What bizarre science-fiction horrors have to occur before the American media wakes up to the strange war that Israel is prosecuting against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians? People are still being maimed or killed every day in Lebanon thanks to unexploded cluster ordinance dropped massively by Israel in the 48 hours after a cease-fire had been negotiated but before it went into effect. Over 30 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in October alone. As usual, however, Lebanon and Palestine have vanished from the newscycle (where Israel is currently represented by a president who refuses to step down despite an all-but-indictment for multiple rape charges and an openly fascist party joining the government ). But there has been a steady drumbeat of revelations, largely in the Israeli and British media, ignored entirely by the American media, about Israel's use of horrifying new weapons on civilian populations.
First came Italian television's Rai24News October 11 report on "inexplicable wounds and new weapons" in Gaza. Alongside a piece by Meron Rapoport in Ha'aretz, it details the growing evidence from Palestinian hospitals that Israel is testing a "dense inert metal explosive" (DIME) device in Gaza. It was followed a week later by an investigation in the British Guardian.
All three investigations feature doctors explaining horrific and mysterious new wounds appearing in Gaza hospitals after Israeli drone attacks:
"Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured," said Jumaa Saqa'a, a doctor at Shifa hospital, the main casualty hospital in Gaza City. "We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on the internal organs." ...
"You have complete burns that lead to amputation. You find shrapnel entering the body and leaving very, very small holes. We have never seen this before," said Khalid Radi, a spokesman at the health ministry.
Research on DIME weapons in the United States found that the tungsten fragments used in the bombs caused 92 out of 92 rats in a test to develop cancerous tumors (that's 100 percent for those of you following along at home). The Israeli army denies using DIME weapons with its standard claptrap:
Due to operational reasons, the IDF cannot specify the types and use of weapons in its possession. In addition it should be emphasized that the IDF only uses weapons in accordance with the international law.
Of course, new weapons that are still experimental aren't yet banned under international law. And the weight of Israeli denials is light. For anyone following the news longer than a brief media spin cycle should remember that mere months ago the Lebanese government accused Israel of dropping cluster bombs and using white phosphorous explosives against civilians. Bonus: the Italian team that uncovered the weapons experimentation in Gaza was the same team that uncovered that the U.S. Army had similarly used phosphorous weapons against civillians in Iraq, then denied it. And indeed, when being questioned by the Israeli Knesset over the DIME allegations in Gaza, the Israeli army admitted it had, indeed, been using white phosphorous—a horrific chemical weapon of mass destruction that causes wounds to burn when exposed to air—on Lebanese civilians despite initial denials.
"Any weapon that is not exact should not be used in areas where civilians can suffer. Phosphorous and clusters in some cases can be considered legal," Shabtai Gold, the spokesman for Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, told me. "The problem is that civilians are suffering, especially from the later, as they continue to blow up and harm civilians even after the fighting is over."
On top of all that, new allegations have come out that Israel used radioactive uranium explosives, also experimental, in an attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon. Soil samples processed by scientists studying the ecological impact of Israel's war against Lebanon found inexplicable radiation levels and the presence of uranium-235. The Israeli army again issued a non-denial, saying only that "All the arms and ammunition that we use are legal and conform to international laws."
Robert Fisk, one of the most experienced English-language reporters in the Middle East, offers the historical perspective and comments that this is neither the first time that Israel has lied about its weapons nor the first time it has used Lebanese civilians as live guinea pigs for its weapons:
Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas—until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.
I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer—except for "marking" targets—even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.
I asked Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American journalist (and author of the new book One Country: A Bold Proposal To End The Israeli-Palestinian Impasse) to help me understand the context of Israel's use of experimental weapons on civilian populations and how it gets away with it.
"Lying is routine procedure for the Israeli army," he said. "Since the beginning of Intifada in excess of 4,000 Palestinians have been killed. Whenever a Palestinian is killed the Israelis say they were somehow causing a threat to Israel—but almost none of those deaths are investigated. In the rare cases where they are investigated they usually involve foreigners, like Tom Hurndall or Rachel Corrie, and when they are investigated the initial Israeli claims almost always turns out to be a lie."
I asked him whether he thought Israel was being held to "unfair" standards compared to other countries, and he pointed out that when Austria allowed Jorg Haider's freedom party to join its government, it faced diplomatic "sanctions" from the European Union, while not a peep has been raised about Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party.
"Look at the extreme example of Iraq," he said. "In 2003 Iraq was invaded and occupied because of the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians. Leaving the invasion and occupation aside, the U.N. imposed the most stringent sanctions it could for decades on Iraq, which starved hundreds of thousands ostensibly to make Iraq comply with international laws."
My final question for him was the one I had been wrestling with myself: What conceivable reason could Israel have for using such tactics, clearly in violation of the Geneva conventions and international law, which require that the utmost care be used to protect civilians?
"I don't know, because I can't enter into the minds of such people, obviously. It's all beyond comprehension," he replied. "But one reason might be that the goal is to terrorize the population. By terrorizing them they hope to convince them to submit. Israel knows nothing it has done so far is getting people to submit. I'm speculating that reports of these new exotic and horrifying weapons will spread and have a terrorizing effect. That's consistent with Israel's statements that it bombards Gaza to convince the civilian population to remove their leadership."
Using weapons of mass destruction in attempt to convince civilian targets to change governments or political goals?
Hezbollah and al-Qaida and Islamic Jihad, of course, also do terrible things and comment acts of terror. But as Abunimah and others have pointed out, they don't do it with weapons not sold to the Israeli government but actually given them, in the form of $2.3 billion in U.S. taxpayer money that goes to outright grants of military aid to Israel—of which, by law, 74 percent must be spent right back on U.S.-manufactured arms.
The U.S. Arms Export Control Law expressly requires military items transferred to foreign governments by the United States be used solely for internal security and legitimate self-defense.
Is that really what's going on? Is anyone even asking whether our closest ally is violating U.S. law in addition to international law?
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Election Protection
After 2000 and 2004, the American people have little reason for faith in the integrity of our voting process. Still, with the undeniable knowledge that every single issue we care about is deeply effected by what happens at the polls November 7, folks are out there registering, educating and mobilizing voters. This is the time to stand up for the people's right to vote. We need to know: are you able to take action to protect voter's rights on Election Day? Sign up to be part of our Election Protection Rapid Response Team and we will text you if there is a need for action in your area. The best direct action experts in the country will be on call to create responsive media events. (Partners: Ruckus, Working Assets, Video the Vote, Music For America, NHHPC, League)
All video in this animation is from the amazing documentary "AMERICAN BLACKOUT"
After 2000 and 2004, the American people have little reason for faith in the integrity of our voting process. Still, with the undeniable knowledge that every single issue we care about is deeply effected by what happens at the polls November 7, folks are out there registering, educating and mobilizing voters. This is the time to stand up for the people's right to vote. We need to know: are you able to take action to protect voter's rights on Election Day? Sign up to be part of our Election Protection Rapid Response Team and we will text you if there is a need for action in your area. The best direct action experts in the country will be on call to create responsive media events. (Partners: Ruckus, Working Assets, Video the Vote, Music For America, NHHPC, League)
All video in this animation is from the amazing documentary "AMERICAN BLACKOUT"
Check it out at www.americanblackout.com
After 2000 and 2004, the American people have little reason for faith in the integrity of our voting process. Still, with the undeniable knowledge that every single issue we care about is deeply effected by what happens at the polls November 7, folks are out there registering, educating and mobilizing voters. This is the time to stand up for the people's right to vote. We need to know: are you able to take action to protect voter's rights on Election Day? Sign up to be part of our Election Protection Rapid Response Team and we will text you if there is a need for action in your area. The best direct action experts in the country will be on call to create responsive media events. (Partners: Ruckus, Working Assets, Video the Vote, Music For America, NHHPC, League)
All video in this animation is from the amazing documentary "AMERICAN BLACKOUT"
After 2000 and 2004, the American people have little reason for faith in the integrity of our voting process. Still, with the undeniable knowledge that every single issue we care about is deeply effected by what happens at the polls November 7, folks are out there registering, educating and mobilizing voters. This is the time to stand up for the people's right to vote. We need to know: are you able to take action to protect voter's rights on Election Day? Sign up to be part of our Election Protection Rapid Response Team and we will text you if there is a need for action in your area. The best direct action experts in the country will be on call to create responsive media events. (Partners: Ruckus, Working Assets, Video the Vote, Music For America, NHHPC, League)
All video in this animation is from the amazing documentary "AMERICAN BLACKOUT"
Check it out at www.americanblackout.com
Monday, October 30, 2006
A Call from the Zapatistas: Oaxaca Is Not Alone - Shut-Down of Roads, Highways and the Media on November 1; General Strike Called for November 20
By the Sixth Commission of the EZLN
The Other Mexico
October 30, 2006
Message from the
CLANDESTINE REVOLUTIONARY INDIGENOUS COMMITTEE-GENERAL COMMAND
of the
ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO.
October 30, 2006.
To the people of Mexico:
To the people of the world:
To the Other Campaign in Mexico and the other side of the Rio Grande:
To the entire Sixth International:
Compañeros and compañeras:
Brothers and sisters:
It is now known publicly that yesterday, 29th of October 2006, Vicente Fox’s federal forces attacked the people of Oaxaca and its most legitimate representative, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).
Today, the federal troops have assassinated at least 3 people, among them a minor, leaving dozens of wounded, including many women from Oaxaca. Dozens of detainees were illegally transported to military prisons. All this comes in addition to the existing total of deaths, detainees and missing persons since the beginning of the mobilization demanding that Ulises Ruiz step down as Oaxaca’s governor.
The sole objective of the federal attack is to maintain Ulises Ruiz in power and to destroy the popular grassroots organization of the people of Oaxaca.
Oaxaca’s people are resisting. Not one single honest person can remain quiet and unmoved while the entire society, of which the majority are indigenous, is murdered, beaten and jailed.
We, the Zapatistas, will not be silent; we will mobilize to support our brothers, sisters and comrades in Oaxaca.
The EZLN’s Sixth Commission has already consulted the Zapatista leadership and the following has been decided:
First: During whole day of November 1, 2006, the major and minor roads that cross Zapatistas territories in the southwestern state of Chiapas will be closed.
Consequently, we ask that everyone avoid traveling by these roads in Chiapas on this day and that one make the necessary arrangements in order to do so.
Second: through the Sixth Commission, the EZLN has begun making contact and consulting other political and social organizations, groups, collectives and individuals in the Other Campaign, in order to coordinate joint solidarity actions across Mexico, leading to a nationwide shut-down on the 20th of November, 2006.
Third: the EZLN calls out to the Other Campaign in Mexico and north of the Rio Grande, so that these November 1st mobilizations happen wherever possible, completely, partially, at intervals or symbolically shutting down the major artery roads, streets, toll booths, stations, airports and commercial media.
Fourth: The central message that the Zapatistas send and will continue sending is that the people of Oaxaca are not alone: They are not alone!
Ulises Ruiz out of Oaxaca!
Immediate withdrawal of the occupying federal forces from Oaxaca!
Immediate and unconditional freedom for all detainees!
Cancel all arrest warrants!
Punish the murderers!
Justice!
Freedom!
Democracy!
From the North of Mexico.
For the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee-General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
For the EZLN Sixth Commission.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, October, 2006.
Translation: Radio Pacheco
-----------------------------------------------------------
COMUNICADO DEL COMITÉ CLANDESTINO REVOLUCIONARIO INDÍGENA – COMANDANCIA GENERAL DEL EJÉRCITO ZAPATISTA DE LIBERACIÓN NACIONAL.
MÉXICO.
30 DE OCTUBRE DEL 2006.
AL PUEBLO DE MÉXICO:
A LOS PUEBLOS DEL MUNDO:
A TODA LA OTRA EN MÉXICO Y AL NORTE DEL RÍO BRAVO:
A TODA LA SEXTA INTERNACIONAL:
COMPAÑEROS Y COMPAÑERAS:
HERMANAS Y HERMANOS:
COMO ES DE CONOCIMIENTO PÚBLICO, EL DÍA DE AYER, 29 DE OCTUBRE DEL 2006, LAS FUERZAS FEDERALES DEL GOBIERNO DE VICENTE FOX, ATACARON AL PUEBLO DE OAXACA Y A SU MÁS DIGNA REPRESENTANTE, LA ASAMBLEA POPULAR DE LOS PUEBLOS DE OAXACA, LA APPO.
HASTA EL DÍA DE HOY, LOS FEDERALES HAN ASESINADO A CUANDO MENOS TRES PERSONAS, ENTRE ELLAS UN MENOR DE EDAD; DEJADO DECENAS DE PERSONAS HERIDAS, ENTRE ELLAS VARIAS MUJERES OAXAQUEÑAS; Y DECENAS DE DETENIDOS QUE FUERON TRASLADADOS ILEGALMENTE A PRISIONES MILITARES. A TODO ESTO SE SUMAN LOS MUERTOS, DETENIDOS Y DESAPARECIDOS DESDE EL INICIO DE LA MOVILIZACIÓN QUE DEMANDA LA SALIDA DE ULISES RUIZ DEL GOBIERNO DE OAXACA.
LA ATAQUE FEDERAL NO TIENE MÁS OBJETIVO QUE MANTENER A ULISES RUIZ EN EL PODER Y DESTRUIR LA ORGANIZACIÓN POPULAR DE LOS DE ABAJO DE OAXACA.
EL PUEBLO DE OAXACA RESISTE. NINGUNA PERSONA HONESTA PUEDE PERMANECER EN SILENCIO E INMÓVIL MIENTRAS TODO UN PUEBLO, MAYORITARIAMENTE INDÍGENA, ES ASESINADO, GOLPEADO Y ENCARCELADO.
NOSOTROS, NOSOTRAS, LAS ZAPATISTAS, LOS ZAPATISTAS, NO CALLAREMOS Y NOS MOVILIZAREMOS EN APOYO AL PUEBLO HERMANO Y COMPAÑERO DE OAXACA.
LA COMISIÓN SEXTA DEL EZLN HA CONSULTADO YA A LA DIRECCIÓN ZAPATISTA Y SE HA DECIDIDO LO SIGUIENTE:
PRIMERO.- DURANTE TODO EL DÍA PRIMERO DE NOVIEMBRE DEL 2006, SERÁN CERRADAS LAS CARRETERAS Y CAMINOS QUE ATRAVIESAN LOS TERRITORIOS DONDE EL EZLN MANTIENE PRESENCIA EN EL SURORIENTAL ESTADO DE CHIAPAS.
EN CONSECUENCIA, EXHORTAMOS A TOD@S A QUE SE ABSTENGAN DE TRANSITAR POR LAS CARRETERAS DE CHIAPAS ESE DÍA Y TOMEN LAS PROVIDENCIAS NECESARIAS PARA ELLO.
SEGUNDO.- A TRAVÉS DE SU COMISIÓN SEXTA, EL EZLN HA INICIADO CONTACTOS Y CONSULTAS CON OTRAS ORGANIZACIONES POLÍTICAS Y SOCIALES, ASÍ COMO CON GRUPOS, COLECTIVOS Y PERSONAS DE LA OTRA CAMPAÑA, PARA INICIAR JORNADAS DE SOLIDARIDAD CON OAXACA Y CONVOCAR DE FORMA CONJUNTA A TODO EL MÉXICO DE ABAJO A REALIZAR UN PARO NACIONAL EL DÍA 20 DE NOVIEMBRE DEL 2006.
TERCERO.- EL EZLN HACE UN LLAMADO A LA OTRA CAMPAÑA EN MÉXICO Y AL NORTE DEL RÍO BRAVO, PARA QUE ESTE PRIMERO DE NOVIEMBRE DEL 2006 SE MOVILICE, DONDE SEA POSIBLE, CERRANDO DE MANERA TOTAL, PARCIAL O INTERMITENTE, REAL O SIMBÓLICAMENTE, LAS CALLES, CAMINOS, CARRETERAS, CASETAS, ESTACIONES, AEROPUERTOS Y CUALQUIER MEDIO DE COMUNICACIÓN.
CUARTO.- EL MENSAJE QUE LOS ZAPATISTAS, LAS ZAPATISTAS MANDAMOS Y MANDAREMOS AL PUEBLO DE OAXACA ES UNO SOLO: NO ESTÁN SOLOS, NO ESTÁN SOLAS.
¡FUERA ULISES RUIZ DE OAXACA!
¡RETIRO INMEDIATO DE LAS FUERZAS FEDERALES DE OCUPACIÓN EN TERRITORIO OAXAQUEÑO!
¡LIBERTAD INMEDIATA E INCONDICIONAL A TOD@S L@S DETENID@S!
¡CANCELACIÓN DE TODAS LAS ÓRDENES DE APREHENSIÓN!
¡CASTIGO A LOS ASESINOS!
¡JUSTICIA!
¡LIBERTAD!
¡DEMOCRACIA!
Desde el norte de México.
Por el Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena – Comandancia General del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional.
Por la Comisión Sexta del EZLN.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
México, Octubre del 2006.
------------------------------------------------------
Appello dell'EZLN: Oaxaca non è sola
Chiusura di strade, autostrade e mezzi di comunicazione il 1 novembre; sciopero nazionale il 20 novembre
di Commissione Sesta dell'EZLN
L'Altro Messico
30 ottobre 2006
COMUNICATO DEL COMITATO CLANDESTINO RIVOLUZIONARIO INDIGENO – COMANDO GENERALE DELL’ESERCITO ZAPATISTA DI LIBERAZIONE NAZIONALE
MESSICO
30 OTTOBRE 2006
AL POPOLO DEL MESSICO:
AI POPOLI DEL MONDO:
A TUTTA L’ALTRA IN MESSICO E AL NORD DEL RÍO BRAVO:
A TUTTA LA SESTA INTERNAZIONALE:
COMPAGNI E COMPAGNE:
SORELLE E FRATELLI:
COME È DI CONOSCENZA PUBBLICA, IERI, 29 OTTOBRE 2006, LE FORZE FEDERALI DEL GOVERNO DI VICENTE FOX HANNO ATTACCATO IL POPOLO DI OAXACA E LA SUA PIÙ DEGNA RAPPRESENTANTE, L’ASSEMBLEA POPOLARE DEI POPOLI DI OAXACA, LA APPO.
FINO AD OGGI, I FEDERALI HANNO ASSASSINATO ALMENO TRE PERSONE, TRA ESSE UN MINORENNE; LASCIATO DECINE DI PERSONE FERITE, TRA LE QUALI DIVERSE DONNE OAXAQUEÑAS; E DECINE DI ARRESTATI CHE SONO STATI TRASFERITI ILLEGALMENTE IN PRIGIONI MILITARI. A TUTTO QUESTO SI SOMMANO I MORTI, ARRESTATI E DESAPARECIDOS DALL’INIZIO DELLA MOBILITAZIONE CHE CHIEDE LE DIMISSIONI DI ULISES RUIZ DAL GOVERNO DI OAXACA.
L’ATTACCO FEDERALE NON HA ALTRO OBIETTIVO CHE QUELLO DI MANTENERE ULISES RUIZ AL POTERE E DISTRUGGERE L’ORGANIZZAZIONE POPOLARE DI QUELLI CHE STANNO IN BASSO A OAXACA.
IL POPOLO DI OAXACA RESISTE. NESSUNA PERSONA ONESTA PUÒ RESTARE IN SILENZIO ED IMMOBILE MENTRE TUTTO UN POPOLO, IN MAGGIORANZA INDIGENO, VIENE ASSASSINATO, PICCHIATO ED IMPRIGIONATO.
NOI, ZAPATISTE, ZAPATISTI, NON TACEREMO E CI MOBILITEREMO IN APPOGGIO AL POPOLO FRATELLO E COMPAGNO DI OAXACA.
LA COMMISSIONE SESTA DELL’EZLN HA CONSULTATO LA DIREZIONE ZAPATISTA E SI È DECISO QUANTO SEGUE:
PRIMO.- PER TUTTO IL GIORNO PRIMO DI NOVEMBRE 2006 SARANNO CHIUSE TUTTE LE STRADE CHE ATRAVERSANO I TERRITORI DOVE L’EZLN MANTIENE LA SUA PRESENZA NELLO STATO SUDORIENTALE DEL CHIAPAS.
IN CONSEGUENZA DI QUESTO, ESORTIAMO TUTT@ AD ASTENERSI DAL TRANSITARE PER LE STRADE DEL CHIAPAS PER QUEL GIORNO E PRENDANO LE MISURE NECESSARIE PER CIÒ.
SECONDO. – ATTRAVERSO LA SUA COMMISSIONE SESTA, L’EZLN HA INIZIATO CONTATTI E CONSULTAZIONI CON ALTRE ORGANIZZAZIONI POLITICHE E SOCIALI, COSÌ COME CON GRUPPI, COLLETTIVI E PERSONE DELL’ALTRA CAMPAGNA, PER LANCIARE GIORNATE DI SOLIDARIETÀ CON OAXACA ED INVITARE IN MANIERA CONGIUNTA TUTTO IL MESSICO DEL BASSO A REALIZZARE UNO SCIOPERO NAZIONALE IL GIORNO 20 NOVEMBRE 2006.
TERZO. – L’EZLN RIVOLGE UN APPELLO ALL’ALTRA CAMPAGNA IN MESSICO E AL NORD DEL RÍO BRAVO, AFFINCHÉ QUESTO PRIMO DI NOVEMBRE DEL 2006 SI MOBILITI, DOVE SIA POSSIBILE, CHIUDENDO IN MANIERA TOTALE, PARZIALE O INTERMITTENTE, REALMENTE O SIMBOLICAMENTE, STRADE, AUTOSTRADE, CASELLI, STAZIONI, AEROPORTI E QUALUNQUE MEZZO DI COMUNICAZIONE.
QUARTO. – IL MESSAGGIO CHE GLI ZAPATISTI, LE ZAPATISTE, MNDIAMO E MANDEREMO AL POPOLO DI OAXACA È UNO SOLO: NON SIETE SOLI, NON SIETE SOLE.
FUORI ULISES RUIZ DA OAXACA!
RITIRO IMMEDIATO DELLE FORZE FEDERALI DI OCCUPAZIONE IN TERRITORIO OAXAQUEÑO!
LIBERTÀ IMMEDIATA ED INCONDIZIONATA DI TUTT@ I/LE DETENUT@!
CANCELLAZIONE DI TUTTI I MANDATI DI CATTURA!
PUNIZIONE PER GLI ASSASSINI!
GIUSTIZIA!
LIBERTÀ!
DEMOCRAZIA!
Dal nord del Messico.
Per il Comitato Clandestino Rivoluzionario Indigeno – Comando Generale dell’Esercito Zapatista di Liberazione Nazionale.
Per la Commissione Sesta dell’EZLN.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Messico,Ottobre 2006
The Other Mexico
October 30, 2006
Message from the
CLANDESTINE REVOLUTIONARY INDIGENOUS COMMITTEE-GENERAL COMMAND
of the
ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO.
October 30, 2006.
To the people of Mexico:
To the people of the world:
To the Other Campaign in Mexico and the other side of the Rio Grande:
To the entire Sixth International:
Compañeros and compañeras:
Brothers and sisters:
It is now known publicly that yesterday, 29th of October 2006, Vicente Fox’s federal forces attacked the people of Oaxaca and its most legitimate representative, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).
Today, the federal troops have assassinated at least 3 people, among them a minor, leaving dozens of wounded, including many women from Oaxaca. Dozens of detainees were illegally transported to military prisons. All this comes in addition to the existing total of deaths, detainees and missing persons since the beginning of the mobilization demanding that Ulises Ruiz step down as Oaxaca’s governor.
The sole objective of the federal attack is to maintain Ulises Ruiz in power and to destroy the popular grassroots organization of the people of Oaxaca.
Oaxaca’s people are resisting. Not one single honest person can remain quiet and unmoved while the entire society, of which the majority are indigenous, is murdered, beaten and jailed.
We, the Zapatistas, will not be silent; we will mobilize to support our brothers, sisters and comrades in Oaxaca.
The EZLN’s Sixth Commission has already consulted the Zapatista leadership and the following has been decided:
First: During whole day of November 1, 2006, the major and minor roads that cross Zapatistas territories in the southwestern state of Chiapas will be closed.
Consequently, we ask that everyone avoid traveling by these roads in Chiapas on this day and that one make the necessary arrangements in order to do so.
Second: through the Sixth Commission, the EZLN has begun making contact and consulting other political and social organizations, groups, collectives and individuals in the Other Campaign, in order to coordinate joint solidarity actions across Mexico, leading to a nationwide shut-down on the 20th of November, 2006.
Third: the EZLN calls out to the Other Campaign in Mexico and north of the Rio Grande, so that these November 1st mobilizations happen wherever possible, completely, partially, at intervals or symbolically shutting down the major artery roads, streets, toll booths, stations, airports and commercial media.
Fourth: The central message that the Zapatistas send and will continue sending is that the people of Oaxaca are not alone: They are not alone!
Ulises Ruiz out of Oaxaca!
Immediate withdrawal of the occupying federal forces from Oaxaca!
Immediate and unconditional freedom for all detainees!
Cancel all arrest warrants!
Punish the murderers!
Justice!
Freedom!
Democracy!
From the North of Mexico.
For the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee-General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
For the EZLN Sixth Commission.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, October, 2006.
Translation: Radio Pacheco
-----------------------------------------------------------
COMUNICADO DEL COMITÉ CLANDESTINO REVOLUCIONARIO INDÍGENA – COMANDANCIA GENERAL DEL EJÉRCITO ZAPATISTA DE LIBERACIÓN NACIONAL.
MÉXICO.
30 DE OCTUBRE DEL 2006.
AL PUEBLO DE MÉXICO:
A LOS PUEBLOS DEL MUNDO:
A TODA LA OTRA EN MÉXICO Y AL NORTE DEL RÍO BRAVO:
A TODA LA SEXTA INTERNACIONAL:
COMPAÑEROS Y COMPAÑERAS:
HERMANAS Y HERMANOS:
COMO ES DE CONOCIMIENTO PÚBLICO, EL DÍA DE AYER, 29 DE OCTUBRE DEL 2006, LAS FUERZAS FEDERALES DEL GOBIERNO DE VICENTE FOX, ATACARON AL PUEBLO DE OAXACA Y A SU MÁS DIGNA REPRESENTANTE, LA ASAMBLEA POPULAR DE LOS PUEBLOS DE OAXACA, LA APPO.
HASTA EL DÍA DE HOY, LOS FEDERALES HAN ASESINADO A CUANDO MENOS TRES PERSONAS, ENTRE ELLAS UN MENOR DE EDAD; DEJADO DECENAS DE PERSONAS HERIDAS, ENTRE ELLAS VARIAS MUJERES OAXAQUEÑAS; Y DECENAS DE DETENIDOS QUE FUERON TRASLADADOS ILEGALMENTE A PRISIONES MILITARES. A TODO ESTO SE SUMAN LOS MUERTOS, DETENIDOS Y DESAPARECIDOS DESDE EL INICIO DE LA MOVILIZACIÓN QUE DEMANDA LA SALIDA DE ULISES RUIZ DEL GOBIERNO DE OAXACA.
LA ATAQUE FEDERAL NO TIENE MÁS OBJETIVO QUE MANTENER A ULISES RUIZ EN EL PODER Y DESTRUIR LA ORGANIZACIÓN POPULAR DE LOS DE ABAJO DE OAXACA.
EL PUEBLO DE OAXACA RESISTE. NINGUNA PERSONA HONESTA PUEDE PERMANECER EN SILENCIO E INMÓVIL MIENTRAS TODO UN PUEBLO, MAYORITARIAMENTE INDÍGENA, ES ASESINADO, GOLPEADO Y ENCARCELADO.
NOSOTROS, NOSOTRAS, LAS ZAPATISTAS, LOS ZAPATISTAS, NO CALLAREMOS Y NOS MOVILIZAREMOS EN APOYO AL PUEBLO HERMANO Y COMPAÑERO DE OAXACA.
LA COMISIÓN SEXTA DEL EZLN HA CONSULTADO YA A LA DIRECCIÓN ZAPATISTA Y SE HA DECIDIDO LO SIGUIENTE:
PRIMERO.- DURANTE TODO EL DÍA PRIMERO DE NOVIEMBRE DEL 2006, SERÁN CERRADAS LAS CARRETERAS Y CAMINOS QUE ATRAVIESAN LOS TERRITORIOS DONDE EL EZLN MANTIENE PRESENCIA EN EL SURORIENTAL ESTADO DE CHIAPAS.
EN CONSECUENCIA, EXHORTAMOS A TOD@S A QUE SE ABSTENGAN DE TRANSITAR POR LAS CARRETERAS DE CHIAPAS ESE DÍA Y TOMEN LAS PROVIDENCIAS NECESARIAS PARA ELLO.
SEGUNDO.- A TRAVÉS DE SU COMISIÓN SEXTA, EL EZLN HA INICIADO CONTACTOS Y CONSULTAS CON OTRAS ORGANIZACIONES POLÍTICAS Y SOCIALES, ASÍ COMO CON GRUPOS, COLECTIVOS Y PERSONAS DE LA OTRA CAMPAÑA, PARA INICIAR JORNADAS DE SOLIDARIDAD CON OAXACA Y CONVOCAR DE FORMA CONJUNTA A TODO EL MÉXICO DE ABAJO A REALIZAR UN PARO NACIONAL EL DÍA 20 DE NOVIEMBRE DEL 2006.
TERCERO.- EL EZLN HACE UN LLAMADO A LA OTRA CAMPAÑA EN MÉXICO Y AL NORTE DEL RÍO BRAVO, PARA QUE ESTE PRIMERO DE NOVIEMBRE DEL 2006 SE MOVILICE, DONDE SEA POSIBLE, CERRANDO DE MANERA TOTAL, PARCIAL O INTERMITENTE, REAL O SIMBÓLICAMENTE, LAS CALLES, CAMINOS, CARRETERAS, CASETAS, ESTACIONES, AEROPUERTOS Y CUALQUIER MEDIO DE COMUNICACIÓN.
CUARTO.- EL MENSAJE QUE LOS ZAPATISTAS, LAS ZAPATISTAS MANDAMOS Y MANDAREMOS AL PUEBLO DE OAXACA ES UNO SOLO: NO ESTÁN SOLOS, NO ESTÁN SOLAS.
¡FUERA ULISES RUIZ DE OAXACA!
¡RETIRO INMEDIATO DE LAS FUERZAS FEDERALES DE OCUPACIÓN EN TERRITORIO OAXAQUEÑO!
¡LIBERTAD INMEDIATA E INCONDICIONAL A TOD@S L@S DETENID@S!
¡CANCELACIÓN DE TODAS LAS ÓRDENES DE APREHENSIÓN!
¡CASTIGO A LOS ASESINOS!
¡JUSTICIA!
¡LIBERTAD!
¡DEMOCRACIA!
Desde el norte de México.
Por el Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena – Comandancia General del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional.
Por la Comisión Sexta del EZLN.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
México, Octubre del 2006.
------------------------------------------------------
Appello dell'EZLN: Oaxaca non è sola
Chiusura di strade, autostrade e mezzi di comunicazione il 1 novembre; sciopero nazionale il 20 novembre
di Commissione Sesta dell'EZLN
L'Altro Messico
30 ottobre 2006
COMUNICATO DEL COMITATO CLANDESTINO RIVOLUZIONARIO INDIGENO – COMANDO GENERALE DELL’ESERCITO ZAPATISTA DI LIBERAZIONE NAZIONALE
MESSICO
30 OTTOBRE 2006
AL POPOLO DEL MESSICO:
AI POPOLI DEL MONDO:
A TUTTA L’ALTRA IN MESSICO E AL NORD DEL RÍO BRAVO:
A TUTTA LA SESTA INTERNAZIONALE:
COMPAGNI E COMPAGNE:
SORELLE E FRATELLI:
COME È DI CONOSCENZA PUBBLICA, IERI, 29 OTTOBRE 2006, LE FORZE FEDERALI DEL GOVERNO DI VICENTE FOX HANNO ATTACCATO IL POPOLO DI OAXACA E LA SUA PIÙ DEGNA RAPPRESENTANTE, L’ASSEMBLEA POPOLARE DEI POPOLI DI OAXACA, LA APPO.
FINO AD OGGI, I FEDERALI HANNO ASSASSINATO ALMENO TRE PERSONE, TRA ESSE UN MINORENNE; LASCIATO DECINE DI PERSONE FERITE, TRA LE QUALI DIVERSE DONNE OAXAQUEÑAS; E DECINE DI ARRESTATI CHE SONO STATI TRASFERITI ILLEGALMENTE IN PRIGIONI MILITARI. A TUTTO QUESTO SI SOMMANO I MORTI, ARRESTATI E DESAPARECIDOS DALL’INIZIO DELLA MOBILITAZIONE CHE CHIEDE LE DIMISSIONI DI ULISES RUIZ DAL GOVERNO DI OAXACA.
L’ATTACCO FEDERALE NON HA ALTRO OBIETTIVO CHE QUELLO DI MANTENERE ULISES RUIZ AL POTERE E DISTRUGGERE L’ORGANIZZAZIONE POPOLARE DI QUELLI CHE STANNO IN BASSO A OAXACA.
IL POPOLO DI OAXACA RESISTE. NESSUNA PERSONA ONESTA PUÒ RESTARE IN SILENZIO ED IMMOBILE MENTRE TUTTO UN POPOLO, IN MAGGIORANZA INDIGENO, VIENE ASSASSINATO, PICCHIATO ED IMPRIGIONATO.
NOI, ZAPATISTE, ZAPATISTI, NON TACEREMO E CI MOBILITEREMO IN APPOGGIO AL POPOLO FRATELLO E COMPAGNO DI OAXACA.
LA COMMISSIONE SESTA DELL’EZLN HA CONSULTATO LA DIREZIONE ZAPATISTA E SI È DECISO QUANTO SEGUE:
PRIMO.- PER TUTTO IL GIORNO PRIMO DI NOVEMBRE 2006 SARANNO CHIUSE TUTTE LE STRADE CHE ATRAVERSANO I TERRITORI DOVE L’EZLN MANTIENE LA SUA PRESENZA NELLO STATO SUDORIENTALE DEL CHIAPAS.
IN CONSEGUENZA DI QUESTO, ESORTIAMO TUTT@ AD ASTENERSI DAL TRANSITARE PER LE STRADE DEL CHIAPAS PER QUEL GIORNO E PRENDANO LE MISURE NECESSARIE PER CIÒ.
SECONDO. – ATTRAVERSO LA SUA COMMISSIONE SESTA, L’EZLN HA INIZIATO CONTATTI E CONSULTAZIONI CON ALTRE ORGANIZZAZIONI POLITICHE E SOCIALI, COSÌ COME CON GRUPPI, COLLETTIVI E PERSONE DELL’ALTRA CAMPAGNA, PER LANCIARE GIORNATE DI SOLIDARIETÀ CON OAXACA ED INVITARE IN MANIERA CONGIUNTA TUTTO IL MESSICO DEL BASSO A REALIZZARE UNO SCIOPERO NAZIONALE IL GIORNO 20 NOVEMBRE 2006.
TERZO. – L’EZLN RIVOLGE UN APPELLO ALL’ALTRA CAMPAGNA IN MESSICO E AL NORD DEL RÍO BRAVO, AFFINCHÉ QUESTO PRIMO DI NOVEMBRE DEL 2006 SI MOBILITI, DOVE SIA POSSIBILE, CHIUDENDO IN MANIERA TOTALE, PARZIALE O INTERMITTENTE, REALMENTE O SIMBOLICAMENTE, STRADE, AUTOSTRADE, CASELLI, STAZIONI, AEROPORTI E QUALUNQUE MEZZO DI COMUNICAZIONE.
QUARTO. – IL MESSAGGIO CHE GLI ZAPATISTI, LE ZAPATISTE, MNDIAMO E MANDEREMO AL POPOLO DI OAXACA È UNO SOLO: NON SIETE SOLI, NON SIETE SOLE.
FUORI ULISES RUIZ DA OAXACA!
RITIRO IMMEDIATO DELLE FORZE FEDERALI DI OCCUPAZIONE IN TERRITORIO OAXAQUEÑO!
LIBERTÀ IMMEDIATA ED INCONDIZIONATA DI TUTT@ I/LE DETENUT@!
CANCELLAZIONE DI TUTTI I MANDATI DI CATTURA!
PUNIZIONE PER GLI ASSASSINI!
GIUSTIZIA!
LIBERTÀ!
DEMOCRAZIA!
Dal nord del Messico.
Per il Comitato Clandestino Rivoluzionario Indigeno – Comando Generale dell’Esercito Zapatista di Liberazione Nazionale.
Per la Commissione Sesta dell’EZLN.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Messico,Ottobre 2006
FILMING HIS OWN DEATH IN OAXACA - MEXICO.
It always hits me that first a 'white' woman or man like now Brad Will has to be killed in a local struggle anywhere on earth, and preferably a journalist or similar, before the mainstream propaganda media move. Even if they mostly distort reality: 'Fix the facts around the inhuman policy' - as they say.
FILMING HIS OWN DEATH IN OAXACA - MEXICO.
by Henk Ruyssenaars
FPF - October 30th 2006 - When working as an independent correspondent in Chile, I saw the zooming in on a killer for the first time when cameraman Leonardo Henrichsen was filming his own death. He was shot during the failed military coup on June 29, 1973, shortly before Washington's war machine and CIA/Kissinger's coup on the 11th of September 'suicided' democratically elected President Salvador Allende.
And the US war machine and it's mercenaries - apart from at least 30.000 other victims - at the same time killed the hopes for a more humane future for the Chilean people until now. The US as usual started the dictatorship and ensuing massacres by Gen. Augusto Pinochet and his killers, and kept profiting. But I've seen the corpses. In the streets and on the slabs in the morgue, in the Mapoche river too, with their hands tied behind their backs with barbed wire. That is the system which kills for profit, and kills journalists and cameramen to cover their criminality. Everywhere on earth.
AND TODAY I SAW IT AGAIN: US FILMMAKER BRAD WILL FILMING HIS OWN DEATH.
On June 29th in 1973, Leonardo Henrichsen, a TV cameraman from Argentina, like many journalists/correspondents was outside La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago, Chile, trying to film an attempted military coup against President Salvador Allende. His lens zoomed in on one soldier, who was aiming a pistol directly at him. "Don't shoot," Henrichsen cried out, as his sound technician's audio recorder captured the words. "Don't you see that we're journalists?" Moments later, Henrichsen lay sprawled on the pavement with a fatal bullet lodged in his chest, while his camera pointed up at a blank sky.
FILMING HIS OWN DEATH
In this case the local 'police' in Oaxaca - which everywhere on earth, like all armed forces in state service, is armed and dangerous - last Friday shot and killed Indymedia film reporter Brad Will , and the names and pictures of the state killers are public.*
One thing however, for those optimists and/or ignorants which still think it's different in Melbourne or Montreal, in New York or Nagasaki: from Kiruna to Cape Town this dangerous and repressive system is everywhere the same, and the bullets that hit Brad Will and many others have our name on them too. That goes for the bombs as well.
The 655.000 dead in Iraq should be enough evidence for everybody to confirm this. As well as the millions of others which ended their days enduring the US made deadly freedom they never asked for. But which is supported by collaborators of many nationalities in many countries. The fact that they all are guilty of crimes against humanity - according to international law and conventions - doesn't matter to the state's mercenaries.
WHEREVER YOU LIVE: IF YOU AND THE PEOPLE IN A COUNTRY REJECT THIS SYSTEM, THE KILLING SOON WILL BE IN A WAR THEATER NEAR YOU.
A COLLEAGUE WHO ALSO INVESTIGATED THIS REPRESSIVE SYSTEM IN THE US/ISRAELI COLONY THE NETHERLANDS WAS KILLED A YEAR AGO, 300 METERS FROM WHERE THIS IS WRITTEN.
Merciless the US war machine killers all claim the right and 'license to kill' and the only choice - apart from joining the growing resistance everywhere - is to shut up and pay up. To go on being forced to finance their war crimes for profit. Human beings - even by the millions - do never count, only profit and power does.
It would be a very good thing if people the world over better remember that resistance against invaders is not only a legal universal right, but also a plight: you've got to fight to defend your family, yourself and your country when the US or any other war machine as usual wants to wreck and kill everything.
The chance that the same human disaster is possible in your country and corner of our world may look far away to many, but this is our life nowadays to which we must react. And why should we use words when they use guns?
When law is valid again they will be punished in every country where this is possible, and certainly those murderes in mexico too, but most important is the group managing the US war machine: they are the origin of all global misery and massacres. They are the bad geniuses behind the killings of millions. And they'll gladly kill you and yours if it's profitable.
Time indeed has come for all brave people to join the resistance and fight.
And not only on Internet or with a camera.
HENK RUYSSENAARS
THE KILLERS IN OAXACA: JUAN CARLOS SORIANO VELASCO (RED T-SHIRT), A POLICE OFFICER KNOWN AS "THE GRASSHOPPER"; MANUEL AGUILAR (DARK JACKET), CITY PERSONNEL DIRECTOR; AND PUBLIC SAFETY CHIEF AVEL SANTIAGO ZÁRATE (RED SHIRT) - Photo: D.R. 2006 - El Universal - Url.: http://www.narconews.com/Issue43/article2223.html
Brad Will (1970-2006): Final Report - Final Moments Captured by the Slain Journalist’s Camera - (1:34) - October 29, 2006 - Watch/download the video - Url.: http://salonchingon.com/cinema/brad.php?city=ny
Last story by Brad Will: Death in Oaxaca - ''Another Death in the Months Long Resistance in Oaxaca, Mexico'' - Url.: http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/77343.shtml
APPO - (Association of Oaxaca people) - Reports Two Dead in Confrontations with Federal Police in Oaxaca - by Dan Feder - Posted on Sunday Oct. 29th, 2006 - Url.: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/10/29/233030/04
In The Netherlands journalist/researcher Louis Sévèke was liquidated November 15th 2005 - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/yzx2ed
The latest reliable news from Latin America - Url.: http://www.narconews.com/en.html
Focussing on reliable news from Venezuela - Url.: VHeadline.com/
NOW IS, INDEED, THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN TO COME TO THE AID OF THEIR COUNTRY."
JOHN PROTEVI - 2006-10-01 - Story Url.: http://projectbraintrust.com/blog.html?p=84
'BLACK TUESDAY' - OCTOBER 17 - 2006 - AFTER TWO STOLEN ELECTIONS GEORGE BUSH - AS THE SO CALLED 'PRESIDENT' OF THE US - SIGNED THE TOTALITARIAN ''MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT OF 2006'' INTO LAW.* - Wikipedia - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/ydkywt
* THE UNITED STATES IS DEFIANT OF ANY LAW ANYWHERE - The bill signed signed by would-be 'emperor' George Busholini into law also: ''legalizes U.S. war crimes committed before December 30, 2005.'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/yjaqkk
* US HENCHMAN PINOCHET ALSO THOUGHT HE COULD "LEGALIZE" TORTURE - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/y9p2vs
* PENTAGON KILLING JOURNALISTS - FPF/HR - Granma - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/bkzum
* AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNS US FOR VIOLATIONS OF UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE - Url.: www.wsws.org/articles/2000/may2000/tort-m12.shtml
* US "Death Squad Protection Act" - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6xdfw
* THE LAW ON FREE EXPRESSION - Aryeh Neier - American Civil Liberties Union - ACLU - "Defending My Enemy" - "The law on free expression covers everybody, and thus that in defending it for anybody you defend it for everybody." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/ymz2mv
* US PROPAGANDA: R.I.P. AL JAZEERA - DAVID FROST 'FRONT MAN' AT AL-JAZEERA INTERNATIONAL - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/y6us8n
*THROW OUT WAR PROPAGANDISTS LIKE THE BBC, FOX, CNN ETC.! - Url.: http://www.cemab.be/news/2006/07/1632.php
* THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: "The huge omnivorous herd consumes everywhere on our earth as much as it can grab, and tramples millions of human beings to death. That doesn't seem to matter. The 'elephant boys' don't speak about the bloody pulp underneath the feet of the big animals: instead they give them a bath in the mainstream." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/np823
* MORE LINKS & BACKGROUND LINKS TO THOSE RESPONSIBLE - If after checking a factual error is found, pls. send an email so it can be corrected. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/fhln9
* The Dutch author this far has lived and worked abroad - never in an English speaking country - for more than 4 decades for international media as an independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism!
* FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/gpr4j
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl
US lackey Alvaro Uribe to spark destabilization in both Colombia and Venezuela By Les Blough
On Thursday October 19th a car bomb exploded in the heart of the Colombian military headquarters in Bogotá. The so called War Academy houses the Schools of the Infantry, Artillery and Intelligence; the Superior War School; the training center for the High Military Command; and the Installations of the XIII Brigade and 5th Army Division. The damage to the installations was extensive but no one was killed and 23 people were left injured.
This attack occurred while the Colombian government of Alvaro Uribe Vélez is negotiating with the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Havana in a search for a peace formula to end the 60 year old civil war. Negotiations were progressing with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in an effort to bring about a humanitarian exchange of hostages held by the FARC for Colombian guerrillas held in government jails, as a first step of negotiating peace with the FARC.
Uribe was reelected in May in a landslide victory (63% of votes cast) and started his second term in August. His election platform had been to bring peace to Colombia through negotiations, in complete contrast to his 2002 campaign which was based on defeating the ELN and the FARC militarily.
As all international observers are aware, this policy failed miserably. The ELN and FARC remained as strong as ever. Even with an average of US$600 million per year sent by the US in the context of Plan Colombia since 2000 - accompanied by US military advisers and some troops - the number of acres for planting of coca is up by around 30% despite mass fumigation to kill off the crops. Little is reported in the so called “free press” about the damage being done to human beings and wildlife since the fungicide chemicals used and manufactured by Monsanto are illegal in the US and Europe.
In the context of these negotiations the bomb attack on the War Academy could not have come at a more surprising time. Two days later on Saturday October 21st, Uribe gave a speech accusing the FARC of planting the bomb citing proof of an intercepted e-mail allegedly sent from Bogotá to a high ranking FARC Commander, Mono Jojoy in the jungle, informing him of the success of the operation. On the basis of this proof, Uribe announced that he was breaking off negotiations with the FARC, ordered all the hostages held to be rescued in military operations and declared an all out war on the FARC.
The Colombian Attorney General, being far more cautious than Uribe, stated that there was no conclusive proof that the FARC had carried out the attack. Nevertheless, Uribe stuck by his guns and has effectively and irresponsibly run roughshod over the official investigations by taking this decision.
Colombia has reacted with horror, especially the hostages’ families, since if there are military operations to rescue the hostages, they will most certainly be executed by the FARC as the internal war escalates. Even the conservative Colombian media, run by the local oligarchy and transnational interests were up in arms about Uribe’s decision, as doubts were cast upon the veracity of the authors of the attack.
Let’s be clear about one thing – placing a car bomb in the heart of the Colombian military headquarters and not killing anyone sounds almost like a miracle. The FARC are experienced in planting bombs, blowing up electricity pylons and oil pipelines. Did they really manage to breach the most heavily secured installations in Colombia, place a car bomb and then not kill anyone? It sounds rather unlikely to say the least and this is why the media has its doubts about Uribe’s “discovery” of the incriminating email sent to Commander Jojoy.
Dick Emanuelsson, a seasoned progressive writer on Colombia and who interviewed FARC Commander Raul Reyes in 2003 maintains that the interception of such an email is impossible. The FARC uses short wave radios and not GSM so as to avoid their troops being tracked. In addition, all messages are encrypted in a program called PGP-DOS and sent by short wave. According to Emanuelsson, not even the fabled supercomputers can decode these messages, and Uribe would have us believe that the Colombian military managed to do this in 24 hours?
In other words, the Colombian Attorney General is correct – there is no proof that the FARC and Commander Jojoy were behind this attack. Could it be that this was an internal “black op” to create a pretext to break off negotiations unilaterally with the FARC? Remember, no one was killed. Why did not Uribe allow the investigations to continue to discover the real culprits of the attack before taking a decision which will cost even more lives?
The answer to this question is rather complex. However, one coincidence stands out like a sore thumb. On Thursday October 26th, Nicolas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs arrived in Bogotá and confirmed that Colombia was one of the US main allies in the region, that the Free Trade Agreement would be ratified and that more military aid would be available for Plan Colombia in the fight against drugs and terrorism. This was very convenient for Uribe who had just declared all out war on the FARC. Burns applauded Uribe’s decision to take the war to the FARC which he labeled a “terrorist organization”.
For readers information, the FARC were only labeled a “terrorist organization” by the US after the attacks on the World Trade Center is September 2001. Previously, the FARC and ELN were fighting a civil war for nigh on 60 years against the Colombian governments of the day. Uribe has now unilaterally decided to join the US led “war on terror” flying in the face of Colombian public opinion and the Colombian Congress and Senate. Looking at Colombia’s bloody history since 1830 – 9 civil wars in the 19th century plus the 1000 day war from 1899-1902, without mentioning the ongoing 60 year war – more blood is about to be shed.
Plan Colombia has been running since 2000 with many commentators observing that the long term aim is to use this plan as a beach head, so that the US can dominate South America to feed the interests of the Global Corporate Empire. Plan Colombia could soon change its name to Plan Patriota. Sounds familiar?
The US has lost a great deal of influence in the region since 1999 when Hugo Chávez came to office in Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution started to spread and awaken oppressed people in this most unequal of all continents. Chávez is a real problem for the US despite two attempts to overthrow him in the April 2002 coup d’état and the civic strike and oil industry sabotage from end 2002 till February 2003.
The US is aware that it cannot defeat Chávez at the ballot box. With elections in December pointing to a landslide victory for Chávez, the Venezuelan people and the Bolivarian Revolution, the only way to stop Chávez is by destabilizing Venezuela. Most observers believe that a Chávez reelection is a foregone conclusion unless “anything out of the ordinary” happens.
This is where Colombia comes into the mix. An all out war on the FARC could push not only more refugees over the Colombo-Venezuelan border (all 1400 miles of it) fleeing the violence and adding to the second largest refugee problem in the world after Dafour, but also columns of FARC guerillas fighting the Colombian army. This would be a real problem for Chávez since he has always tried to solve conflicts by peaceful means and negotiations. Venezuela could well be dragged into the Colombian internal conflict, and as this is a “war on terror” which has no limits set by the UN, Colombian troops would no doubt pursue the FARC into Venezuelan territory.
This is one scenario which cannot be dismissed. Chávez has stated that any irregulars or troops entering Venezuelan territory will be repelled. If this is the policy then Venezuelan troops could end up fighting FARC guerrillas and even Colombian regulars violating Venezuela’s territorial sovereignty.
If the Venezuelan army does not repel any invaders, then the cry will go out from the US that Venezuela is supporting a “terrorist organization” and all the old rumors and lies will be recycled about FARC camps in Venezuela; Chávez arming, financing and in cahoots with the FARC; Al Qaeda or Hezbollah training camps on Margarita Island; Chávez supporting “terrorist regimes” in Iran, Cuba, North Korea and so on.
Over the last three years Colombia has strengthened its armed forces to around 300,000 troops preparing for the final conflict. At best the FARC has 18,000 men under arms and the regular Venezuelan army is around 120,000 troops, 40,000 of which are stationed on the Colombo-Venezuelan border. If there is any sort of armed conflict on the border, this could well have a destabilizing effect internally in Venezuela since around 3 million Colombians live throughout Venezuela.
In the light of such a scenario, the Venezuelan private media lined up against Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution will almost certainly support Uribe’s efforts to defeat the FARC. For example, if the FARC is forced over the border into Venezuela, the hue and cry will be that “Chávez is harboring “terrorists” in Venezuela”. The next step will be the international media and then the US making some sort of pronouncements saying that Venezuela is not doing enough to fight “international terrorism and drug trafficking”.
The timing to create this crisis in Colombia by Uribe is perfect. Destabilize the border before the December 3rd elections; manufacture a crisis with Venezuela dragging it into the Colombian internal conflict. To all intents and purposes, this looks like Plan Colombia, Phase # 2, as has always been suspected by progressive observers, but dismissed as a paranoid fantasy by the corporate media and “sensible” official observers.
This scenario smells like a plan hatched in the dirty war rooms in Langley and there is no doubt that the CIA will be involved in this plan, its strategy and execution. If the US gets more actively involved in rooting out the FARC, troops could be drafted in from other friendly countries to Colombia. El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala come to mind as all these countries sent troops to Iraq in the “war on terror”. The US will fight this war by proxy, selling more military equipment and funding Colombia.
After all, if Venezuela is destabilized and oil shipments threatened upon which the US depends, then the US could moot some sort of intervention to safeguard the oil. This is the prize which the US is seeking and which it failed to secure using its lackeys in Venezuela in 2002 and 2003. At the same time, the aim is to weaken and eventually destroy the Bolivarian Revolution and get Chávez out of office or into the tomb.
There could be difficult days ahead in the coming months and let’s hope and pray that this Machiavellian scenario does not develop, pitting brother against brother in an unnecessary bloody conflict from which the only winner to emerge will be the US and its controlling stockholders – the Global Corporate Empire.
This attack occurred while the Colombian government of Alvaro Uribe Vélez is negotiating with the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Havana in a search for a peace formula to end the 60 year old civil war. Negotiations were progressing with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in an effort to bring about a humanitarian exchange of hostages held by the FARC for Colombian guerrillas held in government jails, as a first step of negotiating peace with the FARC.
Uribe was reelected in May in a landslide victory (63% of votes cast) and started his second term in August. His election platform had been to bring peace to Colombia through negotiations, in complete contrast to his 2002 campaign which was based on defeating the ELN and the FARC militarily.
As all international observers are aware, this policy failed miserably. The ELN and FARC remained as strong as ever. Even with an average of US$600 million per year sent by the US in the context of Plan Colombia since 2000 - accompanied by US military advisers and some troops - the number of acres for planting of coca is up by around 30% despite mass fumigation to kill off the crops. Little is reported in the so called “free press” about the damage being done to human beings and wildlife since the fungicide chemicals used and manufactured by Monsanto are illegal in the US and Europe.
In the context of these negotiations the bomb attack on the War Academy could not have come at a more surprising time. Two days later on Saturday October 21st, Uribe gave a speech accusing the FARC of planting the bomb citing proof of an intercepted e-mail allegedly sent from Bogotá to a high ranking FARC Commander, Mono Jojoy in the jungle, informing him of the success of the operation. On the basis of this proof, Uribe announced that he was breaking off negotiations with the FARC, ordered all the hostages held to be rescued in military operations and declared an all out war on the FARC.
The Colombian Attorney General, being far more cautious than Uribe, stated that there was no conclusive proof that the FARC had carried out the attack. Nevertheless, Uribe stuck by his guns and has effectively and irresponsibly run roughshod over the official investigations by taking this decision.
Colombia has reacted with horror, especially the hostages’ families, since if there are military operations to rescue the hostages, they will most certainly be executed by the FARC as the internal war escalates. Even the conservative Colombian media, run by the local oligarchy and transnational interests were up in arms about Uribe’s decision, as doubts were cast upon the veracity of the authors of the attack.
Let’s be clear about one thing – placing a car bomb in the heart of the Colombian military headquarters and not killing anyone sounds almost like a miracle. The FARC are experienced in planting bombs, blowing up electricity pylons and oil pipelines. Did they really manage to breach the most heavily secured installations in Colombia, place a car bomb and then not kill anyone? It sounds rather unlikely to say the least and this is why the media has its doubts about Uribe’s “discovery” of the incriminating email sent to Commander Jojoy.
Dick Emanuelsson, a seasoned progressive writer on Colombia and who interviewed FARC Commander Raul Reyes in 2003 maintains that the interception of such an email is impossible. The FARC uses short wave radios and not GSM so as to avoid their troops being tracked. In addition, all messages are encrypted in a program called PGP-DOS and sent by short wave. According to Emanuelsson, not even the fabled supercomputers can decode these messages, and Uribe would have us believe that the Colombian military managed to do this in 24 hours?
In other words, the Colombian Attorney General is correct – there is no proof that the FARC and Commander Jojoy were behind this attack. Could it be that this was an internal “black op” to create a pretext to break off negotiations unilaterally with the FARC? Remember, no one was killed. Why did not Uribe allow the investigations to continue to discover the real culprits of the attack before taking a decision which will cost even more lives?
The answer to this question is rather complex. However, one coincidence stands out like a sore thumb. On Thursday October 26th, Nicolas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs arrived in Bogotá and confirmed that Colombia was one of the US main allies in the region, that the Free Trade Agreement would be ratified and that more military aid would be available for Plan Colombia in the fight against drugs and terrorism. This was very convenient for Uribe who had just declared all out war on the FARC. Burns applauded Uribe’s decision to take the war to the FARC which he labeled a “terrorist organization”.
For readers information, the FARC were only labeled a “terrorist organization” by the US after the attacks on the World Trade Center is September 2001. Previously, the FARC and ELN were fighting a civil war for nigh on 60 years against the Colombian governments of the day. Uribe has now unilaterally decided to join the US led “war on terror” flying in the face of Colombian public opinion and the Colombian Congress and Senate. Looking at Colombia’s bloody history since 1830 – 9 civil wars in the 19th century plus the 1000 day war from 1899-1902, without mentioning the ongoing 60 year war – more blood is about to be shed.
Plan Colombia has been running since 2000 with many commentators observing that the long term aim is to use this plan as a beach head, so that the US can dominate South America to feed the interests of the Global Corporate Empire. Plan Colombia could soon change its name to Plan Patriota. Sounds familiar?
The US has lost a great deal of influence in the region since 1999 when Hugo Chávez came to office in Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution started to spread and awaken oppressed people in this most unequal of all continents. Chávez is a real problem for the US despite two attempts to overthrow him in the April 2002 coup d’état and the civic strike and oil industry sabotage from end 2002 till February 2003.
The US is aware that it cannot defeat Chávez at the ballot box. With elections in December pointing to a landslide victory for Chávez, the Venezuelan people and the Bolivarian Revolution, the only way to stop Chávez is by destabilizing Venezuela. Most observers believe that a Chávez reelection is a foregone conclusion unless “anything out of the ordinary” happens.
This is where Colombia comes into the mix. An all out war on the FARC could push not only more refugees over the Colombo-Venezuelan border (all 1400 miles of it) fleeing the violence and adding to the second largest refugee problem in the world after Dafour, but also columns of FARC guerillas fighting the Colombian army. This would be a real problem for Chávez since he has always tried to solve conflicts by peaceful means and negotiations. Venezuela could well be dragged into the Colombian internal conflict, and as this is a “war on terror” which has no limits set by the UN, Colombian troops would no doubt pursue the FARC into Venezuelan territory.
This is one scenario which cannot be dismissed. Chávez has stated that any irregulars or troops entering Venezuelan territory will be repelled. If this is the policy then Venezuelan troops could end up fighting FARC guerrillas and even Colombian regulars violating Venezuela’s territorial sovereignty.
If the Venezuelan army does not repel any invaders, then the cry will go out from the US that Venezuela is supporting a “terrorist organization” and all the old rumors and lies will be recycled about FARC camps in Venezuela; Chávez arming, financing and in cahoots with the FARC; Al Qaeda or Hezbollah training camps on Margarita Island; Chávez supporting “terrorist regimes” in Iran, Cuba, North Korea and so on.
Over the last three years Colombia has strengthened its armed forces to around 300,000 troops preparing for the final conflict. At best the FARC has 18,000 men under arms and the regular Venezuelan army is around 120,000 troops, 40,000 of which are stationed on the Colombo-Venezuelan border. If there is any sort of armed conflict on the border, this could well have a destabilizing effect internally in Venezuela since around 3 million Colombians live throughout Venezuela.
In the light of such a scenario, the Venezuelan private media lined up against Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution will almost certainly support Uribe’s efforts to defeat the FARC. For example, if the FARC is forced over the border into Venezuela, the hue and cry will be that “Chávez is harboring “terrorists” in Venezuela”. The next step will be the international media and then the US making some sort of pronouncements saying that Venezuela is not doing enough to fight “international terrorism and drug trafficking”.
The timing to create this crisis in Colombia by Uribe is perfect. Destabilize the border before the December 3rd elections; manufacture a crisis with Venezuela dragging it into the Colombian internal conflict. To all intents and purposes, this looks like Plan Colombia, Phase # 2, as has always been suspected by progressive observers, but dismissed as a paranoid fantasy by the corporate media and “sensible” official observers.
This scenario smells like a plan hatched in the dirty war rooms in Langley and there is no doubt that the CIA will be involved in this plan, its strategy and execution. If the US gets more actively involved in rooting out the FARC, troops could be drafted in from other friendly countries to Colombia. El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala come to mind as all these countries sent troops to Iraq in the “war on terror”. The US will fight this war by proxy, selling more military equipment and funding Colombia.
After all, if Venezuela is destabilized and oil shipments threatened upon which the US depends, then the US could moot some sort of intervention to safeguard the oil. This is the prize which the US is seeking and which it failed to secure using its lackeys in Venezuela in 2002 and 2003. At the same time, the aim is to weaken and eventually destroy the Bolivarian Revolution and get Chávez out of office or into the tomb.
There could be difficult days ahead in the coming months and let’s hope and pray that this Machiavellian scenario does not develop, pitting brother against brother in an unnecessary bloody conflict from which the only winner to emerge will be the US and its controlling stockholders – the Global Corporate Empire.
Dirty Bombs Over Lebanon Did Israel Use Uranium Weapons? By ROBERT FISK
Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians?
We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know--after it first categorically denied using such munitions--that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.
But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory--and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry--used by the Ministry of Defence--which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.
Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.
Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste productof the enrichment process is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.
Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas--until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.
I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer--except for "marking" targets--even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.
Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government and parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".
Asked by if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions." This, however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of civilians living in the area of the explosions.
American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) shells in Iraq in 1991--their hardened penetrator warheads manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry--and five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.
Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. But the US administration and the British government later went out of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia--where DU was also used by Nato aircraft--were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too early to register any health effects.
"When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the explosion are very long-lived in the environment," Dr Busby said yesterday. "They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not as dangerous as it is." Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when its targets--in the case of Khiam, for example--were only two miles from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its perpetrators.
Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best--if you can say that--it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products."
The soil sample from Khiam--site of a notorious torture prison when Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war--was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."
This summer's Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive bombardment of Lebanon's villages, cities, bridges and civilian infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.
Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.
What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet known. Nor is their effect on civilians.
Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's collection, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's new book is The Conquest of the Middle East.
We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know--after it first categorically denied using such munitions--that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.
But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory--and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry--used by the Ministry of Defence--which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.
Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.
Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste productof the enrichment process is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.
Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas--until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.
I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer--except for "marking" targets--even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.
Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government and parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".
Asked by if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions." This, however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of civilians living in the area of the explosions.
American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) shells in Iraq in 1991--their hardened penetrator warheads manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry--and five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.
Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. But the US administration and the British government later went out of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia--where DU was also used by Nato aircraft--were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too early to register any health effects.
"When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the explosion are very long-lived in the environment," Dr Busby said yesterday. "They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not as dangerous as it is." Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when its targets--in the case of Khiam, for example--were only two miles from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its perpetrators.
Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best--if you can say that--it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products."
The soil sample from Khiam--site of a notorious torture prison when Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war--was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."
This summer's Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive bombardment of Lebanon's villages, cities, bridges and civilian infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.
Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.
What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet known. Nor is their effect on civilians.
Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's collection, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's new book is The Conquest of the Middle East.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Bill Paparian & James Adomian as George
Bill Paparian, (lawyer, candidate for Congress, former mayor of Pasadena) details the many laws that George Bush has broken. He then introduces James Adomian as George "the devil" Bush who attempts to defend himself.
Adomian starts at about 3:35. He has the Bush mannerisms and incoherent speaking style down pat and reminds us that "You folks are the oppositione
Bill Paparian, (lawyer, candidate for Congress, former mayor of Pasadena) details the many laws that George Bush has broken. He then introduces James Adomian as George "the devil" Bush who attempts to defend himself.
Adomian starts at about 3:35. He has the Bush mannerisms and incoherent speaking style down pat and reminds us that "You folks are the oppositione
Friday, October 27, 2006
Rogue President by Michael Carmichael
October 25, 2006
GlobalResearch.ca
The president seems confused. After making a curious remark observing that the war in Iraq was placing a strain on the psyche of America, President Bush has become the primary focus of concerns about a strained psyche.
Last week, the president uttered more than one oracular pronouncement. First he acquiesced to the analogy that has been on everyone’s lips since well before the launch of the Iraq War – Does Iraq resemble Vietnam? In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, President Bush agreed that the Ramadan offensive in Iraq smacks of the Tet offensive of 1968.
Later in another interview – President Bush stunned America with his pronouncement that he had never said that the US would, “Stay the course,” in Iraq. After recovering several verbatim transcripts of the president’s use of the exact phraseology that he now believes he never uttered, American pundits are puzzled by this expanding enigma enveloping the president’s personal discourse. What will he say next?
That question was answered today, when President Bush addressed a small group at the White House with fifteen minutes of remarks during which he admitted he was now, “dissatisfied,” with American progress in Iraq. Apparently, the President is dissatisfied that no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were discovered in Iraq. The loss of nearly 3,000 American lives and the disturbing growth in the insurgency now appear to be factors adding to the president’s dissatisfaction.
From that point in his White House talk, the President veered off into a rambling statement that quite simply defies definition. President Bush said that he would stay in Iraq until the, “job is done,” and, “we cannot allow our dissatisfaction to turn into disillusionment about our purpose in this war,” followed by an order aimed at the American people to disbelieve what he described as, “enemy propaganda.” From that mystifying turn of phrase, President Bush assured his audience in the White House, “I know the American people understand the stakes in Iraq. They want to win. They will support the war as long as they see a clear path to victory.”
From this melange of mystification, it is now perfectly clear that President Bush has not read the newspapers for the past seven days – neither is he aware of the latest polls from America’s heartland. The American people have lost confidence in his rogue presidency. Now, two out of three Americans believe that his presidency is a rapidly mushrooming disaster. By a two to one margin, American voters believe that the Democrats are better suited to deal with national security issues and terrorism than the Republicans. Why has nobody in the White House told the President that his policies in general - and his war in particular - are now unacceptable to the American people? Why is the president allowed to blather on and on about facts that fly in the face of reality?
America is a young nation, but an aging democracy. While America has suffered through rogue presidencies in its past: Pierce; Polk; Buchanan; Grant; McKinley; Harding; Coolidge; Hoover; Nixon and Reagan – it has never suffered quite as horribly; quite as tragically; quite as fatefully or quite as expensively as it is now suffering under the presidency of George W. Bush.
This conundrum affects President Bush most of all. From the president’s perspective, the world appears to be distorted as if he is witnessing events through a macabre prism twisting and contorting reality into a nightmarish illusion that defies his admittedly meagre powers to discern the true state of things.
Other commentators have written that President Bush and his family have taken every wrong fork in the path of American history since they came to power through the career of his grandfather, Prescott Bush. The wrong-headed attack on American history continued in a stark line through the career of President Bush’s father, George Herbert Walker Bush. But, in a sort of exponential surge of destiny, the honour of distorting American history into a lamentable caricature of its worst nightmares fell to the current President Bush.
Viewing this unravelling travesty, the elder generation of Bush loyalists have taken the extreme measure of stepping into the breech to seize the helm of the American ship of state to pilot her to safer, saner and hopefully more placid waters. Last week, the Bush family consigliore, James Baker, leaked a story about the findings of the Iraq Study Group. In their opinion, the war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster, and a new policy is needed to extricate America from the quagmire. The presidential state of denial diagnosed by Robert Woodward, must be broken by the facing of certain home truths – America must leave Iraq.
That this story was leaked when it was – ie. two weeks before a crucial election - reveals the deep concerns of the Republican seniority over what appeared to be nothing less than a Bush-Cheney plan to launch World War W – by attacking Iran in the final days prior to the dreaded midterm elections in America.
When North Korea exploded her atomic device, that option – a new world war - could no longer be categorized as a rational alternative. While Bush and Cheney were prepared to wage one of their pre-emptive wars on Iran, they could not be allowed to take that step in the aftermath of North Korea going nuclear.
The equations of political algebra and diplomatic calculus had to be re-calibrated with the new factor of a nuclear regime in Pyongyang – and the embarrassing fact of the sweaty and itchy index finger of Kim Jong-Il now twitching and jerking on a nuclear trigger of his very own.
When Kim Jong-Il hit the streets of Dodge City to face off against George W. Bush, George W. Bush and his backers decided it was time to get out of Dodge.
Thanks to the policy of President Bush, post-Saddam Iraq is now being described as the, “most hellish place on earth.” Thanks to the policy of President Bush, nearly three-thousand American soldiers have lost their lives in the sands of Iraq. Thanks to the policy of President Bush, the American people have invested the better part of one trillion dollars into creating the hell of Zalmay Khalilzad’s Iraq. Thanks to the policy of President Bush we now know that the Interim Government of Ayad Allawi embezzled over eight-hundred million dollars during their relatively short time in office.
The polls in America predict a stunning change of power in the halls of Congress. Democrats are poised to return to the majority in the House of Representatives and to make gains in the Senate.
With Karl Rove’s hand poised over the election-stealing electronic voting machines fabricated by Republican corporations, the Office for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe, now the world’s pre-eminent authority on the fairness of elections, have announced their mission to supervise the American midterm elections. According to reports in Europe, the OSCE is keenly interested in the allegations of e-voting and election fraud in Bush’s America.
To distract the voters, Rove has launched a campaign to sell America on the vibrancy reported to have broken out in the US economy. Now that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is now hovering circa 10% above its level when Bush took office, Rove is calling it an economic miracle. Now that 6.6 million jobs have been created in the same period of time as it took Bill Clinton’s administration to create over 9 million jobs, Rove is attempting to sell the US economy to the voters as a triumph for Bush and the Republicans. Pity him, for Rove has little choice, now that Iraq has gone pear-shaped.
Bad as the situation in Iraq actually is, that does not mean that Bush and Rove will not try to brand their retreat as a victory. In their terms, a military defeat is always a victory as long as they were in command.
The walls are closing in on the presidency of George Walker Bush. His old enemy, Gerhard Schroder, has just launched his book decrying the Bush presidency. Schroder reported that meetings with President Bush bordered on the impossible as his sanctimonious staff repeatedly assured his guests that the president was a, “god-fearing” man. Needless to say, Shroder records that it was difficult to do business, to meet or to negotiate with such a head of state, one that clearly fancied himself to be a divine right monarch straight out of the pages of medieval history rather than the head of the world’s sole superpower.
Given the rapidly multiplying constellation of crises and criticisms hitting his presidency in its metaphorical face, President Bush has taken the extraordinary step of investing in a tract of private real estate. For the past week, the international press has been spellbound by reports that Jenna Bush, the president’s daughter, has negotiated a real estate transaction in upper Paraguay for a huge ranch even by Texas standards. Now international speculation presumes that the Bushes have taken the advice of their family’s consigliores to maintain a bolt-hole hideaway just in case of the eruption of problematic or discomforting political developments in their homeland.
From my undergraduate history of the Cold War, I seem to recall that after the Allied victory in World War Two, the northern reaches of Paraguay provided a refuge for Nazi war criminals – including Dr. Josef Mengele. A rogue Nazi, a rogue president – a refuge for rogues in the mists of Paraguay - is that a coincidence – or not?
References
Bush drops ’stay the course’ slogan as political mood sours - Takeover could come in a year, but more troops may go to Bagdhad, says US general
Bush admits dissatisfaction with Iraq situation
Bush faces calamity as swing voters flock to the Democrats
War effect chills the hearts of Republican Middle America - Will Ohio go Democrat?
US poll shows 58% believe Iraq was a mistake
US in Iraq: We’re out of here - America signals dramatic shift in strategy, saying Iraq will assume responsibility for security in ‘12 to 18 months’
US soldier to voice Iraq conflict opposition
We have turned Iraq into the most hellish place on Earth
Patrick Cockburn: From ‘mission accomplished’ to mission impossible for the Iraqis
Iraq: the people have their say. And it’s bad news for Tony Blair - 72 per cent predict that Iraq will descend into civil war if British and American troops withdraw - 61 per cent believe Britain’s experience in Iraq makes them less likely to support military intervention - 72 per cent say that Tony Blair’s support for George Bush calls into question his political judgement - 62 per cent believe that British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible - 72 per cent believe that the war in Iraq is unwinnable
Iraq war could be judged a disaster, Beckett admits
Iraq: voters want British troops home by end of year - Fresh pressure on Blair as public back calls for early withdrawal
‘Government stole $800m’
Iraq mayhem triggers hunt for exit strategy in US and UK / Foreign Office urges talks with Syria and Iran, as militia seize city left by British
The genteel revolt that is remaking US policy on Iraq / Republican veterans push for end to interventionist approach
Blair gives Iraq 12 months to be ready for handover - PM to meet Iraqi leaders in Downing St today - Former envoy warns that ‘only bad options’ remain
Disarm the militias and take control - White House issues demands to embattled PM - Sanctions threat if al-Maliki fails to meet timetable - Move reflects US frustration
‘Arrogant’ US has failed, says spin doctor
The week the war unravelled: Bush to have crisis meeting with generals to ‘refocus’ Iraq strategy
The Exodus: 1.6m Iraqis have fled their country since the war
Americans ‘desperate’ for way out - US plans ‘deadlines’ to accelerate withdrawal
Britain ‘risking defeat in Afghanistan’
How Iraq came home to haunt America - For months doubts over Iraq have risen along with the death toll. Last week a tipping point was reached as political leaders in Washington and London began openly to think the unthinkable: that the war was lost
Britain now No 1 al-Qaida target - anti-terror chiefs
America has finally taken on the grim reality of Iraq The US is radically rethinking its exit strategy, while Britain waits zombie-like for new instructions by Simon Jenkins
Bush acknowledges echoes of Vietnam in Iraq
Bush accepts Iraq-Vietnam war comparison
End of the culture war / Now the religious right has turned against the Republican Congress, the great revolution is over by Sidney Blumenthal
Space: America’s new war zone
US Plan for New Nuclear Weapons Advances By Walter Pincus / The Washington Post
Schröder causes a stir with controversial memoirs
Schröder settles old scores with Merkel and ‘God-fearing’ Bush
Paraguay in a spin about Bush’s alleged 100,000 acre hideaway
GlobalResearch.ca
The president seems confused. After making a curious remark observing that the war in Iraq was placing a strain on the psyche of America, President Bush has become the primary focus of concerns about a strained psyche.
Last week, the president uttered more than one oracular pronouncement. First he acquiesced to the analogy that has been on everyone’s lips since well before the launch of the Iraq War – Does Iraq resemble Vietnam? In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, President Bush agreed that the Ramadan offensive in Iraq smacks of the Tet offensive of 1968.
Later in another interview – President Bush stunned America with his pronouncement that he had never said that the US would, “Stay the course,” in Iraq. After recovering several verbatim transcripts of the president’s use of the exact phraseology that he now believes he never uttered, American pundits are puzzled by this expanding enigma enveloping the president’s personal discourse. What will he say next?
That question was answered today, when President Bush addressed a small group at the White House with fifteen minutes of remarks during which he admitted he was now, “dissatisfied,” with American progress in Iraq. Apparently, the President is dissatisfied that no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were discovered in Iraq. The loss of nearly 3,000 American lives and the disturbing growth in the insurgency now appear to be factors adding to the president’s dissatisfaction.
From that point in his White House talk, the President veered off into a rambling statement that quite simply defies definition. President Bush said that he would stay in Iraq until the, “job is done,” and, “we cannot allow our dissatisfaction to turn into disillusionment about our purpose in this war,” followed by an order aimed at the American people to disbelieve what he described as, “enemy propaganda.” From that mystifying turn of phrase, President Bush assured his audience in the White House, “I know the American people understand the stakes in Iraq. They want to win. They will support the war as long as they see a clear path to victory.”
From this melange of mystification, it is now perfectly clear that President Bush has not read the newspapers for the past seven days – neither is he aware of the latest polls from America’s heartland. The American people have lost confidence in his rogue presidency. Now, two out of three Americans believe that his presidency is a rapidly mushrooming disaster. By a two to one margin, American voters believe that the Democrats are better suited to deal with national security issues and terrorism than the Republicans. Why has nobody in the White House told the President that his policies in general - and his war in particular - are now unacceptable to the American people? Why is the president allowed to blather on and on about facts that fly in the face of reality?
America is a young nation, but an aging democracy. While America has suffered through rogue presidencies in its past: Pierce; Polk; Buchanan; Grant; McKinley; Harding; Coolidge; Hoover; Nixon and Reagan – it has never suffered quite as horribly; quite as tragically; quite as fatefully or quite as expensively as it is now suffering under the presidency of George W. Bush.
This conundrum affects President Bush most of all. From the president’s perspective, the world appears to be distorted as if he is witnessing events through a macabre prism twisting and contorting reality into a nightmarish illusion that defies his admittedly meagre powers to discern the true state of things.
Other commentators have written that President Bush and his family have taken every wrong fork in the path of American history since they came to power through the career of his grandfather, Prescott Bush. The wrong-headed attack on American history continued in a stark line through the career of President Bush’s father, George Herbert Walker Bush. But, in a sort of exponential surge of destiny, the honour of distorting American history into a lamentable caricature of its worst nightmares fell to the current President Bush.
Viewing this unravelling travesty, the elder generation of Bush loyalists have taken the extreme measure of stepping into the breech to seize the helm of the American ship of state to pilot her to safer, saner and hopefully more placid waters. Last week, the Bush family consigliore, James Baker, leaked a story about the findings of the Iraq Study Group. In their opinion, the war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster, and a new policy is needed to extricate America from the quagmire. The presidential state of denial diagnosed by Robert Woodward, must be broken by the facing of certain home truths – America must leave Iraq.
That this story was leaked when it was – ie. two weeks before a crucial election - reveals the deep concerns of the Republican seniority over what appeared to be nothing less than a Bush-Cheney plan to launch World War W – by attacking Iran in the final days prior to the dreaded midterm elections in America.
When North Korea exploded her atomic device, that option – a new world war - could no longer be categorized as a rational alternative. While Bush and Cheney were prepared to wage one of their pre-emptive wars on Iran, they could not be allowed to take that step in the aftermath of North Korea going nuclear.
The equations of political algebra and diplomatic calculus had to be re-calibrated with the new factor of a nuclear regime in Pyongyang – and the embarrassing fact of the sweaty and itchy index finger of Kim Jong-Il now twitching and jerking on a nuclear trigger of his very own.
When Kim Jong-Il hit the streets of Dodge City to face off against George W. Bush, George W. Bush and his backers decided it was time to get out of Dodge.
Thanks to the policy of President Bush, post-Saddam Iraq is now being described as the, “most hellish place on earth.” Thanks to the policy of President Bush, nearly three-thousand American soldiers have lost their lives in the sands of Iraq. Thanks to the policy of President Bush, the American people have invested the better part of one trillion dollars into creating the hell of Zalmay Khalilzad’s Iraq. Thanks to the policy of President Bush we now know that the Interim Government of Ayad Allawi embezzled over eight-hundred million dollars during their relatively short time in office.
The polls in America predict a stunning change of power in the halls of Congress. Democrats are poised to return to the majority in the House of Representatives and to make gains in the Senate.
With Karl Rove’s hand poised over the election-stealing electronic voting machines fabricated by Republican corporations, the Office for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe, now the world’s pre-eminent authority on the fairness of elections, have announced their mission to supervise the American midterm elections. According to reports in Europe, the OSCE is keenly interested in the allegations of e-voting and election fraud in Bush’s America.
To distract the voters, Rove has launched a campaign to sell America on the vibrancy reported to have broken out in the US economy. Now that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is now hovering circa 10% above its level when Bush took office, Rove is calling it an economic miracle. Now that 6.6 million jobs have been created in the same period of time as it took Bill Clinton’s administration to create over 9 million jobs, Rove is attempting to sell the US economy to the voters as a triumph for Bush and the Republicans. Pity him, for Rove has little choice, now that Iraq has gone pear-shaped.
Bad as the situation in Iraq actually is, that does not mean that Bush and Rove will not try to brand their retreat as a victory. In their terms, a military defeat is always a victory as long as they were in command.
The walls are closing in on the presidency of George Walker Bush. His old enemy, Gerhard Schroder, has just launched his book decrying the Bush presidency. Schroder reported that meetings with President Bush bordered on the impossible as his sanctimonious staff repeatedly assured his guests that the president was a, “god-fearing” man. Needless to say, Shroder records that it was difficult to do business, to meet or to negotiate with such a head of state, one that clearly fancied himself to be a divine right monarch straight out of the pages of medieval history rather than the head of the world’s sole superpower.
Given the rapidly multiplying constellation of crises and criticisms hitting his presidency in its metaphorical face, President Bush has taken the extraordinary step of investing in a tract of private real estate. For the past week, the international press has been spellbound by reports that Jenna Bush, the president’s daughter, has negotiated a real estate transaction in upper Paraguay for a huge ranch even by Texas standards. Now international speculation presumes that the Bushes have taken the advice of their family’s consigliores to maintain a bolt-hole hideaway just in case of the eruption of problematic or discomforting political developments in their homeland.
From my undergraduate history of the Cold War, I seem to recall that after the Allied victory in World War Two, the northern reaches of Paraguay provided a refuge for Nazi war criminals – including Dr. Josef Mengele. A rogue Nazi, a rogue president – a refuge for rogues in the mists of Paraguay - is that a coincidence – or not?
References
Bush drops ’stay the course’ slogan as political mood sours - Takeover could come in a year, but more troops may go to Bagdhad, says US general
Bush admits dissatisfaction with Iraq situation
Bush faces calamity as swing voters flock to the Democrats
War effect chills the hearts of Republican Middle America - Will Ohio go Democrat?
US poll shows 58% believe Iraq was a mistake
US in Iraq: We’re out of here - America signals dramatic shift in strategy, saying Iraq will assume responsibility for security in ‘12 to 18 months’
US soldier to voice Iraq conflict opposition
We have turned Iraq into the most hellish place on Earth
Patrick Cockburn: From ‘mission accomplished’ to mission impossible for the Iraqis
Iraq: the people have their say. And it’s bad news for Tony Blair - 72 per cent predict that Iraq will descend into civil war if British and American troops withdraw - 61 per cent believe Britain’s experience in Iraq makes them less likely to support military intervention - 72 per cent say that Tony Blair’s support for George Bush calls into question his political judgement - 62 per cent believe that British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible - 72 per cent believe that the war in Iraq is unwinnable
Iraq war could be judged a disaster, Beckett admits
Iraq: voters want British troops home by end of year - Fresh pressure on Blair as public back calls for early withdrawal
‘Government stole $800m’
Iraq mayhem triggers hunt for exit strategy in US and UK / Foreign Office urges talks with Syria and Iran, as militia seize city left by British
The genteel revolt that is remaking US policy on Iraq / Republican veterans push for end to interventionist approach
Blair gives Iraq 12 months to be ready for handover - PM to meet Iraqi leaders in Downing St today - Former envoy warns that ‘only bad options’ remain
Disarm the militias and take control - White House issues demands to embattled PM - Sanctions threat if al-Maliki fails to meet timetable - Move reflects US frustration
‘Arrogant’ US has failed, says spin doctor
The week the war unravelled: Bush to have crisis meeting with generals to ‘refocus’ Iraq strategy
The Exodus: 1.6m Iraqis have fled their country since the war
Americans ‘desperate’ for way out - US plans ‘deadlines’ to accelerate withdrawal
Britain ‘risking defeat in Afghanistan’
How Iraq came home to haunt America - For months doubts over Iraq have risen along with the death toll. Last week a tipping point was reached as political leaders in Washington and London began openly to think the unthinkable: that the war was lost
Britain now No 1 al-Qaida target - anti-terror chiefs
America has finally taken on the grim reality of Iraq The US is radically rethinking its exit strategy, while Britain waits zombie-like for new instructions by Simon Jenkins
Bush acknowledges echoes of Vietnam in Iraq
Bush accepts Iraq-Vietnam war comparison
End of the culture war / Now the religious right has turned against the Republican Congress, the great revolution is over by Sidney Blumenthal
Space: America’s new war zone
US Plan for New Nuclear Weapons Advances By Walter Pincus / The Washington Post
Schröder causes a stir with controversial memoirs
Schröder settles old scores with Merkel and ‘God-fearing’ Bush
Paraguay in a spin about Bush’s alleged 100,000 acre hideaway
US naval war games off the Iranian coastline: A provocation which could lead to War? by Michel Chossudovsky
US naval war games off the Iranian coastline: A provocation which could lead to War?
by Michel Chossudovsky
October 24, 2006
GlobalResearch.ca
There is a massive concentration of US naval power in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Two US naval strike groups are deployed: USS Enterprise, and USS Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group. The naval strike groups have been assigned to fighting the "global war on terrorism."
War Games
Concurrent with ths concentration of US Naval power, the US is also involved in military exercises in the Persian Gulf, which consists in "interdicting ships in the Gulf carrying weapons of mass destruction and missiles"
The exercise is taking place as the United States and other major powers are considering sanctions including possible interdiction of ships on North Korea, following a reported nuclear test, and on Iran, which has defied a U.N. Security Council mandate to stop enriching uranium.
The exercise, set for Oct. 31, is the 25th to be organized under the U.S.-led 66-member Proliferation Security Initiative and the first to be based in the Gulf near Bahrain, across from Iran, the officials said.
A senior U.S. official insisted the exercise is not aimed specifically at Iran, although it reinforces a U.S. strategy aimed at strengthening America’s ties with states in the Gulf, where Tehran and Washington are competing for influence"
(Defense News, http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=2171176&C=mideast)
Tehran considers the US sponsored war games in the Persian Gulf, off the Iranian coastline as a provocation, which is intended to trigger a potential crisis and a situation of direct confrontation between US and Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf:
"Reports say the US-led naval exercises based near Bahrain will practise intercepting and searching ships carrying weapons of mass destruction and missiles.
Iran's official news agency IRNA quoted an unnamed foreign ministry official as describing the military manoeuvres as dangerous and suspicious.
Reports say the US-led naval exercises based near Bahrain will practise intercepting and searching ships carrying weapons of mass destruction and missiles.
The Iranian foreign ministry official said the US-led exercises were not in line with the security and stability of the region. Instead, they are aimed at fomenting crises, he said." (quoted in BBC, 23 October 2006)
USS Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG 5) to arrive in Arabian Sea
The USS Boxer (LHD 4), --which is the flagship for the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG 5)-- which left Singapore on October 16, is scheduled to join the two other naval strikes groups. ESG 5 is comprised of USS Boxer, Bunker Hill, USS Dubuque (LPD 8), USS Comstock (LSD 45), USS Benfold (DDG 65), and USS Howard (DDG 83). ESG 5 also includes PHIBRON 5, the 15th MEU, Coast Guard Cutter Midgett (WHEC 726).
“We are about to enter a part of the world that can be very dangerous,” said Chief Aviation Ordnanceman (AW/SW) Jacques Beaver, Boxer’s flight deck ordnance chief. “We must be flexible and prepared to defend ourselves from any threats.”
Boxer has been preparing for the weapons upload for two months by completing required maintenance and electronic pre-checks. Checks ensure that the ship’s missile and launching systems are up to standard and safe to load with live ordnance.
“It has taken a lot of hard work for our people to get this done,” said Chief Fire Controlman (SW) William Lewis, combat systems, fire control division’s leading chief petty officer. “You cannot measure the importance of having these defenses guarding the lives of the Sailors and Marines in this strike group.”
BOXESG is comprised of USS Boxer (LHD 4), USS Bunker Hill (CG 52), USS Dubuque (LPD 8), USS Comstock (LSD 45), USS Benfold (DDG 65) and USS Howard (DDG 83). The strike group also includes Amphibious Squadron 5, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Coast Guard Cutter Midgett (WHEC 726) and Canadian Frigate HMCS Ottawa (FFH 341).
BOXESG is currently conducting operations in support of the global war on terrorism while transiting to the Arabian
Gulf." (http://www.c7f.navy.mil/news/2006/october/3.htm)
USS Boxer
Canada is part of the Expeditonary Strike Group (ESG 5)
Canada is formally participating in this military deployment under the disguise of the "war on terrorism". The Canadian Navy has dispatched Frigate HMCS Ottawa, which is now an integral part of ESG 5, under US Command. It is worth noting that particular emphasis has been given to medical evacuations and combat medical support suggesting that a combat scenario could be envisaged.
Boxer and Ottawa, both operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility, know that they can play a vital role to aid humanitarian assistance operations, medical evacuations or combat medical support that would rely heavily on the medical capabilities of the Boxer strike group. Cross training Sailors from ship to ship helps ensure the success of the strike group should BOXESG have to respond to any medical scenario, according to Richardson.
“Training is a necessary part of any evolution,” said Richardson. “Anytime you’re working with another nation, it’s important that we understand their capabilities just as much as they understand ours, so in the event anything occurs we know where our assets are.”
The cross training also fostered cooperation between the two allies which provided Verville and Boxer corpsmen a forum to learn about each other’s navies and each other’s culture." (Military.com October 2006)
Dangerous Crossroads: Tonkin II?
"An incident" in the Persian Gulf could be used by the US as a pretext for war against Iran.
A war pretext incident, similar to "the Gulf of Tonkin Incident", which triggered the Vietnam war, could be used by US forces, with a view to justifying retaliatory military action against Iran.
In August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson claimed that North Vietnamese forces had attacked US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Tonkin incident, which had been manipulated, contributed to unleashing a full-fledged war against Vietnam:
"A phantom attack on two U.S. destroyers cruising the Gulf of Tonkin was staged by the Pentagon and the C.I.A. The bogus attack occurred early in August, 1964. That evening President Lyndon Johnson went on television giving the grim details of the non-attack. Later, however, it was revealed that navy commander James Stockdale flew cover over the Gulf of Tonkin that night. Stockdale disclosed that U.S. ships were firing at phantom targets—targets that didn’t exist. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident that drew the U.S. into the quagmire of Viet Nam simply didn’t happen. Johnson, as presidents so often do, lied to the American people. The result was the rapid passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was the sole legal basis for the Viet Nam War. As a result of Johnson’s lie, three million Vietnamese people and fifty eight thousand U.S. soldiers died." (Charles Sullivan, Global Research, January 2006)
Revised and updated Oct 25, 2006. Note: Since this report was first published, we have been advised that several press reports concerning USS Eisenhower are incorrect. US military sources have confirmed that USS Eisenhower was in Naples on Oct 23.
We have made appropriate corrections.
ANNEX: US NAVY
Navy Personnel
Active Duty: 349,783
Officers: 51,979
Enlisted: 293,368
Midshipmen: 4,436
Ready Reserve: 131,802 [As of 30 September]
Selected Reserves: 70,500
Individual Ready Reserve: 61,302
Reserves currently mobilized: 5,996 [As of 18 October]
Personnel on deployment: 36,037
Navy Department Civilian Employees: 175,454
Ships and Submarines
Deployable Battle Force Ships: 280
Ships Underway (away from homeport): 133 ships (47% of total)
On deployment: 104 ships (37% of total)
Attack submarines underway
(away from homeport): 22 submarines (40%)
On deployment: 11 submarines (20%)
Ships Underway
Carriers:
USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) - Philippine Sea
USS Enterprise (CVN 65) - Persian Gulf
USS Nimitz (CVN 68) - Pacific Ocean
USS Dwight D.Eisenhower (CVN 69)- Mediterranean Sea
USS Ronald Reagan - Pacific Ocean
Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG):
USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) - Persian Gulf
USS Nashville (LPD 13) - Persian Gulf
USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41) - Persian Gulf
Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG):
USS Boxer (LHD 4) - Indian Ocean
USS Dubuque (LPD 8) - Indian Ocean
USS Comstock (LSD 45) - Indian Ocean
Essex Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG):
USS Essex (LHD 2) - South China Sea
USS Juneau (LPD 10) - South China Sea
USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) - South China Sea
Amphibious Warfare Ships:
USS Tarawa (LHA 1) - Pacific Ocean
USS Saipan (LHA 2) - Persian Gulf
USS Wasp (LHD 1) - port visit, Copenhagen, Denmark
USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Bataan (LHD 5) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Cleveland (LPD 7) - Pacific Ocean
USS Shreveport (LPD 12) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Ponce (LPD 15) - Atlantic Ocean
USS San Antonio (LPD 17) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Ashland (LSD 48) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Pearl Harbor (LSD 52) - Pacific Ocean
Aircraft (operational): 4000+
currently/or en route in/to Persian Gulf-Arabian Sea
(according to available information)
by Michel Chossudovsky
October 24, 2006
GlobalResearch.ca
There is a massive concentration of US naval power in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Two US naval strike groups are deployed: USS Enterprise, and USS Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group. The naval strike groups have been assigned to fighting the "global war on terrorism."
War Games
Concurrent with ths concentration of US Naval power, the US is also involved in military exercises in the Persian Gulf, which consists in "interdicting ships in the Gulf carrying weapons of mass destruction and missiles"
The exercise is taking place as the United States and other major powers are considering sanctions including possible interdiction of ships on North Korea, following a reported nuclear test, and on Iran, which has defied a U.N. Security Council mandate to stop enriching uranium.
The exercise, set for Oct. 31, is the 25th to be organized under the U.S.-led 66-member Proliferation Security Initiative and the first to be based in the Gulf near Bahrain, across from Iran, the officials said.
A senior U.S. official insisted the exercise is not aimed specifically at Iran, although it reinforces a U.S. strategy aimed at strengthening America’s ties with states in the Gulf, where Tehran and Washington are competing for influence"
(Defense News, http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=2171176&C=mideast)
Tehran considers the US sponsored war games in the Persian Gulf, off the Iranian coastline as a provocation, which is intended to trigger a potential crisis and a situation of direct confrontation between US and Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf:
"Reports say the US-led naval exercises based near Bahrain will practise intercepting and searching ships carrying weapons of mass destruction and missiles.
Iran's official news agency IRNA quoted an unnamed foreign ministry official as describing the military manoeuvres as dangerous and suspicious.
Reports say the US-led naval exercises based near Bahrain will practise intercepting and searching ships carrying weapons of mass destruction and missiles.
The Iranian foreign ministry official said the US-led exercises were not in line with the security and stability of the region. Instead, they are aimed at fomenting crises, he said." (quoted in BBC, 23 October 2006)
USS Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG 5) to arrive in Arabian Sea
The USS Boxer (LHD 4), --which is the flagship for the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG 5)-- which left Singapore on October 16, is scheduled to join the two other naval strikes groups. ESG 5 is comprised of USS Boxer, Bunker Hill, USS Dubuque (LPD 8), USS Comstock (LSD 45), USS Benfold (DDG 65), and USS Howard (DDG 83). ESG 5 also includes PHIBRON 5, the 15th MEU, Coast Guard Cutter Midgett (WHEC 726).
“We are about to enter a part of the world that can be very dangerous,” said Chief Aviation Ordnanceman (AW/SW) Jacques Beaver, Boxer’s flight deck ordnance chief. “We must be flexible and prepared to defend ourselves from any threats.”
Boxer has been preparing for the weapons upload for two months by completing required maintenance and electronic pre-checks. Checks ensure that the ship’s missile and launching systems are up to standard and safe to load with live ordnance.
“It has taken a lot of hard work for our people to get this done,” said Chief Fire Controlman (SW) William Lewis, combat systems, fire control division’s leading chief petty officer. “You cannot measure the importance of having these defenses guarding the lives of the Sailors and Marines in this strike group.”
BOXESG is comprised of USS Boxer (LHD 4), USS Bunker Hill (CG 52), USS Dubuque (LPD 8), USS Comstock (LSD 45), USS Benfold (DDG 65) and USS Howard (DDG 83). The strike group also includes Amphibious Squadron 5, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Coast Guard Cutter Midgett (WHEC 726) and Canadian Frigate HMCS Ottawa (FFH 341).
BOXESG is currently conducting operations in support of the global war on terrorism while transiting to the Arabian
Gulf." (http://www.c7f.navy.mil/news/2006/october/3.htm)
USS Boxer
Canada is part of the Expeditonary Strike Group (ESG 5)
Canada is formally participating in this military deployment under the disguise of the "war on terrorism". The Canadian Navy has dispatched Frigate HMCS Ottawa, which is now an integral part of ESG 5, under US Command. It is worth noting that particular emphasis has been given to medical evacuations and combat medical support suggesting that a combat scenario could be envisaged.
Boxer and Ottawa, both operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility, know that they can play a vital role to aid humanitarian assistance operations, medical evacuations or combat medical support that would rely heavily on the medical capabilities of the Boxer strike group. Cross training Sailors from ship to ship helps ensure the success of the strike group should BOXESG have to respond to any medical scenario, according to Richardson.
“Training is a necessary part of any evolution,” said Richardson. “Anytime you’re working with another nation, it’s important that we understand their capabilities just as much as they understand ours, so in the event anything occurs we know where our assets are.”
The cross training also fostered cooperation between the two allies which provided Verville and Boxer corpsmen a forum to learn about each other’s navies and each other’s culture." (Military.com October 2006)
Dangerous Crossroads: Tonkin II?
"An incident" in the Persian Gulf could be used by the US as a pretext for war against Iran.
A war pretext incident, similar to "the Gulf of Tonkin Incident", which triggered the Vietnam war, could be used by US forces, with a view to justifying retaliatory military action against Iran.
In August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson claimed that North Vietnamese forces had attacked US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Tonkin incident, which had been manipulated, contributed to unleashing a full-fledged war against Vietnam:
"A phantom attack on two U.S. destroyers cruising the Gulf of Tonkin was staged by the Pentagon and the C.I.A. The bogus attack occurred early in August, 1964. That evening President Lyndon Johnson went on television giving the grim details of the non-attack. Later, however, it was revealed that navy commander James Stockdale flew cover over the Gulf of Tonkin that night. Stockdale disclosed that U.S. ships were firing at phantom targets—targets that didn’t exist. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident that drew the U.S. into the quagmire of Viet Nam simply didn’t happen. Johnson, as presidents so often do, lied to the American people. The result was the rapid passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was the sole legal basis for the Viet Nam War. As a result of Johnson’s lie, three million Vietnamese people and fifty eight thousand U.S. soldiers died." (Charles Sullivan, Global Research, January 2006)
Revised and updated Oct 25, 2006. Note: Since this report was first published, we have been advised that several press reports concerning USS Eisenhower are incorrect. US military sources have confirmed that USS Eisenhower was in Naples on Oct 23.
We have made appropriate corrections.
ANNEX: US NAVY
Navy Personnel
Active Duty: 349,783
Officers: 51,979
Enlisted: 293,368
Midshipmen: 4,436
Ready Reserve: 131,802 [As of 30 September]
Selected Reserves: 70,500
Individual Ready Reserve: 61,302
Reserves currently mobilized: 5,996 [As of 18 October]
Personnel on deployment: 36,037
Navy Department Civilian Employees: 175,454
Ships and Submarines
Deployable Battle Force Ships: 280
Ships Underway (away from homeport): 133 ships (47% of total)
On deployment: 104 ships (37% of total)
Attack submarines underway
(away from homeport): 22 submarines (40%)
On deployment: 11 submarines (20%)
Ships Underway
Carriers:
USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) - Philippine Sea
USS Enterprise (CVN 65) - Persian Gulf
USS Nimitz (CVN 68) - Pacific Ocean
USS Dwight D.Eisenhower (CVN 69)- Mediterranean Sea
USS Ronald Reagan - Pacific Ocean
Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG):
USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) - Persian Gulf
USS Nashville (LPD 13) - Persian Gulf
USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41) - Persian Gulf
Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG):
USS Boxer (LHD 4) - Indian Ocean
USS Dubuque (LPD 8) - Indian Ocean
USS Comstock (LSD 45) - Indian Ocean
Essex Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG):
USS Essex (LHD 2) - South China Sea
USS Juneau (LPD 10) - South China Sea
USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) - South China Sea
Amphibious Warfare Ships:
USS Tarawa (LHA 1) - Pacific Ocean
USS Saipan (LHA 2) - Persian Gulf
USS Wasp (LHD 1) - port visit, Copenhagen, Denmark
USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Bataan (LHD 5) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Cleveland (LPD 7) - Pacific Ocean
USS Shreveport (LPD 12) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Ponce (LPD 15) - Atlantic Ocean
USS San Antonio (LPD 17) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Ashland (LSD 48) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Pearl Harbor (LSD 52) - Pacific Ocean
Aircraft (operational): 4000+
currently/or en route in/to Persian Gulf-Arabian Sea
(according to available information)
Thursday, October 26, 2006
A Conference On Presidential Powers And Stealth Immunity For BushCo by Lawrence R. Velvel - Dean, Massachusetts School of Law
As written of here in advance, on October 14th and 15th a conference on ever increasing presidential powers was held at the Massachusetts School of Law, in Andover (MSL), where this writer is Dean. The conference was even better than had been hoped. Many leading scholars in the field delivered speeches or remarks that ranged from the historically analytical to the spellbinding. At the end, this writer was supposed to deliver a summary of what was said, a summary of themes and future paths. But it could not be done. There was simply too much that had been said, too many ideas, both historical and future-oriented, that had been discussed or floated.
A true summary of the proceedings has to await the availability of DVDs of the proceedings or perhaps even the transcript of them. The possibility of a true summary is thus at least some weeks off. But it is possible even early on to list a few of the important ideas that surfaced, sometimes repeatedly. They would include:
The framers intended Congress, not the President, to be the powerful political branch. They greatly feared a powerful Executive. But the founders’ intent is at the opposite pole from what now exists.
Congress, contrary to what the founders believed would occur, does not protect its institutional prerogatives against Executive encroachments.
The commander-in-chief power was not intended by the framers to give the President the powers that Bush, Johnson and others have claimed (usurped under it).
The existence of a large standing army has been a major contributor -- possibly the major contributor -- to the growth of presidential power since 1950.
Executive secrecy has contributed to the President’s overwhelming power. Many of the reservations claimed in Bush’s signing statements are designed to foster Executive secrecy.
The number of oversight hearings held by Congress has declined. This too contributes to increasing presidential power.
The Executive has been engaged in manifold abuses of power.
It is crucial to find some ways to put more power into the hands of the minority in Congress. Perhaps there should be some American equivalent of the Prime Minister’s question time in the British Parliament. Or (better yet, I think) perhaps the minority in Congress should have subpoena power.
The Executive, and George Bush in particular, were hell-bent on using the recent act relating to habeas corpus and military tribunals as a vehicle for gaining immunity for the illegal torture that they had long authorized and perpetrated. It was generally felt that the clauses of the act providing such immunity were a serious blot on America.
One must listen to the Nixon tapes to really grasp how rotten a human being he was. (Speaking personally, one wonders how many decades it will take for America to wake up to the same realization about the second Bush).
The question of increasing Executive power is thought by some to be the most fraught and important issue facing the country. This is a point with which I agree, for reasons that will become clear below.
I believe this summary is reasonably accurate though very incomplete. A fuller summary, like access to the entire proceedings themselves, must await the preparation of DVDs of the conference, transcripts of it, and/or the publication of the proceedings in book form. The DVDs, which will not only be available as DVDs, but will also be put on the internet by MSL for viewing by computer and will be made downloadable by iPods, should be available in a matter of weeks. Transcripts, which will also be placed on line by MSL, will take a bit longer, and a book longer still. But these various means of modern communication will make the proceedings available in several ways for teachers, classes, and citizens who are interested in the subject of growing presidential power and want to know what some of the leading experts think.
One would especially hope that the materials will be used in colleges and universities. War, particularly long, protracted wars, are the most affective upon this nation of all human events. What the Civil War and World War II meant for the daily lives of millions of citizens should be known and immediately comprehensible to any American who knows any history (a qualification which, I gather, would exclude most citizens these days, which is disastrous for the nation). Even wars that are less cataclysmic, though nonetheless long and major, have the most serious effects. Perhaps I can do no better in this regard than quote the opening paragraph of a book I wrote 36 years ago about the Viet Nam War:
“Vietnam.” The very name is associated with crisis. For as even the least perceptive among us must know, the war in Vietnam has contributed a goodly share to several of the highly serious and deeply troubling crises which have been plaguing the United States. Most of the crises which have been caused or exacerbated by the war have been very noticeable to the public, and the war’s effect upon them has been no less noticeable. For example, it is difficult to escape knowing that America has faced serious economic problems, such as inflation and balance of payments difficulties, which have resulted at least partly from our vast war expenditures. Equally apparent is the fact that the war has fueled a generation gap which has pitted many of our young people against many of their elders: the contending groups are locked in mutual lack of understanding, mutual distrust, mutual dislike, and mutual immoderation. It has been only too obvious that energy and money which have been poured into the war might otherwise have been spent to combat the poverty and urban decay which so plainly threaten our cities. By this diminution of the efforts to combat poverty and decay, by leading many blacks to bitterly, and perhaps even rightly, believe that the white man is perfectly willing to let them die for America in Vietnam but is not terribly willing to let them have adequate jobs or schools or houses in America itself, and by raising other difficulties both practical and ideological, the war has clearly heaped fuel upon the fire of an obtrusive racial crisis. The climate for lessening explosive international tensions plainly has suffered because of the war. And, unfortunately, this list of examples does not exhaust the catalogue of highly noticeable crises to which the Vietnam war has made a high, noticeable contribution.
Even a war like Iraq which does not on an immediate level engage most Americans, a war whose burden falls on relatively few, a war which the President reprehensibly and for political purposes has “responded” to by telling people to go on living their lives in the ordinary way, creates havoc despite its lack of practical effect on most people. Our politics, our civil liberties, our now longstanding, well warranted disdain for government have all been worsened by the present botching by Bush.
Plainly, the causes, reasons for, and ways of avoiding and getting out of war are subjects which the colleges and universities of this country should study and teach. One of the most affective phenomena in getting our country into one war after another has been precisely the growth of presidential power that was discussed at the conference at MSL. Such growth is, for this reason as well as others, one of the crucial subjects for colleges and universities. Thus, to reiterate, one hopes that they will make use of what will soon be the wide availability of the materials from the conference held on October 14th and 15th.
* * * * *
The matter of the immunity provided to criminals in the recently enacted Military Commissions Act of 2006 raised especial ire at the conference. For the first time in American history, the Congress has provided immunity for the perpetrators of torture -- even murderers by torture -- and other horrible crimes, e.g., kidnapping even innocent people off the streets and delivering them to countries like Syria and Uzbekistan for torture.
The provision which immunizes this awful conduct, you know, did not receive nearly as much media coverage in advance as did the habeas corpus and military tribunal provisions of the bill. That, at least, is one man’s opinion, and in fact I think it received but little coverage. It basically was snuck in and enacted mainly by stealth - - not exclusively by stealth, but mainly by it. No doubt the stealth served the Executive’s purposes perfectly. For were it to have come extensively to public notice that for the first time the Congress was granting immunity to serious crimes, there might have been an outcry. Indeed, there almost surely would have been a vast outcry on the left and perhaps in the center as well, had most persons on the left and in the center known what was happening. (Maybe I am wrong but, as you can see from the foregoing remarks, my view is that there was relatively little public comprehension of what was occurring. This view seemed borne out even at the conference of experts on presidential power: even experts did not know what was going down.) Bush, having desired, authorized and known about torture from the beginning, and therefore being guilty of felonies under the domestic American law known as the Anti-Torture Statute, must have been perfectly delighted that the immunity provision was able to fly under the radar. One of the points made at the conference was that evil, like mushrooms, grows in the dark. Secrecy is, for certain, the handmaiden of evil. Flying under the radar is perhaps next best to enforced secrecy itself.
But now that the immunity provision has been enacted, just what does it mean. That is, exactly whom does it cover, and for what acts. I confess to not understanding it completely. It is written in lawyerese, with exceptions delimited by numerical references to other statutes entirely. The media seem generally to say the act gives immunity to the CIA but not the military. Maybe that’s right, although the wording would seem broad enough to cover the military and all other relevant persons too (unless the exceptions clause at the beginning of the relevant section means the military are not covered). But search me as to who’s covered. It would be nice if someone knowledgeable would explain exactly who is, who isn’t and why.
To given you more information of relevance, the Act says that (with exceptions that are unclear to me) “no court” “shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider” any action against the “United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was detained by the United States and has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.”
This language would not seem to give complete immunity to BushCo and his fellow cohorts in the Executive, as will be discussed below.
Let us start with something the language does not do. It does not say that what BushCo and his tribe of corporate henchmen authorized, desired and/or did is not a crime. Torture of persons abroad remains a felony under federal law, although the new Act removes the jurisdiction of courts to hear cases on the crime and has thus eliminated courts’ ability to punish perpetrators. For the layman it will doubtless be hard to grasp how there can be a crime when an act cannot be punished. Such legal absurdities are common; they occur, for example, when a statute of limitations has run, even on murder. Beyond this, there will remain, as we shall see, certain situations in which it seems the cohorts are chargeable with crimes and punishable -- and can be made defendants in civil actions too. As well, authorizing torture, as BushCo did -- and which led to murder -- of course remains an impeachable offense. “All” that is lacking in this regard is political will and native intelligence: Apparently it was no good for Bill Clinton to receive fellatio in the oval office -- which surely was a disgrace -- but it is alright for BushCo to authorize torture and murder there.
The statute also grants immunity only when the tortured person is an alien. Now, this may be of little practical import because most of the people we tortured were aliens. But perhaps not all. It is possible that a few people whom we tortured abroad were Americans. (Did we torture John Walker Lindh abroad? There are some who in effect claim so, I think.)
Then there is also the question of actions by states, or by individuals, under state laws if torture was authorized, conspired about, or committed within a given state. (The federal Anti-Torture Statute only applies to torture abroad; punishment of acts committed in the United States was, I have read, left to state laws against assault, battery and murder. No doubt the Executive cohorts and their lawyers would argue that, when Congress said that “no court” shall have jurisdiction to hear torture cases, it included state courts as well as federal ones. But whether this argument could withstand serious legal analysis is very questionable (for much the same reasons that a federal law overriding state “tort” laws against deliberate or negligent misconduct by manufacturers that injures or kills people -- the kind of law sought by big business’ tort lawyer shills -- is questionable). The founders of this country would never have dreamed that a federal law could override state laws against assault, battery and murder, and their view certainly ought to prevail here.
The question regarding state court actions is not in truth one of law. It is more a question of what state prosecutors and state courts would or would not do as a political matter. Practically speaking, it seems a safe bet that, at least today, state prosecutors would not act against American torturers and murderers, nor would state judges fail to find some reason, however spurious, to dismiss cases brought by the tortured or by heirs of the murdered. Whether or not all this will be equally true ten or twenty years from today – indeed, whether the federal immunity law will still be on the books ten or twenty years from now -- remains to be seen. For what people’s views will be when BushCo is long gone remains to be seen. There have been major turnarounds in view previously -- Massachusetts, Illinois, California (and perhaps some other states too, if memory serves) ultimately tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to assert state jurisdiction in order to put an end to the Viet Nam War, attempting this in the face of decades of belief that it could not be done. As the Attorney General of New York, Elliot Spitzer began bringing successful cases against Wall Street, cases of a type that had long been thought the exclusive province of the federal government. One never knows what people might be moved to do in future decades if moved to utter disgust, as they likely will be, by what BushCo did in the early years of the new century.
You know, it is possible that even today, and even in the federal courts, the BushCo wall is starting to crack. There is, of course, the deep, ever widening disgust with Bush’s incompetence and malperformance that is threatening the Republicans’ current hold on both houses of Congress. There is the media’s willingness to call BushCo the inept that he is -- and always was. (Recently one read two comments by Richard Cohen, in The Washington Post’s National Weekly Edition, that echoed points which have been made here for years: Citing the recent book by Bob [The Egomaniacal Bore] Woodward, as well as “everything else I’ve read about the 43rd president,” Cohen said it was “apparent” that Bush “had no accomplishment to his name that did not stem from primogeniture.” He also cited Bush’s “steadfast belief that his is a divine mission.”) And even the courts are not rolling over and playing dead quite so rapidly. Recently a number of federal judges, in addition to Anna Diggs Taylor, have refused to immediately and with no questions throw out cases challenging the electronic eavesdropping on the governmental claim that the publicly admitted eavesdropping is a state secret. The other judges don’t have Judge Taylor’s background, so their views have a more tentative, cautious, well-maybe-the-president-is-the-king quality to them, and maybe they will ultimately throw out the cases, but the fact remains that they did not dismiss them out of hand, as one would have thought likely.
So what will happen years from now, what people will think and do then, remains in the womb of time.
Then there is the point which one thinks the most important of all with regard to the wording of the immunity statute. The law says no court shall have jurisdiction to hear any action relating to the treatment of a past or present alien detainee who “has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.” This looks to me to possibly be a hole big enough through which to drive the proverbial truck.
Now, I don’t know any of this for certain, but aren’t there a lot of people who were detained, tortured or rendered for torture, and then released because ultimately considered to be innocent of any misconduct against the United States? Were these people ever “determined” “to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant”? If so “determined,” by whom, where and when? -- weren’t there in fact a lot of captives who never went before any tribunal? Or, if they did go before a tribunal, lots of them were found innocent, weren’t they? -- Otherwise why have they been released? Were all of them released because they all had suddenly become a threat no longer, even though they had once been properly determined to be enemy combatants? Why do I doubt this? The bottom line here is that it is entirely possible, it may even be very likely, that there are lots of people who were tortured and will still have a right to sue, despite the new immunity statute, because they were never properly determined to be enemy combatants and/or were even found innocent.
Perhaps Bush and company will claim that people were determined to be “properly detained as an enemy combatant” just because BushCo publicly said years ago that they were “enemy combatants” (although we now know that lots of these people never were combatants, but merely innocent guys who got swept up off the streets). Such a BushCo-ian claim would, of course, make a mockery of the statute’s apparent bow towards proper procedure. (In fact, the whole military tribunals aspect of the statute is a bow towards proper procedure.) In any event, we shall see what the BushCo people claim and what the courts do.
It is conceivably worth mentioning in this regard that the case of the Canadian whom we snatched and sent to Syria for torture (Arar) and the similar case of a fellow named Khaled El-Masri would seem to fit the situation. These guys were finally, in practical effect, declared innocent and released. Did somebody ever “determine” that they were “properly detained” as enemy combatants? If not, shouldn’t they be able to sue Bush and company for the torture they suffered, notwithstanding the immoral District Court decisions dismissing their cases?
* * * * *
As the reader can see, there is a fair amount about the statute that this writer does not understand. This is in part because of the way statutes are often written, and the way this one is certainly written. Instead of clearly stating what they mean, for example, statutes will, as this one does in several parts, obscurely say that some other statute is amended by substituting some new word for some other word in some section of the other statute. Or statutes will say that certain sections of some other statutes constitute exceptions to the new one. Or they will trick things up in some other way. It is all very confusing to the layman, and equally to a lawyer who does not know and does not have time to read and study all the other statutes and the particular sections of them referred to. One frankly wonders about the morality of this method of writing statutes, a method that seems designed as much to hide the ball as anything else. (Of course, lawyers will give you lots of reasons why these convoluted ways of writing statutes are the only possible methods -- which I doubt, which I, in fact, think plainly untrue.)
In any event, it would be useful for someone to write some plain, easily comprehensible, knowledgeable piece about what the immunity statute means -- who it applies to, whom it doesn’t apply to, and when. Right now some of this seems unclear -- and one wouldn’t be shocked if it had been deliberately kept unclear lest lots of people learn what was being done and react against it. But until I learn that my understanding of the statute is wrong for some reason or is incomplete -- both of which are entirely possible -- it will be this writer’s opinion that the statute has some loopholes which lawyers and some of their clients can use in an attack on Bush, the Yale flunk-out, the Winnetka wrestler, and others of the utter bums, the truly bad human beings, who have been running this country.
In one man’s judgment it is of the utmost necessity that this nation begins looking for leaders who are honest, smart, open minded, and moral, instead of being cohorts, thugs in suits, bums, like our current leaders. The Kissingers of this world (and we now have learned that the original Kissinger played a role in the current debacle as well as the last one), BushCo, the Winnetka wrestlers, the Yale flunk-outs -- none of these are honest or moral, maybe none of them are open minded, a couple are not even smart, and the one or two who are smart are evil – smart and evil being a truly awful combination. Americans probably don’t like to think about it -- instead we mostly like to think that any regular guy can do a good job -- but this country had better start looking to elect people who are honest, competent, smart and moral. Otherwise, we are just headed for ever more trouble.
Frankly, the need to elect much better people, especially to the highest offices, a need which is not often discussed, did not to my recollection obtain mention, except for one brief comment, even at the recent conference on presidential powers. That even such a conference would not consider this need is a measure of how far we have fallen in connection with the needed traits. It strikes me that this need, too, is something which should be the subject of inquiry, research and thought at colleges and universities.
Lawrence R. Velvel is the Dean of Massachusetts School of Law. He can be reached at velvel@mslaw.edu.
A true summary of the proceedings has to await the availability of DVDs of the proceedings or perhaps even the transcript of them. The possibility of a true summary is thus at least some weeks off. But it is possible even early on to list a few of the important ideas that surfaced, sometimes repeatedly. They would include:
The framers intended Congress, not the President, to be the powerful political branch. They greatly feared a powerful Executive. But the founders’ intent is at the opposite pole from what now exists.
Congress, contrary to what the founders believed would occur, does not protect its institutional prerogatives against Executive encroachments.
The commander-in-chief power was not intended by the framers to give the President the powers that Bush, Johnson and others have claimed (usurped under it).
The existence of a large standing army has been a major contributor -- possibly the major contributor -- to the growth of presidential power since 1950.
Executive secrecy has contributed to the President’s overwhelming power. Many of the reservations claimed in Bush’s signing statements are designed to foster Executive secrecy.
The number of oversight hearings held by Congress has declined. This too contributes to increasing presidential power.
The Executive has been engaged in manifold abuses of power.
It is crucial to find some ways to put more power into the hands of the minority in Congress. Perhaps there should be some American equivalent of the Prime Minister’s question time in the British Parliament. Or (better yet, I think) perhaps the minority in Congress should have subpoena power.
The Executive, and George Bush in particular, were hell-bent on using the recent act relating to habeas corpus and military tribunals as a vehicle for gaining immunity for the illegal torture that they had long authorized and perpetrated. It was generally felt that the clauses of the act providing such immunity were a serious blot on America.
One must listen to the Nixon tapes to really grasp how rotten a human being he was. (Speaking personally, one wonders how many decades it will take for America to wake up to the same realization about the second Bush).
The question of increasing Executive power is thought by some to be the most fraught and important issue facing the country. This is a point with which I agree, for reasons that will become clear below.
I believe this summary is reasonably accurate though very incomplete. A fuller summary, like access to the entire proceedings themselves, must await the preparation of DVDs of the conference, transcripts of it, and/or the publication of the proceedings in book form. The DVDs, which will not only be available as DVDs, but will also be put on the internet by MSL for viewing by computer and will be made downloadable by iPods, should be available in a matter of weeks. Transcripts, which will also be placed on line by MSL, will take a bit longer, and a book longer still. But these various means of modern communication will make the proceedings available in several ways for teachers, classes, and citizens who are interested in the subject of growing presidential power and want to know what some of the leading experts think.
One would especially hope that the materials will be used in colleges and universities. War, particularly long, protracted wars, are the most affective upon this nation of all human events. What the Civil War and World War II meant for the daily lives of millions of citizens should be known and immediately comprehensible to any American who knows any history (a qualification which, I gather, would exclude most citizens these days, which is disastrous for the nation). Even wars that are less cataclysmic, though nonetheless long and major, have the most serious effects. Perhaps I can do no better in this regard than quote the opening paragraph of a book I wrote 36 years ago about the Viet Nam War:
“Vietnam.” The very name is associated with crisis. For as even the least perceptive among us must know, the war in Vietnam has contributed a goodly share to several of the highly serious and deeply troubling crises which have been plaguing the United States. Most of the crises which have been caused or exacerbated by the war have been very noticeable to the public, and the war’s effect upon them has been no less noticeable. For example, it is difficult to escape knowing that America has faced serious economic problems, such as inflation and balance of payments difficulties, which have resulted at least partly from our vast war expenditures. Equally apparent is the fact that the war has fueled a generation gap which has pitted many of our young people against many of their elders: the contending groups are locked in mutual lack of understanding, mutual distrust, mutual dislike, and mutual immoderation. It has been only too obvious that energy and money which have been poured into the war might otherwise have been spent to combat the poverty and urban decay which so plainly threaten our cities. By this diminution of the efforts to combat poverty and decay, by leading many blacks to bitterly, and perhaps even rightly, believe that the white man is perfectly willing to let them die for America in Vietnam but is not terribly willing to let them have adequate jobs or schools or houses in America itself, and by raising other difficulties both practical and ideological, the war has clearly heaped fuel upon the fire of an obtrusive racial crisis. The climate for lessening explosive international tensions plainly has suffered because of the war. And, unfortunately, this list of examples does not exhaust the catalogue of highly noticeable crises to which the Vietnam war has made a high, noticeable contribution.
Even a war like Iraq which does not on an immediate level engage most Americans, a war whose burden falls on relatively few, a war which the President reprehensibly and for political purposes has “responded” to by telling people to go on living their lives in the ordinary way, creates havoc despite its lack of practical effect on most people. Our politics, our civil liberties, our now longstanding, well warranted disdain for government have all been worsened by the present botching by Bush.
Plainly, the causes, reasons for, and ways of avoiding and getting out of war are subjects which the colleges and universities of this country should study and teach. One of the most affective phenomena in getting our country into one war after another has been precisely the growth of presidential power that was discussed at the conference at MSL. Such growth is, for this reason as well as others, one of the crucial subjects for colleges and universities. Thus, to reiterate, one hopes that they will make use of what will soon be the wide availability of the materials from the conference held on October 14th and 15th.
* * * * *
The matter of the immunity provided to criminals in the recently enacted Military Commissions Act of 2006 raised especial ire at the conference. For the first time in American history, the Congress has provided immunity for the perpetrators of torture -- even murderers by torture -- and other horrible crimes, e.g., kidnapping even innocent people off the streets and delivering them to countries like Syria and Uzbekistan for torture.
The provision which immunizes this awful conduct, you know, did not receive nearly as much media coverage in advance as did the habeas corpus and military tribunal provisions of the bill. That, at least, is one man’s opinion, and in fact I think it received but little coverage. It basically was snuck in and enacted mainly by stealth - - not exclusively by stealth, but mainly by it. No doubt the stealth served the Executive’s purposes perfectly. For were it to have come extensively to public notice that for the first time the Congress was granting immunity to serious crimes, there might have been an outcry. Indeed, there almost surely would have been a vast outcry on the left and perhaps in the center as well, had most persons on the left and in the center known what was happening. (Maybe I am wrong but, as you can see from the foregoing remarks, my view is that there was relatively little public comprehension of what was occurring. This view seemed borne out even at the conference of experts on presidential power: even experts did not know what was going down.) Bush, having desired, authorized and known about torture from the beginning, and therefore being guilty of felonies under the domestic American law known as the Anti-Torture Statute, must have been perfectly delighted that the immunity provision was able to fly under the radar. One of the points made at the conference was that evil, like mushrooms, grows in the dark. Secrecy is, for certain, the handmaiden of evil. Flying under the radar is perhaps next best to enforced secrecy itself.
But now that the immunity provision has been enacted, just what does it mean. That is, exactly whom does it cover, and for what acts. I confess to not understanding it completely. It is written in lawyerese, with exceptions delimited by numerical references to other statutes entirely. The media seem generally to say the act gives immunity to the CIA but not the military. Maybe that’s right, although the wording would seem broad enough to cover the military and all other relevant persons too (unless the exceptions clause at the beginning of the relevant section means the military are not covered). But search me as to who’s covered. It would be nice if someone knowledgeable would explain exactly who is, who isn’t and why.
To given you more information of relevance, the Act says that (with exceptions that are unclear to me) “no court” “shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider” any action against the “United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was detained by the United States and has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.”
This language would not seem to give complete immunity to BushCo and his fellow cohorts in the Executive, as will be discussed below.
Let us start with something the language does not do. It does not say that what BushCo and his tribe of corporate henchmen authorized, desired and/or did is not a crime. Torture of persons abroad remains a felony under federal law, although the new Act removes the jurisdiction of courts to hear cases on the crime and has thus eliminated courts’ ability to punish perpetrators. For the layman it will doubtless be hard to grasp how there can be a crime when an act cannot be punished. Such legal absurdities are common; they occur, for example, when a statute of limitations has run, even on murder. Beyond this, there will remain, as we shall see, certain situations in which it seems the cohorts are chargeable with crimes and punishable -- and can be made defendants in civil actions too. As well, authorizing torture, as BushCo did -- and which led to murder -- of course remains an impeachable offense. “All” that is lacking in this regard is political will and native intelligence: Apparently it was no good for Bill Clinton to receive fellatio in the oval office -- which surely was a disgrace -- but it is alright for BushCo to authorize torture and murder there.
The statute also grants immunity only when the tortured person is an alien. Now, this may be of little practical import because most of the people we tortured were aliens. But perhaps not all. It is possible that a few people whom we tortured abroad were Americans. (Did we torture John Walker Lindh abroad? There are some who in effect claim so, I think.)
Then there is also the question of actions by states, or by individuals, under state laws if torture was authorized, conspired about, or committed within a given state. (The federal Anti-Torture Statute only applies to torture abroad; punishment of acts committed in the United States was, I have read, left to state laws against assault, battery and murder. No doubt the Executive cohorts and their lawyers would argue that, when Congress said that “no court” shall have jurisdiction to hear torture cases, it included state courts as well as federal ones. But whether this argument could withstand serious legal analysis is very questionable (for much the same reasons that a federal law overriding state “tort” laws against deliberate or negligent misconduct by manufacturers that injures or kills people -- the kind of law sought by big business’ tort lawyer shills -- is questionable). The founders of this country would never have dreamed that a federal law could override state laws against assault, battery and murder, and their view certainly ought to prevail here.
The question regarding state court actions is not in truth one of law. It is more a question of what state prosecutors and state courts would or would not do as a political matter. Practically speaking, it seems a safe bet that, at least today, state prosecutors would not act against American torturers and murderers, nor would state judges fail to find some reason, however spurious, to dismiss cases brought by the tortured or by heirs of the murdered. Whether or not all this will be equally true ten or twenty years from today – indeed, whether the federal immunity law will still be on the books ten or twenty years from now -- remains to be seen. For what people’s views will be when BushCo is long gone remains to be seen. There have been major turnarounds in view previously -- Massachusetts, Illinois, California (and perhaps some other states too, if memory serves) ultimately tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to assert state jurisdiction in order to put an end to the Viet Nam War, attempting this in the face of decades of belief that it could not be done. As the Attorney General of New York, Elliot Spitzer began bringing successful cases against Wall Street, cases of a type that had long been thought the exclusive province of the federal government. One never knows what people might be moved to do in future decades if moved to utter disgust, as they likely will be, by what BushCo did in the early years of the new century.
You know, it is possible that even today, and even in the federal courts, the BushCo wall is starting to crack. There is, of course, the deep, ever widening disgust with Bush’s incompetence and malperformance that is threatening the Republicans’ current hold on both houses of Congress. There is the media’s willingness to call BushCo the inept that he is -- and always was. (Recently one read two comments by Richard Cohen, in The Washington Post’s National Weekly Edition, that echoed points which have been made here for years: Citing the recent book by Bob [The Egomaniacal Bore] Woodward, as well as “everything else I’ve read about the 43rd president,” Cohen said it was “apparent” that Bush “had no accomplishment to his name that did not stem from primogeniture.” He also cited Bush’s “steadfast belief that his is a divine mission.”) And even the courts are not rolling over and playing dead quite so rapidly. Recently a number of federal judges, in addition to Anna Diggs Taylor, have refused to immediately and with no questions throw out cases challenging the electronic eavesdropping on the governmental claim that the publicly admitted eavesdropping is a state secret. The other judges don’t have Judge Taylor’s background, so their views have a more tentative, cautious, well-maybe-the-president-is-the-king quality to them, and maybe they will ultimately throw out the cases, but the fact remains that they did not dismiss them out of hand, as one would have thought likely.
So what will happen years from now, what people will think and do then, remains in the womb of time.
Then there is the point which one thinks the most important of all with regard to the wording of the immunity statute. The law says no court shall have jurisdiction to hear any action relating to the treatment of a past or present alien detainee who “has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.” This looks to me to possibly be a hole big enough through which to drive the proverbial truck.
Now, I don’t know any of this for certain, but aren’t there a lot of people who were detained, tortured or rendered for torture, and then released because ultimately considered to be innocent of any misconduct against the United States? Were these people ever “determined” “to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant”? If so “determined,” by whom, where and when? -- weren’t there in fact a lot of captives who never went before any tribunal? Or, if they did go before a tribunal, lots of them were found innocent, weren’t they? -- Otherwise why have they been released? Were all of them released because they all had suddenly become a threat no longer, even though they had once been properly determined to be enemy combatants? Why do I doubt this? The bottom line here is that it is entirely possible, it may even be very likely, that there are lots of people who were tortured and will still have a right to sue, despite the new immunity statute, because they were never properly determined to be enemy combatants and/or were even found innocent.
Perhaps Bush and company will claim that people were determined to be “properly detained as an enemy combatant” just because BushCo publicly said years ago that they were “enemy combatants” (although we now know that lots of these people never were combatants, but merely innocent guys who got swept up off the streets). Such a BushCo-ian claim would, of course, make a mockery of the statute’s apparent bow towards proper procedure. (In fact, the whole military tribunals aspect of the statute is a bow towards proper procedure.) In any event, we shall see what the BushCo people claim and what the courts do.
It is conceivably worth mentioning in this regard that the case of the Canadian whom we snatched and sent to Syria for torture (Arar) and the similar case of a fellow named Khaled El-Masri would seem to fit the situation. These guys were finally, in practical effect, declared innocent and released. Did somebody ever “determine” that they were “properly detained” as enemy combatants? If not, shouldn’t they be able to sue Bush and company for the torture they suffered, notwithstanding the immoral District Court decisions dismissing their cases?
* * * * *
As the reader can see, there is a fair amount about the statute that this writer does not understand. This is in part because of the way statutes are often written, and the way this one is certainly written. Instead of clearly stating what they mean, for example, statutes will, as this one does in several parts, obscurely say that some other statute is amended by substituting some new word for some other word in some section of the other statute. Or statutes will say that certain sections of some other statutes constitute exceptions to the new one. Or they will trick things up in some other way. It is all very confusing to the layman, and equally to a lawyer who does not know and does not have time to read and study all the other statutes and the particular sections of them referred to. One frankly wonders about the morality of this method of writing statutes, a method that seems designed as much to hide the ball as anything else. (Of course, lawyers will give you lots of reasons why these convoluted ways of writing statutes are the only possible methods -- which I doubt, which I, in fact, think plainly untrue.)
In any event, it would be useful for someone to write some plain, easily comprehensible, knowledgeable piece about what the immunity statute means -- who it applies to, whom it doesn’t apply to, and when. Right now some of this seems unclear -- and one wouldn’t be shocked if it had been deliberately kept unclear lest lots of people learn what was being done and react against it. But until I learn that my understanding of the statute is wrong for some reason or is incomplete -- both of which are entirely possible -- it will be this writer’s opinion that the statute has some loopholes which lawyers and some of their clients can use in an attack on Bush, the Yale flunk-out, the Winnetka wrestler, and others of the utter bums, the truly bad human beings, who have been running this country.
In one man’s judgment it is of the utmost necessity that this nation begins looking for leaders who are honest, smart, open minded, and moral, instead of being cohorts, thugs in suits, bums, like our current leaders. The Kissingers of this world (and we now have learned that the original Kissinger played a role in the current debacle as well as the last one), BushCo, the Winnetka wrestlers, the Yale flunk-outs -- none of these are honest or moral, maybe none of them are open minded, a couple are not even smart, and the one or two who are smart are evil – smart and evil being a truly awful combination. Americans probably don’t like to think about it -- instead we mostly like to think that any regular guy can do a good job -- but this country had better start looking to elect people who are honest, competent, smart and moral. Otherwise, we are just headed for ever more trouble.
Frankly, the need to elect much better people, especially to the highest offices, a need which is not often discussed, did not to my recollection obtain mention, except for one brief comment, even at the recent conference on presidential powers. That even such a conference would not consider this need is a measure of how far we have fallen in connection with the needed traits. It strikes me that this need, too, is something which should be the subject of inquiry, research and thought at colleges and universities.
Lawrence R. Velvel is the Dean of Massachusetts School of Law. He can be reached at velvel@mslaw.edu.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
George Bush is Hunting Hugo Chavez by Conn Hallinan
Conn Hallinan is a Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) columnist.
There are times when the tensions between Venezuela and the Bush administration seem closer to Commedia dell'arte than politics. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez compares President George W. Bush to the devil, right down to the smell of sulfur during a speech at the U.N. General Assembly. Homeland Security responds by strip-searching Nicolás Maduro Moros, Venezuela's foreign minister, at JFK airport. Venezuela seizes 176 pounds of frozen chicken on its way to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
But recent White House initiatives suggest that the administration has more than tit-for-tat in mind.
In late June, U.S. Southern Command, the arm of the U.S. military in Latin America, concluded that efforts by Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia to extend state control over their oil and gas reserves posed a threat to U.S. oil supplies. While Latin America produces only 8.4 percent of the world's oil output, it supplies 30 percent of the oil consumed in the United States.
“A re-emergence of state control of the energy sector will likely increase inefficiencies and, beyond an increase in short-term profits, will hamper efforts to increase long-term supplies and production,” the study concludes. In an interview with the Financial Times , Col. Joe Nunez, a professor of strategy at the U.S. Army War College, added an observation that ought to send a collective chill down the backs of the three countries named: “It is incumbent upon the Command to contemplate beyond strictly military matters.”
That one of the U.S. military's most powerful arms should find itself deep in the energy business should hardly come as a surprise. Four months after Bush took office, Vice President Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group recommended that the administration “make energy security policy a priority of our trade and foreign policy.” The administration has faithfully followed that blueprint, using war and muscular diplomacy to corner U.S. energy supplies in the Middle East and Central Asia.
What most Americans don't know is that Venezuela's reserves are enormous. According to a department of energy estimate, they are considerably greater than Saudi Arabia's, and may be as high as 1.3 trillion barrels. Most Venezuelan oil is heavy and expensive to refine, but as long as oil stays above $50 a barrel—and few doubt it will go lower—it is an almost endless gold mine.
The bone the U.S. is picking with Hugo is not about bombast. It's about oil.
Shortly after Southern Command's report, the White House appointed J. Patrick Maher, a 32-year Central Intelligence Agency veteran, to head up a special task force for gathering intelligence on Venezuela and Cuba. The only other similar posts are for North Korea and Iran, members of the so-called “axis of evil” reportedly developing nuclear weapons. In a move that almost exactly parallels how intelligence was handled in the run up to the Iraq War, as “Mission Manager,” Maher will bypass the CIA and report directly to Bush.
Maher's appointment followed a full court press by a group of neoconservatives grouped around National Security Director John Negroponte, then-CIA chief Porter Goss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and her deputy, Robert Zoellick.
The campaign against Chavez on the executive side is matched by a similar push in Congress. Senator Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently urged the Bush administration to adopt “contingency plans” in case of a disruption of oil supplies from Venezuela. In a July letter to Rice, the senator said that Venezuela has an “undue ability to impact USA security and our economy.” Lugar went on to warn that there was a “real risk” that Venezuela could “act in concert” with other countries and that “we have a responsibility to plan appropriate contingencies that protect the American people.”
The current campaign against Chavez is really Round Two in the White House's drive to unseat him. As Freedom of Information Act documents reveal, the Bush administration already tried to overthrow Chavez in an April 2002 coup.
Otto Reich, then assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric Affairs, met several times with coup leaders. Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, deputy secretary of defense for Western Hemispheric Affairs, met with military coup leader Gen. Lucas Romero Rincon. Cuban exile Reich and Pardo-Maurer were major players in the 1980s Contra war against Nicaragua. Pardo-Maurer was the Contras' most visible Washington spokesman back then and Reich was forced to resign from his job as head of public diplomacy in the Reagan administration's State Department for planting false stories in the U.S. media.
The CIA, through the National Endowment for Democracy and the United States Agency for International Development, bankrolled Chavez's opponents, and helped organize and support the strike by white collar oil workers and ships captains eight months after the coup collapsed.
Since then, the Bush administration has kept up a drumbeat of attacks. Rice warned that Chavez was “a major threat to the region.” U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared Chavez to Adolph Hitler. Zoellick told senators that Chavez was part of a new “creeping authoritarianism.” In March, a National Security Strategy document charged that Chavez was “undermining democracy.” At an October 2 meeting of Latin American defense ministers in Managua, Nicaragua, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock of the Southern Command called Chavez a “destabilizing” force in the region.
What really worries the U.S. is that Chavez is trying to diversify Venezuela's clientele. Venezuela is currently building a $335 million pipeline across Colombia in order to ship more oil to China, and is working on plans for a $20 billion natural gas pipeline through the Amazon and on to markets in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina.
China is pouring in billions to develop fields in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador to give it the inside corner on future resources. The “China connection” is one that concerns the Bush administration, not only because it siphons off oil that normally would go to the United States, but also because the White House sees China as a rival and has done its best to elbow Peking out of the Middle East and Central Asia.
But Latin America is a different place than it was a decade ago when it was mired in debt, characterized by low growth, and beholden to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. When Rice told House members that the Bush administration was building a “united front” against Venezuela, it is likely to be a narrow front indeed.
Venezuela has helped bail Ecuador and Argentina out of debt, invested in projects in Bolivia, and is selling oil to Cuba at a deep discount. According to Greg Palast writing in The Progressive, Chavez has withdrawn $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserves, and “at the same time, lent or committed a like sum to Argentina, Ecuador, and other Latin American countries.”
Given Chavez's enormous popularity in his country and elsewhere in Latin America, it is hard to see what the White House can do about Venezuela's president. But that is not likely to discourage it from trying, and the people the administration has recruited to target him are just the kind of operatives who won't shy away from anything up to, and including, the unthinkable: assassination.
There are times when the tensions between Venezuela and the Bush administration seem closer to Commedia dell'arte than politics. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez compares President George W. Bush to the devil, right down to the smell of sulfur during a speech at the U.N. General Assembly. Homeland Security responds by strip-searching Nicolás Maduro Moros, Venezuela's foreign minister, at JFK airport. Venezuela seizes 176 pounds of frozen chicken on its way to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
But recent White House initiatives suggest that the administration has more than tit-for-tat in mind.
In late June, U.S. Southern Command, the arm of the U.S. military in Latin America, concluded that efforts by Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia to extend state control over their oil and gas reserves posed a threat to U.S. oil supplies. While Latin America produces only 8.4 percent of the world's oil output, it supplies 30 percent of the oil consumed in the United States.
“A re-emergence of state control of the energy sector will likely increase inefficiencies and, beyond an increase in short-term profits, will hamper efforts to increase long-term supplies and production,” the study concludes. In an interview with the Financial Times , Col. Joe Nunez, a professor of strategy at the U.S. Army War College, added an observation that ought to send a collective chill down the backs of the three countries named: “It is incumbent upon the Command to contemplate beyond strictly military matters.”
That one of the U.S. military's most powerful arms should find itself deep in the energy business should hardly come as a surprise. Four months after Bush took office, Vice President Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group recommended that the administration “make energy security policy a priority of our trade and foreign policy.” The administration has faithfully followed that blueprint, using war and muscular diplomacy to corner U.S. energy supplies in the Middle East and Central Asia.
What most Americans don't know is that Venezuela's reserves are enormous. According to a department of energy estimate, they are considerably greater than Saudi Arabia's, and may be as high as 1.3 trillion barrels. Most Venezuelan oil is heavy and expensive to refine, but as long as oil stays above $50 a barrel—and few doubt it will go lower—it is an almost endless gold mine.
The bone the U.S. is picking with Hugo is not about bombast. It's about oil.
Shortly after Southern Command's report, the White House appointed J. Patrick Maher, a 32-year Central Intelligence Agency veteran, to head up a special task force for gathering intelligence on Venezuela and Cuba. The only other similar posts are for North Korea and Iran, members of the so-called “axis of evil” reportedly developing nuclear weapons. In a move that almost exactly parallels how intelligence was handled in the run up to the Iraq War, as “Mission Manager,” Maher will bypass the CIA and report directly to Bush.
Maher's appointment followed a full court press by a group of neoconservatives grouped around National Security Director John Negroponte, then-CIA chief Porter Goss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and her deputy, Robert Zoellick.
The campaign against Chavez on the executive side is matched by a similar push in Congress. Senator Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently urged the Bush administration to adopt “contingency plans” in case of a disruption of oil supplies from Venezuela. In a July letter to Rice, the senator said that Venezuela has an “undue ability to impact USA security and our economy.” Lugar went on to warn that there was a “real risk” that Venezuela could “act in concert” with other countries and that “we have a responsibility to plan appropriate contingencies that protect the American people.”
The current campaign against Chavez is really Round Two in the White House's drive to unseat him. As Freedom of Information Act documents reveal, the Bush administration already tried to overthrow Chavez in an April 2002 coup.
Otto Reich, then assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric Affairs, met several times with coup leaders. Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, deputy secretary of defense for Western Hemispheric Affairs, met with military coup leader Gen. Lucas Romero Rincon. Cuban exile Reich and Pardo-Maurer were major players in the 1980s Contra war against Nicaragua. Pardo-Maurer was the Contras' most visible Washington spokesman back then and Reich was forced to resign from his job as head of public diplomacy in the Reagan administration's State Department for planting false stories in the U.S. media.
The CIA, through the National Endowment for Democracy and the United States Agency for International Development, bankrolled Chavez's opponents, and helped organize and support the strike by white collar oil workers and ships captains eight months after the coup collapsed.
Since then, the Bush administration has kept up a drumbeat of attacks. Rice warned that Chavez was “a major threat to the region.” U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared Chavez to Adolph Hitler. Zoellick told senators that Chavez was part of a new “creeping authoritarianism.” In March, a National Security Strategy document charged that Chavez was “undermining democracy.” At an October 2 meeting of Latin American defense ministers in Managua, Nicaragua, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock of the Southern Command called Chavez a “destabilizing” force in the region.
What really worries the U.S. is that Chavez is trying to diversify Venezuela's clientele. Venezuela is currently building a $335 million pipeline across Colombia in order to ship more oil to China, and is working on plans for a $20 billion natural gas pipeline through the Amazon and on to markets in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina.
China is pouring in billions to develop fields in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador to give it the inside corner on future resources. The “China connection” is one that concerns the Bush administration, not only because it siphons off oil that normally would go to the United States, but also because the White House sees China as a rival and has done its best to elbow Peking out of the Middle East and Central Asia.
But Latin America is a different place than it was a decade ago when it was mired in debt, characterized by low growth, and beholden to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. When Rice told House members that the Bush administration was building a “united front” against Venezuela, it is likely to be a narrow front indeed.
Venezuela has helped bail Ecuador and Argentina out of debt, invested in projects in Bolivia, and is selling oil to Cuba at a deep discount. According to Greg Palast writing in The Progressive, Chavez has withdrawn $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserves, and “at the same time, lent or committed a like sum to Argentina, Ecuador, and other Latin American countries.”
Given Chavez's enormous popularity in his country and elsewhere in Latin America, it is hard to see what the White House can do about Venezuela's president. But that is not likely to discourage it from trying, and the people the administration has recruited to target him are just the kind of operatives who won't shy away from anything up to, and including, the unthinkable: assassination.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)