Impunity rides the coattails of amnesia and oblivion. Without memory to link the present with the past, current wrongs seem like historical aberrations, rather than the consequence of accumulated injustice. Authoritarian regimes and their allies know this well and are keen to snuff out those who reflect too thoughtfully on the past. By continually wiping the historical slate clean, they are free to do as they please and cover their tracks in the process. Nowhere do these dynamics seem more clearly at work than in Latin America.
Guatemala: The Born-Again Killer
Some Latin American leaders have the nasty habit of being perfectly homicidal. General Efraín Ríos Montt of Guatemala, who dropped Catholicism to become an evangelical minister, was Born Again just in time to seize power in a 1982 CIA-backed coup. His brief eighteen months in office were the bloodiest of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war in which an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans, mostly Mayan campesinos, were slaughtered or disappeared. Some would prefer to leave such details tucked quietly in the past, but graffiti on a Guatemala City street corner clamors: "We will not forget! Gerardi Lives!"
Bishop Juan Gerardi was the head of the Catholic Church in Guatemala and led the Historical Memory Recovery Project (REMHI). The REMHI was an unprecedented grassroots effort by and for Guatemalans to document the atrocities of the civil war. Gerardi began the project a year before the war finally ended in 1996.
For three years, Gerardi and his colleagues crisscrossed the country, tirelessly collecting evidence and testimony. On April 28, 1998, Gerardi presented the REMHI’s final landmark document, a text titled, Guatemala: Nunca Más (Never Again). It revealed some painful statistics: 150,000 murdered, 50,000 disappeared, 1,000,000 displaced, 200,000 orphans, 40,000 widows. The report accused the Guatemalan security forces and their death squad proxies for eight out of every ten of those atrocities.
The report proved unpalatable to those it implicated. Two days after its presentation, Bishop Gerardi was found lying in a pool of blood in his home, his face bludgeoned by a chunk of concrete.
Suspicion immediately fell on retired Colonel Byron Lima Estrada and his son, a captain. Their arrest would have to wait until 2000, when a new government was elected. Lima had been specially trained by the U.S. military in the 1960s, taking courses in Panama and at the infamous School of the Americas (SOA) — a U.S. Army training facility for Latin American soldiers in Fort Benning, Georgia.
After brushing-up his "counterinsurgency" skills in the United States, Lima headed the notoriously brutal D-2 Military Intelligence agency that did much of the government’s dirty work during the civil war. Gerardi had even named one of the Nunca Más chapters: "D-2: The Very Name of Fear." The ever-pious Ríos Montt disagreed. "The Holy Spirit runs our intelligence service," he said.
Despite warrants for torture and genocide hanging over his head, Ríos Montt, another illustrious graduate of the SOA, is not rotting in a jail cell, nor even sipping a cocktail on a beach in exile. The former dictator came in third in Guatemala’s 2003 presidential elections. Undiscouraged by his electoral defeat, Ríos Montt recently launched a bid for congress. If he wins, he’ll enjoy the immunity from prosecution afforded to all Guatemalan congressmen, unless stripped of the privilege by the courts, which are of course stacked with his war buddies.
Argentina: 30,001
Argentina has its own Nunca Más. Its authors sifted through more than 50,000 pages of documents to painstakingly compile an authoritative account of the murders, kidnappings, torture, rapes, and the abduction and sale of babies conducted by Argentina’s last military dictatorship (1976-1983). Military officials coldly referred to this state terror as "el proceso" (the process). Human rights organizations estimate that 30,000 were killed or disappeared.
Despite the return of elections in 1983, the crimes went unpunished. Three years into the country’s fragile democratic opening, the perpetrators were exonerated in the name of stability and "reconciliation." The fledgling congress and president were cowed into approving the amnesty by a restless military, which was inconvenienced by the barrage of human rights trials.
It took more than twenty years for Argentina’s congress and Supreme Court to definitively crush the amnesty. In 2006, Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz, a former police commissioner and torture center supervisor, became the first person to be tried since the repeal. Like Ríos Montt, Etchecolatz is a religious man who found divine inspiration for his monstrous acts: "I never had, or thought to have, or was haunted by, any sense of blame. For having killed? I was the executor of a law made by man. I was the keeper of divine precepts. And I would do it again."
A key witness in the trial was Jorge Julio López, a 77-year-old retired construction worker. López had been abducted in 1976 and spent nearly three years in several prisons where he was repeatedly tortured (he showed the scars during the trial). Unlike several of his friends, López was not thrown alive out of an airplane over the South Atlantic — a favorite sport of the Argentine Navy in the 1970s. López survived one of the camps directed by Etchecolatz, and his testimony proved pivotal in the trial.
On September 17, 2006, one day before he was to give his final testimony, Jorge Julio López again disappeared without a trace. Human rights organizations soon received a flier with an old photo of López with the caption: "Julio López, terrorist #30,001. Who will be #30,002?"
Buenos Aires state governor, Felipe Solá called López "the first disappeared since the years of state terrorism" and publicly blamed police officers with ties to the dictatorship for the disappearance. López’s family members and human rights groups believe his abduction was meant to sow fear among witnesses, activists, lawyers, and judges seeking a degree of long delayed justice.
Despite a nationwide search and a reward of $64,000, López has not been found. At the height of el proceso, it was said that if your loved-one did not reappear within twenty-four hours, the chances of seeing them again alive were slim to none. News of López’s abduction has now slipped from the headlines. It seems he’s disappeared a third time.
Colombia: The Para-Narco State
In 2004, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency declassified a 1991 intelligence report that outlined a "who’s who" of the Colombia’s drug-trafficking underworld. The [1] fourteen-page document, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request of the National Security Archives, lists over a hundred names, each numbered and followed by a brief personal profile.
On page 10, number 79 is Pablo Escobar, the pudgy, mustachioed former head of the Medellín Cartel, which at one point controlled almost the entirety of the global cocaine trade; no surprise. But below Escobar, at number 82, is Álvaro Uribe Vélez, the twice-elected current president of Colombia.
The intelligence report describes Uribe as "a senator dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín Cartel at high government levels" and "a close personal friend of Escobar." (At the time, Uribe was a Senator from Escobar’s home state of Antioquia, the capital of which is Medellín.)
Both the Colombian and U.S. governments pointed to blatant inaccuracies in the document and vehemently denied any links between Uribe and narcotraffickers. Although the report says the intelligence is checked through "interface with other agencies," it also admits the information is "not finally evaluated."
Allegations about Uribe’s links to violent paramilitaries, which are heavily involved in the drug trade, have long dogged the president. (In Colombia, these links were widely suspected as fact, sort of like George Bush’s frat-boy cocaine habit and spotty military service.) Drug lords, including Escobar, and wealthy landowners created the paramilitary groups in the 1980s to combat kidnappings by leftist guerrillas; both the right-wing paramilitaries and the leftist guerrillas are on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Senator Gustavo Petro, an ex-guerrilla, recently accused Uribe’s brother of helping form the paramilitaries. Since Petro originally made the accusations, an unfolding investigation has landed 14 members of congress in jail for having intimate ties with paramilitaries. And Uribe’s Foreign Minister, María Consuelo Araújo, had to resign after her brother (a congressman), cousin (a governor), and father were implicated in the scandal. Her brother, now in jail, is accused of involvement in the kidnapping of one of his opponents in the 2005 elections.
Uribe’s head of the DAS, Colombia’s intelligence service, was also arrested. He is accused of providing paramilitaries with a hit list of human rights workers, college professors, and union activists who were later assassinated. Paramilitary collusion with all levels of government and security forces was Colombia’s worst kept secret, but the extent and the formality of these arrangements have left the public stunned.
Colombia has never had an official Truth Commission. How could it? With more than four decades of ceaseless civil war, it has never had the chance. The closest it has come is the ongoing demobilization process begun in 2003 of the country’s 30,000 paramilitaries, who are blamed for the vast majority of human rights abuses in the country. As part of the demobilization deal, the paramilitaries are to receive extremely lenient sentences for crimes against humanity (six-and-a-half years at most) in exchange for confessing to past crimes.
The first of these confessions came from paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, one of the most feared men in Colombia. In court, Mancuso sat behind a laptop in an impeccable pinstriped suit and methodically scrolled through [2] eighty-seven slides of a PowerPoint presentation that described in chilling detail the murder and disappearance of 336 people. Some of these slides describe how Mancuso planned — with the help of the military — the massacres of fifteen and as many as fifty campesinos at a time. He called these "anti-subversive operations" — the same euphemism used in Argentina and Guatemala.
The deal with the paramilitaries elicited an unusually harsh rebuke from the head of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch: "The Colombian government is putting the final touches on a scheme to launder the criminal records of top paramilitary commanders — including some of the country’s most powerful drug lords — while allowing them to keep their wealth and maintain their control over much of the country."
Indeed, while Mancuso sat comfortably in the courtroom, Yolanda Izquierdo, who led an organization of dispossessed campesinos seeking the return of stolen lands, was shot twice in the head. A week before, another campesino leader had been assassinated. This wave of brutal killings casts serious doubts as to whether Colombia’s three million internal refugees — the largest displaced population in the world after Iraq’s and Sudan’s — will ever get their land back.
Since their creation, paramilitary leaders and their allies — namely, politicians and landowners — have accumulated large swaths of the country through the forced displacement of campesinos accused of being guerrilla sympathizers when in fact, the guerrillas are despised by most campesinos almost as much as the paramilitaries. Still, it’s the paramilitaries who have seized an estimated 26,000 square miles from the campesinos — a land-grab of an area larger than the state of West Virginia, comprising about a quarter of the country’s arable land. The price of the Faustian bargain for an unquiet peace with the paramilitaries was apparently the livelihood and happiness of three million Colombians.
Imposed by official decree in Colombia, as elsewhere in Latin America, amnesia and oblivion become internalized by society in an unsettling process that greases the wheels of power and bulletproofs the status quo. Memory, however, at the very least, provides the means to ensure that past and future injustices do not go unnoticed and, hopefully, unchallenged.
Teo Ballvé is NACLA’s Web editor. A journalist based in Colombia, he edited, with Vijay Prashad, Dispatches from Latin America: On the Frontlines Against Neoliberalism.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Evil Empire - Is Imperial Liquidation Possible for America? By Chalmers Johnson
By Chalmers Johnson
In politics, as in medicine, a cure based on a false diagnosis is almost always worthless, often worsening the condition that is supposed to be healed. The United States, today, suffers from a plethora of public ills. Most of them can be traced to the militarism and imperialism that have led to the near-collapse of our Constitutional system of checks and balances. Unfortunately, none of the remedies proposed so far by American politicians or analysts addresses the root causes of the problem.
According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, released on April 26, 2007, some 78% of Americans believe their country to be headed in the wrong direction. Only 22% think the Bush administration's policies make sense, the lowest number on this question since October 1992, when George H. W. Bush was running for a second term -- and lost. What people don't agree on are the reasons for their doubts and, above all, what the remedy -- or remedies -- ought to be.
The range of opinions on this is immense. Even though large numbers of voters vaguely suspect that the failings of the political system itself led the country into its current crisis, most evidently expect the system to perform a course correction more or less automatically. As Adam Nagourney of the New York Times reported, by the end of March 2007, at least 280,000 American citizens had already contributed some $113.6 million to the presidential campaigns of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani, or John McCain.
If these people actually believe a presidential election a year-and-a-half from now will significantly alter how the country is run, they have almost surely wasted their money. As Andrew Bacevich, author of The New American Militarism, puts it: "None of the Democrats vying to replace President Bush is doing so with the promise of reviving the system of check and balances.... The aim of the party out of power is not to cut the presidency down to size but to seize it, not to reduce the prerogatives of the executive branch but to regain them."
George W. Bush has, of course, flagrantly violated his oath of office, which requires him "to protect and defend the constitution," and the opposition party has been remarkably reluctant to hold him to account. Among the "high crimes and misdemeanors" that, under other political circumstances, would surely constitute the Constitutional grounds for impeachment are these: the President and his top officials pressured the Central Intelligence Agency to put together a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's nuclear weapons that both the administration and the Agency knew to be patently dishonest. They then used this false NIE to justify an American war of aggression. After launching an invasion of Iraq, the administration unilaterally reinterpreted international and domestic law to permit the torture of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at other secret locations around the world.
Nothing in the Constitution, least of all the commander-in-chief clause, allows the president to commit felonies. Nonetheless, within days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush had signed a secret executive order authorizing a new policy of "extraordinary rendition," in which the CIA is allowed to kidnap terrorist suspects anywhere on Earth and transfer them to prisons in countries like Egypt, Syria, or Uzbekistan, where torture is a normal practice, or to secret CIA prisons outside the United States where Agency operatives themselves do the torturing.
On the home front, despite the post-9/11 congressional authorization of new surveillance powers to the administration, its officials chose to ignore these and, on its own initiative, undertook extensive spying on American citizens without obtaining the necessary judicial warrants and without reporting to Congress on this program. These actions are prima-facie violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (and subsequent revisions) and of Amendment IV of the Constitution.
These alone constitute more than adequate grounds for impeachment, while hardly scratching the surface. And yet, on the eve of the national elections of November 2006, then House Minority Leader, now Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), pledged on the CBS News program "60 Minutes" that "impeachment is off the table." She called it "a waste of time." And six months after the Democratic Party took control of both houses of Congress, the prison at Guantánamo Bay was still open and conducting drumhead courts martial of the prisoners held there; the CIA was still using "enhanced interrogation techniques" on prisoners in foreign jails; illegal intrusions into the privacy of American citizens continued unabated; and, more than fifty years after the CIA was founded, it continues to operate under, at best, the most perfunctory congressional oversight.
Promoting Lies, Demoting Democracy
Without question, the administration's catastrophic war in Iraq is the single overarching issue that has convinced a large majority of Americans that the country is "heading in the wrong direction." But the war itself is the outcome of an imperial presidency and the abject failure of Congress to perform its Constitutional duty of oversight. Had the government been working as the authors of the Constitution intended, the war could not have occurred. Even now, the Democratic majority remains reluctant to use its power of the purse to cut off funding for the war, thereby ending the American occupation of Iraq and starting to curtail the ever-growing power of the military-industrial complex.
One major problem of the American social and political system is the failure of the press, especially television news, to inform the public about the true breadth of the unconstitutional activities of the executive branch. As Frederick A. O. Schwarz and Aziz Z. Huq, the authors of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror, observe, "For the public to play its proper checking role at the ballot box, citizens must know what is done by the government in their names."
Instead of uncovering administration lies and manipulations, the media actively promoted them. Yet the first amendment to the Constitution protects the press precisely so it can penetrate the secrecy that is the bureaucrat's most powerful, self-protective weapon. As a result of this failure, democratic oversight of the government by an actively engaged citizenry did not -- and could not -- occur. The people of the United States became mere spectators as an array of ideological extremists, vested interests, and foreign operatives -- including domestic neoconservatives, Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi exiles, the Israeli Lobby, the petroleum and automobile industries, warmongers and profiteers allied with the military-industrial complex, and the entrenched interests of the professional military establishment -- essentially hijacked the government.
Some respected professional journalists do not see these failings as the mere result of personal turpitude but rather as deep structural and cultural problems within the American system as it exists today. In an interview with Matt Taibbi, Seymour Hersh, for forty years one of America's leading investigative reporters, put the matter this way:
Veteran analyst of the press (and former presidential press secretary), Bill Moyers, considering a classic moment of media failure, concluded: "The disgraceful press reaction to Colin Powell's presentation at the United Nations [on February 5, 2003] seems like something out of Monty Python, with one key British report cited by Powell being nothing more than a student's thesis, downloaded from the Web -- with the student later threatening to charge U.S. officials with 'plagiarism.'"
As a result of such multiple failures (still ongoing), the executive branch easily misled the American public.
A Made-in-America Human Catastrophe
Of the failings mentioned by Hersh, that of the military is particularly striking, resembling as it does the failures of the Vietnam era, thirty-plus years earlier. One would have thought the high command had learned some lessons from the defeat of 1975. Instead, it once again went to war pumped up on our own propaganda -- especially the conjoined beliefs that the United States was the "indispensable nation," the "lone superpower," and the "victor" in the Cold War; and that it was a new Rome the likes of which the world had never seen, possessing as it did -- from the heavens to the remotest spot on the planet -- "full spectrum dominance." The idea that the U.S. was an unquestioned military colossus athwart the world, which no power or people could effectively oppose, was hubristic nonsense certain to get the country into deep trouble -- as it did -- and bring the U.S. Army to the point of collapse, as happened in Vietnam and may well happen again in Iraq (and Afghanistan).
Instead of behaving in a professional manner, our military invaded Iraq with far too small a force; failed to respond adequately when parts of the Iraqi Army (and Baathist Party) went underground; tolerated an orgy of looting and lawlessness throughout the country; disobeyed orders and ignored international obligations (including the obligation of an occupying power to protect the facilities and treasures of the occupied country -- especially, in this case, Baghdad's National Museum and other archaeological sites of untold historic value); and incompetently fanned the flames of an insurgency against our occupation, committing numerous atrocities against unarmed Iraqi civilians.
According to Andrew Bacevich, "Next to nothing can be done to salvage Iraq. It no longer lies within the capacity of the United States to determine the outcome of events there." Our former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas W. Freeman, says of President Bush's recent "surge" strategy in Baghdad and al-Anbar Province: "The reinforcement of failure is a poor substitute for its correction."
Symbolically, a certain sign of the disaster to come in Iraq arrived via an April 26th posting from the courageous but anonymous Sunni woman who has, since August 2003, published the indispensable blog Baghdad Burning. Her family, she reported, was finally giving up and going into exile -- joining up to two million of her compatriots who have left the country. In her final dispatch, she wrote:
Even military failure in Iraq is still being spun into an endless web of lies and distortions by the White House, the Pentagon, military pundits, and the now-routine reporting of propagandists disguised as journalists. For example, in the first months of 2007, rising car-bomb attacks in Baghdad were making a mockery of Bush administration and Pentagon claims that the U.S. troop escalation in the capital had brought about "a dramatic drop in sectarian violence." The official response to this problem: the Pentagon simply quit including deaths from car bombings in its count of sectarian casualties. (It has never attempted to report civilian casualties publicly or accurately.) Since August 2003, there have been over 1,050 car bombings in Iraq. One study estimates that through June 2006 the death toll from these alone has been a staggering 78,000 Iraqis.
The war and occupation George W. Bush unleashed in Iraq has proved unimaginably lethal for unarmed civilians, but reporting the true levels of lethality in Iraq, or the nature of the direct American role in it was, for a long time, virtually taboo in the U.S. media. As late as October 2006, the journal of the British Medical Association, The Lancet, published a study conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad estimating that, since March 2003, there were some 601,027 more Iraqi deaths from violence than would have been expected without a war. The British and American governments at first dismissed the findings, claiming the research was based on faulty statistical methods -- and the American media ignored the study, played down its importance, or dismissed its figures.
On March 27, 2007, however, it was revealed that the chief scientific adviser to the British Ministry of Defense, Roy Anderson, had offered a more honest response. The methods used in the study were, he wrote, "close to best practice." Another British official described them as "a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones." Over 600,000 violent deaths in a population estimated in 2006 at 26.8 million -- that is, one in every 45 individuals -- amounts to a made-in-America human catastrophe.
One subject that the government, the military, and the news media try to avoid like the plague is the racist and murderous culture of rank-and-file American troops when operating abroad. Partly as a result of the background racism that is embedded in many Americans' mental make-up and the propaganda of American imperialism that is drummed into recruits during military training, they do not see assaults on unarmed "rag heads" or "hajis" as murder. The cult of silence on this subject began to slip only slightly in May 2007 when a report prepared by the Army's Mental Health Advisory Team was leaked to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Based on anonymous surveys and focus groups involving 1,320 soldiers and 447 Marines, the study revealed that only 56% of soldiers would report a unit member for injuring or killing an innocent noncombatant, while a mere 40% of Marines would do so. Some militarists will reply that such inhumanity to the defenseless is always inculcated into the properly trained soldier. If so, then the answer to this problem is to ensure that, in the future, there are many fewer imperialist wars of choice sponsored by the United States.
The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
Many other aspects of imperialism and militarism are undermining America's Constitutional system. By now, for example, the privatization of military and intelligence functions is totally out of control, beyond the law, and beyond any form of Congressional oversight. It is also incredibly lucrative for the owners and operators of so-called private military companies -- and the money to pay for their activities ultimately comes from taxpayers through government contracts. Any accounting of these funds, largely distributed to crony companies with insider connections, is chaotic at best. Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, estimates that there are 126,000 private military contractors in Iraq, more than enough to keep the war going, even if most official U.S. troops were withdrawn. "From the beginning," Scahill writes, "these contractors have been a major hidden story of the war, almost uncovered in the mainstream media and absolutely central to maintaining the U.S. occupation of Iraq."
America's massive "military" budgets, still on the rise, are beginning to threaten the U.S. with bankruptcy, given that its trade and fiscal deficits already easily make it the world's largest net debtor nation. Spending on the military establishment -- sometimes mislabeled "defense spending" -- has soared to the highest levels since World War II, exceeding the budgets of the Korean and Vietnam War eras as well as President Ronald Reagan's weapons-buying binge in the 1980s. According to calculations by the National Priorities Project, a non-profit research organization that examines the local impact of federal spending policies, military spending today consumes 40% of every tax dollar.
Equally alarming, it is virtually impossible for a member of Congress or an ordinary citizen to obtain even a modest handle on the actual size of military spending or its impact on the structure and functioning of our economic system. Some $30 billion of the official Defense Department (DoD) appropriation in the current fiscal year is "black," meaning that it is allegedly going for highly classified projects. Even the open DoD budget receives only perfunctory scrutiny because members of Congress, seeking lucrative defense contracts for their districts, have mutually beneficial relationships with defense contractors and the Pentagon. President Dwight D. Eisenhower identified this phenomenon, in the draft version of his 1961 farewell address, as the "military-industrial-congressional complex." Forty-six years later, in a way even Eisenhower probably couldn't have imagined, the defense budget is beyond serious congressional oversight or control.
The DoD always tries to minimize the size of its budget by representing it as a declining percentage of the gross national product. What it never reveals is that total military spending is actually many times larger than the official appropriation for the Defense Department. For fiscal year 2006, Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute calculated national security outlays at almost a trillion dollars -- $934.9 billion to be exact -- broken down as follows (in billions of dollars):
Department of Defense: $499.4
Department of Energy (atomic weapons): $16.6
Department of State (foreign military aid): $25.3
Department of Veterans Affairs (treatment of wounded soldiers): $69.8
Department of Homeland Security (actual defense): $69.1
Department of Justice (1/3rd for the FBI): $1.9
Department of the Treasury (military retirements): $38.5
NASA (satellite launches): $7.6
Interest on war debts, 1916-present: $206.7
Totaled, the sum is larger than the combined sum spent by all other nations on military security.
This spending helps sustain the national economy and represents, essentially, a major jobs program. However, it is beginning to crowd out the civilian economy, causing stagnation in income levels. It also contributes to the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs to other countries. On May 1, 2007, the Center for Economic and Policy Research released a series of estimates on "the economic impact of the Iraq war and higher military spending." Its figures show, among other things, that, after an initial demand stimulus, the effect of a significant rise in military spending (as we've experienced in recent years) turns negative around the sixth year.
Sooner or later, higher military spending forces inflation and interest rates up, reducing demand in interest-sensitive sectors of the economy, notably in annual car and truck sales. Job losses follow. The non-military construction and manufacturing sectors experience the largest share of these losses. The report concludes, "Most economic models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment."
Imperial Liquidation?
Imperialism and militarism have thus begun to imperil both the financial and social well-being of our republic. What the country desperately needs is a popular movement to rebuild the Constitutional system and subject the government once again to the discipline of checks and balances. Neither the replacement of one political party by the other, nor protectionist economic policies aimed at rescuing what's left of our manufacturing economy will correct what has gone wrong. Both of these solutions fail to address the root cause of our national decline.
I believe that there is only one solution to the crisis we face. The American people must make the decision to dismantle both the empire that has been created in their name and the huge (still growing) military establishment that undergirds it. It is a task at least comparable to that undertaken by the British government when, after World War II, it liquidated the British Empire. By doing so, Britain avoided the fate of the Roman Republic -- becoming a domestic tyranny and losing its democracy, as would have been required if it had continued to try to dominate much of the world by force.
For the U.S., the decision to mount such a campaign of imperial liquidation may already come too late, given the vast and deeply entrenched interests of the military-industrial complex. To succeed, such an endeavor might virtually require a revolutionary mobilization of the American citizenry, one at least comparable to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Even to contemplate a drawing back from empire -- something so inconceivable to our pundits and newspaper editorial writers that it is simply never considered -- we must specify as clearly as possible precisely what the elected leaders and citizens of the United States would have to do. Two cardinal decisions would have to be made. First, in Iraq, we would have to initiate a firm timetable for withdrawing all our military forces and turning over the permanent military bases we have built to the Iraqis. Second, domestically, we would have to reverse federal budget priorities.
In the words of Noam Chomsky, a venerable critic of American imperialism: "Where spending is rising, as in military supplemental bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline. Where spending is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits, funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping operations, and so on), it would sharply increase. Bush's tax cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 a year would be immediately rescinded."
Such reforms would begin at once to reduce the malevolent influence of the military-industrial complex, but many other areas would require attention as well. As part of the process of de-garrisoning the planet and liquidating our empire, we would have to launch an orderly closing-up process for at least 700 of the 737 military bases we maintain (by official Pentagon count) in over 130 foreign countries on every continent except Antarctica. We should ultimately aim at closing all our imperialist enclaves, but in order to avoid isolationism and maintain a capacity to assist the United Nations in global peacekeeping operations, we should, for the time being, probably retain some 37 of them, mostly naval and air bases.
Equally important, we should rewrite all our Status of Forces Agreements -- those American-dictated "agreements" that exempt our troops based in foreign countries from local criminal laws, taxes, immigration controls, anti-pollution legislation, and anything else the American military can think of. It must be established as a matter of principle and law that American forces stationed outside the U.S. will deal with their host nations on a basis of equality, not of extraterritorial privilege.
The American approach to diplomatic relations with the rest of the world would also require a major overhaul. We would have to end our belligerent unilateralism toward other countries as well as our scofflaw behavior regarding international law. Our objective should be to strengthen the United Nations, including our respect for its majority, by working to end the Security Council veto system (and by stopping using our present right to veto). The United States needs to cease being the world's largest supplier of arms and munitions -- a lethal trade whose management should be placed under UN supervision. We should encourage the UN to begin outlawing weapons like land mines, cluster bombs, and depleted-uranium ammunition that play particularly long-term havoc with civilian populations. As part of an attempt to right the diplomatic balance, we should take some obvious steps like recognizing Cuba and ending our blockade of that island and, in the Middle East, working to equalize aid to Israel and Palestine, while attempting to broker a real solution to that disastrous situation. Our goal should be a return to leading by example -- and by sound arguments -- rather than by continual resort to unilateral armed force and repeated foreign military interventions.
In terms of the organization of the executive branch, we need to rewrite the National Security Act of 1947, taking away from the CIA all functions that involve sabotage, torture, subversion, overseas election rigging, rendition, and other forms of clandestine activity. The president should be deprived of his power to order these types of operations except with the explicit advice and consent of the Senate. The CIA should basically devote itself to the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence. We should eliminate as much secrecy as possible so that neither the CIA, nor any other comparable organization ever again becomes the president's private army.
In order to halt our economic decline and lessen our dependence on our trading partners, the U.S. must cap its trade deficits through the perfectly legal use of tariffs in accordance with World Trade Organization rules, and it must begin to guide its domestic market in accordance with a national industrial policy, just as the leading economies of the world (particularly the Japanese and Chinese ones) do as a matter of routine. Even though it may involve trampling on the vested interests of American university economics departments, there is simply no excuse for a continued reliance on an outdated doctrine of "free trade."
Normally, a proposed list of reforms like this would simply be rejected as utopian. I understand this reaction. I do want to stress, however, that failure to undertake such reforms would mean condemning the United States to the fate that befell the Roman Republic and all other empires since then. That is why I gave my book Nemesis the subtitle "The Last Days of the American Republic."
When Ronald Reagan coined the phrase "evil empire," he was referring to the Soviet Union, and I basically agreed with him that the USSR needed to be contained and checkmated. But today it is the U.S. that is widely perceived as an evil empire and world forces are gathering to stop us. The Bush administration insists that if we leave Iraq our enemies will "win" or -- even more improbably -- "follow us home." I believe that, if we leave Iraq and our other imperial enclaves, we can regain the moral high ground and disavow the need for a foreign policy based on preventive war. I also believe that unless we follow this path, we will lose our democracy and then it will not matter much what else we lose. In the immortal words of Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Chalmers Johnson is the author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007). It is the final volume of his Blowback Trilogy.
In politics, as in medicine, a cure based on a false diagnosis is almost always worthless, often worsening the condition that is supposed to be healed. The United States, today, suffers from a plethora of public ills. Most of them can be traced to the militarism and imperialism that have led to the near-collapse of our Constitutional system of checks and balances. Unfortunately, none of the remedies proposed so far by American politicians or analysts addresses the root causes of the problem.
According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, released on April 26, 2007, some 78% of Americans believe their country to be headed in the wrong direction. Only 22% think the Bush administration's policies make sense, the lowest number on this question since October 1992, when George H. W. Bush was running for a second term -- and lost. What people don't agree on are the reasons for their doubts and, above all, what the remedy -- or remedies -- ought to be.
The range of opinions on this is immense. Even though large numbers of voters vaguely suspect that the failings of the political system itself led the country into its current crisis, most evidently expect the system to perform a course correction more or less automatically. As Adam Nagourney of the New York Times reported, by the end of March 2007, at least 280,000 American citizens had already contributed some $113.6 million to the presidential campaigns of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani, or John McCain.
If these people actually believe a presidential election a year-and-a-half from now will significantly alter how the country is run, they have almost surely wasted their money. As Andrew Bacevich, author of The New American Militarism, puts it: "None of the Democrats vying to replace President Bush is doing so with the promise of reviving the system of check and balances.... The aim of the party out of power is not to cut the presidency down to size but to seize it, not to reduce the prerogatives of the executive branch but to regain them."
George W. Bush has, of course, flagrantly violated his oath of office, which requires him "to protect and defend the constitution," and the opposition party has been remarkably reluctant to hold him to account. Among the "high crimes and misdemeanors" that, under other political circumstances, would surely constitute the Constitutional grounds for impeachment are these: the President and his top officials pressured the Central Intelligence Agency to put together a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's nuclear weapons that both the administration and the Agency knew to be patently dishonest. They then used this false NIE to justify an American war of aggression. After launching an invasion of Iraq, the administration unilaterally reinterpreted international and domestic law to permit the torture of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at other secret locations around the world.
Nothing in the Constitution, least of all the commander-in-chief clause, allows the president to commit felonies. Nonetheless, within days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush had signed a secret executive order authorizing a new policy of "extraordinary rendition," in which the CIA is allowed to kidnap terrorist suspects anywhere on Earth and transfer them to prisons in countries like Egypt, Syria, or Uzbekistan, where torture is a normal practice, or to secret CIA prisons outside the United States where Agency operatives themselves do the torturing.
On the home front, despite the post-9/11 congressional authorization of new surveillance powers to the administration, its officials chose to ignore these and, on its own initiative, undertook extensive spying on American citizens without obtaining the necessary judicial warrants and without reporting to Congress on this program. These actions are prima-facie violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (and subsequent revisions) and of Amendment IV of the Constitution.
These alone constitute more than adequate grounds for impeachment, while hardly scratching the surface. And yet, on the eve of the national elections of November 2006, then House Minority Leader, now Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), pledged on the CBS News program "60 Minutes" that "impeachment is off the table." She called it "a waste of time." And six months after the Democratic Party took control of both houses of Congress, the prison at Guantánamo Bay was still open and conducting drumhead courts martial of the prisoners held there; the CIA was still using "enhanced interrogation techniques" on prisoners in foreign jails; illegal intrusions into the privacy of American citizens continued unabated; and, more than fifty years after the CIA was founded, it continues to operate under, at best, the most perfunctory congressional oversight.
Promoting Lies, Demoting Democracy
Without question, the administration's catastrophic war in Iraq is the single overarching issue that has convinced a large majority of Americans that the country is "heading in the wrong direction." But the war itself is the outcome of an imperial presidency and the abject failure of Congress to perform its Constitutional duty of oversight. Had the government been working as the authors of the Constitution intended, the war could not have occurred. Even now, the Democratic majority remains reluctant to use its power of the purse to cut off funding for the war, thereby ending the American occupation of Iraq and starting to curtail the ever-growing power of the military-industrial complex.
One major problem of the American social and political system is the failure of the press, especially television news, to inform the public about the true breadth of the unconstitutional activities of the executive branch. As Frederick A. O. Schwarz and Aziz Z. Huq, the authors of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror, observe, "For the public to play its proper checking role at the ballot box, citizens must know what is done by the government in their names."
Instead of uncovering administration lies and manipulations, the media actively promoted them. Yet the first amendment to the Constitution protects the press precisely so it can penetrate the secrecy that is the bureaucrat's most powerful, self-protective weapon. As a result of this failure, democratic oversight of the government by an actively engaged citizenry did not -- and could not -- occur. The people of the United States became mere spectators as an array of ideological extremists, vested interests, and foreign operatives -- including domestic neoconservatives, Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi exiles, the Israeli Lobby, the petroleum and automobile industries, warmongers and profiteers allied with the military-industrial complex, and the entrenched interests of the professional military establishment -- essentially hijacked the government.
Some respected professional journalists do not see these failings as the mere result of personal turpitude but rather as deep structural and cultural problems within the American system as it exists today. In an interview with Matt Taibbi, Seymour Hersh, for forty years one of America's leading investigative reporters, put the matter this way:
"All of the institutions we thought would protect us -- particularly the press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the Congress -- they have failed… So all the things that we expect would normally carry us through didn't. The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press, because that's the most glaring…. What can be done to fix the situation? [long pause] You'd have to fire or execute ninety percent of the editors and executives."
Veteran analyst of the press (and former presidential press secretary), Bill Moyers, considering a classic moment of media failure, concluded: "The disgraceful press reaction to Colin Powell's presentation at the United Nations [on February 5, 2003] seems like something out of Monty Python, with one key British report cited by Powell being nothing more than a student's thesis, downloaded from the Web -- with the student later threatening to charge U.S. officials with 'plagiarism.'"
As a result of such multiple failures (still ongoing), the executive branch easily misled the American public.
A Made-in-America Human Catastrophe
Of the failings mentioned by Hersh, that of the military is particularly striking, resembling as it does the failures of the Vietnam era, thirty-plus years earlier. One would have thought the high command had learned some lessons from the defeat of 1975. Instead, it once again went to war pumped up on our own propaganda -- especially the conjoined beliefs that the United States was the "indispensable nation," the "lone superpower," and the "victor" in the Cold War; and that it was a new Rome the likes of which the world had never seen, possessing as it did -- from the heavens to the remotest spot on the planet -- "full spectrum dominance." The idea that the U.S. was an unquestioned military colossus athwart the world, which no power or people could effectively oppose, was hubristic nonsense certain to get the country into deep trouble -- as it did -- and bring the U.S. Army to the point of collapse, as happened in Vietnam and may well happen again in Iraq (and Afghanistan).
Instead of behaving in a professional manner, our military invaded Iraq with far too small a force; failed to respond adequately when parts of the Iraqi Army (and Baathist Party) went underground; tolerated an orgy of looting and lawlessness throughout the country; disobeyed orders and ignored international obligations (including the obligation of an occupying power to protect the facilities and treasures of the occupied country -- especially, in this case, Baghdad's National Museum and other archaeological sites of untold historic value); and incompetently fanned the flames of an insurgency against our occupation, committing numerous atrocities against unarmed Iraqi civilians.
According to Andrew Bacevich, "Next to nothing can be done to salvage Iraq. It no longer lies within the capacity of the United States to determine the outcome of events there." Our former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas W. Freeman, says of President Bush's recent "surge" strategy in Baghdad and al-Anbar Province: "The reinforcement of failure is a poor substitute for its correction."
Symbolically, a certain sign of the disaster to come in Iraq arrived via an April 26th posting from the courageous but anonymous Sunni woman who has, since August 2003, published the indispensable blog Baghdad Burning. Her family, she reported, was finally giving up and going into exile -- joining up to two million of her compatriots who have left the country. In her final dispatch, she wrote:
"There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends.... And to what?"Retired General Barry McCaffrey, commander of the 24th Infantry Division in the first Iraq war and a consistent cheerleader for Bush strategies in the second, recently radically changed his tune. He now says, "No Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, reporter, foreign NGO, nor contractor can walk the streets of Baghdad, nor Mosul, nor Kirkuk, nor Basra, nor Tikrit, nor Najaf, nor Ramadi, without heavily armed protection." In a different context, Gen. McCaffrey has concluded: "The U.S. Army is rapidly unraveling."
Even military failure in Iraq is still being spun into an endless web of lies and distortions by the White House, the Pentagon, military pundits, and the now-routine reporting of propagandists disguised as journalists. For example, in the first months of 2007, rising car-bomb attacks in Baghdad were making a mockery of Bush administration and Pentagon claims that the U.S. troop escalation in the capital had brought about "a dramatic drop in sectarian violence." The official response to this problem: the Pentagon simply quit including deaths from car bombings in its count of sectarian casualties. (It has never attempted to report civilian casualties publicly or accurately.) Since August 2003, there have been over 1,050 car bombings in Iraq. One study estimates that through June 2006 the death toll from these alone has been a staggering 78,000 Iraqis.
The war and occupation George W. Bush unleashed in Iraq has proved unimaginably lethal for unarmed civilians, but reporting the true levels of lethality in Iraq, or the nature of the direct American role in it was, for a long time, virtually taboo in the U.S. media. As late as October 2006, the journal of the British Medical Association, The Lancet, published a study conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad estimating that, since March 2003, there were some 601,027 more Iraqi deaths from violence than would have been expected without a war. The British and American governments at first dismissed the findings, claiming the research was based on faulty statistical methods -- and the American media ignored the study, played down its importance, or dismissed its figures.
On March 27, 2007, however, it was revealed that the chief scientific adviser to the British Ministry of Defense, Roy Anderson, had offered a more honest response. The methods used in the study were, he wrote, "close to best practice." Another British official described them as "a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones." Over 600,000 violent deaths in a population estimated in 2006 at 26.8 million -- that is, one in every 45 individuals -- amounts to a made-in-America human catastrophe.
One subject that the government, the military, and the news media try to avoid like the plague is the racist and murderous culture of rank-and-file American troops when operating abroad. Partly as a result of the background racism that is embedded in many Americans' mental make-up and the propaganda of American imperialism that is drummed into recruits during military training, they do not see assaults on unarmed "rag heads" or "hajis" as murder. The cult of silence on this subject began to slip only slightly in May 2007 when a report prepared by the Army's Mental Health Advisory Team was leaked to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Based on anonymous surveys and focus groups involving 1,320 soldiers and 447 Marines, the study revealed that only 56% of soldiers would report a unit member for injuring or killing an innocent noncombatant, while a mere 40% of Marines would do so. Some militarists will reply that such inhumanity to the defenseless is always inculcated into the properly trained soldier. If so, then the answer to this problem is to ensure that, in the future, there are many fewer imperialist wars of choice sponsored by the United States.
The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
Many other aspects of imperialism and militarism are undermining America's Constitutional system. By now, for example, the privatization of military and intelligence functions is totally out of control, beyond the law, and beyond any form of Congressional oversight. It is also incredibly lucrative for the owners and operators of so-called private military companies -- and the money to pay for their activities ultimately comes from taxpayers through government contracts. Any accounting of these funds, largely distributed to crony companies with insider connections, is chaotic at best. Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, estimates that there are 126,000 private military contractors in Iraq, more than enough to keep the war going, even if most official U.S. troops were withdrawn. "From the beginning," Scahill writes, "these contractors have been a major hidden story of the war, almost uncovered in the mainstream media and absolutely central to maintaining the U.S. occupation of Iraq."
America's massive "military" budgets, still on the rise, are beginning to threaten the U.S. with bankruptcy, given that its trade and fiscal deficits already easily make it the world's largest net debtor nation. Spending on the military establishment -- sometimes mislabeled "defense spending" -- has soared to the highest levels since World War II, exceeding the budgets of the Korean and Vietnam War eras as well as President Ronald Reagan's weapons-buying binge in the 1980s. According to calculations by the National Priorities Project, a non-profit research organization that examines the local impact of federal spending policies, military spending today consumes 40% of every tax dollar.
Equally alarming, it is virtually impossible for a member of Congress or an ordinary citizen to obtain even a modest handle on the actual size of military spending or its impact on the structure and functioning of our economic system. Some $30 billion of the official Defense Department (DoD) appropriation in the current fiscal year is "black," meaning that it is allegedly going for highly classified projects. Even the open DoD budget receives only perfunctory scrutiny because members of Congress, seeking lucrative defense contracts for their districts, have mutually beneficial relationships with defense contractors and the Pentagon. President Dwight D. Eisenhower identified this phenomenon, in the draft version of his 1961 farewell address, as the "military-industrial-congressional complex." Forty-six years later, in a way even Eisenhower probably couldn't have imagined, the defense budget is beyond serious congressional oversight or control.
The DoD always tries to minimize the size of its budget by representing it as a declining percentage of the gross national product. What it never reveals is that total military spending is actually many times larger than the official appropriation for the Defense Department. For fiscal year 2006, Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute calculated national security outlays at almost a trillion dollars -- $934.9 billion to be exact -- broken down as follows (in billions of dollars):
Department of Defense: $499.4
Department of Energy (atomic weapons): $16.6
Department of State (foreign military aid): $25.3
Department of Veterans Affairs (treatment of wounded soldiers): $69.8
Department of Homeland Security (actual defense): $69.1
Department of Justice (1/3rd for the FBI): $1.9
Department of the Treasury (military retirements): $38.5
NASA (satellite launches): $7.6
Interest on war debts, 1916-present: $206.7
Totaled, the sum is larger than the combined sum spent by all other nations on military security.
This spending helps sustain the national economy and represents, essentially, a major jobs program. However, it is beginning to crowd out the civilian economy, causing stagnation in income levels. It also contributes to the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs to other countries. On May 1, 2007, the Center for Economic and Policy Research released a series of estimates on "the economic impact of the Iraq war and higher military spending." Its figures show, among other things, that, after an initial demand stimulus, the effect of a significant rise in military spending (as we've experienced in recent years) turns negative around the sixth year.
Sooner or later, higher military spending forces inflation and interest rates up, reducing demand in interest-sensitive sectors of the economy, notably in annual car and truck sales. Job losses follow. The non-military construction and manufacturing sectors experience the largest share of these losses. The report concludes, "Most economic models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment."
Imperial Liquidation?
Imperialism and militarism have thus begun to imperil both the financial and social well-being of our republic. What the country desperately needs is a popular movement to rebuild the Constitutional system and subject the government once again to the discipline of checks and balances. Neither the replacement of one political party by the other, nor protectionist economic policies aimed at rescuing what's left of our manufacturing economy will correct what has gone wrong. Both of these solutions fail to address the root cause of our national decline.
I believe that there is only one solution to the crisis we face. The American people must make the decision to dismantle both the empire that has been created in their name and the huge (still growing) military establishment that undergirds it. It is a task at least comparable to that undertaken by the British government when, after World War II, it liquidated the British Empire. By doing so, Britain avoided the fate of the Roman Republic -- becoming a domestic tyranny and losing its democracy, as would have been required if it had continued to try to dominate much of the world by force.
For the U.S., the decision to mount such a campaign of imperial liquidation may already come too late, given the vast and deeply entrenched interests of the military-industrial complex. To succeed, such an endeavor might virtually require a revolutionary mobilization of the American citizenry, one at least comparable to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Even to contemplate a drawing back from empire -- something so inconceivable to our pundits and newspaper editorial writers that it is simply never considered -- we must specify as clearly as possible precisely what the elected leaders and citizens of the United States would have to do. Two cardinal decisions would have to be made. First, in Iraq, we would have to initiate a firm timetable for withdrawing all our military forces and turning over the permanent military bases we have built to the Iraqis. Second, domestically, we would have to reverse federal budget priorities.
In the words of Noam Chomsky, a venerable critic of American imperialism: "Where spending is rising, as in military supplemental bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline. Where spending is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits, funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping operations, and so on), it would sharply increase. Bush's tax cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 a year would be immediately rescinded."
Such reforms would begin at once to reduce the malevolent influence of the military-industrial complex, but many other areas would require attention as well. As part of the process of de-garrisoning the planet and liquidating our empire, we would have to launch an orderly closing-up process for at least 700 of the 737 military bases we maintain (by official Pentagon count) in over 130 foreign countries on every continent except Antarctica. We should ultimately aim at closing all our imperialist enclaves, but in order to avoid isolationism and maintain a capacity to assist the United Nations in global peacekeeping operations, we should, for the time being, probably retain some 37 of them, mostly naval and air bases.
Equally important, we should rewrite all our Status of Forces Agreements -- those American-dictated "agreements" that exempt our troops based in foreign countries from local criminal laws, taxes, immigration controls, anti-pollution legislation, and anything else the American military can think of. It must be established as a matter of principle and law that American forces stationed outside the U.S. will deal with their host nations on a basis of equality, not of extraterritorial privilege.
The American approach to diplomatic relations with the rest of the world would also require a major overhaul. We would have to end our belligerent unilateralism toward other countries as well as our scofflaw behavior regarding international law. Our objective should be to strengthen the United Nations, including our respect for its majority, by working to end the Security Council veto system (and by stopping using our present right to veto). The United States needs to cease being the world's largest supplier of arms and munitions -- a lethal trade whose management should be placed under UN supervision. We should encourage the UN to begin outlawing weapons like land mines, cluster bombs, and depleted-uranium ammunition that play particularly long-term havoc with civilian populations. As part of an attempt to right the diplomatic balance, we should take some obvious steps like recognizing Cuba and ending our blockade of that island and, in the Middle East, working to equalize aid to Israel and Palestine, while attempting to broker a real solution to that disastrous situation. Our goal should be a return to leading by example -- and by sound arguments -- rather than by continual resort to unilateral armed force and repeated foreign military interventions.
In terms of the organization of the executive branch, we need to rewrite the National Security Act of 1947, taking away from the CIA all functions that involve sabotage, torture, subversion, overseas election rigging, rendition, and other forms of clandestine activity. The president should be deprived of his power to order these types of operations except with the explicit advice and consent of the Senate. The CIA should basically devote itself to the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence. We should eliminate as much secrecy as possible so that neither the CIA, nor any other comparable organization ever again becomes the president's private army.
In order to halt our economic decline and lessen our dependence on our trading partners, the U.S. must cap its trade deficits through the perfectly legal use of tariffs in accordance with World Trade Organization rules, and it must begin to guide its domestic market in accordance with a national industrial policy, just as the leading economies of the world (particularly the Japanese and Chinese ones) do as a matter of routine. Even though it may involve trampling on the vested interests of American university economics departments, there is simply no excuse for a continued reliance on an outdated doctrine of "free trade."
Normally, a proposed list of reforms like this would simply be rejected as utopian. I understand this reaction. I do want to stress, however, that failure to undertake such reforms would mean condemning the United States to the fate that befell the Roman Republic and all other empires since then. That is why I gave my book Nemesis the subtitle "The Last Days of the American Republic."
When Ronald Reagan coined the phrase "evil empire," he was referring to the Soviet Union, and I basically agreed with him that the USSR needed to be contained and checkmated. But today it is the U.S. that is widely perceived as an evil empire and world forces are gathering to stop us. The Bush administration insists that if we leave Iraq our enemies will "win" or -- even more improbably -- "follow us home." I believe that, if we leave Iraq and our other imperial enclaves, we can regain the moral high ground and disavow the need for a foreign policy based on preventive war. I also believe that unless we follow this path, we will lose our democracy and then it will not matter much what else we lose. In the immortal words of Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Chalmers Johnson is the author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007). It is the final volume of his Blowback Trilogy.
Think Guatemala 1954, for Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela
By Council on Hemispheric Affairs
05/15/07 "ICH" --- - In 1954, United Fruit, in concert with the CIA, successfully orchestrated the overthrow of Guatemala’s democratically-elected government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, charging that the Central American nation had fallen under communist influence. The demise of Arbenz took time to accomplish, with the fatal draught being a casual concoction of miscommunication, corporate arrogance, misinformation, outright deception, a naïve reform-minded government and arrogance on the part of the Eisenhower administration. Arbenz was neither a communist, nor was his government profoundly sympathetic to extreme leftist ideas as charged at the time by U.S. government officials and media outlets. Upon his election in 1951, Arbenz took office in a country in which 70% of the arable land was controlled by 2.2% of the population – only 12% of which was being cultivated at the time of his overthrow in 1954. Like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, he wanted to reform what was palpably neither a good nor just society.
Case Studies of Guatemala and Venezuela
The parallels between Guatemala in 1954 and present day Venezuela are uncomfortably close, which is cause enough for concern that the U.S. government and its compliant media have predictably taken sides. It was of little surprise therefore that land reform was one of the priorities chosen by the democratically-elected Arbenz just as it has become for President Chavez. Soon after taking office, both reformers similarly instituted wide ranging agricultural reform policies that sought to distribute uncultivated land to thousands of poor, landless peasants. Arbenz’s plan, however modest it initially was in scope, struck a raw nerve with the largest landowning enterprise in Guatemala, the United Fruit Company. The holdings of this agro-industrial giant in the country were 85% uncultivated, therefore facing heavy taxes under extant law. A similar shock faced Venezuelan land holders when their fallow and speculative land parcels were scheduled to be seized by the government, to be redistributed to landless campesinos.
Bananas or Oil, the Process is the Same
Back in the early 1950’s, United Fruit, a major hemispheric banana company with extensive ties to U.S. power brokers both within and outside the government, had consistently undervalued the worth of its land reserves for the purposes of evading heavy property tax obligations. Yet, when Arbenz approached United Fruit with a compensation plan for their land scheduled for expropriation, the company balked at the $3 per acre validation price. In fact, this was the artificially low figure which had been previously designated by the company itself for tax purposes. The Guatemalan government, for its part, claimed that in fact the true assessed value of the land should have been pegged at $75 per acre. The details of this squabble mattered little, because ultimately ‘might made right’, a parable regarding the articulation of U.S. hemispheric policy that Hugo Chavez would be well advised to have on his mind without interruption.
In fact, be it Guatemalan bananas or Venezuelan oil, the differences were only in the details. The more recent round in the endemic corruption of Venezuela’s legal and administrative systems could be easily witnessed beginning in the early 1990s. At the time, traditional Venezuelan venal practices chronically engaged in by rotating the Social Democratic and Christian Democratic governments, then traditionally ruling the country, were very much in evidence. These resulted in sweetheart deals for U.S. and other foreign oil companies then seeking prized drilling rights in the Orinoco tar belt in return for shockingly low taxes and royalties.
By 1954, United Fruit was in full gear to bring down the Arbenz administration, claiming through its government and media connections, that communist labor forces had overtaken the Guatemalan government and were spreading their ideological toxicity. It did not take long for United Fruit’s public disinformation campaign to disseminate throughout the U.S. press and then to Washington’s decision makers, which subsequently resulted in the plot to rid Guatemala of Arbenz and his leftist cabal before their noxious leftist reforms had sufficient time to take root in the country. As a result of the staging of the 1954 CIA-orchestrated golpe, Arbenz was pushed out of the presidency on June 27, 1954, giving way to a U.S.-backed military regime that initiated two decades of oppressive rule in Guatemala. This regime left a cumulative death toll of almost 200,000 lives and a legacy of violence that is still being echoed today. Today, a similarly danger–fraught relationship is ongoing between another Latin American nation and the U.S – this time, Venezuela.
Defaming Venezuela
Increasingly malignant allegations of illegality and impropriety have been volleyed between the two adversaries for several years. Venezuelan relations with Washington have been particularly strained since shortly after Hugo Chavez’s 1998 electoral victory and again with the U.S.-backed 2002 attempted overthrow of the leftist regime. While these tensions have persisted ever since, they have recently manifested themselves in increasingly acidic comments made by Chavez and some of his senior colleagues regarding Caracas’ potential expropriation of the country’s banks as well as its largest steel producer, Sidor. Additionally, comments from Venezuela also have broadly hinted about the possible nationalization of the country’s private medical facilities. As a result, a brief scan of the news traffic now being run on the national and international media outlets yields an abundance of coverage dedicated to the lampooning, deprecation and disparagement of Venezuela by President Chavez’s political foes. These have been triggered by media reports which initially may have been based on pro-Chavez accounts, but were almost immediately doctored into running anti-Chavez schemes. These adroitly portray a distorted picture of Chavez of pressing to nationalize every sector in sight, when in actuality he may have had something quite different in mind.
Absent from the rampant speculation and rush to judgment by the media regarding Chavez’s intentions are a set of facts presenting a different story. More to the point, what seems to be at work here is mainly a sustained attempt by anti-Chavez elements to ridicule his government, rather than to accurately spell out exactly what was being proposed by Venezuelan government sources, as well as providing an active context in which these statements were being made by he and his associates. On the part of these Chavistas, such speculations were never meant to be a hard agenda of things to come, but more akin to blue sky thinking.
Immunizing Oneself from Coups
The ineffectiveness of Arbenz in demonstrating the intrinsic fairness of his land reforms in the 1950’s brought on disastrous consequences, when challenged by the wild misrepresentation of an alleged communist threat that United Fruit falsely claimed was being posed by the Arbenz government. In this instance, a thoroughly responsible effort to enact land reform was vetoed by an organized campaign of mockery and misinformation that played off the main weaknesses of the Arbenz administration – its chaotic nature and its shortage of effective administrative skills. In a similar spirit, who is to blame for today’s exchange between the incendiary words emanating from Caracas and being answered by a mendacious press and the negative commentary that it generates, with only rare attempts to accurately present the government’s economic policy?
The New York Times has characterized Chavez’s recent words regarding the potential nationalization of the country’s banks as “saber rattling.” The implication here is that the Venezuelan president’s words amount to nothing more than hollow boasts, which is dramatized by speculative quotes offered up in a number of Associated Press and other articles syndicated across the U.S. The Wall Street Journal’s slashing sword went even further, malevolently publishing a beggaring article on, “How Chávez Aims to Weaken U.S.”, one of the many rants it has directed against Chavez. The attack was severe enough to evoke a letter to the editor from Bernardo Alvarez, the Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States, who wrote the Journal in order, “to correct your suggestion that the Venezuelan government’s purchase of oil reserves along the Orinoco River is an affront to U.S. energy interests.” While it may have been a question of time for the Ambassador to respond to what is arguably the most reactionary editorial page in the U.S., someone had to answer the brand of jingoist journalistic bias that is to be found in that paper on this subject, let alone in its more respectable media brethren, including the New York Times and The Washington Post.
Though one is naturally hesitant to join in the hyperbole that characterizes so much of the commentary featured in the mainstream media regarding contemporary Venezuela, it is becoming increasingly evident that the extreme disparity between Chavez’s counter-hegemonic messages and what should be the practice of responsible journalism in the U.S. media, may not merely be a matter of random ex parte fulminations by Chavez’s ideological foes.
President Chavez has always been ready to indulge himself in rapid come-backs to malignant barbs featured in the U.S. major media (at times even provoking them) even if it means dispatching arrows in return, only to have them quickly countered by the Ambassador’s reply. Such a process is meant to cast grave doubts on the earnestness and authenticity of Venezuela’s progressive reforms up to this point. Such harsh polemics on the part of much of the U.S. media reflects an unrelenting bias on the part of the anti-Chavez media. But, it also exposes a needlessly random and often counterproductive tone emanating from Caracas. The theme here is that Chavez has every right to come forth with a nationalization program backed by a majority of Venezuelans, but it should be done in a responsible manner befitting the importance of his mission and the need of an effective strategy to put his best foot forward and not to needlessly arm his enemies.
Chavez’s Style
The often conflicted nature of Chavez’s message to the people of Latin America and beyond has allowed the U.S. media to engage in mischief making and to dismiss Caracas’ words in a derisive manner – a dilemma that recently has allowed for the transformation of the speculative musings of Chavez and some of his senior colleagues regarding the banking, medical and steel industries into a veritable road map for nationalization, as depicted by his enemies. These, in turn, have been twisted into miles of conjecture and disrespect in newspaper columns across the globe, presenting a common, although largely unwarranted, interpretation that Venezuela intends to go ahead with a reckless nationalization policy heading in all directions, and that there now is solid proof that Chavez is on his way to emerge as an authoritarian figure who lacks an authentic democratic vision of what is best for his country.
If there is anything for Venezuela to learn from United Fruit’s fateful role in bringing down the Arbenz government, it is the critical importance of the targeted victim (in this instance, Venezuela) speaking with a single voice regarding the complex matters associated with the country’s economy. To do otherwise invites obfuscation and confusion. Today’s political climate throughout Latin America is such that President Chavez’s words reverberate to every corner of the hemisphere. Often, the reactions to the leadership role he now plays and the visions he now espouses are very positive, but sometimes they are not.
If Venezuela is to avoid having its message being bushwhacked by the State Department as well as by a hostile and dismissive Western media, the country would be wise to anticipate the possible likelihood that its own ‘United Fruit’ saga may be waiting in the wings to be played out against it. If Chavez’s reform policies are to meet a different and kindlier fate than those of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán’s, it might be able to ward off such bad fortune by effective coherence, fixity of purpose, the amplitude of popular support and continuity of programs in order to protect the revolution from the web of its own miscommunication and self absorption, as well as the animus of its own foes. What must be avoided is the present confusion coming from different wings of the presidential palace and ministerial offices that over half a century ago led to the overthrow of the Guatemalan government.
This analysis was prepared by COHA Staff
05/15/07 "ICH" --- - In 1954, United Fruit, in concert with the CIA, successfully orchestrated the overthrow of Guatemala’s democratically-elected government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, charging that the Central American nation had fallen under communist influence. The demise of Arbenz took time to accomplish, with the fatal draught being a casual concoction of miscommunication, corporate arrogance, misinformation, outright deception, a naïve reform-minded government and arrogance on the part of the Eisenhower administration. Arbenz was neither a communist, nor was his government profoundly sympathetic to extreme leftist ideas as charged at the time by U.S. government officials and media outlets. Upon his election in 1951, Arbenz took office in a country in which 70% of the arable land was controlled by 2.2% of the population – only 12% of which was being cultivated at the time of his overthrow in 1954. Like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, he wanted to reform what was palpably neither a good nor just society.
Case Studies of Guatemala and Venezuela
The parallels between Guatemala in 1954 and present day Venezuela are uncomfortably close, which is cause enough for concern that the U.S. government and its compliant media have predictably taken sides. It was of little surprise therefore that land reform was one of the priorities chosen by the democratically-elected Arbenz just as it has become for President Chavez. Soon after taking office, both reformers similarly instituted wide ranging agricultural reform policies that sought to distribute uncultivated land to thousands of poor, landless peasants. Arbenz’s plan, however modest it initially was in scope, struck a raw nerve with the largest landowning enterprise in Guatemala, the United Fruit Company. The holdings of this agro-industrial giant in the country were 85% uncultivated, therefore facing heavy taxes under extant law. A similar shock faced Venezuelan land holders when their fallow and speculative land parcels were scheduled to be seized by the government, to be redistributed to landless campesinos.
Bananas or Oil, the Process is the Same
Back in the early 1950’s, United Fruit, a major hemispheric banana company with extensive ties to U.S. power brokers both within and outside the government, had consistently undervalued the worth of its land reserves for the purposes of evading heavy property tax obligations. Yet, when Arbenz approached United Fruit with a compensation plan for their land scheduled for expropriation, the company balked at the $3 per acre validation price. In fact, this was the artificially low figure which had been previously designated by the company itself for tax purposes. The Guatemalan government, for its part, claimed that in fact the true assessed value of the land should have been pegged at $75 per acre. The details of this squabble mattered little, because ultimately ‘might made right’, a parable regarding the articulation of U.S. hemispheric policy that Hugo Chavez would be well advised to have on his mind without interruption.
In fact, be it Guatemalan bananas or Venezuelan oil, the differences were only in the details. The more recent round in the endemic corruption of Venezuela’s legal and administrative systems could be easily witnessed beginning in the early 1990s. At the time, traditional Venezuelan venal practices chronically engaged in by rotating the Social Democratic and Christian Democratic governments, then traditionally ruling the country, were very much in evidence. These resulted in sweetheart deals for U.S. and other foreign oil companies then seeking prized drilling rights in the Orinoco tar belt in return for shockingly low taxes and royalties.
By 1954, United Fruit was in full gear to bring down the Arbenz administration, claiming through its government and media connections, that communist labor forces had overtaken the Guatemalan government and were spreading their ideological toxicity. It did not take long for United Fruit’s public disinformation campaign to disseminate throughout the U.S. press and then to Washington’s decision makers, which subsequently resulted in the plot to rid Guatemala of Arbenz and his leftist cabal before their noxious leftist reforms had sufficient time to take root in the country. As a result of the staging of the 1954 CIA-orchestrated golpe, Arbenz was pushed out of the presidency on June 27, 1954, giving way to a U.S.-backed military regime that initiated two decades of oppressive rule in Guatemala. This regime left a cumulative death toll of almost 200,000 lives and a legacy of violence that is still being echoed today. Today, a similarly danger–fraught relationship is ongoing between another Latin American nation and the U.S – this time, Venezuela.
Defaming Venezuela
Increasingly malignant allegations of illegality and impropriety have been volleyed between the two adversaries for several years. Venezuelan relations with Washington have been particularly strained since shortly after Hugo Chavez’s 1998 electoral victory and again with the U.S.-backed 2002 attempted overthrow of the leftist regime. While these tensions have persisted ever since, they have recently manifested themselves in increasingly acidic comments made by Chavez and some of his senior colleagues regarding Caracas’ potential expropriation of the country’s banks as well as its largest steel producer, Sidor. Additionally, comments from Venezuela also have broadly hinted about the possible nationalization of the country’s private medical facilities. As a result, a brief scan of the news traffic now being run on the national and international media outlets yields an abundance of coverage dedicated to the lampooning, deprecation and disparagement of Venezuela by President Chavez’s political foes. These have been triggered by media reports which initially may have been based on pro-Chavez accounts, but were almost immediately doctored into running anti-Chavez schemes. These adroitly portray a distorted picture of Chavez of pressing to nationalize every sector in sight, when in actuality he may have had something quite different in mind.
Absent from the rampant speculation and rush to judgment by the media regarding Chavez’s intentions are a set of facts presenting a different story. More to the point, what seems to be at work here is mainly a sustained attempt by anti-Chavez elements to ridicule his government, rather than to accurately spell out exactly what was being proposed by Venezuelan government sources, as well as providing an active context in which these statements were being made by he and his associates. On the part of these Chavistas, such speculations were never meant to be a hard agenda of things to come, but more akin to blue sky thinking.
Immunizing Oneself from Coups
The ineffectiveness of Arbenz in demonstrating the intrinsic fairness of his land reforms in the 1950’s brought on disastrous consequences, when challenged by the wild misrepresentation of an alleged communist threat that United Fruit falsely claimed was being posed by the Arbenz government. In this instance, a thoroughly responsible effort to enact land reform was vetoed by an organized campaign of mockery and misinformation that played off the main weaknesses of the Arbenz administration – its chaotic nature and its shortage of effective administrative skills. In a similar spirit, who is to blame for today’s exchange between the incendiary words emanating from Caracas and being answered by a mendacious press and the negative commentary that it generates, with only rare attempts to accurately present the government’s economic policy?
The New York Times has characterized Chavez’s recent words regarding the potential nationalization of the country’s banks as “saber rattling.” The implication here is that the Venezuelan president’s words amount to nothing more than hollow boasts, which is dramatized by speculative quotes offered up in a number of Associated Press and other articles syndicated across the U.S. The Wall Street Journal’s slashing sword went even further, malevolently publishing a beggaring article on, “How Chávez Aims to Weaken U.S.”, one of the many rants it has directed against Chavez. The attack was severe enough to evoke a letter to the editor from Bernardo Alvarez, the Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States, who wrote the Journal in order, “to correct your suggestion that the Venezuelan government’s purchase of oil reserves along the Orinoco River is an affront to U.S. energy interests.” While it may have been a question of time for the Ambassador to respond to what is arguably the most reactionary editorial page in the U.S., someone had to answer the brand of jingoist journalistic bias that is to be found in that paper on this subject, let alone in its more respectable media brethren, including the New York Times and The Washington Post.
Though one is naturally hesitant to join in the hyperbole that characterizes so much of the commentary featured in the mainstream media regarding contemporary Venezuela, it is becoming increasingly evident that the extreme disparity between Chavez’s counter-hegemonic messages and what should be the practice of responsible journalism in the U.S. media, may not merely be a matter of random ex parte fulminations by Chavez’s ideological foes.
President Chavez has always been ready to indulge himself in rapid come-backs to malignant barbs featured in the U.S. major media (at times even provoking them) even if it means dispatching arrows in return, only to have them quickly countered by the Ambassador’s reply. Such a process is meant to cast grave doubts on the earnestness and authenticity of Venezuela’s progressive reforms up to this point. Such harsh polemics on the part of much of the U.S. media reflects an unrelenting bias on the part of the anti-Chavez media. But, it also exposes a needlessly random and often counterproductive tone emanating from Caracas. The theme here is that Chavez has every right to come forth with a nationalization program backed by a majority of Venezuelans, but it should be done in a responsible manner befitting the importance of his mission and the need of an effective strategy to put his best foot forward and not to needlessly arm his enemies.
Chavez’s Style
The often conflicted nature of Chavez’s message to the people of Latin America and beyond has allowed the U.S. media to engage in mischief making and to dismiss Caracas’ words in a derisive manner – a dilemma that recently has allowed for the transformation of the speculative musings of Chavez and some of his senior colleagues regarding the banking, medical and steel industries into a veritable road map for nationalization, as depicted by his enemies. These, in turn, have been twisted into miles of conjecture and disrespect in newspaper columns across the globe, presenting a common, although largely unwarranted, interpretation that Venezuela intends to go ahead with a reckless nationalization policy heading in all directions, and that there now is solid proof that Chavez is on his way to emerge as an authoritarian figure who lacks an authentic democratic vision of what is best for his country.
If there is anything for Venezuela to learn from United Fruit’s fateful role in bringing down the Arbenz government, it is the critical importance of the targeted victim (in this instance, Venezuela) speaking with a single voice regarding the complex matters associated with the country’s economy. To do otherwise invites obfuscation and confusion. Today’s political climate throughout Latin America is such that President Chavez’s words reverberate to every corner of the hemisphere. Often, the reactions to the leadership role he now plays and the visions he now espouses are very positive, but sometimes they are not.
If Venezuela is to avoid having its message being bushwhacked by the State Department as well as by a hostile and dismissive Western media, the country would be wise to anticipate the possible likelihood that its own ‘United Fruit’ saga may be waiting in the wings to be played out against it. If Chavez’s reform policies are to meet a different and kindlier fate than those of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán’s, it might be able to ward off such bad fortune by effective coherence, fixity of purpose, the amplitude of popular support and continuity of programs in order to protect the revolution from the web of its own miscommunication and self absorption, as well as the animus of its own foes. What must be avoided is the present confusion coming from different wings of the presidential palace and ministerial offices that over half a century ago led to the overthrow of the Guatemalan government.
This analysis was prepared by COHA Staff
Venezuelan Economy Shows Continued Growth
Mérida, May 15, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— The Venezuelan economy has had a continuous annual growth rate of 12.6 percent for the last three and a half years Venezuela's Development Minister Jorge Giordani reported today. According to preliminary indicators released by the Central Bank of Venezuela, the Venezuelan economy has sustained this high average of growth for 14 consecutive trimesters. The GDP grew a total of 8.8 percent in the first quarter of 2007, and the unemployment level reached its lowest level since 1999.
Jorge Giordani made the announcement today at a press conference in the presidential palace. Using statistics from the Central Bank of Venezuela for the first quarter of 2007, the minister explained that all productive sectors of the economy have shown growth so far this year.
"This shows that the Venezuelan economy has entered a new period of general high-sustained growth," reported Giordani. "The last time (the economy) grew at a similar rate was during the mid-1950's," he said.
The private sector accounted for most of the growth with a 10.3 percent expansion. The public sector, on the other hand, only grew 1.7 percent according to the Central Bank. A boom in non-petroleum-related activity contributed significantly to the growth expanding 10.6 percent.
According to the report the growth was generalized among all sectors. Manufacturing grew 15.8 percent so far this year, the machine industry 13.8 percent, plastic and tires saw growth of 24 percent, transportation 16.4 percent, communications 18.3 percent, and the food and drink industry grew 13 percent.
"Recent growth in demand for food indicates that people are eating more and better," said Giordiani.
As a result of the growth in these sectors, demand increased in other sectors such as the construction industry, which grew 26.5 percent, and financial brokering 26.2 percent. Growth in the construction industry is largely due to the increase in housing projects both in the private sector and public sector, which have both grown in recent years.
The Central Bank attributes the growth of the economy to a number of factors. Among those factors are the increase in household income, the recovery of purchasing power, the expansion of government social programs, and increased employment. The minister also mentioned the recent increases in minimum wage.
"Venezuela is practically at the top of Latin American countries," he said.
Other factors stimulating growth include increased investment and consumption due to the greater access to credit. The government has also increased spending and investment in public infrastructure.
Government services in general continue to show growth. Health services increased by 2 percent for the period, education by 5.9 percent, and public administration and defense by 1.6 percent. Higher government revenues as a result of increased tax collection and petroleum income has allowed the government to finance a number of social programs to meet the needs of the population.
Also released today, a report by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) showed that unemployment has dropped by 1.4 percent over the last year to a level of 8.8 percent, the lowest since 1999. According to the report, between April 2006 and April 2007 the number of unemployed people dropped from 10.2% to 8.8% for a total of 469,675 more employed people than a year ago.
The President of the INE, Elias Eljuri, pointed out that the number was the lowest rate of unemployment since 1999. According to the numbers of the INE, taken every April for the last nine years, unemployment rates have been as follows:
1999: 14.6 percent
2000: 14.7 percent
2001: 14.5 percent
2002: 15.9 percent
2003: 19.1 percent
2004: 16.3 percent
2005: 12.1 percent
2006: 10.2 percent
Between April 2006 and April 2007 the amount of the population employed in the formal sector increased by 239,428 to a total of 6,307,881 and making up 55.4 percent of the work force.
Jorge Giordani made the announcement today at a press conference in the presidential palace. Using statistics from the Central Bank of Venezuela for the first quarter of 2007, the minister explained that all productive sectors of the economy have shown growth so far this year.
"This shows that the Venezuelan economy has entered a new period of general high-sustained growth," reported Giordani. "The last time (the economy) grew at a similar rate was during the mid-1950's," he said.
The private sector accounted for most of the growth with a 10.3 percent expansion. The public sector, on the other hand, only grew 1.7 percent according to the Central Bank. A boom in non-petroleum-related activity contributed significantly to the growth expanding 10.6 percent.
According to the report the growth was generalized among all sectors. Manufacturing grew 15.8 percent so far this year, the machine industry 13.8 percent, plastic and tires saw growth of 24 percent, transportation 16.4 percent, communications 18.3 percent, and the food and drink industry grew 13 percent.
"Recent growth in demand for food indicates that people are eating more and better," said Giordiani.
As a result of the growth in these sectors, demand increased in other sectors such as the construction industry, which grew 26.5 percent, and financial brokering 26.2 percent. Growth in the construction industry is largely due to the increase in housing projects both in the private sector and public sector, which have both grown in recent years.
The Central Bank attributes the growth of the economy to a number of factors. Among those factors are the increase in household income, the recovery of purchasing power, the expansion of government social programs, and increased employment. The minister also mentioned the recent increases in minimum wage.
"Venezuela is practically at the top of Latin American countries," he said.
Other factors stimulating growth include increased investment and consumption due to the greater access to credit. The government has also increased spending and investment in public infrastructure.
Government services in general continue to show growth. Health services increased by 2 percent for the period, education by 5.9 percent, and public administration and defense by 1.6 percent. Higher government revenues as a result of increased tax collection and petroleum income has allowed the government to finance a number of social programs to meet the needs of the population.
Also released today, a report by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) showed that unemployment has dropped by 1.4 percent over the last year to a level of 8.8 percent, the lowest since 1999. According to the report, between April 2006 and April 2007 the number of unemployed people dropped from 10.2% to 8.8% for a total of 469,675 more employed people than a year ago.
The President of the INE, Elias Eljuri, pointed out that the number was the lowest rate of unemployment since 1999. According to the numbers of the INE, taken every April for the last nine years, unemployment rates have been as follows:
1999: 14.6 percent
2000: 14.7 percent
2001: 14.5 percent
2002: 15.9 percent
2003: 19.1 percent
2004: 16.3 percent
2005: 12.1 percent
2006: 10.2 percent
Between April 2006 and April 2007 the amount of the population employed in the formal sector increased by 239,428 to a total of 6,307,881 and making up 55.4 percent of the work force.
POSICIÓN DE LA CONFEDERACIÓN DE PUEBLOS DE LA NACIONALIDAD KICHWA
POSICIÓN DE LA CONFEDERACIÓN DE PUEBLOS DE LA NACIONALIDAD KICHWA DEL ECUADOR FRENTE A LAS DECLARACIONES EMITIDAS POR BENEDICTO XVI EN LA V CONFERENCIA DE OBISPOS DE AMÉRICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE (CELAM), EN MAYO DEL 2007 EN BRASIL
Los Pueblos y Nacionalidades Indígenas del Continente de Abya Yala (América) rechazamos enérgicamente las declaraciones emitidas por el Sumo Pontífice en lo que se refiere a nuestra espiritualidad ancestral, y a los comentarios políticos emitidos con relación a algunos presidentes Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, más aún cuando éstas son realizadas ante un continente en el que se acrecienta la brecha entre pobres y ricos, y en donde se encuentra gran parte de la feligresía católica del mundo, lo que ha implicado siglos de “evangelización”, misma que lastimosamente no ha logrado dar como frutos una vida justa y digna para sus habitantes. Estas declaraciones se las realiza precisamente cuando la Vida Planetaria está amenazada de muerte, y no son responsables de ello los presidentes que el Papa cita en sus alocuciones, sino aquellos que como el Presidente norteamericano George W. Bush, enarbolan la bandera del voraz sistema capitalista neoliberal. Por lo que es inconcebible, que para alguien que se precia de ser el representante de Cristo en esta Tierra, sean los Presidentes Latinoamericanos de corte humanista los que le causen preocupación. Es hora de que se entienda que nuestro continente tiene el derecho de ejercer su libre determinación. Ya no es la hora de nuevas y renovadas conquistas en nombre de nada.
Si analizamos con una elemental sensibilidad humana, sin fanatismo de ninguna especie, la historia de la invasión a Abya Yala, realizada por los españoles con la complicidad de la Iglesia Católica, no podemos menos que indignarnos. Seguramente el Papa desconoce que los representantes de la Iglesia Católica de ese tiempo, con honrosas excepciones, fueron cómplices, encubridores y beneficiarios de uno de los genocidios más horrorosos que la humanidad haya podido presenciar. Más de 70 millones de muertos en campos de concentración de minas, mitas y obrajes; naciones y pueblos enteros fueron arrasados, basta ver el caso de Cuba, y para sustituir a los muertos trajeron a los pueblos negros que sufrieron desgraciada suerte; usurparon las riquezas de nuestros territorios para salvar económicamente a su sistema Feudal; las mujeres fueron cobardemente violadas y miles de niños murieron por desnutrición y enfermedades desconocidas. Todo lo hicieron bajo el presupuesto filosófico y teológico que nuestros ancestros “no tenían alma”. Junto a los asesinos de nuestros heroicos dirigentes siempre estaba un sacerdote u obispo para adoctrinar al condenado o condenada a muerte, para que se bautice antes de morir, y por supuesto a que renuncie a sus concepciones filosóficas y teológicas.
Recordemos al cura Valverde que en el Cusco presenta la Biblia a Atahualpa diciéndole que es la Palabra de Dios, ante lo cual el Soberano viendo que el libro no habla y considerando que la Palabra de su Dios hablaba en el corazón de la Madre Tierra, en el agua, el viento, en la fuerza luminosa del Sol y en la fecundidad de la Luna, en los latidos del corazón de los seres humanos, animales y plantas, arrojó la Biblia, ante lo cual el cura Valverde dio la orden a los soldados que apresen a Atahualpa. Posteriormente el representante en estos territorios del Dios Solar-Lunar fue asesinado luego de ser bautizado y puesto el nombre de su asesino Francisco Pizarro. Recordemos que muchos de nuestros hermanos y hermanas prefirieron ir a la hoguera que renunciar a sus principios, basta citar a nuestro hermano Hatuey en la Isla de Cuba, que ante el adoctrinamiento del sacerdote que iba a bendecir su asesinato, sobre la importancia de ser bautizado para que después de muerto vaya al “cielo” donde van los “cristianos”, Hatuey dijo que prefería ir al infierno antes de estar en la otra vida junto a los opresores, ladrones y asesinos, luego de lo cual fue llevado a la hoguera. En lo que hoy es el Ecuador, el gran dirigente Calicuchima, ante la propuesta del sacerdote que generosamente iba a bautizarlo y bendecir su muerte, el rebelde se encaminó hacia la hoguera y en medio de las llamas gritó con toda la fuerza de su espíritu ¡PACHAKAMAK! (Gran Espíritu Cuidador del Universo). Habría que preguntar al Papa si Cristo, a quien dice representar, estaría de acuerdo con estos crímenes de lesa humanidad, además debemos recordar al Sumo Pontífice y al Gobierno Español que este tipo de crímenes no prescriben ni en las leyes terrenales, ni en las leyes divinas.
Las iglesias cristianas y de manera particular la Iglesia Católica tienen una inmensa deuda con Cristo, con los pobres del mundo, y con los Pueblos y Nacionalidades Indígenas que hemos resistido a semejante barbarie. Si bien el Estado Español y el Vaticano no pueden resarcir las consecuencias del monstruoso genocidio, el Jefe de la Iglesia Católica debería al menos reconocer el error cometido, como lo hiciera su antecesor Juan Pablo II en relación con el Holocausto Nazi, y aprender de Jesús que siendo Cristo para dar su mensaje se encarnó en la cultura del pueblo hebreo con respeto, y fue coherente puesto que predicó el mensaje con su ejemplo asumiendo todas las consecuencias de ello.
No es concebible que en pleno siglo XXI, todavía se crea que solo puede ser concebido como Dios un ser definido como tal en Europa. Debe saber el Papa que antes de que vinieran a nuestros territorios los sacerdotes católicos con la Biblia, en nuestros pueblos ya existía Dios, y su Palabra es la que siempre ha sostenido la Vida de nuestros pueblos y a la Madre Tierra. La Palabra de Dios no puede estar solo contenida en un libro, mucho peor se puede creer que una religión puede privatizar a Dios. Los Pueblos Originarios éramos civilizaciones que teníamos gobiernos y organizaciones sociales estructuradas de acuerdo a nuestros principios; por supuesto que también teníamos religiones con libros sagrados, ritos, sacerdotes y sacerdotisas que fueron los primeros en ser asesinados por los que fungían como servidores del “dios de la codicia” y no del Dios de Amor de quien habla Jesús el Cristo.
La Biblia enseña que quien dice que ama a Dios a quien no ve y no ama a su hermano a quien ve es un mentiroso. Los que profanaron el nombre de Cristo, presentándose como representantes de él, cuando en realidad fueron socios de los ladrones y asesinos, fueron traidores a la noble misión del Cristo. ¿Cómo podían ser representantes de aquel que nació en un pesebre, de padres obreros, rodeado de campesinos y perseguido a muerte desde su nacimiento por los jerarcas que ostentaban el poder político, económico y religioso de ese tiempo? No podían representar a aquel que dijo que las aves tienen sus nidos y los zorros sus madrigueras, más él no tenía nada de posesiones materiales. ¿Cómo podían los que estaban llenos de codicia representar a aquel que toda su vida se consagró al servicio de la humanidad, hasta la entrega cruenta de su vida por revelar la verdad a los pobres de todos los tiempos? ¡No eran representantes del Dios de Jesús, su “dios” era un devorador de vidas humanas y de riquezas usurpadas a costa de sangre, de crímenes abominables que todos los profetas de la Biblia los aborrecen!
Es de Justicia rescatar y valorar las vidas ejemplares de los sacerdotes que ante tanta barbarie se pusieron del lado de los que llamaron “indios”, como es el caso de Bartolomé de las Casas y otros sacerdotes dominicos que ejercieron la defensa de los derechos de nuestros antepasados vilmente ultrajados. Cabe también reconocer y presentar nuestro más profundo respeto a todas las religiosas, sacerdotes, obispos y pastores que han entregado la vida por servir a los más pobres en nuestro continente y en cualquier parte del mundo; de manera especial reconocemos la admirable labor desplegada en el Ecuador por Monseñor Leonidas Proaño que por más de treinta años sirvió con honestidad a los pobres del Ecuador, de manera particular se consagró a la causa de la liberación de los Pueblos y Nacionalidades Indígenas.
Los representantes de Cristo hoy, pertenecientes a cualquier iglesia cristiana, deberían respetar y venerar la Vida como lo hizo Jesús. Tienen el deber ético y moral de condenar toda injusticia y consecuentemente deben entregar el mensaje de Jesús estando al servicio de los pobres y no del lado de los opresores, y si quieren realizar una verdadera evangelización a los Pueblos y Nacionalidades Indígenas deben entregar el auténtico mensaje del Cristo sin pretender destruir nuestras culturas, porque así lo hizo Él, a quien dicen representar. No se puede predicar el mensaje de Jesús el Cristo desde la opulencia, desde el lado de los que profanan la Vida creada por Dios, desde el lado de los mayores destructores de la Vida Planetaria. Rechazamos las coincidencias políticas, y religiosas que existen entre Bush y el Papa para criminalizar las luchas de los pueblos oprimidos. ¡Exigimos coherencia! La incoherencia de muchos que dicen ser representantes de Cristo es lo que provoca la deserción en las Iglesias, y de manera particular en la Iglesia Católica, situación que tanto preocupa al Papa.
Nosotros aceptamos el mensaje de esperanza, de amor y liberación de Jesús el Cristo. Sabemos que Él dijo que ha venido para que tengamos vida y vida abundante todos, lo que no aceptamos es que en nombre de la religión que sea, vuelvan a pretender bendecir nuestra muerte, la de nuestros hijos y de millones de pobres del mundo.
El Pontífice aseguró que "la utopía de volver a dar vida a las religiones precolombinas, separándolas de Cristo y de la Iglesia universal, no sería un progreso, sino un retroceso" para los "pueblos originarios" que han logrado "una síntesis entre sus culturas y la fe cristiana que los misioneros les ofrecían". Para nosotros la Vida de Jesús es una Gran Luz proveniente del Inti Yaya (Luz Paternal y Maternal que sostiene todo), que ha venido a desterrar todo aquello que no nos deja vivir con justicia y fraternidad entre los seres humanos y en armonía con la Madre naturaleza. Nosotros respetamos a sus auténticos seguidores. La vida nos ha enseñado que al “árbol se lo conoce por sus frutos”, como dijo el Cristo, y sabemos distinguir quien le sirve en los pobres y quien se sirve de ellos. Cabe comunicar al Pontífice que nuestras religiones JAMAS MURIERON, aprendimos a sincretizar nuestras creencias y símbolos con las de los invasores y opresores. Continuamos asistiendo a nuestros templos, porque sabemos que debajo de los principales templos católicos están los cimientos de nuestros templos sagrados que fueron destruidos, bajo el supuesto que las nuevas edificaciones sepultarían nuestras creencias, pero no es así ya que nuestros templos fueron edificados en lugares donde se concentran grandes Fuerzas que reflejan la Fuerza, Sabiduría y Amor del Gran Espíritu Padre y Madre de todos los seres que habitamos en este maravilloso planeta.
Presentamos nuestra total solidaridad al Presidente Evo Morales, nuestro hermano, que es un servidor de los pobres, un ser que ha consagrado toda su vida al servicio de la verdad, la justicia, la libertad, la fraternidad entre los pueblos, y estamos seguros que Jesús el Cristo lo considera su AMIGO.
Nuestra solidaridad con los Presidentes Hugo Chávez y con Fidel Castro, humanistas consagrados a luchar por la vida digna de los pueblos. Nuestro corazón siempre presto para todos aquellos que en cualquier parte del mundo estén trabajando por una vida digna para toda la humanidad y por la salud de la Allpa Mama (Madre Tierra).
En nombre de nuestros ancestros ultrajados y de los millones de pobres que en el Continente de Abya Yala tenemos la esperanza de una vida digna para todas y todos, renovamos nuestra firme determinación de recuperar nuestros derechos, y no permitiremos que nadie pretenda perpetuar el genocidio iniciado hace quinientos catorce años.
Quito, 15 de mayo del 2007
Humberto Cholango
PRESIDENTE DE LA CONFEDERACIÓN
DE PUEBLOS DE LA NACIONALIDAD
KICHWA DEL ECUADOR
Los Pueblos y Nacionalidades Indígenas del Continente de Abya Yala (América) rechazamos enérgicamente las declaraciones emitidas por el Sumo Pontífice en lo que se refiere a nuestra espiritualidad ancestral, y a los comentarios políticos emitidos con relación a algunos presidentes Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, más aún cuando éstas son realizadas ante un continente en el que se acrecienta la brecha entre pobres y ricos, y en donde se encuentra gran parte de la feligresía católica del mundo, lo que ha implicado siglos de “evangelización”, misma que lastimosamente no ha logrado dar como frutos una vida justa y digna para sus habitantes. Estas declaraciones se las realiza precisamente cuando la Vida Planetaria está amenazada de muerte, y no son responsables de ello los presidentes que el Papa cita en sus alocuciones, sino aquellos que como el Presidente norteamericano George W. Bush, enarbolan la bandera del voraz sistema capitalista neoliberal. Por lo que es inconcebible, que para alguien que se precia de ser el representante de Cristo en esta Tierra, sean los Presidentes Latinoamericanos de corte humanista los que le causen preocupación. Es hora de que se entienda que nuestro continente tiene el derecho de ejercer su libre determinación. Ya no es la hora de nuevas y renovadas conquistas en nombre de nada.
Si analizamos con una elemental sensibilidad humana, sin fanatismo de ninguna especie, la historia de la invasión a Abya Yala, realizada por los españoles con la complicidad de la Iglesia Católica, no podemos menos que indignarnos. Seguramente el Papa desconoce que los representantes de la Iglesia Católica de ese tiempo, con honrosas excepciones, fueron cómplices, encubridores y beneficiarios de uno de los genocidios más horrorosos que la humanidad haya podido presenciar. Más de 70 millones de muertos en campos de concentración de minas, mitas y obrajes; naciones y pueblos enteros fueron arrasados, basta ver el caso de Cuba, y para sustituir a los muertos trajeron a los pueblos negros que sufrieron desgraciada suerte; usurparon las riquezas de nuestros territorios para salvar económicamente a su sistema Feudal; las mujeres fueron cobardemente violadas y miles de niños murieron por desnutrición y enfermedades desconocidas. Todo lo hicieron bajo el presupuesto filosófico y teológico que nuestros ancestros “no tenían alma”. Junto a los asesinos de nuestros heroicos dirigentes siempre estaba un sacerdote u obispo para adoctrinar al condenado o condenada a muerte, para que se bautice antes de morir, y por supuesto a que renuncie a sus concepciones filosóficas y teológicas.
Recordemos al cura Valverde que en el Cusco presenta la Biblia a Atahualpa diciéndole que es la Palabra de Dios, ante lo cual el Soberano viendo que el libro no habla y considerando que la Palabra de su Dios hablaba en el corazón de la Madre Tierra, en el agua, el viento, en la fuerza luminosa del Sol y en la fecundidad de la Luna, en los latidos del corazón de los seres humanos, animales y plantas, arrojó la Biblia, ante lo cual el cura Valverde dio la orden a los soldados que apresen a Atahualpa. Posteriormente el representante en estos territorios del Dios Solar-Lunar fue asesinado luego de ser bautizado y puesto el nombre de su asesino Francisco Pizarro. Recordemos que muchos de nuestros hermanos y hermanas prefirieron ir a la hoguera que renunciar a sus principios, basta citar a nuestro hermano Hatuey en la Isla de Cuba, que ante el adoctrinamiento del sacerdote que iba a bendecir su asesinato, sobre la importancia de ser bautizado para que después de muerto vaya al “cielo” donde van los “cristianos”, Hatuey dijo que prefería ir al infierno antes de estar en la otra vida junto a los opresores, ladrones y asesinos, luego de lo cual fue llevado a la hoguera. En lo que hoy es el Ecuador, el gran dirigente Calicuchima, ante la propuesta del sacerdote que generosamente iba a bautizarlo y bendecir su muerte, el rebelde se encaminó hacia la hoguera y en medio de las llamas gritó con toda la fuerza de su espíritu ¡PACHAKAMAK! (Gran Espíritu Cuidador del Universo). Habría que preguntar al Papa si Cristo, a quien dice representar, estaría de acuerdo con estos crímenes de lesa humanidad, además debemos recordar al Sumo Pontífice y al Gobierno Español que este tipo de crímenes no prescriben ni en las leyes terrenales, ni en las leyes divinas.
Las iglesias cristianas y de manera particular la Iglesia Católica tienen una inmensa deuda con Cristo, con los pobres del mundo, y con los Pueblos y Nacionalidades Indígenas que hemos resistido a semejante barbarie. Si bien el Estado Español y el Vaticano no pueden resarcir las consecuencias del monstruoso genocidio, el Jefe de la Iglesia Católica debería al menos reconocer el error cometido, como lo hiciera su antecesor Juan Pablo II en relación con el Holocausto Nazi, y aprender de Jesús que siendo Cristo para dar su mensaje se encarnó en la cultura del pueblo hebreo con respeto, y fue coherente puesto que predicó el mensaje con su ejemplo asumiendo todas las consecuencias de ello.
No es concebible que en pleno siglo XXI, todavía se crea que solo puede ser concebido como Dios un ser definido como tal en Europa. Debe saber el Papa que antes de que vinieran a nuestros territorios los sacerdotes católicos con la Biblia, en nuestros pueblos ya existía Dios, y su Palabra es la que siempre ha sostenido la Vida de nuestros pueblos y a la Madre Tierra. La Palabra de Dios no puede estar solo contenida en un libro, mucho peor se puede creer que una religión puede privatizar a Dios. Los Pueblos Originarios éramos civilizaciones que teníamos gobiernos y organizaciones sociales estructuradas de acuerdo a nuestros principios; por supuesto que también teníamos religiones con libros sagrados, ritos, sacerdotes y sacerdotisas que fueron los primeros en ser asesinados por los que fungían como servidores del “dios de la codicia” y no del Dios de Amor de quien habla Jesús el Cristo.
La Biblia enseña que quien dice que ama a Dios a quien no ve y no ama a su hermano a quien ve es un mentiroso. Los que profanaron el nombre de Cristo, presentándose como representantes de él, cuando en realidad fueron socios de los ladrones y asesinos, fueron traidores a la noble misión del Cristo. ¿Cómo podían ser representantes de aquel que nació en un pesebre, de padres obreros, rodeado de campesinos y perseguido a muerte desde su nacimiento por los jerarcas que ostentaban el poder político, económico y religioso de ese tiempo? No podían representar a aquel que dijo que las aves tienen sus nidos y los zorros sus madrigueras, más él no tenía nada de posesiones materiales. ¿Cómo podían los que estaban llenos de codicia representar a aquel que toda su vida se consagró al servicio de la humanidad, hasta la entrega cruenta de su vida por revelar la verdad a los pobres de todos los tiempos? ¡No eran representantes del Dios de Jesús, su “dios” era un devorador de vidas humanas y de riquezas usurpadas a costa de sangre, de crímenes abominables que todos los profetas de la Biblia los aborrecen!
Es de Justicia rescatar y valorar las vidas ejemplares de los sacerdotes que ante tanta barbarie se pusieron del lado de los que llamaron “indios”, como es el caso de Bartolomé de las Casas y otros sacerdotes dominicos que ejercieron la defensa de los derechos de nuestros antepasados vilmente ultrajados. Cabe también reconocer y presentar nuestro más profundo respeto a todas las religiosas, sacerdotes, obispos y pastores que han entregado la vida por servir a los más pobres en nuestro continente y en cualquier parte del mundo; de manera especial reconocemos la admirable labor desplegada en el Ecuador por Monseñor Leonidas Proaño que por más de treinta años sirvió con honestidad a los pobres del Ecuador, de manera particular se consagró a la causa de la liberación de los Pueblos y Nacionalidades Indígenas.
Los representantes de Cristo hoy, pertenecientes a cualquier iglesia cristiana, deberían respetar y venerar la Vida como lo hizo Jesús. Tienen el deber ético y moral de condenar toda injusticia y consecuentemente deben entregar el mensaje de Jesús estando al servicio de los pobres y no del lado de los opresores, y si quieren realizar una verdadera evangelización a los Pueblos y Nacionalidades Indígenas deben entregar el auténtico mensaje del Cristo sin pretender destruir nuestras culturas, porque así lo hizo Él, a quien dicen representar. No se puede predicar el mensaje de Jesús el Cristo desde la opulencia, desde el lado de los que profanan la Vida creada por Dios, desde el lado de los mayores destructores de la Vida Planetaria. Rechazamos las coincidencias políticas, y religiosas que existen entre Bush y el Papa para criminalizar las luchas de los pueblos oprimidos. ¡Exigimos coherencia! La incoherencia de muchos que dicen ser representantes de Cristo es lo que provoca la deserción en las Iglesias, y de manera particular en la Iglesia Católica, situación que tanto preocupa al Papa.
Nosotros aceptamos el mensaje de esperanza, de amor y liberación de Jesús el Cristo. Sabemos que Él dijo que ha venido para que tengamos vida y vida abundante todos, lo que no aceptamos es que en nombre de la religión que sea, vuelvan a pretender bendecir nuestra muerte, la de nuestros hijos y de millones de pobres del mundo.
El Pontífice aseguró que "la utopía de volver a dar vida a las religiones precolombinas, separándolas de Cristo y de la Iglesia universal, no sería un progreso, sino un retroceso" para los "pueblos originarios" que han logrado "una síntesis entre sus culturas y la fe cristiana que los misioneros les ofrecían". Para nosotros la Vida de Jesús es una Gran Luz proveniente del Inti Yaya (Luz Paternal y Maternal que sostiene todo), que ha venido a desterrar todo aquello que no nos deja vivir con justicia y fraternidad entre los seres humanos y en armonía con la Madre naturaleza. Nosotros respetamos a sus auténticos seguidores. La vida nos ha enseñado que al “árbol se lo conoce por sus frutos”, como dijo el Cristo, y sabemos distinguir quien le sirve en los pobres y quien se sirve de ellos. Cabe comunicar al Pontífice que nuestras religiones JAMAS MURIERON, aprendimos a sincretizar nuestras creencias y símbolos con las de los invasores y opresores. Continuamos asistiendo a nuestros templos, porque sabemos que debajo de los principales templos católicos están los cimientos de nuestros templos sagrados que fueron destruidos, bajo el supuesto que las nuevas edificaciones sepultarían nuestras creencias, pero no es así ya que nuestros templos fueron edificados en lugares donde se concentran grandes Fuerzas que reflejan la Fuerza, Sabiduría y Amor del Gran Espíritu Padre y Madre de todos los seres que habitamos en este maravilloso planeta.
Presentamos nuestra total solidaridad al Presidente Evo Morales, nuestro hermano, que es un servidor de los pobres, un ser que ha consagrado toda su vida al servicio de la verdad, la justicia, la libertad, la fraternidad entre los pueblos, y estamos seguros que Jesús el Cristo lo considera su AMIGO.
Nuestra solidaridad con los Presidentes Hugo Chávez y con Fidel Castro, humanistas consagrados a luchar por la vida digna de los pueblos. Nuestro corazón siempre presto para todos aquellos que en cualquier parte del mundo estén trabajando por una vida digna para toda la humanidad y por la salud de la Allpa Mama (Madre Tierra).
En nombre de nuestros ancestros ultrajados y de los millones de pobres que en el Continente de Abya Yala tenemos la esperanza de una vida digna para todas y todos, renovamos nuestra firme determinación de recuperar nuestros derechos, y no permitiremos que nadie pretenda perpetuar el genocidio iniciado hace quinientos catorce años.
Quito, 15 de mayo del 2007
Humberto Cholango
PRESIDENTE DE LA CONFEDERACIÓN
DE PUEBLOS DE LA NACIONALIDAD
KICHWA DEL ECUADOR
Monday, May 14, 2007
“The Color of Blood, the Color of Resistance, the Color of Iraq.”
By Mike Whitney
I wonder what goes through Cheney’s mind when he visits Baghdad. Does he ever look out the window of his armor-plated limmo and see the wasteland he’s created---the burned out buildings, the pock-marked streets, the wretched orphans sorting through the garbage for something to eat? Al Arabiya news says that there may be as many as 100,000 orphans in Baghdad now. These are Cheney’s kids, aren’t they--the Vice President’s gift to the “New Middle East”? The next generation of terrorists?
What a horrible legacy. What a horrible man.
Iraq is in a shambles and it’s mostly Cheney’s doing. He was the chief architect of invasion. It was Cheney who convinced his buddies in the banking and oil industries that Iraq would be “easy pickins”. And, it was Cheney who figured out that the American people could be duped into attacking a defenseless nation. And he was right.
For 6 years, Cheney has worked the levers behind the scenes to keep the American people in a constant state of fear. That gave him the time to move his armies into place and transform the government into a “one party” police state. For the most part, things have gone smoothly—the criminal activities of the state have been concealed behind the smokescreen of the “war on terror”, the biggest public relations swindle in history.
Nevertheless, the overall plan worked like a charm. The public ate it up, the congress caved in, and the United Nations looked the other way. Now, Iraq is in tatters---the schools are closed, the children are malnourished and traumatized, unemployment is soaring, the lights are out, the water is toxic, and every day another 35 or 40 civilians are blown to bits in a conflict that seemingly has no end.
Every part of Cheney’s plan has failed. Four years after “Mission Accomplished”, the “second most powerful man on earth” still has to slink into Iraq under the cover of darkness and be quickly whisked off to the safety of the Green Zone by a security-entourage the size of a small army.
There’s no “progress” in Iraq and there’s no security. The US military is trying to impose its will on a civilian population through force of arms and the Iraqis are flatly refusing. America is hated in Iraq and that won’t change. That’s why Cheney has to strap on a Kevlar vest and hunker down in the Green Zone whenever he comes to town. Americans are not welcome.
Cheney’s “surprise” visit comes just one week after Condi Rice passed through the region trying to drum up support for an Iraqi security plan. What a joke. Iraqis won’t have security until US troops are withdrawn and the political situation sorts itself out. That’ll take years if not decades.
The (real) purpose of Condi’s mission was to open a dialogue with Syria and Iran to see if they’d help to stabilize Iraq. Up to now, the Bush team has rejected the Baker Commission’s advice to talk to the two countries. But that’s all changed now. Bush has put aside his ego long enough to address the “grave and deteriorating” situation on the ground and see what can be salvaged of the mission.
Rice managed to corner the Syrian Foreign Minister and appears to have made some progress diplomatically. But she got nowhere with Iran. In fact, Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki used the conference at Sharm al-Sheik to further humiliate the United States by blasting American foreign policy and the Bush administration’s flaunting of international law. Mottaki’s speech was another black-eye for America.
But that makes no difference. What’s important is that the administration is trying to talk directly with its "enemies". That gives us some reason to hope. But it also gives us some idea of how badly the war is going. After all, if Bush is talking to Syria, the situation must be really desperate. Perhaps, they’re beginning to see that--as Harry Reid said— “the war is lost.”
In his brief stay, Cheney never poked his nose beyond the 18 inch cement walls of the Green Zone. If he had, he might have seen “the hell that is Iraq”. As Patrick Cockburn said in his latest article, “A Small War Guaranteed to Damage a Superpower”:
“The extent of the military failure over the previous three-and-a-half years is extraordinary. The foreign media never quite made clear how little territory the U.S. and the Iraqi army fully controlled – even in the heart of Baghdad.”
Cockburn makes an important point that’s normally papered-over in the media--- that after 4 years the US still doesn’t control ANY ground beyond the Green Zone. And, now, even the Green Zone is increasingly coming under fire.
Cockburn also adds this:
“America blithely invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein to show its great political and military strength. Instead it demonstrated its weakness. The vastly expensive U.S. war machine failed to defeat a limited number of Sunni Arab guerrillas.”
How true. Big military, but nothing to show for it. Just a long, protracted bloodbath and the looming prospect of defeat.
Cheney’s plan for a “New American Century” depends heavily on the $500 billion US war machine. But the military has flopped in Iraq. Bombs don’t produce political solutions and the use of excessive force has only alienated the public and strengthened the resistance. The army is ineffective in urban warfare. Its advantages in weaponry and firepower are lost in an environment where guerillas can strike at will and then vanish without a trace.
Still, Cheney and Company “soldier-on” impervious to the lessons of the last 4 years and unwilling to change their basic strategy. If the definition of insanity is: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results---then, the Vice President should be institutionalized.
The occupation has just been one dismal blunder after the other; like Abu Ghraib and Falluja. Both suggest the moral superiority of the resistance, and both have been used to enlist new recruits.
Falluja was a particularly stupid error. The siege was an extension of the same muddled thinking that produced “Shock and Awe”. The Bush Team appeared to believe that Iraqi fighters would cower at the first sign of American firepower and simply throw down their weapons. What nonsense. Instead, it rallied the resistance and intensified the fighting.
Fulluja was attacked on November 8, 2004 in Operation Phantom Fury. The city of 300,000 was surrounded by concertina wire and a 6 ft high mound of dirt. The townspeople were forced to evacuate without food, water or shelter. Many still haven’t returned to their homes three years later.
The city was leveled. The Dresden-type bombing continued week after week---hospitals, schools and mosques were destroyed, civilians who left their homes for food or water were shot by snipers, bodies were left to rot on the streets, and corpses were deposited in makeshift graves in the local soccer field. From beginning to end, Falluja was a war crime---illegal incendiary bombs and other “unidentified” chemical ordinance was dropped on civilians. The BBC reported that 65 to 70% of the city was in ruins.
Falluja was a turning point in Cheney’s war. It should be regarded as the milestone for when the war was lost. The resistance has steadily grown in strength ever since. The Iraqis now understand that there can be no negotiations with people who are willing to flatten entire cities to achieve their imperial ambitions.
To fully understand what happened in Falluja we refer to a statement made by Vietnamese General Tran Quang Co who met with ex-Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara in the 1990s. Co was trying to explain to MacNamara when exactly he knew that America would lose the war in Vietnam. He said:
“When the US bombed the North and brought its troops into the South, well, of course, to us these were very negative moves. However, with regard to Vietnam, US aggression did have its positive use. Never before did the people of Vietnam, from top to bottom, unite as they did during the years that the US was bombing us. Never before had Chairman Ho Chi Minh’s appeal---that there is nothing more precious than freedom and independence—go straight to the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people as at the end of 1966”
Falluja united the Iraqis against American occupation. This fact is evident in all the surveys that have been conducted since the time of the siege. The overwhelming majority of Shiites and Sunnis now want the US to leave. Public support for the resistance continues to mushroom. The neocon plan to “teach the Iraqis a lesson” by creating a humanitarian catastrophe has backfired spectacularly.
After Falluja, a political solution is no longer possible. The US must either “pacify” the population by increasing the level of violence or withdrawal. The middle ground has been cut away.
The War Drags On
Cheney’s trip coincides with a number of stories that are being suppressed in the western media. Currently, the Iraqi city of Samarra is under siege—a cordon surrounds the city, the entrances have been blocked and food, water and medical supplies have been cut off. Similar to Falluja, the media has been banned and the city’s people are left to left to survive as prisoners in there own country.
Also, there are reports that the US is building another Guantanamo-type facility in southern Iraq in Dhi-Qar province. It’s clear that the crimes perpetrated at Abu Ghraib have not deterred the authors of the war from continuing the brutalizing of Iraqi prisoners.
Also, author and activist Sarah Meyer has also reproduced a map showing the location of permanent” US bases in Iraq---all of them conveniently located in the main oil fields. (“The Iraq Oil Crunch: Index Timeline”) It’s a useful primer for those who care to grasp the real objectives of the war.
There’s also a new report from the child’s advocacy group Save the Children that confirming that “The infant mortality rate in Iraq has increased by a shocking 150 percent since 1990—the highest such increase recorded for any country in the world…According to the report, one in eight Iraqi children—122,000 in all—died before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths were recorded among new-born infants, with pneumonia and diarrhea claiming the greatest toll among Iraqi babies”. Save the Children’s report comes on the heels of earlier surveys which show that Baghdad orphanages are teeming with 100,000 orphans of the conflict most of whom are severely traumatized by the increasing levels of violence.
Finally, there’s the tragic story of the young Marine who was involved in the massacre of Iraqi civilians at Haditha---and who expressed his rage by urinating on their corpses as they lay in a pool of blood on the street.
This is the “democracy” Cheney has brought to Iraq.
In an impromptu press conference, Cheney casually dismissed the suffering of the Iraqi people by saying that Baghdad is still “a dangerous place”. This is about as close to an admission of guilt as the V.P. will ever get. That’s why he adroitly shifted the topic to the failings of the al-Maliki government--America’s new stooge in Baghdad. Al Maliki has become the convenient scapegoat for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq.
After his short visit to Baghdad; Cheney zoomed off to the Gulf where he delivered a predictably threatening speech on board the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis. He said:
With two carrier strike groups in the gulf, we’re sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike. We’ll keep the sea lanes open. We’ll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. We’ll disrupt attacks on our own forces. We’ll continue bringing relief to those who suffer, and delivering justice to the enemies of freedom. And we’ll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."
Cheney’s fiery rhetoric was mainly intended to soothe the Saudi Royal family, which are increasingly nervous about the rise of a Shiite-dominated Middle East with Iran as the de facto superpower. Still, Cheney’s shameless saber rattling cannot be entirely ignored. There are signs that the more-hawkish members of the administration are still considering an unprovoked attack on Iran. Such an attack would ensure that the entire region would be consumed in a decades-long conflagration.
The administration has upset the fragile balance of power in the region by toppling the largely secular Sunni regime in Baghdad. The unintended consequence of this is that Islamic fundamentalism is progressively on the rise and bound to be a major factor in Iraq’s political evolution.
Lt. General William Odom cautioned that invading and occupying Iraq would not serve America’s strategic interests. He said, “We cannot win a war that serves our enemies interests and not our own. Continuing to pursue the illusion of victory in Iraq makes no sense. We can now see that it never did.”
But Cheney doesn’t heed the advice of the experts. He knows everything about war---except how to win. Now, he’s trying to mollify the allies in the Gulf by assuring them that the chaos in Iraq won’t spill over into other countries and set the whole region ablaze. But how would Cheney know? He’s been wrong about everything so far; so, why would anyone trust his judgment now? With 2 million Iraqis refugees in Jordan and Syria (Many of them wealthy Ba’athists) the prospect of a larger regional conflict is certain. In fact, the real prize for the Iraqi resistance is not Baghdad at all, but Riyadh. If fighting breaks out in Saudi Arabia, then oil futures will shoot through the roof and wreak havoc with energy supplies across the planet. It’s the quickest way to bring the industrial world to its knees---and don’t think these groups don’t know it! That’s probably why the Saudis rounded up 172 “terror suspects” without any evidence of wrongdoing just last week. The Saudis know that their widely-reviled regime is now squarely in the crosshairs of terrorist organizations.
Is this the war that Cheney wants? If so, he’s crazy!
This conflict is perfect-fit for decentralized guerilla cells that can independently carry out operations on vital pipelines, tankers and oil facilities. It's a "no-win" situation for the rest of us. There’s just no way to protect sensitive infrastructure or resource transport in a free market. Suppression of the population alone will not work.
Just look at Nigeria, Somalia, Afghanistan, of course, Iraq. This is not a war that can be won by military means. We must look for political solutions and stop the recriminations and violence.
Iraq has been the biggest mistake in American history. Bush kicked open Pandora’s Box and now we’re all going to pay the price. If the war spreads beyond Iraq; the era of cheap oil will come to a swift and decisive end. Our job now is to force the administration to rethink their strategy, change directions and work for “regional stability”. The present course will end in catastrophe for the entire world.
The world is changing quickly and America will soon be on the outside looking in. Its benign-sounding institutions (the World Bank, IMF, UN) are already in trouble and new alliances in Latin America and Asia are crystallizing into power-centers for the new century. America’s “soft power” and moral authority have been discarded and coercive diplomacy is no longer working. America is treading on quicksand while the Chinese Phoenix continues to rise in the East.
The exorbitant cost of the war, the ballooning deficits and the falling dollar have all contributed to the steady wearing away of American power. These long-term problems are only exacerbated by the fanatical dependence on militarism.
Victory was never possible in Iraq. It was just the fantasy of armchair warriors who never served in battle and never understood the realities of war. Wars are not won by superior firepower alone. Cheney never understood this simple point.
Did he really believe that we could put a Christian army of occupation in the center of the Muslim world? What arrogance. The plan was doomed from the very beginning.
Countless thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed or maimed in Cheney’s war---innocent victims shot down or bombed in their own cities, on their own streets or in their own homes! Iraq has become the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time---and its a long way from over.
America’s reputation is in ruins. The good faith we received after 9-11 has dried-up and been replaced with suspicion and rage. As former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski says in his new book, “Second Chance”:
“Barely fifteen years after the wall came down, the once proud and globally admired America was widely viewed around the world with intense hostility, its legitimacy and credibility in tatters, its military bogged down…. its formerly devoted allies distancing themselves, and world-wide public opinion polls documenting widespread hostility toward the United States… The Middle East is fragmenting and on the brink of explosion. The world of Islam is inflamed by rising religious passion and anti-imperialist nationalisms. Throughout the world, public opinion polls show that U.S. policy is widely feared and even despised.”
America is headed for a fall. Everywhere we look we see the telltale signs of U.S. aggression---the partial remains of bombed-out buildings, the scattered piles of wreckage and debris, the bloated corpses of dead victims being eaten by dogs.
This is Cheney’s dark vision of the future—a “through the looking glass” world where people are slaughtered without cause and entire nations are pounded into dust. This nightmare-scenario threatens to swallow up the entire planet if a global resistance doesn’t quickly materialize.
“If I ever get married again…..I don't want any of this white dress business. I shall wear red.
Bright red.
The color of blood, the color of roaring, erupting volcanoes, the color of a dying sun, the color of passion, the color of Resistance...The color of Iraq”.
Layla Anwar; Arab Woman Blues,
“A Bed of Roses, A Bed of Thorns”
I wonder what goes through Cheney’s mind when he visits Baghdad. Does he ever look out the window of his armor-plated limmo and see the wasteland he’s created---the burned out buildings, the pock-marked streets, the wretched orphans sorting through the garbage for something to eat? Al Arabiya news says that there may be as many as 100,000 orphans in Baghdad now. These are Cheney’s kids, aren’t they--the Vice President’s gift to the “New Middle East”? The next generation of terrorists?
What a horrible legacy. What a horrible man.
Iraq is in a shambles and it’s mostly Cheney’s doing. He was the chief architect of invasion. It was Cheney who convinced his buddies in the banking and oil industries that Iraq would be “easy pickins”. And, it was Cheney who figured out that the American people could be duped into attacking a defenseless nation. And he was right.
For 6 years, Cheney has worked the levers behind the scenes to keep the American people in a constant state of fear. That gave him the time to move his armies into place and transform the government into a “one party” police state. For the most part, things have gone smoothly—the criminal activities of the state have been concealed behind the smokescreen of the “war on terror”, the biggest public relations swindle in history.
Nevertheless, the overall plan worked like a charm. The public ate it up, the congress caved in, and the United Nations looked the other way. Now, Iraq is in tatters---the schools are closed, the children are malnourished and traumatized, unemployment is soaring, the lights are out, the water is toxic, and every day another 35 or 40 civilians are blown to bits in a conflict that seemingly has no end.
Every part of Cheney’s plan has failed. Four years after “Mission Accomplished”, the “second most powerful man on earth” still has to slink into Iraq under the cover of darkness and be quickly whisked off to the safety of the Green Zone by a security-entourage the size of a small army.
There’s no “progress” in Iraq and there’s no security. The US military is trying to impose its will on a civilian population through force of arms and the Iraqis are flatly refusing. America is hated in Iraq and that won’t change. That’s why Cheney has to strap on a Kevlar vest and hunker down in the Green Zone whenever he comes to town. Americans are not welcome.
Cheney’s “surprise” visit comes just one week after Condi Rice passed through the region trying to drum up support for an Iraqi security plan. What a joke. Iraqis won’t have security until US troops are withdrawn and the political situation sorts itself out. That’ll take years if not decades.
The (real) purpose of Condi’s mission was to open a dialogue with Syria and Iran to see if they’d help to stabilize Iraq. Up to now, the Bush team has rejected the Baker Commission’s advice to talk to the two countries. But that’s all changed now. Bush has put aside his ego long enough to address the “grave and deteriorating” situation on the ground and see what can be salvaged of the mission.
Rice managed to corner the Syrian Foreign Minister and appears to have made some progress diplomatically. But she got nowhere with Iran. In fact, Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki used the conference at Sharm al-Sheik to further humiliate the United States by blasting American foreign policy and the Bush administration’s flaunting of international law. Mottaki’s speech was another black-eye for America.
But that makes no difference. What’s important is that the administration is trying to talk directly with its "enemies". That gives us some reason to hope. But it also gives us some idea of how badly the war is going. After all, if Bush is talking to Syria, the situation must be really desperate. Perhaps, they’re beginning to see that--as Harry Reid said— “the war is lost.”
In his brief stay, Cheney never poked his nose beyond the 18 inch cement walls of the Green Zone. If he had, he might have seen “the hell that is Iraq”. As Patrick Cockburn said in his latest article, “A Small War Guaranteed to Damage a Superpower”:
“The extent of the military failure over the previous three-and-a-half years is extraordinary. The foreign media never quite made clear how little territory the U.S. and the Iraqi army fully controlled – even in the heart of Baghdad.”
Cockburn makes an important point that’s normally papered-over in the media--- that after 4 years the US still doesn’t control ANY ground beyond the Green Zone. And, now, even the Green Zone is increasingly coming under fire.
Cockburn also adds this:
“America blithely invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein to show its great political and military strength. Instead it demonstrated its weakness. The vastly expensive U.S. war machine failed to defeat a limited number of Sunni Arab guerrillas.”
How true. Big military, but nothing to show for it. Just a long, protracted bloodbath and the looming prospect of defeat.
Cheney’s plan for a “New American Century” depends heavily on the $500 billion US war machine. But the military has flopped in Iraq. Bombs don’t produce political solutions and the use of excessive force has only alienated the public and strengthened the resistance. The army is ineffective in urban warfare. Its advantages in weaponry and firepower are lost in an environment where guerillas can strike at will and then vanish without a trace.
Still, Cheney and Company “soldier-on” impervious to the lessons of the last 4 years and unwilling to change their basic strategy. If the definition of insanity is: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results---then, the Vice President should be institutionalized.
The occupation has just been one dismal blunder after the other; like Abu Ghraib and Falluja. Both suggest the moral superiority of the resistance, and both have been used to enlist new recruits.
Falluja was a particularly stupid error. The siege was an extension of the same muddled thinking that produced “Shock and Awe”. The Bush Team appeared to believe that Iraqi fighters would cower at the first sign of American firepower and simply throw down their weapons. What nonsense. Instead, it rallied the resistance and intensified the fighting.
Fulluja was attacked on November 8, 2004 in Operation Phantom Fury. The city of 300,000 was surrounded by concertina wire and a 6 ft high mound of dirt. The townspeople were forced to evacuate without food, water or shelter. Many still haven’t returned to their homes three years later.
The city was leveled. The Dresden-type bombing continued week after week---hospitals, schools and mosques were destroyed, civilians who left their homes for food or water were shot by snipers, bodies were left to rot on the streets, and corpses were deposited in makeshift graves in the local soccer field. From beginning to end, Falluja was a war crime---illegal incendiary bombs and other “unidentified” chemical ordinance was dropped on civilians. The BBC reported that 65 to 70% of the city was in ruins.
Falluja was a turning point in Cheney’s war. It should be regarded as the milestone for when the war was lost. The resistance has steadily grown in strength ever since. The Iraqis now understand that there can be no negotiations with people who are willing to flatten entire cities to achieve their imperial ambitions.
To fully understand what happened in Falluja we refer to a statement made by Vietnamese General Tran Quang Co who met with ex-Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara in the 1990s. Co was trying to explain to MacNamara when exactly he knew that America would lose the war in Vietnam. He said:
“When the US bombed the North and brought its troops into the South, well, of course, to us these were very negative moves. However, with regard to Vietnam, US aggression did have its positive use. Never before did the people of Vietnam, from top to bottom, unite as they did during the years that the US was bombing us. Never before had Chairman Ho Chi Minh’s appeal---that there is nothing more precious than freedom and independence—go straight to the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people as at the end of 1966”
Falluja united the Iraqis against American occupation. This fact is evident in all the surveys that have been conducted since the time of the siege. The overwhelming majority of Shiites and Sunnis now want the US to leave. Public support for the resistance continues to mushroom. The neocon plan to “teach the Iraqis a lesson” by creating a humanitarian catastrophe has backfired spectacularly.
After Falluja, a political solution is no longer possible. The US must either “pacify” the population by increasing the level of violence or withdrawal. The middle ground has been cut away.
The War Drags On
Cheney’s trip coincides with a number of stories that are being suppressed in the western media. Currently, the Iraqi city of Samarra is under siege—a cordon surrounds the city, the entrances have been blocked and food, water and medical supplies have been cut off. Similar to Falluja, the media has been banned and the city’s people are left to left to survive as prisoners in there own country.
Also, there are reports that the US is building another Guantanamo-type facility in southern Iraq in Dhi-Qar province. It’s clear that the crimes perpetrated at Abu Ghraib have not deterred the authors of the war from continuing the brutalizing of Iraqi prisoners.
Also, author and activist Sarah Meyer has also reproduced a map showing the location of permanent” US bases in Iraq---all of them conveniently located in the main oil fields. (“The Iraq Oil Crunch: Index Timeline”) It’s a useful primer for those who care to grasp the real objectives of the war.
There’s also a new report from the child’s advocacy group Save the Children that confirming that “The infant mortality rate in Iraq has increased by a shocking 150 percent since 1990—the highest such increase recorded for any country in the world…According to the report, one in eight Iraqi children—122,000 in all—died before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths were recorded among new-born infants, with pneumonia and diarrhea claiming the greatest toll among Iraqi babies”. Save the Children’s report comes on the heels of earlier surveys which show that Baghdad orphanages are teeming with 100,000 orphans of the conflict most of whom are severely traumatized by the increasing levels of violence.
Finally, there’s the tragic story of the young Marine who was involved in the massacre of Iraqi civilians at Haditha---and who expressed his rage by urinating on their corpses as they lay in a pool of blood on the street.
This is the “democracy” Cheney has brought to Iraq.
In an impromptu press conference, Cheney casually dismissed the suffering of the Iraqi people by saying that Baghdad is still “a dangerous place”. This is about as close to an admission of guilt as the V.P. will ever get. That’s why he adroitly shifted the topic to the failings of the al-Maliki government--America’s new stooge in Baghdad. Al Maliki has become the convenient scapegoat for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq.
After his short visit to Baghdad; Cheney zoomed off to the Gulf where he delivered a predictably threatening speech on board the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis. He said:
With two carrier strike groups in the gulf, we’re sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike. We’ll keep the sea lanes open. We’ll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. We’ll disrupt attacks on our own forces. We’ll continue bringing relief to those who suffer, and delivering justice to the enemies of freedom. And we’ll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."
Cheney’s fiery rhetoric was mainly intended to soothe the Saudi Royal family, which are increasingly nervous about the rise of a Shiite-dominated Middle East with Iran as the de facto superpower. Still, Cheney’s shameless saber rattling cannot be entirely ignored. There are signs that the more-hawkish members of the administration are still considering an unprovoked attack on Iran. Such an attack would ensure that the entire region would be consumed in a decades-long conflagration.
The administration has upset the fragile balance of power in the region by toppling the largely secular Sunni regime in Baghdad. The unintended consequence of this is that Islamic fundamentalism is progressively on the rise and bound to be a major factor in Iraq’s political evolution.
Lt. General William Odom cautioned that invading and occupying Iraq would not serve America’s strategic interests. He said, “We cannot win a war that serves our enemies interests and not our own. Continuing to pursue the illusion of victory in Iraq makes no sense. We can now see that it never did.”
But Cheney doesn’t heed the advice of the experts. He knows everything about war---except how to win. Now, he’s trying to mollify the allies in the Gulf by assuring them that the chaos in Iraq won’t spill over into other countries and set the whole region ablaze. But how would Cheney know? He’s been wrong about everything so far; so, why would anyone trust his judgment now? With 2 million Iraqis refugees in Jordan and Syria (Many of them wealthy Ba’athists) the prospect of a larger regional conflict is certain. In fact, the real prize for the Iraqi resistance is not Baghdad at all, but Riyadh. If fighting breaks out in Saudi Arabia, then oil futures will shoot through the roof and wreak havoc with energy supplies across the planet. It’s the quickest way to bring the industrial world to its knees---and don’t think these groups don’t know it! That’s probably why the Saudis rounded up 172 “terror suspects” without any evidence of wrongdoing just last week. The Saudis know that their widely-reviled regime is now squarely in the crosshairs of terrorist organizations.
Is this the war that Cheney wants? If so, he’s crazy!
This conflict is perfect-fit for decentralized guerilla cells that can independently carry out operations on vital pipelines, tankers and oil facilities. It's a "no-win" situation for the rest of us. There’s just no way to protect sensitive infrastructure or resource transport in a free market. Suppression of the population alone will not work.
Just look at Nigeria, Somalia, Afghanistan, of course, Iraq. This is not a war that can be won by military means. We must look for political solutions and stop the recriminations and violence.
Iraq has been the biggest mistake in American history. Bush kicked open Pandora’s Box and now we’re all going to pay the price. If the war spreads beyond Iraq; the era of cheap oil will come to a swift and decisive end. Our job now is to force the administration to rethink their strategy, change directions and work for “regional stability”. The present course will end in catastrophe for the entire world.
The world is changing quickly and America will soon be on the outside looking in. Its benign-sounding institutions (the World Bank, IMF, UN) are already in trouble and new alliances in Latin America and Asia are crystallizing into power-centers for the new century. America’s “soft power” and moral authority have been discarded and coercive diplomacy is no longer working. America is treading on quicksand while the Chinese Phoenix continues to rise in the East.
The exorbitant cost of the war, the ballooning deficits and the falling dollar have all contributed to the steady wearing away of American power. These long-term problems are only exacerbated by the fanatical dependence on militarism.
Victory was never possible in Iraq. It was just the fantasy of armchair warriors who never served in battle and never understood the realities of war. Wars are not won by superior firepower alone. Cheney never understood this simple point.
Did he really believe that we could put a Christian army of occupation in the center of the Muslim world? What arrogance. The plan was doomed from the very beginning.
Countless thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed or maimed in Cheney’s war---innocent victims shot down or bombed in their own cities, on their own streets or in their own homes! Iraq has become the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time---and its a long way from over.
America’s reputation is in ruins. The good faith we received after 9-11 has dried-up and been replaced with suspicion and rage. As former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski says in his new book, “Second Chance”:
“Barely fifteen years after the wall came down, the once proud and globally admired America was widely viewed around the world with intense hostility, its legitimacy and credibility in tatters, its military bogged down…. its formerly devoted allies distancing themselves, and world-wide public opinion polls documenting widespread hostility toward the United States… The Middle East is fragmenting and on the brink of explosion. The world of Islam is inflamed by rising religious passion and anti-imperialist nationalisms. Throughout the world, public opinion polls show that U.S. policy is widely feared and even despised.”
America is headed for a fall. Everywhere we look we see the telltale signs of U.S. aggression---the partial remains of bombed-out buildings, the scattered piles of wreckage and debris, the bloated corpses of dead victims being eaten by dogs.
This is Cheney’s dark vision of the future—a “through the looking glass” world where people are slaughtered without cause and entire nations are pounded into dust. This nightmare-scenario threatens to swallow up the entire planet if a global resistance doesn’t quickly materialize.
If Cheney is not stopped, millions of people will die. That's a fact.
Collateral Genocide
By Mike Ferner
05/14/07 "ICH" -- -- Two elements are necessary to commit the crime of genocide: 1) the mental element, meaning intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, and 2) the physical element, which includes any of the following: killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births; or forcibly transferring children to another group.
Considering that such clear language comes from a UN treaty which is legally binding on our country, things could start getting a little worrisome – especially when you realize that since our government declared economic and military warfare on Iraq we’ve killed well over one million people, fast approaching two.
This summer will be one year since researchers from Johns Hopkins University collected data for a study which concluded 655,000 additional deaths were caused by the military war, and things have only gotten worse since then. Then consider that the economic war killed an additional 500,000 Iraqi kids under the age of five during only the first seven years of sanctions which were in force for a dozen years, according to a 1999 U.N. report.
Based on the Johns Hopkins estimate of Iraqis killed in the war, one could conservatively estimate that another 2.6 million people have been wounded. The U.N. estimates that between 1.5 million and 2 million Iraqis are now “internally displaced” by the fighting and roughly the same number have fled their country, including disproportionate numbers of doctors and other professionals.
If you are sitting down and possess a healthy imagination, try conjuring up similar conditions here in our land.
Start with the fact that few people buy bottled water and what comes out of the tap is guaranteed to at least make you sick if not kill you
Three times as many of our fellow citizens are out of work as during the Great Depression
On a good day we have three or four hours of electricity to preserve food or cool the 110-degree heat
No proper hospitals or rehab clinics exist to help the wounded become productive members of society
Roads are a mess
Reports of birth defects from exposure to depleted uranium have begun surfacing around the country.
Reflect for a minute on the grief brought by a single loved one’s death. Then open your heart to the reality of life if we suffered casualties comparable to those endured by the people of Iraq.
In the former cities of Atlanta, Denver, Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas and Philadelphia every single person is dead.
In Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina and Colorado every single person is wounded.
The entire populations of Ohio and New Jersey are homeless, surviving with friends, relatives or under bridges as they can.
The entire populations of Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky have fled to Canada or Mexico.
Over the past three years, one in four U.S. doctors has left the country.
Last year alone 3,000 doctors were kidnapped and 800 killed.
In short, nobody “out there” is coming to save us. We are in hell.
Of course our government didn’t intend to commit genocide, it just sort of happened. The Iraqis kept getting in the way while we were trying to complete the mission. Mistakes were made as we were building democracy, but surely no genocide was intended. After all, we are the international deciders of what is and what isn’t genocide, and we know full well that intent is a requirement.
It was only “collateral genocide” and lord knows we did our very best to avoid it.
Mike Ferner, a freelance writer in Ohio, tries not to dwell on these thoughts all the time. Write him at www.mikeferner.org.
05/14/07 "ICH" -- -- Two elements are necessary to commit the crime of genocide: 1) the mental element, meaning intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, and 2) the physical element, which includes any of the following: killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births; or forcibly transferring children to another group.
Considering that such clear language comes from a UN treaty which is legally binding on our country, things could start getting a little worrisome – especially when you realize that since our government declared economic and military warfare on Iraq we’ve killed well over one million people, fast approaching two.
This summer will be one year since researchers from Johns Hopkins University collected data for a study which concluded 655,000 additional deaths were caused by the military war, and things have only gotten worse since then. Then consider that the economic war killed an additional 500,000 Iraqi kids under the age of five during only the first seven years of sanctions which were in force for a dozen years, according to a 1999 U.N. report.
Based on the Johns Hopkins estimate of Iraqis killed in the war, one could conservatively estimate that another 2.6 million people have been wounded. The U.N. estimates that between 1.5 million and 2 million Iraqis are now “internally displaced” by the fighting and roughly the same number have fled their country, including disproportionate numbers of doctors and other professionals.
If you are sitting down and possess a healthy imagination, try conjuring up similar conditions here in our land.
Start with the fact that few people buy bottled water and what comes out of the tap is guaranteed to at least make you sick if not kill you
Three times as many of our fellow citizens are out of work as during the Great Depression
On a good day we have three or four hours of electricity to preserve food or cool the 110-degree heat
No proper hospitals or rehab clinics exist to help the wounded become productive members of society
Roads are a mess
Reports of birth defects from exposure to depleted uranium have begun surfacing around the country.
Reflect for a minute on the grief brought by a single loved one’s death. Then open your heart to the reality of life if we suffered casualties comparable to those endured by the people of Iraq.
In the former cities of Atlanta, Denver, Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas and Philadelphia every single person is dead.
In Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina and Colorado every single person is wounded.
The entire populations of Ohio and New Jersey are homeless, surviving with friends, relatives or under bridges as they can.
The entire populations of Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky have fled to Canada or Mexico.
Over the past three years, one in four U.S. doctors has left the country.
Last year alone 3,000 doctors were kidnapped and 800 killed.
In short, nobody “out there” is coming to save us. We are in hell.
Of course our government didn’t intend to commit genocide, it just sort of happened. The Iraqis kept getting in the way while we were trying to complete the mission. Mistakes were made as we were building democracy, but surely no genocide was intended. After all, we are the international deciders of what is and what isn’t genocide, and we know full well that intent is a requirement.
It was only “collateral genocide” and lord knows we did our very best to avoid it.
Mike Ferner, a freelance writer in Ohio, tries not to dwell on these thoughts all the time. Write him at www.mikeferner.org.
They Hate Us For Our Hypocrisy
By Eugene Robinson
05/14/07 "Truth Dig" --- - 05/11/07 -- WASHINGTON—The Bush administration says that its zero-tolerance policy against terrorism applies to all suspected evildoers, not just Muslims, and that its zero-tolerance policy against Cuba is a principled position, not just an exercise in pandering to the implacable anti-Castro exiles in Miami. On both counts, evidence suggests otherwise.
The fact is that Luis Posada Carriles, an accused terrorist who entered the United States illegally and was taken into custody by authorities, is not being kept in solitary confinement and dragged out for occasional waterboarding. As of this writing, he is a free man.
Posada, 79, has a long history of violent opposition to Fidel Castro’s regime. He was accused of masterminding the 1976 midair bombing of a civilian Cuban airliner, a terrorist act that killed 73 innocent people. He is also suspected of involvement in a 1997 series of bombings of Havana hotels and nightclubs; several people were injured and an Italian tourist was killed.
Terrorism, our government constantly reminds us, is the scourge of our times. So why is a man described by our government as “an unrepentant criminal and admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks on tourist sites” looking forward to a hero’s welcome in Miami from his old Bay of Pigs comrades?
Posada sneaked into the country in 2005, and had the temerity to advertise his presence by giving a news conference. After some dithering, Homeland Security officials took him into custody. He was indicted in January on federal charges of immigration fraud for lying about how he entered the United States.
On Tuesday, in El Paso, Texas—where Posada had been held—U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone dismissed the indictment against Posada, saying the government had resorted to unconstitutional “trickery” in gathering its evidence against him. It was Cardone’s dismissal order that set Posada free.
Cardone found that in Posada’s formal immigration interview after the feds whisked him away in 2005, the government failed to provide adequate translation of the questions and answers. What the government contended were lies about how Posada had made his way into the United States looked more like misunderstandings, Cardone concluded.
It’s worth pointing out that this isn’t the first time Posada has used his allegedly poor command of English as an excuse: He claims he didn’t understand what he was saying years ago when he boasted to a reporter of his role in the Havana bombings.
So, was the judge snookered into letting a hardened terrorist walk on a technicality? Not really. It’s more the case that the judge refused to play along.
Cardone’s point was that if the government really wanted to keep Posada behind bars because he was a career terrorist, then prosecutors should have prosecuted him as a terrorist. Then, faster than you can say “Patriot Act,” authorities could have made him disappear into the netherworld of indefinite detention where terrorist suspects named Muhammad are kept.
I’ll wager that the evidence against Posada, which I find compelling, is more solid than the secret evidence against most of the detainees at Guantanamo. But Posada’s alleged crimes were against the Castro regime. George W. Bush’s stance toward Cuba has been even more hardheaded and counterproductive than the policies of his predecessors. This administration has tightened the travel ban, increased economic pressure and made a show of planning for a post-Castro Cuba. Meanwhile, Castro (apparently recovering slowly from intestinal surgery) and his brother Raul are as firmly in power as ever. The administration’s hard-line tactics have accomplished less than nothing—in Cuba, at least.
The zero-tolerance policy toward the Castro government has been popular, however, among the most strident exiles in Florida—the old men who will greet Posada when he comes home to Miami and a comfortable retirement.
A grand jury in New Jersey reportedly is investigating Posada’s alleged involvement in the Havana hotel bombings, and it’s possible that he will someday face a new indictment. Meanwhile, our government has given Castro another cause celebre for billboards and demonstrations.
The administration is about to increase funding for its broadcasts into Cuba, even though they are seen and heard by few Cubans because Castro’s people have gotten so good at jamming them. The message is that the United States opposes the Castro regime but offers a hand of friendship to the Cuban people.
That’s a tough idea to sell when our government won’t call a terrorist a terrorist—and when a bitter old man who likely has killed scores of Cuban civilians is allowed to walk free.
Eugene Robinson’s e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at symbol)washpost.com.
05/14/07 "Truth Dig" --- - 05/11/07 -- WASHINGTON—The Bush administration says that its zero-tolerance policy against terrorism applies to all suspected evildoers, not just Muslims, and that its zero-tolerance policy against Cuba is a principled position, not just an exercise in pandering to the implacable anti-Castro exiles in Miami. On both counts, evidence suggests otherwise.
The fact is that Luis Posada Carriles, an accused terrorist who entered the United States illegally and was taken into custody by authorities, is not being kept in solitary confinement and dragged out for occasional waterboarding. As of this writing, he is a free man.
Posada, 79, has a long history of violent opposition to Fidel Castro’s regime. He was accused of masterminding the 1976 midair bombing of a civilian Cuban airliner, a terrorist act that killed 73 innocent people. He is also suspected of involvement in a 1997 series of bombings of Havana hotels and nightclubs; several people were injured and an Italian tourist was killed.
Terrorism, our government constantly reminds us, is the scourge of our times. So why is a man described by our government as “an unrepentant criminal and admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks on tourist sites” looking forward to a hero’s welcome in Miami from his old Bay of Pigs comrades?
Posada sneaked into the country in 2005, and had the temerity to advertise his presence by giving a news conference. After some dithering, Homeland Security officials took him into custody. He was indicted in January on federal charges of immigration fraud for lying about how he entered the United States.
On Tuesday, in El Paso, Texas—where Posada had been held—U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone dismissed the indictment against Posada, saying the government had resorted to unconstitutional “trickery” in gathering its evidence against him. It was Cardone’s dismissal order that set Posada free.
Cardone found that in Posada’s formal immigration interview after the feds whisked him away in 2005, the government failed to provide adequate translation of the questions and answers. What the government contended were lies about how Posada had made his way into the United States looked more like misunderstandings, Cardone concluded.
It’s worth pointing out that this isn’t the first time Posada has used his allegedly poor command of English as an excuse: He claims he didn’t understand what he was saying years ago when he boasted to a reporter of his role in the Havana bombings.
So, was the judge snookered into letting a hardened terrorist walk on a technicality? Not really. It’s more the case that the judge refused to play along.
Cardone’s point was that if the government really wanted to keep Posada behind bars because he was a career terrorist, then prosecutors should have prosecuted him as a terrorist. Then, faster than you can say “Patriot Act,” authorities could have made him disappear into the netherworld of indefinite detention where terrorist suspects named Muhammad are kept.
I’ll wager that the evidence against Posada, which I find compelling, is more solid than the secret evidence against most of the detainees at Guantanamo. But Posada’s alleged crimes were against the Castro regime. George W. Bush’s stance toward Cuba has been even more hardheaded and counterproductive than the policies of his predecessors. This administration has tightened the travel ban, increased economic pressure and made a show of planning for a post-Castro Cuba. Meanwhile, Castro (apparently recovering slowly from intestinal surgery) and his brother Raul are as firmly in power as ever. The administration’s hard-line tactics have accomplished less than nothing—in Cuba, at least.
The zero-tolerance policy toward the Castro government has been popular, however, among the most strident exiles in Florida—the old men who will greet Posada when he comes home to Miami and a comfortable retirement.
A grand jury in New Jersey reportedly is investigating Posada’s alleged involvement in the Havana hotel bombings, and it’s possible that he will someday face a new indictment. Meanwhile, our government has given Castro another cause celebre for billboards and demonstrations.
The administration is about to increase funding for its broadcasts into Cuba, even though they are seen and heard by few Cubans because Castro’s people have gotten so good at jamming them. The message is that the United States opposes the Castro regime but offers a hand of friendship to the Cuban people.
That’s a tough idea to sell when our government won’t call a terrorist a terrorist—and when a bitter old man who likely has killed scores of Cuban civilians is allowed to walk free.
Eugene Robinson’s e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at symbol)washpost.com.
Video Israel Doesn't Want You to See
Video Israel Doesn't Want You to See
From the CBC - Israeli army embarrassed by video broadcastLast Updated Tue Mar 19 19:52:12 2002JERUSALEM - The Israeli army has expressed a note of contrition after a television station aired a videotape showing an army assault on a Palestinian home in which a mother of five children died.
The CIA -- a Terrorist Organization - Agency uses same tactics it claims to be fighting
By Claudia Nelson
05/14/07 "ICH" -- -- The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) can be considered a terrorist organization according to both international and American definitions of terrorism.
Since September 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush announced that he would use all his resources to fight terrorist organizations and declared a war on terror, which he legally cannot do, since according to the United States Constitution only the Congress can declare war, and it must be declared on a specific source.
Terrorism is a general term used to describe violence or other harmful acts carried out for achieving political ends. Most definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear or "terror," are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to an attack by a "madman"), and deliberately target "non-combatants." According to the United States Federal Criminal Code, Chapter 113B of Part I of Title 18, terrorism is defined as
“activities that involve violent ... or life-threatening acts ... that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and ... appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and ... (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States ... [or] ... (C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States."
The U.S. Congress created the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act. The official duty of the Central Intelligence Agency is to serve as an intelligence gathering agency.
The headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency is located in Langley, Virginia, and was designated as the "George Bush Center for Intelligence” by the Clinton Administration. Former President George Herbert Walker Bush was Director of Central Intelligence from Jan. 30 1976 to Jan. 20 1977.
In reality, the CIA does not only gather information but consistently targets and engages in covert operations, psychological operations, and acts of terrorism both domestically and internationally.
CIA past operations and activities
Operation Phoenix was an assassination program conducted by the CIA during the Vietnam conflict. Its objective was to eliminate Vietnamese who might oppose the U.S but also to terrorize the entire population of South Vietnam and to suppress opposition to the occupying U.S. forces. Over 20,000 Vietnamese were murdered, often at random.
During the 1980s the CIA used profits from its cocaine smuggling activities to finance the Contras in Nicaragua who were responsible for the murders of tens of thousands of civilians, and it attempted to disrupt the country's economy, in order to destabilize the legitimate Sandinista government. For this, the U.S. was condemned in the World Court for "unlawful use of force," and it rejected a U.N. security council resolution calling upon it to observe international law. We must note that George Bush Sr. was vice president at the time .
On Sept. 11, 1973, the CIA planned and organized the military coup d'etat in Chile which overthrew the legitimately elected government of Salvador Allende and brought to power the regime of General Augusto Pinochet. This regime abducted, tortured and killed thousands of Chilean citizens in an attempt to suppress opposition.
It appears that Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations, was closely involved diplomatically with the Southern Cone governments at the time and well-aware of Operation Condor. The first cooperation agreements were signed between the CIA and anti-Castro groups, and fascist movements such as the Triple A set up in Argentina by Jose Lopez Rega ("personal secretary" of Juan and Isabel Peron), and Rodolfo Almiron. The post-junta truth commission found that the Argentine military had "disappeared" at least 10,000 Argentines in the so-called "dirty war" against "subversion" and "terrorists" between 1976 and 1983; human rights groups in Argentina put the number at closer to 30,000. We must note that George Bush Sr, was head of the CIA at the time it began and vice president at the time it ended.
Operation CHAOS was the most vicious aggressive domestic surveillence operation conducted on American antiwar groups and activists like Abbie Hoffman, whose objectives were to:
1. Gather information on their immorality.
2. Show them as scurrilous and depraved.
3. Call attention to their habits and living conditions.
4. Explore every possible embarrassment.
5. Investigate personal conflicts or animosities between them.
6. Send articles to newspapers showing their depravity.
7. Use narcotics and free sex for entrapment.
8. Have members arrested on marijuana charges.
9. Exploit the hostilities between various persons.
10. Use cartoons and photographs to ridicule them.
11. Use disinformation to confuse and disrupt.
12. Get records of their bank accounts.
13. Obtain specimens of handwriting.
14. Provoke target groups into rivalries that resulted in deaths.
The CIA was allegedly involved in the April 2002, Venezuela failed coup that tried to overthrow President Hugo Chavez, who was democratically elected.
In 2002 the CIA distorted Iraq data to the media in order to justify George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Most recently, former CIA employee, Luis Posada Carriles, who is believed to be the mastermind behind the 1976 Cubana de Aviacion bombing which killed 73 people, walked free from a U.S. court Tuesday following a court ruling for his liberation.
These are only a handful of operations; there have literally been hundreds and many are still classified as secret by the U.S. government For a time-line checkout here.
It seems to me you cannot claim to fight terrorism or claim to be the beacon of democracy with an organization like the CIA in your ranks.
Americans can no longer claim ignorance of the horrors committed by the CIA. They can not allow this guise of “The War on Terror" to continue, since it was started by the CIA a terrorist organization which engages in unconstitutional and illegal behavior.
The United States Congress has the authority to dismantle the CIA just like it has the authority -- and more than enough evidence -- to impeach the Bush administration on war crimes, illegal wire tapping, and misappropriation of funds. But does it have the backbone or interest to do so?
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. -- Samuel Adams
05/14/07 "ICH" -- -- The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) can be considered a terrorist organization according to both international and American definitions of terrorism.
Since September 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush announced that he would use all his resources to fight terrorist organizations and declared a war on terror, which he legally cannot do, since according to the United States Constitution only the Congress can declare war, and it must be declared on a specific source.
Terrorism is a general term used to describe violence or other harmful acts carried out for achieving political ends. Most definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear or "terror," are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to an attack by a "madman"), and deliberately target "non-combatants." According to the United States Federal Criminal Code, Chapter 113B of Part I of Title 18, terrorism is defined as
“activities that involve violent ... or life-threatening acts ... that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and ... appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and ... (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States ... [or] ... (C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States."
The U.S. Congress created the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act. The official duty of the Central Intelligence Agency is to serve as an intelligence gathering agency.
The headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency is located in Langley, Virginia, and was designated as the "George Bush Center for Intelligence” by the Clinton Administration. Former President George Herbert Walker Bush was Director of Central Intelligence from Jan. 30 1976 to Jan. 20 1977.
In reality, the CIA does not only gather information but consistently targets and engages in covert operations, psychological operations, and acts of terrorism both domestically and internationally.
CIA past operations and activities
Operation Phoenix was an assassination program conducted by the CIA during the Vietnam conflict. Its objective was to eliminate Vietnamese who might oppose the U.S but also to terrorize the entire population of South Vietnam and to suppress opposition to the occupying U.S. forces. Over 20,000 Vietnamese were murdered, often at random.
During the 1980s the CIA used profits from its cocaine smuggling activities to finance the Contras in Nicaragua who were responsible for the murders of tens of thousands of civilians, and it attempted to disrupt the country's economy, in order to destabilize the legitimate Sandinista government. For this, the U.S. was condemned in the World Court for "unlawful use of force," and it rejected a U.N. security council resolution calling upon it to observe international law. We must note that George Bush Sr. was vice president at the time .
On Sept. 11, 1973, the CIA planned and organized the military coup d'etat in Chile which overthrew the legitimately elected government of Salvador Allende and brought to power the regime of General Augusto Pinochet. This regime abducted, tortured and killed thousands of Chilean citizens in an attempt to suppress opposition.
It appears that Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations, was closely involved diplomatically with the Southern Cone governments at the time and well-aware of Operation Condor. The first cooperation agreements were signed between the CIA and anti-Castro groups, and fascist movements such as the Triple A set up in Argentina by Jose Lopez Rega ("personal secretary" of Juan and Isabel Peron), and Rodolfo Almiron. The post-junta truth commission found that the Argentine military had "disappeared" at least 10,000 Argentines in the so-called "dirty war" against "subversion" and "terrorists" between 1976 and 1983; human rights groups in Argentina put the number at closer to 30,000. We must note that George Bush Sr, was head of the CIA at the time it began and vice president at the time it ended.
Operation CHAOS was the most vicious aggressive domestic surveillence operation conducted on American antiwar groups and activists like Abbie Hoffman, whose objectives were to:
1. Gather information on their immorality.
2. Show them as scurrilous and depraved.
3. Call attention to their habits and living conditions.
4. Explore every possible embarrassment.
5. Investigate personal conflicts or animosities between them.
6. Send articles to newspapers showing their depravity.
7. Use narcotics and free sex for entrapment.
8. Have members arrested on marijuana charges.
9. Exploit the hostilities between various persons.
10. Use cartoons and photographs to ridicule them.
11. Use disinformation to confuse and disrupt.
12. Get records of their bank accounts.
13. Obtain specimens of handwriting.
14. Provoke target groups into rivalries that resulted in deaths.
The CIA was allegedly involved in the April 2002, Venezuela failed coup that tried to overthrow President Hugo Chavez, who was democratically elected.
In 2002 the CIA distorted Iraq data to the media in order to justify George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Most recently, former CIA employee, Luis Posada Carriles, who is believed to be the mastermind behind the 1976 Cubana de Aviacion bombing which killed 73 people, walked free from a U.S. court Tuesday following a court ruling for his liberation.
These are only a handful of operations; there have literally been hundreds and many are still classified as secret by the U.S. government For a time-line checkout here.
It seems to me you cannot claim to fight terrorism or claim to be the beacon of democracy with an organization like the CIA in your ranks.
Americans can no longer claim ignorance of the horrors committed by the CIA. They can not allow this guise of “The War on Terror" to continue, since it was started by the CIA a terrorist organization which engages in unconstitutional and illegal behavior.
The United States Congress has the authority to dismantle the CIA just like it has the authority -- and more than enough evidence -- to impeach the Bush administration on war crimes, illegal wire tapping, and misappropriation of funds. But does it have the backbone or interest to do so?
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. -- Samuel Adams
ZioNazi medal?
Jews sans frontieres - An Anti-Zionist blog - browsing the media
I hate that expression, "zionazi." I'm guessing it derives from Muslims being disgruntled about the equally dodgy term, "islamo-fascist." But, for me zionism is bad enough without likening it to nazism or to anything else. In fact by invoking such expressions it's as if to say that zionism isn't bad enough unless we can liken zionists to nazis and it is plenty bad enough to condemn out of hand even though we can compare zionists to nazis in both ideological and behavioural terms.
So why the headline? Well, zionism has a long and ignominious history of collaboration with antisemitism. This collaboration is both ideological and practical. It reached its highest and most grotesque form with the rise of the nazis in Europe. This is documented by many sources. Lenni Brenner's work is possibly the best known but it has been touched on by Hannah Arendt and by Israel Shahak. It's a curious thing that in Mein Kampf Hitler claims that zionists are the worst of all Jews. That was before he was in power of course. Once he was in power he found the zionists the most amenable to his rule. In fairness to the zionists who collaborated from the outset they probably didn't predict the holocaust but once the holocaust was in progress the collaboration continued.
Israel Shahak reported a classic example of ideological collaboration in the form of Joachim Prinz's celebration of Hitler's triumph at the polls in 1933:
We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of belonging to the Jewish nation and Jewish race. A state built upon the principle of the purity of nation and race can only honored and respected by a Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind. Having so declared himself, he will never be capable of faulty loyalty towards a state. The state cannot want other Jews but such as declare themselves as belonging to their nation. It will not want Jewish flatterers and crawlers. It must demand of us faith and loyalty to our own interest. For only he who honors his own breed and his own blood can have an attitude of honor towards the national will of other nations.
Well it seems the nazis too found something to celebrate in the rise of zionism and in the collaboration between these two racial supremacist movements and something to commemorate in their collaboration.
Here's Lenni Brenner who:
related how Kurt Tuchler, a member of the German Zionist Federation Executive, "persuaded Baron Leopold Itz Edler von Mildenstein of the SS to write a pro-Zionist piece for the Nazi press. The Baron agreed on the condition that he visited Palestine first, and two months after Hitler came to power the two men and their wives went to Palestine; von Mildenstein stayed there for six months before he returned....Von Mildenstein... wrote favorably about what he saw in the Zionist coloniesin Palestine; he also persuaded Goebbels to run the report as a massive twelve-part series in his own Der Angriff (The Assault), the leading Nazi propaganda organ (9/26-10/9/34).... To commemorate the Baron's expedition, Goebbels had a medal struck: on one side the swastika, on the other the Zionist star."
Well here's a picture of that medal:
So why the headline? It just happened to be the name of the file I was sent. Oi! the banality! Anyway, apparently, queries about the medal should go to John Sigler via www.onestate.org.
I hate that expression, "zionazi." I'm guessing it derives from Muslims being disgruntled about the equally dodgy term, "islamo-fascist." But, for me zionism is bad enough without likening it to nazism or to anything else. In fact by invoking such expressions it's as if to say that zionism isn't bad enough unless we can liken zionists to nazis and it is plenty bad enough to condemn out of hand even though we can compare zionists to nazis in both ideological and behavioural terms.
So why the headline? Well, zionism has a long and ignominious history of collaboration with antisemitism. This collaboration is both ideological and practical. It reached its highest and most grotesque form with the rise of the nazis in Europe. This is documented by many sources. Lenni Brenner's work is possibly the best known but it has been touched on by Hannah Arendt and by Israel Shahak. It's a curious thing that in Mein Kampf Hitler claims that zionists are the worst of all Jews. That was before he was in power of course. Once he was in power he found the zionists the most amenable to his rule. In fairness to the zionists who collaborated from the outset they probably didn't predict the holocaust but once the holocaust was in progress the collaboration continued.
Israel Shahak reported a classic example of ideological collaboration in the form of Joachim Prinz's celebration of Hitler's triumph at the polls in 1933:
We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of belonging to the Jewish nation and Jewish race. A state built upon the principle of the purity of nation and race can only honored and respected by a Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind. Having so declared himself, he will never be capable of faulty loyalty towards a state. The state cannot want other Jews but such as declare themselves as belonging to their nation. It will not want Jewish flatterers and crawlers. It must demand of us faith and loyalty to our own interest. For only he who honors his own breed and his own blood can have an attitude of honor towards the national will of other nations.
Well it seems the nazis too found something to celebrate in the rise of zionism and in the collaboration between these two racial supremacist movements and something to commemorate in their collaboration.
Here's Lenni Brenner who:
related how Kurt Tuchler, a member of the German Zionist Federation Executive, "persuaded Baron Leopold Itz Edler von Mildenstein of the SS to write a pro-Zionist piece for the Nazi press. The Baron agreed on the condition that he visited Palestine first, and two months after Hitler came to power the two men and their wives went to Palestine; von Mildenstein stayed there for six months before he returned....Von Mildenstein... wrote favorably about what he saw in the Zionist coloniesin Palestine; he also persuaded Goebbels to run the report as a massive twelve-part series in his own Der Angriff (The Assault), the leading Nazi propaganda organ (9/26-10/9/34).... To commemorate the Baron's expedition, Goebbels had a medal struck: on one side the swastika, on the other the Zionist star."
Well here's a picture of that medal:
So why the headline? It just happened to be the name of the file I was sent. Oi! the banality! Anyway, apparently, queries about the medal should go to John Sigler via www.onestate.org.
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