Neocons seek to justify action against Teheran
By Tim Shipman
Last Updated: 12:17am BST 30/09/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/30/wiran230.xml
Shifting Targets
The Administration’s plan for Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh
October 8, 2007
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh
US weighs possible strikes on Iran's military: report
9/30/07
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070930/wl_mideast_afp/usiraniraqmilitary_070930194253
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US administration has shifted strategy and is drawing up plans for possible air strikes against Iran's Revolutionary Guard instead of the country's nuclear sites, the New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday.
President George W. Bush has requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff revise plans for a possible attack on Iran, with the focus on "surgical" raids against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps which Washington accuses of targeting US forces in Iraq, the magazine wrote.
Previous contingency plans called for a more elaborate bombing campaign against suspected nuclear sites in Iran as well as other infrastructure, the magazine reported, citing unnamed former officials and government consultants.
The change in focus comes as Bush and his top aides have begun to describe the war in Iraq in public statements as increasingly a "strategic battle between the United States and Iran," said the article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
During a video conference over the summer, Bush allegedly told Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, that he was considering striking Iranian targets across the border and that the British "were on board," according to the article.
But Israeli leaders were dismayed that Washington had decided not to target Iran's nuclear program and French officials had expressed doubts about the possible limited air strikes, it said.
While Bush has not yet issued an "execute order" for a military operation inside Iran, the pace of attack planning has increased markedly and the CIA has dramatically expanded a unit focusing on Iran, it said.
The amended plan would call for using the US Navy's "sea-launched cruise missiles and more precisely targeted ground attacks and bombing strikes, including plans to destroy the most important Revolutionary Guard training camps, supply depots, and command and control facilities," it said.
Vice President Dick Cheney was pushing to confront the Iranians despite deep concerns from Republicans that any action could be politically disastrous for the party given popular opposition to the Iraq war, a former intelligence official said.
"There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible," the official said. "Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, 'You can't do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we're only one fact away from going over the cliff in Iraq.'"
Bush and his advisers have adopted the new "counter-terrorism" approach recognizing the US public is not convinced that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat and that the US intelligence community believes Tehran is at least five years away from obtaining an atomic bomb.
But officials are betting the case for hitting Iranian forces blamed for attacking US soldiers would be easier to make, the magazine wrote.
"This time, unlike the attack in Iraq, we're going to play the victim. The name of our game seems to be to get the Iranians to overplay their hand," said Zbigniew Brezinski, a former national security adviser under ex-president Jimmy Carter and a critic of the Bush administration's foreign policy.
Brezinski said that Iran would probably respond to a US attack "by intensifying the conflict in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, their neighbors, and that could draw in Pakistan.
"We will be stuck in a regional war for twenty years," he said.
The magazine quoted a Defense Department spokesman saying the administration remains committed to a diplomatic solution to disputes with Iran.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Lost in the Roar:
War Alarms Drowned by Beltway Bloodlust
Written by Chris Floyd
Friday, 28 September 2007
http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1297/135/
"I got my hammer ringin', baby, but the nails ain't goin' down."
-- Bob Dylan
Hammerblows of truth keep falling on the Bush Regime's propaganda campaign for war against Iran, which has been built up out of allegations so specious and shoddy that they make the manifold deceits of the Attack Iraq carnival look like gospel truth. But far from doing any damage to the engine of death now rolling toward Persia, the hammers are not even being heard above the roar.
Of course, it is actually inaccurate to refer to the "Bush Regime's propaganda campaign." As we have noted here before, the Democratic-led Congress has already overwhelmingly swallowed the Bush case for war – the Senate even accepted the Regime's mendacious casus belli unanimously. And this week, the Democrats went even further in adopting aggression against Iran as their own cause, when a majority of them joined with the obedient goose-steppers of the GOP in support of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which effectively if not officially authorized military action against Iran by declaring the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a "foreign terrorist organization" and tying it to attacks on American soldiers in Iraq. The measure accepted at face value the proven mendacities and manipulations of Bush war propaganda, offering a selection of carefully-filtered testimony from the sainted General Petraeus (whom the Senate has declared literally sacrosanct, with its recent passage of an amendment "strongly" condemning any one who exercises their right of free speech to question "the honor, integrity and patriotism" of "any member of the armed forces" and Petraeus in particular). The Democrats have made it clear where they stand on aggression against Iran: alongside – or even in advance of – the war criminals of the Bush Administration.
(For a devastating take on the latest confirmation of Bush's criminal intent to launch a war of aggression against Iraq – the newly released transcript of the talks between Bush and then-Spanish leader Jose Maria Aznar just before the war – see Juan Cole's blistering piece: The War Crime of the Century. One central point of the transcript is Bush's admission that he had turned down Saddam's offer to go into exile – one of several offers Iraq put on the table to avoid war before the invasion, including an offer to hold free, internationally-supervised elections and allow heavily-armed foreign troops to conduct WMD inspections. But Bush wanted war; and the war came. Cole's conclusion is damningly true: "[Bush] had a real offer in the hand, of Saddam's flight. He rejected it. By rejecting it, he will have killed at least a million persons and became one of the more monstrous figures in recent world history.")
Now this is the man whom the Democrats are so slavishly eager to support on Iran. This is the man whose minions they so willingly believe about Iran, having already been lied to in precisely the same fashion about Iraq, by precisely the same kind of honorable, patriotic men of unquestionable integrity. (Colin Powell, anyone?) This is beyond cravenness, beyond cowardice, beyond incompetence, beyond even the most bitterly tragic farce. No, something else is at work here. As we have noted before – echoing the powerful arguments of Arthur Silber – the Democrats are doing this because they want to.
It's the same reason they supported the invasion of Iraq; the same reason they supported Bush's obscene tax cuts for the rich; the same reason they supported the outrageous whitewash of the 9/11 investigation; the same reason they championed the "Bankruptcy Bill" put the screws to working people and the poor; the same reason they supported "Defense of Marriage" bills that legitimize hate and penalize love; the same reason why they rolled over and played dead when not one but two presidential elections were stolen from them. It's because they too, like the Bush and his ilk, worship at the altar of money and power. They too believe that the wealthy and well-connected should order the earth for their pleasure, through war, loot, terror, fraud, rapine – by any means necessary. Their "honor" depends solely on how well they serve this cause, not on how well they uphold their Constitutional responsibilities or live up to the ideas they espouse. (See Silber again for more on this.)
If you oppose aggressive war, if you oppose the unbridled ravages of Money Power, if you stand for the Constitution and the rule of law, then there is no hope to be found in these national Democrats – because they are on the other side. They demonstrate this every day – witness the spectacle at the recent Democratic debate, when the three Establishment-anointed "leading" candidates – Clinton, Obama and Edwards – each said they could not guarantee to stop America's perpetration of the murderous war crime in Iraq by the end of their first term. Think of that. Think of someone watching a vicious thug savagely beating a child, over and over, pounding the child into bloody goo – then declaring that if they chase the thug away and take his place, they will go on beating the child, year after year after year after year.
Similarly, these "serious" candidates refuse to "take any options off the table" in regard to Iran. (Clinton, by the way, voted for Kyl-Lieberman's virtual authorization for aggression; Obama courageously skipped the vote.) Yet as both Gareth Porter and Scott Ritter demonstrate in detail, none of the charges leveled in the amendment – which is of course just a parroting of the Bush Regime's case for war – have been proven; many of them have been disproven. The International Atomic Energy Agency, for example, essentially agrees with Iran's position that the "nuclear case is closed;" after the most exhaustive investigation in the agency's history, the IAEA has "finally assembled enough data to enable them to close the books on the Iranian nuclear program, noting that all substantive questions have been answered and that contrary to the speculative assessments put forward by the Bush administration, it appears that Iran’s nuclear program is, in fact, dedicated to permitted energy-related activities," as Ritter notes.
Once again, something else is at work beneath the public rhetoric. Ritter again, on the charges that Iran's covert Quds Force is directing violence in Iraq:
Ritter also notes the most sinister development growing out of the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New York: the concentrated, deliberate effort across the Establishment to tie Iran to 9/11. Once again, Hillary Clinton was in the forefront, declaring her horror that the Iranian leader would want to pay his respects at Ground Zero; the "liberal media" giant CBS News weighed in also. Everywhere was heard the refrain "terrorist state, 9/11, terrorist state, 9/11" – the kind of crude hatemongering that even Josef Stalin might have found too blatant. We know that the myth that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11 was the clinching argument for many if not most Americans who supported the invasion of Iraq; certainly, it was the chief motivator for the many U.S. soldiers in the invasion force who told admiring reporters that they were there "as payback for 9/11." The same conflation is being used again, against Iran, and is being insinuated and disseminated by the same players: the serious, respectable American Establishment: the federal government, Congress, the Democratic "opposition," the "liberal media," and right on down the gilded line.
And despite intimations that some military brass are resisting a new act of aggression – not out of moral principle, evidently, but on the practical grounds that it might break the already overstrained armed forces – it must be remembered that the chief mouthpieces relaying the Bush propaganda about Iran's direct involvement in Iraq have been…military brass. As we noted here the other day, "the Bush Regime ruthlessly purges officers who question the Leader's maniacal agenda or stand up too strongly for the honor and well-being of their troops." When Bush and Cheney want to pull the trigger, suitable generals and admirals will be found.
The hammers keep ringing from truth-tellers like Ritter, Silber, Porter, Jon Schwarz and others -- but the nails ain't goin' down. And a house held together by nothing but lies cannot stand.
Written by Chris Floyd
Friday, 28 September 2007
http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1297/135/
"I got my hammer ringin', baby, but the nails ain't goin' down."
-- Bob Dylan
Hammerblows of truth keep falling on the Bush Regime's propaganda campaign for war against Iran, which has been built up out of allegations so specious and shoddy that they make the manifold deceits of the Attack Iraq carnival look like gospel truth. But far from doing any damage to the engine of death now rolling toward Persia, the hammers are not even being heard above the roar.
Of course, it is actually inaccurate to refer to the "Bush Regime's propaganda campaign." As we have noted here before, the Democratic-led Congress has already overwhelmingly swallowed the Bush case for war – the Senate even accepted the Regime's mendacious casus belli unanimously. And this week, the Democrats went even further in adopting aggression against Iran as their own cause, when a majority of them joined with the obedient goose-steppers of the GOP in support of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which effectively if not officially authorized military action against Iran by declaring the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a "foreign terrorist organization" and tying it to attacks on American soldiers in Iraq. The measure accepted at face value the proven mendacities and manipulations of Bush war propaganda, offering a selection of carefully-filtered testimony from the sainted General Petraeus (whom the Senate has declared literally sacrosanct, with its recent passage of an amendment "strongly" condemning any one who exercises their right of free speech to question "the honor, integrity and patriotism" of "any member of the armed forces" and Petraeus in particular). The Democrats have made it clear where they stand on aggression against Iran: alongside – or even in advance of – the war criminals of the Bush Administration.
(For a devastating take on the latest confirmation of Bush's criminal intent to launch a war of aggression against Iraq – the newly released transcript of the talks between Bush and then-Spanish leader Jose Maria Aznar just before the war – see Juan Cole's blistering piece: The War Crime of the Century. One central point of the transcript is Bush's admission that he had turned down Saddam's offer to go into exile – one of several offers Iraq put on the table to avoid war before the invasion, including an offer to hold free, internationally-supervised elections and allow heavily-armed foreign troops to conduct WMD inspections. But Bush wanted war; and the war came. Cole's conclusion is damningly true: "[Bush] had a real offer in the hand, of Saddam's flight. He rejected it. By rejecting it, he will have killed at least a million persons and became one of the more monstrous figures in recent world history.")
Now this is the man whom the Democrats are so slavishly eager to support on Iran. This is the man whose minions they so willingly believe about Iran, having already been lied to in precisely the same fashion about Iraq, by precisely the same kind of honorable, patriotic men of unquestionable integrity. (Colin Powell, anyone?) This is beyond cravenness, beyond cowardice, beyond incompetence, beyond even the most bitterly tragic farce. No, something else is at work here. As we have noted before – echoing the powerful arguments of Arthur Silber – the Democrats are doing this because they want to.
It's the same reason they supported the invasion of Iraq; the same reason they supported Bush's obscene tax cuts for the rich; the same reason they supported the outrageous whitewash of the 9/11 investigation; the same reason they championed the "Bankruptcy Bill" put the screws to working people and the poor; the same reason they supported "Defense of Marriage" bills that legitimize hate and penalize love; the same reason why they rolled over and played dead when not one but two presidential elections were stolen from them. It's because they too, like the Bush and his ilk, worship at the altar of money and power. They too believe that the wealthy and well-connected should order the earth for their pleasure, through war, loot, terror, fraud, rapine – by any means necessary. Their "honor" depends solely on how well they serve this cause, not on how well they uphold their Constitutional responsibilities or live up to the ideas they espouse. (See Silber again for more on this.)
If you oppose aggressive war, if you oppose the unbridled ravages of Money Power, if you stand for the Constitution and the rule of law, then there is no hope to be found in these national Democrats – because they are on the other side. They demonstrate this every day – witness the spectacle at the recent Democratic debate, when the three Establishment-anointed "leading" candidates – Clinton, Obama and Edwards – each said they could not guarantee to stop America's perpetration of the murderous war crime in Iraq by the end of their first term. Think of that. Think of someone watching a vicious thug savagely beating a child, over and over, pounding the child into bloody goo – then declaring that if they chase the thug away and take his place, they will go on beating the child, year after year after year after year.
Similarly, these "serious" candidates refuse to "take any options off the table" in regard to Iran. (Clinton, by the way, voted for Kyl-Lieberman's virtual authorization for aggression; Obama courageously skipped the vote.) Yet as both Gareth Porter and Scott Ritter demonstrate in detail, none of the charges leveled in the amendment – which is of course just a parroting of the Bush Regime's case for war – have been proven; many of them have been disproven. The International Atomic Energy Agency, for example, essentially agrees with Iran's position that the "nuclear case is closed;" after the most exhaustive investigation in the agency's history, the IAEA has "finally assembled enough data to enable them to close the books on the Iranian nuclear program, noting that all substantive questions have been answered and that contrary to the speculative assessments put forward by the Bush administration, it appears that Iran’s nuclear program is, in fact, dedicated to permitted energy-related activities," as Ritter notes.
Once again, something else is at work beneath the public rhetoric. Ritter again, on the charges that Iran's covert Quds Force is directing violence in Iraq:
But fiction often mirrors reality, and in the case of Iran’s Quds Force, the model drawn upon by the U.S. military seems to be none other than America’s own
support of anti-Iranian forces, namely the Mujahedin el-Khalk (MEK) operating out of U.S.-controlled bases inside Iraq, and Jundallah, a Baluchi separatist group operating out of Pakistan that the CIA openly acknowledges supporting. Unlike the lack of evidence brought to bear by the U.S. to sustain its claims of Iranian involvement inside Iraq, the Iranian government has captured scores of MEK and Jundallah operatives, along with supporting documents, which substantiate that which the U.S. openly admits: The United States is waging a proxy war against Iran, inside Iran. This mirror imaging of its own terror campaign against Iran to manufacture the perception of a similar effort being waged by Iran inside Iraq against the U.S. has been very effective at negating any Iranian effort to draw attention to the escalation of war-like activities inside its borders.
Ritter also notes the most sinister development growing out of the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New York: the concentrated, deliberate effort across the Establishment to tie Iran to 9/11. Once again, Hillary Clinton was in the forefront, declaring her horror that the Iranian leader would want to pay his respects at Ground Zero; the "liberal media" giant CBS News weighed in also. Everywhere was heard the refrain "terrorist state, 9/11, terrorist state, 9/11" – the kind of crude hatemongering that even Josef Stalin might have found too blatant. We know that the myth that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11 was the clinching argument for many if not most Americans who supported the invasion of Iraq; certainly, it was the chief motivator for the many U.S. soldiers in the invasion force who told admiring reporters that they were there "as payback for 9/11." The same conflation is being used again, against Iran, and is being insinuated and disseminated by the same players: the serious, respectable American Establishment: the federal government, Congress, the Democratic "opposition," the "liberal media," and right on down the gilded line.
And despite intimations that some military brass are resisting a new act of aggression – not out of moral principle, evidently, but on the practical grounds that it might break the already overstrained armed forces – it must be remembered that the chief mouthpieces relaying the Bush propaganda about Iran's direct involvement in Iraq have been…military brass. As we noted here the other day, "the Bush Regime ruthlessly purges officers who question the Leader's maniacal agenda or stand up too strongly for the honor and well-being of their troops." When Bush and Cheney want to pull the trigger, suitable generals and admirals will be found.
The hammers keep ringing from truth-tellers like Ritter, Silber, Porter, Jon Schwarz and others -- but the nails ain't goin' down. And a house held together by nothing but lies cannot stand.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
A Culture of Violence
- by Stephen Lendman
9/26/07
What do you call a country that glorifies wars and violence in the name of peace. One that's been at war every year in its history against one or more adversaries. It has the highest homicide rate of all western nations and a passion for owning guns, yet the two seem oddly unconnected. Violent films are some of its most popular, and similar video games crowd out the simpler, more innocent street play of generations earlier. Prescription and illicit drug use is out of control as well when tobacco, alcohol and other legal ones are included.
It gets worse. It's society is called a "rape culture" with data showing:
- one-fourth of its adult women victims of forcible rape sometime in their lives, often by someone they know, including family members;
- one-third of them are victims of sexual abuse by a husband or boyfriend;
- 30% of people in the country say they know a woman who's been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year;
- one in four of its women report being sexually molested in childhood, usually repeatedly over extended periods by a family member or other close relative;
- its women overall experience extreme levels of violence; an astonishing 75% of them are victims of some form of it in their lifetimes;
- domestic violence is their leading cause of injury and second leading cause of death;
- statistically, homes are their most dangerous place if men are in them as millions experience battering by husbands, male partners or fathers;
- for most women with children, there's no escape for lack of means and because male assailants pursue them causing greater harm;
- adding further injury, its society is often unsupportive; it affords women second class status, privileges and redress when they're abused so many suffer in silence fearing coming forward may cause more harm than help;
- its children are abused as well; millions suffer serious neglect, physical mistreatment and/or sexual abuse; many get relief only through escape to dangerous streets; they end up alone, more vulnerable and at greater danger away than at home where there, too, families act more like strangers or predators forcing young kids to flee in the first place.
What country is it where things like these are normal and commonplace; where peace, tranquility and safety are illusions; where they're crowded out by foreign wars and violence at home in communities, neighborhoods, schools, throughout the media and in core families.
What kind of country glorifies mass killing, assaults and abuse; one that looks down on pacifist non-violence as sissy or unpatriotic, yet claims to be peace loving. It's not in the third world, under dictatorship or controlled by religious extremists....
full article
9/26/07
What do you call a country that glorifies wars and violence in the name of peace. One that's been at war every year in its history against one or more adversaries. It has the highest homicide rate of all western nations and a passion for owning guns, yet the two seem oddly unconnected. Violent films are some of its most popular, and similar video games crowd out the simpler, more innocent street play of generations earlier. Prescription and illicit drug use is out of control as well when tobacco, alcohol and other legal ones are included.
It gets worse. It's society is called a "rape culture" with data showing:
- one-fourth of its adult women victims of forcible rape sometime in their lives, often by someone they know, including family members;
- one-third of them are victims of sexual abuse by a husband or boyfriend;
- 30% of people in the country say they know a woman who's been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year;
- one in four of its women report being sexually molested in childhood, usually repeatedly over extended periods by a family member or other close relative;
- its women overall experience extreme levels of violence; an astonishing 75% of them are victims of some form of it in their lifetimes;
- domestic violence is their leading cause of injury and second leading cause of death;
- statistically, homes are their most dangerous place if men are in them as millions experience battering by husbands, male partners or fathers;
- for most women with children, there's no escape for lack of means and because male assailants pursue them causing greater harm;
- adding further injury, its society is often unsupportive; it affords women second class status, privileges and redress when they're abused so many suffer in silence fearing coming forward may cause more harm than help;
- its children are abused as well; millions suffer serious neglect, physical mistreatment and/or sexual abuse; many get relief only through escape to dangerous streets; they end up alone, more vulnerable and at greater danger away than at home where there, too, families act more like strangers or predators forcing young kids to flee in the first place.
What country is it where things like these are normal and commonplace; where peace, tranquility and safety are illusions; where they're crowded out by foreign wars and violence at home in communities, neighborhoods, schools, throughout the media and in core families.
What kind of country glorifies mass killing, assaults and abuse; one that looks down on pacifist non-violence as sissy or unpatriotic, yet claims to be peace loving. It's not in the third world, under dictatorship or controlled by religious extremists....
full article
Saturday, September 22, 2007
None Dare Call It Genocide
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.September 18, 2007
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/none-dare-call-genocide.html
How comfy we are all in the United States, as we engage in living-room debates about the US occupation of Iraq, whether "we" are bringing them freedom and whether their freedom is really worth the sacrifice of so many of our men and women. We talk about whether war aims have really been achieved, how to exit gracefully, or whether we need a hyper-surge to finish this whole business once and for all.
But there's one thing Americans don't talk about: the lives of Iraqis, or, rather, the deaths of Iraqis. It's interesting because we live in an age of extreme multiculturalism and global concern. We adore international aid workers, go on mission trips abroad, weep for the plight of those suffering from hunger and disease, volunteer in efforts to bring plumbing to Ecuador, mosquito nets to Rwanda, clean water to Malawi, human rights to Togo, and medicine to Bangladesh.
But when "we" cause the calamity, suddenly there is silence. There is something odd, suspicious, even disloyal about a person who would harp on the deaths of Iraqis since the US invasion in 2003. Maybe a person who would weep for Iraq is really a terrorist sympathizer. After all, most of the deaths resulted from "sectarian violence," and who can stop crazed Islamic sects from killing each other. Better each other than us, right?
Well, it's about time that we think about the numbers, even though the US military has decided that body counts are not worth their time. Opinion Research Business, a highly reputable polling firm in the UK, has just completed a detailed and rigorous survey of Iraqis. In the past, the company's results have been touted by the Bush administration whenever the data looks favorable to the US cause. But their latest report received virtually no attention in the US.
Here is the grisly bottom line: more than one million people have been murdered in Iraq since the US invasion, according to the ORB. Yes, other estimates are lower, but you have to be impressed by what they have found. It seems very credible.
In Baghdad, where the US presence is most pronounced, nearly half of households report having lost a family member to a killing of some sort. Half the deaths are from gunshot wounds, one-fifth from car bombs, and one-tenth from aerial bombs. The total number of dead exceeds the hugely well-publicized Rwandan genocide in 1994.
You are welcome to inspect the detailed data.
Aside from the astonishing detail, what jumps out at me is the number of dead who are neither Sunni nor Shia. It is also striking how the further geographically you move from US troop activity, the more peaceful the area is. Americans think they are bringing freedom to Iraq, but the data indicate that we are only bringing suffering and death.
If you have ever lost a family member, you know that life is never the same again. It causes every manner of religious, social, and marital trauma. It's bad enough to lose a family member to some disease. But to a cold-blooded killing or a car bomb or an airplane bomb? That instills a sense of fury and motivation to retribution.
So we are speaking of some 1.2 million people who have been killed in this way, and that does not count the numbers that were killed during the invasion itself for the crime of having attempted to oppose invading foreign troops, or the 500,000 children and old people killed by the US-UN anti-civilian sanctions in the 10 previous years.
And let's not flatter ourselves into thinking that these are nothing but ragheads killing each other for no good reason. Just this past weekend, there is an example in point. Some of the legendary contractors for the State Department were driving through the Sunni neighborhood of Mansour in Baghdad. They were driving their SUVs when witnesses reported an explosion of fire that lasted 20 minutes. The SUVs drove off, leaving at least nine people dead on the road.
Why? No one knows. Sure there will be investigations. There have already been apologies. The company in question has had its license to practice occupation revoked by the Iraqi government. For how long, no one knows. But these are merely symbolic gestures. There will be no justice, and no forgetting.
To the extent anyone pays attention to this stuff, they only hear the words of the State Department spokesman: "The bottom line is that the secretary wants to make sure that we do everything we possibly can to avoid the loss of innocent life."
In light of the one million plus figure, such statements come off as evil jokes. The US has unleashed bloodshed in Iraq that is rarely known even in countries we think of as violent and torn by civil strife. It is amazing to think that this has occurred in what was only recently a liberal and civilized country by the region’s standards. This was a country that had a problem with immigration, particularly among the well-educated and talented classes. They went to Iraq because it was the closest Arab proxy to Western-style society that one could find in the area.
It was the US that turned this country into a killing field. Why won’t we face this? Why won't we take responsibility? The reason has to do with this mysterious thing called nationalism, which makes an ideological religion of the nation's wars. We are god-like liberators. They are devil-like terrorists. No amount of data or contrary information seems to make a dent in this irreligious faith. So it is in every country and in all times. Here is the intellectual blindness that war generates.
Such blindness is always inexcusable, but perhaps more understandable in a time when information was severely restricted, when technological limits actually prohibited us from knowing the whole truth at the time. What excuse do we have today? Our blindness is not technological but ideological. We are the good guys, right? Every nation believes that about itself, but freedom is well served by the few who dare to think critically.
An essential postulate of the Western idea, or so we tell ourselves, is the universal and ultimate value of human life. And indeed it is true. No person or group of people is without value – not even those whom our own government chooses to label the enemy.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [lewrockwell@mac.com] is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty.
Notes:
The Lancet Report 2004
http://www.epic-usa.org/Portals/1/Lancet_report_on_iraqi_mortality_before_and_after_2003.pdf
The Lancet Report 2006
http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
The Human Cost of the War in Iraq: A Mortality Study, 2002-2006
A supplement to the October 2006 Lancet study
http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf
Burying The Lancet Report
Z Magazine
February 2006
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Feb2006/davies0206.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/none-dare-call-genocide.html
How comfy we are all in the United States, as we engage in living-room debates about the US occupation of Iraq, whether "we" are bringing them freedom and whether their freedom is really worth the sacrifice of so many of our men and women. We talk about whether war aims have really been achieved, how to exit gracefully, or whether we need a hyper-surge to finish this whole business once and for all.
But there's one thing Americans don't talk about: the lives of Iraqis, or, rather, the deaths of Iraqis. It's interesting because we live in an age of extreme multiculturalism and global concern. We adore international aid workers, go on mission trips abroad, weep for the plight of those suffering from hunger and disease, volunteer in efforts to bring plumbing to Ecuador, mosquito nets to Rwanda, clean water to Malawi, human rights to Togo, and medicine to Bangladesh.
But when "we" cause the calamity, suddenly there is silence. There is something odd, suspicious, even disloyal about a person who would harp on the deaths of Iraqis since the US invasion in 2003. Maybe a person who would weep for Iraq is really a terrorist sympathizer. After all, most of the deaths resulted from "sectarian violence," and who can stop crazed Islamic sects from killing each other. Better each other than us, right?
Well, it's about time that we think about the numbers, even though the US military has decided that body counts are not worth their time. Opinion Research Business, a highly reputable polling firm in the UK, has just completed a detailed and rigorous survey of Iraqis. In the past, the company's results have been touted by the Bush administration whenever the data looks favorable to the US cause. But their latest report received virtually no attention in the US.
Here is the grisly bottom line: more than one million people have been murdered in Iraq since the US invasion, according to the ORB. Yes, other estimates are lower, but you have to be impressed by what they have found. It seems very credible.
In Baghdad, where the US presence is most pronounced, nearly half of households report having lost a family member to a killing of some sort. Half the deaths are from gunshot wounds, one-fifth from car bombs, and one-tenth from aerial bombs. The total number of dead exceeds the hugely well-publicized Rwandan genocide in 1994.
You are welcome to inspect the detailed data.
Aside from the astonishing detail, what jumps out at me is the number of dead who are neither Sunni nor Shia. It is also striking how the further geographically you move from US troop activity, the more peaceful the area is. Americans think they are bringing freedom to Iraq, but the data indicate that we are only bringing suffering and death.
If you have ever lost a family member, you know that life is never the same again. It causes every manner of religious, social, and marital trauma. It's bad enough to lose a family member to some disease. But to a cold-blooded killing or a car bomb or an airplane bomb? That instills a sense of fury and motivation to retribution.
So we are speaking of some 1.2 million people who have been killed in this way, and that does not count the numbers that were killed during the invasion itself for the crime of having attempted to oppose invading foreign troops, or the 500,000 children and old people killed by the US-UN anti-civilian sanctions in the 10 previous years.
And let's not flatter ourselves into thinking that these are nothing but ragheads killing each other for no good reason. Just this past weekend, there is an example in point. Some of the legendary contractors for the State Department were driving through the Sunni neighborhood of Mansour in Baghdad. They were driving their SUVs when witnesses reported an explosion of fire that lasted 20 minutes. The SUVs drove off, leaving at least nine people dead on the road.
Why? No one knows. Sure there will be investigations. There have already been apologies. The company in question has had its license to practice occupation revoked by the Iraqi government. For how long, no one knows. But these are merely symbolic gestures. There will be no justice, and no forgetting.
To the extent anyone pays attention to this stuff, they only hear the words of the State Department spokesman: "The bottom line is that the secretary wants to make sure that we do everything we possibly can to avoid the loss of innocent life."
In light of the one million plus figure, such statements come off as evil jokes. The US has unleashed bloodshed in Iraq that is rarely known even in countries we think of as violent and torn by civil strife. It is amazing to think that this has occurred in what was only recently a liberal and civilized country by the region’s standards. This was a country that had a problem with immigration, particularly among the well-educated and talented classes. They went to Iraq because it was the closest Arab proxy to Western-style society that one could find in the area.
It was the US that turned this country into a killing field. Why won’t we face this? Why won't we take responsibility? The reason has to do with this mysterious thing called nationalism, which makes an ideological religion of the nation's wars. We are god-like liberators. They are devil-like terrorists. No amount of data or contrary information seems to make a dent in this irreligious faith. So it is in every country and in all times. Here is the intellectual blindness that war generates.
Such blindness is always inexcusable, but perhaps more understandable in a time when information was severely restricted, when technological limits actually prohibited us from knowing the whole truth at the time. What excuse do we have today? Our blindness is not technological but ideological. We are the good guys, right? Every nation believes that about itself, but freedom is well served by the few who dare to think critically.
An essential postulate of the Western idea, or so we tell ourselves, is the universal and ultimate value of human life. And indeed it is true. No person or group of people is without value – not even those whom our own government chooses to label the enemy.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [lewrockwell@mac.com] is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty.
Notes:
The Lancet Report 2004
http://www.epic-usa.org/Portals/1/Lancet_report_on_iraqi_mortality_before_and_after_2003.pdf
The Lancet Report 2006
http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
The Human Cost of the War in Iraq: A Mortality Study, 2002-2006
A supplement to the October 2006 Lancet study
http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf
Burying The Lancet Report
Z Magazine
February 2006
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Feb2006/davies0206.html
Famous American ‘Victories’
Lebanon, l982-84
- reagan
After the 1982 Israeli occupation of Lebanon, U.S. Marines were deployed in a neutral "peacekeeping" operation. They instead took the side of Lebanon's pro-Israel Christian government against Muslim rebels, and U.S. Navy ships rained enormous shells on Muslim civilian villages. Embittered Shi'ite Muslim rebels responded with a suicide bomb attack on Marine barracks, and for years seized U.S. hostages in the country. In retaliation, the CIA set off car bombs to assassinate Shi'ite Muslim leaders. Syria and the Muslim rebels emerged victorious in Lebanon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing
In the attack on the American barracks, the death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and 3 Army soldiers. Sixty Americans were injured. In the attack on the French barracks, 58 paratroopers were killed and 15 injured, in the single worst military loss for the French since the end of the Algerian war. In addition, the elderly Lebanese custodian of the Marines' building was killed in the first blast. The wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building also were killed.
Grenada, l983-84
- reagan
U.S. troops also invaded the island nation of Grenada in 1983, to oust a new military regime, attacking Cuban civilian workers (even though Cuba had backed the leftist government deposed in the coup), and accidentally bombing a hospital.
http://www.historyguy.com/Grenada.html#grenadacasualties
Casualty Figures:
U.S.-- 19 dead (officially).
Grenada-- 49 dead and several hundred wounded.
Cuba-- 29 dead and over a hundred wounded.
Panama, 1989
- bush
U.S. forces invaded Panama in 1989 to oust the nationalist regime of Manuel Noriega. The U.S. accused its former ally of allowing drug-running in the country, though the drug trade actually increased after his capture. U.S. bombing raids on Panama City ignited a conflagration in a civilian neighborhood, fed by stove gas tanks. Over 2,000 Panamanians were killed in the invasion to capture one leader.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama#Casualties
The Americans lost 18 soldiers, four SEALs and two Marines killed in action (KIA) and 325 wounded (WIA). The U.S. Southern Command, at that time based on Quarry Heights in Panama, estimated the number of Panamanian military casualties at 50, lower than its original estimate of 314.
The report estimated the number of displaced civilians to be over 15,000, whereas the U.S. military provided support for only 3,000 of these
According to official Pentagon figures 516 Panamanians were killed during the invasion; an internal Army memo estimated the number at 1,000 and an Independent Commission of Inquiry on the U.S. Invasion of Panama estimated Panamanian deaths at 1,000-4,000.
Somalia, 1992-94
- bush, Clinton
the 1992 deployment in the African nation of Somalia, torn by famine and a civil war between clan warlords. Instead of remaining neutral, U.S. forces took the side of one faction against another faction, and bombed a Mogadishu neighborhood. Enraged crowds, backed by foreign Arab mercenaries, killed 18 U.S. soldiers, forcing a withdrawal from the country.
http://www.army.mil/cmh/brochures/Somalia/Somalia.htm#p26
…was doomed to failure as each subelement continued to attempt to out-jockey the others for supreme power.
…forty-two Americans died and dozens more were wounded before the United States and the United Nations capitulated to events and withdrew.
Notes:
A Briefing On The History Of US Military Interventions, Zoltán Grossman, October 2001
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
- reagan
After the 1982 Israeli occupation of Lebanon, U.S. Marines were deployed in a neutral "peacekeeping" operation. They instead took the side of Lebanon's pro-Israel Christian government against Muslim rebels, and U.S. Navy ships rained enormous shells on Muslim civilian villages. Embittered Shi'ite Muslim rebels responded with a suicide bomb attack on Marine barracks, and for years seized U.S. hostages in the country. In retaliation, the CIA set off car bombs to assassinate Shi'ite Muslim leaders. Syria and the Muslim rebels emerged victorious in Lebanon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing
In the attack on the American barracks, the death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and 3 Army soldiers. Sixty Americans were injured. In the attack on the French barracks, 58 paratroopers were killed and 15 injured, in the single worst military loss for the French since the end of the Algerian war. In addition, the elderly Lebanese custodian of the Marines' building was killed in the first blast. The wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building also were killed.
Grenada, l983-84
- reagan
U.S. troops also invaded the island nation of Grenada in 1983, to oust a new military regime, attacking Cuban civilian workers (even though Cuba had backed the leftist government deposed in the coup), and accidentally bombing a hospital.
http://www.historyguy.com/Grenada.html#grenadacasualties
Casualty Figures:
U.S.-- 19 dead (officially).
Grenada-- 49 dead and several hundred wounded.
Cuba-- 29 dead and over a hundred wounded.
Panama, 1989
- bush
U.S. forces invaded Panama in 1989 to oust the nationalist regime of Manuel Noriega. The U.S. accused its former ally of allowing drug-running in the country, though the drug trade actually increased after his capture. U.S. bombing raids on Panama City ignited a conflagration in a civilian neighborhood, fed by stove gas tanks. Over 2,000 Panamanians were killed in the invasion to capture one leader.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama#Casualties
The Americans lost 18 soldiers, four SEALs and two Marines killed in action (KIA) and 325 wounded (WIA). The U.S. Southern Command, at that time based on Quarry Heights in Panama, estimated the number of Panamanian military casualties at 50, lower than its original estimate of 314.
The report estimated the number of displaced civilians to be over 15,000, whereas the U.S. military provided support for only 3,000 of these
According to official Pentagon figures 516 Panamanians were killed during the invasion; an internal Army memo estimated the number at 1,000 and an Independent Commission of Inquiry on the U.S. Invasion of Panama estimated Panamanian deaths at 1,000-4,000.
Somalia, 1992-94
- bush, Clinton
the 1992 deployment in the African nation of Somalia, torn by famine and a civil war between clan warlords. Instead of remaining neutral, U.S. forces took the side of one faction against another faction, and bombed a Mogadishu neighborhood. Enraged crowds, backed by foreign Arab mercenaries, killed 18 U.S. soldiers, forcing a withdrawal from the country.
http://www.army.mil/cmh/brochures/Somalia/Somalia.htm#p26
…was doomed to failure as each subelement continued to attempt to out-jockey the others for supreme power.
…forty-two Americans died and dozens more were wounded before the United States and the United Nations capitulated to events and withdrew.
Notes:
A Briefing On The History Of US Military Interventions, Zoltán Grossman, October 2001
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
Friday, September 21, 2007
don't shop
“Don’t Shop While The Bombs Drop!”
Re-thinking Movement Strategy
by Paul Rockwell
Oakland, California
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/opin/pr_shop.html
Hey kids, you want to be radical? You want to be revolutionary? You want to do your part to help bring down the corporatistas?
Buy used, not new, whenever possible. Recycle things and use them to make other things, or for other purposes.
All the resources and materials used to make it new have already been used, and would have to be used again to make another one. Help reduce your carbon footprint, and cut into the corporatists’ profits.
here's what some women down here in Redneck City are doing.
What’s Your Bag?
by Amanda Mayer
In today’s world, life is terribly expensive. Our whole nation is in debt because everyone spends more than they make. Somehow, amidst all of this, my friends and I have devised an easy, effective, green way to keep our kids happy, and our wardrobes up to date.
Kids grow fast, one day they’re a size 2T, and it almost seems like a day later they’re wearing a 5, and they’ve adopted a ‘favorite’ color. At least for that week. The point is their size, styles, and clothes change all the time, and usually it’s not cheap.
My friends and I go through all our closets quite frequently. When we’re tired of wearing the same things or our kids have outgrown their clothes, the things that are in good condition get tossed into a bag and the bag is sent to another friend. Each of us goes through the bags of clothes, takes out what we like or could use, adds things we’ve gotten tired of. Then the bags get closed up and sent onto another friend. This cycle continues until we’ve all gone through the bags. The last one with the bags drops them off at the Goodwill after dropping the kids off at the bus stop or whenever we find time. That way another family can love our once loved things for a tiny fraction of what was originally paid for them. It works out great because not only do clothes get lots of miles on them before they’ve had it, but it also saves money and time. We’re not stuck in hour long lines at the Wal-Mart buying clothes anymore. I’ve had to buy very few things outside of socks, undies, and new shoes for the kids since we started this game of trading around clothes. It’s always new, fun, and a great way to keep costs to a minimum.
Most of us are part of multi-kid families and if we can save money on clothes, it frees up money for things most parents wish they could afford to do for or with their kids. We’re average families with one or two parents and as much income as we can manage.
If you know other parents with younger or older kids than yours, - through your daughter’s daycare, or maybe your son’s 1st grade class - you might give it a try, and soon you’ll see the pennies collecting in your piggy bank.
Re-thinking Movement Strategy
by Paul Rockwell
Oakland, California
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/opin/pr_shop.html
Hey kids, you want to be radical? You want to be revolutionary? You want to do your part to help bring down the corporatistas?
Buy used, not new, whenever possible. Recycle things and use them to make other things, or for other purposes.
All the resources and materials used to make it new have already been used, and would have to be used again to make another one. Help reduce your carbon footprint, and cut into the corporatists’ profits.
here's what some women down here in Redneck City are doing.
What’s Your Bag?
by Amanda Mayer
In today’s world, life is terribly expensive. Our whole nation is in debt because everyone spends more than they make. Somehow, amidst all of this, my friends and I have devised an easy, effective, green way to keep our kids happy, and our wardrobes up to date.
Kids grow fast, one day they’re a size 2T, and it almost seems like a day later they’re wearing a 5, and they’ve adopted a ‘favorite’ color. At least for that week. The point is their size, styles, and clothes change all the time, and usually it’s not cheap.
My friends and I go through all our closets quite frequently. When we’re tired of wearing the same things or our kids have outgrown their clothes, the things that are in good condition get tossed into a bag and the bag is sent to another friend. Each of us goes through the bags of clothes, takes out what we like or could use, adds things we’ve gotten tired of. Then the bags get closed up and sent onto another friend. This cycle continues until we’ve all gone through the bags. The last one with the bags drops them off at the Goodwill after dropping the kids off at the bus stop or whenever we find time. That way another family can love our once loved things for a tiny fraction of what was originally paid for them. It works out great because not only do clothes get lots of miles on them before they’ve had it, but it also saves money and time. We’re not stuck in hour long lines at the Wal-Mart buying clothes anymore. I’ve had to buy very few things outside of socks, undies, and new shoes for the kids since we started this game of trading around clothes. It’s always new, fun, and a great way to keep costs to a minimum.
Most of us are part of multi-kid families and if we can save money on clothes, it frees up money for things most parents wish they could afford to do for or with their kids. We’re average families with one or two parents and as much income as we can manage.
If you know other parents with younger or older kids than yours, - through your daughter’s daycare, or maybe your son’s 1st grade class - you might give it a try, and soon you’ll see the pennies collecting in your piggy bank.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
bush did not in fact receive a grade of B in economics
I say that the fundamentals of our nation's economy are strong.
- george bush - September 20, 2007
[ http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/20070920-2.html ]
what an idiot.
China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 8:39pm BST 10/08/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml;jsessionid=JOZA3ZD4IKSLVQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/money/2007/08/07/bcnchina107a.xml
The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.
Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.
Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.
Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.
It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.
Xia Bin, finance chief at the Development Research Centre (which has cabinet rank), kicked off what now appears to be government policy with a comment last week that Beijing's foreign reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.
"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he added.
He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.
"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.
"China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar," he told China Daily.
The threats play into the presidential electoral campaign of Hillary Clinton, who has called for restrictive legislation to prevent America being "held hostage to economic decisions being made in Beijing, Shanghai, or Tokyo".
She said foreign control over 44pc of the US national debt had left America acutely vulnerable.
Simon Derrick, a currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon, said the comments were a message to the US Senate as Capitol Hill prepares legislation for the Autumn session.
"The words are alarming and unambiguous. This carries a clear political threat and could have very serious consequences at a time when the credit markets are already afraid of contagion from the subprime troubles," he said.
A bill drafted by a group of US senators, and backed by the Senate Finance Committee, calls for trade tariffs against Chinese goods as retaliation for alleged currency manipulation.
The yuan has appreciated 9pc against the dollar over the last two years under a crawling peg but it has failed to halt the rise of China's trade surplus, which reached $26.9bn in June.
Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, said any such sanctions would undermine American authority and "could trigger a global cycle of protectionist legislation".
Mr Paulson is a China expert from his days as head of Goldman Sachs. He has opted for a softer form of diplomacy, but appeared to win few concession from Beijing on a unscheduled trip to China last week aimed at calming the waters.
see also: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/20/bush-econ101/
- george bush - September 20, 2007
[ http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/20070920-2.html ]
what an idiot.
China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 8:39pm BST 10/08/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml;jsessionid=JOZA3ZD4IKSLVQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/money/2007/08/07/bcnchina107a.xml
The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.
Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.
Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.
Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.
It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.
Xia Bin, finance chief at the Development Research Centre (which has cabinet rank), kicked off what now appears to be government policy with a comment last week that Beijing's foreign reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.
"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he added.
He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.
"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.
"China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar," he told China Daily.
The threats play into the presidential electoral campaign of Hillary Clinton, who has called for restrictive legislation to prevent America being "held hostage to economic decisions being made in Beijing, Shanghai, or Tokyo".
She said foreign control over 44pc of the US national debt had left America acutely vulnerable.
Simon Derrick, a currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon, said the comments were a message to the US Senate as Capitol Hill prepares legislation for the Autumn session.
"The words are alarming and unambiguous. This carries a clear political threat and could have very serious consequences at a time when the credit markets are already afraid of contagion from the subprime troubles," he said.
A bill drafted by a group of US senators, and backed by the Senate Finance Committee, calls for trade tariffs against Chinese goods as retaliation for alleged currency manipulation.
The yuan has appreciated 9pc against the dollar over the last two years under a crawling peg but it has failed to halt the rise of China's trade surplus, which reached $26.9bn in June.
Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, said any such sanctions would undermine American authority and "could trigger a global cycle of protectionist legislation".
Mr Paulson is a China expert from his days as head of Goldman Sachs. He has opted for a softer form of diplomacy, but appeared to win few concession from Beijing on a unscheduled trip to China last week aimed at calming the waters.
see also: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/20/bush-econ101/
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
nothing more needs to be said
really.
what else is there to say?
Senate bars bill to restore detainee rights
Wed Sep 19, 2007 12:27pm EDT
By Susan Cornwell
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1924593620070919
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate voted on Wednesday against considering a measure to give Guantanamo detainees and other foreigners the right to challenge their detention in the U.S. courts.
The legislation needed 60 votes to be considered by lawmakers in the Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats; it received only 56, with 43 voting against the effort to roll back a key element of President George W. Bush's war on terrorism…
Senate Republicans block Iraq bill
Wed Sep 19, 2007 8:06pm EDT
By Susan Cornwell
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1423419220070920
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republicans blocked a plan on Wednesday to give U.S. troops in Iraq more home leave, defeating a proposal widely seen as the Democrats' best near-term chance to change President George W. Bush's Iraq strategy.
The measure to give troops as much rest time at home as they spent on their most recent tour overseas needed 60 votes to pass in the Democratic-controlled Senate; it received just 56 votes, with 44 against…
what else is there to say?
Senate bars bill to restore detainee rights
Wed Sep 19, 2007 12:27pm EDT
By Susan Cornwell
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1924593620070919
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate voted on Wednesday against considering a measure to give Guantanamo detainees and other foreigners the right to challenge their detention in the U.S. courts.
The legislation needed 60 votes to be considered by lawmakers in the Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats; it received only 56, with 43 voting against the effort to roll back a key element of President George W. Bush's war on terrorism…
Senate Republicans block Iraq bill
Wed Sep 19, 2007 8:06pm EDT
By Susan Cornwell
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1423419220070920
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republicans blocked a plan on Wednesday to give U.S. troops in Iraq more home leave, defeating a proposal widely seen as the Democrats' best near-term chance to change President George W. Bush's Iraq strategy.
The measure to give troops as much rest time at home as they spent on their most recent tour overseas needed 60 votes to pass in the Democratic-controlled Senate; it received just 56 votes, with 44 against…
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Another Clinton Sell-Out
by Mary Pitt
9/18/07
So Hillary finally presented us with her "health plan". Whoopee! That will fix everything. Right? Wait a minute, isn't that what Romney did in Massachusetts? Isn't that the same pattern set by George Bush's Medicare Part D? We must, by law, buy insurance from the already-money-bloated insurance industry while still being obligated to pay deductibles and co-payments that will further burst our shrinking budgets? Does that make sense? Those who are suffering from lack of medical care because they cannot afford to pay for health care absolutely cannot afford to pay insurance premiums because, even after they do so, they will not be able to afford the additional costs that are built into the system.
As a personal testimony, I will say that, were it not for Medicare Part D, my medications would cost about $120.00 a month for three generic medications. As the result of choosing a plan that will not leave me hanging in the "donut hole", I pay in excess of $40.00 a month in premiums. My co-payments amount to $55.00 a month. I may go on a cruise to the Caribbean with all my savings! Or, better yet, and even more realistic, I could buy a new pair of shoes.....from Wal- Mart, of course. As all the mainstream-media-nominated candidates struggle to come up with some plan that will not interfere with the flow of corporate funds to their campaign coffers, those potential candidates with any real understanding of the plight of the medically underserved and who might be able to view the situation with some real perspective, are relegated to the back row and kept hidden from the public eye.
After fifty-odd years of voting Republican, it was only after the completion of the "glorious Reagan years" that I began to realize the right-ward shift which our government has taken. Our society had become mean, selfish, and uncaring about the less fortunate as the middle-class became convinced of their entitlements as an indication of their superior worth and were more than willing to leave the working poor and the impoverished abandoned to life in ghettos, out of sight and out of mind. Of course, lip service was paid to being "kinder and gentler" but nothing changed. While the religious right were sitting on the edges of their chair, rooting for the Apocalypse, they were totally ignoring the admonitions of Christ to care for "the least of these."
Then Bill Clinton inspired us all with his rhetoric of "welfare reform" and appeared to have some recognition of the steps necessary to provide abandoned mothers with some bootstraps with which to lift themselves and their children from abject poverty. However, once he gained the Oval Office, he found a solid opposition and only those plans which would preclude and limit access to the child welfare programs were enacted. These plans, augmented by the Bush agenda, only made necessary the further neglect of children with one parent working two jobs, leaving children to grow up on the streets with no adult supervision. The promise of high-quality child day care centers, as presented by Candidate Clinton, never materialized because they would cost too much and "people really don't want to pay taxes."
To give the devil his due, the S-CHIP children's health program, with a mix of state and federal dollars has been a godsend for a great many but does not go far enough and even that small assistance is endangered as Bush threatens to veto any possible increase. What happens to those healthy children when Mama gets sick? Even if Mama is eligible for Medicaid, a few days of lost work will be so devastating that a few dollars more in food stamps the following month will not stop the hunger pangs now. The result of this revolting situation is that nearly all teen-agers from poor families have a record for juvenile crime and the prisons are full of the warped adults who fell afoul of the law in their effort to survive.
After years of having worked in a business that employed young females, most with children and also struggling to survive on minimum wages, I have developed a good understanding of their trials and, now that I am aged out of the job market and reduced to relying on Social Security as a "safety net", that understanding has deepened into outrage. Instead of the titular $1200 month in Social Security, after deductions for Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D, the actual amount is about a thousand dollars. From that, in addition, I must plan for co-payments of $5 or $25.00 for each prescription, a co-payment of $13.00 for every visit to a physician, and, should I require hospitalization, the first time each year will require me to pay the first $2500.00 as a deductible plus the co-payment on the rest while any further stays in the same year will cost "only" $980. Of course, the attendance by each physician, specialist, or technician which is billed separately will carry its own deductible and co-payment.
How about the "catastrophic illness insurance" which one can buy at their own expense? Forget it! At my advanced age, the premiums would eat up the remainder of the Social Security. And don't think that "private insurance" is any better. One can pay hundreds of dollars a month for a "family plan" only to learn that it carries a deductible of $3-5,000 a year PER PERSON! If one feels secure with a private-pay health plan, they will certainly feel the pinch should more than one child require a tonsillectomy in the same year that another needs an infected appendix removed.
We now find ourselves with many of the class distinctions in our society totally removed. We are no longer a nation of tiers of society but have been reduced, simply, to a society of haves and have-nots. The former middle-class has devolved in a morass of lost jobs, home foreclosures, and impenetrable credit card debt while the destitute die off from malnutrition and lack of medical care. We may lament the fact that much of the public prefers to ignore the political situation that threatens their very existence but we must understand that it has become so depressing that just speculating on the probable winner of the Super Bowl is a respite from the dirge of personal problems.
Is it any wonder, then, that a man like Dennis Kucinich, who came out of poverty and has experienced "the American Dream" and who totally understands what would be necessary to restore our nation to the Land of Opportunity which it once was, should be marginalized and excluded from the opportunity to even speak by the very party which is blessed by his presence, even to the point of being dis-invited to engage in debate? The wonder is that the mainstream media even bother to cover the announcement of Hillary Clinton's proposal for "health care reform" or that they ignore the fact that the two-party system for electing our government is as dead as last week's newspaper. It appears inevitable that the 2008 presidential election now appear destined to be a choice between a "glamour puss" and a "neanderthal", either of whom will sell our nation down the river in return for a sufficient campaign donation.
GOD SAVE AMERICA!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. She is non-partisan but steeped in true patriotism and pride in being an American , a loyal a daughter of the Founding Fathers, and a bipartisan critic of under-performing politicians.
9/18/07
So Hillary finally presented us with her "health plan". Whoopee! That will fix everything. Right? Wait a minute, isn't that what Romney did in Massachusetts? Isn't that the same pattern set by George Bush's Medicare Part D? We must, by law, buy insurance from the already-money-bloated insurance industry while still being obligated to pay deductibles and co-payments that will further burst our shrinking budgets? Does that make sense? Those who are suffering from lack of medical care because they cannot afford to pay for health care absolutely cannot afford to pay insurance premiums because, even after they do so, they will not be able to afford the additional costs that are built into the system.
As a personal testimony, I will say that, were it not for Medicare Part D, my medications would cost about $120.00 a month for three generic medications. As the result of choosing a plan that will not leave me hanging in the "donut hole", I pay in excess of $40.00 a month in premiums. My co-payments amount to $55.00 a month. I may go on a cruise to the Caribbean with all my savings! Or, better yet, and even more realistic, I could buy a new pair of shoes.....from Wal- Mart, of course. As all the mainstream-media-nominated candidates struggle to come up with some plan that will not interfere with the flow of corporate funds to their campaign coffers, those potential candidates with any real understanding of the plight of the medically underserved and who might be able to view the situation with some real perspective, are relegated to the back row and kept hidden from the public eye.
After fifty-odd years of voting Republican, it was only after the completion of the "glorious Reagan years" that I began to realize the right-ward shift which our government has taken. Our society had become mean, selfish, and uncaring about the less fortunate as the middle-class became convinced of their entitlements as an indication of their superior worth and were more than willing to leave the working poor and the impoverished abandoned to life in ghettos, out of sight and out of mind. Of course, lip service was paid to being "kinder and gentler" but nothing changed. While the religious right were sitting on the edges of their chair, rooting for the Apocalypse, they were totally ignoring the admonitions of Christ to care for "the least of these."
Then Bill Clinton inspired us all with his rhetoric of "welfare reform" and appeared to have some recognition of the steps necessary to provide abandoned mothers with some bootstraps with which to lift themselves and their children from abject poverty. However, once he gained the Oval Office, he found a solid opposition and only those plans which would preclude and limit access to the child welfare programs were enacted. These plans, augmented by the Bush agenda, only made necessary the further neglect of children with one parent working two jobs, leaving children to grow up on the streets with no adult supervision. The promise of high-quality child day care centers, as presented by Candidate Clinton, never materialized because they would cost too much and "people really don't want to pay taxes."
To give the devil his due, the S-CHIP children's health program, with a mix of state and federal dollars has been a godsend for a great many but does not go far enough and even that small assistance is endangered as Bush threatens to veto any possible increase. What happens to those healthy children when Mama gets sick? Even if Mama is eligible for Medicaid, a few days of lost work will be so devastating that a few dollars more in food stamps the following month will not stop the hunger pangs now. The result of this revolting situation is that nearly all teen-agers from poor families have a record for juvenile crime and the prisons are full of the warped adults who fell afoul of the law in their effort to survive.
After years of having worked in a business that employed young females, most with children and also struggling to survive on minimum wages, I have developed a good understanding of their trials and, now that I am aged out of the job market and reduced to relying on Social Security as a "safety net", that understanding has deepened into outrage. Instead of the titular $1200 month in Social Security, after deductions for Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D, the actual amount is about a thousand dollars. From that, in addition, I must plan for co-payments of $5 or $25.00 for each prescription, a co-payment of $13.00 for every visit to a physician, and, should I require hospitalization, the first time each year will require me to pay the first $2500.00 as a deductible plus the co-payment on the rest while any further stays in the same year will cost "only" $980. Of course, the attendance by each physician, specialist, or technician which is billed separately will carry its own deductible and co-payment.
How about the "catastrophic illness insurance" which one can buy at their own expense? Forget it! At my advanced age, the premiums would eat up the remainder of the Social Security. And don't think that "private insurance" is any better. One can pay hundreds of dollars a month for a "family plan" only to learn that it carries a deductible of $3-5,000 a year PER PERSON! If one feels secure with a private-pay health plan, they will certainly feel the pinch should more than one child require a tonsillectomy in the same year that another needs an infected appendix removed.
We now find ourselves with many of the class distinctions in our society totally removed. We are no longer a nation of tiers of society but have been reduced, simply, to a society of haves and have-nots. The former middle-class has devolved in a morass of lost jobs, home foreclosures, and impenetrable credit card debt while the destitute die off from malnutrition and lack of medical care. We may lament the fact that much of the public prefers to ignore the political situation that threatens their very existence but we must understand that it has become so depressing that just speculating on the probable winner of the Super Bowl is a respite from the dirge of personal problems.
Is it any wonder, then, that a man like Dennis Kucinich, who came out of poverty and has experienced "the American Dream" and who totally understands what would be necessary to restore our nation to the Land of Opportunity which it once was, should be marginalized and excluded from the opportunity to even speak by the very party which is blessed by his presence, even to the point of being dis-invited to engage in debate? The wonder is that the mainstream media even bother to cover the announcement of Hillary Clinton's proposal for "health care reform" or that they ignore the fact that the two-party system for electing our government is as dead as last week's newspaper. It appears inevitable that the 2008 presidential election now appear destined to be a choice between a "glamour puss" and a "neanderthal", either of whom will sell our nation down the river in return for a sufficient campaign donation.
GOD SAVE AMERICA!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. She is non-partisan but steeped in true patriotism and pride in being an American , a loyal a daughter of the Founding Fathers, and a bipartisan critic of under-performing politicians.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
while we were out
Anti-War protests
Thousands of Iraq war protesters march in Washington; more than 190 arrested
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 15, 2007
WASHINGTON: Several thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were arrested.
The group marched from the White House to the Capitol on Saturday to demand an end to the Iraq war. Their numbers stretched for blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue, and they held banners and signs and chanted, "What do we want? Troops out. When do we want it? Now."
Army veteran Justin Cliburn, 25, was among a contingent of Iraq veterans in attendance.
"We're occupying a people who do not want us there," Cliburn said of Iraq. "We're here to show that it isn't just a bunch of old hippies from the 60s who are against this war."
Trouble in Redneck city
Sunbelt City in Grasp of Housing Undertow
Ripple Effect Could Be National Omen
By Neil Irwin and David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 16, 2007; A01
FORT MYERS, Fla.-- To understand how the housing bust may ripple through the broader American economy, look beyond the countless for-sale signs that dot this middle-class city. Instead, stop by Boater's Landing, where salespeople sit idle, hoping someone will once again want to buy a boat.
Or visit the women answering phones at the local United Way, which is dealing with a flood of aid requests from the unemployed, whose numbers have nearly doubled in a year. Or talk to the Shevlins, a real-estate agent and a carpenter, whose combined incomes dropped from $350,000 to less than $60,000 in two years.
Across this city, even businesses that have little to do with real estate are reeling. Unemployment is up, sales are down and redevelopment ambitions have been scaled back.
Trouble in London
Global credit crunch reaches new dimension
By Eric Pfanner
Friday, September 14, 2007
LONDON: A bailout of a big British mortgage bank caused shudders among account-holders and investors alike Friday, opening a new phase in the global financial turmoil that emanated from a shakeout in the U.S. home lending business, analysts said.
Depositors flocked to withdraw money after the bank, Northern Rock, unable to raise funds from its usual sources - capital markets - because of the global credit crunch, turned to the Bank of England for an emergency loan. Northern Rock shares plunged more than 30 percent, prompting a broader sell-off in European stock markets.
And, of course, war
Report: As many as eight IAF air craft involved in strike on Syria
By Barak Ravid, Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents
Haaretz Service and News Agencies
16.09.2007
An alleged Israel Air Force strike in northeastern Syria roughly 10 days ago involved as many as eight aircraft, the U.K. newspaper The Observer reported Sunday.
According to the report, the force included F-15s and F-16s equipped with Maverick missiles and 500 pound bombs.
Flying among the warplanes at great height, The Observer reported, was an electronic intelligence gathering aircraft.
Thousands of Iraq war protesters march in Washington; more than 190 arrested
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 15, 2007
WASHINGTON: Several thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were arrested.
The group marched from the White House to the Capitol on Saturday to demand an end to the Iraq war. Their numbers stretched for blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue, and they held banners and signs and chanted, "What do we want? Troops out. When do we want it? Now."
Army veteran Justin Cliburn, 25, was among a contingent of Iraq veterans in attendance.
"We're occupying a people who do not want us there," Cliburn said of Iraq. "We're here to show that it isn't just a bunch of old hippies from the 60s who are against this war."
Trouble in Redneck city
Sunbelt City in Grasp of Housing Undertow
Ripple Effect Could Be National Omen
By Neil Irwin and David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 16, 2007; A01
FORT MYERS, Fla.-- To understand how the housing bust may ripple through the broader American economy, look beyond the countless for-sale signs that dot this middle-class city. Instead, stop by Boater's Landing, where salespeople sit idle, hoping someone will once again want to buy a boat.
Or visit the women answering phones at the local United Way, which is dealing with a flood of aid requests from the unemployed, whose numbers have nearly doubled in a year. Or talk to the Shevlins, a real-estate agent and a carpenter, whose combined incomes dropped from $350,000 to less than $60,000 in two years.
Across this city, even businesses that have little to do with real estate are reeling. Unemployment is up, sales are down and redevelopment ambitions have been scaled back.
Trouble in London
Global credit crunch reaches new dimension
By Eric Pfanner
Friday, September 14, 2007
LONDON: A bailout of a big British mortgage bank caused shudders among account-holders and investors alike Friday, opening a new phase in the global financial turmoil that emanated from a shakeout in the U.S. home lending business, analysts said.
Depositors flocked to withdraw money after the bank, Northern Rock, unable to raise funds from its usual sources - capital markets - because of the global credit crunch, turned to the Bank of England for an emergency loan. Northern Rock shares plunged more than 30 percent, prompting a broader sell-off in European stock markets.
And, of course, war
Report: As many as eight IAF air craft involved in strike on Syria
By Barak Ravid, Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents
Haaretz Service and News Agencies
16.09.2007
An alleged Israel Air Force strike in northeastern Syria roughly 10 days ago involved as many as eight aircraft, the U.K. newspaper The Observer reported Sunday.
According to the report, the force included F-15s and F-16s equipped with Maverick missiles and 500 pound bombs.
Flying among the warplanes at great height, The Observer reported, was an electronic intelligence gathering aircraft.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
The Greatest Story Never Told
- by Stephen Lendman
9/13/07
No issue is more sensitive in the US than daring to criticize Israel. It's the metaphorical "third rail" in American politics, academia and the major media. Anyone daring to touch it pays dearly as the few who tried learned. Those in elected office face an onslaught of attacks and efforts to replace them with more supportive officials. Former five term Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney felt its sting twice in 2002 and 2006. So did 10 term Congressman Paul Findley (a fierce and courageous Israeli critic) in 1982 and three term Senator Charles Percy in 1984 whom AIPAC targeted merely for appearing to support anti-Israeli policy.
DePaul University Professor Norman Finkelstein has long been a target as well for his courageous writing and outspokenness. DePaul formally denied him tenure June 8 even though his students call him "truly outstanding and among the most impressive" of all university political science professors. It's why his Department of Political Science endorsed his tenure bid stating his academic record "exceeds our department's stated standards for scholarly production (and) department and outside experts we consulted recognize the intellectual merits of his work."
It didn't help, and on August 26 got worse. The university acknowledged "Professor Finkelstein is a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher." Yet it issued a brief statement canceling his classes and placing him on administrative leave "with full pay and benefits for the 2007-8 academic year (that) relieves professors from their teaching responsibilities." For now, Finkelstein's long struggle with the university ended the first day of classes, September 5. Both sides agreed to a settlement, and a planned day of protests was curtailed. But as Chicago Tribune writer Ron Grossman put it in his September 6 column headlined "Finkelstein deal ends DePaul tiff....the underlying struggle between supporters of Israel and champions (like Finkelstein) of the Palestinians continues, not just at the North Side campus but across the academic world."
That struggle is nowhere in sight in the dominant media that includes major print publications, commercial radio, television and so-called Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio both of which long ago abandoned the public trust in service to their corporate and government paymasters....
read full article here
9/13/07
No issue is more sensitive in the US than daring to criticize Israel. It's the metaphorical "third rail" in American politics, academia and the major media. Anyone daring to touch it pays dearly as the few who tried learned. Those in elected office face an onslaught of attacks and efforts to replace them with more supportive officials. Former five term Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney felt its sting twice in 2002 and 2006. So did 10 term Congressman Paul Findley (a fierce and courageous Israeli critic) in 1982 and three term Senator Charles Percy in 1984 whom AIPAC targeted merely for appearing to support anti-Israeli policy.
DePaul University Professor Norman Finkelstein has long been a target as well for his courageous writing and outspokenness. DePaul formally denied him tenure June 8 even though his students call him "truly outstanding and among the most impressive" of all university political science professors. It's why his Department of Political Science endorsed his tenure bid stating his academic record "exceeds our department's stated standards for scholarly production (and) department and outside experts we consulted recognize the intellectual merits of his work."
It didn't help, and on August 26 got worse. The university acknowledged "Professor Finkelstein is a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher." Yet it issued a brief statement canceling his classes and placing him on administrative leave "with full pay and benefits for the 2007-8 academic year (that) relieves professors from their teaching responsibilities." For now, Finkelstein's long struggle with the university ended the first day of classes, September 5. Both sides agreed to a settlement, and a planned day of protests was curtailed. But as Chicago Tribune writer Ron Grossman put it in his September 6 column headlined "Finkelstein deal ends DePaul tiff....the underlying struggle between supporters of Israel and champions (like Finkelstein) of the Palestinians continues, not just at the North Side campus but across the academic world."
That struggle is nowhere in sight in the dominant media that includes major print publications, commercial radio, television and so-called Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio both of which long ago abandoned the public trust in service to their corporate and government paymasters....
read full article here
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
"Unrecognized" Palestinians
- by Stephen Lendman
9/10/07
Israel's population today is about 7,150,000. About 5.4 million are Jews (76%) plus another 400,000 Jewish settlers in over 200 expanding settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank that includes Palestinian East Jerusalem. They're the chosen ones afforded full rights and privileges under the laws of the Jewish state for Jews alone.
Palestinian Arabs are another story. Their population is around 5.3 million (plus six million or more in the Palestinian diaspora). Around 3.9 million live in occupied Gaza and the West Bank, and another 1.4 million are Jewish citizens of Israel (20% of the population), including about 260,000 classified as internally displaced. Palestinians get no rights afforded Jews even though those inside Israel are citizens of the Jewish state, have passports and IDs, and can vote in Knesset elections for what good it does them. They're subjected to constant abuse and neglect, are confined to 2% of the land plus 1% more for agricultural use, and are treated disdainfully as nonpersons...
read full article here
9/10/07
Israel's population today is about 7,150,000. About 5.4 million are Jews (76%) plus another 400,000 Jewish settlers in over 200 expanding settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank that includes Palestinian East Jerusalem. They're the chosen ones afforded full rights and privileges under the laws of the Jewish state for Jews alone.
Palestinian Arabs are another story. Their population is around 5.3 million (plus six million or more in the Palestinian diaspora). Around 3.9 million live in occupied Gaza and the West Bank, and another 1.4 million are Jewish citizens of Israel (20% of the population), including about 260,000 classified as internally displaced. Palestinians get no rights afforded Jews even though those inside Israel are citizens of the Jewish state, have passports and IDs, and can vote in Knesset elections for what good it does them. They're subjected to constant abuse and neglect, are confined to 2% of the land plus 1% more for agricultural use, and are treated disdainfully as nonpersons...
read full article here
Gonzo Boogie -- Easy as ABC
By Sheila Samples
9/10/07
Speculation is swirling about who will replace Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- everyone from Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch to former Solicitor General and Clinton stalker Theodore Olsen. Until last week, the name most bandied about was Secretary of Homeland Security and USAPATRIOT Act co-author Michael Chertoff. You'd think selecting Chertoff in light of the New Orleans debacle would be a stupid thing to do since Chertoff's continued ideological mishandling of the Katrina disaster borders on the criminally insane.
Oh. Yeah. I forgot. Stupid bungling and destructive, criminal assaults on the less fortunate seem to be the criteria for serving at the pleasure of this president. Who can forget Chertoff's bewildered insistence that nobody could "predict such a disaster ever could occur"? Or that he refused hundreds of aid personnel and dozens of vehicles offered by Chicago's Mayor Daley...refused to let the Red Cross deliver food...refused the Navy's offer of a ship with a 600-bed hospital...refused Amtrak's offer to assist in evacuations...turned away WalMart supply trucks...prevented the Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel...blocked a 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid...turned back a German government plane loaded with 15 tons of food...put on FEMA's website that first responders were "not to respond" unless dispatched...and then tried to cover his ass by asking the media not to take pictures of the dead?
The response to Katrina was an evil, genocidal racist disaster, a contractors' wet dream, a dry-run for mercenary troops to impose martial law. Its PR was orchestrated by Karl Rove, who also controlled the money, and by Michael Chertoff who apparently was in charge of ridding the Big Easy of its bottom feeders, you know, the ill, the elderly, the poverty stricken and tens of thousands of its Black population. They did a heckuva a job...
The Democrats seem to think doing the Gonzo Boogie is as easy as ABC -- Anybody But Chertoff. They're getting nervous, begging Bush to consult with them and to come up with a candidate that suits both sides of the aisle. Bush's response thus far has been to extend the middle fingers of both hands while accusing Democrats of dragging Gonzales' "good name" through the mud for political reasons.
According to the Washington Post, who long ago quit even pretending to identify its sources, administration officials are warning that Bush will nominate an attorney general who agrees with his policies. "It is the president's prerogative to appoint someone who shares his views," a senior administration official told the Post.
Well, that lets former acting attorney general James Comey, the one man who could perhaps bring some sanity back into our justice system, off the hook. Comey is a Republican whose attention is riveted on the views of the U.S. Constitution rather than those of the president. Comey appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor to investigate the CIA leak case, which resulted in Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby taking the perjury perp walk. It was Comey who thwarted Gonzales' smarmy effort to get the survelliance program reauthorized in his midnight raid on the hospital room of a critically ill John Ashcroft. And it was Comey, the only Justice official not to lose his memory when facing questions from Congress, who told the truth about the filthy, behind-the-scenes activities of the Bush administration.
If Bush had any integrity or appreciation for the rule of law, he would consider Solicitor General Paul Clement, a 31-year-old legal whiz kid who is not only brilliant, but honest. Clement is a true conservative, a former clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, and a deputy to Ted Olson when he was solicitor general. However, that doesn't necessarily mean he would meet Bush's criteria of an attorney general who agrees with his policies or shares his dangerous views. In a January article in Legal Times, Tony Mauro wrote, "Clement defends liberal legislation with as much zeal as he does Republican policies. His litigating skills and reputation for straight shooting have won him plaudits from across the ideological spectrum."
Does it matter whose names remain on Bush's "short list" for attorney general? Nah...Bush is The Decider. Under pressure to fire Gonzales, he declared, "I decide who serves in my government." He decided long ago the U.S. Constitution is nothing but a G**damn piece of paper, and his obsession with exercising empirical control over every facet of government, over the people -- over the entire sphere -- borders on vampire lust. Bush is Caesar, his visions put Plato to shame, and when he weeps, his head is on God's own shoulder.
Removing Chertoff from consideration without a fight is uncharacteristic of Bush, and is designed to force the Democrats to cave yet again; to give Bush what he wants while weakly claiming victory. And what Bush wants is unparalled, unmitigated power such as that proposed by former Ashcroft deputy assistant John Yoo -- the power to wiretap US citizens, the freedom to torture not only terrorist suspects, but their children as well, and to declare war anytime, anywhere, on anyone.
Fortunately, Yoo, currently a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, is radioactive, but we can look for former solicitor general Theodore (Ted) Olson to be at the top of Bush's list. Olson was part of the Paula Jones legal team in her case against President Bill Clinton, and was deeply involved in Kenneth Starr's Richard Mellon Scaife-funded Swiftboat investigation of Whitewater. Olson also personally represented Bush in the 2000 election coup in Florida.
Olson almost makes Gonzales look good. He is campaigning for Rudy Giuliani in 2008, and is the chairman of Giuliani’s Justice Advisory Committee. In a recent National Review article entitled, "Two for the Price of One: The presidency and the judiciary," Olson openly admitted his goal is to stack the courts with "jurists in the mold of Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito and Chief Justices Rehnquist and Roberts," and Giuliani is the guy who will do just that.
And then there's Judge Laurence (Scary Larry) Silberman. Should his name pop up for confirmation, I'll wager the Democrats won't remember, or will hope we don't remember that Silberman is the Reagan campaign operative who worked behind the scenes with Iran's Khomeini regime to successfully delay release of American hostages until after the 1980 election.
Silberman's reward was a seat on the powerful right-wing U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where he was instrumental in changing the course of history by intervening in the Iran-Contra scandal. Investigative journalist Martin McLaughlin writes that Silberman's "most important decision on the Court of Appeals came in the case of Lt. Col. Oliver North, the principal figure in the Iran-Contra affair. Silberman and fellow justice David Sentelle, a former aide to arch-right-wing Republican Senator Jesse Helms, voided the convictions of both North and Admiral John Poindexter in 1990. Their intervention played a key role in sabotaging the investigation by Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh."
The Democrats may discover that confirming a new attorney general is not as easy as ABC. We could go on through the alphabet and find other candidates, such as Poppy's Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger, the leader of the Bush-Cheney coup team during the Florida recount, or former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who left government service shortly after the Iraq invasion for a saner position at the helm of PepsiCo.
It's likely Bush won't be able to resist ramming a political firecracker in the mouths of Democrats just to see their heads explode by nominating Connecticut donkey Sen. Joe Lieberman, who has spent the last six years selling his soul to prove to Bush he's a team player who really really wants to be attorney general. Democrats would be forced to reject the totally unacceptable Lieberman, or accept him and split the Senate down the middle while Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell appoints a Republican to replace him.
Nothing will change with Gonzales' departure, because each candidate on Bush's attorney general list is Gonzo "squared" -- each one committed to do the Gonzo Boogie from now until January 2009. Until then, the Democrats will continue to struggle with their attention-deficit disorder (ADD), and the American people will sink deeper into the morass of national post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
And Bush? It's been a hell of a ride. So exciting that Bush has decided to keep "surging" and "kicking ass" until his job is done, and then he says the next president can clean up the body parts 'cause he's gonna go out and give speeches and make lots of money like Poppy and Bubba...
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
9/10/07
Speculation is swirling about who will replace Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- everyone from Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch to former Solicitor General and Clinton stalker Theodore Olsen. Until last week, the name most bandied about was Secretary of Homeland Security and USAPATRIOT Act co-author Michael Chertoff. You'd think selecting Chertoff in light of the New Orleans debacle would be a stupid thing to do since Chertoff's continued ideological mishandling of the Katrina disaster borders on the criminally insane.
Oh. Yeah. I forgot. Stupid bungling and destructive, criminal assaults on the less fortunate seem to be the criteria for serving at the pleasure of this president. Who can forget Chertoff's bewildered insistence that nobody could "predict such a disaster ever could occur"? Or that he refused hundreds of aid personnel and dozens of vehicles offered by Chicago's Mayor Daley...refused to let the Red Cross deliver food...refused the Navy's offer of a ship with a 600-bed hospital...refused Amtrak's offer to assist in evacuations...turned away WalMart supply trucks...prevented the Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel...blocked a 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid...turned back a German government plane loaded with 15 tons of food...put on FEMA's website that first responders were "not to respond" unless dispatched...and then tried to cover his ass by asking the media not to take pictures of the dead?
The response to Katrina was an evil, genocidal racist disaster, a contractors' wet dream, a dry-run for mercenary troops to impose martial law. Its PR was orchestrated by Karl Rove, who also controlled the money, and by Michael Chertoff who apparently was in charge of ridding the Big Easy of its bottom feeders, you know, the ill, the elderly, the poverty stricken and tens of thousands of its Black population. They did a heckuva a job...
The Democrats seem to think doing the Gonzo Boogie is as easy as ABC -- Anybody But Chertoff. They're getting nervous, begging Bush to consult with them and to come up with a candidate that suits both sides of the aisle. Bush's response thus far has been to extend the middle fingers of both hands while accusing Democrats of dragging Gonzales' "good name" through the mud for political reasons.
According to the Washington Post, who long ago quit even pretending to identify its sources, administration officials are warning that Bush will nominate an attorney general who agrees with his policies. "It is the president's prerogative to appoint someone who shares his views," a senior administration official told the Post.
Well, that lets former acting attorney general James Comey, the one man who could perhaps bring some sanity back into our justice system, off the hook. Comey is a Republican whose attention is riveted on the views of the U.S. Constitution rather than those of the president. Comey appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor to investigate the CIA leak case, which resulted in Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby taking the perjury perp walk. It was Comey who thwarted Gonzales' smarmy effort to get the survelliance program reauthorized in his midnight raid on the hospital room of a critically ill John Ashcroft. And it was Comey, the only Justice official not to lose his memory when facing questions from Congress, who told the truth about the filthy, behind-the-scenes activities of the Bush administration.
If Bush had any integrity or appreciation for the rule of law, he would consider Solicitor General Paul Clement, a 31-year-old legal whiz kid who is not only brilliant, but honest. Clement is a true conservative, a former clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, and a deputy to Ted Olson when he was solicitor general. However, that doesn't necessarily mean he would meet Bush's criteria of an attorney general who agrees with his policies or shares his dangerous views. In a January article in Legal Times, Tony Mauro wrote, "Clement defends liberal legislation with as much zeal as he does Republican policies. His litigating skills and reputation for straight shooting have won him plaudits from across the ideological spectrum."
Does it matter whose names remain on Bush's "short list" for attorney general? Nah...Bush is The Decider. Under pressure to fire Gonzales, he declared, "I decide who serves in my government." He decided long ago the U.S. Constitution is nothing but a G**damn piece of paper, and his obsession with exercising empirical control over every facet of government, over the people -- over the entire sphere -- borders on vampire lust. Bush is Caesar, his visions put Plato to shame, and when he weeps, his head is on God's own shoulder.
Removing Chertoff from consideration without a fight is uncharacteristic of Bush, and is designed to force the Democrats to cave yet again; to give Bush what he wants while weakly claiming victory. And what Bush wants is unparalled, unmitigated power such as that proposed by former Ashcroft deputy assistant John Yoo -- the power to wiretap US citizens, the freedom to torture not only terrorist suspects, but their children as well, and to declare war anytime, anywhere, on anyone.
Fortunately, Yoo, currently a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, is radioactive, but we can look for former solicitor general Theodore (Ted) Olson to be at the top of Bush's list. Olson was part of the Paula Jones legal team in her case against President Bill Clinton, and was deeply involved in Kenneth Starr's Richard Mellon Scaife-funded Swiftboat investigation of Whitewater. Olson also personally represented Bush in the 2000 election coup in Florida.
Olson almost makes Gonzales look good. He is campaigning for Rudy Giuliani in 2008, and is the chairman of Giuliani’s Justice Advisory Committee. In a recent National Review article entitled, "Two for the Price of One: The presidency and the judiciary," Olson openly admitted his goal is to stack the courts with "jurists in the mold of Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito and Chief Justices Rehnquist and Roberts," and Giuliani is the guy who will do just that.
And then there's Judge Laurence (Scary Larry) Silberman. Should his name pop up for confirmation, I'll wager the Democrats won't remember, or will hope we don't remember that Silberman is the Reagan campaign operative who worked behind the scenes with Iran's Khomeini regime to successfully delay release of American hostages until after the 1980 election.
Silberman's reward was a seat on the powerful right-wing U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where he was instrumental in changing the course of history by intervening in the Iran-Contra scandal. Investigative journalist Martin McLaughlin writes that Silberman's "most important decision on the Court of Appeals came in the case of Lt. Col. Oliver North, the principal figure in the Iran-Contra affair. Silberman and fellow justice David Sentelle, a former aide to arch-right-wing Republican Senator Jesse Helms, voided the convictions of both North and Admiral John Poindexter in 1990. Their intervention played a key role in sabotaging the investigation by Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh."
The Democrats may discover that confirming a new attorney general is not as easy as ABC. We could go on through the alphabet and find other candidates, such as Poppy's Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger, the leader of the Bush-Cheney coup team during the Florida recount, or former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who left government service shortly after the Iraq invasion for a saner position at the helm of PepsiCo.
It's likely Bush won't be able to resist ramming a political firecracker in the mouths of Democrats just to see their heads explode by nominating Connecticut donkey Sen. Joe Lieberman, who has spent the last six years selling his soul to prove to Bush he's a team player who really really wants to be attorney general. Democrats would be forced to reject the totally unacceptable Lieberman, or accept him and split the Senate down the middle while Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell appoints a Republican to replace him.
Nothing will change with Gonzales' departure, because each candidate on Bush's attorney general list is Gonzo "squared" -- each one committed to do the Gonzo Boogie from now until January 2009. Until then, the Democrats will continue to struggle with their attention-deficit disorder (ADD), and the American people will sink deeper into the morass of national post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
And Bush? It's been a hell of a ride. So exciting that Bush has decided to keep "surging" and "kicking ass" until his job is done, and then he says the next president can clean up the body parts 'cause he's gonna go out and give speeches and make lots of money like Poppy and Bubba...
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, September 08, 2007
US occupation creates humanitarian disaster in Iraq
By Sara Flounders
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/iraq-0906/
Published Sep 3, 2007 8:01 PM
If the full dimensions of the horror the U.S. occupation has created in Iraq were exposed and confronted, world outrage would reach such a pitch that the occupation could not continue.
A huge number of reports that are largely ignored or given only passing mention in the corporate media confirm an unprecedented level of destruction of essential infrastructure, loss of life and massive displacement of people.
There are more than 4 million Iraqi refugees and more than 1 million dead. Seventy percent of Iraqi children are not in school. Yet these reports and statistics do not begin to tell the story of destruction and violence caused by the U.S. occupation.
Iraq, which was a modern, industrializing country before the first U.S. war in 1991, is now under U.S. occupation, facing national catastrophe and disintegration. Its once internationally acclaimed and free health care system is now in shambles. Thousands of years worth of its cultural heritage have been looted and smashed.
From August 1990 to March 2003, during the 12 years of U.S.-imposed starvation sanctions, Iraq still had full literacy and struggled to maintain potable water, electricity and a basic food ration for the population of 25 million.
Now 8 million people, or almost one-third of the population, are in need of emergency aid, according to Oxfam and a network of 80 aid agencies.
The anti-war movement here must focus attention on the reports that expose the all-pervasive violence of the U.S. occupation. Otherwise the corporate media are able to put their “spin” on who is responsible for the violence in Iraq today. Consistently they blame the Iraqi people for the unfolding horror and not the U.S. occupation army.
The corporate media are currently giving extensive daily coverage to the drumbeat coming from U.S. politicians, Republican and Democrats alike, who wring their hands and describe the chaos and violence that would follow a U.S. troop withdrawal. This constantly repeated theme is woven together with coverage of seemingly senseless and sectarian attacks on civilians by “terrorist forces.” U.S. troops are described in every news article as trying to end the “sectarian violence” and desperately seeking to bring security and order.
Resistance to violent occupation
The media’s constant focus on seemingly random violence and mayhem, allegedly committed by contending Iraqi militias, is meant to mask the total violence of occupation. It also distorts who the resistance is and what are the primary acts that resistance fighters are engaged in. According to the Brookings Institution Report—Iraq Index, Aug. 23—over the past year resistance attacks of all kinds, including roadside bombings, rocket attacks, suicide attacks and car bombs, have amounted to 4,000 to 5,000 each month, or more than 150 attacks a day.
The report contains a chart showing that the vast majority of the resistance attacks are on U.S. forces and Iraqi security forces, not on civilians. According to this chart, 80 to 85 percent of the attacks target the occupation and its collaborators.
However, to the imperialist army of occupation, the entire Iraqi population has become the enemy and is treated with totally brutal repression and massive destruction.
The latest “surge” has increased the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to 170,000. There are also more than 200,000 “private contractors” or mercenaries. According to Jeremy Scahill, author of “The Mercenary Revolution,” these mercenaries answer to no authority or law. The U.S. occupying authority has granted these mercenaries complete immunity from prosecution under either Iraqi law or even U.S. military law. Contractors can interrogate and torture prisoners, gather intelligence, operate rendition flights and kill at random.
The British medical journal The Lancet has published two peer-reviewed studies on deaths due to the invasion of Iraq and continuing occupation. The studies in 2004 and 2006 estimated the number of excess deaths caused by the occupation, both directly and indirectly. The Lancet’s 2006 report reported that the study’s best estimate was that 655,000 more Iraqis had died than would have been expected in a non-war situation, as of June 2006.
"Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey"
The Lancet, 29 October 2004 (hosted by zmag.org)
http://www.zmag.org/lancet.pdf
"Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey"
The Lancet, October 11, 2006
http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
"The Human Cost of the War in Iraq: A Mortality Study, 2002-2006"
A supplement to the October 2006 Lancet study
http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf
Another 14 months of even greater chaos and violence have passed since that time, which may well have brought the number of excess deaths close to 1 million. [ ed. note see http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/images/iraqdeaths.gif ]
U.N. agencies, such as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, report that 70 percent of the Iraqi population lacks access to safe drinking water and 80 percent lacks effective sanitation. The World Health Organization has noted increased cases of diarrheal diseases and now cholera due to polluted drinking water.
The Oxfam report states that “health services are generally in a catastrophic situation in the capital, in the main towns, and across the governorates.” Forty-three percent of Iraqis are now in “absolute poverty.” The unemployment rate is 50 percent. Since the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iraq, many people there have depended on a food ration distributed by the government, and since the occupation the number has grown. But many of the more than 2 million internally displaced people in Iraq cannot get subsidized rations because they are not registered in their new homes.
Many schools are closed and the buildings have been taken over to house the homeless. More than 40 percent of Iraq’s teachers, water engineers, medical staff and other essential professionals have left the country since 2003.
Refugee crisis and prostitution
At least an additional 2.5 million Iraqis have fled to nearby countries. Hundreds of thousands have depleted all their savings. About 500,000 of the refugees are school-age children who have limited or no access to education.
Reports say that for many thousands of women, who are now single heads of household, prostitution is becoming one of the only means of feeding their families. The London Independent, The New York Times, MSNBC and other media, along with Amnesty International, confirm reports of growing child prostitution and trafficking of Iraqi children.
IRAQ: Concern over reports of child trafficking
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=27083
Western Civilisation? The Unspoken Fate of Iraqi Children
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/consequences/2007/0113westerncivilization.htm
Hana Ibrahim, founder of the Iraqi women’s group Women’s Will in Syria, puts the figure at 50,000 women forced into the sex trade because their husbands and fathers have been killed and they are banned from working legally. There are few options for a family to survive.
Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program described the spiraling refugee population as “a humanitarian crisis that could engulf the region.”
Refugee International reports that an additional 40,000 to 50,000 Iraqis flee their homes each month, making this the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.
Collaborators unable to govern
There is no government in Iraq today capable of organizing or providing any social services at all—not security, health care, schools, electricity or potable water. There are only a handful of corrupt U.S. collaborators, appointed heads of ministries who live in the U.S. Green Zone under U.S. protection. They dare not venture outside. U.S. contractors have found they have no one on the ground in local administration to accept the leaking, faulty projects for which the contractors overbilled the government.
The longer the U.S. forces of occupation stay in Iraq, the greater the destruction and violence. The occupation’s only solution is to try to drown the resistance in blood and fragment the society with divide-and-conquer tactics. From the first days of “shock and awe” bombings, this has been Washington’s approach.
The benchmarks that the occupation has demanded of the puppet government of Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi parliament include signing away all future control of Iraq’s oil resources. Such outright colonial demands only increase the determination of the average Iraqi to resist occupation by all possible means.
Iraq more than ever needs an aroused world movement that will stand up to the endless U.S. excuses for continued occupation. A movement that demands an end to all the funds for this criminal war. That is for getting all U.S. troops out of Iraq and the region. That demands reparations to the sovereign Iraqi government that is sure to eventually replace the collaborationist regime so Iraq can recover from the disaster U.S. imperialism has imposed on its people.
Sources used for this article include: The Lancet, Survey 2, Oct. 11, 2006, “The Human Cost of the War in Iraq: A Mortality Study, 2002-2006,” by Gilbert Burnham, Shannon Doocy, Elizabeth Dzeng, Riyadh Lafta and Les Roberts. Oxfam, “Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq,” July 2007. Brookings Institution Report, www3.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf. UNHCR Refugees figures through March 2007.
links added by the Guerrilla Campaign
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/iraq-0906/
Published Sep 3, 2007 8:01 PM
If the full dimensions of the horror the U.S. occupation has created in Iraq were exposed and confronted, world outrage would reach such a pitch that the occupation could not continue.
A huge number of reports that are largely ignored or given only passing mention in the corporate media confirm an unprecedented level of destruction of essential infrastructure, loss of life and massive displacement of people.
There are more than 4 million Iraqi refugees and more than 1 million dead. Seventy percent of Iraqi children are not in school. Yet these reports and statistics do not begin to tell the story of destruction and violence caused by the U.S. occupation.
Iraq, which was a modern, industrializing country before the first U.S. war in 1991, is now under U.S. occupation, facing national catastrophe and disintegration. Its once internationally acclaimed and free health care system is now in shambles. Thousands of years worth of its cultural heritage have been looted and smashed.
From August 1990 to March 2003, during the 12 years of U.S.-imposed starvation sanctions, Iraq still had full literacy and struggled to maintain potable water, electricity and a basic food ration for the population of 25 million.
Now 8 million people, or almost one-third of the population, are in need of emergency aid, according to Oxfam and a network of 80 aid agencies.
The anti-war movement here must focus attention on the reports that expose the all-pervasive violence of the U.S. occupation. Otherwise the corporate media are able to put their “spin” on who is responsible for the violence in Iraq today. Consistently they blame the Iraqi people for the unfolding horror and not the U.S. occupation army.
The corporate media are currently giving extensive daily coverage to the drumbeat coming from U.S. politicians, Republican and Democrats alike, who wring their hands and describe the chaos and violence that would follow a U.S. troop withdrawal. This constantly repeated theme is woven together with coverage of seemingly senseless and sectarian attacks on civilians by “terrorist forces.” U.S. troops are described in every news article as trying to end the “sectarian violence” and desperately seeking to bring security and order.
Resistance to violent occupation
The media’s constant focus on seemingly random violence and mayhem, allegedly committed by contending Iraqi militias, is meant to mask the total violence of occupation. It also distorts who the resistance is and what are the primary acts that resistance fighters are engaged in. According to the Brookings Institution Report—Iraq Index, Aug. 23—over the past year resistance attacks of all kinds, including roadside bombings, rocket attacks, suicide attacks and car bombs, have amounted to 4,000 to 5,000 each month, or more than 150 attacks a day.
The report contains a chart showing that the vast majority of the resistance attacks are on U.S. forces and Iraqi security forces, not on civilians. According to this chart, 80 to 85 percent of the attacks target the occupation and its collaborators.
However, to the imperialist army of occupation, the entire Iraqi population has become the enemy and is treated with totally brutal repression and massive destruction.
The latest “surge” has increased the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to 170,000. There are also more than 200,000 “private contractors” or mercenaries. According to Jeremy Scahill, author of “The Mercenary Revolution,” these mercenaries answer to no authority or law. The U.S. occupying authority has granted these mercenaries complete immunity from prosecution under either Iraqi law or even U.S. military law. Contractors can interrogate and torture prisoners, gather intelligence, operate rendition flights and kill at random.
The British medical journal The Lancet has published two peer-reviewed studies on deaths due to the invasion of Iraq and continuing occupation. The studies in 2004 and 2006 estimated the number of excess deaths caused by the occupation, both directly and indirectly. The Lancet’s 2006 report reported that the study’s best estimate was that 655,000 more Iraqis had died than would have been expected in a non-war situation, as of June 2006.
"Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey"
The Lancet, 29 October 2004 (hosted by zmag.org)
http://www.zmag.org/lancet.pdf
"Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey"
The Lancet, October 11, 2006
http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
"The Human Cost of the War in Iraq: A Mortality Study, 2002-2006"
A supplement to the October 2006 Lancet study
http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf
Another 14 months of even greater chaos and violence have passed since that time, which may well have brought the number of excess deaths close to 1 million. [ ed. note see http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/images/iraqdeaths.gif ]
U.N. agencies, such as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, report that 70 percent of the Iraqi population lacks access to safe drinking water and 80 percent lacks effective sanitation. The World Health Organization has noted increased cases of diarrheal diseases and now cholera due to polluted drinking water.
The Oxfam report states that “health services are generally in a catastrophic situation in the capital, in the main towns, and across the governorates.” Forty-three percent of Iraqis are now in “absolute poverty.” The unemployment rate is 50 percent. Since the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iraq, many people there have depended on a food ration distributed by the government, and since the occupation the number has grown. But many of the more than 2 million internally displaced people in Iraq cannot get subsidized rations because they are not registered in their new homes.
Many schools are closed and the buildings have been taken over to house the homeless. More than 40 percent of Iraq’s teachers, water engineers, medical staff and other essential professionals have left the country since 2003.
Refugee crisis and prostitution
At least an additional 2.5 million Iraqis have fled to nearby countries. Hundreds of thousands have depleted all their savings. About 500,000 of the refugees are school-age children who have limited or no access to education.
Reports say that for many thousands of women, who are now single heads of household, prostitution is becoming one of the only means of feeding their families. The London Independent, The New York Times, MSNBC and other media, along with Amnesty International, confirm reports of growing child prostitution and trafficking of Iraqi children.
IRAQ: Concern over reports of child trafficking
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=27083
Western Civilisation? The Unspoken Fate of Iraqi Children
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/consequences/2007/0113westerncivilization.htm
Hana Ibrahim, founder of the Iraqi women’s group Women’s Will in Syria, puts the figure at 50,000 women forced into the sex trade because their husbands and fathers have been killed and they are banned from working legally. There are few options for a family to survive.
Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program described the spiraling refugee population as “a humanitarian crisis that could engulf the region.”
Refugee International reports that an additional 40,000 to 50,000 Iraqis flee their homes each month, making this the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.
Collaborators unable to govern
There is no government in Iraq today capable of organizing or providing any social services at all—not security, health care, schools, electricity or potable water. There are only a handful of corrupt U.S. collaborators, appointed heads of ministries who live in the U.S. Green Zone under U.S. protection. They dare not venture outside. U.S. contractors have found they have no one on the ground in local administration to accept the leaking, faulty projects for which the contractors overbilled the government.
The longer the U.S. forces of occupation stay in Iraq, the greater the destruction and violence. The occupation’s only solution is to try to drown the resistance in blood and fragment the society with divide-and-conquer tactics. From the first days of “shock and awe” bombings, this has been Washington’s approach.
The benchmarks that the occupation has demanded of the puppet government of Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi parliament include signing away all future control of Iraq’s oil resources. Such outright colonial demands only increase the determination of the average Iraqi to resist occupation by all possible means.
Iraq more than ever needs an aroused world movement that will stand up to the endless U.S. excuses for continued occupation. A movement that demands an end to all the funds for this criminal war. That is for getting all U.S. troops out of Iraq and the region. That demands reparations to the sovereign Iraqi government that is sure to eventually replace the collaborationist regime so Iraq can recover from the disaster U.S. imperialism has imposed on its people.
Sources used for this article include: The Lancet, Survey 2, Oct. 11, 2006, “The Human Cost of the War in Iraq: A Mortality Study, 2002-2006,” by Gilbert Burnham, Shannon Doocy, Elizabeth Dzeng, Riyadh Lafta and Les Roberts. Oxfam, “Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq,” July 2007. Brookings Institution Report, www3.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf. UNHCR Refugees figures through March 2007.
links added by the Guerrilla Campaign
wallowing in the blood and destruction of Iraq
Nursing home owners acquitted in Katrina deaths
Fri Sep 7, 2007 9:40PM EDT
By Russell McCulley
ST. FRANCISVILLE, Louisiana (Reuters) - The owners of a New Orleans-area nursing home were found not guilty of all charges on Friday in the deaths of 35 residents who drowned in one of the worst tragedies of Hurricane Katrina.
Salvador Mangano, 67, and his wife Mabel Mangano, 65, faced 35 counts of negligent homicide and 24 counts of cruelty to the infirm, but a six-member jury acquitted them after deliberating about 3 1/2 hours following three weeks of testimony.
The Manganos hugged each other when the jury verdict was read, and choked back tears as they left the courtroom.
"Y'all don't want to hear what I got to say," Salvador Mangano said as he walked past reporters.
Katrina's 20-foot (6-metre) storm surge trapped and drowned residents at the Manganos' St. Rita's nursing home near New Orleans during the August 29, 2005, storm that killed more than 1,400 people along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Prosecutors accused them of negligence and greed for failing to evacuate their residents, saying they did not heed government warnings and did not want to spend money to transport their residents elsewhere…”
Nursing home owners acquitted in Katrina deaths
“…didn’t want to spend money…”
And that, is the whole of the Katrina tragedy in a nutshell.
I’m happy that this couple didn’t have to play the price for the criminal actions of others.
The federal government didn’t want to spend the money necessary to maintain and upgrade the levees that protected New Orleans. It couldn’t be bothered to do what was required to keep FEMA a professional agency that was prepared to handle emergencies of this magnitude. Couldn’t even bother to accept immediate and needed aid from foreign countries because of ideological differences. And, we all know where the Louisiana National Guard was.
The federal government, under george bush, has shown a calloused indifference to the lives of ordinary people. And not those in the US. Witness the “collateral damage” caused by attacks and continued occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The illegality of bush’s invasion of Iraq has been exposed. His continued war crimes in the obscene occupation that he wants to continue until he rides off into the sunset are exposed daily. And yet, we have allowed the bush to get away with his crime. No, he is not the only guilty party. There’s guilt enough to go around. But those actively involved in the commission, those who facilitated, and those who abetted this crime are equally deserving the fate of war criminals.
Is that what America has sunk to? Are these the only values we have left; to ignore the helpless and destroy the defensless?
This couple, who managed to save 24 of the residents in their care, still face lawsuits that will destroy them financially, while the real perpetrators get rich. We still wallow in the blood and destruction of Iraq, while the perpetrators get rich.
Looked through the paper.
Makes you want to cry.
Nobody cares if the people
Live or die.
- Leonard Cohen “In My Secret Life”
Fri Sep 7, 2007 9:40PM EDT
By Russell McCulley
ST. FRANCISVILLE, Louisiana (Reuters) - The owners of a New Orleans-area nursing home were found not guilty of all charges on Friday in the deaths of 35 residents who drowned in one of the worst tragedies of Hurricane Katrina.
Salvador Mangano, 67, and his wife Mabel Mangano, 65, faced 35 counts of negligent homicide and 24 counts of cruelty to the infirm, but a six-member jury acquitted them after deliberating about 3 1/2 hours following three weeks of testimony.
The Manganos hugged each other when the jury verdict was read, and choked back tears as they left the courtroom.
"Y'all don't want to hear what I got to say," Salvador Mangano said as he walked past reporters.
Katrina's 20-foot (6-metre) storm surge trapped and drowned residents at the Manganos' St. Rita's nursing home near New Orleans during the August 29, 2005, storm that killed more than 1,400 people along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Prosecutors accused them of negligence and greed for failing to evacuate their residents, saying they did not heed government warnings and did not want to spend money to transport their residents elsewhere…”
Nursing home owners acquitted in Katrina deaths
“…didn’t want to spend money…”
And that, is the whole of the Katrina tragedy in a nutshell.
I’m happy that this couple didn’t have to play the price for the criminal actions of others.
The federal government didn’t want to spend the money necessary to maintain and upgrade the levees that protected New Orleans. It couldn’t be bothered to do what was required to keep FEMA a professional agency that was prepared to handle emergencies of this magnitude. Couldn’t even bother to accept immediate and needed aid from foreign countries because of ideological differences. And, we all know where the Louisiana National Guard was.
The federal government, under george bush, has shown a calloused indifference to the lives of ordinary people. And not those in the US. Witness the “collateral damage” caused by attacks and continued occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The illegality of bush’s invasion of Iraq has been exposed. His continued war crimes in the obscene occupation that he wants to continue until he rides off into the sunset are exposed daily. And yet, we have allowed the bush to get away with his crime. No, he is not the only guilty party. There’s guilt enough to go around. But those actively involved in the commission, those who facilitated, and those who abetted this crime are equally deserving the fate of war criminals.
Is that what America has sunk to? Are these the only values we have left; to ignore the helpless and destroy the defensless?
This couple, who managed to save 24 of the residents in their care, still face lawsuits that will destroy them financially, while the real perpetrators get rich. We still wallow in the blood and destruction of Iraq, while the perpetrators get rich.
Looked through the paper.
Makes you want to cry.
Nobody cares if the people
Live or die.
- Leonard Cohen “In My Secret Life”
Friday, September 07, 2007
Dinos Ready To Sell Us Out Again
by Mary Pitt
9/7/06
In 2006, when we gave the Democrats a majority in both houses, we were full of hope that, at last, something would be done to stop the President's war-mongering. To date we have seen little except compromise, coalition, and making nice. Few are there who have the courage of their convictions to fulfill the promises they made when begging for our votes. A few of the new representatives that are there have tried their best but, just as in high school, nobody cares what the freshmen think.
As the result, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, being old hands at the political "game", are being overly prudent and conciliatory, talking the talk but rolling over when it is time to walk the walk. Senator Clinton left the middle of the road long ago in search of the votes of a few disgruntled Republicans and is much more interested in allowing citizenship to illegal aliens than in restoring the rights of those of us who already belong to that club. Even before the release of the White House-written Petraeus report, they are trying to find a way to allow the Iraq war to continue indefinitely. by announcing their willingness to compromise and to "work across the aisle." None of those whiz kids can think of a way they can get our soldiers out of Iraq without risking their being killed. What the hell do they think is going to happen to them if they stay? More "flowers and candy"? But there is a way to leave Iraq with a minimum of danger.
Announce a departure date at a specific time and tell them that we have built a new city which we will leave behind for their use! You know, that "largest embassy in the world" that is no less than a small city with apartment houses, shops, pools, and recreation centers. Abandon that to the Iraqi people and leave it to their government, as soon as they establish one, to decide how it will be used for the many homeless folks that we will leave behind. If we are not allowed to leave in an orderly fashion, we will send our bombers and blow it all to smithereens. We should bring with us all the people who worked for the U.S. whose safety we are so worried about. They can replace the illegal Mexican immigrants that will be sent home when we again have the resources to enforce the law which Reagan passed. We are Americans! And Americans can find a way to do anything that we, as a people, want to do and to do it in a productive and peaceful manner. It's called "Yankee Ingenuity".
Next year we shall have another chance to make changes in Washington and I believe we should be reminding the House and the Senate of that fact. Those choices are probably more important than who we choose to allow to live in the White House. The current resident there could not have done the things he did to our country had we had a Congress of both parties that would stand up and defend our Constitution and our principles. Instead, they rubber- stamped the consent for him to do "whatever he deemed necessary" about Iraq, they passed without reading it the hated Patriot Act, they tolerated the establishment of Gitmo and the many violations of the Constitution which took place there under a misunderstanding of the wording if the Constitution. (According to that revered document, it applies "anywhere that is under the jurisdiction of the United States" which Guantanamo absolutely is! And, for that matter, as an occupying force, so is Iraq.)
Since this Congress has been in session, they have voted to extend and expand the Patriot Act and other measures which took away more rights of citizens and given the corporatocracy even more power over our private lives, acts, and conversations, all in the cause of "homeland security". Now we find our pets and our children at risk of being poisoned by their food and their toys while our working men are reduced to menial jobs because the Chinese are now making the products which American workers once produced, (in accord with the Clinton trade agreement.) As the result, we are so poor that we can only afford the cheap and inferior Chinese-made products which are happily sold by Wal-Mart.
Soon we will find our highways more dangerous as Mexican trucks with poorly-trained drivers and unsafe equipment begin plying our highways. I know a number of long-haul truck drivers, (independents, not union), who are irate at the increased danger to which they will be subjected because of the condition of the trucks they have already seen. We will soon learn to give these truck a wide berth because neither the trucks nor the drivers are up to the standards which American trucks and truckers must meet. We are told that it is a part of the NAFTA agreement, which was a Clinton project at the urging of Bush 41, a bipartisan screw-up.
Once again, we are reminded that we should not vote for a party just because "we always have". We must choose carefully and individually based on the real attitudes of the candidates toward their concept of the jobs we expect of them. We had great success in 2006 of replacing several Congressmen and a small number of Senators but there is still much to be done. We must not be lured into the more-exciting world of the presidential campaign so much that we neglect the primary goal, to gain a Congress of people who realize, to paraphrase the words of the late Tip O'Neill, "who they are, where they came from and who sent them there."
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. She is non-partisan but steeped in true patriotism and pride in being an American , a loyal a daughter of the Founding Fathers, and a bipartisan critic of under-performing politicians.
9/7/06
In 2006, when we gave the Democrats a majority in both houses, we were full of hope that, at last, something would be done to stop the President's war-mongering. To date we have seen little except compromise, coalition, and making nice. Few are there who have the courage of their convictions to fulfill the promises they made when begging for our votes. A few of the new representatives that are there have tried their best but, just as in high school, nobody cares what the freshmen think.
As the result, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, being old hands at the political "game", are being overly prudent and conciliatory, talking the talk but rolling over when it is time to walk the walk. Senator Clinton left the middle of the road long ago in search of the votes of a few disgruntled Republicans and is much more interested in allowing citizenship to illegal aliens than in restoring the rights of those of us who already belong to that club. Even before the release of the White House-written Petraeus report, they are trying to find a way to allow the Iraq war to continue indefinitely. by announcing their willingness to compromise and to "work across the aisle." None of those whiz kids can think of a way they can get our soldiers out of Iraq without risking their being killed. What the hell do they think is going to happen to them if they stay? More "flowers and candy"? But there is a way to leave Iraq with a minimum of danger.
Announce a departure date at a specific time and tell them that we have built a new city which we will leave behind for their use! You know, that "largest embassy in the world" that is no less than a small city with apartment houses, shops, pools, and recreation centers. Abandon that to the Iraqi people and leave it to their government, as soon as they establish one, to decide how it will be used for the many homeless folks that we will leave behind. If we are not allowed to leave in an orderly fashion, we will send our bombers and blow it all to smithereens. We should bring with us all the people who worked for the U.S. whose safety we are so worried about. They can replace the illegal Mexican immigrants that will be sent home when we again have the resources to enforce the law which Reagan passed. We are Americans! And Americans can find a way to do anything that we, as a people, want to do and to do it in a productive and peaceful manner. It's called "Yankee Ingenuity".
Next year we shall have another chance to make changes in Washington and I believe we should be reminding the House and the Senate of that fact. Those choices are probably more important than who we choose to allow to live in the White House. The current resident there could not have done the things he did to our country had we had a Congress of both parties that would stand up and defend our Constitution and our principles. Instead, they rubber- stamped the consent for him to do "whatever he deemed necessary" about Iraq, they passed without reading it the hated Patriot Act, they tolerated the establishment of Gitmo and the many violations of the Constitution which took place there under a misunderstanding of the wording if the Constitution. (According to that revered document, it applies "anywhere that is under the jurisdiction of the United States" which Guantanamo absolutely is! And, for that matter, as an occupying force, so is Iraq.)
Since this Congress has been in session, they have voted to extend and expand the Patriot Act and other measures which took away more rights of citizens and given the corporatocracy even more power over our private lives, acts, and conversations, all in the cause of "homeland security". Now we find our pets and our children at risk of being poisoned by their food and their toys while our working men are reduced to menial jobs because the Chinese are now making the products which American workers once produced, (in accord with the Clinton trade agreement.) As the result, we are so poor that we can only afford the cheap and inferior Chinese-made products which are happily sold by Wal-Mart.
Soon we will find our highways more dangerous as Mexican trucks with poorly-trained drivers and unsafe equipment begin plying our highways. I know a number of long-haul truck drivers, (independents, not union), who are irate at the increased danger to which they will be subjected because of the condition of the trucks they have already seen. We will soon learn to give these truck a wide berth because neither the trucks nor the drivers are up to the standards which American trucks and truckers must meet. We are told that it is a part of the NAFTA agreement, which was a Clinton project at the urging of Bush 41, a bipartisan screw-up.
Once again, we are reminded that we should not vote for a party just because "we always have". We must choose carefully and individually based on the real attitudes of the candidates toward their concept of the jobs we expect of them. We had great success in 2006 of replacing several Congressmen and a small number of Senators but there is still much to be done. We must not be lured into the more-exciting world of the presidential campaign so much that we neglect the primary goal, to gain a Congress of people who realize, to paraphrase the words of the late Tip O'Neill, "who they are, where they came from and who sent them there."
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. She is non-partisan but steeped in true patriotism and pride in being an American , a loyal a daughter of the Founding Fathers, and a bipartisan critic of under-performing politicians.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
I Will Salute No More Forever
by Mike Ferner; September 05, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=13709
St. Louis – His government broke his heart but it could not break Air Force veteran Charles Powell’s spirit. Fighting back tears, the 64 year-old vet stood tall and resolute in front of 400 of his comrades, describing in verse the final steps of a painful disillusionment.
Each summer during the national convention of Veterans For Peace, time is reserved for a Veterans’ Speakout, where any member can rise to say whatever is on their mind.
When the veterans gathered in 2002, prior to the invasion of Iraq, George Bush and the hawks of Washington were pounding away on the war drums. That year, Powell, who had served on a Titan ICBM launch crew during the Cuban missile crisis, read his poem titled, “I Won’t Let Them Take My Flag.” He noted the warmongers were “again waving my flag” as a buildup to invasion, and he countered what he felt was a manipulation of the national symbol with the following lines reminiscent of the great Langston Hughes.
“But to me ‘Old Glory’ still stands for the liberty, justice and solidarity yet to come. So I still wave it too. I wave it for health care, education, housing and food for all. I wave it for peace and love and I wave it for hope. Most of all, I wave it for the America yet to be.
After four and a half years of war in Iraq, Veterans For Peace convened again this summer and Charles Powell was there as always. As his turn came at the Speakout microphone he struggled a few seconds to compose himself. Then, in a clear voice growing more determined as he spoke, Powell mirrored the pain, regret and anger in the hearts of so many who listened.
I Will Salute No More Forever
As a child I learned to Worship that piece of colored cloth.
My family, my school, the movies, TV taught me to believe that fragment of fabric stood for good things.
I watched my father, a World War II Army veteran, give homage to that wad of material.
As an airman I saluted that banner for the four years I served in the Air Force where I stood ready to help launch Titan Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles on command.
Then I became aware that the wonderful things for which that clump of colors is suppose to represent, have not been achieved.
I came to know that awful, unlawful, unwise and immoral acts have occurred under the stars and stripes.
But I still clung onto the belief and hope that someday, somehow conditions would change and the good things for which that rag is still supposed to stand would yet be realized.
However, I’ve been forced to come to my senses.
Now we have: preemptive war, the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, stop loss, neglect of returning veterans, ignored infrastructure, billions of dollars squandered on war and occupation, extraordinary rendition, secret imprisonment, warrantless domestic spying, disenfranchisement of voters, stolen elections, torture, suspension of habeas corpus and denial of due process.
So, even though hearing “America The Beautiful” still increases my heartbeat.
Although seeing those stripes still brings a lump to my throat.
Even though the sight of those stars continues to bring tears to my eyes.
I won’t pledge to it anymore.
I won’t remove my cap.
I won’t stand in respect.
I won’t wave it.
I will salute no more forever.
###
Mike Ferner is a member of Veterans For Peace and a freelance writer from Ohio. mike.ferner@sbcglobal.net
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=13709
St. Louis – His government broke his heart but it could not break Air Force veteran Charles Powell’s spirit. Fighting back tears, the 64 year-old vet stood tall and resolute in front of 400 of his comrades, describing in verse the final steps of a painful disillusionment.
Each summer during the national convention of Veterans For Peace, time is reserved for a Veterans’ Speakout, where any member can rise to say whatever is on their mind.
When the veterans gathered in 2002, prior to the invasion of Iraq, George Bush and the hawks of Washington were pounding away on the war drums. That year, Powell, who had served on a Titan ICBM launch crew during the Cuban missile crisis, read his poem titled, “I Won’t Let Them Take My Flag.” He noted the warmongers were “again waving my flag” as a buildup to invasion, and he countered what he felt was a manipulation of the national symbol with the following lines reminiscent of the great Langston Hughes.
“But to me ‘Old Glory’ still stands for the liberty, justice and solidarity yet to come. So I still wave it too. I wave it for health care, education, housing and food for all. I wave it for peace and love and I wave it for hope. Most of all, I wave it for the America yet to be.
After four and a half years of war in Iraq, Veterans For Peace convened again this summer and Charles Powell was there as always. As his turn came at the Speakout microphone he struggled a few seconds to compose himself. Then, in a clear voice growing more determined as he spoke, Powell mirrored the pain, regret and anger in the hearts of so many who listened.
I Will Salute No More Forever
As a child I learned to Worship that piece of colored cloth.
My family, my school, the movies, TV taught me to believe that fragment of fabric stood for good things.
I watched my father, a World War II Army veteran, give homage to that wad of material.
As an airman I saluted that banner for the four years I served in the Air Force where I stood ready to help launch Titan Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles on command.
Then I became aware that the wonderful things for which that clump of colors is suppose to represent, have not been achieved.
I came to know that awful, unlawful, unwise and immoral acts have occurred under the stars and stripes.
But I still clung onto the belief and hope that someday, somehow conditions would change and the good things for which that rag is still supposed to stand would yet be realized.
However, I’ve been forced to come to my senses.
Now we have: preemptive war, the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, stop loss, neglect of returning veterans, ignored infrastructure, billions of dollars squandered on war and occupation, extraordinary rendition, secret imprisonment, warrantless domestic spying, disenfranchisement of voters, stolen elections, torture, suspension of habeas corpus and denial of due process.
So, even though hearing “America The Beautiful” still increases my heartbeat.
Although seeing those stripes still brings a lump to my throat.
Even though the sight of those stars continues to bring tears to my eyes.
I won’t pledge to it anymore.
I won’t remove my cap.
I won’t stand in respect.
I won’t wave it.
I will salute no more forever.
###
Mike Ferner is a member of Veterans For Peace and a freelance writer from Ohio. mike.ferner@sbcglobal.net
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Middle East Madness
by Stephen Lendman
[...]
Bush Administration Strategy: Usually Wrong but Never in Doubt
In the run-up to its March, 2003 attack on Iraq, the Bush administration proved it didn't lack tricks and schemes to justify war. Iran now faces the same threat with one provocative act from Washington after another. In an unprecedented and outrageous move against a sovereign state, the New York Times and Washington Post reported August 15 the administration plans to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (a major branch of its military) a "global terrorist" organization...
[...]
In the long-running US-Iran saga, it remains to be seen how events will play out. Expect more heated rhetoric, and don't ignore Dick Cheney's influence. Barnett Rubin's recent comments about him from his Global Affairs blog are all over the internet. Cheney's already unofficially on record urging war on Iran and presently proposes bombing suspected Quds Force sites in Iraq. Earlier reports were he and other administration hard-liners considered air attacks against Quds Force headquarters near Tehran. If they come, it risks all-out war so, for now, they were tabled.
Barnett now says he has a message from a well-connected insider that "the Office of the Vice-President (plans) to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day" to be backed by hawkish think tanks and similar elements in the dominant media. It will involve a "heavy sustained assault on the airwaves" to win over public support that will be considered successful at "35 - 40 percent."
[...]
read full article here
[...]
Bush Administration Strategy: Usually Wrong but Never in Doubt
In the run-up to its March, 2003 attack on Iraq, the Bush administration proved it didn't lack tricks and schemes to justify war. Iran now faces the same threat with one provocative act from Washington after another. In an unprecedented and outrageous move against a sovereign state, the New York Times and Washington Post reported August 15 the administration plans to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (a major branch of its military) a "global terrorist" organization...
[...]
In the long-running US-Iran saga, it remains to be seen how events will play out. Expect more heated rhetoric, and don't ignore Dick Cheney's influence. Barnett Rubin's recent comments about him from his Global Affairs blog are all over the internet. Cheney's already unofficially on record urging war on Iran and presently proposes bombing suspected Quds Force sites in Iraq. Earlier reports were he and other administration hard-liners considered air attacks against Quds Force headquarters near Tehran. If they come, it risks all-out war so, for now, they were tabled.
Barnett now says he has a message from a well-connected insider that "the Office of the Vice-President (plans) to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day" to be backed by hawkish think tanks and similar elements in the dominant media. It will involve a "heavy sustained assault on the airwaves" to win over public support that will be considered successful at "35 - 40 percent."
[...]
read full article here
Monday, September 03, 2007
Labor Day 2007
The I.W.W.--Its History, Structure and Methods
http://tmars.iwarp.com/theMagazine/archive/07/IWW_History.html
A pamphlet by Vincent St. John describing the structure and operations of the IWW. It was originally used in the trial of the United States vs. William D. Haywood, et al. This exhibit was introduced into the trial of Michael Simmons vs. the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Company through the deposition of John W. Hughes.
see also:
Industrial Workers of the World
http://www.iww.org/
http://www.iww.org/culture/chronology/
The History of the I.W.W.
http://tmars.iwarp.com/theMagazine/archive/07/History%20of%20the%20I.%20W.%20W..pdf
I.W.W. Songs
http://tmars.iwarp.com/theMagazine/archive/07/IWW%20Little%20Red%20Songbook.pdf
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