The following is the complete unedited text of the address to the United Nations by Hugo Chavez on September 20, 2006.
Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.
Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.' [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.
The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time, [flips through the pages, which are numerous] I will just leave it as a recommendation.
It reads easily, it is a very good book, I'm sure Madame [President] you are familiar with it. It appears in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house.
The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.
And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here. [crosses himself] And it smells of sulfur still today.
Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.
I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.
An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."
As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.
The world parent's statement -- cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.
They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.
What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.
What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?
The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I'm quoting, "Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom." Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother -- he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there's an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.
The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up. I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.
Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.
The president then -- and this he said himself, he said: "I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace."
That's true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They'll say yes.
But the government doesn't want peace. The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.
It wants peace. But what's happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What's happening? What's happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela -- new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?
He spoke to the people of Lebanon. Many of you, he said, have seen how your homes and communities were caught in the crossfire. How cynical can you get? What a capacity to lie shamefacedly. The bombs in Beirut with millimetric precision?
This is crossfire? He's thinking of a western, when people would shoot from the hip and somebody would be caught in the crossfire.
This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. That is what happened. And now we hear, “We're suffering because we see homes destroyed.”
The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples -- to the peoples of the world. He came to say -- I brought some documents with me, because this morning I was reading some statements, and I see that he talked to the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran. And he addressed all these peoples directly.
And you can wonder, just as the president of the United States addresses those peoples of the world, what would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? What would they have to say?
And I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people think. They would say, "Yankee imperialist, go home." I think that is what those people would say if they were given the microphone and if they could speak with one voice to the American imperialists.
And that is why, Madam President, my colleagues, my friends, last year we came here to this same hall as we have been doing for the past eight years, and we said something that has now been confirmed -- fully, fully confirmed.
I don't think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless. Oh, yes, it's good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches, like Abel's yesterday, or President Mullah's . Yes, it's good for that.
And there are a lot of speeches, and we've heard lots from the president of Sri Lanka, for instance, and the president of Chile.
But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world. And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, 20 September, that we re-establish the United Nations.
Last year, Madam, we made four modest proposals that we felt to be crucially important. We have to assume the responsibility our heads of state, our ambassadors, our representatives, and we have to discuss it.
The first is expansion, and Mullah talked about this yesterday right here. The Security Council, both as it has permanent and non-permanent categories, (inaudible) developing countries and LDCs must be given access as new permanent members. That's step one.
Second, effective methods to address and resolve world conflicts, transparent decisions.
Point three, the immediate suppression -- and that is something everyone's calling for -- of the anti-democratic mechanism known as the veto, the veto on decisions of the Security Council.
Let me give you a recent example. The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.
Fourthly, we have to strengthen, as we've always said, the role and the powers of the secretary general of the United Nations.
Yesterday, the secretary general practically gave us his speech of farewell. And he recognized that over the last 10 years, things have just gotten more complicated; hunger, poverty, violence, human rights violations have just worsened. That is the tremendous consequence of the collapse of the United Nations system and American hegemonistic pretensions.
Madam, Venezuela a few years ago decided to wage this battle within the United Nations by recognizing the United Nations, as members of it that we are, and lending it our voice, our thinking.
Our voice is an independent voice to represent the dignity and the search for peace and the reformulation of the international system; to denounce persecution and aggression of hegemonistic forces on the planet.
This is how Venezuela has presented itself. Bolivar's home has sought a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council.
Let's see. Well, there's been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council.
The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.
And I would like to thank all the countries that have kindly announced their support for Venezuela, even though the ballot is a secret one and there's no need to announce things.
But since the imperium has attacked, openly, they strengthened the convictions of many countries. And their support strengthens us.
Mercosur, as a bloc, has expressed its support, our brothers in Mercosur. Venezuela, with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, is a full member of Mercosur.
And many other Latin American countries, CARICOM, Bolivia have expressed their support for Venezuela. The Arab League, the full Arab League has voiced its support. And I am immensely grateful to the Arab world, to our Arab brothers, our Caribbean brothers, the African Union. Almost all of Africa as expressed its support for Venezuela and countries such as Russia or China and many others.
I thank you all warmly on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of our people, and on behalf of the truth, because Venezuela, with a seat on the Security Council, will be expressing not only Venezuela's thoughts, but it will also be the voice of all the peoples of the world, and we will defend dignity and truth.
Over and above all of this, Madam President, I think there are reasons to be optimistic. A poet would have said "helplessly optimistic," because over and above the wars and the bombs and the aggressive and the preventive war and the destruction of entire peoples, one can see that a new era is dawning.
As Silvio Rodriguez says, the era is giving birth to a heart. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now?
What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.
We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.
Venezuela joins that struggle, and that's why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.
President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.
And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.
And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner. And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.
And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.
And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.
Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is rotected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I'm here today.
But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of aving a completely cynical discourse.
We mentioned Cuba. Yes, we were just there a few days ago. We just came from there happily.
And there you see another era born. The Summit of the 15, the Summit of the Nonaligned, adopted a historic resolution. This is the outcome document. Don't worry, I'm not going to read it.
But you have a whole set of resolutions here that were adopted after open debate in a transparent matter -- more than 50 heads of state. Havana was the capital of the south or a few weeks, and we have now launched, once again, the group of the nonaligned with new momentum.
And if there is anything I could ask all of you here, my companions, my brothers and sisters, it is to please lend your good will to lend momentum to the Nonaligned Movement for the birth of the new era, to prevent hegemony and prevent further advances of imperialism.
And as you know, Fidel Castro is the president of the nonaligned for the next three years, and we can trust him to lead the charge very efficiently.Unfortunately they thought, Oh, Fidel was going to die." But they're going to be disappointed because he didn't. And he's not only alive, he's back in his green fatigues, and he's now presiding the nonaligned.
So, my dear colleagues, Madam President, a new, strong movement has been born, a movement of the south. We are men and women of the south.
With this document, with these ideas, with these criticisms, I'm now closing my file. I'm taking the book with me. And, don't forget, I'm recommending it very warmly and very humbly to all of you.
We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations.
And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.
You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all. May God bless us all. Good day to you.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
30 Years Ago Today - Terrorism at Sheridan Circle: DINA, anti-Castro Cuban Terrorists and George H. W. Bush
By SAUL LANDAU
Terrorism struck then as it does now, without warning. At about 9:45 on Tuesday morning, September 21, 1976, the phone rang. I put down my coffee cup. "I just saw the worst accident," she said, with distress in her voice. My wife then described what she saw on Massachusetts Avenue as she drove to work. "Smoke was pouring out of this wreck of a car. There was blood and stuff all over Sheridan Circle. Someone might have died," she said, clearly shaken. "The Secret Service guys were running around in a panic."
"Sorry you had to see it. What a way to start your work day."
The second phone call, five minutes later, made my hands shake. A bomb had caused the Sheridan Circle "accident." The receptionist at the Institute for Policy Studies, in between shrieks and sobs, informed me of the identity of the three people in the sabotaged car, Orlando Letelier, Ronni and Michael Moffitt - my colleagues, my friends.
The bomb taped to the car's I beam blew upwards and severed Letelier's legs. He died minutes later. Ronni took metal slivers in the throat, one of which sliced an artery. She drowned in her own blood.
The blast blew off the car's back door. Michael flew out, escaping with scrapes and cuts and a lifelong trauma.
The secret service police who guard embassies said he kept screaming: "Pinochet did it" and "DINA did it." They thought he was crazy. In fact, he had identified the killers 30 seconds after they had struck.
When FBI agents interviewed me hours later and asked me who might have done the dirty deed, I replied "DINA." The agent asked: "Do you know her last name?"
I had foolishly assumed that an FBI Agent would know that DINA stood for Chile's intelligence and secret police agency. The Bureau soon learned. Its Agents discovered that in June 1976 General Augusto Pinochet, self proclaimed President and military dictator of Chile, gave orders to DINA's boss Col. Manuel Contreras to assassinate Letelier.
In less than two years, FBI investigators uncovered the relevant details of the terrorist plot that took place less than a mile from the White House. The Bureau concluded that Pinochet himself had to have authorized an assassination in Washington, DC.
Contreras dispatched Michael Townley, an American working for DINA, to coordinate the plot. Townley then engaged Guillermo Novo and his gang of anti-Castro Cubans (Cuban Nationalist Movement) from New Jersey who helped him acquire parts for his bomb. Two of them (Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz) pleaded guilty to "conspiring to assassinate." Each received a 12 year sentence and got paroled after 7. These two were in the car preceding Letelier into Sheridan Circle. One drove and the other pushed the remote control buttons to set off the bomb as Letelier's car entered Sheridan Circle. A jury found Novo and two other conspirators guilty, but their convictions got reversed on appeal. Novo was ultimately convicted of perjury, lying to the grand jury about his knowledge of the assassination plot.
In 1978, when Townley confessed in a plea bargain agreement, he told the FBI the details of how he had gotten orders from Contreras, received the surveillance report on Letelier from Capt. Armando Fernandez Larios and then recruited the Cubans to help finish the dirty deed. He explained at the Washington DC trial in 1980 how he had taped the bomb to Letelier's car two days before the detonation.
In 1979, I watched Townley tell the story to a Federal Court jury as he ratted out his fellow conspirators. He almost boasted about his clever design of a two-stage remote control detonator that the anti-Castro Cubans activated as Letelier's car entered Sheridan Circle.
Townley's quiet monotone in a hushed courtroom made my head throb. His voice had a trace of self pity as he told the jury about problems he encountered in planting the bomb. At 3 a.m. on a quiet residential street in Bethesda, Maryland, he crawled under the parked car and taped the "device" to the I beam. As he was securing his creation, a patrol car flashed its lights down the street. Townley said sweat dripped from his face. His heart pounded with fear. Letelier's car carried that bomb for two days.
The FBI had first learned about Townley from an informant placed inside the Cuban terrorist group. He told the Bureau that a Chilean agent named Wilson had come to recruit the Castro-haters for an assassination job.
Indictments came down some two years after the bloody deed. The Justice Department named Contreras and another high DINA official, Townley and the DINA agent who did the surveillance on Letelier and five Cuban exiles. But the name Pinochet did not appear on the indictment.
FBI Agents shrugged when asked about this "oversight." Larry Barcella, one of the prosecutors, agreed that it was "inconceivable" that such a crime could have occurred without Pinochet's authorization. But that was the world of politics - something the FBI and prosecutors accepted as a given.
That was before 9/11. In his September 21, 2001 address to Congress Bush promised to "pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."
Even though all the evidence in the terrorist bombing of Letelier and Moffitt points directly to Pinochet, Bush has not demanded that Chile extradite him to the United States. Nor did previous Administrations put the bite on Chile. Indeed, Bush has harbored anti-Castro terrorists like Luis Posada Carrilles and Orlando Bosch, both implicated in the sabotage of a Cuban commercial airliner three weeks after the Letelier bombing. Seventy-three people died in that terrorist act.
President Bush I admitted Bosch into the United States. He lives in South Florida and plots with other geezers more terrorism in Cuba - and proudly admits it. Bosch claimed the bombing was "a legitimate act of war," and thus "there were no innocents on that plane." He called all the dead passengers and crew "collaborators." (Kirk Nielsen, Righteous Bombers? Miami New Times, Dec. 5, 2002)
Posada, who not only co-authored the airliner bombing with Bosch, but tried in 1999 to assassinate Castro in Panama, sits in a U.S. jail, charged with illegal entry - not terrorism. Indeed, a federal judge has proposed to free Posada and the U.S. government has made no protest. Such a move would take "harboring" to a new level.
Terrorism, for those who experience it, means death to family members and friends. It signifies future trauma, violent dreams and long-term anxiety. Terrorism means striking terror into people's hearts and minds, whether the means chosen include jet planes firing rockets, planting IEDs or people taping bombs under cars.
Bush, like previous U.S. presidents, has done nothing to seek the extradition of Pinochet, who perpetrated the terrorist act of September 21, 1976. So, when we remember victims of terrorism, like Letelier and Moffitt, we should also recall the duplicitous nature of Bush's war on terrorism. He doesn't really mean it. When he speaks the "t" word, he excludes those who covered their murders with anti-Castro or anti-left rhetoric.
We should also recall that Osama bin Laden and other terrorists of today received CIA backing when they used their murderous impulses against the Soviet Union.
On September 21, 2006, Chilean President Michele Bachelet inaugurated the Orlando Letelier Salon at Chile's UN headquarters, a good way to preserve historical memory. A bust of Ronni Moffitt and Orlando on Sheridan Circle brings some passersby to ask about how a Chilean general whom the U.S. government had supported in a military coup ordered a terrorist act in Washington.
Saul Landau's new book, A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD, will be published by Counterpunch Press. He can be reached at: slandau@igc.org
Terrorism struck then as it does now, without warning. At about 9:45 on Tuesday morning, September 21, 1976, the phone rang. I put down my coffee cup. "I just saw the worst accident," she said, with distress in her voice. My wife then described what she saw on Massachusetts Avenue as she drove to work. "Smoke was pouring out of this wreck of a car. There was blood and stuff all over Sheridan Circle. Someone might have died," she said, clearly shaken. "The Secret Service guys were running around in a panic."
"Sorry you had to see it. What a way to start your work day."
The second phone call, five minutes later, made my hands shake. A bomb had caused the Sheridan Circle "accident." The receptionist at the Institute for Policy Studies, in between shrieks and sobs, informed me of the identity of the three people in the sabotaged car, Orlando Letelier, Ronni and Michael Moffitt - my colleagues, my friends.
The bomb taped to the car's I beam blew upwards and severed Letelier's legs. He died minutes later. Ronni took metal slivers in the throat, one of which sliced an artery. She drowned in her own blood.
The blast blew off the car's back door. Michael flew out, escaping with scrapes and cuts and a lifelong trauma.
The secret service police who guard embassies said he kept screaming: "Pinochet did it" and "DINA did it." They thought he was crazy. In fact, he had identified the killers 30 seconds after they had struck.
When FBI agents interviewed me hours later and asked me who might have done the dirty deed, I replied "DINA." The agent asked: "Do you know her last name?"
I had foolishly assumed that an FBI Agent would know that DINA stood for Chile's intelligence and secret police agency. The Bureau soon learned. Its Agents discovered that in June 1976 General Augusto Pinochet, self proclaimed President and military dictator of Chile, gave orders to DINA's boss Col. Manuel Contreras to assassinate Letelier.
In less than two years, FBI investigators uncovered the relevant details of the terrorist plot that took place less than a mile from the White House. The Bureau concluded that Pinochet himself had to have authorized an assassination in Washington, DC.
Contreras dispatched Michael Townley, an American working for DINA, to coordinate the plot. Townley then engaged Guillermo Novo and his gang of anti-Castro Cubans (Cuban Nationalist Movement) from New Jersey who helped him acquire parts for his bomb. Two of them (Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz) pleaded guilty to "conspiring to assassinate." Each received a 12 year sentence and got paroled after 7. These two were in the car preceding Letelier into Sheridan Circle. One drove and the other pushed the remote control buttons to set off the bomb as Letelier's car entered Sheridan Circle. A jury found Novo and two other conspirators guilty, but their convictions got reversed on appeal. Novo was ultimately convicted of perjury, lying to the grand jury about his knowledge of the assassination plot.
In 1978, when Townley confessed in a plea bargain agreement, he told the FBI the details of how he had gotten orders from Contreras, received the surveillance report on Letelier from Capt. Armando Fernandez Larios and then recruited the Cubans to help finish the dirty deed. He explained at the Washington DC trial in 1980 how he had taped the bomb to Letelier's car two days before the detonation.
In 1979, I watched Townley tell the story to a Federal Court jury as he ratted out his fellow conspirators. He almost boasted about his clever design of a two-stage remote control detonator that the anti-Castro Cubans activated as Letelier's car entered Sheridan Circle.
Townley's quiet monotone in a hushed courtroom made my head throb. His voice had a trace of self pity as he told the jury about problems he encountered in planting the bomb. At 3 a.m. on a quiet residential street in Bethesda, Maryland, he crawled under the parked car and taped the "device" to the I beam. As he was securing his creation, a patrol car flashed its lights down the street. Townley said sweat dripped from his face. His heart pounded with fear. Letelier's car carried that bomb for two days.
The FBI had first learned about Townley from an informant placed inside the Cuban terrorist group. He told the Bureau that a Chilean agent named Wilson had come to recruit the Castro-haters for an assassination job.
Indictments came down some two years after the bloody deed. The Justice Department named Contreras and another high DINA official, Townley and the DINA agent who did the surveillance on Letelier and five Cuban exiles. But the name Pinochet did not appear on the indictment.
FBI Agents shrugged when asked about this "oversight." Larry Barcella, one of the prosecutors, agreed that it was "inconceivable" that such a crime could have occurred without Pinochet's authorization. But that was the world of politics - something the FBI and prosecutors accepted as a given.
That was before 9/11. In his September 21, 2001 address to Congress Bush promised to "pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."
Even though all the evidence in the terrorist bombing of Letelier and Moffitt points directly to Pinochet, Bush has not demanded that Chile extradite him to the United States. Nor did previous Administrations put the bite on Chile. Indeed, Bush has harbored anti-Castro terrorists like Luis Posada Carrilles and Orlando Bosch, both implicated in the sabotage of a Cuban commercial airliner three weeks after the Letelier bombing. Seventy-three people died in that terrorist act.
President Bush I admitted Bosch into the United States. He lives in South Florida and plots with other geezers more terrorism in Cuba - and proudly admits it. Bosch claimed the bombing was "a legitimate act of war," and thus "there were no innocents on that plane." He called all the dead passengers and crew "collaborators." (Kirk Nielsen, Righteous Bombers? Miami New Times, Dec. 5, 2002)
Posada, who not only co-authored the airliner bombing with Bosch, but tried in 1999 to assassinate Castro in Panama, sits in a U.S. jail, charged with illegal entry - not terrorism. Indeed, a federal judge has proposed to free Posada and the U.S. government has made no protest. Such a move would take "harboring" to a new level.
Terrorism, for those who experience it, means death to family members and friends. It signifies future trauma, violent dreams and long-term anxiety. Terrorism means striking terror into people's hearts and minds, whether the means chosen include jet planes firing rockets, planting IEDs or people taping bombs under cars.
Bush, like previous U.S. presidents, has done nothing to seek the extradition of Pinochet, who perpetrated the terrorist act of September 21, 1976. So, when we remember victims of terrorism, like Letelier and Moffitt, we should also recall the duplicitous nature of Bush's war on terrorism. He doesn't really mean it. When he speaks the "t" word, he excludes those who covered their murders with anti-Castro or anti-left rhetoric.
We should also recall that Osama bin Laden and other terrorists of today received CIA backing when they used their murderous impulses against the Soviet Union.
On September 21, 2006, Chilean President Michele Bachelet inaugurated the Orlando Letelier Salon at Chile's UN headquarters, a good way to preserve historical memory. A bust of Ronni Moffitt and Orlando on Sheridan Circle brings some passersby to ask about how a Chilean general whom the U.S. government had supported in a military coup ordered a terrorist act in Washington.
Saul Landau's new book, A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD, will be published by Counterpunch Press. He can be reached at: slandau@igc.org
John Paul II:Bush is the Anti-Christ - Chavez: Bush is the Devil
President Hugo Chavez calls George W. Bush the devil. Amid applause and laughter from the UN General Assembly, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez yesterday called George W. Bush the devil in his address to the UN General Assembly. [It should be noted that Chavez is not the only world leader to link Bush to demonic influences. The late Pope John Paul II feared Bush was the anti-Christ]. In comparison, Bush's speech the day before was met with stony silence, with many delegates who did not leave the assembly hall beforehand, crossing their arms, looking downward in boredom, or reading. The neocon media is haranguing Chavez, even suggesting that he supports "terrorism" -- the new "communism" bogeyman for the right -- and putting Venezuela's Jewish population in jeopardy as a result of Chavez's support for Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. The media paid scant attention to Chavez's references to two terrorist incidents in which the Devil's father was directly involved as CIA Director -- the Washington, DC car bombing assassination of former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and the bombing by right-wing Cuban terrorists of a Cubana airliner off Barbados, both occurring in 1976 when George H. W. Bush was ordering these and other atrocities from his perch in Langley, Virginia.
"V" for Neocon Vendetta
Special note on neocon viciousness in Washington, DC. This editor is being contacted by more and more U.S. government employees and members of the media who are reporting neocon viciousness at levels not seen here since their seizure of power in January 2001. All that can be said is that the neocon are not only vicious but vacuous, vain, vampire-like, vandalistic, vapid, vaporish, varicose, vaudevillian, vegetative, venal, vendetta-crazed, vengeful, venomous, ventral, ventricose, verminous, vertiginous, vesicant, vesicular, Vesuvian, vexatious, vicinal, victimizing, vigilantistic, vileness, villainous, violative, viperous, viral, visionless, vitriolic, vituperative, vociferous, void, volatile, vole-like, voluble, vomit-inducing, vulgar, and vulpine. [Thanks to "V" for the idea].
Chávez attacks 'devil' Bush in UN speech
Chávez attacks 'devil' Bush in UN speech
· Venezuelan accuses US of double standards on terror
· Bolivian president condemns war on drugs
Brandishing a copy of Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, cemented his reputation as Washington's chief irritant yesterday with a fiery performance at the United Nations.
In a 15-minute address to the annual gathering of international leaders in New York, President Chávez said he could still "smell sulphur" left behind by the "devil", George Bush, who had addressed the chamber 24 hours before.
His speech, which veered between a rousing appeal for a better world and a florid denunciation of the US, included the claim that President Bush thought he was in a western where people shot from the hip: "This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire."
Mr Chávez complained that his personal doctor and head of security had been prevented from disembarking at New York airport by the American authorities. And then he coined the phrase that will now forever be etched into UN history as one of the more colourful criticisms levelled at the US president from his own turf: "This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the devil. It smells of sulphur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all."
He went on to accuse the US of double standards on terrorism. "The US has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere ... I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse."
Coming just 12 hours after Washington's other nemesis, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, had stood at the same spot and accused the US of hegemony and hypocrisy, Mr Chávez's colourful speech left US administration officials exasperated. John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, said afterwards that it was a "comic strip approach to international affairs" and "insulting".
Mr Chávez could openly say what he wanted in Central Park, he added: "Too bad President Chávez doesn't extend the same freedom of speech and the press to the people of Venezuela. That's my comment on his speech."
Delegates and leaders from around the world streamed back into the chamber to hear Mr Chávez, and when he stepped down the vigorous applause lasted so long that it had to be curtailed by the chair.
A fellow South American leader, Evo Morales of Bolivia, also livened up proceedings at the assembly. President Morales held up a coca leaf from the platform to make a point about his opposition to the US-driven war on drugs in his country.
The small, pale green leaf - illegal in the US - joins a growing list of artefacts displayed from the general assembly lectern that includes Nikita Khrushchev's shoe and Yasser Arafat's trademark gun and an olive branch.
Mr Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, said: "We don't need blackmail and threats" and "There's another historical injustice - criminalising coca, the coca leaf."
The Bush administration has accused the Bolivian government of failing to curb the country's growing cocaine industry.
· Venezuelan accuses US of double standards on terror
· Bolivian president condemns war on drugs
Brandishing a copy of Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, cemented his reputation as Washington's chief irritant yesterday with a fiery performance at the United Nations.
In a 15-minute address to the annual gathering of international leaders in New York, President Chávez said he could still "smell sulphur" left behind by the "devil", George Bush, who had addressed the chamber 24 hours before.
His speech, which veered between a rousing appeal for a better world and a florid denunciation of the US, included the claim that President Bush thought he was in a western where people shot from the hip: "This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire."
Mr Chávez complained that his personal doctor and head of security had been prevented from disembarking at New York airport by the American authorities. And then he coined the phrase that will now forever be etched into UN history as one of the more colourful criticisms levelled at the US president from his own turf: "This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the devil. It smells of sulphur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all."
He went on to accuse the US of double standards on terrorism. "The US has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere ... I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse."
Coming just 12 hours after Washington's other nemesis, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, had stood at the same spot and accused the US of hegemony and hypocrisy, Mr Chávez's colourful speech left US administration officials exasperated. John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, said afterwards that it was a "comic strip approach to international affairs" and "insulting".
Mr Chávez could openly say what he wanted in Central Park, he added: "Too bad President Chávez doesn't extend the same freedom of speech and the press to the people of Venezuela. That's my comment on his speech."
Delegates and leaders from around the world streamed back into the chamber to hear Mr Chávez, and when he stepped down the vigorous applause lasted so long that it had to be curtailed by the chair.
A fellow South American leader, Evo Morales of Bolivia, also livened up proceedings at the assembly. President Morales held up a coca leaf from the platform to make a point about his opposition to the US-driven war on drugs in his country.
The small, pale green leaf - illegal in the US - joins a growing list of artefacts displayed from the general assembly lectern that includes Nikita Khrushchev's shoe and Yasser Arafat's trademark gun and an olive branch.
Mr Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, said: "We don't need blackmail and threats" and "There's another historical injustice - criminalising coca, the coca leaf."
The Bush administration has accused the Bolivian government of failing to curb the country's growing cocaine industry.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The Surprising End of the New American Century By Mike Whitney
“The US is updating contingency plans for a strike to cripple Iran’s atomic weapon’s program if international diplomacy fails…The plan calls for a rolling 5 day bombing campaign against 400 key targets, including 24 nuclear related sites, 14 military airfields and radar installations, and Revolutionary Guard headquarters” Ian Bruce, “US spells out plan to bomb Iran” UK Herald
“Justice has become the victim of force and aggression.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; address to the United Nations 9-19-06
09/20/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- The Iranian Mullahs have one advantage over the Bush administration if war breaks out. They know what Bush plans to do. They know that he intends to bomb numerous targets which are unrelated to the nuclear facilities, and they know that his ultimate goal is “regime change”. This fits into America’s larger regional-wide schema of crushing indigenous resistance movements (Hamas and Hezbollah), redrawing the map of the Middle East, and integrating the oil of the Caspian Basin into the US-controlled economic system.
Recent reports suggest that the Bush strategy is going forward despite warnings from high-ranking officials at the Pentagon and respected members of the foreign policy establishment. A recent article in Time magazine by Michael Duffy outlines a realistic scenario for the initial phase of the conflict:
“It will take a few days with thousands of sorties, satellite and laser-guided bombs will be aimed at targets—1,500 already planned by the Pentagon—and will try to infiltrate armed concrete, under which some of the nuclear sites are hidden… The sites are spread across the country, some of them exposed, some operating under the guise of regular plants, and others buried deep under the ground….The military offensive requires activating nearly all types of planes in the army’s possession: Warplanes and stealth vehicles, F-15 and F-16 aircrafts taking off from the land and an F-18 which takes off from an aircraft carrier.
Such an attack requires satellite guided weapons and laser-guided ammunition, as well as spy-planes and unmanned aerial vehicles. Since, many targets are hidden underground and are reinforced with armed concrete, they will have to be hit once and again in order to guarantee that they are destroyed, or at least seriously damaged.”
US Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, who taught strategy and military operations at the National War College and who just finished a paper entitled “Considering the US Military option for Iran,” appeared on CNN this week and said:
“The order has been given (to strike Iran) In fact, we’ve probably been executing operations for at least 18 months…I’ve talked to Iranians (and they tell me) we’ve captured some people who worked with them (American Special-Ops) We’ve confirmed they’re there.” Gardiner added that “US naval forces have been alerted for deployment. That’s a major step. ..And the (battle) plan has been sent to the White House.”
The first phase of the war has already begun. The second phase, the bombing campaign, will undoubtedly follow a feeble pretext for initiating hostilities. Iran may be cited for its alleged nuclear weapons programs or Bush may simply claim the right to unilaterally enforce UN treaty violations, but these are just a formality. The decision to attack Iran was made long ago and features prominently in many of the neoconservative policy-documents including The Project for the New American Century and A Clean Break; a New Strategy for Securing the Realm. Iran cannot be allowed to develop nuclear technology for fear that it may provide them with the means to defend their oil. That would be catastrophic for western elites who plan to oversee the distribution of the world’s dwindling resources.
White House hawks and their corporate colleagues realize that the only way to manage the explosive growth of America’s greatest competitor, China, is by seizing its primary source of energy. The hand which controls the oil-spigot rules the world. Thus, Iran has become a strategic-imperative for US plans of global domination.
It is worth noting, that Iran has committed no violations and that Bush’s war plans are just another example of unprovoked aggression on a peaceful nation. Iran poses no national security threat to America, it has not attacked its neighbors, and, despite claims by the Bush administration, has not been involved in any (provable) acts of international terrorism. They are the simply the victims of a strident militarist doctrine that conceals flagrant acts of aggression behind the feeble ideology of “preemption”; a policy which allows the United States to attack whoever it chooses on the mere presumption that they may pose a potential threat to their continued global supremacy.
Iran has no nuclear weapons, no nuclear weapons programs, and has complied with every requirement of its treaty obligations under the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for the last 3 years. At the same time it has undergone the most extensive inspection-regime in the history of the IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency. The agency has been given a free-hand to “go anywhere and see anything” in Iran’s nuclear facilities and has consistently stated that it has found Iran “in compliance” with its requirements.
Never the less, the wrangling of the Bush administration, aided by a well-crafted propaganda campaign in the media, has created a furor at the UN and a split in public opinion. The public is unaware that Germany just sold Israel two nuclear submarines which will carry nuclear-tipped weapons, or that Brazil is at the same stage of the enrichment-process as Iran, or that Russia just signed a deal with South Africa that will provide them with nuclear fuel, or that the US just brushed aside its treaty obligations under the NPT to provide sensitive nuclear technology to India. Notwithstanding the double-standards, the charade continues, the war plans move forward, and the threat of a region-wide conflagration increases.
Bush has unilaterally repealed Iran’s clearly articulated treaty rights under the NPT, and yet, the European allies have fallen in line behind Washington. No one apparently can resist the administration’s incredible powers of coercion.
Ironically, Iran has signaled that the standoff could be resolved peacefully if Washington would agree to a non aggression pact that would guarantee that the US will not attack Iran without provocation. This tidbit of information is scrupulously omitted from reports in the media as it does not coincide with the image of Iran as the “terrorist bully” they are made out to be.
In a recent article by Gareth Porter “Iran Proposal to US offered Peace with Israel” the author states that in 2003 Iran not only offered “to accept peace with Israel and cut off material assistance to Palestinian armed groups” but made a “two page proposal for a broad US-Iran agreement covering all the issues facing the two countries”. The secret document was provided to IPS proves that Iran is neither committed to the destruction of Israel nor to the sponsorship of alleged terrorist groups.
“What the Iranians wanted in return,” Porter says, “was an end to US hostility and recognition of Iran as a legitimate power in the region. They want to see a “halt in hostile US behavior” as well as “recognition of Iran’s legitimate security interests in the region with according defense capacity.” (ISP) Respect and security in exchange for a comprehensive regional peace agreement; these are the same demands that one expects from any reasonable sovereign nation.
According to Porter, “Bush refused to allow any response to the Iranian offer to negotiate an agreement that would have accepted the existence of Israel.” (IPS)
Last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confirmed that the administration’s position has not changed. She said, “Security guarantees for Iran were off the table.”
How can there be peace if one country will not agree not to attack another?
Iran has no choice but to take Bush’s saber rattling seriously and prepare for war. The administration’s stated goal of “regime change” poses a credible “existential threat” to current Iranian government and they must plan accordingly. They should expect that the US will prevail handily in the massive air campaign which will destroy much of Iran’s civil infrastructure leaving it in a state similar to that of Lebanon. But, following the aerial bombardment the real war will begin. (As was true in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon) If Iran intends to remove the persistent threat created by the neocon plan for regional hegemony, it must anticipate a decades-long struggle which will be aimed at undermining the ability of the United States to wage war. That means they will probably focus on targets that will destroy the US economy; asymmetrical attacks on the currency, attacks on tankers, pipelines, oil-platforms and energy sites around the world, destabilizing regional allies of America (particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan) arming guerilla groups in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a concerted campaign to disrupt the flow of oil to western markets.
It will also do what it can to realign the world in a way that challenges and ultimately discards the United Nations which merely serves the imperial ambitions of the US and its European allies. To that end, it must strengthen ties with Russia, China, India, Venezuela, Brazil and the non-aligned states. It will focus on isolating the US from its allies by turning world opinion against the aggressor and doing whatever is possible to shatter the trans-Atlantic Alliance. Once the US is separated from Europe, NATO and the UN will collapse, and the war will quickly come to a close.
A war with Iran will be catastrophic, but it may also have the unintended effect of establishing greater parity among the nations by replacing the American-European paradigm with a more equitable system. It could, in fact, restore our commitment to the basic principles of national sovereignty, self determination, and human rights.
Still, the cost is bound to be substantial. A war with Iran will produce hundreds of thousands of casualties, topple the Superpower model of global rule and, very likely, bring an end to the new American century.
Rise Up Against the Empire - President Hugo Chavez, Address to the United Nations
Rise Up Against the Empire
President Hugo Chavez, Address to the United Nations
09/19/06
Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.
Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.
The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time," [flips through the pages, which are numerous] "I will just leave it as a recommendation.
It reads easily, it is a very good book, I'm sure Madame [President] you are familiar with it. It appears in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house.
The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.
"And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself] "And it smells of sulfur still today.
Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.
I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.
An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."
As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.
The world parent's statement -- cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.
They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.
What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.
What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?
The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I'm quoting, "Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom."
Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother -- he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there's an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.
The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up.
I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.
Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.
The president then -- and this he said himself, he said: "I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace."
That's true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They'll say yes.
But the government doesn't want peace. The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.
It wants peace. But what's happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What's happening? What's happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela -- new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?
He spoke to the people of Lebanon. Many of you, he said, have seen how your homes and communities were caught in the crossfire. How cynical can you get? What a capacity to lie shamefacedly. The bombs in Beirut with millimetric precision?
This is crossfire? He's thinking of a western, when people would shoot from the hip and somebody would be caught in the crossfire.
This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. That is what happened. And now we hear, "We're suffering because we see homes destroyed.'
The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples -- to the peoples of the world. He came to say -- I brought some documents with me, because this morning I was reading some statements, and I see that he talked to the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran. And he addressed all these peoples directly.
And you can wonder, just as the president of the United States addresses those peoples of the world, what would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? What would they have to say?
And I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people think. They would say, "Yankee imperialist, go home." I think that is what those people would say if they were given the microphone and if they could speak with one voice to the American imperialists.
And that is why, Madam President, my colleagues, my friends, last year we came here to this same hall as we have been doing for the past eight years, and we said something that has now been confirmed -- fully, fully confirmed.
I don't think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless.
Oh, yes, it's good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches, like Abel's yesterday, or President Mullah's . Yes, it's good for that.
And there are a lot of speeches, and we've heard lots from the president of Sri Lanka, for instance, and the president of Chile.
But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world. And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, 20 September, that we re-establish the United Nations.
Last year, Madam, we made four modest proposals that we felt to be crucially important. We have to assume the responsibility our heads of state, our ambassadors, our representatives, and we have to discuss it.
The first is expansion, and Mullah talked about this yesterday right here. The Security Council, both as it has permanent and non-permanent categories, (inaudible) developing countries and LDCs must be given access as new permanent members. That's step one.
Second, effective methods to address and resolve world conflicts, transparent decisions.
Point three, the immediate suppression -- and that is something everyone's calling for -- of the anti-democratic mechanism known as the veto, the veto on decisions of the Security Council.
Let me give you a recent example. The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.
Fourthly, we have to strengthen, as we've always said, the role and the powers of the secretary general of the United Nations.
Yesterday, the secretary general practically gave us his speech of farewell. And he recognized that over the last 10 years, things have just gotten more complicated; hunger, poverty, violence, human rights violations have just worsened. That is the tremendous consequence of the collapse of the United Nations system and American hegemonistic pretensions.
Madam, Venezuela a few years ago decided to wage this battle within the United Nations by recognizing the United Nations, as members of it that we are, and lending it our voice, our thinking.
Our voice is an independent voice to represent the dignity and the search for peace and the reformulation of the international system; to denounce persecution and aggression of hegemonistic forces on the planet.
This is how Venezuela has presented itself. Bolivar's home has sought a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council.
Let's see. Well, there's been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council.
The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.
And I would like to thank all the countries that have kindly announced their support for Venezuela, even though the ballot is a secret one and there's no need to announce things.
But since the imperium has attacked, openly, they strengthened the convictions of many countries. And their support strengthens us.
Mercosur, as a bloc, has expressed its support, our brothers in Mercosur. Venezuela, with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, is a full member of Mercosur.
And many other Latin American countries, CARICOM, Bolivia have expressed their support for Venezuela. The Arab League, the full Arab League has voiced its support. And I am immensely grateful to the Arab world, to our Arab brothers, our Caribbean brothers, the African Union. Almost all of Africa has expressed its support for Venezuela and countries such as Russia or China and many others.
I thank you all warmly on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of our people, and on behalf of the truth, because Venezuela, with a seat on the Security Council, will be expressing not only Venezuela's thoughts, but it will also be the voice of all the peoples of the world, and we will defend dignity and truth.
Over and above all of this, Madam President, I think there are reasons to be optimistic. A poet would have said "helplessly optimistic," because over and above the wars and the bombs and the aggressive and the preventive war and the destruction of entire peoples, one can see that a new era is dawning.
As Sylvia Rodriguez says, the era is giving birth to a heart. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now?
What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.
We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.
Venezuela joins that struggle, and that's why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.
President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.
And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.
And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner.
And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.
And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.
And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.
Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I'm here today.
But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.
We mentioned Cuba. Yes, we were just there a few days ago. We just came from there happily.
And there you see another era born. The Summit of the 15, the Summit of the Nonaligned, adopted a historic resolution. This is the outcome document. Don't worry, I'm not going to read it.
But you have a whole set of resolutions here that were adopted after open debate in a transparent matter -- more than 50 heads of state. Havana was the capital of the south for a few weeks, and we have now launched, once again, the group of the nonaligned with new momentum.
And if there is anything I could ask all of you here, my companions, my brothers and sisters, it is to please lend your good will to lend momentum to the Nonaligned Movement for the birth of the new era, to prevent hegemony and prevent further advances of imperialism.
And as you know, Fidel Castro is the president of the nonaligned for the next three years, and we can trust him to lead the charge very efficiently.
Unfortunately they thought, "Oh, Fidel was going to die." But they're going to be disappointed because he didn't. And he's not only alive, he's back in his green fatigues, and he's now presiding the nonaligned.
So, my dear colleagues, Madam President, a new, strong movement has been born, a movement of the south. We are men and women of the south.
With this document, with these ideas, with these criticisms, I'm now closing my file. I'm taking the book with me. And, don't forget, I'm recommending it very warmly and very humbly to all of you.
We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations.
And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.
You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.
May God bless us all. Good day to you.
President Hugo Chavez, Address to the United Nations
09/19/06
Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.
Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.
The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time," [flips through the pages, which are numerous] "I will just leave it as a recommendation.
It reads easily, it is a very good book, I'm sure Madame [President] you are familiar with it. It appears in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house.
The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.
"And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself] "And it smells of sulfur still today.
Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.
I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.
An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."
As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.
The world parent's statement -- cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.
They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.
What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.
What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?
The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I'm quoting, "Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom."
Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother -- he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there's an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.
The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up.
I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.
Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.
The president then -- and this he said himself, he said: "I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace."
That's true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They'll say yes.
But the government doesn't want peace. The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.
It wants peace. But what's happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What's happening? What's happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela -- new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?
He spoke to the people of Lebanon. Many of you, he said, have seen how your homes and communities were caught in the crossfire. How cynical can you get? What a capacity to lie shamefacedly. The bombs in Beirut with millimetric precision?
This is crossfire? He's thinking of a western, when people would shoot from the hip and somebody would be caught in the crossfire.
This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. That is what happened. And now we hear, "We're suffering because we see homes destroyed.'
The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples -- to the peoples of the world. He came to say -- I brought some documents with me, because this morning I was reading some statements, and I see that he talked to the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran. And he addressed all these peoples directly.
And you can wonder, just as the president of the United States addresses those peoples of the world, what would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? What would they have to say?
And I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people think. They would say, "Yankee imperialist, go home." I think that is what those people would say if they were given the microphone and if they could speak with one voice to the American imperialists.
And that is why, Madam President, my colleagues, my friends, last year we came here to this same hall as we have been doing for the past eight years, and we said something that has now been confirmed -- fully, fully confirmed.
I don't think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless.
Oh, yes, it's good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches, like Abel's yesterday, or President Mullah's . Yes, it's good for that.
And there are a lot of speeches, and we've heard lots from the president of Sri Lanka, for instance, and the president of Chile.
But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world. And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, 20 September, that we re-establish the United Nations.
Last year, Madam, we made four modest proposals that we felt to be crucially important. We have to assume the responsibility our heads of state, our ambassadors, our representatives, and we have to discuss it.
The first is expansion, and Mullah talked about this yesterday right here. The Security Council, both as it has permanent and non-permanent categories, (inaudible) developing countries and LDCs must be given access as new permanent members. That's step one.
Second, effective methods to address and resolve world conflicts, transparent decisions.
Point three, the immediate suppression -- and that is something everyone's calling for -- of the anti-democratic mechanism known as the veto, the veto on decisions of the Security Council.
Let me give you a recent example. The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.
Fourthly, we have to strengthen, as we've always said, the role and the powers of the secretary general of the United Nations.
Yesterday, the secretary general practically gave us his speech of farewell. And he recognized that over the last 10 years, things have just gotten more complicated; hunger, poverty, violence, human rights violations have just worsened. That is the tremendous consequence of the collapse of the United Nations system and American hegemonistic pretensions.
Madam, Venezuela a few years ago decided to wage this battle within the United Nations by recognizing the United Nations, as members of it that we are, and lending it our voice, our thinking.
Our voice is an independent voice to represent the dignity and the search for peace and the reformulation of the international system; to denounce persecution and aggression of hegemonistic forces on the planet.
This is how Venezuela has presented itself. Bolivar's home has sought a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council.
Let's see. Well, there's been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council.
The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.
And I would like to thank all the countries that have kindly announced their support for Venezuela, even though the ballot is a secret one and there's no need to announce things.
But since the imperium has attacked, openly, they strengthened the convictions of many countries. And their support strengthens us.
Mercosur, as a bloc, has expressed its support, our brothers in Mercosur. Venezuela, with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, is a full member of Mercosur.
And many other Latin American countries, CARICOM, Bolivia have expressed their support for Venezuela. The Arab League, the full Arab League has voiced its support. And I am immensely grateful to the Arab world, to our Arab brothers, our Caribbean brothers, the African Union. Almost all of Africa has expressed its support for Venezuela and countries such as Russia or China and many others.
I thank you all warmly on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of our people, and on behalf of the truth, because Venezuela, with a seat on the Security Council, will be expressing not only Venezuela's thoughts, but it will also be the voice of all the peoples of the world, and we will defend dignity and truth.
Over and above all of this, Madam President, I think there are reasons to be optimistic. A poet would have said "helplessly optimistic," because over and above the wars and the bombs and the aggressive and the preventive war and the destruction of entire peoples, one can see that a new era is dawning.
As Sylvia Rodriguez says, the era is giving birth to a heart. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now?
What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.
We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.
Venezuela joins that struggle, and that's why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.
President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.
And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.
And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner.
And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.
And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.
And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.
Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I'm here today.
But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.
We mentioned Cuba. Yes, we were just there a few days ago. We just came from there happily.
And there you see another era born. The Summit of the 15, the Summit of the Nonaligned, adopted a historic resolution. This is the outcome document. Don't worry, I'm not going to read it.
But you have a whole set of resolutions here that were adopted after open debate in a transparent matter -- more than 50 heads of state. Havana was the capital of the south for a few weeks, and we have now launched, once again, the group of the nonaligned with new momentum.
And if there is anything I could ask all of you here, my companions, my brothers and sisters, it is to please lend your good will to lend momentum to the Nonaligned Movement for the birth of the new era, to prevent hegemony and prevent further advances of imperialism.
And as you know, Fidel Castro is the president of the nonaligned for the next three years, and we can trust him to lead the charge very efficiently.
Unfortunately they thought, "Oh, Fidel was going to die." But they're going to be disappointed because he didn't. And he's not only alive, he's back in his green fatigues, and he's now presiding the nonaligned.
So, my dear colleagues, Madam President, a new, strong movement has been born, a movement of the south. We are men and women of the south.
With this document, with these ideas, with these criticisms, I'm now closing my file. I'm taking the book with me. And, don't forget, I'm recommending it very warmly and very humbly to all of you.
We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations.
And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.
You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.
May God bless us all. Good day to you.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Oaxaca’s Cry for Independence - More Than Ever, it Is the People Who Govern this State By Nancy Davies
Commentary from Oaxaca
September 18, 2006
OK, I’ll just offer an observation, which is that Oaxaca state is now governed by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO in its Spanish initials), not the PRI.
The national Senate declined again this week to form a special commission to deal with the subject of Oaxaca, despite pressure from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD, the party of opposition candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador), and the Convergence party, to which Gabino Cue belongs. Cue is largely believed to have been defrauded in the last Oaxaca governmental election, which brought to power Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (“URO”). Cue is now a national senator.
A Oaxaca unitary commission formed from Section 22 of the teachers’ union plus representatives of the APPO has been unsuccessfully soliciting federal intervention to legally take away the governing powers of URO and the legislative and judiciary branches of government.
Instead, the Senate charged the federal Department of the Interior (known by its Spanish abbreviation Segob) with the task of negotiating a “settlement.” The PRD and Convergencia pointed out that the federal government is doing nothing, and intervention by the Senate is urgent. Segob, that is to say Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal, has had more than 115 days to resolve the situation in Oaxaca, while the state remains without a formal government.
Meanwhile, the attendees at the National Conference of Governors at their 29th annual gathering, held in Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit, declared themselves in support of URO. This was done because these governors are PRI and PAN members, and because they are afraid that if URO goes, they will all go, one by one. The fear of the “domino effect” in its most recent guise must now be considered as part of the PAN national strategy.
Despite the endorsement of his fellow governors, URO will not return to Oaxaca. As long as URO is not recognized by the people of Oaxaca as their governor, and remains outside the state, he gives the APPO and the peoples of Oaxaca time to take charge of affairs as necessary – for instance, the mobile police force, the formation of neighborhood crime-watch groups, the formation of local and municipal assemblies, the sweeping out of PRI remnants still in power through municipal uprisings, and the celebration of important national holidays such as Independence Day.
The Oaxaqueños, as citizens of a federal entity, enjoy the constitutional right under Article 27 of the Oaxaca state constitution to formalize the exit of URO, whose repressions have backfired and whose probable election fraud has become a key rallying point.
September is referred to as the “month of the nation.” On the morning of Friday, September 15, the occupied central city square, or zocalo, looked like a fairground, with cheerful people bustling between the stalls and under the colored plastic strung as protection against sun and rain. At the former government palace, spidermen of the APPO balanced on the façade of the building stringing red, white and green bunting and draping plastic chains of the same colors. The traditional “Cry for Independence” – the Grito – would be pronounced from the balcony of the government palace, an APPO member, who stood laughing on the pavement, told me, gesturing while his friends climbed around and dangled over the parapets.
“So who’s giving the Grito?” I asked. It was scheduled for eleven o’clock PM. The reply was, “a commission!” The APPO can’t select one person to place in the position of “leader.”
In Mexico City, the president was refused the ability to give the Grito there, and in Oaxaca the “ex-governor” URO likewise was banned, from what should have been his ceremonial post. According to my informant, URO wanted to give the Grito in the southeastern town of Tehuantepec, but the APPO sent members south to intercept him and forestall that possibility. In an internal struggle, Tehuantepec is presently operating with two, parallel, governments.
As for the Grito in Oaxaca, as usual, information received verbally from this “friend” was incorrect. (I learn this same lesson daily.) In addition, I got caught (yes, again) by the time designations: the Grito was at 11:00 PM in the hour of the campo or the natural hour, not at the neoliberal hour, also known as the daylight savings time – which meant the Grito took place at midnight. Of course.
I was down at the zocalo in plenty of time to see the folk dancers from Guerrero and admire the bunting draped profusely off the balconies where the windows remain boarded up. In front of the former government palace-museum hung huge portraits of Hidalgo and the Independence hero General Vicente Guerrero. During the prelude to the Grito the crowd of about five thousand raised their left fists in a salute to justice. Overhead fireworks exploded in sparks raining down on our heads. Several hot air paper balloons in lovely colors illuminated by the fire inside each one, sailed up while the crowd shouted “Ya cayó” – he’s out. At 11:30 neoliberal time, the Declaration of Independence was read out, and then came the Grito itself, which by tradition consists of reading a list of names of the original patriots. So if you are from the USA, reader, imagine it like this: “Patrick Henry” – viva, the crowd roars. “Thomas Jefferson” – VIVA! “George Washington” – VIVA!
This annual ceremony, of thousands of voices affirming in unison their patriotism, repeated across Mexico each midnight on September 15, held a special significance for Oaxaca. The Grito was read by José Cruz Luna, the mayor of the town of Zaachilla, one of the strongest in support of the social movement, and one that bears a large share of the daily movement tasks. Zaachilla threw out its prior mayor, and after an election by popular assembly, installed Cruz Luna.
Just as Oaxaca is left twisting in the wind waiting for some federal action, so too the National Action Party (PAN) may be left twisting while waiting to see what repercussion Oaxaca’s actions will have on the national scene.
The national daily La Jornada reported on September 13 that the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) senator Ricardo Monreal Avila openly questioned whether the senate’s refusal to use its powers to remove URO from his post as governor of Oaxaca was to protect URO, or was done in exchange for the PRI (functioning as part of the new “PRIAN” coalition) upholding the presidency of Felipe Calderón.
My understanding of what is going on in regard to the non-interventionist federal government is that the Interior Secretary Abascal’s offer was considered ahead of time to be a no starter. When the APPO negotiating commission returned to seek the popular consensus in Oaxaca, the vote yielded more than 30,000 to reject the government offer, and 9,000 to accept it. The offer included raising teacher wages through “rezonification” (a reevaluation of cost of living in Oaxaca that would mandate a raise in the minimum wage).
“The government offer by Carlos Abascal Carranza doesn’t resolve anything,” affirmed Flavio Sosa Villavicencio, a member of the APPO Provisional Coordinating Committee, in a press conference. Well, that didn’t require a rocket scientist. The negotiation is all about co-opting the teachers union, and says nothing about the destitution of powers in Oaxaca. Nevertheless, teachers’ union leader Enrique Rueda Pacheco spoke cheerfully on the détente between Segob and Oaxaca’s educators.
On Friday, the negotiating commission met with PAN senator Santiago Creel, the former Interior Secretary who is now leader of the PAN’s Senate delegation.
Does Rueda Pacheco bring back to the people this sort of “offer” from the Segob, and what was offered by Creel on Friday to the APPO, just to keep up the level of adrenalin? The Segob “offer” was discussed fervently, and placards appeared posted to the walls, reading: “The teachers don’t sell their dignity.” What is being gained – or lost – is time, for both sides in this tiring game.
If URO falls before the first of December, new elections can be held, as the APPO knows, to run a working-class candidate with a political, social and economic plan to benefit the ordinary Oaxaqueños. If URO is ousted through institutional means (through action by the Senate) after December 1, his two-year mark as governor, then an interim governor is appointed to fill out his term. Such a PRI governor would, nevertheless, be weak, and probably unable to fulfill promises made by URO such as the Plan Puebla Panama, which the people don’t want.
The next federal legislature will have a different composition, and the Oaxaca state legislature will be mostly PRD. The wild card is the PRD and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and how occupied and/or preoccupied Calderón will become.
My crystal ball says Calderón will let Oaxaca go by default, in order to keep up his pretense of governing the nation. Units of the Mexican Army from the 57th Infantry Battalion, whose base is in Pinotepa Nacional, a southwestern city, have been sighted around the state in mountain areas since August 21. In the municipality of Santiago Ixtayutla the authorities solicited an explanation but received none. In the North Sierra the situation is much the same. Despite the pronounced fear of the presence of the military in Oaxaca, I don’t envision a major military repression while the remainder of Mexico is on the verge of a massive popular movement toward political and economic change. The government de facto is already the APPO.
For Oaxaca with its economy wrecked, it will be tough going to play in this tournament until December. Many people favoring the PAN hope for an attrition that will leave the APPO, and Section 22 of the teachers union, crippled. The Segob’s previous offers have been largely economic bribery, having to do with teachers’ salaries and federal funds with no guarantee that such funds would go anywhere other than into the pocket of URO or his likely clone. As bribery, such offers are inadequate, and as politics, they are horrible. On Friday the 15th Creel outlined three options he can present to the national Senate, and all are methods of creating a commission to discuss what can be done. On the other hand, the longer the federal government stalls, the more entrenched the popular government becomes.
On Independence Day, September 16, the APPO organized four small marches. One was a delegation of teachers and civil organizations such as the Wide Front for Popular Struggle (FALP in its Spanish initials), the Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR) and the Committee in Defense of the People (CODEP), which have been strong supporters of the APPO from its inception. In place of military and police uniforms, which usually dominate September 16 festivities, regional costumes prevailed. The Oaxaca women marched.
Afternoon festivities included more folk dancing, music and speeches such as the “Manifesto of the 15th of September,” in which the APO called for continued struggle to oust URO. The manifesto referred to the creation of a new state constitution. In the hot sun children ran about still wearing masks and crowns from the previous night, or were held by their mothers. The popsicle sellers circulated. The APPO called for more organizing from below on the part of the citizens.
The customary military parade in Oaxaca was cancelled.
September 18, 2006
OK, I’ll just offer an observation, which is that Oaxaca state is now governed by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO in its Spanish initials), not the PRI.
The national Senate declined again this week to form a special commission to deal with the subject of Oaxaca, despite pressure from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD, the party of opposition candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador), and the Convergence party, to which Gabino Cue belongs. Cue is largely believed to have been defrauded in the last Oaxaca governmental election, which brought to power Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (“URO”). Cue is now a national senator.
A Oaxaca unitary commission formed from Section 22 of the teachers’ union plus representatives of the APPO has been unsuccessfully soliciting federal intervention to legally take away the governing powers of URO and the legislative and judiciary branches of government.
Instead, the Senate charged the federal Department of the Interior (known by its Spanish abbreviation Segob) with the task of negotiating a “settlement.” The PRD and Convergencia pointed out that the federal government is doing nothing, and intervention by the Senate is urgent. Segob, that is to say Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal, has had more than 115 days to resolve the situation in Oaxaca, while the state remains without a formal government.
Meanwhile, the attendees at the National Conference of Governors at their 29th annual gathering, held in Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit, declared themselves in support of URO. This was done because these governors are PRI and PAN members, and because they are afraid that if URO goes, they will all go, one by one. The fear of the “domino effect” in its most recent guise must now be considered as part of the PAN national strategy.
Despite the endorsement of his fellow governors, URO will not return to Oaxaca. As long as URO is not recognized by the people of Oaxaca as their governor, and remains outside the state, he gives the APPO and the peoples of Oaxaca time to take charge of affairs as necessary – for instance, the mobile police force, the formation of neighborhood crime-watch groups, the formation of local and municipal assemblies, the sweeping out of PRI remnants still in power through municipal uprisings, and the celebration of important national holidays such as Independence Day.
The Oaxaqueños, as citizens of a federal entity, enjoy the constitutional right under Article 27 of the Oaxaca state constitution to formalize the exit of URO, whose repressions have backfired and whose probable election fraud has become a key rallying point.
September is referred to as the “month of the nation.” On the morning of Friday, September 15, the occupied central city square, or zocalo, looked like a fairground, with cheerful people bustling between the stalls and under the colored plastic strung as protection against sun and rain. At the former government palace, spidermen of the APPO balanced on the façade of the building stringing red, white and green bunting and draping plastic chains of the same colors. The traditional “Cry for Independence” – the Grito – would be pronounced from the balcony of the government palace, an APPO member, who stood laughing on the pavement, told me, gesturing while his friends climbed around and dangled over the parapets.
“So who’s giving the Grito?” I asked. It was scheduled for eleven o’clock PM. The reply was, “a commission!” The APPO can’t select one person to place in the position of “leader.”
In Mexico City, the president was refused the ability to give the Grito there, and in Oaxaca the “ex-governor” URO likewise was banned, from what should have been his ceremonial post. According to my informant, URO wanted to give the Grito in the southeastern town of Tehuantepec, but the APPO sent members south to intercept him and forestall that possibility. In an internal struggle, Tehuantepec is presently operating with two, parallel, governments.
As for the Grito in Oaxaca, as usual, information received verbally from this “friend” was incorrect. (I learn this same lesson daily.) In addition, I got caught (yes, again) by the time designations: the Grito was at 11:00 PM in the hour of the campo or the natural hour, not at the neoliberal hour, also known as the daylight savings time – which meant the Grito took place at midnight. Of course.
I was down at the zocalo in plenty of time to see the folk dancers from Guerrero and admire the bunting draped profusely off the balconies where the windows remain boarded up. In front of the former government palace-museum hung huge portraits of Hidalgo and the Independence hero General Vicente Guerrero. During the prelude to the Grito the crowd of about five thousand raised their left fists in a salute to justice. Overhead fireworks exploded in sparks raining down on our heads. Several hot air paper balloons in lovely colors illuminated by the fire inside each one, sailed up while the crowd shouted “Ya cayó” – he’s out. At 11:30 neoliberal time, the Declaration of Independence was read out, and then came the Grito itself, which by tradition consists of reading a list of names of the original patriots. So if you are from the USA, reader, imagine it like this: “Patrick Henry” – viva, the crowd roars. “Thomas Jefferson” – VIVA! “George Washington” – VIVA!
This annual ceremony, of thousands of voices affirming in unison their patriotism, repeated across Mexico each midnight on September 15, held a special significance for Oaxaca. The Grito was read by José Cruz Luna, the mayor of the town of Zaachilla, one of the strongest in support of the social movement, and one that bears a large share of the daily movement tasks. Zaachilla threw out its prior mayor, and after an election by popular assembly, installed Cruz Luna.
Just as Oaxaca is left twisting in the wind waiting for some federal action, so too the National Action Party (PAN) may be left twisting while waiting to see what repercussion Oaxaca’s actions will have on the national scene.
The national daily La Jornada reported on September 13 that the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) senator Ricardo Monreal Avila openly questioned whether the senate’s refusal to use its powers to remove URO from his post as governor of Oaxaca was to protect URO, or was done in exchange for the PRI (functioning as part of the new “PRIAN” coalition) upholding the presidency of Felipe Calderón.
My understanding of what is going on in regard to the non-interventionist federal government is that the Interior Secretary Abascal’s offer was considered ahead of time to be a no starter. When the APPO negotiating commission returned to seek the popular consensus in Oaxaca, the vote yielded more than 30,000 to reject the government offer, and 9,000 to accept it. The offer included raising teacher wages through “rezonification” (a reevaluation of cost of living in Oaxaca that would mandate a raise in the minimum wage).
“The government offer by Carlos Abascal Carranza doesn’t resolve anything,” affirmed Flavio Sosa Villavicencio, a member of the APPO Provisional Coordinating Committee, in a press conference. Well, that didn’t require a rocket scientist. The negotiation is all about co-opting the teachers union, and says nothing about the destitution of powers in Oaxaca. Nevertheless, teachers’ union leader Enrique Rueda Pacheco spoke cheerfully on the détente between Segob and Oaxaca’s educators.
On Friday, the negotiating commission met with PAN senator Santiago Creel, the former Interior Secretary who is now leader of the PAN’s Senate delegation.
Does Rueda Pacheco bring back to the people this sort of “offer” from the Segob, and what was offered by Creel on Friday to the APPO, just to keep up the level of adrenalin? The Segob “offer” was discussed fervently, and placards appeared posted to the walls, reading: “The teachers don’t sell their dignity.” What is being gained – or lost – is time, for both sides in this tiring game.
If URO falls before the first of December, new elections can be held, as the APPO knows, to run a working-class candidate with a political, social and economic plan to benefit the ordinary Oaxaqueños. If URO is ousted through institutional means (through action by the Senate) after December 1, his two-year mark as governor, then an interim governor is appointed to fill out his term. Such a PRI governor would, nevertheless, be weak, and probably unable to fulfill promises made by URO such as the Plan Puebla Panama, which the people don’t want.
The next federal legislature will have a different composition, and the Oaxaca state legislature will be mostly PRD. The wild card is the PRD and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and how occupied and/or preoccupied Calderón will become.
My crystal ball says Calderón will let Oaxaca go by default, in order to keep up his pretense of governing the nation. Units of the Mexican Army from the 57th Infantry Battalion, whose base is in Pinotepa Nacional, a southwestern city, have been sighted around the state in mountain areas since August 21. In the municipality of Santiago Ixtayutla the authorities solicited an explanation but received none. In the North Sierra the situation is much the same. Despite the pronounced fear of the presence of the military in Oaxaca, I don’t envision a major military repression while the remainder of Mexico is on the verge of a massive popular movement toward political and economic change. The government de facto is already the APPO.
For Oaxaca with its economy wrecked, it will be tough going to play in this tournament until December. Many people favoring the PAN hope for an attrition that will leave the APPO, and Section 22 of the teachers union, crippled. The Segob’s previous offers have been largely economic bribery, having to do with teachers’ salaries and federal funds with no guarantee that such funds would go anywhere other than into the pocket of URO or his likely clone. As bribery, such offers are inadequate, and as politics, they are horrible. On Friday the 15th Creel outlined three options he can present to the national Senate, and all are methods of creating a commission to discuss what can be done. On the other hand, the longer the federal government stalls, the more entrenched the popular government becomes.
On Independence Day, September 16, the APPO organized four small marches. One was a delegation of teachers and civil organizations such as the Wide Front for Popular Struggle (FALP in its Spanish initials), the Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR) and the Committee in Defense of the People (CODEP), which have been strong supporters of the APPO from its inception. In place of military and police uniforms, which usually dominate September 16 festivities, regional costumes prevailed. The Oaxaca women marched.
Afternoon festivities included more folk dancing, music and speeches such as the “Manifesto of the 15th of September,” in which the APO called for continued struggle to oust URO. The manifesto referred to the creation of a new state constitution. In the hot sun children ran about still wearing masks and crowns from the previous night, or were held by their mothers. The popsicle sellers circulated. The APPO called for more organizing from below on the part of the citizens.
The customary military parade in Oaxaca was cancelled.
12,000 US Dead, 25,000 Badly Wounded In Iraq?
Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially.
The actual death toll is in excess of 10,000. (See the official records at the end of this piece.) Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded (and a published total of 25,000 wounded overall,), this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 2,000+ now being officially published.
When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources In addition to the evident falsification of the death rolls, at least 5,500 American military personnel have deserted, most in Ireland but more have escaped to Canada and other European countries, none of whom are inclined to cooperate with vengeful American authorities.
(See TBR News of 18 February for full coverage on the mass desertions) This means that of the 158,000 U.S. military shipped to Iraq, 26,000 deserted, were killed or seriously wounded. The DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate over 12,000 dead, over 25,000 seriously wounded and a large number of suicides, forced hospitalization for ongoing drug usage and sales, murder of Iraqi civilians and fellow soldiers, rapes, courts martial and so on -
The government gets away with these huge lies because they claim, falsely, that only soldiers actually killed on the ground in Iraq are reported. The dying and critically wounded are listed as en route to military hospitals outside of the country and not reported on the daily postings. Anyone who dies just as the transport takes off from the Baghdad airport is not listed and neither are those who die in the US military hospitals.
Their families are certainly notified that their son, husband, brother or lover was dead and the bodies, or what is left of them (refrigeration is very bad in Iraq what with constant power outages) are shipped home, to Dover AFB. This, we note, was the overall policy until very recently. Since it became well known that many had died at Landstuhl, in Germany, the DoD began to list a very few soldiers who had died at other non-theater locations. These numbers are only for show and are pathetically small in relationship to the actual figures.
You ought to realize that President Bush personally ordered that no pictures be taken of the coffined and flag-draped dead under any circumstances. He claims that this is to comfort the bereaved relatives but is designed to keep the huge number of arriving bodies secret. Any civilian, or military personnel, taking pictures will be jailed at once and prosecuted. Bush has never attended any kind of a memorial service for his dead soldiers and never will. He is terrified some parent might curse him in front of the press or, worse, attack him.
The actual death toll is in excess of 10,000. (See the official records at the end of this piece.) Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded (and a published total of 25,000 wounded overall,), this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 2,000+ now being officially published.
When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources In addition to the evident falsification of the death rolls, at least 5,500 American military personnel have deserted, most in Ireland but more have escaped to Canada and other European countries, none of whom are inclined to cooperate with vengeful American authorities.
(See TBR News of 18 February for full coverage on the mass desertions) This means that of the 158,000 U.S. military shipped to Iraq, 26,000 deserted, were killed or seriously wounded. The DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate over 12,000 dead, over 25,000 seriously wounded and a large number of suicides, forced hospitalization for ongoing drug usage and sales, murder of Iraqi civilians and fellow soldiers, rapes, courts martial and so on -
The government gets away with these huge lies because they claim, falsely, that only soldiers actually killed on the ground in Iraq are reported. The dying and critically wounded are listed as en route to military hospitals outside of the country and not reported on the daily postings. Anyone who dies just as the transport takes off from the Baghdad airport is not listed and neither are those who die in the US military hospitals.
Their families are certainly notified that their son, husband, brother or lover was dead and the bodies, or what is left of them (refrigeration is very bad in Iraq what with constant power outages) are shipped home, to Dover AFB. This, we note, was the overall policy until very recently. Since it became well known that many had died at Landstuhl, in Germany, the DoD began to list a very few soldiers who had died at other non-theater locations. These numbers are only for show and are pathetically small in relationship to the actual figures.
You ought to realize that President Bush personally ordered that no pictures be taken of the coffined and flag-draped dead under any circumstances. He claims that this is to comfort the bereaved relatives but is designed to keep the huge number of arriving bodies secret. Any civilian, or military personnel, taking pictures will be jailed at once and prosecuted. Bush has never attended any kind of a memorial service for his dead soldiers and never will. He is terrified some parent might curse him in front of the press or, worse, attack him.
Pentagon Coverup of HIGH COMBAT DEATH FIGURES IN IRAQ
Deflation of U.S. casualty figures in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to U.S. military sources, the Pentagon is consistently deflating the number of combat deaths in Iraq by manipulating the figures. For example, combat deaths in battlefield Medivac units are not being counted as combat casualties. One source said, "if someone is killed on the ground, that is counted as a combat death . . . if the wounded soldier is placed in a Medivac helicopter, the minute the door is closed and he dies . . . that is not counted as a combat death."
The undercounting of combat deaths is supported in a new documentary titled "The Ground Truth." In the film, a number of Iraq combat veterans report that soldiers and Marines who commit suicide in Iraq or stateside from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are not counted as combat casualties. Nor are veterans suffering from PTSD being given adequate care by military hospitals or Veterans Administration hospitals, charge vets who appear in the documentary.
The undercounting of combat deaths is supported in a new documentary titled "The Ground Truth." In the film, a number of Iraq combat veterans report that soldiers and Marines who commit suicide in Iraq or stateside from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are not counted as combat casualties. Nor are veterans suffering from PTSD being given adequate care by military hospitals or Veterans Administration hospitals, charge vets who appear in the documentary.
Monday, September 18, 2006
9-11: Five Years Later by David Cline
I remember the morning of September 11, 2001 like it was yesterday. I was still sleeping when my phone rang just after 9 AM. It was my friend and Vietnam Marine vet Jaime Vazquez. He yelled into the phone, “A plane just hit the Trade Center, turn on your TV”.
I turned it on and went to my front window.. I live in the Jersey City Heights across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan and had a clear view of the Twin Towers from my apartment. I could see heavy black smoke billowing out of Building One. I went to see what they were saying on television just as the second aircraft hit Building Two. I could not believe what was happening.
I knew that the World Trade Center had long been a target for terrorist attack. I used to work for the Port Authority, who ran the WTC, and for 8 years was an officer for my Union local. During that time I spent many hours there in negotiations with Labor Relations and representing cafeteria and observation deck workers who were members of our Union.
In 1993, I was scheduled to be at the WTC for contract negotiations on the day it was bombed the first time. At the last minute, the local president reassigned me to another facility to represent an employee in a disciplinary hearing but the rest of our executive board was there when the explosion happened. They had to flee down almost 80 floors, along with thousands of others, to escape the destruction.
The perpetrators were captured, tried and convicted but it was understood that they was part of a larger network and that there was a good possibility that they would try to attack the Twin Towers again.
On 9-11-01 it happened and was much more horrible than anyone imagined. Over the hours, days and weeks after the attacks, people throughout the area, country and world rallied to rescue people, do relief work and help their fellow human beings in whatever way they could.
I have talked to friends and strangers who were there and told of leading office workers to safety, of couples holding hands and jumping to their deaths to escape the burning hell inside, of people on the ground being crushed by falling bodies, and of firemen, police, and emergency service workers repeatedly going back inside to lead people out only to have the buildings collapse on them. Even writing these words still brings me pain and tears.
As the minutes and hours rolled on, we learned that a third plane had slammed into the Pentagon and yet another aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania after the passengers heroically attempted to fight back against the hijackers.
But what happened next has much to do with the dire state we find our nation in today. Everyone understood that in response to these attacks, action had to be taken to hold accountable those responsible and bring them to justice.
An air assault and ground invasion of Afghanistan followed within weeks and the Taliban regime was overthrown. In the fighting that followed, many of the main leaders of the Al-Qaeda organization that had planned, financed and organized these attacks were able to escape capture.
US troops have remained there since and are now caught in a growing insurgence against foreign occupation much like the resistance that developed in the 1980s against the Soviet military invasion of that country.
But the Bush administration had bigger plans. In a strategic paper titled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, the “Project for the New American Century” a right-wing think-tank, had argued for aggressively expanding American imperial influence abroad. One of the main obstacles they identified was the reluctance of the American people to re-militarize and advocated incremental escalation of their program unless there was “another Pearl Harbor”.
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and other top dogs in the Bush administration were architects of this “neo-con”(artist) thinking and now they had what they had dreamed about.
George W. Bush used the 9-11 attack to declare his “war on terror” that has since meant the illegal invasion of Iraq, support for and encouragement of Israeli aggression against Lebanon and long-suffering Palestine, people being “disappeared” and tortured in gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and basic human rights and increased imperial meddling and bullying throughout Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe.
These military conflicts abroad have inevitably led to more suffering and loss of freedom here at home. Social uplift programs, including those to assist veterans, have been slashed and face new threats with each new federal budget. Jobs continue to disappear through “free trade agreements” and globalization while many elected representatives, both Democrat and Republican, treat civil liberties and rights like quaint relics of the past. When natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina strike the message from the White House is “the people be damned”.
This year marked the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and memorial services were held at Ground Zero, the Pennsylvania field and the Pentagon as well as many cities and towns throughout the nation. In NYC, family members of those lost read the 2997 names and held a solemn remembrance.
Bush used the occasion to address the nation and again justify “staying the course” in the Iraq quagmire.
At Ground Zero, a memorial to the dead has still not been built, and some big rollers and politicians have proposed designs that many family members oppose as trivializing the sacred memory of those lost on that day.
In the five years since then, hundreds if not thousands of the rescue workers who so selflessly risked their lives have become sick and some have already died from various respiratory illnesses caused by the toxic stew of asbestos and other hazardous materials which filled the air after the towers collapsed. At that time the city government and federal Environmental Protection Agency had assured the rescue workers that air quality was safe and appropriate protective gear was not issued.
Today many of these sick rescue workers are still struggling with a city and federal government that is stonewalling their claims and denying them the treatment and compensation they need. When we talk about what happened, we must insist that the living receive Justice just as surely as the dead
It reminds me of the treatment that Vietnam veterans who were poisoned by Agent Orange/dioxin received when we came home from Southeast Asia and what they are doing to Desert Storm and Iraq war vets today about Depleted Uranium and other chemical toxins the troops were exposed to.
Recently there has developed what is called the “9-11 Truth” movement. Many theories have been advanced about what happened. The federal 9-11 Commission left so many unanswered questions, that much like the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F Kennedy, speculation and conspiracy theories have found fertile soil in some people’s minds.
I think that all questions and possibilities need to be examined and also believe that we should not trust a government that has lied so many times in the past, but I also think that we need to focus our primary efforts on what is happening now and how the 9-11 attacks were used as a justification for unjustifiable war.
Over the five years since that day, I have worked with an organization called September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. I have met many strong, honest and caring people who will not allow the loss of their loved ones to be used as propaganda props for aggression abroad or repression at home.
As they and all the 9-11 families remember and mourn their losses, we join with them in solemn reflection on this crime committed against our people.
But we must also reflect on why these terrorists would attack us, what policies our government is pursuing that have so antagonized people in the Muslim world, who benefits from these policies, and what we can do to get our country on track as part of a world community that promotes human rights, justice, peace and freedom.
This is the legacy of 9/11/01 I am committed to. If Americans understand this and do something about it, we may be able to fundamentally change course and prevent worse disasters from happening. If not, I fear to think of what will happen in the future.
This article was written for publication in the upcoming issue of the VVAW
national publication. The Veteran, which will be out in November 2006
I turned it on and went to my front window.. I live in the Jersey City Heights across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan and had a clear view of the Twin Towers from my apartment. I could see heavy black smoke billowing out of Building One. I went to see what they were saying on television just as the second aircraft hit Building Two. I could not believe what was happening.
I knew that the World Trade Center had long been a target for terrorist attack. I used to work for the Port Authority, who ran the WTC, and for 8 years was an officer for my Union local. During that time I spent many hours there in negotiations with Labor Relations and representing cafeteria and observation deck workers who were members of our Union.
In 1993, I was scheduled to be at the WTC for contract negotiations on the day it was bombed the first time. At the last minute, the local president reassigned me to another facility to represent an employee in a disciplinary hearing but the rest of our executive board was there when the explosion happened. They had to flee down almost 80 floors, along with thousands of others, to escape the destruction.
The perpetrators were captured, tried and convicted but it was understood that they was part of a larger network and that there was a good possibility that they would try to attack the Twin Towers again.
On 9-11-01 it happened and was much more horrible than anyone imagined. Over the hours, days and weeks after the attacks, people throughout the area, country and world rallied to rescue people, do relief work and help their fellow human beings in whatever way they could.
I have talked to friends and strangers who were there and told of leading office workers to safety, of couples holding hands and jumping to their deaths to escape the burning hell inside, of people on the ground being crushed by falling bodies, and of firemen, police, and emergency service workers repeatedly going back inside to lead people out only to have the buildings collapse on them. Even writing these words still brings me pain and tears.
As the minutes and hours rolled on, we learned that a third plane had slammed into the Pentagon and yet another aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania after the passengers heroically attempted to fight back against the hijackers.
But what happened next has much to do with the dire state we find our nation in today. Everyone understood that in response to these attacks, action had to be taken to hold accountable those responsible and bring them to justice.
An air assault and ground invasion of Afghanistan followed within weeks and the Taliban regime was overthrown. In the fighting that followed, many of the main leaders of the Al-Qaeda organization that had planned, financed and organized these attacks were able to escape capture.
US troops have remained there since and are now caught in a growing insurgence against foreign occupation much like the resistance that developed in the 1980s against the Soviet military invasion of that country.
But the Bush administration had bigger plans. In a strategic paper titled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, the “Project for the New American Century” a right-wing think-tank, had argued for aggressively expanding American imperial influence abroad. One of the main obstacles they identified was the reluctance of the American people to re-militarize and advocated incremental escalation of their program unless there was “another Pearl Harbor”.
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and other top dogs in the Bush administration were architects of this “neo-con”(artist) thinking and now they had what they had dreamed about.
George W. Bush used the 9-11 attack to declare his “war on terror” that has since meant the illegal invasion of Iraq, support for and encouragement of Israeli aggression against Lebanon and long-suffering Palestine, people being “disappeared” and tortured in gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and basic human rights and increased imperial meddling and bullying throughout Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe.
These military conflicts abroad have inevitably led to more suffering and loss of freedom here at home. Social uplift programs, including those to assist veterans, have been slashed and face new threats with each new federal budget. Jobs continue to disappear through “free trade agreements” and globalization while many elected representatives, both Democrat and Republican, treat civil liberties and rights like quaint relics of the past. When natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina strike the message from the White House is “the people be damned”.
This year marked the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and memorial services were held at Ground Zero, the Pennsylvania field and the Pentagon as well as many cities and towns throughout the nation. In NYC, family members of those lost read the 2997 names and held a solemn remembrance.
Bush used the occasion to address the nation and again justify “staying the course” in the Iraq quagmire.
At Ground Zero, a memorial to the dead has still not been built, and some big rollers and politicians have proposed designs that many family members oppose as trivializing the sacred memory of those lost on that day.
In the five years since then, hundreds if not thousands of the rescue workers who so selflessly risked their lives have become sick and some have already died from various respiratory illnesses caused by the toxic stew of asbestos and other hazardous materials which filled the air after the towers collapsed. At that time the city government and federal Environmental Protection Agency had assured the rescue workers that air quality was safe and appropriate protective gear was not issued.
Today many of these sick rescue workers are still struggling with a city and federal government that is stonewalling their claims and denying them the treatment and compensation they need. When we talk about what happened, we must insist that the living receive Justice just as surely as the dead
It reminds me of the treatment that Vietnam veterans who were poisoned by Agent Orange/dioxin received when we came home from Southeast Asia and what they are doing to Desert Storm and Iraq war vets today about Depleted Uranium and other chemical toxins the troops were exposed to.
Recently there has developed what is called the “9-11 Truth” movement. Many theories have been advanced about what happened. The federal 9-11 Commission left so many unanswered questions, that much like the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F Kennedy, speculation and conspiracy theories have found fertile soil in some people’s minds.
I think that all questions and possibilities need to be examined and also believe that we should not trust a government that has lied so many times in the past, but I also think that we need to focus our primary efforts on what is happening now and how the 9-11 attacks were used as a justification for unjustifiable war.
Over the five years since that day, I have worked with an organization called September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. I have met many strong, honest and caring people who will not allow the loss of their loved ones to be used as propaganda props for aggression abroad or repression at home.
As they and all the 9-11 families remember and mourn their losses, we join with them in solemn reflection on this crime committed against our people.
But we must also reflect on why these terrorists would attack us, what policies our government is pursuing that have so antagonized people in the Muslim world, who benefits from these policies, and what we can do to get our country on track as part of a world community that promotes human rights, justice, peace and freedom.
This is the legacy of 9/11/01 I am committed to. If Americans understand this and do something about it, we may be able to fundamentally change course and prevent worse disasters from happening. If not, I fear to think of what will happen in the future.
This article was written for publication in the upcoming issue of the VVAW
national publication. The Veteran, which will be out in November 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Testament of the Death Squads - Good Christ, Bad Christ By GREG GRANDIN
Just a few years ago, with the release of The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson seemed to have done what centuries of religious wars and inquisitions couldn’t: unite Christians, at least conservative Christians. More than two hours of remorseless sadism, of thorns, whips and nails, washed away not just sin but theological quarrels that have defined Christianity since Luther nailed his 95 theses to the gate at Wittenberg Church.
Never mind that Gibson is Catholic. Evangelical Tim LaHaye, the author of the popular Left Behind novels, pronounced the film a “scripturally accurate account of how He really suffered for the sins of the whole world,” even though LaHaye believes Catholics to be little better than pagans who indeed would most likely be “left behind” when the Rapture came. Gibson in fact pulled off something like a modern miracle: he transubstantiated the body and blood of a humane and forgiving Jesus worshiped by less vengeful Christians -- by Catholic Workers, Social Gospel protestants, and even the manor-born Episcopalians who until recently commanded the Republican Party and helped administer the secular welfare state -- into Christ in Pain, a castigated and castigating icon that served as a common reference point for an amalgamated Religious Right. Even politically conservative Jews like David Horowitz and Michael Medved could join in the communion. Horowitz pronounced the film “awesome,” as “close to a religious experience as art can get” and a parable for the cruelties of the twentieth century.
READ MORE...
Never mind that Gibson is Catholic. Evangelical Tim LaHaye, the author of the popular Left Behind novels, pronounced the film a “scripturally accurate account of how He really suffered for the sins of the whole world,” even though LaHaye believes Catholics to be little better than pagans who indeed would most likely be “left behind” when the Rapture came. Gibson in fact pulled off something like a modern miracle: he transubstantiated the body and blood of a humane and forgiving Jesus worshiped by less vengeful Christians -- by Catholic Workers, Social Gospel protestants, and even the manor-born Episcopalians who until recently commanded the Republican Party and helped administer the secular welfare state -- into Christ in Pain, a castigated and castigating icon that served as a common reference point for an amalgamated Religious Right. Even politically conservative Jews like David Horowitz and Michael Medved could join in the communion. Horowitz pronounced the film “awesome,” as “close to a religious experience as art can get” and a parable for the cruelties of the twentieth century.
READ MORE...
Popular resistance from Caracas to Cairo By George Galloway
"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" reads the eponymous statue's inscription in Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Ozymandias. But it is the boastful tyrant's monument, not the self-confidence of his enemies, that lies splintered in the sands.
Five years on from the atrocities of 11 September 2001, George W Bush and the neo- conservatives have managed to turn much of Afghanistan and Iraq into desolation, full of now lifeless things.
Amid this carnage lies another, unlamented casualty -- the colossal wreck of US and British foreign policy. The authors of that wreckage cannot conceivably claim they were not warned of the calamities they would unleash.
Millions of us told them what would happen if they seized on the events of five years ago to launch what the Pentagon now calls the "long war". Four days after the attacks in New York and Washington I spoke in a sitting of the recalled British parliament. I warned that if the US and its allies mishandled the response, they would create a thousand, ten thousand Bin Ladens. Five years on, is that not what's hapened?
Many tens of thousands of people -- mostly women and children -- have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do the ultimate perpetrators of the killings, as they sit behind their mahogany desks in the White House and Downing Street, imagine that the rest of us have not noticed how they do not deem those Arab and Muslim dead worthy of the same grief as attends their own?
Do they think we have not noticed how they refuse even to count the number killed in Iraq? Did they believe that the pornographic images of Abu Ghraib would be discounted? Did George Bush and Tony Blair delude themselves into thinking they could whet the knife that Israel plunged into Lebanon without being seen as accomplices to war crimes?
Blair certainly gave every appearance of having lost all contact with reality when he flew to Tel Aviv last weekend. With his own MPs plotting to oust him for damaging their re-election prospects, he went to occupied Jerusalem and threw his arms around Ehud Olmert, whose war in Lebanon the vast majority of people in Britain opposed.
As for Bush, he has always struggled even to give the impression of having a connection with reality. Nevertheless, the reality of the last five years stubbornly remains. The world is not a safer place; it is more violent, more dangerous.
There are more, not fewer, jihadists of the Bin Laden stripe. The bitterness in the Arab and Muslim world is deeper, broader and more incendiary.
In Afghanistan, Blair, oblivious to his nation's history of military catastrophe in that proud country, has hurled his soldiers into the most unforgiving terrain, against a ferocious and growing military resistance, in a part of the world that even Alexander the Great could not occupy.
In Iraq, the occupiers have spilt enough blood to turn the two great rivers red. In order to cling on they foment sectarian and confessional strife which, and this may be their parting gift, threatens tragically to trisect the country. Can they with a straight face claim Iraq is better off now than it was before the invasion?
Remember what they said their war would achieve: freedom and democracy, respect for women, prosperity and dignity.
In truth, it was the freedom of US corporate culture, the democracy of the dollar and an Arab world ruled by corrupt kings and puppet presidents just as pliant but a little less gauche, able to rig an election as the Bush's do in Florida rather than tactlessly incarcerating the opposition.
Even these, their own selfish ambitions, have not been achieved. That increasingly stands out as the most salient feature of the reality they have created over the last half- decade. Nowhere symbolises it more than Lebanon.
In March of last year the US State Department and British Foreign Office were incongruously playing the role of revolutionary pamphleteer. The "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon was, we were assured, about to usher an irresistible movement for a "New Middle East".
Fifteen months later and we know what that looks like: the Israeli army pledging to bomb Lebanon back two decades and embarking on an invasion whose success was predicated on reigniting the flames of civil war which the people of Lebanon have done so much to douse.
The war this summer was not merely another episode in the bloody history of Israel lashing out at bordering states. It was a battle in Washington's wider war on terror. It was a front that opened up, ironically, precisely because the US is mired and losing on the Iraq front. The assault on Lebanon was meant to pave the way to further aggression against Syria and Iran.
That makes the reaction of those Arab leaders who denounced the Lebanese resistance all the more emetic. Their spurious claims that this was merely a Shia issue or that threats to bomb Iran are a Persian problem should be met with nothing but contempt.
In backing Israel against Hizbullah and the Lebanese resistance, they sided with the enemy who is garrotting the Palestinians in Gaza. While these leaders humiliated themselves before Washington and Tel Aviv, the name Sheikh Sayed Hassan Nasrallah was on the lips of millions from Rabat to Riyadh.
Israel's defeat at the hands of Hizbullah and the resistance in Lebanon is a defeat also for Washington and London. It has opened up a new prospect for ending the nightmare of the last five years.
It is not only in the Arab and Muslim world that confidence is surging forward that there is an alternative to domination by the US, global corporations and their local junior partners. The same is happening in Latin America where President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela personifies a new radical generation, one that met its counterparts in the Middle East and the older generation of the great Fidel Castro at the Non-Aligned Summit this week.
This, I believe, is going to be the lasting legacy of the last five years: a renewed global movement in direct opposition to the Pentagon and the multinationals on whose behalf it acts as enforcer. The stakes are extraordinarily high. Just as the impasse in Iraq drove the US to support the Israeli adventure in Lebanon, so that defeat may in turn accelerate preparations for an assault on Iran.
That would be one of the most costly miscalculations in history. They stand warned. But they stood warned over their crazed reaction to 11 September, so no one should underestimate their capacity to wade deeper into the river of blood.
The US is not going to tip toe away, despite its losses. To do so would mean the American establishment accepting that its power and prestige had been thrown back to before 1989, when it faced a rival power.
It is going to take the power of the popular resistance from Caracas to Cairo to throw back that behemoth and settle accounts with all the quislings who it depends upon but who crucially also depend on it.
George Galloway, is respected member of British Parliament for the London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow.
Five years on from the atrocities of 11 September 2001, George W Bush and the neo- conservatives have managed to turn much of Afghanistan and Iraq into desolation, full of now lifeless things.
Amid this carnage lies another, unlamented casualty -- the colossal wreck of US and British foreign policy. The authors of that wreckage cannot conceivably claim they were not warned of the calamities they would unleash.
Millions of us told them what would happen if they seized on the events of five years ago to launch what the Pentagon now calls the "long war". Four days after the attacks in New York and Washington I spoke in a sitting of the recalled British parliament. I warned that if the US and its allies mishandled the response, they would create a thousand, ten thousand Bin Ladens. Five years on, is that not what's hapened?
Many tens of thousands of people -- mostly women and children -- have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do the ultimate perpetrators of the killings, as they sit behind their mahogany desks in the White House and Downing Street, imagine that the rest of us have not noticed how they do not deem those Arab and Muslim dead worthy of the same grief as attends their own?
Do they think we have not noticed how they refuse even to count the number killed in Iraq? Did they believe that the pornographic images of Abu Ghraib would be discounted? Did George Bush and Tony Blair delude themselves into thinking they could whet the knife that Israel plunged into Lebanon without being seen as accomplices to war crimes?
Blair certainly gave every appearance of having lost all contact with reality when he flew to Tel Aviv last weekend. With his own MPs plotting to oust him for damaging their re-election prospects, he went to occupied Jerusalem and threw his arms around Ehud Olmert, whose war in Lebanon the vast majority of people in Britain opposed.
As for Bush, he has always struggled even to give the impression of having a connection with reality. Nevertheless, the reality of the last five years stubbornly remains. The world is not a safer place; it is more violent, more dangerous.
There are more, not fewer, jihadists of the Bin Laden stripe. The bitterness in the Arab and Muslim world is deeper, broader and more incendiary.
In Afghanistan, Blair, oblivious to his nation's history of military catastrophe in that proud country, has hurled his soldiers into the most unforgiving terrain, against a ferocious and growing military resistance, in a part of the world that even Alexander the Great could not occupy.
In Iraq, the occupiers have spilt enough blood to turn the two great rivers red. In order to cling on they foment sectarian and confessional strife which, and this may be their parting gift, threatens tragically to trisect the country. Can they with a straight face claim Iraq is better off now than it was before the invasion?
Remember what they said their war would achieve: freedom and democracy, respect for women, prosperity and dignity.
In truth, it was the freedom of US corporate culture, the democracy of the dollar and an Arab world ruled by corrupt kings and puppet presidents just as pliant but a little less gauche, able to rig an election as the Bush's do in Florida rather than tactlessly incarcerating the opposition.
Even these, their own selfish ambitions, have not been achieved. That increasingly stands out as the most salient feature of the reality they have created over the last half- decade. Nowhere symbolises it more than Lebanon.
In March of last year the US State Department and British Foreign Office were incongruously playing the role of revolutionary pamphleteer. The "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon was, we were assured, about to usher an irresistible movement for a "New Middle East".
Fifteen months later and we know what that looks like: the Israeli army pledging to bomb Lebanon back two decades and embarking on an invasion whose success was predicated on reigniting the flames of civil war which the people of Lebanon have done so much to douse.
The war this summer was not merely another episode in the bloody history of Israel lashing out at bordering states. It was a battle in Washington's wider war on terror. It was a front that opened up, ironically, precisely because the US is mired and losing on the Iraq front. The assault on Lebanon was meant to pave the way to further aggression against Syria and Iran.
That makes the reaction of those Arab leaders who denounced the Lebanese resistance all the more emetic. Their spurious claims that this was merely a Shia issue or that threats to bomb Iran are a Persian problem should be met with nothing but contempt.
In backing Israel against Hizbullah and the Lebanese resistance, they sided with the enemy who is garrotting the Palestinians in Gaza. While these leaders humiliated themselves before Washington and Tel Aviv, the name Sheikh Sayed Hassan Nasrallah was on the lips of millions from Rabat to Riyadh.
Israel's defeat at the hands of Hizbullah and the resistance in Lebanon is a defeat also for Washington and London. It has opened up a new prospect for ending the nightmare of the last five years.
It is not only in the Arab and Muslim world that confidence is surging forward that there is an alternative to domination by the US, global corporations and their local junior partners. The same is happening in Latin America where President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela personifies a new radical generation, one that met its counterparts in the Middle East and the older generation of the great Fidel Castro at the Non-Aligned Summit this week.
This, I believe, is going to be the lasting legacy of the last five years: a renewed global movement in direct opposition to the Pentagon and the multinationals on whose behalf it acts as enforcer. The stakes are extraordinarily high. Just as the impasse in Iraq drove the US to support the Israeli adventure in Lebanon, so that defeat may in turn accelerate preparations for an assault on Iran.
That would be one of the most costly miscalculations in history. They stand warned. But they stood warned over their crazed reaction to 11 September, so no one should underestimate their capacity to wade deeper into the river of blood.
The US is not going to tip toe away, despite its losses. To do so would mean the American establishment accepting that its power and prestige had been thrown back to before 1989, when it faced a rival power.
It is going to take the power of the popular resistance from Caracas to Cairo to throw back that behemoth and settle accounts with all the quislings who it depends upon but who crucially also depend on it.
George Galloway, is respected member of British Parliament for the London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow.
Papal Insults - A Bavarian Provocation By TARIQ ALI
Was Benedict's most recent provocation accidental or deliberate? The Bavarian is a razor-sharp reactionary cleric. A man who organises his own succession to the Papacy with a ruthless purge of potential dissidents and supervises the selection of Cardinals with great care leaves little to chance.
I think he knew what he was saying and why.
Choosing a quote from Manuel II Paleologos, not the most intelligent of the Byzantine rulers, was somewhat disingenuous, especially on the eve of a visit to Turkey. He could have found more effective quotes and closer to home. Perhaps it was his unique tribute to Oriana Fallaci.
Perhaps.
The Muslim world with two of its countries---Iraq and Afghanistan-- directly occupied by Western troops does not need to be reminded of the language of the Crusades. In a neo-liberal world suffering from environmental degradation, poverty, hunger, repression, a 'planet of slums' (in the graphic phrase of Mike Davis), the Pope chooses to insult the founder of a rival faith.
The reaction in the Muslim world was predictable, but depressingly insufficient. Islamic civilization cannot be reduced to the power of the sword. It was the vital bridge between the Ancient world and the European Renaissance. It was the Catholic Church that declared War on Islam in the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily. Mass expulsions, killings, forced conversions and a vicious Inquisition to police the cleansed Europe and the reformist Protestant enemy.
The fury against 'heretics' led to the burning of Cathar villages in Southern France. Jews and Protestants alike were granted refuge by the Ottoman Empire, a refuge they would have been denied had Istanbul remained Constantinople. 'Slaves, obey your human masters.For Christ is the real master you serve' said Paul (Colossians 3: 22-24) in establishing a collaborationist tradition which fell on its knees before wealth and power and which reached its apogee during the Second World War where the leadership of the Church collaborated with fascism and did not speak up against the judeocide or the butchery on the Eastern Front. Islam does not need pacifist lessons from this Church.
Violence was and is not the prerogative of any single religion as the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestine demonstrates. During the Cold War the Vatican, with rare exceptions, supported the imperial wars. Both sides were blessed during the First and Second World wars; the US Cardinal Spellman was a leading warrior in the battles to destroy Communism during the Korean and Vietnam wars. The Vatican later punished the liberation theologists and peasant-priests in Latin America. Some were excommunicated.
Not all Christians joined in the crusades old and new. When Pope Urban launched the crusades the Norman king of Sicily refused to send troops in which Sicilian Muslims would be compelled to fight against Muslims in the East. His son, Roger II, refused to back the Second Crusade. In doing so they showed more courage than the leaders of contemporary Italy, who are only too willing to join the imperial crusades against the Muslim world.
'To make sure of being right in all things', said the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, 'we ought always to hold to the principle that the white I see I should believe to be black if the hierarchical church were so to rule.'
Today most Catholic prelates in the West (including the Bavarian in the Vatican) and politicians of Centre-Left/Right worship the real Pope who lives in the White House and tells them when black is white.
Amen.
Tariq Ali is author of the recently released Street Fighting Years (new edition) and, with David Barsamian, Speaking of Empires & Resistance. He can be reached at: tariq.ali3@btinternet.com
I think he knew what he was saying and why.
Choosing a quote from Manuel II Paleologos, not the most intelligent of the Byzantine rulers, was somewhat disingenuous, especially on the eve of a visit to Turkey. He could have found more effective quotes and closer to home. Perhaps it was his unique tribute to Oriana Fallaci.
Perhaps.
The Muslim world with two of its countries---Iraq and Afghanistan-- directly occupied by Western troops does not need to be reminded of the language of the Crusades. In a neo-liberal world suffering from environmental degradation, poverty, hunger, repression, a 'planet of slums' (in the graphic phrase of Mike Davis), the Pope chooses to insult the founder of a rival faith.
The reaction in the Muslim world was predictable, but depressingly insufficient. Islamic civilization cannot be reduced to the power of the sword. It was the vital bridge between the Ancient world and the European Renaissance. It was the Catholic Church that declared War on Islam in the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily. Mass expulsions, killings, forced conversions and a vicious Inquisition to police the cleansed Europe and the reformist Protestant enemy.
The fury against 'heretics' led to the burning of Cathar villages in Southern France. Jews and Protestants alike were granted refuge by the Ottoman Empire, a refuge they would have been denied had Istanbul remained Constantinople. 'Slaves, obey your human masters.For Christ is the real master you serve' said Paul (Colossians 3: 22-24) in establishing a collaborationist tradition which fell on its knees before wealth and power and which reached its apogee during the Second World War where the leadership of the Church collaborated with fascism and did not speak up against the judeocide or the butchery on the Eastern Front. Islam does not need pacifist lessons from this Church.
Violence was and is not the prerogative of any single religion as the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestine demonstrates. During the Cold War the Vatican, with rare exceptions, supported the imperial wars. Both sides were blessed during the First and Second World wars; the US Cardinal Spellman was a leading warrior in the battles to destroy Communism during the Korean and Vietnam wars. The Vatican later punished the liberation theologists and peasant-priests in Latin America. Some were excommunicated.
Not all Christians joined in the crusades old and new. When Pope Urban launched the crusades the Norman king of Sicily refused to send troops in which Sicilian Muslims would be compelled to fight against Muslims in the East. His son, Roger II, refused to back the Second Crusade. In doing so they showed more courage than the leaders of contemporary Italy, who are only too willing to join the imperial crusades against the Muslim world.
'To make sure of being right in all things', said the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, 'we ought always to hold to the principle that the white I see I should believe to be black if the hierarchical church were so to rule.'
Today most Catholic prelates in the West (including the Bavarian in the Vatican) and politicians of Centre-Left/Right worship the real Pope who lives in the White House and tells them when black is white.
Amen.
Tariq Ali is author of the recently released Street Fighting Years (new edition) and, with David Barsamian, Speaking of Empires & Resistance. He can be reached at: tariq.ali3@btinternet.com
Next Year in Jerusalem - A Visit with Mordechai Vanunu By MAIREAD CORRIGAN MAGUIRE
On 7 September 2006, upon hearing of her unanimous appointment as the next Israeli Supreme Court President, Justice Dorit Beinisch said she would preserve "the Supreme Court's culture of values." She went on to say, "As for the talk of eroding public confidence in the court system, everyone from all walks of life comes to Court to ask for its help." She said the Supreme Court had no political agenda and protected basic values. I found these interesting comments from Justice Beinisch, who just the day before sat in the Israeli Court (together with Justices Chesine and Brunis) hearing the third appeal of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear whistleblower, against his restrictions.
In l986, Mordechai Vanunu, acting out of conscience, revealed to the world that Israel had a nuclear weapons program. Sentenced to 18 years in prison, the first 12 years in solitary confinement in a tiny cell, and eventually was released in April 2004, having completed the entire 18 years. Upon his release, the Israeli Government imposed draconian restrictions on his freedom. He is forbidden to speak to foreigners or foreign press or to leave Israel. Each year for the past two years, on the 2lst of April, these restrictions have been renewed and Vanunu remains a virtual prisoner, living within a couple of square miles of East Jerusalem and under constant security surveillance everywhere he goes.
On this, my fourth visit to support Mordechai Vanunu (whom I have nominated many times for the Nobel Peace Prize), I attended the Israeli Supreme Court hearings on Vanunu's restrictions on 6 September 2006. Vanunu's defense lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, argued that in all the interviews Mordechai gave to the international media since his release in April 2004, there were no new secrets revealed and nothing he said was endangering the security of the State. He said that the Supreme Court stated in its judgment last year, that "the no breaches of restrictions together with the 'passing of time' factor are the base in deciding the continuing or ending of the restrictions." Now after two-and-a-half years and in light of the fact that Mordechai did not breach the restrictions for eight months, Feldman argued, the Court should consider the ending of the restrictions. Mr. Feldman said that the ban on Mordechai to leave the country is a serious breach of his fundamental constitutional human rights. The attorney for the State came to the Court with four or five men, secret expert witnesses from the Secret Services and from the secret Israeli Nuclear Committee, to give the three judges a testimony behind closed doors, without Mordechai and his lawyers present, as they have done in the previous discussions in the Supreme Court. Their aim would be to convince the Court that Vanunu still has more information to reveal and he is a serious danger to the security of the State.
Justice Beinisch, said that there is no need to hear these secret testimonies as their position was well accepted by the previous bench of the Court, and "it is accepted on this bench too." The attorney for the State disputed Feldman's statements, arguing that "Vanunu is still a danger to the State security; he has more unpublished information and he wanted to make it public." He also said that it is not true that Vanunu did not breach the restrictions in the past eight months and that he has material on that, but he wants it to be heard in closed doors. Mr. Feldman said only if the State has a proper order should it make it closed doors evidence. In the end, the Court asked the State to obtain the certificate for secrecy and make a new date to continue the hearing of the appeal.
One thing was clear from both the State Attorney and from the Judge's statements in the Court, that with or without Vanunu breaching the restrictions, eight months or a year's time (since the previous decision of the Court) is not enough time to end restrictions. The President of the Court said that "the Court in its decision left the term 'time' undefined" and asked the State what is their position to how much longer the restrictions could continue, but there was no clear answer from the State Prosecutor as to how long was long enough!
As I sat in the Israeli Court, I was surprised at one of the comments by President Beinisch to the effect that two years of restrictions do not seem too long! I thought to myself that it is, two-and-a-half years of restrictions, plus 18 years in prison (12 in solitary) and every day that goes by now, Mordechai Vanunu is a virtual prisoner, whose life is constantly in danger, being re-punished again and again (itself an action forbidden by law). How long is it going to be before it is finally long enough? Vanunu has no secrets; Israel and the world know it. His situation is now worse than a prison term, when at least he could look forward to getting out at a given time. Now he knows the Israeli government, directed by the Security Services of Israel, can keep him in Israel forever if they like, and no one outside Israeli, or inside, apart from the Israeli Supreme Court, if they really are a Court of Justice, can do anything about it! Vanunu has gone (yet again, as this is the third appeal!) to the Israeli Court to ask for its help, and the question is: Will they help give him justice NOW, and if not now, WHEN? Or must he live out the rest of his life incarcerated within Israel, a victim of secret court hearings, and security bureaucrats, and a victim of an allegedly democratic country with a sham justice system, offering no hope to Vanunu or any of its citizens who come looking for justice from their Courts of Justice.
Both inside Israel and in the international community, many people wait and watch to see if President Beinisch and her two Justice colleagues will have the courage to uphold international law and basic common decency and justice and restore Mordechai Vanunu's right to his basic freedom of speech and movement. The result of this appeal will indeed give us an indication of the future strength of Israeli justice for those who go to ask for its help. We wait in hope that we may yet see JUSTICE IN JERUSALEM.
Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, is Hon. President of Peace People, Northern Ireland.
In l986, Mordechai Vanunu, acting out of conscience, revealed to the world that Israel had a nuclear weapons program. Sentenced to 18 years in prison, the first 12 years in solitary confinement in a tiny cell, and eventually was released in April 2004, having completed the entire 18 years. Upon his release, the Israeli Government imposed draconian restrictions on his freedom. He is forbidden to speak to foreigners or foreign press or to leave Israel. Each year for the past two years, on the 2lst of April, these restrictions have been renewed and Vanunu remains a virtual prisoner, living within a couple of square miles of East Jerusalem and under constant security surveillance everywhere he goes.
On this, my fourth visit to support Mordechai Vanunu (whom I have nominated many times for the Nobel Peace Prize), I attended the Israeli Supreme Court hearings on Vanunu's restrictions on 6 September 2006. Vanunu's defense lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, argued that in all the interviews Mordechai gave to the international media since his release in April 2004, there were no new secrets revealed and nothing he said was endangering the security of the State. He said that the Supreme Court stated in its judgment last year, that "the no breaches of restrictions together with the 'passing of time' factor are the base in deciding the continuing or ending of the restrictions." Now after two-and-a-half years and in light of the fact that Mordechai did not breach the restrictions for eight months, Feldman argued, the Court should consider the ending of the restrictions. Mr. Feldman said that the ban on Mordechai to leave the country is a serious breach of his fundamental constitutional human rights. The attorney for the State came to the Court with four or five men, secret expert witnesses from the Secret Services and from the secret Israeli Nuclear Committee, to give the three judges a testimony behind closed doors, without Mordechai and his lawyers present, as they have done in the previous discussions in the Supreme Court. Their aim would be to convince the Court that Vanunu still has more information to reveal and he is a serious danger to the security of the State.
Justice Beinisch, said that there is no need to hear these secret testimonies as their position was well accepted by the previous bench of the Court, and "it is accepted on this bench too." The attorney for the State disputed Feldman's statements, arguing that "Vanunu is still a danger to the State security; he has more unpublished information and he wanted to make it public." He also said that it is not true that Vanunu did not breach the restrictions in the past eight months and that he has material on that, but he wants it to be heard in closed doors. Mr. Feldman said only if the State has a proper order should it make it closed doors evidence. In the end, the Court asked the State to obtain the certificate for secrecy and make a new date to continue the hearing of the appeal.
One thing was clear from both the State Attorney and from the Judge's statements in the Court, that with or without Vanunu breaching the restrictions, eight months or a year's time (since the previous decision of the Court) is not enough time to end restrictions. The President of the Court said that "the Court in its decision left the term 'time' undefined" and asked the State what is their position to how much longer the restrictions could continue, but there was no clear answer from the State Prosecutor as to how long was long enough!
As I sat in the Israeli Court, I was surprised at one of the comments by President Beinisch to the effect that two years of restrictions do not seem too long! I thought to myself that it is, two-and-a-half years of restrictions, plus 18 years in prison (12 in solitary) and every day that goes by now, Mordechai Vanunu is a virtual prisoner, whose life is constantly in danger, being re-punished again and again (itself an action forbidden by law). How long is it going to be before it is finally long enough? Vanunu has no secrets; Israel and the world know it. His situation is now worse than a prison term, when at least he could look forward to getting out at a given time. Now he knows the Israeli government, directed by the Security Services of Israel, can keep him in Israel forever if they like, and no one outside Israeli, or inside, apart from the Israeli Supreme Court, if they really are a Court of Justice, can do anything about it! Vanunu has gone (yet again, as this is the third appeal!) to the Israeli Court to ask for its help, and the question is: Will they help give him justice NOW, and if not now, WHEN? Or must he live out the rest of his life incarcerated within Israel, a victim of secret court hearings, and security bureaucrats, and a victim of an allegedly democratic country with a sham justice system, offering no hope to Vanunu or any of its citizens who come looking for justice from their Courts of Justice.
Both inside Israel and in the international community, many people wait and watch to see if President Beinisch and her two Justice colleagues will have the courage to uphold international law and basic common decency and justice and restore Mordechai Vanunu's right to his basic freedom of speech and movement. The result of this appeal will indeed give us an indication of the future strength of Israeli justice for those who go to ask for its help. We wait in hope that we may yet see JUSTICE IN JERUSALEM.
Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, is Hon. President of Peace People, Northern Ireland.
Defender of the West, Scourge of Islam: The Crusade of Pope Rat by Gary Leupp
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech September 12 at the University of Regensburg in his German homeland. He discussed "the question of God through the use of reason" and the matter of getting "reason and faith [to] work together in the right way." His basic theme was that there has been a "synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early [Christian] church" and that this relationship between Christianity and Greek philosophy and logic has been a very good thing. He warned against those who believe this synthesis is "not binding" upon new converts from non-western traditions; this view, he declared, is "false." The pontiff plainly intended to depict the Roman Catholic Church as supportive of modernity and science in general, and both western and tolerant.
The Pope opened his homily by referring affectionately to his years teaching at the University of Bonn (from 1959) during which the university was a "universe of reason." He then segued into a description of some of his recent reading.
article continues...
The Pope opened his homily by referring affectionately to his years teaching at the University of Bonn (from 1959) during which the university was a "universe of reason." He then segued into a description of some of his recent reading.
article continues...
Martial Law - Do We Even Need It? by Ben Tripp
"WASHINGTON - Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.article continues..
Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.
"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne.
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