Our Saturday Snapshot - Trans Texas Corridor
Lest there's any misconception about it ....
h/t InfoWars
24 February 2007
A Sunni-Shia History Lesson
A split that is 1,300 years old
By BARBARA KARKABI
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
A dispute about who should lead Islam after Muhammad died ultimately split the faith into two branches, the Sunnis and the Shias.
The young Muslim community faced a pivotal decision after the prophet's death early in the seventh century in what is now Saudi Arabia.
The "Meccan elite" wanted to pick a successor according to their tribal customs, with candidates drawn from a handful of elders, said Juan Cole, an expert on modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan. "The people who rose on their list tended to be intermarried with (the prophet's) family, but not directly related."
Two hundred miles north in Medina, where Muhammad had settled after he left Mecca, a more dynastic view favored a blood relative of the religion's founder. The closest male relative was Ali, Muhammad's first cousin and son-in-law.
The Meccans prevailed, and Abu Bakr, the prophet's father-in-law, became the first caliph, or head of Islam. Ali became the fourth caliph in 656, but the question of who should rule rose again after his assassination five years later.
A relative of the third caliph became the next leader, and he moved the caliphate to Damascus, Syria.
About this time Muslims who had been followers of Ali objected to what they saw as a shift away from Muhammad's teachings. The people of Kufa, in what is now Iraq, called on Ali's second son, Hussein, to lead them.
Hussein and 72 people, including his family, ultimately faced the caliph's army of thousands in the fields of Karbala. Cole said they were surrounded and killed.
Shias believe Hussein, the prophet's grandson, sacrificed his life for Islam, a concept scholars refer to as the "Karbala paradigm." It explains lingering feelings of persecution and martyrdom and a desire to fight perceived injustices.
The sectarian character of the Sunni-Shia split, Cole said, became firm after Hussein's death in 680. The Sunnis continued to follow the caliphate for several centuries. The Shias looked only to Hussein's descendants for religious leadership.
Ali, Hussein and their descendants became known as the 12 Imams, who are considered infallible by their followers.
After the 11th imam died in the ninth century, followers believed his young son went into hiding. Since then Shias, also known as the Twelvers, have waited for the 12th imam's return.
"It's a little like Christ for the Christians," Cole said. "They believe he will return and make things better."
Read the rest here.
Turning in the Wind on the Baathists
Let's be perfectly clear - the de-Baathification policy was one instituted in the period immediately following the takeover of Iraq by the US government in the form of the Coalition Provisional Authority. This is not a policy that originated with any Iraqi authority. It is clear, however, that in the circumstances it serves Maliki perfectly well. Let's just be certain we understand that the de-Baathification policy is one of George Bush's virtually infinite list of fuck-ups in the entire prosecution of this immoral, illegal, unconscionable visitation of violence upon the people of Iraq. What the administration now advocates is a 180-degree reversal of their original position.
This seems to be clear evidence that BushCo had no conception of what they were doing in Iraq to begin with. The depth of understanding of the existing politics, culture and religion has been repeatedly shown to be remarkably shallow. We said once previously that the administration should be indicted for incompetence. This is just another in the long list of examples of that trait.
Iraqi allies, U.S. split on Baathist policy
By Paul Richter, Times Staff Writer
February 24, 2007
WASHINGTON — Serious new divisions have emerged between the Bush administration and its Iraqi allies over the Baghdad government's refusal to enact a reform that the White House considers crucial to its new strategy for bringing the country's violence under control.
In spite of a commitment by Iraq's prime minister to its passage, legislation that would ease rules barring former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from government service has been blocked by the country's Shiite-dominated parliament.
U.S. officials repeatedly have expressed confidence that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki would work for passage of "de-Baathification" reform. However, they have begun to express disappointment over the Iraqi stalemate, saying that the reform remains a top political priority and is essential to convince the country's Sunni minority that it can receive fair treatment in the new system.
One U.S. official said the reform, far from advancing as promised, was "moving backward" and "almost dead in the water."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and State Department official David Satterfield, her top Iraq advisor, paid an unannounced visit to Baghdad last weekend for consultations with top Iraqi officials. But on this issue, aides said, they came away discouraged.
Read the rest of it here.
Juan Cole on Ammar al-Hakim's Detention
From Informed Comment
Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that al-Hakim complained of being hooded and treated roughly while in US custody. Al-Zaman says that al-Hakim's cell phone eas confiscated, and hints broadly that the real reason for the arrest was to get access to his telephone records and the documents he had with him. The US suspects the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq of getting aid from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and Washington wants it stopped.
Al-Zaman provides two other interesting but unconfirmed narratives. One is that al-Hakim's party came under fire as they entered Iraq near Kut and one or two of his guards were actually killed. The paper also reports an allegation that the US in arresting al-Hakim was acting on a tip from the Sadr Movement of Muqtada al-Sadr, which is popular in the Kut region and is a rival of the al-Hakims.
In contrast, al-Hayat reports that the US may have been hoping that the convoy coming from Iran was that of Muqtada al-Sadr, whom they have determined to arrest. In that case, the incident would be a case of mistaken identity.
Al-Hakim says his guards were abused and still have not been released. US military sources say that they were following procedure in verifying his identity, since passports can be forged, and that the issue had to go to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for resolution since the latter had prohibited lower-level officials from just releasing detainees.
I am unconvinced by this explanation, since there was not good reason to doubt al-Hakim's passport, and it can't have taken 12 hours to call al-Maliki. There is also the question of why US troops were even in the area, since it is a Polish sphere of operations. They had to have come over for some specific purpose. The likelihood is that it was an intelligence operation of some sort.
The incident, which produced a small demonstration in Basra and a lot of bad feeling among Iraqi Shiites, demonstrates the dangers of Bush's cowboy policies in Iraq, such that he recently urged suspected Iranian agents be shot on sight. If Ammar had been killed instead of arrested for 12 hours, there would have been hell to pay.
The same al-Zaman article says that the security plan in Baghdad has been altered because of guerrillas increasing successes in shooting down US helicopters, and their recent use of attacks on chlorine gas trucks. Without as much chopper support, and facing the possibility of being gassed, US and Iraqi troops have been forced to change their tactics (obviously, the details are not specified).
Read it here.
Report from Berlin - D. MacBryde
So, along with Steves work out and about in Oklahoma, now Doyle is not only reelected but has joined the Maryland state environment commission. Hummm. Could this signal the development of a "movement"?
As I mentioned earlier, here in Berlin a bunch of us Americans looked at the "inconvenient truth" film -- and our next film night may be "The Corporation". (About what a "corporation" is.) Here, as you might imagine, the content of the gore film is not so new -- even the arch conservatives in Bavaria are seeing the glaciers in their back yard, in the Alps, melt. And corporations here, at least all large ones, are required not only to recognize unions, but have union representatives on the board. The question is decision-making in the corporations, and inside the economy, in addition to narrow wage, health and safety, and retirement issues. It is now a broad consensus here that, "of course", economic activity, and decisions about economic activity, affect social justice and our environment. The recent German federal elections involved such issues.
I had promised to write some about the recent German elections and developments here. Sorry I'm a bit slow getting my act together to do that. The short version is that the "neo-liberals" lost. That does not get us to "the end of history", or into a utopia (yet, ho ho ho) but the beginning of interesting times here. Also on the city and state level -- Berlin is a "city-state". With a red-red coalition (social democrats and democratic socialists. And a strong German green party. The conservatives are around 20 percent.) The Berlin coalition partners recently agreed on a "Berlin Agenda for the 21st Century" -- as the guideline for political decisions on city/state issues. That is being translated into English. The process of getting that done was also interesting, very interesting. A number of "roundtables" (Berlin, with 3.5 million folks, is a bit big for "town meetings".) With focus on the interactions between economic, social and environmental aspects of the kind of future people here in Berlin want getting on into this century. (On the federal level the issues of peace and security are of course significant -- one consideration is migration -- some bad-case calculations indicate a potential need for 300 million people in the desertification areas in Africa who will need to move in the next few decades. One result, this week, of current work on the federal German level has been to add an agenda item to the G8 meeting in June, that will be held on the German north coast, to invite the African Union. It will be hot inside, and maybe outside, the meeting. (If the US does not attack Iran in the meantime, if so then all bets are off.)
On one pleasant local note, there was some pleasure here in Berlin a week or so ago as reps from US and North Korea actually met. As had been "urged". And there now seems to be some positive potential for resolutions in divided Korea. (After the Berlin Wall came down Koreans showed up to look at German reunification. Unfortunately the official "sunshine" policy of the South Korean government, to improve relations with the North with a view to eventual (not easy) reunification, and in the near term a nuclear free peninsula, had been blocked since the beginning of the bush mess--until the meeting here last week.) Anyway --- I will try to get something into bloggable form at some point -- In the meantime -- for things from here, keep an eye open for the G8 meeting in Germany in June, and for "Live Earth" day on July 7th.
David MacBryde
Movement for a Democratic Society - A. Embree
I expected the meeting to be more participatory. After all, what is participatory democracy for? Perhaps that was also the motivation of the Haber contingent, but they did not further their position by barking from the back about Robert's Rules of Order. Most importantly, the younger generation SDSers were rolling their eyes and burying their heads in their hands. When the SDSers addressed us a panel, they advised us that if we did not learn to play nice, we would be of no value to them.
In the morning: Thomas Good gave a run down on SDS activities since February 2006. 46 High School chapters, 140 university chapters; 50 MDS/SDS chapters; 2 in Germany. Mark Rudd spoke, very self critical about his role in dismantling SDS and advocating violence. Manning Marable spoke eloquently and stayed throughout. A student panel spoke. They had a lot of enthusiasm, were clear about their needs, wanted to have Action Camps this summer to cross train on facilitation skills, were clear about their needs from us (money, networking "social capital"). At lunch, I visited with Mark Rudd (who I hadn't seen since 1968) and his wife Marla. In the afternoon, Barbara Ehrenreich spoke and left. Then, Judith Malina of the Living Theater, a very theatrical anarchist, spoke. Then, there was a structured Board meeting. Interrupted again by the loud advocates for Al Haber as president, but after the yelling subsided, the meeting continued.
The meeting was about setting up a Board structure for MDS, Inc. It was not a venue for memberhsip dialogue. Manning Marable was elected chair. All attending Board nominees were ratified; Al Haber was added from the floor as a Board member; then the Board members present ratified the longer list. From a democratic point of view, it was like being in a room watching a Board meeting with little discussion.
I introduced myself to Manning and gave him greetings from Glenn Scott in Austin who he knows well from DSA. Later, I told Manning that I had expected open discussion. I was most interested in how to form a chapter, what was working in different areas, the MDS relationship with SDS, etc. He said that he hoped they could handle some of this through conference calls to areas. I find him to be an inspirational thinker; I'm glad that he is involved; I have reason to trust him from his long stint in DSA, etc. At dinner, David and Sally Hamilton and I (the Texans) went off to dinner at Katz's with Mark, Marla, Thomas Good, Starhawk, the lawyer who had incorporated MDS, and some others. This was an opportunity to have some dialogue with Thomas Good and others about organizing.
I came back with membership cards and buttons. We received a message from a student who wants to form an SDS chapter here. I think it is worth forming an "MDS Exploratory Committee" in Austin. SDS and MDS have always defined themselves at the chapter level within the broad outlines of Port Huron, participatory democracy, and direct action. I don't have illusions that things are perfect at the national level, but I know that the local scene can benefit from a non-sectarian, multi-issue organizing effort. When David and Sally return, we can follow up on this idea.
In solidarity,
Alice Embree
23 February 2007
Describing Paradise
Hugo Chavez's Social Democratic Agenda
By Stephen Lendman
02/23/07 "ICH" -- -- Hugo Chavez Frias was reelected by an overwhelming nearly two to one margin over his only serious rival on December 3, 2006 giving him a mandate to proceed with his agenda to build a socialist society in the 21st century on a Bolivarian model designed to meet the needs of the current era in Venezuela and Latin America overall. Chavez first announced his intentions on January 30, 2005 at the Fifth World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and his people affirmed they want him to proceed with it in his new term to run until December, 2012.
Chavez wants to build a humanistic democratic society based on solidarity and respect for political, economic, social and cultural human and civil rights, but not the top-down bureaucratic kind that doomed the Soviet Union and Eastern European states. He said he wants to build a "new socialism of the 21st century....based in solidarity, fraternity, love, justice, liberty and equality" as opposed to the neoliberal new world order model based on predatory capitalism exploiting ordinary people for power and profit that's incompatible with democracy. Newly appointed Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte expressed Washington's concern about the challenge to its hegemony in his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing saying Chavez's "behavior is threatening to democracies in the region (because he exports a form of) radical populism." He didn't mention how glorious it is.
He also never explained Venezuelans voted for it and love it and so do people throughout the region wanting what Venezuelans now have. Since first taking office in February, 1999, Chavez radically transformed the country from one of power and privilege to a participatory democracy governed by principles of political, economic and social equity and justice. He now wants to advance his social democratic agenda well into the new century, and his landslide electoral victory empowers him more than ever to do it. Like a true democrat, he intends to serve his people and deliver what they asked for.
Chavez began his new term with the formation of a new unity party called the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to "construct socialism from below," built "from the base" in communities, patrols, battalions, squadrons, neighborhoods "to carry out the battle of ideas for the socialist project (to) build Venezuelan socialism." He wants it to be an "original Venezuelan model" to become the most democratic in Venezuela's history and include a coalition of many smaller parties along with his former Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR) party that completed its work and "must now pass into history."
In December, 23 parties joined with the MVR to reelect Chavez, including three major ones that can add strength and credibility to the PSUV - For Social Democracy (PODEMOS), Homeland For All (PPT), and the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV). The inclusion of all or most allied parties in the new PSUV will be a step toward building a foundational unity to address the agenda ahead - building 21st century socialism using state revenues to benefit people in new and innovative ways. Chavez wants to reform the constitution, eliminate a two-term presidential limit, and institute new progressive changes giving more power to people at the grass roots the way democracy should work.
He also wants to transform the country's economic model believing it's "fundamental (to do) if we wish to build a true socialism (therefore) we must socialize the economy (including the land and create) a new productive model." He wants all proposed changes submitted to popular referendum so Venezuelans decide on them, not politicians. That's how it should be in a participatory democracy from the bottom up Chavez says must "transcend the local framework (to achieve) "a sort of regional federation of Communal Councils." There are 16,000 of them already organized across the country dealing with local issues, each with 200 - 400 families, and that number is expected to grow to 21,000 by year end 2007. "They are the key to peoples' power," Chavez stressed, and he sees them as the embryo of a new state driven by the PSUV.
Communal Councils are central to Chavez's plan for people empowerment. They were created in April, 2006 with the passage of the Communal Council Law. Once fully in place and operational, they'll represent true participatory democracy unimaginable in the US now governed from the top down by authoritarian rule allowing no deviation from established policies people have no say on and often don't know exist.
Councils work the opposite way. They're to deal with all community issues in local umbrella groups addressing matters of health, education, agriculture, housing and all other functions handled up to now by Social Missions and Urban Land Committees. They represent grass roots democracy in action giving them muscle and meaning and are administered by the Intergovernmental Fund for Decentralization that will distribute $5 billion to them in 2007 or more than triple the $1.5 billion allocated in 2006. Additionally, Chavez hopes $7 billion more will be put in the Venezuelan National Development Fund for industrial development use.
[snip]
These are dramatic examples of two nations going opposite ways. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez supports free expression, social democracy, and using state revenues to insure and improve both. In the US, both parties support wealth and power, are jointly running a criminal enterprise masquerading as legitimately elected government, scorn the law and constitutional freedoms, are heading the country toward despotism in a national security police state conducting wars without end, and want to rule the world including its oil-rich parts inside Venezuela's borders.
In Venezuela, people live freely in peace and their lives are enhanced. In the US they're threatened by state-sponsored terrorism and harsh repression against anyone challenging state power. The majority finds its welfare eroding under a system of authoritarian rule keeping a restive population in line it fears one day no longer will tolerate being denied essential services so the country's resources can be used for imperial wars, tax cuts for the rich and outrageous corporate welfare subsidies for boardroom allies in turn supplying politicians with limitless cash amounts in a continuing cycle of each side feeding the other so they benefit at our expense with growing numbers left out entirely now suffering terrible neglect and abuse. If able to choose, imagine what type government and leader they'd want. Venezuelans have it under Hugo Chavez and are blessed for it. It's about time Americans got treated as well.
Read all of it here.
Stopping the Iraq War Through Peaceful Action
MARCH 12 ENCAMPMENT TO STOP THE WAR
By CALL TO ACTION
Feb 23, 2007, 13:23
Editor's Note: Axis of Logic Endorses the Encampment to Stop the War and we plan to be there from March 12 forward. The slaughter in Iraq continues while the Democrats play with words. Take your stand with us this form of Resistance during the week of March 12, 2007. - Axis of Logic Editors
MARCH 12
Encampment
to
STOP the WAR
New! - For daily updates on the Encampment to Stop the War, go to the Encampment blog at encampmenttostopthewar.blogspot.com
Congress is about to vote on Bush's request for another $245 billion to continue the war against the people of Iraq.
Congress has the Constitutional authority and the moral obligation to stop the war. They cannot hide behind "non-binding resolutions" and press conferences where they criticize the President while promising to continue to fund the war.
The politicians will not stop the war unless we force them to stop it.
We are calling on everyone who can to join us in Washington for an
Encampment to Stop the War, beginning on March 12.
On that day, activists from all over the country will assemble at Congress and demand that they cut off all war funds and bring the troops home now.
Veterans, military families, clergy and religious communities, labor groups and others are all planning to participate with their own creative actions.
Youth organizations are planning direct action throughout the time of the encampment.
We have the opportunity to force the war to end if we act decisively.
How you can get involved:
* Volunteer - Let us know when you will be at the encampment and for how long, what tasks you can help with, and how you can help prepare. Do you have tents, sleeping bags, and other equipment that can be used?
* Get the word out - download leaflets and get them out in your school, union hall, church or mosque, community center, etc.
* Come to Washington on or after March 12
* Donate to help with the expenses of organizing and maintaining an encampment.
Click here for more information.
So Many Things to Fix, It's Hard to Know Where to Start
Dump the U.S. Congress!
By David D. Kirkpatrick and editorial comment
Feb 23, 2007, 14:06
Editor's Note: The author identifies the most obvious problem facing the people of the United States in the corporate government: corporate influence in government decision-making. He also identifies a slew of lobby groups who have Senators and House Members feeding at their troughs. We find it interesting that neither he nor NYT finds room in this analysis to identify the most powerful lobby of all: American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Here's how Wikipedia describes APAIC:"The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a special interest group that lobbies the United States Government in favor of maintaining a close US-Israel relationship. Describing itself as "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," it is a mass-membership organization including both Jews and non-Jews. AIPAC was formed during the Eisenhower administration, and since then has helped increase American aid and support to Israel. In 1997, Fortune magazine asked Congressmen to rank the "25 most powerful" lobbying organizations in DC. In 2005, the National Journal did the same. Both times, AIPAC came in 2nd - ahead of, for instance, the AFL-CIO and the NRA, but behind the AARP. In 2001, it came in 4th on the Fortune list, cementing its reputation for effectiveness."
Join us during the week of March 12 for the Encampment to Stop the War when we confront Congress and demand an immediate end to the US war on the people of Iraq. - Les Blough, Editor
Congress Finds Ways to Avoid Lobbyist Limits
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: February 11, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 — The 110th Congress opened with the passage of new rules intended to curb the influence of lobbyists by prohibiting them from treating lawmakers to meals, trips, stadium box seats or the discounted use of private jets.
But it did not take long for lawmakers to find ways to keep having lobbyist-financed fun.
In just the last two months, lawmakers invited lobbyists to help pay for a catalog of outings: lavish birthday parties in a lawmaker’s honor ($1,000 a lobbyist), martinis and margaritas at Washington restaurants (at least $1,000), a California wine-tasting tour (all donors welcome), hunting and fishing trips (typically $5,000), weekend golf tournaments ($2,500 and up), a Presidents’ Day weekend at Disney World ($5,000), parties in South Beach in Miami ($5,000), concerts by the Who or Bob Seger ($2,500 for two seats), and even Broadway shows like “Mary Poppins” and “The Drowsy Chaperone” (also $2,500 for two).
The lobbyists and their employers typically end up paying for the events, but within the new rules.
Instead of picking up the lawmaker’s tab, lobbyists pay a political fund-raising committee set up by the lawmaker. In turn, the committee pays the legislator’s way.
Lobbyists and fund-raisers say such trips are becoming increasingly popular, partly as a quirky consequence of the new ethics rules.
By barring lobbyists from mingling with a lawmaker or his staff for the cost of a steak dinner, the restrictions have stirred new demand for pricier tickets to social fund-raising events.
Lobbyists say that the rules might even increase the volume of contributions flowing to Congress from K Street, where many lobbying firms have their offices.
Some lawmakers acknowledge that some fund-raising trips resemble the lobbyist-paid junkets that Congress voted to prohibit.
Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said its leaders had decided to stop holding fund-raising events for lobbyists with political action committees because of the seeming inconsistency.
So the committee canceled its annual Colorado ski weekend for lobbyists and lawmakers to raise money for the next campaign. Gone, too, is its Maryland hunting trip with Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, the avid hunter who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
But other Congressional party campaign committees have not stopped their events, including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s annual Nantucket weekend for donors who contribute $25,000. And individual lawmakers are still playing host to plenty of events themselves.
Read all of it here.
An Example of Democracy at Work in the Middle East
Net blogger gets four years' jail for 'insults'
ALAA SHAHINE IN ALEXANDRIA
AN EGYPTIAN blogger was jailed for four years yesterday after being convicted of insulting Islam and Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak.
Abdel Karim Suleiman, 22, a former law student, was the first blogger to stand trial in Egypt for his internet writings. He was charged in connection with eight articles written since 2004.
Rights groups and opposition bloggers said they feared it could set a legal precedent, limiting internet freedom in Egypt.
Amnesty International said: "This is yet another slap in the face of freedom of expression in Egypt." It added that it considered Suleiman to be a prisoner of conscience, jailed for peacefully expressing his opinion.
The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders said the sentence was "a disgrace" and the UN should disqualify Egypt from hosting an internet governance forum in 2009.
Read the rest here.
Yikes
h/t Black Listed News
May Justice FInally Prevail
The US psychological torture system is finally on trial
Naomi Klein
Friday February 23, 2007
The Guardian
Something remarkable is going on in a Miami courtroom. The cruel methods US interrogators have used since September 11 to "break" prisoners are finally being put on trial. This was not supposed to happen. The Bush administration's plan was to put José Padilla on trial for allegedly being part of a network linked to international terrorists. But Padilla's lawyers are arguing that he is not fit to stand trial because he has been driven insane by the government.
Arrested in May 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare airport, Padilla, a Brooklyn-born former gang member, was classified as an "enemy combatant" and taken to a navy prison in Charleston, South Carolina. He was kept in a cell 9ft by 7ft, with no natural light, no clock and no calendar. Whenever Padilla left the cell, he was shackled and suited in heavy goggles and headphones. Padilla was kept under these conditions for 1,307 days. He was forbidden contact with anyone but his interrogators, who punctured the extreme sensory deprivation with sensory overload, blasting him with harsh lights and pounding sounds. Padilla also says he was injected with a "truth serum", a substance his lawyers believe was LSD or PCP.
According to his lawyers and two mental health specialists who examined him, Padilla has been so shattered that he lacks the ability to assist in his own defence. He is convinced that his lawyers are "part of a continuing interrogation program" and sees his captors as protectors. In order to prove that "the extended torture visited upon Mr Padilla has left him damaged", his lawyers want to tell the court what happened during those years in the navy brig. The prosecution strenuously objects, maintaining that "Padilla is competent" and that his treatment is irrelevant.
The US district judge Marcia Cooke disagrees. "It's not like Mr Padilla was living in a box. He was at a place. Things happened to him at that place." The judge has ordered several prison employees to testify on Padilla's mental state at the hearings, which began yesterday. They will be asked how a man who is alleged to have engaged in elaborate anti-government plots now acts, in the words of brig staff, "like a piece of furniture".
It's difficult to overstate the significance of these hearings. The techniques used to break Padilla have been standard operating procedure at Guantánamo Bay since the first prisoners arrived five years ago. They wore blackout goggles and sound-blocking headphones and were placed in extended isolation, interrupted by strobe lights and heavy metal music. These same practices have been documented in dozens of cases of "extraordinary rendition" carried out by the CIA, as well as in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Many have suffered the same symptoms as Padilla. According to James Yee, a former army Muslim chaplain at Guantánamo, there is an entire section of the prison called Delta Block for detainees who have been reduced to a delusional state. "They would respond to me in a childlike voice, talking complete nonsense. Many of them would loudly sing childish songs, repeating the song over and over." All the inmates of Delta Block were on 24-hour suicide watch.
Human Rights Watch has exposed a US-run detention facility near Kabul known as the "prison of darkness" - tiny pitch-black cells, strange blaring sounds. "Plenty lost their minds," one former inmate recalled. "I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and the doors."
These standard mind-breaking techniques have never faced scrutiny in an American court because the prisoners in the jails are foreigners and have been stripped of the right of habeas corpus - a denial that, scandalously, was just upheld by a federal appeals court in Washington DC. There is only one reason Padilla's case is different - he is a US citizen. The administration did not originally intend to bring Padilla to trial, but when his status as an enemy combatant faced a supreme court challenge, the administration abruptly changed course, charging Padilla and transferring him to civilian custody. That makes Padilla's case unique - he is the only victim of the post-9/11 legal netherworld to face an ordinary US trial.
Read all of it here.
Assessing the Poodle's "Success" Story
Revealed: The true extent of Britain's failure in Basra
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 23 February 2007
The partial British military withdrawal from southern Iraq announced by Tony Blair this week follows political and military failure, and is not because of any improvement in local security, say specialists on Iraq.
In a comment entitled "The British Defeat in Iraq" the pre-eminent American analyst on Iraq, Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, asserts that British forces lost control of the situation in and around Basra by the second half of 2005.
Mr Cordesman says that while the British won some tactical clashes in Basra and Maysan province in 2004, that "did not stop Islamists from taking more local political power and controlling security at the neighbourhood level when British troops were not present". As a result, southern Iraq has, in effect, long been under the control of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the so-called "Sadrist" factions.
Mr Blair said for three years Britain had worked to create, train and equip Iraqi Security Forces capable of taking on the security of the country themselves. But Mr Cordesman concludes: "The Iraqi forces that Britain helped create in the area were little more than an extension of Shia Islamist control by other means."
The British control of southern Iraq was precarious from the beginning. Its forces had neither experience of the areas in which they were operating nor reliable local allies. Like the Americans in Baghdad, they failed to stop the mass looting of Basra on the fall of Saddam Hussein and never established law and order.
American and British officials never appeared to take on board the unpopularity of the occupation among Shia as well as Sunni Iraqis. Mr Blair even denies that the occupation was unpopular or a cause of armed resistance. But from the fall of Saddam Hussein, mounting anger against it provided an environment in which bigoted Sunni insurgents and often criminal Shia militias could flourish.
The British forces had a lesson in the dangers of provoking the heavily armed local population when six British military police were killed in Majar al-Kabir on 24 June 2003. During the uprising of Mehdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr in 2004, British units were victorious in several bloody clashes in Amara, the capital of Maysan province.
But in the elections in January 2005, lauded by Mr Blair this week, Sciri became the largest party in Basra followed by Fadhila, followers of the Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, the father of Muqtada al-Sadr. The latter's supporters became the largest party in Maysan.
Mr Cordesman says the British suffered political defeat in the provincial elections of 2005, and lost at the military level in autumn of the same year when increased attacks meant they they could operate only through armoured patrols. Much-lauded military operations, such as "Corrode" in May 2006, did not alter the balance of forces.
[snip]
In other words, British soldiers have stayed and died in southern Iraq, and will continue to do so, because Mr Blair finds it too embarrassing to end what has become a symbolic presence and withdraw them.
Read all of it here.
Just Another War Crime
Bring Bush and his bastards to the dock in the Hague.
Violating Iraqi Women
Yifat Susskind
February 22, 2007
Yifat Susskind is communications director of MADRE , an international women's human rights organization. She is the author of a new report on violence against women in U.S.-occupied Iraq.
The international news media is flooded with images of a woman in a pink headscarf recounting a shattering experience of rape by members of the Iraqi National Police. Most of the media coverage has focused on her taboo-breaking decision to speak publicly about the assault, but has missed two crucial points for understanding—and combating—sexual violence by Iraqi police recruits.
As Iraqi women’s organizations have documented, sexualized torture is a routine horror in Iraqi jails. While this woman may be the first Iraqi rape survivor to appear on television, she is hardly the first to accuse the Iraqi National Police of sexual assault. At least nine Iraqi organizations as well as Amnesty International, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq and the Brussels Tribunal have documented the sexualized torture of Iraqi women while in police custody. These include Women’s Will, Occupation Watch, the Women’s Rights Association , the Iraqi League, the Iraqi National Association of Human Rights, the Human Rights’ Voice of Freedom, the Association of Muslim Scholars, the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Iraqi National Media and Culture Organization.
According to Iraqi human rights advocate and writer Haifa Zangana, the first question asked of female detainees in Iraq is, “Are you Sunni or Shia?” The second is, “Are you a virgin?”
[snip]
t’s no surprise that we’re hearing allegations of rape against the Iraqi National Police, considering who trained them. DynCorp, the private contractor that the Bush Administration hired to prepare Iraq’s new police force for duty, has an ugly record of violence against women. The company was contracted by the federal government in the 1990s to train police in the Balkans. Human Rights Watch reports that DynCorp employees were found to have systematically committed sex crimes against women, including “owning” young women as slaves . One DynCorp site supervisor videotaped himself raping two women. Despite evidence, the contractors never faced criminal charges.
Contrary to its rhetoric and its international legal obligations, the Bush Administration has refused to protect women’s rights in Iraq. In fact, it has decisively traded women’s rights for cooperation from the Islamists it has helped boost to power. Torture of women in detention is one symptom of this broader crisis.
Read all of it here.
Bringing Democracy to the Middle East
If the Yanks keep this up, we may have to make "Bringing Democracy to the Middle East" a regular, (almost) daily feature.
US Forces Storm Newspaper Office
In the second raid on an Iraqi press building in less than 72 hours, US forces stormed the offices of the newspaper al-Da`wa today, located in the Wazariyah area of Baghdad.
Al-Da’wa is associated with the Islamic Da`wa Party, the Shi`a party whose deputy leader is the Iraqi PM Nuri Maliki.
Ali Laftih Abbas, editorial secretary of the paper, said that the “American forces came suddenly, storming the building and smashing furniture and other contents.” Abbas added that the Americans detained everyone in the building, including journalists, administrators and security guards, and confiscated the guards' weapons. The women, including four female journalists were released after being interrogated for a number of hours separately from the men, but the Americans continued to detain the remaining employees in the building, Aswat al-Iraq reported in Arabic.
Abbas criticized the position of the Iraqi government, which has not issued a statement condemning the raid.
The raid took place less than 72 hours after American troops stormed the headquarters of the Iraqi Journalists’ Syndicate in the capital, during which time five security guards were arrested and equipment confiscated. As reported by IraqSlogger yesterday, Iraqi journalists demonstrated on Wednesday against the raid on the syndicate, demanding that the government investigate.
Read the rest here.
The US Must Follow Suit to Remain a Democracy
We must reverse the Military Commissions Act, the Patriot Act, and the other provisions that this administration has enacted in contravention of the fundamental principles of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Top court rules against security certificates
Last Updated: Friday, February 23, 2007 | 6:20 PM ET
CBC News
The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down the security certificate system used by the federal government to detain and deport foreign-born terrorist suspects.
In a 9-0 judgment handed down Friday, the court found that the system, described by the government as a key tool for safeguarding national security, violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The high court gave Parliament one year to re-write the law that's keeping three men at the centre of the case in legal limbo.
The system was challenged on constitutional grounds by three men — Algerian-born Mohamed Harkat, Moroccan-born Adil Charkaoui and Syrian native Hassan Almrei, who have all denied having ties to al-Qaeda and other such groups.
"It's a very good decision and we're certainly very pleased," said lawyer Barbara Jackman, who represents Almrei. "What the Supreme Court decided was the law was not fair."
The court said while it might not be arbitrary to detain the suspects in the first instance, it's arbitrary to continue the detention without a review for such a long time, she said.
The decision "upheld the principle" of security certificates, but indicated that some changes need to be made, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Friday in Ottawa.
"We are going to look at the ruling carefully and it is our intention to follow the Supreme Court's rulings," Day said after a day of talks with U.S. and Mexican officials on a range of issues, including security measures.
"I'm optimistic that we will be able to put these changes in place."
Read the rest here.
Deep-Seated Weakness and Fear - Greenwald
Emulating the enemy
Reuters, today, concerning remarks from Iranian President Ahmadinejad:President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday Iran should not show weakness over its nuclear program, a day after Tehran ignored a United Nations deadline to stop nuclear work which the West says could to used for making bombs.
"If we show weakness in front of the enemy the expectations will increase but if we stand against them, because of this resistance, they will retreat," he said in a speech in northern Iran, Iran's ISNA news agency said.
In the past, he said, compromise over the program, which Tehran says is intended solely for peaceful power supplies, had led to increased demands from the West.
Donald Rumsfeld in his farewell comments, December 2006:"Today, it should be clear that not only is weakness provocative," Mr. Rumsfeld said, standing at a lectern with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney at his side, "but the perception of weakness on our part can be provocative as well. . . ."
"A conclusion by our enemies that the United States lacks the will or the resolve to carry out missions that demand sacrifice and demand patience is every bit as dangerous as an imbalance of conventional military power," Mr. Rumsfeld said in a buoyant but sometimes emotional speech.
Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard, July 24, 2006 ("It's Our War"):For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.
The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.
Dick Cheney, yesterday, interview with ABC News (transcript via-mail):If you're going to advocate a course of action that basically is withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, then you don't get to just do the fun part of that, that says, we'll we're going to get out and appeal to your constituents on that basis.
You also have to be accountable for the results. What are the consequences of that? What happens if we withdraw from Iraq? And the point I made and I'll make it again is that al Qaeda functions on the basis that they think they can break our will. That's their fundamental underlying strategy, that if they can kill enough Americans or cause enough havoc, create enough chaos in Iraq, then we'll quit and go home. And my statement was that if we adopt the Pelosi policy, that then we will validate the strategy of al Qaeda. I said it and I meant it.
One of the hallmarks of the Bush presidency -- arguably the central one -- is that we have adopted the mentality and mimicked the behavior of "our enemies," including those whom we have long considered, rightfully so, to be savage and uncivilized. As a result, our foreign policy consists of little more than flamboyant demonstrations of our own "toughness" because that, so the thinking goes, is the only language which "our enemies" understand, and we must speak "their language" (hence, we stay in Iraq not because it makes geopolitical sense, but because we have to prove to Al Qaeda that they cannot "break our will").
Thus, any measure designed to avert war -- negotiations, diplomacy, compromise, an acceptance of the fact that we need not force every country to submit to our national Will -- are scornfully dismissed as "weakness," which, in turn, is "provocative." Conversely, war-seeking policies are always desirable because they show how tough and strong we are.
President Ahmadinejad's comments yesterday summed up the mentality which drives the Bush administration perfectly, precisely because he shares the same mentality: "If we show weakness in front of the enemy, the expectations will increase, but if we stand against them, because of this resistance, they will retreat." This is, in essence, the Neoconservative Anthem. It mistakes mindless chest-beating belligerence, panic and hysteria for strength and resolve, even though such behavior is really the ultimate hallmark of deep-seated weakness and fear.
When it comes to equating the United States with the likes of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, nobody has done more to attempt to bring about that outcome than George Bush and his neoconservative mentors. And they have accomplished that by simultaneously elevating the legitimacy and significance of those petty tyrants and barbarians, while continuously lowering our own behavior to the depths of their savagery and by adopting their insatiable need for violent conflict.
Read the rest here.
British Withdrawal from Southern Iraq
The British retreat from Iraq brings peril for U.S. troops
By Juan Cole
Vice President Cheney says the British are leaving southern Iraq because things are going so well. In the real world, Basra is a mess.
Tony Blair's announcement that Britain would withdraw 1,600 troops from southern Iraq by May, and aim for further significant withdrawals by the end of 2007, drew praise from U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. "What I see," said Cheney, "is an affirmation of the fact that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well."
In reality, southern Iraq is a quagmire that has defeated all British efforts to impose order, and Blair was pressed by his military commanders to get out altogether -- and quickly. The departure has only been slowed, for the moment, by the pleas of Bush administration officials like Cheney. And far from the disingenuously upbeat prognosis offered by the vice president, the British withdrawal could spell severe trouble for both the Iraqi government and for U.S. troops in that country.
Read the rest here.
Foodie Friday - Common Sense from Mariann Wizard
The recent spate of food-borne pathogens is a timely reminder that fruits and vegetables grow outdoors, in actual dirt, and may be exposed frequently to bird poop, dog pee, both living and/or dead insects, frog spit, and whatever else is out there, squirming and wriggling around microscopically. And then after the porcupine and possum poop, produce gets handled by booger-picking, butt-scratching, non-hand-washing humans, from the fields to the marketplace.
Rather than expect the government, at any level, to protect us from these nasty environmental constituents, which it cannot do in any event, why not take a hint from our neighbors to the south, and be responsible, to the extent possible, for the cleanliness of our food? All over Mexico, super mercados, fruterias, and the humblest garden produce stands offer antibacterial food washes. People routinely soak fresh produce for half an hour or so in a mild iodine solution -- two or three drops to a sink-full of veggies -- then rinse and store the now-sterile goodies until they are consumed.
No, this won't protect against salmonella in peanut butter, or heavy-metal contamination, or lots of other potential food hazards. But it is simply foolish to bring fruits and vegetables into one's home, rinse them under the cold water faucet, and assume they are fit to eat!
The irony of the iodine-wash method is, of course, that it is practiced in Mexico, where too many nortenos gorge themselves on cerveza, fried sugar, and fats every year, afraid to eat the abundant fruits and vegetables. In fact, Mexico may be one of the few places where it is generally safe to do so, because mexicanos haven't forgotten that fresh foods must be cleaned by the consumer or preparer, nor confused the government with their abuelas.
To live in a free country, practice freedom where you live.
Mariann Wizard
awizardslife.com
22 February 2007
Pizzo Begs for No Hillary
From News for Real.
Please, Please, Please Don't Do This to Us
Please!
Do 40% of Democrats really want Hillary? Really? That's the question I ask myself each time I see polls that say that Hillary Clinton is the choice of 40% of Dems polled. If that's true I have just one thing to say to those folks:
What the hell's wrong with you people!? Are you the Democratic party's version of the GOP's red state morons – the ones who put George W. Bush in the Oval Office – TWICE? By supporting Hillary you are vying for precisely that sort of infamy.
Listen... and listen well – Hillary zombies -- pay attention damn it!
Hillary Clinton is Tom DeLay on estrogen.
And that's neither a sexist remark or the slightest exaggeration. I'm not talking about her politics, I'm talking about her stone-cold, calculating, triangulating soul.
That woman is not worthy of your support. Hillary is just as mean as Tom DeLay, just as self-centered, and even a more shameless, principle-free conniver. And, as David Geffen told Maureen Dowd, she's a liar.
Just like Tom DeLay, Hillary has surrounded herself with advisers, handlers and sycophantic gofers that can best be described the poltical equivalent of a mob. Like DeLay's former political mob, Hillary's gang is mean, plays dirty and plays for keeps.
Read the rest here.
Why MDS? - D. Hamilton
What is MDS and why do we need it?
MDS (Movement for a Democratic Society) is what you make it. Like SDS of old, it will not have a strict set of ideological positions that one must endorse going in. It will be inclusive and pluralistic within broad parameters of Left thought. However, given who is already involved in this organization, it can be characterized with some degree of accuracy. Look at the Board and that will give you a good idea of where MDS stands. That board includes Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Angela Davis, Cornel West, Barbara Ehrenreich, Manning Marable, Lawrence Ferlingetti and Mark Rudd among many others. That said, the following is only my own analysis and characterization.
Why do we need MDS? That’s easy. We need a bold, new voice of the Left in the American political dialogue. By Left, I mean the anti-imperialist Left. A Left that is overtly and unapologetically socialist. A Left that rejects the basic premises of both the “War on Terror” and the “War on Drugs”. A Left that advocates the growth of a decentralized public sector. A Left that considers prevention based healthcare, basic housing and wholesome nutrition as human rights. A Left that supports the diminution of corporate domination of both the economic and political spheres and supports enhanced worker rights. A Left that supports fundamental reform of the electoral system including public funding. A Left that opposes discriminatory hierarchies, be they economic, political, racial or gender based. A Left that renounces violence as a means of conflict resolution between nations and supports the development of international institutions with sufficient power to mediate such conflicts. I could continue at length in this vein. But in general, we need a Left that advocates policies clearly distinct from those of the liberals of the Democratic Party and that acts as a counterweight to corporate dominance of American society.
It is clear that we need a multi-issue organization that represents the views of the American Left. There are many publications and websites that address a broad spectrum of issues and many Left organizations focused on more narrow agendas. But there is no broad based and powerful organizational voice of the American Left that addresses all the social problems that beset American society and provides a comprehensive analysis that unites those issues. Manning Marable, the new chairperson of the MDS Board, did just that in his powerful address to the MDS founding conference February 17th in New York City.
To combat the isolation we often feel in our local efforts, we need a national organization of which we are proud to be members. This gives us strength and identity. It can facilitate our efforts to develop local progressive community infrastructure. With the leadership of the African-American Columbia history professor Manning Marable and the inter-racial nature of the national MDS Board, MDS can effectively facilitate multi-racial progressive community integration and coordination. And as the old SDS grew explosively when it seized the leadership of the student antiwar movement and promoted militancy, an integrated MDS that represents a unified progressive community should be able to exponentially expand the anti-Iraq war movement.
Finally, but perhaps most importantly, MDS will support the development of the new SDS. We can provide mentoring, funding, professional services, and networking. The younger generation will ultimately be the spearhead and we can help sharpen that weapon. MDS will also provide a political home for SDS graduates; where you go when you leave the campus to provide continuity to the struggle. All of us remember losing our political bearings, at least temporarily, after leaving academia.
For me, as some of you may remember, it’s long been a question of fight or flee. Do I stay and dedicate myself to the liberation struggle, or do I leave the USA, embracing expatriation? Given my wife Sally’s thriving career and the imminent arrival of my first grandchild, fleeing is not now really an option. So I invite you to join this new effort to advance the struggle for peace and justice in American and the world. As our French comrades said on the eve of the liberation of Paris, “Aux Barricades”! Very soon, there will be an MDS chapter founding meeting in Austin and hopefully in communities across the nation. I hope to see you there.
…………………………..
Further note on the MDS conference. On reflection, the handling of the “democracy caucus” dissidents at the MDS conference was flawed. They may have been a small minority. They may be crazy and they may even be infiltrated. But they were pretty much dismissed out of hand and that was not consistent with the principles of an organization that is supposed to be dedicated to participatory democracy. It would have been much better to have diverted from the agenda, entertain their motion and vote on it. They would have lost and the conflict would have been over. Instead, they were essentially ignored and told to “be civil”. They screwed their own case in advance by obnoxious threats and behavior. But they should have been dealt with by a more democratic procedure.
David Hamilton
It's Just BushCo Trash Talk About Iran
US Iran intelligence 'is incorrect'
Julian Borger in Vienna
Thursday February 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Much of the intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by US spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, diplomatic sources in Vienna said today.
The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme.
That report, delivered to the security council by the IAEA director general, Mohammed ElBaradei, sets the stage for a fierce international debate on the imposition of stricter sanctions on Iran and raises the possibility that the US could resort to military action against Iranian nuclear sites.
At the heart of the debate are accusations - spearheaded by the US - that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.
However, most of the tip-offs about supposed secret weapons sites provided by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies have led to dead ends when investigated by IAEA inspectors, according to informed sources in Vienna.
"Most of it has turned out to be incorrect," a diplomat at the IAEA with detailed knowledge of the agency's investigations said.
"They gave us a paper with a list of sites. [The inspectors] did some follow-up, they went to some military sites, but there was no sign of [banned nuclear] activities.
"Now [the inspectors] don't go in blindly. Only if it passes a credibility test."
Read the rest here.
Procreation 'Til Ya Die, By Golly
Defending Marriage the Hard Way
A Washington state gay group is conducting a tongue-in-cheek petition drive for a ballot measure which would require heterosexual couples who want to marry to prove they are able to have children, and then to do so. (Reported by Lisa Keen in Between the Lines, Livonia, MI, 2/15/07; www.pridesource.com.) Two other planned initiatives would prohibit divorce for married people who have children, and stipulate that unmarried heterosexual people who have children together would be automatically married.
The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance hopes to educate the public about the harmfulness of discriminatory marriage laws, although some gay activists worry that the initiatives could backfire by attracting the support of right-wing, anti-gay groups.
This could probably be avoided by adding one more initiative to the package: require heterosexual couples who can no longer procreate, and whose children have all come of age, to adopt more children or be automatically divorced! Service as sperm, egg, or uterus donors might be considered as fulfilling this requirement in certain circumstances, or perhaps child-rearing credits might be granted to those who adopt or serve as foster parents while rearing their biological young... but no, that's the goody-two-shoes liberal talking; don't listen to a thing she says! If the "true" purpose of marriage is procreation, by golly, keep 'em procreating until the day they die!
Mariann Wizard
Chomsky: They Must Be Punished for Disobeying
Interview with Noam Chomsky: It All Comes Down to Control
Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author and foreign policy expert. On February 9, Michael Shank interviewed him on the latest developments in US policy toward Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Venezuela.
02/21/07 "FPIF" -- - Michael Shank: With similar nuclear developments in North Korea and Iran, why has the United States pursued direct diplomacy with North Korea but refuses to do so with Iran?
Noam Chomsky: To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It did under the [Bill] Clinton administration, though neither side completely lived up to their obligations. Clinton didn't do what was promised, nor did North Korea, but they were making progress. So when [George W] Bush came into the presidency, North Korea had enough uranium or plutonium for maybe one or two bombs, but then very limited missile capacity. During the Bush years it's exploded. The reason is, he immediately canceled the diplomacy and he's pretty much blocked it ever since.
They made a very substantial agreement in September 2005 in which North Korea agreed to eliminate its nuclear programs and nuclear development completely. In return, the United States agreed to terminate the threats of attack and to begin moving toward the planning for the provision of a light-water reactor, which had been promised under the framework agreement. But the Bush administration instantly undermined it.
Right away, it canceled the international consortium that was managing the the light-water-reactor project, which was a way of saying we're not going to agree to this agreement. A couple of days later they started attacking the financial transactions of various banks. It was timed in such a way to make it clear that the United States was not going to move toward its commitment to improve relations. And of course it never withdrew the threats. So that was the end of the September 2005 agreement.
That one is now coming back, just in the last few days. The way it's portrayed in the US media is, as usual with the government's party line, that North Korea is now perhaps a little more amenable to accept the September 2005 proposal. So there's some optimism. If you go across the Atlantic, to The Financial Times, to review the same events they point out that an "embattled George W Bush administration", it's their phrase, needs some kind of victory, so maybe it'll be willing to move toward diplomacy. It's a little more accurate, I think, if you look at the background.
But there is some minimal sense of optimism about it. If you look back over the record - and North Korea is a horrible place, nobody is arguing about that - on this issue they've been pretty rational. It's been a kind of tit-for-tat history. If the United States is accommodating, the North Koreans become accommodating. If the United States is hostile, they become hostile. That's reviewed pretty well by Leon Sigal, who's one of the leading specialists on this, in a recent issue of Current History. But that's been the general picture, and we're now at a place where there could be a settlement on North Korea.
That's much less significant for the United States than Iran. The Iranian issue I don't think has much to do with nuclear weapons, frankly. Nobody is saying Iran should have nuclear weapons - nor should anybody else. But the point in the Middle East, as distinct from North Korea, is that this is center of the world's energy resources. Originally the British and secondarily the French had dominated it, but after World War II, it's been a US preserve.
That's been an axiom of US foreign policy, that it must control Middle East energy resources. It is not a matter of access, as people often say. Once the oil is on the seas, it goes anywhere. In fact if the United States used no Middle East oil, it'd have the same policies. If we went on solar energy tomorrow, it'd keep the same policies. Just look at the internal record, or the logic of it: the issue has always been control. Control is the source of strategic power.
[Vice President] Dick Cheney declared in Kazakhstan or somewhere that control over a pipeline is a "tool of intimidation and blackmail". When we have control over the pipelines it's a tool of benevolence. If other countries have control over the sources of energy and the distribution of energy, then it is a tool of intimidation and blackmail, exactly as Cheney said. And that's been understood as far back as [late US adviser, diplomat, political scientist and historian] George Kennan and the early postwar days when he pointed out that if the United States controls Middle East resources, it'll have veto power over its industrial rivals. He was speaking particularly of Japan, but the point generalizes.
So Iran is a different situation. It's part of the major energy system of the world.
Shank: So when the United States considers a potential invasion you think it's under the premise of gaining control? That is what the United States will gain from attacking Iran?
Chomsky: There are several issues in the case of Iran. One is simply that it is independent and independence is not tolerated. Sometimes it's called successful defiance in the internal record. Take Cuba. A very large majority of the US population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time, with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it too.
But the government won't allow it. It's attributed to the Florida vote, but I don't think that's much of an explanation. I think it has to do with a feature of world affairs that is insufficiently appreciated. International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience, otherwise the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.
If you look back at the record, what was the main reason for the US attack on Vietnam? Independent development can be a virus that can infect others. That's the way it's been put, [former secretary of state Henry] Kissinger in this case, referring to [Salvador] Allende in Chile. And with Cuba it's explicit in the internal record. Arthur Schlesinger, presenting the report of the Latin American Study Group to incoming president [John] Kennedy, wrote that the danger is the spread of the [Fidel] Castro idea of taking matters into your own hands, which has a lot of appeal to others in the same region that suffer from the same problems. Later internal documents charged Cuba with successful defiance of US policies going back 150 years - to the Monroe Doctrine - and that can't be tolerated. So there's kind of a state commitment to ensuring obedience.
Going back to Iran, it's not only that it has substantial resources and that it's part of the world's major energy system, but it also defied the United States. The United States, as we know, overthrew the parliamentary government, installed a brutal tyrant, was helping him develop nuclear power. In fact the very same programs that are now considered a threat were being sponsored by the US government, by Cheney, [Paul] Wolfowitz, Kissinger and others in the 1970s, as long as the shah was in power. But then the Iranians overthrew him, and they kept US hostages for several hundred days. And the United States immediately turned to supporting Saddam Hussein and his war against Iran as a way of punishing Iran. The United States is going to continue to punish Iran because of its defiance. So that's a separate factor.
And again, the will of the US population and even US business is considered mostly irrelevant. Seventy-five percent of the population here favors improving relations with Iran, instead of threats. But this is disregarded. We don't have polls from the business world, but it's pretty clear that the energy corporations would be quite happy to be given authorization to go back into Iran instead of leaving all that to their rivals. But the state won't allow it. And it is setting up confrontations right now, very explicitly. Part of the reason is strategic, geopolitical, economic, but part of the reason is the mafia complex. They have to be punished for disobeying us.
Shank: Venezuela has been successfully defiant, with President Hugo Chavez making a swing towards socialism. Where are they on our list?
Chomsky: They're very high. The United States sponsored and supported a military coup to overthrow the government. In fact, that's its last, most recent effort in what used to be a conventional resort to such measures.
Read all of it here.
I Am a Pitbull on the Pant Leg of Opportunity
Once George Bush has got hold of a bad idea he just can't let it go
Gary Younge
Monday February 19, 2007
The Guardian
On December 20 1954, a woman known as Marion Keech gathered her followers in her garden in Lake City, Illinois, and waited for midnight, when flying saucers were supposed to land and save them from huge floods about to engulf the planet.
Keech had received news of the impending deluge from Sananda, a being from the planet Clarion, whose messages she passed on to a small group of believers. Unbeknown to her, the group had been infiltrated by a University of Minnesota researcher, the social psychologist Leon Festinger.
As dawn rose on December 21 with no flying saucer in sight, Keech had another revelation. Sananda told her that the group's advanced state of enlightenment had saved the entire planet. They rejoiced and called a press conference. "A man with a conviction is a hard man to change," wrote Festinger in his book on the cult, When Prophecy Fails. "Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts and figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point."
George Bush is a man of conviction and clearly a hard man to change. When reality confronts his plans he does not alter them but instead alters his understanding of reality. Like Keech and her crew, he stands with a tight band of followers, both deluded and determined, understanding each setback not as a sign to change course but as further proof that they must redouble their efforts to the original goal.
And so we watch the administration's plans for a military attack against Iran unfold even as its official narrative for the run-up to the war in Iraq unravels and the wisdom of that war stands condemned by death and destruction. As though on split screens, we pass seamlessly from reports of how they lied to get us into the last war, to scenes of carnage as a result of the war, to shots of them lying us into the next one.
One moment we see the trial of Dick Cheney's former deputy, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, revealing how the administration sought to discredit critics of the plans to invade Iraq; the next we see them discrediting critics of their plans to attack Iran. On one page, newly released documents reveal how the defence department contorted evidence to justify bombing Baghdad; on the next, the administration is using suspect evidence to justify bombing Iran.
Read the rest here.
Bringing Democracy to the Middle East
Protests in Baghdad over US Raid: Journalists Call for Immediate Investigation
Hundreds of Iraqi journalists and activists held a sit-in today in front of the headquarters of the Iraqi Journalists’ Syndicate to protest the recent US raid against the union, UPI is reporting.
As reported on Iraqslogger, US forces stormed the syndicate’s headquarters in Baghdad on Monday evening. Troops ransacked offices, arrested 10 of the syndicate’s security guards and confiscated 10 computers and 15 small electricity generators destined for the families of killed journalists, according to a statement released by the International Federation of Journalists.
Ali `Uweid, deputy head of the press syndicate, said that the raid demonstrated “contempt for Iraqi Journalism and civil society organizations” and added that the syndicate would continue its protests until the guards were released and the property returned, reported Aswat al-Iraq, in Arabic.
The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi watchdog that advocates for press freedom in the country released a statement demanding that the government immediately investigate, saying that “the ways that journalists have been targeted with desecrations have escalated in the last few days, without any response, the most recent occurrence being the raid on the journalists' syndicate on the part of US forces.”
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the world’s largest journalists’ organization said on Tuesday that the actions of the American forces were "outrageous and inexcusable" and is backing calls for a full investigation.
Read the rest here.
Trash Talkin' Cheney
Cheney Seeks Allies' Support for Iraq War as His Luster Fades
By Holly Rosenkrantz and Brendan Murray
Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Vice President Dick Cheney is finding it harder and harder to locate a welcome mat.
Cheney arrives today in Australia to meet with Prime Minister John Howard, a U.S. ally in the Iraq war who has resisted calls to withdraw his country's 1,600 troops. The visit comes two days after the vice president's meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, when he was greeted by shouts of ``Yankee go home'' from a loudspeaker outside the U.S. embassy and a controversy over Japan's defense minister terming the war a ``mistake.''
Even today, Cheney will have to tread carefully: A Feb. 16- 18 poll in the Australian, a national newspaper, showed that 68 percent oppose the war. ``The vice president won't be walking the streets of Australia, so he won't have to be worried about being subjected to verbal abuse on this stop,'' said Stephen Yates, who served as his national security adviser until 2005.
Cheney, 66, is also coping with growing criticism at home, where adversaries say he demonstrates a combativeness that may reflect frustration with his diminished role in an administration reeling from Iraq and trying to come to terms with a Democratic Congress.
``He's not dominating administration policy and he's taking some shots, even from fellow Republicans,'' said Joel Goldstein, a vice presidential scholar at St. Louis University in Missouri. Cheney's ``operating style is not conducive to creating a reservoir of good feeling,'' Goldstein said.
Pugnacity on Display
His pugnacity has been displayed in the divisive debate over Iraq. In recent weeks, he has feuded publicly with two prominent Republicans -- Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel and Arizona's John McCain, a leading contender for the party presidential nomination.
Last month, Cheney told Newsweek magazine that he's having a hard time restraining himself from assailing Hagel over the Nebraskan's opposition to a Bush-Cheney plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.
On Wednesday, Cheney told ABC News that McCain, who has been one of Bush's strongest war supporters, ``said some nasty things about me the other day, and then next time he saw me, ran over to me and apologized.'' Noting McCain's past criticism of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney added: ``Maybe he'll apologize to Rumsfeld.''
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