Sic transit gloria Obama

THE ROVING EYE

Sic transit gloria Obama

By Pepe Escobar

So United States President Barack Obama has publicly admitted he and his party took “a shellacking” - and there are “easier ways” to learn political lessons.

Yet an astonished globalized world may be forgiven the temptation to reduce US politics to a digital cartoon - with the Tea Party to the right, fire-baggers to the left, and the incoherent masses stuck in the middle with anger. (For the Tea Party, government, any government, is the ultimate "evil" while for fire-baggers, Obama is at best a Republican lite.) And all this in a

toxic context where the US Supreme Court has graphically shelved democracy by allowing free-flowing corporate funding of candidates.

The American right's "road map" for these past two years has been to declare Obama an abysmal failure since January 20, 2008, and to do absolutely zilch to help the country out of its political/economic/cultural quagmire. Now - at least in theory - their bluff has been called by the American electorate.

Or has it? To talk about incoherence is a huge understatement. Americans have told exit polls they almost equally blame Wall Street (35%), Bush (30%) and Obama (23%) for the current economic disaster. Obama royally screwed up by bailing out Wall Street the way he did. But now the electorate has decided to reward a whole bunch of clowns and crooks who caused the debacle in the first place - among other things by endorsing George W Bush's tax cuts and two trillionnaire, unwinnable wars. The tearful John Boehner - probably the next speaker of the House - is very tight with (what else is new?) financial lobbyists. Angry Americans voted - once again - for Wall Street.

Clowns to the left, jokers to the right

The heart of the (sorry) matter is that Obama and the Democrats did not even strive to meet the great expectations awakened by the 2008 "Change we can believe in" collective rapture. They sowed the seeds of their own doom instead. No wonder they were deserted en masse by young people, ethnic minorities, pacifists and environmentalists while at the same time masses of enraged centrists, moderates and independents sought refuge in the right. Add to it the electorate's gullibility in its manipulation by corporate media.

The verdict is out on whether Obama 2.0 will be your typical, dialogue-averse, hardcore Washington gridlock or, as Obama insisted in his White House press conference this Wednesday, a move further to the right towards a compromise with the uncompromising Republicans. On both options, in an US increasingly configured by corporate power as a neo-feudal plutocracy, what passes for "democracy" will be the loser.

Moreover, it's absurd to hope that Obama will connect with his inner Martin Luther King and suddenly start to walk on water and lead the masses to the Promised Land when the absolute majority of working class/middle class Americans - manipulated by special interests and indoctrinated with conservative dogmas such as taxes are evil - don't even know what they are supporting anymore.

The kiss of death

Amid this wasteland, for progressives California at least will function as a consolation prize - via "quirky" Jerry Brown back at the governor's mansion, pulverizing billionaire Republican and former eBay chief executive officer (for 10 years) Meg Whitman, who thought she could literally buy an election, spending a staggering $142 million, most of it her own money (talk about "fiscal responsibility" ...) on an ultra-negative campaign.

Even tough some of her proteges in the House did well, the fact is most of Sarah "I can see Russia from my house" Palin's endorsements proved largely to be the kiss of death - as in Delaware, Colorado, California, Nevada, West Virginia and Alaska.

The wackiest of the Tea Party running for the senate were total failures - such as Christine "the witch" O'Donnell in Delaware. In Nevada, Sharron Angle collapsed facing Democratic senate majority leader Harry Reid essentially because she ran an ultra-racist, anti-Latino campaign in a state where the Latino vote is crucial (75% of it ultimately went to Reid). Angle and O'Donnell were too much of a freak show anyway.

As for Rand Paul, now the Republican senator from Kentucky, sound minds suspect he is little else than plain scary. Paul's victory speech was quintessential rightwing populism - government derided in apocalyptic tones as less than worthless. Were Paul to try to filibuster the next senate vote inevitably increasing the US national debt, he could conceivably plunge the country into default, provoke a further depression, and wreak economic hell all around the world.

How's that for a rookie record?

The reality test for the Tea Party will be whether it can break away from incoherent blabber about no new taxes, the Fed, "evil" progressives, assorted conspiracy theories and "legislative action" outlawing Obama's birth certificate or will they actually try to propose sound policies to improve the system. Don't bet on it.

Flash forward to 2012; to the sound of Aretha Franklin singing Don Covay's See Saw - "going up, down, all around/ like a see saw" - scores of US voters will have finally noticed they threw the bums out just to bring in another basket of equally lame bums.

Beware the white Obama

United States corporate media is not emitting a peep about it but Obama should really start worrying about his white mirror - Marco Rubio, who has just won a senate seat for Florida. Rubio, 39, intelligent, good-looking, good orator, promises the world to people and has "American Dream" written all over his bio.

Born in Miami, raised in Vegas (where his Cuban exile parents worked hard in a hotel), good football player, hard-working college student, law degree, Catholic, blonde wife from a Colombian family, four kids - as a bonus to the establishment Rubio is not a wacko (althoughPalin loves him unconditionally). Mike Huckabee - former presidential candidate and now Fox News pundit - says he's "our Obama, with more substance". And crucially, his political godfather is none other than Jeb Bush. Establishment Republicans won't allow Palin to grab a presidentialnomination even over their dead bodies. Thus Rubio may be their savior for 2012.

An inept/indecisive Obama allowed Republicans to get away with murder - as in not being held accountable for the monster financial/economic mess and on top of it being allowed to exploit and profit from the all-American rage provoked by their "policies". Now, after the "shellacking", it's about time for the president to show some balls and start playing offense. He could start by firing everyone at the White House. It won't happen. Get ready; white Obama will eat him for breakfast in 2012.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

The Anti-Empire Report

by William Blum

www.killinghope.org

Jon Stewart and the left

The left in America is desperate; desperate for someone who can inspire them, if not lead them to a better world; or at least make them laugh. TV star Jon Stewart is sometimes funny, especially when he doesn't try too hard to be funny, which is not often enough. But as a political leader, or simply political educator for the left, forget it. He's not even what I would call a genuine, committed leftist. What does he have to teach the left? He himself would certainly not want you to entertain the thought that Jon Stewart is in any way a man of the left.

He billed his October 30 rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC, as the Million Moderate March. Would a person with a real desire for important progressive social and political change, i.e, a "leftist", so ostentatiously brand himself a "moderate"? Even if by "moderate" he refers mainly to tone of voice or choice of words why is that so important? If a politician strongly supports things which you are passionate about, why should it bother you if the politician is vehement in his arguments, even angry? And if the politician is strongly against what you're passionate about does it make you feel any better about the guy if he never raises his voice or sharply criticizes those on the other side? What kind of cause is that to commit yourself to?

Stewart in fact appears to dislike the left, perhaps strongly. In the leadup to the rally he criticized the left for various things, including calling George W. Bush a "war criminal". Wow! How immoderate of us. Do I have to list here the 500 war crimes committed by George W. Bush? If I did so, would that make me one of what Stewart calls the "crazies"? In his talk at the rally, Stewart spoke of our "real fears" — "of terrorists, racists, Stalinists, and theocrats". Stalinists? Where did that come from, Glenn Beck? What decade is Stewart living in? What about capitalists or the corporations? Is there no reason to fear them? Is it Stalinists who are responsible for the collapse of our jobs and homes, our economy? Writer Chris Hedges asks: "Being nice and moderate will not help. These are corporate forces that are intent on reconfiguring the United States into a system of neofeudalism. These corporate forces will not be halted by funny signs, comics dressed up like Captain America or nice words."

Stewart also grouped together "Marxists actively subverting our constitution, racists and homophobes". Welcome to the Jon Stewart Tea Party. In his long interview last week of President Obama on his TV show, Stewart did not mention any of America's wars. That would have been impolite and divisive; maybe even not nice.

He billed his rally as being "for people who are politically dissatisfied but who are not ideological". (Democracy Now, November 1, 2010) Really, Jon? You have no ideology? To those who like to tell themselves and others that they don't have any particular ideology I say this: If you have thoughts about why the world is the way it is, why society is the way it is, why people are the way they are, what a better way would look like, and if your thoughts are fairly well organized, then that's your ideology, even if it's not wholly conscious as such. Better to organize those thoughts as best you can, become very conscious of them, and then consciously avoid getting involved with individuals or political movements who have an incompatible ideology. It's like a very bad marriage.

America's press corps(e)

"Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the People of Israel," said Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in a sermon in Israel on October 16. Rabbi Yosef is the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel and the founder and spiritual leader of the Shas Party, one of the three major components of the current Israeli government. "Why are gentiles needed?" he continued. "They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi [master] and eat," he said to some laughter.

Pretty shocking, right? Apparently not shocking enough for the free and independent American mainstream media. Not one daily newspaper has picked it up. Not one radio or TV station. Neither have the two leading US news agencies, Associated Press and United Press International, which usually pick up anything at all newsworthy. And the words of course did not cross the lips of any American politician or State Department official. Rabbi Yosef's words were reported in English only by the Jewish Telegraph Agency, a US-based news service (October 18), and then picked up by a few relatively obscure news agencies or progressive websites. We can all imagine the news coverage if someone like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said something like "Jews have no place in the world but to serve Islam".

On October 8, 2001, the second day of the US bombing of Afghanistan, the transmitters for the Taliban government's Radio Shari were bombed and shortly after this the US bombed some 20 regional radio sites. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld defended the targeting of these facilities, saying: "Naturally, they cannot be considered to be free media outlets. They are mouthpieces of the Taliban and those harboring terrorists." ¹

In 1999, during the US/NATO 78-day bombing of the former Yugoslavia, state-owned Radio Television Serbia (RTS) was targeted because it was broadcasting things which the United States and NATO did not like (like how much horror the bombing was causing). The bombs took the lives of many of the station's staff, and both legs of one of the survivors, which had to be amputated to free him from the wreckage. ² UK Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters that the bombing was "entirely justified" for the station was "part of the apparatus of dictatorship and power of Milosevic". ³ Threatening more such attacks on Serbian media, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon declared a few hours after the bombing: "Stay tuned. It is not difficult to track down where TV signals emanate from." ⁴

Accordingly, and with all due forethought, I call for the bombing of the leading members of the United States mainstream media — from the New York Times to CNN, from NPR to Fox News — for, naturally, they cannot be considered to be free media outlets, and are part of the apparatus of imperialism and power of the United States.

Anti-communism 101: Hijacking history

We like to think of death as the time for truth. No matter how much the deceased may have lived a lie, when he goes to meet his presumed maker the real, sordid facts of his life will out. Or at least they should; the obituary being the final chance to set the record straight. But obituaries very seldom perform this function, certainly not obituaries of those who played an important role in American foreign policy; the myths surrounding foreign policy and the deceased individual's role therein accompany him to the grave, and thence into Texas-approved American history textbooks.

In January of this year I commented in this report on the obituary of Lincoln Gordon ⁵, former ambassador to Brazil and State Department official. The obituary in the Washington Post painted him, as I put it, as a "boy wonder, intellectual shining light, distinguished leader of men, outstanding American patriot." No mention whatsoever was made of the leading role played by Gordon in the military overthrow of a progressive Brazilian government in 1964, resulting in a very brutal dictatorship for the next 21 years. Later, Gordon blatantly lied about his role in testimony before Congress.

Now we have the death a few weeks ago of Phillips Talbot, who was appointed by President Kennedy to be Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs and later became ambassador to Greece. In 1967 the Greek military and intelligence service, both closely tied to the CIA, overthrew another progressive government, that of George Papandreou and his son, cabinet minister Andreas Papandreou. For the next seven years the Greek people suffered utterly grievous suppression and torture. Talbot's obituary states: "Dr. Talbot was asleep in his bed while tanks rumbled through the streets of Athens and was completely surprised when Armed Forces radio announced at 6:10 a.m. that the military had taken control of the country. Dr. Talbot was adamant that the United States was impartial throughout the transition. 'You may be assured that there has been no American involvement in or, in fact, prior knowledge of the climactic events that those residing in this country have lived through in the past couple of years,' Dr. Talbot told the New York Times in 1969 shortly before he returned home." ⁶

Andreas Papandreou had been arrested at the time of the coup and held in prison for eight months. Shortly after his release, he and his wife Margaret visited Ambassador Talbot in Athens. Papandreou later related the following:

I asked Talbot whether America could have intervened the night of the coup, to prevent the death of democracy in Greece. He denied that they could have done anything about it. Then Margaret asked a critical question: What if the coup had been a Communist or a Leftist coup? Talbot answered without hesitation. Then, of course, they would have intervened, and they would have crushed the coup. ⁷

In November 1999, during a visit to Greece, President Bill Clinton was moved to declare:

When the junta took over in 1967 here the United States allowed its interests in prosecuting the cold war to prevail over its interest — I should say its obligation — to support democracy, which was, after all, the cause for which we fought the cold war.(sic) It is important that we acknowledge that. ⁸

Clinton's surprising admission prompted the retired Phillips Talbot to write to the New York Times: "With all due respect to President Clinton, he is wrong to imply that the United States supported the Greek coup in 1967. The coup was the product of Greek political rivalries and was contrary to American interests in every respect. ... Some Greeks have asserted that the United States could have restored a civilian government. In fact, we had neither the right nor the means to overturn the junta, bad as it was." ⁹

Or, as Bart Simpson would put it: "I didn't do it, no one saw me do it, you can't prove anything!"

After reading Talbot's letter in the Times in 1999 I wrote to him at his New York address reminding him of what Andreas Papandreou had reported on this very subject. I received no reply.

The cases of Brazil and Greece were of course just two of many leftist governments overthrown, as well as revolutionary movements suppressed, by the United States during the Cold War on the grounds that America had a moral right and obligation to defeat the evil of Soviet communism that was — we were told — instigating these forces. It was always a myth. Bolshevism and Western liberalism were united in their opposition to popular revolution. Russia was a country with a revolutionary past, not a revolutionary present. Even in Cuba, the Soviets were always a little embarrassed by the Castro-Guevara radical fervor. Stalin would have had such men imprisoned. The Cold War was not actually a struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was a struggle between the United States and the Third World. What there was, was people all over the Third World fighting for economic and political changes against US-supported repressive regimes, or setting up their own progressive governments. These acts of self-determination didn't coincide with the needs of the American power elite, and so the United States moved to crush those governments and movements even though the Soviet Union was playing virtually no role at all in the scenarios. It is remarkable the number of people who make fun of conspiracy theories but who accept without question the existence of an International Communist Conspiracy. ¹⁰

The United States' annual self-imposed humiliation

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an "international pariah". We don't hear that any more. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba". This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions), this year being the strongest condemnation yet of Washington's policy:

Year	Votes (Yes-No)	No Votes
1992	59-2	US, Israel
1993	88-4	US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay
1994	101-2	US, Israel
1995	117-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1996	138-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1997	143-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1998	157-2	US, Israel
1999	155-2	US, Israel
2000	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2001	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2002	173-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2003	179-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2004	179-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2005	182-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2006	183-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2007	184-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2008	185-3	US, Israel, Palau
2009	187-3	US, Israel, Palau
2010	187-2	US, Israel

Is the United States foreign policy establishment capable of being embarrassed?

Each fall, however, the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.

How it began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: "The majority of Cubans support Castro ... The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. ... every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba." Mallory proposed "a line of action which ... makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government." ¹¹ Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against its eternally-declared enemy.

CovertAction Quarterly

From 1978 to 2005 one of the leading progressive print (Remember that word?) magazines in the world, dealing primarily with US foreign policy, the CIA/NSA/FBI, repression at home and abroad, and corporate crime. The magazine, initially called CovertAction Information Bulletin, regularly published the names and career histories around the globe of undercover CIA officers derived from careful research of open, public sources. This so infuriated the powers-that-be that Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in 1982, which made the practice of revealing the name of an undercover officer illegal under US law. The law was a virtual bill of attainder — it is unconstitutional for Congress to enact legislation directed at a specific individual or organization. At the time, members of the House Intelligence Committee were telling journalists and lawyers that the legislation was aimed only at CovertAction Information Bulletin and its editors, but this was always said off the record and no one would confirm it on the record; although during the House debate Congressman William Young (R.-FL) declared: "What we're after today are the Philip Agees of the world." ¹² Ironically, the law became the basis for the prosecution of George W. Bush special counsel Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who outed CIA employee Valerie Plame.

Amongst the magazine's numerous contributors were Philip Agee, John Stockwell, Ralph McGehee, Ellen Ray, William Schaap, Louis Wolf, Michael Parenti, Noam Chomsky, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Diana Johnstone, Sean Gervasi, Philip Wheaton, Immanuel Wallerstein, Kathy Kelly, Tony Benn, Ramsey Clark, David MacMichael, Edward Herman, William Blum (Whatever happened to him?), Michel Chossudovsky, Marjorie Cohn, James Petras, Gregory Elich, and many other prominent progressive writers.

A recent Washington Post story states: "The private papers of Philip Agee, the disaffected CIA operative whose unauthorized publication of agency secrets 35 years ago was arguably far more damaging than anything WikiLeaks has produced, have been obtained by New York University, which plans to make them public next spring." ¹³

A partial Table of Contents for each of the issues can be found here.

Individual copies or the entire set of 78 issues (mostly original copies and about a dozen in quality photocopy format) are available for purchase: $3.00 per issue, 25 copies for $65.00, 50 for $115, or all 78 for $165, including postage in the United States. To place an order, write:

Louis Wolf
1500 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Room 732
Washington, DC 20005

... or e-mail louw7@live.com

Notes

1. Index on Censorship, the UK's leading organization promoting freedom of expression, October 18, 2001 ^↩
2. The Independent (London), April 24, 1999, p.1 ^↩
3. Bristol (UK) Evening Post, April 24, 1999 ^↩
4. The Guardian (London), April 24, 1999 ^↩
5. Anti-Empire Report, January 2010 ^↩
6. Washington Post, October 7, 2010 ^↩
7. Andreas Papandreou, Democracy at Gunpoint: The Greek Front (1970), p.294. ^↩
8. New York Times, November 21, 1999 ^↩
9. New York Times, November 23, 1999 ^↩
10. See William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II for details of the Cold War ^↩
11. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba (1991), p.885 ^↩
12. Wikipedia: Intelligence Identities Protection Act ^↩
13. Washington Post online, October 26, 2010, "Spytalk" by Jeff Stein ^↩

–

William Blum is the author of:

• Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
• Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
• West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
• Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Jon Stewart and the left

The left in America is desperate; desperate for someone who can inspire them, if not lead them to a better world; or at least make them laugh. TV star Jon Stewart is sometimes funny, especially when he doesn't try too hard to be funny, which is not often enough. But as a political leader, or simply political educator for the left, forget it. He's not even what I would call a genuine, committed leftist. What does he have to teach the left? He himself would certainly not want you to entertain the thought that Jon Stewart is in any way a man of the left.

He billed his October 30 rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC, as the Million Moderate March. Would a person with a real desire for important progressive social and political change, i.e, a "leftist", so ostentatiously brand himself a "moderate"? Even if by "moderate" he refers mainly to tone of voice or choice of words why is that so important? If a politician strongly supports things which you are passionate about, why should it bother you if the politician is vehement in his arguments, even angry? And if the politician is strongly against what you're passionate about does it make you feel any better about the guy if he never raises his voice or sharply criticizes those on the other side? What kind of cause is that to commit yourself to?

Stewart in fact appears to dislike the left, perhaps strongly. In the leadup to the rally he criticized the left for various things, including calling George W. Bush a "war criminal". Wow! How immoderate of us. Do I have to list here the 500 war crimes committed by George W. Bush? If I did so, would that make me one of what Stewart calls the "crazies"? In his talk at the rally, Stewart spoke of our "real fears" — "of terrorists, racists, Stalinists, and theocrats". Stalinists? Where did that come from, Glenn Beck? What decade is Stewart living in? What about capitalists or the corporations? Is there no reason to fear them? Is it Stalinists who are responsible for the collapse of our jobs and homes, our economy? Writer Chris Hedges asks: "Being nice and moderate will not help. These are corporate forces that are intent on reconfiguring the United States into a system of neofeudalism. These corporate forces will not be halted by funny signs, comics dressed up like Captain America or nice words."

Stewart also grouped together "Marxists actively subverting our constitution, racists and homophobes". Welcome to the Jon Stewart Tea Party. In his long interview last week of President Obama on his TV show, Stewart did not mention any of America's wars. That would have been impolite and divisive; maybe even not nice.

He billed his rally as being "for people who are politically dissatisfied but who are not ideological". (Democracy Now, November 1, 2010) Really, Jon? You have no ideology? To those who like to tell themselves and others that they don't have any particular ideology I say this: If you have thoughts about why the world is the way it is, why society is the way it is, why people are the way they are, what a better way would look like, and if your thoughts are fairly well organized, then that's your ideology, even if it's not wholly conscious as such. Better to organize those thoughts as best you can, become very conscious of them, and then consciously avoid getting involved with individuals or political movements who have an incompatible ideology. It's like a very bad marriage.

America's press corps(e)

"Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the People of Israel," said Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in a sermon in Israel on October 16. Rabbi Yosef is the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel and the founder and spiritual leader of the Shas Party, one of the three major components of the current Israeli government. "Why are gentiles needed?" he continued. "They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi [master] and eat," he said to some laughter.

Pretty shocking, right? Apparently not shocking enough for the free and independent American mainstream media. Not one daily newspaper has picked it up. Not one radio or TV station. Neither have the two leading US news agencies, Associated Press and United Press International, which usually pick up anything at all newsworthy. And the words of course did not cross the lips of any American politician or State Department official. Rabbi Yosef's words were reported in English only by the Jewish Telegraph Agency, a US-based news service (October 18), and then picked up by a few relatively obscure news agencies or progressive websites. We can all imagine the news coverage if someone like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said something like "Jews have no place in the world but to serve Islam".

On October 8, 2001, the second day of the US bombing of Afghanistan, the transmitters for the Taliban government's Radio Shari were bombed and shortly after this the US bombed some 20 regional radio sites. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld defended the targeting of these facilities, saying: "Naturally, they cannot be considered to be free media outlets. They are mouthpieces of the Taliban and those harboring terrorists." ¹

In 1999, during the US/NATO 78-day bombing of the former Yugoslavia, state-owned Radio Television Serbia (RTS) was targeted because it was broadcasting things which the United States and NATO did not like (like how much horror the bombing was causing). The bombs took the lives of many of the station's staff, and both legs of one of the survivors, which had to be amputated to free him from the wreckage. ² UK Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters that the bombing was "entirely justified" for the station was "part of the apparatus of dictatorship and power of Milosevic". ³ Threatening more such attacks on Serbian media, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon declared a few hours after the bombing: "Stay tuned. It is not difficult to track down where TV signals emanate from." ⁴

Accordingly, and with all due forethought, I call for the bombing of the leading members of the United States mainstream media — from the New York Times to CNN, from NPR to Fox News — for, naturally, they cannot be considered to be free media outlets, and are part of the apparatus of imperialism and power of the United States.

Anti-communism 101: Hijacking history

We like to think of death as the time for truth. No matter how much the deceased may have lived a lie, when he goes to meet his presumed maker the real, sordid facts of his life will out. Or at least they should; the obituary being the final chance to set the record straight. But obituaries very seldom perform this function, certainly not obituaries of those who played an important role in American foreign policy; the myths surrounding foreign policy and the deceased individual's role therein accompany him to the grave, and thence into Texas-approved American history textbooks.

In January of this year I commented in this report on the obituary of Lincoln Gordon ⁵, former ambassador to Brazil and State Department official. The obituary in the Washington Post painted him, as I put it, as a "boy wonder, intellectual shining light, distinguished leader of men, outstanding American patriot." No mention whatsoever was made of the leading role played by Gordon in the military overthrow of a progressive Brazilian government in 1964, resulting in a very brutal dictatorship for the next 21 years. Later, Gordon blatantly lied about his role in testimony before Congress.

Now we have the death a few weeks ago of Phillips Talbot, who was appointed by President Kennedy to be Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs and later became ambassador to Greece. In 1967 the Greek military and intelligence service, both closely tied to the CIA, overthrew another progressive government, that of George Papandreou and his son, cabinet minister Andreas Papandreou. For the next seven years the Greek people suffered utterly grievous suppression and torture. Talbot's obituary states: "Dr. Talbot was asleep in his bed while tanks rumbled through the streets of Athens and was completely surprised when Armed Forces radio announced at 6:10 a.m. that the military had taken control of the country. Dr. Talbot was adamant that the United States was impartial throughout the transition. 'You may be assured that there has been no American involvement in or, in fact, prior knowledge of the climactic events that those residing in this country have lived through in the past couple of years,' Dr. Talbot told the New York Times in 1969 shortly before he returned home." ⁶

Andreas Papandreou had been arrested at the time of the coup and held in prison for eight months. Shortly after his release, he and his wife Margaret visited Ambassador Talbot in Athens. Papandreou later related the following:

I asked Talbot whether America could have intervened the night of the coup, to prevent the death of democracy in Greece. He denied that they could have done anything about it. Then Margaret asked a critical question: What if the coup had been a Communist or a Leftist coup? Talbot answered without hesitation. Then, of course, they would have intervened, and they would have crushed the coup. ⁷

In November 1999, during a visit to Greece, President Bill Clinton was moved to declare:

When the junta took over in 1967 here the United States allowed its interests in prosecuting the cold war to prevail over its interest — I should say its obligation — to support democracy, which was, after all, the cause for which we fought the cold war.(sic) It is important that we acknowledge that. ⁸

Clinton's surprising admission prompted the retired Phillips Talbot to write to the New York Times: "With all due respect to President Clinton, he is wrong to imply that the United States supported the Greek coup in 1967. The coup was the product of Greek political rivalries and was contrary to American interests in every respect. ... Some Greeks have asserted that the United States could have restored a civilian government. In fact, we had neither the right nor the means to overturn the junta, bad as it was." ⁹

Or, as Bart Simpson would put it: "I didn't do it, no one saw me do it, you can't prove anything!"

After reading Talbot's letter in the Times in 1999 I wrote to him at his New York address reminding him of what Andreas Papandreou had reported on this very subject. I received no reply.

The cases of Brazil and Greece were of course just two of many leftist governments overthrown, as well as revolutionary movements suppressed, by the United States during the Cold War on the grounds that America had a moral right and obligation to defeat the evil of Soviet communism that was — we were told — instigating these forces. It was always a myth. Bolshevism and Western liberalism were united in their opposition to popular revolution. Russia was a country with a revolutionary past, not a revolutionary present. Even in Cuba, the Soviets were always a little embarrassed by the Castro-Guevara radical fervor. Stalin would have had such men imprisoned. The Cold War was not actually a struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was a struggle between the United States and the Third World. What there was, was people all over the Third World fighting for economic and political changes against US-supported repressive regimes, or setting up their own progressive governments. These acts of self-determination didn't coincide with the needs of the American power elite, and so the United States moved to crush those governments and movements even though the Soviet Union was playing virtually no role at all in the scenarios. It is remarkable the number of people who make fun of conspiracy theories but who accept without question the existence of an International Communist Conspiracy. ¹⁰

The United States' annual self-imposed humiliation

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an "international pariah". We don't hear that any more. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba". This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions), this year being the strongest condemnation yet of Washington's policy:

Year	Votes (Yes-No)	No Votes
1992	59-2	US, Israel
1993	88-4	US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay
1994	101-2	US, Israel
1995	117-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1996	138-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1997	143-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1998	157-2	US, Israel
1999	155-2	US, Israel
2000	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2001	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2002	173-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2003	179-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2004	179-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2005	182-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2006	183-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2007	184-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2008	185-3	US, Israel, Palau
2009	187-3	US, Israel, Palau
2010	187-2	US, Israel

Is the United States foreign policy establishment capable of being embarrassed?

Each fall, however, the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.

How it began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: "The majority of Cubans support Castro ... The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. ... every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba." Mallory proposed "a line of action which ... makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government." ¹¹ Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against its eternally-declared enemy.

CovertAction Quarterly

From 1978 to 2005 one of the leading progressive print (Remember that word?) magazines in the world, dealing primarily with US foreign policy, the CIA/NSA/FBI, repression at home and abroad, and corporate crime. The magazine, initially called CovertAction Information Bulletin, regularly published the names and career histories around the globe of undercover CIA officers derived from careful research of open, public sources. This so infuriated the powers-that-be that Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in 1982, which made the practice of revealing the name of an undercover officer illegal under US law. The law was a virtual bill of attainder — it is unconstitutional for Congress to enact legislation directed at a specific individual or organization. At the time, members of the House Intelligence Committee were telling journalists and lawyers that the legislation was aimed only at CovertAction Information Bulletin and its editors, but this was always said off the record and no one would confirm it on the record; although during the House debate Congressman William Young (R.-FL) declared: "What we're after today are the Philip Agees of the world." ¹² Ironically, the law became the basis for the prosecution of George W. Bush special counsel Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who outed CIA employee Valerie Plame.

Amongst the magazine's numerous contributors were Philip Agee, John Stockwell, Ralph McGehee, Ellen Ray, William Schaap, Louis Wolf, Michael Parenti, Noam Chomsky, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Diana Johnstone, Sean Gervasi, Philip Wheaton, Immanuel Wallerstein, Kathy Kelly, Tony Benn, Ramsey Clark, David MacMichael, Edward Herman, William Blum (Whatever happened to him?), Michel Chossudovsky, Marjorie Cohn, James Petras, Gregory Elich, and many other prominent progressive writers.

A recent Washington Post story states: "The private papers of Philip Agee, the disaffected CIA operative whose unauthorized publication of agency secrets 35 years ago was arguably far more damaging than anything WikiLeaks has produced, have been obtained by New York University, which plans to make them public next spring." ¹³

A partial Table of Contents for each of the issues can be found here.

Individual copies or the entire set of 78 issues (mostly original copies and about a dozen in quality photocopy format) are available for purchase: $3.00 per issue, 25 copies for $65.00, 50 for $115, or all 78 for $165, including postage in the United States. To place an order, write:

Louis Wolf
1500 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Room 732
Washington, DC 20005

... or e-mail louw7@live.com

Midterm Miscarriage

World Beat

by JOHN FEFFER |

Even before the polls opened for voting in the U.S. midterm elections, the finger-pointing had already begun. The Obama agenda, instead of coming to term after four years, was suffering a miscarriage halfway through. The potential culprits were many and diverse.

President Barack Obama was to blame because his populist attempt to rally the economically disgruntled was too little and too late. The Supreme Court was to blame because it decimated campaign finance reform and allowed record amounts of money to distort the political process. The Democratic Party was to blame because it moved to the center in a misguided effort to win over independents. The Republican Party was to blame for arguing that "big government" is responsible for all of America's ills even while making government grind to a halt with obstructionist tactics. The tea party was to blame for, well, being itself. The media was to blame for focusing on trivia instead of the critical issues. The economy was to blame for not rebounding more quickly. The American people were to blame for turning certifiable nut jobs into viable political candidates.

Even comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were to blame for distracting hundreds of thousands of people from doing critical get-out-the-vote work and then failing to mention the election at all on the day of their rally on the Mall last weekend.

These fingers, however, were all pointed inward. Foreign policy played almost no role in this election. This is rather strange. After all, the United States is still involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The gargantuan military budget, even at this time of economic crisis, barely merits a mention in the news. (Check out this short film clip from director Iara Lee for information on military spending, featuring me and other Foreign Policy In Focus colleagues, that the TV news won't give you). Critical treaties, such as New START, hang in the balance. Negotiations with Iran and North Korea might be in the offing. We're coming up on another round of climate change negotiations in Cancun at the end of this month.

And yet, the elections will likely have a huge impact on U.S. foreign policy. A realigned Congress will alter how the United States engages (or doesn't) with the world.

The first likely victim of the elections will be New START, our latest arms control agreement with Russia. Senate Democrats have so far been unable to guarantee the 67 votes needed for passage. The one Republican who has promised to vote yes, Richard Lugar (R-IN), doubts the treaty will even come up for a vote in the lame-duck session if the Republicans pick up enough seats.

Although the arms control community is battling hard for New START, others are more skeptical of the agreement. The deals cut in the Senate to win passage, writes Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributor Darwin BondGraham in START: Arms Affirmation Treaty, "ensure that the military and its contractors will receive huge budget increases, including funding for a new plutonium bomb pit factory, a growing the missile defense program that is already as large as the NNSA nuclear weapons program, the conversion of nuclear-capable missiles into conventional strike weapons under the prompt global strike weapons program, and a new generation of submarines and jets to deploy the nuclear arsenal." Still, it could be worse. More Senate Republicans will give Jon Kyl (R-AZ) the leverage to push for even more money for nuclear modernization.

A second potential victim is the Obama administration's commitments on climate change. You might ask, what commitment? The administration backs a controversial market-based solution by which governments issue pollution permits. "The $127 billion global carbon trading market has become a lucrative marketplace for turning planetary salvation into business deals," writes FPIF columnist Laura Carlsen in Worlds Collide in Cancun Climate Talks. "The upshot is that the polluter is allowed to keep on polluting."

But more Republicans in the Senate will give tea party favorites Jim DeMint (R-SC) and James Inhofe (R-OK) more opportunities to voice their climate change denial. Both received significant campaign contributions from BP.

And then there's Obama's more diplomatic approach to various conflicts around the world. True, I find the administration's way of dealing with North Korea — lots of sticks, no carrots — too reminiscent of the early Bush years. But a Republican takeover of the House means that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) will take charge of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Known for her UN-bashing and unqualified support for Israel, Ros-Lehtinen prefers regime change strategies to the current containment approach the U.S. favors with North Korea. Led by the Florida hardliner, Congress will likely take more extreme positions toward China, Iran, Venezuela, and other nations.

Some might argue that Obama missed his golden opportunity to push through all the vital pieces of legislation on his agenda — including a jobs stimulus bill and a climate change bill — when he had a clear majority in both the House and Senate. But the Republicans used the arcane rules of the Senate to block as much as they could.

Bringing a bill to the floor of the Senate requires a cloture vote. According to this rule, adopted in 1917, 60 Senators have to agree to end debate before the body can vote by a simple majority on most bills. To block Obama, Michael Tomasky points out, Republicans have threatened a filibuster roughly twice as many times since 2007 as the Democrats did when Republicans controlled Congress during the Bush administration between 2003 and 2007.

Of course, the tilting of the playing field begins even before the senators take their seats. As FPIF contributor Caleb Rossiter argues, our electoral rules have long supported our imperial foreign policy. "Members of the U.S. House, by state laws, and the Senate, by a constitutional amendment in 1913, are chosen under a winner-takes-all rule," he writes in Is Obama a Turkey or an Eagle? "This reduces the representation in government of the anti-imperialist minority that would be present under a proportional election rule."

In many ways, the Obama administration's foreign policy has been a major disappointment. Even where he has achieved some success — negotiating with the Russians on arms control, putting climate change on the table — these have been very qualified victories. But after a few whiffs of the alternatives proposed by the newly ascendant Republicans, and those hawkish Democrats who consistently fall in behind them, we'll be waxing nostalgic about the good old days of Obama's first two years. It might not have been a golden age, but it sure beats the dark ages to come.

Failures of Leadership Abroad

There are obstructionists at home, and abroad. Take Israel. Any peace deal at the moment has to involve Benjamin Netanyahu, the country's right-wing leader. "The current right-wing government of Israel wants to negotiate with the Palestinians for their independent state as much as China wants to negotiate with Taiwan for its independent state," writes FPIF senior analyst Adil Shamoo in If Israel Wants Peace… So, don't expect Obama to get any foreign policy bump as a result of a Middle East peace deal any time soon.

Nearer to home, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has pushed the ordinarily sensible neighbor to the north into unusually extreme positions. As FPIF senior analyst Ian Williams points out, Canada has until recently been a model international actor. Then Harper took over and began copying George W. Bush. "Canada showed hostility to Russia and China, more on atavistic Cold War grounds than because of any deep concern for human rights, since Ottawa developed a U.S.-style expediency on that subject," Williams writes in Canada on Ice: At the UN. "Its troops in Afghanistan handed over prisoners to the CIA. Its officials did nothing at all about Canadian citizens that the United States kidnapped in New York and sent for torture in the Middle East or held in Guantanamo."

Finally, to the south, communities are trying to rein in the Mexican military. In the village of Mini Numa, the Me'phaa Indigenous Peoples Organization struggle for day-to-day human rights, which includes flush toilets. "They want a fair share of the commons, basic services and resources with which to scrape out modestly improved lives," writes FPIF contributor Daniel Moss in Postcard from…Mini Numa. "But these assertions of dignity, no matter how mundane they may appear, are a slippery slope, deeply threatening to local politicians and their goons who enjoy the plunder opportunities offered by despotic control.

'US imperial military presence unprecedented'

Osama has (not) left the building By Pepe Escobar

Osama has (not) left the building

By Pepe Escobar

For the dubious privilege of financing the 16-agency, alphabet soup, United States intelligence establishment not to find Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, US taxpayers have been plundered to the staggering tune of US$500 billion - and counting. Still, the obvious questions resonate from Seattle to Selma and from Sweden to Swaziland. Where's Osama? Where's al-Zawahiri? Where's escaped-on-the-back-of-a-motorcycle Taliban supremo Mullah Omar?

For starters, why don't US intelligence agencies ask the French Foreign Ministry? They swear on their Dior ties Osama is indeed alive - and it is his jihadi master's voice showcased in an audiotape broadcast by al-Jazeera this past Wednesday. In the tape, Osama in so many words warns France that the Eiffel Tower may experience a different kind of wobble one of these days (it has been evacuated twice lately).

Osama - or the ghost passing for Osama - said: "If you want to tyrannize and think that it is your right to ban the free women from wearing the burqa, isn't it our right to expel your occupying forces, your men from our lands by striking them by the neck?" A jittery Paris has taken the analogy extremely seriously.

A room with a view
So now that it's established that Osama seems to be alive and well, having made a successful transition from TDK cassettes to MP3 (unless very circumspect French diplomats are lying; and unless we suppress roars of laughter at the assertion by row after row of US "intelligence analysts" that fake Osama tapes have never been broadcast), comes the question of his humble abode.

So why not turn to the formidable North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its arrays of the most sophisticated military hardware in the world - after all they are spectacularly losing a war in Afghanistan itself as we speak? (The legendary Mikhail Gorbachev - who knows a thing or two about losing a war in the Hindu Kush - has just made it plain and simple: "Victory is impossible in Afghanistan. Obama is right to pull the troops out. No matter how difficult it will be.")

Anyway, NATO officials recently leaked to global corporate media that Osama is hiding "somewhere in northeastern Pakistan". Oh really? Would that be Miram Shah, across from Paktika? Would that be Parachinar, across from Nangarhar (where Osama and al-Zawahiri escaped to from Tora Bora in December 2001)? Would that be Chitral, across from Kunar? Would that be on the Karakoram Highway near the Chinese border?

Radio silence. The NATO boys simply don't know - as they don't seem to be very familiar with the intricate mountain geography and tribal rivalries south of the Hindu Kush. Seems like the NATO boys are taking a cue from those rows of so-called US "intelligence analysts" swearing over their air-con think-tank offices that Osama still oversees the "strategic direction" of al-Qaeda from a base “somewhere in Pakistan". Pakistan happens to be twice as big as California. Try finding a stray wacko in the Mojave Desert.

NATO boys also swear that Mullah Omar is commuting between Quetta, Balochistan's capital, and Karachi. Well, he could be taking a night desert bus or a donkey caravan - and still he can't be found. Has anyone searched the VIP rooms at the Serena Hotel in Quetta, perhaps?

Maybe the Pakistani intelligence apparatus knows something. "Not us!" - screams the Pakistani ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, "The reason why this statement is not made officially and publicly by NATO is because they do not have any basis to make that statement."

Well, then certainly Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence knows - or some key operatives inside the ISI. And in this case, the Central Intelligence Agency would know. Ambassador Haqqani: "If anybody thinks that Pakistan has any interest in protecting bin Laden they are smoking something they shouldn't be smoking.” Well, apparently no one is smoking Hindu Kush's finest - because Haqqani still swears Washington and NATO have shared "no intelligence" with Pakistan about Osama for a few years now. Would it be because - as in the famous Hollywood dictum - no one knows anything?

The invisible man
In real life, the fact is that a selected few inside the ISI know - as they have followed Osama's every move since the early 1980s in Peshawar. And they are not talking - never will. But for the CIA and the 16-agency alphabet-soup intel community

not to know, this speaks volumes about an "intelligence" establishment where 1 million Americans hold top-secret clearances. Those 1 million are absolutely worthless when it comes to gathering on-the-ground intelligence south of the Hindu Kush.

So maybe they should ask the Pakistani Army. General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani - a Pentagon darling - has been to Washington for the third round of what is called a "strategic dialogue" with the Pentagon. It's easy to picture Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asking Kiani, "If North Waziristan is the epicenter of terrorism, where al-Qaeda is holed up, why don't you go there with all guns blazing and snatch them for us?"

In principle, Kiani will do it - that's what he has promised the Pentagon. But will he? Not really. Kiani will scare away - just for show - the Haqqanis, led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, eldest son of legendary mujahid Jalaluddin Haqqani, while ISI operatives duly tell them to run the other way.

Chapman Base in Khost, Afghanistan, on the other side of North Waziristan, is operated by the CIA. But don't expect Chapman to come out swinging exhibiting "dead or alive" al-Qaeda scalpels. There are indeed some Arab al-Qaeda jihadis sheltered by the Haqqanis - a few dozen at max, but they will have plenty of time to get out of Dodge, thanks again to the services of those ISI agents.

Moreover, Kiani is not suicidal. He knows the Haqqanis and the myriad groups they protect are intimately linked to the Punjabi Taliban. If Kiani launches a major offensive, blowback - in the form of an epidemic of urban suicide bombings rocking Pakistan - is an absolute certainty.

Blowback is on the way anyway - because in this "no one knows anything, and no one's talking" scenario, the only real weapon available for Washington is to drone North Waziristan to death.

Granted, the Barack Obama administration is also desperately trying to find a way out in AfPak. Saudi Arabia is key. Not only Mullah Omar, but also other viscerally anti-occupation Afghan leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf maintain very close ties with Saudi Arabia. Washington now depends on Saudi Arabia to convince them to sit down and talk.

That's not a given (they all say they're not talking). And even if they did it might - or might not - lead to an endgame (the Pentagon certainly doesn't want one). As for the Pakistani army and intelligence establishment, what they do want is an Afghan satellite government, still part of the "strategic depth" doctrine, and to keep receiving military aid from Washington till perpetuity. Thus playing a double game is key - and that applies most of all to Osama and al-Zawahiri, the golden rationale behind the everlasting "war on terror" - another name for the Pentagon's "long war".

Now you see them - now you don't. So expect a lot of Osama digital audio from now on. He should consider his own podcast on iTunes. There's no real prospect in sight that Osama will honor former US vice president Dick Cheney's correctional facilities anytime soon. He has not left the building, and is now merrily singing Suspicious Minds in a double bill with Elvis.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

THE ROVING EYE - Aziz's story will remain untold

By Pepe Escobar

The neo-conservatives always contended that the United States invaded Iraq to bring "democracy" (from the barrel of a gun). Seems like if not democracy, at least the greatest hits of the US judicial system are indeed being implemented in (still occupied) Iraq; torture (as WikiLeaks has amply demonstrated) and the death penalty. Talk about liberation.

And talk about payback. Former Iraq deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, 74, ailing, frail, already caged, and the victim of a stroke this year, has been condemned to hang by the Supreme Court in Baghdad, according to Iraq state TV, "for his role in the elimination of Islamic [Shi'ite] parties".

Aziz, born Mikhael Yuhann in 1936 in Mosul, a Chaldean Christian - the only one in the former Sunni and secular Ba'athist inner circle, its worldwide-known "human face" - holder of a degree in English language and literature, is already serving a 15-year sentence for a series of killings of 42 tradesmen in 1992 plus a further seven-year sentence for his alleged role in the deportation of Iraqi Kurds during the Saddam Hussein era. No Western court would admit what was presented as evidence showed that he was personally involved in both crimes.

The European Union (EU) at least is being true to its chart (the death penalty is "unacceptable"); the EU's foreign representative, Catherine Ashton, will appeal to Baghdad to block the execution. Aziz's defense will appeal to the Vatican - which also condemns it. Italian radical leader Marco Pannella has started a hunger strike to denounce it.

Anyone who does not see this as a political verdict is a believer in democracy by "shock and awe". In this case, revenge is served to current Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his Shi'ite Da'wa party, which had been persecuted under Saddam's Sunni regime. Everyone else loses badly - because Aziz is arguably the only person on Earth who could tell the real story, bit by juicy bit, about the rolling, decades-long American dirty game in Iraq.

His is the ultimate political best-seller we'll never be able to read - telling for instance how the US, the United Kingdom and the Saudis shelled out over $60 billion for Iraq to go to war with Iran during the 1980s; what was really discussed between Saddam, himself and former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad when they met in 1983; how every Westernpolitician paid homage at the court of Saddam - the man who would get rid of those demented ayatollahs; how Saddam beat the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's human waves of martyrs by spraying them with Western-supplied chemical weapons; and how those fabled "weapons of mass destruction" were nowhere to be seen since 1995 at least - thus rendering George W Bush'sand Tony Blair's casus belli null and void.

When US Marine Corps entered Baghdad on April 9, 2003, his villa was plundered - by the marines and by local mobs. I went to see it as soon as I could (A (mis)guided tour of BaghdadAsia Times Online, April 18, 2003), finding a DVD box set of The Godfather saga - Saddam's favorite was the first one - right at the door. On April 24, Aziz surrendered to the Americans. He was the eight of spades in the Pentagon's infamous deck of cards. (Saddam was the ace of spades.)

History may judge that Bush and Blair - with their Moloch-style terrorizing machine dubbed "shock and awe" - have been no better than Saddam's inner circle; directly and indirectly, their "policies" killed more Iraqi civilians than Saddam ever did. Yet they did (Blair) and they will (Bush) publish books extolling their "glory".

Aziz instead is the only one left with a real breathtaking story to tell. And as the proverbial man who knows too much, he had to be taken out.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Ongoing Iran War Preparations? Arabian Sea: Center Of West's 21st Century War

by Rick Rozoff

The monumental expansion of arms sales and the buildup of naval and air power in the Arabian Sea region are unprecedented. They are also alarming to the highest degree.

A quarter of the world's nuclear aircraft carriers will soon be in the Arabian Sea.



The Nimitz class nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in the region on October 17 to join the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, which in turn had arrived there on June 18 as part of a regular rotation.

The Charles de Gaulle, flagship of the French navy, the country's only aircraft carrier and the sole non-American nuclear carrier, will soon join its two U.S. counterparts. The U.S. possesses half the world's twenty-two aircraft carriers, all eleven supercarriers (those displacing over 70,000 tons) and eleven of twelve nuclear carriers.





Regarding the unscheduled deployment of a second American aircraft carrier to the region, a CBS News report stated:

"Air strikes in Afghanistan are up 50 per cent and now Defense Secretary Gates has ordered a second aircraft carrier, the USS Lincoln, into the fight.

"Two carriers operating off the coast of Pakistan means about 120 aircraft available for missions over Afghanistan. And that's not counting U.S. Air Force missions flown out of Bagram and Kandahar." [1]

The countries bordering the Arabian Sea are Somalia, Djibouti, Yemen, Oman, Iran, Pakistan, India and the island nation of Maldives.

USS Lincoln and USS Truman are currently assigned to the Fifth Fleet's area of responsibility, which encompasses the Northern Indian Ocean and its branches and offshoots: The Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the eastern coast of Africa south to Kenya, the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.

The nations on the Red Sea and Persian Gulf are, in addition to those mentioned above, Egypt, Eritrea, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Sudan and Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, respectively.

The Fifth is the first fleet established in the post-Cold War period, recommissioned in 1995 after being deactivated in 1947. (Similarly, the Fourth Fleet, which is assigned to the Caribbean Sea and Central and South America, was reactivated two years ago after being decommissioned in 1950.)

It shares a commander and headquarters with U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (CENTCOM) at Manama, Bahrain, across the Persian Gulf from Iran. CENTCOM was the last regional military command launched by the Pentagon during the Cold War (1983) and its area of responsibility stretches across what has been referred to as the Broader Middle East from Egypt in the west to Kazakhstan, bordering China and Russia, to the east.

The Fifth Fleet and Naval Forces Central Command are jointly in charge of five naval task forces operating in and near the Arabian Sea which patrol several of the most strategic chokepoints on the planet: The Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean Sea, where the U.S. Sixth Fleet and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Operation Active Endeavor hold sway, to the Red Sea. The Bab Al Mandeb connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. The Strait of Hormuz between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.

Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) is a multinational naval group established in 2001 with logistics facilities in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti and operates from the Strait of Hormuz to the Gulf of Aden and past the Bab Al Mandeb to the Red Sea and south to the Indian Ocean nation of Seychelles. Last year the Pentagon secured a military facility in Seychelles, its second in an African nation, where it has deployed Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), PC-3 Orion anti-submarine and surveillance aircraft, and 112 Navy personnel. Other nations currently contributing ships and personnel to CTF-150 are Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Pakistan, South Korea and Thailand. Recent participants also include Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Spain and Turkey.

Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151) was launched in January of 2009, operates in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin and covers an area of 1.1 million square miles. Twenty nations are scheduled to participate in the U.S.-led task force and Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea and Turkey have already enlisted. Its commanders to date have been from the U.S., Britain, South Korea and Turkey.

Combined Task Force 152 (CTF-152) operates from the northern Persian Gulf to the Strait of Hormuz, between the areas of responsibility of CTF-150 and CTF-158, and is part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Combined Task Force 158 (CTF-158) operates in the northern-most part of the Persian Gulf, is also part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and consists of British and Australian as well as U.S. ships. Its main tasks are to oversee Iraqi oil installations and to create an Iraqi navy under the Pentagon's control.

The U.S. has divided the world between six regional military commands and six navy fleets. The Arabian Sea is covered by three of the Pentagon's overseas military commands - Central Command, Africa Command and Pacific Command - to provide an indication of the importance attached to the region.

In addition to the Fifth Fleet's and Naval Forces Central Command's headquarters in Bahrain, Central Command also maintains command, forward deployment, air and training bases and facilities in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf in addition to 56,000 troops and air, naval and infantry bases in Iraq.

Several months before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and on the Pentagon, the U.S. signed an agreement with the small nation of Djibouti (with a population of 725,000) to take over a former French base, Camp Lemonnier, which is now a United States Naval Expeditionary Base hosting the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, assigned to Africa Command since the latter was activated two years ago. The Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa's area of responsibility takes in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen, with the Indian Ocean nations of Comoros, Mauritius and Madagascar effectively included.

In early 2002 the U.S. deployed 800 special operations troops to Camp Lemonnier to conduct covert operations in Yemen across the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti. There are now in the neighborhood of 2,000 U.S. troops in the country and 3,000 French troops there in what has been described as France's largest overseas military base. In the beginning of this decade Germany deployed 1,200 troops to Djibouti along with forces from Spain and the Netherlands. Britain added troops in 2005.

In total, there are as many as 8-10,000 military personnel from NATO nations in Djibouti. The Pentagon has used Camp Lemonnier, the port of Djibouti and the country's international airport for attacks in Yemen and Somalia, and French troops in the country assisted Djibouti in its armed conflict with neighboring Eritrea in 2008. France uses the country to train its troops for the war in Afghanistan and the Pentagon used it to support the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet ordinarily has one aircraft carrier, serving as the nucleus of a carrier strike group, assigned to it. With USS Lincoln joining USS Truman in the Arabian Sea this month it now has two. USS Lincoln is accompanied by a guided missile destroyer and "brings more than 60 additional aircraft to the theater in support of Operation Enduring Freedom." [2]

USS Truman's strike group includes four Aegis class destroyers equipped for Standard Missile-3 anti-ballistic missiles, a guided missile cruiser and the German frigate FGS Hessen. Carrier Wing 3 attached to the aircraft carrier includes three strike fighter squadrons, a Marine fighter attack squadron, and airborne early warning, electronic attack and helicopter anti-submarine squadrons.

Since passing though the Suez Canal on June 28 until late last month Carrier Wing 3 had "completed more than 3,300 aircraft sorties and logged more than 10,200 flight hours, with more than 7,200 of those hours in support of coalition ground forces in Afghanistan." [3] There are 7,000 sailors and marines attached to the USS Truman carrier strike group.

Beforehand, shortly after entering the Mediterranean Sea in May, USS Truman engaged in joint interoperability exercises in Marseille with its French fellow nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. French warplanes landed on the Truman's deck and American ones on Charles de Gaulle's.

The French carrier was returned to port for repairs on the day it set sail for "a four-month mission to support the fight in Afghanistan," but "will recover lost time at sea and its itinerary is not likely to change."

Its new mission, the first since 2007, "is to take it to join the fight against piracy off Somalia in the Indian Ocean and the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

"The new mission of the ship is to join the fight against pirates that is taking place off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean [where a] NATO mission is ongoing." [4] Nuclear aircraft carriers are a curious choice for contending with piracy.

The NATO deployment in question is Operation Ocean Shield, inaugurated in August of 2009 and extended to the end of 2012. Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 and Standing NATO Maritime Group 2, which have also visited Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and participated in joint naval maneuvers with Pakistan on the eastern end of the Arabian Sea, rotate for the operation in the Gulf of Aden.

The U.S.'s Operation Enduring Freedom encompasses sixteen nations in all - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen - and NATO's efforts parallel and reinforce the Pentagon's across the width of the Arabian Sea from the Horn of Africa to South and Central Asia.

At its summit in Istanbul, Turkey in 2004, NATO launched the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative to build military partnerships with the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - and has conducted military exchanges and cooperation with them in the interim. [5] The United Arab Emirates has supplied NATO with troops for the war in Afghanistan and hosts a secret air base for the transit of troops and equipment to the war zone.

In May of 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy opened a military base in the United Arab Emirates, the first permanent French base in the Persian Gulf and the first overseas base in 50 years. Including a navy and air force base and a training camp, it was seen at the time as a show of force against Iran which contests the Abu Musa island in the Persian Gulf with the Emirates.

NATO forces also operate out of bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The North Atlantic Alliance has launched several helicopter gunship attacks inside Pakistan since late last month and on September 30 killed three Pakistani soldiers.

There are 120,000 troops from almost 50 nations serving under NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

This year NATO has airlifted Ugandan troops to Somalia for the armed conflict there.

The Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier en route to the Arabian Sea to support the war in that country as well for operations off the coast of Somalia was commissioned in May of 2001. Seven months later it sailed to the Arabian Sea to support Operation Enduring Freedom and the war in Afghanistan. On December 19 of that year Super Étendard attack jets and Rafale Ms fighters took off from its deck to conduct bombing and reconnaissance missions, in all over 140.

The following March Super Étendard and Mirage warplanes assigned to Charles de Gaulle carried out air strikes before and during the U.S.-led Operation Anaconda.

When the French carrier arrives in the Arabian Sea this month it will be accompanied by two frigates, an attack submarine and a refuelling tanker, 3,000 sailors and 27 aircraft: Ten Rafale F3 fighters, 12 Super Étendard attack jets, two Hawkeye early warning planes and three helicopters.

According to the commander of the group, Rear Admiral Jean-Louis Kerignard, "the force would help allied navies fight piracy off the coast of Somalia and send jets to support NATO in the skies above Afghanistan.

"The ships will also train alongside allies from Saudi Arabia, India, Italy, Greece and the United Arab Emirates and make two stopovers at the French base in Djibouti before returning to France in February 2011." [6]

With USS Lincoln and the USS Truman carrier strike group, there will be three carriers, ten other ships, an attack submarine and as many as 150 military aircraft in the Arabian Sea. That is in addition to the five warships of the NATO Maritime Group 1 in theater, 14-15 ships with CTF-150 and perhaps dozens more with CTF-151, CFT-152 and CTF-158. A formidable armada covering the sea from one end to the other.

In the north of the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman and into the Persian Gulf, on October 21 the U.S. announced a $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia for advanced fighter jets, helicopters, missiles and other weaponry and equipment," according to a Western news agency "the largest US arms deal ever." [7]


US military bases surround Iran

Last month the Financial Times disclosed that Washington plans to sell $123 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. This January reports surfaced of White House plans to sell Patriot missile batteries to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Navy also patrols the Persian Gulf with Standard Missile-3 interceptor missile-equipped warships. [8]

On the eastern end of the Arabian Sea, on October 23 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a $2 billion, five-year military aid package for Pakistan, and President Obama's scheduled visit to India next month is reported to include massive arms deals that will effect the U.S. supplanting Russia as India's main weapons supplier.

The monumental expansion of arms sales and the buildup of naval and air power in the Arabian Sea region are unprecedented. They are also alarming to the highest degree.

The West, America and its NATO allies, are escalating military operations across the area, from Asia to Africa to the Middle East. The theater of operations has recently broadened from South Asia to the Arabian Peninsula with drone and helicopter attacks in Pakistan and air and cruise missile strikes in Yemen.

A war that started at the beginning of the century is in its tenth year and gives every indication of being permanent.

Notes

1) CBS News, October 18, 2010
2) Navy NewsStand, October 17, 2010
3) Navy NewsStand, September 26, 2010
4) Associated Press, October 14, 2010
5) NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul
Stop NATO, February 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/nato-in-persian-gulf-from-third-world-war-to-istanbul
6) Expatica, October 13, 2010
7) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 21, 2010
8) U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf
Stop NATO, February 3, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/u-s-extends-missile-buildup-from-poland-and-taiwan-to-persian-gulf

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Rick Rozoff is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Rick Rozoff