by Mary Pitt
2/26/07
After November's election, the people were feeling optimistic, having elected a Democratic majority in the House and more than an even balance in the Senate. Speaker Pelosi announced her "first 100 hours" strategy and we were ready to watch the reform take place. However, the euphoria was short-lived as the House passed first one "non-binding resolution" only to have it squelched by the Republican bloc in the Senate. The Democrats, unlike the Dixie Chicks, are still convinced that they need to make nice. Perhaps they were in the minority for too long and it was simply easier to fall back into the same old habits of huddling helplessness. In addition, the next election campaign is on everybody's minds and key figures are playing to the power structure rather than to the electorate.
Now they trying to put together a plan to force the President to withdraw our troops from Iraq by one method if not another. However, the President dares them to "bring it on" with a threat of veto while the Republican Senators again threaten to filibuster. The Right shouts and threatens while the left huddle in a closet and plot like a family that is totally cowed by a domestic abuser and the public stand outside shouting, "Do something even if it's wrong!" It is of the utmost urgency that Bush and the Neo-Con agenda be stopped before their takover is complete and our beloved democracy is turned into the totalitarian corporatocracy which they envision. The groundwork for their evil empire has already been laid with the authorizantion for declaration of martial law which has already passed.
So every plan that is created runs up against the threat of filibuster. Let them talk! Debate cloture and then let them spout their hate hour after hour, day and night, show it on television so the people can hear every word! Let us hear every last word of their boring and falacious talking points over and over until we are sick of them and even the semi-conscious "sheeple" realize that they are nothing but parrots speaking the lines that were written in the White House. Otherwise, we will hear no original thinking nor will we hear any proposals that amount to anything other than a continuation of the blank check which was presented to Mr. Bush by the last Congress and that got us into this mess in the first place.
By the time the Republicans are suffering extreme laryngitis, papers of impeachment can be prepared, first for Mr. Cheney for the illegal outing of Valerie Plame and for meddling beyond his responsibilities in our foreign affairs, and then for Mr. Bush for usurpation of the powers of Congress and the Courts, for his war crimes, and for the devastation he has brought upon our economy by the squandering of our national treasure on the over-blown contracts with business cronies. It would be an even greater crime to allow these people to escape unscathed after being responsible for sending American men to die on foreign soil for a lie to enable their dreams of empire. Even if the Senate cannot be expected to convict, the filing of a bill of impeachment in the House would keep them busy, conferring with attorneys and trying to fend off their own personal disaster. It worked with Clinton, didn't it? Put a good, aggressive special prosecutor on it to find the evidence. Fitzgerald will soon be at liberty and he already has a load of information on White House operations.
Before the election John Conyers and others were collecting signatures in favor of impeachment and seemed ready to lead the charge in that direction but, as soon as the Democratic majority were seated in the house, that was "off the table" Suddenly, the Democrats were back in the old pattern of "coalition and compromise", playing by the old rules, and seeking the easy way out. If the last election and the polls don't prove anything else, Congress should get the message. To borrow an expression from the black-and-white boxing movies of my childhood. "Hit 'im ya bum! Ya got da wind wit' ya!"
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
Monday, February 26, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
A Political War against the American People
A Political War against the American People and its Institutions
by Rodrigue Tremblay
Feb 26, 2007
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/tremblay=1059.htm
Second sorrow: "A loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta.
Chalmers Johnson (Sorrows of Empire)
"Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny."
Barry Goldwater, former Republican senator from Arizona
"Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our (U.S.) Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us."
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th U.S. president
“There are no hereditary kings in America.”
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor
The Iraq war is turning into a war against the American people and its institutions. According to the latest poll, an overwhelming majority of Americans (63 %) want U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by the end of next year. This is the clear message the American electorate is sending to President George W. Bush. On February 16 (2007), 56 percent of the members of the U.S. House of Representative essentially said the same thing when they adopted Resolution 63, by a vote of 246 against 182, in which they stated that "... Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq." And, to make it complete, 56 percent of U.S. Senators signified their opposition to the war on February 17 (2007). These clear democratic signals of the people's wishes came after the November 7 (2006) election, in which pro-war Republican candidates took a thumping. They also came after a blue ribbon study group, the Baker-Hamilton Commission, unanimously concluded that the solution in Iraq is political and not military, and unanimously recommended that the U.S. terminate its open-ended presence in Iraq and begin its disengagement and “redeployment” from that country.
You would think that politicians who respect democracy and the people's right to govern themselves would pay attention and listen to what the sovereign electorate is saying. —But to no avail. The Bush-Cheney regime, initially placed into power by one Supreme judge in 2000, after presidential candidate Al Gore won the popular vote, went the other way and ordered a military build-up in the Persian Gulf, and, against the advice of the generals on the ground, ordered a military 'surge' in Iraq.
It is a strange spectacle in a democracy when the influence of a few people trumps the will of the majority. The Bush-Cheney regime seems to be inclined to follow the narrow advice of powerful lobbies rather than listen to what the electorate and elected officials are saying. In Washington D.C., under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has more clout than the U.S. Congress. On January 14 (2007), U.S. President George W. Bush expressed his personal conception of democracy when he said: "... they [the Congress] could try to stop me from doing it. But I’ve made my decision. And we’re going forward." —And two weeks later, on January 25 (2007), oil-man Dick Cheney reinforced this cynical point of view by saying, after a Senate Committee adopted a resolution in opposition to Bush's plan for a military escalation in Iraq: "It won't stop us"..."We are moving forward." ... "We need to get the job done." And Cheney added defiantly it's "hogwash to say Bush's credibility is at stake in Iraq."
It does not matter that the Bush-Cheney team has made colossal errors of judgment, they feel they have absolute powers in their hands and they intend to use them for whatever project they have in mind, and damn the American public, damn the elected Congress, and damn world opinion. Indeed, this regime has resurrected President Richard Nixon's old and infamous philosophy of 'executive supremacy' and has even gone further in adopting the anti-democratic theory of an "imperial presidency.". According to this dangerous theory, there are no limits to presidential wartime powers, even when no such war has been declared by Congress. In such circumstances of his own choosing, a president could then stop recognizing the authority of the elected Congress and refuse to accept the courts as final arbiters of constitutional rights, each time he considers this role to be at odds with his vision of national security.
Of course, such an outright grasp for power smacks dictatorship and represents a direct attack on the U.S. Constitution, with its Checks and Balances and the Rule of Law at its center, provisions which have been precisely designed to avoid the pitfalls of dictatorship. Maybe people should have paid more attention when George W. Bush joked aloud that "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." (December 18, 2000), or when he proclaimed that "I'm the decider, and I decide what's best.“ (April 14, 2006)
As President and Father of the U.S. Constitution James Madison (1751-1836) put it: "There are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." In fact, most constitutional experts believe that Bush's claim for an imperial presidency is prima facie unconstitutional and is not supported by anything in the U.S. Constitution. In particular, it has been pointed out that the Bush-Cheney administration cannot invoke the October 2, 2002 Iraq resolution as a blank check to claim absolute powers, because this resolution explicitly invoked the War Powers Resolution (1976 War Powers Act), Section 2(b), which requires the President of the United States to gain congressional approval before any troop deployment abroad.
Therefore, it remains to be seen if the Bush-Cheney regime can go on challenging the American people, Congress and the courts for two more years, not even considering international law and world public opinion.
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
Also visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com
by Rodrigue Tremblay
Feb 26, 2007
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/tremblay=1059.htm
Second sorrow: "A loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta.
Chalmers Johnson (Sorrows of Empire)
"Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny."
Barry Goldwater, former Republican senator from Arizona
"Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our (U.S.) Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us."
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th U.S. president
“There are no hereditary kings in America.”
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor
The Iraq war is turning into a war against the American people and its institutions. According to the latest poll, an overwhelming majority of Americans (63 %) want U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by the end of next year. This is the clear message the American electorate is sending to President George W. Bush. On February 16 (2007), 56 percent of the members of the U.S. House of Representative essentially said the same thing when they adopted Resolution 63, by a vote of 246 against 182, in which they stated that "... Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq." And, to make it complete, 56 percent of U.S. Senators signified their opposition to the war on February 17 (2007). These clear democratic signals of the people's wishes came after the November 7 (2006) election, in which pro-war Republican candidates took a thumping. They also came after a blue ribbon study group, the Baker-Hamilton Commission, unanimously concluded that the solution in Iraq is political and not military, and unanimously recommended that the U.S. terminate its open-ended presence in Iraq and begin its disengagement and “redeployment” from that country.
You would think that politicians who respect democracy and the people's right to govern themselves would pay attention and listen to what the sovereign electorate is saying. —But to no avail. The Bush-Cheney regime, initially placed into power by one Supreme judge in 2000, after presidential candidate Al Gore won the popular vote, went the other way and ordered a military build-up in the Persian Gulf, and, against the advice of the generals on the ground, ordered a military 'surge' in Iraq.
It is a strange spectacle in a democracy when the influence of a few people trumps the will of the majority. The Bush-Cheney regime seems to be inclined to follow the narrow advice of powerful lobbies rather than listen to what the electorate and elected officials are saying. In Washington D.C., under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has more clout than the U.S. Congress. On January 14 (2007), U.S. President George W. Bush expressed his personal conception of democracy when he said: "... they [the Congress] could try to stop me from doing it. But I’ve made my decision. And we’re going forward." —And two weeks later, on January 25 (2007), oil-man Dick Cheney reinforced this cynical point of view by saying, after a Senate Committee adopted a resolution in opposition to Bush's plan for a military escalation in Iraq: "It won't stop us"..."We are moving forward." ... "We need to get the job done." And Cheney added defiantly it's "hogwash to say Bush's credibility is at stake in Iraq."
It does not matter that the Bush-Cheney team has made colossal errors of judgment, they feel they have absolute powers in their hands and they intend to use them for whatever project they have in mind, and damn the American public, damn the elected Congress, and damn world opinion. Indeed, this regime has resurrected President Richard Nixon's old and infamous philosophy of 'executive supremacy' and has even gone further in adopting the anti-democratic theory of an "imperial presidency.". According to this dangerous theory, there are no limits to presidential wartime powers, even when no such war has been declared by Congress. In such circumstances of his own choosing, a president could then stop recognizing the authority of the elected Congress and refuse to accept the courts as final arbiters of constitutional rights, each time he considers this role to be at odds with his vision of national security.
Of course, such an outright grasp for power smacks dictatorship and represents a direct attack on the U.S. Constitution, with its Checks and Balances and the Rule of Law at its center, provisions which have been precisely designed to avoid the pitfalls of dictatorship. Maybe people should have paid more attention when George W. Bush joked aloud that "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." (December 18, 2000), or when he proclaimed that "I'm the decider, and I decide what's best.“ (April 14, 2006)
As President and Father of the U.S. Constitution James Madison (1751-1836) put it: "There are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." In fact, most constitutional experts believe that Bush's claim for an imperial presidency is prima facie unconstitutional and is not supported by anything in the U.S. Constitution. In particular, it has been pointed out that the Bush-Cheney administration cannot invoke the October 2, 2002 Iraq resolution as a blank check to claim absolute powers, because this resolution explicitly invoked the War Powers Resolution (1976 War Powers Act), Section 2(b), which requires the President of the United States to gain congressional approval before any troop deployment abroad.
Therefore, it remains to be seen if the Bush-Cheney regime can go on challenging the American people, Congress and the courts for two more years, not even considering international law and world public opinion.
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
Also visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com
Guernica, 2007
More of the shameful war crimes being committed by the US to shore up its occupation of Iraq. As the British are leaving, the bush is adding more US troops to the maelstorm of his making. The longer this obscenity continues, the more enemies the US creates. Juan Cole of Informed Comment says it better than I can. At least, more objectively than I can.
And on the subject of Iran, testimony in the libby trial points to cheney having a prominent role in the “outing” of Valerie Plame. This should be considered treason, since it removed her from her role in counter-proliferation activities specializing on Iran. Now with the bush talking up war with that country because of its nuclear activities, how else can one consider cheney’s act? If what the bush says is true, a BIG stretch to be sure, then cheney certainly aided the “enemy”.
And as we know, the punishment for treason “in a time of war”, as the bush like to keep reminding us we’re in, is death. But I’ll settle for both the bush and cheney being imprisoned for life for their treasonous actions, and their assets seized for their ongoing criminal enterprise.
We are just days away from the 4th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, and the situation there becomes worse daily. This is truly not a time for timidity in opposing the administration or its allies and enablers. They are all war criminals.
US bombing 'terror targets'
24/02/2007 22:38 - (SA)
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_2074616,00.html
Baghdad - US forces launched air strikes in southeast Baghdad on Saturday, Iraqi officials said, as a series of massive explosions rocked the war-torn city.
"American aircraft are bombarding terrorist targets that have been chosen by US and Iraqi forces, as part of our Baghdad security plan," said Brigadier-General Qasim al-Mussawi, spokesperson for the operation.
There was no immediate comment from the US, but AFP reporters in downtown Baghdad heard the rumble of more than three dozen powerful blasts in rapid succession at around 22:00pm (19:00 GMT).
Shortly after the first blasts, electricity was cut in part of central Baghdad, but it was not clear if these events were linked.
A senior Iraqi interior ministry official told AFP that the air strikes were aimed at insurgent strongholds in Bo'aitha, a sparsely populated neighbourhood on the west bank of the Tigris, south of the city centre.
While lying within the city limits, Bo'aitha is a district of farms and smallholdings, whose scattered villages are known to house the hideouts of Sunni insurgent gangs linked to al-Qaeda.
Iraqi officials said that the bombardment would run hand-in-hand with sweeps on the ground by US and Iraqi ground forces.
Informed Comment
by Juan Cole
Sunday, February 25, 2007
http://www.juancole.com/2007/02/al-hakim-targeted-with-car-bomb.html
Late Saturday, the US Air Force launched a series of bombing raids on southeast Baghdad. This is absolutely shameful, that the US is bombing from the air a civilian city that it militarily occupies. You can't possibly do that without killing innocent civilians, as at Ramadi the other day. It is a war crime. US citizens should protest and write their congressional representatives. It is also the worst possible counter-insurgency tactic anyone could ever have imagined. You bomb people, they hate you. The bombing appears to have knocked out what little electricity some parts of Baghdad were still getting.
And on the subject of Iran, testimony in the libby trial points to cheney having a prominent role in the “outing” of Valerie Plame. This should be considered treason, since it removed her from her role in counter-proliferation activities specializing on Iran. Now with the bush talking up war with that country because of its nuclear activities, how else can one consider cheney’s act? If what the bush says is true, a BIG stretch to be sure, then cheney certainly aided the “enemy”.
And as we know, the punishment for treason “in a time of war”, as the bush like to keep reminding us we’re in, is death. But I’ll settle for both the bush and cheney being imprisoned for life for their treasonous actions, and their assets seized for their ongoing criminal enterprise.
We are just days away from the 4th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, and the situation there becomes worse daily. This is truly not a time for timidity in opposing the administration or its allies and enablers. They are all war criminals.
US bombing 'terror targets'
24/02/2007 22:38 - (SA)
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_2074616,00.html
Baghdad - US forces launched air strikes in southeast Baghdad on Saturday, Iraqi officials said, as a series of massive explosions rocked the war-torn city.
"American aircraft are bombarding terrorist targets that have been chosen by US and Iraqi forces, as part of our Baghdad security plan," said Brigadier-General Qasim al-Mussawi, spokesperson for the operation.
There was no immediate comment from the US, but AFP reporters in downtown Baghdad heard the rumble of more than three dozen powerful blasts in rapid succession at around 22:00pm (19:00 GMT).
Shortly after the first blasts, electricity was cut in part of central Baghdad, but it was not clear if these events were linked.
A senior Iraqi interior ministry official told AFP that the air strikes were aimed at insurgent strongholds in Bo'aitha, a sparsely populated neighbourhood on the west bank of the Tigris, south of the city centre.
While lying within the city limits, Bo'aitha is a district of farms and smallholdings, whose scattered villages are known to house the hideouts of Sunni insurgent gangs linked to al-Qaeda.
Iraqi officials said that the bombardment would run hand-in-hand with sweeps on the ground by US and Iraqi ground forces.
Informed Comment
by Juan Cole
Sunday, February 25, 2007
http://www.juancole.com/2007/02/al-hakim-targeted-with-car-bomb.html
Late Saturday, the US Air Force launched a series of bombing raids on southeast Baghdad. This is absolutely shameful, that the US is bombing from the air a civilian city that it militarily occupies. You can't possibly do that without killing innocent civilians, as at Ramadi the other day. It is a war crime. US citizens should protest and write their congressional representatives. It is also the worst possible counter-insurgency tactic anyone could ever have imagined. You bomb people, they hate you. The bombing appears to have knocked out what little electricity some parts of Baghdad were still getting.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Hugo Chavez's Social Democratic Agenda
by Stephen Lendman
2/22/07
Hugo Chavez Frias was reelected by an overwhelming nearly two to one margin over his only serious rival on December 3, 2006 giving him a mandate to proceed with his agenda to build a socialist society in the 21st century on a Bolivarian model designed to meet the needs of the current era in Venezuela and Latin America overall. Chavez first announced his intentions on January 30, 2005 at the Fifth World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and his people affirmed they want him to proceed with it in his new term to run until December, 2012.
Chavez wants to build a humanistic democratic society based on solidarity and respect for political, economic, social and cultural human and civil rights, but not the top-down bureaucratic kind that doomed the Soviet Union and Eastern European states. He said he wants to build a "new socialism of the 21st century....based in solidarity, fraternity, love, justice, liberty and equality" as opposed to the neoliberal new world order model based on predatory capitalism exploiting ordinary people for power and profit that's incompatible with democracy.
full article
2/22/07
Hugo Chavez Frias was reelected by an overwhelming nearly two to one margin over his only serious rival on December 3, 2006 giving him a mandate to proceed with his agenda to build a socialist society in the 21st century on a Bolivarian model designed to meet the needs of the current era in Venezuela and Latin America overall. Chavez first announced his intentions on January 30, 2005 at the Fifth World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and his people affirmed they want him to proceed with it in his new term to run until December, 2012.
Chavez wants to build a humanistic democratic society based on solidarity and respect for political, economic, social and cultural human and civil rights, but not the top-down bureaucratic kind that doomed the Soviet Union and Eastern European states. He said he wants to build a "new socialism of the 21st century....based in solidarity, fraternity, love, justice, liberty and equality" as opposed to the neoliberal new world order model based on predatory capitalism exploiting ordinary people for power and profit that's incompatible with democracy.
full article
Why I Can't Vote For Hillary
by Mary Pitt
2/22/07
As a life-long feminist, it would be the fulfillment of all my dreams to have a woman as President of the United States in my lifetime. However, I find that the position is too important to waste my precious vote in such an endeavor if it were not the right person for the job. I am not convinced that Hillary Rodham Clinton is that person and, for the good of my beloved country, I cannot vote for her, and I will be happy to tell you why.
In 1992, I had become disillusioned with what the Republican Party had become under the leadership of Ronald Reagan and, though not ready to become a Democrat, I was ready to shop around. I watched carefully the presidential debates in order to evaluate the candidates and I settled upon Ross Perot, who seemed to have a better grasp of the welfare of the rank-and-file citizens. Sure, I was impressed by Mr Clinton but thought him rather callow as well as a wee bit shallow. Hillary, however, was impressive to my recently-Republican instincts. I felt that she was more than competent as the First Lady and maintained her composure despite all the pressures, legitimate and otherwise, that were inflicted upon her. It became obvious that she would be able to handle herself well in any situation and perform competently as an independent politician.
Once he took office, it looked like President Clinton might keep his campaign promises with due attention to the problem of poverty with an ambitious "welfare reform" but, after many compromises with the Republican Congess, we had more working mothers and more children without adequate day care. We also had the dangerous NAFTA as well as a trade agreement with China that was not considerate of the American worker and directly led to today's trade deficit. And so it seems highly likely that a "President Hillary" would continue with plans for a North American Union, a worsening of the employment situation, and the poor and ill still in the clutches of the health insurance industry which will be bloated with Federal subsidies.
Shortly before the death of my late husband, we were discussing the possibility of supporting Senator Clinton and he stated, "It is highly lkely that she will withdraw her candidacy for health reasons before 2008."
A query regarding his reasoning brought the reply, "Saddle sores, from straddling the fence too long" Nothing she has done or advocated has smacked of the kind of courage we have grown to ask from the President of the United States. Our problems have grown beyond "bipartisanship" and require firm and deliberate action to re-establish the equality and personal liberty which the Bush administration has so effectively destroyed.
With our nation mired down and worn out in a Middle-Eastern war, hopelessly in debt, and more divided than at any time since the Civil War, the person whom we elect to lead us in 2008 must be an outstanding individual, capable of handling the many problems in the domestic area while repairing our image in the world as a nation to be trusted and emulated. First and foremost, I would prefer a candidate who had opposed the invasion of Iraq from the get-go, not one who voted for it, promoted it, or went along with it. We have a right to ask for somebody who said "hell, no", and continued to oppose the change from "finding Bin Laden, dead or alive" to establishing "Iraqi Freedom". Thus, there are few who qualify, most notably Dennis Kucinich and Russ Feingold, among our currently elected leaders. The hindsight that has been demonstrated by Hillary and by John Kerrry and John Edwards is simply not good enough.
My candidate would recognize the fact that they were elected to be the President of the United States, not the Emperor of the World. There are vital treaties that must be re-negotiated and kept, there are foreign bases in friendly nations that need to be trimmed down or closed, and there are other nations that must be weaned from the American dollar. If, for instance, Israel cannot stand on her own feet after we have provided billions of dollars a year for over fifty years and Germany cannot provide for her own defense after all those years of literal occupation, then they will have to learn the hard way. We have crumbling and ineffective schools, a medical care system that is on life support, an aging and obsolete infrastructure, a depleted, worn out, and exhausted military, and a large percentage of the populace who are in dire need. This must be the first priority. Our nation should return to its former status as peace-maker to the world, not the enforcer imposing our own standards and our way of life upon citizens of other sovereign nations.
Together with restoring the condition and reputation of our own homeland, we must also restore the basic tenets of the Constitution which has been ignored and negated for far too long. We must distrupt the absolute tyranny of the "old guard" politicians who gain their power from tenure rather than ability and spend so many years in the ivory tower of Beltway power politics that they neither know nor care the needs and desires of the people, the lifeblood of our country. It is so easy for them to listen only to those large campaign donors instead of the voices of their electorate. Mrs. Clinton has spent the last five years, not in opposing them but in trying to join them. Not once has she stamped her tiny feet and proclaimed a proposed action as intolerable from the viewpoint of average American citizens. Her policy has been one of "go along to get along" in order to court the opposition and amass a campaign war chest.
No, Mrs. Clinton. I believe we have had enough of "compromise and coalition" and "bipartisanship" as well as more than our fill of nepotism in the White House. What this nation needs is a fresh voice and new ideas to correct the imbalance caused by the policies of this administration. I have not yet heard that voice nor seen very many new ideas in the current crop of candidates. I was taken by the words of former Senator Mike Gravel in speaking at the Democratic Convention when he stated that no congressperson who voted for this war deserves the office of the President and that the only sensible solution to the health care crisis is a national single-payer program. I agree and find that that standard eliminates almost all of the current crop of wannabes. My mother brought me up to be a smart shopper, so I think I will continue looking. This is not a time to shop for fads or haute couture. We need something durable and effective for the large job ahead of us and appearance or personal popularity should not be a factor. After all, it is going to be two years before the big party and we don't have to decide now.
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
2/22/07
As a life-long feminist, it would be the fulfillment of all my dreams to have a woman as President of the United States in my lifetime. However, I find that the position is too important to waste my precious vote in such an endeavor if it were not the right person for the job. I am not convinced that Hillary Rodham Clinton is that person and, for the good of my beloved country, I cannot vote for her, and I will be happy to tell you why.
In 1992, I had become disillusioned with what the Republican Party had become under the leadership of Ronald Reagan and, though not ready to become a Democrat, I was ready to shop around. I watched carefully the presidential debates in order to evaluate the candidates and I settled upon Ross Perot, who seemed to have a better grasp of the welfare of the rank-and-file citizens. Sure, I was impressed by Mr Clinton but thought him rather callow as well as a wee bit shallow. Hillary, however, was impressive to my recently-Republican instincts. I felt that she was more than competent as the First Lady and maintained her composure despite all the pressures, legitimate and otherwise, that were inflicted upon her. It became obvious that she would be able to handle herself well in any situation and perform competently as an independent politician.
Once he took office, it looked like President Clinton might keep his campaign promises with due attention to the problem of poverty with an ambitious "welfare reform" but, after many compromises with the Republican Congess, we had more working mothers and more children without adequate day care. We also had the dangerous NAFTA as well as a trade agreement with China that was not considerate of the American worker and directly led to today's trade deficit. And so it seems highly likely that a "President Hillary" would continue with plans for a North American Union, a worsening of the employment situation, and the poor and ill still in the clutches of the health insurance industry which will be bloated with Federal subsidies.
Shortly before the death of my late husband, we were discussing the possibility of supporting Senator Clinton and he stated, "It is highly lkely that she will withdraw her candidacy for health reasons before 2008."
A query regarding his reasoning brought the reply, "Saddle sores, from straddling the fence too long" Nothing she has done or advocated has smacked of the kind of courage we have grown to ask from the President of the United States. Our problems have grown beyond "bipartisanship" and require firm and deliberate action to re-establish the equality and personal liberty which the Bush administration has so effectively destroyed.
With our nation mired down and worn out in a Middle-Eastern war, hopelessly in debt, and more divided than at any time since the Civil War, the person whom we elect to lead us in 2008 must be an outstanding individual, capable of handling the many problems in the domestic area while repairing our image in the world as a nation to be trusted and emulated. First and foremost, I would prefer a candidate who had opposed the invasion of Iraq from the get-go, not one who voted for it, promoted it, or went along with it. We have a right to ask for somebody who said "hell, no", and continued to oppose the change from "finding Bin Laden, dead or alive" to establishing "Iraqi Freedom". Thus, there are few who qualify, most notably Dennis Kucinich and Russ Feingold, among our currently elected leaders. The hindsight that has been demonstrated by Hillary and by John Kerrry and John Edwards is simply not good enough.
My candidate would recognize the fact that they were elected to be the President of the United States, not the Emperor of the World. There are vital treaties that must be re-negotiated and kept, there are foreign bases in friendly nations that need to be trimmed down or closed, and there are other nations that must be weaned from the American dollar. If, for instance, Israel cannot stand on her own feet after we have provided billions of dollars a year for over fifty years and Germany cannot provide for her own defense after all those years of literal occupation, then they will have to learn the hard way. We have crumbling and ineffective schools, a medical care system that is on life support, an aging and obsolete infrastructure, a depleted, worn out, and exhausted military, and a large percentage of the populace who are in dire need. This must be the first priority. Our nation should return to its former status as peace-maker to the world, not the enforcer imposing our own standards and our way of life upon citizens of other sovereign nations.
Together with restoring the condition and reputation of our own homeland, we must also restore the basic tenets of the Constitution which has been ignored and negated for far too long. We must distrupt the absolute tyranny of the "old guard" politicians who gain their power from tenure rather than ability and spend so many years in the ivory tower of Beltway power politics that they neither know nor care the needs and desires of the people, the lifeblood of our country. It is so easy for them to listen only to those large campaign donors instead of the voices of their electorate. Mrs. Clinton has spent the last five years, not in opposing them but in trying to join them. Not once has she stamped her tiny feet and proclaimed a proposed action as intolerable from the viewpoint of average American citizens. Her policy has been one of "go along to get along" in order to court the opposition and amass a campaign war chest.
No, Mrs. Clinton. I believe we have had enough of "compromise and coalition" and "bipartisanship" as well as more than our fill of nepotism in the White House. What this nation needs is a fresh voice and new ideas to correct the imbalance caused by the policies of this administration. I have not yet heard that voice nor seen very many new ideas in the current crop of candidates. I was taken by the words of former Senator Mike Gravel in speaking at the Democratic Convention when he stated that no congressperson who voted for this war deserves the office of the President and that the only sensible solution to the health care crisis is a national single-payer program. I agree and find that that standard eliminates almost all of the current crop of wannabes. My mother brought me up to be a smart shopper, so I think I will continue looking. This is not a time to shop for fads or haute couture. We need something durable and effective for the large job ahead of us and appearance or personal popularity should not be a factor. After all, it is going to be two years before the big party and we don't have to decide now.
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Ecuador's President Embraces Bolivarianism
by Stephen Lendman
2/20/07
Hugo Chavez Frias gained an Ecuadoran ally last November when voters rejected Washington's choice and the country's richest man and elected Raphael Correa its President by an impressive margin. Correa is a populist economist and self-styled "humanist, leftist Christian" promising big changes for another Latin American country long ruled by and for the elite and against the interests of ordinary people Ecuador abounds in whose voices finally spoke and prevailed.
Correa took office January 15 in a country of 13 million, over 70% of whom live in poverty. They voted for a man promising social democratic change and the same kinds of benefits Venezuelans now have under Hugo Chavez they too now have a chance to get. Correa is the country's 8th president in the last decade including three previous ones driven from office by mass street protest opposition against their misrule and public neglect.
Correa campaigned on a promise of change including using the country's oil revenue for critically needed social services Ecuadoreans never before had. He promised a "citizens' revolution" and to be an "instrument of change" beginning by drafting a new Constitution in a Constituent Assembly he hopes will be authorized by popular referendum following the same pattern Hugo Chavez chose in 1999 following his first election as Venezuela's President in December, 1998.
Ecuador's majority right wing Christian Democratic Union (UDC) party tried stopping him but overwhelming popular support for it finally got enough members in it to go along. The vote came February 13 and won out 54 - 1 with two abstentions in the nation's single-seat legislature. Most opposition deputies walked out before the vote when it was apparent they'd face defeat.
Following the vote, Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Council (TSE) set April 15 for the referendum vote that's virtually certain to pass as popular support for its purpose runs around 77%. After passage, as expected, voters in June or July will select 130 delegates to the Constituent Assembly that should begin meeting in August or September. It then will have six to eight months to write a new Constitution that would go before voters to be ratified, and if it changes the Congress or presidency would require new elections be held for legislators and the nation's highest office.
It things go as planned, Ecuador is now poised to change its method of governance the same way Venezuela did it eight years ago. Raphael Correa promised it, and he's now moving ahead to give his people the same kind of 21st century socialism Venezuelans now have and embrace. Ecuadoreans want it too and now have their best chance ever to get it under a leader working for them just as Chavez does for Venezuelans with overwhelming approval.
Correa is confident of success and told his people on February 17 on his weekly radio program he'll resign if his supporters don't win a majority of seats in the Constituent Assembly. He said he'd rather go than "warm the bench and be just another of the bunch of traitors and impostors we've had in the presidency...." That's not likely as long-denied Ecuadoreans overwhelming support their new President and the process of change he's now poised to deliver for them the same way Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela that works.
It's one more step left in Latin America but just a small one on a continent long under Washington's ominous shadow watching events closely and not about to let its control slip away without resisting. Any leader trying knows the threat, but those willing to risk it are the ones to watch. Hopefully others in the region and beyond will join them, and they have a courageous model in Hugo Chavez who defied the odds and continues moving ahead boldly after eight successful years. If Chavez can do it, why not others if they'll try. The more who do, the stronger the process for real social change becomes that with luck could be unstoppable. What a glorious impossible dream, but even those kinds come true.
Correa intends a further challenge to US hegemony by following through on another campaign promise to close the major US military base at Manta when the 10 year treaty authorizing it expires in 2009. Doing it won't make Pentagon top brass happy as it's their largest base on South America's Pacific coast and one costing many millions to build. It's certain they'll try getting Correa to reconsider and won't go light on the pressure doing it. But as of now Minister of Foreign Relations Maria Fernanda Espinosa stated her country's position: "Equador is a sovereign nation, we do not need foreign troops in our country (and they likely will have to go)."
Correa also plans a new relationship with US-dominated international lending agencies following through on his campaign to renegotiate the country's $16 billion foreign debt and hasn't ruled out an Argentine-style default to free up revenue for vitally needed social programs including 100,000 low-cost homes, raising the minimum wage, and doubling the small "poverty bonus" 1.2 million poor Ecuadorans get each month. For now, Correa opted to make a scheduled $135 million debt payment to foreign bond holders while pursuing his greater aim to renegotiate the whole debt and annul the odious part of it resulting from previous governments' corrupt dealings it profited from at the peoples' expense.
Correa is also negotiating bilateral trade and other economic deals with Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales based at least in part on Venezuela's Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas or ALBA model. It's the mirror-opposite of FTAA or NAFTA-type one-way pacts sucking wealth from developing states agreeing to them. Instead it's based on sound principles of complementarity, solidarity and cooperation to achieve comprehensive integration among Latin American nations agreeing to them and being willing to work together toward developing their "social state" in contrast to US-type deals being all for its corporate giants and the privileged.
These are the early bold steps of a courageous new leader promising and now proceeding to follow in the footsteps of the example Hugo Chavez set. He's off to a fast start on a road sure to have promise and perils but with great potential payoff for his people if he can persevere and succeed. He's showing he intends to try.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and tune in each Saturday to hear the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on The Micro Effect.com each Saturday at noon US central time.}
2/20/07
Hugo Chavez Frias gained an Ecuadoran ally last November when voters rejected Washington's choice and the country's richest man and elected Raphael Correa its President by an impressive margin. Correa is a populist economist and self-styled "humanist, leftist Christian" promising big changes for another Latin American country long ruled by and for the elite and against the interests of ordinary people Ecuador abounds in whose voices finally spoke and prevailed.
Correa took office January 15 in a country of 13 million, over 70% of whom live in poverty. They voted for a man promising social democratic change and the same kinds of benefits Venezuelans now have under Hugo Chavez they too now have a chance to get. Correa is the country's 8th president in the last decade including three previous ones driven from office by mass street protest opposition against their misrule and public neglect.
Correa campaigned on a promise of change including using the country's oil revenue for critically needed social services Ecuadoreans never before had. He promised a "citizens' revolution" and to be an "instrument of change" beginning by drafting a new Constitution in a Constituent Assembly he hopes will be authorized by popular referendum following the same pattern Hugo Chavez chose in 1999 following his first election as Venezuela's President in December, 1998.
Ecuador's majority right wing Christian Democratic Union (UDC) party tried stopping him but overwhelming popular support for it finally got enough members in it to go along. The vote came February 13 and won out 54 - 1 with two abstentions in the nation's single-seat legislature. Most opposition deputies walked out before the vote when it was apparent they'd face defeat.
Following the vote, Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Council (TSE) set April 15 for the referendum vote that's virtually certain to pass as popular support for its purpose runs around 77%. After passage, as expected, voters in June or July will select 130 delegates to the Constituent Assembly that should begin meeting in August or September. It then will have six to eight months to write a new Constitution that would go before voters to be ratified, and if it changes the Congress or presidency would require new elections be held for legislators and the nation's highest office.
It things go as planned, Ecuador is now poised to change its method of governance the same way Venezuela did it eight years ago. Raphael Correa promised it, and he's now moving ahead to give his people the same kind of 21st century socialism Venezuelans now have and embrace. Ecuadoreans want it too and now have their best chance ever to get it under a leader working for them just as Chavez does for Venezuelans with overwhelming approval.
Correa is confident of success and told his people on February 17 on his weekly radio program he'll resign if his supporters don't win a majority of seats in the Constituent Assembly. He said he'd rather go than "warm the bench and be just another of the bunch of traitors and impostors we've had in the presidency...." That's not likely as long-denied Ecuadoreans overwhelming support their new President and the process of change he's now poised to deliver for them the same way Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela that works.
It's one more step left in Latin America but just a small one on a continent long under Washington's ominous shadow watching events closely and not about to let its control slip away without resisting. Any leader trying knows the threat, but those willing to risk it are the ones to watch. Hopefully others in the region and beyond will join them, and they have a courageous model in Hugo Chavez who defied the odds and continues moving ahead boldly after eight successful years. If Chavez can do it, why not others if they'll try. The more who do, the stronger the process for real social change becomes that with luck could be unstoppable. What a glorious impossible dream, but even those kinds come true.
Correa intends a further challenge to US hegemony by following through on another campaign promise to close the major US military base at Manta when the 10 year treaty authorizing it expires in 2009. Doing it won't make Pentagon top brass happy as it's their largest base on South America's Pacific coast and one costing many millions to build. It's certain they'll try getting Correa to reconsider and won't go light on the pressure doing it. But as of now Minister of Foreign Relations Maria Fernanda Espinosa stated her country's position: "Equador is a sovereign nation, we do not need foreign troops in our country (and they likely will have to go)."
Correa also plans a new relationship with US-dominated international lending agencies following through on his campaign to renegotiate the country's $16 billion foreign debt and hasn't ruled out an Argentine-style default to free up revenue for vitally needed social programs including 100,000 low-cost homes, raising the minimum wage, and doubling the small "poverty bonus" 1.2 million poor Ecuadorans get each month. For now, Correa opted to make a scheduled $135 million debt payment to foreign bond holders while pursuing his greater aim to renegotiate the whole debt and annul the odious part of it resulting from previous governments' corrupt dealings it profited from at the peoples' expense.
Correa is also negotiating bilateral trade and other economic deals with Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales based at least in part on Venezuela's Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas or ALBA model. It's the mirror-opposite of FTAA or NAFTA-type one-way pacts sucking wealth from developing states agreeing to them. Instead it's based on sound principles of complementarity, solidarity and cooperation to achieve comprehensive integration among Latin American nations agreeing to them and being willing to work together toward developing their "social state" in contrast to US-type deals being all for its corporate giants and the privileged.
These are the early bold steps of a courageous new leader promising and now proceeding to follow in the footsteps of the example Hugo Chavez set. He's off to a fast start on a road sure to have promise and perils but with great potential payoff for his people if he can persevere and succeed. He's showing he intends to try.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and tune in each Saturday to hear the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on The Micro Effect.com each Saturday at noon US central time.}
Thursday, February 15, 2007
UN Peacekeeping Paramilitarism
by Stephen Lendman
The world community calls them "Blue Helmets" or "peacekeepers," and the UN defines their mission as "a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace" by implementing and monitoring post-conflict peace processes former combatants have agreed to under provisions of the UN Charter. The Charter empowers the Security Council to take collective action to maintain international peace and security that includes authorizing peacekeeping operations provided a host country agrees to have them under Rules of Engagement developed and approved by all parties. At that point, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations enlists member nations to provide force contingents to be deployed once the Security Council gives final approval.
Once in place, Blue Helmets are supposed to help in various ways including monitoring the withdrawal of combatants, building confidence, enforcing power-sharing agreements, providing electoral support, aiding reconstruction, upholding the rule of law, maintaining order, and helping efforts toward economic and social development. Above all, "peacekeeping" missions are supposed to be benevolent interventions. They're sent to conflict areas to restore order, maintain peace and security and provide for the needs of people during a transitional period until a local government takes over on its own.
Far too often, however, things don't turn out that way, and Blue Helmets end up either creating more conflict than its resolution or being counterproductive or ineffective. In the first instance, peacekeepers become paramilitary enforcers for an outside authority. In the second, they do more harm than good because they've done nothing to ameliorate conditions or improve the situation on the ground and end up more a hindrance than a help….
[full article]
Tune in online to hear “The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour” on The Micro Effect.com each Saturday at noon US central time.Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. website: sjlendman.blogspot.com
The world community calls them "Blue Helmets" or "peacekeepers," and the UN defines their mission as "a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace" by implementing and monitoring post-conflict peace processes former combatants have agreed to under provisions of the UN Charter. The Charter empowers the Security Council to take collective action to maintain international peace and security that includes authorizing peacekeeping operations provided a host country agrees to have them under Rules of Engagement developed and approved by all parties. At that point, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations enlists member nations to provide force contingents to be deployed once the Security Council gives final approval.
Once in place, Blue Helmets are supposed to help in various ways including monitoring the withdrawal of combatants, building confidence, enforcing power-sharing agreements, providing electoral support, aiding reconstruction, upholding the rule of law, maintaining order, and helping efforts toward economic and social development. Above all, "peacekeeping" missions are supposed to be benevolent interventions. They're sent to conflict areas to restore order, maintain peace and security and provide for the needs of people during a transitional period until a local government takes over on its own.
Far too often, however, things don't turn out that way, and Blue Helmets end up either creating more conflict than its resolution or being counterproductive or ineffective. In the first instance, peacekeepers become paramilitary enforcers for an outside authority. In the second, they do more harm than good because they've done nothing to ameliorate conditions or improve the situation on the ground and end up more a hindrance than a help….
[full article]
Tune in online to hear “The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour” on The Micro Effect.com each Saturday at noon US central time.Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. website: sjlendman.blogspot.com
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
setting up the game board
Bush calls on Congress to fund U.S. troops to Iraq
Bush said while he understood that lawmakers had differences of opinion about his plan, the disagreement should not stop them from approving funds for the troops.
"I find it interesting that there is a declaration about a plan that they have not given a chance to work," Bush said.
Well, george, there are some people who think up plans to play "Russian Roulette" from time to time. Are you saying I should be giving those plans a chance to see if they'll work? You know, if that's what you mean, come 'on over. I'll set the game board up.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Peace for Our Time
March 16, 2003
Sunshine for Women
This essay was written in response to an e-mail I received from a family member.
In the essay which you forwarded entitled "Peace for Our Time" by Alistair Cooke, Cooke equates Saddam Hussein to Adolph Hitler and warns the world against appeasing a megalomaniac and a tyrant. Widely respected for his powerful writing (even to the point of being knighted in 1973) this eye-witness to World War II eloquently states the danger of appeasement.
The world knows the dangers of appeasing tyrants: certainly the German, French, and Russian people know the dangers of appeasement – one, possibly two, generations of Germans, French, and Russians spent their lives rebuilding their war-scarred and shattered lands.
I am surprised that Cooke seems to believe that he needs to inform the world of the dangers of appeasement. Does he believe that the German's have forgotten their own history or the French or the Russians? Maybe American's have forgotten the events of WW II because our country emerged from the war stronger than before, not devastated and destroyed.
Certainly the French whose land was ravaged by both World War I and World War II do not need Cooke to remind them of dangers of appeasement.
Certainly the Germans who have had American soldiers stationed on their soil for over 50 years, who daily live with "monuments" to that horrid time, and who have listened to the world condemn an earlier generation of Germans do not need to be reminded of the dangers of appeasement.
Certainly the Russians, who lost over 20 million countrymen and countrywomen in WW II, who suffered through Stalin's purges, and who spent at least one generation rebuilding their industry, their communities, and their society, do not need Cooke to remind them of the dangers of appeasement.
Certainly the citizens of so many of the smaller states in Europe who were conquered in an afternoon by Hitler's troops do no need Cooke to remind them of the dangers of appeasement.
At the same time, Europeans, Asians, and other peoples whose lands have suffered the ravages of war know the costs of war: the cost in terms of human suffering and shattered lives, the cost in the destruction of families and communities, and the cost in terms of the devastation of industry and the public infrastructure.
I offer you some pictures of the carnage of just a few of the wars of this world. Do you seriously expect me to believe that the people who experienced this devastation first hand and their children and grandchildren have forgotten what it means to be at war? If any people have forgotten what it means to be at war, it is the American people. If any people have forgotten what it means to appease a tyrant, it is the American people.
[…]
Bush is fond of claiming that he serves God. Yet he refuses to meet with religious leaders, especially the leaders of his own Methodist church, who oppose this war. Is it taking the Lord's name in vain to claim that God supports a war that God does not support? What would Jesus do about Iraq? Would he launch a mighty armada against an already contained foe? I think I do not understand Bush's version of Christianity.
[…]
If this war is such a good idea, why don't the talking heads and other war supporters demand that their children take part in this war?
[…]
I hope when the bombing starts that you can pause for a moment and ask God to have mercy on the innocent people of Iraq. On so many levels this war is the wrong thing to do. I can think of no justification for it.
full article
Sunshine for Women
This essay was written in response to an e-mail I received from a family member.
In the essay which you forwarded entitled "Peace for Our Time" by Alistair Cooke, Cooke equates Saddam Hussein to Adolph Hitler and warns the world against appeasing a megalomaniac and a tyrant. Widely respected for his powerful writing (even to the point of being knighted in 1973) this eye-witness to World War II eloquently states the danger of appeasement.
The world knows the dangers of appeasing tyrants: certainly the German, French, and Russian people know the dangers of appeasement – one, possibly two, generations of Germans, French, and Russians spent their lives rebuilding their war-scarred and shattered lands.
I am surprised that Cooke seems to believe that he needs to inform the world of the dangers of appeasement. Does he believe that the German's have forgotten their own history or the French or the Russians? Maybe American's have forgotten the events of WW II because our country emerged from the war stronger than before, not devastated and destroyed.
Certainly the French whose land was ravaged by both World War I and World War II do not need Cooke to remind them of dangers of appeasement.
Certainly the Germans who have had American soldiers stationed on their soil for over 50 years, who daily live with "monuments" to that horrid time, and who have listened to the world condemn an earlier generation of Germans do not need to be reminded of the dangers of appeasement.
Certainly the Russians, who lost over 20 million countrymen and countrywomen in WW II, who suffered through Stalin's purges, and who spent at least one generation rebuilding their industry, their communities, and their society, do not need Cooke to remind them of the dangers of appeasement.
Certainly the citizens of so many of the smaller states in Europe who were conquered in an afternoon by Hitler's troops do no need Cooke to remind them of the dangers of appeasement.
At the same time, Europeans, Asians, and other peoples whose lands have suffered the ravages of war know the costs of war: the cost in terms of human suffering and shattered lives, the cost in the destruction of families and communities, and the cost in terms of the devastation of industry and the public infrastructure.
I offer you some pictures of the carnage of just a few of the wars of this world. Do you seriously expect me to believe that the people who experienced this devastation first hand and their children and grandchildren have forgotten what it means to be at war? If any people have forgotten what it means to be at war, it is the American people. If any people have forgotten what it means to appease a tyrant, it is the American people.
[…]
Bush is fond of claiming that he serves God. Yet he refuses to meet with religious leaders, especially the leaders of his own Methodist church, who oppose this war. Is it taking the Lord's name in vain to claim that God supports a war that God does not support? What would Jesus do about Iraq? Would he launch a mighty armada against an already contained foe? I think I do not understand Bush's version of Christianity.
[…]
If this war is such a good idea, why don't the talking heads and other war supporters demand that their children take part in this war?
[…]
I hope when the bombing starts that you can pause for a moment and ask God to have mercy on the innocent people of Iraq. On so many levels this war is the wrong thing to do. I can think of no justification for it.
full article
Chimps In A Zoo Cage
By Sheila Samples
2/12/07
Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."~~Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
If the Bush administration and the US mainstream media are united on any one issue, it's an absolute refusal to rock the political boat as they sail mercilessly through the seas of corporate profit on the good ship Terrorbush. For the most part, each group is an incurious lot -- undead creatures who neither care, nor dare, to glance over the side of the ship at the bloated, swirling bodies in the blood-red water below. From the beginning, their mission has been to perform so fantastically against a backdrop of such violent, explosive madness on so many fronts that we watch hypnotically but do not see -- listen intently but do not hear.
They are very good at what they do.
In the last 10 days, as 36 Americans were killed in Iraq, we were inundated with a variety of devastating news -- all of which literally beg for broad, investigative reporting from those whom the late, great Molly Ivins laughingly referred to as "alert guardian watchdogs of democracy." For example...
~~A bleak National Intelligence Estimate was released, which stated flatly that what is going on in Iraq is much worse than a civil war and there is little chance that Bush's escalation of 20,000-50,000 troops will do anything but fuel the fire. The media's initial interest quickly faded when Vice President Dick Cheney called the report "hogwash," and announced that he and Bush had the power to do whatever they wanted, and neither the Congress nor the people could stop them.
~~Bush appointed Adm. William Fallon to head Central Command (CENTCOM) -- a Navy man to run the ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Formerly with NATO as Assistant Chief of Staff, Plans and Policy for Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, Fallon has a history of high-tech war game tomfoolery that provokes the enemy to attack. With US carrier attack groups bumping into each other in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran, who you gonna call?
~~Nat Hentoff writes in the Village Voice that the giant aerospace Boeing is "supplying the CIA with the planes to transport the shackled, blindfolded, drugged passengers for interrogation in foreign torture chambers." Hentoff credits The New Yorker's Jane Meyer with breaking the Boeing story in October, wherein she quoted a former Jeppesen (Boeing subsidary) employee who was told by a top official, "We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights --you know, the torture flights...It certainly pays well. They” -- the C.I.A -- “spare no expense. They have absolutely no worry about costs. What they have to get done, they get done.”
~~The Pentagon's Inspector General (IG) Report confirms what we have known for nearly five years -- we were catapaulted into war with Iraq on a pack of malicious, treasonous lies dreamed up by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who were obviously following Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's order on 9-11 to "sweep it all up -- things related or not" to justify an attack on Iraq.
. . .In testimony last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Acting IG Thomas Gimble acknowledged, albeit in bewildering doublespeak, that Feith's office had indeed "developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and Al-Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community, to senior decision-makers." Gimble plowed on with an admission that Feith "was inappropriately performing intelligence activities of developing, producing and disseminating that should be performed by the intelligence community."
. . .Given that more than 600,000 Iraqi civilians have been slaughtered, more than 2 million families are broken and displaced, and 3,379 coalition troops (3,123 of them Americans) have been blown to bits, Gimble's limp concession that what these creatures did in manipulating intelligence to go to war was neither "illegal or unauthorized" is almost as bizarre as the media refusing to investigate such criminal activity. Almost as bizarre as Wolfowitz' grinning admission in Vanity Fair two months after the attack, "We settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." Almost as bizarre as the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen, who boasted in 2002, "We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia. . . The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize."
~~Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suddenly fired seven US attorneys and replaced them with Republican insiders. One of them, Tomothy Griffin, who previously worked for Karl Rove and for the Republican National Committee, will head to Arkansas -- just as the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign heats up. San Diego prosecuror Carol Lam was bounced for bringing California Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham to justice for taking $2.4 million in bribes. According to Salon's Joe Conason, Lam "is still pursuing important leads in that historic case. Cunningham is supposed to be cooperating," Conason says, "but if Bush replaces her (Lam) with a partisan stooge, he may be able to keep his secrets." In his usual Cheshire manner, Gonzales admitted the resignations were forced, but "declined to comment on details of the cases."
~~The old news surfaced briefly of the Pentagon loading 363 tons of $100 bills onto pallets and flying them aboard military planes to Iraq where they were handed over to the Iraqi government with no accountability. That's $4 billion, or 726,000 pounds of stash -- with an additional $8.8 billion that also disappeared about the time US "Viceroy" Paul Bremer mounted up and headed for the border.
~~Then, there's the Scooter Libby Blame Plame Game trial wherein Libby and a gaggle of journalists are wildly pointing fingers at each other in a hiliarious effort to cover their treasonous asses about who told whom what and when -- while the noose tightens slowly around Dick Cheney's neck. Great entertainment, but of course no in-depth research and investigation into matters of consequence, such as what "dark side" activity was going on at the highest levels in order to take us to war. Personally, I never believe anything anybody called "Scooter" tells me -- unless his last name is Rizzuto.
You'd think that the mainstream media would bump into each other in their haste to cover one or all of the above. But no. While C-Span alone carried the interminably long Senate debate-about-the-debate on at least three toothless, nonbinding resolutions addressing Bush's ongoing ejaculation in Iraq -- while six US helicopters were brought down by enemy fire -- while the Bush neocons were back at their old game of manipulating intelligence to justify a war on Iran -- the silly, somnolent scriveners chose instead to overdose on the "Air Pelosi" scandal.
Reporters clambered aboard the Swift Boat with their Republican "unnamed sources," and went full throttle at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for daring to request a plane large enough to fly from Washington to California without refueling. The story quickly went from "Air Pelosi" to "Pelosi One." It went from, "The new Speaker of the House is apparently asking for a big travel upgrade" to "the San Francisco Democrat is abusing the perks of power by attempting to commandeer a fancy jumbo-size military jet with a 'distinguished visitor compartment with sleep accommodations.'"
The reporters-cum-repeaters rounded out the jam-packed 10-day news period either shouting that all destructive weapons in Iraq come from Iran -- or curled up on the nation's sidewalks shrieking in ecstasy about Anna Nicole Smith.
The U.S. media is beneath contempt, and can never redeem itself for the damage it has wrought on this republic by its fawning allegience to a band of crooked, war-mongering fools. By sinking to reading scrubbed-clean White House press releases, by relinquishing all pretences of honesty, values and integrity in order to ingratiate itself to the ravenous corporate beast, its members are little more than "enablers" who cannot remember why they became journalists in the first place.
W.C. Fields once said, "There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation." That time is now. Molly Ivins was right -- it's time we hit the streets, beating on pots and pans and take our country back. Our first stop should be at the source of our country's problems -- the shallow and destructive corporate media.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@sirinet.net
2/12/07
Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."~~Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
If the Bush administration and the US mainstream media are united on any one issue, it's an absolute refusal to rock the political boat as they sail mercilessly through the seas of corporate profit on the good ship Terrorbush. For the most part, each group is an incurious lot -- undead creatures who neither care, nor dare, to glance over the side of the ship at the bloated, swirling bodies in the blood-red water below. From the beginning, their mission has been to perform so fantastically against a backdrop of such violent, explosive madness on so many fronts that we watch hypnotically but do not see -- listen intently but do not hear.
They are very good at what they do.
In the last 10 days, as 36 Americans were killed in Iraq, we were inundated with a variety of devastating news -- all of which literally beg for broad, investigative reporting from those whom the late, great Molly Ivins laughingly referred to as "alert guardian watchdogs of democracy." For example...
~~A bleak National Intelligence Estimate was released, which stated flatly that what is going on in Iraq is much worse than a civil war and there is little chance that Bush's escalation of 20,000-50,000 troops will do anything but fuel the fire. The media's initial interest quickly faded when Vice President Dick Cheney called the report "hogwash," and announced that he and Bush had the power to do whatever they wanted, and neither the Congress nor the people could stop them.
~~Bush appointed Adm. William Fallon to head Central Command (CENTCOM) -- a Navy man to run the ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Formerly with NATO as Assistant Chief of Staff, Plans and Policy for Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, Fallon has a history of high-tech war game tomfoolery that provokes the enemy to attack. With US carrier attack groups bumping into each other in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran, who you gonna call?
~~Nat Hentoff writes in the Village Voice that the giant aerospace Boeing is "supplying the CIA with the planes to transport the shackled, blindfolded, drugged passengers for interrogation in foreign torture chambers." Hentoff credits The New Yorker's Jane Meyer with breaking the Boeing story in October, wherein she quoted a former Jeppesen (Boeing subsidary) employee who was told by a top official, "We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights --you know, the torture flights...It certainly pays well. They” -- the C.I.A -- “spare no expense. They have absolutely no worry about costs. What they have to get done, they get done.”
~~The Pentagon's Inspector General (IG) Report confirms what we have known for nearly five years -- we were catapaulted into war with Iraq on a pack of malicious, treasonous lies dreamed up by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who were obviously following Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's order on 9-11 to "sweep it all up -- things related or not" to justify an attack on Iraq.
. . .In testimony last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Acting IG Thomas Gimble acknowledged, albeit in bewildering doublespeak, that Feith's office had indeed "developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and Al-Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community, to senior decision-makers." Gimble plowed on with an admission that Feith "was inappropriately performing intelligence activities of developing, producing and disseminating that should be performed by the intelligence community."
. . .Given that more than 600,000 Iraqi civilians have been slaughtered, more than 2 million families are broken and displaced, and 3,379 coalition troops (3,123 of them Americans) have been blown to bits, Gimble's limp concession that what these creatures did in manipulating intelligence to go to war was neither "illegal or unauthorized" is almost as bizarre as the media refusing to investigate such criminal activity. Almost as bizarre as Wolfowitz' grinning admission in Vanity Fair two months after the attack, "We settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." Almost as bizarre as the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen, who boasted in 2002, "We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia. . . The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize."
~~Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suddenly fired seven US attorneys and replaced them with Republican insiders. One of them, Tomothy Griffin, who previously worked for Karl Rove and for the Republican National Committee, will head to Arkansas -- just as the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign heats up. San Diego prosecuror Carol Lam was bounced for bringing California Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham to justice for taking $2.4 million in bribes. According to Salon's Joe Conason, Lam "is still pursuing important leads in that historic case. Cunningham is supposed to be cooperating," Conason says, "but if Bush replaces her (Lam) with a partisan stooge, he may be able to keep his secrets." In his usual Cheshire manner, Gonzales admitted the resignations were forced, but "declined to comment on details of the cases."
~~The old news surfaced briefly of the Pentagon loading 363 tons of $100 bills onto pallets and flying them aboard military planes to Iraq where they were handed over to the Iraqi government with no accountability. That's $4 billion, or 726,000 pounds of stash -- with an additional $8.8 billion that also disappeared about the time US "Viceroy" Paul Bremer mounted up and headed for the border.
~~Then, there's the Scooter Libby Blame Plame Game trial wherein Libby and a gaggle of journalists are wildly pointing fingers at each other in a hiliarious effort to cover their treasonous asses about who told whom what and when -- while the noose tightens slowly around Dick Cheney's neck. Great entertainment, but of course no in-depth research and investigation into matters of consequence, such as what "dark side" activity was going on at the highest levels in order to take us to war. Personally, I never believe anything anybody called "Scooter" tells me -- unless his last name is Rizzuto.
You'd think that the mainstream media would bump into each other in their haste to cover one or all of the above. But no. While C-Span alone carried the interminably long Senate debate-about-the-debate on at least three toothless, nonbinding resolutions addressing Bush's ongoing ejaculation in Iraq -- while six US helicopters were brought down by enemy fire -- while the Bush neocons were back at their old game of manipulating intelligence to justify a war on Iran -- the silly, somnolent scriveners chose instead to overdose on the "Air Pelosi" scandal.
Reporters clambered aboard the Swift Boat with their Republican "unnamed sources," and went full throttle at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for daring to request a plane large enough to fly from Washington to California without refueling. The story quickly went from "Air Pelosi" to "Pelosi One." It went from, "The new Speaker of the House is apparently asking for a big travel upgrade" to "the San Francisco Democrat is abusing the perks of power by attempting to commandeer a fancy jumbo-size military jet with a 'distinguished visitor compartment with sleep accommodations.'"
The reporters-cum-repeaters rounded out the jam-packed 10-day news period either shouting that all destructive weapons in Iraq come from Iran -- or curled up on the nation's sidewalks shrieking in ecstasy about Anna Nicole Smith.
The U.S. media is beneath contempt, and can never redeem itself for the damage it has wrought on this republic by its fawning allegience to a band of crooked, war-mongering fools. By sinking to reading scrubbed-clean White House press releases, by relinquishing all pretences of honesty, values and integrity in order to ingratiate itself to the ravenous corporate beast, its members are little more than "enablers" who cannot remember why they became journalists in the first place.
W.C. Fields once said, "There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation." That time is now. Molly Ivins was right -- it's time we hit the streets, beating on pots and pans and take our country back. Our first stop should be at the source of our country's problems -- the shallow and destructive corporate media.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@sirinet.net
Saturday, February 10, 2007
The 'Bush Doctrine' and Weapons in Space
by Rodrigue Tremblay
February 12, 2007
"The dangerous patriot: "The one who drifts into chauvinism and exhibits blind enthusiasm for military actions. He is a defender of militarism and its ideals of war and glory. Chauvinism is a proud and bellicose form of patriotism . . . which identifies numerous enemies who can only be dealt with through military power and which equates the national honor with military victory."
James A. Donovan, Colonel, US Marine Corps
"Where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control."
Lord Acton (1834-1902)
"If you want war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men ever are subject... "
William Graham Sumner
On September 20, 2002, George W. Bush, in conformity with the path that Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Rice and Co. had traced for him, adopted a hegemonic foreign policy and issued the famous hubristic "Bush Doctrine". His then Security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and her assistant, Philip D. Zelikow, drafted much of the 2002 report titled “The National Security Strategy of the United States”, which has come to be known as the "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive wars and of American assertive military hegemony around the world.
Eight months before, in his January 29, 2002 first State of the Union Address, Bush, inspired by his neocon and theologian speech writers, had singled out three disparate countries as belonging to an "axis of evil" (Iran, Iraq, and North Korea), even though two of these countries had been at war at each other for years (Iraq and Iran) and the third (North Korea) had no visible political ties to the first two. Bush also expressed his intention that the United States control both the Earth and Outer Space, no matter what the other 191 countries of the world think and no matter what international law and international treaties call for.
On Earth, the neocon Bush-Cheney administration's goal was to invest so much in military gear, and to take military actions if necessary, that no other country would ever challenge its status as the world's sole military superpower.
The intention was to establish a military New American Empire for the 21st Century, along the lines of the British Empire in the 19th Century.
In Space, the administration asserted the "far out" claim that the United States has the right to control Outer Space and to deny access to space to any country not in sync with U.S. interests. Bush's then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in the so-called report on "Counterspace Operations Doctrine" (2004), even stated that the U.S. should not refrain from using such tactics as "cover, concealment, and deception" and "satellite jamming" to control Outer Space. —The chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, General Peter Pace, said that (Donald) Rumsfeld must truly be 'inspired by God!' This hairy policy was revisited and signed into law by President George W. Bush, on October 18, 2006, thus initiating a new and dangerous Space arms race.
The U.S. already has a 'Air Force Space Command', which was created on September 1, 1982, by the Reagan administration. But to indicate that nothing is off-limits, the U.S. Air Force also announced, on November 2, 2006, that it was setting up what could become a new four-star command to fight in cyberspace, where officials say the United States has already come under attack from China, among others. In the words of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, "The aim is to develop a major command that stands alongside Air Force Space Command and Air Combat Command as the provider of forces that the President, combatant commanders and the American people can rely on for preserving the freedom of access and commerce, in air, space and now cyberspace."
However, the goal of preserving free access to Space and cyberspace is paramount. Worldwide, most people believe that Space should not be militarized. The underlying principle here is that Space, Outer Space and celestial resources, such as the Moon or the planets, are the common heritage of humanity as a whole and should not be appropriated by any one country or any nation in particular, through military means or otherwise. Besides, any attempt by one nation to militarize Space, and even to take control of cyberspace, would be in violation of the spirit of the 1967 “Outer Space Treaty” (OST). This fundamental treaty has been signed by 125 countries and ratified by 98, and it solemnly bars participating nations from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in Outer Space.
That is why the world entered into a new era when China, on January 11 (2007), launched a missile strike against one of its old orbiting weather satellites, 800 kilometers above Earth. The Chinese government also announced that the deployment of its anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon was a move to demonstrate the danger of having weapons in Space, and that its objective was to encourage the Bush-Cheney administration to enter into talks aiming at abolishing weapons in Space. Unfortunately, the current administreation had already announced that it opposes the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that would seek to prohibit or limit access to, or use of, Space. —It acts like it would welcome a new arms race in Space and possibly would like to start a new 'Cold War' with China and Russia.
The issue of weapons in Space is not new. In 1981, the old Soviet Union developed an ASAT system consisting of a bomb-carrying satellite, which was positioned next to a target satellite to be destroyed. During the same period, the United States developed an ASAT system, whereby an F-15 fighter would carry a two-stage missile to a high altitude and let the missile tracking system guide it to a target missile set to be destroyed. Since Congress voted a moratorium on the development of ASAT systems, in 1985, the United States has not tested any new ASAT system.
However, the Chinese demonstration and the Bush-Cheney avowed policy of taking military control of Space indicate that urgent action is required on this issue, if Space is to be kept demilitarized. A U.N. agency tailored along the International Atomic Energy Agency should have the responsibility to inspect any rocket launch to make sure that it does not carry armaments into Space. That may be the only way to make sure that no national government place armaments into Space.
Therefore, it would seem appropriate that the United Nations, under its new leadership, convene an international conference and adopt necessary measures to reinforce the Outer Space Treaty and make sure that no single nation-state can dominate Space or could ever claim that Space belongs to it.
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/tremblay=1057.htm
February 12, 2007
"The dangerous patriot: "The one who drifts into chauvinism and exhibits blind enthusiasm for military actions. He is a defender of militarism and its ideals of war and glory. Chauvinism is a proud and bellicose form of patriotism . . . which identifies numerous enemies who can only be dealt with through military power and which equates the national honor with military victory."
James A. Donovan, Colonel, US Marine Corps
"Where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control."
Lord Acton (1834-1902)
"If you want war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men ever are subject... "
William Graham Sumner
On September 20, 2002, George W. Bush, in conformity with the path that Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Rice and Co. had traced for him, adopted a hegemonic foreign policy and issued the famous hubristic "Bush Doctrine". His then Security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and her assistant, Philip D. Zelikow, drafted much of the 2002 report titled “The National Security Strategy of the United States”, which has come to be known as the "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive wars and of American assertive military hegemony around the world.
Eight months before, in his January 29, 2002 first State of the Union Address, Bush, inspired by his neocon and theologian speech writers, had singled out three disparate countries as belonging to an "axis of evil" (Iran, Iraq, and North Korea), even though two of these countries had been at war at each other for years (Iraq and Iran) and the third (North Korea) had no visible political ties to the first two. Bush also expressed his intention that the United States control both the Earth and Outer Space, no matter what the other 191 countries of the world think and no matter what international law and international treaties call for.
On Earth, the neocon Bush-Cheney administration's goal was to invest so much in military gear, and to take military actions if necessary, that no other country would ever challenge its status as the world's sole military superpower.
The intention was to establish a military New American Empire for the 21st Century, along the lines of the British Empire in the 19th Century.
In Space, the administration asserted the "far out" claim that the United States has the right to control Outer Space and to deny access to space to any country not in sync with U.S. interests. Bush's then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in the so-called report on "Counterspace Operations Doctrine" (2004), even stated that the U.S. should not refrain from using such tactics as "cover, concealment, and deception" and "satellite jamming" to control Outer Space. —The chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, General Peter Pace, said that (Donald) Rumsfeld must truly be 'inspired by God!' This hairy policy was revisited and signed into law by President George W. Bush, on October 18, 2006, thus initiating a new and dangerous Space arms race.
The U.S. already has a 'Air Force Space Command', which was created on September 1, 1982, by the Reagan administration. But to indicate that nothing is off-limits, the U.S. Air Force also announced, on November 2, 2006, that it was setting up what could become a new four-star command to fight in cyberspace, where officials say the United States has already come under attack from China, among others. In the words of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, "The aim is to develop a major command that stands alongside Air Force Space Command and Air Combat Command as the provider of forces that the President, combatant commanders and the American people can rely on for preserving the freedom of access and commerce, in air, space and now cyberspace."
However, the goal of preserving free access to Space and cyberspace is paramount. Worldwide, most people believe that Space should not be militarized. The underlying principle here is that Space, Outer Space and celestial resources, such as the Moon or the planets, are the common heritage of humanity as a whole and should not be appropriated by any one country or any nation in particular, through military means or otherwise. Besides, any attempt by one nation to militarize Space, and even to take control of cyberspace, would be in violation of the spirit of the 1967 “Outer Space Treaty” (OST). This fundamental treaty has been signed by 125 countries and ratified by 98, and it solemnly bars participating nations from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in Outer Space.
That is why the world entered into a new era when China, on January 11 (2007), launched a missile strike against one of its old orbiting weather satellites, 800 kilometers above Earth. The Chinese government also announced that the deployment of its anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon was a move to demonstrate the danger of having weapons in Space, and that its objective was to encourage the Bush-Cheney administration to enter into talks aiming at abolishing weapons in Space. Unfortunately, the current administreation had already announced that it opposes the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that would seek to prohibit or limit access to, or use of, Space. —It acts like it would welcome a new arms race in Space and possibly would like to start a new 'Cold War' with China and Russia.
The issue of weapons in Space is not new. In 1981, the old Soviet Union developed an ASAT system consisting of a bomb-carrying satellite, which was positioned next to a target satellite to be destroyed. During the same period, the United States developed an ASAT system, whereby an F-15 fighter would carry a two-stage missile to a high altitude and let the missile tracking system guide it to a target missile set to be destroyed. Since Congress voted a moratorium on the development of ASAT systems, in 1985, the United States has not tested any new ASAT system.
However, the Chinese demonstration and the Bush-Cheney avowed policy of taking military control of Space indicate that urgent action is required on this issue, if Space is to be kept demilitarized. A U.N. agency tailored along the International Atomic Energy Agency should have the responsibility to inspect any rocket launch to make sure that it does not carry armaments into Space. That may be the only way to make sure that no national government place armaments into Space.
Therefore, it would seem appropriate that the United Nations, under its new leadership, convene an international conference and adopt necessary measures to reinforce the Outer Space Treaty and make sure that no single nation-state can dominate Space or could ever claim that Space belongs to it.
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/tremblay=1057.htm
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Filibuster to End the War Now!
By John V. Walsh
February 8, 2007
We hear over and over again that it "takes 60 votes to get something serious done in the Senate." That is a lot of malarkey. It takes only one senator to begin a filibuster against any bill. And then it takes only 41 votes to uphold that filibuster and prevent any proposed law from coming to the floor.
Thus, the present authorization for defense funding in the coming fiscal year can be stopped cold if it contains funds for the war on Iraq. And this can be done by just one courageous Senator, backed by 40 colleagues.
Let me propose the following scenario. Just one Senator, Ted Kennedy or Russ Feingold or Robert Byrd, arises in the Senate and declares that he will filibuster the present defense authorization bill if it contains funds for the war on Iraq or Iran. That bill is then dead unless there are 60 votes (3/5 of the 100 Senators) to end the debate, i.e., to invoke cloture. That is it. Bush no longer has the funds to prosecute the war. He has to come back with a funding bill acceptable to the 41.
At the same time the filibustering Senator could put forth a resolution similar to Congressman McGovern's in the House, which is aptly named "The Safe and Orderly Withdrawal Act." It provides funds to ensure the withdrawal of U.S, forces from Iraq in a way that guarantees their safety, and no other funding for the war. If the opponents of our hypothetical, courageous Senator wish to oppose such legislation, let them go on record in so doing. They are then on record as refusing funds to bring the troops safely home.
The Republicans have shown in their very first weeks in opposition that they have the ovaries to do what the Democrats will not. Today (February, 5) they raised 49 votes in the Senate to prevent a relatively harmless non-binding resolution against Bush's so-called "surge." These votes included Democrats Joseph Lieberman and Henry Reid, the Senate majority leader! (1)
Right now there are 18 sitting Senators who voted against the war in 2002. And there are 13 more who voted for the war and now say they regret it. That comes to 31 nominally antiwar Senators.(2) In addition there are 4 new Senators, Barak Obama among them, who claim to be against the war. That brings the count to 35 of the necessary 41, leaving only 6 more needed. And the Democrats now have 51 seats, with at least one or two Republican antiwar Senators to boot. So it would take only 41 out of 51 who claim to be against the war to actually end the war. If they are not lying about their anti-war position, let them stand up and be counted. For example, Hillary Clinton, who is not among those who regret their vote in 2002, were to be one of a handful who refused to vote for cloture, what would happen to her chances in 2008? Let her and others who claim to be against the war go on record for or against the filibuster.
As Charlie Richardson and others of Military Families Speak Out said so eloquently in UFPJ's recent lobbying effort at the Capitol, Congressmen cannot be against the war and for its funding. If the Democrats continue to fund the war, then they own it. It is their war as well Bush's. (And to that I would add that of course it has been the Democrats' war as well as Bush's all along. Many voted for it in October, 2002, when they controlled the Senate, for the sake of their presidential ambitions or because they faced a tough re-election campaign.)
What are the odds that even a handful of Senators will begin a filibuster against the war? Pretty minimal, I fear, given the power of AIPAC and other pro-war forces within the Democratic Party. But the Senators should be pressured intensely, no holds barred, to do so anyway. We should have a version of the Occupation Project, for example, to target our Senators to join a filibuster and commit to upholding it by voting against cloture. Acts of non-violent civil disobedience at local Senate offices will bring attention to their position--and to their hypocrisy if they claim to be against the war but refuse to vote that way. Perhaps some Senators will give in to pressure if they realize that their re-election is at stake. And we are now at a moment of societal upheaval over the war, with splits among the ruling class, one faction of which is furious with the neocons for creating this disaster. So anything can happen. But even if the Senators refuse, we shall know where everyone stands. And if the Democratic Senators fail to do the bidding of the people, it helps the antiwar movement to know that we must look beyond the Democratic Party for a true champion of peace in '08 and beyond.
John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com. He recommends Alexander Cockburn's remarks along some of the same lines.
http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh02082007.html
February 8, 2007
We hear over and over again that it "takes 60 votes to get something serious done in the Senate." That is a lot of malarkey. It takes only one senator to begin a filibuster against any bill. And then it takes only 41 votes to uphold that filibuster and prevent any proposed law from coming to the floor.
Thus, the present authorization for defense funding in the coming fiscal year can be stopped cold if it contains funds for the war on Iraq. And this can be done by just one courageous Senator, backed by 40 colleagues.
Let me propose the following scenario. Just one Senator, Ted Kennedy or Russ Feingold or Robert Byrd, arises in the Senate and declares that he will filibuster the present defense authorization bill if it contains funds for the war on Iraq or Iran. That bill is then dead unless there are 60 votes (3/5 of the 100 Senators) to end the debate, i.e., to invoke cloture. That is it. Bush no longer has the funds to prosecute the war. He has to come back with a funding bill acceptable to the 41.
At the same time the filibustering Senator could put forth a resolution similar to Congressman McGovern's in the House, which is aptly named "The Safe and Orderly Withdrawal Act." It provides funds to ensure the withdrawal of U.S, forces from Iraq in a way that guarantees their safety, and no other funding for the war. If the opponents of our hypothetical, courageous Senator wish to oppose such legislation, let them go on record in so doing. They are then on record as refusing funds to bring the troops safely home.
The Republicans have shown in their very first weeks in opposition that they have the ovaries to do what the Democrats will not. Today (February, 5) they raised 49 votes in the Senate to prevent a relatively harmless non-binding resolution against Bush's so-called "surge." These votes included Democrats Joseph Lieberman and Henry Reid, the Senate majority leader! (1)
Right now there are 18 sitting Senators who voted against the war in 2002. And there are 13 more who voted for the war and now say they regret it. That comes to 31 nominally antiwar Senators.(2) In addition there are 4 new Senators, Barak Obama among them, who claim to be against the war. That brings the count to 35 of the necessary 41, leaving only 6 more needed. And the Democrats now have 51 seats, with at least one or two Republican antiwar Senators to boot. So it would take only 41 out of 51 who claim to be against the war to actually end the war. If they are not lying about their anti-war position, let them stand up and be counted. For example, Hillary Clinton, who is not among those who regret their vote in 2002, were to be one of a handful who refused to vote for cloture, what would happen to her chances in 2008? Let her and others who claim to be against the war go on record for or against the filibuster.
As Charlie Richardson and others of Military Families Speak Out said so eloquently in UFPJ's recent lobbying effort at the Capitol, Congressmen cannot be against the war and for its funding. If the Democrats continue to fund the war, then they own it. It is their war as well Bush's. (And to that I would add that of course it has been the Democrats' war as well as Bush's all along. Many voted for it in October, 2002, when they controlled the Senate, for the sake of their presidential ambitions or because they faced a tough re-election campaign.)
What are the odds that even a handful of Senators will begin a filibuster against the war? Pretty minimal, I fear, given the power of AIPAC and other pro-war forces within the Democratic Party. But the Senators should be pressured intensely, no holds barred, to do so anyway. We should have a version of the Occupation Project, for example, to target our Senators to join a filibuster and commit to upholding it by voting against cloture. Acts of non-violent civil disobedience at local Senate offices will bring attention to their position--and to their hypocrisy if they claim to be against the war but refuse to vote that way. Perhaps some Senators will give in to pressure if they realize that their re-election is at stake. And we are now at a moment of societal upheaval over the war, with splits among the ruling class, one faction of which is furious with the neocons for creating this disaster. So anything can happen. But even if the Senators refuse, we shall know where everyone stands. And if the Democratic Senators fail to do the bidding of the people, it helps the antiwar movement to know that we must look beyond the Democratic Party for a true champion of peace in '08 and beyond.
John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com. He recommends Alexander Cockburn's remarks along some of the same lines.
http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh02082007.html
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
by Ilan Pappe
A Review by Stephen Lendman
2/8/07
Pappe is also one of Israel's "new historians" whose scholarship and writings are based on access to material now available from British Mandate period and Israeli archives that provide the most accurate and authentic documented history of Israel before and after it became a state and which now serve to debunk the myths about the years leading up to the Jewish State's founding and those following it to this day.
Pappe has also authored, contributed to or edited nine books. His latest is the one this review covers in detail so readers will know about its powerful and shocking content, unknown to most in the West and in Israel, that hopefully will arouse them enough to get the book and learn in full detail what Pappe documented. He proves from official records how the Israeli state came into being with blood on its hands from lands forcibly seized from its Palestinian inhabitants who'd lived on it for hundreds of years previously. Since the 1940s, they were ethnically cleansed and slaughtered without mercy so their homeland would become one for Jews alone.
The shameful result is that Palestinians then and today have almost no rights including being able to live in peace and security on their own land in their own state that no longer exists. Survivors then and their offspring either live in Israel as unwanted Arab citizens with few rights or in the Occupied Palestinians Territories (OPT) where their lives are suspended in limbo in an occupied country in which they're subjected to daily institutionalized and codified racism and persecution. They have no power over their daily lives and live in a constant state of fear with good reason. They face economic strangulation; collective punishment for any reason; loss of free movement; enclosures by separation walls, electric fences and border closings; regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, loss of their homes by bulldozings and crops and orchards by wanton destruction and seizure; arrest without cause, and routine subjection to torture while in custody.
They're targeted for extra-judicial assassination and indiscriminate killing; taxed punitively and denied basic services essential to life and well-being including health care, education, employment and even enough food and water at the whim of Israeli authorities in a deliberate effort to destroy their will to resist and eliminate those who won't by expulsion or extermination. Palestinians have no power to end these appalling abuses and crimes against humanity or receive any redress for them in Israeli, the West or through the International Criminal Court Israel ignores when it rules against its interests....
full article
A Review by Stephen Lendman
2/8/07
Pappe is also one of Israel's "new historians" whose scholarship and writings are based on access to material now available from British Mandate period and Israeli archives that provide the most accurate and authentic documented history of Israel before and after it became a state and which now serve to debunk the myths about the years leading up to the Jewish State's founding and those following it to this day.
Pappe has also authored, contributed to or edited nine books. His latest is the one this review covers in detail so readers will know about its powerful and shocking content, unknown to most in the West and in Israel, that hopefully will arouse them enough to get the book and learn in full detail what Pappe documented. He proves from official records how the Israeli state came into being with blood on its hands from lands forcibly seized from its Palestinian inhabitants who'd lived on it for hundreds of years previously. Since the 1940s, they were ethnically cleansed and slaughtered without mercy so their homeland would become one for Jews alone.
The shameful result is that Palestinians then and today have almost no rights including being able to live in peace and security on their own land in their own state that no longer exists. Survivors then and their offspring either live in Israel as unwanted Arab citizens with few rights or in the Occupied Palestinians Territories (OPT) where their lives are suspended in limbo in an occupied country in which they're subjected to daily institutionalized and codified racism and persecution. They have no power over their daily lives and live in a constant state of fear with good reason. They face economic strangulation; collective punishment for any reason; loss of free movement; enclosures by separation walls, electric fences and border closings; regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, loss of their homes by bulldozings and crops and orchards by wanton destruction and seizure; arrest without cause, and routine subjection to torture while in custody.
They're targeted for extra-judicial assassination and indiscriminate killing; taxed punitively and denied basic services essential to life and well-being including health care, education, employment and even enough food and water at the whim of Israeli authorities in a deliberate effort to destroy their will to resist and eliminate those who won't by expulsion or extermination. Palestinians have no power to end these appalling abuses and crimes against humanity or receive any redress for them in Israeli, the West or through the International Criminal Court Israel ignores when it rules against its interests....
full article
Monday, February 05, 2007
Understanding the NIE and the Global Warming Report in a Single Handy Image:
The Rude Pundit
2/5/2007
…Meanwhile, in the Senate, they're debating about debating about using a garden hose to stop the wildfires from engulfing the house.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Why are Canada and NATO in Afghanistan?
by Rodrigue Tremblay
February 5, 2007
http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/tremblay=1056
"The most fundamental form of human stupidity is forgetting what we were trying to do in the first place."
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
"The industrial way of life leads to the industrial way of death. From Shiloh to Dachau, from Antietam to Stalingrad, from Hiroshima to Vietnam and Afghanistan, the great specialty of industry and technology has been the mass production of human corpses."
Edward Abbey (1927-1989)
"It's quite fun to fight 'em, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you. I like brawling."
Lt. Gen. James Mattis, US commander of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (comment made at a conference in San Diego, California, on February 1, 2005)
Under the minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper, Canada's foreign policy has become subservient to American foreign policy, at a time when our neighbor is being governed by an administration which is not only unpopular worldwide, but which is rejected by two thirds of Americans. Indeed, in the words of TV star and mogul Donald Trump (NY Times, Dec. 23, '06), “[George W.] Bush will go down as the worst and by far the dumbest president in [U.S.] history.”
Why would the Harper government chooses to follow the dicta of such a flawed U.S. administration is hard to understand, unless it shares the latter's far right imperial ideology.
Make no mistake about it, Canada is not half way around the Earth, in Afghanistan, a country dominated by warlords and the opium trade, for humanitarian reasons, as some think, or for grand principles of justice and democracy. It is there for just the same reasons it sent troops into South Africa during the Boer War of 1899-1902: to acquiesce to an imperial request.
One hundred years ago, it was the British Empire; today, it is the American empire. In 1899, the Pro-Empire Canadian government asserted that "British freedom, justice, and civilization" had to be advanced against the South African Dutch immigrants' (Boers) backwardness. This was a lie, of course, since the Dutch immigrants in South Africa were religious Protestants who were as "civilized" as the British. Many pro-British English-Canadians supported Britain's war in South Africa, but most French-Canadians and many recent immigrants from countries other than Britain opposed it, wondering why Canada should fight in a war half way around the world for colonial conquest. Nevertheless, 267 Canadians were killed while fighting in South Africa.
Today, history repeats itself. The neocon Bush-Cheney administration was bogged down in an illegal and immoral war in Iraq, and it requested the help of Canada and other NATO countries to supply soldiers in Afghanistan, in order to liberate American soldiers to serve in Iraq. In that sense, the Afghan war is a proxy for the Iraq war, even though the former received the approval of the United Nations Security Council.
In Afghanistan, a country of 33 provinces and 26 million people, there has been a situation approaching chaos, ever since the Soviet Union invaded it in 1979. The old Soviet Union fought a nine-year war in Afghanistan, lost 14,453 soldiers, until it was ousted from Afghanistan in 1989. This fateful enterprise contributed to the final collapse of the Soviet system in December 1991.
After the departure of the Soviets in 1989, and after much support given to Islamist insurgents (the Mujahideen) by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States, warlords connected to the drugs trade returned to power. A civil war between different tribes, ethnic groups and religious factions ensued. When the Pakistan-backed religious Taliban took power in 1995, they were seen as a stabilizing force in this ravaged country. That is why the American government supported their government, even though it was extremist in its religious and political orientations. Indeed, the Taliban are primarily Pushtun Sunni Moslems who live both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, and who have a fiercely radical political and religious program, not unlike the fanatical Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia.
But the radical Taliban made the mistake of supporting the terrorist organization of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network, with which they had been allied in fighting the Soviets. This led to the Islamist attacks of 9/11 and the overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001, by a U.S.-led military invasion.
Therefore, if it were not for the support the Taliban gave Osama bin Laden, after they took power in 1995, and, maybe more important, for U.S. plans to build an oil and gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, there would be no Western troops in Afghanistan. Indeed, observers have pointed out that even though Afghanistan has no known oil or natural gas reserves of its own, it is nevertheless well placed geographically to play a strategic role in moving the estimated four trillion dollars worth of oil and natural gas located in the Caspian basin. Indeed, some countries in the region, such as Turkmenistan, are large natural-gas producers. For example, there is an ambitious pipeline project that would bring gas from Turkmenistan to India, via Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban insurgency is seen as jeopardizing the project. Therefore, the fight against the Talibans, both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, has as much to do with gas and oil as with international terrorism. A look at the map helps to see why.
The immediate pretext for invading Afghanistan was that, under the Taliban, this remote country served as a training ground for international Islamist terrorism. That is why the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1373, on September 28, 2001, which allows UN member states "to adopt specific measures to combat terrorism" and "to combat by all means threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts." —U.N. Security Council Resolution 1390 of January 16, 2002, made it even clearer that the activities of Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan had to be stopped.
But things in Afghanistan have evolved much further than the primary objective of eliminating bin Laden's terrorists. Indeed, the initial U.N.-authorized "peacekeeping mission" in Afghanistan has turned into a shooting war against a Taliban insurgency, which is not unlike the nationalist insurgency against the American-led occupation of Iraq. Both have turned out to be imperial wars of occupation with no end in sight, and are both closely connected with control of the oil and gas reserves in that part of the world.
Since last year, the military operations in Afghanistan are technically under the responsibility of the 26-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), even though four-star U.S. Gen. Dan McNeil took command of the NATO forces in January. What is more, it is expected that the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan will parallel the Soviet occupation and may last another ten years. The Afghanistan mission may turn out to be a big gamble for NATO, because it is transforming this alliance from a defensive entity into a tool for aggressive incursions. History will tell if NATO can survive this new imperial-like orientation.
The President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, has warned the NATO occupying countries in Afghanistan that they are bound to "fail" in their fight to curb the Taliban insurgency in that country and that they would "keep failing" as long as they pursued their current policies of antagonizing the local populations. Soviet military commanders, who know Afghanistan well, have also predicted that the NATO forces will ultimately be forced to flee from Afghanistan.
The Canadian people have been very ambivalent regarding the U.N.-backed mission in Afghanistan. So far, Canada has lost 44 soldiers in Afghanistan and has spent close to $2 billion CAN in the adventure. A clear majority (fifty-nine per cent) of Canadians consider the mission in Afghanistan a lost cause, at the very same time that Stephen Harper is following a George W. Bush-like "stay the course" policy in Afghanistan, as outlined during an address at the United Nations. This is a clear case where the people may be more clairvoyant than the politicians. Indeed, how does one end the military occupation of a country? The law of inertia means that foreign armies stay in a country until they are thrown out.
The Soviet precedent is all there to see.
Even though Russia was much closer to Afghanistan than the Western countries now represented in the occupation forces there, it left the country after much bleeding. Keep in mind that the Soviet army in Afghanistan was 100,000-strong and operated alongside a full-fledged Afghan army of equal strength, but proved no match for the Afghan resistance. American-led NATO forces today in Afghanistan are about 40,000 strong with the nominal assistance of a 42,000-strong Afghan National Army. Since the conflict in Afghanistan is escalading [the insurgency has killed four times more people last year (2006) than in 2005], it is clear that the level of Western troops in that country would have to increase very substantially, if only a military solution is contemplated and if these occupying forces are to avoid a Soviet-style defeat.
I do not think the Canadian people will stand for such an open-ended imperial adventure in a remote land for much longer. Especially since even a majority of Americans now oppose the Afghan War.
And especially also that we now know that the Harper government is also involved in the Iraq war, since it has dispatched the Canadian frigate HMCS Ottawa to join the American armada in the Persian Gulf. The involvement of the Harper government with the Bush-Cheney war initiatives in the Middle East and in Western Asia will likely become an electoral issue during the coming general election in Canada.
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
Also visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com
February 5, 2007
http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/tremblay=1056
"The most fundamental form of human stupidity is forgetting what we were trying to do in the first place."
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
"The industrial way of life leads to the industrial way of death. From Shiloh to Dachau, from Antietam to Stalingrad, from Hiroshima to Vietnam and Afghanistan, the great specialty of industry and technology has been the mass production of human corpses."
Edward Abbey (1927-1989)
"It's quite fun to fight 'em, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you. I like brawling."
Lt. Gen. James Mattis, US commander of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (comment made at a conference in San Diego, California, on February 1, 2005)
Under the minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper, Canada's foreign policy has become subservient to American foreign policy, at a time when our neighbor is being governed by an administration which is not only unpopular worldwide, but which is rejected by two thirds of Americans. Indeed, in the words of TV star and mogul Donald Trump (NY Times, Dec. 23, '06), “[George W.] Bush will go down as the worst and by far the dumbest president in [U.S.] history.”
Why would the Harper government chooses to follow the dicta of such a flawed U.S. administration is hard to understand, unless it shares the latter's far right imperial ideology.
Make no mistake about it, Canada is not half way around the Earth, in Afghanistan, a country dominated by warlords and the opium trade, for humanitarian reasons, as some think, or for grand principles of justice and democracy. It is there for just the same reasons it sent troops into South Africa during the Boer War of 1899-1902: to acquiesce to an imperial request.
One hundred years ago, it was the British Empire; today, it is the American empire. In 1899, the Pro-Empire Canadian government asserted that "British freedom, justice, and civilization" had to be advanced against the South African Dutch immigrants' (Boers) backwardness. This was a lie, of course, since the Dutch immigrants in South Africa were religious Protestants who were as "civilized" as the British. Many pro-British English-Canadians supported Britain's war in South Africa, but most French-Canadians and many recent immigrants from countries other than Britain opposed it, wondering why Canada should fight in a war half way around the world for colonial conquest. Nevertheless, 267 Canadians were killed while fighting in South Africa.
Today, history repeats itself. The neocon Bush-Cheney administration was bogged down in an illegal and immoral war in Iraq, and it requested the help of Canada and other NATO countries to supply soldiers in Afghanistan, in order to liberate American soldiers to serve in Iraq. In that sense, the Afghan war is a proxy for the Iraq war, even though the former received the approval of the United Nations Security Council.
In Afghanistan, a country of 33 provinces and 26 million people, there has been a situation approaching chaos, ever since the Soviet Union invaded it in 1979. The old Soviet Union fought a nine-year war in Afghanistan, lost 14,453 soldiers, until it was ousted from Afghanistan in 1989. This fateful enterprise contributed to the final collapse of the Soviet system in December 1991.
After the departure of the Soviets in 1989, and after much support given to Islamist insurgents (the Mujahideen) by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States, warlords connected to the drugs trade returned to power. A civil war between different tribes, ethnic groups and religious factions ensued. When the Pakistan-backed religious Taliban took power in 1995, they were seen as a stabilizing force in this ravaged country. That is why the American government supported their government, even though it was extremist in its religious and political orientations. Indeed, the Taliban are primarily Pushtun Sunni Moslems who live both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, and who have a fiercely radical political and religious program, not unlike the fanatical Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia.
But the radical Taliban made the mistake of supporting the terrorist organization of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network, with which they had been allied in fighting the Soviets. This led to the Islamist attacks of 9/11 and the overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001, by a U.S.-led military invasion.
Therefore, if it were not for the support the Taliban gave Osama bin Laden, after they took power in 1995, and, maybe more important, for U.S. plans to build an oil and gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, there would be no Western troops in Afghanistan. Indeed, observers have pointed out that even though Afghanistan has no known oil or natural gas reserves of its own, it is nevertheless well placed geographically to play a strategic role in moving the estimated four trillion dollars worth of oil and natural gas located in the Caspian basin. Indeed, some countries in the region, such as Turkmenistan, are large natural-gas producers. For example, there is an ambitious pipeline project that would bring gas from Turkmenistan to India, via Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban insurgency is seen as jeopardizing the project. Therefore, the fight against the Talibans, both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, has as much to do with gas and oil as with international terrorism. A look at the map helps to see why.
The immediate pretext for invading Afghanistan was that, under the Taliban, this remote country served as a training ground for international Islamist terrorism. That is why the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1373, on September 28, 2001, which allows UN member states "to adopt specific measures to combat terrorism" and "to combat by all means threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts." —U.N. Security Council Resolution 1390 of January 16, 2002, made it even clearer that the activities of Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan had to be stopped.
But things in Afghanistan have evolved much further than the primary objective of eliminating bin Laden's terrorists. Indeed, the initial U.N.-authorized "peacekeeping mission" in Afghanistan has turned into a shooting war against a Taliban insurgency, which is not unlike the nationalist insurgency against the American-led occupation of Iraq. Both have turned out to be imperial wars of occupation with no end in sight, and are both closely connected with control of the oil and gas reserves in that part of the world.
Since last year, the military operations in Afghanistan are technically under the responsibility of the 26-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), even though four-star U.S. Gen. Dan McNeil took command of the NATO forces in January. What is more, it is expected that the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan will parallel the Soviet occupation and may last another ten years. The Afghanistan mission may turn out to be a big gamble for NATO, because it is transforming this alliance from a defensive entity into a tool for aggressive incursions. History will tell if NATO can survive this new imperial-like orientation.
The President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, has warned the NATO occupying countries in Afghanistan that they are bound to "fail" in their fight to curb the Taliban insurgency in that country and that they would "keep failing" as long as they pursued their current policies of antagonizing the local populations. Soviet military commanders, who know Afghanistan well, have also predicted that the NATO forces will ultimately be forced to flee from Afghanistan.
The Canadian people have been very ambivalent regarding the U.N.-backed mission in Afghanistan. So far, Canada has lost 44 soldiers in Afghanistan and has spent close to $2 billion CAN in the adventure. A clear majority (fifty-nine per cent) of Canadians consider the mission in Afghanistan a lost cause, at the very same time that Stephen Harper is following a George W. Bush-like "stay the course" policy in Afghanistan, as outlined during an address at the United Nations. This is a clear case where the people may be more clairvoyant than the politicians. Indeed, how does one end the military occupation of a country? The law of inertia means that foreign armies stay in a country until they are thrown out.
The Soviet precedent is all there to see.
Even though Russia was much closer to Afghanistan than the Western countries now represented in the occupation forces there, it left the country after much bleeding. Keep in mind that the Soviet army in Afghanistan was 100,000-strong and operated alongside a full-fledged Afghan army of equal strength, but proved no match for the Afghan resistance. American-led NATO forces today in Afghanistan are about 40,000 strong with the nominal assistance of a 42,000-strong Afghan National Army. Since the conflict in Afghanistan is escalading [the insurgency has killed four times more people last year (2006) than in 2005], it is clear that the level of Western troops in that country would have to increase very substantially, if only a military solution is contemplated and if these occupying forces are to avoid a Soviet-style defeat.
I do not think the Canadian people will stand for such an open-ended imperial adventure in a remote land for much longer. Especially since even a majority of Americans now oppose the Afghan War.
And especially also that we now know that the Harper government is also involved in the Iraq war, since it has dispatched the Canadian frigate HMCS Ottawa to join the American armada in the Persian Gulf. The involvement of the Harper government with the Bush-Cheney war initiatives in the Middle East and in Western Asia will likely become an electoral issue during the coming general election in Canada.
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
Also visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Depleted Uranium And You
Depleted Uranium, Diabetes, Cancer And You
by Dr. Alan Cantwell
Global Research, January 18, 2007
Recently, I received an intriguing email claiming that the rapidly increasing worldwide epidemic of diabetes was caused by depleted uranium (DU). As a medical doctor I never heard of such an idea. Every physician knows that radiation can lead to cancer, but the DU and diabetes connection seemed ludicrous. Nevertheless, I thought it would be interesting to check it out on the Internet.
The best tool for medical research on the Net is the PubMed website sponsored by the US National Library of Medicine. I typed in the keywords: depleted uranium and diabetes. No citations to scientific papers in the medical journals appeared on my computer screen, which further assured me there was no scientific connection. Even when I used key words - depleted uranium and human disease - only a mere 16 papers were cited on the subject from 1994 to 2005; and only half these papers addressed the medical problems of soldiers exposed to DU in the Gulf War.
What was revealed is that DU accumulates in lymph nodes, brain, testicles, and other organs, and the short term and long term effects of DU were not known. There was a definite increase of birth defects in the offspring of persons exposed to DU; and Gulf War vets who inhaled DU were still excreting abnormal amounts of uranium in the urine 10 years later.
Why was there so little written about DU and its effects on the human body? Having written extensively on the man-made epidemic of AIDS and its cover-up for two decades, I was not surprised. I strongly suspected research into the health effects of DU on Gulf War veterans was "politically incorrect." On the other hand, a quick Google Internet search of - "side effects" + "depleted uranium" - referred me to 71,000 English pages on the web. When I added the key word "diabetes" there were 22,000 pages.
I also discovered that articles about the health dangers of DU rarely, if ever, appear in the major media. In a January 2001 press release FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) accused the media of "depleted coverage of depleted uranium weapons." Nevertheless, a great deal of information on DU can be found on the Internet.
full article
by Dr. Alan Cantwell
Global Research, January 18, 2007
Recently, I received an intriguing email claiming that the rapidly increasing worldwide epidemic of diabetes was caused by depleted uranium (DU). As a medical doctor I never heard of such an idea. Every physician knows that radiation can lead to cancer, but the DU and diabetes connection seemed ludicrous. Nevertheless, I thought it would be interesting to check it out on the Internet.
The best tool for medical research on the Net is the PubMed website sponsored by the US National Library of Medicine. I typed in the keywords: depleted uranium and diabetes. No citations to scientific papers in the medical journals appeared on my computer screen, which further assured me there was no scientific connection. Even when I used key words - depleted uranium and human disease - only a mere 16 papers were cited on the subject from 1994 to 2005; and only half these papers addressed the medical problems of soldiers exposed to DU in the Gulf War.
What was revealed is that DU accumulates in lymph nodes, brain, testicles, and other organs, and the short term and long term effects of DU were not known. There was a definite increase of birth defects in the offspring of persons exposed to DU; and Gulf War vets who inhaled DU were still excreting abnormal amounts of uranium in the urine 10 years later.
Why was there so little written about DU and its effects on the human body? Having written extensively on the man-made epidemic of AIDS and its cover-up for two decades, I was not surprised. I strongly suspected research into the health effects of DU on Gulf War veterans was "politically incorrect." On the other hand, a quick Google Internet search of - "side effects" + "depleted uranium" - referred me to 71,000 English pages on the web. When I added the key word "diabetes" there were 22,000 pages.
I also discovered that articles about the health dangers of DU rarely, if ever, appear in the major media. In a January 2001 press release FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) accused the media of "depleted coverage of depleted uranium weapons." Nevertheless, a great deal of information on DU can be found on the Internet.
full article
Friday, February 02, 2007
Iraq and the economy
By Lorenzo A. Canizares
Thursday, 01 February 2007
Today (Feb 2) in the front page of the New York Times it is announced major cuts being proposed for Medicare & Medicaid, at the same time that EXXON & BP establish record profits!
Dwight Eisenhower warned the American people about the danger of the military- industrial complex. According to journalist Robert Scheer the "complex" political control has already arrived. Scheer says "anyone doubting that need only look at the prodigious amount that this war is costing us and where the greater cost - ignoring the lives lost - lies. Who is profiting? Are we getting value for their work? Are those profiteers affecting our politics with their contributions to political campaigns and lobbying efforts."
It was a surprise to many election observers to discover that voters named the economy second only to the war as the issue of most concern. And, it was even a bigger surprise to find out that 59% of these people voted Democratic. But, still many Americans don't see the connection between Iraq and our unfair economy. Our president obviously subscribes to the theory "What is good for business and the rich is good for the country." He has given us plenty of examples of his views from the tax cuts to all the laws that have been fabricated during his administration that favor corporations, and the rich and powerful. The war in Iraq is another example of his favors to the rich and powerful. From the oil magnates (whatever happened to the minutes of the Energy Task Force meeting of 3/01? It has been leaked that meeting sealed the invasion of Iraq and the distribution of Iraqi oil fields between American and British oil magnates). To the government contractors which many of them have stolen taxpayer's monies with minimum accountability for their actions.
About the last election Barack Obama has said "Americans have put their faith in Democrats because they want us to restore their faith in government." Even though, Obama was referring to ethics in government, the faith concept is wider than just ethics. Americans want to see a government that defends them from bankruptcy, homelessness, and premature death because of lack of health care.
Raising the minimum wage is the beginning of the attempt by Democrats to redress the economic abuses of the past six years. Also to be included are the cost of prescription drugs, energy and higher education. In spite of the fact, that these measures have been enthusiastically welcomed by most Americans there is already a movement afoot to neutralize their effectiveness by zapping their thrust.
When we talk about what Americans need, nothing is more glaring like the need to reform our health care system. Bush has already talked about his plan (another giveaway to the wealthy insurers, and another zap to the middle class). Cheney's plan is probably not far behind. All of these "plans" are just trying to sidetrack the mind of the American people from the fact that we need National Health Insurance through a single payer system.
Also needed is to pass pending legislation that will make it easier for workers to form unions, therefore softening up the impact of the anti-union consultants industry. According to Rep. George Miller, D-Calif, the incoming chairman of the education and workforce committee, there is much bipartisan support for this legislation. Saving America and its people is not just a task for Democrats alone!
Global warming is another issue of major concern for us and the rest of the world. We are the main problem; we should be the number one fixers! We should endorse the Kyoto protocol, and start reducing greenhouse gases from cars, trucks and factories. We might regain some of the respect that we so deservedly has lost amongst most people in the world.
Now, you have to be unable to figure out that 2+2=4 if you don't realize how most the cost of the war is affecting our economy. Between the tax cuts for the super-rich and the cost of the war, all the monies that go for essential aspects of the regular daily lives of the majority of Americans are lacking. Pensions are crumbling, the president is proposing taxing health care benefits, higher education costs keep skyrocketing, and credit card interest rates are going through the roof. In the meantime, the Iraq war has been a major bonanza for the well connected. They are doing the impossible to keep the war going. No matter what Congress does or says Cheney says, "Is not going to stop us." The war will go on. How else can these looters make such incredible amounts of monies for so little to show for it!
The recent elections were a mandate from the American people to change course in Iraq. Instead, the president and the vice are conjuring up plans to attack Iran. It should be clear to the vast majority of Americans by now that these guys in command don't give a hoot about what we think, and plan to continue on the road to enrichment through wars and tax cuts. The nation will only survive through our own efforts.
Canizar@verizon.net
Thursday, 01 February 2007
Today (Feb 2) in the front page of the New York Times it is announced major cuts being proposed for Medicare & Medicaid, at the same time that EXXON & BP establish record profits!
Dwight Eisenhower warned the American people about the danger of the military- industrial complex. According to journalist Robert Scheer the "complex" political control has already arrived. Scheer says "anyone doubting that need only look at the prodigious amount that this war is costing us and where the greater cost - ignoring the lives lost - lies. Who is profiting? Are we getting value for their work? Are those profiteers affecting our politics with their contributions to political campaigns and lobbying efforts."
It was a surprise to many election observers to discover that voters named the economy second only to the war as the issue of most concern. And, it was even a bigger surprise to find out that 59% of these people voted Democratic. But, still many Americans don't see the connection between Iraq and our unfair economy. Our president obviously subscribes to the theory "What is good for business and the rich is good for the country." He has given us plenty of examples of his views from the tax cuts to all the laws that have been fabricated during his administration that favor corporations, and the rich and powerful. The war in Iraq is another example of his favors to the rich and powerful. From the oil magnates (whatever happened to the minutes of the Energy Task Force meeting of 3/01? It has been leaked that meeting sealed the invasion of Iraq and the distribution of Iraqi oil fields between American and British oil magnates). To the government contractors which many of them have stolen taxpayer's monies with minimum accountability for their actions.
About the last election Barack Obama has said "Americans have put their faith in Democrats because they want us to restore their faith in government." Even though, Obama was referring to ethics in government, the faith concept is wider than just ethics. Americans want to see a government that defends them from bankruptcy, homelessness, and premature death because of lack of health care.
Raising the minimum wage is the beginning of the attempt by Democrats to redress the economic abuses of the past six years. Also to be included are the cost of prescription drugs, energy and higher education. In spite of the fact, that these measures have been enthusiastically welcomed by most Americans there is already a movement afoot to neutralize their effectiveness by zapping their thrust.
When we talk about what Americans need, nothing is more glaring like the need to reform our health care system. Bush has already talked about his plan (another giveaway to the wealthy insurers, and another zap to the middle class). Cheney's plan is probably not far behind. All of these "plans" are just trying to sidetrack the mind of the American people from the fact that we need National Health Insurance through a single payer system.
Also needed is to pass pending legislation that will make it easier for workers to form unions, therefore softening up the impact of the anti-union consultants industry. According to Rep. George Miller, D-Calif, the incoming chairman of the education and workforce committee, there is much bipartisan support for this legislation. Saving America and its people is not just a task for Democrats alone!
Global warming is another issue of major concern for us and the rest of the world. We are the main problem; we should be the number one fixers! We should endorse the Kyoto protocol, and start reducing greenhouse gases from cars, trucks and factories. We might regain some of the respect that we so deservedly has lost amongst most people in the world.
Now, you have to be unable to figure out that 2+2=4 if you don't realize how most the cost of the war is affecting our economy. Between the tax cuts for the super-rich and the cost of the war, all the monies that go for essential aspects of the regular daily lives of the majority of Americans are lacking. Pensions are crumbling, the president is proposing taxing health care benefits, higher education costs keep skyrocketing, and credit card interest rates are going through the roof. In the meantime, the Iraq war has been a major bonanza for the well connected. They are doing the impossible to keep the war going. No matter what Congress does or says Cheney says, "Is not going to stop us." The war will go on. How else can these looters make such incredible amounts of monies for so little to show for it!
The recent elections were a mandate from the American people to change course in Iraq. Instead, the president and the vice are conjuring up plans to attack Iran. It should be clear to the vast majority of Americans by now that these guys in command don't give a hoot about what we think, and plan to continue on the road to enrichment through wars and tax cuts. The nation will only survive through our own efforts.
Canizar@verizon.net
Thursday, February 01, 2007
'Matrix of Control'
The February issue of theMagazine is on-line
Israel's Kafkaesque 'Matrix of Control'
by Stephen Lendman
2/1/07
Finding an equitable solution to the intractable, festering decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the Gordian Knot that must be cut to achieve peace overall in the Middle East. Today, no solution is in sight nor are any serious efforts planned to find one despite occasional rhetoric to the contrary like what's now being heard from Washington with similar disingenuous echos inside Israel.
Palestinians know otherwise from long experience. They've heard this siren song before. It's the same old tired refrain going nowhere and not intending to. The so-called "road map" goes nowhere, and the "peace process" guarantees only more conflict because Israel wants it that way to justify its harshness and refuses to discuss the most fundamental Palestinian concerns. Unless they're resolved there can never be peace. They include a sovereign integral independent Palestinian state, the Right of Return, status of Jerusalem Palestinians want as their capital, settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) that must be removed, and established borders. They also include ending what Palestinian-American scholar and activist Edward Said once called Israel's agenda of "refined viciousness" against the Palestinian people. Since Hamas' Palestinian Authority (PA) January, 2006 legislative electoral victory, there's been nothing "refined" about it.
As long as these issues and present conditions go unaddressed, this long-running tragedy will go on without end destroying the lives of new generations of young Palestinians who nonetheless continue their valiant struggle for freedom and justice even against overwhelming odds. Today they're greater than ever as the tiny Israeli state with six million Jews (including those in OPT settlements) is a world nuclear power compared to a virtually defenseless Palestinian population of about five million. Included are 1.4 million Arab Israeli citizens. They're denied all rights Israeli Jews get and are subjected to constant abuse and neglect. They're a fifth of the population but are forced to live on 2% of the land plus 1% more for agricultural use. The Jewish population gets nearly all the rest.
Another 3.9 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank only get the right to live under the boot of a hostile occupier. They live under "vicious" repression and are denied all rights including the fundamental one to their own home on their own land that may be bulldozed to rubble anytime for any reason because Israel wants the land for Jewish settlements and relentlessly takes it and the lives of many Palestinians as well.
full article
Israel's Kafkaesque 'Matrix of Control'
by Stephen Lendman
2/1/07
Finding an equitable solution to the intractable, festering decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the Gordian Knot that must be cut to achieve peace overall in the Middle East. Today, no solution is in sight nor are any serious efforts planned to find one despite occasional rhetoric to the contrary like what's now being heard from Washington with similar disingenuous echos inside Israel.
Palestinians know otherwise from long experience. They've heard this siren song before. It's the same old tired refrain going nowhere and not intending to. The so-called "road map" goes nowhere, and the "peace process" guarantees only more conflict because Israel wants it that way to justify its harshness and refuses to discuss the most fundamental Palestinian concerns. Unless they're resolved there can never be peace. They include a sovereign integral independent Palestinian state, the Right of Return, status of Jerusalem Palestinians want as their capital, settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) that must be removed, and established borders. They also include ending what Palestinian-American scholar and activist Edward Said once called Israel's agenda of "refined viciousness" against the Palestinian people. Since Hamas' Palestinian Authority (PA) January, 2006 legislative electoral victory, there's been nothing "refined" about it.
As long as these issues and present conditions go unaddressed, this long-running tragedy will go on without end destroying the lives of new generations of young Palestinians who nonetheless continue their valiant struggle for freedom and justice even against overwhelming odds. Today they're greater than ever as the tiny Israeli state with six million Jews (including those in OPT settlements) is a world nuclear power compared to a virtually defenseless Palestinian population of about five million. Included are 1.4 million Arab Israeli citizens. They're denied all rights Israeli Jews get and are subjected to constant abuse and neglect. They're a fifth of the population but are forced to live on 2% of the land plus 1% more for agricultural use. The Jewish population gets nearly all the rest.
Another 3.9 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank only get the right to live under the boot of a hostile occupier. They live under "vicious" repression and are denied all rights including the fundamental one to their own home on their own land that may be bulldozed to rubble anytime for any reason because Israel wants the land for Jewish settlements and relentlessly takes it and the lives of many Palestinians as well.
full article
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