Is Anyone Listening?
Gaza's Death Throes
By SONJA KARKAR
What kind of government in the 21st century can deny another people basic human rights - that is, the right to food, water, shelter, security and dignity?
What kind of government imposes draconian sanctions on another people for democratically electing a government not to its liking?
What kind of government seals a heavily populated territory of 1.5 million people so that no person can enter or leave without permission, fishermen cannot fish in their own waters, and world food aid cannot be delivered to the starving population?
What kind of government shuts off fuel, water and electricity and then rains down on the people, bombs and artillery fire?
The answer is - no government of integrity.
And yet, government after government in Israel continues to demand recognition and accolades as a first world democracy superior to all others, despite Israel’s flouting of international law, its human rights abuses and the criminality and corruption of Israeli leaders. Worse still, the world has acquiesced and has welcomed every Israeli administration into its fold as a favoured guest.
This should give everyone pause to revisit our noble declarations of independence and human rights, ethics, morality, religious beliefs, civil liberties and the rule of law. Are they just for show or do they really mean something? Are they intended only for some people or for all people?
Israel’s President Shimon Peres is just one of the many leaders who have furthered Israel’s aggressive policies and programs and yet he has been honoured with a knighthood from the Queen and is likely to be honoured with a lecture series named after him at Oxford University’s Balliol College. Dubious honours indeed, for a man who helped to forcibly expel 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland in the 1948 war.
Today, we are witnessing in Gaza the kind of ghetto the world thought it would never see again and the comparison was conjured up early this year by Israel’s deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai when he threatened “a bigger holocaust (shoah)” against the Palestinians in Gaza. Later, he explained away his use of the word as meaning “disaster”, when in fact it has emotional connotations well known to everyone. Either way, the threat was ominous enough.
The slow death that is being visited on the Palestinians in Gaza is finding its first victims in more than 400 critically ill patients who are being prevented from leaving Gaza for urgent medical attention in Israeli or Arab hospitals. Thousands of other patients are being turned away from hospitals suffering from a severe shortage of 300 different kinds of medicines.
The hospitals have been deprived of medicines and equipment for so long now, that the trickle of supplies finally being allowed through, can no longer meet the minimum daily needs of the Palestinian civilian population. Similarly, the energy fuel being shipped in, is barely enough to operate the Gaza power plant for one day.
This drip-feeding of aid was suggested by Israeli Prime Ministerial adviser Dov Weisglas who said in February 2006: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger.”
Such a malevolent policy has led to a steady increase in malnutrition as people are being starved of their staples of life. Not only have the flourmills been forced to shut down because fuel and power have run out, but now all wheat supplies have been exhausted. Out of the 72 bakeries operating in the Gaza Strip, 29 have completely stopped baking bread and others are expected to follow. This means that even the most staple of all foods – bread - will soon not be available for a hungry population.
A Red Cross report describes the effects of the siege as “devastating”. Seventy per cent of the population is suffering from food insecurity while the suspension of food aid distribution to some 750,000 refugees in the pitiful camps in Gaza since 4 November, has further devastated Palestinians with no recourse to other alternatives.
The United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have all called Israel’s blockade ”cruel”. Former president Jimmy Carter makes no apology for describing the situation as “a heinous atrocity” amounting to a war crime.
In Britain, Oxfam’s CEO Barbara Stocking has strongly criticised the Foreign Secretary David Miliband for not mentioning the “human desperation” in Gaza on his recent trip to Israel and Palestine.
Israel’s tactics though may be unravelling.
So draconian has been Israel’s closure of Gaza, the world’s biggest media organisations including the New York Times are outraged that their journalists have been banned from entering the Gaza Strip and have protested in writing to Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Christian leaders have also been excluded from Gaza. Last week, Israel prevented Archbishop Franco, the Papal Nuncio in Israel, from celebrating mass to mark the beginning of Advent in the holy weeks leading up to Christmas.
And in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Minister Ehud Barak has approved the building of hundreds more illegal settlement units with a flagrant disregard of the peace process agreements, further frustrating the current US administration eager to produce a solution before the end of its term.
What is truly astonishing is the world’s silence in the face of all this. The shameful rush to grant Israel every honour and recognition so that it will be saved from the historical ignominy of having orchestrated the destruction of Palestinian society, is nothing short of unconscionable.
Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine and one of the founders and co-convener of Australians for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia. She is also the editor of www.australiansforpalestine.com and contributes articles on Palestine regularly to various publications.
She can be contacted at sonjakarkar@womenforpalestine.org
these crimes are no better for being ignored. mass punishment, and the denial of food and medicine are massive violations of international law, never mind the fact that they are immoral. the state of israel should be ashamed. furthermore, we need to remember that they couldn't bully anybody without the military and political support of the u.s government. their crimes are our crimes, just the same as if i gave a guy a gun, knowing he would then use it to commit a criminal act. we are liable. that military aid, which runs into the billions of dollars, would be better spent as aid to the poor, such as those suffering in gaza, or on our own poor. israel, strangely enough, is not the 51st state, whatever our political elite may think. and one more thing; a suicide bomb, as brutal and murderous as it is, does not compare to the power of a brutal and murderous state, which has the power to imprison 1.5 million people, and which is armed and funded by the strongest military power in the history of the world. think about it, it's a no brainer. that doesn't excuse terrorism, but let's not forget this. in just societies, where people are treated fairly, and governments are peaceful, people don't go around blowing each other up in cafes. this tactic, wrong though it may be, is a response to the injustices committed by the state. therefore, if you want to combat terrorism, you need to combat the brutality of the militaristic state. as an american, that means opposing the u.s war machine, and by acknowledging the root causes of the worlds problems. it means attempting to combat the genocide of poverty and disease. it means recognizing the fundamental humanity of those we have been taught
to hate. it means stepping away from the constructs of patriotism and militarism, and such nonsense as the war on terror. it means being a series citizen. it means informing yourself. and lastly, it means saying never again, not just when the jews are victimized, but also when they, or we, victimize others.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
bin laden with guilt
Barack Obama is on record as advocating a military escalation in Afghanistan. Before sinking any deeper into that quagmire, we might do well to learn something about recent Afghani history and the role played by the United States.
Less than a month after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, US leaders began an all-out aerial assault upon Afghanistan, the country purportedly harboring Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist organization. More than twenty years earlier, in 1980, the United States intervened to stop a Soviet "invasion" of that country. Even some leading progressive writers, who normally take a more critical view of US policy abroad, treated the US intervention against the Soviet-supported government as "a good thing." The actual story is not such a good thing.
Some Real History
Since feudal times the landholding system in Afghanistan had remained unchanged, with more than 75 percent of the land owned by big landlords who comprised only 3 percent of the rural population. In the mid-1960s, democratic revolutionary elements coalesced to form the People's Democratic Party (PDP). In 1973, the king was deposed, but the government that replaced him proved to be autocratic, corrupt, and unpopular. It in turn was forced out in 1978 after a massive demonstration in front of the presidential palace, and after the army intervened on the side of the demonstrators.
The military officers who took charge invited the PDP to form a new government under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and novelist. This is how a Marxist-led coalition of national democratic forces came into office. "It was a totally indigenous happening. Not even the CIA blamed the USSR for it," writes John Ryan, a retired professor at the University of Winnipeg, who was conducting an agricultural research project in Afghanistan at about that time.
The Taraki government proceeded to legalize labor unions, and set up a minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign, and programs that gave ordinary people greater access to health care, housing, and public sanitation. Fledgling peasant cooperatives were started and price reductions on some key foods were imposed.
The government also continued a campaign begun by the king to emancipate women from their age-old tribal bondage. It provided public education for girls and for the children of various tribes. A report in the San Francisco Chronicle (17 November 2001) noted that "Kabul was once a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city's university. Afghan women held government jobs--in the 1980s, there were seven female members of parliament. Women drove cars, traveled and went on dates. Fifty percent of university students were women."
The Taraki government moved to eradicate the cultivation of opium poppy. Until then Afghanistan had been producing more than 70 percent of the opium needed for the world's heroin supply. The government also abolished all debts owed by farmers, and began developing a major land reform program. Ryan believes that it was a "genuinely popular government and people looked forward to the future with great hope."
But serious opposition arose from several quarters. The feudal landlords opposed the land reform program that infringed on their holdings. And tribesmen and fundamentalist mullahs vehemently opposed the government's dedication to gender equality and the education of women and children.
Because of its egalitarian and collectivist economic policies the Taraki government also incurred the opposition of the US national security state. Almost immediately after the PDP coalition came to power, the CIA, assisted by Saudi and Pakistani military, launched a large scale intervention into Afghanistan on the side of the ousted feudal lords, reactionary tribal chieftains, mullahs, and opium traffickers.
A top official within the Taraki government was Hafizulla Amin, believed by many to have been recruited by the CIA during the several years he spent in the United States as a student. In September 1979, Amin seized state power in an armed coup. He executed Taraki, halted the reforms, and murdered, jailed, or exiled thousands of Taraki supporters as he moved toward establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state. But within two months, he was overthrown by PDP remnants including elements within the military.
It should be noted that all this happened before the Soviet military intervention. National security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski publicly admitted--months before Soviet troops entered the country--that the Carter administration was providing huge sums to Muslim extremists to subvert the reformist government. Part of that effort involved brutal attacks by the CIA-backed mujahideen against schools and teachers in rural areas.
In late 1979, the seriously besieged PDP government asked Moscow to send a contingent of troops to help ward off the mujahideen (Islamic guerrilla fighters) and foreign mercenaries, all recruited, financed, and well-armed by the CIA. The Soviets already had been sending aid for projects in mining, education, agriculture, and public health. Deploying troops represented a commitment of a more serious and politically dangerous sort. It took repeated requests from Kabul before Moscow agreed to intervene militarily.
Jihad and Taliban, CIA Style
The Soviet intervention was a golden opportunity for the CIA to transform the tribal resistance into a holy war, an Islamic jihad to expel the godless communists from Afghanistan. Over the years the United States and Saudi Arabia expended about $40 billion on the war in Afghanistan. The CIA and its allies recruited, supplied, and trained almost 100,000 radical mujahideen from forty Muslim countries including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Algeria, and Afghanistan itself. Among those who answered the call was Saudi-born millionaire right-winger Osama bin Laden and his cohorts.
After a long and unsuccessful war, the Soviets evacuated the country in February 1989. It is generally thought that the PDP Marxist government collapsed immediately after the Soviet departure. Actually, it retained enough popular support to fight on for another three years, outlasting the Soviet Union itself by a year.
Upon taking over Afghanistan, the mujahideen fell to fighting among themselves. They ravaged the cities, terrorized civilian populations, looted, staged mass executions, closed schools, raped thousands of women and girls, and reduced half of Kabul to rubble. In 2001 Amnesty International reported that the mujahideen used sexual assault as "a method of intimidating vanquished populations and rewarding soldiers.'"
Ruling the country gangster-style and looking for lucrative sources of income, the tribes ordered farmers to plant opium poppy. The Pakistani ISI, a close junior partner to the CIA, set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA's arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland became the biggest producer of heroin in the world.
Largely created and funded by the CIA, the mujahideen mercenaries now took on a life of their own. Hundreds of them returned home to Algeria, Chechnya, Kosovo, and Kashmir to carry on terrorist attacks in Allah's name against the purveyors of secular "corruption."
In Afghanistan itself, by 1995 an extremist strain of Sunni Islam called the Taliban---heavily funded and advised by the ISI and the CIA and with the support of Islamic political parties in Pakistan---fought its way to power, taking over most of the country, luring many tribal chiefs into its fold with threats and bribes.
The Taliban promised to end the factional fighting and banditry that was the mujahideen trademark. Suspected murderers and spies were executed monthly in the sports stadium, and those accused of thievery had the offending hand sliced off. The Taliban condemned forms of "immorality" that included premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality. They also outlawed all music, theater, libraries, literature, secular education, and much scientific research.
The Taliban unleashed a religious reign of terror, imposing an even stricter interpretation of Muslim law than used by most of the Kabul clergy. All men were required to wear untrimmed beards and women had to wear the burqa which covered them from head to toe, including their faces. Persons who were slow to comply were dealt swift and severe punishment by the Ministry of Virtue. A woman who fled an abusive home or charged spousal abuse would herself be severely whipped by the theocratic authorities. Women were outlawed from social life, deprived of most forms of medical care, barred from all levels of education, and any opportunity to work outside the home. Women who were deemed "immoral" were stoned to death or buried alive.
None of this was of much concern to leaders in Washington who got along famously with the Taliban. As recently as 1999, the US government was paying the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official. Not until October 2001, when President George W. Bush had to rally public opinion behind his bombing campaign in Afghanistan did he denounce the Taliban's oppression of women. His wife, Laura Bush, emerged overnight as a full-blown feminist to deliver a public address detailing some of the abuses committed against Afghan women.
If anything positive can be said about the Taliban, it is that they did put a stop to much of the looting, raping, and random killings that the mujahideen had practiced on a regular basis. In 2000 Taliban authorities also eradicated the cultivation of opium poppy throughout the areas under their control, an effort judged by the United Nations International Drug Control Program to have been nearly totally successful. With the Taliban overthrown and a Western-selected mujahideen government reinstalled in Kabul by December 2001, opium poppy production in Afghanistan increased dramatically.
The years of war that have followed have taken tens of thousands of Afghani lives. Along with those killed by Cruise missiles, Stealth bombers, Tomahawks, daisy cutters, and land mines are those who continue to die of hunger, cold, lack of shelter, and lack of water.
The Holy Crusade for Oil and Gas
While claiming to be fighting terrorism, US leaders have found other compelling but less advertised reasons for plunging deeper into Afghanistan. The Central Asian region is rich in oil and gas reserves. A decade before 9/11, Time magazine (18 March 1991) reported that US policy elites were contemplating a military presence in Central Asia. The discovery of vast oil and gas reserves in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan provided the lure, while the dissolution of the USSR removed the one major barrier against pursuing an aggressive interventionist policy in that part of the world.
US oil companies acquired the rights to some 75 percent of these new reserves. A major problem was how to transport the oil and gas from the landlocked region. US officials opposed using the Russian pipeline or the most direct route across Iran to the Persian Gulf. Instead, they and the corporate oil contractors explored a number of alternative pipeline routes, across Azerbaijan and Turkey to the Mediterranean or across China to the Pacific.
The route favored by Unocal, a US based oil company, crossed Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. The intensive negotiations that Unocal entered into with the Taliban regime remained unresolved by 1998, as an Argentine company placed a competing bid for the pipeline. Bush's war against the Taliban rekindled UNOCAL's hopes for getting a major piece of the action.
Interestingly enough, neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations ever placed Afghanistan on the official State Department list of states charged with sponsoring terrorism, despite the acknowledged presence of Osama bin Laden as a guest of the Taliban government. Such a "rogue state" designation would have made it impossible for a US oil or construction company to enter an agreement with Kabul for a pipeline to the Central Asian oil and gas fields.
In sum, well in advance of the 9/11 attacks the US government had made preparations to move against the Taliban and create a compliant regime in Kabul and a direct US military presence in Central Asia. The 9/11 attacks provided the perfect impetus, stampeding US public opinion and reluctant allies into supporting military intervention.
One might agree with John Ryan who argued that if Washington had left the Marxist Taraki government alone back in 1979, "there would have been no army of mujahideen, no Soviet intervention, no war that destroyed Afghanistan, no Osama bin Laden, and no September 11 tragedy." But it would be asking too much for Washington to leave unmolested a progressive leftist government that was organizing the social capital around collective public needs rather than private accumulation.
US intervention in Afghanistan has proven not much different from US intervention in Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, and elsewhere. It had the same intent of preventing egalitarian social change, and the same effect of overthrowing an economically reformist government. In all these instances, the intervention brought retrograde elements into ascendance, left the economy in ruins, and pitilessly laid waste to many innocent lives.
The war against Afghanistan, a battered impoverished country, continues to be portrayed in US official circles as a gallant crusade against terrorism. If it ever was that, it also has been a means to other things: destroying a leftist revolutionary social order, gaining profitable control of the last vast untapped reserve of the earth's dwindling fossil fuel resources, and planting US bases and US military power into still another region of the world.
In the face of all this Obama's call for "change" rings hollow.
Michael Parenti's recent books are Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader and the forthcoming God and His Demons. For further information, visit www.michaelparenti.org.
this piece nicely summarizes the history of the modern conflict in afghanistan. it is informative to remember that when our government rails against terrorism, they do so knowing that they once stronly supported many of the same forces they now claim to be fighting. our opposition to progressive, secular forces in afghanistan was in line with our opposition to similar forces in iran, iraq, egypt, and elsewhere in the region. we don't like progressive forms of democratic government because they are concerned with nationalizing resources, and using their wealth to improve the quality of life for the people. hence, we funded extremists, who were more concerned with exerting dictatorial control and instituting various forms of religious fanaticism, leaving us free to loot the wealth and resources of their nations. but, by helping to eliminate progressive dissent, including trade unionists, secularists, educators, and others, we created a vacuum. now, all that is left is religious extremism, the same extremism that we aided when it suited our purposes. this was fine by our government when we were fighting the same battles, but some of these guys turned against us, for obvious reasons. and now, we are left with the tragic results.
michael parenti for secretary of state.
Less than a month after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, US leaders began an all-out aerial assault upon Afghanistan, the country purportedly harboring Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist organization. More than twenty years earlier, in 1980, the United States intervened to stop a Soviet "invasion" of that country. Even some leading progressive writers, who normally take a more critical view of US policy abroad, treated the US intervention against the Soviet-supported government as "a good thing." The actual story is not such a good thing.
Some Real History
Since feudal times the landholding system in Afghanistan had remained unchanged, with more than 75 percent of the land owned by big landlords who comprised only 3 percent of the rural population. In the mid-1960s, democratic revolutionary elements coalesced to form the People's Democratic Party (PDP). In 1973, the king was deposed, but the government that replaced him proved to be autocratic, corrupt, and unpopular. It in turn was forced out in 1978 after a massive demonstration in front of the presidential palace, and after the army intervened on the side of the demonstrators.
The military officers who took charge invited the PDP to form a new government under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and novelist. This is how a Marxist-led coalition of national democratic forces came into office. "It was a totally indigenous happening. Not even the CIA blamed the USSR for it," writes John Ryan, a retired professor at the University of Winnipeg, who was conducting an agricultural research project in Afghanistan at about that time.
The Taraki government proceeded to legalize labor unions, and set up a minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign, and programs that gave ordinary people greater access to health care, housing, and public sanitation. Fledgling peasant cooperatives were started and price reductions on some key foods were imposed.
The government also continued a campaign begun by the king to emancipate women from their age-old tribal bondage. It provided public education for girls and for the children of various tribes. A report in the San Francisco Chronicle (17 November 2001) noted that "Kabul was once a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city's university. Afghan women held government jobs--in the 1980s, there were seven female members of parliament. Women drove cars, traveled and went on dates. Fifty percent of university students were women."
The Taraki government moved to eradicate the cultivation of opium poppy. Until then Afghanistan had been producing more than 70 percent of the opium needed for the world's heroin supply. The government also abolished all debts owed by farmers, and began developing a major land reform program. Ryan believes that it was a "genuinely popular government and people looked forward to the future with great hope."
But serious opposition arose from several quarters. The feudal landlords opposed the land reform program that infringed on their holdings. And tribesmen and fundamentalist mullahs vehemently opposed the government's dedication to gender equality and the education of women and children.
Because of its egalitarian and collectivist economic policies the Taraki government also incurred the opposition of the US national security state. Almost immediately after the PDP coalition came to power, the CIA, assisted by Saudi and Pakistani military, launched a large scale intervention into Afghanistan on the side of the ousted feudal lords, reactionary tribal chieftains, mullahs, and opium traffickers.
A top official within the Taraki government was Hafizulla Amin, believed by many to have been recruited by the CIA during the several years he spent in the United States as a student. In September 1979, Amin seized state power in an armed coup. He executed Taraki, halted the reforms, and murdered, jailed, or exiled thousands of Taraki supporters as he moved toward establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state. But within two months, he was overthrown by PDP remnants including elements within the military.
It should be noted that all this happened before the Soviet military intervention. National security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski publicly admitted--months before Soviet troops entered the country--that the Carter administration was providing huge sums to Muslim extremists to subvert the reformist government. Part of that effort involved brutal attacks by the CIA-backed mujahideen against schools and teachers in rural areas.
In late 1979, the seriously besieged PDP government asked Moscow to send a contingent of troops to help ward off the mujahideen (Islamic guerrilla fighters) and foreign mercenaries, all recruited, financed, and well-armed by the CIA. The Soviets already had been sending aid for projects in mining, education, agriculture, and public health. Deploying troops represented a commitment of a more serious and politically dangerous sort. It took repeated requests from Kabul before Moscow agreed to intervene militarily.
Jihad and Taliban, CIA Style
The Soviet intervention was a golden opportunity for the CIA to transform the tribal resistance into a holy war, an Islamic jihad to expel the godless communists from Afghanistan. Over the years the United States and Saudi Arabia expended about $40 billion on the war in Afghanistan. The CIA and its allies recruited, supplied, and trained almost 100,000 radical mujahideen from forty Muslim countries including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Algeria, and Afghanistan itself. Among those who answered the call was Saudi-born millionaire right-winger Osama bin Laden and his cohorts.
After a long and unsuccessful war, the Soviets evacuated the country in February 1989. It is generally thought that the PDP Marxist government collapsed immediately after the Soviet departure. Actually, it retained enough popular support to fight on for another three years, outlasting the Soviet Union itself by a year.
Upon taking over Afghanistan, the mujahideen fell to fighting among themselves. They ravaged the cities, terrorized civilian populations, looted, staged mass executions, closed schools, raped thousands of women and girls, and reduced half of Kabul to rubble. In 2001 Amnesty International reported that the mujahideen used sexual assault as "a method of intimidating vanquished populations and rewarding soldiers.'"
Ruling the country gangster-style and looking for lucrative sources of income, the tribes ordered farmers to plant opium poppy. The Pakistani ISI, a close junior partner to the CIA, set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA's arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland became the biggest producer of heroin in the world.
Largely created and funded by the CIA, the mujahideen mercenaries now took on a life of their own. Hundreds of them returned home to Algeria, Chechnya, Kosovo, and Kashmir to carry on terrorist attacks in Allah's name against the purveyors of secular "corruption."
In Afghanistan itself, by 1995 an extremist strain of Sunni Islam called the Taliban---heavily funded and advised by the ISI and the CIA and with the support of Islamic political parties in Pakistan---fought its way to power, taking over most of the country, luring many tribal chiefs into its fold with threats and bribes.
The Taliban promised to end the factional fighting and banditry that was the mujahideen trademark. Suspected murderers and spies were executed monthly in the sports stadium, and those accused of thievery had the offending hand sliced off. The Taliban condemned forms of "immorality" that included premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality. They also outlawed all music, theater, libraries, literature, secular education, and much scientific research.
The Taliban unleashed a religious reign of terror, imposing an even stricter interpretation of Muslim law than used by most of the Kabul clergy. All men were required to wear untrimmed beards and women had to wear the burqa which covered them from head to toe, including their faces. Persons who were slow to comply were dealt swift and severe punishment by the Ministry of Virtue. A woman who fled an abusive home or charged spousal abuse would herself be severely whipped by the theocratic authorities. Women were outlawed from social life, deprived of most forms of medical care, barred from all levels of education, and any opportunity to work outside the home. Women who were deemed "immoral" were stoned to death or buried alive.
None of this was of much concern to leaders in Washington who got along famously with the Taliban. As recently as 1999, the US government was paying the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official. Not until October 2001, when President George W. Bush had to rally public opinion behind his bombing campaign in Afghanistan did he denounce the Taliban's oppression of women. His wife, Laura Bush, emerged overnight as a full-blown feminist to deliver a public address detailing some of the abuses committed against Afghan women.
If anything positive can be said about the Taliban, it is that they did put a stop to much of the looting, raping, and random killings that the mujahideen had practiced on a regular basis. In 2000 Taliban authorities also eradicated the cultivation of opium poppy throughout the areas under their control, an effort judged by the United Nations International Drug Control Program to have been nearly totally successful. With the Taliban overthrown and a Western-selected mujahideen government reinstalled in Kabul by December 2001, opium poppy production in Afghanistan increased dramatically.
The years of war that have followed have taken tens of thousands of Afghani lives. Along with those killed by Cruise missiles, Stealth bombers, Tomahawks, daisy cutters, and land mines are those who continue to die of hunger, cold, lack of shelter, and lack of water.
The Holy Crusade for Oil and Gas
While claiming to be fighting terrorism, US leaders have found other compelling but less advertised reasons for plunging deeper into Afghanistan. The Central Asian region is rich in oil and gas reserves. A decade before 9/11, Time magazine (18 March 1991) reported that US policy elites were contemplating a military presence in Central Asia. The discovery of vast oil and gas reserves in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan provided the lure, while the dissolution of the USSR removed the one major barrier against pursuing an aggressive interventionist policy in that part of the world.
US oil companies acquired the rights to some 75 percent of these new reserves. A major problem was how to transport the oil and gas from the landlocked region. US officials opposed using the Russian pipeline or the most direct route across Iran to the Persian Gulf. Instead, they and the corporate oil contractors explored a number of alternative pipeline routes, across Azerbaijan and Turkey to the Mediterranean or across China to the Pacific.
The route favored by Unocal, a US based oil company, crossed Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. The intensive negotiations that Unocal entered into with the Taliban regime remained unresolved by 1998, as an Argentine company placed a competing bid for the pipeline. Bush's war against the Taliban rekindled UNOCAL's hopes for getting a major piece of the action.
Interestingly enough, neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations ever placed Afghanistan on the official State Department list of states charged with sponsoring terrorism, despite the acknowledged presence of Osama bin Laden as a guest of the Taliban government. Such a "rogue state" designation would have made it impossible for a US oil or construction company to enter an agreement with Kabul for a pipeline to the Central Asian oil and gas fields.
In sum, well in advance of the 9/11 attacks the US government had made preparations to move against the Taliban and create a compliant regime in Kabul and a direct US military presence in Central Asia. The 9/11 attacks provided the perfect impetus, stampeding US public opinion and reluctant allies into supporting military intervention.
One might agree with John Ryan who argued that if Washington had left the Marxist Taraki government alone back in 1979, "there would have been no army of mujahideen, no Soviet intervention, no war that destroyed Afghanistan, no Osama bin Laden, and no September 11 tragedy." But it would be asking too much for Washington to leave unmolested a progressive leftist government that was organizing the social capital around collective public needs rather than private accumulation.
US intervention in Afghanistan has proven not much different from US intervention in Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, and elsewhere. It had the same intent of preventing egalitarian social change, and the same effect of overthrowing an economically reformist government. In all these instances, the intervention brought retrograde elements into ascendance, left the economy in ruins, and pitilessly laid waste to many innocent lives.
The war against Afghanistan, a battered impoverished country, continues to be portrayed in US official circles as a gallant crusade against terrorism. If it ever was that, it also has been a means to other things: destroying a leftist revolutionary social order, gaining profitable control of the last vast untapped reserve of the earth's dwindling fossil fuel resources, and planting US bases and US military power into still another region of the world.
In the face of all this Obama's call for "change" rings hollow.
Michael Parenti's recent books are Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader and the forthcoming God and His Demons. For further information, visit www.michaelparenti.org.
this piece nicely summarizes the history of the modern conflict in afghanistan. it is informative to remember that when our government rails against terrorism, they do so knowing that they once stronly supported many of the same forces they now claim to be fighting. our opposition to progressive, secular forces in afghanistan was in line with our opposition to similar forces in iran, iraq, egypt, and elsewhere in the region. we don't like progressive forms of democratic government because they are concerned with nationalizing resources, and using their wealth to improve the quality of life for the people. hence, we funded extremists, who were more concerned with exerting dictatorial control and instituting various forms of religious fanaticism, leaving us free to loot the wealth and resources of their nations. but, by helping to eliminate progressive dissent, including trade unionists, secularists, educators, and others, we created a vacuum. now, all that is left is religious extremism, the same extremism that we aided when it suited our purposes. this was fine by our government when we were fighting the same battles, but some of these guys turned against us, for obvious reasons. and now, we are left with the tragic results.
michael parenti for secretary of state.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
give me the liberty of consumption, and let me kill for the freedom of it
NEW YORK -- A Wal-Mart worker was killed Friday when "out-of-control" shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors at a 5 a.m. sale. Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.
At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.
Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store. When told to leave, they complained that they had been in line since Thursday morning.
Nassau County police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the store doors at the mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the man, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour of Queens, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.
"This crowd was out of control," said Nassau police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming. He described the scene as "utter chaos," and said the store didn't have enough security.
ad_icon
Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said.
Items on sale at the store included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9.
me now. i don't know about you, but i hope those who killed this man were after that $9 dvd of the hulk. sounds like something worth killing for. seriously, doesn't this say all that needs to be said about how out of wack the american people are? i would assume these demented consumers are members of the working class that will supposedly lead us to the promised land. man, they didn't even care that they killed someone. wow. you couldn't make this one up. it brings to mind ginsburg...
fuck you america, with your atomic bomb.
At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.
Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store. When told to leave, they complained that they had been in line since Thursday morning.
Nassau County police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the store doors at the mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the man, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour of Queens, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.
"This crowd was out of control," said Nassau police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming. He described the scene as "utter chaos," and said the store didn't have enough security.
ad_icon
Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said.
Items on sale at the store included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9.
me now. i don't know about you, but i hope those who killed this man were after that $9 dvd of the hulk. sounds like something worth killing for. seriously, doesn't this say all that needs to be said about how out of wack the american people are? i would assume these demented consumers are members of the working class that will supposedly lead us to the promised land. man, they didn't even care that they killed someone. wow. you couldn't make this one up. it brings to mind ginsburg...
fuck you america, with your atomic bomb.
yes, but who will investigate them?
while the fbi is investigating chuck turner, who will investigate them? chuck turner never murdered a promising young leader as he lay sleeping, something the fbi did to fred hampton. chuck turner never sent a letter to martin luther king threatening to kill him, something the fbi did. chuck turner never instituted conintelpro programs to disrupt, distract, and sometimes kill progressive leaders, something the fbi did. how is it that americans don't laugh out loud when the fbi says it is going to investigate someone else for the crimes they commit? amazingly, most americans (ie, white americans) still believe. they still trust the institutions of the powerful. they still have faith in the system. i suppose that is because, more often than not, it is someone else's head that's getting split open, someone else who is being targeted, someone else who is being framed, someone else who is being killed. however, for how long can ignorance of the facts act as an excuse? i don't believe it is ignorance so much as it is willed ignorance, meaning many americans will, or force themselves, to see things in certain ways. often, it is the willed ignorance known as tradition, or environment, or religion, or patriotism, or party affiliation. for it is not as if the facts aren't out there. the truth isn't too hard to find. it is not as if we all lived in caves, thousands of miles from the nearest library or computer. what the fbi did to king, malcolm, the panthers, the new left, and others, is no secret. for that matter, neither are the palmer raids, the internment of the japanese, racial segregation, and the murder of civil rights leaders and workers. likewise, the brutal destruction caused by the u.s. military isn't much of a secret. haven't they seen that vietnamese girl running down a road, on fire with napalm? do they really believe that by bombing her that we were striking a blow against the "international communist conspiracy?" the fact is, in many ways, the average american is no better than the average german, or the average italian, or the average russian, or the average anybody. both democrat and republican, conservative and liberal, would rather parrot a mythology about american values and the fundamental decency and goodness of our institutions than to critically examine their fundamental purposes. in essence, we prefer to be the good german who didn't know what was going on in the camps. how else to explain the shock that many whites feel when they see pictures of lynched blacks, as if they didn't know it had occurred. how else to explain the ongoing indifference on the part of most americans to the violence our military has perpetrated against the people of iraq and afghanistan. do they not know that such violence is occurring? many of these same people have probably read night, or visited the holocaust memorial in washington, with no sense of irony. fullbright spoke of the "arrogance of power." willful ignorance is also arrogance. it is arrogant to lecture people on human rights as you bomb them. it is arrogant to imprison more people on earth than any other country, and then to mouth platitudes about freedom. and it is an arrogant and ignorant public that largely accepts such nonsense as if it were truth. but instead of fighting this, many progressives would rather attack others on the left. well, i suppose that's one way to keep the fbi off your case. so, we have zinn telling us that obama will do this and that, and we have wise blaming the entire left for the fact that he met one communist who only listened to albanian folk music, and we have norman solomon wasting his time by being an obama delegate, and worse, we have people like horowitz and hitchens, who decided to go all the way with their selling out.
so yes, who will investigate the investigators? while the jails are filled with petty criminals, where will we put the war criminals? while the street criminals languish behind bars, who will convict the corporate crooks?
who, my friend, who?
so yes, who will investigate the investigators? while the jails are filled with petty criminals, where will we put the war criminals? while the street criminals languish behind bars, who will convict the corporate crooks?
who, my friend, who?
Friday, November 28, 2008
i would rather say mom, bye than think about mumbai
but here it goes.
the powerful states, their compliant media, and apolitical populations are yet again aghast at the actions of violent terrorists. they will once again huddle to psychoanalyze the perpetrators. they will talk about islam, the war on terror, al qaeda, bin laden, and the clash of civilizations. people who forgot to feel horror over the 18 million people who starve or die of preventable diseases each year will once again value human life, and be mortified over the taking of it. those who have blindly supported or ignored the killing done by the u.s military, and of israel, will suddenly condemn violence. those who have ignored the 100 people killed in pakistan by pilotless drones from the u.s army will now be disgusted by the 100 people killed by those unfortunate to not have drones in their murderous arsenal.
i could go on in this way, but i think it is more important to analyze what may have caused the attacks. while i, and perhaps, no one, knows exactly why it happened, here are some ideas that will surely not be touched upon by the western media. for that very reason, they should be considered.
1) the horrific poverty in india. india is a country where a fourth of the population survives on less than 40 cents a day. i just spent 2 bucks on a coffee and paper. that would be a week's wage for over 250 million indians. over 3/4ths of the population survives on less than 1.25 a day, which is a higher percentage than that of sub saharan africa, usually the region thought to be the poorest in the world. it has been said that some of the poor have cut their own limbs off in order to make more money as beggars. young girls, by the thousands, have been forced to sell their bodies to survive, and many of them have gotten aids as a result. contrast this poverty with the luxury hotels that were attacked in mumbai. a one day stay at the taj majal, one of the two hotels attacked, costs $355. contrast this with the average one year indian salary of $590, and remember that a full fourth of the population makes less than 40 cents a day. is it not a form of economic terrorism to spend $355 a day at a hotel in a country where hundreds of millions of people will not make that amount in a year? this question will not be asked. how many indians could have been saved if all those people who spent $355 a day at the taj mahal instead spent that money to help the poor of india? surely more than the number of people killed by the terrorists at the taj mahal. is it not the epitome of arrogance to spend thousands of dollars in a country that is suffering from such extreme poverty? and is it not the epitome of arrogance to ignore this systemic murder, while we are disgusted at the actions of terrorists? so yes, i think it would be instructive to take a closer look at the endemic poverty within india. this could be a central cause of the actions that occurred. surely, we should try to end this poverty be redistributing the wealth that already exists in india, and by pumping aid to those in the country who most need it. in terms of who perpetrated the attacks in mumbai, we should consider the strong possibility that the perpetrators were indians themselves, disgusted by the extreme poverty within their country.
2) another cause could be the ongoing anti-muslim actions of the indian state, controlled by the hindu majority. while the media has focused closely on the horrors of mumbai, little was said in 2002, when 2,000 muslims were killed in the indian state of gujarat. tensions run high in india, where muslims are often targeted by members of the hindu majority. relations between india and pakistan remain tense, and this often causes indian muslims to be victimized by hindus. the westerm media ignores the systemic discrimination faced by the muslims in india, as they trumpet the "success" story of indian democracy, when, in fact, it is not democracy that has triumphed in india, but rather, an unbridled capitalism that has enriched a few million people at the expense of hundreds of millions of the impoverished. the muslim minority, which comprises about 15% of the total population, makes for a convenient scapegoat for the downtrodden hindu masses, who often attack them rather than challenging those who truly oppress them. it is akin to poor whites in the south who would lynch blacks, and then go to work for rich whites who paid them next to nothing. those of us in the west can ignore this discrimination in india, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening, and certainly, the people suffering from it are very aware of it. since it appears likely the recent terrorist actions were carried out by indian muslims, perhaps an understanding of how indian muslims are treated in india would be helpful in gaining an understanding of why the attacks took place. of course, the media in the west will be silent on this, just as they will be on the extreme poverty in india. better to psychoananalyze the perpetrators, to speak of their madness and insanity, and to condemn the use of violence, while driving down the street with a "support our troops" bumpersticker.
3) finally, it maybe instructive to think about who is being kidnapped in these attacks. other than the indigenous rich of india, those from america and england, as well as jews, seem to be targets. now, i wonder why they might resent american and british citizens? if the attackers are islamic militants, as we are being told, might it have something to do with the fact that we are currently blowing up iraq and afghanistan, as well as killing hundreds in pakistan, a country that we aren't even at war with? between iraq and afghanistan, we have likely killed about 1.5 million people, injured millions more, and made still millions more refugees. no one in the major media will psychoanalyze our leaders who started these wars. no one will address their madness and insanity, and speak to how they are likely driven to acts of murder by a religion that condones violence. now, certainly it is wrong to kill civilians just because they happen to be from a country that has committed horrible crimes. i, for example, don't want my life to be taken because of the actions of my government. but then again, i'm not spending $355 a day at a indian hotel while millions starve in that country. furthermore, if we agree that it is wrong to kill civilians because of the actions of their government, where are the masses of americans who condemn the killings in iraq and afghanistan? and what of ww2? most americans glorify the war, but what of the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in japan and germany by u.s and british forces? were they not punished for the crimes of their government? if we believe this to be wrong, then why don't why the masses of americans recognize those who were slaughtered in dresden, hamburg, hiroshima, and nagasaki? it is thought that 600,000 german civilians were killed by u.s air power during ww2. who among us condemns these deaths? if we believe it is wrong to kill civilians because of the actions of their government, than we must be consisted in our condemnation of such behavior.
as for the jews who have been captured or killed, i can not deny that there is likely some anti-semitism at work here. anti-semitism is not new, and for sure, it did not start as a result of the state of israel. however, if we are trying to figure out why jews are being victimized in india, don't we have to look at the actions of israel? as we speak, israel is laying seige to the gaza strip. israel is not allowing shipments of food and medicine into the territory, and is not allowing the people of gaza out of the territory. israel is not even allowing the western media in to document what is going on, despite their normally compliant reorting on all things israel. these israeli attacks against the 1.5 million people of gaza will surely lead to more death and destruction than the terrorist attacks in mumbai, but they have drawn no outrage from the west, and at worst, are excused as reactions by a "beseiged" israeli state. of course, this is not the first crime that the state of israel has committed against the people of the arab world. now, while i can't know exactly what is causing jews to be targeted in mumbai, isn't at least likely that the brutal actions of the state of israel against the muslim world have something to do with their being targeted? again, it is wrong to target a group of people because of the actions of their government, or their religion. if we agree on this, will we not also condemn the brutal israeli actions against the people of gaza? are they not also being targeted because of who they are, and because of the actions of a few extermists? why is it ok for us, or our allies, to brutalize masses of people, in the name of security, or fighting terrorism , or democracy, when it is not ok for our opponents to do the same? when will we condemn state terrorism, better known as war, with the same vigor that we condemn the brutal actions of the desperate? when will we fund progressives like nasser, sukarno, lumumba, arafat, mossadegh, taraki of afghanistan, allende, arbenz, chavez, castro, and others, instead of creating, arming, and aiding their far more brutal opponents, which has surely helped lead to the kind of world where terrorist actions are seen as the only hope of those fighting oppression? when will we condemn systemic poverty with the same outrage that we now condemn the sporatic brutal actions of terrorists, despite the fact that their actions kill far less than the results of global capitalism? when will we reduce our military budget, and stop killing people abroad? if we don't stop this, what right do we have to condemn the murder committed by others?
well, don't look too hard for this analysis in the major media. better to blame it all on al qaeda, and to stress our continued need to prosecute the war on terror.
yes, but better for who?
the powerful states, their compliant media, and apolitical populations are yet again aghast at the actions of violent terrorists. they will once again huddle to psychoanalyze the perpetrators. they will talk about islam, the war on terror, al qaeda, bin laden, and the clash of civilizations. people who forgot to feel horror over the 18 million people who starve or die of preventable diseases each year will once again value human life, and be mortified over the taking of it. those who have blindly supported or ignored the killing done by the u.s military, and of israel, will suddenly condemn violence. those who have ignored the 100 people killed in pakistan by pilotless drones from the u.s army will now be disgusted by the 100 people killed by those unfortunate to not have drones in their murderous arsenal.
i could go on in this way, but i think it is more important to analyze what may have caused the attacks. while i, and perhaps, no one, knows exactly why it happened, here are some ideas that will surely not be touched upon by the western media. for that very reason, they should be considered.
1) the horrific poverty in india. india is a country where a fourth of the population survives on less than 40 cents a day. i just spent 2 bucks on a coffee and paper. that would be a week's wage for over 250 million indians. over 3/4ths of the population survives on less than 1.25 a day, which is a higher percentage than that of sub saharan africa, usually the region thought to be the poorest in the world. it has been said that some of the poor have cut their own limbs off in order to make more money as beggars. young girls, by the thousands, have been forced to sell their bodies to survive, and many of them have gotten aids as a result. contrast this poverty with the luxury hotels that were attacked in mumbai. a one day stay at the taj majal, one of the two hotels attacked, costs $355. contrast this with the average one year indian salary of $590, and remember that a full fourth of the population makes less than 40 cents a day. is it not a form of economic terrorism to spend $355 a day at a hotel in a country where hundreds of millions of people will not make that amount in a year? this question will not be asked. how many indians could have been saved if all those people who spent $355 a day at the taj mahal instead spent that money to help the poor of india? surely more than the number of people killed by the terrorists at the taj mahal. is it not the epitome of arrogance to spend thousands of dollars in a country that is suffering from such extreme poverty? and is it not the epitome of arrogance to ignore this systemic murder, while we are disgusted at the actions of terrorists? so yes, i think it would be instructive to take a closer look at the endemic poverty within india. this could be a central cause of the actions that occurred. surely, we should try to end this poverty be redistributing the wealth that already exists in india, and by pumping aid to those in the country who most need it. in terms of who perpetrated the attacks in mumbai, we should consider the strong possibility that the perpetrators were indians themselves, disgusted by the extreme poverty within their country.
2) another cause could be the ongoing anti-muslim actions of the indian state, controlled by the hindu majority. while the media has focused closely on the horrors of mumbai, little was said in 2002, when 2,000 muslims were killed in the indian state of gujarat. tensions run high in india, where muslims are often targeted by members of the hindu majority. relations between india and pakistan remain tense, and this often causes indian muslims to be victimized by hindus. the westerm media ignores the systemic discrimination faced by the muslims in india, as they trumpet the "success" story of indian democracy, when, in fact, it is not democracy that has triumphed in india, but rather, an unbridled capitalism that has enriched a few million people at the expense of hundreds of millions of the impoverished. the muslim minority, which comprises about 15% of the total population, makes for a convenient scapegoat for the downtrodden hindu masses, who often attack them rather than challenging those who truly oppress them. it is akin to poor whites in the south who would lynch blacks, and then go to work for rich whites who paid them next to nothing. those of us in the west can ignore this discrimination in india, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening, and certainly, the people suffering from it are very aware of it. since it appears likely the recent terrorist actions were carried out by indian muslims, perhaps an understanding of how indian muslims are treated in india would be helpful in gaining an understanding of why the attacks took place. of course, the media in the west will be silent on this, just as they will be on the extreme poverty in india. better to psychoananalyze the perpetrators, to speak of their madness and insanity, and to condemn the use of violence, while driving down the street with a "support our troops" bumpersticker.
3) finally, it maybe instructive to think about who is being kidnapped in these attacks. other than the indigenous rich of india, those from america and england, as well as jews, seem to be targets. now, i wonder why they might resent american and british citizens? if the attackers are islamic militants, as we are being told, might it have something to do with the fact that we are currently blowing up iraq and afghanistan, as well as killing hundreds in pakistan, a country that we aren't even at war with? between iraq and afghanistan, we have likely killed about 1.5 million people, injured millions more, and made still millions more refugees. no one in the major media will psychoanalyze our leaders who started these wars. no one will address their madness and insanity, and speak to how they are likely driven to acts of murder by a religion that condones violence. now, certainly it is wrong to kill civilians just because they happen to be from a country that has committed horrible crimes. i, for example, don't want my life to be taken because of the actions of my government. but then again, i'm not spending $355 a day at a indian hotel while millions starve in that country. furthermore, if we agree that it is wrong to kill civilians because of the actions of their government, where are the masses of americans who condemn the killings in iraq and afghanistan? and what of ww2? most americans glorify the war, but what of the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in japan and germany by u.s and british forces? were they not punished for the crimes of their government? if we believe this to be wrong, then why don't why the masses of americans recognize those who were slaughtered in dresden, hamburg, hiroshima, and nagasaki? it is thought that 600,000 german civilians were killed by u.s air power during ww2. who among us condemns these deaths? if we believe it is wrong to kill civilians because of the actions of their government, than we must be consisted in our condemnation of such behavior.
as for the jews who have been captured or killed, i can not deny that there is likely some anti-semitism at work here. anti-semitism is not new, and for sure, it did not start as a result of the state of israel. however, if we are trying to figure out why jews are being victimized in india, don't we have to look at the actions of israel? as we speak, israel is laying seige to the gaza strip. israel is not allowing shipments of food and medicine into the territory, and is not allowing the people of gaza out of the territory. israel is not even allowing the western media in to document what is going on, despite their normally compliant reorting on all things israel. these israeli attacks against the 1.5 million people of gaza will surely lead to more death and destruction than the terrorist attacks in mumbai, but they have drawn no outrage from the west, and at worst, are excused as reactions by a "beseiged" israeli state. of course, this is not the first crime that the state of israel has committed against the people of the arab world. now, while i can't know exactly what is causing jews to be targeted in mumbai, isn't at least likely that the brutal actions of the state of israel against the muslim world have something to do with their being targeted? again, it is wrong to target a group of people because of the actions of their government, or their religion. if we agree on this, will we not also condemn the brutal israeli actions against the people of gaza? are they not also being targeted because of who they are, and because of the actions of a few extermists? why is it ok for us, or our allies, to brutalize masses of people, in the name of security, or fighting terrorism , or democracy, when it is not ok for our opponents to do the same? when will we condemn state terrorism, better known as war, with the same vigor that we condemn the brutal actions of the desperate? when will we fund progressives like nasser, sukarno, lumumba, arafat, mossadegh, taraki of afghanistan, allende, arbenz, chavez, castro, and others, instead of creating, arming, and aiding their far more brutal opponents, which has surely helped lead to the kind of world where terrorist actions are seen as the only hope of those fighting oppression? when will we condemn systemic poverty with the same outrage that we now condemn the sporatic brutal actions of terrorists, despite the fact that their actions kill far less than the results of global capitalism? when will we reduce our military budget, and stop killing people abroad? if we don't stop this, what right do we have to condemn the murder committed by others?
well, don't look too hard for this analysis in the major media. better to blame it all on al qaeda, and to stress our continued need to prosecute the war on terror.
yes, but better for who?
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
walking through neiman marcus was like taking a knee, man
they have been telling us that we are in an economic crisis. if this is so, how is a department store still able to sell coats for five thousand dollars? i saw shirts for $1600, ties for $400, and a vest for $2200. i also saw several people shopping at this store. they looked serious, as if they might actually buy. i thought to myself, are these people suffering through an economic crisis? obviously not, as they have the money to buy such things. which leads to the following thought; if we have a society where some people can afford $5000 coats, and others are forced to sleep in their coats because they can't afford heat, then why don't we take the wealth from the $5000 coat guy and redistribute it to benefit they guys who can't afford heat? who is in fact suffering through a crisis? is aig in crisis when they send their employees on a vacation that costs nearly $500,000? is gm in crisis when they send their ceo's to congress in private jets? and are the n. marcus shoppers among us going through a crisis? i think not.
last year, the u.s sent 200 million dollars to haiti, the most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere. mind you, this is better than kidnapping their president, but let's put it in perspective. aig was recently given a 85 billion dollar bailout. the congress voted on a general bailout plan of 700 billion, half of which has been distributed to various banks. by conservative estimates, the iraq war has cost 600 billion dollars. we have spent more on the iraq war in one day than we have sent to haiti in one year. and think of what we, along with the french, have stolen from that nation, the first free black country in the west. our marines invaded in 1915 and didn't leave until 1934. we armed and supported the duvaliers. we have killed thousands of their people. we have forced imf loans on them, which have forced them to eliminate public spending on things like education and health care. we overthrew aristide at one point, and then kidnapped him at a later point. looked at in this way, that 200 million sum is pathetic. by the way, the 9/11 memorial cost 500 million.
now, if we are concerned about an economic crisis, shouldn't we be very concerned about a nation like haiti, the poorest in the hemisphere? but, of course, we aren't worried about poverty. we don't consider poverty a crisis! especially when countries like haiti suffer from it. but, isn't suffering from extreme poverty an obvious example of economic crisis? of course, and through out the world, the victims of capitalism and u.s. imperialism are suffering through the economic crisis of poverty. surely, iraq is currently going through an economic crisis, thanks in large part to us.
look at how this "crisis" is discussed. we hear a lot about people losing their homes, and this is of course unfortunate, and does reflect problems in our economic order. but doesn't the fact that millions starve each year in this world also demonstrate an economic crisis? apparently not, as this is the norm. what of the two billion people who survive on less than 2 dollars a day? even before the economy was in "crisis," this was a fact that was often repeated. which begs the question, is it not an economic crisis that 1/3 of the world survives on less than 2 dollars a day? i guess not, as long as some of those 2 billion people make sneakers at a nike factory. then, the economy is strong!
at the martha root of the issue is the fact that a strong american economy is not necessarily a good thing, because the american economy is too closely alligned with corporate power, and corporate power, along with war, is the great evil of our time. you will hear all the leaders say we need to grow the economy, that we need to invest in this and that, but the truth is we need to relax, and take a long look at this course we have been on. growth is the last thing we need. in fact, we need to scale down. we need less wars, less of a military budget, less spending on the cia, fbi, and homeland security, less billionaires, less multinational corporations, less agribusiness,less pollution, less production of worthless consumer products, less cable, less cars, less oil, less electricity, less paper, less work, which will in turn lead to less unemployment, as we could spread the work around. after we do this, we could start to have more clean air, more peace, more health care, more public transit, more quality education, more libraries, more parks, more leisure, more culture, more sleep, more sex, more aid to the poor.
so yeah, we are in a crisis, but we are always in a crisis. and many of us, like those assholes that buy $5,000 coats, are never in a crisis. and that's the sad part. so, what we need to do is to create a crisis for them. a vote for obama won't do it. but a bunch of enraged, armed (with both the truth and anything else you can think of) lunatics who won't quit until they get what they want just might do it.
as for me, i am doing what naomi wolf said is the most important thing one can do, and that is blog.
of course, 10 minutes after she said that, a guy in a white coat came and took her away.
last year, the u.s sent 200 million dollars to haiti, the most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere. mind you, this is better than kidnapping their president, but let's put it in perspective. aig was recently given a 85 billion dollar bailout. the congress voted on a general bailout plan of 700 billion, half of which has been distributed to various banks. by conservative estimates, the iraq war has cost 600 billion dollars. we have spent more on the iraq war in one day than we have sent to haiti in one year. and think of what we, along with the french, have stolen from that nation, the first free black country in the west. our marines invaded in 1915 and didn't leave until 1934. we armed and supported the duvaliers. we have killed thousands of their people. we have forced imf loans on them, which have forced them to eliminate public spending on things like education and health care. we overthrew aristide at one point, and then kidnapped him at a later point. looked at in this way, that 200 million sum is pathetic. by the way, the 9/11 memorial cost 500 million.
now, if we are concerned about an economic crisis, shouldn't we be very concerned about a nation like haiti, the poorest in the hemisphere? but, of course, we aren't worried about poverty. we don't consider poverty a crisis! especially when countries like haiti suffer from it. but, isn't suffering from extreme poverty an obvious example of economic crisis? of course, and through out the world, the victims of capitalism and u.s. imperialism are suffering through the economic crisis of poverty. surely, iraq is currently going through an economic crisis, thanks in large part to us.
look at how this "crisis" is discussed. we hear a lot about people losing their homes, and this is of course unfortunate, and does reflect problems in our economic order. but doesn't the fact that millions starve each year in this world also demonstrate an economic crisis? apparently not, as this is the norm. what of the two billion people who survive on less than 2 dollars a day? even before the economy was in "crisis," this was a fact that was often repeated. which begs the question, is it not an economic crisis that 1/3 of the world survives on less than 2 dollars a day? i guess not, as long as some of those 2 billion people make sneakers at a nike factory. then, the economy is strong!
at the martha root of the issue is the fact that a strong american economy is not necessarily a good thing, because the american economy is too closely alligned with corporate power, and corporate power, along with war, is the great evil of our time. you will hear all the leaders say we need to grow the economy, that we need to invest in this and that, but the truth is we need to relax, and take a long look at this course we have been on. growth is the last thing we need. in fact, we need to scale down. we need less wars, less of a military budget, less spending on the cia, fbi, and homeland security, less billionaires, less multinational corporations, less agribusiness,less pollution, less production of worthless consumer products, less cable, less cars, less oil, less electricity, less paper, less work, which will in turn lead to less unemployment, as we could spread the work around. after we do this, we could start to have more clean air, more peace, more health care, more public transit, more quality education, more libraries, more parks, more leisure, more culture, more sleep, more sex, more aid to the poor.
so yeah, we are in a crisis, but we are always in a crisis. and many of us, like those assholes that buy $5,000 coats, are never in a crisis. and that's the sad part. so, what we need to do is to create a crisis for them. a vote for obama won't do it. but a bunch of enraged, armed (with both the truth and anything else you can think of) lunatics who won't quit until they get what they want just might do it.
as for me, i am doing what naomi wolf said is the most important thing one can do, and that is blog.
of course, 10 minutes after she said that, a guy in a white coat came and took her away.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
observations
a word about the sidelining of jimmy carter. think about it; here is a guy who actually became president, and his own party doesn't let him speak at their convention. other than clinton, he is the only living former president from the democratic party. carter's "crime" is to acknowledge the humanity of the palestinian people. because of this, he is being shut out of his own party. my point is not to romanticize carter, who was president while we supported the fundamentalists in afghanistan, and while arms sent to indonesia where used to demolish the people of east timor. however, his political elimination is worth noting. he had the courage to stray from the demonization of the palestinian people, and to argue for a two state solution. personally, i would prefer one secular state where the two people live side by side in a state of equality, but for the moment, carter's plan is more feasible. carter had the honesty to state that israel has committed crimes in their dealings with the palestinians. even his book title "peace, not apartheid" is instructive. carter, compared to obama, hillary, and more recent leaders, has a higher level of intellectual integrity. of course, it helps to be out of power. at this stage of his life, carter is free to say what's on his mind, for he no longer has to work within the power structure. and to his credit, he has said what's on his mind. for example, carter certified that the recent presidential election in venezuela was one of the most fair and transparent elections he had ever seen. this is the same chavez who presides over a "rogue state," to use obama's terminology. carter has also acknowledged the wonders of the cuban health care system, and recently, called for a new trial for death row inmate troy davis, a wrongfully accused black man from georgia. in short, carter is more liberal than the current leaders of the democratic party, and for that, he is silenced. of course, he is most strongly attacked for his views on israel-palestine. on this issue, one is not allowed to be open minded. one is not allowed to question any aspect of israeli policy. one is not allowed to to advocate on the side of the palestinians. so, carter, despite the fact that he is a former president, has been cast aside like george mcgovern and michael dukakis. we always heard that these guys were ignored because they lost. well, carter won, and they are still ignoring him. this is because we have a political system that doesn't brook anybody that attempts to think for themselves.
as far as the auto industry goes, i echo the sentiments in the article that our government should be bailing out the workers, not those who already possess a shitload of money. the "industry" doesn't need a bailout; the working poor and the unemployed need help trying to survive. we need to put people to work, and we need to put some people out of work. the fat cats who are being bailed out and then flying around on private jets need to join the ranks of the unemployed. the blue collar workers who work in the auto industry have an array of skills that our manufacturing sector could put to good use, but the current auto industry won't put those skills to good use. therefore, that industry needs to be radically reformed. a group of transportation and environmental experts should be convened to discuss ways to alter the auto industry. the jobs and benefits of the current workforce should be protected, and those workers should be put to work constructing environmentally friendly vehicles, or at least friendlier vehicles. this team of transportation and environmental experts, along with the workers themselves, could manage the company and share the profits equally. and, best of all, the corrupt fat cats who fly to washington in private jets to plead poverty should be forced to find out what real poverty feels like.
this won't fly with kenny the jet
Give Them Money...Only After They Fire the Top Executives
Of Arrogance, Bailouts and the Big Three
By JAMES ABOUREZK
Just as I was about to give up on Congress, BAM, POW, a California Congressman decked the auto executives with a one-two punch. As these august gentlemen were sitting before a House Committee telling the Congressmen how bad it was, and that they needed money badly, Brad Sherman asked the group of beggars to raise their hand if any of them flew by commercial airline to the hearings in Washington.
“Let the record show,” the Congressman said, “that no one raised their hand,” the Congressman said.
Then came the right hook. “Raise your hand if any of you plan to sell your private jet.”
No response. They looked at each other, then at the Committee members, most likely sensing they had lost that round by points.
“Let the record show,” Congressman Sherman said, “that no one raised their hand.”
The lack of response was hardly surprising, but what was surprising is that a member of Congress finally earned his paycheck for that day. Fear of the 30 second spot television commercial has silenced many a member of Congress. None of them want to have their words replayed during the next campaign, so they are generally silent when it comes to challenging the corporate world—oil companies and auto executives included.
But even more outrageous is the arrogance of the Big Three executives coming to the taxpayers with their hands outstretched, waiting for a bailout. And why not? You ask. Didn’t this same bunch hand over $700 billion to Henry Paulson so his banking and Wall Street friends could continue their plush lifestyle? And didn’t Henry Paulson suddenly discover that the bankers and Wall Street money men didn’t need it all, causing him to shift gears and aim the bailout at mortgage foreclosures?
As Senator Everett Dirksen used to say, “A few hundred million here and a few hundred million there—pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Nowadays the word billion has replaced million, but, you get the idea. For the well-connected it’s Monopoly money anyway. It’s not real unless your company can’t pay a $25 or $50 million dollar bonus.
The arrogance of these fellows is being rewarded by the fearmongering of George W. Bush and others who predicted dark consequences if the money wasn’t handed over. So most everyone fell into line and voted it in.
When I was a member of the Senate Energy Committee in the 1970s I attached an amendment onto a piece of legislation that would have required the automobile manufacturers to make new cars that delivered a minimum of 26 miles to the gallon. That was in the 1970s when we all thought that mileage level would be a great victory. Nowadays, Toyota doesn’t make a car, I don’t believe, that delivers less than that. But back then, 26 miles to the gallon was revolutionary, even radical. So the Big Three came in and lobbied against it and defeated it. And they steadily moved into making and selling real he-man cars and trucks, such as the Hummers, the big pickups and the SUVs that more resemble a battleship than a car. At the same time, in Europe, taxes levied on gasoline made it so high that if one bought an American gas-guzzler, he would be thought of as crazy. So the Europeans made smaller cars that ate much less gas, and the Japanese began to move into the American market, selling high gas mileage cars to those of us who felt guilt at driving a four-wheeled monster.
The Europeans and Japanese also built high speed rail transportation that moved people so efficiently that cars became sort of redundant for longer trips. Meanwhile we Americans have spent ourselves into bankruptcy fighting wars, consuming more gasoline than we should, and telling ourselves that single payer health care and a national rail transportation system was socialistic. We listened to the lobbyists for the pharmaceutical companies and the airline and automobile industries, and said to ourselves: “We don’t need no stinking socialism.”
What this all means is that socialism is good for the Big Three automobile manufacturers and for Wall Street and for the big banks, but bad for the rest of us.
Back when I was working my way through Engineering School, I tended bar to make a living for my family of a wife and three kids. I had a customer--we’ll call him Chet—who was constantly broke, and who was always in need of a drink. Despite his bad circumstances, Chet dressed in a white shirt, his black hair greased and pulled straight back, and wore a thin, black mustache. For a drunk, he was well dressed. Chet would sit up to the bar with his head down, not feeling very good about himself, order a drink, pour it down, order another, and drink it down just as quickly. As I wondered if he had enough money on him to pay, his third drink served to bring his drooping head and body upright, and he would demand that I bring out the dice cup, demanding to roll double or nothing for the drinks.
I tell that story because the Big Three remind me of Chet. The difference between them is several hundred million dollars in each of their pockets, but their story is very similar. Instead of a shot or two of cheap rotgut, they are drinking the fine wine of telling the Congress, as they are accustomed to doing, that they need help.
The worst part of this saga is that the people in the industry—the workers—those who did not make the decisions about the kinds of cars to market, will be severely hurt, as will the communities that rely on the industry for their living. When GM decided to market Hummers, there was nothing the working people could do about the decision. They had to do the manufacturing or lose their jobs. And the arrogant executives, the ones who made the decisions, will walk away from the bankrupt companies with millions in their bank accounts, caring not one whit about those they are leaving out in the street.
Perhaps Congressmen should keep a grip on their newly found courage, and go beyond embarrassing these fellows about their private jets. They should consider handing over the bailout money only if the top decision makers in the industry resign, leaving their golden parachutes and their private jets with the company, the proceeds to be distributed to the working people who are being made to live with the results of their arrogance.
James G. Abourezk is a lawyer practicing in South Dakota. He is a former United States senator and the author of two books, Advise and Dissent, and a co-author of Through Different Eyes. Abourezk can be reached at georgepatton@alyajames.net.
don't carter away
The Democrats Owe Jimmy Carter an Apology
Don't Suppress Carter (or the Opportunities for Middle East Peace)
By RALPH NADER
Now that the season of electoral expediency is over, Barack Obama owes Jimmy Carter an apology.
At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, the Party denied Jimmy Carter the traditional invitation to speak that is accorded its former presidents.
According to The Jewish Daily Forward, “Carter's controversial views on Israel cost him a place on the podium at the Democratic Party convention in late August, senior Democratic operatives acknowledged to the Forward.”
Silencing Carter, who negotiated the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement, involved behind the scenes tensions between supporters of the hard-line AIPAC lobby and those Democrats who argued both respect and free speech to let Carter join Bill Clinton on the stage and address a nationwide audience.
First, there was a compromise offer to let Carter speak but only on domestic policy subjects. This would have kept him from mentioning his views on securing peace between the Israelis and Palestinians through a two-state solution essentially back to the 1967 borders. He previously elaborated his analysis and recommendations in his 2006 bestseller titled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid..
Even this astonishing restriction on the former president was unacceptable to the dictatorial censors. They wanted nothing from the deliberate, candid Georgian short of complete exclusion.
It is false to attribute this shutdown to the opinions of American Jews, a majority of whom polls show support a two-state solution and disagree on other issues with the AIPAC lobby, as recently documented by The Nation Magazine's Eric Alterman.
The Convention planners, with the full knowledge and approval of their candidate, Barack Obama, arranged to have a short video on Carter's work during the post-Katrina crisis followed by a walk across the stage by Carter and his wife Rosalynn to applause.
Carter's opponents did not hide their efforts to keep him from speaking. They spoke openly to the media. They disliked Carter's recognition of Palestinian suffering under the Israeli government's military and colonial occupation, the blockades, the violations of UN Resolutions and international law. He championed the work of the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements who together have worked out a detailed two-state accord that is supported by a majority of their respective peoples.
Little of what Carter wrote and spoke about has not been said by many prominent Israelis, leading newspapers and columnists for years. Hundreds of Israeli reservists, called refuseniks, have declined to fight in the West Bank or Gaza, though they will defend Israel's borders to the utmost.
Clearly, there is more freedom to speak about injustice against Palestinians and be critical of government policy in the Knesset and in the Israeli media than there is in the Congress or at American political conventions. It is a shame of the Democratic Party and its new leader that they forgot about civil liberties for differing viewpoints and covered it up for unknowing television viewers with the video scam.
Jimmy Carter knew fully what the Party did to him. But he played the loyal Democrat as a good sport and avoided a ruckus without even a public grumble. Privately, however, he and Rosalynn were very upset, believing that political pandering prevents the United States from playing a key role in peace-making between the powerful Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors.
Pandering is what Barack Obama perfected in his address right after the Denver nomination to the AIPAC convention. During his trip to Israel-Palestine, he refused to comment on the plight of the occupied Palestinians or the humanitarian crisis in encircled Gaza that over the past year's strife has produced Gazan civilian casualties at a rate of over 400 times those inflicted on Israeli civilians.
In a March 2008 poll by the respected Haaretz newspaper, sixty-four percent of Israelis supported “direct negotiations with Hamas”—the elected government of Gaza that now accepts a two-state solution back to the 1967 borders.
This is an auspicious time for vigorous peacemaking by the new Obama Administration as a steady, honest broker. The serious offer by the Arab League in 2002 for such an agreement, coupled with diplomatic and economic relations with the Arab countries was reiterated dramatically on November 10 with a full page message in the New York Times. Headlined “Peace is Possible: More than 50 Arab and Muslim Countries Agree,” the Center for Middle East Peace reminds Americans of that Arab Peace Initiative, reiterated in 2007, and supported by the fifty-seven member nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (www.centerpeace.org). The dramatic declaration, replete with all the flags of these countries, ended with the plea: “Let us not miss this opportunity.”
The Israeli government has not engaged this long-standing offer by the Arab League. Without Barack Obama taking a strong initiative in America's national interest, it is unlikely that there will be any serious engagement. A sign that he is determined to set the peace process on course is whether he expresses his regrets about the intolerance and suppression of a former president whose views on the Palestinian question he once shared in Chicago before he began the quest for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
Jimmy Carter—the early peacemaker between Israel and Egypt (for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize)—has remained the most steadfast, prominent American friend that the Israeli and Palestinian peoples have in securing a stable peace in that region. The new President Obama should welcome Mr. Carter's wise and seasoned counsel.
Ralph Nader is the author of The Seventeen Traditions.
Don't Suppress Carter (or the Opportunities for Middle East Peace)
By RALPH NADER
Now that the season of electoral expediency is over, Barack Obama owes Jimmy Carter an apology.
At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, the Party denied Jimmy Carter the traditional invitation to speak that is accorded its former presidents.
According to The Jewish Daily Forward, “Carter's controversial views on Israel cost him a place on the podium at the Democratic Party convention in late August, senior Democratic operatives acknowledged to the Forward.”
Silencing Carter, who negotiated the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement, involved behind the scenes tensions between supporters of the hard-line AIPAC lobby and those Democrats who argued both respect and free speech to let Carter join Bill Clinton on the stage and address a nationwide audience.
First, there was a compromise offer to let Carter speak but only on domestic policy subjects. This would have kept him from mentioning his views on securing peace between the Israelis and Palestinians through a two-state solution essentially back to the 1967 borders. He previously elaborated his analysis and recommendations in his 2006 bestseller titled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid..
Even this astonishing restriction on the former president was unacceptable to the dictatorial censors. They wanted nothing from the deliberate, candid Georgian short of complete exclusion.
It is false to attribute this shutdown to the opinions of American Jews, a majority of whom polls show support a two-state solution and disagree on other issues with the AIPAC lobby, as recently documented by The Nation Magazine's Eric Alterman.
The Convention planners, with the full knowledge and approval of their candidate, Barack Obama, arranged to have a short video on Carter's work during the post-Katrina crisis followed by a walk across the stage by Carter and his wife Rosalynn to applause.
Carter's opponents did not hide their efforts to keep him from speaking. They spoke openly to the media. They disliked Carter's recognition of Palestinian suffering under the Israeli government's military and colonial occupation, the blockades, the violations of UN Resolutions and international law. He championed the work of the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements who together have worked out a detailed two-state accord that is supported by a majority of their respective peoples.
Little of what Carter wrote and spoke about has not been said by many prominent Israelis, leading newspapers and columnists for years. Hundreds of Israeli reservists, called refuseniks, have declined to fight in the West Bank or Gaza, though they will defend Israel's borders to the utmost.
Clearly, there is more freedom to speak about injustice against Palestinians and be critical of government policy in the Knesset and in the Israeli media than there is in the Congress or at American political conventions. It is a shame of the Democratic Party and its new leader that they forgot about civil liberties for differing viewpoints and covered it up for unknowing television viewers with the video scam.
Jimmy Carter knew fully what the Party did to him. But he played the loyal Democrat as a good sport and avoided a ruckus without even a public grumble. Privately, however, he and Rosalynn were very upset, believing that political pandering prevents the United States from playing a key role in peace-making between the powerful Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors.
Pandering is what Barack Obama perfected in his address right after the Denver nomination to the AIPAC convention. During his trip to Israel-Palestine, he refused to comment on the plight of the occupied Palestinians or the humanitarian crisis in encircled Gaza that over the past year's strife has produced Gazan civilian casualties at a rate of over 400 times those inflicted on Israeli civilians.
In a March 2008 poll by the respected Haaretz newspaper, sixty-four percent of Israelis supported “direct negotiations with Hamas”—the elected government of Gaza that now accepts a two-state solution back to the 1967 borders.
This is an auspicious time for vigorous peacemaking by the new Obama Administration as a steady, honest broker. The serious offer by the Arab League in 2002 for such an agreement, coupled with diplomatic and economic relations with the Arab countries was reiterated dramatically on November 10 with a full page message in the New York Times. Headlined “Peace is Possible: More than 50 Arab and Muslim Countries Agree,” the Center for Middle East Peace reminds Americans of that Arab Peace Initiative, reiterated in 2007, and supported by the fifty-seven member nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (www.centerpeace.org). The dramatic declaration, replete with all the flags of these countries, ended with the plea: “Let us not miss this opportunity.”
The Israeli government has not engaged this long-standing offer by the Arab League. Without Barack Obama taking a strong initiative in America's national interest, it is unlikely that there will be any serious engagement. A sign that he is determined to set the peace process on course is whether he expresses his regrets about the intolerance and suppression of a former president whose views on the Palestinian question he once shared in Chicago before he began the quest for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
Jimmy Carter—the early peacemaker between Israel and Egypt (for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize)—has remained the most steadfast, prominent American friend that the Israeli and Palestinian peoples have in securing a stable peace in that region. The new President Obama should welcome Mr. Carter's wise and seasoned counsel.
Ralph Nader is the author of The Seventeen Traditions.
every station is fox
The Petroleum Broadcasting System
PBS Reports for Big Oil on Venezuela
By PATRICK IRELAN
On Tuesday evening, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) will carry a 90-minute review of the presidency of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. As the show progresses, it quickly becomes apparent to the viewer why critics often refer to PBS as the “Petroleum Broadcasting System.” Venezuela has huge oil reserves. Big Oil provides much of the funding for PBS programs. And it would not be wise to offend this source of cash, regardless of how greedy and despicable the oil barons might be.
Before we get on with show, let me remind you that state and municipal elections were held in Venezuela on Sunday, with the pro-Chávez United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) winning gubernatorial seats in 17 states and the opposition winning in 5 states. No election was held in the state of Amazonas, which is on a different election cycle. The governor of that state is a Chavez supporter. The results of 328 municipal elections have not yet been announced.
After the results had been tallied, President Chávez commended Venezuelans for their participation in the elections, in which 65 percent of registered voters cast their ballots. Chávez said, "I recognize opposition victories; I hope they do the same." In 2002, they did not recognize his victories and mounted a coup with the enthusiastic support of the Bush administration. The coup failed, and Pedro Carmona, the heroic 48-hour coup leader and president, ran away to Florida.
With these recent events in mind, viewers will be prepared for Tuesdaynight’s broadcast of Frontline on PBS. This episode is called “The Hugo Chávez Show.” It was written, directed, and produced by Ofra Bikel, the winner of uncountable awards for documentaries.
In an interview that complements the show, Bikel drops hints about her opinion of Chávez and his political style. Chávez, she says, is “so outrageously rude and says insane things about President Bush, calling him ‘donkey,’ ‘Mr. Danger,’ ‘the devil.’”
I would agree with Ms. Bikel that these statements are rude, but they’re far from insane. I like “Mr. Danger” best of all, but others might prefer “the devil.” It’s all a matter of taste.
Bikel is upset that she couldn’t interview President Chávez. “… you can manage to do a lot of things as far as filming is concerned,” she says, “because the situation is so chaotic, and no one pays attention to the rules—until it has to do with Chávez. Not only is he incredibly well-protected, but you can't film anything that has to do with him unless it's a march or rally.”
This is an overstatement. It also reveals that Bikel is unaware that because of repeated threats against his life, Chávez now takes special precautions. Prior to the 2002 coup attempt, he moved about freely and announced his itinerary in advance. Now he still goes out every day, but the schedule is no longer released ahead of time.
Bikel believes she was denied access to the president because she was viewed as “anti-Chávez.” How terribly the Venezuelan authorities have treated her. And she has all those awards. What were they thinking?
So much for the interview. You can read the rest for yourself at the PBS website. Let me give you a few samples from the documentary, which consists almost entirely of interviews with objective journalists, biased journalists, the president’s enemies, and various other observers. It also includes many excerpts from Chávez’s Sunday TV broadcasts, Aló Presidente.
Bikel, Big Oil, foreign and domestic enemies, et al. don’t like Aló Presidente. Chávez doesn’t obey the normal rules for presidential appearances. He answers questions phoned in by citizens. He sings. He improvises. He talks a long time. He rides a tractor on a grain farm. He rides a horse on a cattle farm. He walks down deserted Sunday streets in Caracas with the mayor and other officials, discussing the problem of street crime. Wouldn’t it be better if he walked up to a podium like George Bush and said “nucular”?
After the walk, he appears with an audience and moves on to a discussion of Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe, who has ordered an invasion of Ecuador to kill member of the FARC. He says Uribe is a criminal, a mobster, a liar, a paramilitary thug, and a lackey of George Bush. Regrettably, there is much evidence for all these charges. (See my CounterPunch articles of 4/1/2008 and 7/8/2008.)
One of the show’s guests states that Chávez had once said that he wanted to get out of the International Monetary Fund, but someone advised him on that occasion that Venezuela lacked the money to get out, and Chávez never talked about it again. Actually, Venezuela withdrew from both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the second and third quarters of 2007, paying off all debts to both of those grasping arms of the Washington Consensus. (Ven-Global News, 9/30/2008)
The program inevitably starts crawling around inside the head of Hugo Chávez. This is often a waste of time for psychiatrists and always a failure for amateurs. While engaged in this nonsense, Bikel and Company misses one of the most obvious things about the man, the color of his skin. The president of Venezuela is a mestizo, unlike any other president in the country’s history. The oligarchy that has ruled until now is mostly as white as the sickly face of Pedro Carmona on the day when he learned that his presidency would be the shortest in history.
The mass media in Venezuela is controlled by the rich white elite. Day after day, it uses racist terms to describe Chávez and others like him. Only one newspaper and the two state-owned TV stations carry the real news of the Chávez government. One private station, RCTV, lost its broadcast license because it stridently aired its support of the 2002 coup while that coup was actually taking place. RCTV is now available only on cable. Frontline provides the sad story of RCTV, but fails to mention its acts of treason.
The majority of the population in Venezuela is of either mestizo or African descent, people who’ve never before had a president who looked remotely like them. They don’t care if he sings, rides a tractor, or talks for hours. They won’t follow him into a dictatorship, but he isn’t headed in that direction. Frontline cleverly implies that he is.
The U.S. corporate media loves to tell us that Venezuela is about to become another Cuba. The Washington Post suffers from delusions unheard of since the yellow journalism of the Spanish-American War era. Chávez admires Fidel Castro because he overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and has now withstood U.S. interference for half a century. But both men know that their respective revolutions are entirely different.
The members of the Bush administration say that Chávez is undemocratic. What comedians they are. Has Venezuela invaded another country, bombed its towns and cities, hanged its president, killed thousands of civilians, and turned millions of others into refugees? Has Chávez denied prisoners of war all rights, allowed them to be tortured, and broken all the customary international agreements about the treatment of POWs?
Chávez has done none of these things. He even pardoned the men who plotted the coup, after which many of them immediately began verbally attacking him again. I could cite many other falsehoods in Bikel’s fairytale, but I’ve said all I can bear.
Chávez wants nothing more than a mixed economy in which the profits from huge industries are used to benefit all citizens, not just the white descendants of European conquerors. The Chávez government pays the owners for any industries it nationalizes. And it has no interest in the Mom and Pop café down the street. Frontline won’t tell you any of this.
But Chávez does want PDVSA, the national oil company, to serve the interests of all Venezuelans, not merely those of the private club that controlled it before the election of Chávez. After the members of that club went on “strike,” Chavez fired them and hired new people. He wants all citizens to join the club.
Is that really too much to ask?
Patrick Irelan is a retired high-school teacher. He is the author of A Firefly in the Night (Ice Cube Press) and Central Standard: A Time, a Place, a Family (University of Iowa Press). You can contact him at pwirelan43@yahoo.com.
PBS Reports for Big Oil on Venezuela
By PATRICK IRELAN
On Tuesday evening, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) will carry a 90-minute review of the presidency of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. As the show progresses, it quickly becomes apparent to the viewer why critics often refer to PBS as the “Petroleum Broadcasting System.” Venezuela has huge oil reserves. Big Oil provides much of the funding for PBS programs. And it would not be wise to offend this source of cash, regardless of how greedy and despicable the oil barons might be.
Before we get on with show, let me remind you that state and municipal elections were held in Venezuela on Sunday, with the pro-Chávez United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) winning gubernatorial seats in 17 states and the opposition winning in 5 states. No election was held in the state of Amazonas, which is on a different election cycle. The governor of that state is a Chavez supporter. The results of 328 municipal elections have not yet been announced.
After the results had been tallied, President Chávez commended Venezuelans for their participation in the elections, in which 65 percent of registered voters cast their ballots. Chávez said, "I recognize opposition victories; I hope they do the same." In 2002, they did not recognize his victories and mounted a coup with the enthusiastic support of the Bush administration. The coup failed, and Pedro Carmona, the heroic 48-hour coup leader and president, ran away to Florida.
With these recent events in mind, viewers will be prepared for Tuesdaynight’s broadcast of Frontline on PBS. This episode is called “The Hugo Chávez Show.” It was written, directed, and produced by Ofra Bikel, the winner of uncountable awards for documentaries.
In an interview that complements the show, Bikel drops hints about her opinion of Chávez and his political style. Chávez, she says, is “so outrageously rude and says insane things about President Bush, calling him ‘donkey,’ ‘Mr. Danger,’ ‘the devil.’”
I would agree with Ms. Bikel that these statements are rude, but they’re far from insane. I like “Mr. Danger” best of all, but others might prefer “the devil.” It’s all a matter of taste.
Bikel is upset that she couldn’t interview President Chávez. “… you can manage to do a lot of things as far as filming is concerned,” she says, “because the situation is so chaotic, and no one pays attention to the rules—until it has to do with Chávez. Not only is he incredibly well-protected, but you can't film anything that has to do with him unless it's a march or rally.”
This is an overstatement. It also reveals that Bikel is unaware that because of repeated threats against his life, Chávez now takes special precautions. Prior to the 2002 coup attempt, he moved about freely and announced his itinerary in advance. Now he still goes out every day, but the schedule is no longer released ahead of time.
Bikel believes she was denied access to the president because she was viewed as “anti-Chávez.” How terribly the Venezuelan authorities have treated her. And she has all those awards. What were they thinking?
So much for the interview. You can read the rest for yourself at the PBS website. Let me give you a few samples from the documentary, which consists almost entirely of interviews with objective journalists, biased journalists, the president’s enemies, and various other observers. It also includes many excerpts from Chávez’s Sunday TV broadcasts, Aló Presidente.
Bikel, Big Oil, foreign and domestic enemies, et al. don’t like Aló Presidente. Chávez doesn’t obey the normal rules for presidential appearances. He answers questions phoned in by citizens. He sings. He improvises. He talks a long time. He rides a tractor on a grain farm. He rides a horse on a cattle farm. He walks down deserted Sunday streets in Caracas with the mayor and other officials, discussing the problem of street crime. Wouldn’t it be better if he walked up to a podium like George Bush and said “nucular”?
After the walk, he appears with an audience and moves on to a discussion of Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe, who has ordered an invasion of Ecuador to kill member of the FARC. He says Uribe is a criminal, a mobster, a liar, a paramilitary thug, and a lackey of George Bush. Regrettably, there is much evidence for all these charges. (See my CounterPunch articles of 4/1/2008 and 7/8/2008.)
One of the show’s guests states that Chávez had once said that he wanted to get out of the International Monetary Fund, but someone advised him on that occasion that Venezuela lacked the money to get out, and Chávez never talked about it again. Actually, Venezuela withdrew from both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the second and third quarters of 2007, paying off all debts to both of those grasping arms of the Washington Consensus. (Ven-Global News, 9/30/2008)
The program inevitably starts crawling around inside the head of Hugo Chávez. This is often a waste of time for psychiatrists and always a failure for amateurs. While engaged in this nonsense, Bikel and Company misses one of the most obvious things about the man, the color of his skin. The president of Venezuela is a mestizo, unlike any other president in the country’s history. The oligarchy that has ruled until now is mostly as white as the sickly face of Pedro Carmona on the day when he learned that his presidency would be the shortest in history.
The mass media in Venezuela is controlled by the rich white elite. Day after day, it uses racist terms to describe Chávez and others like him. Only one newspaper and the two state-owned TV stations carry the real news of the Chávez government. One private station, RCTV, lost its broadcast license because it stridently aired its support of the 2002 coup while that coup was actually taking place. RCTV is now available only on cable. Frontline provides the sad story of RCTV, but fails to mention its acts of treason.
The majority of the population in Venezuela is of either mestizo or African descent, people who’ve never before had a president who looked remotely like them. They don’t care if he sings, rides a tractor, or talks for hours. They won’t follow him into a dictatorship, but he isn’t headed in that direction. Frontline cleverly implies that he is.
The U.S. corporate media loves to tell us that Venezuela is about to become another Cuba. The Washington Post suffers from delusions unheard of since the yellow journalism of the Spanish-American War era. Chávez admires Fidel Castro because he overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and has now withstood U.S. interference for half a century. But both men know that their respective revolutions are entirely different.
The members of the Bush administration say that Chávez is undemocratic. What comedians they are. Has Venezuela invaded another country, bombed its towns and cities, hanged its president, killed thousands of civilians, and turned millions of others into refugees? Has Chávez denied prisoners of war all rights, allowed them to be tortured, and broken all the customary international agreements about the treatment of POWs?
Chávez has done none of these things. He even pardoned the men who plotted the coup, after which many of them immediately began verbally attacking him again. I could cite many other falsehoods in Bikel’s fairytale, but I’ve said all I can bear.
Chávez wants nothing more than a mixed economy in which the profits from huge industries are used to benefit all citizens, not just the white descendants of European conquerors. The Chávez government pays the owners for any industries it nationalizes. And it has no interest in the Mom and Pop café down the street. Frontline won’t tell you any of this.
But Chávez does want PDVSA, the national oil company, to serve the interests of all Venezuelans, not merely those of the private club that controlled it before the election of Chávez. After the members of that club went on “strike,” Chavez fired them and hired new people. He wants all citizens to join the club.
Is that really too much to ask?
Patrick Irelan is a retired high-school teacher. He is the author of A Firefly in the Night (Ice Cube Press) and Central Standard: A Time, a Place, a Family (University of Iowa Press). You can contact him at pwirelan43@yahoo.com.
Monday, November 24, 2008
sometimes you're so wise, you're dumb
yo pinko, i just saw two different clips of tim wise. in one, he was speaking to what i assume was a largely white audience. he himself sounded white. in the second clip, he was more animated, and sounded blacker. in fact, he sounded a lot like rock newman. for a second, i thought he was gonna go into a version of "i feel good." strange. hey tim, fighting white supremacy doesn't make you an honorary member of the temptations. just thought you should know. so pinko, check this out. the "black" clip is his "on obama and race," while a minute of his lecture on white privilege will give you a taste of his cracker side.
great quote by rollins. another sonny, criss that is, had his great quote too..."in america, the only thing that's real is ugliness." and of course, eric's i'm leaving the states "because if you try to do something different here, they put you down for it."
went to chuck turner's rally today. it was over by the time i got there, but it was a huge crowd. hopefully, the people will stay engaged and agitated. i think they fucked with the wrong guy this time. speaking of fucking with the wrong guy, how is chuck turn-her for a good porn name? hey man, rashid was there. he still teaches at the local community colleges, but sadly, everytime he sees a white man in a suit, he runs for cover. ironically, so do i. borkson was there as well. he still has the world's weakest hand shake. man, you wouldn't want a hand job from this guy; you would fall asleep before climaxing.
a few words from raven screen
"man looks into the abyss and the abyss, the poet says, looks back. we know what the man sees, for the abyss is black, but what does the abyss see if the man is. looking out of the abyss, sonny criss, a black man (black on black man, jazzman) peers on oblivion from atop some alp of a forgotten range, in a lost country in the midst of an unmarked ocean, adrift in the dogstar pole. i mean, of course, in the black ghetto called (killer) watts in the city of angels right here in the good old u. s. of a in the year of your lord 1967, where you can hail mary or heil hitler but can't find a place to play your music if you're a black man (black on black man, jazzman) once invisible and unheard, now made visible but still unheard."
"free calls, freeks all. eyes of blinking destiny and bleary forgiveness stare on crimes of suffering in the ecstasy of a naked light that could raze the world pure once more and reforge the heart of everyone it touches. that heart (my heart) has been bellowed molten, a firemetal frost blasted, foamblazed, flashbronzed, and beaten, that heart (o heart of hearts) is suddenly plunged and lifted high, still steamy and masked in shimmers, its crystalshower spurts and skippingstone dazzle descending to enshroud the hammer (and the hand) as the heart (our heart) shudders once upon the veiled anvil of eternity before it begins to beat with the perfect radiance of sextillion suns.
cut loose, love kills." (this is the end of the notes)
need i remind you that these notes begin with the line... "in a place high above the vegetable world, where time is not measured in seasons and the freezing wind ceaselessly whips and eddies, the dark and elegant figure of a man rests upon a rock and patiently scans the unremitting bleaks that wrap tight the mountaintops of our planet."
what the fuck?
yes, these are the notes from sonny criss's "up, up, and away" album. the fact that these words were published gives me hope that my dreams of becoming a full time whistler may indeed come true.
some people on the left "feel betrayed" by obama's cabinet selections. hey, i told them he was gonna go for an oak finish, but they didn't want to listen. seriously, they shouldn't feel betrayed, because the left never had a say in what was going on. they only thought they did. and that's the tragedy.
ps...(killer) watts? was this a pun? if so, i am beginning to see the light.
great quote by rollins. another sonny, criss that is, had his great quote too..."in america, the only thing that's real is ugliness." and of course, eric's i'm leaving the states "because if you try to do something different here, they put you down for it."
went to chuck turner's rally today. it was over by the time i got there, but it was a huge crowd. hopefully, the people will stay engaged and agitated. i think they fucked with the wrong guy this time. speaking of fucking with the wrong guy, how is chuck turn-her for a good porn name? hey man, rashid was there. he still teaches at the local community colleges, but sadly, everytime he sees a white man in a suit, he runs for cover. ironically, so do i. borkson was there as well. he still has the world's weakest hand shake. man, you wouldn't want a hand job from this guy; you would fall asleep before climaxing.
a few words from raven screen
"man looks into the abyss and the abyss, the poet says, looks back. we know what the man sees, for the abyss is black, but what does the abyss see if the man is. looking out of the abyss, sonny criss, a black man (black on black man, jazzman) peers on oblivion from atop some alp of a forgotten range, in a lost country in the midst of an unmarked ocean, adrift in the dogstar pole. i mean, of course, in the black ghetto called (killer) watts in the city of angels right here in the good old u. s. of a in the year of your lord 1967, where you can hail mary or heil hitler but can't find a place to play your music if you're a black man (black on black man, jazzman) once invisible and unheard, now made visible but still unheard."
"free calls, freeks all. eyes of blinking destiny and bleary forgiveness stare on crimes of suffering in the ecstasy of a naked light that could raze the world pure once more and reforge the heart of everyone it touches. that heart (my heart) has been bellowed molten, a firemetal frost blasted, foamblazed, flashbronzed, and beaten, that heart (o heart of hearts) is suddenly plunged and lifted high, still steamy and masked in shimmers, its crystalshower spurts and skippingstone dazzle descending to enshroud the hammer (and the hand) as the heart (our heart) shudders once upon the veiled anvil of eternity before it begins to beat with the perfect radiance of sextillion suns.
cut loose, love kills." (this is the end of the notes)
need i remind you that these notes begin with the line... "in a place high above the vegetable world, where time is not measured in seasons and the freezing wind ceaselessly whips and eddies, the dark and elegant figure of a man rests upon a rock and patiently scans the unremitting bleaks that wrap tight the mountaintops of our planet."
what the fuck?
yes, these are the notes from sonny criss's "up, up, and away" album. the fact that these words were published gives me hope that my dreams of becoming a full time whistler may indeed come true.
some people on the left "feel betrayed" by obama's cabinet selections. hey, i told them he was gonna go for an oak finish, but they didn't want to listen. seriously, they shouldn't feel betrayed, because the left never had a say in what was going on. they only thought they did. and that's the tragedy.
ps...(killer) watts? was this a pun? if so, i am beginning to see the light.
on the sonny side
Sonny Rollins sez: “I think we are in the midst of this period where we are committing suicide on the planet and everybody is just using up all of our natural resources like a bunch of insane people. That’s what I worry about more than I worry about jazz.”
Friday, November 21, 2008
the merging of the private and public spheres, and the death of us all
have you noticed this? there is no sense anymore that public spaces are meant to be shared, and that therefore, certain behaviors should be limited or eliminated within the public sphere. it used to be that a guy would talk to someone on the phone in private. they either did this in their own home, or in a telephone booth. then, the cell phone came in, but at first, it wasn't used often, and when used, only for certain conversations. many a time, i would sense someone getting angry on their cell, and then that person would say "i'll call you when i get home," or "i'll talk to you later." now, the conversation keeps going. people have arguments on their cell phones as they ride on the bus, or as they walk down the street. last week, i heard a girl break up with her boyfriend, as she yelled at him over the phone on the bus. it used to be that we had to go to the phone, and all that happened on the phone. now, we bring the phone to us, and all the things we talk about on it have now entered the public sphere. as such, the private sphere widens, and the public sphere decreases. once upon a time, a passenger on a bus may have looked around at the other people on the bus. people may have struck up conversations, perhaps even becoming friends in the process. others may have looked out the window at the sights. they may have spotted a new restaurant they could eat at, or memorized a path that they could then walk or bike through at a later time. still others may have read.
and it isn't just the cell phone. people are constantly texting each other, or playing video games. in the old days, a guy would go to an arcade, which was a shared social space. there, they could hang out with friends, or even meet new people. now, people bring the arcade with them. they close themselves off from the outside world. at the arcade, you try new games. with the video system, you are limited to the games you already own. even the home video system is better than the portable one. at least at home you can play with friends or family, and you have to go to the system in order to use it. there is something arrogant about making everything come to us. we no longer honor patience and scarcity. it used to be that a family shared one phone, or, one phone line. so, even within your own private sphere, you often had to wait a while before you could use the phone. now, everybody talks to everybody all the time! usually, with nothing to say.
these gadgets are also usually a waste of money. do people need to play video games everywhere they go? do they need to text and email as they walk down the street? do they need to cuss people out on the bus? i just came from the supermarket, where the cashier was bragging to a co-worker that he "only" spent $280 for his phone. 280? that must be a week's pay for this guy! and what of the 50 to 100 a month this guy will pay on his monthly bill? we are talking thousands of dollars this young man will eventually spend for something that he didn't need. mind you, he will do this in a world where most people have never even used a phone, much less been able to spend close to $300 dollars for one.
and it isn't only wasteful on the individual's part. what kind of a global economic order produces phones for those who already have them, while most people will never own a phone? what kind of an economic order produces indoor swimming pools for people, when most people don't even have running water? what kind of an economic order produces viagra while people die of malaria? what kind of an economic order produces luxury hotels while millions sleep in the streets? what kind of an economic order creates fancy restaurants while millions go to bed hungry? what kind of an economic order produces warren buffet, a man worth 500 billion dollars, while most of the world has no savings? the excessive production and purchase of these items is a slap in the face of every homeless and hungry person on this earth.
and what of the environment? think of all the metals that are dug for to make these products. think of the paper and plastic that is used to package them. this is surely having a negative impact on the earth. and then, when the products are disposed of, they often end up in landfills, usually in the poorest of nations, where they further pollute the environment. so, not only do we insult those without phones and computers by purchasing them like mad, but we then give them the products back as garbage, which further degrades the already contaminated earth the world's poor are forced to live on.
my suggestions? one phone is enough, whether it be a cell or a home phone. play video games at home, if at all. at the most, own one computer, which stays in your house. better yet, visit your local library or college for your computer use, or even better, slack like crazy at the gig by looking up everything on the internet you can think of. don't break up with people over the phone, especially if you are on the bus. rather, look out the window, or read, or cop looks at the interesting people who never fail to also take the bus, like the maniac i see who sings "he's a maniac" to himself. if you do own a cell, leave it at home, or turn it off. instead of playing video games, go outside and play real games. fuck madden 08. grab a football and go play catch. limit your purchases. going without a cell phone will probably save you between 500 to 1000 a year. with the money saved, you could donate to groups like doctors without borders, or get subscriptions to progressive magazines, or treat yourself to a shitload of good books and cd's. the same goes with the computer and the cable tv. if you go without all three, you will likely save close to $2000 a year. you could help feed a lot of people with that money. imagine if we all thought that way, instead of waiting for some savior from up high to create change.
and why stop there. do girls really need to get their nails done every 30 seconds? do our young need to spend more on sneakers than many of the world's poor earn in a year? does a guy who already owns a house really need to buy a second one? does your wedding really need to cost 50 thousand dollars? come on people!
yeah, i know i'm just jerking off by writing this shit.
well, i guess the only difference was that after you were finished doing the same, you had something to show for it.
and it isn't just the cell phone. people are constantly texting each other, or playing video games. in the old days, a guy would go to an arcade, which was a shared social space. there, they could hang out with friends, or even meet new people. now, people bring the arcade with them. they close themselves off from the outside world. at the arcade, you try new games. with the video system, you are limited to the games you already own. even the home video system is better than the portable one. at least at home you can play with friends or family, and you have to go to the system in order to use it. there is something arrogant about making everything come to us. we no longer honor patience and scarcity. it used to be that a family shared one phone, or, one phone line. so, even within your own private sphere, you often had to wait a while before you could use the phone. now, everybody talks to everybody all the time! usually, with nothing to say.
these gadgets are also usually a waste of money. do people need to play video games everywhere they go? do they need to text and email as they walk down the street? do they need to cuss people out on the bus? i just came from the supermarket, where the cashier was bragging to a co-worker that he "only" spent $280 for his phone. 280? that must be a week's pay for this guy! and what of the 50 to 100 a month this guy will pay on his monthly bill? we are talking thousands of dollars this young man will eventually spend for something that he didn't need. mind you, he will do this in a world where most people have never even used a phone, much less been able to spend close to $300 dollars for one.
and it isn't only wasteful on the individual's part. what kind of a global economic order produces phones for those who already have them, while most people will never own a phone? what kind of an economic order produces indoor swimming pools for people, when most people don't even have running water? what kind of an economic order produces viagra while people die of malaria? what kind of an economic order produces luxury hotels while millions sleep in the streets? what kind of an economic order creates fancy restaurants while millions go to bed hungry? what kind of an economic order produces warren buffet, a man worth 500 billion dollars, while most of the world has no savings? the excessive production and purchase of these items is a slap in the face of every homeless and hungry person on this earth.
and what of the environment? think of all the metals that are dug for to make these products. think of the paper and plastic that is used to package them. this is surely having a negative impact on the earth. and then, when the products are disposed of, they often end up in landfills, usually in the poorest of nations, where they further pollute the environment. so, not only do we insult those without phones and computers by purchasing them like mad, but we then give them the products back as garbage, which further degrades the already contaminated earth the world's poor are forced to live on.
my suggestions? one phone is enough, whether it be a cell or a home phone. play video games at home, if at all. at the most, own one computer, which stays in your house. better yet, visit your local library or college for your computer use, or even better, slack like crazy at the gig by looking up everything on the internet you can think of. don't break up with people over the phone, especially if you are on the bus. rather, look out the window, or read, or cop looks at the interesting people who never fail to also take the bus, like the maniac i see who sings "he's a maniac" to himself. if you do own a cell, leave it at home, or turn it off. instead of playing video games, go outside and play real games. fuck madden 08. grab a football and go play catch. limit your purchases. going without a cell phone will probably save you between 500 to 1000 a year. with the money saved, you could donate to groups like doctors without borders, or get subscriptions to progressive magazines, or treat yourself to a shitload of good books and cd's. the same goes with the computer and the cable tv. if you go without all three, you will likely save close to $2000 a year. you could help feed a lot of people with that money. imagine if we all thought that way, instead of waiting for some savior from up high to create change.
and why stop there. do girls really need to get their nails done every 30 seconds? do our young need to spend more on sneakers than many of the world's poor earn in a year? does a guy who already owns a house really need to buy a second one? does your wedding really need to cost 50 thousand dollars? come on people!
yeah, i know i'm just jerking off by writing this shit.
well, i guess the only difference was that after you were finished doing the same, you had something to show for it.
jeremy is not over the scahill
This is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House
by Jeremy Scahill
U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots. Among them: his personal politics and views, the disastrous realities his administration will inherit, and, of course, unpredictable future crises. But the best immediate indicator of what an Obama administration might look like can be found in the people he surrounds himself with and who he appoints to his Cabinet. And, frankly, when it comes to foreign policy, it is not looking good.
Obama has a momentous opportunity to do what he repeatedly promised over the course of his campaign: bring actual change. But the more we learn about who Obama is considering for top positions in his administration, the more his inner circle resembles a staff reunion of President Bill Clinton's White House. Although Obama brought some progressives on board early in his campaign, his foreign policy team is now dominated by the hawkish, old-guard Democrats of the 1990s. This has been particularly true since Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the Democratic primary, freeing many of her top advisors to join Obama's team.
"What happened to all this talk about change?" a member of the Clinton foreign policy team recently asked the Washington Post. "This isn't lightly flavored with Clintons. This is all Clintons, all the time."
Amid the euphoria over Obama's election and the end of the Bush era, it is critical to recall what 1990s U.S. foreign policy actually looked like. Bill Clinton's boiled down to a one-two punch from the hidden hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of U.S. militarism. Clinton took office and almost immediately bombed Iraq (ostensibly in retaliation for an alleged plot by Saddam Hussein to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush). He presided over a ruthless regime of economic sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and under the guise of the so-called No-Fly Zones in northern and southern Iraq, authorized the longest sustained U.S. bombing campaign since Vietnam.
Under Clinton, Yugoslavia was bombed and dismantled as part of what Noam Chomsky described as the "New Military Humanism." Sudan and Afghanistan were attacked, Haiti was destabilized and "free trade" deals like the North America Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade radically escalated the spread of corporate-dominated globalization that hurt U.S. workers and devastated developing countries. Clinton accelerated the militarization of the so-called War on Drugs in Central and Latin America and supported privatization of U.S. military operations, giving lucrative contracts to Halliburton and other war contractors. Meanwhile, U.S. weapons sales to countries like Turkey and Indonesia aided genocidal campaigns against the Kurds and the East Timorese.
The prospect of Obama's foreign policy being, at least in part, an extension of the Clinton Doctrine is real. Even more disturbing, several of the individuals at the center of Obama's transition and emerging foreign policy teams were top players in creating and implementing foreign policies that would pave the way for projects eventually carried out under the Bush/Cheney administration. With their assistance, Obama has already charted out several hawkish stances. Among them:
-- His plan to escalate the war in Afghanistan;
-- An Iraq plan that could turn into a downsized and rebranded occupation that keeps U.S. forces in Iraq for the foreseeable future;
-- His labeling of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist organization;"
-- His pledge to use unilateral force inside of Pakistan to defend U.S. interests;
-- His position, presented before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that Jerusalem "must remain undivided" -- a remark that infuriated Palestinian officials and which he later attempted to reframe;
-- His plan to continue the War on Drugs, a backdoor U.S. counterinsurgency campaign in Central and Latin America;
-- His refusal to "rule out" using Blackwater and other armed private forces in U.S. war zones, despite previously introducing legislation to regulate these companies and bring them under U.S. law.
Obama did not arrive at these positions in a vacuum. They were carefully crafted in consultation with his foreign policy team. While the verdict is still out on a few people, many members of his inner foreign policy circle -- including some who have received or are bound to receive Cabinet posts -- supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Some promoted the myth that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. A few have worked with the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, whose radical agenda was adopted by the Bush/Cheney administration. And most have proven track records of supporting or implementing militaristic, offensive U.S. foreign policy. "After a masterful campaign, Barack Obama seems headed toward some fateful mistakes as he assembles his administration by heeding the advice of Washington's Democratic insider community, a collective group that represents little 'change you can believe in,'" notes veteran journalist Robert Parry, the former Associated Press and Newsweek reporter who broke many of the stories in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s.
As news breaks and speculation abounds about cabinet appointments, here are 20 people to watch as Obama builds the team who will shape U.S. foreign policy for at least four years:
Joe Biden
There was no stronger sign that Obama's foreign policy would follow the hawkish tradition of the Democratic foreign policy establishment than his selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate. Much has been written on Biden's tenure as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but his role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq stands out. Biden is not just one more Democratic lawmaker who now calls his vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq "mistaken;" Biden was actually an important facilitator of the war.
In the summer of 2002, when the United States was "debating" a potential attack on Iraq, Biden presided over hearings whose ostensible purpose was to weigh all existing options. But instead of calling on experts whose testimony could challenge the case for war -- Iraq's alleged WMD possession and its supposed ties to al-Qaida -- Biden's hearings treated the invasion as a foregone conclusion. His refusal to call on two individuals in particular ensured that testimony that could have proven invaluable to an actual debate was never heard: Former Chief United Nations Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter and Hans von Sponeck, a 32-year veteran diplomat and the former head of the U.N.'s Iraq program.
Both men say they made it clear to Biden's office that they were ready and willing to testify; Ritter knew more about the dismantling of Iraq's WMD program than perhaps any other U.S. citizen and would have been in prime position to debunk the misinformation and outright lies being peddled by the White House. Meanwhile, von Sponeck had just returned from Iraq, where he had observed Ansar al Islam rebels in the north of Iraq -- the so-called al-Qaida connection -- and could have testified that, rather than colluding with Saddam's regime, they were in a battle against it. Moreover, he would have pointed out that they were operating in the U.S.-enforced safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan. "Evidence of al-Qaida/lraq collaboration does not exist, neither in the training of operatives nor in support to Ansar-al-Islam," von Sponeck wrote in an Op-Ed published shortly before the July 2002 hearings. "The U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA know perfectly well that today's Iraq poses no threat to anyone in the region, let alone in the United States. To argue otherwise is dishonest."
With both men barred from testifying, rather than eliciting an array of informed opinions, Biden's committee whitewashed Bush's lies and helped lead the country to war. Biden himself promoted the administration's false claims that were used to justify the invasion of Iraq, declaring on the Senate floor, "[Saddam Hussein] possesses chemical and biological weapons and is seeking nuclear weapons."
With the war underway, Biden was then the genius who passionately promoted the ridiculous plan to partition Iraq into three areas based on religion and ethnicity, attempting to Balkanize one of the strongest Arab states in the world.
"He's a part of the old Democratic establishment," says retired Army Col. Ann Wright, the State Department diplomat who reopened the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2002. Biden, she says, has "had a long history with foreign affairs, [but] it's not the type of foreign affairs that I want."
Rahm Emanuel
Obama's appointment of Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff is a clear sign that Clinton-era neoliberal hawks will be well-represented at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. A former senior Clinton advisor, Emanuel is a hard-line supporter of Israel's "targeted assassination" policy and actually volunteered to work with the Israeli Army during the 1991 Gulf War. He is close to the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council and was the only member of the Illinois Democratic delegation in the Congress to vote for the invasion of Iraq. Unlike many of his colleagues, Emanuel still defends his vote. As chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, Emanuel promoted the campaigns of 22 candidates, only one of who supported a swift withdrawal from Iraq, and denied crucial Party funding to anti-war candidates. "As for Iraq policy, at the right time, we will have a position," he said in December 2005. As Philip Giraldi recently pointed out on Antiwar.com, Emanuel "advocates increasing the size of the U.S. Army by 100,000 soldiers and creating a domestic spying organization like Britain's MI5. More recently, he has supported mandatory paramilitary national service for all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25."
While Obama has at times been critical of Clinton-era free trade agreements, Emanuel was one of the key people in the Clinton White House who brokered the successful passage of NAFTA.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
For all the buzz and speculation about the possibility that Sen. Clinton may be named Secretary of State, most media coverage has focused on her rivalry with Obama during the primary, along with the prospect of her husband having to face the intense personal, financial and political vetting process required to secure a job in the new administration. But the question of how Clinton would lead the operations at Foggy Bottom calls for scrutiny of her positions vis-a-vis Obama's stated foreign-policy goals.
Clinton was an ardent defender of her husband's economic and military war against Iraq throughout the 1990s, including the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which ultimately laid the path for President George W. Bush's invasion. Later, as a U.S. senator, she not only voted to authorize the war, but aided the Bush administration's propaganda campaign in the lead-up to the invasion. "Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program," Clinton said when rising to support the measure in October 2002. "He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members … I want to insure that Saddam Hussein makes no mistake about our national unity and for our support for the president's efforts to wage America's war against terrorists and weapons of mass destruction."
"The man who vowed to deliver us from 28 years of Bushes and Clintons has been stocking up on Clintonites," New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently wrote. "How, one may ask, can he put Hillary -- who voted to authorize the Iraq war without even reading the intelligence assessment -- in charge of patching up a foreign policy and a world riven by that war?"
Beyond Iraq, Clinton shocked many and sparked official protests by Tehran at the United Nations when asked during the presidential campaign what she would do as president if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," she declared. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
Clinton has not shied away from supporting offensive foreign policy tactics in the past. Recalling her husband's weighing the decision of whether to attack Yugoslavia, she said in 1999, "I urged him to bomb. … You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?"
Madeleine Albright
While Obama's house is flush with Clintonian officials like former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Defense Secretary William Perry, Director of the State Department Office of Policy Planning Greg Craig (who was officially named Obama's White House Counsel) and Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, perhaps most influential is Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's former Secretary of State and U.N. ambassador. Albright recently served as a proxy for Obama, representing him at the G-20 summit earlier this month. Whether or not she is awarded an official role in the administration, Albright will be a major force in shaping Obama's foreign policy.
"It will take time to convince skeptics that the promotion of democracy is not a mask for imperialism or a recipe for the kind of chaos we have seen in the Persian Gulf," Albright recently wrote. "And it will take time to establish the right identity for America in a world that has grown suspicious of all who claim a monopoly on virtue and that has become reluctant to follow the lead of any one country."
Albright should know. She was one of the key architects in the dismantling of Yugoslavia during the 1990s. In the lead-up to the 1999 "Kosovo war," she oversaw the U.S. attempt to coerce the Yugoslav government to deny its own sovereignty in return for not being bombed. Albright demanded that the Yugoslav government sign a document that would have been unacceptable to any sovereign nation. Known as the Rambouillet Accord, it included a provision that would have guaranteed U.S. and NATO forces "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout" all of Yugoslavia -- not just Kosovo -- while also seeking to immunize those occupation forces "from any form of arrest, investigation or detention by the authorities in [Yugoslavia]." Moreover, it would have granted the occupiers "the use of airports, roads, rails and ports without payment." Similar to Bush's Iraq plan years later, the Rambouillet Accord mandated that the economy of Kosovo "shall function in accordance with free-market principles."
When Yugoslavia refused to sign the document, Albright and others in the Clinton administration unleashed the 78-day NATO bombing of Serbia, which targeted civilian infrastructure. (Prior to the attack, Albright said the U.S. government felt "the Serbs need a little bombing.") She and the Clinton administration also supported the rise to power in Kosovo of a terrorist mafia that carried out its own ethnic-cleansing campaign against the province's minorities.
Perhaps Albright's most notorious moment came with her enthusiastic support of the economic war against the civilian population of Iraq. When confronted by Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes" that the sanctions were responsible for the deaths of "a half-million children … more children than died in Hiroshima," Albright responded, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." (While defending the policy, Albright later called her choice of words "a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong.")
Richard Holbrooke
Like Albright, Holbrooke will have major sway over U.S. policy, whether or not he gets an official job. A career diplomat since the Vietnam War, Holbrooke's most recent government post was as President Clinton's ambassador to the U.N. Among the many violent policies he helped implement and enforce was the U.S.-backed Indonesian genocide in East Timor. Holbrooke was an Assistant Secretary of State in the late 1970s at the height of the slaughter and was the point man on East Timor for the Carter Administration.
According to Brad Simpson, director of the Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, "It was Holbrooke and Zbigniew Brzezinski [another top Obama advisor], both now leading lights in the Democratic Party, who played point in trying to frustrate the efforts of congressional human-rights activists to try and condition or stop U.S. military assistance to Indonesia, and in fact accelerated the flow of weapons to Indonesia at the height of the genocide."
Holbrooke, too, was a major player in the dismantling of Yugoslavia and praised the bombing of Serb Television, which killed 16 media workers, as a significant victory. (The man who ordered that bombing, now-retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, is another Obama foreign policy insider who could end up in his cabinet. While Clark is known for being relatively progressive on social issues, as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, he ordered bombings and attacks that Amnesty International labeled war crimes.)
Like many in Obama's foreign policy circle, Holbrooke also supported the Iraq war. In early 2003, shortly after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the UN, where he presented the administration's fraud-laden case for war to the UN (a speech Powell has since called a "blot" on his reputation), Holbrooke said: "It was a masterful job of diplomacy by Colin Powell and his colleagues, and it does not require a second vote to go to war. … Saddam is the most dangerous government leader in the world today, he poses a threat to the region, he could pose a larger threat if he got weapons of mass destruction deployed, and we have a legitimate right to take action."
Dennis Ross
Middle East envoy for both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Ross was one of the primary authors of Obama's aforementioned speech before AIPAC this summer. He cut his teeth working under famed neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon in the 1970s and worked closely with the Project for the New American Century. Ross has been a staunch supporter of Israel and has fanned the flames for a more hostile stance toward Iran. As the lead U.S. negotiator between Israel and numerous Arab nations under Clinton, Ross' team acted, in the words of one U.S. official who worked under him, as "Israel's lawyer."
"The 'no surprises' policy, under which we had to run everything by Israel first, stripped our policy of the independence and flexibility required for serious peacemaking," wrote U.S. diplomat Aaron David Miller in 2005. "If we couldn't put proposals on the table without checking with the Israelis first, and refused to push back when they said no, how effective could our mediation be? Far too often, particularly when it came to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, our departure point was not what was needed to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides but what would pass with only one -- Israel." After the Clinton White House, Ross worked for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a hawkish pro-Israel think tank, and for FOX News, where he repeatedly pressed for war against Iraq.
Martin Indyk
Founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Indyk spent years working for AIPAC and served as Clinton's ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, while also playing a major role in developing U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran. In addition to his work for the U.S. government, he has worked for the Israeli government and with PNAC.
"Barack Obama has painted himself into a corner by appealing to the most hard-line, pro-Israel elements in this country," Ali Abunimah, founder of ElectronicInifada.net, recently told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, describing Indyk and Dennis Ross as "two of the most pro-Israel officials from the Clinton era, who are totally distrusted by Palestinians and others across the Middle East, because they're seen as lifelong advocates for Israeli positions."
Anthony Lake
Clinton's former National Security Advisor was an early supporter of Obama and one of the few top Clintonites to initially back the president-elect. Lake began his foreign policy work in the U.S. Foreign Service during Vietnam, working with Henry Kissinger on the "September Group," a secret team tasked with developing a military strategy to deliver a "savage, decisive blow against North Vietnam."
Decades later, after working for various administrations, Lake "was the main force behind the U.S. invasion of Haiti in the mid-Clinton years," according to veteran journalist Allan Nairn, whose groundbreaking reporting revealed U.S. support for Haitian death squads in the 1990s. "They brought back Aristide essentially in political chains, pledged to support a World Bank/IMF overhaul of the economy, which resulted in an increase in malnutrition deaths among Haitians, and set the stage for the current ongoing political disaster in Haiti." Clinton nominated Lake as CIA Director, but he failed to win Senate confirmation.
Lee Hamilton
Hamilton is a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and was co-chairman of both the Iraq Study Group and 9/11 Commission. Robert Parry, who has covered Hamilton's career extensively, recently ran a piece on Consortium News that characterized him this way: "Whenever the Republicans have a touchy national-security scandal to put to rest, their favorite Democratic investigator is Lee Hamilton. … Hamilton's carefully honed skill for balancing truth against political comity has elevated him to the status of a Washington Wise Man."
Susan Rice
Former Assistant Secretary of Sate Susan Rice, who served on Bill Clinton's National Security Council, is a potential candidate for the post of ambassador to the U.N. or as a deputy national security advisor. She, too, promoted the myth that Saddam had WMDs. "It's clear that Iraq poses a major threat," she said in 2002. "It's clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that's the path we're on." (After the invasion, discussing Saddam's alleged possession of WMDs, she said, "I don't think many informed people doubted that.")
Rice has also been a passionate advocate for a U.S. military attack against Sudan over the Darfur crisis. In an op-ed co-authored with Anthony Lake, she wrote, "The United States, preferably with NATO involvement and African political support, would strike Sudanese airfields, aircraft and other military assets. It could blockade Port Sudan, through which Sudan's oil exports flow. Then U.N. troops would deploy -- by force, if necessary, with U.S. and NATO backing."
John Brennan
A longtime CIA official and former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Brennan is one of the coordinators of Obama's intelligence transition team and a top contender for either CIA Director or Director of National Intelligence. He was also recently described by Glenn Greenwald as "an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity." While claiming to oppose waterboarding, labeling it "inconsistent with American values" and "something that should be prohibited," Brennan has simultaneously praised the results achieved by "enhanced interrogation" techniques. "There has been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has, in fact, used against the real hard-core terrorists," Brennan said in a 2007 interview. "It has saved lives. And let's not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the death of 3,000 innocents."
Brennan has described the CIA's extraordinary rendition program -- the government-run kidnap-and-torture program enacted under Clinton -- as an absolutely vital tool. "I have been intimately familiar now over the past decade with the cases of rendition that the U.S. Government has been involved in," he said in a December 2005 interview. "And I can say without a doubt that it has been very successful as far as producing intelligence that has saved lives."
Brennan is currently the head of Analysis Corporation, a private intelligence company that was recently implicated in the breach of Obama and Sen. John McCain's passport records. He is also the current chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), a trade association of private intelligence contractors who have dramatically increased their role in sensitive U.S. national security operations. (Current Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is former chairman of the INSA.)
Jami Miscik
Miscik, who works alongside Brennan on Obama's transitional team, was the CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. She was one of the key officials responsible for sidelining intel that contradicted the official line on WMD, while promoting intel that backed it up.
"When the administration insisted on an intelligence assessment of Saddam Hussein's relationship to al-Qaida, Miscik blocked the skeptics (who were later vindicated) within the CIA's Mideast analytical directorate and instructed the less-skeptical counterterrorism analysts to 'stretch to the maximum the evidence you had,' " journalist Spencer Ackerman recently wrote in the Washington Independent. "It's hard to think of a more egregious case of sacrificing sound intelligence analysis in order to accommodate the strategic fantasies of an administration. … The idea that Miscik is helping staff Obama's top intelligence picks is most certainly not change we can believe in." What's more, she went on to a lucrative post as the Global Head of Sovereign Risk for the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers.
John Kerry and Bill Richardson
Both Sen. Kerry and Gov. Richardson have been identified as possible contenders for Secretary of State. While neither is likely to be as hawkish as Hillary Clinton, both have taken pro-war positions. Kerry promoted the WMD lie and voted to invade Iraq. "Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try?" Kerry asked on the Senate floor in October 2002. "According to intelligence, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons … Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents."
Richardson, whose Iraq plan during his 2008 presidential campaign was more progressive and far-reaching than Obama's, served as Bill Clinton's ambassador to the UN. In this capacity, he supported Clinton's December 1998 bombing of Baghdad and the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq. "We think this man is a threat to the international community, and he threatens a lot of the neighbors in his region and future generations there with anthrax and VX," Richardson told an interviewer in February 1998.
While Clinton's Secretary of Energy, Richardson publicly named Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, as a target in an espionage investigation. Lee was accused of passing nuclear secrets to the Chinese government. Lee was later cleared of those charges and won a settlement against the U.S. government.
Robert Gates
Washington consensus is that Obama will likely keep Robert Gates, George W. Bush's Defense Secretary, as his own Secretary of Defense. While Gates has occasionally proved to be a stark contrast to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he would hardly represent a break from the policies of the Bush administration. Quite the opposite; according to the Washington Post, in the interest of a "smooth transition," Gates "has ordered hundreds of political appointees at the Pentagon canvassed to see whether they wish to stay on in the new administration, has streamlined policy briefings and has set up suites for President-elect Barack Obama's transition team just down the hall from his own E-ring office." The Post reports that Gates could stay on for a brief period and then be replaced by Richard Danzig, who was Clinton's Secretary of the Navy. Other names currently being tossed around are Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (a critic of the Iraq occupation) and Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, who served alongside Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Ivo H. Daalder
Daalder was National Security Council Director for European Affairs under President Clinton. Like other Obama advisors, he has worked with the Project for the New American Century and signed a 2005 letter from PNAC to Congressional leaders, calling for an increase in U.S. ground troops in Iraq and beyond.
Sarah Sewall
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance during the Clinton administration, Sewall served as a top advisor to Obama during the campaign and is almost certain to be selected for a post in his administration. In 2007, Sewall worked with the U.S. military and Army Gen. David Petraeus, writing the introduction to the University of Chicago edition of the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. She was criticized for this collaboration by Tom Hayden, who wrote, "the Petraeus plan draws intellectual legitimacy from Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, whose director, Sarah Sewall, proudly embraces an 'unprecedented collaboration [as] a human rights center partnered with the armed forces.'"
"Humanitarians often avoid wading into the conduct of war for fear of becoming complicit in its purpose," she wrote in the introduction. "'The field manual requires engagement precisely from those who fear that its words lack meaning."
Michele Flournoy
Flournoy and former Clinton Deputy Defense Secretary John White are co-heading Obama's defense transition team. Flournoy was a senior Clinton appointee at the Pentagon. She currently runs the Center for a New American Security, a center-right think-tank. There is speculation that Obama could eventually name her as the first woman to serve as defense secretary. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported: "While at CNAS, Flournoy helped to write a report that called for reducing the open-ended American military commitment in Iraq and replacing it with a policy of 'conditional engagement' there. Significantly, the paper rejected the idea of withdrawing troops according to the sort of a fixed timeline that Obama espoused during the presidential campaign. Obama has in recent weeks signaled that he was willing to shelve the idea, bringing him more in line with Flournoy's thinking." Flournoy has also worked with the neoconservative Project for the New American Century.
Wendy Sherman and Tom Donilon
Currently employed at Madeline Albright's consulting firm, the Albright Group, Sherman worked under Albright at the State Department, coordinating U.S. policy on North Korea. She is now coordinating the State Department transition team for Obama. Tom Donilon, her co-coordinator, was Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Chief of Staff at the State Department under Clinton. Interestingly, Sherman and Donilon both have ties to Fannie Mae that didn't make it onto their official bios on Obama's change.gov Web site. "Donilon was Fannie's general counsel and executive vice president for law and policy from 1999 until the spring of 2005, a period during which the company was rocked by accounting problems," reports the Wall Street Journal.
***
While many of the figures at the center of Obama's foreign policy team are well-known, two of its most important members have never held national elected office or a high-profile government position. While they cannot be characterized as Clinton-era hawks, it will be important to watch Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert, co-coordinators of the Obama foreign policy team. From 2000 to 2005, McDonough served as foreign policy advisor to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and worked extensively on the use-of-force authorizations for the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which Daschle supported. From 1996 to 1999, McDonough was a professional staff member of the House International Relations Committee during the debate over the bombing of Yugoslavia. More recently, he was at the Center for American Progress working under John Podesta, Clinton's former chief of staff and the current head of the Obama transition.
Mark Lippert is a close personal friend of Obama's. He has worked for Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, as well as the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Democratic Policy Committee. He is a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve and spent a year in Iraq working intelligence for the Navy SEALs. "According to those who've worked closely with Lippert," Robert Dreyfuss recently wrote in The Nation, "he is a conservative, cautious centrist who often pulled Obama to the right on Iraq, Iran and the Middle East and who has been a consistent advocate for increased military spending. 'Even before Obama announced for the presidency, Lippert wanted Obama to be seen as tough on Iran,' says a lobbyist who's worked the Iran issue on Capitol Hill, 'He's clearly more hawkish than the senator.' "
***
Barack Obama campaigned on a pledge to bring change to Washington. "I don't want to just end the war," he said early this year. "I want to end the mindset that got us into war." That is going to be very difficult if Obama employs a foreign policy team that was central to creating that mindset, before and during the presidency of George W. Bush.
"Twenty-three senators and 133 House members who voted against the war -- and countless other notable individuals who spoke out against it and the dubious claims leading to war -- are apparently not even being considered for these crucial positions," observes Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy. This includes dozens of former military and intelligence officials who spoke out forcefully against the war and continue to oppose militaristic policy, as well as credible national security experts who have articulated their visions for a foreign policy based on justice.
Obama does have a chance to change the mindset that got us into war. More significantly, he has a popular mandate to forcefully challenge the militaristic, hawkish tradition of modern U.S. foreign policy. But that work would begin by bringing on board people who would challenge this tradition, not those who have been complicit in creating it and are bound to continue advancing it.
Jeremy Scahill pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and is a frequent contributor to The Nation and Democracy Now! He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.
by Jeremy Scahill
U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots. Among them: his personal politics and views, the disastrous realities his administration will inherit, and, of course, unpredictable future crises. But the best immediate indicator of what an Obama administration might look like can be found in the people he surrounds himself with and who he appoints to his Cabinet. And, frankly, when it comes to foreign policy, it is not looking good.
Obama has a momentous opportunity to do what he repeatedly promised over the course of his campaign: bring actual change. But the more we learn about who Obama is considering for top positions in his administration, the more his inner circle resembles a staff reunion of President Bill Clinton's White House. Although Obama brought some progressives on board early in his campaign, his foreign policy team is now dominated by the hawkish, old-guard Democrats of the 1990s. This has been particularly true since Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the Democratic primary, freeing many of her top advisors to join Obama's team.
"What happened to all this talk about change?" a member of the Clinton foreign policy team recently asked the Washington Post. "This isn't lightly flavored with Clintons. This is all Clintons, all the time."
Amid the euphoria over Obama's election and the end of the Bush era, it is critical to recall what 1990s U.S. foreign policy actually looked like. Bill Clinton's boiled down to a one-two punch from the hidden hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of U.S. militarism. Clinton took office and almost immediately bombed Iraq (ostensibly in retaliation for an alleged plot by Saddam Hussein to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush). He presided over a ruthless regime of economic sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and under the guise of the so-called No-Fly Zones in northern and southern Iraq, authorized the longest sustained U.S. bombing campaign since Vietnam.
Under Clinton, Yugoslavia was bombed and dismantled as part of what Noam Chomsky described as the "New Military Humanism." Sudan and Afghanistan were attacked, Haiti was destabilized and "free trade" deals like the North America Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade radically escalated the spread of corporate-dominated globalization that hurt U.S. workers and devastated developing countries. Clinton accelerated the militarization of the so-called War on Drugs in Central and Latin America and supported privatization of U.S. military operations, giving lucrative contracts to Halliburton and other war contractors. Meanwhile, U.S. weapons sales to countries like Turkey and Indonesia aided genocidal campaigns against the Kurds and the East Timorese.
The prospect of Obama's foreign policy being, at least in part, an extension of the Clinton Doctrine is real. Even more disturbing, several of the individuals at the center of Obama's transition and emerging foreign policy teams were top players in creating and implementing foreign policies that would pave the way for projects eventually carried out under the Bush/Cheney administration. With their assistance, Obama has already charted out several hawkish stances. Among them:
-- His plan to escalate the war in Afghanistan;
-- An Iraq plan that could turn into a downsized and rebranded occupation that keeps U.S. forces in Iraq for the foreseeable future;
-- His labeling of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist organization;"
-- His pledge to use unilateral force inside of Pakistan to defend U.S. interests;
-- His position, presented before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that Jerusalem "must remain undivided" -- a remark that infuriated Palestinian officials and which he later attempted to reframe;
-- His plan to continue the War on Drugs, a backdoor U.S. counterinsurgency campaign in Central and Latin America;
-- His refusal to "rule out" using Blackwater and other armed private forces in U.S. war zones, despite previously introducing legislation to regulate these companies and bring them under U.S. law.
Obama did not arrive at these positions in a vacuum. They were carefully crafted in consultation with his foreign policy team. While the verdict is still out on a few people, many members of his inner foreign policy circle -- including some who have received or are bound to receive Cabinet posts -- supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Some promoted the myth that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. A few have worked with the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, whose radical agenda was adopted by the Bush/Cheney administration. And most have proven track records of supporting or implementing militaristic, offensive U.S. foreign policy. "After a masterful campaign, Barack Obama seems headed toward some fateful mistakes as he assembles his administration by heeding the advice of Washington's Democratic insider community, a collective group that represents little 'change you can believe in,'" notes veteran journalist Robert Parry, the former Associated Press and Newsweek reporter who broke many of the stories in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s.
As news breaks and speculation abounds about cabinet appointments, here are 20 people to watch as Obama builds the team who will shape U.S. foreign policy for at least four years:
Joe Biden
There was no stronger sign that Obama's foreign policy would follow the hawkish tradition of the Democratic foreign policy establishment than his selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate. Much has been written on Biden's tenure as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but his role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq stands out. Biden is not just one more Democratic lawmaker who now calls his vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq "mistaken;" Biden was actually an important facilitator of the war.
In the summer of 2002, when the United States was "debating" a potential attack on Iraq, Biden presided over hearings whose ostensible purpose was to weigh all existing options. But instead of calling on experts whose testimony could challenge the case for war -- Iraq's alleged WMD possession and its supposed ties to al-Qaida -- Biden's hearings treated the invasion as a foregone conclusion. His refusal to call on two individuals in particular ensured that testimony that could have proven invaluable to an actual debate was never heard: Former Chief United Nations Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter and Hans von Sponeck, a 32-year veteran diplomat and the former head of the U.N.'s Iraq program.
Both men say they made it clear to Biden's office that they were ready and willing to testify; Ritter knew more about the dismantling of Iraq's WMD program than perhaps any other U.S. citizen and would have been in prime position to debunk the misinformation and outright lies being peddled by the White House. Meanwhile, von Sponeck had just returned from Iraq, where he had observed Ansar al Islam rebels in the north of Iraq -- the so-called al-Qaida connection -- and could have testified that, rather than colluding with Saddam's regime, they were in a battle against it. Moreover, he would have pointed out that they were operating in the U.S.-enforced safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan. "Evidence of al-Qaida/lraq collaboration does not exist, neither in the training of operatives nor in support to Ansar-al-Islam," von Sponeck wrote in an Op-Ed published shortly before the July 2002 hearings. "The U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA know perfectly well that today's Iraq poses no threat to anyone in the region, let alone in the United States. To argue otherwise is dishonest."
With both men barred from testifying, rather than eliciting an array of informed opinions, Biden's committee whitewashed Bush's lies and helped lead the country to war. Biden himself promoted the administration's false claims that were used to justify the invasion of Iraq, declaring on the Senate floor, "[Saddam Hussein] possesses chemical and biological weapons and is seeking nuclear weapons."
With the war underway, Biden was then the genius who passionately promoted the ridiculous plan to partition Iraq into three areas based on religion and ethnicity, attempting to Balkanize one of the strongest Arab states in the world.
"He's a part of the old Democratic establishment," says retired Army Col. Ann Wright, the State Department diplomat who reopened the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2002. Biden, she says, has "had a long history with foreign affairs, [but] it's not the type of foreign affairs that I want."
Rahm Emanuel
Obama's appointment of Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff is a clear sign that Clinton-era neoliberal hawks will be well-represented at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. A former senior Clinton advisor, Emanuel is a hard-line supporter of Israel's "targeted assassination" policy and actually volunteered to work with the Israeli Army during the 1991 Gulf War. He is close to the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council and was the only member of the Illinois Democratic delegation in the Congress to vote for the invasion of Iraq. Unlike many of his colleagues, Emanuel still defends his vote. As chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, Emanuel promoted the campaigns of 22 candidates, only one of who supported a swift withdrawal from Iraq, and denied crucial Party funding to anti-war candidates. "As for Iraq policy, at the right time, we will have a position," he said in December 2005. As Philip Giraldi recently pointed out on Antiwar.com, Emanuel "advocates increasing the size of the U.S. Army by 100,000 soldiers and creating a domestic spying organization like Britain's MI5. More recently, he has supported mandatory paramilitary national service for all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25."
While Obama has at times been critical of Clinton-era free trade agreements, Emanuel was one of the key people in the Clinton White House who brokered the successful passage of NAFTA.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
For all the buzz and speculation about the possibility that Sen. Clinton may be named Secretary of State, most media coverage has focused on her rivalry with Obama during the primary, along with the prospect of her husband having to face the intense personal, financial and political vetting process required to secure a job in the new administration. But the question of how Clinton would lead the operations at Foggy Bottom calls for scrutiny of her positions vis-a-vis Obama's stated foreign-policy goals.
Clinton was an ardent defender of her husband's economic and military war against Iraq throughout the 1990s, including the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which ultimately laid the path for President George W. Bush's invasion. Later, as a U.S. senator, she not only voted to authorize the war, but aided the Bush administration's propaganda campaign in the lead-up to the invasion. "Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program," Clinton said when rising to support the measure in October 2002. "He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members … I want to insure that Saddam Hussein makes no mistake about our national unity and for our support for the president's efforts to wage America's war against terrorists and weapons of mass destruction."
"The man who vowed to deliver us from 28 years of Bushes and Clintons has been stocking up on Clintonites," New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently wrote. "How, one may ask, can he put Hillary -- who voted to authorize the Iraq war without even reading the intelligence assessment -- in charge of patching up a foreign policy and a world riven by that war?"
Beyond Iraq, Clinton shocked many and sparked official protests by Tehran at the United Nations when asked during the presidential campaign what she would do as president if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," she declared. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
Clinton has not shied away from supporting offensive foreign policy tactics in the past. Recalling her husband's weighing the decision of whether to attack Yugoslavia, she said in 1999, "I urged him to bomb. … You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?"
Madeleine Albright
While Obama's house is flush with Clintonian officials like former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Defense Secretary William Perry, Director of the State Department Office of Policy Planning Greg Craig (who was officially named Obama's White House Counsel) and Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, perhaps most influential is Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's former Secretary of State and U.N. ambassador. Albright recently served as a proxy for Obama, representing him at the G-20 summit earlier this month. Whether or not she is awarded an official role in the administration, Albright will be a major force in shaping Obama's foreign policy.
"It will take time to convince skeptics that the promotion of democracy is not a mask for imperialism or a recipe for the kind of chaos we have seen in the Persian Gulf," Albright recently wrote. "And it will take time to establish the right identity for America in a world that has grown suspicious of all who claim a monopoly on virtue and that has become reluctant to follow the lead of any one country."
Albright should know. She was one of the key architects in the dismantling of Yugoslavia during the 1990s. In the lead-up to the 1999 "Kosovo war," she oversaw the U.S. attempt to coerce the Yugoslav government to deny its own sovereignty in return for not being bombed. Albright demanded that the Yugoslav government sign a document that would have been unacceptable to any sovereign nation. Known as the Rambouillet Accord, it included a provision that would have guaranteed U.S. and NATO forces "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout" all of Yugoslavia -- not just Kosovo -- while also seeking to immunize those occupation forces "from any form of arrest, investigation or detention by the authorities in [Yugoslavia]." Moreover, it would have granted the occupiers "the use of airports, roads, rails and ports without payment." Similar to Bush's Iraq plan years later, the Rambouillet Accord mandated that the economy of Kosovo "shall function in accordance with free-market principles."
When Yugoslavia refused to sign the document, Albright and others in the Clinton administration unleashed the 78-day NATO bombing of Serbia, which targeted civilian infrastructure. (Prior to the attack, Albright said the U.S. government felt "the Serbs need a little bombing.") She and the Clinton administration also supported the rise to power in Kosovo of a terrorist mafia that carried out its own ethnic-cleansing campaign against the province's minorities.
Perhaps Albright's most notorious moment came with her enthusiastic support of the economic war against the civilian population of Iraq. When confronted by Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes" that the sanctions were responsible for the deaths of "a half-million children … more children than died in Hiroshima," Albright responded, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." (While defending the policy, Albright later called her choice of words "a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong.")
Richard Holbrooke
Like Albright, Holbrooke will have major sway over U.S. policy, whether or not he gets an official job. A career diplomat since the Vietnam War, Holbrooke's most recent government post was as President Clinton's ambassador to the U.N. Among the many violent policies he helped implement and enforce was the U.S.-backed Indonesian genocide in East Timor. Holbrooke was an Assistant Secretary of State in the late 1970s at the height of the slaughter and was the point man on East Timor for the Carter Administration.
According to Brad Simpson, director of the Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, "It was Holbrooke and Zbigniew Brzezinski [another top Obama advisor], both now leading lights in the Democratic Party, who played point in trying to frustrate the efforts of congressional human-rights activists to try and condition or stop U.S. military assistance to Indonesia, and in fact accelerated the flow of weapons to Indonesia at the height of the genocide."
Holbrooke, too, was a major player in the dismantling of Yugoslavia and praised the bombing of Serb Television, which killed 16 media workers, as a significant victory. (The man who ordered that bombing, now-retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, is another Obama foreign policy insider who could end up in his cabinet. While Clark is known for being relatively progressive on social issues, as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, he ordered bombings and attacks that Amnesty International labeled war crimes.)
Like many in Obama's foreign policy circle, Holbrooke also supported the Iraq war. In early 2003, shortly after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the UN, where he presented the administration's fraud-laden case for war to the UN (a speech Powell has since called a "blot" on his reputation), Holbrooke said: "It was a masterful job of diplomacy by Colin Powell and his colleagues, and it does not require a second vote to go to war. … Saddam is the most dangerous government leader in the world today, he poses a threat to the region, he could pose a larger threat if he got weapons of mass destruction deployed, and we have a legitimate right to take action."
Dennis Ross
Middle East envoy for both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Ross was one of the primary authors of Obama's aforementioned speech before AIPAC this summer. He cut his teeth working under famed neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon in the 1970s and worked closely with the Project for the New American Century. Ross has been a staunch supporter of Israel and has fanned the flames for a more hostile stance toward Iran. As the lead U.S. negotiator between Israel and numerous Arab nations under Clinton, Ross' team acted, in the words of one U.S. official who worked under him, as "Israel's lawyer."
"The 'no surprises' policy, under which we had to run everything by Israel first, stripped our policy of the independence and flexibility required for serious peacemaking," wrote U.S. diplomat Aaron David Miller in 2005. "If we couldn't put proposals on the table without checking with the Israelis first, and refused to push back when they said no, how effective could our mediation be? Far too often, particularly when it came to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, our departure point was not what was needed to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides but what would pass with only one -- Israel." After the Clinton White House, Ross worked for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a hawkish pro-Israel think tank, and for FOX News, where he repeatedly pressed for war against Iraq.
Martin Indyk
Founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Indyk spent years working for AIPAC and served as Clinton's ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, while also playing a major role in developing U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran. In addition to his work for the U.S. government, he has worked for the Israeli government and with PNAC.
"Barack Obama has painted himself into a corner by appealing to the most hard-line, pro-Israel elements in this country," Ali Abunimah, founder of ElectronicInifada.net, recently told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, describing Indyk and Dennis Ross as "two of the most pro-Israel officials from the Clinton era, who are totally distrusted by Palestinians and others across the Middle East, because they're seen as lifelong advocates for Israeli positions."
Anthony Lake
Clinton's former National Security Advisor was an early supporter of Obama and one of the few top Clintonites to initially back the president-elect. Lake began his foreign policy work in the U.S. Foreign Service during Vietnam, working with Henry Kissinger on the "September Group," a secret team tasked with developing a military strategy to deliver a "savage, decisive blow against North Vietnam."
Decades later, after working for various administrations, Lake "was the main force behind the U.S. invasion of Haiti in the mid-Clinton years," according to veteran journalist Allan Nairn, whose groundbreaking reporting revealed U.S. support for Haitian death squads in the 1990s. "They brought back Aristide essentially in political chains, pledged to support a World Bank/IMF overhaul of the economy, which resulted in an increase in malnutrition deaths among Haitians, and set the stage for the current ongoing political disaster in Haiti." Clinton nominated Lake as CIA Director, but he failed to win Senate confirmation.
Lee Hamilton
Hamilton is a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and was co-chairman of both the Iraq Study Group and 9/11 Commission. Robert Parry, who has covered Hamilton's career extensively, recently ran a piece on Consortium News that characterized him this way: "Whenever the Republicans have a touchy national-security scandal to put to rest, their favorite Democratic investigator is Lee Hamilton. … Hamilton's carefully honed skill for balancing truth against political comity has elevated him to the status of a Washington Wise Man."
Susan Rice
Former Assistant Secretary of Sate Susan Rice, who served on Bill Clinton's National Security Council, is a potential candidate for the post of ambassador to the U.N. or as a deputy national security advisor. She, too, promoted the myth that Saddam had WMDs. "It's clear that Iraq poses a major threat," she said in 2002. "It's clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that's the path we're on." (After the invasion, discussing Saddam's alleged possession of WMDs, she said, "I don't think many informed people doubted that.")
Rice has also been a passionate advocate for a U.S. military attack against Sudan over the Darfur crisis. In an op-ed co-authored with Anthony Lake, she wrote, "The United States, preferably with NATO involvement and African political support, would strike Sudanese airfields, aircraft and other military assets. It could blockade Port Sudan, through which Sudan's oil exports flow. Then U.N. troops would deploy -- by force, if necessary, with U.S. and NATO backing."
John Brennan
A longtime CIA official and former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Brennan is one of the coordinators of Obama's intelligence transition team and a top contender for either CIA Director or Director of National Intelligence. He was also recently described by Glenn Greenwald as "an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity." While claiming to oppose waterboarding, labeling it "inconsistent with American values" and "something that should be prohibited," Brennan has simultaneously praised the results achieved by "enhanced interrogation" techniques. "There has been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has, in fact, used against the real hard-core terrorists," Brennan said in a 2007 interview. "It has saved lives. And let's not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the death of 3,000 innocents."
Brennan has described the CIA's extraordinary rendition program -- the government-run kidnap-and-torture program enacted under Clinton -- as an absolutely vital tool. "I have been intimately familiar now over the past decade with the cases of rendition that the U.S. Government has been involved in," he said in a December 2005 interview. "And I can say without a doubt that it has been very successful as far as producing intelligence that has saved lives."
Brennan is currently the head of Analysis Corporation, a private intelligence company that was recently implicated in the breach of Obama and Sen. John McCain's passport records. He is also the current chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), a trade association of private intelligence contractors who have dramatically increased their role in sensitive U.S. national security operations. (Current Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is former chairman of the INSA.)
Jami Miscik
Miscik, who works alongside Brennan on Obama's transitional team, was the CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. She was one of the key officials responsible for sidelining intel that contradicted the official line on WMD, while promoting intel that backed it up.
"When the administration insisted on an intelligence assessment of Saddam Hussein's relationship to al-Qaida, Miscik blocked the skeptics (who were later vindicated) within the CIA's Mideast analytical directorate and instructed the less-skeptical counterterrorism analysts to 'stretch to the maximum the evidence you had,' " journalist Spencer Ackerman recently wrote in the Washington Independent. "It's hard to think of a more egregious case of sacrificing sound intelligence analysis in order to accommodate the strategic fantasies of an administration. … The idea that Miscik is helping staff Obama's top intelligence picks is most certainly not change we can believe in." What's more, she went on to a lucrative post as the Global Head of Sovereign Risk for the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers.
John Kerry and Bill Richardson
Both Sen. Kerry and Gov. Richardson have been identified as possible contenders for Secretary of State. While neither is likely to be as hawkish as Hillary Clinton, both have taken pro-war positions. Kerry promoted the WMD lie and voted to invade Iraq. "Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try?" Kerry asked on the Senate floor in October 2002. "According to intelligence, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons … Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents."
Richardson, whose Iraq plan during his 2008 presidential campaign was more progressive and far-reaching than Obama's, served as Bill Clinton's ambassador to the UN. In this capacity, he supported Clinton's December 1998 bombing of Baghdad and the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq. "We think this man is a threat to the international community, and he threatens a lot of the neighbors in his region and future generations there with anthrax and VX," Richardson told an interviewer in February 1998.
While Clinton's Secretary of Energy, Richardson publicly named Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, as a target in an espionage investigation. Lee was accused of passing nuclear secrets to the Chinese government. Lee was later cleared of those charges and won a settlement against the U.S. government.
Robert Gates
Washington consensus is that Obama will likely keep Robert Gates, George W. Bush's Defense Secretary, as his own Secretary of Defense. While Gates has occasionally proved to be a stark contrast to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he would hardly represent a break from the policies of the Bush administration. Quite the opposite; according to the Washington Post, in the interest of a "smooth transition," Gates "has ordered hundreds of political appointees at the Pentagon canvassed to see whether they wish to stay on in the new administration, has streamlined policy briefings and has set up suites for President-elect Barack Obama's transition team just down the hall from his own E-ring office." The Post reports that Gates could stay on for a brief period and then be replaced by Richard Danzig, who was Clinton's Secretary of the Navy. Other names currently being tossed around are Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (a critic of the Iraq occupation) and Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, who served alongside Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Ivo H. Daalder
Daalder was National Security Council Director for European Affairs under President Clinton. Like other Obama advisors, he has worked with the Project for the New American Century and signed a 2005 letter from PNAC to Congressional leaders, calling for an increase in U.S. ground troops in Iraq and beyond.
Sarah Sewall
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance during the Clinton administration, Sewall served as a top advisor to Obama during the campaign and is almost certain to be selected for a post in his administration. In 2007, Sewall worked with the U.S. military and Army Gen. David Petraeus, writing the introduction to the University of Chicago edition of the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. She was criticized for this collaboration by Tom Hayden, who wrote, "the Petraeus plan draws intellectual legitimacy from Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, whose director, Sarah Sewall, proudly embraces an 'unprecedented collaboration [as] a human rights center partnered with the armed forces.'"
"Humanitarians often avoid wading into the conduct of war for fear of becoming complicit in its purpose," she wrote in the introduction. "'The field manual requires engagement precisely from those who fear that its words lack meaning."
Michele Flournoy
Flournoy and former Clinton Deputy Defense Secretary John White are co-heading Obama's defense transition team. Flournoy was a senior Clinton appointee at the Pentagon. She currently runs the Center for a New American Security, a center-right think-tank. There is speculation that Obama could eventually name her as the first woman to serve as defense secretary. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported: "While at CNAS, Flournoy helped to write a report that called for reducing the open-ended American military commitment in Iraq and replacing it with a policy of 'conditional engagement' there. Significantly, the paper rejected the idea of withdrawing troops according to the sort of a fixed timeline that Obama espoused during the presidential campaign. Obama has in recent weeks signaled that he was willing to shelve the idea, bringing him more in line with Flournoy's thinking." Flournoy has also worked with the neoconservative Project for the New American Century.
Wendy Sherman and Tom Donilon
Currently employed at Madeline Albright's consulting firm, the Albright Group, Sherman worked under Albright at the State Department, coordinating U.S. policy on North Korea. She is now coordinating the State Department transition team for Obama. Tom Donilon, her co-coordinator, was Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Chief of Staff at the State Department under Clinton. Interestingly, Sherman and Donilon both have ties to Fannie Mae that didn't make it onto their official bios on Obama's change.gov Web site. "Donilon was Fannie's general counsel and executive vice president for law and policy from 1999 until the spring of 2005, a period during which the company was rocked by accounting problems," reports the Wall Street Journal.
***
While many of the figures at the center of Obama's foreign policy team are well-known, two of its most important members have never held national elected office or a high-profile government position. While they cannot be characterized as Clinton-era hawks, it will be important to watch Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert, co-coordinators of the Obama foreign policy team. From 2000 to 2005, McDonough served as foreign policy advisor to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and worked extensively on the use-of-force authorizations for the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which Daschle supported. From 1996 to 1999, McDonough was a professional staff member of the House International Relations Committee during the debate over the bombing of Yugoslavia. More recently, he was at the Center for American Progress working under John Podesta, Clinton's former chief of staff and the current head of the Obama transition.
Mark Lippert is a close personal friend of Obama's. He has worked for Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, as well as the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Democratic Policy Committee. He is a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve and spent a year in Iraq working intelligence for the Navy SEALs. "According to those who've worked closely with Lippert," Robert Dreyfuss recently wrote in The Nation, "he is a conservative, cautious centrist who often pulled Obama to the right on Iraq, Iran and the Middle East and who has been a consistent advocate for increased military spending. 'Even before Obama announced for the presidency, Lippert wanted Obama to be seen as tough on Iran,' says a lobbyist who's worked the Iran issue on Capitol Hill, 'He's clearly more hawkish than the senator.' "
***
Barack Obama campaigned on a pledge to bring change to Washington. "I don't want to just end the war," he said early this year. "I want to end the mindset that got us into war." That is going to be very difficult if Obama employs a foreign policy team that was central to creating that mindset, before and during the presidency of George W. Bush.
"Twenty-three senators and 133 House members who voted against the war -- and countless other notable individuals who spoke out against it and the dubious claims leading to war -- are apparently not even being considered for these crucial positions," observes Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy. This includes dozens of former military and intelligence officials who spoke out forcefully against the war and continue to oppose militaristic policy, as well as credible national security experts who have articulated their visions for a foreign policy based on justice.
Obama does have a chance to change the mindset that got us into war. More significantly, he has a popular mandate to forcefully challenge the militaristic, hawkish tradition of modern U.S. foreign policy. But that work would begin by bringing on board people who would challenge this tradition, not those who have been complicit in creating it and are bound to continue advancing it.
Jeremy Scahill pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and is a frequent contributor to The Nation and Democracy Now! He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
