THE ROVING EYE - Russian sanctions as war and farce - By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Russian sanctions as war and farce By Pepe Escobar If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as if it was not there - Marshal Georgy Zhukov Let's start with the serious stuff. As Russia's Federation Council ratifies a treaty with Crimea, concluding the formal annexation, Ukraine signs the political chapters of an association agreement with the European Union (EU). The signing of the full EU agreement will only happen later in 2014. These are the facts on the ground. Now let's turn to comedy hour - also known as the sanctions war. The oh-so democratic EU has punished the democratic Crimea referendum by sanctioning 33 Russians and Crimeans with asset freezes and travel bans, according to that Magritte-style walking fiction, European Council President Van Rompuy. The EU also canceled the EU-Russia summit in Sochi on June 3. And the vast, Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the European Commission (EC) has taken time out from subsidizing European cows to prepare for "possible economic sanctions", according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The EU is irretrievably split on what to do. Whatever it does, Moscow's capacity to make the EU badly hurt is stronger. There may be another meek set of sanctions next week, as Merkel advertised. But that's it. European poodle action mirrors His Master's Voice - as in US President Barack Obama solemnly imposing, by executive order, further sanctions on "senior officials of the Russian government." Other US targets are private businessmen close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Only exceptionalist logic legally allows sanctions on private individuals deemed responsible for political steps taken by the country they live in. International lawyers should have thought about sanctioning the entire US population for the Bush-Cheney junta's disaster. Well over 60% of Americans and Europeans are against a New Cold War against Russia. Putin's approval rating in Russia is around 75% - and arguably similar all across the developing world. Still, no one will lose money betting on the juvenile amateurism of the Obama administration. As if they and selected European minions could intimidate Moscow with some cosmetic "message". The American sanction religion, imposed with a conquistador/slave owner fury, did destroy Iraq for years - and was supposed to destroy Iran as well. But Russia is not Iraq or Iran. I love a man in sanction uniform Sanctioned Russians are not exactly quaking in their made-in-London brogues. After all, the practical impact of these sanctions is exactly zero. And most people targeted have minimal direct links with the US. The original American list included Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin and presidential aide Vladislav Surkov. They laughed it off, loudly - adding it felt like a badge of honor. The expanded list includes key Putin advisers and even some of his friends. Obama, Iran-style, sanctioned the Bank of Russia - a minor player (less than US$10 billion in assets; compare it with giant Sberbank at $528 billion). But Bank of Russia is used by some Gazprom subsidiaries for some low-key deals - even as Gazprom owns its own bank, GazpromBank. The "message" here is that Washington is watching Gazprom. Chief of Presidential Administration Sergei Ivanov is a key adviser on Ukraine and a top negotiator with the US, the EU and NATO. The - counterproductive - "message" implied here is that Moscow and Washington are not talking anything substantial in the immediate future. So much for the West's "diplomatic efforts". Then there's Yuri Kovalchuk, a board member of the Bank of Russia, a key business adviser and - allegedly, no conclusive evidence - Putin's personal banker. The message here is of the "I'm gonna git you sucka" kind. Finally, among the notables, there's Gennady Timchenko, who has absolutely nothing to do with Ukraine. He's an energy deal operator, controlling oil and natural gas trading firm Gunvor. In this case, the "message" is that the US will target Russia's energy deals. Message void, because the EU - which needs Gazprom badly - is not inclined to sanction Timchenko. Other sanctioned include the head of the Federal Drug Control Service Viktor Ivanov, Chief of Military Intelligence Igor Sergun and Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin. They are all part of the Russia-US team involved in the Northern Distribution Network - the long, across-Central Asia highway that will allow NATO to flee Afghanistan. A swift Moscow counter-attack would be to leave the Americans and Europeans hanging dry - or to close the NDN altogether. I want to be sanction-free Moscow, predictably, struck back. The Russian Foreign Ministry has "repeatedly" stressed that using sanctions is a "double-edged thing" and it will have a "boomerang" effect against the US. Already barred from entering Russia is a nasty bunch including the senile John McCain, plus Robert Menendez, Daniel Coats, Mary Landrieu, Harry Reid, John Boehner and Obama advisers such as the cosmic mediocrity Ben Rhodes. Vicky "F**k the EU" Nuland has not made the list - yet. Moscow is playing it cool because it may choose among a staggering array of counterpunches. It enjoys the support of the BRICS group of emerging powers, the non-aligned movement (NAM) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Composing with the US, Moscow agreed to impose sanctions on Iran, and is a key player in the P5+1 nuclear negotiations. If the sanction comedy goes on, Moscow has already announced it will play hardball with the P5+1, will cease to sanction Iran, and may even, finally, weaponize Tehran with jewels of the S-400 variety. Moscow - the number one oil and gas exporter on the planet - can also play further hardball with Europe's dependency on Gazprom; clinically target US companies working in Russia; speed up the BRICS-coordinated escape from the US dollar, as in a new international payment system in a basket of currencies for the BRICS as well as other emerging markets; and even activate the ultimate economic nuclear bomb - which is to accept payment for Russian oil and gas in ruble, yuan, euros or gold, thus delivering a terminal blow to the petrodollar. And that, ladies and gentlemen, will be the end of the comedy hour. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

THE ROVING EYE The new US-Russia Cold War By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE 
The new US-Russia Cold War
By Pepe Escobar 

Meet the new (cold) war, same as the old (cold) war. Same same, but different. One day, it's the myriad implications of Washington's "pivoting" to Asia - as in the containment of China. The next day, it's the perennial attempt to box Russia in. Never a dull moment in the New Great Game in Eurasia. 

On Russia, the denigration of all things Sochi - attributable to the inherent stupidity of Western corporate media "standards" - was just a subplot of the main show, which always gets personal; the relentless demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin. [1] 

Yet Nulandgate - as in US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria "neo-con" Nuland uttering her famous "F**k the EU" - was way more serious. Not because of the "profanity" (praise the Lord!), but for providing what US Think Tankland hailed as "an indicator of American strategic thinking". 

Here's the game in a nutshell. Germany remote controls one of the leaders of the Ukrainian protests, heavyweight boxer Vitali Klitschko. [2] 

"F**k the EU" is essentially directed towards Berlin and Klitschko, its key protege. Washington sees this going nowhere, as Germany, after all, has been slowly building a complex energy-investment partnership with Russia. 

The Obama administration wants results - fast. Nuland herself stressed (check it out, starting at 7:26) that Washington, over the past two decades, has "invested" over US$5 billion for the "democratization" of Ukraine. So yes: this is "our" game and the EU is at best a nuisance while Russia remains the major spoiler. Welcome to Washington's Ukrainian "strategy". 

The Ukrainian chessboard
US Think Tankland now also peddles the notion that the Obama administration is expertly adept at a balance of power strategy. To include Libya as part of this "strategy" is a sick joke; Libya post-Gaddafi is a failed state, courtesy of humanitarian bombing by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Meanwhile, in Syria, the US "strategy" boils down to let Arabs kill Arabs in droves. 

Iran is way more complex. Arguably, the Obama administration calculates that through talks between Iran and the P5+1 - the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany - it will be able to outmaneuver the Russians, who are close to Tehran. This assuming the Obama administration really wants a nuclear deal with Iran that would later release the floodgates of Western business. 

On Syria, it's the Russian positions that have kept the upper hand; not to mention that Putin saved Obama from yet another Middle East war. As Syria was a Russian win, no wonder Washington dreams of a win in Ukraine. 

We can interpret what's goin' on now as a remix of the 2004 Orange Revolution. But The Big Picture goes way back - from NATO's expansion in the 1990s to American NGOs trying to destabilize Russia, NATO's flirt with Georgia, and those missile defense schemes so close to Russian borders. 

In already trademark Obama administration style, the State Department's support for anti-Russia, pro-EU protests in Ukraine qualifies as "leading from behind" (remember Libya?) 

It comes complete with "humanitarian" appeal, calls for "reconciliation" and good against evil dichotomy masking a drive towards regime change. Abandon all hope to find voices of sanity on US corporate media such as NYU and Princeton's Stephen Cohen, who cut to the chase in this piece, stressing that the essential revelation of Nulandgate "was that high-level US officials were plotting to 'midwife' a new, anti-Russian Ukrainian government by ousting or neutralizing its democratically elected president - that is, a coup". 

Here the "strategy" clearly reveals itself as a US puppet now - coup or no coup - instead of an EU puppet later. No one in the Beltway gives a damn that Viktor Yanukovich was legally elected president of Ukraine, and that he had full authority to reject a dodgy deal with the EU. 

And no one in the Beltway cares that the protests are now being led by Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) - a nasty collection of fascists, football hooligans, ultra-nationalists and all sorts of unsavory neo-Nazi elements; the Ukrainian equivalents of Bandar Bush's jihadis in Syria. 

Yet the US "strategy" rules that street protests should lead to regime change. It applies to the Ukraine, but it does not apply to Thailand. 

Washington wants regime change in the Ukraine for one reason only; in the wider New Great Game in Eurasia context, that would be the rough equivalent of Texas defecting from the US and becoming a Russian ally. 

Still, this gambit is bound to fail. Moscow has myriad ways to deploy economic leverage in Ukraine; it has access to much better intel than the Americans; and the protesters/gangs/neo-Nazis are just a noisy minority. 

Washington, tough, won't give up, as it sees both the political crisis in Ukraine as the emerging financial crisis in Kazakhstan as "opportunities" (Obama lingo) to threaten Moscow's economic/strategic interests. It's as if the Beltway was praying for a widespread financial crisis in the Russia-led Customs Union (Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus). 

Pray in fact is all they've got, while the EU, for all the grandiose, rhetorical wishful thinking, remains a divided mess. After Sochi, Vlad the Hammer will be back in business with a vengeance. Nuland and co, watch your back. 

Notes:
1. Journalistic malpractice & the dangers of Russia-bashing, RT, February 9, 2014.
2. EU Grooming Klitschko to Lead Ukraine, Der Spiegel Online, December 10, 2013. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

U.S. Attempts to Erase Haitian Nationhood

The world’s sole superpower behaves as if Haitian sovereignty no longer exists. Notions of legality are wholly absent in America’s occupation of Haiti, where the U.S. poses as the internationally recognized authority. Washington arrogantly improvises the terms of the Haitian “protectorate.”

U.S. Attempts to Erase Haitian Nationhood

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“The Haitian people ‘need democracy and self determination, said the U.S.-based Black is Back Coalition.”

Proud Haiti has been reduced to a de facto “protectorate” of the United States – a grotesque form of non-sovereignty in which the subjugated nation is “protected” by its worst enemy. Namibia under white-ruled South African administration comes to mind, although in Haiti’s case the United Nations does not even pretend to be on the side of the oppressed, acting instead as agent and enforcer for the superpower.

As Haiti writhes under the agony of hundreds of thousands dead, Bill Clinton picks through the bones in search of prime tourist spots and mango plantation sites. America’s most successful snake oil salesman is pleased to do the Haitian people’s thinking, planning and dreaming for them – and quite willing to speak for the afflicted country, as well. “This is an opportunity to reimagine the future for the Haitian people, to build what they want to become, not rebuild what they used to be,'' Clinton told the global oligarchs at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

In one sweeping sentence, Clinton claimed a kind of sovereignty over the Haitian people’s very imaginations, assigning himself the right to filter what was good or bad about Haiti’s past, and what is permissible in the future. Haitians are no longer allowed to possess their own dreams and remembrances, which have apparently been placed in United Nations trusteeship, under control of UN special envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton.

“MINUSTAH and the U.S. expeditionary force have conspired to starve out what’s left of Cite Soleil.”

As one of the world’s most shameless personalities, the former president is eminently qualified to represent both the UN and the U.S. armed missions in Haiti. The 9,000 troops and police of the UN Stabilization Force in Haiti (MINUSTAH) have for years waged war on the seaside shanty neighborhood of Cite Soleil, a political stronghold of exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Before the February, 2004, U.S.-backed coup, Cite Soleil was home to at least 300,000 desperately poor but politically organized people. Relentless MINUSTAH raids have drastically shrunk the slum’s population. By 2006, only 30 percent of residents still remained in some sections of Cite Soleil, according to human rights workers.

Since the earthquake, MINUSTAH and the U.S. expeditionary force have conspired to starve out what’s left of Cite Soleil. Three weeks after the catastrophe, the United Nations World Food Program described Cite Soleil as “no-go, for security reasons.”

Have the people of Cite Soleil been condemned to death and dispersal because of their pro-Aristide politics – a trait they shared with at least 60 percent of the population the last time a count was permitted – or are they doomed by their choice seaside location? Either reason will do, or both. Haiti’s poor are condemned in advance, for existing where inconvenient.

“Small rice farmers were forced off the land and into the shanty-opolis.”

The Haitian peasantry, which not so long ago kept the country self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs, became inconvenient after Washington forced Haiti to accept U.S. government-subsidized rice. Port-au-Prince, a town of about a quarter million in 1960, swelled to at least 2.5 million as small rice farmers were forced off the land and into the shanty-opolis, where they built what they could with the resources at hand. U.S.-imposed “structural adjustment” made Port-au-Prince a high-density death trap.

Somehow, this U.S.-mandated migration – which also contributed to the exodus abroad of many hundreds of thousands – is now numbered among the many “failures” of the Haitian people. They must now move again, to places outside Port-au-Prince where they can “reimagine the future,” in Bill Clinton’s words. But whatever the Haitians might imagine, the United States is determined to deny them the right to pursue those dreams. Americans hector Haitians to summon the will to rebuild, but strangle Haitian civil society by effectively outlawing the nation’s most popular political party, Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas. Self-determination is among those things Haitians must not be permitted to rebuild or reclaim.

“The U.S. strangles Haitian civil society by effectively outlawing the nation’s most popular political party.”

The Americans seem to prefer that Haitians have no government, at all, even one as compliant as that of President Rene Preval, who collaborated in banning Fanmi Lavalas from taking part in elections. Only one cent of every dollar in U.S. “relief” money goes to or through the Haitian government, which is thus reduced to a crippled and largely irrelevant spectator. The Americans will at some point “reimagine” precisely how the Haitian “protectorate” will be managed in these extraordinary times.

The Haitian people “need democracy and self determination,” said a statement by the U.S.-based Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, “not more military interventions by the U.S., which has sent more than 10,000 troops to subdue our people.” On February 20, the Black is Back Coalition will hold a National March and Rally to Defend Haiti, in Miami, Florida. “Our people in Haiti must have reparations, not self serving charity from France and the U.S.”

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

For more information on the March and Rally for Haiti, contact stpeteinpdum@yahoo.com, call (727) 821-6620 or go to www.blackisbackcoalition.org.

The Lie of Law: Courts Bow to State's Raw Power

Written by Chris Floyd

Wednesday, 06 January 2010 16:47

I. It is often forgotten how "legal" the Nazi regime in Germany really was. It did not take power in a violent revolution, but entered government through the entirely "legal" procedures of the time. The "legal" vote of the "legally" elected Reichstag gave Adolf Hitler the powers to rule by decree, thus imparting strict "legality" to the actions of his government. Indeed, there were several cases when those who felt the government had overstepped the bounds of law in a particular instance actually took the Nazi regime to court, and won. Why? Because the government was bound by "the rule of law." And the fact is, almost the entire pre-Nazi judicial system of the German state remained intact and operational throughout Hitler's reign. The "rule of law" carried on. Of course, as the Nazi regime plowed forward with its racist, militarist, imperialist agenda, this "rule of law" became increasingly elastic, countenancing a range of actions and policies that would have been considered heinous atrocities only a few years before. This trend was greatly accelerated after the Regime -- claiming "self-defense" following an alleged "invasion" by a small band of raiders -- launched a war which soon engulfed the world. Naturally, in such unusual and perilous circumstances, jurists were inclined to give the widest possible lee-way to the war powers of the state. After all, as one prominent judge declared, the war had pushed the nation “past the leading edge of a new and frightening paradigm, one that demands new rules be written. War is a challenge to law, and the law must adjust." -- No, wait. I must apologize for my mistake. That last quote was not, in fact, from a German jurist during the Nazi regime, but from a ruling issued this week by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit -- one of the highest courts in the land. The quoted opinion -- written by the legally appointed Judge Janice Rogers Brown -- was part of a sweeping ruling that greatly magnified the powers of the government to seize foreigners and hold them indefinitely without charges or legal appeal. The court denied the appeal of Ghaleb Nassar al-Bihani, who has been held in captivity for more than eight years. What was his crime? He served as a non-combatant clerk for a unit on one side of the long-running Afghan civil war. This war was fought largely between factions of violent extremists; Bihani had the misfortune to be serving in the army of the "wrong" faction when the United States intervened on behalf of the opposing extremists in 2001. Jason Ditz summarizes the case well at Antiwar.com: Bihani was a cook for a pro-Taliban faction fighting against the Northern Alliance before the 2001 US invasion, and his unit surrendered during the initial invasion. The Yemeni citizen is accused of “hostilities against the United States” even though he arrived in Afghanistan nearly six months before the US invasion. Not only did his unit never fight against American forces, he was a cook who doesn’t appear to have ever participated in any combat at all. Despite this, he was declared an enemy combatant. Let's underscore the salient fact: Bihani never took up arms against the United States, was involved in no combat against the United States (or anyone else, apparently), played no part in any attack on the United States. Yet the court ruled that the United States can arbitrarily declare Bihani an "enemy combatant" and hold him captive for the rest of his life. But the eminent judges did not stop there in their entirely "legal" ruling. As the New York Times reports, they went to declare that "the presidential war power to detain those suspected of terrorism is not limited even by international law of war." And later: "the majority’s argument [is] that the president’s war powers are not bound by the international laws of war." Think of that. Let it sink in. The president's war powers cannot be constrained by the international laws of war. Whatever the Leader (no points for translating this term into German) decides to do in the course of a war is thus rendered entirely "legal." He cannot be accused of international war crimes because such things do not apply to him. With this ruling -- which is all of a piece with many more that have preceded it -- we are well and truly "past the leading edge of a new and frightening paradigm." What is most frightening, of course, is the obscene philosophy of machtpolitik -- the craven kowtowing to the demands of brute force -- that is embodied in Judge Brown's chilling words: "War is a challenge to law, and the law must adjust." Again, remember the context of this ruling. It deals with the Leader's power over foreign citizens in lands that the Leader's armies are occupying. The judicial "reasoning" expressed by Judge Brown could apply, without the slightest alteration, to the Nazi regime's various programs of mass killing and "indefinite detention" of "enemy" foreigners in occupied lands. The "resettlement" of Eastern Europe -- in order to provide for the "national security" of the German people and the preservation of their "way of life" -- did indeed require a pathbreaking advance into a "new paradigm" on the part of the law. The exigencies and challenges of the war demanded, as Judge Brown would put it, that "new rules be written." And so they were. Under the duly, officially, formally constituted German "law" of the time -- as interpreted and applied by obsequious jurists in the mold of Judge Brown and her fellow war power expander, Judge Brett Kavanaugh -- there was little or nothing that was "illegal" in the vast catalogue of Nazi wartime atrocities, including the Holocaust itself. The perpetrators were "only following orders," which had been issued by "legal" entities, acting through "legal" processes, under the direction of the "legal" executive authority, whose unrestrained war powers had been established and upheld by the "rule of law." Now this legal philosophy -- the primacy of raw, unaccountable power -- is being openly established by the highest courts of the United States. President Barack Obama, whose legal minions fought so ferociously to deny the appeal of the non-combatant captive, has been an ardent proponent and practitioner of this philosophy since his first days in office. His administration has proclaimed that the torturers of the Bush administration will not be prosecuted, because they were just following orders -- orders which had been issued by legal entities, acting through legal processes, under the direction of the legal executive authority, whose unrestrained war powers had been established and upheld by the "rule of law." II. It was not always thus. A few years ago, when writing of the "constitutional and moral issues raised by Bush's liberty-gutting 'unitary executive' dictatorship" (which Obama has enthusiastically continued and expanded), I ran across a Supreme Court ruling from December 1866 -- more than 140 years ago: Ex Parte Milligan. In this ruling, which grew out of the wartime excesses of the Lincoln Administration, the Court -- dominated by five Lincoln appointees -- was unequivocal: Constitutional protections not only apply "equally in war and peace" but also – in a dramatic extension of this legal shield – to "all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances." No emergency – not even open civil war – warrants their suspension. Even in wartime, the President's powers, though expanded, are still restrained: "he is controlled by law, and has his appropriate sphere of duty, which is to execute, not to make, the laws." As I noted earlier in the piece: It was a decisive ruling against a government that had far overreached its powers, stripping away essential liberties in the name of national security. The Justice who authored the majority opinion was a Republican, an old friend and political crony of the president who had appointed him. Even so, his ruling struck hard at the abuses set in train by his patron. He stood upon the law, he stood upon the Constitution, even in the aftermath of a shattering blow that had killed more than 600,000 Americans and almost destroyed the nation itself. This is what the Court decided: "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false; for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it, which are necessary to preserve its existence." The author was Justice David Davis, an Illinois lawyer appointed by Abraham Lincoln after helping run the campaign that gave his old colleague the presidency in the fateful 1860 election. (Davis was also, by a strange quirk of history, the second cousin of George W. Bush's great-grandfather.) By the time the Court issued its ruling, Lincoln was dead, but the after-effects of his ever-expanding suspension of civil liberties during wartime were still roiling through the courts, and through America's fractured society. The Milligan ruling was, in the words of legal scholar John P. Frank, "one of the truly great documents of the American Constitution," a "bulwark" for civil liberties, expansive and exacting in the Constitutional protections it spelled out. The ruling acknowledged that there are times when the writ of habeas corpus may have to be suspended in an area where hostilities are directly taking place – but even this power, they noted, was highly circumscribed and specifically delegated to Congress, not the president. Lincoln exceeded this authority on numerous occasions, increasing the scope of his powers until the entire Union was essentially under martial law, and anyone arbitrarily deemed guilty of never-defined "disloyal practices" could be arrested or silenced – in the latter case by having their newspaper shut down, for instance. (Lincoln would sometimes – but not always – seek ex post facto Congressional authorization for these acts.) Some parts of the Union that the Lincoln administration thought particularly disloyal were officially put under martial law -- such as southern Indiana, where anti-war agitator Lambdin Milligan and four others were accused of a plot to free Confederate prisoners, and were summarily tried and sentenced to death by a military tribunal. It was this case that the Court – five of whom were Lincoln appointees – overturned in such a decided fashion. As noted, that ruling was made in a nation still reeling from a savage, titanic war fought on its own territory. Even in the midst of such turmoil, the idea that "the laws must adjust" to the exigencies of war -- even the extremity of ruinous civil war -- was considered anathema, even to conservative jurists with close ties to the government. But no longer. Although, unlike a civil war, even the worst terrorist attack imaginable would pose no existential threat to the nation, today the merest whisper of the possibility of a limited terrorist incident shakes the United States to its foundations -- and people willingly line up to be stripped naked by machines, while courts crawl on their bellies before the terrible majesty of unrestrained executive power. Be assured: the "rule of law" means nothing, protects nothing, sustains nothing. It can always be twisted and stretched by cowards, courtiers and power-seekers. Arthur Silber, as he does so often, cuts to heart of the matter in this powerful essay from 2009, "Concerning the State, the Law, and Show Trials": The law is not some Platonic Form plucked from the skies by the Pure in Heart. Laws are written by men, men who have particular interests, particular constituencies, particular donors, and particular friends. ... Laws are the particular means by which the state implements and executes its vast powers. When an increasingly authoritarian state passes a certain critical point in its development, the law is no longer the protector of individual rights and individual liberty. The law becomes the weapon of the state itself -- to protect, not you, but the state from threats to its own powers. We passed that critical point some decades ago. The law is the means by which the state corrals its subjects, keeps them under control, and forbids them from acting in ways that the overlords might perceive as threatening. In brief, today, in these glorious United States, the law is not your friend. Indeed it is not. In our "low dishonest" century, the "rule of law" has become the "lie of Authority" that Auden speaks of. It will not save us. What matters -- as always -- is moral courage in the face of power's encroachments. Sometimes this can be found within an institutional framework, as in the Supreme Court's bold expansion of legal rights to all people, "at all times, and under all circumstances" back in 1866; and of course it can be found in the lives and actions of individuals, acting singly or in concert. Auden again: Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

The Year in Hate: Number of Hate Groups Tops 900

	The Year in Hate Number of Hate Groups Tops 900 By David Holthouse Illustration by Sean McCabe
	From white power skinheads decrying "President Obongo" at a racist gathering in rural Missouri, to neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen hurling epithets at Latino immigrants from courthouse steps in Oklahoma, to anti-Semitic black separatists calling for death to Jews on bustling street corners in several East Coast cities, hate group activity in the U.S. was disturbing and widespread throughout 2008, as the number of hate groups operating in America continued to rise. Last year, 926 hate groups were active in the U.S., up more than 4% from 888 in 2007. That's more than a 50% increase since 2000, when there were 602 groups. As in recent years, hate groups were animated by the national immigration debate. But two new forces also drove them in 2008: the worsening recession, and Barack Obama's successful campaign to become the nation's first black president. Officials reported that Obama had received more threats than any other presidential candidate in memory, and several white supremacists were arrested for saying they would assassinate him or allegedly plotting to do so. At the same time, law enforcement officials reported a marked swelling of the extreme-right "sovereign citizens" movement that wreaked havoc in the 1990s with its "paper terrorism" tactics. Adherents are infamous for filing bogus property liens and orchestrating elaborate financial ripoffs. Somewhat surprisingly, it wasn't just the usual suspects from the white supremacist underworld who sought to exploit the country's economic turmoil and political strife. A key 2008 hate group trend was the increasing militancy of the extremist fringe of the Hebrew Israelite movement, whose adherents believe that Jews are creatures of the devil and that whites deserve death or slavery. These radical black supremacists have no love for Barack Obama, calling him a "house nigger" and a puppet of Israel. They preach to inner-city blacks that evil Jews are solely responsible for the recession. The rhetoric of white-skinned hate group leaders in 2008 was equally alarming. Last September, for example the cover of National Socialist magazine depicted then-presidential nominee Barack Obama in the crosshairs of a scope, with the headline "Kill This Nigger?" What follows is a detailed look at the three most active and dangerous white supremacist hate group sectors in 2008: Ku Klux Klan groups, neo-Nazis, and racist skinheads. KU KLUX KLAN Ku Klux Klan groups Reversing a generally declining trend since 2000, Klan groups in the U.S. increased significantly in 2008, from 155 chapters to 186. Seventeen new chapters belong to the Brotherhood of Klans Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (BOK), which during the past five years has grown into the largest Klan organization in the country. In 2008, the Marion, Ohio-headquartered BOK launched a handful of chapters in Canada, linking up with the Aryan Guard, a fast-growing white nationalist group based in Alberta. A smaller but likewise rapidly expanding Klan group, the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which in 2007 absorbed the National Aryan Knights, more than doubled its number of chapters and tripled its geographic reach last year, going from 11 chapters in eight states to 24 chapters in 24 states. The continued rise of the United Northern and Southern Knights and the BOK paralleled the decline of the Imperial Klans of America (IKA). Since 2005, the IKA has shriveled from 39 chapters in 26 states to just six chapters in five states. Last year, it suffered a crippling blow when a Meade County, Ky., jury delivered a $2.5 million judgment against members of the IKA, including $1 million against IKA leader Ron Edwards, in a lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of a mixed-race teenager who was assaulted by IKA thugs in Kentucky. Beyond the IKA trial, the biggest Klan story for the mainstream media in 2008 was the murder of a 43-year-old Tulsa, Okla., woman during a backwoods Klan initiation ritual near Bogalusa, La. According to law enforcement investigators, the victim was recruited over the Internet to join the Sons of Dixie, a tiny KKK faction led by Raymond "Chuck" Foster. Foster allegedly shot the woman in the head after she changed her mind about joining the Klan. Blipping on the media's radar last December was the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, whose imperial wizard, Ray Larsen, called for all Klansmen "worldwide" to wear black armbands and fly the American flag upside down on Jan. 20, the day of Barack Obama's inauguration. NEO-NAZIS Neo-Nazi groups A slight drop in the number of neo-Nazi chapters last year from 207 to 194 was attributable largely to the dissolution of National Vanguard after its leader, Kevin Alfred Strom, was convicted in January 2008 on child pornography charges. (Strom was released last fall after serving prison time.) Another major neo-Nazi leader, American National Socialist Workers Party "Commander" Bill White, also suffered legal troubles in 2008, culminating in his December indictment on several federal felony counts for posting death threats on his website or by making them by phone. Along with the threats, White often posted the home addresses of perceived enemies, ranging from Canadian human rights attorney Richard Warman (in an item subtly titled "Kill Richard Warman") to Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts to officials of the Southern Poverty Law Center. When the seven-count federal indictment came down, White was already jailed in Chicago on separate charges. He was arrested last October and extradited from Roanoke, Va., where he owns apartments in black neighborhoods, to face a federal obstruction of justice charge for allegedly threatening the foreman of a Chicago jury that convicted neo-Nazi leader Matt Hale in 2004 of soliciting the murder of a federal judge. Still, despite White's legal and personal financial turmoil (he declared bankruptcy last June), the ANSWP grew last year from 30 chapters in 26 states to 35 chapters in 28 states, making it the second-largest neo-Nazi organization in the country, after the National Socialist Movement (NSM). Apart from its usual literature dispersals, book burnings, swastika lightings, and its annual "Hated and Proud" hate rock festival, the NSM in 2008 targeted Latino immigrants with sizable "illegal invasion" protests in Washington, D.C., and Omaha, Neb. Subjected for years to movement ridicule for their brown-shirt uniforms, NSM national and state chapter leaders also voted at the group's National Congress last April to switch to "more militant looking" black BDUs (Battle Dress Uniforms). Even with the makeover, the NSM lost 30 chapters last year (it later added 26, for a net loss of six chapters) after leader Jeff Schoep abandoned his family and relocated NSM headquarters from Minneapolis to Detroit in January 2008, reportedly to move in with a new girlfriend of dubious Aryan purity. Nevertheless, the NSM benefited from diminished competition as the formerly dominant National Alliance continued its long decline, shrinking to 11 chapters in nine states. Similarly, Aryan Nations, another one-time powerhouse, withered to 11 chapters in 10 states. White Revolution gained no ground, ending the year as it began with a dozen chapters. Two upstart neo-Nazi groups emerged in 2008. The League of American Patriots, which held its inaugural meeting last March 29, appears to be comprised of former National Vanguard members. The second newcomer, Knights of the Nordic Order, was founded by "two former captains of the Aryan Brotherhood," a notorious white supremacist prison gang, according to its website. RACIST SKINHEADS Racist Skinhead groups The total number of racist skinhead crews, driven by the addition of a couple of new organizations, rose from 90 in 2007 to 98 last year. Relatively inactive in 2007, Hammerskin Nation, long a force to be reckoned with in the racist skinhead subculture, came back in a big way in 2008. The diminished tally of Hammerskins chapters (which dropped from 15 to 12) is misleading, as it represents the merging of smaller chapters and Hammerskin leaders weeding out weaker outfits, rather than a real drop in the organization's strength and membership. On the contrary, the Hammerskins last year stepped up recruiting while forging new bonds with other skinhead groups and hosting dozens of hate rock concerts, white power cookouts, Mixed Martial Arts prizefight viewing parties and other widely promoted events. The Confederate Hammerskins (CHS), the organization's southeastern regional division, kept particularly busy, beginning last March with a St. Patty's Day concert in Central Florida that was heavily attended by skins from across the country. Represented crews included Volksfront, Blood & Honour American Division, Atlantic City Skins, Troops of Tomorrow, and The Hated. Members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, a notorious biker gang, also attended. A close Hammerskins ally, the Portland, Ore.-based Volksfront, held its first annual "Althing" gathering last Aug. 29-Sept. 1 on private land purchased by Volksfront in rural Missouri, about an hour's drive north of St. Louis. Part three-day hate rock blowout, part skinhead summit, the Althing was held in the "Samuel Weaver Memorial Hall," named after white supremacist Randy Weaver's son, who was killed by federal agents during the infamous Ruby Ridge standoff in 1992 (Weaver's wife and a U.S. marshal were also killed). Among the white supremacist leaders who attended was veteran skinhead organizer David Lynch, leader of the resurgent Sacramento, Calif.-based crew American Front. Last December, more than 100 skinheads from at least five states gathered in Florida for a "Martyr's Day" party, co-sponsored by CHS, Volksfront and American Front, that featured a keynote address phoned in from prison by Richard Kemp, a member of the white supremacist terrorist group The Order. Martyr's Day commemorates the 1984 death of Order founder Bob Mathews, who died in a shootout with the FBI. Another noteworthy development in the skinhead sector was the severe weakening of the Vinlanders Social Club (VSC), a skinhead coalition that began in 2003 and grew to become Hammerskin Nation's primary rival. Plagued by infighting, criminal prosecutions and desertions, the Vinlanders made no public appearances in 2008, limiting their activities to private beer bashes. Three inner-circle Vinlanders, including co-founder Eric "The Butcher" Fairburn, were convicted last year of a March 2007 racially motivated attack on a homeless black man in downtown Indianapolis. At his sentencing hearing last August, Fairburn publicly renounced the skinhead movement. Formerly aligned with the VSC, the Keystone State Skinheads (KSS) distanced their group from the Vinlanders, changed their name to Keystone United and recast themselves as media-friendly "pro-white" activists. Keystone mouthpiece Keith Carney denounced hooliganism in several newspaper and television interviews. Last October, the group held a "Leif Ericson Day Celebration," honoring the Viking explorer, in a Philadelphia public park on the banks of the Schuylkill River. In contrast to the screaming hate rock performed by Absolute Terror and Total War at the annual Keystone-sponsored "Uprise" concert in January 2008, which was held in a secret location, Celtic folk musicians provided entertainment at the two-faced crew's "family-friendly" event. In contrast to KSS, the United Society of Aryan Skinheads (USAS) made no effort to revamp its image in 2008. Formed in recent years inside California's state prison system, the USAS continues to espouse white-power skinhead ideology and grow into a strong presence throughout Southern California as members are paroled. The USAS went from a single chapter in 2007 to nine chapters in 2008, including three separate crews in San Diego, the group's base of operations in the outside world. Though populated almost entirely by ex-cons, the USAS, unlike most prison-based white supremacists, actually maintains a powerful racist identity and rarely compromises principles in favor of criminal profits. One major new racist skinhead group surfaced in 2008: the Supreme White Alliance, or SWA. Co-founded by Kentucky skinhead Steven Edwards, son of Imperial Klans of America leader Ron Edwards, the SWA by year's end boasted eight chapters in as many states, an active website and a substantial online presence on MySpace as well as on the white nationalist social networking site New Saxon. The group's vice president is former IKA member Jarred Hensley, who served more than a year for his role in the hate crime assault that led to the SPLC lawsuit. "Out of prison and back on the streets," Hensley posted on MySpace last July upon his release. "It's gr88 to be a Skinhead!" Last October, former SWA probate Daniel Cowart was arrested in Tennesee with another skinhead he met online for allegedly plotting to assassinate Barack Obama after killing 88 black students (88 is neo-Nazi code for the phrase "Heil Hitler"). The SWA claimed that Cowart had been kicked out prior to hatching the plan. Southern Poverty Law Center 400 Washington Ave. Montgomery, AL 36104

The United States is A Government Devoid of Truth and Decency By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

A Government Devoid of Truth and Decency

What Do We Stand For?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS



Americans traditionally thought of their country as a "city upon a hill," a "light unto the world." Today only the deluded think that. Polls show that the rest of the world regards the US and Israel as the two greatest threats to peace.

This is not surprising. In the words of Arthur Silber: "The Bush administration has announced to the world, and to all Americans, that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars of aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing authoritarian state at home. That is what we stand for." *

Addressing his fellow Americans, Silber asks the paramount question, "why do you support " these horrors?

His question goes to the heart of the matter. Do we Americans have any honor, any humanity, any integrity, any awareness of the crimes our government is committing in our name? Do we have a moral conscience?

How can a moral conscience be reconciled with our continuing to tolerate our government which has invaded two countries on the basis of lies and deception, destroyed their civilian infrastructures and murdered hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children?

The killing and occupation continue even though we now know that the invasions were based on lies and fabricated "evidence." The entire world knows this. Yet, Americans continue to act as if the gratuitous invasions, the gratuitous killing, and the gratuitous destruction are justified. There is no end of it in sight.

If Americans have any honor, how can they betray their Founding Fathers, who gave them liberty, by tolerating a government that claims immunity to law and the Constitution and is erecting a police state in their midst?

Answers to these questions vary. Some reply that a fearful and deceived American public seeks safety from terrorists in government power.

Others answer that a majority of Americans finally understand the evil that Bush has set loose and tried to stop him by voting out the Republicans in November 2006 and putting the Democrats in control of Congress--all to no effect--and are now demoralized as neither party gives a hoot for public opinion or has a moral conscience.

The people ask over and over, "What can we do?"

Very little when the institutions put in place to protect the people from tyranny fail. In the US, the institutions have failed across the board.

The freedom and independence of the watchdog press was destroyed by the media concentration that was permitted by the Clinton administration and Congress. Americans who rely on traditional print and TV media simply have no idea what is afoot.

Political competition failed when the opposition party became a "me-too" party. The Democrats even confirmed as attorney general Michael Mukasey, an authoritarian who refuses to condemn torture and whose rulings as a federal judge undermined habeas corpus. Such a person is now the highest law enforcement officer in the United States.

The judicial system failed when federal judges ruled that "state secrets" and "national security" are more important than government accountability and the rule of law.

The separation of powers failed when Congress acquiesced to the executive branch's claims of primary power and independence from statutory law and the Constitution.

It failed again when the Democrats refused to impeach Bush and Cheney.
Without the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, America can never recover. The precedents for unaccountable government established by the Bush administration are too great, their damage too lasting. Without impeachment, America will continue to sink into dictatorship in which criticism of the government and appeals to the Constitution are criminalized. We are closer to executive rule than many people know.

Silber reminds us that America once had leaders, such as Speaker of the House Thomas B. Reed and Senator Robert M. LaFollette Sr., who valued the principles upon which America was based more than they valued their political careers. Perhaps Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are of this ilk, but America has fallen so low that people who stand on principle today are marginalized. They cannot become Speaker of the House or a leader in the Senate.

Today Congress is almost as superfluous as the Roman Senate under the Caesars. On February 13 the US Senate barely passed a bill banning torture, and the White House promptly announced that President Bush would veto it. Torture is now the American way.

The US Senate was only able to muster 51 votes against torture, an indication that almost a majority of US Senators support torture.

Bush says that his administration does not torture. So why veto a bill prohibiting torture? Bush seems proud to present America to the world as a torturer.

After years of lying to Americans and the rest of the world that Guantanamo prison contained 774 of "the world's most dangerous terrorists," the Bush regime is bringing 6 of its victims to trial. The vast majority of the 774 detainees have been quietly released. The US government stole years of life from hundreds of ordinary people who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and were captured by warlords and sold to the stupid Americans as "terrorists." Needing terrorists to keep the farce going, the US government dropped leaflets in Afghanistan offering $25,000 a head for "terrorists."

Kidnappings ensued until the US government had purchased enough "terrorists" to validate the "terrorist threat."

The six that the US is bringing to "trial" include two child soldiers for the Taliban and a car pool driver who allegedly drove bin Laden.

The Taliban did not attack the US. The child soldiers were fighting in an Afghan civil war.

The US attacked the Taliban. How does that make Taliban soldiers terrorists who should be locked up and abused in Gitmo and brought before a kangeroo military tribunal? If a terrorist hires a driver or a taxi, does that make the driver a terrorist? What about the pilots of the airliners who brought the alleged 9/11 terrorists to the US? Are they guilty, too?

The Gitmo trials are show trials. Their only purpose is to create the precedent that the executive branch can ignore the US court system and try people in the same manner that innocent people were tried in Stalinist Russia and Gestapo Germany. If the Bush regime had any real evidence against the Gitmo detainees, it would have no need for its kangeroo military tribunal.

If any more proof is needed that Bush has no case against any of the Gitmo detainees, the following AP News report, February 14, 2008, should suffice: "The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to limit judges' authority to scrutinize evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay."

The reason Bush doesn't want judges to see the evidence is that there is no evidence except a few confessions obtained by torture. In the American system of justice, confession obtained by torture is self-incrimination and is impermissible evidence under the US Constitution.

Andy Worthington's book, The Guantanamo Files, and his online articles make it perfectly clear that the "dangerous terrorists" claim of the Bush administration is just another hoax perpetrated on the inattentive American public.

Recently the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity issued a report that documents the fact that Bush administration officials made 935 false statements about Iraq to the American people in order to deceive them into going along with Bush's invasion.

In recent testimony before Congress, Bush's Secretary of State and former National Security Advisor, Condi Rice, was asked by Rep. Robert Wexler about the 56 false statements she made.

Rice replied: "I take my integrity very seriously and I did not at any time make a statement that I knew to be false." Rice blamed "the intelligence assessments" which "were wrong."

Another Rice lie, like those mushroom clouds that were going to go up over American cities if we didn't invade Iraq. The weapon inspectors told the Bush administration that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as Scott Ritter has reminded us over and over. Every knowledgeable person in the country knew there were no weapons. As the leaked Downing Street memo confirms, the head of British intelligence told the UK cabinet that the Bush administration had already decided to invade Iraq and was making up the intelligence to justify the invasion.

But let's assume that Rice was fooled by faulty intelligence. If she had any integrity she would have resigned. In the days when American government officials had integrity, they would have resigned in shame from such a disastrous war and terrible destruction based on their mistake. But Condi Rice, like all the Bush (and Clinton) operatives, is too full of American self-righteousness and ambition to have any remorse about her mistake. Condi can still look herself in the mirror despite one million Iraqis dying from her mistake and several million more being homeless refugees, just as Clinton's Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, can still look herself in the mirror despite sharing responsibility for 500,000 dead Iraqi children.

There is no one in the Bush administration with enough integrity to resign. It is a government devoid of truth, morality, decency and honor. The Bush administration is a blight upon America and upon the world.

(*The Silber piece can be found here.)

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan's first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

American Liberty Teetering on Edge of Abyss By Paul Craig Roberts

“Your papers please” has long been a phrase associated with Hitler’s Gestapo. People without the Third Reich’s stamp of approval were hauled off to Nazi Germany’s version of Halliburton detention centers.

Today Americans are on the verge of being asked for their papers, although probably without the “please.”

Thanks to a government that has turned its back on the US Constitution, Americans now have an unaccountable Department of Homeland Security that is already asserting tyrannical powers over US citizens and state governments. Headed by the neocon fanatic Michael Chertoff, the Orwellian-sounding Department of Homeland Security has mandated a national identity card for Americans, without which Americans may not enter airports or courthouses.

There is no more need for this card than there is for a Department of Homeland Security. Neither are compatible with a free society.

However, Bush, the neocons, Republicans and Democrats do not want America to any longer be a free society, and they are taking freedom away from us just as they took away the independence of the media.

Free and informed people get in the way of power-mad zealots with agendas.

It is the agendas that are supreme, not the American people, who have less and less say about less and less.

George W. Bush, an elected president, has behaved like a dictator since September 11, 2001. If “our” representatives in Congress care, they haven’t done anything about it. Bush has pretty much cut Congress out of the action.

In truth, Congress gave up its law making powers to the executive branch during the New Deal. For three-quarters of a century, the bills passed by Congress have been authorizations for executive branch agencies to make laws in the form of regulations. The executive branch has come to the realization that it doesn’t really need Congress. President Bush appends his own “signing statements” to the authorizations from Congress in which the President says what the legislation means. So what is the point of Congress?

As for laws already on the books, the US Department of Justice (sic) has ruled that the President doesn’t have to abide by US statutes, such as FISA or the law forbidding torture. Neither does the President have to abide by the Geneva Conventions.

Other obstacles are removed by edicts known as presidential directives or executive orders. There are more and more of these edicts, and they accumulate more and more power and less and less accountability in the executive.

The disdain in which the executive branch holds the “separate and equal” legislative branch is everywhere apparent. For example, President Bush is concluding a long-term security agreement with the puppet government he has set up in Iraq. Prior to September 11, 2001, when the President became The Decider, a defense pact was a treaty requiring the approval of Congress.

All that is now behind us. General Douglas Lute, President Bush’s national security adviser for Iraq says that the White House will not be submitting the deal to Congress for approval. Lute says Bush will not be seeking any “formal inputs from the Congress.”

“There is no question that this is unprecedented,” said Yale Law School Professor O. Hathaway.

Bush can do whatever he wants, because Congress has taken its only remaining power--impeachment--off the table.

The Democratic Party leadership thinks that the only problem is Bush, who will be gone in one year. Besides, the Israel Lobby doesn’t want Israel’s champion impeached, and neither do the corporate owners of the US media.

The Democrats are not adverse to inheriting the powers in Bush’s precedents. The Democrats, of course, will use the elevated powers for good rather than for evil.

Instead of having a bad dictator, we’ll have a good one.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

THE NEXT WAR, AND THE NEXT, The militarization of outer space By Jack A Smith

(For the first part of this two-part article, see The futuristic battlefield)

Outer space begins where Earth's atmosphere ends, some 100 kilometers above the globe's surface. The United States wants the ability to militarize outer space to sustain its world dominance. The Pentagon can already monitor the world from space. Now it seeks to develop and deploy military systems in space that allow the US to strike with great force anywhere on Earth in less than an hour.

The Defense Department's Global Strike Integration policy seeks to "gain and maintain both global and theater space superiority and deliver tailored, integrated, full-spectrum space support to the theater commander, while maintaining a robust defensive global counter-space posture".

This means occupying space with surveillance and reconnaissance satellites and anti-satellites, ballistic missiles, missile or kinetic interceptors, and other advanced technology weapons to assist US land, sea and air forces in maintaining military hegemony throughout the world. It also means preventing any other country, by force if necessary, from using space for similar purposes, including self-defense.

Aside from the satellites, which have become key to the Pentagon's battle plans, most of the other technology is in the research and development stage or awaiting deployment decisions from the White House that are complicated by political complexities.

The George W Bush administration - especially the Defense Department and particularly the US Air Force (USAF) - is anxious to launch a full-scale militarization of space, regardless of its enormous expense and the fact that it will inspire worldwide condemnation, generate a dangerous arms race in outer space, and undoubtedly enhance prospects for major wars in this century.

The rightists and neo-conservatives are not unaware of these potential consequences but they are confident the US will prevail because of its overwhelming power. In effect, "It's worth the price."

But that mindset is not shared so far by most Americans outside the hard right, particularly in the absence of any other country that could come near to threatening the United States for global primacy. In addition, virtually every other nation in the world, including Washington's close allies in Canada and the European Union, opposes the weaponization of space, as is evident from repeated votes at the United Nations.

What this means is that the US is clearly heading toward space militarization - more slowly during the Bill Clinton administration, more swiftly during the Bush administration - but not yet with the acceleration the war hawks demand or the Bushites would prefer.

The annual US space budget amounts to about US$36 billion. This constitutes 73% of what the world's nations collectively spend on space, including China, Russia, the European Union, Japan and India, according to the Space Security Project.

At a certain point, perhaps in the not distant future, one Washington administration or another may be able to convince the American people, and particularly the elite that rules the country, that Russia, China or both have become such grave threats to US hegemony that survival depends on extending the reach of Fortress Americana into the heavens. Since the Second Cold War against both these countries is getting under way, the pretext is in the process of becoming established.

The plan to use outer space as part of America's war preparations was put forward by the right wing during the vehemently anti-Soviet years of the 1980s, resulting in president Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" anti-missile program and the creation of the Air Force Space Command in 1982, the mission of which is to "defend North America through its space and intercontinental-ballistic-missile operations - vital force elements in projecting global reach and global power".

By the 1990s, the neo-conservatives were developing ideas for projecting US power throughout the world, including the militarization of space - resulting in an influential document published in 2000 by the Project for the New American Century titled Rebuilding America's Defenses. A year after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center, President Bush included most of these ideas in a new National Security Strategy for the United States. At about the same time, Bush withdrew the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which had barred development of missile defenses and space-based systems.

One complication for the Pentagon is that the US, as a signatory of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, may not "place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction (chemical or biological killers), install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner".

Thus at this stage the US military space program is based on "conventional" warfare, not weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but with a few adjustments this could change. For instance, more than 70% the Pentagon's "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad during the first days of the invasion of Iraq was coordinated and sent to target through military satellites in space. These bombs were conventional explosives, but satellites could have guided nuclear weapons as long as they were not launched from space.

According to Hans M Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, "Although Global Strike is primarily a non-nuclear mission, the information collected [about the program] reveals that nuclear weapons are surprisingly prominent in both the planning and command structure for Global Strike."

Both China and Russia, among many nations, have been attempting to gain UN passage of a new treaty banning conventional weapons in space as well as WMD, and also prohibiting the use of satellites to guide warfare on the ground. True to its militarist imperative, the US will not allow any such treaty to interfere with its plans.

Bush put forward a 10-page unclassified version of the new US National Space Policy last October, superseding the Clinton administration policy of September 1996, but it generally obfuscated the government's real intentions. The new policy was similar in some instances to the Clinton era policy but more unilateral, arrogant and favorable toward space militarization, though not coming out with it honestly.

Only by reading between the convoluted lines was it possible to comprehend fully that the US government intends to do as it pleases militarily in outer space, including preventing other countries from obtaining a similar strategic advantage.

Here is an example: "The United States is committed to the exploration and use of outer space by all nations for peaceful purposes, and for the benefit of all humanity. Consistent with this principle, 'peaceful purposes' allow US defense and intelligence-related activities in pursuit of national interests."

(Translation: Since we respect your peaceful purposes, you must respect ours, so butt out.)

Here's another: "The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit US access to or use of space. Proposed arms-control agreements or restrictions must not impair the rights of the United States to conduct research, development, testing, and operations or other activities in space for US national interests." (Translation: The US intends to militarize space, and as the principal member of the Security Council and world hegemon, we will not allow a new treaty to abrogate our rights.)

Another: Under the title "National Security Space Guidelines", the document declared that the Defense Department would:

"Develop and deploy space capabilities that sustain US advantage and support defense and intelligence transformation."
Provide "reliable, affordable, and timely space access for national-security purposes".
"Provide space capabilities to support continuous, global strategic and tactical warning as well as multi-layered and integrated missile defenses."
"Develop capabilities, plans, and options to ensure freedom of action in space, and, if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries."

(Translation: We're ready to roll, so move out of the way.)

Theresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, said that while the new policy "doesn't go as far as some space hawks wanted it to in openly endorsing the strategy of fighting 'in, from and through' space, neither has it served to put a blanket - even a thin one - on those ambitions. And in taking a decidedly 'us against them' tone, it is likely to further cement the view from abroad that the United States has taken on the role of a 'Lone Space Cowboy'."

It took four years and three dozen revisions until a final version of the National Space Policy was approved - a reflection of how complex it must be to transform a military plan to control the world into a space travelogue. The report was actually delayed for 15 months after press reports revealed that Bush was leaning toward a USAF request for a presidential directive permitting the deployment of weapons in space. The uproar evidently persuaded the Bushites to tone down the policy - a problem solved by not mentioning it.

Moscow and Beijing have been calling for years for an international ban on any kind of weaponization of outer space, including militarized reconnaissance and communications satellites, and conventional weapons as well as WMD. In 2002, China and Russia, co-sponsored by Vietnam, Syria, Indonesia, Belarus and Zimbabwe, presented a proposal to the United Nations for a treaty to demilitarize space completely, tentatively called the "Prevention of the Deployment of Weapons in Outer Space [and] the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects". The US not only rejected the possibility of such a treaty, it refused even to discuss the matter.

Meanwhile, a number of other resolutions have also been introduced concerned with preventing an arms race in space and gained impressive majorities.

In 2000, for example, a resolution on the Prevention of an Outer Space Arms Race was passed with a vote of 163-0 with three abstentions, Micronesia, Israel and the United States. In 2003, the UN vote to prevent an arms race in space was 174-4, with the Marshall Islands joining the "Big Three", which all voted in opposition this time. Last year, the UN General Assembly vote on preventing an arms race in space was passed 166-1. Israel abstained. The US voted No.

Publicly, Washington maintains that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and other legal measures render a new treaty redundant, but that's only because the treaty allows the US to militarize space via the back door of satellites with battlefield connections and weapons other than WMD. Most of the rest of the world opposes any militarization of space, and Washington and Israel evidently cannot even always rely on the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.

The Bush administration has repeatedly expressed contempt for the Russia-China treaty proposal and similar efforts from other countries. Former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, perhaps the most vociferous of the neo-conservative initiators of the Iraq war, declared in October 2002, "Space offers attractive options not only for missile defense, but for a broad range of interrelated civil and military missions." Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, another war hawk, commented in Geneva in September 2004, "We are not prepared to negotiate on the so-called arms race in outer space. We just don't see that as a worthwhile enterprise."

The White House is reluctant openly to acknowledge its intention to militarize space, but the USAF in particular has been quite frank. In 1996, the then head of the Space Command, General Joseph W Ashy, was quoted as saying: "We're going to fight from space, and we're going to fight into space. That's why the US has development programs in directed energy and hit-to-kill mechanisms. We will engage terrestrial targets some day - ships, airplanes, land targets - from space."

In 2004, Under Secretary of the Air Force Peter B Teets, discussing America's intentions in space, declared bluntly, "We are paving the road of 21st-century warfare." In May 2005, the New York Times quoted General Lance Lord, another head of the Space Command, as revealing, "Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny. Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future." He did not explain how space superiority is obtained, but there is only one way - dominant military force.

The USAF acknowledges that the militarization of space is a prime objective. Air Force Doctrine Document 2-2.1 on "Counterspace Operations", published in August 2004 (and available online), states: "US Air Force counter-space operations are the ways and means by which the air force achieves and maintains space superiority. Space superiority provides freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack."

General John P Jumper, air force chief of staff in 2004, wrote in the foreword to Document 2-2.1: "Counter-space operations are critical to success in modern warfare. The rapid maturation of space capabilities and the evolution of contingency operations have greatly enhanced the effectiveness of air and space power. Combatant commanders leverage space capabilities such as communication; position, navigation, and timing; missile warning; environmental sensing; and reconnaissance to maintain a combat advantage over our adversaries. Space superiority ensures the freedom to operate in the space medium while denying the same to an adversary. The development of offensive counter-space capabilities provides combatant commanders with new tools for counter-space operations."

So what has the Pentagon accomplished so far? Here are some hints from Giuseppe Anzera, an Italian professor, in Star Wars: Empires strike back (August 18, 2005), an article circulated by the Power and Interest News Report:

On the technological level, the Pentagon's planning is in the advanced stage: some projects - aimed at space weaponization - have already been in place for some time. Among the (partially known) Pentagon's new plans, the two most interesting projects are the "Global Strike" program and the "Rods from God" program. Global Strike involves the employment of military space planes capable of carrying about 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of high-precision weapons (with a circular error probability less than 3 meters) with the primary use of striking enemy military bases and command and control facilities in any point of the world.

The main strength of military space planes is the ability to reach any spot on the globe within 45 minutes. This is a short period of time that could provide US forces with a formidable quick-reaction capability, as opposed to the enemy's subsequent inability to organize any effective defense. Such a weapon's primary target would be the enemy's strategic forces and - according to US Air Force sources widely quoted in the news - the Pentagon is inclined to give priority to this project. One of the main reasons, these sources say, is that the Pentagon itself - after spending more than US$100 billion - has finally admitted its failure to create an infallible Earth-based, anti-missile system to protect American soil from ballistic strikes.

The so-called Rods from God project, according to Anzera, "consists of orbiting platforms stocked with metal tungsten rods about 6.1 meters long (20 feet) and 30 centimeters (1 foot) in diameter that could be satellite-guided to targets anywhere on the Earth within minutes, for the rods would move at more than 11,000 km/h (6,835mph). This weapon exploits kinetic energy to cause an explosion the same magnitude of that of an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon, but with no radioactive fallout. The system would function due to two satellites, one of which would work as a communications platform, while the other would contain an arsenal of tungsten rods."

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency is developing space-based missile interceptors (SBIs) at a cost of up to $600 million over several years, complete with a test bed for experimentation. This would appear to be a weapon in space, but Bush administration spokesman Tony Snow managed not to crack a smile when he answered a press-conference question on October 18 by declaring that "defense from space is different than the weaponization of space".

Other projects on the Pentagon's space drawing boards or in development include the X-51 hypersonic cruise missile that can travel at 5,800km/h; space-mirror satellites redirecting laser beams from Earth against any orbit or surface target, and satellites that send out radio waves with a high range in power and breadth; high-energy lasers of various kinds; a robotic spacecraft capable of determining whether a particular satellite is a "danger" to the US, in which case it will be able to sabotage the offending instrument; rockets with blunt heads that function as kinetic-energy interceptors; a weaponized glider known as the Common Aero Vehicle that can be rocketed into space and travel at hypersonic speeds to target objects on Earth; an experimental spacecraft system; and much more.

On February 15, the Associated Press reported that Russia is fed up with US proposals for an ABM system not only in space but particularly Washington's plan to deploy anti-missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, practically in President Vladimir Putin's face. The news agency quoted General Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of the Russian General Staff, as indicating Moscow might withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty if the US sets up missile defense in Eastern Europe. The IRNFT eliminated medium-range missiles that had been based in Europe.

Fearing that the momentum toward space war preparations will dissipate when Bush and the neo-conservatives leave office, the right-wing warmaking faction has accelerated its campaign for the weaponization of space. A legion of conservative hawks from various think-tanks banded together last year as the "Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship and the 21st Century", and published a document of more than 200 pages calling for an extensive military space program.

Writing in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (January/February 2007), Theresa Hitchens said the document was "written in language so incendiary it should be banned from carry-on luggage, [and] lashes out against opponents of the weaponization of space, branding them as a cabal of 'arms-control extremists, pacifists, realpolitik practitioners, [and] anti-Americans' bent on 'unilateral disarmament' of the US".

In conclusion, we return to the theme introduced at the beginning of this two-part article - US militarism.

As Chalmers Johnson wrote in The Sorrows of Empire, "The United States has been inching toward imperialism and militarism for many years. Disguising the direction they were taking, American leaders cloaked their foreign policy in euphemisms such as 'lone superpower', 'indispensable nation', 'reluctant sheriff', 'humanitarian intervention', and 'globalization'."

However, with the advent of the Bush administration in 2001, these pretenses gave way to assertions of the Second Coming of the Roman Empire. Bush didn't transform the United States into a militarist society. Militarism developed long before he took office, at least by the beginning of the Cold War in the late 1940s, when America's political leaders initiated a virtual state of perpetual war preparations and warfare that continues to this day, long after the US has become a near-impregnable fortress, long after the demise of any possible enemies of substance.

Nor did Bush transform the United States into an imperialist country. Imperialism motivated Washington's unjust seizure of Mexican lands in 1848. Imperialism motivated the 1898 war against Spain to extend US hegemony to Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and it has continued ever since, growing stronger in the post-Soviet period of unipolar geopolitical domination supported by unparalleled military power.

Bush is arguably the most dangerous president in US history - he has launched unjust wars, threatened many countries, and broken treaties. But he could not have done so without the political weapons of militarism and imperialism, weapons that have been handed down from president to president for some 60 years.

At issue in this exploration of the US government's warmaking preparations and intentions is not simply what progressive-thinking people are going to do about Iraq today or Venezuela, Iran and China tomorrow. The real question is what will they do about the catastrophic combination of militarism and imperialism that makes continual war preparations and warfare an indelible characteristic of the American state. It is not simply a matter of getting rid of George W Bush because of Iraq or getting rid of Lyndon Johnson because of Vietnam. If we do not get rid of militarism and imperialism we are simply paving the way for the next war, and the next, and the next.

Jack A Smith is former editor of the (US) Guardian Newsweekly and editor of the Hudson Valley (New York) Activist Newsletter.


"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell

“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano