ATTACKING THE MONOPOLY OF INFORMATION FROM THE DIGITAL MEDIA By Carlos Martínez

Translated from Spanish for Axis of Logic by Manuel Talens and revised by Mary Rizzo (Tlaxcala*)
Apr 17, 2006, 13:25

Report presented at the International Forum "Globalising Social Transformation and Role of the Alternative Media" ( http://blog.jinbo.net/interforum/ ) , held in Seoul on 31 March and 1 April 2006.

Three political powers should exist according to Montesquieu's traditional distinction: legislative, executive and judicial. Contemporary States are still organised under this doctrine, which is based upon constitutional monarchy. However, nobody can deny the existence of other powers: economic and media ones. For quite some time economic power has started its assault of media power. Once both become concentrated into one, the political powers are either mere marionettes in their hands or else economic power directly assumes all powers as a natural second phase of this process. Berlusconi’s reign in Italy was the most transparent example of a merger between economic, media and political powers.

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Of how I saw God one evening in Havana: God's Cigar By Manuel Talens*

Last year, in the month of June, when I least expected it, I saw God, and this is something quite uncommon for nonbelievers like me. But I have to say that miracles are something normal in Cuba. I was in Havana invited by the ICAIC to the IV International Congress "Culture and Development". That day, after lunch, I presented my paper sitting a bit nervously between two big figures, Danny Glover and the Brazilian Roberto Amaral. Afterwards, already calmer, I felt quite happy, because in spite of my dread of having to share a platform with illustrious figures, the audience was very receptive to my words. Ah!

At mid evening I received a note in my room, stating this: "Commander Fidel Castro invites you to meet him this evening. At 19:30 we will pass to pick you up together with other companions in the hotel's lobby."

Before continuing my exposition let me confess to the reader that I do not mingle with people who hold public charges in any administration, neither in my own country nor abroad. But there are politicians and politicians, what the hell.

Some say that Caribbean people are anything but punctual, but I bear witness that at 19:30 our bus was advancing through the streets of the Cuban capital with a multinational cargo of writers, journalists, academics, political scientists, politically committed entertainers and others who walk the cultural tightrope, who were making a fuss as if they were excited children before the imminence of the meeting. The wait was brief in the anteroom of the building which is behind the Plaza de la Revolución. And, suddenly, while we were admiring both Lenin and Martí’s bronze busts that are there, God showed up. Reality is usually more prosaic than fiction, as there was neither lightning nor the noise of thunderclaps nor did he shine with the aura of light that I recall from the pictures in the Sacred History books of my childhood. He rather adopted the aspect of a normal man, bearded of course, and had two eyes, not only one that sees everything from the inside of a triangle. But he was God, I swear it. He was dressed in military fatigues and was walking as stiffly as these electricity posts that border roads. And he smiled. He shook hands with us (I touched God!) and then we went on to a great lounge, which I recognized for having seen it in Oliver Stone's movie Comandante.

The audience lasted a long time. I didn't expect less at such an occasion. God was talking, and talking, and talking. We talked too, but much less. He is an affable, smiling and kind grandfather of exquisite education, with an intelligence out of any moderation, he loves mankind and, especially, is full of solidarity. He told us about his multiple battles, although not of those that happened during David and Goliath's days, but the recent ones, which continue to obey to the same logic, because now as yesterday they are fought between a few wealthy ones and the many underdogs who have decided to resist. I already knew these stories from my readings, though they always sound better on the lips of one of their main characters. Eisenhower, Nixon, Che Guevara, Kennedy, Kruschev, Allende, Reagan, the Bushes¡ came alive through the beautiful inflexion of his words, pronounced with a brilliancy that we the poor humans would love to imitate. Later, at midnight, we had dinner. No luxuries at all, fillet of salmon, a salad and another dish that I don't remember. Ice cream for dessert, coffee and a glass of rum. And to crown it all, God gave to each of his guests a Havana cigar. It was a majestic one, almost 8 inches long, and on its band of black, yellow and golden tones was printed: "COHIBA, La Habana, Cuba". I never acquired the habit of smoking and the idea of turning it into ashes didn't cross my mind. Carlos Tena and Gennaro Carotenuto, who were close to me, also put theirs in a safe place. On the other hand, the Argentinean Atilio Borón, who was near, lighted his without hesitation, but I must say that God gives him Havana cigars with assiduity and it is well known that relics, when they abound and people are friends, lose value.

We had a group picture taken and I managed to be behind God, to his left side, because the other one gives me hives. Later, he said goodbye after inviting us for another occasion, as fresh as if he was just getting up after a good night's rest. We saw him disappear towards the end of the corridor with agile steps of a salsa dancer. One would say that neither age nor arthrosis leave any mark on him, probably out of divinity. Neither then had I perceived lightning, thunder or an aura of light around him (damned Hollywood's movies, which always cheat us with their special effects!) It was three o'clock in the morning.

Two days later I returned to Europe. Inside my hand luggage, coiled in a few pages of Granma, I kept God's cigar as a trophy. The flight is long and I came in exhausted, anxious to go to bed. But before, while at the little entrance garden, I could not resist the temptation to unroll it and proudly show it to my neighbor. Then I went to the sleep of the dead while outside it rained non-stop. After breakfast, I started unpacking my baggage in order to put everything in its place. God's cigar was not inside the newspaper's leaves. I panicked because I figured out what had happened. Indeed it was on the grass, soaked in water and not as beautiful as when I had received it.

Five months have passed and God's cigar has only recovered part of its elegance under my precious care. But I don't mind. Derek Walcott said once that when we break a jar the love that assembles its fragments is stronger than the love that took for granted its previous symmetry. I am going to preserve it as it is the rest of my life and I will only smoke it when at last I meet with God in Karl Marx's Heaven.

The Spanish language original can be read at Rebelión.(http://www.rebelion.org/ )Translated into English for Axis of Logic by the author and revised by Mary Rizzo. God's illustration by Juan Kalvellido. All of them are members of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity.

Did Gen. Myer "support" Rumseld to "secure" his niece, Julie Myers job at Homeland Security???

April 17, 2006 -- General Richard Myers, the retired Air Force General and ex-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, has countered the criticism of several other retired generals on the lack of leadership and management abilities of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. There are several reasons for Myers' support for Rumsfeld. First, the generals who are criticizing Rumsfeld are from the Army and Marine Corps, the branches that have suffered the most casualties and are bearing the brunt of the Iraq fiasco. Myers, on the other hand, is a professional pencil sharpener and paper pusher general who has seen very little combat in "tough" duty stations in Hawaii, Colorado, Alabama, and Japan as opposed to his Marine Corps and Army colleagues. However, this editor personally witnessed testy moments at Pentagon press conferences during the Iraq war between Myers and Rumsfeld, so there are obviously other reasons behind the general's support for Rumsfeld. One is that Myers, who hails from very Republican Kansas, was able to secure a high ranking job in the Bush administration for his niece, Julie Myers, who now serves as the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security/head of the Bureau of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Myers' only qualifications for the job: having uncle Richard go to bat for her and the endorsement of her her husband, John Wood, the chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Myers also has wasted no time in dipping into the coffers of the bloated budget of Bush's military-industrial complex. He serves on the board of Northrop Grumman. Also on the board of John Deere, Myers rubs shoulders with the retired chairman of Lockheed Martin. Donald Rumsfeld has taken good care of Myers in retirement and its obvious that Myers is returning the favor in spades.

The way it works in the Bush regime: Chertoff takes care of Myers' niece Julie and Dick takes care of Don Rumsfeld and Dubya.

Having Myers come to his defense does nothing to help Rumsfeld, except in the eyes of Washington's sycophantic corporate media. Now that the Pentagon neo-cons have sent out a one-page point paper or "fact sheet" to several retired generals to convince them to come to the defense of the almost universally despised Rumsfeld, we can expect other generals, including some notable names, to show their displeasure at this blatant attempt at intimidation and join the chorus of those demanding Rumsfeld's firing.

Let Iran Have the Bomb by Margaret Kimberly

On August 6, 1945 the United States killed over 100,000 men, women and children at Hiroshima, Japan with the newly invented atomic bomb. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Some victims were incinerated into thin air, others fled in agony with their skin hanging from their bodies. Thousands more died in the weeks, months and years that followed.

The justification for this horror is the usual one for blood thirsty behavior. We killed people in order to help them, a convenient explanation for the perpetrators.

In fact, large numbers of civilian casualties were not an incentive for the Japanese to surrender. The napalm fire bombing of Tokyo and other cities created similar numbers of casualties but the Japanese didn't surrender after those human catastrophes. More than likely the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan motivated the raising of the white flag. The mass murder of thousands served only as a test for a new weapon, a horrific experiment in mass murder.

The United States is still the only nation to use an atomic weapon on human beings. Keep that fact in mind when we are whipped into a frenzy of fear regarding the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon.

Every impartial observer of Iran's nuclear program agrees that it is at least five to ten years away from attaining a nuclear weapons capability. You wouldn't know it to hear members of Congress, the lapdog press and the Israeli government.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinajed already had a bulls eye on his head when he quoted the Ayatollah Khomeini's decades old call to "wipe Israel off the map." Cooler heads know that Israel, unlike Iran, already has a nuclear capability. Estimates range from 75 nuclear warheads to 300. A country without nukes can't harm a country that has at least 75.

The numbers are only estimates because Israel has never acknowledged the existence of its nuclear weapons and has never submitted to the same international inspections that it demands of Iran. Iran is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel is not. Iran, without nukes, is called a threat to Israel, which is armed to the teeth with them.

While we are being propagandized into creating another human rights and foreign relations nightmare, it is the United States that has single handedly killed nuclear non-proliferation with its recent deal to boost India's nuclear capability. India may keep China in check so India gets the nuclear goodies.

The United States gives India, already a nuclear power, greater nuclear capability, but threatens war, death, the destruction of Iran's oil supply, and a world wide financial catastrophe if Iran dares to want the same thing. The United States created the nuclear world and now sustains it through rank cynicism.

Politicians and the press constantly make the case for war by declaring that Iran is run by "crazies." As usual, a history lesson is in order. The Iranians elected a secular democratic government in the early 1950s. Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh made the mistake of getting a little too uppity and had the gall to think he could nationalize oil production in his own country. The British and American governments weren't having any of it. They overthrew Mossadegh and installed the Shah.

On July 3, 1988 the U.S. navy shot down, accidentally we are told, an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people. When Bush the elder became president he awarded the Legion of Merit for "exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of an outstanding service" to the commander who ordered the shot fired. Whose country is crazy?

The United States let the nuclear genie out of the bottle 60 years ago. The United States encourages the non-nuclear world to want to join the club. The lesson of the now three year old occupation of Iraq is simple. Get the bomb and the Americans will leave you alone.

The Iranians deny wanting to use their nuclear technology for military means. They may be lying about their intentions but it hardly matters. The reality is that Iran won't threaten Israel, or the United States either. They won't give a bomb to Hamas. They are not crazy.

Politicians who say that the military option can't be taken off the table or Iran must not be allowed to get the bomb, either believe what they say and are insane, or know there is no threat but cynically go along to get elected. Death and destruction are always political winners in America.

It would be wonderful to have a non-nuclear planet, but the nuclear have nots are being rational when they want to change sides. North Korea may be called a "crazy" nation but it is a nuclear nation and gets a little more respect. North Korea moved ahead with its nuclear plans even as its citizens were starving to death. North Korea concluded that starvation was a small price to pay in order to join the killer elite.

When you watch John McCain or a Democratic presidential hopeful foam at the mouth about the prospect of a nuclear Iran, don't fear the Iranians. Fear your own government instead. Its plans are always crazy.

Nepal & Venezuela - For Continuous Democracy, Against Ceremonial Democracy by Pratyush Chandra

Any serious and honest survey of the Maoist movement in Nepal can convey the truth that its main agenda has been to establish the essential democratic institutions that will allow a devolvement of political economic power to the masses. The Maoists can challengingly claim that in every negotiation they have indulged with the King and the parliamentary forces, they have asked for an unconditional constituent assembly, during whose election different political forces can go with their respective choice of political structure and ask for the people's mandate. And, of course, they have demanded a subservience of the national army to the democratic government. Only a democratically elected constituent assembly having representatives from the exploited and oppressed majority has the capacity to provide a democratic constitution. Otherwise a constitution is bound to be an eclectic compromise between the already empowered vested interests, as it has happened many times in Nepal, and in many other "democratic" countries. On the other hand, which modern nation can openly deny the "professionalization" of the armed forces, their ability to harm the democratic interests incapacitated and their subservience to those interests?

The Maoists have time and again emphasized their sufficiently theorized commitment to multi-party republican democracy and to political competition that it represents. They know that the fight for their maximal goal, for socialism and communism, has to be long drawn, taking into consideration "the balance in the class struggle and international situation." But as Maoist leader Prachanda simultaneously stresses, this position "is a policy, not tactics." (1) Does this stress diminish the revolutionary agenda of the Maoists? Not at all. When Mao called for putting politics in command and guns under this command, he meant the readiness of the revolutionary forces to change according to the exigencies of class struggle and revolution. What the Maoists are struggling for is the establishment of the basic political structure that will release the energy of the exploited and oppressed Nepalese masses towards an intensified class struggle, creating conditions for an unhindered process of self-organization of the working class.

In this regard, well-known Indian Marxist Randhir Singh's assessment of the place of the Nepalese movement among the post-Cold War revolutionary movements is quite apt: "Latin America is in fact emerging as a particularly important zone of class struggle against international capital. Just as, far away, on another continent, Nepal exemplifies that, odds notwithstanding, people will continue fighting for life beyond the established capitalist or feudal social orders. In this revived revolutionary process, the Chavez-led Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela apart, the Communist Party (Maoist)-led movement in Nepal -- popularly known as People's War -- is undoubtedly the most significant popular struggle for freedom and democracy in the world today." (2)

This comparison between Latin American experiences and Nepal's Maoist movement is quite meaningful. Both aim towards political exercises unprecedented in the world revolutionary movement. In Latin America (Venezuela, Argentina and others) and Nepal, we are literally witnessing what Marx hypothesized as "the whole superincumbent strata of official society [of global capitalism] being sprung into the air." (3)

In Venezuela (and Latin America, in general), the complexity of the revolutionary transformation is engendered by the lingering of the capitalist state machinery and hegemony, on the one hand, and the contradiction of bourgeois democracy, which has put revolutionary forces at its helm, on the other. In this situation, there exists a tremendous pressure within the capitalist state and society to de-radicalize the social forces behind the upheaval by accommodating their leadership. The strength of the revolutionary forces, on the other hand, will be determined by their ability to challenge the lingering hegemony and the danger of their own accommodation by facilitating the task of building and sustaining alternative radical democratic organizations ("self-government of the producers"), while subordinating the state to them. "Only insofar as the state is converted from an organ standing above society into one completely subordinate to it can the working class ‘succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew’." (4) Asambleas Barriales (neighborhood assemblies) in Argentina and the practice of co-management (a partnership between the workers of an enterprise and society) in Venezuela seek to transcend the officialized practice of statist socialism and “sectionalist” self-management by establishing an incipient 'social' control over production.

Modern capitalism relies mainly on representative democracy as the political system to reproduce the general conditions of capitalist accumulation. Therefore, "the crucial problem for the people in charge of affairs is to be able to get on with the business in hand, without undue interference from below, yet at the same time to provide sufficient opportunities for political participation to place the legitimacy of the system beyond serious question . . . Parliamentarism makes this possible: for it simultaneously enshrines the principle of popular inclusion and that of popular exclusion." It 'de-popularises' policy-making and limits the impact of class contradiction at the workplace and market place upon the conduct of affairs. (5)

Hence, the practice of "participative and protagonistic democracy in society as a whole, the idea of people communally deciding on their needs and communally deciding on their productive activity" is definitely a grave crisis for global capitalism. This practice shoos all 'metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties' that characterize market relations (presenting the capitalist reality in distorted manner), dividing the collective worker into various identities (consumers, citizens, unemployed, formal and informal sector workers) and devise competition among them. It reclaims the right of determining one's own destiny, to realize the "creative potential of every human being and the full exercise of his or her personality in a democratic society," as envisaged in the Bolivarian constitution of Venezuela. (6)

In Nepal, on the other hand, regular betrayals of the democratic movement by Monarchy and democrats have time and again scuttled the potential emergence of even the minimum semblance of popular democracy. Therefore, the movement was restricted to petty bourgeoisie, who were heavily fed by international aid and its "cut and commission" regime. Whenever the movement seemed to integrate with the struggle for the basic needs of the poor peasantry, landless and proletarians, a compromise was forged curbing the radical potential of the movement.

The success of the Maoists lies in the fact that they integrated the remotest corner of the Nepalese society with the mainstream struggle for popular democracy. They exposed the class content of the formal democratic exercises undertaken in the 1990s. They demonstrated how the formal democratic institutions that emerged in Nepal with the arrangement between the royalty, landlords and the upper crust of petty bourgeoisie along with global imperialism were designed to integrate the neo-hegemonic interests, the local agencies of commercialization, dependency and primitive accumulation.

In this regard, we must not forget that the armed struggle was the major catalyst in the achievements of the Maoist movement. Firstly, it was a veritable boost to self-confidence and self-defense of the oppressed and exploited in Nepal. Secondly, it allowed sustaining politicization and democratic practice of the downtrodden undiluted by the hegemonic coercive and consensual influences. The virtual emergence of dual power could become possible only if it had its own defense mechanism. The decade long people's war and radical land reforms undertaken in the countryside with alternative incipient democratic institutions have radicalized the Nepalese society. It halted the continuous drainage of the Nepalese natural and human resources for economic profit, leisure and security of the external hegemonic forces, buffered by the Nepalese landlords, merchants and corporates under the leadership of the royalty. Time and again all these forces combined to scuttle the democratic aspirations of the Nepalese society in the name of maintaining stability, however allowing a "controlled transformation of the economy to suit the imperialist calculus." (7) The Maoist upsurge liberated the potentialities in the Nepalese polity and economy.

The recent alliance between the Maoist and other democratic forces in Nepal can be seen, on the one hand, as winning back of the "middle forces" (using Mao's phrase) and on the other, it signifies a nationwide unity among the exploited and oppressed sections of the society. Further, it marks the willingness to challenge the formal “democracy from above” by the incipient “democracy from below,” to allow a “political competition” between them. It is in this respect we can understand the Maoist movement as part of the global struggle for freedom, democracy and socialism. We will have to wait and see, what specificities the Nepalese struggle would acquire. Or, will it be another saga of historic betrayal forged by the imperialist forces and the local ruling coalition?

Seeing the way global imperialism has been once again hyperactive with its ideologies and armies, one can only rely upon the working classes of the world to defend these movements for social transformation with their “fraternal concurrence.” They must realize their "duty to master themselves the mysteries of international politics; to watch the diplomatic acts of their respective governments; to counteract them, if necessary, by all means in their power; when unable to prevent, to combine in simultaneous denunciations, and to vindicate the simple laws or morals and justice, which ought to govern the relations of private individuals, as the rules paramount of the intercourse of nations. The fight for such a foreign policy forms part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working classes." (8)

Pratyush Chandra lives in Maryland, and can be reached at: ch.pratyush@gmail.com.

NOTES

(1) "Interview with Prachanda," The Hindu (excerpts published on February 8, 9 and 10, 2006)

(2) Randhir Singh, Foreword in Baburam Bhattarai, Monarchy Vs. Democracy: The Epic Fight in Nepal (Samkaleen Teesari Duniya, New Delhi, 2005), p.vii.

(3) Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848).

(4) Michael Lebowitz, Beyond Capital (second edition, Palgrave, 2003), p.196.

(5) Ralph Miliband, Capitalist Democracy in Britain (Oxford University Press, 1982), p.38.

(6) Michael Lebowitz, "Constructing Co-Management in Venezuela: Contradictions along the Path,” MR Zine, October 24, 2005.

(7) Baburam Bhattarai, The Nature of Underdevelopment and Regional Structure of Nepal: A Marxist Analysis (Adroit Publishers, Delhi, 2003) p.46.

(8) Karl Marx, "Inaugural Address of the International Working Men's Association," 1864.

In the heart of Pipelineistan By Pepe Escobar

TEHRAN - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki may have captured all the headlines when he announced that Iran would not use the oil weapon in the event it was slapped with sanctions by the UN Security Council. But in the world of Pipelineistan, the nuclear row waged by the US, the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany), the United Nations and Iran is just a detail.

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A Permanent Basis for Withdrawal? Can You Say "Permanent Bases"? The American Press Can't

We're in a new period in the war in Iraq -- one that brings to mind the Nixonian era of "Vietnamization": A President presiding over an increasingly unpopular war that won't end; an election bearing down; the need to placate a restive American public; and an army under so much strain that it seems to be running off the rails. So it's not surprising that the media is now reporting on administration plans for, or "speculation" about, or "signs of," or "hints" of "major draw-downs" or withdrawals of American troops. The figure regularly cited these days is less than 100,000 troops in Iraq by the end of 2006. With about 136,000 American troops there now, that figure would represent just over one-quarter of all in-country U.S. forces, which means, of course, that the term "major" certainly rests in the eye of the beholder.

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Depleted Uranium for Dummies by Irving Wesley Hall

Everything you need to know about depleted uranium. Every day our troops remain in Iraq increases the chances that they will come home sick, produce children with birth defects, and die prematurely.

Under the direction of Secretary of Defense Cheney, the 1991 Gulf War began with a "shock and awe" bombing campaign that destroyed large biological laboratories, chemical plants, and nuclear enrichment facilities, most of them around Baghdad. Many sites were illegally supplied by the Reagan-Bush administration, in which both Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld served, so the United States government knew their locations.

Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons damage the bodies of soldiers in distinct ways. The first employs deadly bacteria and viruses to cause known illnesses. The second uses poisonous, or toxic, substances to attack the body's chemistry. Nuclear weapons, such as depleted uranium (D.U.), were unimaginable before World War II. They attack the body with invisible radioactive energy that, as you will soon read, produces a wider variety of symptoms that develop over a longer period of time. Radioactive heavy metal particles embedded in the body are both radioactive and toxic.

Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons can potentially "blow back." Once they are released, they can kill and maim civilians as well as enemy soldiers. Hence all three have been banned by international treaties which the United States signed.

They also blow back on the army that uses them. The practical danger to America's own troops prevented the widespread use of WMD's until the atomic bombs in World War II and the chemical herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of American troops suffered and died because of the testing and use of these weapons.

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Deploying the Right, Penetrating the Left, How the "Discrediting Committee" Works: The Real Scandal of the Abu Ghraib Picture

One of the most bizarre media tricks over the last weeks was the little psychological warfare drama organized around the issue of torture in Abu Ghraib, The New York Times published an interview with one of the many prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib, Ali Shalal Qaissi, now living in Jordan. Qaissi is the leader of an association of the former prisoners of Abu Ghraib and he is trying to have at least a little part of the truth about the torture of prisoners in Iraq come out.

IMPORTANT READ

Breaking imperial ties: Venezuela and ALBA

In late 2005, while war raged in the Middle East and oil prices rose drastically, governments and oil companies repeated the “market forces” mantra, saying there was nothing they could do about oil prices. However, the Venezuelan government-owned US-based petrol distribution company Citgo (with eight refineries and 14,000 petrol stations across the US) decided to discount up to 10% of its US sales, so that poor families in cold-weather US states could have access to heating oil over the northern winter. Citgo sold over 40 million gallons of oil to 150,000 poor US households at a 40% discount.

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CIA & Co.'s Manual on the Promotion of Democracy

(This article was specially written for the presidents of countries which hope to be or remain independent, members and leaders of non-governmental organizations and, particularly, for the world’s citizens)

I think that the US should follow a policy of support for the free peoples that are resisting attacks by armed minority groups or foreign pressure. I think that we should assist those free peoples in deciding their own fate.
Harry Truman,
March 12, 1947

It is right to say that US government officials have developed a true art for concocting opposition movements and interfering in the election processes of foreign countries under the pretext of democracy. They are experts at disguising events in euphemisms and high-flown word; their actions and methods would shock the people of those countries were the truth clearly explained to them.

The following are some of the general principles and the variants that they usually employ to destabilize and/or overthrow —in a “democratic” manner— governments which they consider hostile.

1. Labeling a Given Country "Totalitarian" or an "Enemy of Democracy"

If you, Mr. President or Prime Minister, get news that the spokespeople for the US State Department are saying that your country is the “advance guard of tyranny” or that it represents a threat for the stability of neighboring nations and the US itself, stay alert. Although your country may be thousands of kilometers from the US, when that kind of statements is made the entire US intelligence community is already carrying out plans to undermine internal order in the target country.

The alert is justified because these kinds of statements are a warning that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) are already financing all sorts of civilian organizations opposed to any government considered “unpleasant” or “uncomfortable” for the US and its allies.

USAID itself stated in a 2003 report that “it is possible to provide aid for the reformers [NGO’s and parties akin to them] that will help identify the major winners and losers, develop the formation of coalitions and mobilization strategies, and plan public relations campaigns […]. This type of aid could represent an investment for the future, when political change grants true power to the reformers.”

The document also stated that “friendly” regimes would be rewarded with financial aid to fund development programs, while hostile countries would be the targets of reform programs that would be implemented by non-government organizations. It is worth making it clear that by saying that; USAID only put on paper the same actions it had been carrying out since President John F. Kennedy founded it in 1961.

Perhaps the money to finance those coalitions and public relations campaigns will flow through one of its many non-profit foundations, institutes, or organizations that exist around the world. NED itself has publicly admitted to being currently financing and running more than 6,000 political and social organizations worldwide.

Both USAID and NED have been behind the striking media coverage and economic power that some seemingly popular organizations have enjoyed. Such have been the cases of Solidarity Workers Union in Poland; the Chart of the 77 in Czechoslovakia in the late 1980’s; the National Opposition Union (UNO) in Nicaragua in 1990; the Varela Project in Cuba in 2000 and Otpor in Serbia that same year; Kmara (Enough!) in Georgia and Pora (It’s high time) in the Ukraine in 2003. Now there is one called Zoubr (The Trident) in Byelorussia.

The examples also go back to Operation Ayax, in 1952, when 6,000 people were recruited to take part in a march on the Royal Palace in Teheran and overthrow Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. Not to mention the extensively documented CIA assistance to the opposition organization Sumate and its predecessor the Coordinadora Democratica during the recall referendum against Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.

2. Plan A: Arranging Elections

If, during or shortly after your country’s elections, anyone in the White House or the most unknown of US ambassadors —showing a face of concern— says that “there’s not an atmosphere of transparency and freedom for opposition,” you can be sure that whole US propaganda machinery will be set into motion to support candidates that the US and its European allies like.

One of the most recent, talked-about cases in this respect was the election in Haiti. There, all kinds of measures were taken so the Rene Preval was not elected president; to such an extent that the press found thousands of ballots for him in a trash container.

In El Salvador, in 2004, when Antonio Saca was competing for the nation’s presidency, his campaign warned the citizenry that if the leftwing Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation won, Salvadorans who lived in the US would not be allowed to send remittances to their relatives.

The message was reinforced by similar statements made by Otto Reich, a former US State Department Official with strong connections with President Bush.

Three days after the election, when Saca had already been announced president-elect, the US ambassador to El Salvador, Douglas H. Barclay, stated that his government had nothing to do with the remittances. He also said that it was the responsibility of the US Congress, and not the White House, to make any decision about the migratory situation of Salvadorans.

Right now, according to Herbert Mujica Rojas, the transnational alliances of democratic-Christian rightwing parties, whose visible representation is the Inter-American Dialog Organization, are trying head over heels to strengthen the possibility that candidate Lourdes Flores will win the upcoming elections in Peru.

3. Plan B: If the Outcome Is Adverse, the Next Step Will Be to Discredit the Election by Calling It "Fraud-Ridden" or "Non-Transparent"

If the election results do not meet Washington’s expectations, then Plan B is initiated. This comes in the form statements announcing that the chosen country has not complied with international standards for democratic elections, or alluding that there has been massive fraud or extensive manipulation of the vote count.

Then, there may be other statements by the phlegmatic spokespeople in Brussels or Washington, who may say, for instance, that “the US does validate the results of the election. News agencies may probably report that “observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have called into question the legitimacy of the election.”

The strategy is completed with the fabrication of results which indicate supposedly popular support for the losing candidate. For that purpose, they may use allegedly impartial organizations, which are said to be specialized in electoral analyses.

Among those organizations are the Fair Elections Society, the National Democratic Institute, the Global Strategy Group and the International Foundation for Election Systems. The first of them is financed by the British Council, USAID, and NED.

4. Definite Solutions

With feelings running high, the next stage reminds one of the best Hollywood movies. All the creativity of communication strategists and producers is unleashed to orchestrate countless revolutions, which can be velvet, orange, rose or any other color.

Pressure can be more or less noisy depending on the concrete situation. Those who think the victims are only Third World Countries are totally wrong.

In 1975, Edgar Gough Whitlam, who had been legitimately elected Prime Minister in Australia, was dismissed from office by Governor General Sir John Ker. His removal came after strong pressures from the US government, and especially from the CIA, which even stated that it would break all its ties with Australian intelligence because Whitlam had insisted on interfering in its operations in Australia.

According to Rayr Aitchinson in his book Looking at the Liberals the CIA had provided the Liberal Party, which was the opponent of Whitlam’s Labor Party, with funds to prevent the latter party from winning the elections. Furthermore, at that time the Sydney Sun newspaper cited former CIA agent Victor Marchetti saying that the CIA continued to finance anti-government parties after the elections.

A decade before, Georges Papandreou had been removed from power by Greece’s King Constantino.

John Maury, a CIA official stationed in Athens, later admitted that he had contributed to paying off members from the Center Union Party to hasten Papandreu’s fall.

In 2004, worldwide television networks showed thousands of tents and blankets destined for demonstrators that were camping in Kiev’s Independence Square demanding the official acknowledgement of the electoral victory of candidate Viktor Yuschenko.

Fourteen years earlier, a similar incident had taken place in Sofia, Bulgaria; but on that occasion the media referred to the demonstration as “Freedom City.” It that was made up of 60 tents occupied by people who demanded the removal from office of officials labeled as Communists. Curiously, neither the demonstrators in Kiev nor the ones in Sofia lacked food or money.

There does not seem to be any limit for these types of shows. They can go as far as organizing hunger strikes, nationwide work stoppages, the takeover of government buildings, or stage provocative marches which can end up in revolts and even death.

It is worth recalling the events that took place in the spring of 1989 in Tiananmen Square in Beijing; the incidents in Racak and Timisoara in Romania that same year; the events in Havana on August 5, 1994; the anti-Chavez march on April 11, 2002 in Caracas; and the clashes in Andizan, Uzbekistan in May, 2005.

This article has only taken into account peaceful means (if the can be called such) employed by the intelligence community and western power circles.

Of course, this manual can be enlarged with the countless shades of the “peaceful” strategies used to destabilize nations by the transnational agencies of reaction according to the particular situation in each country.

In the same way that they have learned from the errors of progressive movements, the latter can prepare themselves and unmask the servants of imperialism in each country. Success is possible, history has proven it.

Pentagon Thievery: An Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair

Jeffrey St. Clair is the co-editor of CounterPunch and the author of numerous books, including most recently Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror (Common Courage Press 2006). He recently spoke about his latest book.

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America's Brutal Tactics by John Chuckman

Naturally enough, few details of what American troops do in Iraq and Afghanistan reach the nation's television screens, the main source of news for most Americans. American television takes the approach of the New York Times when it refers to professional soldiers as GIs, as though they were humble mechanics and bricklayers of America drafted into the titanic struggle against Hitler and Tojo.

But if you are genuinely interested in discovering the truth, there are plenty of sources for first-hand information. And anyone taking a little time to search through some of these comes away with a sick feeling.

From several ex-soldiers comes a vivid image of America's house-to-house methods of searching for "insurgents." A small block of C-4 plastique is fixed to the front door of a house, the door is blown in, and several armored giants rush through the shock and smoke with their automatic weapons at the ready. Women and children are held to one side at gunpoint, while any men are taken roughly for questioning. In most cases, the men have nothing worthwhile to say, but they and other members of their families are left with a terrifying experience they will never forget.

These violent procedures have been repeated thousands of times, both in Iraq and in the mountain villages of Afghanistan. Could this be part of what Condoleezza Rice meant when she said recently in Britain that despite thousands of tactical mistakes, America's basic strategy was sound? Can you imagine her saying the same thing if Washington-area police blew her door down and stormed into her home in Chevy Chase or whatever other exclusive area she lives, perhaps looking for drug dealers or murderers, suspecting her home because she is black?

Another aspect of America's crude tactics has been their way of responding to periodic mortar fire. The American forces use a high-tech radar gizmo that tracks the path of such shells supposedly to permit accurate return fire by artillery. Unfortunately the gizmo often does not work properly, and even when it does operate well, the tactics of mobile guerillas firing a shell from a truck or car and driving away leave the data of the gizmo useless. Well, not completely useless, because American artillery still responds. It's just that all they hit are innocent residences or businesses.

The trigger-happy nature of Americans at checkpoints is a well-established fact. These boys, many of them having joined up for benefits like money for college, do not want to be in these places, and they are irritated by the strange tongues and cultures and the blazing heat and sandstorms. They simply shoot first and ask questions after. I suppose this tactic might have been appropriate on the Eastern Front in World War II, but it is totally unsuited to a place you are occupying after having invaded, a place where the overwhelming majority of people with which you interact are just ordinary people going about their lives.

There have been dozens of pictures on the Internet of whole families obliterated in their cars by American soldiers. Children have been pumped full of holes. A kidnapped Italian journalist almost lost her life on her short journey back to freedom. The brave Italian secret service agent who had secured her freedom and was accompanying her to freedom was pumped full of holes. Yet this car and its contents were well known and had been identified to American forces.

It is extremely unlikely this was an error, the Italian journalist being someone hated by American occupation authorities for her critical stories. Such a number of unarmed journalists have been shot by American troops that the idea of the accidents of war is not credible. Of course, the recent revelation in Britain that Bush actually discussed bombing offices of Aljazeera adds another dimension to these events.

A number of British soldiers, Britain's pathetic Blair being America's only true ally in the phony coalition America's press never fails to name, have gone on record about American tactics. These include several senior officers, an unprecedented criticism of an ally during war. What they have said to the press is that American tactics are brutal and thoughtless, almost certain in the long run to produce more enemies than friends. Few forces in the world have more genuine experience than Britain's after decades in Northern Ireland, yet all their advice is treated with contempt by arrogant American commanders and politicians.

It seems both public and press have forgotten the words of Donald Rumsfeld not long after the U.S. “triumphed” in Afghanistan, the words being among the most shameful in American history and certainly ranking with anything a dread figure like Reinhard Heydrich uttered. On what to do with the thousands of prisoners taken in the invasion, Rumsfeld publicly stated they should be killed or walled away forever. It does appear he was taken at his word, for thousands of prisoners disappeared around the time. There are many eyewitness reports -- a documentary film was made by a Scots director -- about Afghan prisoners having been taken into the desert in trucks to suffocate in the blazing heat. American soldiers, if they didn't actively help, just stood around and let it happen.

In the early part of the invasion of Afghanistan, tens of thousands of emergency de-hydrated food packets were dropped by American planes in some of the same areas that cluster bombs were being dropped. As pictures on the Internet testify, the bomblet canisters (pressure-sensitive cans packed with something like razor wire and high explosive) and the food packages were virtually the same optical yellow color. Imagine how many hungry peasants and children were attracted to these deadly areas by the food packets, only to be torn apart?

Bad publicity all over the world did stop the Pentagon's grotesque practice, but the question of using cluster bombs near civilian populations remains. It was done both in Afghanistan and Iraq. The brave journalists of Aljazeera took dozens of pictures of what these bombs did to children in Iraq, their publication providing one of the reasons for the Pentagon's and Bush's intense hatred of the network.

The revelations about the behavior of American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison are well known, although the last round of abuse and torture pictures released did not include the worst stuff that American Senators saw in closed session a while back. It's almost as though the "tamer" stuff was released to defuse demands for more information. America's great investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has said the worst stuff included boys being raped by American soldiers.

How many senior officers or officials have paid for these horrors that absolutely had to be known to them? The answer is none. What did Lieutenant Calley and Captain Medina suffer for the mass murder and rape of women and children in Vietnam a few decades ago? Not much, and their seniors nothing at all.

Of course we know from many sources including amateur plane spotters and flight records that America runs a gigantic secret prison system. Sources in Europe say that 14,000 are held in Iraq alone. There are also secret prisons in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and at Guantanamo. All of these prisoners are held with no legal rights whatever, just as though they had disappeared into Stalin's Gulag.

In most cases the prisoners are simply people who fought Americans in their invasions of two lands. Since when do we do this to the fighters who oppose us in war? Americans themselves in the past have joined foreign wars as idealists or as mercenaries. This happened in South Africa, various African anti-colonial wars, Central America, South America, Indo-China, Spain, and other places. It's an old tradition going back to Lafayette and Pulaski in the American Revolutionary War. The men, and boys, America now holds with no rights were doing no more than what tens of thousands of Americans and others have done previously.

As I have written before, if you want the rule of law, you cannot stand outside the law and claim its moral support. What America is doing in its "war on terror" is little more than freshened-up fascism. It wants a pipeline through Afghanistan and a subservient government in Iraq, and it dresses up the brutal tactics used to achieve these goals as a war on terror.

John Chuckman lives in Canada and is former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company. Copyright © 2006 by John Chuckman

Senator Tom Hayden's New Port Huron Statement

Editor’s Note: In May of 1962, 21-year-old Tom Hayden, a founding member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), took the lead in drafting "The Port Huron Statement," the manifesto of the SDS and a handbook for a generation of student activists.
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The war on Iran By Pepe Escobar

"All options, including the military one, are on the table." - US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

"I announce, officially, that dear Iran has joined the nuclear countries of the world." - President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, saying on Tuesday that Iran had successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark step toward its quest to develop nuclear fuel.

The ominous signs are "on the table" for all to see. The Pentagon has its Long War, the rebranded "war on terror" that Vice President Dick Cheney swears will last for decades, a replay of the war between Eastasia and Oceania in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

President George W Bush issued a "wild speculation" non-denial denial that the US was planning strategic nuclear strikes against Iran, but Iran considerably upped the ante on Tuesday with President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's announcement that Iran had enriched uranium for the first time. In a nationally televised speech, Ahmadinejad urged the West to stop pressuring Tehran, saying that Iran was seeking to develop nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.

Iranian nuclear officials say the country has produced 100 tonnes of uranium gas, an essential ingredient for enrichment. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all uranium-enrichment activity by April 28. Iran has rejected the demand.

From the point of view of the Pentagon's Long War, a strategic nuclear attack on Iran can be spun to oblivion as the crucial next stage of the war on "radical Islam". From the view of a factionalized European Union, this is (very) bad business; the Europeans prefer to concentrate on the factionalized nature of the Iranian government itself and push for a nuclear deal.

Iranian government officials claim that the Germans and the Italians - big trade partners with extensive economic interests in the country - are pushing for a deal more than the French and much more than the British. As much as the EU cannot possibly agree on a unified foreign policy, Europeans in fact reject both sanctions and/or a possible US military strike.

Hitler meets Iraqification

The demonization of Ahmadinejad in some quarters in the US as the "new Adolf Hitler" is beside the point. As Asia Times Online has shown (The ultimate martyr, April 12), all crucial decisions in Iran remain with the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad has been downgraded by the leader to play a "domestic" president's role.

His vocal, nationalist defense of Iran's civilian nuclear program follows the leader's script, and is met with approval because virtually all Iranians regard the issue as a matter of national right and pride.

According to a late-January poll by the Iranian Students Polling Agency, 85.4% of Iranians are in favor of continuing with the nuclear program. More than 80% feel the country needs nuclear energy. And about 70% regard the European negotiation side as "illogical".

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, issued a fatwa in the 1980s declaring that production, possession and use of nuclear weapons was against Islam. Russia, China and India still take him at his word.

For the Iranian government, the nuclear program is a powerful symbol of independence with regard to what is perceived as Anglo-Saxon colonialism. The view is shared by Iranians of all social classes and education backgrounds. Moreover, Iran is pushing for a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement, stating that every country has the right to a peaceful nuclear program. What Iran officially wants is a nuclear-free zone in West Asia, and that includes Israel, the sixth nuclear power in the world with more than 200 nuclear warheads.

But the issue itself may be beside the point. What's really at stake is that while the occupation of Iraq might be downgraded, the "invisible" US military bases will consolidate the US presence in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region. Ahmadinejad in this scenario is the perfect Hitler; US troops - and bases - must remain on the ground to prevent Iran from going nuclear and to prevent Iran's influence in Iraq's "Shi'iteistan".

Meanwhile, Washington's avowed initiative of financing groups to provoke "regime change" from within is widely viewed in Tehran as a joke. What Iranians - both in government and in the bazaars and tea shops - take very seriously is the US lending a hand to Israel squeezing Palestine even more - a development also spun in Washington as part of the war on "radical Islam". The Quadrennial Defense Review - the Pentagon's strategic document calling for the Long War against terror - can be easily interpreted as a call for a war on Islam.

The first steps towards war

A war on Iran could involve many military scenarios. Iranian officials are aware that the US may go for an initial "shock and awe". But they play down the possibility of a street revolution toppling the nationalist theocracy, as Washington hopes; the regime controls everything, and in the event of a foreign attack, virtually the whole population would rally behind the government. They also exclude attacking Israel, because they know Israel may respond with a nuclear strike. But they do not rule out the possibility of the US dropping nuclear bombs on Iran.

Iran's current demonology instrumentalizes the UN Security Council, in the name of "peace" and nuclear non-proliferation. But Iranian officials keep complaining that the country's official nuclear proposal was never examined in full by the EU. It included a provision that Iran would continue to negotiate with the EU-3 (Germany, France and Britain) on uranium enrichment for two more years, and would resume enrichment only if negotiations failed. The next step in the Security Council may be the imposition of "intelligent sanctions" - an oxymoron. In practice, that would mean a partial trade embargo on Iran, excluding food and of course oil and gas. Oil and gas are once again the heart of the matter. A recent energy conference in Tehran (In the heart of Pipelineistan, March 17) made it clear that Iran is a crucial node of a proposed Asian energy-security grid, which includes China, Russia and India. This grid would bypass Western - especially US - control of energy supplies and fuel in a real 21st-century industrial revolution all across Asia. It's no wonder that many analysts view the war on Iran in essence as a war of the United States against Asia.

The ultimate prize

As was the case with Iraq, Iran is being sold as a threat to world peace (it may be pursuing nuclear weapons). Bush - at least vocally - hopes diplomacy will prevail. But the decision to attack may have been made already, just as it was taken regarding Iraq way before March 2003.

Iraq had signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but was accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). UN weapons inspectors were expelled on the eve of the 2003 war. Iran has also signed the NPT, but is being accused of pursuing a nuclear-weapons program. UN weapons inspectors still work in the country on and off - but for how long?

In 1995, Iraq told UN inspectors, via Saddam Hussein's brother-in-law Hussein Kamel, about a secret nuclear-weapons program, which had just been scrapped. This did not prevent the regime from being accused of concealing WMD just before the March 2003 invasion. In 2002, Iran told the UN that it had a secret nuclear program - not a weapons program. This did not prevent Iran from being accused four years later by the EU-3 of "concealment and deception".

In November 2002, the US threatened to strike Iraq unless it cooperated with UN inspectors. The US invaded Iraq anyway, without Security Council backing. In January, the EU-3 called for Iran to be referred to the Security Council. Sanctions may be applied. If no diplomatic solution is found, the Pentagon may find the opening it seeks for the next stage of its Long War.

Iran is not to be easily intimidated. Few in Tehran take the threat of oil sanctions seriously. Iranians know that even if the US decided to bomb the country's nuclear sites, they are maintained by Russian advisers and technicians; that would mean in effect a declaration of war against Russia. Russia recently closed a US$700 million deal selling 30 Tor M-1 surface-to-air missiles to Iran - very effective against aircraft, cruise missiles and guided bombs. The missiles will be deployed at the nuclear-research center at Isfahan and the Bushehr reactor, which is being built by Russia.

Iranians know Shi'ites in the south and in Baghdad would turn extreme heat on the occupation forces in Iraq. Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, on an official visit to Iran, according to his spokesman, said that "if any Islamic state, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is attacked, the Mehdi Army would fight inside and outside Iraq".

Iranians also know they can bypass any trade sanctions by trading even more with China. Anyway, Mohammed-Nabi Rudaki, deputy chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, which sits at the majlis (parliament), has already threatened that "if Europe does not act wisely with the Iranian nuclear portfolio and it is referred to the UN Security Council and economic or air travel restrictions are imposed unjustly, we have the power to halt oil supply to the last drop from the shores of the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz".

Up to 30% of the world's oil production passes through the strait. Were Iran to block it, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait would not be able to export their oil. The Pentagon may eventually get its Long War - but not exactly on its terms.

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.

"Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951” - according to Federal Document"

After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.

Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.

Bush's partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman.

The White House did not return phone calls seeking comment. READ ON

2004 Top Ten Career Recipients of Pro-Israel PAC Funds

2004 Top Ten Career Recipients
of Pro-Israel PAC Funds

The story that cries out to be told to the American people by José Pertierra

The story that cries out to be told to the American people
by José Pertierra
April 14, 2006

The Montreal Convention's Article 7 gives the US no discretion. It must either extradite or prosecute Posada Carriles for 73 counts of first degree murder in relation to the downing of the airliner. Deporting him to a third country is not an option and neither is releasing him to the community. The story of CU-455 cries out to be told to the American people. If the American people hear the true story of how those 73 people were murdered in cold blood by terrorists whom the United States prefers to shelter rather than prosecute, they'll not stand for it.


Three days ago in Miami, Luis Posada Carriles' accomplice in the downing of the Cuban passenger plane that was blown out of the sky with 73 innocent people on board on October 6, 1976 was interviewed by Juan Manuel Cao of Channel 41 in Miami. His name is Orlando Bosch.

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HUGO'S LANGUAGE by Charles Hardy - a retired American priest in Caracas

Recently President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said President George W. Bush of the United States was a donkey.

His comment immediately drew negative reactions. The U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, said that such words did not contribute to the bettering of relations between the two nations. I heard similar comments from other people.

But a longtime supporter of Chávez surprised me when he also said that he didn’t feel Chávez should be issuing such insults. Then he explained his thinking: donkeys are very nice animals and shouldn’t be deprecated by comparing them to President Bush.

Someone listening to his comment later added, “and donkeys have never started international wars.”

I have no problem adding my own voice to those who wish President Chávez would be more cautious in the words he uses. I would say the same to spokespersons for the U.S. government who have called Chávez a “hyena” and a “pied piper” and who have compared him to Hitler. Interestingly, Ambassador Brownfield didn’t mention these appellatives as hurting relations between the two countries.

Name-calling, I learned in high school, was the lowest form of argument and should always be avoided. I agree. But I have my doubts that Chávez is going to dramatically change his rhetoric; nor do I expect the current administration in the U.S. to tone down their comments.

Searching for some enlightenment on the matter, I think back to the words of Jack London in his short story, “The White Silence.” He wrote, “those of the Northland are early taught the futility of words and the inestimable value of deeds.

Traveling throughout Venezuela during the past few weeks, I am constantly awed with the changes that I see taking place. One has to be impressed as you see mass transit systems and beautiful public housing developments popping up. I was in a clinic staffed by Venezuelan medical personnel that would compare with clinics in the most “advanced” nations of the world. Anyone can go there, including U.S. citizens, free!

More important, however, than the construction projects is the enthusiasm that I sense in the rural communities and the barrios, neglected by so many governments for so many years. To most people living in these areas, the words Chávez uses merely bring a smile. (I did encounter one person from a humble background who said he personally didn’t like Chávez because of the poor example he was giving with his language and that his family would never speak that way. But even he praised Chávez for what he had accomplished for the disadvantaged.)

My mind also flashes back to a saying that I carry with me: words don’t have meaning; people have meaning. And I think of a wonderful woman I had the privilege to know in Rock Springs, Wyoming: Jackie.

Jackie would be what we called a tomboy, a word used for girls who behaved like boys. But Jackie was no girl. She was probably in her forties when I first met her and in her eighties when she died. Jackie dressed in overalls and rode a bicycle.

Jackie’s family was Mormon, but some Catholic nuns in the parish where I was assigned treated her with respect and she responded by attending the religion classes in their school each morning. Parking her bicycle by the front door, she sat with the elementary school children for an half-hour and listened to what the “sister” was saying about God. Eventually, she joined the Catholic community.

Jackie was a very holy person. If someday I arrive in heaven, I expect to see her sitting at God’s right hand. But Jackie was also known for having a strong tongue.

Early one morning, she came to the parish offices to talk with me. Rumor had it that some of the parishioners were not happy with a decision that I had made and were circulating a petition to the bishop to have me changed to another parish. Jackie said to me (and I think I remember her words exactly), “If anyone brings that petition to me, I will cram it down their goddamn fucking throat.” Strong words from a little woman who rode a bicycle and loved animals, flowers and all that was alive (with the exception of anyone carrying that petition).

I don’t know how my spirits were before she entered my office that day, but twenty-five years later her words still give me encouragement. Someone loved me.

Words don’t have meaning; people have meaning.

I never told Jackie she should change her way of speaking. If I ever meet President Chávez, I don’t plan to tell him that either. I will thank him for the inspiration and hope that he has given to millions of Venezuelans and others throughout the world. I wish I would be able to say the same to my own president in the United States.

Cuba Among U.S. Evil 7, Iran Tops List

Cuba Among U.S. Evil 7, Iran Tops List
by Circles Robinson

As Cuba remembers the 45th anniversary of the CIA directed Bay of Pigs invasion (April 17-19, 1961) the island’s media and observers of US-Cuba policy remind us that little has changed in Washington’s intentions to destroy the Revolution.

“America is at war,” begins George W. Bush in his introduction to the latest US National Security Strategy (NSS) guidelines. “We seek to shape the world, not merely be shaped by it,” he confides.

“The path we have chosen is consistent with the great tradition of American foreign policy. Our approach is idealistic about our national goals… and realistic about the means to achieve them,” states Bush.

The NSS document then goes on to set the priorities. It lists North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Belarus, Burma and Zimbabwe as candidates for future aggression, calling them tyrannies and/or sponsors of terrorism, with Iran clearly topping the list as today’s chosen land.

“We face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran,” warns the report.

This statement is probably the most significant in the 54-page document. A little over three years ago, Iraq was Washington’s public enemy No.1 and despite talk of diplomacy, Pentagon plans to attack were well advanced and the rest is history still unfolding. The fabricated justification alleging WMD was what being “realistic about the means” signifies in real terms. A year earlier, and riding on 9/11, Afghanistan was No.1.

On April 11, when the president was telling a group of international relations students at John Hopkins University that talk of an attack was still premature, Israel, the closest US ally, and the Middle East’s nuclear weapons power, said Iran should be “confronted by a broad and determined coalition.” The following day Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for “strong steps” from the UN Security Council.

The fact is that the US has been itching to launch a full-scale attack against Iran for years; what better place to try out the latest in “tactical” nukes. The only deterrent has been Iran’s defense preparation and the unknown effects of such an attack on the region and the world. When the US backed Saddam Hussein in his 1980-89 war on Iran, it wanted to help topple the Iranian Revolution; however, the resolute Iranians proved a much tougher match than expected.

CUBA CAN SHARE ITS EXPERIENCE

Preparing to defend against a superpower aggressor is not something that takes place overnight and can involve virtually an entire population. Cuba, more than any country, can share its experiences.

From the time the Cuban Revolution triumphed on January 1, 1959 no time was lost in the preparation for what would inevitably come in the form of the Bay of Pigs invasion 52 months later. Just as with Iran, the US has longed to turn the clock back on Havana to the days when the “friendly” dictator Batista and Meyer Lansky’s boys ran the Caribbean island.

Analogical to current events, it should be remembered that the US denied plotting an invasion of Cuba well into the invasion itself.

The Bay of Pigs fiasco was defeated in less than 72 hours and the Kennedy administration got cold feet about sending in more troops or bombers. Subsequently, successive US governments have enforced a fierce blockade against Cuba.

For its part, Iran believes it has the right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop a nuclear power program to diversify its energy sources. President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian authorities have repeatedly said that Iran’s nuclear program is being developed for peaceful domestic energy purposes.

However, the US maintains a policy that says only its allies should be allowed to develop such nuclear technology. The irony is that the original idea of Iran developing nuclear energy came when the United States sold it a reactor back in 1959. At that time Iran’s dictator, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah, was in power and Washington supported the idea.

Of the world’s currently operating 443 nuclear plants, 383 or 86.45 percent are in developed countries—North America (122), Europe (174), Japan (56) and Russia (31).

Since it refuses to buckle under US pressure, Iran is now close to facing sanctions when the UN Security Council meets in the coming weeks and Washington prepares its ultimatums, which could soon include military action.

“Suddenly it looks like the policy is not tough diplomacy, but the path to war,” Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington told the Los Angeles Times.

US intelligence agencies and the Pentagon routinely draft plans to undermine or attack countries that fail to respond to hardball diplomacy or outright threats.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, (R-Tenn) tried to calm fears this week of a pending attack by saying, “We believe there has been much overstatement in the American press with regard to the use of military force in Iran.”

To put the “overstatement” into perspective, in the last 50 years the US has carried out military and CIA operations in among other countries: Puerto Rico, Korea, Iran, Vietnam, Guatemala, Egypt, Lebanon, Panama, Iraq, Laos, Cuba, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Oman, Chile, Angola, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Grenada, Honduras, Bolivia, Virgin Islands, Liberia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Haiti, Zaire, Albania, Sudan, Afghanistan, Colombia, Philippines and Pakistan.

Whose next?