Sixty Years of Palestinian Displacement, Occupation and Suffering - by Stephen Lendman

On May 14, Israelis will commemorate the 60th anniversary of their "War of Independence" and founding of the Jewish State. It also marks 60 years of Palestinian Nakba suffering. The web site alnakba.org recounts the history:

-- from the late Ottoman empire period; to

-- the birth of Zionism; to

-- the early Jewish colonization of Palestine; to

-- the 1917 Balfour Declaration support for a "Jewish national home in Palestine;" to

-- the simultaneous British betrayal of the indigenous Arabs; to

-- the British occupation; to

-- its delayed promised end; to

-- the founding of the Haganah underground military organization; to

-- the first British (1922) Palestine census showing a population of 757,182 - 78% Muslim, 11% Jewish and 9.6% Christian; to

-- the official 1923 establishment of the British Mandate period; to

-- the 1920s Jewish population increase to 16% on 4% of Palestinian land; to

-- the terrorist Irgun (IZT) National Military Organization established in 1931; to

-- the terrorist Stern Gang founded in 1939; to

-- the 1945 Jewish population growth to 31% of the total; to

-- the October 1947 US endorsement of partitioning Palestine at a time Palestinians comprised two-thirds of the population and Jews one-third; to

-- the November 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution 181 to end the British Mandate by August 1, 1948 and partition Palestine - 56% to Jews, the remainder to Palestinians, and for Jerusalem to be an international city; to

-- Britain recommending (in December) an end to Mandate Palestine on May 15, 1948 and independent Jewish and Palestinian states to be established two weeks later; to

-- Harry Truman secretly meeting Chaim Weizmann at the White House on March 25, 1948 and pledging support for the declaration of Israel on May 15; to

-- the State of Israel established at 4PM on May 14, 1948; to

-- the official end of the British Mandate on May 15; to

-- Harry Truman recognizing the Jewish State on the same day.

David Ben-Gurion was Israel's first prime minister. On March 10, 1948, he met with leading Zionists and young Jewish military officers in Tel-Aviv's "Red House." They finalized plans to ethnically cleanse Palestine through a process of siege, intimidation and terror - to bomb and depopulate villages and cities; massacre innocent people; burn homes, property and goods; and prevent expelled Palestinians from returning.

Dalet (Plan D) was the final master plan. It was for war without mercy - mass slaughter, targeted assassinations, rapes, other atrocities, displacement and destruction. It was to establish an exclusive Jewish State without an Arab presence.

It took six months to complete, consider the toll, and understand the Nakba's meaning. It displaced 750,000 to 800,000 people - men, women, children, the elderly and infant civilians. Many hundreds or thousands of others were killed. Sweeping destruction was carried out. It erased 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and other cities.

The plan's roots went way back:

-- to the birth of Zionism;

-- the 1901Jewish National Fund (JNF) beginning; it was to compile a detailed registry of Arab villages so later Zionists knew what to colonize and where; it was also to buy and occupy Palestinian land;

-- by the late 1930s, it was a detailed topographic blueprint of every Arab village and urban area; its information included husbandry, cultivated land, number of trees, quality of fruits, crops, average amount of land per family, number of cars, shop owners, Palestinian clans and their political affiliation, description of mosques and names of their imams, civil servants and more;

-- by 1947, it also included "wanted" persons, by villages, to be targeted for elimination - leaders to be arrested and summarily executed in cold blood to create a power vacuum;

-- the process began in December 1947, five months before the British Mandate ended; Britain did nothing to deter it; David Ben-Gurion led it from the 1920s to the 1960s; after ethnically cleansing Palestine he said: "We have come and we have stolen their country....We must do everything to insure they never do return." Ten years earlier he wrote to his son: "We will expel the Arabs and take their places....with the force at our disposal;"

-- other Israeli leaders expressed the same mindset; two were former prime ministers - Golda Meir said: "There are no Palestinians" and Menachem Begin and Nobel Peace Prize recipient called Palestinians "two-legged beasts" and said Jews were the "Master Race" and "divine gods on this planet;"

-- Labor Party leader Haim Herzog was more discreet in expressing disdain for the Arabs; in 1972, he said "I am not prepared to consider (Palestinians) as partners in any respect in a land that has been consecrated in the hands of our nation for thousands of years. For the Jews of this land there cannot be any partner."

Earlier in 1969, Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan described the 1947 - 49 success: "Jewish villages were built in place of Arab (ones). You do not know the names of these Arab villages (because they) no longer exist....There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." Like other leading Israelis, Dayan expressed scorn for all Palestinians and told his Labor Party colleagues that they "shall continue to live like dogs...."

The Palestinian Holocaust

Alnakba.org recounts the toll. It lists the destroyed villages in 14 Palestinian Districts, including Gaza, Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth and Hebron. One was Deir Yassin in the Jerusalem District. On April 9, 1948, it was the site of an infamous Nakba massacre. Israeli soldiers entered the village, machine-gunned houses randomly and killed many inside them. The remaining villagers were assembled and murdered in cold blood. Included were children, infants, the elderly and women who were first raped. The total number killed is uncertain but best estimates place it between 93 and 120. In addition, dozens more were killed in the fighting that ensued, and many other villages met the same fate in the systematic cleansing plan - to seize as much Palestinian land as possible leaving the fewest number of Arabs on it.

In December 1947, Jews in Palestine numbered 600,000 compared to 1.3 million Palestinians. Ben-Gurion ordered them removed with commands like: "Every attack has to end with occupation, destruction and expulsion." He meant depopulation; obliteration; homes blown up, burned or bulldozed; their inhabitants inside killed; shooting anything that moved, especially fighting-age men and boys who might pose a combat or resistance threat; and leaving behind rubble, a forgotten landscape and a proud history erased.

The Lifta ruins can be seen from Jerusalem. All that was left in Dayr Aban were piles of rubble, collapsed roofs and part of some standing walls. Only two houses remained in Barqa. One is deserted. The other is a warehouse. Jura became the city of Ashqelon. Its Jewish population is now about 117,000. The only Arab remains in al-Faluja are the village mosque foundations and fragments of walls. The Israeli town of Qiryat Gat now stands on land between al-Faluja and Iraq al-Manshiyya and on al-Faluja land as well. Hundreds of other Arab villages have similar stories. They were erased and replaced by Jewish-only development.

An eye witness to the Deir Yassin massacre recounts the horror:

"I was (there) when the Jews attacked....(They) closed on the village amid exchanges of fire with us. Once they entered the village, fighting became very heavy in the eastern side and later it spread to other parts, to the quarry, to the village center until it reached the western edge....The Jews used all sorts of automatic weapons, tanks, missiles, cannons. They enter(ed) houses and kill(ed) women and children indiscriminately. The (village) youths....fought bravely.

We had no aid or support....They took about 40 prisoners....After the battle was over, they took them to the quarry where they shot them dead and threw their bodies in the quarry....they took (other) prisoners and killed them....they killed the youths."

Other accounts spoke of shootings, bombs exploding and a mother being killed with her husband, son and brother. A nurse was shot dead as well as the daughter of a friend and her baby. "Whomever tried to run away was shot dead." It was cold-blooded murder.

After the battle, "the Jews took elderly men and women and youths, including four of my cousins and a nephew. They took them all. Women who had on them gold and money, were stripped of their gold. After the Jews removed their dead and wounded, they took the men to the quarry and sprayed them all with bullets." One woman watched her son shot to death. "They later poured kerosene on his body and" burned it.

The men were fighting. "Eyewitnesses were only women. The elderly men were (used) to remove the dead, Arabs and Jews." The Arab ones "were thrown in a well in the village center." It all happened five weeks before the State of Israel was founded. Arabs died and were displaced to make Plan D a success. It worked because western powers supported it, and Arab neighbors were indifferent. Their intervention held off until May 15, five and a half months after the UN partition. When it began, it was with an inferior force that was no match against Israeli superiority, despite popular myth to the contrary.

It recounts how an outnumbered and outgunned Jewish force prevailed against overwhelming odds. Pure rubbish. In fact, the Jews held a clear advantage. As long as the British stayed out (and they did), the outcome was never in doubt. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq held off intervening as long as possible, then reluctantly stepped in with token forces. It was too little, too late, and, for its part, Jordan (with its potent military) stayed out entirely in return for most of the West Bank as a payoff.

Intervening Arab forces performed poorly. They overstretched their supply lines, ran out of ammunition, mostly used antiquated weapons, and had no effective command and control. It was a testimony to their lack of commitment, not their ability to fight had they wished to.

Jews, in contrast, were supplied effective armaments from Soviet Russia and other Eastern bloc countries. They easily outgunned the Arabs and outclassed and outnumbered them as well. The outcome was never in doubt that a new Jewish State would emerge. On May 14, 1948, Israel signed separate armistice agreements with its four major warring adversaries. It gave Israel 78% of British Mandatory Palestine, 40% above its UN allotment. Palestinians got the other 22% comprising the West Bank and Gaza.

On December 11, 1948, a historic General Assembly resolution passed - UN Resolution 194 consisting of 15 articles. Four were most important. Article 7 protected and provided free access to the Holy Places. Article 8 demilitarized Jerusalem and placed it under UN control. Article 9 called for free access to Jerusalem, and Article 11 is most remembered for granting Palestinian refugees the right of return or to be compensated for their loss if they chose not to. From 1948, to the present, Israel defied the UN mandate and got away with it. It was because of western support and Arab indifference. As a result, it was able to terrorize remaining Arabs inside Israel, and set in motion the eventual Gaza and West Bank occupation.

The War Ended - State Terrorism Was Just Beginning

Throughout 1949 in the war's aftermath, Israel pursued another one - a war of terror against the remaining Arab population. It set a six decade precedent. Israel now belonged to Jews. Arabs were unwelcome. State security forces cracked down to show how much.

Thousands of displaced Palestinians were rounded up and imprisoned. Others were targeted, harassed and abused. They lost everything - their land, homes, fields, crops, places of worship, freedom of movement and expression, and any hope for fair treatment in the new Jewish State.

Naked and undisguised racism confronted them. They were issued identity cards with penalties up to 1.5 years in prison and immediate transfer to an "unauthorized" and "suspicious" Arab pen if caught without them.

Persecution was relentless, much the way it is today. Roadblocks and checkpoints went up, curfews imposed, violators shot on sight, and systematic abuse inflicted. In addition, thousands of Palestinians were conscripted, sent to labor camps, and forced to help build the new Jewish state. Conditions there were deplorable. Quarry laborers performed arduous work, carried heavy rocks, and had to live on one potato and half a dried fish for daily sustenance. Complainers or slackers were beaten, many severely. Others, considered a threat, were simply shot.

Other Arabs weren't treated much better. Human rights abuses were appalling. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) documented them. Palestinians (now Israeli citizens) got no protections and were afforded no rights. They were subjected to relentless abuses. Their mosques were profaned, schools vandalized, homes robbed and at times stripped bare in broad daylight. Palestinians reported that not a single home or Arab shop escaped the onslaught. Authorities did nothing to deter it. They made things worse.

Palestinians (inside Israel) were transfered from their homes, moved to undesired locations, crammed into confined ghettos, they became open-air prisons, and treatment there was horrific. The ICRC and UN reported beatings, rapes and other abuses. Israel was undergoing transformation. Its Arab character was being erased. It affected about 150,000 remaining Arab Israelis in the new Jewish State.

Formal ethnic cleansing ended in 1949, dispossession and displacements nonetheless continued, and a new Committee for Arab Affairs was established to defuse growing international pressure to enforce UN Resolution 194, especially the right of return under Article 11.

Arab Israelis lost all their rights and were placed under military rule. In addition, discriminatory laws were passed, like the Law of the Land of Israel. It stipulated that the Jewish National Fund (JNF - the Jewish State landowner) was forbidden to sell or lease land to non-Jews.

From inception, Israel has had no formal constitution. It's governed instead by its Basic Law. Nine laws were passed between 1958 and 1988, all of which pertained to the institutions of state. No basic rights were enacted until 1992. That year, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom was passed authorizing the Knesset to overturn laws contrary to the right to dignity, life, freedom, privacy, property and to leave and enter the country. The law states: "There shall be no violation of the life, body or dignity of any person. All persons are entitled to protection" of these rights, and "There shall be no deprivation or restriction of the liberty of a person by imprisonment, arrest, extradition or otherwise."

Israeli Basic Laws are for Jews only. Arab Israelis have no rights under them with one exception - the right to run for public office in the Knesset, become a nominal legislative member, but have no power beyond a public stage for their views to be shouted down and ignored.

Palestinians have endured six decades of shattered hope and dreams. They were uprooted from their homes, denied their basic rights, given little outside recognition or aid, blamed for Israeli crimes, terrorized without mercy, falsely promised peace, yet condemned to a state of siege under which nothing will change without outside pressure to force it.

Since 1948, Palestinians have lived in a state of limbo. Their Nakba never ended. What's left of their country is occupied. They have no recognized nation and no power over their daily lives. They live in constant fear. They're economically strangled; dispossessed of their land and homes; isolated under siege; collectively punished; denied free movement; casually murdered; ruthlessly arrested, imprisoned and tortured; afflicted by random curfews; invaded, bombed, and shot at; extra-judicially assassinated; and constricted by roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences and the Separation Wall that the World Court ruled illegal.

Israel: The World's "Worst Brand"

That's according a 2006 National Brands Index (NBI) study. On November 22, 2006, Israel Today reported the findings. They were compiled by "government advisor Simon Anholt and powered by global market intelligence solutions provider GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.)."

The survey polled 25,903 "online consumers" in 35 countries across the world. It was to measure respondents perceptions "across six areas of national competence," including governance, people, culture, heritage and immigration.

"Israel's brand (was) by a considerable margin the most negative we have ever measured in the NBI, and (came) at the bottom of the ranking on almost every question (asked about 36 countries)."

Israel was ranked the least desired country to visit. Its people were ranked the "most unwelcoming in the world." Surprisingly, Americans were as negative as others. They "ranked Israel slightly above China in terms of its conduct in the areas of international peace and security."

Other recent opinion surveys report similar results. It's encouraging to know that well over half of all Europeans rank Israel "the biggest threat to world peace" according to a 2003 European Commission poll. Israel is a pariah state. That's the view of millions around the world in spite of dominant media efforts to say otherwise. Israel calls it growing anti-Semitism. That, of course, is rubbish. Jews and Israelis aren't being singled out - only their criminal leaders. World public opinion justifiably condemns them.

Commemorating the Unforgivable

Jews in Israel and around the world will commemorate May 14. It's the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel's founding. Thousands of other Jews everywhere along with everyone of conscience stand with the Canadian Palestine Support Network (CalPalNet). They cannot celebrate. They will not celebrate. They remember the Nakba. They know it continues. They condemn 41 years of occupation; the starving and bombing of Gaza; the oppressive Separation Wall; the theft of Palestinian land; the building of illegal settlements; the denial of the right of return; the killings, torture, imprisonment and harassment; the denial of basic human rights; and Israel's disdain for international law.

They "can (and) will continue (their) efforts to end these injustices, uphold international law," and support every UN resolution demanding it. "This is the only road map to peace." They, with millions of others, won't ever stop working for it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting edge discussion with distinguished guests.



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Iran-Contra For Idiots

"El riesgo que corren nuestros Cinco hermanos Cubanos en la prisión..."

viernes, 2 de mayo, 2008


Boletín del Comité Nacional para la Libertad de los Cinco Cubanos

Incidentes graves en prisiones de Florence y Beaumont

Lo siguiente es una carta de Maruchi Guerrero, la hermana de Antonio Guerrero. Les suplicamos que lean esta carta en su totalidad, y que doblemos nuestros esfuerzos en la lucha por la libertad inmediata de los Cinco Héroes.


Una carta de Maruchi Guerrero, la hermana de Antonio



Estimados amigos solidarios:

Una vez mas pudimos darnos cuenta del riesgo que corren nuestros cinco hermanos, preso injustamente en las cárceles de los Estados Unidos.
Mi mama y yo regresamos el pasado día 28 de abril de Colorado, donde estuvimos por 21 días con el propósito de visitar a Tony en la prisión por nueve veces, los días viernes, sábado y domingo, que son los días de visita en la USP Penitenciary de Florence donde él se encuentra.

Lamentablemente no pudimos hacer todas las visitas previstas porque el domingo 13 de abril alrededor de las 12.30 pm mientras nos encontrábamos allí, ocurrió un hecho de indisciplina muy grave que conllevó a interrumpir la visita y de ahí el encierro (lock down) de la prisión.

Sentados en el salón de visitas sentimos que del área exterior sonaban disparos, bastante seguidos y algunos gritos. En esos momentos mi mama se encontraba en el baño y mi hermano me pide que no le diga a ella que escuchamos tiros. El oficial recibe una llamada y anuncia que la visita había terminado por una indisciplina en la prisión, mi mama regresa y le comunicamos la noticia pero de pronto volvieron a escucharse tiros, bastantes. Nos pidieron que no nos moviéramos de allí, casi a las tres de la tarde entraron al salón cerca de diez oficiales y nos ordenaron retirarnos, tres de ellos acompañaron a las familias que estábamos en la visita.

Atravesando la puerta, fuera del salón, tuvimos que pegarnos a un lado en una pared para dejar pasar unos oficiales con camillas, nos dimos cuenta que la cosa era muy grave.

Al salir del Edificio, en el área de afuera había un carro de ambulancia, carros de emergencia y muchos vehículos, quizás más de 60 de todos los oficiales que en llamada de emergencia acudieron a la prisión.

Apenas atinamos a despedirnos de Tony, él procurando la calma, nos pidió que estuviéramos tranquila y que lo más seguro era que hubiera un lock down, por lo que perderíamos la comunicación con él, y así sucedió.

El lunes en el noticiero de Univisión daban la noticia de que un hecho grave había ocurrido en USP Penitenciary Florence que había ocasionado la muerte a dos presos y varios heridos por los tiros de los oficiales. El martes en el periódico The Gazette de Colorado salía publicada la noticia en primera plana, más de 200 prisioneros se involucraron en una riña. Un grupo de ellos festejaban el cumpleaños de Adolfo Hitler y hubo otros grupos raciales involucrados, decía la nota de prensa, lo que trajo como resultado la muerte de dos prisioneros y cinco heridos, y la prisión en "lock down" por tiempo indefinido.

Solo nos consolaba el saber que en el momento del incidente mi hermano estaba junto a nosotros en el salón de visitas, pero pudimos comprender mucho más como se juegan la vida todos los días nuestros cinco hermanos.

Gerardo, Ramón, René, Fernando y Tony están cumpliendo injustas condenas en esas cárceles sin haber causado daño a nadie y sin que aun se le hayan probado los cargos por los que han sido sentenciados en un proceso manipulado por intereses de la mafia cubano americana apoyada por el gobierno de los Estados Unidos.

Una situación parecida sucedió el pasado mes de enero en la prisión USP Beaumont, Texas, donde se encuentra Ramón. Su hija mayor Ailí había viajado hasta allá para visitarlo y ese mismo días antes de ella llegar, había ocurrió una riña que también ocasionó la muerte a dos presos. Ailí permaneció en esa ciudad por 30 días según el tiempo aprobado en la visa y tuvo que regresar sin haber podido visitar a su papá por el lock down prolongado debido a este hecho de gravedad y sin haberse podido comunicar con él.

Diez años en prisión y seguimos esperando la decisión del Onceno Circuito de la Corte de Atlanta en el tercer proceso de apelación que enfrenta este caso. Aun así nuestros hermanos se mantienen con valentía, optimismo y dignidad, procurando convertir este tiempo en otras acciones útiles, dedicados a la pintura, la lectura, respondiendo cartas a todos los amigos de diversas partes del mundo, brindando amor a sus madres, hijos, esposas y familiares con la convicción de que defienden una causa justa para evitar el terrorismo, la muerte, para que un mundo de paz sea posible.

Cuán difícil resulta para mi mamá vivir estos momentos, ella también digna y valiente fortalecida por ese aliento y esperanza que le da su hijo pero con la preocupación que por su edad, 76 años, ella lucha también contra el tiempo, procurando estar bien para ver regresar a su noble y amoroso hijo.

Amigos solidarios, son muchos ya estos 10 años. Ustedes son nuestra esperanza para lograr que los cinco regresen a sus casas.

Con todo cariño y agradecimiento en nombre de los familiares de los cinco,

Un abrazo,
Maruchi,
hermana de Antonio Guerrero


Contáctenos: info@freethefive.org
O llame al: 415-821-6545
Web: http://www.freethefive.org

¡Libertad para los Cinco Ya!
¡Permitan Visitas Familiares!
¡Otorguen las visitas de entrada al país
a Adriana Pérez y a Olga Salanueva!

Animated video of People's History of American Empire (voiceover by Viggo Mortensen)

Locura electoral por Howard Zinn*

Hay un hombre en Florida que ha estado escribiéndome por años (10 páginas, manuscritas) pese a que todavía no lo conozco en persona. Me cuenta de los empleos que ha tenido como guardia de seguridad, reparador, etcétera. Ha trabajado en todos los turnos, noche y día, para mantener, apenas, a su familia. Sus cartas son textos que con enojo protestan contra nuestro sistema capitalista por su fracaso para garantizar “la vida, la libertad y la búsqueda de la felicidad” de la gente trabajadora.

Justo hoy, me llegó otra de sus cartas. Para mi alivio, no estaba manuscrita porque ahora utiliza el correo electrónico: “Bueno, hoy le escribo porque hay una deplorable situación en este país que no puedo aceptar y ante la cual debo decir algo. Tengo tanta rabia por esta crisis provocada por el sistema de hipotecas. La mayoría de los estadunidenses debe vivir su vida en deuda perpetua, muchos se están hundiendo bajo la carga, y eso me tiene echando chispas. Maldición, eso me tiene muy enojado, tanto que no puedo ni decir qué tanto. Hoy, como guardia, tuve que vigilar una casa embargada y donde todo en ella estaba sujeto a subasta pública. En el evento tuve que cuidar el sitio. Había otros tres guardias que habían hecho lo mismo en otras tres casas de esta misma comunidad. En los ratos calmados que tuve descanso pensaba en esas personas a las que habían lanzado de sus casas, y me preguntaba dónde estarían ahora”.

El mismo día que recibí esta carta, vi un reportaje en la primera plana del Boston Globe, con un encabezado que decía: “Miles en Massachusetts embargados en 2007”. El balazo del cabezal agregaba: “7 mil 563 hogares fueron confiscados, tres veces más que en 2006”.

Unas noches antes, el canal de televisión cbs, informó que 750 mil personas con discapacidades han esperado por años para recibir los beneficios de su seguro social debido a que el sistema tiene menos fondos de los necesarios y no hay personal suficiente para manejar todas las solicitudes, incluidas las que son desesperadas.

Historias como éstas pueden aparecer en los medios, pero pasan en un instante. Lo que no se va, lo que ocupa día a día a la prensa, y es imposible de ignorar, es la locura electoral.

Eso secuestra al país cada cuatro años porque a todos nos educaron en la creencia de que votar es crucial en la determinación de nuestro destino. Que el acto más importante en que puede involucrarse un ciudadano es ir a las urnas y elegir a una de las dos mediocridades que ya fueron seleccionadas para nosotros. Es un examen de opción múltiple tan estrecho, tan específico, que ningún profesor que se respete se lo pondría así a sus alumnos.

Y lo triste es que la competencia presidencial hipnotiza a los liberales y a los radicales por igual. Todos somos vulnerables.

¿Será posible reunirnos en esos días con nuestros amigos y evitar el tema de las elecciones presidenciales?

Las mismas personas que deberían saber más, ésas que han criticado el yugo que tienen los medios sobre el pensamiento nacional, se hallan atónitas por la prensa, pegadas al aparato de televisión, conforme los candidatos se enderezan, se limpian el pico y sonríen para después recetarnos un regaderazo de lugares comunes con una solemnidad propia de la poesía épica.

Debemos admitir que aun en los periódicos de la llamada izquierda se le otorga un monto exorbitante de atención al escrutinio de los candidatos principales, minuto a minuto. A los candidatos menores se les arroja un hueso ocasional, aunque todos sepamos que nuestro maravilloso y democrático sistema político no les permitirá la entrada.

No, no estoy asumiendo una posición de ultraizquierda para la cual las elecciones son totalmente insignificantes, ni es que rehuse a votar con tal de preservar mi pureza moral. Sí, hay candidatos que son mejores que otros, y en ciertos momentos de crisis nacional (los años 30, por ejemplo, los tiempos actuales), una ligera diferencia entre dos partidos puede ser cuestión de vida o muerte.

Hablo de un sentido de la proporción que se pierde en esta locura electoral. ¿Apoyaría a un candidato contra el otro? Sí, durante los dos minutos que toma ejercer el voto en la casilla electoral.

Pero antes y después de esos dos minutos, nuestro tiempo, nuestra energía, deben ocuparse en educar, agitar, organizar a nuestros conciudadanos en los lugares de trabajo, en el vecindario, en las escuelas. Nuestro objetivo debería ser la construcción, esforzada, paciente pero enérgica, de un movimiento que, cuando alcance una masa crítica, debe sacudir a cualquiera que se halle en la Casa Blanca, en el Congreso, para que cambien la política nacional relacionada con la guerra o la justicia social.

No nos olvidemos de que aun cuando haya un candidato “mejor” (sí, era mejor Roosevelt que Hoover, cualquiera es mejor que George Bush), la diferencia no significará nada a menos que se reafirme el poder de la gente de modo que el ocupante de la Casa Blanca sepa que es peligroso no hacerle caso a este poder.

Las políticas sin precedentes del Nuevo Trato en materia de seguridad social –el seguro de desempleo, la creación de empleos, el salario mínimo, la provisión de vivienda–, no fueron sólo el resultado de una actitud progresista por parte de Franklin D. Roosevelt. Al asumir el cargo, el gobierno de Roosevelt se encontró con una nación en estado de turbulencia. El último año del gobierno de Hoover la nación experimentó la rebelión de los soldados desocupados (a quienes se ofrecieron bonos a manera de compensación, un movimiento conocido como Bonus Army Rebellion), miles de veteranos de la primera guerra mundial que marcharon a Washington a exigir ayuda del Congreso puesto que sus familias sufrían hambre. Hubo movilizaciones de los desempleados en Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Nueva York y Seattle.

En 1934, al inicio de la presidencia de Roosevelt, las huelgas estallaron por todo el país, incluida una huelga general en Mineápolis, una huelga general en San Francisco, y cientos de miles que se fueron a huelga en las fábricas textiles del sur. Se formaron consejos de desempleo por todo el país. La gente desesperada comenzó a tomar acciones por su cuenta, emplazó a la policía a que volviera a meter los muebles de los inquilinos desalojados y creó muchas organizaciones autogestionarias con cientos de miles de miembros.

Sin esa indigencia nacional y sin esa rebelión, ambas producto de la crisis económica, no es probable que el gobierno de Roosevelt hubiera instituido las audaces reformas que instauró.

Hoy, podemos estar seguros de que a menos de que enfrente una movilización popular, el Partido Demócrata no se meneará del centro. Los dos principales candidatos presidenciales han dejado claro que si son elegidos, no le pondrán inmediato fin a la guerra de Irak, ni instituirán un sistema de atención a la salud gratuito para todos.

Tampoco ofrecen un cambio radical en el estatus quo. No proponen lo que grita la desesperación de la gente: un gobierno que garantice empleos para todo el que lo necesite, un ingreso mínimo para cada familia, un seguro de vivienda para todos aquellos que enfrenten el desalojo o el embargo.

No sugieren profundos recortes en el presupuesto militar o cambios radicales en el sistema fiscal que liberen miles de millones, o incluso billones de dólares para programas sociales que transformen la forma en que vivimos.

Nada de eso debe sorprendernos. El Partido Demócrata sólo ha roto con su conservadurismo histórico, con su solapamiento de los ricos, con su predilección por la guerra, cuando se ha topado con una rebelión desde abajo, como ocurrió en los años 30 y los años 60. No debemos esperar que una victoria en las urnas el próximo noviembre comience a despegar la nación de sus dos enfermedades fundamentales: la codicia capitalista y el militarismo.

Entonces debemos liberarnos nosotros mismos de esta locura electoral que se traga a la sociedad entera, incluida la izquierda.

Sí, dos minutos. Antes de eso y después de eso, debemos emprender acciones directas para remontar los obstáculos contra la vida, la libertad y la búsqueda de la felicidad.

Por ejemplo, los embargos por hipotecas que están desalojando a millones de sus casas deben recordarnos la situación semejante que ocurrió tras la guerra revolucionaria o de independencia en Estados Unidos, cuando los pequeños agricultores, la mayor parte de ellos veteranos de guerra (como muchos los actuales desamparados sin vivienda de hoy), no pudieron pagar sus impuestos y fueron amenazados con perder su tierra y sus hogares. Se juntaron por miles en torno a los juzgados y se negaron a permitir que se llevaran a cabo las subastas.

Los desalojos de hoy, de gente que no puede pagar su renta, debe recordarnos que en los años 30 la gente se organizó y volvió a meter las pertenencias de los desalojados en sus apartamientos, desafiando a las autoridades.

Históricamente, el gobierno, esté en manos de los republicanos o los demócratas, ha incumplido sus responsabilidades a menos que sea forzado por la acción directa: plantones o caravanas libertarias en favor de los derechos de los negros, huelgas y boicots por los derechos de los obreros, motines y deserciones de los soldados con el fin de detener la guerra. Votar es fácil y marginalmente útil, pero es un sustituto pobre de la democracia, que requiere la acción directa de los ciudadanos comprometidos.

Traducción: Ramón Vera Herrera

* Howard Zinn es autor de A People’s History of the United States, Voices of a People’s History (con Anthony Arnove) y, más recientemente, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

La Unión Europea y América del Norte en el marco de la guerra infinita Resurge la Seguridad Nacional como «reto de la democracia»

La Unión Europea y América del Norte en el marco de la guerra infinita
Resurge la Seguridad Nacional como «reto de la democracia»
por Gaston Pardo*

La guerra siempre ha sido un instrumento de las élites y ciertos poderes mundiales para tomar el control de las sociedades que demandan y exigen revendicaciones sociales, sean estas de un empleo y mejor salario, estabilidad laboral, control ecológico, salud al alcance de todos. Nuestro corresponsal en México analiza el contexto de guerra infinita.



30 DE ABRIL DE 2008

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Ciudad de México (México)

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Ideología de los neoconservadores


Un afiche callejero de protesta compara al presidente estadounidense George W. Bush con Adolf Hitler, por las guerras imperiales y la belicosa actitud contra las soberanía de los pueblos que emplea en la actualidad el mandatario norteamericano y su ideología neoconservadora.
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En septiembre de 2000, un año antes de la tragedia de Nueva York, el centro de reflexión que nació al dar a conocer su Proyecto por una nueva centuria americana, que le dio su nombre en Estados Unidos, editó el informe que se denomina «Reconstruir la Defensa de América», que nos puso al tanto de las prioridades geoestratégicas anglosajonas, que por su naturaleza están implicadas en el ámbito militar.

Los virajes de la política militar apenas bosquejada entonces es ahora la consecuencia de la nueva Estrategia de Seguridad Nacional para Estados Unidos, publicada por la Casa Blanca en septiembre de 2002. La administración Bush afirma en ese programa estratégico que EU necesita garantizar su propia seguridad instaurando regimenes democráticos en los países enemigos.

Helga Zepp: La OTAN en la vía de la Tercera Guerra mundial

Con esos antecedentes en la mente de una comentarista de gran calibre, el 4 de abril de 2008 Helga Zepp-LaRouche, presidenta del Movimiento de Derechos Civiles-Solidaridad en Alemania (Büso por sus siglas alemanas), analizó los resultados de la reunión en la cumbre de la OTAN que tuvo lugar los primeros días de abril en Bucarest. El título mismo de su declaración es una voz de alarma: Atención a la cuenta atrás. «¿Deseamos en verdad la Tercera Guerra Mundial?»

Helga Zepp observa que la cumbre transformó a la Alianza Atlántica en organización imperial global y que la principal fuerza motora de esta transformación ha sido « la oligarquía financiera del imperio británico, que aspira a sumir en el caos a sus principales adversarios. Son capítulos de la anunciada transformación la campaña virulenta orquestada contra China; el ataque británico contumaz contra Rusia, y Vladimir Putin en lo personal; y la tentativa de reinstalar en Zimbabwe el control colonial».

En el marco de la agenda imperial, la adhesión de Georgia y Ucrania a la alianza fue pospuesta para una mejor ocasión, con lo que se intenta no inquietar demasiado a Rusia; en cambio, sí se apoyó la adhesión de Croacia y Albania así como la reintegración de Francia a la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico del norte (OTAN), y la instalación de sistemas de defensa anti misiles y de estaciones de radar en Polonia y la República Checa; aumentar las tropas de la OTAN situadas en Afganistán con 700 soldados franceses; la integración de las estructuras miliares de la OTAN y de la UE, de conformidad con las disposiciones del Tratado de Lisboa; y, según informes no confirmados, el debate en torno a los nuevos documentos estratégicos, entre los que destaca el emitido por cinco antiguos jefes de estado mayor que examina el empleo de armas nucleares como medida "preventiva de conflictos" en el mundo».

Basta echar una mirada al mapamundi, indica la presidenta del Büso, «para que no quepa duda un instante de que la entrada de Georgia y Ucrania a la OTAN se da en el marco de una maniobra de rodeo de Rusia. De la misma manera, los dispositivos defensivos en Polonia y en la República Checa, materializan una violación de las medidas de seguridad de Rusia».

El propio presidente Putin dio a conocer el punto de vista, informa Helga Zepp, « del gobierno ruso en la materia, en una conferencia de prensa en Bucarest, en la que dejó establecido que la creación de un poderoso bloque militar ante las fronteras rusas sería considerada como una amenaza directa a su seguridad nacional». El presidente ruso ha también acusado a la OTAN de mantener la confusión sobre el papel futuro de la Alianza y de pretender llegar a ser un actor mundial, más allá del territorio de los estados miembros.

Helga Zepp evocó enseguida el diseño neo - imperialista presentado por The Economist (27.03.08), tal como fue presentado en un dossier de 14 páginas dedicado al futuro de la política exterior británica. El dossier aborda a la vez el declive de Estados Unidos y el poder acumulado por sus principales adeversarios del siglo XXI, es decir, Rusia y, sobre todo, China.

The Economist ha publicado desde el 3 de febrero de 2007 una serie de articulos intitulada «Britannia Redux», cuya tesis principal es que la Gran Bretaña ha dejado de ser el « enfermo» de Europa y que Londres ha restablecido, gracias a la mundialización, su papel de centro de poder legítimo. Esta evaluación, indica la lideresa alemana, se basa en buena medida en el hecho de que cerca del 80 por ciento de los fondos de riesgo se localizan en distintos domicilios de las Islas Caimán, una colonia británica.

«A eso se puede sumar una larga lista de síntomas que demuestran que el imperio británico está decidido a salir de la crisis sistémica en curso en una posición dominante, en el imperio a la vez a Estados Unidos y a una Europa continental, estrangulada por la UE» El imperio espera abatir toda perspectiva de asociación estratégica entre la Rusia, China e India, antes de someter a estos países cada uno en el momento preciso.

El Sunday Times británico (30.03.08) presentó otro aspecto de este escenario: China está debilitada económicamente y va en dirección a problemas internos que es incapaz de detener, como la secesión del Tibet y de algunas regiones occidentales del país. Este sería el preludio de un gran enfrentamiento euroasiático. En efecto, como consecuencia de la crisis en Estados Unidos, China se hunde en el caos e intenta afirmar su poder national afrontando las peores convulsiones sociales desde 1989.

Del resultado de este escenario dependerá el sentido que tomen sus diferencias con Japón. Y si la muerte del Dalai Lama llegara a coincidir con la del dirigente nor-coreano Kim Jong-Il, Japón tendría suficientes razones para plantear sus diferencias con China a propósito de Taiwán.

Numerosos aspectos de este proceso siguen la línea de geopolíticos de la escuela de Haushofer, Milner y Mackinder; están en curso, en concordancia con los estudios que llevó a cabo en la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, de México el profesor Heinz Dieterich, quien en su libro Las guerras del capital sostiene que los proyectos geopolíticos de Japón y Alemania tienden a actuar en territorios exclusivos, si bien Alemania puso sobre el tapete desde 1941 su interés de considerar a los países eslavos como parte de su espacio vital.

La desestabilización de la provincia de Xingjiang por rebeldes entrenados en Pakistán ya ha sido lanzada y es muy problable que la concordancia de objetivos geoeconómicos de Estados Unidos y Alemania en el interior de la OTAN implique proyectos comunes para alcanzar incluso al extremo oriente. También se está a la espera de problemas en Sechuán. El plan subyacente en la campaña geopolítica y geoetratégica contra China consiste en crear un estado musulmán hostil en el Xingian; a erigir un gran Tibet y a reducir a la nación china a un territorio condicionada. Hay escenarios semejantes en la lista de espera en India, donde son previsibles los conflictos tribales entre hindúes, sijes, musulmanes, tamiles.

Ante el hundimiento inevitable del modelo financiero monetarista, continúa Helga Zepp, la financiera anglo-holandesa no vacila en acusar su desesperación, toda vez que su mayor temor es la posibilidad de que la crisis obligue a Estados Unidos a readoptar las políticas proteccionistas keynesianas.

Sorpresas legislativas en Alemania

Pero aquí no terminan las sorpresas. El 25 de abril el Bundestag pretende ratificar el "nuevo" Tratado de la Unión Europea, el llamado Tratado de Lisboa o Pacto Reformado, que coincide en sus puntos esenciales con el Tratado Constitucional de la Unión Europea, el cual, como se recuerda, ya ha sido rechazado en referendos en Francia y Países Bajos. Esta información, proporcionada por el profesor Juan Brom, catedrático de Ciencia Política de la Universidad Nacional de México, advierte de que el movimiento crítico de la mundialización y el movimiento de la paz han cuestionado el Tratado Constitucional de la Unión Europea y el Tratado de Lisboa como documentos neoliberales, militaristas y antidemocráticos.

El proyecto alemán, dice Brom, entra en consonancia con el Tratado de Lisboa, cuyas partes relativas a la Defensa y a la “lucha contra el terrorismo”, es decir, en la tónica de la geopolítica anti - rusa desplegada por Alemania en Yugoslavia son las siguientes:

Mayor seguridad para todos: la Unión tendrá más capacidad de actuación en el campo de la justicia, la libertad y la seguridad, lo que redundará en beneficio de la lucha contra la delincuencia y el terrorismo. Las nuevas disposiciones sobre protección civil, ayuda humanitaria y salud pública también pretenden impulsar la capacidad de la UE para enfrentarse a las amenazas contra la seguridad de los ciudadanos europeos.

Hacer de Europa un actor en la escena global combinando los instrumentos con que cuenta la política exterior europea a la hora de elaborar y aprobar nuevas políticas. Gracias al Tratado de Lisboa, Europa estará en condiciones de expresarse con más claridad ante sus socios internacionales. Se pondrán en juego todas las capacidades económicas, humanitarias, políticas y diplomáticas de Europa para fomentar sus intereses y valores en todo el mundo, respetando los intereses particulares de los Estados miembros en el marco de las relaciones exteriores.

El Alto Representante de la Unión para Asuntos Exteriores y Política de Seguridad — que también será Vicepresidente de la Comisión— dará mayor peso, coherencia y visibilidad a la actuación exterior de la UE.

El desarrollo de la Política Europea de Seguridad y Defensa se hará conservando un sistema especial de toma de decisiones. Sin embargo, también preparará el terreno para la cooperación reforzada de un grupo más reducido de Estados miembros.

Proyecto antidemocrático

A pesar de que el Tratado Constitucional de la Unión Europea fue rechazado en 2005 por los ciudadanos de Francia y de los Países Bajos, se pretende ahora introducirlo por la puerta trasera con el llamado Tratado Reformado, manteniendo sus contenidos esenciales en una forma apenas modificada. El Tratado Reformado no es más que el vino viejo en nueva odre, que ignora el voto francés y holandés y porque se elaboró otra vez "en lo oscurito", excluyendo a la toma de posición de dos naciones europeas.

El propio gobierno federal alemán acepta sin reservas en una declaración de prensa (07.11.07): "El concepto ’Constitución de Europa’ ya no era sostenible después de su rechazo en los referendos en Francia y en los Países Bajos. Sin embargo, el objetivo declarado de la presidencia alemana del Consejo consistía en mantener lo sustancial de la Constitución, lo cual se consiguió”. En el Tratado de Lisboa se consagra una forma determinada de economía - la neoliberal - a pesar de que ésta ha significado desde hace década el empobrecimiento de amplios sectores de la población en el mismo marco de la Unión Europea (UE), y sobre todo en el llamado Tercer Mundo. Por ejemplo, en el Artículo 98 se dice: "Los estados miembros y la Unión actúan de acuerdo con el principio de una economía de libre mercado y libre competencia."

Esto resulta especialmente pérfido, en la medida que el Tratado Reformado dice en su Artículo 10 A que la UE "se fija el objetivo prioritario de eliminar la pobreza", para establecer en la oración siguiente lo siguiente, como medida central: "impulsar la integración de todos los países en la economía mundial mediante la eliminación sucesiva de todos los obstáculos al comercio internacional." Es bien sabido que estas medidas incrementan la pobreza global, pero que han resultado en altas ganancias para los grandes consorcios europeos. Al mismo tiempo, como lo reconoce ahora el mismo Banco Mundial, esa pobreza puede ser el motor principal para el estallido de conflicto violentos en el Tercer Mundo, mismos que a su vez deben "ser mediatizados" militarmente, para mantener bajo control la caldera de presión de los conflictos de la globalización.

Militarización por la puerta trasera.

Se incluyeron todos los proyectos de militarización que ya se criticaron en la Constitución de la UE. Los puntos centrales de la crítica eran y son: Participación en combates por la UE, a nivel mundial, con una gama casi ilimitada de tareas: el Artículo 28b, Inciso 1, menciona entre otros, como parte del conjunto de tareas de futuras guerras de la UE: "medidas colectivas de desarme", "acciones de combate" y "operaciones para la estabilización de la situación", así como "el apoyo para países terceros en la lucha contra el terrorismo en los territorios bajo su soberanía".

Obligación, por el Tratado, de mayor armamentismo: El Artículo 28 A, Inciso 3 contiene nuevamente la obligación de invertir mayores recursos en el sector armamentista: "Los estados miembros se comprometen a mejorar paulatinamente sus capacidades militares". La Agencia de Armamentos de la UE, establecida desde 2004, deberá vigilar la aplicación de esta disposición y ser fijada con derecho prioritario en el Tratado de Lisboa.

La Europa nuclear

Sólo puede participar en las decisiones quien participa en la guerra: los miembros de la UE que se han calificado militarmente para ello participando en los principales programas de armamentismo, y poniendo a disposición tropas de intervención (Battle groups), pueden crear una "colaboración estructurada", con la cual se cancela el principio del consenso, válido propiamente para el ámbito de la política exterior y de seguridad (Artículo 28 e, Inciso 6). El principio de unanimidad se refiere "exclusivamente a los votos de los representantes de los Estados miembros que participan en el trabajo común".

Cambio de la correlación del poder a favor de las grandes potencias: la Constitución de la UE ya establecía un dramático cambio de las condiciones de poder en el principal órgano de la UE, el Consejo de los Jefes de Estado y de Gobierno, a través de la llamada doble mayoría. Esto significa para Alemania, aproximadamente, una duplicación de su voto en el Consejo (los otros gananciosos son Francia, Gran Bretaña e Italia, dice Juan Brom), mientras que los estados pequeños y medianos de la UE claramente pierden influencia. El Tratado Reformado (artículo 9 c) introduce esta dramática concentración de poder para surtir efectos jurídicos a partir de 2014, como práctica común.

La reunión cumbre de Bucarest

En el curso de la reunión de la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN) hubo ciertas interpretaciones que hacían prever que se darían nuevos pasos hacia la "confrontación militar con Rusia," la "militarización de la Unión Europea," e inclusive la adopción de la doctrina estadounidense de la "guerra atómica preventiva" como doctrina de la OTAN. La reunión tuvo lugar en un palacio de 330 mil metros cuadrados construido cuando Rumania sufría la dictadura del partido comunista.

Esas hipótesis, mencionadas por Reseña Estratégica, órgano del Movimiento de Solidaridad Iberoamericana que anima la notable economista Marivilia Carrasco, han sido hasta hoy el puntal del modelo bélico en la geoestrategia anglosajona que se ha impuesto durante la vigencia de la "guerra perpetua" sobre las regiones económicas. Tal es el caso del Northcom de América del Norte, que se ha sobrepuesto al ejercicio de la soberanía de los estados mexicano y canadiense; modelo que, por el peso de la distensión en Bucarest, se nota que tiene sus días contados.

En su contexto general, la reunión de Bucarest se separó de estas hipótesis que contabiliza Reseña Estratégica:

1.-El presidente Vladimir Putin asistió a la reunión de Bucarest y sostuvo una reunión con el presidente George W. Bush en el balneario Sochi, del mar Negro.

2.-Ucrania y Georgia no recibieron la luz verde para unirse a la OTAN.

3.-Con respecto a Afganistán, por primera vez hay indicios de una "estrategia de salida" para las tropas de la OTAN estacionadas allí.

4.-No hubo cambios sustanciales en la relación de la OTAN y la Unión Europea.

El marco estratégico

Antes de analizar a fondo estos cuatro puntos estratégicos, veamos las circunstancias generales de la reunión de la OTAN, que no están tan dominadas por los aspectos diplomáticos y las zonas de conflictos, sino que es, más bien, la crisis financiera centrada en los Estados Unidos la que moldea la situación estratégica internacional. La mayor parte de los "expertos en seguridad" han pasado por alto este punto.

Gran Bretaña, al lado de Alemania y Francia, se opuso a Estados Unidos respecto al la entrada de Ucrania a la OTAN. Al preguntarse por qué el Primer Ministro británico, Gordon Brown, actuó de esta forma, The Independent de Londres señaló que "la preocupación principal del Señor Gordon sigue siendo, la crisis bancaria mundial que proyecta una sombra en todos los aspectos de la reunión de la OTAN".

Sea lo que haya hecho George W. Bush en términos de trucos geopolíticos y diplomáticos contra enemigos (o amigos) reales o imaginarios, su período está por terminar. Su legado será desastroso sin importar lo que haga en los últimos meses de su mandato. Por lo tanto, la preocupación real de todos es tratar de adivinar cuál será la política estadounidense después de Bush.

Unos días antes de la reunión de la OTAN en Bucarest, tuvo lugar una reunión inusual en Atenas, Grecia, organizada por el Centro del Sur para Estudios Estratégicos de Atlanta y el Centro Dean Rusk de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Georgia. En el podio estuvieron los ex secretarios de Estado Henry Kissinger, James Baker III Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright y Collin Power. Hubo diferencias entre ellos, claro está, sobre lo que deberá hacer el futuro presidente, pero hubo un notable acuerdo en los aspectos primordiales de las relaciones exteriores de los Estados Unidos en el futuro:

* Reconstruir la devastada reputación internacional de los Estados Unidos. * Clausurar la prisión de Guantánamo, Cuba. * Reducir significativamente la presencia de tropas estadounidenses en Irak. * Iniciar negociaciones directas con Irán. * Reconocer que no hay "solución militar" para Afganistán. * Promover un arreglo del conflicto palestino-israelí, y en las conversaciones incluir a Hamas. * No tratar a China como adversario militar. * Trato firme pero constructivo con Rusia.

La reunión de la OTAN en Bucarest se hizo eco de este consenso "post Bush" manifestado por el establishment de las relaciones exteriores estadounidenses. El ex secretario de la Defensa Rumsfeld quizá presintió este viraje, pues dijo a Bloomberg que "la OTAN se arriesga al intentar seducir con cosas que no vienen al caso en el siglo 21”.

El caso de Ucrania

Antes de dirigirse a la reunión de Bucarest, el presidente Bush visitó Kiev, Ucrania, donde proclamó con bombos y platillos que esta nación pronto se uniría a la OTAN. Bush dijo: "La OTAN debe dar la bienvenida a Georgia y Ucrania en el marco del plan de admisión." Estas últimas palabras se refieren a un procedimiento para aprobación o denegación inmediata de su ingreso. En Ucrania gobierna una coalición anaranjada del presidente Yushchenko y del primer ministro Tymoshenko, la cual promueve el ingreso inmediato de su país a la OTAN.

A esta coalición se le enfrenta la oposición "azul" del ex primer ministro Yukanovich, quien perdiera las pasadas elecciones nacionales por un margen muy pequeño. Dos tercios de la población de Ucrania se oponen al ingreso de esta nación a la OTAN. Y Rusia, como es de imaginarse, se opone vehementemente a que las fronteras orientales de la OTAN se acerquen a Volgogrado, la antigua Stalingrado, ubicada a sólo 250 kilómetros de Ucrania […]. La mayoría de los viejos integrantes de la OTAN no quieren que Ucrania se les una en un futuro inmediato mediante el procedimiento de ingreso rápido. Entre estos países están Alemania, Francia, España, Italia, Holanda, Bélgica y Gran Bretaña. El Dalai Lama y EU manejan entre bastidores incidente de Lasa, revela un medio alemán

Una organización alemana dedicada al estudio de política exterior ha participado de forma decisiva en el actual movimiento antichino, promovido por los escisionistas tibetanos, afirmó un corresponsal canadiense en su investigación y el informe de una reunión preparatoria para provocar el incidente de Lasa, informa Jose Maria Rodriguez, de Pueblo en línea.

Esa organización ha participado de forma decisiva en el actual movimiento antichino promovido por los escisionistas tibetanos, afirmó un corresponsal canadiense en su investigación y el informe de una reunión preparatoria para provocar el incidente de Lasa. Esto lo informó el portal Deutsche-aussen politik, de Alemania, en una nota bajo el título de “el movimiento de relevo de la antorcha”, publicada el 8 de abril. Según el informe del corresponsal canadiense, este movimiento antichino se realizó bajo la manipulación de un cuartel general con sede en Washington. En una reunión convocada por la Fundación Friedrich Naumann en mayo de 2007, esta organización fue encargada para organizar “actividades de protesta” a escala mundial.

Según el plan de las actividades de protesta elaborado con la ayuda del Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos y el autodenominado “gobierno tibetano en exilio”, se tomarán acciones con influencia pública durante el relevo de la antorcha olímpica y se llevará al auge las actividades de “protesta” en el periodo de los Juegos Olímpicos de Beijing en agosto de 2008.

De acuerdo con el corresponsal canadiense, el punto de partida del actual movimiento tibetano anti chino, que recurrió a la violencia para interrumpir el relevo de la antorcha olímpica en París, ha sido una reunión de la Fundación Friedrich Naumann, o sea, el V Congreso Internacional de Apoyo a los Tibetanos, celebrado del 11 al 14 de mayo de 2007 en Bruselas.

Esta reunión, igual que las cuatro celebradas anteriormente, “está destinada a coordinar el trabajo de la organización de apoyo internacional al Tíbet y fortalecer el enlace de esta organización con el “gobierno tibetano en exilio”, según revelaron fuentes de la mencionada fundación con fondos suministrados en parte considerable por el estado, que comenzó los preparativos para la reunión en marzo de 2005 y actuaba en coordinación con Dalai Lama en Daramsala (la India). Unos 300 personas provenientes de 56 países participaron en la reunón de Bruselas, y los representantes enviados por 36 unidades tibetana y 145 organizaciones de apoyo al Tíbet también asistieron a la reunión.

La reunión de Bruselas organizada por la Fundación Friedrich Naumann reviste de un significado extraordinario debido a la participación de numerosas personas, incluidos prestigiosos políticos, que es muy importante para la elaboración de la resolución. Entre los escisionistas figuran el “primer ministro” y representante del “gobierno tibetano en el exilio”, y un político afamado proveniente del estado de Himachal de la India.

La participación en la reunión de Bruselas de Paula Dobriansky, subsecretaria de Estado y coordinadora especial de los Estados Unidos en los asuntos tibetanos atraía la atención de la opinión pública. Es considerada integrante del grupo núcleo de los neoconservadores en el gobierno de Bush y partidaria de la línea dura y capaz de hacer realidad el objetivo establecido.

La cumbre de los tres amigos

Mientras la diputada presidenta de la Cámara de los Diutados Ruth Zavaleta, del PRD daba una conferencia de prensa para protestar porque los diputados estén sesionando en una sede alterna, la Cámara de Diputados con sólo militantes del PAN y de la derecha del PRI aprobó por 283 votos (de un total de 500) a favor y uno en contra el viaje del presidente Felipe Calderón para reunirse con George Bush junior en la reunión de la Alianza para la Seguridad y la Prosperidad de América del Norte (ASPAN), en Nueva Orleáns, Estados Unidos.

Manuel Pérez Rocha y Sarah Anderson, colaboradores de la revista Foreign Policy en Focus (15. 04.08) han opinado al respecto El president George W. Bush recibirá en breve, los días 21 y 22 de abril, a la cumbre de los «Three Amigos», es decir, a los gobernantes de México Y Canadá en la sureña ciudad de Nueva Orleáns ¿Cuáles cree usted que son los puntos previstos en la agenda?, preguntan los dos investigadores ¿Una respuesta racional al problema de las migraciones? ¿Una renegociación del impopular Tratado de Libre comercio (TLCAN)?

No. No. Y no, responden a su propia pregunta. Lejos de hacer hincapie en las materias urgentes, los tres líderes abordarán los temas relacionados con la Alianza para la Seguridad y la Prosperidad de América del Norte (SPP). A pesar de que el el nombre del SPP o ASPAN suene bien por los conceptos que forman su nombre, lo único que interesa a los tres personajes es el abordaje de los grandes negocios. Los dirigentes de Wal-Mart, Chevron y otras 28 grandes corporaciones se encuentran reunidos a puerta cerrada, dice el análisis mientras congresistas, periodistas y ciudadanos ordinarios han sido excluidos. Y la secrecía envuelve sólo a las reuniones de la cumbre, sino al contenido de 20 SPP grupos de trabajo que se reunirán a lo largo del año.

¿Cuáles son las cartas sobre la mesa? No se ha hecho pública ninguna información más allá de la elemental, “pero estamos seguros de que los poderes ejecutivos de los países y los empresarios sostienen la idea de que los cambios regulatorios contenidos en leyes de los tres países no requieren la aprobación del poder legislativo”. Y dada la identidad de quienes se encuentran en los sitios reservados a las reuniones, no cabe duda de que lo que se resuelva hará pesar los intereses de las corporaciones sobre el interés público”, aseveran los analistas.

Malo en proceso y en sustancia

[…] Las conversaciones del ASPAN apuntan a la expansión del perímetro militarizado de seguridad a todo el continente americano, con las inevitables implicaciones restrictivas en materia de libertades civiles. Los tres poderes ejecutivos han hecho pública su aspiración a unir sus fuerzas no sólo contra amenazas externas sino también internas. Mexico y Canadá han expresado su interés de compartir su información interna con el gobierno de Estados Unidos, incluyendo las huellas digitales de los refugiados y asilados.

La administración Bush ha ofrecido a Mexico un paquete de miles de millones de dólares de ayuda militar bajo los efectos de la Iniciativa Mérida (también conocida como Plan México). El equipo de que dispondrían las fuerzas de seguridad mexicanas y canadienses, que será modernizado por Estados Unidos, supuestamente se dirige al combate a los cárteles de la droga, pero muchos organismos no gubernamentales han expresado su temor de que se emplee contra los disidentes políticos y los inmigrantes.

Seguridad nacional hoy: el reto de las democracias

Este es el título de un libro aparecido en México en 2002 y reeditado en 2008. Por el carisma político de su autora y el tono insinuante del contenido se puede decir que el texto y quienes contribuyeron con aportaciones ténicas e ideológicas, que enumera en su agradecimiento lo proponen como un decálogo del régimen mexicano, donde los temas de orden público se mezclan con los propios de la seguridad nacional y se concluye con que el terrorismo es una amenaza planetaria de la que México, por supuesto, no se sustrae y que por ello el gobierno lo mejor que puede hacer es incorporarse al sistema de seguridad norteamericano.

En el momento que la mayor parte de los estadounidenses rechazan por inverosímil la versión oficial de los acontecimiento del 11 de septiembre de 2001, el libro repite los mitos en pleno 2008 los mitos insostenibles: "Al haber sido testigo presencial de la destrucción y muerte que causaron los terroristas de Al Qaeda en el Pentágono, además de observar horrorizada en la televisión, como todo el mundo, el trágico derrumbe de las torres gemelas, reflexioné sobre la necesidad de que el tema de la seguridad macional fuese de una vez por todas conocido y comprendido por la población..." Sería deseable que la autora demostrara de manera fehaciente la intervencíón de Al Qaeda en el 11S. Sólo eso.

Es, pues, al público de habla española a quien se trata, pues, de convencer de con que el ataque a las torres el 11S además de quedar demostradas las vulnerabilidades de la defensa norteamericana, se impuso la necesidad de coordinar las labores defensivas y de represión en el área norteamericana. Para estar a tono con Estados Unidos y sus supercherías sobre los hechos del 11S, el libro propone una secretaría de Defensa civil dentro del gabinete de Felipe Calderón.

En el nuevo laberinto diseñado por los halcones del planeta, ya en acción entre Kosovo y México, no habíamos advertido que su desafío va en serio y que la prédica de la esperanza neoliberal en las fuerzas del mercado no van a sacar al mundo del pozo en la medida que la crisis de la mundialización financiera está a la vista y sin remedio. Quizá la opción militar sea el último recurso para edificar un mundo neoliberal aunque sea a sangre y fuego.

Gaston Pardo
Periodista mexicano. Es corresponsal de la Red Voltaire en México.
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The Attack on Latin American Democracy by John Pilger

April 25th 2008, by John Pilger - New Statesman

Beyond the sound and fury of its conquest of Iraq and campaign against Iran, the world's dominant power is waging a largely unreported war on another continent - Latin America. Using proxies, Washington aims to restore and reinforce the political control of a privileged group calling itself middle-class, to shift the responsibility for massacres and drug trafficking away from the psychotic regime in Colombia and its mafiosi, and to extinguish hopes raised among Latin America's impoverished majority by the reform governments of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.

In Colombia, the main battleground, the class nature of the war is distorted by the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the Farc, whose own resort to kidnapping and the drugs trade has provided an instrument with which to smear those who have distinguished Latin America's epic history of rebellion by opposing the proto-fascism of George W Bush's regime. "You don't fight terror with terror," said President Hugo Chávez as US warplanes bombed to death thousands of civilians in Afghanistan following the 11 September 2001 attacks. Thereafter, he was a marked man. Yet, as every poll has shown, he spoke for the great majority of human beings who have grasped that the "war on terror" is a crusade of domination. Almost alone among national leaders standing up to Bush, Chávez was declared an enemy and his plans for a functioning social democracy independent of the United States a threat to Washington's grip on Latin America. "Even worse," wrote the Latin America specialist James Petras, "Chávez's nationalist policies represented an alternative in Latin America at a time (2000-2003) when mass insurrections, popular uprisings and the collapse of pro-US client rulers (Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia) were constant front-page news."
It is impossible to underestimate the threat of this alternative as perceived by the "middle classes" in countries which have an abundance of privilege and poverty. In Venezuela, their "grotesque fantasies of being ruled by a 'brutal communist dictator'", to quote Petras, are reminiscent of the paranoia of the white population that backed South Africa's apartheid regime. Like in South Africa, racism in Venezuela is rampant, with the poor ignored, despised or patronised, and a Caracas shock jock allowed casually to dismiss Chávez, who is of mixed race, as a "monkey". This fatuous venom has come not only from the super-rich behind their walls in suburbs called Country Club, but from the pretenders to their ranks in middle-level management, journalism, public relations, the arts, education and the other professions, who identify vicariously with all things American. Journalists in broadcasting and the press have played a crucial role - acknowledged by one of the generals and bankers who tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Chávez in 2002. "We couldn't have done it without them," he said. "The media were our secret weapon."

Many of these people regard themselves as liberals, and have the ear of foreign journalists who like to describe themselves as being "on the left". This is not surprising. When Chávez was first elected in 1998, Venezuela was not an archetypical Latin American tyranny, but a liberal democracy with certain freedoms, run by and for its elite, which had plundered the oil revenue and let crumbs fall to the invisible millions in the barrios. A pact between the two main parties, known as puntofijismo, resembled the convergence of new Labour and the Tories in Britain and Republicans and Democrats in the US. For them, the idea of popular sovereignty was anathema, and still is.

Take higher education. At the taxpayer-funded elite "public" Venezuelan Central University, more than 90 per cent of the students come from the upper and "middle" classes. These and other elite students have been infiltrated by CIA-linked groups and, in defending their privilege, have been lauded by foreign liberals.

With Colombia as its front line, the war on democracy in Latin America has Chávez as its main target. It is not difficult to understand why. One of Chávez's first acts was to revitalise the oil producers' organisation Opec and force the oil price to record levels. At the same time he reduced the price of oil for the poorest countries in the Caribbean region and central America, and used Venezuela's new wealth to pay off debt, notably Argentina's, and, in effect, expelled the International Monetary Fund from a continent over which it once ruled. He has cut poverty by half - while GDP has risen dramatically. Above all, he gave poor people the confidence to believe that their lives would improve.

The irony is that, unlike Fidel Castro in Cuba, he presented no real threat to the well-off, who have grown richer under his presidency. What he has demonstrated is that a social democracy can prosper and reach out to its poor with genuine welfare, and without the extremes of "neo liberalism" - a decidedly unradical notion once embraced by the British Labour Party. Those ordinary Vene zuelans who abstained during last year's constitutional referendum were protesting that a "moderate" social democracy was not enough while the bureaucrats remained corrupt and the sewers overflowed.
Across the border in Colombia, the US has made Venezuela's neighbour the Israel of Latin America. Under "Plan Colombia", more than $6bn in arms, planes, special forces, mercenaries and logistics have been showered on some of the most murderous people on earth: the inheritors of Pinochet's Chile and the other juntas that terrorised Latin America for a generation, their various gestapos trained at the School of the Americas in Georgia. "We not only taught them how to torture," a former American trainer told me, "we taught them how to kill, murder, eliminate." That remains true of Colombia, where government-inspired mass terror has been documented by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and many others. In a study of 31,656 extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances between 1996 and 2006, the Colombian Commission of Jurists found that 46 per cent had been murdered by right-wing death squads and 14 per cent by Farc guerrillas. The para militaries were responsible for most of the three million victims of internal displacement. This misery is a product of Plan Colombia's pseudo "war on drugs", whose real purpose has been to eliminate the Farc. To that goal has now been added a war of attrition on the new popular democracies, especially Venezuela.

US special forces "advise" the Colombian military to cross the border into Venezuela and murder and kidnap its citizens and infiltrate paramilitaries, and so test the loyalty of the Venezuelan armed forces. The model is the CIA-run Contra campaign in Honduras in the 1980s that brought down the reformist government in Nicaragua. The defeat of the Farc is now seen as a prelude to an all-out attack on Venezuela if the Vene zuelan elite - reinvigorated by its narrow referendum victory last year - broadens its base in state and local government elections in November.
America's man and Colombia's Pinochet is President Álvaro Uribe. In 1991, a declassified report by the US Defence Intelligence Agency revealed the then Senator Uribe as having "worked for the Medellín Cartel" as a "close personal friend" of the cartel's drugs baron, Pablo Escobar. To date, 62 of his political allies have been investigated for close collaboration with paramilitaries. A feature of his rule has been the fate of journalists who have illuminated his shadows. Last year, four leading journalists received death threats after criticising Uribe. Since 2002, at least 31 journalists have been assassinated in Colombia. Uribe's other habit is smearing trade unions and human rights workers as "collaborators with the Farc". This marks them. Colombia's death squads, wrote Jenny Pearce, author of the acclaimed Under the Eagle: US Intervention in Central America and the Caribbean (1982), "are increasingly active, confident that the president has been so successful in rallying the country against the Farc that little attention will shift to their atrocities".

Uribe was personally championed by Tony Blair, reflecting Britain's long-standing, mostly secret role in Latin America. "Counter-insurgency assistance" to the Colombian military, up to its neck in death-squad alliances, includes training by the SAS of units such as the High Mountain Battalions, condemned repeatedly for atrocities. On 8 March, Colombian officers were invited by the Foreign Office to a "counter-insurgency seminar" at the Wilton Park conference centre in southern England. Rarely has the Foreign Office so brazenly paraded the killers it mentors.
The western media's role follows earlier models, such as the campaigns that cleared the way for the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the credibility given to lies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The softening-up for an attack on Venezuela is well under way, with the repetition of similar lies and smears.

Cocaine trail

On 3 February, the Observer devoted two pages to claims that Chávez was colluding in the Colombian drugs trade. Similarly to the paper's notorious bogus scares linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda, the Observer's headline read, "Revealed: Chávez role in cocaine trail to Europe". Allegations were unsubstantiated; hearsay uncorroborated. No source was identified. Indeed, the reporter, clearly trying to cover himself, wrote: "No source I spoke to accused Chávez himself of having a direct role in Colombia's giant drug trafficking business."

In fact, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has reported that Venezuela is fully participating in international anti-drugs programmes and in 2005 seized the third-highest amount of cocaine in the world. Even the Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has referred to "Venezuela's tre mendous co-operation".

The drugs smear has recently been reinforced with reports that Chávez has an "increasingly public alliance [with] the Farc" (see "Dangerous liaisons", New Statesman, 14 April). Again, there is "no evidence", says the secretary general of the Organisation of American States. At Uribe's request, and backed by the French government, Chávez played a mediating role in seeking the release of hostages held by the Farc. On 1 March, the negotiations were betrayed by Uribe who, with US logistical assistance, fired missiles at a camp in Ecuador, killing Raú Reyes, the Farc's highest-level negotiator. An "email" recovered from Reyes's laptop is said by the Colombian military to show that the Farc has received $300m from Chávez. The allegation is fake. The actual document refers only to Chávez in relation to the hostage exchange. And on 14 April, Chávez angrily criticised the Farc. "If I were a guerrilla," he said, "I wouldn't have the need to hold a woman, a man who aren't soldiers. Free the civilians!"

However, these fantasies have lethal purpose. On 10 March, the Bush administration announced that it had begun the process of placing Venezuela's popular democracy on a list of "terrorist states", along with North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Sudan and Iran, the last of which is currently awaiting attack by the world's leading terrorist state.

http://www.johnpilger.com

WILL THE CIA KILL OR OUST ECUADOR'S PRESIDENT Rafael Correa?

Will the CIA Kill or Oust Ecuador's President?
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Ecuador's president Rafael Correa may not be long for this world, both in a political sense and in genuine life-or-death sense. He recently fired his defense minister, army chief of intelligence, and commanders of the army, air force, and joint chiefs.

Why might those firings cost Correa his job or even his life? Because the reason he fired them was that Ecuador's intelligence systems were "totally infiltrated and subjugated to the CIA." As other rulers around the world, including democratically elected ones, have learned the hard way, bucking the CIA is a real no-no that sometimes leads to coups and assassinations.

What's the CIA doing infiltrating Ecuador's military intelligence systems? Good question! Maybe it's because the CIA still fears the threat of communism. Don't forget that that was the apparent rationale for the U.S. government's support of Operation Condor, the campaign of assassination and torture co-sponsored by the brutal regimes in Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru during the 1970s. Don't forget also that many of the brutal military personnel in those regimes received their training at the U.S. Army's infamous School of the Americas, famous for, among other things, its torture manuals.

To make matters worse for Correa, he promises to throw the U.S. military out of his country when the U.S. government's lease at its base in Manta expires in 2009. The U.S. government spent $60 million to build the base in 1999, securing a 10-year lease that provided no rent to be paid to Ecuador.

So, why does the U.S. military have a $60 million military base in Ecuador? The base is part of the U.S. government's much-vaunted 30-year-old war on drugs, one of the U.S. Empire's never-ending wars around the world. The base houses Awacs surveillance planes whose purported mission is to search for international drug smugglers.

What irked President Correa is that apparently his CIA-infested intelligence services fed classified information to Colombian officials that led to a Colombian military attack on a Colombian rebel camp that was located inside Ecuador. One big problem was that when Correa's intelligence services leaked the information to Colombia, they left Correa (their boss) out of the loop.

The final nail in Correa's coffin might be the fact that he is an ally of Venezuela's Marxist president Hugo Chavez, who himself is a likely target of CIA ouster or assassination.

The good news for Americans in all this is that the Ecuadorian people are doing their best to rid their country of the CIA and the U.S. military. Maybe the Ecuadorans will start a trend in which all other countries will do the same. While it would obviously be best if the American people were to dismantle their government's overseas empire themselves, having foreigners do it instead by throwing the CIA and the Pentagon out of their countries would be just as effective and beneficial — to both the United States and the people of the world.

U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations - The United States has less than 5% world's population. But it has almost 25% of the worlds priso

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.

U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations
By Adam Liptak

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.

The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London.

China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. (That number excludes hundreds of thousands of people held in administrative detention, most of them in China's extrajudicial system of re-education through labor, which often singles out political activists who have not committed crimes.)
San Marino, with a population of about 30,000, is at the end of the long list of 218 countries compiled by the center. It has a single prisoner.

The United States comes in first, too, on a more meaningful list from the prison studies center, the one ranked in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.)

The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England's rate is 151; Germany's is 88; and Japan's is 63.

The median among all nations is about 125, roughly a sixth of the American rate.

There is little question that the high incarceration rate here has helped drive down crime, though there is debate about how much.

Criminologists and legal experts here and abroad point to a tangle of factors to explain America's extraordinary incarceration rate: higher levels of violent crime, harsher sentencing laws, a legacy of racial turmoil, a special fervor in combating illegal drugs, the American temperament, and the lack of a social safety net. Even democracy plays a role, as judges — many of whom are elected, another American anomaly — yield to populist demands for tough justice.

Whatever the reason, the gap between American justice and that of the rest of the world is enormous and growing.

It used to be that Europeans came to the United States to study its prison systems. They came away impressed.

"In no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than in the United States," Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured American penitentiaries in 1831, wrote in "Democracy in America."

No more.

"Far from serving as a model for the world, contemporary America is viewed with horror," James Whitman, a specialist in comparative law at Yale, wrote last year in Social Research. "Certainly there are no European governments sending delegations to learn from us about how to manage prisons."
Prison sentences here have become "vastly harsher than in any other country to which the United States would ordinarily be compared," Michael Tonry, a leading authority on crime policy, wrote in "The Handbook of Crime and Punishment."

Indeed, said Vivien Stern, a research fellow at the prison studies center in London, the American incarceration rate has made the United States "a rogue state, a country that has made a decision not to follow what is a normal Western approach."

The spike in American incarceration rates is quite recent. From 1925 to 1975, the rate remained stable, around 110 people in prison per 100,000 people. It shot up with the movement to get tough on crime in the late 1970s. (These numbers exclude people held in jails, as comprehensive information on prisoners held in state and local jails was not collected until relatively recently.)

The nation's relatively high violent crime rate, partly driven by the much easier availability of guns here, helps explain the number of people in American prisons.

"The assault rate in New York and London is not that much different," said Marc Mauer, the executive director of the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group. "But if you look at the murder rate, particularly with firearms, it's much higher."

Despite the recent decline in the murder rate in the United States, it is still about four times that of many nations in Western Europe.

But that is only a partial explanation. The United States, in fact, has relatively low rates of nonviolent crime. It has lower burglary and robbery rates than Australia, Canada and England.

People who commit nonviolent crimes in the rest of the world are less likely to receive prison time and certainly less likely to receive long sentences. The United States is, for instance, the only advanced country that incarcerates people for minor property crimes like passing bad checks, Whitman wrote.

Efforts to combat illegal drugs play a major role in explaining long prison sentences in the United States as well. In 1980, there were about 40,000 people in American jails and prisons for drug crimes. These days, there are almost 500,000.
Those figures have drawn contempt from European critics. "The U.S. pursues the war on drugs with an ignorant fanaticism," said Stern of King's College.

Many American prosecutors, on the other hand, say that locking up people involved in the drug trade is imperative, as it helps thwart demand for illegal drugs and drives down other kinds of crime. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, for instance, has fought hard to prevent the early release of people in federal prison on crack cocaine offenses, saying that many of them "are among the most serious and violent offenders."

Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists. If lists were compiled based on annual admissions to prison per capita, several European countries would outpace the United States. But American prison stays are much longer, so the total incarceration rate is higher.

Burglars in the United States serve an average of 16 months in prison, according to Mauer, compared with 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England.

Many specialists dismissed race as an important distinguishing factor in the American prison rate. It is true that blacks are much more likely to be imprisoned than other groups in the United States, but that is not a particularly distinctive phenomenon. Minorities in Canada, Britain and Australia are also disproportionately represented in those nation's prisons, and the ratios are similar to or larger than those in the United States.

Some scholars have found that English-speaking nations have higher prison rates.

"Although it is not at all clear what it is about Anglo-Saxon culture that makes predominantly English-speaking countries especially punitive, they are," Tonry wrote last year in "Crime, Punishment and Politics in Comparative Perspective."

"It could be related to economies that are more capitalistic and political cultures that are less social democratic than those of most European countries," Tonry wrote. "Or it could have something to do with the Protestant religions with strong Calvinist overtones that were long influential."
The American character — self-reliant, independent, judgmental — also plays a role.

"America is a comparatively tough place, which puts a strong emphasis on individual responsibility," Whitman of Yale wrote. "That attitude has shown up in the American criminal justice of the last 30 years."

French-speaking countries, by contrast, have "comparatively mild penal policies," Tonry wrote.

Of course, sentencing policies within the United States are not monolithic, and national comparisons can be misleading.

"Minnesota looks more like Sweden than like Texas," said Mauer of the Sentencing Project. (Sweden imprisons about 80 people per 100,000 of population; Minnesota, about 300; and Texas, almost 1,000. Maine has the lowest incarceration rate in the United States, at 273; and Louisiana the highest, at 1,138.)

Whatever the reasons, there is little dispute that America's exceptional incarceration rate has had an impact on crime.

"As one might expect, a good case can be made that fewer Americans are now being victimized" thanks to the tougher crime policies, Paul Cassell, an authority on sentencing and a former federal judge, wrote in The Stanford Law Review.

From 1981 to 1996, according to Justice Department statistics, the risk of punishment rose in the United States and fell in England. The crime rates predictably moved in the opposite directions, falling in the United States and rising in England.

"These figures," Cassell wrote, "should give one pause before too quickly concluding that European sentences are appropriate."

Other commentators were more definitive. "The simple truth is that imprisonment works," wrote Kent Scheidegger and Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in The Stanford Law and Policy Review. "Locking up criminals for longer periods reduces the level of crime. The benefits of doing so far offset the costs."

There is a counterexample, however, to the north. "Rises and falls in Canada's crime rate have closely paralleled America's for 40 years," Tonry wrote last year. "But its imprisonment rate has remained stable."
Several specialists here and abroad pointed to a surprising explanation for the high incarceration rate in the United States: democracy.

Most state court judges and prosecutors in the United States are elected and are therefore sensitive to a public that is, according to opinion polls, generally in favor of tough crime policies. In the rest of the world, criminal justice professionals tend to be civil servants who are insulated from popular demands for tough sentencing.

Whitman, who has studied Tocqueville's work on American penitentiaries, was asked what accounted for America's booming prison population.

"Unfortunately, a lot of the answer is democracy — just what Tocqueville was talking about," he said. "We have a highly politicized criminal justice system."

Lest We Forget... 737 U.S. Military Bases = Global Empire By Chalmers Johnson

The following is excerpted from Chalmers Johnson's new book, "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic" (Metropolitan Books).

Once upon a time, you could trace the spread of imperialism by counting up colonies. America's version of the colony is the military base; and by following the changing politics of global basing, one can learn much about our ever more all-encompassing imperial "footprint" and the militarism that grows with it.

It is not easy, however, to assess the size or exact value of our empire of bases. Official records available to the public on these subjects are misleading, although instructive. According to the Defense Department's annual inventories from 2002 to 2005 of real property it owns around the world, the Base Structure Report, there has been an immense churning in the numbers of installations.

The total of America's military bases in other people's countries in 2005, according to official sources, was 737. Reflecting massive deployments to Iraq and the pursuit of President Bush's strategy of preemptive war, the trend line for numbers of overseas bases continues to go up.

Interestingly enough, the thirty-eight large and medium-sized American facilities spread around the globe in 2005 -- mostly air and naval bases for our bombers and fleets -- almost exactly equals Britain's thirty-six naval bases and army garrisons at its imperial zenith in 1898. The Roman Empire at its height in 117 AD required thirty-seven major bases to police its realm from Britannia to Egypt, from Hispania to Armenia. Perhaps the optimum number of major citadels and fortresses for an imperialist aspiring to dominate the world is somewhere between thirty-five and forty.

Using data from fiscal year 2005, the Pentagon bureaucrats calculated that its overseas bases were worth at least $127 billion -- surely far too low a figure but still larger than the gross domestic products of most countries -- and an estimated $658.1 billion for all of them, foreign and domestic (a base's "worth" is based on a Department of Defense estimate of what it would cost to replace it). During fiscal 2005, the military high command deployed to our overseas bases some 196,975 uniformed personnel as well as an equal number of dependents and Department of Defense civilian officials, and employed an additional 81,425 locally hired foreigners.

The worldwide total of U.S. military personnel in 2005, including those based domestically, was 1,840,062 supported by an additional 473,306 Defense Department civil service employees and 203,328 local hires. Its overseas bases, according to the Pentagon, contained 32,327 barracks, hangars, hospitals, and other buildings, which it owns, and 16,527 more that it leased. The size of these holdings was recorded in the inventory as covering 687,347 acres overseas and 29,819,492 acres worldwide, making the Pentagon easily one of the world's largest landlords.

These numbers, although staggeringly big, do not begin to cover all the actual bases we occupy globally. The 2005 Base Structure Report fails, for instance, to mention any garrisons in Kosovo (or Serbia, of which Kosovo is still officially a province) -- even though it is the site of the huge Camp Bondsteel built in 1999 and maintained ever since by the KBR corporation (formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root), a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation of Houston.

The report similarly omits bases in Afghanistan, Iraq (106 garrisons as of May 2005), Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan, even though the U.S. military has established colossal base structures in the Persian Gulf and Central Asian areas since 9/11. By way of excuse, a note in the preface says that "facilities provided by other nations at foreign locations" are not included, although this is not strictly true. The report does include twenty sites in Turkey, all owned by the Turkish government and used jointly with the Americans. The Pentagon continues to omit from its accounts most of the $5 billion worth of military and espionage installations in Britain, which have long been conveniently disguised as Royal Air Force bases. If there were an honest count, the actual size of our military empire would probably top 1,000 different bases overseas, but no one -- possibly not even the Pentagon -- knows the exact number for sure.

In some cases, foreign countries themselves have tried to keep their U.S. bases secret, fearing embarrassment if their collusion with American imperialism were revealed. In other instances, the Pentagon seems to want to play down the building of facilities aimed at dominating energy sources, or, in a related situation, retaining a network of bases that would keep Iraq under our hegemony regardless of the wishes of any future Iraqi government. The U.S. government tries not to divulge any information about the bases we use to eavesdrop on global communications, or our nuclear deployments, which, as William Arkin, an authority on the subject, writes, "[have] violated its treaty obligations. The U.S. was lying to many of its closest allies, even in NATO, about its nuclear designs. Tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, hundreds of bases, and dozens of ships and submarines existed in a special secret world of their own with no rational military or even 'deterrence' justification."

In Jordan, to take but one example, we have secretly deployed up to five thousand troops in bases on the Iraqi and Syrian borders. (Jordan has also cooperated with the CIA in torturing prisoners we deliver to them for "interrogation.") Nonetheless, Jordan continues to stress that it has no special arrangements with the United States, no bases, and no American military presence.

The country is formally sovereign but actually a satellite of the United States and has been so for at least the past ten years. Similarly, before our withdrawal from Saudi Arabia in 2003, we habitually denied that we maintained a fleet of enormous and easily observed B-52 bombers in Jeddah because that was what the Saudi government demanded. So long as military bureaucrats can continue to enforce a culture of secrecy to protect themselves, no one will know the true size of our baseworld, least of all the elected representatives of the American people.

In 2005, deployments at home and abroad were in a state of considerable flux. This was said to be caused both by a long overdue change in the strategy for maintaining our global dominance and by the closing of surplus bases at home. In reality, many of the changes seemed to be determined largely by the Bush administration's urge to punish nations and domestic states that had not supported its efforts in Iraq and to reward those that had. Thus, within the United States, bases were being relocated to the South, to states with cultures, as the Christian Science Monitor put it, "more tied to martial traditions" than the Northeast, the northern Middle West, or the Pacific Coast. According to a North Carolina businessman gloating over his new customers, "The military is going where it is wanted and valued most."

In part, the realignment revolved around the Pentagon's decision to bring home by 2007 or 2008 two army divisions from Germany -- the First Armored Division and the First Infantry Division -- and one brigade (3,500 men) of the Second Infantry Division from South Korea (which, in 2005, was officially rehoused at Fort Carson, Colorado). So long as the Iraq insurgency continues, the forces involved are mostly overseas and the facilities at home are not ready for them (nor is there enough money budgeted to get them ready).

Nonetheless, sooner or later, up to 70,000 troops and 100,000 family members will have to be accommodated within the United States. The attendant 2005 "base closings" in the United States are actually a base consolidation and enlargement program with tremendous infusions of money and customers going to a few selected hub areas. At the same time, what sounds like a retrenchment in the empire abroad is really proving to be an exponential growth in new types of bases -- without dependents and the amenities they would require -- in very remote areas where the U.S. military has never been before.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was obvious to anyone who thought about it that the huge concentrations of American military might in Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea were no longer needed to meet possible military threats. There were not going to be future wars with the Soviet Union or any country connected to any of those places.

In 1991, the first Bush administration should have begun decommissioning or redeploying redundant forces; and, in fact, the Clinton administration did close some bases in Germany, such as those protecting the Fulda Gap, once envisioned as the likeliest route for a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. But nothing was really done in those years to plan for the strategic repositioning of the American military outside the United States.

By the end of the 1990s, the neoconservatives were developing their grandiose theories to promote overt imperialism by the "lone superpower" -- including preventive and preemptive unilateral military action, spreading democracy abroad at the point of a gun, obstructing the rise of any "near-peer" country or bloc of countries that might challenge U.S. military supremacy, and a vision of a "democratic" Middle East that would supply us with all the oil we wanted. A component of their grand design was a redeployment and streamlining of the military. The initial rationale was for a program of transformation that would turn the armed forces into a lighter, more agile, more high-tech military, which, it was imagined, would free up funds that could be invested in imperial policing.

What came to be known as "defense transformation" first began to be publicly bandied about during the 2000 presidential election campaign. Then 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq intervened. In August 2002, when the whole neocon program began to be put into action, it centered above all on a quick, easy war to incorporate Iraq into the empire. By this time, civilian leaders in the Pentagon had become dangerously overconfident because of what they perceived as America's military brilliance and invincibility as demonstrated in its 2001 campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda -- a strategy that involved reigniting the Afghan civil war through huge payoffs to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance warlords and the massive use of American airpower to support their advance on Kabul.

In August 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld unveiled his "1-4-2-1 defense strategy" to replace the Clinton era's plan for having a military capable of fighting two wars -- in the Middle East and Northeast Asia -- simultaneously. Now, war planners were to prepare to defend the United States while building and assembling forces capable of "deterring aggression and coercion" in four "critical regions": Europe, Northeast Asia (South Korea and Japan), East Asia (the Taiwan Strait), and the Middle East, be able to defeat aggression in two of these regions simultaneously, and "win decisively" (in the sense of "regime change" and occupation) in one of those conflicts "at a time and place of our choosing."As the military analyst William M. Arkin commented, "[With] American military forces ... already stretched to the limit, the new strategy goes far beyond preparing for reactive contingencies and reads more like a plan for picking fights in new parts of the world."

A seemingly easy three-week victory over Saddam Hussein's forces in the spring of 2003 only reconfirmed these plans. The U.S. military was now thought to be so magnificent that it could accomplish any task assigned to it. The collapse of the Baathist regime in Baghdad also emboldened Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to use "transformation" to penalize nations that had been, at best, lukewarm about America's unilateralism -- Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Turkey -- and to reward those whose leaders had welcomed Operation Iraqi Freedom, including such old allies as Japan and Italy but also former communist countries such as Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. The result was the Department of Defense's Integrated Global Presence and Basing Strategy, known informally as the "Global Posture Review."

President Bush first mentioned it in a statement on November 21, 2003, in which he pledged to "realign the global posture" of the United States. He reiterated the phrase and elaborated on it on August 16, 2004, in a speech to the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Cincinnati. Because Bush's Cincinnati address was part of the 2004 presidential election campaign, his comments were not taken very seriously at the time. While he did say that the United States would reduce its troop strength in Europe and Asia by 60,000 to 70,000, he assured his listeners that this would take a decade to accomplish -- well beyond his term in office -- and made a series of promises that sounded more like a reenlistment pitch than a statement of strategy.

"Over the coming decade, we'll deploy a more agile and more flexible force, which means that more of our troops will be stationed and deployed from here at home. We'll move some of our troops and capabilities to new locations, so they can surge quickly to deal with unexpected threats. ... It will reduce the stress on our troops and our military families. ... See, our service members will have more time on the home front, and more predictability and fewer moves over a career. Our military spouses will have fewer job changes, greater stability, more time for their kids and to spend with their families at home."

On September 23, 2004, however, Secretary Rumsfeld disclosed the first concrete details of the plan to the Senate Armed Services Committee. With characteristic grandiosity, he described it as "the biggest re-structuring of America's global forces since 1945." Quoting then undersecretary Douglas Feith, he added, "During the Cold War we had a strong sense that we knew where the major risks and fights were going to be, so we could deploy people right there. We're operating now [with] an entirely different concept. We need to be able to do [the] whole range of military operations, from combat to peacekeeping, anywhere in the world pretty quickly."

Though this may sound plausible enough, in basing terms it opens up a vast landscape of diplomatic and bureaucratic minefields that Rumsfeld's militarists surely underestimated. In order to expand into new areas, the Departments of State and Defense must negotiate with the host countries such things as Status of Forces Agreements, or SOFAs, which are discussed in detail in the next chapter. In addition, they must conclude many other required protocols, such as access rights for our aircraft and ships into foreign territory and airspace, and Article 98 Agreements. The latter refer to article 98 of the International Criminal Court's Rome Statute, which allows countries to exempt U.S. citizens on their territory from the ICC's jurisdiction.

Such immunity agreements were congressionally mandated by the American Service-Members' Protection Act of 2002, even though the European Union holds that they are illegal. Still other necessary accords are acquisitions and cross-servicing agreements or ACSAs, which concern the supply and storage of jet fuel, ammunition, and so forth; terms of leases on real property; levels of bilateral political and economic aid to the United States (so-called host-nation support); training and exercise arrangements (Are night landings allowed? Live firing drills?); and environmental pollution liabilities.

When the United States is not present in a country as its conqueror or military savior, as it was in Germany, Japan, and Italy after World War II and in South Korea after the 1953 Korean War armistice, it is much more difficult to secure the kinds of agreements that allow the Pentagon to do anything it wants and that cause a host nation to pick up a large part of the costs of doing so. When not based on conquest, the structure of the American empire of bases comes to look exceedingly fragile.

From the book NEMESIS: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson. Reprinted by arrangement with Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company, LLC. Copyright (c) 2006 by Chalmers Johnson. All rights reserved.

Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a non-profit research and public affairs organization devoted to public education concerning Japan and international relations in the Pacific.