The Struggle to Industrialize Venezuela by Chris Carlson

"Two systems are before the world... One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace."
-Henry C. Carey, a leading 19th Century American economist who made the case against free trade

Latin America has been told for decades that free trade is the path to modernization. Washington's politicians and intellectuals praise its virtues and promise underdeveloped countries that it is a crucial element for successful development. But Latin American leaders are getting tired of empty promises.

When George W. Bush traveled through the region earlier this year, once again promoting the free trade agenda, his calls fell on increasingly skeptical ears. "We will believe Bush's promises when there is transfer of technology, when tariff barriers are lifted," said the President of Paraguay Nicanor Duarte.[1]

But U.S. political leaders and intellectuals haven't always been proponents of free trade. In fact, for most of U.S. history they were vehemently opposed to it. During the 19th and much of the 20th century, when the United States was struggling to develop and build national industry, U.S. leaders viewed free trade much like Hugo Chavez and other Latin American leaders do today.

For most of the 19th century it was the British Empire that dominated world commerce. With superior production, more advanced manufacturing, and control over world trade, it was British politicians and intellectuals such as Adam Smith that then advocated "free trade" and preached to the nations of the world about the "miracles" of the unchecked market. American politicians, however, were insistent on developing and transforming their nation from a poor colony into a world power, and would not be deceived. They rejected the British creed outright.
Alexander Hamilton, for example, a contemporary of Adam Smith, believed that free trade skewed the benefits of trade to the colonial or imperial powers. According to Hamilton, it was a policy of protectionism that would help develop the fledgling nation's emerging economy. The United States, he thought, could not become fully independent until it was self-sufficient in all necessary economic products.[2] He wasn't mistaken as the United States would use exactly these kinds of protectionist policies to build their industrial might in the years to follow
A century later, the stance of US leaders had not changed. "Free trade cheapens the product by cheapening the producer," said US President William McKinley in 1892.

"Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation of self-development of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man."[3]

Major economists in the United States, such as Henry C. Carey, also sharply rejected the system promoted by the British, labeling it "barbarism." The German American economist Friedrich List explained in 1841 why the free trade system was unfair to less advanced nations:

"Free competition between two nations which are highly civilized can only be mutually beneficial in [the] case [that] both of them are in a nearly equal position of industrial development, and any nation which owing to misfortunes is behind others in industry, commerce, and navigation... must first of all strengthen her own individual powers, in order to fit herself to enter into free competition with more advanced nations."[4]

The result of free trade, he believed, would be "a universal subjection of the less advanced nations to the predominant manufacturing, commercial and naval power."

But most leaders and intellectuals in first world countries seem to have forgotten that the United States and other first-world nations developed industry by rejecting calls for free trade and actively protecting their nascent industries. The poorer nations of the world today would be wise to remember that the United States, once a colony of the British Empire, soon surpassed the British in industrial and economic might with policies that directly contrasted the free trade policies advocated by the intellectuals and politicians of the empire.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela seems to understand this lesson of world history and has become the most outspoken opponent of the free trade doctrine now promoted by the United States. As US leaders did less than a century ago, Hugo Chavez understands that free trade is unfair for the weaker, less advanced nations, and that the true path to national development and advancement is the strengthening of his own nation's industry and production through direct state support, guidance and intervention. Before free trade could ever be fair trade, Venezuela and the rest of Latin America would have to become stronger. And toward that end, Hugo Chavez is making significant efforts.

The Failures of Venezuela's Past

Since the beginning of democracy in Venezuela in 1958, it has been generally understood that the main development goals of the country include industrialization and economic sovereignty. Industrialization as a means to national sovereignty was generally seen as a part of a larger process of nation-building that was initiated with the overthrow of the Perez Jimenez dictatorship in 1958.[5]

In 1962, the new government passed the Automobile Policy Law to begin building a Venezuelan national car industry, as well as a policy to create a national tractor industry. Both of these measures had the intention of reducing Venezuela's technological dependence and creating the capacity for heavy industry. It was generally understood that if Venezuela were to ever be an independent, developed country, it would need to industrialize. National car and tractor industries, characterized by complex technology and advanced organization of production, were seen as two strategic industries that could create the beginnings of a modern industrial society in Venezuela.[6]

But Venezuela's efforts to industrialize failed. Despite the fact that it was official government policy well into the 1980's, not one tractor would ever be produced; no national auto industry would be created. Venezuela remained almost completely dependent on imported technology from the developed world, paid for with oil exports. The traditional colonial structure of the economy had changed very little; Venezuela still exported raw materials, mostly oil, in exchange for imported manufactured goods from the developed world.

To understand Venezuela's past failures to develop industry is to understand the failures of liberal democracy. As is the case in most liberal democracies, the democracy of the Fourth Republic (1958-1998) was built on a political pact between rival parties. Two political parties, composed of various conflicting sectors of society, with the exclusion of leftist parties, agreed to share power amongst themselves and to alternate the presidency between them.

As a government built on a coalition of conflicting sectors and class interests, it was nearly impossible to build a coherent political program that could satisfy the demands of conflicting interests. Industrialization was recognized as an important development goal, but would require significant changes in the structure of the economy. Nascent industry would need to be promoted for the nation to become independent from imported goods, creating a clear conflict with the traditional import sector. The political system, built on an agreement to avoid conflict and defend the interests of conflicting sectors, including the most powerful groups, would find it very difficult, or nearly impossible, to make the needed changes.[7]

So, for example, when President Carlos Andres Perez made an extra effort to implement the auto industry policy in the 1970's, the government guidelines for the policy said it should cause the least possible "social and economic upset" to the existing auto companies. The existing "structure of the market" would be a determining factor in the policy.[8]

In other words, even though it was necessary to make profound structural changes to the economy, the Fourth Republic planned to do it without making any waves, without creating conflict. But given that it was against the interests of the international car companies, and the domestic car importers to build a national auto industry independent of imports, it would be impossible to do without rocking the boat.

The same happened to the tractor industry. International tractor companies were not genuinely interested in cooperating in the transfer of technology, tractor importers were opposed to the policy, and the government, internally divided, did not have the political will to carry the project forward. In the end, the initiative left the empty carcass of a brand new tractor factory in the middle of the Venezuelan jungle, never to produce a single unit.

It was obvious that the liberal democracy of the Fourth Republic would not be capable of making the necessary changes, or confronting the conflicting class interests of a divided society. As is the norm in liberal democracies, powerful groups in Venezuela and abroad used their influence to prevent undesired changes, undercutting the interests of the majority poor, and the status quo was preserved.

After the failure of industrialization efforts, industry in Venezuela went backwards. Resurgent groups in the government took the country towards liberalization, and international financial organizations such as the IMF and World Bank pushed the country towards Washington's "consensus" on free trade. The economy went through a process of deindustrialization and privatization as major sectors of the economy were sold off to international capital, including telecommunications, the steel industry, the national airline, and plans were made do the same with the national oil and petrochemical industries.[9]

By the end of the Fourth Republic, the goals of national development had been completely abandoned. Venezuela's economy would remain a colonial economy, the desires of the impoverished masses betrayed. The lesson was clear: the kinds of revolutionary changes needed to transform the country could only be made by a revolutionary government.

The Bolivarian Revolution: Building Industry in Venezuela

The rise of Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution was the end of democracy by pacts and coalitions in Venezuela. There would be no power-sharing agreements, and no powerful economic groups would have undue influence over the government. If it was the limitations of liberal democracy that had prevented previous governments from carrying out initiatives to build industry in Venezuela, it was the lack of those very same limitations that would allow the Bolivarian Revolution to engage in a flurry of industrial initiatives within the first few years of the revolution. Revolution meant just that; class conflict would be confronted, not avoided.

In search of the technology needed to build new national industries, the Chavez government has not made the same errors of past governments. Instead of attempting to arrange for technology transfer from the dominant US and multinational corporations which are linked to powerful local groups and are uninterested in cooperating with Venezuela's industrialization, the Chavez government has built close relations to countries that are interested in cooperating, such as China, Russia, Iran, Argentina, Belarus, Brazil and others. And instead of worrying about the impact their policies would have on powerful economic groups in the country, the Chavez government has tended to focus more on the impact they could have on national development and the lives of the majority poor.

"We are going to be a power on this continent and in the world. In petroleum, in gas, in petrochemicals, in industry, there is no doubt about it," said Chavez recently as he announced the launch of a new petrochemicals industry in the country. The industry would include the construction of more than 50 factories across the country, with investment and technology from Brazil, Russia, and Iran, to produce plastic and chemical goods from Venezuela's abundant natural resources. Chavez said the industry would not only supply the domestic market but would also be for export to other countries in the region.[10]

From Argentina, the country plans to bring technology for more than 56 industrial projects to produce consumer goods, foods, auto parts, furniture, home appliances, and more. And not only are cooperative projects among the countries in the region rapidly increasing, but they have the intention of building national industries through what one Argentinean minister recently called a "new method of cooperation."[11]

"That is the idea, authentic cooperation in industrial technology transfer, more than commercial agreements," he said. "Cooperation among the southern countries is the true path to national development."

In an effort to construct industry in a socialist model, Venezuela recently announced the construction of more than 200 "socialist" factories over the next two years. With cooperation and technology from Belarus, Vietnam, Italy, and Brazil, the factories will produce electronics, motorcycles, housing and building materials, health care products, and more. The factories will be managed and operated by the communities where they are located and spread out around the country to bring development to poorer regions.[12]

With Russia and Belarus, Venezuela plans to construct joint companies to manufacture bicycles, heavy machinery, construction tools, and plastics. Belarus has agreed to supply Venezuela with seismic technology needed by the oil industry, a new aerial defense system, and needed aid in the distribution of natural gas to Venezuelan cities. They have also agreed to work with Venezuela in the areas of science and technology, agriculture, petrochemicals, energy, and military cooperation.[13]

Russia has provided Venezuela with military equipment to update its army, including a factory to manufacture Russian rifles, given that the US has refused further arms sales to Venezuela. But Moscow has also considered the creation of a bilateral development fund to finance joint projects in the oil sector, petrochemicals, food industry, transportation and construction.

From Iran, Venezuela is acquiring the needed technology to produce cars and tractors. Through an agreement for the transfer of technology, Iran and Venezuela have set up joint factories to produce 25,000 cars annually and 20 tractors daily, and with an increasing percentage of parts produced nationally. By 2011, Venezuela expects to have a line of cars that is one hundred percent nationally produced.[14] Tractor production is moving in the same direction and now, in a symbolic irony, Venezuela rolls the new models out of the same old factory that Venezuela's liberal democracy left abandoned for two decades.

Venezuela and Iran, which Chavez affirms are united in their opposition to U.S. imperialism, are also cooperating in the exploration and refining of oil, in petrochemicals, and technology for the production of corn flour in Venezuela. Joint petrochemical initiatives are also being set up in both Iran and Venezuela to the benefit of both countries, and Iran has agreed to invest billions of dollars in these projects.

From China, Venezuela is bringing the necessary capital, technology and expertise to make advances in transportation, the oil sector, the manufacture of electronics and more. China has invested several billions of dollars in Venezuela's oil industry, creating a joint company with Venezuela to explore new oil fields. The agreement will give Venezuela needed investment in technology and infrastructure for the heavy-crude oil in Venezuela's Orinoco river basin.[15]

"It's the infrastructure that our nation needs to take a step forward in areas of industrialization and joint-companies, as well as in other non-petroleum initiatives," said oil minister Rafael Ramirez.

The joint venture will include the construction of oil tankers for the transport of oil between Venezuela and China, an exchange that has greatly increased in recent years. China has also agreed to invest several billions of dollars in the construction of a national train system in Venezuela, not only for the transport of oil, but also passenger trains.

In addition, Venezuela is now producing computers with Chinese technology. The joint project will produce computers for the Venezuelan and Latin American market, with an agreement to progressively transfer the technology for the production of computer components inside Venezuela. The project is not only meant for import-substitution inside the country, but to also export units internationally. A $6 billion dollar bi-national development fund will serve the purpose of financing future projects like these between the two countries including the manufacture of cellular phones, automobiles, and more.[16]

With Brazil, Venezuela has plans to build joint oil and natural gas refineries, as well as the huge Gas Pipeline of the South project that will carry Venezuelan gas through the Brazilian Amazon all the way to Argentina.

The Chavez government has also created new subsidiary companies to the state oil company PDVSA. These different branch companies will work to promote development in different sectors of the economy such as agriculture, industry, shipbuilding, and even consumer goods like shoes, clothes, tools, and electronics.

PDVSA Naval, the shipbuilding subsidiary, has signed an agreement with Brazil to build a joint shipyard in Venezuela for the 42 new oil tankers that the country intends to build by 2012. The Russians intend to help Venezuela build special natural gas tankers as well.[17]

"Within ten years we will be witness to an unprecedented jump in the heavy and light industry of the country, allowing us to penetrate new markets in the maritime industry in line with the strategy of PDVSA and the national government," assured Chavez last year.

And the list of industrial projects goes on and on. Two weeks ago, the president inaugurated a new steel industry as well as a factory to produce piping for the national oil industry, a product Venezuela has traditionally imported. Huge deposits of iron, bauxite, and natural gas will supply the new industries, thanks in part to new government policies that limit the export of raw materials and guarantee these basic inputs to Venezuelan producers.

The country is building an industrial framework by establishing lower-level industry to work with its huge natural resources. These lower-level industries will then supply more advanced industry in the future such as the automotive and shipbuilding sectors, creating a vertically-integrated industrial system. Venezuela, as Chavez says, "must walk on its own feet." Its "feet," he assures, are the massive minerals and natural resources abundant in Venezuela on top of which the nation's industry is being built.

And the policies have had results. Not only has the Venezuelan economy shown impressive growth rates in recent years, but the manufacturing sector has been one of the fastest growing sectors since 2003, growing faster than the overall economy.[18] Imports of final-consumption goods have gone down as well, accompanied by an increase in goods devoted to gross capital formation, such as the machines and equipment needed for industrialization.[19]

Venezuela is building industry like never before in the history of the country and they are doing it by going against almost everything the free trade model calls for. The Chavez government has actively controlled foreign investment from a variety of nations, funneling it into productive projects and nascent industries with Venezuelan majority-ownership. The state has greatly intervened, nationalizing major sectors of the economy, carrying out agrarian reform, using currency controls to control capital flight and regulate imports, nurturing import-substitution industries and directing their production towards more advanced national industry. The government has also made significant efforts toward building alternative sources of funding and bilateral development funds to escape the mandates of the World Bank and other international lending institutions, and increase the country's economic sovereignty.

The Venezuelan state is playing a very active role in directing, planning, and guiding the development of the country, totally rejecting any illusions that the market will magically bring modernization. The Chavez government is pursuing sovereign industrial development and technology transfer on its own terms, with the help of a variety of allied countries, and there are few powerful groups in Venezuela, or abroad, in a position to stop them. To put it mildly, Venezuela has clearly shown that following the demands of Washington is not well-advised. To put it more bluntly, the Bolivarian Revolution seems to be demonstrating that the real path for the industrialization and development of the third world is social and economic revolution.


Notes:

[1] Chris Carlson, "Presidents of Argentina, Paraguay, and Ecuador Publicly Defend Venezuela's Chavez," March 16, 2007, Venezuelanalysis.com http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2282

[2] Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, US Congress December 5th, 1791

[3] William McKinley speech, Oct. 4, 1892 in Boston, MA William McKinley Papers (Library of Congress)

[4] Friedrich List, The National System of Political Economy, 1841, translated by Sampson S. Lloyd M.P., 1885 edition, Fourth Book, "The Politics," Chapter 33

[5] Fernando Coronil; Julie Skurski, Reproducing Dependency: Auto Industry Policy and Petrodollar Circulation in Venezuela. International Organization, Vol. 36, No. 1. (Winter, 1982), pg. 74

[6] Coronil, pg. 74

[7] Fernando Coronil's The Magical State: Nature, Money, and Modernity in Venezuela (1997, University of Chicago Press) provides an in-depth discussion of the details of Venezuela's liberal democracy, with a detailed explanation of its failed industrial programs.

[8] Coronil, pg. 75

[9] See Steve Ellner's The Politics of Privatization, NACLA Report on the Americas, 30 April 1998. http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/42/170.html

[10] Chris Carlson, "Venezuela Officially Launches ‘Petrochemical Revolution'" September 24th 2007, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2641

[11] Chris Carlson, "Venezuela and Argentina Deepen Industrial Integration," July 31st 2007, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2525

[12] Chris Carlson, Venezuela To Construct Over 200 "Socialist" Factories, September 6th 2007, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2588

[13] Chris Carlson, Venezuela Strengthens Ties to Russia and Belarus with Chavez Visit, June 30th 2007, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2478

[14] Chris Carlson, "Venezuelan-Iranian Car Company Releases First Models," July 10th 2007, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2491

[15] Chris Carlson, "Venezuela and China Strengthen Strategic and Economic Alliance," March 31st 2007, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2311

[16] Chris Carlson, "Venezuela Launches Sale of ‘Bolivarian' Computers," June 12th 2007, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2441

[17] Steven Mather, "Venezuela and Brazil to Build Shipyard in Venezuela," August 3rd 2006, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/1867

[18] The Venezuelan Economy in the Chavez Years, by Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval, Center for Economic and Policy Research, July 2007, http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_2007_07.pdf

[19] Luciano Wexell Severo, "In Venezuela, Oil Sows Emancipation," Venezuelanalysis.com, March 20, 2006 http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1666

Source URL: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2689
Printed: October 6th 2007
License: Published under a Creative Commons license (by-nc-nd). See creativecommons.org for more information.

Pentagon hires South African Apartheid-era racist butchers as mercenaries in Iraq

S. Africa's silent war in Iraq

Apartheid-era hired guns drawn by money


PRETORIA, South Africa


Andre Durant, a burly policeman from this leafy African capital, was kidnapped 10 months ago by unidentified gunmen in Iraq. Apart from one brief phone call, in which Durant managed to shout a strangled "I love you" to his wife, he hasn't been heard from since.

Yet there are no yellow ribbons trimming Durant's quiet suburban Pretoria house, as hopeful ribbons might adorn the home of a U.S. soldier missing in Iraq. There has been no drumbeat of sympathetic news coverage about his case, as one would expect when a local man gets sucked into a global story in the world's most notorious war zone. Indeed, Durant's family, like the families of three other South Africans who were snatched with Durant in a Baghdad ambush in December, has maintained an anguished and puzzling silence for the better part of a year.

And in that hush lies a clue to this African nation's murky and angst-ridden participation in America's military adventure in the Middle East: Durant is one of thousands of South African police officers and soldiers, most of them white veterans of the old apartheid regime, who have left their jobs to work as private security contractors in Iraq -- a semiclandestine exodus of hired guns that has alternately embarrassed and alarmed the pacifist government here.

"Maybe in the States soldiers' wives can talk about these things to ease their loss," said Lourika Durant, who has kept a low profile for months not only to safeguard negotiations for her kidnapped husband's release, but because of the stigma attached to operatives who freelance in a war deeply unpopular in South Africa. "Here we must suffer alone, without making waves."

The Sept. 16 killings of up to 11 Iraqi civilians by guards from the security firm Blackwater USA have rekindled intense debate in the U.S. over the propriety of outsourcing security responsibilities in Iraq to scores of private companies. But the acrimony in America can't begin to match the political hand-wringing that surrounds the issue in South Africa.

Sensitive to its apartheid-era reputation for exporting soldiers of fortune to wars across Africa, the young, black-led government in Pretoria recently drafted the harshest anti-mercenary bill in the world, a measure that would criminalize virtually all of its citizens working in Iraq.

And as the war grinds through its fifth year, there is growing concern that Iraq's drain on skilled police and military personnel may be crippling the nation's elite security services. Local media reports warn that tactical police units in major cities are being thinned by the stampede of officers to Baghdad. And a former South African military officer who runs his own security firm conceded that most of the nation's best special forces trainers now are on the U.S. contracting payroll in Iraq.

South Africa's national police force, meanwhile, has begun offering its most experienced staff monthly bonuses of about $900, in part to stanch the flight of talent.

"We don't deny that there has been an exodus," said Selby Bokaba, a police spokesman. "We simply can't compete with the obscene salaries that our officers are being offered in Iraq."

Wages for private contractors who work as bodyguards, convoy escorts and oil field security workers in Iraq average about $10,000 a month -- more than 10 times the pay of a South African army or police captain.

Up to 10,000 in Iraq

Nobody knows how many South Africans have signed up for such hazardous duty. The foreign affairs ministry puts the number as high as 10,000, though industry experts and U.S. contracting firms say the figure is far smaller, more like 2,000 to 3,000 men. Still, even the lower estimate would make South Africans the third-largest contingent of armed foreigners deployed in Iraq after Washington's closest military ally, Britain.

A Blackwater spokeswoman, Anne Tyrrell, said no South Africans were currently employed by her security firm in Iraq. She said the company's main contract, guarding State Department officials, requires a U.S. security clearance. Industry sources said most of South Africa's guns for hire rent their services to British companies, or U.S. companies with strong South African ties.

Their presence in Iraq certainly isn't new. Beefy South Africans armed with submachine guns were guarding Washington's first proconsul, Jay Garner, within days of Saddam Hussein's fall. Up to 30 of its citizens have died in Iraq, the South African government says.

"The Americans like us because we're well-trained and used to working in rustic conditions," said Alex de Witt, who spent 18 months in Iraq protecting construction sites run by KBR, the U.S. engineering giant. "But there's a political cost to going. The government here doesn't like it."

The root of that distrust dates to the mid-1990s, when thousands of white officers abandoned South Africa's security agencies during the transition from apartheid to majority black rule. Many unemployed soldiers and police joined private security companies that became embroiled in African wars from Angola to Sierra Leone.

In 2004, more than 60 South Africans -- in this case mostly black veterans of a covert unit that once fought in the apartheid government's border wars -- were arrested on allegations that they plotted to invade oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. That incident prompted one exasperated South African minister to label her country "a cesspool of mercenaries," and Parliament tightened existing anti-mercenary rules to make it all but impossible for South Africans to work in conflict zones overseas. The new bill has been awaiting President Thabo Mbeki's signature for months.

"It may never be signed into law because it will be challenged in court," said Sabelo Gumedze, a military analyst at the Institute for Security Studies, a Pretoria think tank. "Its definition of mercenary is so broad that even private humanitarian groups working in war zones would be affected."

Still, the mere threat of a tough new law has driven South Africa's shadowy community of Iraq contractors even further underground than it already was. Indeed, While Fiji, Nepal, Colombia and other nations supply large contingents of guards to the U.S. war effort somewhat openly, gaining access to South Africa's army of private soldiers can seem like infiltrating a secret fraternity.

"I've got a letter of commendation from Gen. Petraeus," said Hendrik, a 33-year-old ex-policeman, referring to praise he received from the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, for his work training Iraqi police. "I'm probably the only South African with one, but that's not something you talk about in South Africa."

Like most contractors who agreed to be interviewed for this article, he asked that his full name not be used for fear of future legal repercussions under the anti-mercenary act.

Desperation cracks silence

That silence is cracking, however, with the case of the so-called "Baghdad Four," the South African men, including policeman Durant, who were abducted while escorting a food convoy through a phony Iraqi police checkpoint north of Baghdad. Desperation has driven the four families to speak out about their sense of isolation.

"I didn't even know what Shiites and Sunnis were," said Durant's wife, Lourika, 36, naming the two dominant Muslim sects battling for power in Iraq. "I think South Africans should think very hard before going there. I don't care what they earn. It really isn't worth it."

She said her 6-year-old son, Xandre, had recently packed a bag and announced he was going to Iraq to look for his father. The night before, she added, he declared that he wanted to die.

"We need a support network in South Africa because we're on our own," said Daniel Brink, 38, who worked as a bodyguard for the U.S. security company DynCorp. "Our guys have no way to deal with the bossies" -- the Afrikaans term for post-traumatic stress disorder, he said. "When I first saw my wife, I told her to leave me. I didn't even want her to see me."

A bluff, wheelchair-bound man who owns an SUV with vanity plates that proclaim "Baghdad," Brink lost a leg and fingers in 2005 to a mine that exploded under his armored vehicle in Baqouba, a hotbed of the Iraqi insurgency. Since returning to South Africa, he has been trying to encourage his wounded colleagues to apply for U.S. worker's compensation under the U.S. Defense Base Act, which applies to all workers, American or foreign, who are subcontracted in war zones by Washington.

As he met one recent afternoon with another ex-contractor in suburban Pretoria, there unfolded a scene that could happen only in South Africa.

The house's resident, Deon Gouws, is a former police sergeant who had received an amnesty under South Africa's famed Truth and Reconciliation Commission for human-rights abuses, including assassinations, he committed under the old apartheid regime.

Now he was one of the few public voices warning his countrymen about the dangers of Iraq. Gouws' right arm, left eye and toes were blown away by a suicide bomber who had driven an explosives-packed ambulance into his Baghdad hotel. Brink was advising him on how to file for U.S. worker's compensation.

"I'll buy a farm if I can collect on my claim," said Gouws, 45, an unlucky man who has survived a mugger's bullet and a train collision since returning to South Africa. "But I don't recommend this method of getting a farm to anyone else."

There may be little need.

According to security industry experts, the golden era of freelance work in Iraq may wane as Iraqi companies take over in the wake of the Blackwater shootings and as the U.S. draws down its troops.

Still, as several South African contractors said, there is always Afghanistan.

----------

Che Guevara and The Economy of the New Human Being

With Raul Castro's recent call for structural changes in the Cuban economy, Che Guevara's earlier ideas on the economic incentives allows us to rethink Socialism of the 21st Century
By: Amaury E. del Valle


Most of the work of Che Guevara is still a mystery to study. His life is closely linked to intellectual work that, as he confessed in a letter in February 1964, can sometimes seem a little «obscure,» precisely because it was written mainly when «my watch read past midnight.»
However, to read it slowly is to find a great many reflections, some of them marked by the historical moment in which he lived, while others that are still incredibly valid. Many of his thoughts were ahead of the times that we have experienced over the last several years, such as the collapse of what he called the «Soviet model of socialism.»

In his writings and discussions, Che was most concerned with the economy, national and international policy, and liberation struggles.

Needed Pillars
Che’s economic thought is not an undecipherable riddle or a theoretical Minotaur impossible to defeat. Even in its unfinished nature it can be summarized, as he did in his essay El socialismo y el hombre (officially titled «Socialism and Man» in the 1960s). In a prophetic phrase that still remains as a challenge, he said «To build communism, we have to build a new (person) at the same time that we build the material base.»

One of the pillars of Che’s economic concepts was precisely the creation of a structure in which the most important element would be not only the satisfaction of the basic needs of people, but also their education, in order to make them aware of themselves as being the real owners and main beneficiaries of the means of production.

One of the essential moments in his thought was the controversy about the direction of the newly born socialist economy in Cuba, between 1963 and 1964. The argument emerged from issues that were merely national, and eventually became a debate over the appropriateness of the economic model implemented in the socialist countries at that time.

Regarding the matter, Che himself warned against «blind apologetics;» he criticized those who wanted to import experiences that were alien to Cuban reality, saying that «The law which supposedly governs the transition from socialism to communism is a mechanistic and conservative concept, an attempt to put Soviet reality in step with the theory, to put aside all analysis and ignore the harsh problems that would arise if a truly revolutionary course were taken.»

In his work «Neither Imitation Nor Copy: Che Guevara and the Pursuit of a New Socialism,» researcher Michael Löwy says that, contrary to the tendencies of copying the Soviet model that was in fashion in his time, the guerrilla commander believed that building socialism was «an heroic attempt to create something new, the pursuit —interrupted and unfinished— of a different paradigm for socialism, which in a many aspects was radically opposed to the ‘really existing’ bureaucratic caricature.»

Other Che specialists think similarly to this, especially regarding the debate on Cuban economy between 1963 and 1964, when they acknowledge that at the time there were evident tensions and contradictions between the ideals of the Cuban Revolution and those of the leadership in the Soviet Union. The internationalist ideals of the socialist national liberation of the Cuban Revolution were opposed to the Soviet system and its ideology, which despite being mechanistic and subordinated to «building of socialism in one country,» was the strongest force operating and speaking on behalf of Marxism.»

It was not in vain that Che himself highlighted the «great boldness» of questioning not only the model of socialism implemented at the time, but also the role of the USSR itself in the international arena, which he thought many times behaved like an imperialistic superpower.
In a speech he made in Algeria in February, 1965, he said openly, alluding to the USSR, that «there won’t be socialism if there is not a change in conscience among peoples that leads to a attitude of solidarity; this must change both at the individual level and in the society in which socialism has been or is being built, and worldwide, because of all the peoples who are subjected to imperialist oppression.

Cuban economist Osvaldo Martinez referenced Che’s own words, when he said that it was «heresy» and «audacity» to refer to a plan to write a true Marxist political economy, one which was non-apologetic, but more like a «scream from the bottom of underdevelopment.»
There is not doubt that the objective of Che —and of Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries— was to establish a framework of thought characteristic of the Cuban Revolution, which was far from what was then understood as «Marxism-Leninism.»

What had been feed to Cuba and the rest of the world under that name were no more than professed «truths» that were held up as being eternal, when in fact they responded more to the concrete realities of the USSR —even distorting Marxist theory— than to truly creative and “ecumenical" thought about socialism, as Che called it in his reflections.

To Build the 21st Century
Aspects that most concerned Che in his reflections were the search for economic efficiency, the application of science and technology as the means of increasing production levels, and especially the use of the moral incentives as a complement and even a necessary support for people’s attitudes toward work.

In «Socialism and Man in Cuba» (http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/slatta/hi216/documents/chesocandman.htm), he referred directly to this idea when he affirmed that “The pipe dream that socialism can be achieved with the help of the dull instruments left to us by capitalism (the commodity as the economic cell, profitability, individual material interest as a lever, etc.) can lead into a blind alley. And you wind up there after having travelled a long distance with many crossroads, and it is hard to figure out just where you took the wrong turn. Meanwhile, the economic foundation that has been laid has done its work of undermining the development of consciousness. To build communism it is necessary, simultaneous with the new material foundations, to build the new (person).»

Equally, in a letter sent to Fidel before his departure to the Congo, he maintained that «communism is a phenomenon of conscience; you don't arrive there through a leap into the void, a change in the productive quality, or the simple clash between the productive forces and the productive relations. Communism is a phenomenon of conscience; it is necessary to develop that consciousness in people, where individual and collective education for communism is a constituent part of them. We cannot measure in terms of per capita income the possibility of entering the communist stage... »

However, Che did not have his back turned to reality; nor was he an incurable idealist, as some have wanted to paint him – trying to mystify his figure so as to minimize his thought.
A profound observer, constantly studying and an untiring traveller, he quickly concluded that socialism would be going down the wrong road if it attempted to compete with the overproduction of capitalism, precisely the basis upon which that entire system of exploitation is built.

«The communist model of production presupposes a considerable abundance of material goods, but not necessarily a strict comparison with capitalism,» he held, when asserting that instead of disproportionate production, «planning and economic efficiency» would be imposed. These were pillars of his theory in the field of economics.

«We have a great gap in our system: how to integrate the person into their work in such a way that is not necessary to use what we call material disincentives, how to make each worker feel the vital necessity to support their revolution and, at the same time, make work a pleasure... », wrote Che in that same letter to Fidel.

He himself questioned the situation about which he assured it was necessary to «thoroughly study.» He proposed in a meeting of at the Ministry of Industries «to fight with all our force so that moral incentives replace the material incentives to the degree possible and within the shortest time possible. This means we are establishing a relative process; we are not excluding material incentives, we are simply saying that we should fight for moral incentives to become, in the least possible time, the decisive factor in the performance of workers.»

However, he didn't assume a utopian position and reject the necessity of recognizing material rewards to those who work better than others. He maintained that «workers must be rewarded, but not with money based on the percentage they have exceeded the norm, but by their capacity to acquire a greater capacity. Let’s take the example of someone going to school ... and graduating with a higher qualification. Returning to the workplace with the new qualification would automatically translate into a wage increase – that is to say, a material incentive... »

A promoter of voluntary work, which characterized him as a true revolutionary, the economic thought of Che went into such specific details, given his position as the minister of Industry, that he ended up theoretically and practically involving himself in the determination of how wages would be determined in the socialist society in the making.

«How much is invested for the work of a soldier and how much for a teacher? How much for a minister and how much for a worker? Lenin, in«State and Revolution,» had an idea (Marxist) that rejected the comparison of officials' salaries and those of laborers, but I am not convinced that his reversal is correct,» questioned Che when criticizing the “Fundamentals of Political Economy” of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, then taken almost like a «Bible» for socialist construction.

He himself responded, analyzing the reality he saw in the Soviet Union and Cuba, that «the real essence of all of today difficulties is the false conception of the communist person, based on a long-term economic practice that tends to and will continue to tend to make people just a number in the production process through the lever of their material interest.» He also noted that «trying to raise productivity by individual rewards is falling even lower than capitalists.»
Educating the new person with a new approach to production was the principal thesis championed by Che, although it was not always well understood, or applied, neither in Cuba nor in the Soviet Union.

Foretelling the Soviet Collapse
Perhaps the importance of Che’s economic thought, in the light of current events and the challenges faced by Cuba, have not been weighed enough.

This is partly because many of his writings were not published until recently, and also because of the mystification of Che as a guerrilla commander and a man of action has often overshadowed his side as a philosopher and a Marxist economist – self-taught but well trained.
While in Prague, after leaving the Congo, Che wrote to Orlando Borrego, one of his closest collaborators. The said that he was thinking on «initiating a work on the manual of Political Economy from the Academy,» referring to the material from the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.

These notes, which were unpublished only recently, as well as others he wrote down in the Bolivian jungle on philosophy, are some of the most illustrious of Che’s visions on socialism, and especially on the Soviet Union.

His worry came as a result of his visit to that country, a year and half earlier, in which he perceived some «dangerously capitalists arguments» in his exchanges with Soviet leaders and academics.

Fueled by the controversy about the Cuban economy in the construction of socialism —of which Che was a main actor in its first years— the idea of the thirst for profits and productive competition with capitalism being the driving force of development worried him greatly.
Argentinean academic Néstor Kohan said, «Guevara believed that in the transition to socialism the survival of the law of value had to be surpassed by socialist planning or... there would be a return to capitalism.»

Likewise, he criticised the siren songs of the praised Soviet manual of Political Economy that spoke of the «general crisis of capitalism,» a phrase about which he said «people must be careful...» «Crumbling» has a clear meaning in language; a fully grown man cannot undergo any more physiological changes, but he’s doesn’t agonize. The capitalist system has reached its total maturity under imperialism, yet it has not taken full advantage of its possibilities at the current moment and has great vitality. It is more precise to say «fully developed» or to say that it has reached the limits of its possibilities for development.

At the same time, Che was not convinced that the Soviets were knocking at the doors of communism, as they asserted; nor did he believe that setting economic goals to compete with capitalism was the ideal way of reaching that objective. As he said,«no one can set ‘bread and butter’ goals for reaching communism.»

This double characteristic of criticising capitalism while rejecting «sanctified» models was the largest contribution of his economic work, unfinished and based on notes, it was an effort «aimed at inviting people to think, to take Marxism with the seriousness this giant doctrine deserved.»

That is the reason why Che could formulate that warning thirty years prior that «The Soviet Union is returning to capitalism.» At the same time he set the foundations for the path to the socialism for its construction in the 21st century, which was intended to break with any narrow simplification of political economy. As he said in a 1965 interview with the Algerian newspaper The Avant-Garde, «this new society is the result of conscience.»

Why Democrats and Republicans Bow to the Israel Lobby By John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt

The following is an excerpt from the Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007).

Introduction

America is about to enter a presidential election year. Although the outcome is of course impossible to predict at this stage, certain features of the campaign are easy to foresee. The candidates will inevitably differ on various domestic issues -- health care, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, education, immigration -- and spirited debates are certain to erupt on a host of foreign policy questions as well. What course of action should the United States pursue in Iraq? What is the best response to the crisis in Darfur, Iran's nuclear ambitions, Russia's hostility to NATO, and China's rising power? How should the United States address global warming, combat terrorism, and reverse the erosion of its international image? On these and many other issues, we can confidently expect lively disagreements among the various candidates.

Yet on one subject, we can be equally confident that the candidates will speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous election years, serious candidates for the highest office in the land will go to considerable lengths to express their deep personal commitment to one foreign country -- Israel -- as well as their determination to maintain unyielding U.S. support for the Jewish state. Each candidate will emphasize that he or she fully appreciates the multitude of threats facing Israel and make it clear that, if elected, the United States will remain firmly committed to defending Israel's interests under any and all circumstances. None of the candidates is likely to criticize Israel in any significant way or suggest that the United States ought to pursue a more evenhanded policy in the region. Any who do will probably fall by the wayside.

This observation is hardly a bold prediction, because presidential aspirants were already proclaiming their support for Israel in early 2007. The process began in January, when four potential candidates spoke to Israel's annual Herzliya Conference on security issues. As Joshua Mitnick reported in Jewish Week, they were "seemingly competing to see who can be most strident in defense of the Jewish State." Appearing via satellite link, John Edwards, the Democratic party's 2004 vice presidential candidate, told his Israeli listeners that "your future is our future" and said that the bond between the United States and Israel "will never be broken." Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spoke of being "in a country I love with people I love" and, aware of Israel's deep concern about a possible nuclear Iran, proclaimed that "it is time for the world to speak three truths: (1) Iran must be stopped; (2) Iran can be stopped; (3) Iran will be stopped!" Senator John McCain (R-AZ) declared that "when it comes to the defense of Israel, we simply cannot compromise," while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the audience that "Israel is facing the greatest danger for [sic] its survival since the 1967 victory."

Shortly thereafter, in early February, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) spoke in New York before the local chapter of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where she said that in this "moment of great difficulty for Israel and great peril for Israel ... what is vital is that we stand by our friend and our ally and we stand by our own values. Israel is a beacon of what's right in a neighborhood overshadowed by the wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and terrorism." One of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), spoke a month later before an AIPAC audience in Chicago. Obama, who has expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians' plight in the past and made a brief reference to Palestinian "suffering" at a campaign appearance in March 2007, was unequivocal in his praise for Israel and made it manifestly clear that he would do nothing to change the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Other presidential hopefuls, including Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, have expressed pro-Israel sentiments with equal or greater ardor.

What explains this behavior? Why is there so little disagreement among these presidential hopefuls regarding Israel, when there are profound disagreements among them on almost every other important issue facing the United States and when it is apparent that America's Middle East policy has gone badly awry? Why does Israel get a free pass from presidential candidates, when its own citizens are often deeply critical of its present policies and when these same presidential candidates are all too willing to criticize many of the things that other countries do? Why does Israel, and no other country in the world, receive such consistent deference from America's leading politicians?

Some might say that it is because Israel is a vital strategic asset for the United States. Indeed, it is said to be an indispensable partner in the "war on terror." Others will answer that there is a powerful moral case for providing Israel with unqualified support, because it is the only country in the region that "shares our values." But neither of these arguments stands up to fair-minded scrutiny. Washington's close relationship with Jerusalem makes it harder, not easier, to defeat the terrorists who are now targeting the United States, and it simultaneously undermines America's standing with important allies around the world. Now that the Cold War is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States. Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public, or even raise the possibility.

There is also no compelling moral rationale for America's uncritical and uncompromising relationship with Israel. There is a strong moral case for Israel's existence and there are good reasons for the United States to be committed to helping Israel if its survival is in jeopardy. But given Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, moral considerations might suggest that the United States pursue a more evenhanded policy toward the two sides, and maybe even lean toward the Palestinians.

Yet we are unlikely to hear that sentiment expressed by anyone who wants to be president, or anyone who would like to occupy a position in Congress. The real reason why American politicians are so deferential is the political power of the Israel lobby. The lobby is a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively works to move U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. As we will describe in detail, it is not a single, unified movement with a central leadership, and it is certainly not a cabal or conspiracy that "controls" U.S. foreign policy. It is simply a powerful interest group, made up of both Jews and gentiles, whose acknowledged purpose is to press Israel's case within the United States and influence American foreign policy in ways that its members believe will benefit the Jewish state. The various groups that make up the lobby do not agree on every issue, although they share the desire to promote a special relationship between the United States and Israel. Like the efforts of other ethnic lobbies and interest groups, the activities of the Israel lobby's various elements are legitimate forms of democratic political participation, and they are for the most part consistent with America's long tradition of interest group activity.

Because the Israel lobby has gradually become one of the most powerful interest groups in the United States, candidates for high office pay close attention to its wishes. The individuals and groups in the United States that make up the lobby care deeply about Israel, and they do not want American politicians to criticize it, even when criticism might be warranted and might even be in Israel's own interest. Instead, these groups want U.S. leaders to treat Israel as if it were the fifty-first state. Democrats and Republicans alike fear the lobby's clout. They all know that any politician who challenges its policies stands little chance of becoming president.

The Lobby and the U.S. Middle East Policy

The lobby's political power is important not because it affects what presidential candidates say during a campaign, but because it has a significant influence on American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. America's actions in that volatile region have enormous consequences for people all around the world, especially the people who live there. Just consider how the Bush administration's misbegotten war in Iraq has affected the long suffering people of that shattered country: tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes, and a vicious sectarian war taking place with no end in sight. The war has also been a strategic disaster for the United States and has alarmed and endangered U.S. allies both inside and outside the region. One could hardly imagine a more vivid or tragic demonstration of the impact the United States can have -- for good or ill -- when it unleashes the power at its disposal.

The United States has been involved in the Middle East since the early days of the Republic, with much of the activity centered on educational programs or missionary work. For some, a biblically inspired fascination with the Holy Land and the role of Judaism in its history led to support for the idea of restoring the Jewish people to a homeland there, a view that was embraced by certain religious leaders and, in a general way, by a few U.S. politicians. But it is a mistake to see this history of modest and for the most part private engagement as the taproot of America's role in the region since World War II, and especially its extraordinary relationship with Israel today.

Between the routing of the Barbary pirates two hundred years ago and World War II, the United States played no significant security role anywhere in the region and U.S. leaders did not aspire to one. Woodrow Wilson did endorse the 1917 Balfour Declaration (which expressed Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine), but Wilson did virtually nothing to advance this goal. Indeed, the most significant U.S. involvement during this period -- a fact-finding mission dispatched to the region in 1919 by the Paris Peace Conference under the leadership of Americans Henry Churchill King and Charles Crane -- concluded that the local population opposed continued Zionist inroads and recommended against the establishment of an independent Jewish homeland. Yet as the historian Margaret Macmillan notes, "Nobody paid the slightest attention." The possibility of a U.S. mandate over portions of the Middle East was briefly considered but never pursued, and Britain and France ended up dividing the relevant portions of the Ottoman Empire between themselves.

The United States has played an important and steadily increasing role in Middle East security issues since World War II, driven initially by oil, then by anti-communism and, over time, by its growing relationship with Israel. America's first significant involvement in the security politics of the region was a nascent partnership with Saudi Arabia in the mid-1940s (intended by both parties as a check on British ambitions in the region), and its first formal alliance commitments were Turkey's inclusion in NATO in 1952 and the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact in 1954. After backing Israel's founding in 1948, U.S. leaders tried to strike a balanced position between Israel and the Arabs and carefully avoided making any formal commitment to the Jewish state for fear of jeopardizing more important strategic interests. This situation changed gradually over the ensuing decades, in response to events like the Six-Day War, Soviet arms sales to various Arab states, and the growing influence of pro-Israel groups in the United States. Given this dramatic transformation in America's role in the region, it makes little sense to try to explain current U.S. policy -- and especially the lavish support that is now given to Israel -- by referring to the religious beliefs of a bygone era or the radically different forms of past American engagement. There was nothing inevitable or predetermined about the current special relationship between the United States and Israel.

Since the Six-Day War of 1967, a salient feature -- and arguably the central focus -- of America's Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. For the past four decades, in fact, the United States has provided Israel with a level of material and diplomatic support that dwarfs what it provides to other countries. That aid is largely unconditional: no matter what Israel does, the level of support remains for the most part unchanged. In particular, the United States consistently favors Israel over the Palestinians and rarely puts pressure on the Jewish state to stop building settlements and roads in the West Bank. Although Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush openly favored the creation of a viable Palestinian state, neither was willing to use American leverage to make that outcome a reality.

The United States has also undertaken policies in the broader Middle East that reflected Israel's preferences. Since the early 1990s, for example, American policy toward Iran has been heavily influenced by the wishes of successive Israeli governments. Tehran has made several attempts in recent years to improve relations with Washington and settle outstanding differences, but Israel and its American supporters have been able to stymie any détente between Iran and the United States, and to keep the two countries far apart. Another example is the Bush administration's behavior during Israel's war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Almost every country in the world harshly criticized Israel's bombing campaign -- a campaign that killed more than one thousand Lebanese, most of them civilians -- but the United States did not. Instead, it helped Israel prosecute the war, with prominent members of both political parties openly defending Israel's behavior. This unequivocal support for Israel undermined the pro-American government in Beirut, strengthened Hezbollah, and drove Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah closer together, results that were hardly good for either Washington or Jerusalem.

Many policies pursued on Israel's behalf now jeopardize U.S. national security. The combination of unstinting U.S. support for Israel and Israel's prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory has fueled anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and Islamic world, thereby increasing the threat from international terrorism and making it harder for Washington to deal with other problems, such as shutting down Iran's nuclear program. Because the United States is now so unpopular within the broader region, Arab leaders who might otherwise share U.S. goals are reluctant to help us openly, a predicament that cripples U.S. efforts to deal with a host of regional challenges. This situation, which has no equal in American history, is due primarily to the activities of the Israel lobby. While other special interest groups -- including ethnic lobbies representing Cuban Americans, Irish Americans, Armenian Americans, and Indian Americans -- have managed to skew U.S. foreign policy in directions that they favored, no ethnic lobby has diverted that policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest. The Israel lobby has successfully convinced many Americans that American and Israeli interests are essentially identical. In fact, they are not. Although this book focuses primarily on the lobby's influence on U.S. foreign policy and its negative effect on American interests, the lobby's impact has been unintentionally harmful to Israel as well. Take Israel's settlements, which even a writer as sympathetic to Israel as Leon Wieseltier recently called a "moral and strategic blunder of historic proportions."

Israel's situation would be better today if the United States had long ago used its financial and diplomatic leverage to convince Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and instead helped Israel create a viable Palestinian state on those lands. Washington did not do so, however, largely because it would have been politically costly for any president to attempt it. As noted above, Israel would have been much better off if the United States had told it that its military strategy for fighting the 2006 Lebanon war was doomed to fail, rather than reflexively endorsing and facilitating it. By making it difficult to impossible for the U.S. government to criticize Israel's conduct and press it to change some of its counterproductive policies, the lobby may even be jeopardizing the long-term prospects of the Jewish state.

The Lobby's Modus Operandi

It is difficult to talk about the lobby's influence on American foreign policy, at least in the mainstream media in the United States, without being accused of anti-Semitism or labeled a self-hating Jew. It is just as difficult to criticize Israeli policies or question U.S. support for Israel in polite company. America's generous and unconditional support for Israel is rarely questioned, because groups in the lobby use their power to make sure that public discourse echoes its strategic and moral arguments for the special relationship. The response to former President Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid perfectly illustrates this phenomenon.

Carter's book is a personal plea for renewed American engagement in the peace process, based largely on his considerable experience with these issues over the past three decades. Reasonable people may challenge his evidence or disagree with his conclusions, but his ultimate goal is peace between these two peoples, and Carter unambiguously defends Israel's right to live in peace and security. Yet because he suggests that Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories resemble South Africa's apartheid regime and said publicly that pro-Israel groups make it hard for U.S. leaders to pressure Israel to make peace, a number of these same groups launched a vicious smear campaign against him. Not only was Carter publicly accused of being an anti-Semite and a "Jew-hater," some critics even charged him with being sympathetic to Nazis. Since the lobby seeks to keep the present relationship intact, and because in fact its strategic and moral arguments are so weak, it has little choice but to try to stifle or marginalize serious discussion.

Yet despite the lobby's efforts, a considerable number of Americans -- almost 40 percent -- recognize that U.S. support for Israel is one of the main causes of anti-Americanism around the world. Among elites, the number is substantially higher. Furthermore, a surprising number of Americans understand that the lobby has a significant, not always positive influence on U.S. foreign policy. In a national poll taken in October 2006, 39 percent of the respondents said that they believe that the "work of the Israeli lobby on Congress and the Bush administration has been a key factor for going to war in Iraq and now confronting Iran." In a 2006 survey of international relations scholars in the United States, 66 percent of the respondents said that they agreed with the statement "the Israel lobby has too much influence over U.S. foreign policy." While the American people are generally sympathetic to Israel, many of them are critical of particular Israeli policies and would be willing to withhold American aid if Israel's actions are seen to be contrary to U.S. interests.

Of course, the American public would be even more aware of the lobby's influence and more tough-minded with regard to Israel and its special relationship with the United States if there were a more open discussion of these matters. Still, one might wonder why, given the public's views about the lobby and Israel, politicians and policy makers are so unwilling to criticize Israel and to make aid to Israel conditional on whether its actions benefit the United States. The American people are certainly not demanding that their politicians support Israel down the line. In essence, there is a distinct gulf between how the broader public thinks about Israel and its relationship with the United States and how governing elites in Washington conduct American policy.

The main reason for this gap is the lobby's formidable reputation inside the Beltway. Not only does it exert significant influence over the policy process in Democratic and Republican administrations alike, but it is even more powerful on Capitol Hill. The journalist Michael Massing reports that a congressional staffer sympathetic to Israel told him, "We can count on well over half the House -- 250 to 300 members -- to do reflexively whatever AIPAC wants." Similarly, Steven Rosen, the former AIPAC official who has been indicted for allegedly passing classified government documents to Israel, illustrated AIPAC's power for the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a napkin in front of him and saying, "In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin." These are not idle boasts. As will become clear, when issues relating to Israel come to the fore, Congress almost always votes to endorse the lobby's positions, and usually in overwhelming numbers.

Why Is it so Hard to Talk About the Israel Lobby?


Because the United States is a pluralist democracy where freedom of speech and association are guaranteed, it was inevitable that interest groups would come to dominate the political process. For a nation of immigrants, it was equally inevitable that some of these interest groups would form along ethnic lines and that they would try to influence U.S. foreign policy in various ways. Cuban Americans have lobbied to maintain the embargo on Castro's regime, Armenian Americans have pushed Washington to acknowledge the 1915 genocide and, more recently, to limit U.S. relations with Azerbaijan, and Indian Americans have rallied to support the recent security treaty and nuclear cooperation agreements. Such activities have been a central feature of American political life since the founding of the country, and pointing them out is rarely controversial.

Yet it is clearly more difficult for Americans to talk openly about the Israel lobby. Part of the reason is the lobby itself, which is both eager to advertise its clout and quick to challenge anyone who suggests that its influence is too great or might be detrimental to U.S. interests. There are, however, other reasons why it is harder to have a candid discussion about the impact of the Israel lobby.

To begin with, questioning the practices and ramifications of the Israel lobby may appear to some to be tantamount to questioning the legitimacy of Israel itself. Because some states still refuse to recognize Israel and some critics of Israel and the lobby do question its legitimacy, many of its supporters may see even well-intentioned criticism as an implicit challenge to Israel's existence. Given the strong feelings that many people have for Israel, and especially its important role as a safe haven for Jewish refugees from the Holocaust and as a central focus of contemporary Jewish identity, there is bound to be a hostile and defensive reaction when people think its legitimacy or its existence is under attack.

But in fact, an examination of Israel's policies and the efforts of its American supporters does not imply an anti-Israel bias, just as an examination of the political activities of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) does not imply bias against older citizens. We are not challenging Israel's right to exist or questioning the legitimacy of the Jewish state. There are those who maintain that Israel should never have been created, or who want to see Israel transformed from a Jewish state into a bi-national democracy. We do not. On the contrary, we believe the history of the Jewish people and the norm of national self-determination provide ample justification for a Jewish state. We think the United States should stand willing to come to Israel's assistance if its survival were in jeopardy. And though our primary focus is on the Israel lobby's negative impact on U.S. foreign policy, we are also convinced that its influence has become harmful to Israel as well. In our view, both effects are regrettable.

In addition, the claim that an interest group whose ranks are mostly Jewish has a powerful, not to mention negative, influence on U.S. foreign policy is sure to make some Americans deeply uncomfortable -- and possibly fearful and angry -- because it sounds like a charge lifted from the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that well-known anti-Semitic forgery that purported to reveal an all-powerful Jewish cabal exercising secret control over the world.

Any discussion of Jewish political power takes place in the shadow of two thousand years of history, especially the centuries of very real anti-Semitism in Europe. Christians massacred thousands of Jews during the Crusades, expelled them en masse from Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and other places between 1290 and 1497, and confined them to ghettos in other parts of Europe. Jews were violently oppressed during the Spanish Inquisition, murderous pogroms took place in Eastern Europe and Russia on numerous occasions, and other forms of anti-Semitic bigotry were wide spread until recently. This shameful record culminated in the Nazi Holocaust, which killed nearly six million Jews. Jews were also oppressed in parts of the Arab world, though much less severely.

Given this long history of persecution, American Jews are understandably sensitive to any argument that sounds like someone is blaming them for policies gone awry. This sensitivity is compounded by the memory of bizarre conspiracy theories of the sort laid out in the Protocols. Dire warnings of secretive "Jewish influence" remain a staple of neo-Nazis and other extremists, such as the hate-mongering former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, which reinforces Jewish concerns even more.

A key element of such anti-Semitic accusations is the claim that Jews exercise illegitimate influence by "controlling" banks, the media, and other key institutions. Thus, if someone says that press coverage in the United States tends to favor Israel over its opponents, this may sound to some like the old canard that "Jews control the media." Similarly, if someone points out that American Jews have a rich tradition of giving money to both philanthropic and political causes, it sounds like they are suggesting that "Jewish money" is buying political influence in an underhanded or conspiratorial way. Of course, anyone who gives money to a political campaign does so in order to advance some political cause, and virtually all interest groups hope to mold public opinion and are interested in getting favorable media coverage.

Evaluating the role of any interest group's campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, and other political activities ought to be a fairly uncontroversial exercise, but given past anti-Semitism, one can understand why it is easier to talk about these matters when discussing the impact of the pharmaceutical lobby, labor unions, arms manufacturers, Indian-American groups, etc., rather than the Israel lobby. Making this discussion of pro-Israel groups and individuals in the United States even more difficult is the age-old charge of "dual loyalty." According to this old canard, Jews in the diaspora were perpetual aliens who could never assimilate and be good patriots, because they were more loyal to each other than to the country in which they lived. The fear today is that Jews who support Israel will be seen as disloyal Americans. As Hyman Bookbinder, the former Washington representative of the American Jewish Committee, once commented, "Jews react viscerally to the suggestion that there is something unpatriotic" about their support for Israel.

Let us be clear: we categorically reject all of these anti-Semitic claims. In our view, it is perfectly legitimate for any American to have a significant attachment to a foreign country. Indeed, Americans are permitted to hold dual citizenship and to serve in foreign armies, unless, of course, the other country is at war with the United States. As noted above, there are numerous examples of ethnic groups in America working hard to persuade the U.S. government, as well as their fellow citizens, to support the foreign country for which they feel a powerful bond. Foreign governments are usually aware of the activities of sympathetic ethnically based interest groups, and they have naturally sought to use them to influence the U.S. government and advance their own foreign policy goals. Jewish Americans are no different from their fellow citizens in this regard.

The Israel lobby is not a cabal or conspiracy or anything of the sort. It is engaged in good old-fashioned interest group politics, which is as American as apple pie. Pro-Israel groups in the United States are engaged in the same enterprise as other interest groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the AARP, or professional associations like the American Petroleum Institute, all of which also work hard to influence congressional legislation and presidential priorities, and which, for the most part, operate in the open.

With a few exceptions, to be discussed in subsequent chapters, the lobby's actions are thoroughly American and legitimate.

We do not believe the lobby is all-powerful, or that it controls important institutions in the United States. As we will discuss in several subsequent chapters, there are a number of cases where the lobby did not get its way. Nevertheless, there is an abundance of evidence that the lobby wields impressive influence. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the most important pro-Israel groups, used to brag about its own power on its website, not only by listing its impressive achievements but also by displaying quotations from prominent politicians that attested to its ability to influence events in ways that benefit Israel. For example, its website used to include a statement from former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt telling an AIPAC gathering, "Without your constant support ... and all your fighting on a daily basis to strengthen [the U.S.-Israeli relationship], it would not be." Even the out spoken Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who is often quick to brand Israel's critics as anti-Semites, wrote in a memoir that "my generation of Jews...became part of what is perhaps the most effective lobbying and fundraising effort in the history of democracy. We did a truly great job, as far as we allowed ourselves, and were allowed, to go."

J. J. Goldberg, the editor of the Jewish weekly newspaper the Forward and the author of Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment, nicely captures the difficulty of talking about the lobby: "It seems as though we're forced to choose between Jews holding vast and pernicious control or Jewish influence being nonexistent." In fact, he notes, "somewhere in the middle is a reality that none wants to discuss, which is that there is an entity called the Jewish community made up of a group of organizations and public figures that's part of the political rough-and-tumble. There's nothing wrong with playing the game like everybody else." We agree completely. But we think it is fair and indeed necessary to examine the consequences that this "rough-and-tumble" interest group politics can have on America and the world.



© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/64708/

Che lives By Pepe Escobar

It was forty years ago on October 8 when he was executed by a Bolivian Army subjected to CIA orders - sprinkled with Bolivian Rangers trained by US instructors imported from Laos. Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna might have been an austere, serious nemesis of the Western capitalist order. Or he might have been just a solitary idealist, a celestial wanderer. At 39, captured, wounded, exhausted, shackled, suffering with asthma, like a lion in a cage - the dingy room at a little adobe school in the tiny pueblo of La Higuera - he rose from a rickety chair to stand tall and face death.

His trembling executioner, soldier Mario Teran, later recalled his last words: "Be serene," said Che, "and be on target. You are about to kill a man." Teran saw "a big Che, enormous. His eyes were gleaming …When he stared at me, I felt dizzy ..." At one in the afternoon, his hands shaking, Teran would unleash two bursts of machine-gun fire into Che's chest (to make it look like he was shot in combat), just to plunge into an endless nightmare himself.

Then there was the striking smiling corpse, eyes wide open, brought as a war trophy by the Bolivian soldiers to the hospital laundry in colonial-era Vallegrande. Some compared it to Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson; it was rather the Lamentation over the Dead Christ in Renaissance master Mantegna's 1490 AD masterpiece. The laundry today is a holy chapel - its walls covered by thousands of pilgrim's inscriptions. The school at La Higuera is a museum where peasants sell pieces of earth impregnated with the blood of Che.

As much as Spartacus throughout history became the icon of all global wars fought by slaves against their masters, Che in only four decades is the undisputed global icon of all wars fought by rebellious peoples who believe in hope against injustice and who believe another, less cruel world is possible.

He's not only "Che-sus" - more popular than Jesus in a way John Lennon himself wouldn't dream of. He is revered by Bengalis in Kolkatta, Palestinians in Gaza, Egyptian lawyers, Uzbek dissidents, Afghan exiles, Kiwi backpackers, Russian soccer players, Syrian computer wizards, the Pumas (the Argentine rugby team), Cuban chess masters, Brazilian motorcycle gangs, Iraqi sharpshooters. In His name, everything is permitted. Last week Che's daughters were invited by an Iranian university just for them to learn he was being hailed as an anti-communist religious leader. In Bolivia - where in 1967 he hoped to be spearheading guerrilla columns towards Peru and Argentina - he's no less than Saint Che, or San Ernesto de La Higuera, and his story, via crucis, is transmitted by sacred oral tradition from peasant to peasant.

A recently declassified secret note of Paraguayan intelligence tells how Che, disguised as "Oscar Ferreira", was crossing from Brazil to Paraguay in 1966. This proves how all US-supported dictatorships in the southern cone were in close synch at the time, all bowing to the dictates of US counterinsurgency. The problem is that at that very moment Che was fighting in the Congo.

Top of the pops
Che, single red-starred beret pulled casually over gorgeous long black hair, eyes flaming with purpose and staring into infinity, is the most iconic, recycled and ripped off image of the 20th - and so far, 21st - centuries. Alberto "Korda" Diaz, Fidel's official photographer, has described Che in the legendary March 4, 1960 shot he defines as "Guerrillero Heroico" (Heroic Fighter), as "encabronado y dolente" (angry and sad).

But way beyond this angry and sad "die young, stay pretty" rock aesthetic, transcending all ideology, transcending all the perverse embraces of hyper-capitalism, Che came to personify the very essence of rebellion and resistance, anti-imperialist struggle with a romantic aura. From soccer god Maradona, with a tattooed Che on his shoulder, to Osama bin Laden, who could not resist posing for the Islamic masses as Sheikh Guevara. Serious students of Che's life came to view him not only as a symbol of all things revolutionary, but of an almost Zen-like compassion and sacrifice for a worthy cause. He became much more of a cultural than a political hero. That explains his killer seduction of global youth's collective unconscious.

As a representation of dreams and aspirations, he could not but belong to a pantheon of Virgins and saints. As the ultimate crossover saint, pop sainthood had to translate into pop art. Thus the prized Che-signed Cuban banknotes at Buenos Aires flea markets, the Che cigarettes in Peru, the Che bikinis in Brazil, the Che clocks in Kerala, Che on Thai trucks, Che wallets and lighters in China, and on the T-shirts worn by radical Hong Kong legislator Leung "Long Hair" Kwok-hung, Che alongside Sheikh Nasrallah in Lebanon, Che alongside Imam Hussein all over the Middle East.

On the road with Che
Doctor, serial reader, serial smoker, a lover of chess, rugby and motorcycles, amateur economist, one-time Minister of Industries and Minister of Finance in revolutionary Cuba, Fidel Castro's favorite commander, the greatest Latin American since Bolivar, Che was above all a humanist. It's all there in his many writings - stressing the crucial importance of every cultural process linked to economic transformation, an analysis which orthodox Marxism never addressed.

In a post-modern South American echo of Ken Kesey's Magic Bus, which in the early 1960s was driving "further", introducing the US to acid tests, a yellow La Preferida (The Prefered) bus set out from Buenos Aires on a 36-hour journey towards Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and then the holy sites of Vallegrande and La Higuera, carrying everything from young Argentine militants to Uruguayan union leaders, not to mention the coca leaf-chewing Bolivian drivers, everyone listening to Bolivian rock group Atayo. How's that for South American integration?

They are all now mingling with rock musicians, Nobel Prize winners, Cubans who fought with Che in the National Liberation Army of Bolivia, hordes of students, peasants, European tourists, 1960s dreamers and assorted armchair revolutionaries at the apex of five-day World Che Festival, drenched with music, movies, performance art, ritual pilgrimages and even a soccer Che cup.

They are all at the heart of the government-sanctioned, 280km-long Che Guevara trail in south-central Bolivia - the South American answer to the Ho Chi Minh trail in Vietnam. One wonders how Che - who plied these then dusty routes in the 1950s - would contemplate South American integration via revolutionary tourism, complete with bed and breakfast and trekking guides.

The Cuban ambassador to Bolivia, Rafael Dausa Cespedes, swears "this land is blessed by the blood of Che". And by his lessons as well, one might add. There are 2,180 doctors and 119 teachers from Cuba currently working in Bolivia - by request of President Evo Morales. The ambassador stresses Cuba does not want oil or mineral concessions from Bolivia - unlike other world powers. Even Argentines are crossing the border to have their eye operations performed by skilled Cuban doctors - for whom poetic justice is sweet to the ears: before becoming a revolutionary wanderer, Che was a doctor himself.

Former soldier Mario Teran, the man who killed Che, lives in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, anonymous and dirt poor. He used to be blind because he was unable to finance a cataract operation. Cuban doctors have operated on 600,000 people in 28 countries, free of charge. Including 110,000 Bolivians and Teran. The full story of how he was cured by doctors sent by Fidel Castro was revealed to a Bolivian newspaper over a year ago by Teran's son.

From Patagonia to Rio Bravo
Che's daughter, Aleida Guevara, sees Latin America today as being at a "special moment" in history, recalling how her father emphasized the necessity of social movements to gather force, and everyone to realize "we are a big Latin-American family", a "big motherland from the Rio Bravo to Patagonia".

On December 9, 1964 Che pronounced in a prophetic speech at the United Nations in New York about the liberation of Latin America. It was his last public appearance before setting off for the Congo. Recently, an Aymara (member of an Indian people living in the mountainous regions around Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and Perualso) did New York. It was Bolivian President Evo Morales, during the UN General Assembly. He played soccer, he talked to union workers about Abraham Lincoln, dazzled Jon Stewart and the audience of The Daily Show with his sincerity, integrity and very gentle charisma.

Just as ghastly racist Bolivian white elites call him "indio de mierda" (shitty Indian), the Bush administration denies visas to mestizo (mixed Spanish/Indian) members of Evo's cabinet. Che would immediately see what Evo provokes in white Bolivians, exiled white Cubans, prejudiced Americans, or Peruvian first-class writer and mediocre politician Mario Vargas Llosa: fear.

Evo is doing now what Che wanted to do 40 years ago - and it goes way beyond a Marxist revolution. No wonder a portrait of Che hangs in Evo's presidential office in La Paz. Evo is a truly indigenous son of the land. His massive support base is not only Bolivian, but reaches across Latin America. He is forcing the white elites still with a conquistador mentality to confront their pitiful record in terms of exploiting, humiliating and plundering the riches of South America's indigenous populations. And the white, exploitative elites are of course terrified of facing a slow but inevitable redistribution of wealth.

Evo even set up a kind of decolonization government body to help people deal with the effects of Western hyper-capitalism. If there is any "ism" in this revolution, it is humanism. And the inspiration had to come from Che.

Che would immediately smile, smoking a pipe, at how Evo and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela are demonized to kingdom come for nationalizing oil and gas and using the extra cash for much-needed investment in health and education and to accelerate the dreaded redistribution of wealth. Who profits? Instead of Corporate America or Corporate Europe, it's the "indios de mierda" derided by racists - the poor indigenous and mestizos in Venezuela and Bolivia.

And Ecuador is right on track as well. Che lives in Ecuador - where the party of US-trained economist and President Rafael Correa recently grabbed the majority seats of the Constituent Assembly that will write a new constitution stressing national sovereignty and national assets in Ecuadorian, not foreign corporate hands. Just as Bolivia had been reduced by former US-puppet, comprador governments to the status of poorest country in South America, Ecuador also lags; although it's the fifth largest oil exporter in Latin America, its illiteracy rate is 65% and its external debt towards the IMF is proportionally one of the highest.

Correa will not strike any FTA with Washington, will not be attached to the US-designed Plan Colombia, and will definitely renegotiate the national debt. What Che wanted 40 years ago is what most South American countries are striving for now: improved, increasing regional integration, not US-imposed FTAs. Seven South American countries are now joining the new Bank of the South, with its HQ in Caracas. Bye bye IMF and its poverty-inducing "structural adjustments".

So what Che symbolizes now, mostly in Latin America but also in the troubled Middle East, is the pure essence of all 1960s dreams of radical change. And it's even more irresistible when sprinkled with a sense of style. The man was a lover of poetry. A new book launched in Argentina, El Cuaderno Verde del Che (Che's Green Book) is an anthology of 69 poems by, among others, Pablo Neruda, Nicolas Guillen and Cesar Vallejo, copied by Che in the Bolivian jungle. The book was found by three Bolivian officers and a CIA agent in Che's backpack, a few hours before he was killed.

When you have brains, balls, good looks, true compassion and style your only way is up - towards a worldwide moral and political high ground. For all the young at heart in the world, Che lives - forever, and so does the example he set. The fight for social justice is an eternal flame. Hasta la victoria, siempre.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Che lives

THE ROVING EYE
Che lives
By Pepe Escobar

It was forty years ago on October 8 when he was executed by a Bolivian Army subjected to CIA orders - sprinkled with Bolivian Rangers trained by US instructors imported from Laos. Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna might have been an austere, serious nemesis of the Western capitalist order. Or he might have been just a solitary idealist, a celestial wanderer. At 39, captured, wounded, exhausted, shackled, suffering with asthma, like a lion in a cage - the dingy room at a little adobe school in the tiny pueblo of La Higuera - he rose from a rickety chair to stand tall and face death.

His trembling executioner, soldier Mario Teran, later recalled his last words: "Be serene," said Che, "and be on target. You are about to kill a man." Teran saw "a big Che, enormous. His eyes were gleaming …When he stared at me, I felt dizzy ..." At one in the afternoon, his hands shaking, Teran would unleash two bursts of machine-gun fire into Che's chest (to make it look like he was shot in combat), just to plunge into an endless nightmare himself.

Then there was the striking smiling corpse, eyes wide open, brought as a war trophy by the Bolivian soldiers to the hospital laundry in colonial-era Vallegrande. Some compared it to Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson; it was rather the Lamentation over the Dead Christ in Renaissance master Mantegna's 1490 AD masterpiece. The laundry today is a holy chapel - its walls covered by thousands of pilgrim's inscriptions. The school at La Higuera is a museum where peasants sell pieces of earth impregnated with the blood of Che.

As much as Spartacus throughout history became the icon of all global wars fought by slaves against their masters, Che in only four decades is the undisputed global icon of all wars fought by rebellious peoples who believe in hope against injustice and who believe another, less cruel world is possible.

He's not only "Che-sus" - more popular than Jesus in a way John Lennon himself wouldn't dream of. He is revered by Bengalis in Kolkatta, Palestinians in Gaza, Egyptian lawyers, Uzbek dissidents, Afghan exiles, Kiwi backpackers, Russian soccer players, Syrian computer wizards, the Pumas (the Argentine rugby team), Cuban chess masters, Brazilian motorcycle gangs, Iraqi sharpshooters. In His name, everything is permitted. Last week Che's daughters were invited by an Iranian university just for them to learn he was being hailed as an anti-communist religious leader. In Bolivia - where in 1967 he hoped to be spearheading guerrilla columns towards Peru and Argentina - he's no less than Saint Che, or San Ernesto de La Higuera, and his story, via crucis, is transmitted by sacred oral tradition from peasant to peasant.

A recently declassified secret note of Paraguayan intelligence tells how Che, disguised as "Oscar Ferreira", was crossing from Brazil to Paraguay in 1966. This proves how all US-supported dictatorships in the southern cone were in close synch at the time, all bowing to the dictates of US counterinsurgency. The problem is that at that very moment Che was fighting in the Congo.

Top of the pops
Che, single red-starred beret pulled casually over gorgeous long black hair, eyes flaming with purpose and staring into infinity, is the most iconic, recycled and ripped off image of the 20th - and so far, 21st - centuries. Alberto "Korda" Diaz, Fidel's official photographer, has described Che in the legendary March 4, 1960 shot he defines as "Guerrillero Heroico" (Heroic Fighter), as "encabronado y dolente" (angry and sad).

But way beyond this angry and sad "die young, stay pretty" rock aesthetic, transcending all ideology, transcending all the perverse embraces of hyper-capitalism, Che came to personify the very essence of rebellion and resistance, anti-imperialist struggle with a romantic aura. From soccer god Maradona, with a tattooed Che on his shoulder, to Osama bin Laden, who could not resist posing for the Islamic masses as Sheikh Guevara. Serious students of Che's life came to view him not only as a symbol of all things revolutionary, but of an almost Zen-like compassion and sacrifice for a worthy cause. He became much more of a cultural than a political hero. That explains his killer seduction of global youth's collective unconscious.

As a representation of dreams and aspirations, he could not but belong to a pantheon of Virgins and saints. As the ultimate crossover saint, pop sainthood had to translate into pop art. Thus the prized Che-signed Cuban banknotes at Buenos Aires flea markets, the Che cigarettes in Peru, the Che bikinis in Brazil, the Che clocks in Kerala, Che on Thai trucks, Che wallets and lighters in China, and on the T-shirts worn by radical Hong Kong legislator Leung "Long Hair" Kwok-hung, Che alongside Sheikh Nasrallah in Lebanon, Che alongside Imam Hussein all over the Middle East.

On the road with Che
Doctor, serial reader, serial smoker, a lover of chess, rugby and motorcycles, amateur economist, one-time Minister of Industries and Minister of Finance in revolutionary Cuba, Fidel Castro's favorite commander, the greatest Latin American since Bolivar, Che was above all a humanist. It's all there in his many writings - stressing the crucial importance of every cultural process linked to economic transformation, an analysis which orthodox Marxism never addressed.

In a post-modern South American echo of Ken Kesey's Magic Bus, which in the early 1960s was driving "further", introducing the US to acid tests, a yellow La Preferida (The Prefered) bus set out from Buenos Aires on a 36-hour journey towards Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and then the holy sites of Vallegrande and La Higuera, carrying everything from young Argentine militants to Uruguayan union leaders, not to mention the coca leaf-chewing Bolivian drivers, everyone listening to Bolivian rock group Atayo. How's that for South American integration?

They are all now mingling with rock musicians, Nobel Prize winners, Cubans who fought with Che in the National Liberation Army of Bolivia, hordes of students, peasants, European tourists, 1960s dreamers and assorted armchair revolutionaries at the apex of five-day World Che Festival, drenched with music, movies, performance art, ritual pilgrimages and even a soccer Che cup.

They are all at the heart of the government-sanctioned, 280km-long Che Guevara trail in south-central Bolivia - the South American answer to the Ho Chi Minh trail in Vietnam. One wonders how Che - who plied these then dusty routes in the 1950s - would contemplate South American integration via revolutionary tourism, complete with bed and breakfast and trekking guides.

The Cuban ambassador to Bolivia, Rafael Dausa Cespedes, swears "this land is blessed by the blood of Che". And by his lessons as well, one might add. There are 2,180 doctors and 119 teachers from Cuba currently working in Bolivia - by request of President Evo Morales. The ambassador stresses Cuba does not want oil or mineral concessions from Bolivia - unlike other world powers. Even Argentines are crossing the border to have their eye operations performed by skilled Cuban doctors - for whom poetic justice is sweet to the ears: before becoming a revolutionary wanderer, Che was a doctor himself.

Former soldier Mario Teran, the man who killed Che, lives in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, anonymous and dirt poor. He used to be blind because he was unable to finance a cataract operation. Cuban doctors have operated on 600,000 people in 28 countries, free of charge. Including 110,000 Bolivians and Teran. The full story of how he was cured by doctors sent by Fidel Castro was revealed to a Bolivian newspaper over a year ago by Teran's son.

From Patagonia to Rio Bravo
Che's daughter, Aleida Guevara, sees Latin America today as being at a "special moment" in history, recalling how her father emphasized the necessity of social movements to gather force, and everyone to realize "we are a big Latin-American family", a "big motherland from the Rio Bravo to Patagonia".

On December 9, 1964 Che pronounced in a prophetic speech at the United Nations in New York about the liberation of Latin America. It was his last public appearance before setting off for the Congo. Recently, an Aymara (member of an Indian people living in the mountainous regions around Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and Perualso) did New York. It was Bolivian President Evo Morales, during the UN General Assembly. He played soccer, he talked to union workers about Abraham Lincoln, dazzled Jon Stewart and the audience of The Daily Show with his sincerity, integrity and very gentle charisma.

Just as ghastly racist Bolivian white elites call him "indio de mierda" (shitty Indian), the Bush administration denies visas to mestizo (mixed Spanish/Indian) members of Evo's cabinet. Che would immediately see what Evo provokes in white Bolivians, exiled white Cubans, prejudiced Americans, or Peruvian first-class writer and mediocre politician Mario Vargas Llosa: fear.

Evo is doing now what Che wanted to do 40 years ago - and it goes way beyond a Marxist revolution. No wonder a portrait of Che hangs in Evo's presidential office in La Paz. Evo is a truly indigenous son of the land. His massive support base is not only Bolivian, but reaches across Latin America. He is forcing the white elites still with a conquistador mentality to confront their pitiful record in terms of exploiting, humiliating and plundering the riches of South America's indigenous populations. And the white, exploitative elites are of course terrified of facing a slow but inevitable redistribution of wealth.

Evo even set up a kind of decolonization government body to help people deal with the effects of Western hyper-capitalism. If there is any "ism" in this revolution, it is humanism. And the inspiration had to come from Che.

Che would immediately smile, smoking a pipe, at how Evo and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela are demonized to kingdom come for nationalizing oil and gas and using the extra cash for much-needed investment in health and education and to accelerate the dreaded redistribution of wealth. Who profits? Instead of Corporate America or Corporate Europe, it's the "indios de mierda" derided by racists - the poor indigenous and mestizos in Venezuela and Bolivia.

And Ecuador is right on track as well. Che lives in Ecuador - where the party of US-trained economist and President Rafael Correa recently grabbed the majority seats of the Constituent Assembly that will write a new constitution stressing national sovereignty and national assets in Ecuadorian, not foreign corporate hands. Just as Bolivia had been reduced by former US-puppet, comprador governments to the status of poorest country in South America, Ecuador also lags; although it's the fifth largest oil exporter in Latin America, its illiteracy rate is 65% and its external debt towards the IMF is proportionally one of the highest.

Correa will not strike any FTA with Washington, will not be attached to the US-designed Plan Colombia, and will definitely renegotiate the national debt. What Che wanted 40 years ago is what most South American countries are striving for now: improved, increasing regional integration, not US-imposed FTAs. Seven South American countries are now joining the new Bank of the South, with its HQ in Caracas. Bye bye IMF and its poverty-inducing "structural adjustments".

So what Che symbolizes now, mostly in Latin America but also in the troubled Middle East, is the pure essence of all 1960s dreams of radical change. And it's even more irresistible when sprinkled with a sense of style. The man was a lover of poetry. A new book launched in Argentina, El Cuaderno Verde del Che (Che's Green Book) is an anthology of 69 poems by, among others, Pablo Neruda, Nicolas Guillen and Cesar Vallejo, copied by Che in the Bolivian jungle. The book was found by three Bolivian officers and a CIA agent in Che's backpack, a few hours before he was killed.

When you have brains, balls, good looks, true compassion and style your only way is up - towards a worldwide moral and political high ground. For all the young at heart in the world, Che lives - forever, and so does the example he set. The fight for social justice is an eternal flame. Hasta la victoria, siempre.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Evo Morales giving an interview to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now.

Yes! There IS a Goddess!

I was so bummed when I couldn't download the video podcast of Evo Morales giving an interview to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now. The latest version of iTunes I have seems to do nothing but eat it, and I don't know how to go back to the old one (which worked fine in playback, but was S-L-O-W on the downloading). I was forced to view it with RealPlayer instead, and RealPlayer is as buggy as a termite mound on the African savanna. Not to mention that you can't save the videos from it. Then, by coincidence, I found THIS tonight:

Evo's excellent interview has been YouTubed!

Granted, there are still some inconveniences; the interview has had to be cut into five segments due to YouTube limitations. (Oddly enough, I've seen some YouTubes that were over an hour long, most of them on RadioAporrea's channel. How they managed that feat, I don't know.)

But at least, now, this happy fan can get her Evo-fix. And so can you. (Or at the very least, you can finally find out what all the fuss is about.)

PART 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v44yCj7CNbg



PART 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejx94RISH6o



PART 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzkoukhqz2s



PART 4:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh22laLZHDI



PART 5:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkFNMFsQThg








I think you'll agree that Amy and Juan have scored another coup--much as they did when they became the first US journalists to interview Chavecito on their home turf.

Now, let's see if they can get Rafael Correa and make it a triple-scoop!