than Rupert Murdoch and the war loving delinquents at FOX. And CNN also contributed generously into making the war a smashing 'shock and awe' reality show. This war was delivered with the seal and approval of the cable tabloids.

One of the third rails of American politics is to suggest that media monopolies have a tendency to act like other monopolies - with a large degree of impunity. As recently as last month, Sulzberger was waging a public crusade to transform Judith Miller into a heroine fighting the good fight for "the public's right to know." Now back from her self-imposed jail house exile - Judith insists on maintaining her silence about a criminal conspiracy to get even with a legitimate whistle-blower - former ambassador Joseph Wilson. After writing a single column full of crater sized holes - Judith has abruptly decided to take a leave of absence. She spent 85 days in jail to 'protect our right to know' only to assume the character of a Trappist monk and keep her trap shut. This woman isn't selling you the Brooklyn Bridge - she can get you Brooklyn at wholesale prices.

Judith 'Run a Mock' Miller is no ordinary journalist. By her own admission, she had security clearance and ready access to power brokers like Lewis Libby and assorted neo-con insiders who consistently declined to be identified. This is a reporter that was willing to let Libby leak his poisonous back stabbing allegations and credit them to a "Former Hill Staffer." On this count, she makes the point that she felt that "since The Times had run Wilson's original essay, it had an obligation to explore any allegation that undercut his credibility." It doesn't seem to matter to this Pulitzer Prize winner that Wilson made his allegations in a public forum while Libby decided to counter the ambassador's contentions by anonymously leaking defamatory 'nepotism' slurs that Miller was happy to attribute to some unidentified "Former Hill Staffer."

Apparently - while in Iraq - Miller had a direct line to Rumsfeld and threatened to use it when army officers conducting WMD searches didn't obey her marching orders. And let's not forget Miller's Anthrax hoax. At a time when she was busy marketing her 'Germs' book - she set off an alarm about a suspicious envelope that might contain some of the deadly spores. The Times building was evacuated and emergency teams were sent in to inspect the premises. Traffic in Manhattan came to crawl as streets were cordoned off and her book sales went through the roof. Was it all a prank? Given her track record, shouldn't that incident be investigated to determine if she committed a felony? What's the difference between that and calling in a bomb threat?

Onward to Miller's account of her testimony before the Grand Jury. For over a year, Miller refused to testify. Had she complied with Fitzgerald's subpoena in August of 2004 - it might very well have impacted the presidential campaign. Had she and other mass media journalists refused to act like stenographers for the neocon war lords - would we still have invaded Iraq?

Miller now claims a little bout of amnesia regarding who told her about Valerie Plame. She portrays Libby as a sympathetic character who was only out to protect Cheney from the CIA - which had launched a "perverted war" to shift blame for the 'intelligence failure' to the White House. There is no suggestion in her article that Libby was a mover and shaker among a clique of neocons in the Vice President's Office and at the Pentagon that systematically undermined the more cautious findings of the CIA regarding Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Miller does, however, allude to 'a particular bureau within the agency.' This is a journalist who was very familiar with the internal anatomy of the intelligence community. She leaves open the question of whether she knew about Plame before or after her encounters with Libby. "Another possibility is that I gave Libby the wrong name to see whether he would correct me and confirm her identity." So, a question still hangs in the air - did she tell Libby about Valerie Plame or vice versa. She had three meetings with Libby before Wilson went public with his charges. Were they collaborating on a pre-emptive strike against the ambassador?

Miller, who until very recently insisted she was 'fucking right' on Iraq's fictional WMD stockpiles, now admits that she "got it totally wrong." Yet she continues to perpetuate the myth that there was an 'intelligence failure' and allows Libby to blame it all on the CIA. This alone should prove that Miller is a neocon operative. The whole purpose of Wilson's whistle-blowing was to point out that there was no intelligence failure and that the intelligence was 'twisted' to make the case for war. The ambassador was right about the yellow cake uranium hoax - he was right to point out that intelligence was fixed and he had the courage to come out in public - long before the Downing Street Memos confirmed his allegations.

Both Libby and Cheney pressured CIA analysts to be more 'aggressive.' Miller herself berated the intelligence community for not listening to her suspect Iraqi sources - the same sources she now blames for duping her. And yet, even at this late date, Miller has no problem perpetuating the myth that the war can be blamed on faulty CIA findings and that the CIA is out to pass the buck to an innocent Vice President.

While few people continue to believe the WMD hoax, the mass media is content to perpetuate the myth that "we got it totally wrong" because the folks at Langley didn't have a clue. Why then did the CIA bother to send Wilson to Niger to double check and uncover the scam? Why did they insist that it be kept out of the President's speech? Why did they advise Powell to avoid using it in his infamous and discredited presentation to the United Nations?

Judith Miller knew that the intelligence was cooked and was happy to provide some ingredients to spice up the mix. She continues to show no remorse about force feeding the polluted stew to a vulnerable nation that was still in a state of shock. As a journalist who won her Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Al Qaeda, she had to know how ludicrous it was to suggest that Saddam was responsible for the 9/11 atrocities. As for Sulzberger - the publisher of the 'paper of record' is content to let that deliberately inflammatory canard remain in the first draft of our history books. Considering that one out of every two Republicans continues to believe the fiction about Iraq's link to the terrorists who assaulted the World Trade Center, why doesn't Sulzberger make a concerted effort to set the record straight?

Almost two thousand young Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have already paid the ultimate price in an illegal war that was launched after a systematic propaganda campaign that involved the collaboration of the neocons inside the administrations with the neocons who man the printing press. Fifteen thousand veterans will spend the rest of their lives coping with permanent paralysis, lost limbs, blindness and disfigurement. Thousands more will return with their psyches bent out of shape. Many will be haunted by the knowledge that - in the fog of war - they killed innocent civilians. These young soldiers and marines sacrificed their lives, their body parts, their sanity and their innocence in the honest belief that they were avenging the slaughter of 9/11. Among the things they carried into battle were postcards of the WTC in flames. They believed Sulzberger and they believed Judith Miller and her clones. It never occurred to them that neocon operators like Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith were lurking behind the scenes with agendas that have yet to be made public. It never occurred to them that yellow journalists at the 'paper of record' would team up with these ideological zealots to put them in harm's way.

Judith Miller's stain on the press is a large pool of innocent blood that was shed to appease the ideological yearnings of a tiny cabal of war-mongering neo-conservative ideologues who can readily be traced to the Israeli Lobby. An honest accounting of her crimes against the truth would not be complete without implicating her publisher. Sulzberger and Miller are not just guilty of sloppy journalism and sensational jail house antics. They stand accused of participating in a coordinated government propaganda blitz to market an illegal and immoral war.

How will the mass media barons react to the Miller scandal? First, there is talk of a lucrative book deal. As of this writing, the Society of Professional Journalists is in the process of honoring this disgraced author of WMD fiction. The stated mission of this society is to promote the free flow of information, protect freedom of speech and stimulate high standards and ethical behavior in the practice of journalism.

It is still not clear in my mind why not a single Times reporter has yet to quit in disgust. One can still remember their collective outrage and self flagellation over the Jayson Blair affair. At the time, Kurt Eichenwald, a Times reporter opined that "Pathological liars are pathological liars. They lie. I have come across more than my share of Blair-type liars. They are all the same. Once they are caught, they pretend to be confessing - then lie all over again ... And all of them - as you dig deeper into their false confessions - are thoroughly, thoroughly unrepentant".

Jayson Blair must be eating his heart out and wondering why he had to pay such a steep price for his relatively harmless pranks. Maybe he should sue Sulzberger for discriminatory practices in hiring and retaining journalists who cook up fiction for the credulous masses.

Ahmed Amr is the editor of NileMedia.com. This article can be published and distributed at will.

George W. Bush was appointed president to eventually give way to one of the most oppressive regimes in American history. In November 2000, the dream has finally come true for a political constituency that in 1981 saw it’s first real chance to hold power in the highest office of the nation and the world come true. The ambiguous character of the new revivalism of religion of Bush’s political constituency is underlined by all the missteps taken during the past five years. It’s clear by now that Mr. Bush and his supporters personify the most conservative side of the return of religion – both religiously and politically – one is likely to find anywhere in the world today.

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, had pushed hard, in 1982 after helping to elect Ronald Reagan, to use religion as a potent political force, they had failed at that time to restore prayer in schools, ban pornography, outlaw abortion or abolish the immorality of the media. This political fundamentalism vowed to hold power at all cost. What is unique about Mr. Bush’s agenda for social change today is that it is not derived from liberal or conservative social agendas, but directly from the scriptures.

George Bush was hand picked for the role of the administration’s salesman and spokesman, a role he probably thought would fit him just fine, long as Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, other advisors and speech writers are taking care of the hard work. Mr. Bush felt confident to handle domestic politics and issues while others in the administration prepare for a show of force around the globe, with Iraq being the centerpiece.

Mr. Bush has failed, by any standard, to deliver security, social and economic welfare to Americans, to guard civil liberty, or to cooperate with other regional powers on intervention and trade issues. The majority of Americans is not in favor of Mr. Bush’s policies and has many unanswered questions. Despite two questionable presidential elections and never ending political and ethical scandals, the corporate media and Gallup forcefully resist calls to survey Americans on impeaching the president.

A Near Collapse White House

The government “9/11 roller coaster” will not stop voluntarily, but it seems heading for an immanent crash. Bush and the Neoconservatives have grossly miscalculated every step since they took office in 2000. They haven’t expected their lies to chase after them. 9/11 has exposed American foreign policy for what it really is, a front for corporate greed and build up of empire achieved by pushing others around, a policy of exploiting other nations’ national sovereignty, of assassinations and war crimes. Katrina is unveiling the malaise of American society and government exploitation of its minorities and poor. The emerging images from New Orleans coupled with the incompetence of a clueless government showed people around the world and many Americans a totally different picture from what they perceive to be the most humane, rich and powerful nation on earth.

What Americans and the rest of the world have been waking up to since 9/11 are sheer corruption, brutality, deviance and bias that defines American foreign policy makers, the Pentagon and their corporate backers. What Americans and the rest of the world are waking up to since Katrina struck are failed domestic policies, inept politicians and legislators, slashed budgets, and reluctance to let the best of National Guard troops back from Iraq, which is directly responsible for the instant killing of thousands of Americans, displacing hundreds of thousands without adequate food and shelter, the sinking of an iconic American metropolis, and a serious doubt about a manipulation of the levees. A policy that has always favored whites and the wealthy over African Americans and the poor. The desperate, distressed, and frightened of New Orleans was met by hostile stressed soldiers with shoot-to-kill orders! A very familiar scene to Iraqi civilians who are still unable to feel liberated.

The continued rhetoric of the Bush administration is directly leading us to the outbreak of nuclear war and to ecological destruction. The White House Empire is bipartisan; it seeks to exercise sovereign authority over the planet.

Today, Bush has the fastest free fall approval rating in presidential history. His latest Rose Garden appearance and interactive ness with reporters points to a very disturbed and disconnected president, a man not in control of his faculties; the salesman has lost his pitch.

It is not only enough to lead G. W. Bush in handcuffs, but also to remove corrupt corporate magnets and religious zealots, who continue to write the job description for the position of the White House salesman, from the social and the political spectrum.

Amr Ismail is a Canadian writer based in Europe. He is an independent business consultant. He studied social theory and holds a BA and a Masters in international business. Amr edits Leadaship.com

Formal talks between Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were put on hold this week. The first face to face dialogue between the two since the “disengagement” of the Gaza Strip was sidelined for a second time because of a difference in “objectives.” Israel essentially intends on acting as the High Court, examining Palestinian requests, while Palestinians—trying to break Israel’s cycle of unilateral procedure—demand action and fundamental change. This postponement symbolizes the Palestinian people’s unending struggle in their efforts to achieve justice.

It is not a coincidence that Israeli forces have already invaded the Gaza Strip in the post-disengagement era, reserving the “right” to reinvade in the future. The power and the decision to exert it rests firmly in Sharon’s hands as it has since the start of US President George Bush’s “war on terror.” The world witnessed the onslaught of Israel’s Operation First Rain two weeks ago. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), the invasion left 8 Palestinian civilians dead, 35 civilians injured, and over 300 arrested. By taking on the role of a strict warden, Sharon will show mercy on the Palestinian prisoners, so long as they exhibit their ability to fall in line and follow his orders. Until then, it is lights out in the Occupied Territories.

Regrettably, President Abbas sits silently in the background, without political or military ammunition. Palestinian web portal, The Electronic Intifada, quoted a Palestinian police officer stating, “At least give us enough bullets to protect people and protect our stations.” The evolution of competent and equipped security forces in the Occupied Territories is exactly what Sharon is trying to avoid. Sharon’s minions cleverly proclaim that they cannot give the Palestinian Authority (PA) weapons, ammunition, military vehicles and other security equipment until Abbas and the PA have earned Israel’s trust. Both parties know, however, that the PA cannot combat militant groups, or better yet, create a firm presence and authority, without first having the proper equipment.

Sharon’s credo is to maximize the lawlessness of the conflict. This furthers the greater agenda: the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the appropriation of Palestinian land by way of extension of the Apartheid Wall. The infighting in Palestinian society has emboldened Sharon’s modus operandi and exemplifies the lack of rule in Gaza. All the while, Sharon plays the part of the “peacemaker” who is just waiting for the Palestinians to get their act together.

Since the “disengagement” of the Gaza Strip little has been mentioned of the 30 Palestinians killed, the many more wounded, the houses destroyed, or the continual restriction of movement. While Abbas has called for the release of the 7000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, next to nothing has been said of the torture of Palestinian prisoners, or the objectivity of the Israeli courts sentencing the Palestinians apprehended.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) will recommend that the Israeli government “release additional Palestinian prisoners” in a move to strengthen the position of President Abbas. Any concession from Israel is welcome. One must look, however, at what is being conceded. In the last month, Israeli forces have detained nearly 600 Palestinians. If the IOF continues its mass arrest campaign, then releases 400 prisoners as it had in June of this year, the magnitude of the release will be quite small. The Palestinian Prisoners Committee and the Red Cross Committee told Al Jazeera that “most of the [Palestinians] released [in June] were prisoners whose

It would be a shame if the state of Israel became known for, “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

sentences were due to end or had already ended.” Israel is using smoke and mirror maneuvers to appease the international community while the situation on the ground remains the same or worsens. The Bethlehem based Ma’an news agency reported this week that Walid Khaled, held already for 51 months without being charged, will be detained for a twelfth consecutive term under a renewed Israeli order. This “administrative detention,” is in stark contrast to international law, which according to human rights group B’Tselem, “prohibits the transfer of detainees outside of occupied territory.” Based on IOF numbers (which are believed to be much higher), B’Tselem found that 596 Palestinians were held in “administrative detention” as of August of this year.   

The occupation presses forward, suffocating the will of the majority of the Palestinian people who want an end to the conflict and violence. It is not enough to throw the Palestinians a bone once in a while. The Palestinian leadership must straighten its spine and demand that the international community pressure Israel to make fundamental concessions. The issues concerning the control of the borders, water, airspace, ports and goods coming in and out of Gaza remains unresolved. The deteriorating conditions of poverty, malnutrition and unemployment in the Occupied Territories, as the world witnessed prior to the second Intifada, wane on Palestinian public opinion. Those in Israel who support peace must not forgo this opportunity to initiate calm and bring justice to a besieged people. A “window of opportunity,” is only meaningful if Israeli society takes advantage of situation and demands cooperation from its leadership. It would be a shame if the state of Israel became known for, “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Remi Kanazi is the primary writer for the political website www.PoeticInjustice.net. He lives in New York City as a Palestinian American freelance writer and can be reached via email at remroum@gmail.com

In a dramatic rebuff to President George Bush, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the man who dared to tell the Americans that the main plank of the US argument for waging war on Iraq was based on a lie.

The Nobel committee bestowed the prestigious award for 2005 on Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN official who rose to prominence by exposing the lengths that America would go to in its efforts to build a case for war.

Mr ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which shares the prize, delivered a body blow to the Bush administration on the eve of the Iraq war.

During a televised meeting of the UN Security Council in March 2003, he told assembled foreign ministers that documents purporting to prove Iraq had attempted to import uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon were fake.

Leading lights of the Bush administration, particularly Condoleezza Rice and Vice-President Dick Cheney, had advanced Iraq's supposed nuclear weapons programme as a major reason for going to war.

Ms Rice memorably said of the UN weapons inspectors' search for a "smoking gun" before the war: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Britain also cited the now discredited Niger connection to push the case for immediate military action against Saddam, suggesting that he was in the process of adding a nuclear capacity to his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

No weapons of mass destruction of any sort, far less any evidence of a nuclear programme, have ever been discovered.

The recognition of Mr ElBaradei and the IAEA is also seen as a warning to President Bush- and to Tony Blair who backed Mr Bush over the invasion - against military strikes on Iran over its nuclear programme.

The underlying message of the Nobel committee, which said the threat of nuclear weapons "must be met through the broadest possible international co-operation", is that weapons inspections are a better way of dealing with any crisis than war.

The decision, which came on the 60th anniversary of the American atomic bomb strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, signals a move by the Nobel committee in Norway to return to its disarmament roots.

"This is a message to all the people of the world: Do what you can to get rid of nuclear weapons," said the committee chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, as he announced the prize. "The people's power is formidable."

Egyptian-born Mr ElBaradei, who learned of the award as he was watching television at home with his wife, declared that the prize would be "a shot in the arm" for the IAEA, now sidelined over the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, the countries posing the biggest nuclear threat to world peace and

The decision, which came on the 60th anniversary of the American atomic bomb strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, signals a move by the Nobel committee in Norway to return to its disarmament roots.

security. The IAEA has also been refused access to the architect of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is now under house arrest.

Mr Khan was the informal CEO of an illicit nuclear supermarket that had dealings with more than 30 companies in 30 countries, and who passed nuclear secrets to North Korea and Libya.

Mr ElBaradei said at IAEA headquarters in Vienna: "The award sends a very strong message: 'Keep doing what you are doing - be impartial, act with integrity', and that is what we intend to do."

Mr ElBaradei said, to applause from UN staff: "The advantage of having this recognition today, it will strengthen my resolve."

He said the prize was a recognition that "the number one danger we are facing today" comes from the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Described as a "fearless advocate" of disarmament, Mr ElBaradei's power is that he will not shy from telling politicians the unpalatable truth, based on spin-free verified evidence from on-the-ground inspections.

However it was not the IAEA, but Iranian defectors who first sounded the alarm about Iran's clandestine nuclear programme.

Investigations by the UN weapons inspectors proved Iran had been working on a nuclear programme for 18 years before they were caught red-handed.

Even now, after years of inspections, the IAEA has not decided conclusively that they are working on a weapons programme, which in any case they deny. On North Korea, the IAEA can only guess what is going on in the hermit regime because inspectors were thrown out in 2002.

Disarmament negotiations with Pyongyang have now, in effect, been taken over by six-party talks involving regional players and the United States.

Mr ElBaradei is the enforcer of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime. Since taking over as director-general of the IAEA in 1997,after moving up through the organisation during 13 years, he has particularly lambasted what he sees as double standards on the part of countries that have nuclear weapons, but which seek to prevent others from procuring them.

"We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security - and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use," he said.

Mr ElBaradei's award is unlikely to please the Americans, who are working with the IAEA in hopes of referring Tehran to the UN Security Council for failing to come clean on the full extent of its nuclear programme.

John Bolton, now the US ambassador to the UN, launched an unsuccessful campaign to unseat Mr ElBaradei when Mr Bolton was still the top US official responsible for disarmament. But Mr ElBaradei has just been confirmed for a third term as the rest of the board, including Britain, rallied round his candidacy and the US withdrew its objection.

Anne Penketh, is the deplomatic editor of The Independent

Source: © 2005 The Independent News

And hardly anyone is contesting the new clampdown

 Click picture to enlarge

“We are trying to fight 21st-century crime – antisocial behaviour, drug-dealing, binge drinking, organised crime – with 19th-century methods as if we still lived in the time of Dickens”. Tony Blair, 27th September 2005.(1)

“Down poured the wine like oil on blazing fire. And still the riot went on – the debauchery gained its height – glasses were dashed upon the floor by hands that could not carry them to lips, oaths were shouted out by lips which could scarcely form the words to vent them in; drunken losers cursed and roared; some mounted on the tables, waving bottles above their heads and bidding defiance to the rest; some danced, some sang, some tore the cards and raved. Tumult and frenzy reigned supreme …”. Nicholas Nickleby, by Charles Dickens. 1839.(2)

All politicians who seek to justify repressive legislation claim that they are responding to an unprecedented threat to public order. And all politicians who cite such a threat draft measures in response which can just as easily be used against democratic protest. No act has been passed over the last 20 years with the aim of preventing anti-social behaviour, disorderly conduct, trespass, harrassment and terrorism which has not also been deployed to criminalise a peaceful public engagement in politics. When Walter Wolfgang was briefly detained by the police after heckling the foreign secretary last week, the public caught a glimpse of something that a few of us have been vainly banging on about for years.

On Friday, six students and graduates of Lancaster University were convicted of aggravated trespass. Their crime was to have entered a lecture theatre and handed out leaflets to the audience. Staff at the university were meeting people from BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Shell, the Carlyle Group, GlaxoSmithKline, DuPont, Unilever and Diageo, to learn how to “commercialise university research”.(3) The students were hoping to persuade the researchers not to sell their work. They stayed in the theatre for three minutes. As the judge conceded, they tried neither to intimidate anyone nor to stop the conference from proceeding.(4)

They were prosecuted under the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, passed when Michael Howard was the Conservative home secretary. But the university was able to use it only because Labour amended the act in 2003, to ensure that it could be applied anywhere, rather than just “in the open air.”(5)

Had Mr Wolfgang said “nonsense” twice during the foreign secretary’s speech, the police could have charged him under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Harrassment, the act says, “must involve conduct on at least two occasions … conduct includes speech.”(5) Parliament was told that its purpose was to protect women from stalkers, but the first people to be arrested were three peaceful protesters.(6) Since then it has been used by the arms manufacturer EDO to keep demonstrators away from its factory gates,(7) and by Kent police to arrest a woman who sent an executive at a drugs company two polite emails, begging him not to test his products on animals.(8) In 2001 the peace campaigners Lindis Percy and Anni Rainbow were prosecuted for causing “harassment, alarm or distress” to American servicemen at the Menwith Hill military intelligence base in Yorkshire, by standing at the gate holding the stars and stripes and a placard reading “George W Bush? Oh dear!”.(9) In Hull a protester was arrested under the act for “staring at a building”.(10)

Had Mr Wolfgang said “nonsense” to one of the goons who dragged him out of the conference, he could have been charged under section 125 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which came into force in August. Section 125 added a new definition of harassment to the 1997 act: “a course of conduct … which involves harassment of two or more persons”. What this means is that you need only address someone once to be considered to be harassing them, as long as you have also addressed someone else in the same manner. This provision, in other words, can be used to criminalise any protest anywhere. But when the bill passed through the Commons and the Lords, no member contested or even noticed it.

Section 125 hasn’t yet been exercised, but section 132 of the act is already becoming an effective weapon against democracy. This bans people from demonstrating in an area “designated” by the government. One of these areas is the square kilometre around parliament. Since the act came into force, democracy campaigners have been holding a picnic in Parliament Square every Sunday afternoon (see http://www1.atwiki.com/picnic/). Seventeen people have been arrested so far.(11)

But the law which has proved most useful to the police is the one under which Mr Wolfgang was held: section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This allows them to stop and search people, without the need to show that they have “reasonable suspicion” that a criminal offence is being committed. They have used it to put peaceful protestors through hell.

At the beginning of 2003, demonstrators against the impending war with Iraq set up a peace camp outside the military base at Fairford in Gloucestershire, from which US B52s would launch their bombing raids. Every day – sometimes several times a day – the protesters were stopped and searched under section 44.(12) The police, according to a parliamentary answer, used the act 995 times, though they knew that no one at the camp was a terrorist.(13) The constant harassment and detention pretty well broke the protesters’ resolve. Since then the police have used the same section to pin down demonstrators outside the bomb depot at Welford in Berkshire, at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, at Menwith Hill and at the annual arms fair in London’s Docklands.(14)

The police are also rediscovering the benefits of some of our more venerable instruments. On September 10th, Keith Richardson, one of the six students convicted of aggravated trespass on Friday, had his stall in Lancaster city centre confiscated under the 1824 Vagrancy Act.(15) “Every Person wandering abroad and endeavouring by the Exposure of Wounds and Deformities to obtain or gather Alms … shall be deemed a Rogue and Vagabond…”.(16) The act was intended to prevent the veterans of the Napoleonic wars from begging, but the police decided that the pictures of the wounds and deformities on his anti-vivisection leaflets put him on the wrong side of the law. In two recent cases, protestors have been arrested under the 1361 Justices of the Peace Act. So much for Mr Blair’s “21st Century methods”.

What is most remarkable about all this is that until Mr Wolfgang was held, neither parliamentarians nor the press were interested. The pressure group Liberty, the Green Party, a couple of alternative comedians, the Indymedia network and the alternative magazine Schnews have been left to defend our civil liberties almost unassisted. Even after “Wolfie” was thrown out of the conference, public criticism concentrated on the suppression of dissent within the Labour Party, rather than the suppression of dissent throughout the country. As the parliamentary opposition falls apart, the extra-parliamentary one is being closed down with hardly a rumble of protest from the huffers and puffers who insist that civil liberties are Britain’s gift to the world. Perhaps they’re afraid they’ll be arrested.

References:

1. Tony Blair, 27th September 2005. Speech to the Labour Party conference.
2. Page 757 of the 1978 Penguin edition.
3. George Fox 6 Supporters Group, no date given. Students Face Jail for Handing out Leaflets at University. Press release. There is more information at: http://www.free-webspace.biz/GeorgeFox/
4. George Fox 6 Supporters Group, 30th September 2005. Student demonstrators will appeal aggravated trespass conviction. Press release.
5. Section 59, the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003.
6. SchNEWS, 20th March 1998. Issue 159. http://www.schnews.org.uk/
7. Smash Edo, 26th March 2005. Arms Dealers Drop Legal Bombshell On Protesters. Press Release. http://www.smashedo.org.uk/
8. Simon Dally, pers comm, 4th August 2004 and 21st February 2005. Simon Dally acted as legal adviser in this case.
9. Yorkshire CND, 13th December 2000 and 16th January 2001. Menwith Hill news diary.
http://www.cndyorks.gn.apc.org/caab/articles/caabspmhs.htm
10. Schnews, 16th February 2001. Issue 293.
11. Mark Barrett, People’s Commons protester, 2nd October 2005. Pers comm.
12. Liberty, Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors and Berkshire CIA, 2003. Casualty of War: 8 weeks of counter-terrorism in rural England. http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/pdfs/casualty-of-war.pdf
13. Bob Ainsworth MP, 11th April 2003. Holding Answer.
14. Liberty, Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors and Berkshire CIA, ibid.
15. Keith Richardson, 30th September 2005. Pers comm.
16. An Act for the Punishment of idle and disorderly persons, and Rogues and Vagabonds, in that part of Great Britain called England, 1824.

George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain; as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man’s Land. He is an award winning  journalist, held visiting fellowships or professorships at universities, and writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper.

First published in the Guardian October 4, 2005. Courtesy of Monbiot

The genesis of two category-five hurricanes (Katrina and Rita) in a row over the Gulf of Mexico is an unprecedented and troubling occurrence. But for most tropical meteorologists the truly astonishing "storm of the decade" took place in March 2004. Hurricane Catarina -- so named because it made landfall in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina -- was the first recorded south Atlantic hurricane in history.

Textbook orthodoxy had long excluded the possibility of such an event; sea temperatures, experts claimed, were too low and wind shear too powerful to allow tropical depressions to evolve into cyclones south of the Atlantic Equator. Indeed, forecasters rubbed their eyes in disbelief as weather satellites down-linked the first images of a classical whirling disc with a well-formed eye in these forbidden latitudes.

In a series of recent meetings and publications, researchers have debated the origin and significance of Catarina. A crucial question is this: Was Catarina simply a rare event at the outlying edge of the normal bell curve of South Atlantic weather -- just as, for example, Joe DiMaggio's incredible 56-game hitting streak in 1941 represented an extreme probability in baseball (an analogy made famous by Stephen Jay Gould) -- or was Catarina a "threshold" event, signaling some fundamental and abrupt change of state in the planet's climate system?

Scientific discussions of environmental change and global warming have long been haunted by the specter of nonlinearity. Climate models, like econometric models, are easiest to build and understand when they are simple linear extrapolations of well-quantified past behavior; when causes maintain a consistent proportionality to their effects.

But all the major components of global climate -- air, water, ice, and vegetation -- are actually nonlinear: At certain thresholds they can switch from one state of organization to another, with catastrophic consequences for species too finely-tuned to the old norms. Until the early 1990s, however, it was generally believed that these major climate transitions took centuries, if not millennia, to accomplish. Now, thanks to the decoding of subtle signatures in ice cores and sea-bottom sediments, we know that global temperatures and ocean circulation can, under the right circumstances, change abruptly -- in a decade or even less.

The paradigmatic example is the so-called "Younger Dryas" event, 12,800 years ago, when an ice dam collapsed, releasing an immense volume of meltwater from the shrinking Laurentian ice-sheet into the Atlantic Ocean via the instantly-created St. Lawrence River. This "freshening" of the North Atlantic suppressed the northward conveyance of warm water by the Gulf Stream and plunged Europe back into a thousand-year ice age.

Abrupt switching mechanisms in the climate system – such as relatively small changes in ocean salinity -- are augmented by causal loops that act as amplifiers. Perhaps the most famous example is sea-ice albedo: The vast expanses of white, frozen Arctic Ocean ice reflect heat back into space, thus providing positive feedback for cooling trends; alternatively, shrinking sea-ice increases heat absorption, accelerating both its own further melting and planetary warming.

Thresholds, switches, amplifiers, chaos -- contemporary geophysics assumes that earth history is inherently revolutionary. This is why many prominent researchers -- especially those who study topics like ice-sheet stability and North Atlantic circulation -- have always had qualms about the consensus projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world authority on global warming.

In contrast to Bushite flat-Earthers and shills for the oil industry, their skepticism has been founded on fears that the IPCC models fail to adequately allow for catastrophic nonlinearities like the Younger Dryas. Where other researchers model the late 21st-century climate that our children will live with upon the precedents of the Altithermal (the hottest phase of the current Holocene period, 8000 years ago) or the Eemian (the previous, even warmer interglacial episode, 120,000 years ago), growing numbers of geophysicists toy with the possibilities of runaway warming returning the earth to the torrid chaos of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM: 55 million years ago) when the extreme and rapid heating of the oceans led to massive extinctions.

Dramatic new evidence has emerged recently that we may be headed, if not back to the dread, almost inconceivable PETM, then to a much harder landing than envisioned by the IPCC.

As I flew toward Louisiana and the carnage of Katrina three weeks ago, I found myself reading the August 23rd issue of EOS, the newsletter of the American Geophysical Union. I was pole-axed by an article entitled "Arctic System on Trajectory to New, Seasonally Ice-Free State," co-authored by 21 scientists from almost as many universities and research institutes. Even two days later, walking among the ruins of the Lower Ninth Ward, I found myself worrying more about the EOS article than the disaster surrounding me.

The article begins with a recounting of trends familiar to any reader of the Tuesday science section of the New York Times: For almost 30 years, Arctic sea ice has been thinning and shrinking so dramatically that "a summer ice-free Arctic Ocean within a century is a real possibility." The scientists, however, add a new observation -- that this process is probably irreversible. "Surprisingly, it is difficult to identify a single feedback mechanism within the Arctic that has the potency or speed to alter the system's present course."

An ice-free Arctic Ocean has not existed for at least one million years and the authors warn that the Earth is inexorably headed toward a "super-interglacial" state "outside the envelope of glacial-interglacial fluctuations that prevailed during recent Earth history." They emphasize that within a century global warming will probably exceed the Eemian temperature maximum and thus obviate all the models that have made this their essential scenario. They also suggest that the total or partial collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet is a real possibility -- an event that would definitely throw a Younger Dryas wrench into the Gulf Stream.

If they are right, then we are living on the climate equivalent of a runaway train that is picking up speed as it passes the stations marked "Altithermal" and "Eemian." "Outside the envelope," moreover, means that we are not only leaving behind the serendipitous climatic parameters of the Holocene -- the last 10,000 years of mild, warm weather that have favored the explosive growth of agriculture and urban civilization -- but also those of the late Pleistocene that fostered the evolution of Homo sapiens in eastern Africa.

Other researchers undoubtedly will contest the extraordinary conclusions of the EOS article and -- we must hope -- suggest the existence of countervailing forces to this scenario of an Arctic albedo catastrophe. But for the time being, at least, research on global change is pointing toward worst-case scenarios.

All of this, of course, is a perverse tribute to industrial capitalism and extractive imperialism as geological forces so formidable that they have succeeded in scarcely more than two centuries -- indeed, mainly in the last fifty years -- in knocking the earth off its climatic pedestal and propelling it toward the nonlinear unknown.

The demon in me wants to say: Party and make merry. No need now to worry about Kyoto, recycling your aluminum cans, or using too much toilet paper, when, soon enough, we'll be debating how many hunter-gathers can survive in the scorching deserts of New England or the tropical forests of the Yukon.

The good parent in me, however, screams: How is it possible that we can now contemplate with scientific seriousness whether our children's children will themselves have children? Let Exxon answer that in one of their sanctimonious ads.

Mike Davis is the author of many books including City of Quartz, Dead Cities and Other Tales, and the just-published Monster at Our Door, The Global Threat of Avian Flu (The New Press) as well as the forthcoming Planet of Slums (Verso).

Copyright 2005 Mike Davis.  Courtesy of Tom Dispatch

Upon her release from voluntary incarceration, it didn't take long for Judith Miller to arrange for an appointment with CNN's Lou Dobbs. After finally conceding that Libby was involved in the Plame scandal, she appeared on Lou's show and declared that ""If people can't trust us to come to us to tell us the thing the government and powerful corporations don't want us to know, we're dead in the water."

Miller continues to insist on playing the farcical role of a First Amendment martyr. She is now demanding the passage of a federal shield law "so that the public's right to know can be protected." Maybe I missed something - but I thought she spent twelve weeks in jail to avoid providing the public with some essential facts about the role of high powered administration insiders in the Plame affair.

There is a whole bunch of questions that the public wants answers to. And Judith is a walking treasure trove of all kinds of information that the government and powerful corporations - like the New York Times - don't want you to know.

If Judy ever finds herself inclined to concede the public's right to know, she can start by telling her fellow citizens all about her designated role in the Plame games. If that day ever comes, Miller should consider writing a book on the role of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans in manufacturing intelligence to make the case for invading Iraq.

The first chapter would include detailed profiles of Paul Wolfowitz, Ahmed Chalabi, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis 'Scooter Libby', Elliot Abrams, John Bolton and William Lutti. Judith Miller can give us a little background on how and when these actors teamed up to make the case for this war of choice. Why did Wolfowitz and Feith set up the Office of Special Plans and staff it with neocon ideologues affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute - a front for the Israeli Lobby that masquerades as a think tank? Judith Miller knows all about the American Enterprise Institute - having co-authored a book with Laurie Mylroie, a resident fellow at AEI.

Another chapter of the book might reveal how The New York Times teamed up with the Office of Special Plans to deliberately bamboozle the public with doctored reports on Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. Nothing would excite the public more than an inside profile of Arthur Sulzberger - the godfather at the grey lady - and how he captained his squad of neocon yellow journalists. To what extent was he involved in the project to produce and disseminate an endless stream of fiction about Iraq's threat to American national security?

Did Sulzberger hold daily meetings to direct the misinformation traffic? What role was Thomas Friedman assigned in the WMD hoax? When William Safire was not busy ghost writing editorials for Ariel Sharon - was he conferring with Sulzberger on which neocon warmonger should be invited to write a guest editorial?

Nothing could better open the eyes of the public to mischief in high places than a detailed personal account of Miller's own assigned role in the pre-war propaganda campaign. How was she recruited for the assignment or did she volunteer? How far back does her personal relationship go with Libby, Feith and Chalabi? Did they all vacation together in Aspen? Before she got out of jail, Libby sent Miller what appears to be a coded message. "Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them." My translation "we're all connected by our ideological roots. Be very careful. If I go down - the whole neocon project bites the dust."

Miller continues to assert that she isn't "covering for anybody". Technically, that's not a lie. Because Judith Miller is "covering for everybody" involved in a very elaborate campaign of deception engineered by a consortium of government and mass media operators. Incidentally, Federal law specifically prohibits intelligence operatives from waging a propaganda campaign against American citizens.

For good reasons, Miller and Sulzberger have gone to great lengths to obstruct any progress in Fitzgerald's two-year-old investigation of the administration insiders who outed a CIA agent in an act of vengeance against her husband, Joseph Wilson. At great expense, they took their case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Wilson's revelations about the yellow cake uranium were judged to be very threatening by the neocons - including Judith Miller. Why? Did the neocon cabal overreact or did they correctly size up the ambassador as a mortal threat who would expose their role in the WMD hoax? By the time Wilson went public with his accusations, the invasion of Iraq was already a done deal. Other individuals like Hans Blix and Scott Ritter had made valiant attempts to warn the public about the WMD hoax even before the war started. Why then was Joseph Wilson singled out for such dire treatment?

Miller can answer all these questions and plenty more. If that woman ever decides to switch careers from the misinformation industry and consider a job as a journalist - the public would be in for one sweet treat.

The reason Miller and her neocon co-conspirators got all worked up about Wilson is that he not only disputed their WMD claims - he demolished their fallback position which was to blame the whole mess on an 'intelligence failure'. When Sulzberger published his mea culpa editorial apologizing for WMD reporting 'errors' in his paper, he conveniently omitted any mention of Judith Miller. Like the rest of the neocon gang, he blamed the mistakes on "circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on regime change in Iraq." Everybody understood that to mean Ahmed Chalabi and Company. In an effort to cover for their co-conspirators in the administration, the scandalous apologia noted that "Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources."

All along, the neocon plan was very simple - even elegant. Before the war, they would make a ruckus about Iraq's phantom weapons of mass destruction. After, the war they would claim it was all a big mistake based on an honest 'intelligence failure' and place the blame on Chalabi - who was counted on to fall on his sword as a 'hero in error.' Enter Ambassador Wilson with his assertions that the Niger Yellow Cake Uranium was an amateurish hoax. Even if Chalabi had volunteered to take the blame for the 'Niger' scam, he couldn't credibly take the fall for 'bad intelligence' that originated in Italy by way of the Tel Aviv.

Wilson's unforgivable crime was that he had blown up the bridge to the neocon fallback 'intelligence failure' position. With a single article, he managed to mess up the neocon plan to divert attention from the Office of Special Plans - the Pentagon assembly line charged with systematically manufacturing bogus intelligence.

Fortunately for Sulzberger and his in-house neocon brigades, his paper wasn't the only major news outlet to team up with the administration in executing the WMD propaganda campaign. You could find Judith Miller clones embedded in virtually every mass media corporation. Sulzberger's rivals had no incentive to take him down a notch. At CNN, Wolf Blitzer played Judy's role with Likudnik passion. Charles Krauthammer was the anointed Miller impersonator at the Washington Post. As for FOX, Rupert Murdoch insisted that his whole crew show up in Judy Miller drag to perform their neocon chores.

Before getting out of jail, Miller insisted that the Grand Jury confine their inquiry to Lewis Libby's role in outing Valerie Plame. If she ever comes clean with what she knows about the WMD hoax - it would cause a volcanic eruption on the political landscape of the United States. But it would also expose the role of the New York Times in duping their readers into supporting the Iraq war. The price of doing that would require both Sulzberger and Miller to accept their fair share of the blame for a monstrous and unnecessary war that has wasted so much in blood and treasure. That's not going to happen. So much for Miller's concern about our right to know 'what governments and powerful corporations don't want us to know.'

Right about now, I would settle for the public's right to know all about Judith Miller.

For more information on the role of the New York Times in propagating the WMD hoax, please follow this link:  Will the Times Ever Pay For Its Crimes?

What do we make of the Saturday, October 1 Washington Post headline “Poison Found in Air During Anti-War Protest”?

Washington D.C. Public Health Director Greg A. Pane posed the right question in the Post article, “Why that day? That’s what is not explained.” Pane pointed that it was “just this 24-hour period and none since.”

The Post noted that Pane found “. . . it was puzzling that the finding was from a day when the mall was packed with people.”

Puzzling? Indeed. Biohazard sensors detected tularemia bacteria at the mall on Saturday, September 24.

Equally puzzling was an earlier Post report: “Weekend protesters hit travel snags.” The article reported that Amtrak trains from New York City were turned back, cancelled or delayed from heading to the nation’s capitol for the biggest peace demonstration since the Vietnam War era. Also, Metro subway cars coming into the capitol were disrupted by repairs.

Federal officials are still pondering the death of five people on U.S. soil and scores of others who were infected with U.S. military-grade anthrax in the fall of 2001.

The wholly implausible “working hypothesis” put forward by Pane is that the bacteria found in rodents, rabbits and other small animals just happened to occur on the same day the trains failed to run on time and more than quarter of a million people assembled to directly challenge the Bush regime’s illegal war in Iraq.

Coincidence theorists. You gotta love ‘em and their great faith in believing in the statistically improbable occurrence of events, rather than an alternative hypothesis: that friends of Bush (FOBs) planted the tularemia bacteria, just as they most likely sent anthrax to Democratic senators and the media.

Tularemia is one of six major bacterial bioterrorism agents, according to the Sherlock Bioterrorism Library serving the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick, Maryland.

The BBC notes that tularemia is “one of the most infectious germs known to science,” and that it “takes just 10 microbes to bring on disease in humans.”

Tularemia emerged as a “plague-like disease” during a 1911 outbreak of “rabbit fever” in Tulare Lake in California. The disease progresses rapidly in humans with patients suffering from headache, fatigue, dizziness, muscle pains, loss of appetite and nausea. The disease progresses to inflamed and reddened face and eyes. The disease next attacks lymph nodes and glands, often with life-threatening complications.

Fortunately, tularemia is relatively rare in nature. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health there are generally five or fewer cases that occur each year naturally. The Kansas City Missouri Health Department tells us that most cases that occur naturally are found in “south, central and western states,” not Washington D.C.

Unfortunately, tularemia has been long used as a military biological weapon. We should consider the presence of tularemia a shot across the bow to the peace movement from an administration willing to cheat, steal, torture, lie and kill to further its political agenda. Karl Rove, the president’s brain, brags of his worship of Machiavelli and will do anything to keep his Texas prince in power.

This history of tularemia suggests it is a long-standing weapon used by fascists, militarists and authoritarians.

Japanese germ warfare research units operating in Manchuria between 1932-45 admit to possessing the tularemia bacteria.

The Sunshine Project reported in May 2003 that the German Ministry of Defense “remains engaged in a controversial biodefense research project involving tularemia bacteria that has been genetically engineered to withstand antibiotic treatment.”

Both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed the military strain Francisella tularensis during the Cold War. Dr. Kenneth Alibek (formerly known as Kanatjan Alibekov) the number two man in the former Soviet Union’s biochemical operations describes in great detail in his book “Biohazard” how the Soviets deployed Francisella tularensis against the Nazis in the Battle of Stalingrad.

In another one of those bizarre coincidences, Ken Alibek was also involved in the U.S. anthrax project run by the nonprofit Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. Considered the DIA’s and the CIA’s favorite nonprofit contractor, Battelle has been involved, according to the New York Times and the Columbus Dispatch, with manufacturing the infamous trillion spores per gram Ames (as in Iowa) silica-impregnated anthrax. Officially, the work is done for “defensive” purposes in order to produce a vaccine.

Battelle was in partnership with BioPort of Lansing, Michigan in officially producing the anthrax vaccine for the United States.

The New York Times reported in 1998 that BioPort’s owners included Admiral William Crowe, Jr., a former chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and Ambassador to Britain during the Clinton years. One of Crowe’s partners is the mysterious Fuad El-Hibri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent and a reported business associate of the bin Laden family.

BioPort is partly owned by a top-secret British biowarfare consortium Porton International. Laura Rozen pointed out in a salon.com article that El-Hibri, then BioPort’s CEO, “made a fortune” for Porton International from its monopoly on the anthrax vaccine during the first Gulf War.

The New York Times reported that the CIA ran a top secret anthrax project through Battelle code-named “Clear Vision.” There was also another anthrax project at Battelle’s central Ohio West Jefferson labs called “Project Jefferson.”

Alibek has been listed as both a classified consultant with the CIA and Battelle. A 1998 New Yorker article outlines the joint work of Alibek and William C. Patrick, III. Patrick wrote a report on the potential of sending anthrax through the mail.

Unless federal officials are willing to think the unthinkable, but obvious, and have the tularemia samples independently tested, we’ll never know whether a deliberate attack occurred against peaceful U.S. citizens exercising their First Amendment rights, or some freakish and bizarre coincidence occurred.

In another coincidence, it was the Battelle Memorial Institute that “botched” the exit polls in the 2002 election that would have served as protection against the unexplainable defeat of Senator Max Cleland of Georgia who was up 9-12 points in the tracking polls just prior to Election Day.

The Free Press calls for an independent investigation of the tularemia bacteria found on the mall on September 24, not to be conducted by any federal officials in the Bush administration or Battelle. With Minister Louis Farrakhan calling for a Million More March on Washington for October 14-16, it is more important now than ever.

Bob Fitrakis is a Professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Columbus State Community College. He has a Ph.D in Political Science and a J.D. from The Ohio State University Law School. He is the author of seven books, an investigative reporter, and Editor of the Columbus Free Press freepress.org. He has won ten major investigative journalism awards including Best Coverage of Politics in Ohio from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. He served as an international election observer in the 1994 presidential elections in El Salvador and was the co-author and editor of the report to the United Nations. He served as legal advisor for eight polling locations on Columbus' Near East Side for the Election Protection Coalition.

Washington Post link: Biohazard article

Negative savings rates, accelerating inflation, a devastated southern coastline, ballooning current account, trade and budget deficits. A war that cannot be won, oil prices at (nominal) record highs, a 275 % rise in the leading interest rate, a declining bond market. Rumours that the major players in the market carry too much derivatives risk. Stagnating personal incomes and the expectation of sharply rising unemployment because of the hurricanes. A rising share of GDP attributable to a growing government while private sector employment growth has been the weakest since records began.

And what does Wall Street do? It shrugs it all off, moving sideways in a 10,350 to 10,600-point trading range. Does that sound logic?

What is keeping the biggest stock market in equilibrium? Certainly not private investors who are up to their eyeballs in debt. Neither money managers who can put their money to more fruitful work in the Far East or the commodities markets.

The sharp brekaout of gold does not exactly reinforce hopes that US shares are valued fairly as it indicates higher inflation than any concernced official would admit. Talking about officials: No president ever had lower approval ratings than Alfred E. Neuman, sorry, I meant George W. Bush. And no president has ever spent more money (which he has to borrow abroad to the tune of some $3 billion a day) while not spending one thought on how to repay it.

Oil prices were declining on the hope that Rita will be downgraded to a category 4 hurricane. Katrina was a category 4, so where is the relief. That's still enough wind to tear apart close to a quarter of the US' refining capacity, not to speak of disruptions in oil exploration in the Mexican gulf!

Is This All Too Good To Be True?

On top of it all sits the biggest debt pile American consumers have run up in history. Sorry, a wooden house is not worth a million dollars, nowhere in the world.

But Wall Street does not care. Turn off CNBC and either switch to Bloomberg TV or - best of all - start reading the blogs in my blogroll. Leave aside your political bias; the mounting debts don't care whether you are conservative or progressive. As taxpayer it is your common denominator.

The median size of an IRA is about $27,000. How long do you think you can live comfortably on that paltry savings once you retire.

Reading about 500 to 1,000 pieces of news every day I find it hard to come up with only one story per day that is halfway optimistic about the future of the US economy.

Not that Europe is somehow better off. Record unemployment in most EU countries coupled with a negligible GDP growth outlook does not exactly spell good times ahead.

Coming back to the US. Can anybody direct me to an industry sector that has a dynamic export growth outlook? Arms exports are excluded. That would be too easy at all!

The car industry with their oversized gas guzzlers is about to be strangled by high oil prices which are here to stay, given the growing oil demand in the Far East.

The insurance industry will come in the squeezer from the hurricanes.
The construction industry will get suffocated from the foreseeable bursting of the housing bubble.

The high-tech industry finds better educated workers in India and Singapore.
The service industry will face problems as soon as consumers feel the pinch from higher interest rates and rising inflation.

And why does Wall Street look so resilient in the face of all the problems covered in these posts:

US AAA Rating - How Much Longer?
We Can Guarantee Cash
Where Did All The Trillions Go?
Inflation In Hedonic Conundrum
Those who enjoyed annual income growth of 5 percent, please raise your hands
Current account balances show dramatic shift
US(SR) 6-year budget plan not very convincing - disturbing fine print
Counting the bubbles
Markets cheer 15 % decline of oil prices - after a rise of 434 %
There is no free lunch - higher rates equal higher risk
NYT - The Perfect Storm That Could Drown The Economy
Global struggle for oil can become a nightmare for the markets
Imperial struggles (no fairy tale)
Two oriental giants will compete for economic dominance
Oil prices and Fed Funds diverge strongly
If it weren't that cheap to print them greenbacks...
Experience shows that man never learned anything from experience (G.B. Shaw)
Mandelbrot: Old Formulas Will Not Work in Volatile Markets
Growth Sector #1: Conundrums
Real Estate - Debt Funded by Debt
Greenspan Stresses Need to Balance the Budget - by Higher Taxes and Lower Outlays
Bush Is Optimistic
FRB's Kohn: When the Unexpected Inevitably Occurs
Snow: Sort Out The (Hedge Fund) Mess Yourself
US Debt: 136,347 Dollars per Head
China's BIG Problem Goes by the Name of Energy
GDP No Gauge For Living Standards
Chart Of The Day: US Debt (That Was In 2002!)
A GAAP Look At The US Budget Reveals Multi-Trillion Deficit
Chart Of The Day: Deflation CycleAn Interesting Monetary Detail In The Aftermath Of The London Bombings
Greenspan Sees $60 Oil Shave Off 0.75 % Growth
Greenspan Bends Truth On Stabilizing Effect Of Gold Standard
BIS Warns Of Asset Price Deflation
The Shortest Possible Investment Advice
Will Greenspan Lose His Wreath Of Honour Before He Retires?
Greenspan's Blueprint For A Gold Standard
USA: The 3rd World Is Only A Few Blocks Away
Already 50 Countries Tie Currency To Euro

Thinking again of the resilience of Wall Street to reflect all these mounting problems in share prices, maybe teh following post sheds a little light on the true working of the big money game:

Money Firm Claims Wall Street Is Rigged By The Government
WSJ - Greenspan Sternly Warns Of GSE risks

Some things don't appear to be as they appear I conclude.

Toni Straka is a financial journalist and can be reached at The Prudent Investor

I woke up this morning, looked outside and smiled, thinking this was going to be a great birthday. As soon as I turned on the television, I received my first present. House Majority Leader Tom Delay was indicted on one count of criminal conspiracy by a Texas grand jury in relation to a campaign finance scheme with two political associates. CNN stated, “In accordance to the rules of the House,” Delay has stepped aside as House Majority leader while an investigation into his actions is conducted. Delay stepping aside is welcome; I’m just surprised that “The Hammer” wasn’t hiding out somewhere hoping for divine intervention. I guess God or even Delay’s cronies couldn’t change the rules for him this time around.

While this “skunk stinks to high heaven,” as so eloquently stated by Delay’s attorney Bill White, this can only be viewed as karma. Tom Delay is also known for his compassion and timing. When Delay was visiting a shelter in Reliant Park after Hurricane Katrina he jokingly remarked to some of the young boys sitting on a cot, “Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?” He followed up with, “You are becoming famous all over this country and even the world.” Yeah Tom. It’s like Marti Gras all over again.

I’m not sure what “The Hammer” is going to do now that he is absolved of real responsibility in the House. He must be feeling quite impotent since his heyday when he proclaimed, “A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure, to provide stability.” Delay will be riding a political roller coaster—indefinitely. Hopefully his wife won’t be joining him, because it can’t be healthy if she’s barefoot, pregnant, and breast feeding. Besides, who’s going to scrub the toilet when he’s out defending his great name?

Delay needs to relax and take in a deep breath of Washington’s fresh air.  He is a firm believer, no pun intended, that "It has never been proven that air toxics are hazardous to people," but maybe he’d be better off holding his breathe for a while considering he thinks his right wing Christian convictions and shady dealings are good for the nation.

The White House has come out and stated that Delay is “a good ally” but that “the president's view is that we need to let the legal process work.” As if the President has ever valued the rule of law! Yet there is a glimmer of hope since President Bush floundered on Katrina, “the first female suicide bomber struck in Iraq,” and gas prices are over 3 dollars a gallon. The President may not be able to handle the political firestorm and consequently withdraw support for Delay. We’ll see in the coming months if Delay fades off into the sunset like former strongman Newt Gingrich, or if he can ride out this hurricane.

Today is a great birthday indeed. It finally looks like I’ll be able to have my cake and eat it too.

(click picture for full size)

We recently spent a week in New Orleans and Southern Louisiana interviewing relief workers, community activists, urban planners, artists, and neighborhood folks. Even as the latest flood waters from Hurricane Rita recede, the city remains submerged in anger and frustration.

Indeed, the most toxic debris in New Orleans isn't the sinister gray sludge that coats the streets of the historic Creole neighborhood of Treme or the Lower Ninth Ward, but all the unanswered questions that have accumulated in the wake of so much official betrayal and hypocrisy. Where outsiders see simple "incompetence" or "failure of leadership," locals are more inclined to discern deliberate design and planned neglect -- the murder, not the accidental death, of a great city.

In almost random order, here are twenty-five of the urgent questions that deeply trouble the local people we spoke with. Until a grand jury or congressional committee begins to uncover the answers, the moral (as opposed to simply physical) reconstruction of the New Orleans region will remain impossible.

1. Why did the floodwalls along the 17th Street Canal only break on the New Orleans (majority Black) side and not on the Metairie (largely white) side? Was this the result of neglect and poor maintenance by New Orleans authorities?

2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward -- the most deadly hit-and-run accident in U.S. history?

3. All of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish east of the Industrial Canal were drowned, except for the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial District along Chef Menteur Highway. Why was industrial land apparently protected by stronger levees than nearby residential neighborhoods?

4. Why did Mayor Ray Nagin, in defiance of his own official disaster plan, delay twelve to twenty-four hours in ordering a mandatory evacuation of the city?

5. Why did Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff not declare Katrina an "Incident of National Significance" until August 31 -- thus preventing the full deployment of urgently needed federal resources?

6. Why wasn't the nearby U.S.S. Bataan immediately sent to the aid of New Orleans? The huge amphibious-landing ship had a state-of-the-art, 600-bed hospital, water and power plants, helicopters, food supplies, and 1,200 sailors eager to join the rescue effort.

7. Similarly, why wasn't the Baltimore-based hospital ship USS Comfort ordered to sea until August 31, or the 82nd Airborne Division deployed in New Orleans until September 5?

8. Why does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld balk at making public his "severe weather execution order" that established the ground rules for the military response to Katrina? Did the Pentagon, as a recent report by the Congressional Research Service suggests, fail to take initiatives within already authorized powers, then attempt to transfer the blame to state and local governments?

9. Why were the more than 350 buses of the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority -- eventually flooded where they were parked -- not mobilized to evacuate infirm, poor, and car-less residents?

10. What significance attaches to the fact that the chair of the Transportation Authority, appointed by Mayor Nagin, is Jimmy Reiss, the wealthy leader of the New Orleans Business Council which has long advocated a thorough redevelopment of (and cleanup of crime in) the city?

11. Under what authority did Mayor Nagin meet confidentially in Dallas with the "forty thieves" -- white business leaders led by Reiss -- reportedly to discuss the triaging of poorer Black areas and a corporate-led master plan for rebuilding the city?

12. Everyone knows about a famous train called "the City of New Orleans." Why was there no evacuation by rail? Was Amtrak part of the disaster planning? If not, why not?

13. Why were patients at private hospitals like Tulane evacuated by helicopter while their counterparts at the Charity Hospital were left to suffer and die?

14. Was the failure to adequately stock food, water, potable toilets, cots, and medicine at the Louisiana Superdome a deliberate decision -- as many believe -- to force poorer residents to leave the city?

15. The French Quarter has one of the highest densities of restaurants in the nation. Once the acute shortages of food and water at the Superdome and the Convention Center were known, why didn't officials requisition supplies from hotels and restaurants located just a few blocks away? (As it happened, vast quantities of food were simply left to spoil.)

16. City Hall's emergency command center had to be abandoned early in the crisis because its generator supposedly ran out of diesel fuel. Likewise many critical-care patients died from heat or equipment failure after hospital backup generators failed. Why were supplies of diesel fuel so inadequate? Why were so many hospital generators located in basements that would obviously flood?

17. Why didn't the Navy or Coast Guard immediately airdrop life preservers and rubber rafts in flooded districts? Why wasn't such life-saving equipment stocked in schools and hospitals?

18. Why weren't evacuee centers established in Audubon Park and other unflooded parts of Uptown, where locals could be employed as cleanup crews?

19. Is the Justice Department investigating the Jim Crow-like response of the suburban Gretna police who turned back hundreds of desperate New Orleans citizens trying to walk across the Mississippi River bridge -- an image reminiscent of Selma in 1965? New Orleans, meanwhile, abounds in eyewitness accounts of police looting and illegal shootings: Will any of this ever be investigated?

20. Who is responsible for the suspicious fires that have swept the city? Why have so many fires occurred in blue-collar areas that have long been targets of proposed gentrification, such as the Section 8 homes on Constance Street in the Lower Garden District or the wharfs along the river in Bywater?

21. Where were FEMA's several dozen vaunted urban search-and-rescue teams? Aside from some courageous work by Coast Guard helicopter crews, the early rescue effort was largely mounted by volunteers who towed their own boats into the city after hearing an appeal on television.

22. We found a massive Red Cross presence in Baton Rouge but none in some of the smaller Louisiana towns that have mounted the most impressive relief efforts. The poor Cajun community of Ville Platte, for instance, has at one time or another fed and housed more than 5,000 evacuees; but the Red Cross, along with FEMA, has refused almost daily appeals by local volunteers to send professional personnel and aid. Why then give money to the Red Cross?

23. Why isn't FEMA scrambling to create a central registry of everyone evacuated from the greater New Orleans region? Will evacuees receive absentee ballots and be allowed to vote in the crucial February municipal elections that will partly decide the fate of the city?

24. As politicians talk about "disaster czars" and elite-appointed reconstruction commissions, and as architects and developers advance utopian designs for an ethnically cleansed "new urbanism" in New Orleans, where is any plan for the substantive participation of the city's ordinary citizens in their own future?

25. Indeed, on the fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, what has happened to democracy?

Mike Davis is the author of many books including City of Quartz, Dead Cities and Other Tales, and the just published Monster at our Door, The Global Threat of Avian Flu (The New Press) as well as the forthcoming Planet of Slums (Verso).

Anthony Fontenot is a New Orleans architect and community-design activist, currently working at Princeton University.

Copyright 2005 Mike Davis and Anthony Fontenot. Courtesy of Tom Dispatch

Shunning aims to protect a group from members who have committed acts seen as harmful to the shunning organization, or who violate the group's norms.

For some religious groups, shunning might be seen as the ultimate act of rejection by disconnecting an individual from the group. Historically, the practice is sure to have been initiated for spurious reasons from time to time - but as a social agent to ensure civil behaviour, it is a powerful tool. It serves a function similar to the amputation of a right hand in Islam.

In modern times, occasions arise when one or several countries choose to 'shun' another nation as a way of trying to influence a change in that nation's behaviour. Think of the United States' embargo on Cuba, sanctions levied against bad actors by the United Nations (like Libya, Iraq), Canadian sanctions against South Africa, eventually adopted by most of the British Commonwealth. That last example is a model of what can be accomplished with international condemnation; although the world's sanctions against Apartheid cannot claim full credit for the turnaround in South Africa, it was a powerful incentive to those who sought to bring about changes there.

This is an article about the United States of America. From the outset, let me state clearly that there is tremendous credit due to the US for a wide variety of social, humanitarian, artistic, scientific, intellectual accomplishments. But this small group of people, ruled by an even smaller group of thugs (a kleptocracy), is truly the epitome of the 'tail-wagging-the-dog' syndrome. The US comprises a small fraction of the world but it sees all the rest of the world - and, for emphasis, ALL the rest of the world - as its servant, its supplier of cheap goods and labour, its warehouse, its flea market, the place to play with its guns.

Both Canada and Mexico can reasonably think of the United States as our best friend. But it is also our worst enemy. Indeed, I will argue here that the United States is the enemy of ALL nations. It may be a little tougher for Canada and Mexico because the Beast lives next door, but also a little easier because at least they haven't sent in the troops. Yet.

Now, we've all heard the rebuttal that 'not all Americans are like that', and that is certainly true. The US has at least as many decent humans as any other nation, more than many. But a country premised on 'we the people …' cannot shirk the responsibility for what they do as a group. The actions of the US are the actions of the whole population, by definition … the US constitution does not open with 'we, some of the people'.

Many outside the US have waited patiently for them to outgrow their juvenile delinquency, but they show no sign of maturing. We have waited patiently for the good citizens of the US to corral the bad, but they persist in failing to do so. And now that they are acting out again and threatening the peace and security of the entire planet, it is high time that the rest of us took matters into our own hands.

The rest of the world should join hands and shun the United States.
America, the country, really does believe it is better than anyone else. That America is entitled to as much of the resources and riches of the planet as it wants and it doesn't matter whomever else might have to suffer or go short. That all other nations are enemies if they don't march to the American drum in virtually any arena you might mention. That it has the right, indeed the obligation, to enforce its will wherever it sees fit, and by whatever means it wants. That it has the right to invade sovereign nations as a way of deflecting attention from domestic political scandals or if there is some new weapon that needs a good field testing. That killing of foreign civilians doesn't really count because they're always in season and there's no quota. That a bullet-ridden and trigger-happy American society is in every way superior to any other place on earth.

Astonishingly, Americans as a group have a hard time grasping that other folks might be a little annoyed about all that.

Link to full text

University of Oregon
PO Box 3150, Eugene, OR 97403

University's only Peace Studies student strikes against war

Brian Bogart worked in the defense industry for 15 years, turning down security clearance opportunities three times before leaving Silicon Valley. In 1997, he earned a B.A. in Japanese History from the University of Oregon, and is now entering his final year as its first graduate student in Peace Studies.

At noon on Monday, September 26, at University of Oregon's EMU Amphitheater, Brian Bogart will launch the nationwide Camp U.S. Strike for Peace Campaign to coincide with the efforts of Cindy Sheehan, and will have the support of Noam Chomsky, Robert Jensen, and thousands of others at schools across the country. The campaign will publicize the surprising extent of the war industry in our communities, our schools, and our lives, and call for a reasonable defense.

Making even one part of a weapon 10,000 miles from conflict contradicts the core meaning of education. Beginning at noon on the first day of the new academic year, I will refuse to study inside the classroom of any school that sells itself to war, and I will deliver my Petition for Peaceful Priorities to University of Oregon's President Frohnmayer at the same time it is being delivered to the White House by Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink and Global Exchange. Then I will speak against war all year from noon to dusk, to focus public attention on statistics that reveal America's obscene war-for-profit economy and my university's participation in the development of the most horrific weapons imaginable.

CampU.S. Strike for Peace Campaign
September 26, 2005 to June 10, 2006
310,000 companies, including more than 350 universities, work for the Pentagon.
How will we ever learn peace while making war in our schools?
US military, $1000 billion a year. US education, $59 billion a year.
strikeforpeace.org

Courtesy of Thomas Pain's Corner

Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, showed his true colors earlier this week as his normative praise of “democratic values” subsided. "I announced as clearly as I could that we formally oppose Hamas participation in the election as long as it is not disarmed and has not cancelled the Hamas charter, which is a horrible document," Sharon stated on Wednesday. On Saturday, he went further in an interview with reporters in New York, rejecting calls for democratic elections in the Occupied Territories, "We will make every effort not to help [the Palestinians]. I don't think they can have elections without our help."

Hamas plans to engage in the Palestinian political process, as it has in previous municipal elections, so why hinder the charged peace process after the successful “disengagement” of Gaza? Sharon realizes that Hamas is gaining momentum in the Occupied Territories and understands how much political power it can attain through sweeping parliamentary elections, which will likely occur in January if Israel doesn’t interfere. Keeping a balance of power between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas effectively destabilizes a unified Palestinian voice and further advantages a politically savvy Israel. Israel supported Hamas in the 1980’s as a counterweight to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)—the de facto representative of the Palestinians people—because the PLO was gaining political ground on the international front.

Sharon is trying to politically deligitimize Hamas by keeping it out of the elections, while demonizing Abu Mazen for not cracking down on “terror” and using the excuse of having “no partner for peace” as a ploy to further expand settlements, the Apartheid Wall, and to impose greater restrictions on Palestinian life in the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Just this week as half the world was sleeping and the other half was still dazed by the effects of Hurricane Katrina, Sharon stated on Israeli radio referencing the controversial Maale Adumim settlement,  "They {Maale Adumim and East Jerusalem}will be connected, and I don't think that this will become a problem."

The militaristic mind of Ariel Sharon cannot forget the irony and hypocrisy in demanding Hamas to disarm. The three major Jewish militant—many claim terrorist—groups, the Haganagh, Irgun, and Lehi were not disarmed before the creation of Israel. On the contrary, they went on the offensive under the instruction of Haganagh leader David Ben Gurion on March 10, 1948 when the groups implemented Plan Dalet (Plan D). The effects of Plan D led to the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians and the massacre of nearly 120 Palestinians at Deir Yassin. There was no attempt by these Jewish groups to put their faith in the political process and live with the indigenous population in peace; rather they coveted the land on which the Palestinians lived, and sought to expel them to create a Jewish homeland. Hamas is doing something the founders of Israel never thought to do: assimilate into the political process in the land on which they live, and substantiate their voice by positive means. If the founders of Israel and people like Ariel Sharon had done this, armed groups such as Hamas wouldn’t be fighting against the injustices that have plagued Palestinian society for the last 58 years.

Remi Kanazi is a Palestinian writer living in New York  City. He's the founder and primary writer of Poetic Injustice . 

For the last several days, at least 6,000 US soldiers along with approximately 4,000 Iraqi soldiers (read: members of the Kurdish peshmerga and Shia Badr Army) were laying siege to the city of Tal Afar, near Mosul in northern Iraq. It is estimated that 90 percent of the residents have left their homes because of the violence and destruction of the siege, as well as to avoid home raids and snipers.

The Fallujah model is being applied yet again, albeit on a smaller scale. I haven't received any reports yet of biometrics being used (retina scans, finger printing, bar-coding of human beings) like in Fallujah, but there are other striking similarities to the tactics used in November.

While the U.S. military claims to have killed roughly 200 "terrorists" in the operation, reports from the ground state that most of the fighters inside the city had long since left to avoid direct confrontation with the overwhelming military force (a basic tenet of guerrilla warfare).

Again like Fallujah, most of the families who fled are staying in refugee camps outside the city in tents amid horrible conditions in the inferno-like heat of the Iraqi summer.

The L.A. Times reported that Ezzedin Dowla, a Turkmen leader in the area said, "Families are homeless and the government has not provided any shelter, food, or drink for them." Nor has the U.S. military.

The targets of this military operation are the Sunni Turkmen who are politically on the side of the Sunni Arabs. Most Sunnis will be voting against the constitution during the coming vote of Oct. 15.

The Cheney administration is desperate for something it can spin as "good news" from Iraq; thus it most certainly behooves them to have the referendum on the constitution to boast about. But in order to do so, the voting ability and power of the Sunni (and Sunni Turkmen) must be severely compromised, as well as punishment meted out for rightfully assuming what will be a Sunni no-vote on the constitution.

Both the Cheney administration and its current puppet government in Iraq benefit from destroying the voting (and living) ability of the majority of people in the "Sunni triangle," so we have the operation in Tal Afar, most likely to be followed by similar operations in al-Qa'im, Haditha, Samarra, and possibly more.

While the U.S. military claims to have killed roughly 200 "terrorists" in the operation, reports from the ground state that most of the fighters inside the city had long since left to avoid direct confrontation with the overwhelming military force (a basic tenet of guerrilla warfare

In Tal Afar, the propaganda spewed by the U.S. military (and the Iraqi "government") was that the operation was to fight terrorists coming into Iraq via Syria. If that were true, why did the U.S. military remove troops from the border with Syria who were supposed to be preventing infiltration by foreign fighters? Instead of guarding the border, as they should, they engaged in the operation against Iraqi Sunni Turkmen. Working in unison, the U.S. military launched the heavy-handed attack with the "authorization" of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, the leader of the Shia Da'wa Party. Jaafari even went so far as to venture to Tal Afar on Tuesday to visit troops and have his photograph taken.

"Authorization" was given by the Iraqi government for the attack on Tal Afar, just as "authorization" was given by then-interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi for the November 2004 massacre in Fallujah. "Authorization," when the U.S. military would never, ever allow any foreign power jurisdiction over American forces, least of all a puppet government.

Correspondents with Azzaman media in Tal Afar miraculously made it into the city and reported that residents are disputing reports that U.S. and Iraqi soldiers have killed scores of "insurgents." Like Fallujah, these residents of Tal Afar are reporting that most of the people killed were civilians who had no place to go so they chose to stay in their homes. People also stayed because they feared persecution at the hands of the peshmerga and Badr Army.

I recently interviewed an Iraqi man from that area at the Peoples' UN Conference in Perugia, Italy. He told me, "Most people in Mosul and Tal Afar would rather be detained by the Americans now, because they know if Iraqi soldiers or Iraqi police detain them they will be tortured severely, and possibly killed. This gives you an idea of how bad it is with these Iraqi soldiers, even in the shadow of what the Americans are still doing in Abu Ghraib."

As for "foreign fighters," one of the Azzaman correspondents quoted a resident of Tal Afar as saying, "We used to hear [from news reports] of the presence of some Arab [foreign] fighters in the city, but we have seen none of them."

Life in Iraq remains a living hell. Blood flowed in the streets of Khadamiya yesterday as a horrendous car bomb killed 112 people in the predominantly Shia neighborhood. And once again, calls of solidarity were made from the nearby Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya, and residents emerged from their homes to help their brothers and sisters across the river, just as they did after the panic and chaos that recently took the lives of nearly 1,000 Shia.

The horrendous totals from yesterday were 160 dead, 570 wounded Iraqis as the result of the string of attacks and at least a dozen car bombs. The blowback from the Jafaari "authorized" state-sponsored terrorism in Tal Afar took little time to materialize in the capital city.

If Jafaari were more honest with his press appearances, along with his photo-op in Tal Afar he should have had his photo taken amid the charred, smoking body parts strewn about the streets of Khadamiya, which was a result (albeit just as horrific) of his Tal Afar "authorization."

On that note, Jalal Talabani, Iraq's puppet president, was at a press conference in Washington D.C. with Mr. Bush just hours before the blowback began.

Meanwhile, one of my friends in Baghdad writes me, "Dear Dahr, how are you dear pal? I am very sorry for what happened after Hurricane Katrina. It is a real tragedy. I hope none of your friends or family was affected. It is a tragedy which makes one speechless."

This when he goes to work each day hoping to make it home alive to see his wife and newborn daughter.

And another of my friends in Baghdad wrote me recently, "I'm so sorry that I didn't e-mail you the previous days … the situation in Tal Afar has become so much worse for the people. It is terrible what is going on there and nobody can say anything because as usual the military operation is still going on and they are trying to keep all the media out. They have also started another operation in another area of al-Anbar province, and they will soon start one in Samarra."

My interpreter when I'm in Iraq, Abu Talat, has been willing to take the risk of working with me there. To give you an idea of the lengths he's willing to go to, he gave me the green light to come to Iraq last November, just before the massacre in Fallujah began. It is safe to say times were quite tense then, with kidnappings and beheadings having long since become the norm.

"The minister of defense is threatening not only Fallujah but all of the Ramadi governorate, I can tell you very surely about that," he wrote in a recent e-mail to me and a colleague who was hoping to enter Iraq to work as a reporter. (Today, U.S. warplanes began dropping bombs inside the city of Ramadi.)

"No one can support you working here. We are having a very critical situation. For this reason, I think that coming to Iraq in this critical time is not accepted. I was very, very welcoming to any of your friends, Dahr, but not in this time. Sorry, but for your own safety. Take good care of yourself."

Today at least 30 more Iraqis have died in violence across their occupied country, and it will only continue to worsen.

The newspaper that proclaims as its motto “All the news that’s fit to print” was forced to make a damning admission on Sunday. In answer to a reader’s query, the public editor of the New York Times was compelled to acknowledge that over the past decade the newspaper had done little to inform its readers about the desperate poverty and social inequality prevailing in New Orleans. Both were exposed conspicuously and tragically in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

It is impossible to deny the obvious: the horrific impact of the disaster in terms of human life and suffering was the product not primarily of a natural disaster, but rather of a social catastrophe that has been deepening in America for decades. A vast portion of the population has been driven into desperate poverty, and, in New Orleans, tens of thousands were left without the means to heed an evacuation order. They were abandoned to fend for themselves against the storm, and then left without aid for days as the weakest among them died in the city’s streets.

“Poverty so pervasive that it hampered evacuation would seem to have been worthy of the Times’s attention before it emerged as a pivotal challenge two weeks ago,” wrote the editor, Byron Calame, adding that coverage of issues surrounding the city’s levee system would also have been merited.

“Yet a look back over the past 10 years of Times coverage of New Orleans in its news columns raises serious questions about how well the paper helped readers recognize and understand these two major problems that have compounded the devastation and tragedy of the storm,” he continued.

The editor went on to acknowledge that, while New Orleans had the greatest proportion of its inhabitants living in poverty of any American city outside of Detroit, the Times’s coverage of the city consisted for the most part of “stylishly written articles about the city’s charm, cuisine and colorful characters.”

Adopting a mea culpa tone, Mr. Calame declared that “given the dimensions of poverty in New Orleans...the Times coverage of these problems over the past decade falls far short of what its readers have a right to expect of a national newspaper.”

While all of this is no doubt true, the Times public editor makes no response to the reader’s question that prompted his column to begin with: “Why didn’t the economic-social-racial conditions in New Orleans get some attention in the paper?”

Why didn’t they? Why were these conditions—the product of a slow-motion economic and social hurricane that has ravaged the lives of millions throughout the country—of such little interest to the supposed newspaper of record of America’s erstwhile liberal establishment?

The Times public editor fails to answer because to do so honestly and seriously would be far more damning than merely confessing to the newspaper’s sins of omission. The Times’s inattention to the poverty and social inequality laid bare by the Katrina disaster has deep social and political roots.

It is not merely a matter of spending more time writing about Mardi Gras and etouffee than on social conditions in New Orleans. The picture is no better when it comes to the city where the Times is based.

The conditions of life for the 50 percent of New Yorkers who live on an annual household income of $41,000 a year or less—not to mention the 20 percent who somehow survive below the poverty line of barely $19,000 for a family of four—get little more coverage than the impoverished population of New Orleans.

Even a cursory examination of the newspaper makes clear to and for whom it speaks. Monday’s “Fashion and Style” section, for example, carries an article that reads: “There are probably more scientific ways to measure the bulge at the upper end of the economy, but the season’s hot Prada coat is one way to tell how much disposable income is floating around.... That the price of the coat is around $5,500 has apparently done little to deter sales. Since the first fall shipments, even the Prada stores have had trouble keeping the coats in stock.”

The same issue of the newspaper in which the public editor’s admission appeared ran pages of ads for Manhattan apartments with an average selling price above $3 million.

Such regular items in the paper are indicative of the staggering enrichment of the social layer in New York City that forms the core constituency of the Times. In a piece based on census data, the newspaper itself reported earlier this month: “The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now makes 52 times what the lowest fifth makes—$365,826 compared with $7,047.... Put another way, for every dollar made by households in the top fifth of Manhattan earners, households in the bottom fifth made about 2 cents.”

While a few neighborhoods in Manhattan boast the greatest concentration of multimillionaires and billionaires in the world, the sprawling outer boroughs of Brooklyn and the Bronx are counted among the 10 poorest counties in the country. There is no reason to believe that a disaster approaching the scale of Katrina would reveal any less social decay and polarization in New York City than it did in New Orleans.

This juxtaposition of immense wealth and poverty is no geographical accident. New York’s financial elite and a broader periphery in the upper middle classes have accumulated vast fortunes off the stock market’s speculative boom. The boom itself rests fundamentally upon the steady decline in the real wages of working people and the systematic razing of all that is left of social reform measures dating back to the New Deal and even earlier.

This enrichment of those who constitute Manhattan’s top 20 percent has been accompanied by a protracted drift to the right by the liberal establishment with which the Times has traditionally been identified.

It is more than a century since Jacob Riis, who then worked for the Times, employed his considerable abilities as a photojournalist to expose the wretched conditions to which millions were condemned in America’s tenements. These exposures and his famous book How the Other Half Lives helped inspire a reform movement that sought the elimination of slums, the strict enforcement of housing codes and the erection of livable housing for working people.

While the images of death, suffering and humiliation that have come out of New Orleans have shocked and angered millions, there is no indication—and even less reason to believe—that this event will spark a similar turn to social reformism on the part of America’s ruling establishment.

That is the essential significance of the Times’s failure to even attempt an explanation as to why it neglected over the course of a decade to examine the social conditions that have given rise to this massive tragedy. Its reporting reflected the vast gulf separating the upper-class audience to whom the paper principally speaks from the masses of working people and poor who have borne the full brunt of the disaster unleashed by Katrina.

The Times, like the Democratic Party and other institutions previously associated with American liberalism, defends the interests of the financial oligarchy that rules America and is organically hostile to anything that could fuel the growth of political and social struggle against the existing order.

Bill Van Auken writes for WSWS. Courtesy of World Socialist Web Site

On September 11^th, 4:30 am, the commemoration of America’s loss was just hours away in Manhattan as I stared at the lot where the twin towers had once been. Dozens of camera vans waited by the roadside for the morning coverage to begin. Just to my right I saw the “tribute in light,” two blue shafts beaming stories high into the sky—the representative of the strength and magnificence of the twin towers.  As I imagined the old skyline of my city, I realized something. America hasn’t learned a thing in the last fours years.

How have we commemorated those fallen heroes of four years ago? We have used their names and this awful tragedy to unleash a war on the world and on ourselves. Our president told us we were going to fight for the greater good, but what good has come out of the fight we embarked on?

Today 138,000 US troops illegally occupy Iraq. 1896 Americans have died in vain, for a war against a dictator we once supported, in a fight to destroy weapons of mass destruction he never had. No Al Qaeda connection was found, and while it has infuriated the Middle East and ruined our standing in the eyes of the world, we continue to “stay the course.” Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have died due to the blindness and the brutality of our “war on terror.” According to the Red Cross, an estimated 6,000 Iraqis were killed and 16,000 were injured during a three week US led onslaught on Fallujah. Estimates claim over 200,000 residents were displaced due to the siege, while 70 percent of the buildings were destroyed, and the remaining 30 percent were at least damaged. The city was obliterated—or democratized. This type of destruction doesn’t exemplify our compassion, humanity, and value for life above all.

I look back into the sky and think of the squandered opportunities after 9/11. It was a chance for a new start, to unify the world, to fundamentally change our foreign policy, our treatment of the Middle East and the Muslim community. It was our chance to realize that “interests” can’t overtake human life; the safety of our children and their future depended on it.

On 9/11, a tape supposedly released by a half Jewish, half catholic Adam Gadahn referenced intended attacks on Los Angles and Melbourne Australia. Gadahn was a white American citizen believed to be recruited by Al Qaeda in California. Al Qaeda uses the atrocities of the “war on terror” as a reason to fight. If the war in Iraq, the occupation of Afghanistan, Palestine, and the support of corrupt regimes throughout the Middle East weren’t taking place, recruitment for new blood in Al Qaeda wouldn’t be so easy. Al Qaeda is using the injustices caused by America as a recruitment tool.

In response to “defeat” terrorism, America is causing more injustice. The war on terror cannot be won by the destruction of land, it will only incense the violence and further isolate the 1.2 billion Muslims of this world—it’s a lesson we should have learned after 9/11. Those two beams of light that shine so high in the sky don’t represent the fallen towers; they illuminate our incompetent leadership.

Remi Kanazi is a Palestinian writer living in New York  City. He's the founder and primary writer of Poetic Injustice . 

Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality, the British Independent reports. Read on for the findings of the UN or surf to the complete 370-page report here.

Claims that the New Orleans floods have laid bare a growing racial and economic divide in the US have, until now, been rejected by the American political establishment as emotional rhetoric. But yesterday's UN report provides statistical proof that for many - well beyond those affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - the great American Dream is an ongoing nightmare.

The document constitutes a stinging attack on US policies at home and abroad in a fightback against moves by Washington to undermine next week's UN 60th anniversary conference which will be the biggest gathering of world leaders in history.

The annual Human Development Report normally concerns itself with the Third World, but the 2005 edition scrutinises inequalities in health provision inside the US as part of a survey of how inequality worldwide is retarding the eradication of poverty.

US Infant Mortality Same As In Malaysia

It reveals that the infant mortality rate has been rising in the US for the past five years - and is now the same as Malaysia. America's black children are twice as likely as whites to die before their first birthday.

The report is bound to incense the Bush administration as it provides ammunition for critics who have claimed that the fiasco following Hurricane Katrina shows that Washington does not care about poor black Americans. But the 370-page document is critical of American policies towards poverty abroad as well as at home. And, in unusually outspoken language, it accuses the US of having "an overdeveloped military strategy and an under-developed strategy for human security."

Poverty Is A Global Security Threat

"There is an urgent need to develop a collective security framework that goes beyond military responses to terrorism," it continues. " Poverty and social breakdown are core components of the global security threat."

The report launched yesterday is a clear challenge to Washington. The Bush administration wants to replace multilateral solutions to international problems with a world order in which the US does as it likes on a bilateral basis.
"This is the UN coming out all guns firing," said one UN insider. "It means that, even if we have a lame duck secretary general after the Volcker report (on the oil-for-food scandal), the rest of the organisation is not going to accept the US bilateralist agenda."

The clash on world poverty centres on the US policy of promoting growth and trade liberalisation on the assumption that this will trickle down to the poor. But this will not stop children dying, the UN says. Growth alone will not reduce poverty so long as the poor are denied full access to health, education and other social provision. Among the world's poor, infant mortality is falling at less than half of the world average. To tackle that means tackling inequality - a message towards which John Bolton and his fellow US neocons are deeply hostile.

India and China, the UN says, have been very successful in wealth creation but have not enabled the poor to share in the process. A rapid decline in child mortality has therefore not materialised. Indeed, when it comes to reducing infant deaths, India has now been overtaken by Bangladesh, which is only growing a third as fast.

Poverty could be halved in just 17 years in Kenya if the poorest people were enabled to double the amount of economic growth they can achieve at present.

Regional Inequalities

Inequality within countries is as stark as the gaps between countries, the UN says. Poverty is not the only issue here. The death rate for girls in India is now 50 per cent higher than for boys. Gender bias means girls are not given the same food as boys and are not taken to clinics as often when they are ill. Foetal scanning has also reduced the number of girls born.

The only way to eradicate poverty, it says, is to target inequalities. Unless that is done the Millennium Development Goals will never be met. And 41 million children will die unnecessarily over the next 10 years.

Decline in Health Care

For half a century the US has seen a sustained decline in the number of children who die before their fifth birthday. But since 2000 this trend has been reversed.
Although the US leads the world in healthcare spending - per head of population it spends twice what other rich OECD nations spend on average, 13 per cent of its national income - this high level goes disproportionately on the care of white Americans. It has not been targeted to eradicate large disparities in infant death rates based on race, wealth and state of residence.

High levels of spending on personal health care reflect America's cutting-edge medical technology and treatment. But the paradox at the heart of the US health system is that, because of inequalities in health financing, countries that spend substantially less than the US have, on average, a healthier population. A baby boy from one of the top 5 per cent richest families in America will live 25 per cent longer than a boy born in the bottom 5 per cent and the infant mortality rate in the US is the same as Malaysia, which has a quarter of America's income.

The health of US citizens is influenced by differences in insurance, income, language and education. Black mothers are twice as likely as white mothers to give birth to a low birthweight baby. And their children are more likely to become ill.

Only Wealthy Country Without Universal Health Insurance

The US is the only wealthy country with no universal health insurance system. Its mix of employer-based private insurance and public coverage does not reach all Americans. More than one in six people of working age lack insurance. One in three families living below the poverty line are uninsured. Just 13 per cent of white Americans are uninsured, compared with 21 per cent of blacks and 34 per cent of Hispanic Americans. Being born into an uninsured household increases the probability of death before the age of one by about 50 per cent.

More than a third of the uninsured say that they went without medical care last year because of cost. Uninsured Americans are less likely to have regular outpatient care, so they are more likely to be admitted to hospital for avoidable health problems.

More than 40 per cent of the uninsured do not have a regular place to receive medical treatment. More than a third say that they or someone in their family went without needed medical care, including prescription drugs, in the past year because they lacked the money to pay.
If the gap in health care between black and white Americans was eliminated it would save nearly 85,000 lives a year. Technological improvements in medicine save about 20,000 lives a year.

Child Poverty Rate in the US More Than 20 Percent

Child poverty is a particularly sensitive indicator for income poverty in rich countries. It is defined as living in a family with an income below 50 per cent of the national average.

The US - with Mexico - has the dubious distinction of seeing its child poverty rates increase to more than 20 per cent. In the UK - which at the end of the 1990s had one of the highest child poverty rates in Europe - the rise in child poverty, by contrast, has been reversed through increases in tax credits and benefits.

Toni Straka is a financial journalist and can be reached at The Prudent Investor

Dennis Kucinich, along with fellow Democrat Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) and Republicans Walter Jones (R-NC) and Ron Paul (R-TX), introduced the first bi-partisan bill calling for an exit strategy from Iraq (H.J.Res. 55). Around this bill and other Iraq withdrawal efforts Republicans are quietly meeting behind closed doors and progressive Democrats have formed the “Out of Iraq Caucus” to push for an exit strategy. Rep. Kucinich is leading the Congress to a real consideration of an exit strategy from Iraq.

Dennis Kucinch has most recently become well known to Americans as an anti-war, progressive Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 who emphasized worker rights, civil rights and human rights in his campaign. But, he has a long history of electoral success beginning when he was elected to the Cleveland City Council at 23 years old and Mayor of Cleveland at 31 – at the time the youngest Big City Mayor. He is currently serving his fifth term as a Member of Congress.

Zeese: During the campaign Howard Dean was second only to you in his opposition to the war. But now that he is the Chairman of the Democratic Party he has become a supporter of continuing the occupation. You recently sent an Open Letter to him in you argue that challenging the illegal war in Iraq is a winning issue for Democrats. Can you describe what you think Democrats should be doing?

Kucinich: What I said to Howard is that there is no issue more likely to energize millions of Americans to elect Democrats than this costly misadventure in Iraq. Certainly no issue in the political constellation has energized as much spontaneous popular organizing. All the polls – not that they’re the most important factor, but they do reveal an important development – reveal a trend: the war in Iraq is increasingly unpopular. But that election victory will not happen on its own. Democrats must stand for bringing the troops home. Now that is not an unattainable goal: a supermajority of the Congressional Democratic rank and file has consistently opposed the war. All the necessary prerequisites are in place for the Democratic Party to be the End the War party, and to be elected on that basis, except one: the Democratic leadership has consistently confused the picture of where Democrats stand on the war. As a former Presidential candidate who found his footing entirely because he took the right position on the war in Iraq, Howard should see this.

Zeese: Have you looked at our website, www.DemocracyRising.US, in particular the interview with Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar - an Iraqi engineer currently living in Baghdad. He describes the city of Baghdad as a mess - security faltering, sewage running in the streets, electricity inconsistent, more than doubling of unemployment, gas prices ten times their normal price, reconstruction very badly lagging, food shortages - and he describes ongoing abuses by occupying troops. What is your opinion about what is really going on in Iraq?

Kucinich: The situation is worse than we have been told by the Administration. Under the U.S., corruption and repression of organized labor have been routine. The destruction of Fallujah was worse than the news said it was. The degree of anti-Americanism is high, even among some of our hand-picked Iraqi partners. I don’t think anything good can come out of staying in Iraq. It was wrong to go in, and it is wrong to stay in.

Zeese: Specifically what should members of Congress be investigating or asking the GAO to investigate? Why aren't more Democrat ranking members of Committees doing what Cong. Henry Waxman has been doing to expose contract fraud?

Kucinich: There are so many things to investigate this Administration for, starting with the obvious: what role did the White House play in “fixing the facts around the policy,” as the Downing Street minutes put it, to generate Congressional and public support for launching an unprovoked war against Iraq. The Washington Post reported in the spring of 2003 that Vice President Cheney and his staffer, Scooter Libby, both spent time at the CIA with analysts, though the substance of those meetings, and the potential for intimidation, has not been probed. On a related point, the false claims made for Saddam’s “vast stockpiles” of WMD by Secretary Rumsfeld before the Armed Services Committee have never been probed, though they were influential in leading to a Congressional authorization for use of force against Iraq. But the probes need not stop there. The true cost of the Medicare drug benefit was misrepresented to Congress by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and their chief actuary’s job was threatened to keep him from testifying to the truth. Or how about the manipulation of energy supplies going into California by a handful of deregulated energy producers, including Enron. The laundry list could be very long indeed.

Zeese: What should anti-war activists be doing to end the war? What should members of Congress be doing to help the citizenry (now a majority of Americans) who want to end the war-occupation? Should anti-war activists support those Democratic candidate who support the war? What are your constituents telling you?

Kucinich: Fortunately, we have a democracy and on major questions, in the end, popular will determines policy. But it takes patience and persistence on the part of the activists and organizers.

I can tell you what the country will look like when those citizen activists have succeeded: Popular opposition will come from all walks of life: veterans, families of active duty servicemen and women, unions, religious groups. Conventional labels will not apply. Conservatives, libertarians, liberals and progressives will be calling for bringing the troops home. By the way, that is an important point: citizen organizers should not feel constrained by the conventional political labels. Is opposing the war a liberal or a conservative position? I couldn’t say.

Let me tell you about my own efforts: I have been working with a fellow Democrat, Neil Abercrombie, and two of the most conservative Republicans in the Congress, Walter Jones and Ron Paul, to introduce the first bipartisan bill to begin the end of the war in Iraq. That bill is H.J. Res. 55, and I really believe that building support around it should be a legislative goal of the antiwar movement.

For more information on Dennis Kucinich visit his Action website:
http://www.kucinich.us/ or his U.S. House of Representatives website: http://kucinich.house.gov/  . For more information on DemocracyRising visit http://www.DemocracyRising.US .  The Free Press

He's tall and thin, with a shock of white hair. A bombardier in the great war against fascism and an antiwar veteran of America's wars ever since, he's best known as the author of the pathbreaking A People's History of the United States, and as an expert on the unexpected voices of resistance that have so regularly made themselves heard throughout our history. At 83 (though he looks a decade younger), he is also a veteran of a rugged century and yet there's nothing backward-looking about him. His voice is quiet and he clearly takes himself with a grain of salt, chuckling wryly on occasion at his own comments. From time to time, when a thought pleases him and his well-used face lights up or breaks out in a bona fide grin, he looks positively boyish.

We sit down on the back porch of the small coffee shop, alone, on a vacation morning. He has a croissant and coffee in front of him. I suggest that perhaps we should start after breakfast, but he assures me that there's no particular contradiction between eating and talking and so, as a novice interviewer, I awkwardly turn on my two tape recorders – one of which, on pause, will still miss several minutes of our conversation (our equivalent, we joke, of Nixon's infamous 18-minute gap). In preparation, he pushes aside his half-eaten breakfast, never to touch it again, and we begin.

TomDispatch: You and Anthony Arnove just came out with a new book, Voices of a People's History of the United States, featuring American voices of resistance from our earliest moments to late last night. Now, we have a striking new voice of resistance, Cindy Sheehan. I was wondering what you made of her?

Howard Zinn: Often a protest movement that's already underway – and the present antiwar movement was underway even before the Iraq War began – gets a special impetus, a special spark, from one person's act of defiance. I think of Rosa Parks and that one act of hers and what it meant.

TD: Can you think of other Cindy Sheehan-like figures in the past who made movements coalesce?

Zinn: In the antiwar movement of the Vietnam years, there wasn't one person, but when I think back to the abolitionist movement, Frederick Douglass was a special figure in that way. When he came north, out of slavery, and spoke for the first time to a group of antislavery people, the beginnings of a movement existed. [William Lloyd] Garrison had already started [his antislavery newspaper] the Liberator, but Frederick Douglass was able to represent slavery itself in a way that Garrison and the other abolitionists could not. His dramatic appearance, his eloquence, provided a special spark for the abolitionist movement.

TD: I guess Cindy Sheehan also represents something that can't be represented by anyone else, almost, in fact, can't be represented – the American dead in the war and, of course, her own dead son.

Zinn: It's interesting. There have been mothers other than Cindy Sheehan who have spoken out, but she decided on an act that had a special resonance, which was simply to find where Bush was going [he chuckles to himself at the thought] and have a confrontation between the two poles of this war, between its maker and the opposition. She just parked herself near Bush and become the center of national attention, of gravity, around which people gathered, hundreds and hundreds of people.

TD: The Bush administration has had such a long-term strategy of never venturing anywhere that the president might be challenged, but now, unless he's literally on a military base, I suspect he's no longer safe from that, and even then…

Zinn: Did you read about the mayor of Salt Lake City speaking out before 2,000 people to protest a presidential speech there? This is just what began to happen in the Vietnam War. After a while, [President Lyndon] Johnson and [Vice President Hubert] Humphrey couldn't go anywhere except military bases. And the thing about Cindy Sheehan is that she's not a moderate voice either. I mean, she's saying we must withdraw from Iraq so boldly and clearly that even an antiwar person like [New York Times columnist] Frank Rich refers to her position as "apocalyptic" and kind of outside the pale. And that's terrible, because on the issue of withdrawal she represents, I think, the unspoken desires of a huge number of people and is willing to say what the politicians and the journalists have not yet dared to say. There are very few newspapers in the country – maybe the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and one other – that have simply called for withdrawal without talking about timetables and conditions.

The Logic of Withdrawal in Two Wars

TD: As the person who, in 1967, wrote Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal, how do you compare the logic of withdrawal discussions in this moment with that one?

Zinn: There was a point early in the Vietnam War when no major figure and no critic of the war was simply calling for immediate withdrawal. Everybody was hedging in some way. We must negotiate. We must compromise. We must stop the bombing north of this or that parallel. I think we're at a comparable point now, two years after the beginning of the Iraq War. When my book came out in the spring of '67, it was just two years after the escalation in early '65 when Johnson sent in the first major infusions of American troops. What's comparable, I think, are the arguments then and now. Even the language is similar. We mustn't cut and run. We mustn't give them a victory. We mustn't lose prestige in the world.

TD: …credibility was the word then.

Zinn: Yes, exactly, credibility. There will be chaos and civil war if we leave…

TD: …and a bloodbath.

Zinn: Yes, and a bloodbath – because the one way you can justify an ongoing catastrophe is to posit a greater catastrophe if you don't continue with the present one. We've seen that psychology operating again and again. We saw it, for instance, with Hiroshima. I mean, we have to kill hundreds of thousands of people to avert a greater catastrophe, the death of a million people in the invasion of Japan.

It's interesting that when we finally did leave Vietnam, none of those dire warnings really came true. It's not that things were good after we left. The Chinese were expelled, and there were the boat people and the reeducation camps, but none of that compared to the ongoing slaughter taking place when the American troops were there. So while no one can predict what will happen – I think this is important to say – when the United States withdraws its troops from Iraq, the point is that we're choosing between the certainty of an ongoing disaster, the chaos and violence that are taking place in Iraq today, and an eventuality we can't predict which may be bad. But what may be bad is uncertain; what's bad with our occupation right now is certain. It seems to me that, choosing between the two, you have to take a chance on what might happen if you end the occupation. At the same time, of course, you do whatever you can to mitigate the worst possibilities of your leaving.

Resistance in the Military

TD: I want to return for a moment to Cindy Sheehan. By the last years of the Vietnam War, the American military was almost incapable of fighting and, though there were military families against the war, the main resistance to the war was by then coming from draft-age soldiers themselves. Now we have an all-volunteer army; we know that morale is sinking and that there are specific cases of resistance – refusals to return to Iraq, for instance – within the military, but most of the resistance this time seems to be coming from the families of the soldiers. I wonder whether there's any historical precedent for that?

Zinn: I don't know of any previous war where something like this happened… in the United States, anyway. The closest you might get would be in the Confederacy in the Civil War, when the wives of soldiers rioted because their husbands were dying and the plantation owners were profiting from the sale of cotton, refusing to grow grains for civilians to eat. David Williams in Valdosta, Georgia, is coming out this fall with A People's History of the Civil War in which he describes that phenomenon.

In the case of the Soviet Union, though, there may be a closer parallel. Russian mothers protested the continuing war in Afghanistan, their Vietnam. I don't know how strong a part that played in the Soviet decision to withdraw, but certainly there was something dramatic about that.

We had Gold Star mothers against the war in the Vietnam era, but nothing like this and I think you've pointed to the reason. The GIs in Iraq are not in the same position the draftees were in – although I have to temper that by noting that a lot of the resistance in the Vietnam War came from people who had enlisted in the Army. And, in a certain sense, there are also draftees in this war, people who didn't sign up to fight, or National Guards and Reserves who didn't expect to go to war. You might say that they had been drafted.

Still, because it's a largely all-volunteer army, the protesting has been left to the parents in an unprecedented way. Their children just aren't in a position to protest as easily, and yet I think there's going to be more and more GI protest as the war goes on. That's inevitable. I imagine – there's no way of proving this – that there's already a lot more subterranean protest and disaffection in the military than has been reported, maybe much more than can be reported because it's probably not visible.

When I try to think what would really compel the Bush administration to get out of Iraq, the one thing is a rebellion in the military. David Cortright [author of Soldiers In Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War] believes that what happened to the military in Vietnam was the crucial factor in finally bringing the United States out of Vietnam.

TD: And what about military resistance at the top rather than the bottom? As far back as Korea, there was a feeling among officers of being in the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time and that was replicated in Vietnam. It's clear that the top people in the field in Iraq have known for a long time that they're involved in a catastrophe. They were the ones recently who began talking about draw-downs and withdrawals without permission from the Bush administration.

Zinn: It's a very important development, because when cracks occur in what had previously seemed to be the solidity of the top, it becomes that much more difficult to carry on. One example I think of – it's not a war situation – is McCarthyism. When [red-baiting Senator Joseph] McCarthy began to go after important figures in the Eisenhower administration, when he went after General [George] Marshall and his forays came closer and closer to the top, more and more people moved away from him, and that was critical to his demise. Disaffection in the top ranks of the military has been evident for some time now. [Retired Centcom commander] General [Anthony] Zinni, for instance, has been speaking out from the beginning. For a while I was worried about the similarity between our names [he laughs], but I feel better about it now that he's come out speaking the way he has.

TD: And retired generals like him are always speaking for others inside the military.

Zinn: That's right. They're in a position to say what others can't say. I mean there's been military resistance in many of our wars, but until Vietnam it never reached the point where it actually changed policy. There were mutinies against Washington in the revolutionary army. In the Mexican War, even huge numbers of desertions didn't stop the war. I can't think of any military resistance in World War I. Of course, the United States was only in for a brief time, a year and a half really. Certainly, World War II was a different situation. That's what makes Vietnam such a historical phenomenon. It was the first time you had a movement in the military that was an important factor in changing government policy. And it's interesting that we've had short wars ever since, except for this one, and those wars were deliberately designed to be short so that there wouldn't be time for an antiwar movement to develop. In this case, they miscalculated. Now, I don't think it's a question of if, just when. When and how. I don't think there's any question that the United States is going to have to get out of Iraq. The only questions are: How long will it take? How many more people will die? And how will it be done?

The Outer Limits of Empire

TD: Let me turn to another issue you certainly wrote about in the '60s, war crimes. But "war crimes" was the last charge to arrive in the mainstream in those years and the first to depart. We've certainly experienced many crimes in the last few years, from Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo to Afghanistan. I wonder why, as a concept, it sticks so poorly with Americans?

Zinn: It does seem like a hard concept – war crimes, war criminals – to catch on here. There's a willingness to say the leadership is wrong, but it's a great jump from there to saying that the leadership is vicious. Unfortunately, in American culture, there's still a kind of monarchical idea that the president, the people up there, are very special people and while they may make mistakes, they couldn't be criminals. Even after the public had turned against the Vietnam War, there was no widespread talk about Johnson, [Secretary of Defense Robert] McNamara, and the rest of them being war criminals. And I think it has to do with an American culture of deference to the president and his men – beyond which people refuse to think.

TD: How does an American culture of exceptionalism play into this?

Zinn: I would guess that a very large number of Americans against the war in Vietnam still believed in the essential goodness of this country. They thought of Vietnam as an aberration. Only a minority in the antiwar movement saw it as part of a continuous policy of imperialism and expansion. I think that's true today as well. It's very hard for Americans to let go of the idea that we're an especially good nation. It's comforting to know that, even though we do wrong things from time to time, these are just individual aberrations. I think it takes a great deal of political consciousness to extend the criticism of a particular policy or a particular war to a general negative appraisal of the country and its history. It strikes too close to something Americans seem to need to hold onto.

Of course, there's an element that's right in this as well – in that there are principles for which the United States presumably stands that are good. It's just that people confuse the principles with the policies – and so long as they can keep those principles in their heads (justice for all, equality, and so on), they are very reluctant to accept the fact that they have been crassly, consistently violated. This is the only way I can account for the stopping short when it comes to looking at the president and the people around him as war criminals.

TD: Stepping back from the catastrophe in Iraq, what do you make of the Bush administration's version of the American imperial project?

Zinn: I like to think that the American empire has reached its outer limits with the Middle East. I don't believe it has a future in Latin America. I think it's worn out whatever power it had there and we're seeing the rise of governments that will not play ball with the United States. This may be one of the reasons why the war in Iraq is so important to this administration. Beyond Iraq there's no place to go. So, let's put it this way, I see withdrawal from Iraq whenever it takes place – and think of this as partly wish and partly belief [he chuckles at himself] – as the first step in the retrenchment of the American empire. After all we aren't the first country in history to be forced to do this.

I'd like to say that this will be because of American domestic opposition, but I suspect mostly it will be because the rest of the world won't accept further American forays into places where we don't belong. In the future, I believe 9/11 may be seen as representing the beginning of the dissolution of the American empire; that is, the very event that immediately crystallized popular support for war, in the long run – and I don't know how long that will be – may be seen as the beginning of the weakening and crumbling of the American empire.

TD: There would be an irony in that.

Zinn: Yes, certainly.

War's End

TD: I wanted to turn to the issue of war. You've written about the possible end of war not being a purely utopian project. Do you really believe war could end, or is it in our genes?

Zinn: Although lots of things are unclear to me, one thing is very clear. It's not in our genes. Whenever I read accounts, even by people who have been in war, that suggest there's something in the masculine psyche that requires this kind of violence and militarism, I don't believe it. I say this on the basis of historical experience; that is, if you compare the instances in which people, mostly men, have committed violent acts and gone to war to those in which people have not gone to war, have rejected war, it seems people don't naturally want war.

They may want a lot of things associated with war – the comradeship, the thrill that comes from holding a weapon. I think this is what confuses people. Thrills, comradeship, all of that can come in many different ways; it comes from war, though, only when people are manipulated into it. To me the strongest argument against an inherent drive to war is the extent to which governments have to resort to get people to go to war, the huge amounts of propaganda and deception of which we had an example very recently. And don't forget coercion. So I discard that idea of a natural inclination to war.

TD: You went to war yourself…

Zinn: I was 20 years old. I was a bombardier in the 8th Air Force on a B-17 crew that flew some of the last missions of the war out of England. I went in as a young, radical antifascist, believing in this war and believing in the idea of a just war against fascism. At war's end, I was beginning to have doubts about whether the mayhem we had engaged in was justified: the bombing of cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bombings I had engaged in. And then I was beginning to suspect the motives of the Allied leaders. Did they really care that much about fascism? Did they care about the Jews? Was it a war for empire? In the Air Force, I encountered a young Trotskyite on another air crew who said to me, "You know, this is an imperialist war." I was sort of shocked. I said, "Well, you're flying missions! Why are you here?" He replied, "I'm here to talk to people like you." [He laughs.] I mean, he didn't convert me, but he shook me up a little.

After the war, as the years went by, I couldn't help contemplating the promises that had been made about what the war would accomplish. You know, General Marshall sent me – and 16 million others – a letter congratulating us for winning the war and telling us how the world would now be a different place. Fifty million people were dead and the world was not really that different. I mean, Hitler and Mussolini were gone, as was the Japanese military machine, but fascism and militarism, and racism were still all over the world, and wars were still continuing. So I came to the conclusion that war, whatever quick fix it might give you – Oh, we've defeated this phenomenon, fascism; we've gotten rid of Hitler (like we've gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, you see) – whatever spurt of enthusiasm, the after-effects were like those of a drug; first a high and then you settle back into something horrible. So I began to think that any wars, even wars against evil, simply don't accomplish much of anything. In the long run, they simply don't solve the problem. In the interim, an enormous number of people die.

I also came to the conclusion that, given the technology of modern warfare, war is inevitably a war against children, against civilians. When you look at the ratio of civilian to military dead, it changes from 50-50 in World War II to 80-20 in Vietnam, maybe as high as 90-10 today. Do you know this Italian war surgeon, Gino Strada? He wrote Green Parrots: A War Surgeon's Diary. He was doing war surgery in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places. Ninety percent of the people he operated on were civilians. When you face that fact, war is now always a war against civilians, and so against children. No political goal can justify it, and so the great challenge before the human race in our time is to solve the problems of tyranny and aggression, and do it without war. [He laughs quietly.] A very complex and difficult job, but something that has to be faced – and that's what accounts for my becoming involved in antiwar movements ever since the end of World War II.

 Howard Zinn is a historian, playwright, and social activist. He was a shipyard worker and Air Force bombardier before he went to college under the GI Bill and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has taught at Spelman College and Boston University, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Paris and the University of Bologna. He has received the Thomas Merton Award, the Eugene V. Debs Award, the Upton Sinclair Award, and the Lannan Literary Award. He lives in Auburndale, Massachusetts.

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is a co-founder of The American Empire Project. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture among other books.

Tomdispatch.com

Many lessons can be drawn from the observation of Israeli dominion over the Palestinians in the past fifty-five years, most notably the audacious mandate of institutionalised violence.

Even more alarming than the crimes themselves is the fact that even after blatantly violating international law, Israel manages to remain in the safety of the fold of the international community. Perhaps the Sharon government gleaned its wisdom from Niccolo Machiavelli’s treatise, The Prince, rather than the Geneva Conventions. Consider the following scenario as a paradigm of the Machiavellian philosophy applied to the ‘Palestinian problem’:

The fall of the classic theory and practice of imperialism compels us modern imperialists, who are keenly interested in maintaining control of our remaining settlements, to develop an advanced strategy that will protect our interests. Consolidating our power over indigenous populations may be difficult, but if done the right way, the Israeli way, that is, our settlements can be successfully sustained while our subjects are effectively subdued.

An important factor in institutionalising oppression is through the utilisation of the legal system. Israel has successfully passed laws, such as the Law of Return, which allow the Jews and only Jews, to immigrate to Israel based on their race, while Palestinians are denied the right to live in their homeland and on their own property because they don’t fit into this category.

Moreover, the Absentee Law allows the state to confiscate the property of dispossessed Palestinians and claim it as state property. These laws have proved quite successful, since they make race the determining factor in attaining rights in Israel, with Jews as first class citizens and Arabs second class. They also rid Israel of some five million refugees, scattered elsewhere.

Another important element of institutionalised oppression is military occupation. Israel has occupied Palestine and other Arab lands for decades. This way, although condemned by futile United Nations resolutions, Israel has successfully achieved the upper hand over its subjects.

The modern imperialist must understand that a strong army remains essential in controlling the settlements and their people. Thanks to the sheer strength of Israel’s invincible army, Palestinian rebellions have been suppressed through massive applications of force. It doesn’t matter whether force is used against armed or unarmed individuals, children, women or the elderly. What matters most is conveying a message that subjects have no chance of gaining the rights for which they fight, and if they want to live, they must surrender to whatever the State demands.

Today’s imperialists must use the mass media, for it is unquestionably the most effective tool in winning today’s wars.

Today’s imperialists must use the mass media, for it is unquestionably the most effective tool in winning today’s wars. It is important that the message conveyed through the media highlights the losses of the colonialist, not the colonised. The media must portray us as civilised and our enemies as savage; it must show us as righteous and our enemies as wicked; it must show us as peaceful and our enemies as terrorists.

If the media is tightly controlled, we can fashion our own reality. We can cause the world to blame our enemy when we kill their children, and we can make our soldiers heroes while their fighters are branded as criminals. Israel has indeed mastered the art of media control, to the point that we can even blame Palestinian parents for sending their children to be killed to grab media attention. Interestingly enough, many believe us.

Killing your enemies, torturing prisoners, occupying land and confiscating properties are very important, but not enough. You must humble the enemy while you carry out your policies. The tactic of humiliation is indeed a winning stratagem, for through its employment, you can destroy the spirit of your enemy. Yes you can kill a man, but slaying him as his family watches and then stealing his dead body is more effective.

You can beat a defiant young man who refuses to plead for mercy, but if you strip him naked first, you will certainly break his defiant spirit and make him wish for death. Yes you can torture a prisoner by beating him, but imagine how successful it will be if you threaten to rape, or if you do in fact rape, his wife or sister. We’ve done it, and it was often quite successful.

If your subjects submit, reward them with partial freedom and allow them to get menial jobs. But if they defy you, clamp down and have no mercy. Otherwise they will rebel too often. If you push them until they rise up against you, don’t back down. Fight back. Close down their schools, uproot their trees, burn down their farms, block their streets, isolate their cities, demolish their homes, throw them in jail, keep them under curfew for weeks, deny them clean water, electricity and basic supplies.

If they increase their defiance by using firearms, then feel free to do all that can be done. In Israel, for example, we are using our best high-tech weapons against them: F-15s, F-16s, Apache helicopters, missiles and more.

Destroy their symbols and deny them an identity. In Israel we have destroyed numerous mosques and have attacked and desecrated many churches. Imagine what that made them feel? Even God cannot protect them now.

If you issue them with identification cards, designate their nationality as "undefined". Burn their flags, ban their books, forbid them from learning their own history; call their intellectuals "militants" and their leaders "fanatics". Make them feel trapped with nowhere to escape.

Besiege their land, their air and water. Make them feel like a wild animal trapped in a net. Terrorise them. Give them ultimatums. Force them to accept their fate, which of course you ordain.

Turn them against each other whenever possible. Some of them might be weak, easy to manipulate. Use these to spy on the others. If such traitors become known, they’ll be jailed or even executed. That’s good, because then, like we do here in Israel, you can tell the world that your enemies violate human rights. You win both ways.

Build trenches and enormous walls around their fertile land, towns and villages, as we have done throughout the West Bank with our famous security fence. We said it was a security measure. The world believed us, and the people lost thousands of hectares of fertile land that is now in our hands, free of its inhabitants, whose high numbers have threatened our racial supremacy for generations.

Eradicate their forests and woodlands. Dump your toxic waste in their land and destroy their environment. In short, imprison their men, rape their land, murder their youth and push them to the brink of desperation, to the point of suicide, literally. You will then have succeeded in the complete dehumanisation and defeat of your enemy, while through the media you will have convinced the world you are actually the victim.

Ramzy Baroud, a veteran Arab-American journalist, writes regular columns to many newspapers around the world. He is editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com and head of Research & Studies Department at Aljazeera.net English . He teaches mass communication at Curtin University of Technology. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Writings on the Second Palestinian Uprising (Pluto Press, London.)   Source:  Palestine Chronicle

As it begins to appear that the death toll in southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi from Hurricane Katrina may surpass that of 9/11, questions are once again being raised regarding the Bush administration’s distorted views as to what constitutes national security.

Much of the criticism thus far has focused on the failure of authorities to evacuate the tens of thousands of low-income residents in New Orleans who lacked the means to leave for higher ground inland and the slowness and inefficiency of the federal response following the rupture of the levees protecting the city, much of which lies below sea level. (Some have compared the U.S. government’s reaction unfavorably to its response to the devastating tsunami that struck the Indian Ocean region in December, though the U.S. response to that disaster was actually even slower and far less generous financially, especially in the first days following the tsunami.)

Still others have noted the growing evidence that the increase in recent years in the frequency of such mega-hurricanes as Katrina is a result of global warming. The Bush administration has aggressively undermined international efforts to forcefully address such potentially catastrophic changes in the world’s climate as a result of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States and other industrialized nations.

It also appears that the Bush administration’s decision to undercut the authority of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a once-independent unit of government, by subsuming it into the Department of Homeland Security—with its over-emphasis on the threat from international terrorism—limited FEMA’s ability to better prepare for the long-predicted scenario of disastrous flooding resulting from a major hurricane striking New Orleans.

Iraq, Katrina, and Homeland Security

Perhaps the decision by the Bush administration which most directly contributed to the high numbers of unnecessary deaths, however, was the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Iraq war has cost the federal government more than $200 billion thus far, resulting in cutbacks in a number of emergency preparedness projects which appear to have lessened the ability of Louisiana authorities to cope with the hurricane, including providing charter buses to complete the evacuation of the city before the storm struck. Furthermore, Walter Maestri, the emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, which includes New Orleans’ western suburbs, noted in June of last year that anticipated funding to strengthen the levees had been diverted to pay for the war. Indeed, federal assistance to the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project dropped precipitously following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Also contributing to the carnage is the fact that at least 35% of the Louisiana National Guard, long serving as the front line in hurricane relief efforts, are unable to respond to the crisis because they are far away in Iraq. The numbers that could have been on the ground participating in relief operations have been reduced further as a result of the dramatic drop in recruitment over the past two years. Hundreds of men and women who would have otherwise enlisted or re-enlisted in the National Guard have failed to do so due to the prospect of being sent to fight in that bloody counter-insurgency war.

Perhaps even more significant has been the absence of equipment critical for emergency responses. WGNO-TV, the ABC affiliate in New Orleans, reported on August 1 that “dozens of high-water vehicles, humvees, refuelers, and generators are now abroad,” warning that “in the event of a major natural disaster, that could be a problem.” They interviewed Lieutenant Colonel Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard, who observed that “the National Guard needs that equipment back home.” Louisiana’s 256th Infantry Brigade and Mississippi’s 155th Armored Brigade, both of which are currently in Iraq, include engineering and support battalions specializing in disaster relief.

As a result of the absence of these high-water vehicles and other equipment which could have been used in the aftermath of the flooding, it appears that many hundreds of people died while waiting to be rescued. Even Thomas Donnelly of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute observed that “this is what happens when you take Guardsmen and put them on the conveyor belt into Iraq.”

In neighboring Mississippi, which took the brunt of the hurricane’s 145-mile per hour winds and twenty-foot storm surge, 4,000 members of the state’s National Guard—a full 40% of its total troop strength— are currently in Iraq. The Washington Post quoted Lt. Andy Thaggard, a Mississippi National Guard spokesman, as saying, “Missing personnel is the big thing in this particular event—we need our people.”

President George W. Bush’s priorities were apparent the day after the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast: Rather than immediately returning to Washington to coordinate the federal response, he flew out to San Diego to give a major speech where—except for a few lines at the outset—he avoided mentioning the unfolding tragedy and instead focused upon rationalizing for his war in Iraq, comparing it to the struggle against the Axis powers in World War II.

Bipartisan Blame

Don’t count on the Democrats to take advantage of this opportunity to challenge the Bush administration’s misplaced priorities, however. Democratic leaders, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and other leading contenders for the 2008 presidential nomination, have largely supported President Bush’s Iraq agenda and therefore share in the blame. Louisiana’s hawkish Democratic senator Mary Landrieu, along with the majority of her Democratic Senate colleagues, voted in support of the October 2002 joint resolution authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Even as the drain on the federal budget resulting from the ongoing war and the heavy reliance on their states’ National Guard to suppress the resulting insurgency became apparent, they have largely supported the Bush administration’s requests to continue funding the war.

Similarly, Democratic U.S. Representative William Jefferson, whose Second Congressional District in New Orleans is now mostly under water, also voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq. He defended his vote on the grounds that Iraq somehow posed a threat to America’s national security, a particularly twisted perspective for the representative of a constituency so vulnerable to natural disaster, a full 30% of whom lived below the poverty line even prior to Hurricane Katrina.

By providing shelter for those fleeing the devastated areas, making financial contributions to relief efforts, and other measures, the American people have once again demonstrated enormous caring and generosity. Such efforts will and should continue. However, this laudable energy must also be focused on holding accountable the politicians of both parties who—out of their eagerness to invade an oil-rich country on the other side of the globe—allowed so many of their fellow Americans to suffer and die needlessly.

Stephen Zunes is professor of politics and chair of the peace & justice studies program at the University of San Francisco. He is Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus project  and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).

If the images of skyscrapers collapsed in heaps of ash were the end of one story -- the U.S. safe on its isolated continent from the turmoil of the world -- then the picture of the sodden Superdome with its peeling roof marks the beginning of the next story, the one that will dominate our politics in the coming decades of this century: America befuddled about how to cope with a planet suddenly turned unstable and unpredictable.

Over and over last week, people said that the scenes from the convention center, the highway overpasses, and the other suddenly infamous Crescent City venues didn't "look like America," that they seemed instead to be straight from the Third World. That was almost literally accurate, for poor, black New Orleans (whose life had never previously been of any interest to the larger public) is not so different from other poor and black parts of the world: its infant mortality and life expectancy rates, its educational achievement statistics mirroring scores of African and Latin American enclaves.

But it was accurate in another way, too, one full of portent for the future. A decade ago, environmental researcher Norman Myers began trying to add up the number of humans at risk of losing their homes from global warming. He looked at all the obvious places -- coastal China, India, Bangladesh, the tiny island states of the Pacific and Indian oceans, the Nile delta, Mozambique, on and on -- and predicted that by 2050 it was entirely possible that 150 million people could be "environmental refugees," forced from their homes by rising waters. That's more than the number of political refugees sent scurrying by the bloody century we've just endured.

Try to imagine, that is, the chaos that attends busing 15,000 people from one football stadium to another in the richest nation on Earth, and then multiply it by four orders of magnitude and re-situate your thoughts in the poorest nations on earth.

And then try to imagine doing it over and over again -- probably without the buses.

Because so far, even as blogs and websites all over the Internet fill with accusations about the scandalous lack of planning that led to the collapse of the levees in New Orleans, almost no one is addressing the much larger problems: the scandalous lack of planning that has kept us from even beginning to address climate change, and the sad fact that global warming means the future will be full of just this kind of horror.

Consider the first problem for just a minute. No single hurricane is "the result" of global warming. But a month before Katrina hit, MIT hurricane specialist Kerry Emmanuel published a landmark paper in the British science magazine Nature showing that tropical storms were now lasting half again as long and spinning winds 50% more powerful than just a few decades before. The only plausible cause: the ever-warmer tropical seas on which these storms thrive. Katrina, a Category 1 storm when it crossed Florida, roared to full life in the abnormally hot water of the Gulf of Mexico. It then punched its way into Louisiana and Mississippi -- the latter a state now governed by Haley Barbour, who in an earlier incarnation as a GOP power broker and energy lobbyist helped persuade President Bush to renege on his promise to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

So far the U.S. has done exactly nothing even to try to slow the progress of climate change: We're emitting far more carbon than we were in 1988, when scientists issued their first prescient global-warming warnings. Even if, at that moment, we'd started doing all that we could to overhaul our energy economy, we'd probably still be stuck with the 1 degree Fahrenheit increase in global average temperature that's already driving our current disruptions. Now scientists predict that without truly dramatic change in the very near future, we're likely to see the planet's mercury rise five degrees before this century is out. That is, five times more than we've seen so far.

Which leads us to the second problem: For the ten thousand years of human civilization, we've relied on the planet's basic physical stability. Sure, there have been hurricanes and droughts and volcanoes and tsunamis, but averaged out across the Earth, it's been a remarkably stable run. If your grandparents inhabited a particular island, chances were that you could too. If you could grow corn in your field, you could pretty much count on your grandkids being able to do likewise. Those are now sucker's bets -- that's what those predictions about environmental refugees really mean.

Here's another way of saying it: In the last century, we've seen change in human societies speed up to an almost unimaginable level, one that has stressed every part of our civilization. In this century, we're going to see the natural world change at the same kind of rate. That's what happens when you increase the amount of heat trapped in the atmosphere. That extra energy expresses itself in every way you can imagine: more wind, more evaporation, more rain, more melt, more... more... more.

And there is no reason to think we can cope. Take New Orleans as an example. It is currently pro forma for politicians to announce that it will be rebuilt, and doubtless it will be. Once. But if hurricanes like Katrina go from once-in-a-century storms to once-in-a-decade-or-two storms, how many times are you going to rebuild it? Even in America there's not that kind of money -- especially if you're also having to cope with, say, the effects on agriculture of more frequent and severe heat waves, and the effects on human health of the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria, and so on ad infinitum. Not to mention the costs of converting our energy system to something less suicidal than fossil fuel, a task that becomes more expensive with every year that passes.

Our rulers have insisted by both word and deed that the laws of physics and chemistry do not apply to us. That delusion will now start to vanish. Katrina marks Year One of our new calendar, the start of an age in which the physical world has flipped from sure and secure to volatile and unhinged. New Orleans doesn't look like the America we've lived in. But it very much resembles the planet we will inhabit the rest of our lives.

Bill McKibben is the author of many books on the environment and related topics. His first, The End of Nature, was also the first book for a general audience on global warming. His most recent is Wandering Home, A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape. Copyright 2005 Bill McKibben.  Tom Dispatch

As US National Guard troops—just returned from Iraq—moved into New Orleans Friday with “shoot-to-kill” orders, and Blackhawk helicopters flew over the city, the essential unity between the policies pursued by Washington at home and abroad found stark expression.

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum of the National Guard said half of the 7,000 National Guardsmen arriving in Louisiana had shortly before been serving overseas and were “highly proficient in the use of lethal force.”

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco declared, “They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot to kill... and I expect they will.”

The reaction of the Bush administration to the catastrophe of its own making in the invasion of Iraq and its response to the disaster unleashed by Hurricane Katrina on the US Gulf Coast have both revealed gross incompetence and a criminal contempt for human life. Both have led to soaring death tolls and immense suffering.

There are direct connections between the humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq and the one that is unfolding in New Orleans. Barely a month ago, Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard complained to the media that essential equipment the force had taken to Iraq last October—humvees, high-water vehicles, generators and refuelers—had been left in the country. He stressed that in the event of a serious natural disaster, the lack of the equipment could pose problems in mounting a speedy rescue and relief response.

The failure of the levee and the flooding of 80 percent of New Orleans are linked to repeated budget cuts carried out by the Bush administration since the war in Iraq began.

In the 2004 budget, the Army Corps of Engineers requested $11 million for a hurricane protection project in the New Orleans area. It was allotted just half that amount, $5.5 million. In the 2005 budget, the Corps requested $22.5 million, and received one quarter of its request, $5.7 million. In the 2006 budget, the Bush administration proposed an appropriation of just $2.9 million.

Where the money meant to reinforce the levees and protect New Orleans went was no mystery to local officials. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune in June 2004: “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.”

Meanwhile, FEMA—the Federal Emergency Management Agency—the principal agency for dealing with such disasters, has been “systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security,” as Eric Holdeman, the director of the Office of Emergency Management in King County, Washington, wrote in the Washington Post this week. Instead, disaster relief resources have been shifted to the so-called “global war on terrorism,” the all-purpose pretext for US military aggression abroad.

Vast funds expended on the Iraq war and other acts of US militarism have been drained away from social spending at home. With the upcoming approval of yet another emergency spending bill for Iraq, Congress will have appropriated $250 billion for the war. Washington is spending on average $5.4 billion a month on the war. Thus, the Pentagon will expend in less than two months the equivalent of the entire relief package that the Bush administration has requested for New Orleans and the devastated Gulf Coast.

The outrage of New Orleans’ abandoned citizens, who shout “we want help” and ask angrily why Washington has proven incapable of supplying the most basic forms of organization or relief, strangely echoes protests by the people of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.

With the US occupation now halfway into its third year, three out of four Iraqi families report irregular electricity. Cuts in water supply are frequent, and fully 40 percent of urban households report sewage in the streets. A nationwide health crisis is growing worse, child malnutrition is widespread, and the carnage against civilians continues every day.

This chaos and gross negligence have characterized the US occupation since day one. After US troops rolled into Baghdad, mobs were allowed—if not actively encouraged—to systematically loot Iraqi government facilities, schools and hospitals, deepening the immense destruction already wrought by American bombs, shells and missiles.

As a pre-invasion memo leaked from the Blair government in Britain earlier this year warned, Washington had decided upon war but had given “little thought” to the invasion’s aftermath. That is, as it prepared to militarily occupy a war-ravaged country of 27 million people, the Bush administration had no concern or even plans for what would happen to them.

It is a tragic irony that thousands of young men and women in the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard are deployed in Iraq, sent to kill and be killed for a lie. Not a few of them are drawn from poor and working class families that have suffered the worst from Hurricane Katrina. The Bush administration and its Democratic allies—having abandoned their fabricated claims about weapons of mass destruction—now insist that these troops are fighting a war to bring “democracy” to Iraq.

But the national disgrace in New Orleans poses an obvious question: what can a government that abandons its own people to die in the streets and presides over levels of social inequality that shock the conscience of the world teach anyone about “democracy?”

Iraq was from its origins a predatory war—an exercise in international plunder. It was aimed at employing overwhelming military force to seize control of vital energy resources and thereby assert the geopolitical hegemony of American capitalism against its economic rivals.

The plundering of Iraq has gone hand-in-hand with the looting of the American treasury at home by means of unending cuts in social spending together with massive tax cuts for the top income brackets. These policies are carried out by a government and a two-party political system that is dedicated to serving interests of a financial oligarchy and is as indifferent to the lives of the poor and working class in New Orleans as it is to the people of Iraq.

WSWS.org

Cindy Sheehan's valorous work at Crawford has not only set off the beginning of a new antiwar movement, but has revealed a deep chasm in American society.  Not a single important Democratic leader traveled to Crawford to support Cindy Sheehan (unless you count Al Sharpton).  Failing to fulfill their role as the opposition, the Democrats have come dangerously close to alienating their antiwar constituency.  They continue to play into the clutches of the same special interest groups as the Republicans at the expense of the party rank-and-file who are much more opposed to the war than the party leaders.

On the other hand, one look at the current state of affairs in the Republican Party shows a slowly opening rift between their historical base and the results of the Bush crusade.  Social conservatives have gotten an administration that has boiled the culture war down to a battle over whether gays can file income taxes jointly and give autopsy consent, among the other glories of matrimony.  Fiscal conservatives are faced with a Congress that has outspent Clinton on social programs, with money from our children's pockets. 

As the approval ratings of President Bush and Congress reach new lows, one is left wondering who, or what, they are representing.

Despite the name calling of right-wing pundits everywhere, Democrats in Washington have supported almost every major war initiative.  Their only criticisms usually involve lambasting the president for not sending enough troops.  How they hope to provide those troops is left up in the air. 

At the moment the only Democratic senator calling for eventual withdrawal is Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.  Then again, Feingold has always been a maverick.  Not only was he the lone senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act, he is also the only senator endorsed by the libertarian-leaning Democratic Freedom Caucus.  Nonetheless, he has only a vague plan to get the troops out of Iraq almost a year and a half from now.

Although other Senators like Hillary Clinton represent staunchly antiwar constituencies, they fail to take their minds off 2008.  Without a strong antiwar movement, they feel no pressure except from the oil, construction, and arms lobbies that have funded their campaigns just as readily as they have funded the Republicans. 

Still, most antiwar liberals feel compelled to support the Democrats as long as they cling the progressive veneer and yell for a couple days before capitulating to Republican court appointments.  Only time will tell how long they can keep up this charade before serious consequences can occur in the midterm elections.  All signs point to a dismal descent of events between then and now.  Abroad, it has been predicted that at this time next year it will be impossible for the military to maintain the current number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The economic fallout from Katrina could presently spurn an even worse economic downturn.  With oil prices on the rise and real estate bubble close to bursting, the possibility of stagflation seems right around the corner.

Fiscal conservatives still in the Republican camp will no longer be able to ignore the reckless spending of the Bush administration.  The Cato Institute reports that the 101 programs planned for elimination in the Contract with America have had real increases of 27% under the Bush administration.  The No Child Left Behind Act and Bush's prescription drug plan account for new hundreds of billions to be spent on social service boondoggles.  Bush has even given the National Endowment for the Arts a humongous expansion of its budget.

The saving grace for many is that Bush slightly reduced taxes on the very rich his first year in office. However, the Alternative Minimum Tax is hitting more and more middle-class taxpayers at an exponential rate. Sooner or later fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party will have to come to grips with the rising taxes, out-of-control spending, and the tremendous budget deficits wrought by this administration. If there is an economic downturn, they will face the truth much sooner than later.

Social conservatives, on the other hand, form an essential part of the Republican's nationalistic base for the war on terror. Failure to put into law any tougher legislation on social issues could be disastrous.  Aside from the embarrassment of the Terri Schiavo incident, the religious right rallied around the issue of gay marriage.  It remains at festering on the state level.  A constitutional amendment never breached discussion beyond last November.

Sheehan has broken the ice. With luck she is just the beginning of a movement that will expose the bipartisan agreement in Washington for the covenant of the death that it is.

  The Republicans may face a problem in 2008 when religious conservatives realize that, after eight years of power, their global crusade for democracy is of little importance to millions of pro-life conservatives. Although the religious right has played an important role in beating the drums for war, one wonders how they will put up with an administration that constantly ignores them.

It should be evident that there is a bipartisan consensus to ignore how far the two parties have gotten from their respective bases. And to what end? War. For the past four years the Bush administration has played to the fears of Americans. They rely on the paranoid belief that only by slaughtering tens of thousands of people abroad can we prevent terrorist attacks at home. Oddly enough, the civilian populations of the two cities struck on 9/11 are overwhelmingly antiwar. Bush found little support in either. So in order to continue the culture of fear, the pundits must smear every dissenter "treasonous," a label with which Bill O'Reilly slandered Cindy Sheehan. But Sheehan has broken the ice. With luck she is just the beginning of a movement that will expose the bipartisan agreement in Washington for the covenant of the death that it is.

Former Canadian foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy blasts Washington’s ‘imperial attitudes’ to international agreements

Outrage over the duplicitous diplomacy used to avoid treaty obligations on Devil’s Lake is not enough.

Cancelling a meeting of trade bureaucrats in defiance of a NAFTA trade ruling on softwood lumber is blowing smoke in the wind.

Telephone tag between the Prime Minister and President George Bush is a sop, not a solution. Huffing and puffing will neither impress nor influence the Bush administration in Washington, nor their regional allies like the governor and senators of North Dakota.

The reality is that we are dealing with an American political system currently steeped in the ideology of “empire.” It recognizes few rules, adheres only to those treaties that are expedient to basic interests, and believes that the only political currency that counts is the exercise of raw power.

In its mildest form, it practises a la carte bilateralism, co-operating only when it wants to, and when it suits short-term domestic or international objectives. In its bad days, it simply follows a strategy of “take no prisoners,” “damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead,” “don’t tread on me,” “America First,” or any other of the clichés used by ultra-patriots. These are the extant policy directives from the White House.

While most Canadians responded with dismay to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, few could quite grasp that the same cavalier, imperial attitudes exemplified in Washington’s rejection of various agreements on disarmament, its fierce opposition to the International Criminal Court, its indifference to climate-change warnings, and its undermining of the U.N. would prevail in our continental relationship as well.

The reality is that we are dealing with an American political system currently steeped in the ideology of “empire.” It recognizes few rules, adheres only to those treaties that are expedient to basic interests, and believes that the only political currency that counts is the exercise of raw power.

There is a chronic and dangerous failure to fully appreciate the shift going on in the political demographics of the U.S. and how this change affects attitudes not only toward Canada but also to the broad U.S. approach to its international role.

The reality is that political power is shifting to the south and west of the United States, bringing with it less understanding or interest in our country and certainly an anti-internationalist notion that the U.S. can and should go it alone. Growing, as well, is the attitude ? especially prevalent amongst congressional Republicans ? that the U.S. should legislate extraterritorially to compel other countries to abide by its decisions.

Anyone who thinks that neighbourly proximity brings favours or privileges is living in a dream world. In the changing landscape of U.S. politics and policies, Canada lacks the necessary traction.

We rely too often on old connections and our ability to negotiate a crisis, rather than trying to anticipate issues and build a different political case to meet the challenges that the new, parlous state of U.S.-Canada relations presents.

Part of the problem is that we are working through a system of border arrangements that are obsolete. Of the more than 200 treaties governing our relationship, most rely on goodwill ? they have no prescribed set of dispute-settlement mechanisms that are binding or subject to arbitration procedures.

The International Joint Commission worked well in resolving water disputes, as long there was a co-operative attitude on both sides. Now that one of the partners treats this venerable institution as irrelevant, the capacity to effectively share stewardship of the continent’s most valuable resource has been put in jeopardy.

Most vexatious are the free-trade agreements concluded on the basis that each country’s trade laws would apply in disputes. This means that any sector of the U.S. economy that feels threatened by competition can use the domestic system to impose penalties and engage in constant harassment ? read, softwood lumber, beef, steel.

Meanwhile, Canada is prevented under NAFTA rules from applying any strictures on energy that could be considered by the Americans as discriminatory and the U.S. passes an energy bill that assumes Canadian oilsand reserves are part of their continental supply.

Equally noxious is NAFTA’s Chapter 11, which allows private industry to sue governments if they think there is a restraint of trade. Under this provision, United Parcel Service has challenged Canada Post operations, British Columbia has fought restrictions on the sale of fresh water, and the Canadian government’s efforts to prevent the use of toxic engine additives have been stalled.

Compounding these difficulties are new U.S. security measures at the border that increasingly restrict the movement of goods and people. Canada has been exceedingly compliant with these security demands, accepting with little challenge the U.S. view of counterterrorism, to the point of conceding an erosion of basic Charter rights.

Let’s face it: This is a painful and uncertain time in our relations with the United States. Muddling through from crisis to crisis won’t work. Neither will listening to the chorus of continentalist claptrap promoting more U.S.-Canada integration ? look no farther than the present disputes to see where such policies have landed us ? or the calls for protectionism and retaliation that can still be heard from the Left. It’s time for new policies and tough action to shift our trade and security strategies away from a preoccupation with continental matters to a more global footing.

Let’s begin by seriously considering an end to NAFTA and reliance instead upon the World Trade Organization to regulate the terms and provisions of free trade.

Not only would this offer us the protection of a trade body that has some teeth in its regulations - ones not rooted in U.S. domestic procedures and laws - it would also free us to engage in a much more innovative and active global trade strategy.

The emergence of new economic powers like China, India, Brazil and South Africa provides markets hungry for the resources and know-how that Canada possesses.

Our NAFTA connection impedes our ability to take advantage of this potential. To make this work, however, we have to pull up our own socks and tackle long-neglected or perhaps too-sensitive domestic issues.

It’s a bit hypocritical to blame the Americans for problems of freshwater pollution when we have been so remiss in our own water management. Despite more than a decade of federal-provincial negotiation, there is still no sign of a national freshwater policy. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans spends most of its funds on ocean fish and salty seawater, largely ignoring its responsibility to research and monitor our valuable freshwater resources.

Since the demise of the National Energy Policy in the 1980s, there is nothing resembling a co-ordinated energy strategy that would see, for example, a national power grid or effective incentives for renewable alternatives.

And, as the the cost of fuel skyrockets, revenues from the windfall are not evenly distributed.

Add to this list a moribund industrial-development policy, a fractured Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs that can’t seem to produce a unified policy, a piecemeal approach to higher education and innovation, a crumbling national infrastructure, and an increasingly restrictive immigration regime.

The bottom line is that the essentials of a vibrant public domain, capable of taking greater control of our own decisions and pursuing global economic and security initiatives in a forceful, made-in-Canada way, are not being built.

The late Tory political thinker George Grant wrote a book called Lament For A Nation, in which he debunked the assumption ? made by too many Canadians ? that our prosperity, security and well-being could be easily obtained by simply riding on the economic and political coattails of the Americans rather than by paying real attention to our own institutions and defining our own way.

The Bush administration’s actions and attitudes make Grant’s lament worth reconsidering. It’s time to redefine this historic relationship.

Lloyd Axworthy is Canada's former foreign affairs minister

Courtesy of Canadian Dimension

The shock waves from Ohio Governor Bob Taft's no contest plea to four misdemeanor ethics violations have turned this state's politics upside down. They also have direct roots in the stolen election of 2004.

Ohio's "Mr. Clean" governor has been forced to admit he took gratis golf games and other insider graft and goodies. His tearful no contest plea led to a nominal fine where lesser public figures could have gotten substantial jail time. Taft faced up to two years in jail.

The mainstream media has indeed reported that these gratuities have come from the usual thieves' den of contractors doing business with the state of Ohio. It's also well known that Tom Noe has been prominent among them. In fact, it has now been reported that Noe told Taft about controversial rare coin investments that may have cost the state millions as early as 2001, rather than 2004, as Taft has claimed. Also, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Taft failed to report eight additional gifts valued at more than $75: three between 1999-2005; five between 2002-2004. Columbus City Prosecutor Steve McIntosh told the Dispatch that there wasn't likely to be a "second round of misdemeanors."

But the media has ignored the fact that Noe is also former Chair of the Lucas County Board of Elections, a major Bush-Cheney donor, and a key player in the theft of Ohio's 2004 electoral votes. He is reportedly under federal investigation for laundering money into the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. Election Day chaos and confusion in Noe's predominantly Democratic Lucas County helped give Bush a second term in the White House.

Time and again Taft has made public posturings about the need for all state employees to be completely free of even the perception of wrongdoing and corruption.

But the Taft sinkhole goes way beyond a few gubernatorial golf games. Millions of dollars are now missing from the Bureau of Workers' Compensation Fund, thanks to his friend Tom Noe's bizarre investment schemes. Noe ran a Toledo coin shop before being fingered as some kind of investment genius, designated to handle some $50 million in state funds. When he got the account, Noe's first move was to write himself a check for fees well in excess of $1 million. As of now, millions more are known to be missing in a "Coingate" scandal that has made headlines nationwide.

But Noe was also at the heart of Ohio's 2004 stolen election. As northwestern Ohio's "Mr. Republican," Noe was the gatekeeper for Toledo-area GOP politics for a dozen years. He chaired not only the Lucas County Republican Party, but also the Lucas County Board of Elections.

As BOE Chair, Tom Noe made a high profile acquisition of Sequoia electronic voting machines, crowing about the speed with which they were installed. But by 2004, Lucas County was knee-deep in malfunctions involving the notorious Diebold opti-scan vote counters, which jammed before and during Election Day. In precinct after precinct throughout the heavily Democratic Toledo inner city, African-American voters were disenfranchised en masse. Machines broke down, lines grew to three, four and five hours. Thousands left without voting.

At the Glenwood School, voting machines were locked in the principal's office. When he called in sick on Election Morning, hundreds of African-American citizens were denied the ability to vote. The situation was cemented by an edict from Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell that paper ballots were not to be issued to Ohio precincts to cover when machines broke down.

At other Lucas County precincts, as citizens have testified under oath, unsuspecting voters were issued faulty markers which ruined the ballots on which they were used. Inner city voters thus left thinking they had voted when, in fact, their ballots were automatically trashed.

The overall situation in Lucas County became so infamously twisted with incompetence, malfeasance and corruption that in mid 2005, Blackwell was forced to issue a scathing staff report on voting practices there. In response, he threatened to fire the entire Board of Elections.

Board Chair Bernadette Noe had already announced her intention to resign. But independent researchers estimate that at least 7,000 votes were shifted in Lucas County from John Kerry to George W. Bush under her regime. Many thousands of African-American citizens, most of them likely Kerry voters, were effectively disenfranchised.

The Toledo Blade reported that in the summer of 2004, 28,000 voters were "erased" from the Lucas County voter registration rolls. The purge included voters like Barbara and Ralph George "who first registered to vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and had lived in the same East Toledo house for 44 years." The Georges had called prior to their elimination from the voting rolls and had been told that they were eligible voters.

The Blade also reported that 40 of the provisional voters in precinct 4N were in the right room, but the wrong line on Election Day. All of their votes were rejected as were 50 of the 67 provisional ballots cast in the precinct. The volume of provisional ballots more than doubled when contrasted to the 2000 presidential election.

Taft is the first governor in Ohio history to be charged with misdemeanor ethics violations. His no contest plea opens a new chapter in Ohio politics. Whether its roots in the stolen election of 2004 will be fully exposed in the mainstream media remains to be seen. But we will continue to do our best.

Bob Fitrakis is a Professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Columbus State Community College. He has a Ph.D in Political Science and a J.D. from The Ohio State University Law School. He is the author of seven books, an investigative reporter, and Editor of the Columbus Free Press freepress.org. He has won ten major investigative journalism awards including Best Coverage of Politics in Ohio from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. He served as an international election observer in the 1994 presidential elections in El Salvador and was the co-author and editor of the report to the United Nations. He served as legal advisor for eight polling locations on Columbus' Near East Side for the Election Protection Coalition.

Harvey Wasserman's HISTORY OF THE US is available via http://www.harveywasserman.com/ , along with A GLIMPSE OF THE BIG LIGHT: LOSING PARENTS, FINDING SPIRIT, and the upcoming SOLARTOPIA. He is co-editor, with Bob Fitrakis, of DID GEORGE W. BUSH STEAL AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION?

www.freepress.org

Archived  Leadaship Coverage of US elections 2004

Nicaragua and South Africa, not the US, should be the inspiration for Iraq’s constitution.

Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow of occupation. Whatever the parliamentarians in Iraq do to try to prevent total meltdown, their efforts are compromised by the fact that their power grows from the barrel of someone else’s gun. When George Bush picked up the phone last week to urge the negotiatiors to sign the constitution, he reminded Iraqis that their representatives – though elected – remain the administrators of his protectorate. While US and British troops stay in Iraq, no government there can make a undisputed claim to legitimacy. Nothing can be resolved in that country until our armies leave.

This is by no means the only problem confronting the people who drafted Iraq’s constitution. The refusal by the Shias and the Kurds to make serious compromises on federalism, which threatens to deprive the central, Sunni-dominated areas of oil revenues, leaves the Sunnis with little choice but to reject the agreement in October’s referendum. If this happens, the result could be civil war.

Can anything be done? It might now be too late. But it seems to me that the transitional assembly has one last throw of the dice. This is to abandon the constitution it has signed, and Bush’s self-serving timetable, and start again with a different democratic design.

The problem with the way the Iraqi constitution was produced is the problem afflicting almost all the world’s democratic processes. The deliberations were back-to-front. First the members of the constitutional committee, shut inside the Green Zone, argue over every dot and comma, then they present the whole thing (25 pages in English translation) to the people for a yes or no answer. The question and the answer are meaningless.

All politically conscious people, having particular interests and knowing that perfection in politics is impossible, will, on reading a complex document like this, see that it is good in some places and bad in others. They might recognise some articles as being bad for them but good for society as a whole; they might recognise others as being good or bad for almost everyone. What then does yes or no mean?

Let me be more precise. How, for example, could anyone agree with both these statements, from articles 2 and 19 respectively? “Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation: No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.” (In other words, the supreme authority in law is God.) “The judiciary is independent, with no power above it other than the law.”? (1)

Or both these, from articles 14 and 148? “Iraqis are equal before the law without discrimination because of sex, ethnicity, nationality, origin, colour, religion, sect, belief, opinion or social or economic status.” And “Members of the Presidential Council must … have left the dissolved party [the Ba’ath] at least 10 years before its fall if they were members in it.”?

Faced with such contradictions, no thoughtful elector can either wholly endorse or wholly reject this document.

Of course, this impossible choice is just what we would have confronted (but at ten times the length and a hundred times the complexity) had we been asked to vote on the European constitution. The yes or no question we would have been asked was just as stupid, and just as stupefying. It treats us like idiots and – because we cannot refine our responses – reduces us to idiots. But while for us it would have merely enhanced our sense of alienation from the European project, for the Iraqis, the meaninglessness of the question could be a matter of life and death. If there is not a widespread sense of public ownership of the country’s political processes, and a widespread sense that political differences can be meaningfully resolved by democratic means, this empowers those who seek to resolve them otherwise.

Last week George Bush, echoed in the Guardian by Clinton’s former intelligence adviser Philip Bobbitt,(2) compared the drafting process in Baghdad to the construction of the American constitution.(3) If they believe that the comparison commends itself to the people of Iraq, they are even more out of touch than I thought. But it should also be obvious that we now live in more sceptical times. When the US constitution was drafted, representative democracy was a radical and thrilling idea. Now it is an object of suspicion and even contempt, as people all over the world recognise that it allows us to change the management but not the firm. And one of the factors that have done most to engender public scepticism is the meaninglessness of the only questions we are ever asked. I read Labour’s manifesto before the last election, and found both good and bad in it. But whether I voted for or against, I had no means of explaining what I liked and what I didn’t.

Does it require much imagination to see the link between our choice of meaningless absolutes and the Manichean worldview our leaders have evolved? We must decide at elections whether they are right or wrong – about everything. Should we then be surprised when they start talking about good and evil, friend and foe, being with them or against them?

Almost two years ago, Troy Davis, a democracy engineering consultant, pointed out that if a constitutional process in Iraq was to engender trust and national commitment, it had to “promote a culture of democratic debate”.(4) Like Professor Vivien Hart of the University of Sussex, he argued that it should draw on the experiences of Nicaragua in 1986, where 100,000 people took part in townhall meetings reviewing the draft constitution, and of South Africa, where the public made two million submissions to the drafting process.(5) In both cases, the sense of public ownership this fostered accelarated the process of reconciliation. Not only is your own voice heard in these public discussions, but you must also hear other people’s. Hearing them, you are confronted with the need for compromise.

But when the negotiations are confined to the Green Zone’s black box, the Iraqis have no sense that the process belongs to them. Because they are not asked to participate, they are not asked to understand where other people’s interests lie, and to see how they might be accommodated. And when the whole thing goes belly up, it will be someone else’s responsibility. If Iraq falls apart over the next couple of years, it would not be unfair, among other factors, to blame the fact that Davis and Hart were ignored. For the people who designed its democratic processes, history stopped in 1787.

Deliberative democracy is not a panacea. You can have fake participatory processes just as you can have fake representative ones.(6) But it is hard to see why representation cannot be tempered by participation. Why should we be forbidden to choose policies, rather than just parties or entire texts? Can we not be trusted? If not, then what is the point of elections? The age of purely representative democracy is surely over. It is time the people had their say.

References

1. The translation I have used is the one published by the BBC, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/24_08_05_constit.pdf

2. Philip Bobbitt, 25th August 2005. How to ruin a milestone constitution. The Guardian.

3. Office of the Press Secretary, 24th August 2005. President Addresses Military Families, Discusses War on Terror.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050824.html

4. Troy Davis, 24th October 2003. A Better Plan B for Iraq: Democratic Constitution-Making. http://www.oneworld.net/article/view/71239/1/

5. Vivien Hart, July 2003. Democratic Constitution Making Special Report 107. United States Institute of Peace. http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr107.html

6. I document a spectacular case in chapter 3 of Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain.

George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain; as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man’s Land. He is an award winning  journalist, held visiting fellowships or professorships at universities, and writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper.

First published in the Guardian August 30, 2005. Courtesy of Monbiot

Free trade is in the news once again, this time because of the ongoing softwood lumber dispute with the United States. Politicians across Canada are growing increasingly frustrated with the process in that it appears there is little they can do to resolve the issue. But rather than focus on this one particular case, this may be a good time to question the whole rationale behind having a free-trade agreement with the United States.

It is primarily because of NAFTA that Canada does the bulk of its international trade with the United States. At the same time, Canada is trading less now, as a percentage of GDP, with the rest of the world than it did between Confederation and the beginning of the Depression.

In other words, in this purportedly global age, our economy is becoming more insular and continentalized. Supporters of free trade would say this is of little consequence, but, by relying so heavily on one country, we are exposing ourselves to a number of economic risks. The question we need to ask is whether these risks are worth it.

But first, the benefits. The reason Canada has so doggedly pursued a free-trade policy is because of the perceived advantages. Those who support NAFTA are loath to abrogate it, claiming it has benefited our economy tremendously since the inception of the Canada-U.S. free-trade agreement in 1989. But the evidence for this is not overwhelming. Yes, trade is up, but what we should really be interested in is economic growth.

this may be a good time to question the whole rationale behind having a free-trade agreement with the United States. As the United States continues to openly ignore various rulings handed down by NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, Canada might want to reconsider its position on free trade.

The 1990s turned out to be the slowest growing decade since the Depression. And while the economy has undergone respectable growth since 2000, the economy grew even faster in the 1950s and '60s, a period throughout which we traded relatively little. In short, there appears to be no relationship between free trade and economic growth.

Going back even further in our history, we find few reasons for embracing free trade. From 1879, when the protectionist National Policy was first introduced, to the inauguration of the FTA in 1989, Canada turned its back on free trade. Yet, with few exceptions, the economy flourished during this 110-year period. So there is little evidence historically that free trade is a necessary ingredient of a healthy economy.

Now for the risks. As the softwood lumber negotiations and the mad-cow scare Canadians have long been aware of the American tendency to play fast and loose with the rules, so it is difficult to understand why the day decided to introduce a deal that made us even more dependent on our southern neighbour. A free-trade agreement, Canadian negotiators had hoped, would tame the elephant. But those hopes have been trampled, as the elephant continues to act - quelle surprise! - like an elephant.

Besides the arbitrary closing of borders, there are additional risks involved with free trade that have recently come to light. The fact is, we are dependent on a currency market over which Canada - or, for that matter, anybody - has little control. The rise in the Canadian dollar over the past two years has meant that Canadian exports are becoming less competitive. It is precisely these currency fluctuations that have prompted the majority of countries in the European Union to adopt the euro.

But adopting the American dollar is no solution; it would restrain national sovereignty over monetary policy. Free trade also means that more of our products come from afar, making prices sensitive to the price of oil. Recent price increases in oil will surely result in higher prices for food as well as consumer products - which, in turn, will trigger inflation. And free trade and its associated dependence on transportation contribute to the deterioration of our environment. Last, if we gear all our energies toward one market and that market falters, ours will, too. So despite proclamations that no one loses when it comes to free trade, there are considerable risks involved.

In other words, with free trade, there is little to gain and something to lose. In light of this equation, we need to ask ourselves whether this policy is worth pursuing.

As the United States continues to openly ignore various rulings handed down by NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, Canada might want to reconsider its position on free trade. Retaliation by way of placing tariffs on American imports will prove futile. It is interesting to note that the only weapon we have in our arsenal in terms of compensation are more tariffs. In other words, a trade war - the very thing we tried to avoid in the first place.

So what can we do? An oft-mentioned option is to refocus on other markets such as Europe and Asia. Although this is preferable, this alternative still buys into the false promise that is free trade. Another option is to shift away from this free-trade obsession and focus on our own economy. Supporters of free trade warn that this can only end in disaster, but history shows that there is little reason to believe that our economy will suffer if we abandon this policy.! 

Peter Urmetzer is an associate professor of sociology at UBC Okanagan and author of Globalization Unplugged and From Free Trade to Forced Trade.

Source: Globe and Mail

The Western version of peace is overrated. The West would have us believe Israel made the ultimate sacrifice by “disengaging” from the Gaza Strip, putting “the ball in the Palestinian’s court.” But let’s look at the facts. Yes, Israel removed 8500 settlers and is dismantling their military posts in Gaza. Israel, however, still controls the ports, airspace and borders. Egypt may patrol the Philadelphi Corridor in the future, but Israel will retain supreme authority. Israel preserved “jurisdiction” over any person or product that comes in or out of Gaza, including medical supplies and other humanitarian goods. The electricity and water will also be turned on or off at the behest of Israel, but don’t go running to the border waving for help or you may be gunned down by the Israeli forces.   

What does peace entail for the Palestinian people?  Ariel Sharon reiterated that he will reinvade Gaza whenever he deems it “necessary,” and made known his plans for the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Sharon stated, “Each (Israeli) government since 1967 – right, left and national unity – has seen strategic importance in specific areas [beyond the Green Line]. I will build.” This blatant annexation goes well beyond U.N. Resolution 242 which calls on Israel to “withdraw from territories occupied.”

In March, Israel finalized plans to expand the Maale Adumim settlement by 3500 housing units. Crossing out any hopes for peace, Sharon reaffirmed this week “Ma'ale Adumim will continue to grow and be connected to Jerusalem.” This has been a main complaint of Palestinians since the beginning of settlement expansion. It is against international law, their rights as indigenous people of the land, and flies in the face of peace. Although the U.N. created Israel, Sharon shamelessly tramples on every U.N. resolution condemning excessive use of force, land grabs in the Occupied Territories, and maintaining a belligerent occupation.

Israel’s expanding Annexation Wall seeks to weave in and out of the East Jerusalem to make the region more “Jewish.” In an attempt to connect the two territories, Sharon is moving the Judea and Samaria police headquarters to an area between Maale Adumim and East Jerusalem. Israeli citizens, however, plan to take it a step further. The Bucharin Jewish community owns the property of the old police headquarters. A group of right-wing business men are looking to buy out the old property and turn it housing units. "We are doing everything we can to bring Jewish life back to all over east Jerusalem," said Daniel Luria, an Ateret Cohanim spokesman. The Ma'aleh Hazeitim complex located across from the police station is adding 119 housing units, while a dozen settlements in or around Arab neighbors are constructing more units. The “wonders of disengagement” overshadows these intricate maneuvers to expand and conquer the eastern half of the Holy City.

If the ball is in the Palestinian’s court, as the West avows, it seems it will be there for a while. "It is absolutely clear that, in the next three to four months, it is difficult to expect any dramatic developments in the peace process,” proclaimed Acting Finance Minister Ehud Olmert in a meeting with US secretary of State Condolezza Rice. Oddly enough, Olmert averted further talks of the US backed “roadmap to peace” to discuss a 2.1 billion dollar aid package for Israel—a nice sum that nearly equals the gross domestic product of the Occupied Territories in 2004.

Israel made it evident that reinvigorating the peace process is out of the question. Adding fuel to the fire, Sharon’s administration continues to blatantly disregard the 7 month old Sharm Al-Sheik cease-fire they agreed to. This week Israeli forces shot and killed five militants and wounded three others in an extrajudicial killing in the West Bank. Israel claims they were “connected” to the Tel Aviv bombing that killed four Israeli women, but eyewitnesses contend that the militants were unarmed and could have been arrested, no matter what the claimed connection. Ah yes, Israeli “democracy” at it’s finest.

Ariel Sharon does not want peace. It’s not in his strategic interests. The longer the cycle of violence continues, the more time Sharon has to approve new housing units, expand on outlines of the Annexation Wall that goes well beyond the 1949 armistice lines, and create Jewish majorities throughout Palestinian land

After the shooting Mahmood Abbas stated, "At a time when the Palestinian Authority is trying to maintain calm, this murder intentionally aims at renewing the vicious cycle of violence," The Palestinian population, including militants, stayed calm during the disengagement of Gaza, in accordance to the Sharm Al-Sheik cease-fire, as they said they would. Israel has taken the first provocative step in reengaging in the cycle of violence after the “disengagement.”

One fact ultimately remains: Ariel Sharon does not want peace. It’s not in his strategic interests. The longer the cycle of violence continues, the more time Sharon has to approve new housing units, expand on outlines of the Annexation Wall that goes well beyond the 1949 armistice lines, and create Jewish majorities throughout Palestinian land. The Western version of peace is simple, but unacceptable: let Israel continue its warmongering, the appropriating and occupying of Palestinian land, while the Palestinians sit idly by with a ball in their court and no one to play with.

Remi Kanazi is a Palestinian writer living in New York  City. He's the founder and primary writer of Poetic Injustice . 

For a background on occupied Palestine:   The Israeli state and the ultra-right settler movement by Jean Shaoul

The Bush administration may ratchet up the Iraq war.

That might seem unlikely, even farfetched. After all, the president is facing an upsurge of domestic opposition to the war. Under such circumstances, why would he escalate it?

A big ongoing factor is that George W. Bush and his top aides seem to believe in red-white-and-blue violence with a fervor akin to religiosity. For them, the Pentagon’s capacity to destroy is some kind of sacrament. And even if more troops aren’t readily available for duty in Iraq, huge supplies of aircraft and missiles are available to step up the killing from the air.

Back in the USA, while the growth of antiwar sentiment is apparent, much of the criticism -- especially what’s spotlighted in news media -- is based on distress that American casualties are continuing without any semblance of victory. In effect, many commentators see the problem as a grievous failure to kill enough of the bad guys in Iraq and sufficiently intimidate the rest.

(Bypassing the euphemisms preferred by many liberal pundits, George Will wrote in a Washington Post column on April 7, 2004, that “every door American troops crash through, every civilian bystander shot -- there will be many -- will make matters worse, for a while. Nevertheless, the first task of the occupation remains the first task of government: to establish a monopoly on violence.”)

A lot of what sounds like opposition to the war is more like opposition to losing the war. Consider how Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin concluded an Aug. 21 piece that disparaged Bush and his war policies. The column included eloquent, heartrending words from the mother of a Marine Corps Reserve member who died in Iraq early this year. And yet, the last quote from her was: “Tell us what it is going to take to win, Mr. Bush.” In a tag line, the columnist described it as a question “we all need an answer to.”

A lot of what sounds like opposition to the war is more like opposition to losing the war.

But some questions are based on assumptions that should be rejected -- and “What is it going to take to win?” is one of them. In Iraq, the U.S. occupation force can’t “win.” More importantly, it has no legitimate right to try.

While leveling harsh criticisms at the White House, many analysts fault Bush for the absence of victory on the horizon. A plaintive theme has become familiar: The president deceived us before the invasion and has made a botch of the war since then, so leadership that will turn this war around is now desperately needed and long overdue.

Some on Capitol Hill, like Democrat Joseph Biden and Republican John McCain in the Senate, want more U.S. troops sent to Iraq. Others have different messages. “We should start figuring out how we get out of there,” Chuck Hagel said on Aug. 21. He lamented: “By any standard, when you analyze two and a half years in Iraq ... we’re not winning.” But a tactical departure motivated by alarm that “we’re not winning” is likely to be very slow and very bloody.

In the Democratic Party’s weekly radio address over the weekend, former senator Max Cleland said that “it’s time for a strategy to win in Iraq or a strategy to get out.”

Cleland’s statement may have been focus-group tested, but it amounts to another permutation of what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” All the talk about the urgent need for a strategy to win in Iraq amounts to approval for more U.S. leadership in mass slaughter. And the United States government does not need a “strategy” to get out of Iraq any more than a killer needs a strategy to stop killing.

Criticism of the war because it isn’t being won leaves the door open for the Bush administration to sell the claim that -- with enough resolve and better military tactics -- the war can be vindicated. It’s time to close that door.

“It is time to stand back and look at where we are going,” independent journalist I. F. Stone wrote. “And to take a good look at ourselves. A first observation is that we can easily overestimate our national conscience. A major part of the protest against the war springs simply from the fact that we are losing it.” Those words appeared in mid-February 1968. American combat troops remained in Vietnam for another five years.

It matters why people are critical of the U.S. war effort in Iraq. If the main objections stem from disappointment that American forces are not winning, then the war makers in Washington retain the possibility of creating the illusion that they may yet find ways to make the war right.

Criticism of the war because it isn’t being won leaves the door open for the Bush administration to sell the claim that -- with enough resolve and better military tactics -- the war can be vindicated. It’s time to close that door.

China and Russia staged their first-ever joint military exercises over the past week. While the stated aim of “Peace Mission 2005” was to combat “terrorism, separatism and extremism”, there is no doubt that the war games stem from deep concerns in Moscow and Beijing over the aggressive policies of the Bush administration, especially in the Middle East and Central Asia.

China had wanted to hold the war games in Fujian province, directly opposite Taiwan, as a warning to the Taipei government. Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, has repeatedly warned that it will respond militarily to any moves towards formal independence. Joint exercises with Russia in Fujian would have sent a sharp message not only to Taipei, but also to Washington, which is committed to defending Taiwan against Chinese attack.

Russia initially proposed that the exercises be held in China’s western province of Xinjiang, close to the Central Asia, where both countries share common concerns about the growing US presence. In the end a compromise was reached. Wary about too openly supporting China over Taiwan, Moscow agreed to hold the exercises on the Shandong peninsula—well to the north of Fujian, but still on the Chinese coast.

As far as Beijing was concerned, the military exercises made the required point. Eight days of joint naval, air and troop manoeuvres culminated in a “live fire” exercise beginning yesterday that rehearsed a naval blockade, an amphibious landing and a forced evacuation. Given that all of the Central Asian republics are landlocked, the most obvious target of this imaginary UN mission was the island of Taiwan.

In all, nearly 10,000 troops were involved—7,000 from China and 1,800 from Russia. Moscow also used the opportunity to put its warships, submarines and aircraft on display, including the sophisticated TU-95 strategic bombers and TU-22 long-range bombers, which it is hoping to sell to the Chinese. Russian military sales to China, worth $2 billion annually, are a significant component of burgeoning trade between the two countries.

But the overriding considerations for China and Russia are strategic. During the Cold War, the Stalinist bureaucracies in the two countries were bitter rivals and came to blows in border clashes along with Amur River in 1969. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow and Beijing became increasingly concerned at the intervention of the US into the newly established, resource-rich Central Asian republics.

At Beijing’s initiative, the “Shanghai Five”—Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan—was established in 1996 to counter American influence in the region. Uzbekistan joined in June 2001 and the body became known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) with a permanent secretariat headquartered in Beijing.

The SCO has become the means for closer China-Russia cooperation, particularly after the US established military bases in Central Asia as part of its intervention into Afghanistan. Moscow and Beijing both regard Central Asia as their backyard and thus a region of vital strategic concern. For China, it is also a significant source of oil and gas to meet the country’s rapidly expanding energy demands.

Early last month the Chinese and Russian presidents met in Moscow and issued a statement entitled “World Order in the 21st Century”. While not mentioning Washington by name, it referred to the danger of “unilateralism”—a codeword for US global domination—and called for a greater role for the UN. The statement declared “mutual support on key issues like Taiwan and Chechnya” and for stability on the Korean peninsula.

Just days later, on July 5, the SCO meeting in Kazakhstan called for the US to set a timetable for the removal of its bases from Central Asia. While supporting the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism” in general terms, the grouping pointed out that the “active phase” of the Afghanistan intervention was over and called for the US to set a deadline for ending “the temporary use” of bases.

US officials rejected the suggestion and accused China and Russia of “bullying” the Central Asia republics. For Washington, Afghanistan was simply a convenient pretext for establishing a military presence in a key strategic area of the globe—what was previously part of the Soviet Union. The US reacted to the SCO statement by promptly bringing its own pressure to bear.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew to Kyrgyzstan in late July and extracted assurances from the government that US troops could stay for as long as was needed to stabilise Afghanistan. He also obtained guarantees from Tajikistan that US warplanes would continue to enjoy overflight rights. Uzbekistan, however, has given the Pentagon a deadline of 180 days to pull out from its Karshi-Khanabad air base.

All of the SCO members are concerned about US political intrigues in Central Asia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. So-called “colour” revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan have resulted in regimes that are generally more sympathetic to Washington. Concerned that his regime may be next, Uzbek President Islam Karimov reacted angrily to US criticisms of his crackdown on protesters in May.

Coming in the aftermath of the SCO summit, the joint Russian-Chinese military exercises are aimed at presenting a united front against potential US interference and intervention. Significantly all of the SCO’s Central Asian members were invited to send observers to watch the war games. Moscow and Beijing clearly regard closer military relations as an initial step towards a broader strategic alliance.

At a joint press conference in Vladivostok, Russian Colonel General Yurii Baluyevskii emphasised that China occupied “a key position” in Russian foreign and strategic policy. He stated that the war games were designed to ensure the readiness of both militaries “to counter the challenges we face today in the Asia-Pacific region and in the world as a whole.”

Official US reaction has been low-key. US Admiral Gary Roughead told Associated Press last week: “We are very interested in the exercise, we’re interested in the types of things that they’ll do.” The Pentagon sent two spy planes and two warships to the area to gather information. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack added a note of warning: “We would hope that anything that they [Russia and China] do is not something that would be disruptive to the current atmosphere in the region.”

There is no doubt, however, that Washington views the prospect of a Russia-China alliance as a potential threat. The US already has formal military alliances with Japan and South Korea and substantial US bases in North East Asia. Some 10,000 US personnel are currently engaged in two weeks of joint war games with an unspecified number of South Korean troops aimed at reviewing their ability to counter North Korea.