In which Bina snorts derisively and rolls her eyes

In which Bina snorts derisively and rolls her eyes

Oh, boo hoo. Once again, the Inter-American Press OWNERS'* Association has its collective diapers in a bunch:

The Inter American Press Assn. (IAPA) wound up its mid-year meeting in Paraguay on Monday declaring that freedom of the press in the Americas deteriorated over the last six months because of several adverse factors, including "the murders of journalists and violence against them, campaigns to discredit the press and a climate of hostility by some governments toward news media and reporters and as a consequence of the U.S. newspaper industry crisis."

The statement on the group's website reports that populist governments in the region followed the lead of "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez [and] stepped up their campaigns of abuse and ridicule of news organizations and individual reporters."

My translation follows:

Waaaaaa! We don't get to be palangristas** with impunity anymore! We're being held accountable by a skeptical public***! And they're voting with their feet and not buying our crap anymore! Help, help, we're being oppressed!

There. Much better.

In case you're wondering what they're screaming about, it seems that the people of Venezuela and Bolivia****, to name just two, are no longer fooled by the palangristas among them. Sure, a Bolivian government spokesperson has spoken out against the IAPOA's bullshit, but there's no governmental censorship happening there. Or, for that matter, in Venezuela. What there is, is a loss of influence for opinions fabricated by the endogenous right and the usual suspects in Washington.

To make things even more entertaining, two Venezuelan commercial networks are now at each other's throats because one has been deemed somewhat more objective than the other. That is, Venevisión = Chicken Noodle Network, Globovisión = FUX Snooze. Of course, Venezuelan FUX Snooze accuses Venezuelan Chicken Noodle Network of "not defending principles". ("Not defending principles" = practicing a reasonable facsimile of journalism rather than fomenting coups d'état.)

As for the woes of the US papers, those could have been seen from a long way off, if only someone had opened a window and hung their head out for a good look around. When they gobble ad revenues for the owners' profit rather than getting their income from newsstand sales and subscriptions and spending it on quality reporting, well...my heart bleeds less than you'd think it should. It's the crapitalist media model, and since it's built on selling shit and fabricating bogus opinions rather than fully and accurately informing the public, it deserves to be in financial trouble.

Especially if there are palangristas in the mix. Those are invariably Bhad Nhews.

*I stuck that in there, because it belongs there and was left out by some strange oversight. (Yes, I'm being kind. "Some strange oversight" = some disingenuous asshole, most likely.)

**Palangrista = media whore paid by either commercial interests or the CIA (or both!) to put out crapaganda, not report objectively and/or honestly.

***It's amazing how often they conflate free-but-unfavorable public opinion with oppression by (democratically elected) governments, but they gotta use that old, tired "ZOMG it's a commie!!!11eleven!!!" meme somewhere.

****Incidentally, Venezuela and Bolivia are two countries in which no journalists, however fascistic or obnoxious, have been killed of late. A few leftist ones have been roughed up by rightards, but no one has died. For that, you'll have to go to Mexico or Colombia. And if you do, you'll find a disproportionate number of lefty journos on the lists. It begs the question of why the owners of their respective media outlets haven't done more to protect them in such a hostile climate, but the IAPOA doesn't believe in discussing that. They'd much prefer to deflect your attention to imaginary oppression in Venezuela and Bolivia. Guess why.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)|

Preguntas al torno del viaje privado de la pareja Sarkozy a México

“El hotel le pertenece Roberto Hernandez Ramirez, un banquero millonario acusado por unos círculos de ser conectado con los carteles mexicanos de la droga”

Por Le Monde.fr avec AFP
Le Monde

16 de marzo 2009

El inicio de la visita de Nicolas Sarkozy a México fue opacado por el caso Cassez, una francesa condenada a sesenta años de prisión sobre todo por secuestro . Pero dos días después del regreso a Francia del jefe del Estado,, su estancia privada en el oeste del país antes del inicio de la visita oficial, empezó a desatar una polémica. La pareja Sarkozy llego a México el Viernes 6 de marzo con el propósito de pasar unos días en un lujoso complejo hotelero en Tamarindo, en la costa del Pacifico. Dos días y medio de vacaciones, de visitas y cenas “a invitación del presidente Calderón”, aseguraron voceros del Palacio Elysée, donde vive el Presidente frances.

Una información puesta en duda por la estación de radio RTL que asegura citando de manera anónima a un diplomado mexicano,que de ninguna manera la presidencia mexicana financió una estancia “fuera de una residencia de Estado”. Como benefactor de la pareja presidencial, la radio mencionó el nombre de Roberto Hernandez Ramirez, un banquero millonario acusado por unos círculos de ser conectado con los carteles mexicanos de la droga. El hotel le pertenece, afirma la radio, como una de las propiedades en Yucatan donde la pareja residió durante su estancia.

Sin noticias

El sitio RUE89 menciona un articulo del periodista americano Al Giordano quien hace mención también de una investigación por un periódico local mexicano acusando a Hernandez de su participación activa en el trafico de cocaína en México en los anos 1980 y 1990; Giordano cuyo sitio Narco News trata de manera exhaustiva el asunto de la droga en América latina y en los Estados unidos, fue varias veces demandado por Roberto Hernandez Ramirez a raíz de estas acusaciones,sin que jamas lo condenaron.

Desde entonces tanto en el Elíseo como en las altas esferas mexicanas, prevalece el silencio.. Interrogado durante el fin de semana por Mediapart (enlace con subscripción) el responsable de la comunicacion del Eliseo, Franck Louvrier, aseguraba que era “el presidente mexicano quien invitó”. En la presidencia mexicana se contesta, según RTL, que “nadie” esta autorizado a aludir a la cuestión”. Durante sus viajes privados, el jefe de Estado ya ha sido invitado por empresarios: el yate Paloma y un avión Falcon 900, propiedades de Vincent Bolloré, ya han sido utilizados por los desplazamientos a Malta y a Egipto.

Para más información:

Articulos, documentos, y enlaces sobre la demanda de Roberto Hernandez Ramirez en Narco News: http://narconews.com/docs/ontrial.html

Le Monde.fr avec AFP. Publicado: 12.03.09

Fortalecer o diálogo e a unidade palestina

Car@s amigo@s e colegas: como faço todas as semanas desde 28 de março de 2002, mando abaixo o endereço onde minha coluna de hoje no portal Vermelho pode ser lida. Faço comentários e divulgo conteúdos sobre uma reunião de unidade nacional palestina, para ver se podem ser superados as divisões existentes na liderança desse povo. espero que gostem. Abraços fraternais

http://www.vermelho.org.br/base.asp?texto=52259

Prof. Lejeune Mirhan
Presidente do Sindicato dos Sociólogos do Estado de São Paulo
Sociólogo, Escritor, Arabista e Professor
Membro da Academia de Altos Estudos Ibero-Árabe de Lisboa
Membro da International Sociological Association
Colunista do Portal Vermelho sobre Oriente Médio
Colunista da Revista "Sociologia" - Editora Escala
Celulares: 11-9887-1963 e 19-8196-3145
Residência: 19-3255-6481
Trabalho: 11-3054-1817

Ego sum pauper. Nihil habeo. Cor dabo".
("Eu sou pobre. Nada tenho. Dou meu coração")

Hoje, milhões de crianças dormirão nas ruas no mundo. Nenhuma delas é cubana

Fortalecer o diálogo e a unidade palestina

por Lejeune Mirhan*

O rompimento da unidade do povo e da liderança palestina vem de 2006. O que me motiva tratar deste tema esta semana é uma reunião ocorrido na semana passada no Egito, com todos os grupos e correntes que compõem a OLP, em busca de uma unidade política de ação. Isso é fundamental para a luta palestina na atualidade.

Mahmoud Abbas e Salam Fayad, do Fatah e da ANP

Pequeno histórico das divergências recentes

Como todos sabem a OLP é o grande e mais antigo “guarda-chuva” de onde são abrigados todos os grupos, partidos, correntes e mesmo personalidades políticas de projeção nacional e internacional, que defendem o Estado Palestino em terras palestinas. Sua fundação vem de 1964. O líder Yasser Arafat assume o seu comando apenas em 1967.

Da estrutura nacional da OLP fazem parte o Partido Fatah, o maior entre os palestinos; a Frente Popular de Libertação da Palestina – FPLP; a Frente Democrática de Libertação da Palestina – FDLP (que em fevereiro comemorou 40 anos de existência) e o Partido do Povo Palestino – PPP (antigo Partido Comunista Palestino), entre outros agrupamentos menores. Os grupos político-religiosos Hamas e Jihad Islâmica não integram a estrutura da OLP.

Desde que venceu as eleições legislativas de janeiro de 2006, o Hamas acabou por isolar-se de outros partidos e forças políticas. Vence em função de dois fatores: o imenso desgaste de décadas de liderança do Fatah, combinado com o sistema eleitoral do tipo distrital (oposto ao nosso proporcional). Num primeiro momento, tentou-se um governo de unidade nacional, onde o Fatah até se dispunha a integrar. Em junho de 2007, porém, houve o rompimento definitivo, com a saída do Fatah do governo.

Que Israel sempre tentou destruir a liderança palestina isso é inegável em toda a sua história. De todas as formas possíveis, desmoralizou Arafat, desacreditou-o, enfraqueceu-o perante seu povo. Fez a mesma coisa com o Hamas. Israel não busca a paz, nem nunca buscou em sua trajetória desde 1948. No caso mais recente, diversas notícias surgiram de que um plano levado a cabo pelo general americano Kieth Dayton, em aliança com o palestino do Fatah Mohamed Dahlan, que ficou conhecido como o Plano Dayton, cujo objetivo principal era enfraquecer o Hamas e seu governo na Palestina.

Quando do conhecimento público dessas articulações, o Hamas imediatamente rompeu as alianças e expulsou os membros da ANP e do Fatah da Faixa de Gaza, sendo que vários deles foram até presos e assim se encontram até hoje. O Fatah revidou. Prendeu muitos militantes do Hamas na Cisjordânia e os mantém presos até hoje. Mas mais do que isso. Destituiu todo o governo do Hamas e seu primeiro Ministro Ismail Hanyieh e nomeou Salam Fayad, do seu grupo como novo primeiro Ministro. Uma guerra entre um povo que parece não ter fim e não serve aos ideais e aos objetivos estratégicos desse povo.

Decisões da 4ª Conferência do Diálogo Palestino

Terminado o massacre dos palestinos da Faixa de Gaza, em que pesem todas as divergências e diferenças entre os grupos e correntes palestinas, é imperioso que se restabeleça a unidade política nacional. Para isso, foi convocada, com a mediação do Egito, uma Conferência para se tentar chegar a um acordo que pacifique as coisas. Tal evento foi presidido por Hosni Mubarak, presidente do Egito.

Publico a seguir as principais decisões tomadas na referida cúpula:

Primeira: apoiar e agradecer a iniciativa do Egito por sua perseverança, patrocínio e convocação para o diálogo nacional palestino;

Segunda: a ratificação pelo diálogo significará que o povo palestino dará uma volta a um passado doloroso, que se caracterizou pela divisão, onde todos sofreram com isso e que será um marco de uma marcha reconciliatória para uma sólida unidade nacional palestina;

Terceira: fica decidido a criação de cinco comissões, a saber: a) Comissão de governo, com o objetivo de formar um governo de reconciliação nacional; b) Comissão de segurança, para garantir os aparatos de segurança com bases profissionais e não partidárias, tendo em vista a Declaração do Cairo e o Documento de Reconciliação Nacional; c) Comissão da OLP, com a finalidade de desenvolver, ativar e reconstruir suas instituições em virtude da declaração do Cairo e do Documento de Reconciliação Nacional; d) Comissão Eleitoral, com o objetivo de realizar eleições gerais presidenciais e parlamentares que ocorra em prazo fixado por lei; e) Comissão de Reconciliação, que consolide a cultura da tolerância, da democracia, dos valores de respeito mútuo e que proíba os enfrentamentos internos entre palestinos;

Quarta: criar o Comitê Supremo da Orientação.

Para todas essas comissões foram imediatamente nomeados membros, que integram as várias correntes e partidos, inclusive o Hamas e Jihad, que não integram a estrutura oficial da OLP. Os trabalhos iniciaram-se no dia 10 de março passado e tem prazo final para ser concluído no dia 31 deste mês.

Quinta: iniciar imediatamente a libertação de todos os presos políticos de todas as correntes sejam os encarcerados em Gaza ou na Cisjordânia, interrompendo todas as perseguições políticas, violações de direitos e garantia das liberdades democráticas. Acordou-se em interromper todas as campanhas midiáticas de todos os grupos que não tratem dos temas de unidade políticas e constantes do presente acordo.

Algumas conclusões

Construir a unidade seja em um sindicato, em um comitê, mesmo em um partido político frentista é tarefa que requer esforço cotidiano, constante, esforço, desprendimento. Um programa comum do tipo frentista, deve se basear em pontos que contemplem a todas as correntes que dele participem. Querer impor determinados pontos de vista de uma determinada corrente a outro agrupamento que não concorde com esse ponto é quebrar a unidade. Devemos trabalhar com os pontos que nos unifiquem.

Claro, não sou ingênuo, ao achar que as coisas serão fáceis. Não serão. Até porque, uma questão de fundo hoje é o grupo Hamas reconhecer o Estado de Israel. Vejam a carta de fundação do grupo o que diz sobre isso:

Trechos da carta de constituição do HAMAS: “Em Nome de Alá, o Misericordioso, o Clemente. Vós sois a melhor comunidade que já surgiu para a humanidade. Vós impondes a conduta correta e proibis a indecência; e vós credes em Alá. E se o Povo da Escritura tivesse acreditado, teria sido melhor para eles. Alguns deles são crentes; mas a maioria deles são praticantes do mal. Eles não irão vos prejudicar salvo uma leve ferida, e se eles lutarem contra vocês eles terão de retroceder e fugir. E depois de tudo eles não serão socorridos. Ignomínia será sua porção onde quer que eles se achem salvos [onde eles se agarrem a] uma corda de Alá e a uma corda do homem. Eles incorreram no ódio do seu Senhor, e miséria será jogada sobre eles. Isso é assim porque eles se acostumaram ao descrédito nas revelações de Alá, e atacaram os Profetas erroneamente. Isso é assim porque eles eram rebeldes e se acostumaram a transgredir.” Surata Al-Imran (III), versos 109-111. Israel irá crescer e permanecer ereto até que o Islã o elimine assim como ele tem eliminado seus predecessores”.

Artigo Oito: “Alá é seu objetivo, o Profeta seu modelo, O Corão sua Constituição, a Jihad seu caminho e a morte pela causa de Alá sua mais sublime crença.”

Pessoalmente, não creio que haja hoje clima algum no mundo para não se reconhecer a existência de Israel, ou mesmo, como já disse há algumas semanas, de criarmos um só estado na Palestina e com esse nome, de caráter laico. Por isso a solução segue sendo a de dois estados nacionais, convivendo lado-a-lado e em paz, se possível. Acho que até o Hamas tem que estar preparado e defender essa proposta. Não existe outra saída. Como dizem os camaradas das organizações palestina de resistência, queremos um Estado Palestino em terras palestinas, pelo menos do tamanho das fronteiras de 1967. É um bom começo.

Em tempo: diga-se de passagem, que, após a reunião de unidade palestina no Egito na semana passada, o premiê palestino reconhecido pela ANP, Salam Fayad, pediu sua renúncia do cargo de primeiro Ministro para facilitar a formação de um novo governo. Espera-se eleições em curto prazo, tanto presidenciais como parlamentares, com novas regras, para recompor o governo e a presidência palestina, que credenciarão os novos negociadores de paz com o novo governo israelense. Mas, ao que tudo indica, Bibi formará o governo e não veremos paz em um horizonte próximo.

---

*Lejeune Mirhan, Presidente do Sindicato dos Sociólogos do Estado de São Paulo, Escritor, Arabista e Professor Membro da Academia de Altos Estudos Ibero-Árabe de Lisboa, Membro da International Sociological

---

* Opiniões aqui expressas não refletem, necessariamente, a opinião do site.

---

Fidel y el veredicto de la historia

martes 17 de marzo de 2009

Fidel y el veredicto de la historia

Página 12
El mundo|Martes, 17 de Marzo de 2009

Opinión

Por Atilio A. Boron

http://www.atilioboron.com/

Fidel está canalizando todas sus energías hacia la estratégica “batalla de ideas”, condición necesaria para la construcción de una alternativa poscapitalista y no sólo posneoliberal, como ansían algunos antiguos izquierdistas desilusionados. En la medida en que subsista el capitalismo como modo de producción, su naturaleza explotativa, opresiva y predatoria se manifestará en todas sus expresiones históricas, desde el laissez faire de comienzos del siglo XX hasta el neoliberalismo de finales del mismo siglo, pasando por el keynesianismo y el desarrollismo. La preocupación del Comandante por releer a Gramsci y los clásicos de la teoría marxista se acompaña por un renovado interés en la obra de Darwin y el estudio del impacto de la nanotecnología sobre los procesos productivos y, por lo tanto, sobre los bienes y servicios a los que podría acceder la población. Fidel sabe que las nuevas tecnologías de comunicación e información son un poderoso instrumento de dominación ideológica pero, dialécticamente, también pueden ser un arma formidable para concientizar a la población y facilitar la diseminación del pensamiento crítico, como se hace desde los diversos cursos que ofrecemos en el PLED. Pero su inquietud no se queda allí: lee también sobre el cambio climático, la crisis económica, los procesos políticos y los temas candentes de la realidad internacional. La lista sería interminable.

Si bien su recuperación física y el moderado aumento de peso han desdibujado en algo su figura quijotesca del pasado, su intelecto y su corazón siguen siendo fieles a la noble tradición del Quijote y su pasión por enderezar entuertos es tan intensa como antes. Es ese espíritu el que lo llevó a tomar por asalto el Moncada y tiempo después, con Raúl y el Che, a iniciar la epopeya de Sierra Maestra. Tal como lo había pronosticado en su célebre alegato ante los jueces del Moncada, la historia lo absolvió, ¡y cómo! También le otorgó la razón cuando en 1985 demostró matemáticamente la imposibilidad de pagar la deuda externa, contrariando las opiniones de sedicentes “expertos” que elaboraban ingeniosos artificios para demostrar lo contrario. Cuando se derrumbó la Unión Soviética y se vino abajo el (falso) socialismo de Europa Oriental fueron muchos los que le aconsejaron que reconciliara a Cuba con las nuevas realidades de la globalización, arriando las supuestamente raídas banderas del socialismo. El guerrero se negó y contrariando la opinión y los pronósticos de propios y ajenos aguantó el temporal y proclamó a los cuatro vientos que, aunque la Unión Soviética se hundiera, el frágil navío de la Cuba revolucionaria resistiría la tormenta y llegaría a buen puerto. Una vez más, la historia le concedió la razón.

También le había sonreído en 1992, en la Cumbre de la Tierra, celebrada en Río de Janeiro, cuando denunció en los siete minutos exactos que cada participante tenía asignado la catástrofe ambiental y climática que se avecinaba. Su intervención fue fulminada como apocalíptica y meramente ideológica por muchos de los que el pensamiento convencional identificaba como “realistas” y “expertos.” ¿Quién se acuerda ahora de aquellos enanos? ¿Y qué decir de los gobernantes allí presentes –Menem, Fujimori y otros de su misma ralea– que hicieron oídos sordos ante el discurso de Fidel y que con su criminal indiferencia agravaron el problema? La historia volvió a fallar a su favor cuando, en 1998, convocó a los economistas a discutir la crisis en gestación, en momentos en que el saber oficial aseguraba que no había –y que no habría– crisis sino, a lo sumo, una transitoria desaceleración del crecimiento económico. Una década más tarde los porfiados hechos demostraban una vez más que la razón estaba con Fidel.

Este fue el hombre que me honró con su invitación a discutir algunos aspectos de mi ponencia. Le interesó sobre todo el concepto de “burguesía imperial”, concebido para caracterizar el entrelazamiento producido entre las clases dominantes de las principales metrópolis capitalistas y la forma en que unificaron su estrategia de dominación global. Sus integrantes se dan cita anualmente en Davos para coordinar su estrategia a escala mundial, pasar revista a sus efectivos, armonizar sus discursos y políticas y potenciar su influencia política e ideológica a nivel internacional, para lo cual invitan a gobernantes, “expertos” y comunicadores sociales para transmitir la buena nueva. Me pidió detalles, ejemplos, razones por las cuales utilizo ese concepto. Se quejó de su falta de tiempo: no pudo recibir a varios presidentes, y a los que atendió no pudo dedicarles el tiempo que hubiera deseado.

Hablamos un poco sobre la Argentina y me dijo que le había sorprendido gratamente la fortaleza y la convicción que demostró la presidenta Cristina Fernández y sus ganas de luchar, pero estaba preocupado por las secuelas del conflicto que el año pasado enfrentó al Gobierno con los sectores del campo. Al examinar el panorama sociopolítico latinoamericano expresó su preocupación porque el péndulo ideológico, que en la última década se había movido hacia la izquierda –si bien con diferente amplitud según los países– pudiera detener su marcha o, peor, iniciar una reversión amenazando la estabilidad o la continuidad de los gobiernos progresistas de la región. Sabe que el imperialismo está al acecho para “corregir el rumbo” de su patio trasero. Lo conoce al detalle y puede decir, como Martí, que “le conozco las entrañas y mi honda es la de David”. Con esa honda tuvo a raya al Goliat americano durante 50 años y terminó por aislarlo: en octubre del 2008 de los 192 países miembros de las Naciones Unidas 185 votaron a favor de una resolución que exigía poner fin al bloqueo contra Cuba. Sólo dos acompañaron al imperio: Israel, la megabase militar estadounidense en Medio Oriente, y Palau, una islita perdida en el Pacífico poblada por 21.000 personas y utilizada como campo de pruebas de la cohetería de la armada norteamericana. Otros dos, las islas Marshall (63.000 habitantes) y Micronesia (107.000) consideraron demasiado tamaña ignominia y se abstuvieron. Pero este mensaje de la comunidad universal es desoído por la Casa Blanca y sus mandantes: el complejo militar-industrial. Estos quieren aprovechar la crisis para volver a “disciplinar” a la región y acabar con la primavera izquierdista. La sucesión del gobierno de la Concertación en Chile parece inexorablemente destinada a reinstalar a un personaje de la derecha en la Moneda, bien sea el oficialista Eduardo Frei o el opositor Sebastián Piñera. Y las previsiones no son mucho más alentadoras para Argentina, Brasil y Uruguay. La crisis económica podría ser el disparador de esa recomposición derechista y esa amenaza no puede ser tomada a la ligera. Si esto se produjera, el aislamiento de Venezuela, Bolivia y Ecuador podría agravarse, poniendo en riesgo la viabilidad política y económica de los proyectos transformadores actualmente en curso con negativas consecuencias para Cuba. También me hizo saber de su inquietud por el acoso a que está siendo sometido el gobierno de Fernando Lugo en Paraguay, y la necesidad de que Argentina y Brasil adopten una postura solidaria y generosa en relación con las dos grandes represas de Yacyretá e Itaipú, cuya propiedad comparten con el Paraguay.

Había transcurrido una hora y cuarenta minutos de conversación y era preciso poner fin a este diálogo. Le pregunté si no sería posible que alguien nos sacara una foto porque de lo contrario no serían pocos los que me considerarían un impostor. Fidel accedió de buen grado a mi pedido quejándose burlonamente de que todos le dicen lo mismo y lo obligan a retratarse. Entonces se volvió hacia uno de sus colaboradores y dijo: “A ver. Traigan un espejo”. Se lo traen, se mira y dice: “Humm, ¡se ve bien!”, y es cierto. Estimulado por su buen humor aprovecho para felicitarlo por su recuperación y decirle que lo veo muy bien, con un aspecto tan bueno como el que lucía Ingrid Betancourt cuando se produjo su misteriosa liberación por el ejército colombiano. Una estruendosa carcajada selló la humorada. Nos preparamos para la foto y allí, transportado por el clima relajado, me atreví a decirle que con el logo de Adidas del uniforme de los atletas cubanos sus detractores ahora lo criticarían por hacerle publicidad a una transnacional. Nueva carcajada y, rápido como un rayo, y con su dedo índice repetidamente hundiéndose en mi pecho me dijo, masticando cada sílaba, “es-que-yo-soy-una-víctima-de-tu-burguesía-imperial”. Nuevas risotadas, foto, y un fuerte abrazo de despedida que permite comprobar el buen tono muscular de su físico y, con alivio, que tenemos Comandante para rato.

El triunfo del FMLN en El Salvador significa el fracaso de la política del miedo

El triunfo del FMLN en El Salvador significa el fracaso de la política del miedo

Los grupos ex guerrilleros llegan al poder

Augusto Zamora R.

Público

Hay hechos que trascienden el pequeño espacio donde se producen. Como el resultado electoral en El Salvador, bastión de una de las oligarquías más reaccionarias del continente. Bastión también de uno de los pocos ejércitos que ha rehusado entonar el más elemental mea culpa por la riada de crímenes perpetrados en una década de guerra, entre ellos los asesinatos de monseñor Romero y de los jesuitas en la Universidad Centroamericana; sin olvidar los cientos de pueblos campesinos que fueron arrasados, dentro de la brutal estrategia de tierra quemada.

La firma de la paz, en 1992, dejó a las fuerzas de izquierda entre la amargura y el desconcierto. La derecha (cúpula militar, oligarquía, empresarios), agrupada en Arena, el partido creado por DAbuisson, autor intelectual de decenas de crímenes, se convirtió en una máquina de ganar elecciones.

El trauma de la desmovilización y el desarme después de resistir con heroicidad sin límites diez años de guerra pasó factura al FMLN. Creado casi con fórceps a principio de los ochenta, bajo el impulso de la triunfante revolución sandinista, los grupos que formaron el Frente Farabundo Martí vivieron un proceso difícil de unión.

Con la paz, muchas fisuras revivieron, agravadas por rupturas, deserciones y luchas internas. Ganaban alcaldías, algunas tan importantes como la de San Salvador, pero Arena les derrotaba una y otra vez en legislativas y presidenciales.

De fondo, las terribles campañas de miedo, advirtiendo de las represalias que tomaría Washington si ganaba el FMLN, en un país con dos millones de emigrantes en EEUU. Similares eran las campañas en Guatemala y Nicaragua. El triunfo del FMLN significa el fracaso de la política del miedo, que durante decenios ha paralizado a los pueblos.

La victoria de la izquierda salvadoreña llega en un momento especial, pues halla en el Gobierno a sus dos organizaciones hermanas: FSLN, en Nicaragua, y URNG, en Guatemala. Por eso el triunfo del FMLN se celebra como propio en esos países, que ven cómo por vez primera las naciones con mayor tradición guerrillera son gobernados por coaliciones nacidas de las organizaciones que protagonizaron la lucha contra las tiranías.

Aherrojados en su debilidad, los países centroamericanos necesitan unos de otros para sacar adelante proyectos políticos progresistas. Desde la afinidad y la hermandad fraguada en la guerra y en la paz, la suma de gobiernos de izquierda hará más fácil la aplicación de estrategias que combatan la desigualdad y la violencia, dos de las mayores lacras de la región.

Ha costado sangre, dolor y una perseverancia infinita, pero con el triunfo del FMLN, Centroamérica, traspatio del patio trasero, tierra de gamonales y tiranos, bautizada despectivamente banana republic, tiene ahora la oportunidad de avanzar en dos sueños históricos: su reunificación y la construcción de sociedades menos injustas. Los pueblos han votado. Toca ahora que los gobiernos de izquierda cumplan su parte.

http://www.publico.es/internacional/210248/grupos/ex/guerrilleros/llegan

Texto relacionado:

El perfil del presidente electo de El Salvador

Funes: un rebelde con causa justa

Gorka Castillo

Michael Parenti: Economic Crisis the Inevitable Result of “Capitalism’s Self-Inflicted Apocalypse”

March 12, 2009

Michael Parenti: Economic Crisis the Inevitable Result of “Capitalism’s Self-Inflicted Apocalypse”

Michael Parenti is a longtime political analyst and author of twenty books, including Democracy for the Few and Superpatriotism. Parenti writes, “Free-market corporate capitalism is by its nature a disaster waiting to happen.” [includes rush transcript]

Real Video Stream Real Audio Stream MP3 Download More…

Guest:

Michael Parenti, political analyst and author of twenty books, including Democracy for the Few and Superpatriotism.

---

Related Links

• "Capitalism’s Self-inflicted Apocalypse" (Michael Parenti)

JUAN GONZALEZ: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has unveiled a sweeping new plan that calls on the United States and other nations to offer billions more to bail out economies in crisis around the world. The news comes days after the World Bank warned the world is falling into the first global recession since World War II. The economic crisis is projected to push around 46 million people into poverty this year. Geithner said the Obama administration will ask Congress to make $100 billion more available to the International Monetary Fund to aid struggling nations.

The debate over how to rescue the global economy is setting up a clash of ideas, as finance chiefs meet for international talks in London this weekend to work out a unified approach to the crisis.

AMY GOODMAN: Amidst the economic turmoil, Geithner appeared on the PBS Charlie Rose Show this week for an extensive interview. Near the end of the interview, Charlie Rose asked Geithner, “Will capitalism be different?”

CHARLIE ROSE: Will capitalism be different?


TIMOTHY GEITHNER: I think capitalism will be different, and the financial system will be dramatically different. It’s already dramatically different. Again, if you look at the scale of adjustment and restructuring in the financial, it’s already happened. It’s profound in scope already. So if you just look at the system today relative to what was true three years ago, in terms of the institutions that existed then, and their basic shape has changed dramatically. And there’s going to be more changes ahead. But I think it will emerge stronger. This will clean out a lot of the excesses and bad practices. And those that don’t get cleaned out just by experience and knowledge now, better regulation and oversight, better rules of the game, enforced more cleanly, we’ll fix.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

Well, our next guest argues “free-market corporate capitalism is by its nature a disaster waiting to happen.” Michael Parenti is a longtime political analyst, author of twenty books, including Democracy for the Few and Superpatriotism. His latest article on the financial crisis, “Capitalism’s Self-inflicted Apocalypse.” He joins us now in our firehouse studio. He gave a talk last night at Fordham called “Wealth, Poverty, and Empire.”

Welcome to Democracy Now!

MICHAEL PARENTI: Hello, Amy. Hello, Juan.

AMY GOODMAN: What should we understand right now, Michael Parenti?

MICHAEL PARENTI: Well, we should understand that the problem we’re facing is one which has to do with equity and fairness, that when the foundation gets consumed, the apex gets bloated, it’s going to collapse. And that’s just what’s happened. We had eight years of a president telling us that the economy was doing very well, and for his guys, it was doing very well. But in those eight years, wages remained flat or actually declined. And what we had here is so much money and nowhere to put it anymore. But that’s because there were no people below able to consume and buy the things they were supposed to buy. The assumption was that the housing market would just continue to go up and up and up, so you can do all these finaglings, but there weren’t enough people to buy these new houses. You had, in 2006, five people doing the work. By 2007, four workers were doing the work that it took five to do in 2006. That was a 20 percent increase in productivity, but there wasn’t any 20 percent or ten or five or three percent increase in income to those workers. People are just working harder and harder for less and less.

And the goal really—the goal is really to bring America to a closer resemblance to Indonesia. The goal is to avoid Denmark and get Indonesia. I mean, they say things like that. In 1978, a number of these financiers came out and said, “This country is just heading for a social democracy, and we don’t want that.” I mean, they used the term “social democracy.” They’re aware of these things. A few months ago in The New Yorker, there was an article about how Republicans had a loss for issues, and one of them said, “Well, the reason we’re at a loss is because we’ve accomplished all we wanted to. We’ve destroyed the social democracy.” And that’s their goal.

And if you listen to them now, I mean, it’s fascinating and outrageous. They’re talking about doing nothing, just putting a cap on all spending, that the market is in a stage of correction. They use terms like “correction” or “adjustment.” They don’t mind recessions. Recessions are fine. It allows them to buy up smaller companies at bargain prices. It disciplines labor. It humiliates and beats back people. And this, I think, is what we’re facing. And I’m infuriated by the Republicans in the Congress and the way they’re going at this. The only passion they show is to protect the tax cuts for the super rich. That seems to be the only interest they have.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Michael Parenti, I’d like to ask you, in terms of this—we’re almost a year now into this—into the beginning of the unraveling of this crisis, yet there’s been no attempt so far to have any kind of reforms, of regulation. We still have a situation where a huge portion of the financial system is consumed with all of these derivatives and credit defaults, while it’s not even in your normal banking procedures. How do see this, in terms of your sense of a self-inflicted apocalypse of finance capital?

MICHAEL PARENTI: Well, I argue that one of the functions of a capitalist state is to defend capitalism from itself, to defend capitalism from the capitalists. It was Marx—dare we mention him? I hear he’s coming back in style. It was Marx who said one capitalist will kill many other capitalists, that the system begins to consume itself. We see that with Bernard Madoff and the like.

And it’s not merely because of a number of wicked personalities, because these personalities are brought to the fore. Those are the people who get the rewards. Those are the people who—yes, and what we need are drastic sets of regulations, and there hasn’t been enough talk. We just got a vague reference to it here, Geithner referencing and saying, well, it’s going to be a little bit of a different camp, a little more responsible, accountable maybe. But as far as actual regulations, we haven’t seen it.

The free market does not work. It’s not free. It’s not really a market; it’s a plunder. And it has to be done away with.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the Democrats and Republicans. You said you’re infuriated by the Republican response, because they just want tax cuts for the rich. But what about the Democrats—I mean, just now we were playing for you Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary—and the approach to this crisis?

MICHAEL PARENTI: Oh, it’s insufficient. I mean, that’s what’s coming out with your questions. It’s insufficient. They’re not dealing with systemic questions. There’s all this debate about the stimulus package. Hardly a word has come out about the Federal Reserve giving away two-and-a-half trillion dollars, just giving it away unaccountably.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain that.

MICHAEL PARENTI: The Federal Reserve just went—while we had this $750 billion stimulus package, which was passed by Congress, the Federal Reserve printed up—it can print up money and create money—and handed out over $2 trillion to the financial community in America, with no accountability, no debate in Congress and very little notice.

AMY GOODMAN: So, what’s the significance of that?

MICHAEL PARENTI: Well, the significance is that we’re going to—I mean, that’s our money, that it becomes real money when it becomes debt, and we’ve got to pay it.

You see, the Republicans were never against debt; they were the biggest debt spenders there ever was. When Ronald Reagan came into office, the national debt was $800 billion. When he left office, it was $2.5 trillion. I mean, it was OK with him to spend. He also put in the biggest tax program that ever was, but it was a regressive tax. It was a Social Security tax on tens of millions of people. When George Bush, Sr. came in, the national debt went from $2.5 to $5 trillion. Clinton—I’ll give him credit for that one thing—he did try to go for solvency. But when you got to George Bush, Jr., for eight years, the debt has gone from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. And these Republicans were voting for that all along. All these spending bills were theirs. So, you see, they don’t mind debt, because debt is really a way of upward distribution. You tax the common people, and you give the money to rich creditors. It’s a very regressive way of redistributing wealth upward. So debt is fine with them.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask you, given the increasingly global connections of our banks and other multinational corporations, the issue of how you remedy a crisis in one country. For instance, I heard last night on C-SPAN the hearing that Congressman Kucinich had of the bailout. He had an oversight hearing yesterday. And he questioned the Treasury Department over the fact that the bailout money has been going to banks that, in some cases, are then using the bailout money to invest overseas, a $6 billion—

MICHAEL PARENTI: Right.

JUAN GONZALEZ: —investment in Dubai, an $8 billion investment in a company in China—

MICHAEL PARENTI: China, I was just going to say, right.

JUAN GONZALEZ: —I think by Bank of America, so that—and Kucinich was asking, what are we doing giving money to bailing out banks who say they can’t lend in the United States, but then they use the money in investments abroad? How do you reconcile the global connections of these companies with the need in one particular country to stem the financial crisis?

MICHAEL PARENTI: Well, I mean, you’ve got to stop these kinds of examples that you’re giving, that the money should be spent where it has to be, and the money should come with lots of strings attached to it. And actually, it should be the government making direct investments. The government should go directly into production. It should be the government that’s building housing. It should be the government that gives healthcare.

Healthcare is a perfect example of that, where you—health coverage is terrible. So to give everybody health coverage will put us all still fighting these private insurance companies for money and not getting it and such. And the insurance companies get nothing—give nothing, do nothing. They just are toll. They just get billions of dollars that comes through and perform nothing. If you had single payer, it would just come right from the government, like Medicare does or something like VA Hospital, and that would be it.

And so, with the banks, perhaps we should start nationalizing banks. We should start bringing a closer link between the financial system and what’s called—very revealingly called the “real economy,” where people still need to work and consume and live. And that might be a way.

What do we do internationally? I don’t know. You’ve had some good people on. You’ll have to ask them next time.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you see is the future of capitalism, Michael Parenti?

MICHAEL PARENTI: I see it as a future in which there’s going to be a lot of suffering. I see it—the goal is to have more and more Indonesias and fewer Denmarks and such.

AMY GOODMAN: And that means?

MICHAEL PARENTI: That means that even in the social democracies in Western Europe, there are going to be cutbacks, there’s going to be privatization, deregulation, greater—growth of inequities, rollbacks of human services and such, in countries that were pretty decent, countries where capitalism was reined in and held in line, to some degree, anyway.

AMY GOODMAN: And aside from the brutality of Indonesia, what it means when you say “and more Indonesias”?

MICHAEL PARENTI: Well, Indonesia, I mean it’s a free market paradise. They talk about free market. In Indonesia, there are no consumer protections, there are no regulations, there is no public medical care, there’s no public education. People just die younger.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see mass riots happening?

MICHAEL PARENTI: No. Well, one thing is that people can become so demoralized and such, and it’s a pretty repressive state, so it’s not that easy.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Parenti, we want to thank you for being with us. His latest article on the global economic meltdown, “Capitalism’s Self-Inflicted Apocalypse.”

MICHAEL PARENTI: I hope next time I’ll have better news for you, we’ll have a nicer subject to be discussing.

Jon Stewart's Epiphany, Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

Jon Stewart's Epiphany

Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

By PAM MARTENS

As testimony to how Orwellian life has become under the outrages of Wall Street hubris, last week saw a comedian, who poses as an anchor on a fake news show, grab the reins of the Wall Street investigation from the actual investigators in Congress.

Either Jon Stewart is the smartest man in America or he has incredible instincts. In a week’s time, he has zeroed in, like a heat-seeking missile, on the core of Wall Street’s malady. How insightful of Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” to rationalize that the core of Wall Street’s corruption might well be the same core that it has drawn the darkest curtain around: trading.

Stewart is the son of an educational consultant mother (Marion Leibowitz), physicist father (Donald Leibowitz) and trading technology guru brother (Larry Leibowitz) an executive at the New York Stock Exchange. He’s got a smart family and he’s equally smart, advancing the national debate on a comedy channel.

After a week of explosive commentary and video clips of questionable reporting at the cable business network, CNBC, Stewart interviewed Jim Cramer on Thursday, March 12. Cramer hosts CNBC’s “Mad Money” show which promotes itself as an advocate for the small investor while, at the same time, suggesting lots of buying and selling of specific stocks. Stewart used the highly anticipated interview to show a devastating clip revealing Cramer to be the embodiment of the market manipulators that he rails against on his show. Acknowledging on the clip that he would never say something like this on TV, Cramer states:

“You know, a lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund and I was positioned short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity beforehand that could drive the futures. It doesn’t take much money.”

Allow me to translate:

You know, a lot of times when I was making a large bet that prices would decline in a specific stock or bond or derivative when I worked in the largely unregulated world of private money called hedge funds, and I needed to give that decline a little unseen assistance to make my bets profitable, I would go into the futures market to trade. That’s because I could put down as little as 4 to 10 percent of the money I needed for the trade and borrow the balance in what is called a margin account.

The academics and economists (none of whom ever worked a day on Wall Street) have been telling us in OpEds and speeches and testimony before Congress that the crumbling Wall Street structure results from bundled subprime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and asset backed securities.

Trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds have been spent on the premise that these toxic assets are the problem. The fate of a nation has been staked on that analysis: that if we get these assets off the balance sheets of the major firms, the credit spigots will begin to flow once again, the banks will once again trust each other and lend to each other, and investors will resume buying stocks and bonds with their confidence in the system restored.

Stewart’s weeklong commentary and clips helped to dramatically expose this logic as bogus. None of the toxic instruments would have grown to a problem capable of collapsing the country’s financial system if their trading had been regulated, transparent and fairly reported on by mainstream media. The security instruments were never the problem; how they were traded was the problem. For example, the mortgage and debt securities were, in reality, junk bonds but they were tradedas triple A. They were not traded on an exchange where price discovery would have shown them to be junk bonds, they were traded in an opaque over the counter market. In the case of credit default swaps, they were traded in a market created by the very firms who needed to hide for as long as possible (while executives reaped windfall compensation and bonuses) the dubious pricing of the securities and gargantuan amounts being issued. (See CounterPunch column “How Wall Street Blew Itself Up.”)

Wall Street is supposed to have an early warning system that if something is amiss it will self correct in time to avoid a collapse of the system. That early warning system is known as price action. In other words, the trading price of Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and AIG should have begun a downward trajectory years ago as these firms loaded up on leveraged junk. There is only one possible scenario, in my opinion, to explain why this did not happen: trading in the market was rigged. Thanks to Jim Cramer, the public now knows how easy it is to get stock prices to move up or down. (As one more example, see “Wall Street Powerhouses Invested Alongside Madoff.”)

To be a fair marketplace, the trading price of stocks and bonds must represent the composite wisdom of all market participants who have the same opportunity to ferret out information from public sources. When trading is internalized at the big Wall Street firms (meaning they are allowed to match customer stock orders in-house), when they are able to create and clandestinely operate their own trading venues off the radar screens of the regulators, when they are able to create offshore vehicles like Structured Investment Vehicles to hide bets gone bad, there is no longer any composite wisdom. There is only dumbed down information which the public possesses from CNBC and the superior information available to those operating inside the clandestine system. (See Maria Bartiromo and the Co-Branding of CNBC and Citigroup.)

The big Wall Street firms that taxpayers are bailing out even gobbled up some of the largest specialist firms. Those are the folks who are required to maintain fair and orderly markets on the regulated stock exchanges. But here’s what the specialists are really doing, according to charges disclosed on March 4, 2009 by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC):

“…from 1999 through 2005, the firms violated their basic obligation as specialists to serve public customer orders over their own proprietary interests. As specialist member firms on one or more of the regional and options exchanges, the firms had a duty to match executable public customer or ‘agency’ buy and sell orders and not to fill customer orders through trades from the firm's own accounts when those customer orders could be matched with other customer orders. However, the firms violated this obligation by filling orders through proprietary trades rather than through other customer orders, thereby causing millions of dollars of customer harm.”

The $70 million in disgorgement and penalties the SEC charged 14 specialist firms (some of which are owned by Wall Street powerhouses like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup) is now effectively coming out of the taxpayers’ pocket since these are two firms enrolled in the taxpayer cash for toxic asset trash bailout bonanza. In other words, the public investor is now paying back the money that was stolen from the public investor in the continuing Wall Street saga of heads I win, tails you lose. Is it any wonder it takes a comedian to deal with this stuff.

The speed at which Congress begins daily sessions investigating trading of both toxic and non toxic securities will determine the speed at which this country begins to rebuild from the ashes.

After the 1929 crash and as the nation entered the Great Depression in the early 1930s, the Senate convened hearings by the Committee on Banking and Currency that peeled back month after month from 1932 to 1934 previously impenetrable layers of trading fraud. Each layer of fraud opened a window into the next layer. The hearings did not focus on assets, toxic or otherwise, it focused on the trading of assets: how Wall Street created dark pool operators (today’s hedge funds) to trade on inside information and manipulate prices; how some of the most respected men on Wall Street had participated in trading frauds; how some of the largest firms were secretly manipulating stock prices; how respected business columnists were taking bribes from Wall Street players to move trading prices.

I’ve often pondered just how it was that every large brokerage firm had the same idea at almost the same time in the early 1990s: to put a TV set airing CNBC in every stockbroker’s office. The managers came around and offered the broker a deal they couldn’t refuse: a deeply discounted price on the TV and the firm would install it hanging from the edge of the ceiling so it wouldn’t take up precious desk space. Out of 55 brokers in my office at the time, only myself and one other broker declined. Can you think of any other industry that wants its workers sitting around watching TV instead of working? Unless, of course, what CNBC is telling brokers to buy and sell is actually considered part of the work day by the Wall Street masters.

As you ponder that, consider this excerpt from testimony given at the Friday, June 3, 1932 Senate hearings:

William A. Gray, Counsel to the Committee: So that the committee may understand the matter which I am now going to present, permit me to say that I am going to show by Mr. Lion himself that he is a publicity man, and that for a period of three years he was acting for numerous brokerage houses in the city of New York, that he furnished through various journals, including radio speeches, publicity for certain stocks, pools which were then being operated by the brokerage houses, he being paid for such by cash and by being given calls on the particular stocks in questions, at prices that he could sell them to his advantage, the brokerage house of course giving him credit for same in an account which he carried and settling with him the same as they would settle with any other person who had actually bought and sold, he not being required to put up any cash at all. Now, Mr. Lion, please give us your full name.

Mr. Lion: David M. Lion…

Mr. Gray: What is your business?

Mr. Lion: Financial publicity.

Mr. Gray: How long have you been engaged in that business?

Mr. Lion: Five years or more.

Mr. Gray: Prior to engaging in that business and for the past five years have you at any time conducted a paper of your own?

Mr. Lion: Yes.

Mr. Gray: What was the name of that paper?

Mr. Lion: The Stock and Bond Reporter…

Mr. Gray: How long did you continue the use of the radio for the purpose of disseminating information about stocks?

Mr. Lion: I used it all of 1929…

Mr. Gray: Now, you did not do your own radio talking, did you?

Mr. Lion: No, sir.

Mr. Gray: What was the name of the man you employed to do your radio talking?

Mr. Lion: I employed William J. McMahon…

Mr. Gray: Who is he?

Mr. Lion: He was an economist…

Mr. Gray: Each of his talks was devoted to a particular stock, wasn’t it?

Mr. Lion: No.

Mr. Gray: Sometimes only one stock?

Mr. Lion: Yes, sir…

Mr. Gray: But when he ended up his talk as a usual thing he referred to a particular stock and boosted it. That is true, isn’t it?

Mr. Lion: Yes, sir.

Mr. Gray: And he was a salaried man on your staff for that purpose, wasn’t he?

Mr. Lion. Yes, sir.

Jon Stewart has opened the floodgates. Let the hearings begin.

Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years; she has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com

El Salvador has just gone left. El Salvador has elected its first FMLN president.

It's official...

Another Latin American country has just gone left. El Salvador has elected its first FMLN president.

Congratulations, Mauricio Funes.

UPDATE: Videos (in Spanish) below.

Walter Araújo, president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of El Salvador, makes his remarks on the occasion. He stresses the free, fair and transparent nature of the elections. This is especially important in light of the interference that came from the right-wing in the US, and their equally right-wing Venezuelan lackeys; of course, the English-language media (especially the Dissociated Press) chose to frame the issue as a "ZOMG, El Salvador's democracy is under threat from the guerrilla left!!!11eleven!!!" panic. Which it is not. (The Christian Science Monitor's resident Chicken Little, Sara Miller Llana, waxed especially stupid on the issue, framing it as a referendum on Chavecito--which, again, it is not.)

Meanwhile, a woman of note from neighboring Guatemala has also weighed in. Here's Nobel prizewinner and human rights activist Rigoberta Menchú, giving her dos centavos:

She sees this historic election as an opportunity to put the Cold War, its associated fears and hatreds, its terrorism and violence, behind. She expresses the hope that this will bring about peace in what has long been a violence-torn nation. She would know; the violence has affected Guatemala as well. Both countries have long been US pawns in the "Great Chessboard" strategy of the Cold War hawks, and indigenous peasants have suffered disproportionately in the violence. For this reason, her remarks carry special weight.

A portion of Funes' victory speech also appears in the latter part of the clip.

Darth Vader Cheney's Mission Accomplished

Cheney's Mission Accomplished

Dick Cheney: "I guess my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq and at the end of now, what, nearly six years, is that we've accomplished nearly everything we set out to do...."

What has Dick Cheney really accomplished in Iraq?

An estimated 4 million Iraqis, out of 27 million, have been displaced from their homes, that is, made homeless. Some 2.7 million are internally displaced inside Iraq. A couple hundred thousand are cooling their heels in Jordan. And perhaps a million are quickly running out of money and often living in squalid conditions in Syria. Cheney's war has left about 15% of Iraqis homeless inside the country or abroad. That would be like 45 million American thrown out of their homes.

It is controversial how many Iraqis died as a result of the 2003 invasion and its aftermath. But it seems to me that a million extra dead, beyond what you would have expected from a year 2000 baseline, is entirely plausible. The toll is certainly in the hundreds of thousands. Cheney did not kill them all. The Lancet study suggested that the US was directly responsible for a third of all violent deaths since 2003. That would be as much as 300,000 that we killed. The rest, we only set in train their deaths by our invasion.

Baghdad has been turned from a mixed city, about half of its population Shiite and the other half Sunni in 2003, into a Shiite city where the Sunni population may be as little as ten to fifteen percent. From a Sunni point of view, Cheney's war has resulted in a Shiite (and Iranian) take-over of the Iraqi capital, long a symbol of pan-Arabism and anti-imperialism.

In the Iraqi elections, Shiite fundamentalist parties closely allied with Iran came to power. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the leading party in parliament, was formed by Iraqi expatriates at the behest of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1982 in Tehran. The Islamic Mission (Da'wa) Party is the oldest ideological Shiite party working for an Islamic state. It helped form Hizbullah in Beirut in the early 1980s. It has supplied both prime ministers elected since 2005. Fundamentalist Shiites shaped the constitution, which forbids the civil legislature to pass legislation that contravenes Islamic law. Dissidents have accused the new Iraqi government of being an Iranian puppet.

Arab-Kurdish violence is spiking in the north, endangering the Obama withdrawal plan and, indeed, the whole of Iraq, not to mention Syria, Turkey and Iran.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women have been widowed by the war and its effects, leaving most without a means of support. Iraqi widows often lack access to clean water and electricity. Aljazeera English has video.

$32 billion were wasted on Iraq reconstruction, and most of it cannot even be traced. I repeat, Cheney gave away $32 bn. to anonymous cronies in such a way that we can't even be sure who stole it, exactly. And you are angry at AIG about $400 mn. in bonuses! We are talking about $32 billion given out in brown paper bags.

Political power is being fragmented in Iraq with big spikes in the murder rate in some provinces that may reflect faction-fighting and vendettas in which the Iraqi military is loathe to get involved.

The Iraqi economy is devastated, and the new government's bureaucracy and infighting have made it difficult to attract investors.

The Bush-Cheney invasion helped further destabilize the Eastern Mediterranean, setting in play Kurdish nationalism and terrifying Turkey.

Cheney avoids mentioning all the human suffering he has caused, on a cosmic scale, and focuses on procedural matters like elections (which he confuses with democracy-- given 2000 in this country, you can understand why). Or he lies, as when he says that Iran's influence in Iraq has been blocked. Another lie is that there was that the US was fighting "al-Qaeda" in Iraq as opposed to just Iraqis. He and Bush even claim that they made Iraqi womens' lives better.

The real question is whether anyone will have the gumption to put Cheney on trial for treason and crimes against humanity.

How the world pimps America

Pepe Escobar: And how the US is shifting the crisis into the rest of the world

The US Treasury will borrow no less than one trillion dollars from the developing world in 2009. It will need even more in 2010. Pepe Escobar argues the US is indeed in a privileged position: not only it unleashes a global financial crisis, it then sucks up money from all over the world, based on the fact that the US in fact remains the "manager" of choice of global capitalism. As if this was not hardship enough for the developing world, it now also has to cope with the resurgence of the discredited World Bank and IMF. A certain Tim Geithner has been through this before - during the Asian financial crisis in 1997/1998 - and then he got it all wrong.

Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) against Venezuela

March 15th 2009, by Eva Golinger - Axis of Logic

A secret document of the US Army National Ground Intelligence Center, recently declassified in part, through the application of the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), confirms that the Pentagon's most powerful team for psychological operations is employing its forces against Venezuela.¹ The document, dating from the year 2006, analyses the border situation between Colombia and Venezuela. It was drafted by the US Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) (4th PSYOP Group (A) or 4th POG) and the US Army National Ground Intelligence Center, a fact that thus reaffirms that the same psychological warfare team operates in the region against Venezuela.

The small part of the text of the secret document which was left uncensored explains how the Plan Patriot (previously known as Plan Colombia) has successfully pushed the activities of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ((FARC), Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) into Venezuelan territory. It is explicitly being emphasized in the secret document that

"...the offensive operations of Plan Patriot and its counterparts of the Colombian military have had an important impact on the activities of the Eastern Bloc [of the FARC]...due to the success achieved against some fronts of the Eastern Bloc in Colombia, several fronts of the Eastern Bloc are conducting more combat and regenerated their activities at the Colombian-Venezuelan border. The Mini-Blocs in the Llanos and the eastern zone... have assumed distinct strategic roles in response to the Plan Patriot 2B..."

The arrival of the US Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) in Colombia in the year 2006 and the strategy of pushing the FARC and the Colombian civil conflict into Venezuelan territory cannot be taken as a coincidence; for it is exactly the moment when the US State Department and the Pentagon also started to publicly accuse Venezuela of collaborating with terrorism, specifically by referring to alleged dealings with the FARC. In the first semester of 2006 Washington added Venezuela to a list of "countries that do not fully collaborate in the struggle against terrorism", and then imposed sanctions against the South American country that resulted in the prohibition of the sales of arms from the United States and from any international company that uses US technology. The 2006 report of the US State Department said,

"The Secretary of State certified Venezuela as "not fully cooperating" with U.S. antiterrorism efforts... It remained unclear to what extent the Government of Venezuela provided material support to Colombian terrorists, if it did, and on which level..." (Report of the US State Department of 2006, available at www.state.gov)²

A few months later, in July 2006, the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, held a hearing titled "Venezuela: Terrorism Hub of South America?", in which they declared that

"Venezuela, under President Hugo Chavez, has tolerated terrorists on its soil and has forged close relationships with officially designated state sponsors of terrorism: Cuba, Iran and North Korea. Colombian terrorist groups use Venezuelan territory for safe haven...".³

At the same time, the international press started to promote a matrix of opinion, associating Venezuela with terrorism. Articles and editorials published by the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal, El País of Spain, El Tiempo of Bogota, and the Miami Herald, amongst others, repeated time and again [affirmations about] the alleged link between the Venezuelan government and the FARC in Colombia, although they never provided any conclusive proof. All the evidences were based on "anonymous" sources, "high-level officials in Washington", and "analysts", without giving any concrete names, data or facts.

THE PROPAGANDA WARRIORS

The US Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) is the only active psychological operations unit.⁴ It comprises 1.300 officials and constitutes 26% of all US Army psychological operation units, the remaining 74% consist of reservists. By the year 2011, it is foreseen that the unit would eventually grow to approximately 2.300 troops who are experts in psychological operations. The official mission of the 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) is to deploy anywhere in the world on short notice to plan, develop and conduct psychological operations and "Civil Affairs" (in other words, subversion) in support of coalition forces and Washington's government agencies.

The personnel of the 4th Group include regional experts and linguists who have a profound understanding of the political, cultural, ethnic, and religious subtleties of the target audience. They are also experts in technical areas such as journalism, radio operations, graphic design, newspaper business, illustration, and long-range tactical communications.

In 2003, the 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) of the US Army inaugurated an installation for media operations of the Special Operations Forces (SOP) at a cost of US$ 8.1 million. Said installation is known as the Pentagon's production center for all its psychological operations and their "products", like flyers, pamphlets, posters, and segments for television and radio transmission that are all aimed at persuading and winning the minds and hearts of those who the Pentagon wants to attack. For example, more than 150 million flyers and pamphlets - all produced and printed in the installation of the Group 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) - have been disseminated throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. Colonel James Treadwell, Commander of the 4th Group, emphasized that more than 16.000 hours of messages for radio transmission were produced by his group and transmitted in Afghanistan and more than 4.000 in Iraq. The printer's in the new installation has a capacity to print more than 1 million pamphlets per day.

The psychological operations troops study techniques in "marketing" and publicity before they design their "products". They also analyze in detail their impact and results. They are complete experts in propaganda and in the best ways to exert influence on public opinion so as to promote their agenda. In 2005, said unit of "propaganda warriors" was expanded through the foundation of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element (JPOSE), with Colonel Treadwell being in command of the entire joint team. Transferred from Iraq to the headquarters of JPOSE in Tampa, Florida, Colonel Treadwell began to focus his propaganda activities towards the South. In press statements Treadwell confirmed that his new elite team for psychological operations would direct a part of the work to Bolivia and Venezuela. A little later, a contract (worth up to US$ 100 million) was awarded to the company, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to help design the "campaigns" of psychological operations together with JPOSE. Two other companies, Lincoln Group and SYColeman, also received similar contracts financed through the team's budget, a budget that surpasses US$ 8 billion per year.

From these companies, SAIC has a pretty dirty past history in Venezuela. It was the company that, together with PDVSA, the state owned petroleum industry, constructed a mixed company named INTESA that began to automate the petroleum industry in Venezuela in 1995. And INTESA was the same company that executed one of the most brutal sabotage acts against the Venezuelan industry at the end of the year 2002, with the intention to force President Hugo Chávez out of power. The company was used as a platform to attack the "brains of PDVSA" by destroying its entire data-base and automated systems and converting it again into a manually operating company. Their actions caused billions of dollars of damage to the Venezuelan economy and its international reputation as a secure petroleum provider and producer. Nevertheless, they did not reach their objective to topple President Chávez, and little later INTESA was closed and forced to cease their operations in the country. Three years later, their new contracts appeared - to carry out psychological operations against the same government they previously had tried to neutralize without success.

Since the United States' most powerful team of psychological operations is working actively against Venezuela, the fruits of their work have been seen both on an international level and also within the country on a national level.⁵ President Chávez is already classified as "dictator" in international public opinion and there are few who would doubt his alleged "dealings" with the FARC in Colombia - despite the fact that there was never a single proof offered that would confirm such "dealings".

Psychological operations are considered by the Pentagon to be their "most powerful weapon" to date. Through screens, broadcasting stations, newspapers, posters, design of clothes and objects, they transmit their purposeful and well planned message to subtly exert influence on public opinion and perceptions about topics of interest. It is the new battlefield where all of us are forced to assume a role, because nobody escapes from information and communication in today's world. It is the struggle for truth and justice against lies and manipulation. The decision to be either victim or combatant within that asymmetric war is in the hands of each of us. Don't be fooled.

Translator's notes:

1. T.n.: For groundbreaking evidence on the extent to which the Bush administration illegally aided the opposition, influenced the Venezuelan military, and directly and indirectly supported the coup of April 2002, see Eva Golinger's outstanding investigation: The Chávez Code: Cracking U.S. Intervention in Venezuela. Havana, Cuban Book Institute, 2005. Available also in Spanish, Italian, and German language.
   
   
2. T.n.: see http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/82735.htm
   
   
3. T.n.: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Proliferation. 2006. VENEZUELA: TERRORISM HUB OF SOUTH AMERICA? Document available at The Center for International Policy's National Security Program
   
   
4. T.n.: Concerning the information resumed in this and the following paragraph, and for further details please see Global Security
   
   
5. T.n.: In this context we highly recommend to our Spanish-speaking readers the excellent documentary "Enjambre" (a Guarataro Films & Venezolana de Televisión Production) that analyses the Networking doctrine, the concept of Fourth Generation Warfare and its application in Venezuela. While we continue making every effort to help provide an English version of this documentary, here's our translation of the brief summary provided originally by Rebelión in Spanish language:

[...] Introduction: The concepts "Fourth Generation Warfare" and "Networking".

Past History: Parallels between the 2002 coup d'état in Venezuela and the coup against Allende.

Networking in Venezuela: How Fourth Generation Warfare works in Venezuela. The opposition's change in strategy. By 2006-2007, the opposition focuses on the exploitation and manipulation of social and political problems. New political actors appear. Media Warfare and Psychological Operations. Assassination. Declarations of journalists about Chávez' death or assassination. TV-series about the assassination of Chávez or a [military] invasion in Venezuela. Parallels to the Chilean case. Plan shattered in Venezuela.

Military encirclement: Plan Colombia, Plan Balboa, Paramilitaries and US military bases.

Resistance: Examples of resistance struggles. Vietnam, Cuba, and Middle East. Asymmetrical warfare and the reserves or militia. Civilian-military union. April 13th. [...]

---

Original Source in Spanish: Rebelión - Operaciones psicológicas contra Venezuela: Washington y su guerra contra la revolución bolivariana; published on March 5th, 2009.

© Translation Copyright 2009 by AxisofLogic.com

This article has been translated from Spanish into English by Iris Buehler and revised by Les Blough, who are members of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. Both reside in Venezuela. This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article in its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author, the translator & reviser and Axis of Logic as the original source including a "live link" to the article. Thank you!

Read her biography and contact the author: Eva Golinger

Contact the Translator: Iris Buehler

Source:

Axis of Logic

Tags: Psyops | Venezuela-U.S. Relations